Things they say

Scene:  Kitchen

Activities:

• Me chopping ingredients for tabbouleh
• Kids running around

Conversation:
Delilah:  What smells so good?
Me:  Probably the mint that I'm cutting.
Delilah:  Oooh, can I have some.  
               She takes some to nibble.
Delilah:  I can't wait until summer.

Perception

Delilah:  Mom, how old is your grandpa?
Mom:  He's old...more than 100!
Delilah:  100 nickels.
Mom:  What?
Delilah:  100 and nickels.
Mom:  I don't think that's right.  Nickels.
Delilah (in frustrated tone):  Like 100 and NICKELS?

I pause.  Think....think...think. 

Recent conversation comes to my mind and hallelujah...I've got it!

Mom:  Oh...like you're 5 and 3/4 (3 quarters)?
Delilah:  Yeah, is he 100 and quarters?

The School Bus

Yuck.  The School Bus.
I was a walker growing up.
We didn't ride it.
I thought the few times I rode to someone's house after school that it was a fun excursion.
I liked walking and being on my time schedule.

Today, I'm cursing the bus.
Here are the reasons why:

Delilah:  Mom, what do you do when someone makes mean faces?

Addison:  What's the bad H-word?

Delilah:  What's it mean if you raise your middle finger?

Addison:   What's the bad D-word?

Aaaghh!  They're innocence is leaving so much faster than I want it to.

My Heart Melts

Everytime I see my bookmark! 
It's my favorite thing right now.
She did it on her own just for me. 
(She did ask me to draw my hair since it's hard for her!)

Things They Say

 At bedtime:

Delilah:  I love you, Melanie.

Me: Delilah Rose, you do not get to call me by my name.  You call me mommy.

Delilah:  No, it was Baby Floppy.

Things They Floppy Says

 

Her Story

Delilah drew a picture to show what she's been up to.

I scribed the idea so I'd remember.

btw - she did spend her money.  it's the sweetest thing.  she saw a (new) pillow pet at goodwill for $3...but passed so that she could get a camera for herself (same price).  With her leftover money, she bought Addison the doggie she wanted who was throwing a fit because she didn't have enough!

Things They Say...

The girls are almost five.  They've got a really good vocabulary base.  They learn so much and they fix the errors quickly.  Here's two sillies that haven't been changed yet:

Stay  = Leave 
          Mom, do we have to stay our animals in the car?

Usually = Actually {this is a Delilah-only saying as Addison has mastered the word "Actually"}
          I'm going to take my book with me.  No, usually I'm going to stay it in the house.

Strong Museum

We're coming up on the end of our year membership so we've done some recent trips to get our membership's worth!


Delilah really got into building this time.  She asked me to watch her and then take a picture so she could see it on the 'puter whenever she wanted.

It's so much fun there.  I haven't yet decided if we'll renew it or not.  I've been thinking about replacing it with a zoo membership or even just taking a break for a year from it. We're coming up on some big changes in our world since the girls will be entering the big "K".  Kindergarten is a transition from our 5-day pre-k program because it's full days.  The bus won't even be dropping my little ones off until 4:15 or 4:30.  That in itself is a huge change.  We're still transitioning into going to a babysitter since Ezra recently found a job that coincides with his studies and was a chance he couldn't miss. 

Her style!

 

It's her style.  There's no changing it.  She LOVES being girly.  The whole nine:  pink, purple, lace, ruffles, glitter, dresses, jewelry.  Ezra got her to wear comfy clothes...she won't do it for me...so we could play in the nice fall weather.  But she refuses to part with her dress shoes...even w sweats!  Gotta love her for being her!

In the same way, Delilah knows her way.  She's changed her style on us...no more is she in LOVE with red and orange, she demands pink and likes dresses now.  But her individual creativity is as strong as ever.  She was captain of the ship and with no playmates, used her creativity for her ship supplies:

Learning

I've told you before that the girls know their letters, but this year there's been a bit of confusion.  Their teachers have been writing their names in capitals which was the cause.  So I figured it was time to practice capitals by making a matching game.  I printed out a chart of lowercase and then wrote uppercase on clothespins.  The girls took turns and we worked on strategies to figure out the correct letters.

And here's what the moment looked like in real-time:

Things they say...

Papa and Delilah Hearty were having a conversation.  They were doing some talking about her new name.  She still refers to her original name as "the one from Mom" or the "not pretty" name.  So Papa decided that he may need a name as well...and did Delilah have any ideas for him. She thought about it and replied that "Shark" was a good one.

So after my dad and I talked on the phone recently, I went and found Delilah and told her that I just got a phone call that the Shark says hi to hearty.  As her smile grew, I asked her if she knew what that meant. "Papa!" she said grinning ear to ear. 

Now, you can't leave Flowery out of the equation.  She likes to be included on everything.  This just happens to be an area where she's not insistent, she just jumps on the bandwagon.

Hearty

Recently, Delilah changed her name.  She told me "that name I used to have wasn't very pretty.  Hearty is a pretty name."  So now she goes by Hearty.  Seriously. She'll scold me (or Papa) when she's introduced as Delilah.  In fact, when Papa asked her what she was going to tell her teacher, she responded "Ill have to think about it."  And so when I asked her later what her choice was, she said Hearty.  So after her 1st day of school, I asked her what her teacher called her because I know she told the teacher at Open House that her name was Hearty, she told me "she calls me that name you gave me." 

Well, I do in fact still call her Delilah and sometimes I remember to call her Hearty.  I decided to oblige by making cupcakes for our teddy bear party in the shape of hearts.  I stuck a marble abetween the lining and the muffin tin to get that indentation.  They weren't perfect hearts, but it pleased her and I was happy.

Things They Say...

Delilah gets distracted by things that she's not into. So she was my buddy on that fishing excursion.  She helped me pick some flowers, did some running, jumping and dancing.  

As we were walking, she pointed out the red lights under the bridge.  Here's our conversation:

Delilah:  Why those lights there?

Me:  Well, when do we normally see red and green lights?

Delilah:  To tell you to stop.      (you remember that lesson, right?)

Me:  So what do you think needs to stop on the water?

Delilah:  Maybe a fish.

Me:  Maybe, but they swim underwater so they probably can't see it.

Delilah:  Probably a duck because they go on top.

Cultural learnings

We stopped at a rest-stop on our last Ohio trip.  Here's our conversation as the three of us are in the bathroom stall.
Delilah:  What's that noise.
Me:  What noise.
Delilah: blah-blah-blah
Me:  Shhhhh.  I'll tell you in a minute.
(after other patrons leave)
Me:  That's the language those ladies speak.  Like mommy speaks Spanish.
Delilah: You know fanish and they speak fanish?
Me:  kind-of.  It's not Spanish, but they can speak a different language, too.

Want the interpretation of the ladies for yourself::

How the Worst Week turned to the BEST DAY EVER!!!!!!!

I hinted to this problem yesterday.  Take a gander to determine the problem.  Background info:  we are in Pennsylvania on the return trip home.

It's just been discovered that(s)he's in Ohio.  So we got right on the phone to call Aunt Judy and Uncle Jack since we stopped there to visit....confirmed that Floppy has been left there!!!!!!!!!!
So, Marmy, Papa and I try to console this girl.  We've gotten her to understand that (s)he's on a Journey back to Brockport.
For the next few days, she's been missing her buddy and will occasionally talk about his b-journey!
We talk about all sorts of possibilities...plane, train, boat, etc.
It's good therapy.
She does a lot of talk about Aunt Judy and Uncle Jack because she knows that her Floppy is in their hands. 
She checks the mail every day.  Her ear is tuned in to the sound of the mail-truck.
Then, FedEx comes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh, Happy Day!

 Floppy has friends!

 She's overcome with relief and joy. 

 She checks Floppy out to see that everything's okay. 

 Aunt Judy knew this box was going to a house with little ones and was so smart to make that box full of stuff to make everyone happy.  Can you tell that she works in a dentists' office?  Those stickers are only available from doctors...the good kind of stickers!

There was even a letter from Floppy to detail the event:

Aunt Judy and Uncle Jack:  Thanks a million for making this sad event have a wonderful ending!! 

Things They Say...

So I've decided to give the girls an allowance.  I know....crazy, right?  But I would love to get some sort of organization to their crazy messes and not be the only one responsible for taking care of it.....sooooo.....it dawned on me the other day that they are sort of into their piggy banks.  This dawned on me when I threatened to take all of their coins because they destroyed one of my houseplants in order to feed their animals (namely, Floppy!).  They were screaming and crying that I was going to take all of their money and they couldn't buy anything.  Now, they haven't bought anything yet and we haven't even talked about a possible trip or way to spend that money, but they certainly have an attachment to it.  So it dawned on me to go with this one.  If they make their bed everyday (and I'll accept their version of a made bed....no hospital corners required), they can have a coin.  They tend to choose the dimes or pennies and Delilah doesn't always take me up on the offer...so I figure if I'm out 15-20 cents at the end of the week, that it's a pretty good deal!

Oh yeah, my title....Things They Say....

me:  Delilah, what are you going to buy with your money?
Delilah:  ummmmm...diapers and peanut butter sandwiches.

Seriously, the girl LOVES her peanut butter!

Note to Self...

I don't want to forget certain things that will be gone.  For instance, I can't bring myself to correct the way the girls say each others' names. Once I make that change, we'll have lost it and I'm not ready to not hear Adson or Di-yah any more.  In fact, I'm surprised that wa-wa still is used for water whereas fo-fo means flower. To me, the words are complete sweetness.

Going for a walk...

Sometimes we take a walk in the track behind our loop.  Once we saw a fox way back in the area that's under construction.  Delilah brings this up every time we go over to that track.  It's like Pavlov...we step onto the road and her fox comments begin. 

She got a bit more happy as the sky started to change because her favorite color lit up the sky!

Pre-School - Here We Come!!

The girls had orientation last week and got an opportunity to meet their teachers and see their classroom.  We met Ruby, the guinea pig, and Dora and Diego, the fishies.  They dabbled in the play-dough and guess-who played with dress-up dresses while guess-who played with dinosaurs!  So two days later, they went to their first class (w/o mom or dad) and I got the report that they were happy little girls...not one tear or hesitation.  Of course, we'd done a lot of prepping for this moment, so I hadn't anticipated that, but there were other kiddies crying, so that possibly could have lead to tears for my girlies. 

They were exhausted at the end of the day, but pretty happy to tell me about their painting activity and what color "squishies" they got.  Squishies are the mats that each student gets for circle time, etc, designated by color.  I'm not sure how colors were distributed but we did high-fives alls around when they reported a pink and an orange to me!! 

Gotta throw in a "Things They Say" for you, as well.  The night before, after bath, Addison looks at me and says "I love her so much because her is such a cutie pie".  

BTW - their height difference isn't really this much...I'm not sure what pose they were in for their babysitter who so graciously sent me this text to let me know that all was well. 

This just in...

"Baby Floppy's daddy live in woods"
Via Delilah

When I questioned for more information, she told me "he don't have a mommy"

End of conversation