Saturday, January 24, 2009

Martin Luther King Day

January 19th was Martin Luther King Day. I remember when my goober son was in kindergarten, he came home from school and said "We don't have school on Monday!" I asked him if he knew why he didn't have school on Monday, grasping at a teaching moment. He said simply, "Yeah... some black guy died and they closed down the school." I had nothing to say to that, I just shook my head. (We did talk about it later...) Well, fast forward 16 years, and now his little sister Boo is in kindergarten. The Friday before MLK day, she too announced, "Guess why we don't have school on Monday." I said, "why don't you just tell me." She said "Okay, the king died so we don't have to go to school." I asked her, "the King?" She said she didn't know what he was a king of, but he was a king over something... she just didn't know where his kingdom was. Like brother like sister?? Well, I have two left to go to school, so we'll see if the understanding gets any better.

Learning Time

Boo has been practicing telling time with a standard clock face. She can easily read the numbers of the digital clock, but she is getting really good at telling time the "old fashioned" way. Today she came in to me and said, "Mom, it is so WAY past our bedtime! It's 11:30." Totally confused I glanced at the clock and smiled, "No, Boo... it is 5 minutes to 5. But if your tired......"

What will they say next?

Little Cat loves to pretend she's a cat (hence the nickname). She'll crawl around on her hands and knees meowing, and 'paw' at you until you reach down and pet her or scratch behind her ears and say things like "oh... good kitty." Punkin gets in the action and we end up with two kitties running around our apartment (even though we aren't allowed to have pets). Occasionally, they are dogs, but usually only after watching 101 Dalmations or something. Luckily, Little Cat will announce "I'm Pongo" so I know she's a dog not a cat. The other day the two were at it as usual, and I guess Boo had had enough. She said "I don't want to play cats and dogs today, can't we just pretend I'm allergic to pets?" I had to laugh. Sometimes you just don't know what they are going to say next.....