Dedication

One of about only five photos that I took at Doodle's game on Saturday. My umbrella was useless so I raised the station wagon trunk and snapped a few shots.

A Winning Season

Doodle's soccer team ended their season with a win in the rain. It wasn't just rainy; it was windy too. The girls look like drowned rats in the team photo, but they are all smiling. 3-2-3 isn't bad for a first season of more competitive play. They had the top defense in their division, only allowing their opponents to score 5 goals. Doodle has stepped up her game in the past few weeks, especially as a defender. Today her coach told her that nothing gets by her, and it's true. She may be small, but she's mighty.

Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Picking a special pumpkin

Neighbors

Elmo the calf

Friends

The Book

Last weekend Tootle spent hours writing a book about a bunny and his birthday. Here is the first page. Notice something a little different about this book? Yes, you have to read from the bottom to the top of the page. Every page of the 12-page book is like this. I guess years of being read to has no effect when you have a creative mind.

Breaking the Long Silence

Even though Tootle spoke Chinese at a preschool level when we met her, once Tootle learned enough English to communicate with us, she emphatically refused to speak Chinese. She wouldn't listen to my friends/neighbors who tried to speak to her in Chinese. Despite my efforts to assure her that it was OK, even desirable, to retain her Chinese, she seemed to need to let it go in order to feel secure/fit in with us. This made me sad, but I gently encouraged rather than pushed her, aware that her secure attachment to us was more important than retaining a language.

After picking up a friend at an after school Chinese class last year, Tootle expressed interest in the class, but it was far too late to join in. This year she is part of the class, and this week she had her first lesson. She was so excited to share the words for teacher, here, goodbye, etc. She seemed a bit surprised that I knew most of these words too, and I explained that I had taken classes before traveling to China to bring her and her sister home. (I'm not sure why she was surprised: she already knew that I could say hello, how are you, I love you, I am your mom/sister, little sister, big sister, numbers from 1-10, etc.) I can't wait until she is able to teach me some words that I don't know, and I know that her tones will be far superior to mine. This is a pretty basic class that only meets for one hour a week, but it is an important baby step for Tootle.

Learning the Ropes

My girls are being much better prepared for the work world and adult life in general than I was as a kid. They are being taught to freely share their ideas and value teamwork.

Doodle has been giving presentations in class since 1st grade, with a particular emphasis on presentation skills in 3rd and 4th grade. She is a skilled presenter, and I credit the early training for that. Her class has weekly meeting where they troubleshoot problems and share ideas. Last Friday Doodle and her Girl Scout troop went to a high adventure facility to do a little teambuilding and have some fun. I took the day off work and tagged along. It was fascinating to watch the girls solve problems and learn some concrete life lessons.

They started by dividing into two groups who went to either side of a wide wooden seesaw. They had to move to the other side without letting the seesaw touch the ground. After a few failures, the girls started to work as a team, with a few of the girls holding the seesaw to keep it from reaching the ground. That helped, but the teams still failed to cross the seesaw. The first two to make it successfully across were Doodle and her BFF/soccer teammate. I wasn't surprised that they succeeded because they held the key: they communicated as they crossed, moving slowly and ensuring that they were in sync. After that, everyone started to communicate better and to ace the challenge.
Next the girls had to swing by a rope to the side that they started on. The problem was that the rope was in the clearing between the two sides, unreachable by either team. The girls removed their jackets and started to tie them together so they could reach for the rope. I could tell that this wasn't going to work. A few of the jackets being tossed around didn't make it to their destination, instead landing on the wood chips. This gave the girls the idea of using the jackets as stepping stones, allowing them to reach the rope and complete the task, while shivering without their hoodies. To me this was the most interesting lesson of the day: sometimes our mistakes ultimately result in our greatest achievements.

The girls also got into harnesses and climbed high up in a tree and then rappelled down.
They ended the day by getting back into the harness and being pulled with a rope high into the air by their teammates. Once they were as high as they wanted to go they pulled a release lever and went for the swing ride of their lives. In the photo below Doodle is just beginning to be pulled to dizzying heights. I think Doodle went the highest and the fastest; she is a total blur in my basically unusable pictures. But her huge smile is ingrained in my brain.

And the hot dogs and s'mores cooked over the camp fire weren't bad either.

More Grammar Policing

Today we received a note from Doodle's homeroom teacher, thanking us for some book donations to the classroom. She wrote: "They will be a great edition to our classroom library." Ugh. Luckily, she only teaches science and math. I would be much more disturbed if the language arts teacher penned the note.