Parent fail!

Every Tuesday, the kids have "Early Dismissal". This means that school is out at 1:34 PM instead of the usual 2:34 PM. Today was the day I knew was going to happen at some point! I just completely forgot about early dismissal and realized around 2 PM (when I wanted to get ready to pick them up at 2:34) that HELP... I had forgotten about my kids!!! Before you blame me for being a bad mom... dad is not innocent either! He was also at home in his studio and he'd forgotten too! We raced to the school and there they were: peacefully sitting on a bench outside the school office and making some drawings and asking me when they saw me, "What took you so long, mommy?" No drama at all!  I was so impressed! Ennio had been very good, sitting next to Lily and listening to her, while waiting for us. Lily actually liked the independence (and being in charge of Ennio) that she said: "Can you pick us up late every day?" Can you believe it??? I'm so proud of my little independent sweethearts! (But don't worry, I will not pick them up late every day!)

Mexican cultural celebration at school

One of the big activities in Second Grade is that every month the kids are celebrating a different culture. This year the multicultural celebrations will include the Mexican, African-American, Native-American, Middle-Eastern, Chinese, Irish, Japanese and all-American cultures. The kids are learning, reading and writing book reports on each culture and on Celebration Day, they are cooking, playing traditional games, and making typical arts and crafts. The Second Grade teachers (there are 3 classrooms) enlisted the parents' help and asked for at least 12 parent volunteers to supervise the various student centers. I was able to go for 2 hours on Friday morning and was in charge of the Loteria Card Game Table (a Mexican bingo game for kids). It was so much fun to see the kids being so involved and enjoying their day learning about Mexico! They were allowed to dress up for the day and Lily wore her Spanish Flamenco dress that she got from Virginie for her birthday last year. She wasn't the only one! Lots of girls were dressed in festive dresses and lots of boys were wearing special masks. In the morning, the kids had the opportunity to bring to school something from Mexico and share this with the other classrooms.  Lily brought the Mexican doll Virginie gave her a few years ago (when on a business trip in Mexico. Thank you, thank you, V! Your presents come in sooo handy!) and loved doing her "show-and-tell". How different from me! I was so shy in school! The other activities included baking clay pots, making piñatas, playing loteria, weaving Ojos de Dios, making (and eating) guacamole and cooking tortillas. Yummy! Those lucky kids!

Some Mexican books and other artefacts

Lily and Tegan!

The audience for Show and Tell!

Waiting her turn!

Explaining the doll is from... Mexico!

Clay Pot activity

Clay hands!

Lily's friend Mia at the Loteria table

Mia's dad Joseph also helped with Loteria. He was a great entertainer!

The Piñata table

The Ojos de Dios table

How to make tortillas!

Yummy guacamole!

Amelia and June in pretty Mexican dresses!

Enjoying the tortillas!

While Lily was enjoying her Mexican celebration, Ennio was also outside, baking apple turnovers. The theme in Kindergarten this week is all about apples, so he got to work with and taste the apples!

Are your kids doing this type of activities in school too? Just curious!

Roald Dahl

With school comes the requirement to read at least 15 minutes each night to your Kindergartner, and 2nd graders are supposed to read at least 30 minutes per night. We were in the library a couple of weeks ago and I pulled "The BFG" of Roald Dahl from the shelf. I started reading the book to the kids in bed at night and what a success this has been! Ennio usually falls asleep within one minute (very practical for us, but now I don't know if I am complying with the "read 15 minutes to your child"-rule ;-)) and Lily is always hanging on my lips. She loves listening to the story and trying to predict what is going to happen next. She often falls asleep about 20-30 minutes into the story and wakes up the following morning, telling me she can't wait until nighttime to hear the next chapter. After the BFG, we read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (again a huge hit!), and now we're on "The Enormous Crocodile". We were at Dutch School yesterday and I saw they had "Sjakie en de Grote Glazen Lift" in the library available. So, now, instead of reading "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator", I'm going to see if I can keep their attention reading the story in Dutch... We'll see... I loved these books as a kid and it is so much fun to read them again now! Who are your favorite children's authors?

Tooth Nr. 2 gone!

Looks like Ennio is on a roll losing his teeth now! He lost his second tooth in school yesterday! We don't know exactly how it happened, but he told us he pulled it out himself! He came home with the tooth in a pocket in his backpack.

Here he's at swim class proudly showing off the gap in his mouth (a new tooth is already growing where he lost the first one).

Lily's Dutch class got cancelled yesterday - juf Karin let us know she was sick - so we made use of the extra time to have a mother-daughter date at the nail salon :-)  I really enjoy those moments with my girl ♥️

Lily and Stella

Too sweet!!!

Swimming... the neverending story!

Now that I have a little more time on my hands (and I LOVE IT), it is my ultimate goal to have the kids able to swim, period. They've taken classes in the past - but Ennio was too young and it didn't lead anywhere - and Lily can manage, but just isn't enough water-safe yet, so I sighed and signed them up for another intensive round of swim lessons, this time 2 sessions of 6 weeks, so they'll be swimming until November!!! We signed up with the YMCA in South Pasadena for the first session (an indoor pool, Tuesdays and Thursdays) and will do the second session at the YMCA of the Foothills (in La Crescenta) on Mondays and Wednesdays. That pool is outdoors! I hope the weather will be good in October, but experience tells us that that is usually the case. Fingers crossed!

There's a little park outside the pool center where this magnificent tree grows...

First tooth out for Ennio!

It was a big day for Ennio yesterday! He lost his very first baby tooth! Hip hip hooray! The tooth had been wiggly for forever (at least 3 months, I swear), but just wouldn't fall out. Over the weekend, I noticed that a permanent tooth was coming out... on the inside of his gum (instead of growing up, it was growing horizontally...). OK, that meant that baby tooth just had to GO! Ennio wouldn't let me pull it out and he didn't want to do it himself either, so we decided to see the dentist on Tuesday morning. He wasn't scared at all - to the contrary, he was so excited he didn't have to go to school like Lily :-) - and the dentist had the tooth out in no time. She hardly had to pull! Ennio got a cool "tooth necklace" and was very happy and felt like a big boy with his tooth, OUT! I told him the tooth fairy was going to come by at night, but I'm not sure he understood that concept. We put the tooth under his pillow, and this morning there was a 1 dollar bill, but Lily was more excited than Ennio. Ennio kept asking where his tooth was because he wanted to show it to his teacher, Ms. Sy! He couldn't care less about the money! Just to compare, Lily lost her very first baby tooth when she was 4 years and 10 months, on September 30, 2013. Read here! She started losing her baby teeth at a much earlier age, she was still in preschool and hadn't started Kindergarten yet! At 5 1/2 (Ennio's age now), Lily had already lost 6 tooth and had 2 permanent teeth. Read here. Yes, these kids are truly opposites in many ways :-)

When it comes to academic achievement (if you can call it that in Kindergarten!!!), the kids couldn't be more different either. Lily needed a lot of time to learn her ABC's... I can't quite remember when exactly she got her "Top Banana"-certificate - I would have to look it up - but I know it took months! Ennio already got his, 3 weeks into the new school year!!! We were amazed and of course, very proud! Way to go, Ennio!

Lazy Labor Day Weekend!

We had a very long weekend! The kids were off on Friday for "Admissions Day". I had no clue what type of holiday that was, so I googled it: "Admissions Day is an official California state holiday that commemorates California being admitted into the United States as the 31st state on Sept. 9, 1850. The Los Angeles Unified School District observes the anniversary on the last Friday of August—it's a paid holiday for the teachers." Then, on Monday, we celebrated "Labor Day" and while I was at it, I googled that as well: "Labor Day in the United States is a public holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. It honors the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, laws and well-being of the country." Voilà!

It was nice to have time to relax, although 90% of my time was spent searching like a madwoman for a little pouch I usually keep in my purse with my credit card, membership cards, library card, auto insurance cards, AAA card, Lily's student card etc... That little bag had "magically" disappeared. I kept breaking my head over where I could have left it or lost it. I looked EVERYWHERE in the house, then I called some places where I had been (no luck), I eventually cancelled the credit card and requested a replacement, I checked my credit card report for fraudulent use (there wasn't any, thankfully), so all in all the damage was limited, but I was still very annoyed. It just seemed like such a mystery... I had also checked my car multiple times, with no result, until... my hero Marcus decided to look for himself just one last time... and magically, he FOUND it (on Monday)!!! It had slid between the front passenger seat and the door! Mind you, I had looked under the passenger seat several times. I must be blind! Anyway, it was such a relief. Now, I know for sure that no one can misuse my personal information (because - and I know this is not very smart - it also contained a tiny piece of paper with our social security numbers on it, because no matter how hard I try, I can NEVER remember those numbers! Very embarrassing when in doctor's offices or other places, you have to fill in that information and you have no idea!) So, pfff, the weekend ended very well!

What else did we do, besides the searching expedition?

On Friday, the kids practiced their bike riding skills in Rio de Los Angeles State Park. Ennio got his first big bike over the summer (still with training wheels). The bike is still a bit too big for him (18") but this little guy is growing so fast, we didn't want him to grow out of it immediately. Of course, this makes it harder for him to learn to ride... We'll need lots of practice! Lily is biking like a pro!

Last week, it was Stella's first birthday, on August 30! Lily was so excited about this, that she wanted to organize a kitty birthday party! She invited 2 of her school friends over on Saturday, and they had a blast! They decorated the table with special napkins (with cats on it) and put the cat toys out on the table. So cute! They also played in the back yard and tried out Marcus's VR goggles in the basement. When their moms came to pick them up, they decided to play "hide and seek" because they didn't want to go home :-)

Henriette does some acrobatic moves!

Pearl is throwing bougainvillea petals!

The girls in the treehouse!

Pasta for lunch!

Pearl in Virtual Reality!

Lily, Henriette and Pearl!

On Sunday we stayed home (and searched :-))

On Monday, we had Daniele and Savannah and their daughter Isabella over.
I could easily get used to 4-day weekends!

Have a great week, everyone!