Much better week

Maggie has been having some trouble adjusting when she comes back from her Dad's house. I think she stays up very late there and then sleeps in, which is fine except we have to get up early to get to Jeremiah and Kandice's house on time. So she's usually very tired. But I think also it's just hard for her. She tends to be moody and quick to anger (or be sad). I feel so bad for her. I try to be extra loving and considerate and just make it as easy as possible. It's hard going back and forth and I want to help.

Her reading is just amazing. She reads stories and is starting to memorize a lot of words. She sounds words out silently sometimes and then reads them. She's also started pointing out words she knows in books, which I don't remember her doing before. It's very, very exciting.

On Tuesday we went to the park to meet some new friends and it was FREEZING. Oh my goodness. We stayed about 45 minutes and that was really too long. She had fun though. She pushed her new friends on a merry go round and got to ride in it.

We'd had another park playdate for later that day but it was only getting colder so instead we went to the museum. I had wanted to see a show in the Planetarium but we were a little too late (I refuse to wake a sleeping baby) but we were early for Flight of the Butterflies in the Omni. Since we've been learning a lot about bugs. It seemed perfect. Maggie loved the movie. It was really cool.

Maggie's a bit taken aback by the cruelty or coldness of nature. There was a scene where some fire ants pushed a caterpillar into their ant hill and it started getting covered with ants. A few minutes later, Maggie asked what happened to that caterpillar. I think she thought it was going to flash back and the caterpillar would be saved but. . .

While waiting for our Omni movie to come on, there was an ad for hot dogs. Four hot dogs were wearing different hats. Maggie loves to name/label things. So she said, "Look Mom, a cowboy, a general (?), a magician, and. . . at the beach." Well done. Here are the general and beach hats. The magician hat was a top hat.

General?

 

 

 

 

at the beach

Wednesday morning we got all ready for school. We went and got Jake and headed out. At the 820 and 121/183 split, traffic just stopped we sat there for about an hour before we were finally able to exit and go home. So no school. :(

When we got back to K&J's house I told Maggie to look in our bag that I had packed a bunch of new stuff and to pick something to do. She found a craft where you put beads in a frame of Saturn and bake it. It was fun and turned out very cute.

Maggie's new glasses. Aren't they cute?

After that we colored for a while. Maggie asked to watch bug videos while we colored, which we did.

Then we went digging for bugs. We found several earthworms and a gross larvae thing. I had no idea what it was so we came in and googled images of larvae. It was either a beetle or a June bug. I set it outside for us to explore later but when we looked later, it was gone. Oops. Next time we'll set it up a home immediately so we can watch it.

Later Maggie asked to watch Polar Express! Very odd but we watched it. We also read about a million books through the day. I try to pack up a bag of our books every week so she can choose something to read, if she wants.

On Thursday, we had tumbling class, which Maggie loves. She did a flip on the parallel bars, which was awesome. She even held onto the bar with no assistance.

A little later in the afternoon, we went to a local strawberry patch and picked strawberries. It was so fun. After we'd bought the strawberries, we went to a little pond and watched ducks. Maggie had me pick a flower which she then gifted to me. :)

Keys taste good. Nom nom.

Me picking the flower.

Me receiving the flower as a gift. So sweet.

After that we went to a playground and mostly swung. It would be a great place for a picnic. There are tons of grassy areas and it's about 2 minutes from K&J's house.

That afternoon and evening Maggie did not seem to feel well. She complained of her tummy hurting but she could give any specifics. I offered various things (ginger ale, crackers, rubbing her tummy, going potty) but she didn't want to do any of those things. She also had really bad (and not so nice smelling) gas. Her Grandpa teased her about it and she was so embarrassed. He said, is that you? and she yelled, No! So then she went and hid. I tried to tell her it was okay but she was embarrassed. Later she did go potty and said she felt better. Not sure what that was about. She was also very tired all day, even though she had her regular amount of sleep. When we got in the car to go home, she was fast asleep before I got out of the neighborhood.

Friday was kind of a cluster. Because strawberry picking had been at 1pm on Thursday, I had it in my head we were going rollerskating at 1pm on Friday. Unfortunately, it was at 10am, which would have been perfect but since I didn't realize the mistake until a few minutes til 10am. Quite the bummer, I think Maggie would love rollerskating. Then Maggie decided she didn't want to go to cooking class and Jake's nap lasted too long to go to Memaw's house.

We pretty much just watched bug videos and played outside. Maggie found 16 pill bugs, which she put in a container. She spilled said container in the car and freaked out. I'm thinking I'll insist on lids from here on out.

We made cookies again and took them to some police officers in Mansfield. They were very nice to Maggie and she seemed to enjoy talking to them.

After that we had a dinner/ice cream date to avoid traffic going back to Keller. Friday night we had a camp out in a school gym to celebrate Jonah's birthday. It was very fun and loud. There were lots of cool games and snacks and fun.

Maggie enjoyed yelling at the boys to settle down so she could go to sleep. I didn't mention to her that perhaps yelling was also impeding her ability to sleep.

We didn't get much sleep before we were up and cleaning up and heading home for Nana's birthday breakfast. We went and had a very nice breakfast. Maggie was very excited about giving Nana her birthday card that she had made.