May

In May we get out building materials, bugs and anything that can help us spin a fairy tale.  To learn about fairy tales you have to read some first.  Nathan’s favorite is “Jack and the Beanstalk” and he can be heard wandering around the house these days calling “Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum” while Kaitlyn states in a funny voice “beans are beans” every time we have some in our dinner. 

In May we made up some Fairy Tales of our own acting them out with Robin Hood, Princess Penelope, the Dragon, the jailed witch and the Scary King… at least the “Scary King” made Robin Hood run when Robin Hood tried to ask for the Princess’s hand in marriage.  This struck up a few conversations answering questions like “when will I get married?” and “He’s not going to kiss me, is he?” and “I wonder what color his eyes will be”.  The only things we established were that Kaitlyn is not going to let anyone kiss her and that her future husband might just have orange eyes!!!  (giggle giggle)  Another time we set the bad witch free from the dungeon after Robin Hood, who ate Penelope’s birthday cake entirely and without sharing, had to make a new “pomegranate chocolate cream cake” (the princesses favorite flavor) and we realized there were no cows in the kingdom to make the cream so our witch was the only source for cream as she could make it magically appear.  The witch promised to be a good and helpful witch from now on if she could just get out of the dungeon and the princess forgave Robin Hood after she would pay attention long enough to discover he brought her a new pomegranate chocolate cream cake.  All’s well that ends well.

The kitties had a good time playing in and around the castle as well making up their own stories.  Scruffles is getting so big, but at 2 lbs. 9 oz. still is small enough to walk through the castle (see left) and across the moat on the drawbridge for the time being.

Older kids abandoned Nathan for the outdoors after school on nice days so he decided to find his muscles and bring his box of Legos into the kitchen to keep me company while I made dinner.  Sigh!  His favorite pieces are the orange construction cone and pilchard the Lego cat.   But stacking the bricks is always awesome too.  Nathan also put on the Bob the Builder musical tool belt, putting hammers, wrenches, and screwdrivers in the loops.  We even went grocery shopping like that at least once.  Can we fix it?  Yes we can!

 

Kaitlyn celebrated Bitty-bitty’s birthday almost every afternoon, while her brother was still napping, with a tea party and songs.  She always invited me and usually she had an entourage of other baby dolls as well for the party.

We got out the construction sets and worked on skills of building and putting things together by hammering or using a screw driver or wrench.  With all the “building” it’s ironic that I feel lucky to still have the house standing!

Nathan runs runs runs around the backyard now for the pure joy of running.  He stops long enough to dig up potted plants or visit with Luci, the dog next door.

This month was less rainy than last month!  Kaitlyn likes finishing her meals outdoors (please note the bold fashion statement on the left is her own) while her brother keeps finding “spiders” on his adventures.  Everything is a spider to him right now and he’s very excited about all the bugs he finds crawling about.  Worms are fun to find right now too as we lift up the rocks to reveal their hiding places and we watch them crawl away. 

Puzzles about bugs and construction were put together, dumped and put together again.

Even more building!  Nathan and Kaitlyn sang the Alphabet song over and over again as they built this tower up and knocked it down.  Nathan sang because he loves this song.  Kaitlyn sang because it was the only way Nathan wouldn’t knock the tower down prematurely.  He KNOWS the alphabet song.

Kaitlyn began writing on her own in earnest this month.  She came and asked me what letters make the “th” sound (that’s a pretty good question when you’re four), then disappeared and when I found her later still working on a paper she said she’d written a story; “There wons was ah chid who snod” (translation: “There once was a child who snored”).  That’s pretty good!  If she doesn’t know how to spell the whole word then at the very least she puts down the word’s beginning sound and remembers the story from that clue she gives herself.  There was another about a “gant”(giant)… so reading and writing seem to be coming along.  She loves to use her free time to write and draw.

Nathan surprised me this month and began counting to ten on fingers, buttons on clothes, or as seen here counting while stacking magnetic bugs.  After ten he needs some help up to twenty knowing that most of them are “teen”.  He holds up one hand of fingers for the number five and if you ask how many fingers are on his two hands held up he’ll put up one finger at a time and then when he’s done all his fingers tell you “ten”.  No matter how many times I’ve watched my little children growing up I’m always amazed as I watch them learn and put ideas together.  It is miraculous to experience.

May was a busy and fun month.