Ada et al
adventures of the notorious Yoohoo

French Class

C’est avec plaisir que nous avons retrouvé Mélissa cette semaine, après son séjour à Londres. Même si nous étions très contents d’avoir eu Flora et Nathalie durant ces deux dernières semaines, nous sommes contents de retrouver notre routine. La classe de français a aussi accueilli une nouvelle élève cette semaine : bienvenue Sofia ! Nous en avons profité pour réviser le vocabulaire pour se présenter (« Je m’appelle… J’ai … ans. »).

Nous avons fait des œufs au plat pour le goûter le jour orange et les enfants ont bien aimé casser les œufs avant de les mettre à frire dans la poêle. Nous avons aussi profité des restes de neige dans la cour pour faire un peu de luge. Nous étions déçus qu’il n’y ait pas suffisamment de neige pour faire un bonhomme de neige et nous avons décidé d’en faire un en classe le jour jaune. Mélissa avait mis plein de matériel blanc de recyclage à disposition et nous nous en sommes donné à cœur joie ! Le jour vert, nous avons chanté A la claire fontaine pour l’assemblée. C’est une chanson qui est assez difficile et vu qu’on ne la maitrise pas encore très bien, nous la rechanterons a l’assemblée la semaine prochaine.

Parents : N’oubliez pas de munir votre enfant de chaussures d’intérieur les jours de neige et de pluie. Merci !

It is with great pleasure that we welcomed Melissa this week after her trip to London. Even if we were happy to have hosted Flora and Nathalie in the last two weeks, we were glad to get back to our routine.The French class also welcomed a new student this week: welcome Sofia! We used this opportunity to revise the vocabulary to introduce oneself (“My name is… I am… years old.”).

We made eggs sunny side up on the orange day, and the children liked cracking the eggs into the frying pan. On that day, we also enjoyed the remaining snow on the playground and used the sleds.We were disappointed that there wasn’t enough snow to build a snowman and decided to make our own on the yellow day. Melissa had made lots of white recycling materials available and the children went with it! On the green day, we sang A la claire fontaine at assembly. Since it is a difficult song that we don’t master well yet, we will be singing it again at assembly next week.

 
Parents: Do not forget to bring indoor shoes for your child on snowy and rainy days. Thanks!

~Eve et Melissa

Ada's sad face. She is drawing tears on her face with her fingers.

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Call Congress!

This is a “blackout” of Ada’s website to raise awareness about the potential harmful effects of SOPA and PIPA — proposed “anti-piracy” legislation that would basically make it really easy to shut off websites simply on demand.

Remember the DMCA Section 512 provisions that Mamala spent years of her life studying (and excoriating)? This legislation is Section 512 on steroids — less due process, more harmful consequences.

You grown-ups have already screwed up the physical environment. Don’t let the virtual one get screwed up too!

Call your representative and tell them you are opposed to legislation that (a) cuts off access to the world’s information and the premiere speech platform of our age, (b) does so by creating an arbitrary and capricious enforcement regime, without due process, and (c) fails to solve the (alleged) problem**.

* Well, “Ada’s mama”.

** The asterisk is because the industry’s widely touted “loss to piracy” figures have been investigated repeatedly and do not stand up to even the most minimal scrutiny. The US General Accounting Office wrote that there was no basis for the general claims of loss to piracy, that some of the underlying figures were arbitrarily doubled or tripled. Just yesterday on NPR, however, they quoted the entertainment industry’s $750 billion figure, without noting the inflation.

French Class

Nous avons fêté les trois ans de John dans la classe de français le jour bleu de la semaine dernière. John a même eu l’honneur de ramener Dominique chez lui pour le week-end. Dominique s’est régalé(e) d’une galette des rois et a même trouvé la fève !

Cette semaine, nous avons accueilli Nathalie, qui est gentiment venue remplacer Mélissa les jours orange et jaune, tandis que Flora est venue pour le jour vert. Mardi, nous avons fait de la cuisine. Nous avons découpé des pommes en morceaux. Nous les avons mis dans un petit sac en plastique, saupoudré de sucre et de cannelle. Nous avons ensuite refermé le sac, avant de le secouer. Prêt pour la dégustation ! Mercredi, nous avons fait des collages sur le thème de l’hiver. Même si la neige se fait attendre, nous avons tenté de créer un paysage hivernal avec plein de matériaux différents de couleur blanche. Nous avons aussi lu un livre sur les sports d’hiver. Parents : La chanson pour l’assemblée la semaine prochaine est « A la claire fontaine » (numéro 25 sur le CD).

We celebrated John’s third birthday in French class on the blue day last week. John even had the privilege of bringing Dominique home for the weekend. Dominique found the fève in the traditional galette des rois.

This week, we welcomed Nathalie, who replaced Mélissa on the orange and yellow days, while Flora came for the green day. On Tuesday we cooked.We cut some apples.We put the pieces in a Ziploc bag, and added sugar and cinnamon. We then closed the bag before shaking it. It was ready for tasting! On Wednesday, we did collages along the winter theme. Even if we are still waiting for snow, we tried to create a wintery scene with lots of different materials in white.We also read a book about winter sports.

Parents:The song for next week’s assembly is “A la claire fontaine” (number 25 on the CD).

~Eve and Melissa (actually, Nathalie et Flora, mais pas Melissa)

Just a couple of photos from Howard’s recent visit.

“Mama, I just saw an ugly baby.”

“Noooo, Ada, how can you say such a thing? All babies are so adorable, by their very nature.”

“No, but Mama, it was still and not moving; it was on paper.”

“Okay, but even drawings of babies are cute.”

“No! I will show you.”

Scamper, scamper, scamper, stomp, stomp, stomp.

Read the rest of this entry »

French Class

Nous sommes contents de retrouver nos amis de la classe de français
après les vacances. Le programme de cette semaine consiste à réviser les thèmes que nous avons appris au premier trimestre. Les enfants se
rappellent de la majorité des mots de vocabulaire, mais il faut les
encourager à recommencer à parler français spontanément.

Malheureusement pour nous, Mélissa est absente pour quinze jours.
Heureusement, Flora a accepté de la remplacer. Nous l’avons accueillie
avec plaisir dans la classe, et lui avons chanté une chanson pour l’occasion.

A ce propos, pour l’Assemblée nous avons voté et choisi de chanter « La famille tortue ». La semaine prochaine, nous chanterons « Frère Jacques » (numéro 31 sur le CD). Mardi nous avons fait des tartines de
confiture pour le goûter ; c’est ce que mangent les enfants traditionnellement en rentrant de l’école. Et mercredi, Flora nous a
organisé un atelier de peinture, ou nous avons pu réviser les couleurs en français. Bonne année 2012 et bonne rentrée !

We are happy to see our friends in the French class again after the break. This week’s program consists of going over the themes we learned during the first semester. The children remember most of the vocabulary words, and we are supporting them as they begin speaking French spontaneously again. Unfortunately for us, Mélissa will be gone for two weeks. Fortunately for her, she is studying theater in London as part of her Master’s Degree program. Flora is overjoyed to join us in her absence. We welcomed her to our classroom with great pleasure, and we sang her a song for the occasion.

Speaking of which, for Assembly this week, we voted and picked the song “La Famille Tortue”. Next week, we will sing “Frère Jacques” (number 31 on the CD).

On Tuesday, we made tartines with jam for snack; that’s what children traditionally eat when they come back from school. And on Wednesday, Flora organized a painting activity, where we were able to go over our colors in French.

Happy New Year!

~Eve et Flora (Mélissa aussi!)

On the side of the blog, you will notice a set of posts under “baby book”. Here we are gathering links to a lot of different posts under various relevant topics — like in a traditional baby book. So browse around and see what you missed.

Some of them are more “complete” than others. The goal is eventually to highlight particularly interesting posts and photos; and to link to the most relevant tags for seeing others. It’s a work in progress, so be patient.

This is just an un-announced blog entry for posterity, back-dated because I don’t want to supersede the baby book announcement ….

Ada is officially fully potty-trained. She hasn’t worn diapers or pull-up pants for at least 3 months.

History:

She had cloth diapers, which gave us some incentive to potty train “early” — starting at around a year. We had done a little bit of training by holding her over the big potty earlier, but nothing serious. At about a year, we introduced a child’s potty and various child’s potty books. (Favorite book: My Big Girl Potty by Joanna Cole.) She had a Baby Bjorn potty-seat for the grown-up potty and a Baby Bjorn (red) kids’ potty — we weren’t sure which she would like better. As it turns out she didn’t much care and was adept at both. So she pretty quickly used potty for pooping, and would pee if put on the potty, but it took a little longer for her to develop enough control to hold it if she had to pee. And of course we had the hurdle that she didn’t want to ask us to take her, especially if it interrupted playtime.

But basically from July 2009 – fall 2009 she had a lot of naked time and a lot of practice using the potty, and it was relatively pain-free.

At around 2yo, summer 2010, Michele said, “Enough! No more diapers.” And we basically switched her over to training pants, and just prompted her to go to the potty. We had a few phases where she would argue a lot if it was interrupting her play, or just not interested in going. (We implemented a 4-part protocol for leaving the house, for instance: get dressed, pick up toys, gather up stuff to take, and go to the potty. Somehow having a little list made it more fun and less troublesome; going thru The Leaving-the-House Protocol became its own fun activity.)

Although we had switched to pull-up pants for day play, we started using disposable (chlorine-free) pull-up pants at night because she couldn’t hold at night long enough.

This last fall — September-ish, 2011 — we ran out of pull-up pants and again, Michele said, “Enough!” We pulled out the faithful wool pads (those things are awesome) and let her sleep with us and on her bed just in her PJs and underwear. One or two accidents in the first week and since then it’s been pretty smooth sailing. She had one accident this fall when some friends babysit and gave her a lot of milk late at night, and last night (Jan. 1 2012) a tiny accident (didn’t even wet the sheets) because, again, we gave her milk late at night.

So this morning Michele was telling me about two dreams she had last night. In one the Mitt Romney family moved in below us and accused us of leaving the door open for burglars, and then they got upset, and ultimately tried to K-I-L-L us. Ada was in the room, so Michele was spelling sensitive words.

“Did you say ‘kill’? Why did they want to kill us, mama?”

Umm. I really don’t even know pig latin; I’m not sure I’m prepared to use it as my go-to code for talking in front of Ada. Hopefully this is a one-off, and not the beginning of spelling. Don’t learn to spell yet, Ada!

In her other dream, Michele proved her loyalty to the Democratic Party, and that’s all that Mamala, who is of “other/anarchist” political persuasion, is going to write about Michele’s dream about Hilary Clinton.

12 noon – Michele takes Ada out of the house for some last-minute xmas shopping — and to give me time to assemble the dollhouse. I read the New Yorker, freshen up my tea, change the radio station, & pop some corn, adding a variety of michele-disapproved ingredients — butter (frowned upon), salt (frowned upon), and nutritional yeast (forbidden entirely).

1230 – I open up the box and contemplate the contents therein. The Plan Toys Chalet Dollhouse (Fig. A) is currently about 40 small oddly shaped pieces of environmentally friendly rubberwood, nestled in about a dozen pieces of recycled cardboard. The instructions are likely environmentally friendly but manifestly user-unfriendly, with a schematic of sketched-in line drawings of nearly identical parts, labeled by letters. The parts themselves are not so labeled. I routinely assemble products (mostly bookcases) from Ikea, Target, and so forth but feel daunted by this boxful of unlabeled parts. I call Michele and complain to her that she’s got the good part of the deal. She advises me to look on the Internet. I do and just find other people complaining about the difficulty of assembling this dollhouse with these instructions. “Pay careful attention to the minor details on the instruction sheets,” they advise.

1245 – I have assembled one of the lower floors with two other pieces. I decide to blog this for posterity and spend 7 minutes catching up with the actions of the last 45 minutes. Sadly I am now caught up with the present moment and need to advance to step 2.

1255 – Step 2 is complete! Maybe this won’t be so bad, I blog.

105 – Quite a bit of angst over distinguishing between various little pieces, which are unmarked, may I remind the reader. Step 3 is now complete, however.

108 – Fuck. You can’t be serious. There’s a piece with pegs on both end that now needs to go between the first floor and the second. Necessitating unscrewing the floors to loosen the connection.

159 – Okay. The first half of the two-part structure is complete.

235 – With fewer pieces to distinguish between, part 2 went much faster. Only one chunk of work needed to be un-done and re-done, a result of me mis-reading the orientation of the line drawing.

The plan is to have the doorbell ring through the evening and have dollhouse furniture show up on the doorstep. This is a tradition from Michele’s family, but based on Ada’s interests, it is the Grinch returning things that were stolen from the house, rather than Santa. In the morning, under the tree, she will receive the dollhouse itself. She knows, sort of, that Santa and the Grinch are make-believe, but she lets herself believe it, too. The line between play and belief is pretty thin at her age. Maybe at all ages.