Tuesdays With Mooch: Just Witchin’ Around
Mooch is really thriving each morning with the command center. We’re still working on the evenings, because she talks a lot and she eats slowly. Her lunch often isn’t made until the morning, which isn’t the plan. Hey, at least she’s showering.
Her classes at William Grant Still Center begin this week, so we’re excited about that. She’ll be doing keyboard, voice, Shakespeare in the City, and art. It’s only a nine week program, but if she likes any of them enough, we’ll continue them at a paid program, I guess. This is just a free sampling.
She’s also finding new hobbies during her punishment — like face painting. I walked out to this last Sunday:
Fuss’ classroom closet just got an overhaul. It looks great! My hallway doesn’t, though. :-/ I’m throwing/giving a lot of things that are developmentally inappropriate away since I’m not spawning anymore young ones. I further organized all of the supplies and left tons of room for new stuff, so it doesn’t get too jam packed.
The pouring activity finally returned to the shelves this week, so she was thrilled about that. She was so excited that she accidentally spilled lentils all over the place. She cleaned them up. I moved the alphabetized small objects out of the closet and into the classroom and told her that now that she knows all of her letters, she can pull a couple of sandpaper letters down and carry the corresponding drawers to her mat. She likes having that access.
Also on our shelves: the number five with manipulative, a geometric puzzle, the pink tower, cutting with scissors (she won’t let that one go 
), one-to-one correspondence, and a couple of animal puzzles. Oh, I changed our calendar area a couple of weeks ago. Here’s a picture of that. I may return to the felt, though, because it was easier for *her* to put the dates up all by herself.
Tuesdays With Mooch and Fuss: Command Center (Photos)
The Command Center is finished! It’s sooo cute and, therefore, inspiring. It really makes the kids want to pick up a broom and do a chore. Here are the pics:
Close ups in the gallery below
There’s a calendar for our monthly menu (that’ll start February 1st). Right now it just has key dates and events to remember. There is also a homemade dry erase board containing each person’s morning and evening schedules, a mailbox for each of us and a chore chart. I added a few photos to embellish, and one can’t help but stare at the wall when walking by.
MOOCH
Mooch has had ups and downs in the last week. She shot a Toyota commercial and did extraordinarily well. I was super proud. It was my first time seeing her really work lines and comedic timing. She also took direction well, and I can’t wait to see the finished product.
Saturday night, however, when Hannibal and I went Chicago Steppin’ for his birthday, Mooch acted out with the baby sitter. She was rude (read: snatching the phone from the sitter’s hand and asking if the caller was her boyfriend). She even made up a bunch of lies. For example, “My mom always lets me take a bath with my sister” and “she lets me wash her, too.” This resulted in Mooch pouring water all over an excited Fuss and almost drowning her by accident. She played Glee Karaoke on the Wii with the sitter and wouldn’t let the sitter sing her songs. It was awful. To add icing she stated, “I bet you’re only baby sitting us for the money.”
Let’s be clear. Mooch loves the sitter. She is always so enthused that they’ll be able to play and read together. I think she just got a little beside herself. Anyway, Mooch is not allowed to watch TV or play video games for four weeks. She also wrote a three paged letter to the sitter and had to read it to her in front of her family. Lastly, we made Mooch pay the sitter by taking the contents of her piggy bank to CoinStar. We simply could not let her believe this behavior was acceptable.
FUSS
Fuss is super helpful around the house. She cleans up. She puts things away. She offers support. She is even doing a very good job taking care of her fish and her plant. I really like how she is turning out.
Lately, unless she super sleepy or hungry, I haven’t had the issue of her going from zero to tantrum in less than two seconds. She’s using her humongous vocabulary to express herself. I added a feelings poster to the first wall of the classroom, and that has helped tremendously. She is able to identify the various feelings as they are happening. Sometimes she confuses the tenses or just plain mixes up the words, but we get what she’s trying to say. For example, she’ll often say, “I’m mean. I’m mean right now.” She really means she’s angry. It is very clear, though.
Academically, she’s been very interested in her abacus for the past couple of weeks. She uses it to count, and she usually stops at about thirty-five and moves on to something else. We count everything throughout the day (steps, utensils, beans, people in a room, tires on the car), and she thoroughly enjoys this. None of her classroom experiences have decreased her interests in technology (read: Hannibal’s ipad and my phone), but she is definitely very balanced between the two, and I think that’s just fine.
Thematic Thursdays: Info-Graphics R’ Us
So, as a writer for Komplicated.com, I often run across info-graphics, but never info-graphics regarding kids. Until yesterday. I was just reading links in my Google Reader and ran across this, which I thought was hilarious.
I thought to myself, there have to be more of these out there. You’re welcome.
I also created one of my own.
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Attitudes and Tantrums
It’s tantrum central here in the Tabu household, where almost every question results in a power struggle with our youngest member. Fuss is giving us all of the parts of two-years-old that we never got to experience with Mooch. Somedays we embrace it, and use all of our wonderful psychological tools. Other days, I collapse into Hannibal’s arms in a heap of sobs and worry. Who is this strong-willed child, and what is her spirit here to do? We have to hurry up and get her an esetaye, so we can learn more about her destiny, taboos, and needs.
She is definitely no slacker in the learning department. As I follow her on her educational journey, she leads me to places I’d never expect to be so soon. This past week, she learned how to use scissors. This has been her favorite addition to the shelves. She keeps requesting the pouring activity, but I haven’t put it back yet, because she has the opportunity to do that in real life when she pours herself some water. Fuss has also finished the sandpaper letters and small objects, so she officially knows all of the sounds that each letter makes. She asked for the first BOB book about a week ago, but she doesn’t sound the words out herself. She just likes for me to read “Mat” book to her.
Mooch is the callback/avail queen. She’s been on a couple of auditions since the top of the new year, so we’ll see if anything pans out. Her attitude of gratitude is showing small signs of improvement, but I think on Black Love Day (Feb. 13th), I’ll implement a gratitude journal for her. That way she’ll be able to physically see the things she has to be grateful for in each day. I did it on Twitter myself a while back, and it worked wonders for me.
I met with Mooch’s teachers last week, and academically she’s solid. They are working on her happiness as well, and I feel like we have a united front. At home, I’m supplementing her math curriculum with basic facts, so she can recall them much quicker. She’s still reading up a storm, and that remains her favorite pastime. She has, however, taken a liking to Mozart on KCET’s Wonderkid Little Amadeus show. She watches that about twice per week. I don’t see the appeal, but she asked for violin lessons the other day, so that’s good.
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Fuss Turns 2
Fuss woke up to a hallway filled with purple balloons, cardboard, and duct tape (I’ll explain later) on New Years Eve. She didn’t have to wait for Dick Clark to celebrate, because it was her second birthday! She’s got a host of new milestones to be proud of, and she got several new responsibilities to go with them.
She has fully mastered pouring, so her original wooden kitchen has been turned into a snack bar, where she can help herself to healthy vegan snacks or a glass of water. There is a sponge available for her to wipe up any mess, and hanging above is a crumb sweeper. She also has her own small broom and dustpan. She loves it! One issue was that once we converted that kitchen, she didn’t have one for imaginative play. For her birthday, I built her a cardboard kitchen with teal duct tape and felt food. Let me just tell you — kids LOVE cardboard boxes. She plays with that more than she did the wooden kitchen. Also, it gave me something to do with old shipping boxes, so it was eco-friendly. #winning
I also to her to the local pet shop to buy two fish to take care of. Their names are “Goldie” and “Panther.” I got her a small aquarium (about $30), food, and water conditioner. Each morning after we do circle time together in homeschool, she has to feed the fish. She really enjoys it — sometimes too much. She also got a plant for Kwanzaa, which she waters after circle time as well.
I wasn’t too thrilled with our vegan cake from Sweet E’s bakery. I wouldn’t recommend it. The frosting was way too sweet and the cake was a strange texture. Because it was her second birthday, she didn’t get a party with friends (I only do parties for 1,3,5,10,13,16, and 18 if they’re lucky), but she had quite a celebration with us. We ate breakfast together (homemade kamut pancakes), we got her two outfits (we did everything in twos), and an Elmo stuffy. She was actually able to carry the small globe around the candle (representing the sun) twice this year without much assistance during our Montessori-style birthday portion.
It was quite an eventful day, replete with a birthday bubble bath and a giant number two drawn by Mooch. My favorite part was that it was relatively stress free. With the money I saved decorating (and feeding people) for a party, I was able to redecorate their bathroom. It’s full of owls now.
Oh, P.S: We went to the Kwanzaa Festival in Leimert Park on her birthday, and she got to see lots of people who know her. Pics below. Enjoy!
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