Tales from school

Every day at pre-school, Tessie's teachers provide a report on her activities of the day: what she ate and when, timing of nap and potty visits, and a free-text comment. Some recent extracts from Tessie's daily reports:

4/15: "While we were playing we saw the garbage man and before he left Tessie said, 'Thanks for the show.'"

4/16: "During Kitchen Creation we made cookies. Our friend Sophie left early, so after I put the cookies in the oven, Tessie came to me and said, 'We need to save a cookie for Sophie.'"

4/24: "In the Hoppy Store we were shopping around with the cart. Tessie said, 'I'm going to buy some money.'"

5/6: "During Balance and Coordination, Tessie was playing with cones. She said, 'I'm building bowling things.'"

5/7: "During Kitchen Creation we played with play-dough. Tessie rolled her play dough and she said, 'I made a burrito.'"

5/8: "During Hoppy Store we made lunch for Mommy. We asked Tessie what she made and she said, 'Tea and bread and food, that's what I work with.'"

5/13: "During lunch, Tessie's hair blew in the wind and she said, 'Miss Joanna is blowing my hair. No, silly, it's the wind blowing like crazy.'"

5/18: "During circle time we asked what do you put in the trash? Tessie said, 'Garbage.'"

5/19: "Today we made a trash-eating monster. We asked Tessie what kind of monster would she have? She said, 'Green monster.'"

(Posted rather belatedly -- didn't realize I created this draft ages ago and never finalized it.)

San Diego

[...continuing with the overdue updates...]



In February, the Presidents' Day long weekend gave us the opportunity to visit some friends in San Diego. There's lots to see and do in that area, but we started off with a walk around the neighborhood.



With that exploration under our belts, we headed into downtown to see the new New Children's Museum. (That's not a typo; it's called the New Children's Museum, and it's new. When it's old, it will still be New.) The museum is housed in a new building, but it has the feel of an old warehouse that's only half full. Because the museum is new (Getting tired of that word yet? I am.), it's possible that they just hadn't filled up all the space yet and plan to add more exhibits, but we were underwhelmed by its sparse layout. There's just not a lot there.



Still, the museum is meant for children, and Tessie found things to do. Creativity is encouraged; in fact the museum may be more properly thought of as a large studio space with a variety of artisitic media available. Tessie added her contribution to the chalk wall:



Then she donned an apron and started painting. That's a Volkswagen Beetle she's standing next to, but it's so caked in paint that it's hard to recognize:



The museum also provides lumps of clay and tools with which to work it, and will even let you take your creations home:



The museum's most in-demand attraction (there's a line-up to get in) is not artistic; unless there's a subtlety to pillow fighting of which I remain unaware. One corner room on the top floor is lined with mattresses on the floor and walls, and tire shaped pillows are scattered throughout. Chaos ensues:

Sign of the Times

Tessie's reading and writing skills are improving. She knows her letters very well, and can recognize the names of her friends and classmates. She's still not quite reading, but she's sooo close. And she can write her own name:



Oh, and she can count to twenty. In Spanish.

Scenes from the Dinner Table

I'm beginning to suspect that Tessie may not hold me in quite the same regard as she does her mother.

Tonight, Tessie had apple slices for dessert. A whole apple's worth were piled on a plate in front of her, and she was working her way through them slowly when Tessie's Mom asked if she could share. Permission was given, and Tessie's Mom picked a slice off of the plate. Tessie immediately asked for it back and offered a larger one in its place, saying, "This one is much better."

I asked for a slice, and Tessie made her pouty face, picked up a scrawny little slice, snapped it into two pieces and gave me the smaller one.

Christmas, part II

After we returned home from our Christmas trip to see her American grandparents, Tessie's Canadian grandparents come for a visit.

My kind of Christmas tree:
We chose New Year's Day for the second round of present-opening, and Tessie got right to work under our new fake tree:

Hopefully, we haven't created the expectation that she'll be getting TWO Christmases every year...

More books are always appreciated!

Museum of Science

Still getting caught up. After Christmas, we went to Boston's outstanding Museum of Science, which actually straddles the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge.

The view from the parking garage:

Our first stop was a temporary butterfly garden, which Tessie enjoyed:

No, really; she liked it. I just didn't get any pictures of her smiling!

After that, the museum was filled with other exhibits to capture Tessie's attention (at least temporarily), like physics experiments:

live animal displays (it's a ferret):

and microscopes to peer through:

Christmas 2008

A few (long overdue) pictures from our trip to see the American grandparents. There was plenty of snow, and Tessie hasn't yet learned to properly loathe the stuff:
Reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with Aunt L. on the night before Christmas:
Christmas morning arrives, and Tessie gets going on her stack of loot:
Followed by another chilly walk around the neighborhood:

So where were we...

Goodness me. It seems I've got a bit of catching up to do on this blog. Yikes.

I intend to return to regular updates soon. What have we been up to? Among other things, after returning from our Christmas visit Tessie began potty training in earnest, which did put a damper (no pun intended!) on some of our travels, in turn leading to a lack of postable exploits.

In addition to that, Tessie herself has been logging a lot of computer time. She types her name and a few other words in Notepad, she plays online games from the PBS Kids website, and she loves watching movies on YouTube. She has mastered clicking-and-dragging with the mouse, and with all these interests of hers, it's hard for me to get any uninterrupted computer time! She very politely asks "Please I watch a movie?" and I am powerless to say no.

But all that aside, as my lapse in posting got longer, it got harder and harder to face. There's so much to catch up on! Well, I guess I'll just dig in and start posting again. Coming soon: Christmas pictures!

Better late than never, or so they tell me, right?