Tiddlelipom and piddleliday! (Week 27)

I have no clue what that means but Pippi Longstocking sure does, and she says it all the time. We've had a lovely bit of luck this week. We'd recently finished reading Pippi Longstocking together, and then we learned that the local private school was putting on a production of this same tale. So we went, of course.

It was a great intro to theatre for the kids. Hannah was full of questions, about the program, the stage and set, why it didn't start when they said it would, what's with the music? She watched it with her usual serious look. Leif being older could follow the dialogue and got the jokes and the various characters. They both asked why the play didn't show the fire scene, or the big boat scene, and it took some time to explain how that was not possible in a stage, how movies differ. They set the play against a background of 80's music, so that's my next project for Hannah, to get her some great old-skool tunes.

Our winter craft class ended up meeting one more time. While we are not yet finished the knitting portion of our project, I do have pictures of what they've made so far. Now, I did help a smidge here and there, but overall the kids made these themselves. Stitched, glued, etc.


This is Hannah's beige Inuit dude, igloo and seal.



This is Leif's brown Inuit dude, igloo and seal.




Aren't they great?!!

We finished up soccer classes this week. Hannah is doing really well at it, both in her skill level and that she's enjoying the class. Her class is right before Leif's and then she is able to join in for Leif's class as well and play alongside the other kids. I feel great about this because she is happy, she's willing, she really does like playing soccer. Leif helps the coach out with Hannah's class, and he is working on playing down to the level of those kids; not being Mr. Hotshot all the time. We've talked about how important it is for their age to gain confidence, to feel that you can accomplish these little tasks well, and how he can help give the younger kids that feeling, and it doesn't change how good he is or how others see his own skill level. Phew.

The kids have spent a lot of time in the hot tub this week. It's become a morning ritual to jump in and play for a hour. They've developed a whole world in there. They get frisbees and lots of plastic animals, and create herds and families, and ferry them across the tub in the overturned frisbees. Some sink and must be rescued, others are adopted by bigger animals because there is no mother or father of that species.







Leif received a coded reply from Taro, but I'm not telling you about it until next week. Mwahahahaha . . . . (Okay in truth, he hasn't opened it yet).

C