Mooch has a lot going on with all of these school visits, so her homeschooling last month was mostly journaling and math manipulatives. I didn't want to stress her out.
She starts rites of passage this Friday with gardening! She's very excited. We'll take pics. She says she's most excited about the sewing, cooking and "fighting" (martial arts). This year's ROP will also include etiquette, spirituality, and history. She has really great friends and family, who are willing to chip in and spend time teaching her the stuff.
We both resume dancing this week. Next week's blog will feature a video of Mooch discussing her style preferences. She'll be doing a lot more video blogging in the coming weeks, because she wants Tuesdays with Mooch to become her own blog somewhere else. I'm fine with that. :)
Mooch had a video slumber party for her birthday a couple of weeks ago. I edited the footage yesterday. The funniest thing is that with her Kung Fu mouth, most of the vocals don't match. She and her friends had a great time, and the video is still super cute. They will be burned to DVD and mailed to each girl by the end of this week. Here's the video:
I did something stupid. It had been so long since I'd been able to really hug my Mooch. First, I had the big belly in the way, and then I had a horrible surgical experience. She's been so understanding. I was finally healing this past week (despite all of the adhesions), all my tape fell off, my scar looks neat and pretty, and I could actually walk around without bending forward a little.
So, I decided I was going to pick her up and give her the best 15 second hug ever. It felt really good. I put her down and thought nothing of it -- other than, "Dang, I forgot how heavy she was!"
The next day, I woke up in excruciating pain as though I'd just had surgery the night before. I could barely walk to the restroom. *sigh* The outer incision is fine. The inner one -- probably not so much. So, recovery begins again. Before, I left the hospital they said, "Remember not to pick up anything heavier than your child." Is it my fault that they didn't specify *which* child they meant?
Dear Hospital Bwana Witch Doctors,
When discharging c-section patients, you really should consider how many children a woman has. The proper phrase should be, "Don't lift anything heavier than your most recent child." Thank you for your consideration.
Mooch turned six this weekend. She was inspired by Raven Symone's "That's What Little Girls are Made Of" music video, which she saw on YouTube, and she wanted to make her own. The kids had so much fun! We did a photoshoot, they learned choreography (for about an hour, which may have been too brief in retrospect), and we shot the video. I added interviews with each child, because I told them the video would be much more interesting to watch when they're 15 if they could hear some of the crazy stuff they said when they were little.
Baba did storytime with the girls and it was such a big hit that they made him tell two more stories the next morning. They also played wii and *lots* of hand games -- ones I'd never heard of, including a new version of "Slide."
Baba tells a story
The kids are engrossed in the story.
I haven't edited the video yet, but I've got pictures!! Each parent will receive a copy of the video with a thank you card in a couple of weeks.
Mooch comes home today. I've missed her so much. She's been my cheerleader through this whole process, but she hasn't gotten to meet her sister yet. The hospital had strict H1N1 rules -- No Visitors Under 18. She'll be home at 3pm. I'm so excited. She was so thrilled even to hear her cry on the phone yesterday. I'll post pics of their meeting later on today.
I'm so proud of everything she did in December. I'll post video clips from her shows next Tuesday. I'm most proud of her attitude. This Sunday she turns 6, but she's every bit of 62. I don't know where all that wisdom comes from sometimes. She has a remarkable ability to work on her character at a young age.
Last year, her focus was on her bossiness, and boy has she come a long way! She's less condescending and more aware of people's feelings. I can't wait to see what age six brings. She'll be doing rites of passage this year, and the celebration will be on her 7th birthday. There will be another at age 14 and every seven years after that. We'll keep you updated with her progress.
Mooch is spending all of December with me, because I can't transport her back and forth to Culver City three days per week to go school, and her father is ... well let's move on. Anyway, yesterday we started on habitats. We discussed briefly forests, deserts, oceans, etc. over a pancake breakfast. I just wanted to see what she already knew. She told me about climate and named a few animals that lived in each ecosystem.
Then after she wrote her spelling words five times each, we decided to make a diorama. She chose the ocean. We used a shoebox, of course, along with construction paper, crayons, scissors, glue, and some sea animals she got from Sea World a couple of years ago. I'd post a pic, but I don't feel like getting up. Maybe I'll put one in tomorrow's blog. She wants me to post videos of her, but I haven't taken a whole lot of them lately. We'll see what happens. Maybe Tuesdays with Mooch will really be Tuesdays with Mooch when I give this kid her own online talk show. Hmmmmm
Mooch didn't get to perform last night. We hustled to find costumes and made it to the studio at 5pm as requested. After sitting around for over an hour, we finally rehearsed the piece. She looked amazing. She's been practicing for the last two days, because she dances with the older girls, and there were a few steps and arm movements that she still didn't have. At about 6:00, the producers of the show called to say they were moving Lula Washington Dance Theatre to 7pm instead of 6:30, because "Santa" had to leave and wanted to hurry up and light the damn tree.
We left the studio at about 6:20pm and drove to Leimert to ensure parking. Of course the meters there run until 9:00pm, so I had to find 8 quarters from the crevices of my car and purse to feed the meter two hours worth. I knew my husband was rushing from Pasadena to get there and see her perform also. Waddling with Mooch and two cameras in tow, we headed over to the festivities. The first thing she noticed was the Channel 7 News van. "Ooh. Maybe I'll be on TV!" she shouted. I just smiled at her. My hip was hurting, and I was just happy that she was happy.
When we arrived at the stage, there was some sweatshirt-wearing dance team performing a hip-hop routine of some sort. It went on and on. It must have been about 15 minutes long. I'm not making that up. We went to the back of the stage to check in with our group and waited another 30 minutes while the whole crowd moved over so they could light up the tree. I must admit that seeing the park light up that way was beautiful.
When the crowd returned, the Leimert Park Chargers, some new Pop Warner cheerleaders, performed for another 20 minutes. First, their youngest squad went up and did about 5 cheers, then their middle girls did the same, and their oldest girls did 3 cheers and two loooonng dances.
Our group was finally up. Mooch was very excited! She had her tap shoes on, and she was in full costume. We watched each number cheering the other girls on. When it got to the number right before Mooch's, the producer came over and said, "We're going to have to cut you guys short." My face fell all the way on to the ground. Not only were there people there to see her, but she had worked so hard. I told her, "You're not going to get to perform, Mooch."
"Why not?" she asked folding her arms. I argued with the lady for a while and she was willing to let them go after two adult groups went, but it was already 8pm at that point, so to have our group wait around more time just to do a two minute dance wasn't going to work. Plus some guy named William kept saying no. Eventually, I just gave up and walked away. "That's it. I'm not performing?" Mooch asked. The lump was swelling in my throat. I couldn't even answer her. I just hurried through the crowd before my tears fell.
I have been so tired for the last week, because sleeping is uncomfortable, but I know how much she loves to perform. I knew how badly she wanted to do this, so I mustered up the strength to pull it together for her. When we got in the car, despite all of my frustration, she said, "It's okay, Mommy. Sometimes things don't go as planned. You taught me that. Remember? I'll be okay." Then I just broke down and completely lost it.
"You're right." I answered, after blowing my brains into a Kleenex. She never shed a single tear, nor did she pout. "You're stronger than I am." I said.
"No, I'm not. We're just strong in different ways." She said. "You like when things are fair, and I understand that a lot of the time they're not. We waited through everyone else's performance, but they wouldn't let us finish ours. That's life." She went on to talk about how she will get to perform in the Kwanzaa show, and there'll be other performances. I pulled onto Venice Boulevard and I was kind of in shock. Sometimes, she really sounds like a grown person. It's frightening. It lets me know, however, that she's going to be alright. Her light is always on. And it's beautiful.
This month, Mooch is gearing up for several performances. She's performing at the Leimert Park Tree Lighting, a couple of shows for the Councilman, and Lula's Kwanzaa show. She is learning a modern piece to "True Devotion" choreographed by Tamica Washington-Miller, a West African dance called "Kakilambe," and an excerpt from "Taratibu" (a foot stomping, hand clapping dance that incorporates chants of self-determination and collective work).
Mooch is excited about becoming a big sister. She says, "I can't wait to see the little sucker. She's taking long enough to develop!" She's not thrilled about eventually sharing her room, but she's strangely enthused about changing diapers. *shrug*
Home School Corner:
Along with Mooch's regular activities, we'll be reading Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and doing a unit of activities surrounding it for half of December. For science we'll do lots of weather related assignments, including predicting, documenting and discussing the weather. She will learn the different types of clouds, why it rains (not meatballs ... hopefully), and the distance of the earth from the sun.
In math we'll be doing Meatball Multiplication. I've designed plates of spaghetti, and Mooch will pretend to serve her "friends" (read: stuffed animals) plates of spaghetti. She'll have to multiply/divide the number of meatballs each time to make sure everyone gets a fair amount.
During social studies, we will go out to a restaurant and allow Mooch to order her own food (speaking to the wait staff on her own without assistance). She'll pay, tip, and conduct all of the business herself. For history, we'll revisit the concept of landfills, covering how they developed, where our trash goes, and what the consequences are.
Lastly, we couldn't read this book with out talking about current events. There's a reporter in the story! She's already done one 5W news report (who, what, when, where, why), but she'll be doing one every week this month. That's about it. We'll keep you updated in this corner.
Spelling Words This Week:
information
situation
caution
fraction
action
creation
navigation
concentration
education
duration
Tuesdays With Mooch: Home School - A Day in the Life of...
People are always asking me all these strange questions about home schooling. They act as though I should be worried that Mooch is not getting an adequate education. I'm pretty sure the kids in the kindergarten class down the block at our local elementary aren't doing half the stuff she's doing. I decided to follow her around the house taking pictures of everything she did when she got home from her half day of school. She attends school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 9am-1pm. We do the rest at home.
This is Mooch doing math. She is on my bedroom floor next to my bed. This lesson teaches place value.
All Mooch has to do is match the number on the card with the number of tens and ones it takes to compose that number. This keeps her carrying and borrowing skills strong, because she has a deep understanding of numbers, patterns, and multiples. She's really into it.
This is Mooch fiddling with a replica of the human body. She knows all the parts and she likes to assemble and disassemble it. We've studied the digestive system in great detail, because it interested her. She's now interested in the skeletal system, so she'll be all bones for the next few weeks.
Though she's been reading for about a year and a half, Mooch's reading really picked up over the summer. She read 5 chapter books in 4 weeks. She loves Junie B. Jones!
We went to the library to explore some other books, and it turns out she really likes Judy Moody as well. She finished half of the book today.
The last thing Mooch does each day (usually about an hour before dinner) is write in her journal. She is free to write whatever she feels. I don't bother her about grammar or punctuation yet. That will come next year as she has already mastered it in speech. What I do is pull out all the misspelled words on the page, and those become her spelling words for the week. A couple of this week's words are: second, leader, and meander.
"Mommy, I'm bored." Those are three words I really never want to hear from a child, who has the master bedroom, tons of toys, and books galore. I don't think she was expecting my response either, though.
"Paint my belly." I said.
"Are you sure you want *me* to paint your belly?" She asked.
"Why not?" I replied, removing my shirt.
"Okay." She responded in a voice that I'll have to admit made me worry a little. Was she going to paint Satan on my belly? Did she know something about this "non-toxic" face paint that I didn't? Anyway, she went to get some brushes, which was pointless, because she ended up using her fingers. She started out very slowly using only green and yellow. I thought she had a plan, but this is what we ended up with:
Art is art. Fortunately, by the time we finished all this it was time for dinner.
Halloween started last Thursday for Mooch. She hopped in my car after school and saw all of the elements of her costume lying in her booster seat. Excitement and wonder beamed from the candy corn smile plastered across her diminutive face. "I'm going to be an awesome witch!" She exclaimed.
The next morning I woke up to the sound of crinkling plastic five minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off. I found Mooch in her room fondling the packaging that contained her wig. "You've got to eat first, then I'll do your makeup. You'll have to get dressed last, so we don't ruin your costume." I told her. She ran to the kitchen, and fixed her self a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats. She poured one for me and left the Rice Milk on the counter. We both ate.
I started on her makeup... Finished getting her ready... and then she went to school. When I picked her up, we visited her previous school's Halloween Carnival. She was well-received, and she had a blast. She also won the costume contest. She and her best friend made cards together, and posed like the divas they are.
We watched the students perform Thriller a few times, and then we came home, so she could be picked up by daddy. I'm told that her father and aunt took her and her brother to Kid Concepts (an indoor playground) Friday night. Mooch says she had a blast.
Saturday I taught at Colburn, and Mooch took my 10am class. Then we came home, I taught a private lesson, and got her right back into that makeup. Things took a lot longer than planned, because I also had to do my own makeup and belly makeup. Mooch was a witch and I was her pregnant black cat. We headed over to the Hello Kitty 35Th Anniversary exhibit at Royal T in Culver City. It was so exciting, because I love Hello Kitty. Mooch was ready for greater festivities, but there weren't arts and crafts or anything at Royal T. Just this stuff.
The Dia De Los Kitty picture creeped me out. So, we left and went to Westfield Shopping Center (formally known as The Fox Hills Mall), so she could trick or treat -- so to speak. Several stores and booths still had candy left. Lots of people laughed at my belly. Some even asked if it was real. Baba was Twitter, so that got quite a bit of attention, too. He had the fail whale plastered across his chest.
After two trips around the mall, my hip was killing me. We left and went to Ladera to chill at one of my student's houses and watch Coraline. Mooch knocked on a few doors in their neighborhood,
...and then we went to Jelani's birthday party, where his cake stole the night. It was a picture of him superimposed over Michael Jackson's body, because he loves MJ. Hilarious! Anyway, here's that:
When we got home planning to collapse and fall unconscious, our Guatemalan neighbors were playing music and screaming until 1am, so we just laid in the bed and waited it out. Mooch fell fast asleep upon pillow contact.
