WARNING: Read at Your Own Risk-May Contain Offensive Material

I could tell Eliana had to poop.  The stop-in-her-tracks, the face, the squat.  I looked at her, like I most always do, and said,"Poo poo?"  She looked right back, stood up straight, and ran (she just started this little running thing) through the house to our bathroom.  She had a long dress on (from church), so I was trying to unbutton the back of it to get it off for her and she stopped and let me do that.  Then she marched on over to the toilet and pulled at her diaper, looking up at me like,"Now what?"  I got her diaper off and set her up on the seat and plop went a little poo.  She looked at me with a funny little smile. 

I have to be honest, once I got her on the toilet I could tell she had already pushed the poop out, but it did fall into the potty.  And I thought it was pretty cool that she knew exactly what I meant when I said,"Poo poo," and that she trotted right on to the bathroom.  I'm not looking to potty train her next week or anything (I like potty-training about as much as I like feeding my little ones solid food until they're, like, 3).  It's funny, though. 

Turkey Dressing

Today we worked on a special project for Christian's classroom.  He and Michaela fixed up quite a turkey; I am not sure what it's for yet, but this guy is going to be a show-stopper. 

We began with the basics: coloring first.  Before we got into feathers, buttons, and other accoutrements Christian and Michaela gave the bird a first layer.  

Christian is a meticulous worker when he wants to be.  He really took his time and thought carefully about what he was going to do next.  This was a family project, so Michaela also helped to give this bird some proper duds.

I love it when they work together peacefully.  They worked out a plan for who would color what and when.  Will there be a pattern?  Who starts on which side?  What colors will go together?  Who cleans up the mess?  (Oops, I threw that one in there...)

Eliana was figuring out which color would be the best choice...

Talk about thoughtful!

She is certainly not going to be left out of the action.

She is determined to do whatever they are doing, whether it's coloring, dancing, eating ice cream, or kicking a ball.

 And Christian is so sweet with her; he usually will let her come right along, or join right in.  I heard him tell her he loved her a couple of times today, "sooo much."  How sweet is that? 

The progress they're making!  This turkey is looking mighty fine.  Christian checks out his work so far...

Eliana felt a couple of additions were in order.

Michaela made sure that the turkey was adorned on every side...

You can see how detailed they got.  It's all about the details...

And paying attention to details pays off in the end.  Here is the final product, in all its dazzling array of trappings.

Now that's what I call "dressed for success." 

The Pump

Those were the good ole' days...

Hey, wait.  That was just today!

Friday

The middle of November is upon us!  How can it be?  I think I'm in a time warp.  Or a vortex.  Or a black hole.  Maybe a vacuum?  Please don't mention "vacuum" again, okay?  I'm just trying to post here!  Oh, that's right, I brought that up.  

What was I saying?  November 14th.  Friday, November 14th.  And we are just as busy as ever (and still not managing to get much done-what is that phenomenon called?).  We began our day by getting Christian to school and then heading out to Eliana's swim lesson.  Except it's actually a float lesson, because she's too little to get the edge of the pool and get out.  But float lesson sounds kind of weird, so I still say swim lesson.  This was her third week.  That sounds wrong, but it's not.  She has done an amazing job and has a great float.  She doesn't like the lessons at all; several of my friends have asked that question.  But the point is that she will know what to do if she happened to fall into a body of water without an adult around.  I know, when would she be away from me?  But accidents happen all the time and drowning scares me out of my mind.  Our two older kids went throught the same program in Kentucky, and it was impressive.  We had a pool there, so it was even more urgent that they knew how to rescue themselves.  Fortunately we never needed to test out the skills in an emergency.  They are both great swimmers now, though, and I love knowing that they are equipped. 

Back to Eliana's swimming (floating!)...our instructor is very gentle and kind.  She never throws Eliana into the water, she moves slowly and deliberately in order to help Eliana know exactly what is expected of her.  And Eliana got it right away. 

The first thing Sheri does is put her on her back.  What is interesting to me is that every child I've seen do this has his or her own "style" of float.  Eliana is pretty still, and her toes are pointed up to the sky.  She makes little fists.  She's not very relaxed, but she can keep herself floating for a good period of time.  She has figured out that if she ducks her chin, her mouth goes under the water, so the key is to keep her head back.  She corrects herself quickly if she does look down for some reason.  Sheri flips her gently, and immediately Eliana heads back around so that she is on her back.

It's almost funny to watch because she starts to turn over onto her back before she is even under the water fully.  She knows what she is supposed to do and does not want to be under water face down any longer than necessary. 

She has floated near the wall (which freaks some kids out), near the steps, around the jet, and next to the instructor.  She maintains her float all the time.  She has been on the wall, and Sheri let her plop into the water...

and she immediately (you can see her starting to roll around even before she's left the wall) turns onto her back.

She works very hard during her lessons (which are super short because of their intensity), and I'm proud of her.  Even though she has no idea why she has to go through this. 

She recovers pretty quickly, but she's always very tired.  Every day after the lesson on the drive home she falls asleep.  It is 30 minutes away, and she just konks right out.  Today, oddly enough, she noticed that Michaela had crackers in the car and she wanted some, so she stayed awake the whole way back to our house. 

Happy with cracker...

 I love this girl's toes!

And this one...I can't keep her from reading in the car!  I'm afraid she's going to throw up or something, but she says she won't!

She's a trooper.  She goes along for the drive, sits throught the lesson, and then the drive back home.  She never complains about it.

I got gas on the way home, and while I was standing at the pump I read the warning sign that's posted on the side, just because.  It said...

I'm so glad that I had that warning before I did something really stupid.  I'm prone to, you know. 

When we get home from the lessons, I give Eliana a bath to rinse off all that chlorine.  Today, Michaela took it upon herself to do the whole thing almost entirely on her own. 

Ironically, ever since her swimming lessons started, Eliana has loved her bath much more than ever before.  She cries when we get her out.  (I have to tell you, I almost accidentally wrote "dries" instead of "cries" but it totally would have made sense.  Isn't that funny.  Hilarious, I  know.) 

We finally were able to get to some schoolwork; Michaela did some Math first. 

Eliana ate a little cereal, did a little drawing, and then she was ready to go!

So, I'm sad to say that Math got interrupted by a dance party. 

Too bad it's Friday, because these girls have Saturday night fever!

Finally we were able to get back to Math; I gave Eliana a drink, and Michaela got one too.  Please, someone tell me, am I missing something here?

And Eliana is into experiments...she is working on "you can't put a round peg in a square hole."

Sorry, that wasn't so funny.  She is, though.  She finally petered out and had to take a nap.

And Michaela and I moved on to Grammar and Writing.

While Eliana was napping (in her own bed, not on my lap!), the kids had some down time.  Michaela read a book, Christian played a computer game, and I wrote a letter!  It was so nice.  The house was pretty quiet, and everyone was content with what they were doing.  It was a lovely moment.

Once Eliana woke up, we headed to the playground.  It was a gorgeous afternoon.  And the kids had so much fun.  There are a lot of pictures here, so look if you want, or don't!

Mike returned home from out-of-town shortly after we finished dinner, and just in time for getting-ready-for-bed.  He had hardly gotten in the door before Christian was eagerly sharing some of the things he had made for Dad's Night (www.fivewalkers.com/).

We finished up with a silly book read by Daddy, and then off to bed.  I think that sounds like a great idea myself.  See you all tomorrow! 

Grab Your Lassoes and Your Spurs, Partner

Over at Christian's school tonight there was a celebration of the students' dads.  They have been working on special projects, gathering ingredients for soup and cornbread, and decorating the hallways and classrooms for this evening of cowboy fun.  Unfortunately, Mike had a meeting scheduled out of town at the same time, so Christian and I moseyed on over to his classroom and I digitally corralled all the different things we did so that we could share them with Dad, as well as anyone else who might be interested.

There were lots of things for little, and big, cowpokes to see and do in the classroom. 

  

Christian thought it was great fun to wear his bandana, and pull it up over his mouth to keep all the dust out of his lungs.

He made a name tag for each one of us, and then we went around the classroom checking out the different activities.

The first thing we did was make outlines of our hands; his teacher said that this would be used for a project later.

Next, we grabbed some Trix cereal for a graphing activity.  This was fun to watch.  The kids had such individual methods for doing this.  They were supposed to count how many of each fruity color there were and then graph that number and write it at the bottom.  Christian dumped out all of his cereal and then picked which color he would do first (green).  He popped one in his mouth and colored one box.  He came up with this method on his own, and I was really surprised at how quickly he went through each "bite" and box. 

Counting the boxes...

Moving on to the next color...

Other kids separated all their colors out and then filled in the graph.  And one little girl put each color group back in her bag after she was done with that particular one. 

There was also a jar filled with walnuts (I think those are walnuts.  I'm no nut connoisseur).  We guessed how many walnuts were in the jar and put our estimates in a box.  They will count them tomorrow and see who was closest.  I'm really curious to know how many walnuts are in that jar! 

We moved on to another station, at which we were to grab a handful of candy corn and count them.  There was a place on our paper for the number of corn in the "Little dude's" handful, and a place for the "Big dude's" handful.  I thought that this was lots of fun, because I love, love, love the word dude.  I got carried away and called my mother-in-law dude once.  It was an accident, and she was amused.  I think.  At any rate, something very funny happened. 

Christian counted out his handful and wrote the number 36 in the proper space.  I grabbed my handful and started counting the pieces out, and when I got to the last one it was also 36!  We looked at each other and giggled.  It was a moment that I won't forget. 

Hungry cowboys need hearty grub, and the kids had visited the Farmer's Market earlier this week to pick out fresh ingredients for the stew they served tonight.  They also had homemade corn muffins.  And it was all very satisfyin'.  And I ain't lyin'. 

This guy loves some cornbread!

Christian went visiting mid-meal, and showed our amazing candy corn results to a few folks.

The teachers and some of the moms worked very hard to make this such a special evening.  Here is Christian with one of his teachers.

And here he is with his other teacher.

Christian is in a wonderful classroom.  He loves his teachers and tells them frequently how much he loves going to school.

He had one thing to say about the soup...

My funny little cowboy.

I've wrangled up a few photos of the special projects that Christian and his classmates have been putting together.  I love seeing the work he does at school.  His creativity amazes me, and delights me.  And the tribute to his father...precious.