Christina, Author at A Mommy Story

Oct 31, 2008

Haiku Friday: Halloween!

October 31, 2008 By Christina

It’s Mira’s second
Halloween – this year she will
go trick-or-treating

Last year she cried out
“Help me Obi-Wan, and get
me out of this thing!”

(Best photo)

This year a rag doll
Again with a hat because
she still needs more hair

(Cutest costume under 2)

The one with curls, though?
She wants to be a robot
now. Where’d the bat go?

Too bad for her, ‘cuz
if she wants candy then she
will be Super Girl.

(Cutest costume over 3)

Tonight is trick-or-treat, and this is the first year both girls will be coming with me to get candy. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to keep track of them both without losing Mira to some welcoming house. (You know she’d do it, too.) Wish me luck, and have a happy Halloween everyone!

(Photos above are included for the Parent Bloggers blog blast this weekend, and are labeled for their costume contest, sponsored by Blurb. You have until Sunday to enter this blog blast with pictures of your kids’ best costumes as well.)

To play along for Haiku Friday, follow these steps:

1. Write your own haiku on your blog. You can do one or many, all following a theme or just random. What’s a haiku, you ask? Click here.

2. Sign the Mister Linky below with your name and the link to your haiku post (the specific post URL, not your main blog URL). DON’T sign unless you have a haiku this week. If you need help with this, please let me know.

3. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button at the top.

REMEMBER: Do not post your link unless you have a haiku this week! I will delete any links without haiku!

Filed Under: Cordy, holidays, Mira

Oct 29, 2008

I’ve Been Tricked By My Four Year Old

October 29, 2008 By Christina

For a reason I’ll never understand, Cordy likes to make people think she’s incapable of doing anything. Ask her to lift something? She’ll strain and grunt and exclaim, “It’s soooooo heavy!” when five minutes before I watched her lift something three times as heavy without any effort. Ask her to count to 10? “I don’t know how” she’ll say even though she was counting to 30 earlier in the day. Ask her to kick a ball and she’ll make a large effort and miss the ball, falling to the ground in defeat, even though she’s an expert at kicking our soccer ball into the net.

Anytime she’s asked to perform on cue, it seems that she suddenly forgets how to do whatever it is you ask her to. This can be a real pain, especially when it comes to cleaning up her toys.

Every Wednesday I volunteer in Cordy’s preschool classroom. I like to help out her teacher, and it gives me a chance to see what Cordy’s doing at school, too. Recently they’ve had a student teacher helping out, and a few weeks ago she asked if she could do a full evaluation on Cordy to gain the practice she needs at this task. I agreed, but warned her that Cordy often likes to underperform.

As expected, Cordy tried to underperform on the first part of the evaluation. When asked if she knew her own name, she sighed “I don’t know” and continued the chain of “I don’t know’s” through the first several questions. Her preschool teacher, a woman Cordy respects, overheard this and sharply told her, “Cordy, you know your name! Answer the questions, you turkey.” At that point Cordy began to answer properly.

This week, the student teacher needed to do the other half of the evaluation, and this time she brought in candy as a reward. For each section Cordy completed, she was given a piece of candy. I watched her evaluation out of the corner of my eye while I helped the other kids with their art projects, wondering if the reward would convince Cordy to cooperate. From what I could tell she was answering most of the questions and doing what she was asked to do.

After I cleaned up, I wandered over to the corner of the room and stood out of Cordy’s sight to watch the remainder of the evaluation. At this point the student was showing Cordy a page words – all of them the names of colors, but all of them in black lettering, so there was no clue to the color name written. She asked Cordy to read each color’s name, and I immediately thought, Wow, she’s doing stuff way over Cordy’s head now…

Imagine my surprise when Cordy looked at the words and started naming them: “Red. Blue. Green. W…w..white. Bl…black. Pink. Yellow.” After naming nearly every color without any help, the page was turned and another page of words greeted her – each was a number spelled out, and they weren’t in order. Cordy got one without any problem, but then stumbled on the next one, because she expected two. She was getting tired and losing focus at this point, but she did manage to name about a third of the numbers with a little help.

Afterwards, I walked over to Cordy’s teacher and said, “I had no idea Cordy could read the names of colors! When did you teach her that?”

Her teacher also looked surprised and said, “We’ve never taught that yet, so she didn’t learn it from me.” We both laughed. “You know,” she added, “I think Cordy can read all of the days of the week, too. I’ve seen her looking at them and pointing to each one as she says the word. She knows a lot more than she lets on.”

The teacher’s aide overheard us, and said, “Just yesterday she read a word on another kid’s shirt. She pointed to his shirt and said ‘trouble’, which was the word written on his shirt.”

Apparently my daughter is starting to read and hasn’t bothered to tell anyone yet. We read books together every day, and I always point to words and ask her what they are, but she never knows. Why she would choose to be so secretive about this skill is a mystery to me, but she proved today that she can read several words, and she is pretty good at sounding out words she doesn’t know, also. The student teacher said she did great on all of the exercises – she’s a smart kid.

Now I wonder what else she knows that she’s holding back from telling us?

And I thought she was just looking at the pictures…

Filed Under: Cordy, school

Oct 27, 2008

Amazed At Democracy In Action

October 27, 2008 By Christina

While I filled out my absentee ballot last week, Aaron still had not received his, so on Saturday we decided to go to the county Board of Elections so that he could cast his ballot early.

I’m impressed at how flexible the county is for early voting. Here in Columbus, you can vote any of the seven days of the week, with morning, afternoon and evening hours available. Since early voting has been open for three weeks, we didn’t expect it to be very busy late on a Saturday afternoon.

Ha.

Here was the parking lot we encountered (sorry for the fuzzy camera phone pics):

At times they were directing traffic

And here was what we found at the top of the stairs:

That’s a line wound around a rope guide four times, and it still continued around the curtains

There were hundreds of people in line, with new people steadily streaming in as others walked out after voting. The Democrats were out in the parking lot, politely inquiring if we would like to have a Democrat sample ballot. (It basically shows you who all of the Dems are in the county elections.) Many people accepted the small piece of paper with thanks, while a few said no thank you and continued on, and the volunteers thanked them in return. There were no Republican volunteers there, but I would think everyone would be just as polite if they were there, also.

There’s no way I could say for sure which way people would vote just by looking at them, but based on the number of people who happily accepted Democrat ballots, or those who specifically aimed themselves towards a volunteer, I’d guess that more than 50% were voting Democrat. (And that’s with me being cynical and assuming 30% of the people took one of the handouts just to be polite – in total, I saw roughly 80% of people taking the sample ballots as I looked out the window.)

While I waited for Aaron to wind his way through the line, I watched the people coming in and out. The mood was energetic and in some cases, downright jubilant. A television crew was wandering the waiting area, looking for first time voters to interview. They found young college students, often voting together in packs, who said they understood the importance of this election and want to make sure their voices are heard. The crew also found immigrants of all ages who were voting for the first time, either because they had recently become citizens, or because they felt like they had something to vote for this time.

The crowd was a very diverse mix, with people of all ages and ethnicities there. I saw many families with young children in line, and I saw families assisting their very old relatives. The line was long, but no one seemed to mind that much. 20-somethings high-fived each other as they emerged from the voting area, and I saw one elderly African-American woman walking slowly with a cane towards the stairs with a big smile on her face, telling those with her, “That was worth the wait! Oh yes it was!”

After an hour, Aaron finally emerged and we left. There was still another 15 minutes before early voting closed for the day, and the line had already been cut off, so there were not quite as many people there. I was stunned by the number of people at early voting. While I had hoped that people would take advantage of early voting, I never thought I’d see so many people so interested in the democratic process. And so many young people, too – who says that America’s youth aren’t interested in their government?

It really felt good.

Filed Under: people who don't suck, politics

Oct 27, 2008

It’s Giveaway Time! Win a $25 Kroger Gift Card!

October 27, 2008 By Christina

It’s time again for the Bloggy Giveaways carnival, and I’m going to have some fun contests this week to give back to my readers. I had a blast doing this last time, so why not give away more stuff? Besides, it’s stuff I don’t have to keep around my house if I give it away!

So, to begin: Want to win a $25 Kroger gift card? Leave a comment on this post between now and Friday October 31 at 11:59 pm Eastern time. Be sure to leave a way for me to contact you if you win. One winner will be chosen at random (Via Random.org) after Friday.

Kroger gift cards can be used at any Kroger Co. store, including Fred Meyer, Ralph’s, and Food 4 Less.

Also, be sure to enter for a different $25 Kroger card over on my other blog as well. Good luck!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: contests

Oct 26, 2008

My First, Slightly Neglected, Children

October 26, 2008 By Christina

Long before two wild daughters came into my life, I had slightly smaller, furry children. One of the very first things I did when I moved out on my own after college was adopt two kittens from the local shelter. One of those two was a Siamese, and since then, I’ve loved the breed and now have two Siamese cats.

Siamese, if raised properly, are actually very sweet and affectionate cats. They’ve had a lot of bad press thanks to Lady & the Tramp, and while they do like to get into everything, they aren’t mean. They’re like the dogs of the cat world – they love their people, they need to be around people, and if left alone they quickly become depressed and bitter.

Our two cats (we actually have three cats, but the third is like a ghost – we know she’s here, but others often don’t see her) and our two kids are usually friendly with each other. Dante, the older Siamese, has been with us since before Cordy was born. He was a little unsure of her when she first came home from the hospital, but after he got used to her they were always together.

Cordy and Dante, 2004

Kit, our younger cat, didn’t come along until Cordy was just over a year old. Siamese often like to be in pairs, and Dante was a little tired of having to share my attention with Cordy, so we found another Siamese for him. Kit is more high-strung and energetic (psycho kitty is what I often call him), but he’s also just as sweet with the kids. Mira pulls his tail all the time, and he generally doesn’t mind unless she tries to lift him by the tail. Even then, he doesn’t scratch or bite – he only tries to get free.

Cordy and Kit, 2005

Both cats do more than just tolerate the kids – they genuinely enjoy being with them. Some nights Cordy insists that he come into her room with her so she can sleep, and he willingly goes in and lets her shut the door behind him. Hours later, when she’s asleep, he’s meow at the door for me to let him out. When she’s awake in the morning, he’s often the one to let us know by meowing at her door. And Kit will often position himself next to Mira or Cordy in the living room, knowing they might pull his tail, but they might also pet him, too.

They’re attention whores, so they’ll take any attention, even if it’s a one year old pulling a tail.