directionally challenged

I ask the younger lad: "are you a north-going Zax or a south-going Zax?"

"I'm going forward.  Is that north?"

Could be.
(good answer)

fishin' for a good book?

Since we go to storytime on Mondays, I had hoped to post a book review yesterday.  That didn't work out because instead I was trying to figure out how to broil our dinner.

Anyhow...

The books at yesterday's storytime were about fish.  One of them has become an instant favorite here.  I've lost track of how many times we've read it in the past 24 hours.  Normally I am not one to assign voices to dialogue when I read aloud, but I make an exception for The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen.  Dan Hanna's colorful illustrations bring the aquatic characters to life as they try to cajole, admonish, and tease the fish with the fat lip to get rid of his mopey expression (which he thinks he's stuck with).  Their respective voices just spring from the rhyming text.  I can't help but go with the flow. 

Trying to contain one's excitement is challenging at best for adults, but sometimes next to impossible for children.  At least that's the case for the little boy who brings home a fish he names Otto in A Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer (illustrated by P.D. Eastman of Are You My Mother? notoriety).  The pet shop owner gives the boy very specific instructions as to the care and feeding of the fish -- "only a little, or something might happen.  You never know what."  By the end of the story, the boy knows...

For a wordless picture book to capture the imagination, check out Caldecott Award-winning Flotsam by David Weisner, the story of a boy who finds an underwater camera on the shore one lazy afternoon at the beach. 

what not to wear

The younger lad is a dapper little guy.  He knows what he likes and takes an interest in what he wears. 

When he suggested I wear a certain pair of shoes, only to discover that I in fact had donned a different pair, he was greatly displeased.  "No -- not those!  Those don't look good!" 

I had to explain to him that the shoes I was wearing were more comfortable at the time than the seemingly sensible flats he had chosen for me, as I had just been wearing a similar pair of flats that required some, um, breaking in and my feet were kind-of sore as a result of wearing them.  He found this excuse to be pretty lame.

He's probably right. 

perish the thought

They're after my chocolate.

The lass hears me rustling in a snack container and says "choc'lat" (as in chips) and makes it clear she wants some.   
How'd she know that's what in there?

The younger lad tells his elder brother as the latter boards the Bambini Ride, "we bought a chocolate bar at Target this morning.  Want to share it?"   
What's this "we" business?  Who said anything about sharing?

The elder lad moseys into the pantry and asks if he can have "something from the secret stash."
Apparently, it isn't so secret.

safety first

Somehow, a few Goldfish were spilled into the cup holder of my elder lad's car seat sometime during the drive home from school.  As it happened, a little bit of water then found its way into the cup holder.  Turns out Goldfish don't really swim all that well.  The resulting aroma gave rise to some exclamations as to the degree of stinkiness the mixture of Goldfish and water measured, which led to conjectures regarding the hazardous situation now present.

"Mom.  We'll clean this up.  You won't have to." 
"Oh.  Thank you."

"We'll wear our masks and safety glasses."

Good plan.

buddies at the book fair

The book fair has come to the elder lad's school.  Lord, give me strength.  I am weak in book fair situations.  I always have been, from the time I was a school girl myself.

This afternoon we unloaded after school (a rarity, for obvious reasons) and went to check out the book fair.  Once we made it inside the door (which took some doing considering the close quarters and the wide swath we cut with one lass in the stroller, the other in my sling, and two lads on foot), negotiations began on what book(s) we might take home with us.  We settled on John, Paul, George, and Ben (which we've read before and still quote to each other randomly), among a few others including an engrossing read on trucks of all sorts, two Skippyjon Jones books, and one on dinosaurs.  It's for a good cause, right? 

Fun as the book fair was on its own, more memorable to me were the introductions we had with a few of the elder lad's classmates and teachers.  Each time he'd say, "want to meet my brother and my sisters?"   They all very graciously agreed.

He's the biggest of the small ones (that's a reference to some colorful characters in Skippyjon Jones), and he's so proud. 
As we are of him.

story time returns! and some new books by favorite authors

Story time at our library resumed today!  How we do look forward to story time largely because of the talented and dedicated children's librarian who presents it.  Sometimes we're the only ones there, which is a real shame considering its excellent and engaging (i.e. fun) presentation.

As we were getting ready to go this morning, the younger lad said "I hope she brings the instruments.  I want to play the star".  It took me some silent eyebrows-furrowed pondering to figure out he meant a triangle.   I told him I didn't know if she'd bring the instruments, but that she just might.  She did, and he got to play his "star."

(He *does* know it's called a triangle, not a star -- I think.)

The lass and her brother shared a carpet square as they listened intently to the stories -- all about bears -- and played their instruments.  At dinner time the lad proudly told his daddy about playing the "star" (see caveat above), and the lass chimed in with "shaker!", which was her favorite among the instruments she played.

In honor of story time's return, here are a couple of new books by authors I've noted before:

The boy in Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka's new Little Black Crow has some questions for a bird he spies circling in the sky ranging from the here and now of where the bird goes to the more far-flung inquiries into the crow's life experiences (which the boy assumes might parallel his own).  Raschka's watercolors in this book are more subdued than those in his illustrations of Norton Juster's The Hello, Goodbye Window (which I love for the feelings it evokes of the bond we have with our parents and grandparents), but they are just as beautiful and emotive of the introspective wonderings of this curious boy.

Having hit upon a new at least semi-healthy chocolate cookie recipe for snack time in the elder lad's Kindergarten classroom last week, I find Amy Krouse Rosenthal's latest book on the sweet subject particularly timely.  One Smart Cookie: Bite-Size Life Lessons for the School Year and Beyond (illustrated, like the others in this series, by Jane Dyer and her daughter Brooke) is the latest in a series of vocabulary and life skill lessons presented through the lens of creating and sharing cookies among friends.  Internalizing words including "organized," "prompt," "empathy," "integrity," and "prompt" and their meanings never tasted so good.

Story time is a family tradition, since the time my beloved and I were children ourselves.  We are very fortunate to have such an excellent story time right here in our midst. It's a great way to start our week, and it's been the avenue to developing friendships with not only the librarian herself but also some of our neighbors. 

Here's hoping we have our instrumental nomenclature straightened out by next week's story time...