Devon needed help falling asleep tonight. She wanted to hear funny stories or silly things I've done. Of course, she had to top each story and then asked for another one. How does this help you fall asleep? Well, eventually we switched to songs and hopefully she fell asleep happy and will have sweet dreams. Aubrey, too, is having difficulty getting to sleep tonight. It's after 11 and she's still up. Going to have tired cranky girls in the morning! I feel sorry for their teachers tomorrow ... and for us getting them up and out! At least they're in their own beds tonight. Aubrey recently decided she doesn't like sleeping downstairs, it's not comfortable. I've never understood how sleeping on the floor is comfortable - maybe that's part of the reason why the idea of tent camping doesn't appeal. Too hard.
Aubrey really wants to go camping - real camping, with a tent and sleeping bags, the works. Not me. Not sure how Devon feels about it. I think Aubrey's biggest disappointment last year with Girl Scouts is that her troop talked about camping but never did it. Devon's troop this year actually has some campers in it, but the troop doesn't want to go camping as far as I know. Too bad Aubrey couldn't join my nephew's boy scout troop - they camp a LOT. Of course, the last thing my boy-crazy child needs is to be part of a boy scout group....den...pack...whatever they call it.
So, we're riding home from dinner tonight (Jerry's Pizza, yum) and we pass a stand of particularly tall looking palm trees. They're kind of weird looking when they get really tall because they're all skinny trunk with that strange patterned bark, if you can call it bark. Out of the blue, I wonder, out loud, how tall can a palm tree get? I mean, really, when you think about it [1] how tall can any tree get and [2] how well do we judge distance when we're looking UP with nothing to give it perspective? Aubrey, ever one to voice an opinion or answer, immediately says 200 feet. This cracks Ron up. That would be a crazy tall palm tree....the same height as a 20 story building? Well, who knows? So I looked it up - yes, I seriously love having a smart phone, particularly when I get service. Guess what? The tallest palm trees are known to be 160 feet tall, sometimes, although it's rare, even hitting 200 feet! (In Colombia, not here, but I didn't say it had to be here). Who's laughing now? Na na na na boo boo to Ron!Speaking of being mature, nah, never mind, why start now?
We've gotten great feedback from the synagogue about Aubrey in class. They've been really impressed with how articulate she is and say she's really on point when participating in class discussions - and that she is a frequent participant, never hesitating to ask questions or try to answer questions or to voice an opinion (that we knew!). It's so lovely to get positive feedback like that about your child. Devon's teacher adores her, and Devon likes her class since she gets to be the helper. She likes to be the helper at public school, too, but there she gets in trouble for it. At Sunday School, she's rewarded for it. You'd think that would be confusing, but it doesn't seem to be for her. She came home the other day from Sunday School with quite the haul of goodies from her teacher - including a music book for playing songs on the piano. ???? Why do people think my daughters can play the piano? Well, I can understand why people think Aubrey knows how to play - she tells them she does! She even played the piano in her school talent show, remember? But she's never had lessons and can't read music. Nor can Devon. However, Ron can (I had a lot of years or piano lessons and still cannot play even the simplest tune or read music at all.). Maybe he can teach them some basics. Devon at least likes to play on the keyboard. I've never seen Aubrey go near it.
Hopefully, Aubrey remembers the trope she learned at Hebrew School last year - that is the different sounds you make to comprise the melodies for prayers and blessings. There are little symbols that you read to know when to go up, down or sideways.... I can never remember what symbol means what - I just have to memorize the melodies for the different prayers. But Aubrey will need to know the trope because she will actually read from The Torah for her bat mitzvah next year. We're starting her on her lessons a little early - I'm hoping the longer time period will make it a little easier and less stressful for her to prepare. We've also started working on the party and how the week-end will lay out. I'm even starting to get excited. I told Ron and Aubrey we need to start crashing bar mitzvah parties to check out DJs. Aubrey loved this idea!
Ron's big thing this week is to make sure we all use "fewer" and "less" correctly. And he is very happy to correct us all each and every time we use one of them incorrectly - which seems to be frequently! Makes me think of my Dad, who always likes to add the "ly" to others' words when something we say should be an adverb (see, Dad, I do know what part of speech it is!) but we didn't use the right form. I always hear the song from the movie 1776 in my mind when he does that....and I have found myself doing it on occasion, too, although I try not to because it's annoying. I choose to be annoying in other ways. :) Lees of West Virginia from the movie 1776
So, Devon went to work out tonight. The mother of her "twin" Isabella is very committed (I admire this in her greatly even though it hasn't rubbed off on me). Two nights a week, her gym has a kids class that she takes her kids to and Devon wanted to go. I had to sign a waiver, and of course you need to join the gym to participate, but I took Devon over to check it out. I mean, how much could a kids class be, right? Well, it's $60 a month FOR KIDS....not happening, sorry! But they let Devon try a free class - she loved it (unfortunately). I wish I could sign her up to go, but that is just not doable. Her favorite part was climbing the mountain, although she said they did burpees and a bunch of other stuff she like also. When she and Isabella got to the top of the mountain, they decided to sit and celebrate (who could blame them, right?)So, she'll have to get her exercise someplace else. I don't suppose she'll ever go back into her gymnastics class...it's included in her aftercare costs, but, go figure, she's decided she doesn't like it anymore. At least she's stopped doing cartwheels everywhere and anywhere. She has become a bit of a monkey, though, climbing everywhere she can. Monkey bars I don't mind, and even trees are okay. Although, Ron found our 12 foot ladder on our front walk last night. Puzzled, he asked our neighbor if he knew anything about how it got there from our backyard. Apparently, the neighbor's son (also in 1st grade) had gotten his ball stuck in their tree. So Devon, ever one to be helpful (see above),, went into our back yard and got the ladder (yes, I did say it is twelve feet), and brought it out to the tree so she could get the ball down. Once the ball was down, she left the ladder where it was, so the dad moved it to our walk so we could put it away. We would never have known about the incident if Devon had put the ladder back. I would so love to be able to see into her mind........
Maybe there's a way we can get story notes for our kids?
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