The adventures of Ezmiklauria
Wow, time flies! Today Gloria graduated Kindergarten, her self-proclaimed favorite school year ever. She took to McGilvra and her teacher Mr. S immediately and was always excited to get on the bus in the morning (or occasionally bike to school with mommy). We had beautiful weather for the graduation ceremony, along with a family lunch at Café Flora. Just like that, our little girl is now a first grader!
Waiting on line for the processional
In they come
Receiving her certificate from Mr. S
Uncle Shawnie and Aunt Amanda are returning tomorrow night after their nine month sabbatical. Micah and Gloria have been talking about it all week. We weren’t sure how much Ezra would remember his aunt and uncle as he was 14 months old when they left. But he’s clearly picked up on his elder siblings’ excitement and started saying “Shawnie” today. I captured this moment at dinner tonight, and realized just how much Ezra’s verbal skills have exploded recently. He’s echoing back all sorts of phrases, especially when his big sister “da da” is conducting.
Lauren and Gloria had the following conversation on the way home from ballet today that I’m glad they shared with me:
GLORIA: Mommy, we practiced fact groups at school today.
LAUREN: What is a fact group?
GLORIA: A fact group is when we get a number and have to show all the different ways to make a number.
LAUREN: What is the fact group for six?
GLORIA: 3+3 is 6. And 2+4, and 1+5, 0+6, 5+1, and 4+2.
LAUREN: Yup.
GLORIA: There’s also 7 takeaway 1, and 8 takeaway 2.
LAUREN: Do you guys do subtraction also?
GLORIA: No, but I needed to try more ways to make six.
It’s been a joy to watch Gloria’s burgeoning reading skills develop this year. Tonight she read to me the five steps below. I didn’t have to assist her in any of the words, which was surprising as I didn’t know she could read “droid unfolds” or “activate.”
On our outing to Seattle Center today, Gloria noticed the signs for Seattle Children’s Theater and asked if she could see Stellaluna. I told her that we had tickets to see it two days before my birthday, which led to the following conversation:
GLORIA: What kind of dessert do you want for your birthday daddy? Do you want cupcakes or ice cream or cake or cookies or donuts?
KENNY: I hadn’t really thought about it. Those all sound pretty good.
GLORIA: But which one is your favorite. Cake? Ice cream?
KENNY: You know, I do really like ice cream cake.
GLORIA: Well daddy, you can’t have ice cream cake. It has too much sugar. After the frosting and the ice cream there’s too much sugar. You should just have the ice cream, I know how much you love ice cream.
If Gloria remembered the D’Ambrosio gelato cake we ordered for my 37th birthday maybe she’d change her mind. 
On Thursday morning, while we were having Challah French Toast for breakfast, we had a very instructional conversation. Gloria had asked for some strawberry preserves to accompany her French toast.
LAUREN: “Here you go, strawberry jelly.”
GLORIA: “Mommy, why did you call it jelly and not jam?”
LAUREN: “When I was a kid we always called it jelly”
GLORIA: “But they’re not the same thing”
KENNY: “What’s the difference again? I can’t remember…”
GLORIA: “I know, for jam they don’t have to remove the seeds”
Once Gloria reminded us of this, I remembered that the fine folks at Alm Hill Gardens had communicated this tidbit last year at their farmer’s market stand. Those kids really are sponges.
Usually the one moment of predictable downtime on weekends is around 2pm, the (short) overlapping stretch of Micah and Ezra’s afternoon naps. But in honor of Father’s Day, Micah decided that this Sunday was going to be different from all other Sundays.
We haven’t been getting enough sleep lately, so to help me get some rest Lauren graciously took Gloria out this afternoon right after I put Micah in bed for his nap (and about 20 minutes before Ezra was due for his). Shortly after Lauren and Gloria left, Micah came upstairs to inform me that he didn’t feel like taking a nap. This from the kid who had turned to me during lunch today and said “Daddy, I’m done. Let’s go downstairs and have a nap.”
This had never happened before, so I brought him back downstairs, put him in bed for a second time, and went upstairs to get Ezzy ready for his nap. As I was about to put Ezra in his crib I heard Micah walk up the stairs, open the door, and announce “the bunny’s awake!” Now I knew full well that the bunny wouldn’t wake up until 2:30PM, so I just gave him this look of disbelief and said “really?”
Without skipping a beat Micah said “yes daddy, I woke him up!” I finished putting Ezzy to bed and sure enough when I went down to Micah’s room he had figured out the switch to change the bunny from asleep to awake. While I didn’t get a rest, at least Micah was good natured this afternoon. Perhaps he was running a bit of a sleep surplus. Hopefully we aren’t set up for a more challenging week (behaviorally) as a result.
He’s my best friend….and my daddy too!
–Gloria
Hope she still likes me this much when she’s 13…
Spring is a very festive time for Jewish holidays. In the lead up to Purim, there are a number of themed dress up days. Last Friday was “dress up as your favorite character” day. As might be expected, Gloria chose to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Micah then decided that he wanted to be the Wicked Witch of the West. This was at 7:30AM, about a half hour before we had to go to school. Lauren and I had a quick brainstorm at the breakfast table, and whisked Micah into some of Gloria’s old clothes plus a black T-shirt of mine. For the final touch, Lauren put together a quick witch hat out of construction paper. He was a hit at school drop off time.
Yesterday, for the actual day of Purim, the kids were supposed to dress as Purim characters. Gloria chose Queen Esther so that she could wear the crown she made at school. Micah was originally going to be King Ahasuerus, but then over dinner decided he wanted to be Haman instead. Fortunately we had some advance warning this time and I followed these helpful instructions to make him a three pointed hat. Again we got out the black T-shirt, my grey shoe laces for a belt, and with a moustache flourish our little Haman was ready to go. Micah was really excited to be the “bad guy”, running around yelling “I’m the bad guy! I’m the bad guy!” At drop off Micah’s teacher commented that Micah was making his way through the list of super villains this week.
This morning culminated with the annual Purim carnival. The gym is converted into a festival of bouncy slides, face painting, games, and balloon artists. And the kids get to play all day in their pajamas.
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As part of her curriculum, Gloria spends a few hours a week in a program called Chalav u’Dvash. One of the teaching tools in Chalav u’Dvash is Bentzi, a turtle puppet ‘visiting’ the children from Israel to teach them Hebrew. Bentzi only speaks Hebrew, and keeps all sorts of fun things in his backpack shell.
Every week one of the students gets to take Bentzi home for the weekend, take care of him, and then write about their experience in a class notebook. This past weekend was Gloria’s turn. We took Bentzi with us on all of the weekend activities, keeping a photo journal of our experiences. Gloria had a great time!
Montage of the weekend’s adventures for Bentzi’s journal
Bentzi was nice and cozy in our living room furniture
Hanging out with his nutcracker buddy at Seattle Gymnastics Academy
Bentzi was enthralled by legos at Wunderkind
Let’s make a turtle!