By now you've all heard of my Fiestaware score. I have completed the collection with the addition of a few teacups that round-out the "standard eleven" colors. In the case of ivory, I already had a saucer, and I ordered a teacup online. When it arrived, I unboxed it, walked to the cupboard, and placed it gently on the the saucer's circle. Dorothy watched all of this happen, and as the teacup and saucer united, she gasped with excitement and announced, "It's a perfect fit!"
Dorothy has had a year-long quest to learn to cross the monkey bars. She has been coming home since kindergarten with a report of how many bars she crossed successfully. Recently, she proudly told me that she crossed seven bars. I offered mild enthusiasm. Later, she repeated this accomplishment to Brian. "How many bars are on the whole set?" Brian smartly asked. "Seven!" Dorothy answered.
Dorothy informed me that the kids at school were supposed to wear a shirt of their favorite football team on Friday. "But, Mom," Dorothy complained, "usually kids don't have opinions on that kind of stuff. They just do what their parents like."
I asked Dorothy why she didn't eat her yogurt at school, and she told me that she couldn't get it open. "Maybe use your scissors," I suggested. "Oh yeah, your scissors are your friends. I forgot about that. That's what Ms. Hattrich says," she answered.
This is her brainchild. She especially liked how she covered her own head with the family portrait ("It's cute") and insisted on dating each photo.
Maddux joined my brother Daniel, sister-in-law Valerie, and his siblings Alina and Andrew yesterday!
Dorothy was nervous about going to her first piano lesson, so at her request I sat in the room with her. Afterwards, she told me, "I even forgot a few times that you were there, so I think I'm going to be okay without you next time."
But she added, "I didn't remember my school music teacher's name when this teacher asked, so that's why I turned around and looked at you, and gave you a questioning look, so you'd know I needed some help."
And when she woke up the next morning, her first words were, "I can't believe I'm still talking about this, but piano was so fun yesterday!"
Later that week, I commented, "Daddy's playing the heck out of the piano." "Bad word alert!" Dorothy warned me. "Heck is not such a bad word," I told Dorothy. "So that's why Delilah's pencil case in my kindergarten class said, "Heck, yes!" she reasoned.
I checked-out an audiobook from the library, and Dorothy listened to much of it, but it was too scary-mature for her. She told me, "When I listen to that book, it makes my stomach feel like it's carsick, even though we're not riding in the car."
We were watching a show where the soloist in a children's chorus loudly sings off-key. Dorothy asked, "Why does he sing off-course of it?"
Dorothy has read dozens of Rainbow Magic books, which follow a strict formula involving goblins stealing something for the goblin leader, and human girls working with fairies to retrieve the purloined object. But recently I checked-out a few chapter books from another series, which Dorothy read voraciously, and then announced, "I think I'm tired of Rainbow Magic books. I'm enjoying these new books." I asked why. "They're about different things," she answered. "They talk about different things, and different things happen."
Dorothy made up a joke: What state has the most pencils? Pennsylvania I laughed, then recommended that she ask, "What state needs the most erasers?" "That's not as funny," she explained to me.
We were watching the crew races in the Olympics. "They're pedaling backwards!" Dorothy giggled.
Recently we made a code maker/breaker where a number corresponds to a letter, but the first iteration was too complicated. When I gave Dorothy a message to decode, she returned it and wrote on the answer line, "This is too hard!"
I mentioned that we were going to watch Jeopardy. Willa asked what that was, and Dorothy explained it, and Willa said it sounded boring, and Dorothy said, "I much prefer a grown-up show called The Wheel of Spin."
Willa brought some regular Oreos to our house, and we had some Golden Oreos. I suggested that the girls make half-and-half Oreos. Instead of untwisting them, they broke them in half and put the two flavors together like half moons.
I heard a big thump. Then I overheard Dorothy tell Willa, "The gymnasts in the Olympics make it look so easy!"
