Dinner & A Phone Call To Remember

Last night Tony and I joined Ines, David, Harri & Family at a Turkish Restaurant for dinner to celebrate Harri's birthday.

Dinner was delicious and the company was lovely.

It has been fantastic catching up with Harri, and meeting Ella, and seeing Harri's family again. Ella is just so gorgeous and always smiling.

So last night, Josie stayed at Baba's overnight and all day today.

Around mid-morning I get a phone call, that goes something like this:

Josie: I want you to tell uhm somebody to check on Becca.. and if you go see Becca after work and tell me its ok, can you let me see her?
Mari: Sure honey, I will call Becca and see how she is and we will see if we can go see her on the way home.
Josie: And can you see if the wii is working.. and I need to let you know, I.. need to tell Baba something and its a secret and its not for Baba, its for me..
Mari: Uh huh...
Josie: the secret is.. dont tell Baba.. tell Baba not to tell you too.. not do nothing to me.. not even be rude.. not be wrong or be right.. im going to be right.. and next time im gonna be rude..
Mari: Uh huh.. [getting distracted here amongst the ramblings..]
Josie: mum.. arent you at work already ??
Mari: yes I am..
Josie: when are you going to come?
Mari: 6-630
Josie: I have this little baby and she is always silly and always naughty.. well besides me.. and she cries and cries and bites me..
Mari: ok..
Josie: Can you tell baba a secret?
Mari: Uhh sure.. what is it?
Josie: I love you and Baba.. and daddy and everyone.. BABA!!! Mummy has to tell you something.. here's Baba Mummy.. you tell her..
Mari: Uhm Josie loves you and me and daddy and everyone..
Baba: Great! Now Josie, you come eat...

lol..

Josie-isms Part The Whatever-We-Were-Up-To

On Saturday night, Ant, Mari, Jo, Mum and our cousin Martin and his daughter Maddison came over for dinner. Jo and Maddy had met once before and gotten on very well but hadn't seen each other since, and it'd been a year I guess. So there was some initial shyness but pretty soon there was giggling and tickling, playing of XBOX games and the usual carry on that you get with young children. And they got on like a house on fire.

I cooked leg of lamb for dinner, which Maddy ate and I'm hoping the concept of eating the same food the grown-ups eat will rub off on Jo before the sixth birthday deal. Maddy wasn't so sure about the sweet potato but then it took me some years to appreciate it too.

Later we were watching DVD's, Josie laying against me and Maddy laying against Josie. Maddy had the hiccups, and periodically would shudder a bit as a hiccup hit her. After a short while Josie whispered, "Mad ... Mad! .. I'm not a trampoline you know."

Such indignities are not to be borne after all. *grin*

A good night was to be had by all, finished off with a delicious dessert which Marty brought with him. I'm not sure what it was but it involved chocolate in copious amounts, and berries on top - which Josie proceeded to relieve everyone of.

Those Were The Days..

By Tony.

The days of Josie accepting any story I tell her are over.

About two years ago she figured out that my 'Princess Josephine' stories were nothing more than chastisement in pretty wrappers and now she has started to criticise my choice of material and demand immediate rectification and improvement.

Tonight I was reading from a Golden Book of bedtime stories all about bunnies, and after the first bunny story and a poem about bunnies, I got only one paragraph into the second story when Josephine decided she has had enough of bunnies and wanted one of daddy's tales and the following exchange occurred:

Josie [interrupting the story being read]: Daaaad...
Tony: Yes Josephine?
Josie: Can you tell me a story and I'll go to sleep?
Tony: [Confused]
Tony: Thats what we're doing.. I'm reading you a story, and I want you to go to sleep..
Josie: uhh I've got a better idea.. you TELL me a story while I go to sleep...
Tony: [Very confused]
Tony: Thats what I'm doing [pointing to the book]. This is a story, I'm telling you a story! Please go to sleep..
Josie: No.. one of YOUR stories..
Tony: Ahhh.. fine..
[Puts down the book, turns the light off..]
Tony: Once upon a time, in a land far far away, in a small garden, beside a castle, beside a lake, there lived a family of bunnies.. and there was Mummy Bunny, and Daddy Bunny, and little Josie Bunny, and they lived in a small garden beside a castle in which lived Daddy King, Mummy Queen and a Princess Josephine, who had two pet dragons, Zak...
Josie: Daaaad...
Tony: Yes Josephine?
Josie: Do it cats.
Tony: Huh?
Josie: Make it cats instead of dragons.
Tony: What? Why? She has dragons..
Josie: Nooo.. I dont want dragons. I dont like dragons..
Tony: What do you mean? You have two stuffed dragons right next to you.. you loved the dragon that used to hang over your cot..
Josie [interrupting again]: yehhh... but I dont like dragons anymore
Tony: Dragons are cool!
Josie: They're not
Tony: Dragons are awesome!
Josie: Nooo... they breathe fire and burn people up and they eat people..
Tony: Not all dragons.. there's good dragons too.. Only the bad dragons hurt people..
Josie: Weeeeell... if I hurt a good dragon... it would burn me..
Tony: Well don't hurt it then... ?
Josie: Just make it cats. [rolls her eyes, tolerating no more of daddy's backchat]
Tony: Fine.
Tony: A long time ago, in a forest far far away, there lived a family, in a cottage...
Josie [interrupting again]: Noooo...
Tony: What?
Josie: They live in a castle!
Tony: No.. she has dragons! You wanted cats. The girl in the forest has cats.
Josie: Ugghhhhhh....
Tony: Just lie down and listen to your story.. [tolerating no more of Josie's backchat]
Tony: As I was saying.. there was a daddy and a mummy and a little girl Josephine, and her two cats, Zak and Zelli. Daddy was a woodcutter and every day he went out into the forest and cut some wood... and sold it to people. (Not being arsed to go describing any complex system of villages or fairs where wood may or may not be sold, as inevitably this would draw some kind of criticism from the 5 year old peanut gallery). Mummy baked pies all day, and made dinner, and... did stuff around the house. And the little girl Josephine and her cats played in the garden and ran along the banks of the river that ran through the woods and past the house. And they ran through the field past the house chasing butterflies.
Josie: Cats don't chase butterflies.
Tony: *groan* Jesus Christ! How do you know??
Josie: I know.
Tony: [&*%$*&^] Finukan! (I yelled, but only in my head, gritting my teeth and twitching).
Tony: These cats chase butterflies.
Tony: And they jumped over the river, it was a thin river (before she has a chance to object) and...
Josie: Daaad...
Tony: what!?
Josie: Can you do it not Josephine? Its annoying when you keep putting me in it!
Tony: What?
Josie: Its annoying. Always having Josephine in it..
Tony: But..
Tony: But..
Tony: Mhmmm (whimpers).. ok.. fine..
Tony: A long time ago, in a mountain far far away, there lived a race of gnomes who dug into the roots and depths of the mountain and dug rocks and jewels out of the mountain, and gold and... sold them to people nd became very wealthy. And they built roads and galleries and caverns and mines and they were happy. And one day there was born a young gnome who didn't want to live in the mountain. He wanted to see the light and feel the sun shine upon his face. He wanted to feel the grass underneath his feet, smell the wild flowers that grew in the valley beyond the mountain and watch the wild horses run. But his father said that he could not leave the mountain as it was dangerous out there and he would get hurt. That he should stay where it was safe among his people. And the young gnome was sad and wandered uncaring through the dark caverns of the mountain, and his father was sad to see his son so. And finally one day he said to him, "Son you must leave this place and go out into the valley and do as you would. Take this cloak, it will make you invisible to the dangers beyond the..."
Josie: Dad, this is a scary story.
Tony: Wait, let me finish. It gets better.
Josie: Aallriiiight...
Tony: Thank you.

[At this point I take no responsibility for the drivel ahead. Suffice to say, she fell asleep, sometime early on I would imagine. Ed. (Mari)]

Tony: And he put on the cloak and was happy and his father said, "Come back after a time and tell us what you have found." And the young gnome said "I will return after one year and bring news of all that I have discovered". And hugging his father, the young gnome ran to the front gates of the mountain and hesitated on the doorstep, wondering what he should do first, whether to go down to the river, or to the wildflowers, or seek out the wild horses. He decided to go down to the wildflowers first, and he smelled the wild flowers and eventually he tripped and fell into the flowers, disturbing a swarm of bees that were feasting on the flowers nectar. They gave an angry Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, and the young gnome said "I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, I tripped". But the bees weren't listening, and with an angry Buzz, Buzz, Buzz, they chased him from the flower bed and stung him on the bottom. And they chased him all the way until he had to jump into the river to escape them. And the river flowed swiftly and bore him away until he entered the woods and finally could pull himself from the river by the roots of the trees that stood by it. And the young gnome was cold and wet and had a sore bottom and so he walked back out of the forest, seeking the sunlight to dry his clothes. And he sat on a large rock and let the sun dry his clothes and warm him once more. And he bathed his bottom oin the river once more and the cool waters soothed the sting until it hurt him no more. Then he climbed back onto the rock to enjoy some more sun.

A rumbling caused him to turn and he saw the wild horses of the valley running towards his rock and the vibration of their hooves caused him to lose his balance and as the lead horse came past the rock, its tail swished out and smacked him in the face and he fell over backwards back into the river, hitting his head on the rock as he fell. And he was borne once more into the forest. Dragging himself out again he decided to explore the forest, as the valley had proven dangerous, as his father had warned. He walked and he walked until night began to fall and he became afraid and thought he had better get out of the forest and get back to the valley lest some forest creature attacked him. He turned and began to run back the way he had come. After a little while he heard a noise behind him, and turning saw the gleaming eyes, and large teeth of a wolf chasing him. Screaming he ran faster than ever until at least he burst form the forest into the light of the last rays of the sun. Turning once more he saw that it was in fact a large squirrel that had been chasing him. And he shook his fist at it and said accusingly "You scared me!". And the squirrel said "Its not my fault you thought I was a wolf, I just wanted to get a drink from the river". And he went down to the river, took a long drink and ran back into the forest.

With no shelter in the valley, the young gnome looked towards the mountain, and wondered whether he should go back and give up on his dreams of the outside world. But he though, "No! I should not give up. Nothing too bad has happened to me after all. Maybe I should just try again using the knowledge I have gained, to avoid the same mistakes." So the gnome turned back and re-entered the forest, looking for a tree with a nice wide branch covered in leaves to sleep on. Finding one, he climbed up and went to sleep.

He awoke the next morning to find the squirrel, sitting on the branch looking at him. "Good morning" said the squirrel. "Who are you?". And the young gnome told him all about his story. "You can't live in the trees for long" said the squirrel. "You will need to go back to the valley and build a house. Winter will come soon and it will be too cold to be without shelter." "how will I build a house?" Said the young gnome. I have nothing to cut trees with. The squirrel said "You're too small for cutting trees. You just need to find some sticks of appropriate size and I will cut them to the right length with my sharp teeth for you. And then we will use vines for rope to tie the sticks together to make a wood house." And so they dragged large sticks out of the forest and the gnome found vines while the squirrel cut the sticks with his teeth and they lashed the sticks together to make walls and the walls together to make a house and roof. And the squirrel said "And you will need a fire to keep warm, but you will need stone to keep the fire form burning down the house. So you will need to get river stones... from the river." "But the current is too swift" said the gnome. "Maybe we could tie a vine around your waist and around the rock, and that will stop the river from taking you away." So they did this and after many hours of jumping into the river and hauling rocks out they had enough and built a chimney and fireplace in the house. "But you will need a bed." And they got more sticks and the squirrel cut them to size with his teeth and they lashed them together with more vines to make the frame and they got pine needles for a mattress and horse hairs form the valley and wove them into a blanket. And...

At that point I noticed she was asleep [I don't blame her. Ed. (Mari)]. And figuring that it sounded like my gnome had got himself sorted out well enough at this stage, and could do without me, I kissed Josephine goodnight and left her slumbering.

Parent Teacher Night

On Monday we had our first real Parent/Teacher night. Tony and I both had appointments with the classroom teacher, the Hebrew teacher and the sports teacher.

When we got there we were scheduled to see the sports teacher first, but of course, as these things usually go, everyone was running late. We actually saw the classroom teacher first and got a low-down of how Josie is doing in class. We were told that she is a bright and happy girl, very eager to learn and loves the activities and being with her friends. She said her attention is getting better focused and she is doing amazing things with her writing/journaling and spelling.

We were given her journal to have a look at, and her worksamples folder to take home.

Her journal was simply incredible. Each page had a drawing and a sentence underneath. She was writing (by herself) things like "I went to the park with my cat Zelda and I had an ice cream". And on a couple of pages "I went to Rachel's house and Benny hurt me" ;-) I am sure it was not unprovoked. We were just blown away with her writing and spelling!

Her worksamples folder included various assessments she had, to test her pattern matching and comprehension and counting etc. It was incredible to look at. We were meant to go through all the assessments with her at home and fill in an evaluation with her. Below are her Comprehension Q's and after that the evaluation questions we filled in together.

Comprehension Questions

Who is the main character in the story?
a chicken

What is the little red hen baking ?
Bread.

Why do you think the animals didn't want to help the little red hen ?
He had so many stuff to do.

Where do you think the story takes place?
In a book.

Where do you think all the animals are?
In the story.

What do you think the story is trying to teach you?
Reading.

Seriously.

Those were her answers. No joke. Its stuff you read about on those emails you get sent from 5 different people in the space of a few hours.

Evaluation Questions

What am I most proud of?
Me doing good work.

Did I achieve my goals?
Yes.

What would I like to improve on?
Painting, learning & I want to do 'going to school' better.

Hehe..

Anyway.. so after the classroom teacher we saw the Hebrew teacher who also said that she was doing very well, was recognising letters and sounds and words. She asked us if Josie was using hebrew at home at all and we told ehr that 80% of her awake time is spent singing. In hebrew, in english, in Josie-nese.

After that we managed to grab the sports teacher but he was't able to tell us much. With so many kids he really had no idea who was who, all he could tell us was that so far in Kindy, he had noticed no kids with any problems with any of the skills they were learning.

So that was our first Parent/Teacher night. It was good to hear how she was doing.

And to finish off, here is an exchange I had with Jose a couple of weeks ago:

I had bought her a Dora umbrella. We all know how much she loves Dora. Or so we thought. As I handed her the new umbrella, her face fell and she said: "You know mum, it doesnt have to be Dora ALL the time!!".

And then she rolled her eyes at me.

When did she turn 13?!