You'd never know this was a short month from all that we shoved into it.
This was Ellen's birthday month so we'll start with her. Near the beginning of the month, Ellen wanted to learn how to play checkers, so I tried to teach her. She got the basic gist of it. Then she tried to teach her sister. She didn't like it as it got down to the end, and there wasn't a way to clearly win the game. Stalemates just don't compute to her age group yet. Something nice that she started doing occasionally this month has been making her bed in the morning without being asked to. This was also Chinese New Year for Ellen's kindergarten class. They took a pretend trip to China with tickets and in-flight movie and everything. They went on their trip for 2 weeks. Ellen learned how to say hello and goodbye in Chinese. She also learned how to make Chinese characters and count. On the last day of their trip which also coincided with her birthday, they had Chinese food and got eat it with chopsticks. If we served her any food on the planet, and she got to eat it with chopsticks, she'd eat it without question. Jada brought home the leftovers, and Ellen had them for every meal that weekend...with chopsticks, of course. For Ellen's birthday, she had chosen quesadillas for dinner, but was more than happy to have the sweet and sour chicken leftovers from her Chinese banquet. We opened presents, and she wore the slippers from Auntie Mandy constantly, and the princess high heels from uncle Allen and aunt Shelly...fortunately, not at the same time, though I don't doubt that she would have tried it. She finished off the month a bit ill, like the rest of us, with cough and stuffy nose. Though she missed the worst of it.
Phoebe, however, seems to have been continuously sick since Thanksgiving. She kicked off the month with an ear infection in both ears. The weekend after Ellen's birthday, she came down with something that had her throwing up in the middle of the night. No one got any sleep that night. I had to wash her sheets twice that night alone. She was still nursing a stuffy nose and cough through the end of the month. Maybe March will be the month she finally kicks it. Though she has learned to sort of blow her nose now, but not enough to actually get the snot out. She's also entered the oh so fun stubborn/defiant period of her development. She is as slow as molasses when we try to get her to do anything. This too, we hope, will pass. Finally, Phoebe seems to think she lives in a musical. She goes from just talking to songs in a heartbeat. She will randomly slip into the Pledge of Allegiance, Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, or any number of other songs, poems, or made up arias at any time, and sometimes just mashes them up (as the kids say). It is really funny, I must say. She was quite jealous of Ellen's birthday attention, but we just had to keep reminding her that hers was only 2 weeks away...so, of course, she asked every day if it was her birthday yet. Hope springs eternal.
As I said, we crammed a bunch of stuff into this month. I volunteered at Jada's school twice this month. The first was for the Kindergarten Big Rig Day arranged by Ellen's teacher. I was asked to participate with the tandem since most kids have either never seen one or at least not seen one up close. I was supposed to be there with her husband and their canoe, but he got sick. The kids weren't so interested in it with all the other cool police cars and motorcycles, fire truck, PGE line truck, Mail truck (how can you tell?), the big tow truck, and a semi cab (Ellen's favorite). It was really cold that morning too, but at least it wasn't raining. The second time was for National Engineers and Technicians month where companies from the area can send engineers into the classrooms to try to cultivate an interest in science with kids. Plus, Intel will match the hours with dollars for the school for my volunteer time as part of our Intel Involved program.
Ellen got to go to 2 birthday parties this month. The first, Phoebe was invited, but too ill to attend. They had a clown. Ellen thought that was great. She really enjoyed the balloon animals, and Ellen brought one home for Phoebe. (I do have to say that Ellen is very good about asking for extras for her little sister. She can be a great big sister when she wants to) The next party was for one of Ellen's kindergarten friends that Phoebe didn't get to go to. It was a pirate theme. They had cake with black frosting, so when we picked Ellen up, she totally looked like she should be listening to the Smiths and hanging out with the Goth crowd. Then we went over to have dinner with Phoebe's Godmother since she wasn't going to be in town for Phoebe's birthday.
Da Bulls made their annual trip to the Rose Garden on February 3rd. It ended up being a close game which the Bulls managed to pull out in the end. I think that's the first time I've actually gotten to see them win here since 1997...and even then it took a last minute come back from a certain Michael Jordan (guard) to win the game.
During one of the days when Phoebe was too sick to go to school, I stayed home to take care of them, but I had meetings that I had to attend in the afternoon. So after nap time, each of the girls split up to play on their own for 1.5 hours. Ellen read a chapter book (Mrs. Pigglewiggle) and Phoebe played with her dolls in the play room. It's so nice when they can do that, and makes me proud to know that they can.
Ellen and Phoebe got to attend their very first rock and roll concert for Ralph's World at the Aladdin Theater. The girls were watching all the kids up in front of the stage in the "nosh pit". By the end of the show, they wanted to be up there (though Phoebe took a little bit of a rest period mid-show) dancing around. Ralph called everyone up on the stage to take a pretend instrument for a couple songs to be real rock 'n' roll stars. The girls headed up there immediately. They somehow made it up through the crowd. Phoebe appearing beneath the bass player's elbow, and Ellen right behind her. Though Ellen at some point shifted over to stand right next to Ralph. It was a fun time for us all. If you're a parent, aunt, or uncle tired of listening to the usual fluff that Disney keeps putting out, order that special child in your life a Ralph's World CD and keep it in the car. I was actually surprised to find that Ralph is a Disney artist, and apparently has video's featured on the Disney channel's music video show.
I almost forgot that Valentine's day was this month (see what I mean? Busy) I don't remember too much about what we did on Valentine's day except that the girls made us some pretty Valentine's cards, and Jada helped Ellen and Phoebe make Valentine's cards for everyone in their classrooms.
Journal entry: March 3, 2007