Ok so now you need to hear about Girl V

Girl V turned 3 on Jan. 20. She gets so many presents from her paternal grandparents that I have not given her any of the things I bought for Christmas OR Birthday lest she be totally spoiled.
She is very interested in words and letters and we are really hoping she will learn to read this year. She knows the words "up" and "go," we are working on sounding out words. I KNOW that if she could read she would self-amuse a lot more by reading. That's why we are so hot on it.
She likes to look at her Bible story picture books. I got a little worried recently because she was talking about "the three men who went in the hot hot fire but didn't get burned because of God." I worried that she was getting confused about whether or not fire really burns you, since the drawing of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednago in the fire shows that they are just fine! I also had a hard time explaining why David gets to hit Goliath in the head with a rock, when we have a no-hitting rule in our house. Basically, it's like those word games in which you have to get your teammates to guess a concept without using key words that most people would use to explain that concept - since Girl V doesn't get ideas like "Chosen people" or "miracle."
We are thinking about pre-school for next year. Really we should have done it this year but she was not really reliably toilet trained and I would not have been willing to commit in Feb. of last year, which is when you have to sign up. There are 2 options, one is 5 days a week at the Montessori school, which seems like a lot, and of course costs more. The other is only 2 days a week, which might be better, although I am wary because it is a Protestant outfit, and I need that crap like I need a hole in the head. I have not gotten the info for the 2-day option. I just know she was so lonely this winter and was crying that she had no friends, and that made me feel sad.
This week she is excited about finding treasure. One of her babysitters made a treasure map with her and hunted for treasure in our house, and I dug out a book that was about finding treasure, and she thinks it is very exciting. She even made up a little song about it. The lyrics are "I love to find treasure all day! I love to find treasure all day!" and she jumps around singing it. She has no idea that treasure is valuable or what she would do with it once she got it, or why it would be hidden in the first place. But she likes the adventure of finding it.
In the 2 months since I last posted, we also got rid of her remaining nap in favor of her sleeping from about 7 pm to about 8 am (and also being completely cranky after about 5:30 pm). It is not perfect but it gives me some time in the evenings to unwind.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I KNOW that if she could read she would self-amuse a lot more by reading. That's why we are so hot on it.

My mama taught me to read in self-defense - so that she could get back to HER reading! It worked.

Fr. S.T. said...

Actually, you do need at least one hole in your head for food, water, and air. But we understand.

Convenor said...

Dear Christine,

It would be very kind of you if you could let your readers know about the December issue of CHRISTVS REGNAT, a journal of Catholic heritage from Ireland:

http://catholicheritage.blogspot.com/2009/12/christvs-regnat-december-2009.html

Subscribers would be most welcome! We'd also be delighted if you linked to/followed/blogrolled our blog:

http://www.catholicheritage.blogspot.com/

Pray for me!

God bless you!

St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association

Unknown said...

Hey there - I'm looking for your husband's paper that he wrote many years ago on the Improperia (the Good Friday Reproaches). He posted a link to it at a couple different sites, but the link is now bad -
http://www.sodality.org/Improperia.pdf

and he (Old Oligarch) used to have a blog which he hasn't added to since 2005 -
http://old-oligarch.blogspot.com/

At any rate, if you happen to read this, and he could email me that paper, I'd love to read it, as I'm writing a kind-of similar paper myself ("Should We Sing The Reproaches?"), and always looking for good source material.

Thank you!

My email:
Jpiano12 (at) netscape.net