Emma continues to excel in kindergarten. She is currently working on addition sentences, writing stories and reading, among other things. Yes, she can read - and rather well at that, especially for her age. She has just discovered the Amelia Bedelia books, and she reads them to us with very little help. She's aced every spelling test at school so far and has started sprinkling Chinese into her speech without seeming to realize it, which is both impressive and semi-disconcerting. Am I bragging about my super-smart child? You bet! But then again, it's kinda hard not to feel stupid when you have to actually look up terms on the Internet before helping your 5-year-old with her homework. (Am I the only one who had never heard of a Venn diagram?) I knew the day would come when my child knew more than me, but I didn't figure that day would arrive quite this soon. Thankfully I still have a few things to teach her, although witnessing how her brain works amazes me. Tonight she asked why the word "house" wasn't spelled "howse" because "'ow" is spelled o-w and "house" has the same sound in the middle. I told her that the English language can sometimes be baffling, and she asked, "Does 'baffling' mean the same thing as 'stupid'?"
Sophie grows more stubborn and independent by the day. She is constantly surprising me with new words and phrases (i.e., "Emma privacy" when Em's in the bathroom; "Perfect!" when something is just right; "Please one more time" when listening to songs in the car; "Have fun wit me" when she wants to play). She thinks everything is either yellow or green, no matter how many times we tell her otherwise. She loves saying hello to people and remains fascinated with animals, particularly birds and bugs. Every day when Emma gets off the bus, Sophie screams, "There's my Emma! Hiiiiiii, Emma!" and gives her a big hug. This week she told my friend's husband Ben and the cashier at the grocery store that she loved them. Today she kept kissing her magnets, putting them "to night-night" underneath the refrigerator, screaming "Wake up magnets, good morning magnets!" while peering under the refrigerator on hands and knees, and then looking at me and demanding "Mommy do it!" until I retrieved the waking magnets and the game could begin anew.
Chris and I went to Saugatuck, Michigan together last weekend - ALONE! Two days and nights of just us. It was a much needed break, and we owe a huge thank you to my family for taking care of the girls so we could make our escape. Em and Soph spent the majority of their time with Grandma (a thousand thanks Mom), but Aunt Marg, Aunt Cara, Aunt Jayme and Grandpa all pitched in at various times. They both had a blast while we were gone and didn't seem to miss either one of us all that much. As we piled into the car to head back to Chicago, my Dad yelled, "Remember girls - what happens in Indiana stays in Indiana!" Both girls were sad to leave their grandparents/aunts/uncle/cousins - in fact, Emma started crying for Grandma before we left the driveway, which I believe is a record. But when I got Sophie from her crib the next morning, she looked at me with wonder and uttered one glorious word: "Home."
And now, a couple photos and one short video from the last two weeks:
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