It has been a roller coaster of a month, Curie really wanted the girl to win the election and was very saddened when she didn’t; we had to work hard on not letting the kids be to affected by our own affect.
Being in kindergarten has unlocked amazing growth in Curie, her drawings have gotten much better and she is reading and identifying things every day. She loves to play school and is always Mrs. Best when she plays. We learned a lot at her parent-teacher conference: Curie loves school and when she was the teacher of the day, she had no hesitation in teaching the kids. . Her baseline test shows that she has a lot to work on, but she is not the bottom of the class even though she is the youngest. Her work is progressing nicely: as reported as a spoiler in the last blog, in one of the early assessments she had gotten a zero out of ten for her color words. Albert used test prep techniques to teach her and her result was ten out of ten, leading us to believe that she may not have had as much time as other kids, she is definitely in the right place.
At the parent-teacher conference, both of us had to be there so we asked Julie to look after the kids. When we returned, we expected to have both kids happy to see us and run to us, but Julie had them both asleep without too much issue. It was amazing. Albert was a little sad, but we got to watch Central Intelligence (which did not live up to its potential) as well.
Curie loves martial arts and works hard on the lessons and her forms she is doing a form that Albert keeps calling the “Ban Ki Moon Part 1” form though it is actually something else. She is ravenous after martial arts and we have to get her food as fast as we can; we think it is because she does not have time to finish her lunch. She did start buying snacks at martial arts which she was so proud of doing. It was wonderful to see. She and Etta are best friends and when Etta was going to test for her white belt, Curie insisted on staying to watch and support her. The teachers and Etta’s dad were impressed; we were very proud. The kids get a yellow tip on their belt if they do something good at home, Curie is still whiney at home but she is working towrd her yellow tip. We have to submit a yellow card for her to get her yellow tip and her wanting to watch Etta’s whitebelt test (a whole hour) was pretty impressive.
Curie loves to garden and loves to come out and use her cutters (garden shears) and trim the bushes. We raked and took care of the front and back yard with both girls helping. The squirrels ate our pumpkins carving a hole in the pumpkin to eat the seeds. Curie has been learning about squirrels at school and told us that they are crazy like Mrs. Best, who apparently says she is crazy (and forgetful) like a squirrel.
Curie is so excited about the holidays and listed Thanksgiving, Elia’s birthday, Albert’s birthday, Christmas (missed New Year’s), and Erin’s birthday to celebrate. We have been going to hotels to swim, but recently she did not want to, instead wanting swimming lessons. We believe it is too cold for her and that she wants to be good in the pool. We are looking into doing swimming lessons with her friends in a heated school nearby.
She is a great kid but still kid. she wants whatever toy that Elia is playing with, gets fussy and scared at things she should be fussy or scared at, wants things at Target (both kids love Target), and is pickier in eating than before. But she still wants time with Mommy, is crazy funny and laughs at funny things “Mommy, its the police, act normal!” She is crazy caring about Elia, playing mommy and baby with her. It is a crazy world right now, but we have to balance keeping it real to giving them a safe and fun place to be. We were recently witnesses to an attempted shoplifting and Curie was pretty scared about it. We used it to teach her the importance of being good and the example of Albert remembering their license plate and reporting it to the store was used to teach her the importance of doing the right thing even if you are scared. They may not remember it ever happened but if we can keep reinforcing that character counts, being brave is doing the right thing in the face of danger, and that you have to take responsibility for your actions, then a glimpse into the more frustrating parts of our world is okay.