Turning the Corner

Hi Shira,

Opening a birthday gift

Fairy birthday cake

Birthday party

Tzedaka box

Driedel

Canorah lighters

Candle Lighting

In the Frog and Toad series, the corner is the corner that spring is just
around. As in, “spring is just around the corner.” For you, it is that you are
turning the corner. You are turning from a toddler to a sweet little girl right
before our eyes.
You don’t share much of what happens at school with us but you have been
making some major progress. Your coloring and writing has improved
tremendously. Not long ago, your drawings would be mostly a scribble.
Now you draw a person with two arms, two legs and a head. And the
writing of your name is phenomenal. Just a few months ago I would trace
out your name for you to copy over but now you can do it yourself with out
the guide.
Those who are on Facebook have heard this story: One night getting out of
the bath you told me “triangles can live inside hexagons.” I was
flabbergasted and said I believed that too. That was one thing you learned
at school that you told us about. You also said that you were doing ‘reading
boxes’ but your mom was skeptical. Sidra backed up the story and we got
the full explanation of what a reading box is and where you were with it
when we had a conference with your teacher.
Here’s where you’re at: You are on the ‘at’ box. That means it’s about
words like cat, rat, bat, hat, etc. In the box are objects, a small cat, rat, hat,
etc and the letters needed to spell them. You reach in the box and get out
an object. Then you sound out the word and search for the letters that
would spell it. You are finished when you have gotten all the objects out and
found the letters to spell them. Then you get to have a punch on your card.
To ‘graduate’ from the reading box, you have to be able to find the letters to
the objects from all the letters in the alphabet, not just the ones needed for
the “at” words.
Another thing we learned from your teacher but suspected already is that
you save your worst whining for us. She says you are a sweet little girl
while at school after a brief transition period when your mom drops you off.
There is other evidence that shows you are turning the corner. You often
pick out your own clothes and get dressed without prompting. When you
play with your sister, you aren’t always just repeating what Sidra tells you to
say. She used to dictate the fantasy and all the dialog. She still does take
the lead and suggest your lines but now you are willing to add your own
twists to the story and suggest plot lines.
While you are turning the corner you aren’t quite all the way around it. Now
and then you revert to some of your quirky behavior. The other night after
brushing your hair and teeth I lifted you down off the bathroom counter. You
wailed, saying you wanted to get down yourself. So, I put you back up and
let you do it. Sometimes you have to have things just so. Like the bowl
should be right in the middle of the placemat. Maybe that’s something you
won’t grow out of, but the reaction you have in these cases is less violent
now.
I have a couple of stories.
In August, we went camping at the coast with some friends from back east.
It was unusual for camping because the campground was really in the city
limits. Since our friends were traveling and borrowing camping equipment
we ended up eating dinner at a restaurant. We had a table on the balcony
that overlooked the lower floor of the establishment. The balcony railing
had vertical posts with gaps.
The gaps were just big enough……….to get your head through. You got
stuck, your head went through but you couldn’t get it out. You weren’t too
happy about that and started wailing. Your mom was first over to you but I
was right behind her. She stepped back as if to say “it’s all you, dad.” So I
came your rescue, sort of.
As things developed your discomfort was become known to everyone in the
place. Behind me I heard the waitress shout “we need the manager up
here!” Soon, I could feel all eyes on us.
I tried gently changing the angle of your head thinking that it got through
somehow and we just needed to tip your head a little to let it slip back out.
It wasn’t working. You got more frantic. I remember thinking, “if she gets a
cauliflower ear out of this, her hair will probably cover it.” I decided I would
probably have to tug hard to get you out and it would be painful for you.
As I was looking you over and deciding just where to grab and how to do the
tugging you gave a good pull and your head popped out. By now you were
in full wail. As I was holding you and bringing you back to our table the
manager arrived and asked if everything is ok. I said “yeah, it is now.” He
shrugged and replied, “usually it’s a boy.” I got a laugh out of that later, but
not at the moment.
Later, as when we were recounting the tale your mom commented that it
was something we would remember and laugh about for a long time. I
agreed that you wouldn’t forget it, but said that you might not find it
humorous for a few years.
You did something else recently that was eerily similar to something I did
when I was your age. You had a cold and a cough. We gave you some
cough medicine at bedtime to help you sleep without interruption. It was
Mucinex, and came in a little packet of crystals. You are a supposed to let
them melt in your mouth before swallowing. They were orange flavored.
They are not unlike a pixie stick, the straws filled with flavored sugar.
I think you can see where this is going. You liked the medicine. You did
need it again the next night but not the third. You wanted more the next
day. You got a packet out yourself and I caught you going for the scissors to
try to open it.
After stopping you and hiding the rest of the medicine I told you what
happened to me when I was your age. I had been given some children’s
Bayer aspirin, chewable, also orange flavored. While responsible parties
were distracted, I climbed up on the counter to get the aspirin out of the
cupboard. I ate the whole bottle. This was discovered a short time later by
my mom and the next thing I remember is waking up with a hose down my
throat and my stomach being pumped out. I guess what happened to me
made it easy to recognize the same motivation in you.
My favorite picture here is the one where you are writing your nun on your
driedel. This happened at the event in Portland where we went for the
celebration of the first night of Channuka. There were crafts for kids to do,
making a tzedaka box and a driedel out of playdough. It shows how
determined you can be when you are focused on something and how well
you are writing now.
Love, Aba

Bike Derby and More

Hi Shira,

You were in your first bike derby the other day.  I thought that you would be the only 3 year old riding a pedaler without training wheels but there was one other girl who did the same.  You did very well.  You might have won or you might have been third, it was hard to tell from the angle I had. 

It was a strange race for a couple of reasons.  First, one of the five year old boys thought the ready, set, go applied to him even though he was at the staging line, not the starting line.  So he flew past all you three year olds part way through the race.  Then you, the other girl who rode without training wheels and one boy with training wheels all finished about the same time.  Although ‘finished’ in this case is a fuzzy term.  None of you seemed quite sure about what to do when you got to the finish ribbon.  So from where I was standing it was pretty impossible to declare a winner. 

Regardless of whether you were first, second or third it you performed well and we’re very proud of you.  I just watched the video of Sidra in her first bike derby when she was two and a half.  She was on the runner bike and the race was a lot shorter.   I’m trying to remember why we didn’t have you try the derby last year.  I guess you weren’t really riding the runner that well yet and we didn’t think you were ready.  So, you’ve really advanced your skills a lot in the last year. 

Well, memory fades and I did some research.  I see that last August was when you were just starting to use the runner bike.  At that time you were just getting the hang of it.  So, last July, you wouldn’t have been ready for the derby. 

The other day we were at the carnival that was in town for the mountain festival.  You were unwilling to go on a lot of the rides so our selection was limited.  I went on the big slide with you a couple of times but they wouldn’t let me go anymore unless I went back and got a ticket.  So, you made it all the way to the top of the stair by yourself but wouldn’t go down by yourself.  I sent Sidra up to help you but it wasn’t enough.  I had to go rescue you again so we were done on the slide. Except Sidra and her friend wanted to stay on the slide for a while. 

We were next to the Monkey Maze.  After looking it over for a while you went in.  I’ve written about your determination before and this was another good example.  To get through the maze you have to feel the openings because you can’t see them.  You carefully and very patiently worked your way through it.  I was really impressed because Sidra had been unable to do it earlier.  It was a stark contrast to the times you show zero patience like when you start screaming because your arm gets slightly stuck as you’re taking off a shirt. 

You showed your love of animals recently before the kids parade.  There were a couple of ponies waiting for the parade to start and grazing on the lawn.  They were being fed and petted by many kids.  But those weren’t affectionate enough gestures for you.  You lingered with your arm around one of the ponies while stroking him with the other. 

You’ve recently started picking out your own clothes and dressing yourself in the morning.  I think that’s really cool. 

Love, Aba

Solo!

Shira,
Life changes quickly when you're 3.  Today you learned to solo start on your pedal bike!  You are very proud of yourself.  I sort of tricked you into it, but once done it's done. 
Now all you need is to learn how to use the coaster brake properly. 
Love, Aba.

On to Pre K

Hi Shira,

Well the big news is that you're almost a full-fledged bicycle rider.  You can ride your pedal bike pretty darn fast and make some pretty good turns. The only thing you can’t do on your own is start from a stop. You really could do that too, you just don’t believe it yet.  You're also very resilient. After falling off your bike you get right up and ride some more. Last night, I warned you about an approaching car and asked you to turn around.  Your turn was not quite sharp enough to turn all the way around and you ran straight into the curb. Hitting the curb for someone your size would be like me running into a loading dock head-on. You went over the top of the handlebars headfirst and landed on your face on the sidewalk. Somehow you managed to come through that without a scratch and barely a whimper.  The bike derby is coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m betting that you might be the only three year old riding a pedal bike without training wheels.  

You're getting very comfortable in the water also. You can do a beautiful backfloat. But you still have issues with putting your face in the water. Although the last time we were in the swimming pool you did make significant progress.  You jumped in a couple of times feet first which causes you to dunk your head all the way.  You do resist any suggestion of doing it though.  In fact, you have an uncanny way of jumping off the side sort head first without dunking your head.  I thought at first that you could do it because you had your life jacket on but you can manage it without the life jacket, too. 

In other news next year you will be a pre-K student instead of a primary.  Recently you performed and the tumbling show at school which was coached by your mom. For a while we were concerned that you would not do well in tumbling because you didn't participate well with the tumbling group during class. You often had to take time out from tumbling class. But you matured and at the tumbling show you performed very well.

Your writing skills have improved a lot also. You aren't well practiced at creating letters on your own but are doing very well with tracing over someone's else's letters. One of the pictures included in this post shows that skill.

 

A year or so ago we were concerned about your stuttering. Now it doesn't seem to be a problem. Your speech has some hesitations but nothing like stuttering.

You still have some Quirky behaviors that sometimes make life difficult. Two days ago you ate mush with the spoon that I left in the bowl without complaint. This morning I tried again to leave the spoon in the bowl for you but you objected and had to get your own spoon.  “Dad, I don’t want the mixing spoon!” you wailed.

Most nights you come into our bedroom in the middle of the night to go tinkle and then crawl in our bed. Recently your mom has convinced you to return to your own bed after using the bathroom. Like the spoon, I don't yet consider that problem solved.

You had a recent fishing expedition. You and your sister and went fishing at the fish farm. You caught your first fish.  In the video you can hear me say several times that you should hang on tight to your fishing rod which it looks like you did the video. However when I had to stop the camera and help you actually land the fish things got wilder. When the fish was flopping around right near your feet you did drop the fishing rod and we came close to letting the fish swim away with it. 

Your mom and I were just talking the other day about how you're not a baby anymore.  Now you're kind of a grown-up girl and we were missing our baby.  I think that you still are partly a baby and partly grown-up because you still like to do some of the old baby stuff.  You still like snuggling and hugging and being picked up and comforted. 

Apart from going to school you’ve been a spectator for many activities and you haven’t had the chance to participate.  But today you got to be in your own class- Kinder Dance.  You were very psyched about it.  This morning as you were getting dressed I came in and told you that your mom had found your ballet shoes and you said, “I can’t wait to go to Kinder dance.”  I was not there during the class because I had taken Sidra to piano lessons.  But afterward we were watching a video that your mom took and you were very proud of yourself.  You said, “I’m doing very good, aren’t I.”  

Next report- Bike Derby!

Love, Aba

Quirks

Hi Shira,

You have some recent behaviors that I should report.  They are things that are interesting and you might not remember them unless I tell you.  And one of them makes me recall something I did when I was growing up.

A couple of weeks ago you had trip to the emergency room because we wanted to make sure you didn't have an inflamed appendix.  We should have learned from your sisters similar visit from a couple of years ago, but we didn't. In any case, you were writhing in pain and couldn't go to sleep.  At first we thought you were just at your witching hour and an early bedtime might be the antidote. You did fall asleep from about 7:15 to 8:15. 

After you awoke, you began to writhe again and we didn't see that you would be sleeping again anytime soon.  You had no fever, hadn't thrown up, nor had diarrhea.  Yet you named your tummy as the pain center.  (what we didn't remember from your sisters experience was the jump test-if you can jump up and down without keeling over, you don't have an inflamed appendix).  So, off we went to hosthe emergency room.

As soon as we arrived there you became a perfect little lady and charmed the pants off of everyone in the place. Because we had a potential serious issue, we had to wait longer to see the doctor than the patients who only had sniffles.  Finally, after a couple of hours wait, we got into see a doctor. Throughout, you stoically stated that nothing hurt.  After about an hour of waiting and talking with the doctor, you were given a dose of medicine to calm nausea.  After a prescribed wait time for the medicine to work, you were offered a Popsicle.  You wolfed it down in just a couple of minutes.  I couldn't help wondering that we might have saved 3 hours and some money if they had offered you the popsicle when we arrived instead of later.

We left the hospital about 2:30am and as soon as we got in the car you said you weren't feeling well.  But I knew that your appendix wasn't inflamed and you were much better than when we left home.

But the experience made an impression on you.  For several days afterward, you kept saying that you weren't feeling well and that you needed to see the doctor.  We deciphered this to mean you were willing to go through the same ordeal again order to get another popsicle. 

This reminded me of something I did when I was growing up.  I was a little older than you, but the incident is similar.  My brother Terry had a flat tire on his bike.  My dad took us to the service station to get it fixed (this was back when gas/service stations existed, and they would fix cars).  They took the tube out an held it under the water to find out where the leak was and then repaired the tube and put the wheel back on the bike.

I thought that was a fun trip and wanted to do it again.  So I spent most of the next day using a dull piece of glass to try to cut a hole in my bike tire.  Luckily for me the glass was so dull that it wouldn't have cut my finger or the bike tire.

One of your other quirky habits has to do with books and movies..  Whenever we read you a book you must identify which character of the story you want to be.  "Dad, Dad, Dad, I'm that one."  Sometimes your allegiance changes in the middle of the story and you may choose an animal character if the story doesn't have people. While watching "Princess and the Pop Star" you and your sister often argue about who is Kira and who is Tory.

I actually wrote most of this while we were in Sunriver over winter break but just got around to finishing it this morning.  

Love, Aba