Chief Strategists

At 8 1/2, the girls' milestones are not what they used to be.  They've learned to roll over...to walk and talk...to ride a bike.  Surely one day they'll learn to swim proficiently too (!!!), but it seems less frequent as BIG KIDS that there's a write-it-down milestone.

What happened earlier this week, though, I'm counting in that camp.

Monday night, I came home and made Hubby's belated birthday dinner, and I had just a few minutes to chill out with the girls before their bedtime.  I was tired, but when A asked to play Connect 4, I thought that sounded like a great activity.

Game 1, she won.  She pondered...she postured...and she won!

OK...best out of three, I offered her.

Game 2, she won again!  Night over!

I've never followed a let-the-kiddos-win philosophy.  Nope, we play fair and square.  And my A beat me twice in a row!  With actual strategy!  Slightly bruised though my ego may have been, I was one proud mama!

I challenged A to a rematch on Tuesday night.  I won our best out of five series, 3-1.  I had to work for it, though!  I was watching her consider different moves.  And from my vantage point through the blue plastic grid, it was amazing to see her little mind work.

B wanted in on the action, and I suggested she play the winner of our series.  I am still chuckling that she said, "I don't wanna play the winner!"  HA!  And -- knowing she likely wanted to play me -- does that mean she had her money on her sister to win???  Ack!!!

B pondered and postured, just as her sister had.  I managed to win the best of three series 2-0, though.

Stepping back, this little exchange over the past couple of nights has been invigorating.  Wowza!  Bring it on, milestones!

My Traveling Sidekick

When it was time to get GG home a couple of weeks ago, we had to change our plans a little bit.  Instead of meeting my uncle about 1 hour and 15 minutes away, we agreed to take her closer to home...about a 2 hour and 15 minute drive for us.

It's not really possible for all five of us (our family + GG) to fit comfortably in our car [as this mama has to wedge in the backseat between the car seats...and she does not do very well with that], I was planning that the girls and I would drive GG down.

That morning, though, Baby B asked to stay home with Daddy.  "It's Father's Day!" she rationalized.  "I want to be with Daddy!"  He couldn't resist that logic, and Baby A agreed to go with me.  We made our way down without incident, had lunch with GG and my uncle, and then A and I headed back north.

It was the most amazing trip!  We only listened to music for maybe 15 minutes...we TALKED the whole time!  My A was incredibly inquisitive.  Yes, I challenged her with math problems, but in turn she made me THINK!

I wish I'd had a video camera to record her musings, but I did jot down a few when we got home...

Math
We were passing Miss C's exit on the interstate, and I reminded A that she drives that far every day to work, about 45 minutes.  A said, "45 minutes each way!  Wow!  That's 90 minutes!"  She said this so matter-of-factly, without any hesitation, it definitely caught me by surprise.

I quizzed A off and on.  "How many seconds are in 4 minutes?" I asked her.  It took her a few seconds to work through it, but she answered correctly, "240!"

And as we were heading back home, A looked at the clock.  "It's 1:30 now, and we left at 9:00.  We've been gone 4 1/2 hours!"  (I swear I know some adults who can't do "clock math" that proficiently!)

History
Baby A was all about the Titanic for some reason.  What was it made of?  Did it just break in half?  What happened to the people on the ship?  How did they call for help without a phone?  Are the people still on the bottom of the ocean?  Were there sharks?  How long does it take for bones to decay?  Why don't they bring everything up from the bottom of the ocean?  You'd need a submarine to go down there.

And on...and on...and on.  I did my best to answer her questions...wowza!

Modes of Transportation
My girl has been fascinated by wagons since we started reading the Little House on the Prairie series.  She's been dating most things in her mind with the question, "Was this when there were wagons?  Or cars?"  All the way back to Biblical times, she wants to know.

And then there was conversation about airplanes...how they work, how fast they can go.

***

When we got to Nashville, we stopped at Whole Foods to pick up a few things, and then we made our way to Starbucks for a quick snack.  My A remembered exactly what we bought the last time we made that trip...several months ago...including where we parked.

As a special treat, I got her one of the mini frappucinos, strawberries and cream.  She was super excited...and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of my BIG KID enjoying her BIG KID treat.  She only had about half of it, though.  "It's too sweet, like icing," she told me.  Reason #1,569,312 I love this kid.  I thought that was so mature of her!

This baby girl was a HOOT!  She was a great traveling sidekick, for sure!

Stream of Consciousness

This week was the letter “A” at preschool.  Baby A was taking a picture of herself, wearing an Alabama sweatshirt.  She drew a picture of an airplane, and she colored pictures of an astronaut and an alligator that I printed from the computer.

Baby B found apples and avocados from the grocery store sale paper.  She also thought about “ants”, but we knew it would be tough to find a picture of ants in a magazine.  I remembered seeing fingerprint ants once upon a time.  A quick Pinterest search reminded me what to do.

The girls were tickled to play with the ink pad, and I let them use my pen (which is always a big deal to them!) to draw the legs and faces.  [Our ants all had smiling faces, of course.]

As we were constructing our ants, we talked about them having three parts to their bodies…

…this led us to think about our book on butterflies and moths…and our book on bees…both of which detail the parts of an insect’s body…

…that conversation turned to bees and ants both living in colonies…

...and that morphed into a conversation about the 13 original colonies of the United States.

I think about this all the time, how one thing leads to another.  I just love being able to follow the girls’ minds and spark their interests.  Never underestimate the power of a preschooler’s brain!