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Jun. 30th, 2008 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kcobweb* I am clearly in a cooking *mood*. Last night I was craving some sort of grain salad, and couldn't find a recipe that fit what I was imagining, so I made up a recipe from thin air, which I practically never do. I am usually tied to the words written down on paper. Anyway, it is bulgur, canned white beans, steamed green beans, bell pepper, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and lots of lemon zest and is super-tasty. And now I am bringing a brine to a boil, which will then cool overnight, and tomorrow will be put into jars with dill and garlic cloves and cucumbers: Cold Brine Dill Pickles! Yay!
* I did a bit of practice for the icky GRE writing section. It did not totally suck. I just need to remember how to write coherent grammatical statements, yo.
* Mmmm, how did it get to be the end of June already? That's just crazy talk.
* I also realized that I haven't done an Elena post in a while, so the rest goes behind a cut.
She is going to be Just Like Me: all arms and legs and hair. She looks like she's about 18 miles tall, but that's mostly because the arms and legs are so long and skinny. And the rest of her is pretty skinny too.
Her language is definitely progressing, I think. 3 months ago, she mostly just repeated back sentences she had heard us say previously. She still does that, but also (finally) is coming up with original sentences too. Her command of verb tenses and pronouns and stuff like that always amazes me, every single time.
She loves to sing. Her bedtime song is always Frere Jacques, and has been, every night for about 2 years.... (We sing it in French, then in English, then back in French = 3 verses total). She will now join in with us, in a round to sing it - though she's not very good at keeping time consistently while she sings it, she knows you come in after the other person, and that each person sings different words at a different time. This amazes me every time too. :) Her sense of pitch is relative, but still pretty imprecise: she knows to go up or down at the right places, but doesn't really land on the "right" notes. Sometimes she overshoots. It's pretty funny. Her other favorite songs right now are "I've been working on the railroad" and of course the alphabet. She'll sing them over and over and over. :) I found a great site the other day with midis and lyrics for all kinds of kid songs and folk songs, and she loved listening to me sing along with that.
She's putting together 3- and 4-letter words, but still doesn't quite get the phonics of S sounding like /ssss/. The longest word she can spell is "dinosaur" (with just a little prompting). She loves to type words on the computer too. She has most of her books fully memorized, and can recite them all by heart - so they aren't really useful for learning to read - she doesn't even have to look at the page. When we get a new book, she usually wants us to read it 4 or 5 times in row right off the bat, so she can start memorizing. She has Boggle Jr., which has flashcards with pictures and words (CAT, WOOD, BEE, SNOW, COW, etc.) and cubes with letters so you can spell them, and she loves spelling stuff out that way.
She is also a bit number obsessed. She will happily count to a hundred at the drop of a hat. Sometimes this can distract her from throwing fits, but not much, anymore.
For a while she had imaginary friends named Erica and America. Now all of a sudden (this week), she has given those names to two teddy bears - they are both off-white and about the same size, and each have a bow around their necks. (One was mine as a child, the other was a baby gift to her.) For the last couple of days, it's been all about Erica and America, and carrying those bears around everywhere. She explains things to them, she tells them to take turns, she scolds them the way I scold her. ::hides face::
She is pretty shy. When we go somewhere new, she asks to be picked up and hides her face in my shoulder for about 5 minutes. Then she loosens up. Actually, this applies to familiar places too - when we go to the library, she needs a few minutes to adjust. When we go to school, she's often shy for a minute - and then after I hug her and turn to go, she'll run up to one of her teachers for a big hug. :)
And speaking of school: she still really loves it. For the most part, she is happy to go, and happy to be picked up. (For a while there, she never wanted to leave, and the end of the school-day was always very difficult for her, but that has shifted now. Maybe she realizes this is a permanent thing, and she gets to keep going back.) She mentions the same handful of names when I ask her who she played with - names I recognize from the other kids' cubbies - so she has friends.
She is pretty much potty-trained too, except for naps and poop. :) She'll get it eventually, but my strategy has been to let her dictate the pace of that, because she really resists pressure. She is finally using the potty at school, and has used the toilet in several other unfamiliar locations - our hotel in NYC, friends' houses, restaurants, etc. That's a huge step, actually. Now I don't have to worry so much every time we leave the house. :)
She's dressing herself a lot these days. (So if you see us somewhere, that would likely explain her unusual ensemble.) She usually wants to wear the same 4 or 5 dresses or skirts every day. She has a stack of great shirts and shorts that are never getting worn. So right now, I'm being Mean!Lazy!Mommy, and not doing the laundry and trying to get her to wear what's still clean. She fights me on it every morning. ("But I want the piiiiiiiiink dress." "Well, it's dirty." "But I want the piiiiiiiiiiiink dress!" ad nauseum) This week she's also insisting on massive numbers of barrettes. Like, an entire pack of 10 on her head at one time. I know she has a lot of hair, but it's crazy. She also insists on wearing socks all the time, no matter how hot. I don't think she gets the connection yet between the clothes you wear and the temperature outside. Yesterday, she insisted on wearing warm winter tights and a cardigan. It was already 75 or 80 degrees out. Mostly, I just don't fight her on wardrobe (except the part about wearing the clean ones instead of the same old dirty ones), because I'm trying to pick my battles, and that one Isn't Worth It. :)
She's still pretty whiny and demanding - she has tantrums more than I would like. But she is a delight, she is mostly well-behaved in public, and she knows how to comport herself in a restaurant.
* I did a bit of practice for the icky GRE writing section. It did not totally suck. I just need to remember how to write coherent grammatical statements, yo.
* Mmmm, how did it get to be the end of June already? That's just crazy talk.
* I also realized that I haven't done an Elena post in a while, so the rest goes behind a cut.
She is going to be Just Like Me: all arms and legs and hair. She looks like she's about 18 miles tall, but that's mostly because the arms and legs are so long and skinny. And the rest of her is pretty skinny too.
Her language is definitely progressing, I think. 3 months ago, she mostly just repeated back sentences she had heard us say previously. She still does that, but also (finally) is coming up with original sentences too. Her command of verb tenses and pronouns and stuff like that always amazes me, every single time.
She loves to sing. Her bedtime song is always Frere Jacques, and has been, every night for about 2 years.... (We sing it in French, then in English, then back in French = 3 verses total). She will now join in with us, in a round to sing it - though she's not very good at keeping time consistently while she sings it, she knows you come in after the other person, and that each person sings different words at a different time. This amazes me every time too. :) Her sense of pitch is relative, but still pretty imprecise: she knows to go up or down at the right places, but doesn't really land on the "right" notes. Sometimes she overshoots. It's pretty funny. Her other favorite songs right now are "I've been working on the railroad" and of course the alphabet. She'll sing them over and over and over. :) I found a great site the other day with midis and lyrics for all kinds of kid songs and folk songs, and she loved listening to me sing along with that.
She's putting together 3- and 4-letter words, but still doesn't quite get the phonics of S sounding like /ssss/. The longest word she can spell is "dinosaur" (with just a little prompting). She loves to type words on the computer too. She has most of her books fully memorized, and can recite them all by heart - so they aren't really useful for learning to read - she doesn't even have to look at the page. When we get a new book, she usually wants us to read it 4 or 5 times in row right off the bat, so she can start memorizing. She has Boggle Jr., which has flashcards with pictures and words (CAT, WOOD, BEE, SNOW, COW, etc.) and cubes with letters so you can spell them, and she loves spelling stuff out that way.
She is also a bit number obsessed. She will happily count to a hundred at the drop of a hat. Sometimes this can distract her from throwing fits, but not much, anymore.
For a while she had imaginary friends named Erica and America. Now all of a sudden (this week), she has given those names to two teddy bears - they are both off-white and about the same size, and each have a bow around their necks. (One was mine as a child, the other was a baby gift to her.) For the last couple of days, it's been all about Erica and America, and carrying those bears around everywhere. She explains things to them, she tells them to take turns, she scolds them the way I scold her. ::hides face::
She is pretty shy. When we go somewhere new, she asks to be picked up and hides her face in my shoulder for about 5 minutes. Then she loosens up. Actually, this applies to familiar places too - when we go to the library, she needs a few minutes to adjust. When we go to school, she's often shy for a minute - and then after I hug her and turn to go, she'll run up to one of her teachers for a big hug. :)
And speaking of school: she still really loves it. For the most part, she is happy to go, and happy to be picked up. (For a while there, she never wanted to leave, and the end of the school-day was always very difficult for her, but that has shifted now. Maybe she realizes this is a permanent thing, and she gets to keep going back.) She mentions the same handful of names when I ask her who she played with - names I recognize from the other kids' cubbies - so she has friends.
She is pretty much potty-trained too, except for naps and poop. :) She'll get it eventually, but my strategy has been to let her dictate the pace of that, because she really resists pressure. She is finally using the potty at school, and has used the toilet in several other unfamiliar locations - our hotel in NYC, friends' houses, restaurants, etc. That's a huge step, actually. Now I don't have to worry so much every time we leave the house. :)
She's dressing herself a lot these days. (So if you see us somewhere, that would likely explain her unusual ensemble.) She usually wants to wear the same 4 or 5 dresses or skirts every day. She has a stack of great shirts and shorts that are never getting worn. So right now, I'm being Mean!Lazy!Mommy, and not doing the laundry and trying to get her to wear what's still clean. She fights me on it every morning. ("But I want the piiiiiiiiink dress." "Well, it's dirty." "But I want the piiiiiiiiiiiink dress!" ad nauseum) This week she's also insisting on massive numbers of barrettes. Like, an entire pack of 10 on her head at one time. I know she has a lot of hair, but it's crazy. She also insists on wearing socks all the time, no matter how hot. I don't think she gets the connection yet between the clothes you wear and the temperature outside. Yesterday, she insisted on wearing warm winter tights and a cardigan. It was already 75 or 80 degrees out. Mostly, I just don't fight her on wardrobe (except the part about wearing the clean ones instead of the same old dirty ones), because I'm trying to pick my battles, and that one Isn't Worth It. :)
She's still pretty whiny and demanding - she has tantrums more than I would like. But she is a delight, she is mostly well-behaved in public, and she knows how to comport herself in a restaurant.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-30 08:21 pm (UTC)Thanks for the update!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-30 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-30 08:21 pm (UTC)Speaking of which, it looks like it's going to be MWF that Cassie will be in DC this summer. When would you like to get together, with or without the girls?
Oh, and here's my new favorite grain salad. I made it for gaming about a month ago, and it was a big hit. Vegan Quinoa salad (http://vegetarian.about.com/od/soupssalads/r/quinoasalad.htm).
no subject
Date: 2008-06-30 08:28 pm (UTC)Thursdays we sit around bored.... I mean, Thursdays! Thursdays would be great! :)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 01:42 am (UTC)wethey can run through the sprinkler. :)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 04:12 am (UTC)Also, I forgot to say earlier, yay pickles! We loved the ones you brought.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 03:06 am (UTC)Yeah, I'd like to do that in new places myself, sometimes. Lucky kid.
I'm already worried that I don't spend enough time teaching Miriam things, and your post made it worse-- so much to do in the next two years! That's the worst part of being the stay-at-home parent this summer: the thought that I'm in charge of this child's development. Phew!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-01 05:46 pm (UTC)