June 2016

 

We were home for exactly half of June. Less than a week after Fiona finished school we hopped on a plane and flew to Israel for two and a half weeks.

Fiona had quite the end to the school year. There was a field trip to the zoo that was a lot of fun, and her birthday. Fiona’s birthday was a busy one. First, we went to the park after school, our usual Friday afternoon event. I made cupcakes and her friends came. They played and ate the cupcakes. I’m rather proud of them as just before Fiona was diagnosed with some food allergies, egg white being the worst. We were advised to eliminate egg from her diet for six weeks so we did. It was easy because other than muffins and pancakes, we don’t eat very much with egg, and it is very easy to substitute apple sauce for the eggs in those recipes. Cupcakes are another matter. I searched long for a recipe that did not call for a special egg substitute because I did not have time to go searching for it. I found one on an Indian cooking blog. It uses a little more baking powder and orange juice. I used an  orange from our tree and gave it a try. It worked very well. The cupcakes were moist but not too dense and tasted great. I made  purple frosting and put little flower things on them. Later, some of the flowers were replaced by little Rapunzel paper things (per Fiona’s request).

  

 

 

   

After the park, we went home and waited for John. He came home early and we went to dinner at a sushi restaurant, Fiona’s favorite. After dinner, we went to an art show because Fiona had a piece in it. An artist came to her school and did a project with each class. Then, she selected one piece from each class to display at this show. There were all sorts of projects from different classes at different schools. It was really neat. The artist picked Fiona’s from her class because she liked something that Fiona did with her colors. She also said Fiona was very enthusiastic in class and asked lots of good questions and understood whatever it was the artist was trying to teach the class. Here she is, posing under her painting, with her birthday crown from school, a card my mom gave her, and a bunny she got from Aunt Cathy:

    

But that wasn’t all! Fiona was invited to two other birthday parties the same day! One after the other. The first was at a private pool not far from where we live, so we went to that one. At some point I asked Fiona if she wanted to go to the other party, which was at the same place she had a birthday last year. She didn’t want to leave the pool, so we stayed (some other classmates were there too and only one chose to go to the last party, where many other classmates were probably waiting). Eventually I got her out of the pool and to eat something more, then we had  cake, and as it was late and dark, went home. I showered her off and she crawled into bed and fell asleep quickly. It was quite the day.

Fiona and her friend being silly in the hammock with Victoria:

 

Someone drew faces on the grapefruits:

  

Some photos from the zoo:

    

  

Fiona was not that enthused about the last day of school. She didn’t really want kindergarten to end. Here she is with her teacher:

   

It was wild to contrast these photos with the ones from the first day of school (first day is on the bottom):

  

  

For 1sr grade, she is reusing her backpack but got a new lunchbox because  the zipper on the old one broke and it was three years old.

The last week of school we learned that Fiona had perfect attendance for the school year. She did not miss one day! We didn’t even realize it. She wasn’t very sick during the winter, having slight fevers occasionally on Friday evenings that were gone by Sunday mornings, or colds that did not warrant staying home. Anyway, her teacher handed this certificate to me together with coupons for something or other that I don’t remember if we ever had a chance to use. I like that it was not a big deal and that there was no ceremony because perfect attendance isn’t always within the child’s control.

Now, on to my other daughter, who was slightly ill-mannered in June, eating her snack with her foot on the table:

    

She really got into having her teeth brushed every night:

 

The house was often messy:

 

 

Fiona singing at the end of kindergarten celebration:

 

I am so glad her school does not have a kindergarten graduation ceremony. There was a celebration with songs and that was it. I think kindergarten graduations are silly. I mean, how hard is it to finish kindergarten? You basically just have to show up most of the time and not hit too many kids. And the kids aren’t really graduating because they return the following year to attend 1st grade. It makes no sense. It gives the kids a false sense of accomplishment because they haven’t actually accomplished anything, yet they are given “diplomas”. On the kibbutz, when I was a little girl, “kindergarten” lasted from three years old to five years old. At six, I entered 1st grade (called Grade A) and it was a big deal. We were given satchels for our mothers to cross-stitch designs (I still have mine, it has the shoe of The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe fame) and pencil pouches that looked the back of a pair of jeans, complete with pockets. I think I wore mine out sometime in high school. On the first day of school, older students hold up palm fronds to make a tunnel of sorts and someone close to you,  in my case my cousin Efrat, walks you through the tunnel. When you emerge, you are a student in school. I couldn’t wait to walk my brother through the tunnel. It was a great induction ceremony that emphasizes what an honor it is to begin school.

A random photo of Victoria and me piling on Fiona for some reason:

Before I write about our trips to Israel and Canada, I am going to update July and possibly August. There are so many photos from Israel, it will take a long time to write and need to be split into several posts. Canada was only a week, so that will be one post by itself.

On the Victoria development front, I realized  today that she says many words. She is regularly drinking out of a cup and eating using a spoon, can put shoes on (that is nothing new), but apparently can do all the sorters she has and thread the big wooden beads. She dances a lot and sings, and lately keeps saying “peepee” then sitting on the toilet. Once in a while she actually does pee. I am not setting my hopes too high that she is actually beginning to potty train, but it would be so nice if she really did. She is such a good direction follower, and it seems she is favoring her left hand this week.

That’s all for now!