A Month in Review

Aden has been doing well in kindergarten. He's been practicing his reading and each week brings home from school a book he has made and colored that he can read to us. Every week he also brings home "words of the week" and a "popcorn word" he's learned. He's recognizing these words outside of the memorized book he brings home. His Montessori program last year taught phonics, which I think has paid off. We have been noticing him tracking words with his finger and a willingness to sound out words. Scott and I have purposefully avoided the LeapPad (and similar electronic reading devices) because they take the parent/child interaction out of the equation. I'm by no means knocking educational toys, but I think our method has worked well for us thus far. Aden is so proud because once a week he gets to check out a book at the school library all by himself. His latest is a book by former President, Jimmy Carter. Aden thought it was cool one of our Presidents wrote a children's book since he had memorized the names of all the Presidents earlier this year. I thought it was cool the book was illustrated by his daughter, Amy Carter. While Scott was out of town recently at a convention, I took the kids to Literacy Night at the school. The local high school drama club performed for the kids and teachers read age-appropriate books for the different grade levels with the aid of computers and music accompaniments. I'm all for doing everything we can to raise children who enjoy reading.

Aden's favorite subject in school is art. Based on the parent/teacher conference we had earlier in the month, he's the best artist in the class. Every time he gets a chance for free activity time, he goes straight to the art center. His teacher showed us pictures he drew with stories he wrote himself to go along with them. Of course not all the words were spelled correctly, but he's doing great. Our refrigerator is crammed with kid art and a dry erase calendar of family activities. I think it's great he's also learning computer skills and Spanish in kindergarten.

Danielly is doing great, too. She's enjoying her ballet/gymnastics class. We had too many things going on so we had to drop the gymnastics class at the recreation center, but her ballet class also has some gymnastics and tumbling mixed in as well. Next year, she can enroll in the ballet/tap combo class. As she gets older, combo classes aren’t offered, and if she continues she will have to pick one thing to take - ballet, gymnastics, tap, or jazz. I think it will be a hard decision for her since she and Aden both want to "do it all." Of course, Scott and I don't have the resources or the energy to let them do it all, but right now we're just getting them exposed to what is available. Danielle's Montessori class is learning sign language, just like Aden did a few years ago. It's so sweet to see her big brother help her sign the alphabet.

We have had fun going to all the birthday parties thrown by classmates recently. At one of the parties, the classmate had an electronic keyboard both kids enjoyed playing. I dug my old keyboard out of the closet (back when I thought I could teach myself how to play without formal lessons). The kids have been having a blast. I've been asked to play a flute duet for church so also dug my flute out of the closet and polished it up. I was supposed to perform next week, but called the choir director and told her there was no way I could get it prepared in such short notice. I've filled my all my free time with other interests since I've had children; I've barely picked up my flute in the last few years. Speaking of new interests, I've been learning how to tat from members of the SC Palmetto Tatters Guild. I tried tatting with a shuttle, but had a hard time relaxing my left hand, so have switched to needle tatting. It's nice I'm learning a new craft, but doubt tatting is something I will pursue as aggressively as I have cross-stitching and smocking. Still, I think tatted lace along a pillowcase or embroidered handkerchief is so elegant.



Church hand bell practice just started again and I'm excited. We have a new hand bell director, so hopefully we will do a lot more performances than we have done in years past.

At the present, we're having a hard time limiting screen time for both kids. TV seems to be the favorite activity. Until recently, we had only let them watch the TV station Noggin with shows like Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer, Little Bear, and The Backyardigans. Now we graduated to Nickelodeon and watch "Timmy, Jimmy, and Danny" (That's The Fairly OddParents, Jimmy Neutron, and Danny Phantom for those of you without small children). The plug-and-play video game Aden bought himself hasn't been played with very much anymore. I'm very glad it was an inexpensive purchase in the first place. We have not yet allowed Aden to have computer time at home. I'm sure the time will come soon when we will have computer screen time to contend with. For the moment, fighting over when the TV goes off is about as much as I can handle.

Soccer practice has been fun, especially when the coach asks the parents to play with the kids. So far, Aden's team has won half the games played. Aden has assisted in making goals and made one by himself in a game a few weeks ago. They won the game this past Saturday 13 to 6. Unfortunately, I missed the excitement because I took Danielle to make a fire truck at the monthly home improvement store craft project. Since October is fire safety month, the local fire department came out to talk to the kids and let them climb on the fire truck. Danielle played shy with the fire fighters, but Aden would have loved it. It's a shame he had a game conflict.

Scott's parents came down to see the soccer game yesterday and brought Aden something he's been wanting for some time – a fishing rod. Danielle immediately asked for a pink one. When we told her not everything comes in pink, she wanted a purple one. She probably has no interest whatsoever in really going fishing, she just wants one of everything she sees, and always in either pink or purple. Since yesterday, Aden has been practicing his casting. He's become pretty good at it. He and Danielle invented a new fishing game. Aden was a fisherman, and Danielly was his kitty. He was catching fish for her dinner. Mostly he caught minnows and goldfish. (Minnows were "Kitty's" favorite.) Once, the fisherman caught an octopus. Kitty was too scared to eat the octopus so the fisherman told her it was just a little one. After Kitty finished eating the octopus for dinner, the fisherman told her it was really a big octopus instead and that he had tricked her. Kitty shrieked and spit it out. Danielly then got a turn to play fisherman with a toy reel from a Go Fish game while Aden pretended to be the kitty. Who said you needed water to go fishing?

Scott and I just celebrated our anniversary by going to see Tom Stoppard's play The Real Thing. Stoppard is Scott's favorite playwright since his college days. We've been fortunate to see performances of Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth; Indian Ink; and Arcadia prior to this weekend's performance. We saw Shakespeare's Measure for Measure earlier this year, and Scott took me to Atlanta to see Wicked for my birthday. Aside from a few times, we haven't been to many live performances since we've had kids. During our courtship and early marriage, we had season tickets to several theater and performing arts groups in the area. It wasn't unusual for us to see several productions a month, and sometimes more than one a week. Even on our honeymoon, we managed to catch four performances. I miss going out, but don't feel we are tethered to the kids – we'd rather be home with them anyway. We're trying to instill in our children the love we both have for the performing arts. The Columbia Marionette Theater has been a good start since the marionettes capture the children's attentions, and the performances are short. We have a friend who works for the Atlanta Ballet Company who keeps us informed of short performances especially for kids. Now that Danielle is a little more settled, we will be taking road trips as part of the kid's intro to performing arts. When the kids are in high school, I would love to take a family trip to one of the Shakespeare festivals in California wine country. A whole family vacation centered on the Bard – I couldn't think of anything better (except skiing of course).