It was a whirlwind day for the girls. Chloe and two of her friends walked to the nearby town center – by themselves – for lunch at the local pizza joint. One of her friends has a phone and sent me periodic text messages to confirm all was going well.
Sophie Channels the Black-Eyed Peas
OK, so the song isn’t really meant for six-year olds. Is that “Kama Sutra” I hear? But Sophie has no idea what that is, so we’ll just pretend there’s no mention of that ancient text. She has the beat and the ‘tude down, that’s for sure.
Can I Be a Sixth Grader, Too?
We went to Chloe’s future middle school this evening for an orientation for incoming sixth graders and their families. I’ve written about how great I think her elementary school is, but I was blown away by what the middle school has to offer.
Want to take an elective rock climbing class? How about a seminar on the history of rock and roll? Or a class about thrill rides? Want to join an extracurricular reading club that offers members a chance to take a cool overnight trip? Not to mention the mandatory world language class in French, Spanish or Mandarin that you attend for a period every day? Interested in taking dance classes? No problem. Over 250 students take some level of dance class.
The options are mind-boggling. The school even has a planetarium for those who are REALLY interested in studying astronomy. Seriously, if I had even half of the options Chloe will have at her disposal when I was 12, I think I would have become a much different adult than the one I am now.
Chloe was so excited about what she heard tonight (the principal even gave us, her friend and her friend’s dad a quick private tour of some of the classrooms) that she’s going back tomorrow morning with her friend to see the classes in action.
She asked plenty of questions. My favorite was whether or not the school has a dress code (yes, they do, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary). This from my daughter, who less than one year ago, was still wearing jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers to school every single day. I suppose that’s what happens when your child grows 4 inches in one year and suddenly finds herself in the 75% for height and transforming from kid to almost-teenager in the blink of an eye.
Listen, I’ll take Chloe with all her craziness any day, as long as she continues to love learning as much as she does.
Oh, and I’m quitting my job tomorrow so that I can either (a) return to that junior high school as a student or (b) as a teacher.
Toothless Wonder
Sophie has lost her fourth tooth. It happened the other evening and caused just as much excitement as when her first tooth came out. This one had been hanging on by a thread but was extremely stubborn. She dutifully put the tooth in her little tooth fairy box, but when she woke up the following morning, she came to me in the bathroom with tears in her eyes because, “Mommy! I didn’t get a dollar! The tooth fairy forgot me!”
Exercise!
We bought a stationary exercise bike for my husband’s birthday and it was delivered yesterday. At 8:30 AM this morning, I changed into my long-neglected exercise clothes and set the bike for a 45 minute random mode workout. I did my best not to think about the pain and passed the time by watching a movie on the iPad Before I knew it, I was in cool down mode.
It wasn’t easy. A couple of hundred calories burned (which disappointed me because I thought it’d be more) and 7.6 miles later, I got off the bike and started walking downstairs. My knees, however, did not know that I was no longer on the bike. They buckled, I almost lost my footing and, but for the grace of the exercise gods, I would have tumbled down the stairs and ended up in a cast.
Needless to say, I have my work cut out for me. If I manage to make it downstairs after tomorrow’s workout without losing my footing, I will have made progress.
Just Like When We Were Kids
When it comes to the hand clapping games in the “Miss Mary Mack” vein, not so much has changed since we were kids. I remember this one. The Liberace part, at least. Pretty funny that so much has changed since I was six 37 (aaahhh!) years ago, and yet this kind of simple fun hasn’t changed much at all.
Chloe is a Good Babysitter
Chloe was tasked with helping Sophie tonight because my husband and I got home late. Helping Sophie translated into making sure Sophie finished her homework and reading to her at bedtime. Chloe accomplished both tasks. And according to Sophie, they didn’t even fight.
That’s nothing less than incredible. No fighting. I don’t recall a day or an evening where the two didn’t at least have a brief yelling match. The girls read “The Lorax,” one of Sophie’s all-time favorite books. When I arrived home, I caught Chloe tucking her little sister into bed and giving her a hug.
For a second or two, I thought I had stepped into the wrong house. Or into an alternate universe. It was lovely. Until Chloe broke a toy (entirely her fault, by the way) she bought on a class trip to the Liberty Science Center today. And now she’s making horrible, animalistic growling sounds. I guess I stepped into the right house after all.
The Tug and Pull Continues
When Sophie and I were in Texas, I was relaxed. Sophie sensed that I was relaxed, which is part of the reason why I think she was so well-behaved. I didn’t give her any reason to get upset, since I wasn’t tense and I wasn’t snippy. I wasn’t thinking about work…at least not until Tuesday morning when the emails started to stream in after a long weekend.
Barbie is Threatening to Invade our Home
Sophie is DYING to get a Barbie-related garbage toy. As anyone who knows me knows, I am philosophically against anything having to do with Barbie, except for the Barbie character in “Toy Story 3,” who was hysterical. She’s seen some idiotic commercials and just has to have a Barbie.
It’s Not Yet Summer, But…
…with the mild winter we’ve been having, it feels like summer is just around the corner. While Sophie and I were in Texas, Chloe convinced her Papa to buy a Zoku ice pop maker. Their first attempt at making a pop was with chocolate. No surprise there. What was surprising was that they didn’t like that concoction so much. Tonight, they experimented with kiwi and cherries. It was certainly a much prettier-looking pop, although they weren’t huge fans of the resulting taste combination.
Chloe now wants us to buy all sorts of fruit this weekend so that she can make more ice pops using the accompanying recipe book, which calls for ingredients like agave nectar, as a guide. Hey, if this thing gets the girls to eat more fruit, I’m all for it.