Loosee

From time to time the children miss our dog, Lucy, who died at the end of last summer.   Lucy comes up in conversation sometimes and tonight at dinner I found myself talking to Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian about our thoughts about getting another dog (no plans) and how the children missed Lucy but remembered her from the tree they planted in the back yard.

This is one of those times as an adult when you don’t think the children are paying any attention to you at all while you and the other adults have conversations while the children are doing something right beside you.  It is common however that your child or children is in fact listening to some degree to the words you’re saying, even if they’re not able to get the whole conversation.

Tonight my son was working with a piece of origami paper and some chopsticks.   We didn’t have a pencil or pen available so he was drawing on the paper with the wooden chopstick which yielded surprisingly better results than I would have thought it would.  After talking for a bit about dogs, I looked over to see my son had written this on his piece of black origami paper:

You may remember that my son has been having difficulty writing and has been in occupational therapy this school year but you can see very clearly he wrote, “loosee”.   His writing is getting better every week.   Second, he is learning how to both read and write and he all on his own figured out how to phonetically spell ‘Lucy’.   And third, he’s gotten from his teachers that sometimes you need a double letter to make the sound you want to make such as the ‘oo’ and ‘ee’.  

He wanted to keep the sheet with the marks on it from above when we left for dinner.  I told him he absolutely could.   I’m going to stick this little piece of paper in his scrapbook folder I’m so proud of it.

The Big Boy Update:  We went on a jeep tour of the desert today, including visiting the San Andreas Fault.  There were six of us in our jeep, my children, husband and me and a couple, Milo and Dina who were teachers with three older children who didn’t come along for the tour.   My son for some reason without saying anything decided he liked Milo.  He would lean up against him and even tried to take a nap on him as we got towards the latter part of the trip.   Milo seemed to like my son too and said he didn’t mind.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  During our jeep ride to the San Andreas Fault my daughter did her best to listen to what the driver was saying, although most of it was interesting to adults more than children.   She couldn’t see what was happening outside the jeep but when we got to the various stops she would get down on the ground and play with the sand/dirt/gravel to try and experience the desert as best she could.   Even though she couldn’t see much, she seemed to enjoy the day.   We helped her feel whatever she could including plants, some of which smelled interesting.