October 2014

October was a long and busy month. I feel like I want to write things, but then there is no time. Even now, I am procrastinating on writing a test or two and two letters of recommendation, plus some long overdue emails. I also really need a nice long nap, but I digress. What did we do this month?

To say the weather was warm would be an understatement. The first weekend of October saw record breaking highs. It was 100 degrees here at least one day, and in the mid to high 90’s the rest. Keep in mind we do not have air conditioning, only ceiling fans. When it’s 85 degrees in the house with no wind outside, things can get very uncomfortable. So, we went to the beach almost every weekend.

First, we had a visit from Matt and Anastasia, whom Fiona LOVED. We went to the Getty Villa in Malibu. It was Fiona’s first adult/art museum experience and she really enjoyed it. She didn’t even spend much time in the children’s room, and was fascinated by the video of how a mummy was made in one of the exhibits.

Fiona making her own art by drawing on pottery:

   

I remember this statue from last time I visited this museum, almost 20 years ago:

 

It used to be outside on the way into the museum, in a sort of open air room (the entire museum was closed for about 10 years while undergoing massive renovations and expansion). Even though I am the same size as I was 20 years ago, it seemed so much bigger then. There are a few other pieces I wanted to find, but did not. The Getty Villa used to be my favorite museum in the world.

Fiona liked the koi pond:

   

Among other things, I saw one of my current students at the museum. At this point, I feel like I can’t go anywhere without running into someone I know. John saw a co-worker of his who volunteers at the Getty Villa.

The following day, after a tasty brunch, we went to the beach, where we saw a friend of mine, Matt was stung by a wasp, and we watched my friend and a lifeguard save a man’s life. A couple of weeks later we saw the same friend at the same beach and I asked what happened. Let’s just say that drinking and swimming do not mix well.

Fiona was tired and lay down in the sand:

She later complained of sand in her ears and on her face.

This month we learned that Fiona can do the monkey bars. She brought home a certificate from school. The following weekend, she demonstrated:

 

Here is a video:

 

We took family photos on a very pleasant evening. We decided to stay out late and have dinner. The sunset was beautiful and Fiona was very well behaved. She tried a brownie with ice cream for the first time. Her comment was “It’s soooooo good!”

One of our Sunday school classes was at a community garden. Fi had a blast:

Another visit to the dentist:

Her teeth look great. She loves going to the dentist. I wish John loved going to the dentist as much as Fi and I do. Sigh.

Fiona’s school was closed for a week. She spent a couple of days playing my friend Nicole’s sons:

 

She spent a day with her grandparents and went to the zoo with John. All in all, she had a great week!

Fiona helped me with a beach clean-up, then came home and we played beach clean-up at home:

 

The game consisted of Fiona spreading out all sorts of toys and junk on the floor, and then the three of us (Fiona, John, and I) took turns picking it all up and putting it in a bag.

Fiona graduated from medical school and immediately started practicing on her dolls:

There was a school field trip to a farm:

And a preschool barbecue. Fiona was ready:

Fiona read to me while I was making dinner, then read to her imaginary class:

Fiona likes to play hair salon when she takes a bath. She washes, cuts, and styles John’s hair:

  

He loves it.

Fiona discovered playing princess with John. This is as princess-y as she gets, and John as Prince Charming:

 

Making popsicles out of lemonade:

 

It was so hot earlier in the month that we bought some popsicle molds and put lemonade in them, then froze them. We ate them every day.

Fiona does all sorts of “enrichment” activities after school. She takes a dance class and informed us that she can now do a passe (pronounced pau-say) with a twirl. I had to have her demonstrate because I had no idea what a passe is. She also takes an art class and the teacher focuses on a different artist every week. One week, Fiona came home and explained to us who Piet Mondrian is, the next it was Jasper Johns. They did self portraits like Van Gogh, and last week it was Georgia O’Keefe.

She takes a cooking class and loves it, and every week comes home with a paper bag that she writes her own name on. The photo on the left is from the beginning of October and the photo on the right is from today (November 2). I can’t believe how much her writing has improved. She is in a class that is mostly self-directed, so no one is pushing this on her. We certainly aren’t.

  

Still putting her dolls in her old baby clothes and shoes. I came home to this one day:

Fiona drawing herself and me in chalk on the sidewalk:

We celebrated Halloween. Fiona was a bunny. We decorated pumpkins using Sharpies because I didn’t feel like carving.  Fiona’s pumpkin is first, mine is second, John’s is third:

  

Fiona took the photo of John’s pumpkin.

She arranged the pumpkins on the wall and called them “A family of pumpkins”:

We got her ears and a tail, and I painted a nose and whiskers on her:

         

We went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We started out fairly early, after an early dinner. After what seemed like a fairly short period of time (an hour maybe), Fiona decided she wanted to go home to hand out candy. She also wanted to eat some of her candy. She did not collect a lot of it, but she was very happy with what she got. Here is the only photo I have of her handing out candy because I’m slow with the camera. We turned on lots of lights, so even though it looks like she is sitting in the dark, she really isn’t:

My friend Nicole and her family joined us for dinner last night. It was a blast. Fiona took the first group picture and Nicole’s son Caz took the second:

Speaking of taking photos, all of the following photos were taken by Fiona in the last few days:

I’m sure there is a lot I am forgetting. Like I said, it’s been a long month. We started a reward chart to help reinforce good behavior with Fiona and so far, she loves it. We call it her Star Chart. It’s laminated and has Velcro stars so we can reuse it every week.

Fiona still loves to paint:

Fiona’s robot:

Fiona is starting to give up her nap. She still has to have quiet time in her room even if she doesn’t sleep. She reads to her dolls and does other things: This is what happens:

 

She was teaching her dolls how to swim. We knocked on the door and Fiona answered, telling us that there was a big mess in the room. She wasn’t kidding. Luckily she cleaned the mess up fairly quickly with only a little bit of help.

October was a very hot month. Hoping November is much cooler!

September

School’s been in session for a month. I think we’ve all adjusted to the more hectic schedule. For me, it’s nice not to have as many (or really any) meetings to go to. And Fi likes having me at home before and after nap and picking her up at school a lot.

The garden is still producing more tomatoes than we can eat, eggplants, cucumbers, and butternut squashes. The new beans we planted produced a whole bunch of beans all at once and we ate them. The zucchinis produced some squashes that did not exactly look like zucchini but was tasty non-the-less and Fi actually ate it. Some of the zucchini plants are not doing as well. The melons are growing very slowly and don’t look that great. I think everything is winding down. It makes me a little sad because I love not having to buy a lot of veggies in the supermarket, or more precisely, I don’t like having to pay for stuff I can get from the garden because it never tastes as good or lasts as long. At the same time, I’m excited to grow things like beets, lettuce, and other winter veggies that I wouldn’t necessarily buy in the supermarket or is expensive at the farmer’s markets.

Fi LOVES her class and going to school in general, although she is having more issues listening and following directions than she did last year. She has come way out of her shell and is being more social, so she is having to learn how to navigate interactions with other children as opposed to always playing by herself.

The ants are going to carry me away.

School and work have consumed all of us, so not much has happened. We went to the Central Coast Comic Con and that was a fun experience. Fi sat in the actual car that was used in the movie KnightRider:

Fi wanted to go for a hike in the forest. We went to an area that used to be foresty, but unfortunately, due to a fire, no longer has lots of nig trees or shade. We still enjoyed ourselves. It was a very hot day, especially with the lack of shade, so after the hike, we went out for ice cream.

Fi had a “homework” assignment, to decorate an outline of herself. A parent in her class traced her outline on a large piece of paper and we used some leftover fabric to make shorts and a shirt and shoes. Fi used rose petals from the garden for her face:

 

At the Comic Con, we purchased two books for Fiona, one about a hamster that is different from all the other hamsters in his world, but learns to develop his strengths and appreciate them, and other about a bear who goes to outer space and is filled with interesting science facts about the solar system and the universe, both written and illustrated by people who also draw comic books and graphic novels. Both authors signed their names in the books. When we got home, Fi decided to sign her name in some of her books. She got as far as F I O because she still struggles with N and A:

 

Interestingly, she has a friend names Lily and she does not have any problems writing Lily’s name, or at least the L I L part. Still working on the Y’s. But, she wrote Lily’s name before she ever wrote her own, because in her world, sometimes she is the teacher and needs to write students’ names on things. I want to note that we are not pushing her to write at all, all of her writing is self motivated.

She is starting to draw things too, like this self portrait, her first ever:

The caption says “I’ sleeping in my picture”. She also wrote her name above it.

She’s drawn a family portrait but I do not have a photo, and yesterday, she drew this:

She’s getting better at building things with her Lincoln Logs (she did it all by herself) and some of the funny-angled photos were taken by Fi using my camera:

Fi continues to love helping me when I bake or make pancakes for breakfast. She can do so much by herself, including taking off her shirts (until recently she needed help), getting her juice and milk out of the fridge and pouring them by herself, putting away all her own laundry, replacing the garbage bags in the kitchen, setting the table, and lots of other things. She is becoming very independent, although I think it is leading to some separation anxiety issues again.

One thing I LOVE about having the garden is that Fi can go outside and pick food for herself and eat it. It is not uncommon for her to snack on tomatoes or beans or whatever else she can reach. Today, she decided she wanted grapes, so she took the step stool outside, set it up, climbed it, and picked and ate grapes, all by herself:

 

We did another organization of Fi’s things in the living room, and for now her area doesn’t look like a disaster. I’m sure we will have to go through it again soon, but at least it’s not a source of stress and she can find things again.

This weekend we were supposed to go to a beach clean-up with my students, but alas, the beach we normally go to was closed for some reason (lots of signs, earth moving equipment, and large pipes lying around, plus the parking lot had a big fence around it). We decided to reschedule, but both Fi and I were disappointed. She was really looking forward to picking up garbage and seeing my students.

Here are few photos of my love from the last month:

Happy Fall Everyone!