Simplifying the Holidays

Okay, Yule is my favorite time of year. And I tend to go overboard. Last year I went WAAAY overboard.

This year, we're simplifying. I have informed Father Yul (aka Santa Claus) that he may only bring Luthien one present for under the tree this year, and this is not to be a large one. She is only getting one gift from me, too. The tomtens will no doubt be up to their usual thing, but I'm considering getting us smaller stockings, too.

David is getting pants. He really, really needs pants.

The things kids notice

Me: Yule's not all that far away, you know.
Luthien: I know, it's at the store.

Proof that my MIL doesn't read this blog

Luthienisms

Pajammies = pajamas

"I hear patter feets" = I hear the pitter-patter of little feet

crackaroni and cheese = macaroni and cheese

candy game = candyland

pohpol = purple

lellow = yellow

"It's my favorite." = she wants it right now.

"juice couch" = juice pouch

"princel" = pretzel

pullum = poem

Luthien's vocabularly is developing by leaps and bounds. As detailed above, pronunciation is still a bit of a challenge sometimes, though.

I suspect by the end of summer we're going to be slipping into a routine justifiably resembling homeschooling. As it is, we have a daily story time and together with Maggie, the girl I watch during the day, she's started memorizing little poems. The first three we did, she just listened, but with this latest she's repeating them right along with Maggie. Being around Maggie, who is just 7 months older, has been really good for her in a lot of ways. Maggie encourages more creative play in her, and is a great model for speech most of the time. Mind you, Maggie is also not a little angel, and prior to being in my care was in a prek program where she was the youngest kid and she picked up some bad behavioral habits. "When she was good, she was very, very good; and when she was bad, she was horrid." She's modeled some of those for Luthien as well, but she still mostly does them in imitation, not on her own. Mostly.

But, just like a certain niece of mine at that age, she responds pretty well to firm boundaries when paired with a gentle attitude. And she's learning that I'm not the Queen of Second Chances her mother is. I'm the Countess of Consequences. Luthien has either been quicker to learn this than Maggie, or the lack of another style in her care has speeded up her learning it, or she's just not as stubborn as Maggie. Maggie can be stubborn and bossy, but Luthien tends to either ignore her or stand her ground, so it's all good. I wish she had siblings, she's much happier when she has someone else to play with.

TOO MANY BUNNIES

The current bunny count is 3. Why must certain grandparents send a stuffed bunny every easter. If each that's done this did it every easter, Lu would have like 20 stuffed bunnies by age 10. It's ridiculous.

The bunnies are officially seasonal. They will go into hibernation on May 1, and remain there until next spring!

Luthien Dancing at Estrella

This is my first attempt at showing a video. Hope it works!

MORE Estrella War Pics!

My friend Tiffany, her husband Matt, and their boys, Aidan, Asher, Ephraim, and Isaiah day tripped to Estrella on Friday. We toured some of the demo stuff with them, then they broke away from their homeschool group to hang out with us.

The boys all wore the tabards I made them. Totally cute.

Here's the falconer.

Here's one of the many processions that marched through the site.

Here's a picture someone else took of the falconer that's better than mine.

Likewise not my pics of the blacksmith, but we did see him in person. When we were there, he was making a trivet.

This was my picture, he's a boyer. Pretty cool. He makes a variety of styles, including Mongolian, some Native American styles, and European period styles.
Here is Ephraim at the bowyer's. They really enjoyed watching him work and wanted to see what all his tools were for.

We fed them in the Brymstonne encampment because the food court didn't have much of anything to make a meal of for their veg family w/ a kid with soy and dairy allergies.

They watched the battle with us, and we went to the children's center. Isaiah in particular was quite taken with the whole thing, and wants to come back and camp next year. Tiffany still thinks it's all a bit crazy/wierd, but maybe I'll have a helper along next year for a few days (and maybe Tiffany will babysit Luthien for a few days in return? Hmmm.)

Long overdue Estrella XXIII Pictures

We shall begin, of course, with the College of Brymstonne camp:

First, a pic of us sitting around chatting in the adult lounge. This was the only time the whole event any kids were hanging out there, at least in my presence.










And here we have Richyrd with his lovely henna'd hands, being spoon fed by Kat, our Kitchen Goddess for this war.











Then, of course, there was the children's lounge. Here are Luthien and Alexander playing:










And you can't have pictures of CoB's camp without the ovens!









Here's the kitchen... And Lady Catherine. Oh, and Brendan, who was lurking but not camping with us. :)

The silver lining to stupid attitudes about nursing

So we got on the bus yesterday. There was this older man there, we sat down across from him. He was nice, complimented Luthien, but also a bit annoying, kept saying "God loves you." to her. Even after he asked us if we had a church home, and I explained that we weren't Christians. He chuckled and said "yet" and went on with the "God loves you." stuff a few more times. Friendly, well-meaning, but annoying.

He was interrupted by a phone call, and while he was on the phone Luthien asked to nurse. So we did.

As soon as he was off the phone, he up and moved to the back of the bus.

Score one for the Heathen Mama. NIP scared away the prostelyzing old coot.

Mommy car!

Car! Car! I got a car!
Car! Car! I got a CAR!

It's nothing special. 99 Kia Sephia, way too many miles on it (but better than anything else I'd seen in my price range). Good percentage are highway miles, so...

It needs to visit a mechanic, as soon as I can get it registered. I kind of spent all my money ($1600) on the car, so may have to wait until later next week.

Tomorrow I'm going to get a 3-day authorization to drive it, and go spend much of the day at the MVD with Luthien. Yay, fun.

Yule decoration!

Well, I dragged out the tree and found a place to stick it. What do you think?

Here's a wide shot of the wall. On the left hand side is my desk, couch to the right. usually the altar is up against the wall, but I stuck the tree behind it.

Here's a closer shot of the tree and altar. I still need a Yule candle. The doily covering the altar was passed down to me from my great-grandmother. The lights are on, but won't be lit up until Solstice Night (Dec. 21), and we'll put ornaments on the tree on Mother-Night (Dec. 20). as well as make a yule wreath for the altar. (A small one, since I have to burn it on the grill in the backyard.)

Here's the couch. All the holiday teddy bears are compliments of my MIL.

This is the corner above my desk. The sounding horn and coat of arms are always there; I just hung the drinking horns.

Here's a badly overlit backshot of the wreath on the door.

Luthien's Turn With The Camera

Luthien decided to try out the camera. Here are the best of the shots she took:

Chocolate Revel!!!

Yummy chocolate dishes. I didn't take these pictures. I, of course, forgot my camera.
Here's me cutting up pickled eggs. Yum. Luthien was busy playing with Thomas.
More yummy chocolate dishes.
This dragon and his chocolate castle are 100% edible and won best show piece.
So much chocolate, I actually drank cow's milk for the first time in several years to wash it down.
Yet more chocolate. I want a bundt pan shaped like a castle, too!

This was another of the show piece entries, made by Viola, who is in the College of Brymstonne. She admitted that she voted for the dragon.

Luthien did manage to get a hold of some cake when I wasn't looking, and I didn't know for sure all the things I have her were egg-free. She was sick later. I suspect in this case it was worth it. Heck, I was almost sick later. Her favorite part was the dancing. Mine was definitely the chocolate. But between helping set up, helping in the kitchen, chasing Luthien (who played with Thomas until he went home and then with a little girl who got them locked out of the hall for a few minutes--Yikes!), and helping clean up, it was a LOOONG and exhausting day. Also, I think my garb is still ugly even with the new trim I made.

That Was Easy

Well, Luthien's surgery is all done. We actually left the surgical center less than an hour after the scheduled time of the surgery. Easy peasy.

The question now is, do I let her have Hi-Ho Cherry-O, which I bought on our store credit at Bookman's yesterday, or make her wait until her birthday? I'm not good at waiting and certainly don't want to set higher standards for her than I expect of myself. I think it's going to be a recovery day activity.

"I want to go to day care!"

Luthien has declared this several times today.

Maybe she just likes it better than sitting around the house with boring old Mommy.

Someone remembered my birthday!

The in-laws didn't, but we got the box from mom in the mail. I bought groceries and a $5 large pizza from Little Caesar's. Does that count as eating out?

Luthien is scheduled for ear tube surgery on the 15th. I picked a Friday so I only have to miss one class and she'll have the weekend to recover, but David will have to work for sure.

She's turned into Miss Grouch after daycare. I don't know if it's because she' tired, or just because she wants her own way more after all day in a structured environment. Either way, it's really taxing on me.

Luthien's birthday is coming up, and I won't be able to get her any gifts before hand. Some things I think she would enjoy:

Board games for the 3+ crowd (she has Memory and Rivers, Roads, and Rails and plays those well)
Jigsaw puzzles in the 15-30 piece range
Books, as always
A T-ball set


I want to get her a kitchen. Every time we go into Target, it takes a while to tear her peacefully away from the wooden island kitchen. I think it's adorable and loathe the big plastic kind. IMO Target is the only big box store with a toy section worth looking at for more than 2 minutes.

Daycare: week 1

Luthien seems to like it. She didn't nap every day she was there, but the days she didn't nap were days she'd slept late, so I guess it's not too surprising. The only thing that bothers me is that while they have the same 2 people there in the morning, by late afternoon it's different people who are often clueless about whether she ate her lunch or had nap, and who don't seem to be as on top of things in general. Part-timers. They're all nice, and interact well with the kids, but it does seem like a lot of coming and going. For her part, Luthien doesn't seem to mind, though.

LibraryThing

Here's an interesting site. It lets you catalog all the books in your personal library very quickly. Below is my profile. It includes Luthien's books:

http://www.librarything.com/profile/Ravin

Learning Luthien's Likes

One thing about Luthien getting a little older is that she's starting to develop her own idea of what sorts of things she likes and dislikes. She likes frogs. Great. She didn't seem so excited about the castle-themed toys I had my heart set on getting her for her birthday. There was a playset, with dolls of king/queen/princess/prince/jester/wizard/knight, a little folding doll-house castle, and castle blocks.

On the other hand, she is totally enthralled with the toy kitchen every time we go to Target. So, I'm getting her a toy kitchen. The wooden one at Target seems to be the best deal in something compact and not hideous, though there's one at Magic Cabin I think is pretty cool, too. And it'll be a nice thing to make suggestions to others who want to get her something, to get (preferably not plastic) accessories for her toy kitchen.

Maybe I should get castle blocks for MY birthday.

The Number 4

Luthien has been identifying the numeral 4 everywhere she sees it for several days. Today, she had me show her how to write it, and actually did! I mean, it wasn't perfect, but it was vaguely legible. She also tried to do triangles, without as much success.

I don't think she quite gets the purpose of the number 4, as in, counting 4 objects, exactly. But she definitely can identify the symbol.

I'm not sure why "4", as opposed to any of the other numerals, or a letter of the alphabet (though she has, on occasion, identified the letter "O", not with the insistent consistency she goes on about 4).

She has identified "4" on license plates, on a picture of a football player, on a calendar, and in books. She'll start pointing and saying "Four! Mommy, Four!", and if I look, inevitably there it is. The number 4. I guess that's her number. Hmm.