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Archives for June 2007

Your Shoulders are Crooked

Your Shoulders are Crooked

It was inevitable that Steve would have an incident on his bike. It just so happened this past weekend with STP (Seattle to Portland) bike race, in which an overloaded bike bag fell into his spokes and caused him to catapult over his handlebars and break his collarbone. The family has reacted in interesting ways. Katherine has tried to be very helpful, fetching Steve’s ice pack from the fridge and trying to “help.” Allison doesn’t really understand why Dad can’t give baths or big hugs, so she gets kind of whiny at times. Bisco wants to be around Steve whenever possible, even trying to mooch his way onto the bed last night. All in all, we’ll be happy when the next several weeks pass, and all returns to normal.

Derby Days (aka Free Parade + Candy)

For the second year now, we’ve marched in the Redmond Derby Days kids parade. This is the largest, or one of the largest, kids parade in the country. We arrived probably 30 minutes earlier than we needed to, so the kids were squirrelly by the time we started. Nonetheless, Katherine pedaled for half the parade, and Allison shared her Red Flyer wagon. The best part for them was the adult parade. Before the parade, we had put down in a nice shady spot a towel which a neighboring couple watched for us as we marched. After the kids parade, we settled on and near the towel with friends, and the kids were on the lookout for … candy! We probably have half a pound of candy that the “floats,” marchers and such threw or gave to the kids. Katherine and Allison ate quite a few pieces, at which point I confiscated the rest which is on top of the fridge probably until Halloween. ๐Ÿ™‚

After long naps, we headed back downtown for a quick dinner, the adult bike races (fast!) and the carnival. What we didn’t realize was that Allison was much too short for any of the rides. So, Katherine rode several rides by herself, and even a few with Dad. She loved the rollercoaster; Steve and she rode the first time. The second time she requested the last seat in their coaster and screamed all the way around!

Fourth of July

Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jamey visited for Fourth of July this year. We didn’t pick berries this year, since we still have frozen strawberries and raspberries from last year. But, we did make pie. Bisco went for long walks every night. We took the kids the park, to the Kirkland waterfront, to the aquarium. It was a generally relaxing long weekend.

 

Family Day at School

Family Day at School

Katherine’s teachers were kind enough to host a family breakfast day last Thursday – where family members could come in, have a bite to eat and watch their child work with Montessori works. Katherine was beyond herself with excitement. Not only was I (Christine) attending, but also Allison. We promptly showed up at 9AM, spent a few minutes eating at a table and then headed off to do something called the “binomial” work. It’s an open cubes with three layers of multicolored, different sized wooden cubes. Only if the puzzler puts the pieces in correctly can the cube be recreated. Katherine was excited to show a smaller and larger cube work -and then the big coup-de-grace – the red rods. I’m not sure how they work, and I’m pretty sure that Katherine didn’t have them correctly arranged. But, Allison loved it. She said repeatedly (while taking off her shoes which her sister said had to be done), ” I want to work on red rods…” Thankfully they managed to put the work away without too much incident. Anyway, I’ve posted a few pictures so you can see Katherine giving her sister a lesson.

Sharing Adventures

Sharing continues to be the primary source of squabbling these days. Allison is starting to claim that everything is hers, even though she knows full well that objects belong to other people. I’ve also had to start putting toys away once the noise level rises and sharing becomes an issue with a toy. Thankfully some toys can be shared easily. One such toy is our train puzzle. Today the girls worked on two ends of the puzzle. I had to help Allison with the letters a bit:

Me: “Allison, where is the Sssss.”
Allison: “Where is SSS? I found it. I found the S. It goes right here. Excellente!”

Because Katherine was busy talking to her grandparents, we finished both ends at about the same time. They put them together. Katherine pushed the entire puzzle to the hardwoods, which then became a balance beam….

Before describing one other telling incident, I should mention that Katherine loves keys, especially keys that we no longer need. She puts them in the pretend ignition switch for the Beetle. Well, anyway, Allison really wanted to use the Beetle (“MY Beetle”) and she really wanted those keys. How did Katherine solve this problem? She stuck the keys under the Beetle seat and didn’t tell Allison.

Quick Developmental Update

Quick Developmental Update

We’re reaching interesting milestones, which I’ll just quickly list here (mostly for posterity so I can remember this stuff later):

  • Allison makes many statements starting with “I want/don’t want”, “I like/don’t like.” Her opinions run to anything from going to my mom’s house, to Katherine playing with “her toys.” When upset, she runs away often with the toy in question.
  • Allison can now jump with two feet and clear the ground!
  • Allison now talks about reading, “I can read,” “I read Dora…” She indeed has memorized many of her books, telling me the story about how dinosaurs eat their food or about some Dora adventure.
  • Allison still misprounces words such as “bitamin” but corrects herself when prompted.

Katherine loves to write on paper these days and pretend that she is writing letters or making cards. She created a computer a couple days ago with Steve (unprompted) by taping bits of square paper to the inside of a file folder, marking the on switch with a heart and off with a circle and lots of X on the remaining keys. She also drew the screen of the laptop and two smiling faces and a dog, representing Woody, Buzz and the dog from Toy Story. When I asked her what you do with computers, she responded – “watch movies, type and make things happen!” She pointed to the bottom of the file folder and pretended to insert a movie CD into the computer. I have some pictures of this creation and plan to post them later.

Katherine is now wrapping up her second to last week of school. Her classroom has had an informal variety show at circle time the last few days. Katherine has requested to bring her plastic princess slippers in, so she can tap at circle. ๐Ÿ™‚

Decatur Island

Our family traveled to Decatur Island with family friends this past weekend to enjoy a weekend cabin (won by friends at an auction). The island was an ideal environment for the kids – no cars, lots of animals roaming the island, opportunities to forage for clams and shells on the beach. Katherine was so enamored with the hot tub, the beach, the bunk beds that she has been asking me everyday when we can go back. Again, I’ll sort through pictures tomorrow and post highlights from the trip.