FIVE

Happy Birthday little man!

My oh my how he's grown.

Almost

Finishing my breakfast this morning I heard a frantic holler from upstairs where F was getting dressed.
”MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!”

I start to get up to help, then remember we are attempting to build independence and creative problem solving. Instead I answer, ”Do you need help?”

The frantic tone decreases ever so slightly to simply manic and he replies, all in one breath, ”Today is Thursday, that means tomorrow is Friday, that means it's birthday cake and presents tomorrow!!!”

Whew. Not dismembered. Just super excited about finally turning five.

QOTD

How I was introduced by my child at the reunion this weekend:
” That's my Mommy, the one with the purple hair.”

I know it's true, it's not how I ever expected to be introduced.

Good Fortune

F and I had fortune cookies for desert today. His is the top one, mine the lower.  Reading our fortunes I decided we better stick together.

Amendment: Travis pointed out life with us is indeed always exciting, yet you don't know what kind of exciting you are going to get (he is remembering mudslides and other natural disasters we seem to encounter on a regular basis).

Kid Wash

Last summer we clipped a project out of one of those family magazines.  The kind that look super cool and you fully intend to do someday...

Someday was this past week!  FFM remembered all the way back to last summer when we clipped the instructions and has been asking to make it since the first semi-warm day this spring.

A note for out of towners - our residential water comes from reservoirs and other sources that are in the mountains, fresh from the snowmelt.  Our water is cool to downright COLD all year long.  I've run in sprinklers in mid western and southern states and running in Colorado sprinklers is a BRISK and REFRESHING experience not for the weak of heart.  FFM runs hot all the time, he likes to be hot, but even in 90F heat he had to call it quits after 90 minutes of the Kid Wash.  90 minutes!!! Worth every penny.

Knitting Weaving

In the winter my neck gets cold.  I wear a lot of turtlenecks and scarves.  When we lived in Ireland I found a beautiful woven scarf that I just love the texture of and I wear it often when the weather gets chilly (I understand it's 90f+ as I type this).  I'm not a weaver - yet.  I am a knitter, so when I found the pattern for a knitted scarf that looks like it's woven I was pretty excited.  

The pattern calls for three "very different colors" of yarn.  

My fellow knitters thought I was nuts knitting these three colors together.  I was taking a big leap of faith.  I ended up with this, which will go very nicely with almost everything I own!

The pattern is Koigu Linen Stitch Scarf by Churchmouse knits.  This was supposed to be a quick and easy project so I could wear it this past spring, but while easy I didn't manage to get it done in time.  Next winter!

Teamwork

In the past when these two butted heads I stepped in to sort it out for them.  These days I feel like they are old enough to sort it out for themselves when they disagree on whether to play pirates or dress up or trains.  It's a tricky new existence, but they seem to be getting the hang of it.  When they come to me with a complaint I send them back to "sort it out" with each other.

So far FFM's burst into tears once and Emma's stomped home across the greenbelt once (she came back over about 6 minutes later).  They're buddies, pals, and learning how to be better teammates.  It took quite a bit of work to push the fire truck from Emma's house across the grass to our back yard where she thought FFM would really like to play with it while she took a break to have her lunch.  After lunch, they took turns to push it right back. Success!

Moo Town Singers & Mr Snail

There are a couple of things FFM is passionate about, and piano is one of them.  I don't ever have to ask him to practice, the piano is a fun activity that rotates in his day somewhere between play with trucks and build some Legos.  He's crushed when he has to miss a lesson (I considered buying a portable keyboard to take to California and Kansas) and after his beloved grey kitty the piano is the next thing to be greeted after we are gone for any period of time.

This is FFM's first ever recital.  He's now completed one semester of piano lessons.  At the end of this semester his class of five kids (he was the only 4 year old, the rest were 5) learned how to play with both hands.  There are only two songs in their book with both treble and bass lines in them and those are the two songs that FFM chose to play for the recital.  He is the only one in his class who played both of those songs.

You might catch the slip up - they are taught to correct themselves by singing the notes as they play them.  Since young kids are learning the alphabet and learning to read this school teaches "solfege", or do, re, me, instead of the traditional middle C, etc.  FFM sings the notes and plays the notes and when he slips up he can hear it, then corrects himself, and charges on.  I think having to wait nearly an hour before going on might have made him a bit antsy as he's had these songs down pat :)  They are required to sing during class but were not required to sing during the recital.  FFM likes to sing, so he belted away.

PS - he announces his songs as Mr Snail and Moo Town Singers but he actually played them the other way around.

Preschool Graduation

I admit it, I am not a fan of the preschool graduation.  I AM a fan of the preschool end of year celebration, so I decided to view FFM's graduation as such.  Turns out that's exactly what it was except the celebrants dressed in graduation gowns.

Here are the doors we've entered every Tuesday and Thursday for the past two years.

FFM and his friend Sophie.  His friend David is there in the background.

Getting graduation gowns on.  Mrs. Kyleberg was one of his teachers this year.

 An attempt at a shot of his whole class.  Note all the kids are looking away from the camera.

The song "I'm Going to Kindergarten Because I'm FIVE."  Even though he's not quite five yet...

Getting his certificate and t-shirt from his favorite teacher, Ms. Cindy.

 We bailed on the claustrophobic, cramped and loud cake and ice cream social after and instead went to Queen's Dairy, a.k.a Dairy Queen, with our friend Julia and her Dad.

 It was way more fun, the Dads got to speak engineer speak for an hour and the kids and I played hide and seek and all manner of other games too goofy for the Dads.

FFM's having a hard time calling himself a Kindergartener, my guess is that will pass soon enough. We are both ready, we'll see how we do on the first day of school.