Lucky Number Seven
So, why are the kids holding their hands up? Given the wide age range in our potluck group, the moms decided to ensure a fair distribution of eggs by labeling the eggs. The oldest kid had the hardest to find eggs, and the unlabeled eggs were easier to find. Katherine was #7 and eagerly passed her verbal test with flying colors:
Mom: “Katherine, if you see an egg with this on it (holding up 8), what do you do?”
Katherine: “Put it back!”
Mom: “What if you see this (holding up 7)?”
Katherine: “Put it in my basket!!”
According to Steve, she did well at the hunt – not taking the other eggs and helping scout the remaining unmarked eggs at the end of the hunt.
Sibling …Something
It’s not full blown rivalry yet, but Katherine and Allison have developed their own style of playing together. Katherine sometimes adopts teacher mannerisms telling her baby sister, “That work is not ready for you yet, you can’t touch that yet…hey, you’re not supposed to play with that…”
Other times, they make a beeline for each others toys. Katherine decided to take out some puzzles the other day, which intrigued Allison to no end. She crawled right over and reached for puzzle pieces. Katherine informed her, “La boca no…no eating…Allison, you’re too young for this!!” We then talked about giving Allison other toys to keep her preoccupied. As soon as Allison started playing with plastic keys, Katherine came right over, snatched the keys away and said, “I need these for my Beetle.”
Telling Katherine to ask Allison to take things is a bit dicey. She will say, “Allison, may I take the keys….” and if Allison waves them around, it becomes an implicit yes. We’ll have to work a bit more on taking turns and not grabbing from the baby.
The good news is that Allison has spirit. She gets mad when Katherine takes her toys and works really hard to keep up with Katherine. She also tries so hard to play with her sister, for instance knocking over block towers that Katherine has made. One of Katherine’s favorite activities is to give Allison a checkup with her medical kit – giving a fake shot, listening to her chest with a stethoscope, tweezing out splinters, etc. She says, “I’m Doctor Bush, you’re the nurse and Allison is the patient….No, I’m the nurse, you’re the doctor…” (it just keeps going and going.)
The Globe
The globe in the picture has special meaning – it used to belong to me many years ago, and I’ve given it to the girls for playtime. Katherine latched right on it, telling me that it wasn’t wooden like the one in school and that the globe didn’t come off the base.
She then put the globe on wooden stool and started the birthday circle that they have a school. The song goes like this, “Katherine’s been around the world three times, she’s been around the world three times, she been around the world three times, been around the world three times.” (to the tune of happy birthday). Then she warbles, “…it takes 12 months, 52 weeks and 365 days…”
