My daughter has a tea set she got from my brother- and sister-in-law for Christmas (or was it her birthday?) that she likes to bring out and play with. Typically it’s with her friend, Madison, who lives next door. They’ll set out all the places and put water in the tea pot. We were letting them have some cheerios to serve for a while until we found out they were getting all sorts of things from the pantry to bring upstairs that made a mess. Let’s just say I’m glad I have an attentive dog.
Today I had our next door neighbor, Shane, watch the children so I could go out for two hours to get some things done. When I came back the tea set was on the ottoman in the living room and my daughter was all set to have a nice tea party—only Shane had to leave. So she asked if I could help and, oh, could we have some cereal for the party?
Sure, I told her, but let’s move the party to the dining room table where we could have real food served. She and I relocated the party and she told me all the things she thought should be served for tea. We put milk in the tea pot, sugar in the sugar bowl and cereal in the creamer pot. Then she told me how the party should go.
She’s gotten some helpful lessons from Nana in the past and she knew just how to serve “tea”. We were adding a second cereal in another container for sharing when my son realized there was real food in play and suddenly he ran over and joined us. He has also had experience with Nana on tea party etiquette, loving in particular the large tea set my husband has from his childhood that stays at Nana and Papa’s house.
We served each other milk, passed the sugar, stirred the sugar into the milk and enjoyed several kinds of cereal for snack. We had some standard favorites of theirs including Uncle Bob’s favorite, Raisin Bran. Lots of milk was consumed and many pleasantries were exchanged. My daughter was a delightful host and my son at one point said, “this is the best day ever.”
The Big Boy Update: I took some time to do some drawing work with my son this afternoon to see what his teachers had been talking about with his penmanship. He’s left handed and holds the pen well, although it looks like it’s a bit of a cramped, upright grip, possibly making it harder for him to write easily and fluidly. When he was done drawing each of the characters from one of his favorite shows he would tell me about them and their weapon. Then, I had him write their names above the character. He’s not making a good mental connection with what he sees and has difficulty matching a letter I write on his paper. He did fairly well writing over letters I’d written although he wasn’t able to remember the order of the strokes from one try to the next copy of the letter (I wrote each one out five times for him to practice on a separate piece of paper.) Overall he did well though. I think with some more practice and some guidance and he’ll get it.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I cleaned out the cabinet of the children’s toys in the living room this afternoon. It gets piled full over time from things in other areas of the house and has to be emptied so they can find anything. I showed my daughter where her favorite Paw Patrol figures were going to live in the cabinet (she does better if she knows where things are stored) and she spent the remainder of the afternoon doing imaginative play with her favorite six pups.
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