Fingers

Gemma came sliding into our room just before 7 am on a Saturday. I'm sorry to say that I didn't jump up and greet her with a song and dance routine, but I was sleepy still and my bed was snuggly and warm.

She crawled all over me (John too, but he is better at staying asleep than I am) demanding breakfast, music and a dance party.

I an effort to delay her and give myself another few precious moments tucked into my bed, I asked her how many fingers she had.

Gemma held up all her fingers, spread wide. She carefully counted. She has improved greatly recently but I still heard her double count a few of the fingers.

After a few moments, she crowed: "I have 8 fingers!"

I giggled to myself and told her that she did a great job. It was a great job, but she missed a few fingers. She should have 10 fingers.

I started counting her fingers for her, starting with her thumb on her right hand.


Then she gave me an extremely condescending look for a 3 year old. "That is not a finger mom! That is a thumb!"

It took me a few moments, but slowly her meaning became clear.

The correct answer is that she has 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.

I showed her, didn't I?

Sent from my iPhone

I Win...

We had been driving a long time and Amelia and Gemma were playing an I-Spy game. You say "I spy with my little eye, something (add a color)." It was Amelia's turn and she said she saw something orange. Gemma couldn't figure it out so Amelia told her "the sunset". Gemma said "It's not orange it is yellow!" They then started arguing about it. We were nearing the end of a long drive and Kelly and I told them to stop it and do something else. They stopped and Gemma said "It is my turn. I spy with my little eye something yellow".


Amelia answered "The sunset."

Gemma replied "You are right!"

Girls slide at rest stop

The hair! The hair!!

Fall break to Memphis

Most years, the school builds into the calendar a short break in October. Last year, we went to Chicago. We enjoyed that so very much, we wanted to try and do that again. However, we missed the reduced price deal and then Chicago didn't work out.

We always like to take the kids to places they haven't ever been, especially new states. I think kids need to see different parts of the country (and world) to understand how different and similar people are in different places as well as the differences in the landscapes. Anyway, we like to travel and we love exposing our kids to new experiences.

The criteria for the trip is that it has to be within 5-6 hours driving distance, be within the small budgeted amount we determined, allow us to see something new or visit a new place we haven't been before or show the kids something we have seen before, but want them to experience.

The top contender this time was Chicago, but when it landed outside of the budget parameters, it was off the table.

The next two contenders were Oklahoma City (never been there or to Oklahoma), Memphis, or Nashville.

In this case, Memphis was the winner! We made a long weekend of October 15-18.

So, we packed the van and hit the road for Memphis.

Here are the kids at the a rest stop close to the border of Missouri and Arkansas. It was very close to the New Madrid fault line, which is very interesting topic of you are looking for an Internet rabbit hole to fall into.

Amelia and William are different

All kids are different. Even siblings are different. William and Amelia have always had some similarities, but I have always been struck by how individual they are.

This year, they have been selected to participate in some enrichment class work. They go one day a week to a different school building and have some enrichment class time. As they are so close in age, they frequently end up in the same classes together. One day they brought home the same worksheet about joining a circus that was identical. See how differently they think?

Amelia's zig zag braid

So neat looking!

William's project

We went to our town's small Fall Festival. Home Depot was there with some projects for the kids. All three kids wanted to do a project and all three picked something different.

John set out to help Amelia get started and I opened up Gemma's package of supplies. I told William I would help him as soon as I got Gemma underway.

William agrees, but then took his bag of prepackaged supplies and moved to the cement ground area and spread everything out. Moments later, he was hammering together industriously with a craft sized hammer. He seemed to have a handle on the situation and wasn't asking any questions. I helped Gemma complete her project and then turned to check on William.

It was perfect timing as he had all the pieces of the project together except one and it wouldn't fit. I asked William what step he was on in his enclosed direction sheet. He looked up at me, surprised.

"There are directions?"

I showed him the step by step directions page.

"Oh. Huh. I just looked at the picture on the box and put it together."

This made John and I both laugh out loud as this is totally what grandpa Kevin would do.

In this case, we needed to take a few things apart and rotate one piece to make everything work.