The Next Taylor Swift?

Charlotte is currently writing a country song. I think. It involves a lot of "oh oh oh" and horses and cowboys. Though Matt is the one who started her and he spelled it as "oooow" which is annoying to me. Charlotte also made up her own lined paper, which is sort of hilarious. I also think I need to teach her about rough drafts and final copies, since she is getting stressed out about putting words in the wrong place.

note that the caption "title" is the largest print on the whole paper. 

Transcript of rough draft (spacing my own, spelling preserved):

"Riding Through The Town" 

Oooooow the horses run in the desert
Ooow ooow ooow
The cowboys ride on the horses
Ooow ooow ooow 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and 8 horses
Ooow Ooow Ooow
The towns people saw the horses
and they

So far, so brilliant, right?

Last Day of Pre-K

Today was Charlotte's last day of pre-K. It also happened to be "costume day." The kids had earned a reward, and one they had decided on was a dress-up day. Their teacher, Mrs. R, was sort of reluctant to put that pressure on everyone the last day, but one of the kids reminded the rest of the students, so she was kinda stuck.

That's okay, it gave Charlotte an excuse to dress up as a pirate again.

This year was a GREAT year for Charlotte. I think I have blogged about it before, but I was really conflicted on whether to push her into Kindergarten this year or have her do a second year of Pre-K. She needed the second year to kind of reinforce all the school rules, and to get extra PT/OT services without it disrupting her academic schedule too much, but I was worried she'd be bored. As I had predicted, she went into the school year reading a few words, and finished pre-K a proficient reader. Well, proficient for a 5 1/2 year old. But Charlotte really needed the extra time to bake. And the extra time with the low student to teacher ratio you get in pre-K. She had three amazing teachers this year who all helped her grow immensely.

Charlotte is feeling a little nervous about Kindergarten, but I know she'll nail it. How can she not? She's Superman/Captain Jack Sparrow/Super Hello Kitty/Charlotte Emily. She's my favorite superhero.

Copied from Facebook

March 14, 2013

"I love your hair. I like the way it looks when it shimmers in the sun. I like the color...you're quite a looker." 

Notes From Today

Charlotte told me today that when she grows up, she wants to be a "rescue person." She wants to live near the ocean and have a swimming dog with a life belt to rescue people from shipwrecks. I think this was inspired by The Bravest Woman in America by Marissa Moss. It's the story of a girl named Ida Lewis, whose father was a lighthouse keeper. Ida loves the sea and the lighthouse, and learns from her dad all about lighthouse upkeep, and learns to row and becomes a strong rower. Her father becomes sickly, and she takes over the care of the lighthouse. She rescues some people, and becomes a hero. Charlotte is super-inspired by this, and is telling me that when she's 8, we need to move near the sea so she can work on her rescue person training.

Last Friday, for Family Movie Night, we watched Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Charlotte has been interested in Star Wars for a while now - some kids in her class are into it and she's seen some of the Lego sets in the Lego aisle at Target. Matt and I figured that she's old enough to handle most of it, and, worst-case-scenario, we'd turn it off mid-movie. Charlotte ended up really liking the movie, and has been talking about it ever since. And asking questions about the whys and wherefores and what happens next? Today when I picked her up from school, I could hear her calling to one of her friends, "Princess Leia, Princess Leia! We need to get back to the Mirrenium Falcon!" Her teacher was cracking up.

"Guess who saw Star Wars on Friday?" I said, rhetorically.

"She's been so funny! She told me she saw 'the ORIGINAL Star Wars.'"

That's my girl.

Five year old in winter, in pictures.

It's not that stuff isn't happening. It's just that I'm sorta lazy? Busy? Hermit-ing?

*shrug*

a million more pictures under the cut. 

Conversation with teacher.

Most days, at pick-up, I ask Charlotte's teacher, Mrs. R, how the day went. And how Charlotte did. She was telling me about a conversation she overheard between Charlotte and her friend A.

A:  You could come to my house and we could have a playdate and watch "The Little Mermaid!"

Charlotte:  My mom and dad do not prefer "The Little Mermaid." But you can come to my house and we can watch "The Polar Express!"

I was laughing and kind of sheepish.  "It's true!" I said to Mrs. R. "She gets to watch lots of things but I just find 'The Little Mermaid' kind of creepy now. The part where she gives up all this stuff for a guy she doesn't know..."  Both Mrs. R and a friend agreed that it was a little off-putting.  I still felt a little sheepish about it, I don't want to be That Mom....but at the same time, "The Little Mermaid" is kind of an awful message wrapped up with some really catchy songs.

hipster ariel jpg copied from buzzfeed

QOTD: Overwrought

"I'm not crying anymore, but my mouth is still upside-down."

Santa has all the best tech, I bet.

One of those long and winding Charlotte lines of reason. One of Charlotte's favorite shows is Wild Kratts on PBS.  It's an animated show where they talk about animals and all their features and how they are kind of like super-powers. One episode, called "The Gecko Effect" talks about how geckos feet aren't like suction cups at all, they are covered with tiny cili (cilia? cilie? just doing this from memory, folks) that have an electrical charge. Basically, geckos stick to the wall with static electricity.

Charlotte & I were picking up Matt from work one day and she was telling him what she learned about geckos. She had picked up from the show that people had not found a way to re-create this yet. Matt said that he had heard that there was a lab in Germany that was figuring it out, and Charlotte was very excited. She and he talked about other developments in science that came from the animal world - she had also learned about spider silk from another episode of Wild Kratts.

Today, sitting at lunch, Charlotte was talking about the basilisk lizard and how it can run on water. "Hey!" she said. "I need to ask Daddy. Maybe Santa has figured out basilisk lizards, and he can help me for Christmas."

Charlotte wants Santa to help her walk on water.  Heh.

Favorite Things, Right Now

It's been a long time since I blogged, for a lot of reasons.  But certainly not for lack of material.  Charlotte is such a funny little person, and I definitely owe the blog a post of Charlotte quotes.  But to ease into things, here are some things that Charlotte is really into right now:

* Pirates.  Charlotte is into the tv show Jake and the Neverland Pirates, but also the book The Pirates Next Door, and Talk Like a Pirate Day, and anything piratical that isn't "too spooky."  This includes certain snippets of The Pirates of the Caribbean movie (enough to recognize Captain Jack Sparrow).  She even had a vaguely pirate themed birthday party for her classmates, and wore a pirate shirt to her family birthday party.  She has a "pirate playlist" in Spotify, and she's going to be a pirate for Halloween.  Here she is at her birthday party, in the museum's dress up clothes.  (We should have taken that jacket, I swear.)  When she really likes something, she gives it "two hooks up" - holding her thumbs up, but curved like hooks.

* Making Books.

* Representational art, finally.

* Reading.  I can't believe I have a kid who is old enough to read, but she is.  Charlotte is pretty good at reading short words, and sounding things out, and very good at remembering words she's seen if someone tells her what they are.  She's constantly surprising us by saying, "Oh, that says X," and we say, "How do you know that?" and she says, "I read it."

* Pre-school, friends, and marriage. Specifically, she wants to marry a boy in her pre-school.  Luckily, he wants to marry her, too.  When I dropped her off today, he said, "It's Charlotte! Hey Charlotte!  You wanna come sit next to me?"

* Family.  Grandparents and cousins especially.

* Playmobil, LaLaLoopsy, anything else small, plastic, and with a million tiny pieces.*

* Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.

* Holiday planning.

*  Music.  Imagination Movers, Blues Brothers Soundtrack & Nightmare Before Christmas (soundtrack only).

Retroactive Post: 5th Birthday!

Family party, the day before:

More later.