"Look Daddy - we have giant trucks too!" ;-)
This is "Buffy"....he's been hanging out in our neighbourhood for a couple of days now - the story as I've heard it is that he followed a couple of girls home from the down by the pool.... He's very friendly, pretty clean, not scrawny...doesn't really strike me as a stray or a barn cat (there's a horse racetrack & barns down near the pool and there's often cats around there)....I'm going to post his photo on a local website that has lost & found postings and see if I can't scare up his owner....Meanwhile, he's been joining us for mealtimes here and playing peekaboo with my cats in the kitchen window...I love his coat - such a pretty pattern!
If we can't find his owner...well, there's not much difference between five and six, right? *grin*
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Trucks & Whiskers
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Splash
Miss Cinders started her swimming lessons this past weekend. She's never taken any formal lessons before because I didn't see much point in paying $75 for someone to teach her how to blow bubbles. :-P (The beginner levels are very very basic) ...That, along with the fact that she was always nervous at the pool and just was not ready to really swim until this past year...
We did jump in a bit too far ahead though - since she'd never been in lessons before, I wasn't sure what level to sign her up for...we chose Level 4, figured she might be able to pass that one. Umm, not yet. ;-) ..I didn't realise just how far along the level 4 kids are - she did one lesson with them and was struggling to keep up the whole time... these are kids who are already quite good at the front crawl, back crawl, treading water, etc. Well, she's still somewhat dog paddling and just learned to tread water the day before the lesson. Yeah, bit of a larger bite than we'd anticipated - so we moved her down to the level 3 class.
She's happy about it - she was *so* tired after the hour long level 4 class... but I told her I was really proud of her because she followed those kids and gave it her best shot, doing things she had never ever done before...they all went into a back crawl and she looks over at me, shrugs, and jumps in to try...arms fly around, legs kick in every direction, and she actually made it to the other end - where she pretty much collapsed in a fit of exhaustion. I knew right then that we'd be moving her to level 3. ;-)
She had her first level 3 class the next day - shorter class, 1/2 hour instead of a full hour - and she had a great time...she's now with kids who are much more on the same level and I think she'll likely pass this one. :-)
Boy meets Dog
This is Cruz - he belongs to my 19 year old cousin and Christopher met him for the first time the other day....it's all he's talked about since! He isn't normally keen on animals, and while he didn't spend much time actually 'touching' Cruz, he loved his name. Christopher gets attached to certain words and we'll hear them over and over again for months - right now, it's "Cruz" and things like "Cruz get down!" and "Cruz, stop it!" ....words that were spoken by 14 year old sister of the owner, as Cruz was running and jumping all over the place.
Isn't he cute?? He's *very* strong - nothing but muscle on this fella.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Homeschool Mentors
The fourth edition of the Canadian Home Educator's Carnival has a theme suggested - Homeschooling Mothers or Mentors. (The theme is optional - if people want to submit other posts, the guidelines say that this is fine too) In the post, Jacqueline asks:
When I read the post, I thought immediately of a wonderful lady who has chatted with me many times this year, giving me not only advice & suggestions, but wonderful moments of laughter and inspiration - the lovely Ganeida.
Ganeida is a homeschooling mother living on a beautiful island half a world away from me and she's truly been a blessing. I've yapped the poor lady's ears off on many occasions (hmm, with it being via emails, blogs and forum pm's, perhaps I should say 'eyes'? ) asking questions and prattling on like a fussy hen; not once has she told me to run off a wharf. *grin* ...She's been patient and kind, sharing her homeschooling experience and digging up resources when I went ACK! KINESTHETIC LEARNER! - ha, actually...I went more like: ACK! MEXICAN JUMPING BEAN WITH THE ATTENTION SPAN OF A FLEA! ... she named it for me. *grin*
I'm hoping I won't embarrass her with this post - *ducks* - but as soon as I saw the theme title for this edition, I knew a shout out was in order.
Thank you, Ganeida - not just for your patience and kindness and sharing of experiences, but for being a friend.
Little update to the rant
Friday, I decided to poke into the school for a moment and let the principal know what had occurred - I thought that maybe she (principal) could give the mother a call and bring up the concern.... Guess I had high hopes, because she didn't seem overly concerned. She said she'd "look into it" and rushed away. I didn't see the girl at pickup time, nor on the drive home, so I thought maybe the mother had been contacted - turned out that she apparently *was* up in our neighbourhood again, but as it wasn't raining, she 'hung out' with other kids outside and didn't come near our place. That's what Cindy and a couple of others told me, anyway. *Sigh*
