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same_skyOn Friday, I got super-motivated and cleaned my house. I mean, wow. It looked so great. My parents were coming down to visit, arriving that evening. I like to have a reason to really clean, and though I don't really have to worry about the state of my house when it's just my parents, it's still pretty nice to have people over when your house looks good. So, I put things away in all rooms--usually, one room at a time looks good--and cleaned and was really happy with how it looked. They left on Saturday night and took Evie with them. On Sunday, with too much time on our hands, apparently, M and I proceeded to destroy the whole house. Amazing how what took me so long to clean was torn up in a couple of short hours! We entered into this massive room switcheroo project, which will eventually end up with the computers in our former dining room (it's mostly an extension of the living room in a sort of L configuration.), our bed in what was the computer room--it's actually supposed to be the master bedroom) and our current bedroom being a guest room, and the sunroom being... something else, theoretically, but it will probably still mostly be the furniture storage room. We never used the dining room for actual dining so it was really just a wasted room.. except for folding laundry. We put the computers in and got them going and stopped to see if we would like it this way before we dragged everything else around. We decided yesterday to proceed with the rest of the project... so there's a metric shit ton of furniture moving, decluttering, organizing and cleaning again in our near future. Sure glad I spent all that time putting things back in their proper places...
Other than that... nothing much is new. We've had swimming lessons this month, and only have one more week to go. I'm not even sure what the schedule is for next month, or if there is another class next month. It's not on the website, anyway. Evie's teacher is somewhat unreliable, having missed two classes so far and apparently today was her last day of work, so in the end she'll have missed four out of eight classes. She was pretty good about teaching each kid at their level while still challenging them to progress, but she had no personality and I didn't really have a great sense that she particularly likes working with kids. Or, maybe I am just bitter that she obviously doesn't fully appreciate the chance to spend time with my special snowflake. :) So.. I'm mostly indifferent to her leaving. I did just love how Evie added some interest to her last day, though, and announced in the middle of class that she had to go poop. Thanks for sharing, kioddo. Although, really, of course, I really am glad she told her but still. She is, sad to say, the worst student in the class. She's the youngest, and the least experienced in the water, and by far the most talkative. Now she is also the one with the most poop. I am not worried about it, having read that the average age that children really learn how to swim is more like five and a half, no matter when they start swimming lessons. She enjoys it and it's good for her.
Evie has discovered computer games this week. We have played a few online games and purchased games, but she hasn't been that interested in any of them, and her ability to use a mouse was limited because she kept pushing the right button instead of the left, which would usually break whatever she was trying to do. I bought her a small, one-button mouse before we left for Sweden, but we never got around to using it until just now. It made a huge difference in her abilities and her interest, so it was totally worth the money. She played a Caillou game a couple of times on Tuesday, but yesterday, I installed Reader Rabbit Toddler and she went NUTSO over it. I think the other key is that it was EASY for her. No clicking required! What impresses me is how fast she figured out FOR HERSELF how to navigate within the game. She was sitting on my lap during the first time that she played, and after a while, I sort of lost focus on what she was doing because how many times do you really need to see a drawing get colored in with the sweep of a mouse? Then I realized that she was playing a different game, and I hadn't showed her how to do it. Kids are so smart! And initially, I don't really want to curb her gaming enthusiasm because hello, we are huge geeks here and we WANT her to like computers. And yet...yesterday, every time she stopped playing, she turned into a litlte grump. We'll see how that works out today. I don't want her playing something if it's going to make her scream like a banshee when it's time to do something else.
I should go eat breakfast before it's time to wake up the kid. :) Hope you all have a nice day!
Other than that... nothing much is new. We've had swimming lessons this month, and only have one more week to go. I'm not even sure what the schedule is for next month, or if there is another class next month. It's not on the website, anyway. Evie's teacher is somewhat unreliable, having missed two classes so far and apparently today was her last day of work, so in the end she'll have missed four out of eight classes. She was pretty good about teaching each kid at their level while still challenging them to progress, but she had no personality and I didn't really have a great sense that she particularly likes working with kids. Or, maybe I am just bitter that she obviously doesn't fully appreciate the chance to spend time with my special snowflake. :) So.. I'm mostly indifferent to her leaving. I did just love how Evie added some interest to her last day, though, and announced in the middle of class that she had to go poop. Thanks for sharing, kioddo. Although, really, of course, I really am glad she told her but still. She is, sad to say, the worst student in the class. She's the youngest, and the least experienced in the water, and by far the most talkative. Now she is also the one with the most poop. I am not worried about it, having read that the average age that children really learn how to swim is more like five and a half, no matter when they start swimming lessons. She enjoys it and it's good for her.
Evie has discovered computer games this week. We have played a few online games and purchased games, but she hasn't been that interested in any of them, and her ability to use a mouse was limited because she kept pushing the right button instead of the left, which would usually break whatever she was trying to do. I bought her a small, one-button mouse before we left for Sweden, but we never got around to using it until just now. It made a huge difference in her abilities and her interest, so it was totally worth the money. She played a Caillou game a couple of times on Tuesday, but yesterday, I installed Reader Rabbit Toddler and she went NUTSO over it. I think the other key is that it was EASY for her. No clicking required! What impresses me is how fast she figured out FOR HERSELF how to navigate within the game. She was sitting on my lap during the first time that she played, and after a while, I sort of lost focus on what she was doing because how many times do you really need to see a drawing get colored in with the sweep of a mouse? Then I realized that she was playing a different game, and I hadn't showed her how to do it. Kids are so smart! And initially, I don't really want to curb her gaming enthusiasm because hello, we are huge geeks here and we WANT her to like computers. And yet...yesterday, every time she stopped playing, she turned into a litlte grump. We'll see how that works out today. I don't want her playing something if it's going to make her scream like a banshee when it's time to do something else.
I should go eat breakfast before it's time to wake up the kid. :) Hope you all have a nice day!
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Date: 2010-08-19 06:38 pm (UTC)Sounds like a great plan for re-organizing! Lots of work, but it sounds like it will be worth it.
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Date: 2010-08-19 07:21 pm (UTC)You'll have to come visit again now that we'll have a real guest room. ;) I hate even saying that (though it's true that you're welcome any time) because we should be the ones traveling at some point but my dear husband hates to travel, plus has no vacation. hehe. I think the whole project will be good in the end but it sounds a little awful at the moment. :)
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Date: 2010-08-19 07:23 pm (UTC)