Weekend Update

Dear Weather: Get with the program! Tomorrow will be the first of May, and I'd like to be done for a few months with my feet feeling like icicles. Thank you.

Last Friday afternoon, I volunteered as a "book club" leader in the kindergarten class. That involves reading a storybook to a small group (thankfully, my small group was less rambunctious this time than previously; and this includes my kid) and then doing some activities based on the book. We read Dear Bear, about a little girl who is scared of the bear living in the closet under the stairs. Our activities included making bear puppets with paper lunch sacks, cutting and assembling (with glue sticks) sandwiches from coloring pages, and then having a brief tea party with a toy tea set and some pretend tea.

The weekend was cool and rainy. We spent time indoors, watching the Chimpanzee movie at our local movie theater and visiting the play area at the mall. Sunday was a special celebration of music at church, with musical participation from all the choirs -- from the littlest ones, including the three- to five-year-olds choir that Nora sings with -- on up to the adult choir, as well as the bell choir. (There were also some people sitting in the choir loft with trumpets, but they never appeared to play them. I haven't figured that out.) The music was wonderful and joyful, as befitting the Easter season, with the little kids giving a very enthusiastic singing of "We Are the Church" (which I also frequently hear practiced at home).

After church and dinner on Sunday, we headed over to St. Paul for the Minnesota Horse Expo. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until I had time to flip through the program on our way home that Kate Chenery Tweedy, daughter of Secretariat owner Penny Chenery, had been there. (Our family owns the movie Secretariat and has seen it many, many times --- particularly the smallest, most horse-obsessed member of our family.) We did, however, see and pet lots and lots of horses, and Nora took one of the free pony rides. She informed us that Chester was a nice pony. She was also impressed with the horses that had won prizes -- and the pony with the pink nail polish on her hooves. And we watched for a while as some members of a group that does gymnastics while standing on a horse's back demonstrated some of their techniques and talked about their training.

We also finished up reading The Unicorn Princess (Fetlocks Hall) by Babette Cole, a chapter book that was one of our library finds a couple of weeks ago. I don't think we knew what we were getting into: it's the first in a series that's essentially Harry Potter with unicorns instead of wizards. Between the British-isms, the horse terminology, and the words the author made up, I don't think either of us knew what was going on half the time. I console myself with the thought that it's increasing her vocabulary.

April Spring Doings

So, if I update once a week, can I call it weekly updates? I don't think so, since I'm still catching up on my remembrances of more than a week ago.

Lately, in our household: we learned a bit about how to use the library catalog to find books. This came at the request to "use the computer to find books about unicorns." We did a subject search, wrote down the title, author and shelving locations, and searched for and found the four titles deemed acceptable. (Our library system evidently has 76 children's books under the subject of "unicorn," but the catalog displays cover images, and some with jousting knights in stormy backgrounds were deemed "too scary.") So far, we've made our way through a Candy Fairies book, A  Valentine's Surprise by Helen Perelman.

After that library outing, we then attended our city's parks and recreation department's Animal Open House. The resident reptiles (turtles, lizards, etc.) of the Outdoor Center were on display, and additional animals were brought in for the day: a chicken, a couple of miniature horses, a raccoon (used in a demonstration by the city naturalist), a chinchilla. There was a display of pelts for the kids to feel and guess what they had come from, and a "quiz" game for prizes of a bottle of water or a box of Cracker Jacks. (I do think they could have geared the questions up a little bit from the toddler/preschool level for some of the kids. One of the queries was: "What color is a bluebird?") Nora also got her burning question of the day answered by the city naturalist: "Does anything hunt owls?" (Answer: "Other owls.")

It was kind of an animal-themed week, as it also included a kindergarten field trip to a nature center, and a special guest star at the Girl Scouts meeting: one of the other girls' family dog, who was there for a discussion about "how to take care of dogs and other animals." And we followed up the following weekend with a trip to the Minnesota Zoo to see the annual Animal Babies exhibit: bunnies, chicks, calves, piglets and excitedly hopping goat kids at the farm, a baby monkey clinging to its mother's tummy.

I spent part of a weekend this month volunteering at a fancy gala, too: I got to get dressed up and go to the ball -- to work the carnival games and sell the fundraising beads. :) The money from the event goes to support a variety of local charitable endeavors.

Nora and I made a pecan pie with the leftover pie crust from our Easter lemon meringue version and some pecans picked up on sale after Christmas. (I figured we should probably eat the pecans before they went bad. And we haven't attempted homemade piecrust yet.) I also baked some banana muffins for breakfasts this weekend with some bananas from the freezer. I've been in a bit of a menu planning rut lately, and I've kind of lost track of my freezer inventory, but I do need to see what other produce is in there that we should be eating down before the next season.

The weather this month has been alternating between lovely spring, and rainy. There has been some park time, but probably not enough. I did finally find a dry (enough) day to mow the lawn and trim the edges. I chopped off a bunch of dandelions in doing so, making the yard noticeably less yellow, but two full bouquets had already been displayed in a green vase indoors. I'm enjoying watching the birds this spring, too. I've seen wild turkeys wandering about on my drive to work, a ring-necked pheasant running across the street in front of my car in our suburb, robins hunting in our yard, chickadees perching in our trees, and a pair of purple finches sitting on our deck with nesting material in their mouths. And, upon our return from church choir last week, we helped the next door neighbor uproot some of the dozens of maple seedlings that had self-sown in her yard (with a brief discussion of how we'd end up living in a forest if we let them grow, and a suggestion from the five-year-old that we could turn our house into a maple syrup factory).

I'm attempting to enjoy spring as it's here (I did finally finish reading North with the Spring by Edwin Way Teale; for some reason, it took quite a while), but summer approacheth -- at least, in terms of planning kid activities. I need to get on that.

Dance class had costume/photo day this week (so they make sure all the kids are looking right for recitals), and they handed out the class schedule for next year already. I asked Nora if she was taking dance next year, and her reaction, in a tone of voice that assumed this was sooooo obvious, was "Yeah! Every year!" I guess there's an interest. (Which I knew: she frequently tries to teach me dance steps, and her dance teacher's evaluation sheet for her, with recommendations for next year's classes, said she's a natural dancer -- and "full of energy.")

And, oh yes, I also meant to write down: inspired by the litter we've seen blowing into yards in the April winds, Nora's current plans for her grownup years include being "a paleontologist, what digs up dinosaur bones, a mom, and someone who cleans up all the litter in the world."

Spring Reading Thing 2012

So, I have been in a bit of a bloggy slump for -- checking post dates -- about the past month. It could be attributed to busy life, end-of-winter dreariness, etc. But: now spring has sprung, and it's time for the 2012 Spring Reading Thing (hosted by Katrina at CallapidderDays). That means it's time to post my personal list -- a challenge to myself, as it were -- of books to read during spring 2012.

1. Another of my goals for the year is to do a chronological read-through of the Bible, using this Bible reading plan. I'm using a study Bible for this read-through, and reading the footnotes and such as well.


2.  I'm supposed to be reading Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand for a book group, but considering the huge number on the library wait list -- and some of my other reading goals -- it kind of seems unlikely, especially in time for the early April meeting date. Luckily, this particular book group is mostly a gals' get-together with the book as an excuse. :)




3. On the other hand: Catching Fire
by Suzanne Collins is the second in The Hunger Games trilogy. We read the first volume for my church book group, and now I want to find out how the story ends. (I'm borrowing these from a friend, avoiding the library issue.)



4. Another friend from the church book group gave me her copy of State of Wonder
by Ann Patchett. I've got about two and a half chapters left. I've also read Bel Canto (P.S.) and Run, and am really impressed with this author's writing. Reading this is also part of my personal "off-the-shelves" goal: reading some volumes that have been on my bookshelves for a while, and likely determining that some of them are not keepers which can therefore move on to their next home (and declutter mine).


5. Another "off-the-shelves" book given to me by a friend (and yes, there's a subtheme here of "books I feel guilty for not having read yet" and/or "books from friends") is Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnleyby Alison Weir. Nonfiction history.



6. Still another "off-the-shelves" book from a friend is Food in History by Reay Tannahill. I had never heard of this book before and have no idea what it's about -- other, than you know, exactly what the title suggests. Since I generally like books that deal with the subject of food in history -- with, you know, less "in-your-face" titles about it -- both she and I are guessing and hoping that I'll like this one.


7. I also need to get "off-the-shelves" this historical fiction book that I received via the Crown Publishing Read It Forward program. I enjoy expanding my world history education -- which was quite wanting -- via historical fiction; this particular novel,  The King's Mistress: A Novel by Emma Campion, is about the mistress of England's King Edward III.


8. Next up are a couple of seasonal books (from the library). I stumbled across mid-20th century naturalist Edwin Way Teale's  Wandering Through Winter
at a used bookstore a couple of years ago, and greatly enjoyed the journal entries for his travels across the country on each day of the season. I would eventually like to read all of his seasonal books. North With the Spring somehow seems a logical choice for the Spring Reading Thing.


9. Also spring-y -- and historical; see, I've combined the two! -- Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wulf is sort of like The Federalist Papers of gardening. Kind of. Well, anyway, they both relate to historical figures of the Revolutionary War era like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, and others. Nonfiction. With plants.

10.? I feel like I should have a number 10 to round this out; however, at the moment, I have no number 10. (Not that I won't read 10 books this spring; I just don't have anything specifically planned out.) I will just have to feel incomplete. Or else, I could count some reading goals with the five-year-old as number 10: I would like to incorporate into our read-alouds some additional classic works that I feel are basics she needs to have under her belt -- things like (more) Beatrix Potter stories,  Dr. Seuss stories (in addition to those we've already read), Winnie-the-Pooh books, the Blue and/or Red Fairy books, Betsy-Tacy, Milly-Molly-Mandy...and the list goes on. This is part of the problem: it's a challenge to fit so many good books into a family schedule, while simultaneously letting her pick out some of her own reading material.

Are you going to read this spring? You can find Katrina's Spring Reading Thing guidelines here and the post with everyone's link-up here. Happy reading!

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(Almost a Month) in Review - Part One

Aaagh! It's snowed again today. I am so ready for this to be done with: I completely agree with the comments posted on a local news channel's weather section, in which someone identified Minnesota's seasons as including Winter, Still Winter and Enough Already!

I do, however, feel vindicated that I had not yet got around to packing away winter coats and boots or doing the seasonal wardrobe switch. Truly, my distrust that snow season is over until some time after Easter -- no matter how late Easter occurs -- has proven wise this year.

We have, however, had some quasi-warm days in the past couple of weeks: warm enough, at least, for the four-year-old to engage in bike riding. Before (most of) the deluge of snow from the winter melted, she was fancying herself a tracker on some of those rides: she'd stop the bike to examine animal tracks in the remnants of snow left near the sidewalk, count the toes, and speculate on the animal that had caused the tracks. (Note: my vote is for a dog going for a walk.) She also directly transferred the sand buckets and shovels from use in the front yard -- where they had been building snow castles, pretend ice cream, etc., this winter -- to the sandbox in the backyard, where she has been spending much time. She gathered pinecones from a neighbor's tree that overhangs our fence and drops them into our yard for use in the sandbox as well; for what purpose, I'm not exactly clear -- although I do know that she's been playing "pirate treasure," which involves burying things and then digging to look for them.

Birds have been spotted in our yard, too -- we've seen robins, cardinals and mourning doves -- and we paid a visit to the Minnesota Zoo for their "spring babies" exhibit, which involved petting a baby rabbit and admiring baby chicks, calves, a camel and more animals. We had several conversations that the zoo would likely not be having any baby horses, since - I'm pretty sure -- all of their grownup horses are "daddies," and you need both a mommy and a daddy to have a baby animal.

I've made some minimal progress on spring cleaning. One thing I did accomplish was cleaning out the Tupperware/plastic dishes cupboard, doing such things as identifying which repurposed containers actually had lids, which lids fit what, and containing said lids of the repurposed containers in a Ziploc bag so they don't spill all over the cupboard. I also found the popsicle molds in the back of the cupboard and had to fend off a request from the four-year-old to make popsicles -- for one thing, it is not warm enough yet for popsicles (see note about snow!); for another, I refused to start on this year's batches of popsicles until I had cleaned up the sticky mess in the freezer from where last year's popsicle juice spilled. (She does not know that I also successfully cleaned out the grime from the fridge and its on-top freezer while she and her grandma were watching the movie "Secretariat" -- again. Complete with pretend horse races starring the four-year-old. It's a shocker that the knees get blown out of so many of her pants, I tell you ...)

Grandma's visit to us was in part to do fittings on the new spring dress and skirt she was making for the four-year-old and me, from matching fabric. (Four-year-old N has been wanting to have matching outfits for a while now, and I figured we'd better do this while she still thinks it's cool. I let her pick the fabric -- within reason -- which ended up being a purple background with a spring floral print.) I was also able to delegate her to four-year-old haircut duty, and to send home my yard waste from bushes trimmings with her (the lazy woman's way of getting rid of it before our yard waste season). Grandma also accompanied us to the movie "Hop" that weekend (meh. It was OK.) and to a spring craft show where I purchased some cleaning cloths and some Easter-themed cloth napkins, my mom purchased a couple of metallic garden flowers for outdoor decor and the four-year-old, after energetic play in the indoor playground of the community center, plus rearranging nearly every single one of the (possibly former kindergarten teacher, or at least blessed with patience) vendor's plastic eggs in her display, convinced her grandma to buy her one of these items: a washcloth folded into a bunny shape whose tummy holds a plastic egg which, in turn, contains a tiny ice pack, to be used as a "boo-boo bunny."

We've also remembered this month to get out our Easter books for our seasonal reading basket, and we made a plastic egg garland -- as suggested in Amy's Notebook of March 16 -- for a household decoration. (Plastic eggs saved from previous years' egg hunts, plus the four-year-old's crafts stash of yard sale yarn, provided easy supplies for this.)

Week in Review, Part Two: Biking and Other Spring Exercise

So, spring was on the calendar last week, and it made a brief foray into Minnesota weather patterns as well. (It's back to snowing again now.) In fact, there was enough snowmelt that we went from sledding one weekend

to bike riding the next. (For a couple of days, anyway. And then complaining all day the next day about not being able to ride the bike because it was raining.)

The four-year-old is enjoying some newfound bike freedom this year: she gets to ride on the sidewalk up and down our block all by herself. It is not a short block, so this is some good exercise. She's not allowed to cross any streets on these forays, though -- as she informed our dog-walking neighbor when inviting herself and and her bike along on their walk, to the end of the block.

This is another spring phenomenon in Minnesota: not only does the snow melt and the grass green up (eventually), but neighbors you haven't seen since trick-or-treating suddenly reappear, almost as if they, themselves, are spring shoots of bulbs that have spent the winter buried underground (most likely, in the basement next to the fireplace).

And, with the reemergence of neighbors, my social butterfly seems to find new friends each year. This year's new playmate is an eight-year-old who lives a few houses down from us (and who has shown amazing patience in playing with my four-year-old). They were out this weekend biking, blowing bubbles and having a party on a blanket in the neighbor's driveway with Barbies and other dolls. And, in one of those transitional season things, also playing with our snowball maker in the remaining piles of snow. (I'm pretty sure the snowball maker at our house is one of the attractions for the eight-year-old.)

Meanwhile, the eight-year-old's mom was cleaning out the winter debris from their car in the driveway (I haven't tackled that spring task yet), and I was trimming back the bushes that line our front sidewalk -- the ones that, if you don't trim them, grow to proportions that take over the sidewalk and engulf small children. At least, I trimmed the ones that had emerged from the snow: there were still piles a foot or two deep on top of some of them, and it is way too hard to pull the branches out from under such piles for trimming.

That was my exercise for the weekend. The four-year-old, in addition to all the bike riding, had soccer practice at church on Saturday morning. This is soccer for pre-K and kindergarten age. Which means things like three of them standing in the goal (regulation size goals, so they really fit in the goal), holding hands -- while the other team's ball sails right past all three of them into the goal for a score. Also, when not directly interacting with the ball, the four-year-old and a friend were entertaining themselves by doing handstands against the gym wall.

At this age, as another of her friends reminded us as they engaged in church hallway pre-choir practice entertainment of lying on their backs on the floor and stretching their feet above their heads so their toes touched the floor, they are "more bendy" than grownups.