Dirt freckles

Some Assembly Required

Homemade Chutes & Ladders

If you could study the board, you'd see that rolling a #1 on your first turn will take you right to the winner's square.

Raggedy Ann art

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy has a book with stories of "radical women".  One story was about a child born as a boy who liked wearing dresses and wanted to be a girl.  Dorothy asked why he was included in the book.  I said, "Maybe he asked, 'Please, pretty please, put me in the book.'"  "Oh, I get it," Dorothy responded knowingly, "pretty..."

We've been watching a yoga show for kids on YouTube.  The first day's story was about the Wizard of Oz, which might have subconsciously influenced Dorothy's repetition of "namaste" as "witches never stay."

On this yoga show, the host is in front of a green screen with a background of the day's theme (such as the Land of Oz or the Frozen castle).  Today, she was standing in a garish, cartoonish living room, and with coronavirus on her mind, Dorothy said, "Oh, this time she's doing it at her home!"

The Quarantine Interview (I)

Video:  https://youtu.be/SFwYVjvDllk

This work is happening at our corner

Then we did a mine-the-Earth art project

Earth Day project for school

This is Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube. We recommend it!

The Sunday Funnies

Dorothy was making rhyming sentences, like "'It's me!' said the tea."  "'Let's cook!' said the cook," she added.  I told her that the sentence didn't rhyme because it used the exact same word twice, and she said, "Yes, the same word, but in a different way."

A YouTube video taught Dorothy the joke about what has a head and a tail but no body (a coin).  I teased her and asked what has a tail but no head and no body (a kite).  She thought for a while and then added, "What has a head but no tail and no body?  An emoji!"

We heard news about the possibility of sports being reopened sans spectators.  Dorothy posed that baseball would be a good sport to open, since the players just throw the ball to each other, and they wear gloves.

"Go to bed now," I said.  "Daddy and I are going to watch a grown-up movie."  "I don't like it when you leave me out, " Dorothy whined.

We were reading a book that included the words "knock knock knock".  "How does that say 'knock'," Dorothy asked, "but there's a silent Kk?"

Cement trucks are laying the bike path near our house

Police dog in our backyard

We had some excitement today as the police chased 4 burglars through our neighborhood.  There was lots of fence-jumping from the cops and the perps, plus a helicopter search.

I was looking through my phone screenshots last night and apparently Dorothy took lots of pictures while FaceTiming with her cousin using a silly app

Make-your-own kaleidoscope kit

Morning light

I saw on Facebook that people still dressed up for Easter Sunday, so I dressed Dorothy up on Easter Monday

(Happy Easter) Sunday Funnies

Dorothy is interested in nicknames.  She is tickled beyond measure that her cousin Maggie is really named Margaret.  "Do you think her sister Mary Claire knows that?" she asked.

Dorothy's teacher was talking about patterns, and she encouraged the kids to use objects at home to make patterns.  She said, "You could make patterns with anything, like beads if you have some."  "WAIT," Dorothy said to me, eyes wide, "some people don't have beads?!"

I love it when Dorothy gets words wrong.  Her class does a little song that names foods, including, apparently, "petsaroni pizza".  (This might be because we don't eat much pepperoni; then again, we don't eat many pets.)

Dorothy was playing around with a broom and told me that it was her broom's birthday.  "Oh, that's cute," I said.  "How old is your broom?"  "Two and a half," Dorothy informed me.

Our washing machine is a little off-balance, and when it thumps it sounds like someone is knocking at the door, which fools us occasionally.  This morning the washing machine thumped, and in these Corona times, Dorothy announced with relief, "At least that wasn't friends!"

Chillaxin'

As I get older I realize why my grandparents liked playing cards with me so much. The sitting.

Strawberry smoothie

Little bunny at the school party

Dorothy is not interested in her ballet class's online videos, so for the third attempt I let her preview her recital costume

We made an egg tree

The Sunday Funny (Joke's on Dorothy)

So, we've been in the house for a while, and really, it's going fine.  But Dorothy is inclined to turn-down options; she doesn't want to go outside when I suggest it, and so forth.  I've come up with a solution that's working so well I practically feel guilty.  I call it "mystery card".  I have written activities on index cards and each day Dorothy gets to draw a card and do that activity.  Now, these are just basic fun that Dorothy would normally reject, like "paint with watercolors" or "blow bubbles", but dang if when I put it on a card she doesn't look forward to it, beg for it, and then enthusiastically do it.

I've also invented a part of our day called "oldie but goodie", where she needs to find a toy she hasn't used in a while and play with it.

Mystery card:  Mama's little watercolors

Brian made a pie

A through X came from school; we made Y and Z at home!

The end of the (alphabet) road