Ear Piercing today

Quinn got her ears pierced today. She didn't cry. She said it didn't hurt. She was most surprised that the tools coming out of the autoclave, which appeared to burning hot, were indeed cold. Oh yeah, we got the piercing done at a tatoo place. We had done a lot of research, and it basically came down to, no matter where you go, you will get holes and earrings. Would you rather get the initial piercing done at a place that sells "holes" or a place that sells earrings.

Quinn chose well, recognizing that you only buy the holes once, but can buy the earrings anytime.

First Grade DRA Assessment Results

Since this blog is also my personal record for Quinn. Here is her beginning of first grade DRA assessment results "Students enter first grade reading at a DRA level of 4. At the end of first grade, students are expected to read at a DRA level of 18 with 94-96% accuracy and fluency of 60 words per minute. Individualized results: DRA Level: 18 Strengths: Literal comprehension and awesome reflections Focus Area: Accuracy

Playing at recess

Q: "I don't do anything at recess..."
Me: "What, you sit outside and stare at the wall?"
Q: "No. I only chase boys."
Me: "That sounds pretty fun."
Q: "Yeah.... it is." Said with a big smile.

Eye trick

It is pretty cool that when Quinn can move 1 eye independent of the other, it  kind of surprises the eye doctor.

God and justice

Quinn said that JJ believes in God,  I believe in God and justice. When asked what that meant, she said she didn't know

Quinn's 6th Sea Creature birthday party

Quinn's 6th Sea Creature pool party was a huge success... personally I think it was all of the details that we went to

• Poseidon's obstacle course
• Sea creature splash bowling
• recycled bottles, filled with a little bit of sand, with cute sea creatures adhered to the front and back with packing tape
• Knock them over with splash bombs
• Splash buckets with sponges
• Paint a fence with water
• Soak a ship, using melting corn starch peanuts
• Kiddie pool
• Water table
• Bubbles
• Mermaid and sharkfin towels as favors
• Food
• octopus hot dogs
• dolphin banana's (split the stem end, add a grape and draw an eye)
• Oysters (jumbo pasta shells, with meatballs )
• Cake
• 2 dozen cupcakes painted to look like water
• Octopus cupcake - dum dum + gummy worms
• Jellyfish cupcake - smushed gum drop + gummy worms
• Small fish cupcake - swedish fish
• shark cupcake - gum drop crescents
• large fish cupcake - skittles for scales, Rips for tales

Quote about brothers

While Quinn had some alone time with Popo, they were playing with Bebe (her dog) and Quinn said "It's not as much fun without Brock"

All that you say is true....

I had a very important conversation with Quinn this morning. I told her a secret that most adults don't even know. I told her everything that she says is or will be true. This came about, because yesterday that she said that "she wasn't good talking to people". I told her that because she said it, it is true. I told her that it didn't have to be, but she has to say it. I told her that she is a good helper and a good problem solver, only because she has declared that herself. If she wan't to not be good at talking to people, it was okay, but if she didn't like that quality, then all she has to do is declare it differently, and it will happen.

She was listening intently and asked several questions. I think that she got it.
One of the questions that she asked went like this.

"My friend is always mean to me".

I said, "yes, by you saying that, it is a true statement. You won't be able to see any of the times that he is nice to you, or even not mean to you. If there is a rare case that you do discover that he is nice to you, you will think that something is wrong or unusal, as you have declared the truth that he is always mean."

Quinn then revised her statement to be "he is usually mean to me, but sometimes he is not"

By Jove, I think she's got it!

P.S. She hasn't yet declared that she is good at talking to people.

Movie kiss

Last night for her goodnight kiss, Quinn closed her eyes and cocked her head, like a movie type kiss. Uh......... kinda lost on that one.

Food rules

So far here are Quinn's food rules as I have determined them to be.

Ice cream must be mixed: peach ice cream  - no good, peach and strawberry ice cream - good*. Entree's must be separate: hot dogs good, pasta good, hot dogs on top of pasta- no good. Lunches have to be finger foods, no utensils, and not messy (eliminates most leftovers, even pizza). Breakfast is limited to yogurt, cereal, pancakes or bacon; french toast, eggs, sausage, everything else is excluded. Cakes / desserts must be chocolate or have chocolate chips.



* (this is what she said, haven't tested the mixed ice cream yet)

Filibustering

Loving the in car filibustering... Quinn makes up a super long song so that Brock can't talk/interrupt.

Blown away by reading level

I went away to a conference for 3 days. When I got back Quinn was reading entire chapters from her Greek Mythology book, out loud, with less than 1 word per page that she needed help with. Wow!

Jobs this year

I've been behind at keeping up with Quinn's Jobs.

Here is a quick rundown for the year to date

2/23/13 - Librarian. Quinn categorized and organized all of her books. Age appropriate books were given to Brock, and Quinn came up with a system for finding the books on her shelf. She even created a (short lived) system, where Brock could check out books from her room.

3/5/13  - Computer Programmer. We tried to animate a flower. Quinn expected that you could draw a seed and press "go" and it would become a flower. (Sounds like some of my clients). She didn't realize that you had to draw the seed, the sprout, the seedling, the little flower, and the big flower. We lost interest before we could finish. Sigh

4/2/13 - Chef. Quinn choose the recipe and chopped all of the veggies for it. She even got to use the big chef's knife all by herself. She also made a birthday cake for Popo, all by herself, minus actually putting it in the oven.

4/20/13- Plant Operator. This one was great. She had the opportunity to spend the day with Ms Brown, Kolter's Plant Operator. Quinn got to unlock the playground gate for her friends, turn on the lights for the teachers, go into special places that no students are allowed, and replace the paper towels.

4/27/13 - Shelf Builder. Due to a power outage - refrigerator cleaning - utility room organizing, we removed a built in ironing board and added shelves for the kids paints. Quinn helped build the shelves. Mommy had her out in the garage, wearing a bright yellow swimming mask as safety goggles, helping cut strips of wood with the radial saw. Quinn did most of the drilling and screwing to get the shelves in place too.

Dr of education

When mommy becomes a Dr of education, she can fix papers if they get torn. ;-)

Choreographer Teacher

Quinn is learning a song and "dance" for a performance in April.

Last night she was trying to teach it to Brock with great success.

She was giving me instructions about when to start / stop the video.

And every couple of measures, she would show Brock the corresponding arm gestures.

Then she tell me to play the song from the beginning and they'd go through each part to that point.

It was awesome.

The only blind spot, was that Quinn was not able to recognize when Brock was done with the task and ready to move on. But hey, sometimes we parents even have a hard time with that.

Super cute.

Here is the reference video and song.

Discovery Learning works!

Yesterday we went to fly kites in the driveway - ala run really fast and have a piece of paper on a string not be on the ground. Quinn went out barefoot, and after a couple of laps, said that her feet were hurting. I asked her what her options were, and she said that we could sweep the driveway.

"Ok", I said, "but can you think of any other options, maybe any that might be faster?"

She said, that "that [putting on shoes] takes too much time."

So while I mentioned that I disagreed with her, we went to the garage to get the brooms.

The kids happily swept the driveway, and Brock and I had a great time of chase and choo-choo trains and singing Mary Poppins.

Quinn had made it through 3 sidewalk squares, when she went back inside, got her shoes and joined us in our games.

I believe I got my point across, AND Quinn got to be right.

Well Duh Food Experiment #1: What is the best tasting shape pasta

So in an ongoing effort to increase the diversity of the food that Quinn eats, we did an experiment yesterday.

I cooked five types of pasta, all from the same brand. The goal was to determine which pasta shape tasted the best.

We had rotini, bowtie, penne, elbow, and linguini.

We guessed and proved that they would / did all taste the same.

She even surmised that the reason was they were all from the same materials (ingredients).

We further gathered that adding a meatball to the top pasta, that the meatball was still good.
Going further we buried the meatball in the pasta, that was still good too.
The final step, was we cut up and buried the meatball in the pasta, that was still good.

The experiment fell apart when we mentally tried to substitute the meatball with chicken. Apparently chicken buried in pasta is no-good.

But the chicken results are inconclusive, as we had reached our attention span for the experiment.

Notes to tooth fairy

Here is the note that Quinn wrote to the tooth fairy for her second tooth. Her tooth got lost somewhere at school.

"Dear tooth fairy, today my tooth (h)as come out. Can you hlpe (help) me fide (find) it. Love Quinn")

This is the stuff the warms the soul. :)

Cornbread

Halfway through eating her cornbread animal muffin, I made the mistake of asking to pass the cornbread. Quinn puts the half consumed muffin down and cries out that she doesn't like cornbread.

No amount of discussion could convince her that she was enjoying eating the cornbread just moments before.

When does rationality kick in?

Cooking class with mom

Quinn asked to take a cooking class on Thursdays. When asked where the class would be she said at home with mom. She said that she thinks her mom is a great cook and wants to cook like her.

Sewing a pillowcase

Quinn got to break in her new sewing machine, with Tia Mandy's help. She made a pillow case. It is super awesome with pink, and black and sparkles. She was *SO PROUD*. She specifically gave instructions for us not to check on her, because she wanted to show it to us in the morning. When she came out in the morning, it was all wrapped up and she was beaming with pride. AWESOME