Ill-Chosen Words

Fiona and I normally walk home from preschool with her friend Estella and Estella's mother. They both leave around the same time, and if one parent arrives first we have to wait around for the other to arrive.

Today as I walked to pick her up the sky turned black and a gust of wind blew my baseball cap off my head and down the street. I didn't want to wait around for Estella's mother to arrive; I just wanted to get Fiona out of preschool as quickly as possible so we could beat whatever weather was rolling in home.

Even so, I probably shouldn't have told Fiona "I just want to get home before the thunder and lightning."

I had no idea we could make it all the way home from preschool inside of 20 seconds. Of course, it wasn't exactly fun trying to console the terrors of a four year old convinced that thunder and lightning were going to crash down upon the street at any moment.

Parenting. Even when you win you lose.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Fiona sings the most important song ever written:

This was the second time she sang it out of seven in a row.

Sunday School Might Help

Fiona's taken to announcing that she's really 6 1/2 years old. Which would make her awfully old for preschool, but I think she's mainly telling us that as a way of convincing us that she's old enough to do something. Climb up the china cabinet. Drink a soda. See an R-rated movie.

I asked her if she knew what year it was and she responded "2008" (she knows the year, although she pronounces "thousand" as "towzand"). Then I asked her if she knew what year she was born, figuring I'd show her that she was zero in 2004, one in 2005, etc.

Fiona replied "January!"

"No," I said, "January's the month. Do you know what year you were born?"

"Seven!"

"No, that's the day. The year you were born was 2004."

As I was about to launch into my teachable moment that would have gone completely over her head anyway, Fiona asked:

"What's two thousand?"

"That's the number of years," I replied.

"There've been two thousand years?"

Well, even the intelligent design crowd gives the planet a few thousand more than that, and I told her "it's how many years since Jesus was born."

And now I was in for it.

"Who's Jesus?" she asked.

She'd been to Sunday school in San Diego a few days earlier, and she can recognize Jesus in a nativity set. "Did they talk about Jesus at all in Sunday school?" I asked. Fiona shook her head. "Well, Jesus was the son of God."

"Is he dead?

Ah, now this was getting tricky, although at least theologically speaking I was going to be talking about my own religion. "Well, he died on a cross but then he came back to life. That's what Easter is."

"He died but then he came back to life?" Fiona asked, incredulous. I nodded. Fiona thought about it for a moment.

"That's silly."

Now, how is it I went from trying to count up from the year 2004 to listening to my daughter blaspheme in the space of two minutes? Another parenting triumph, I suppose.

Reading Progress

Fiona's been able to figure out what letter most words start with for a while now (obviously words like "knee" or "wrap" are going to throw her off at this point). A few months ago she started identifying some very short words on a regular basis. Zoo. No. We drive down the street and Fiona will see a sign that says "No Parking" and shout out "that says no!"

But she's on the verge of the next big leap. Last week we went to San Diego (one reason for the paucity of recent blog posts). I went online a day or so before we left and joked that we were going to drive from New York to San Diego and did a Google Maps to see how long the trip would be without highways. Fiona pointed to the middle of the country and said "That's where Nana and Pop live!"

We looked at where she was pointing. South Dakota. One word starting with an S, the other with a D. So her facts were completely wrong, and very impressive.

We have some short board books that we used to read Fiona when she was a baby that we've kept around figuring they'd make good early readers. One of the books is the Belly Button Book. Fiona sits on my lap and we read the book together. She reads all the words that start with "B" and I read everything else. She's pretty good on those, too. Belly. Button. Balloon. But. Beach. The word "because" throws her off every time.

We also got a book of fairy tales for Fiona recently--longer stories to match her increasing attention span. After we got the book, when we were reading one fairy tale before bed each night, the first thing we'd do each time we read it was read through the table of contents together until Fiona picked which story she wanted to hear. One afternoon, she picked up the book and started reading the table of contents to me. She got the first 10 stories correct, although I figured she'd heard the TOC so many times at that point she might be reciting.

So I pointed to one of the stories out of order.

"Cinderella," she said. And she was right.

I tried another.

"Rumpelstiltskin." Right again.

We went on like this for a while. There are 15 stories in the book, and I think she got 13 of them right.

On our plane flight out to San Diego, as hour four in the air turned into hour five, Fiona started getting restless. So I started writing out three- and four-letter words (not those four-letter words) on a piece of paper and asked her what they were. Zoo. Pop. Cat. Book.

She's still got one more year of preschool. She'll be reading before she's done.

Getting My Royalty Straight

Fiona, as is her birthright, is making very grand gestures while playing. She holds a handkerchief up to her forehead and feints at fainting.

Me: Ah, our little drama queen.
Fiona: I'm not a drama queen. I'm a drama princess.

(Yes, we're very much in that phase, as if you didn't already know)

Science vs. Magic

Last week Andrea had to be out for the afternoon, and Fiona had been asking to go to a museum for a few days, so I decided to indulge in a little borough pride and took Fiona to the New York Hall of Science. It's a very hands on place, which is great for a child Fiona's age, although I think next time I'll check the baseball schedule before I go (the hall is a stone's throw from Shea Stadium, and the Mets were home, so parking was tough to find and not cheap once obtained).

We spent some time in the preschool room, which was entirely designed for kids Fiona's age and younger, and then set out to explore the rest of the place. Like I say, it's a hands-on sort of place--there's something to touch on just about every exhibit--and Fiona had a great time even though she was too young to understand many of the displays. Two highlights:

1. A display on microbes had displays that you could squeeze to sniff the various smells that microbes can make. These include baked bread, grass after a rainstorm, and an armpit after exercising. Fiona's four, which means that for all her princess play, she's endlessly fascinated by anything disgusting. A week later I can still say the words "stinky armpit" and she collapses into helpless giggles.
   
   
2. A display on light and mirrors had one of those effects where you look through a hole and see a spring, but when you reach to touch the spring your hand moves right through it (because the spring isn't where your eye thinks it is; the trick is done with mirrors). Fiona reached out and saw her hand pass through.
   
   "It's magic!" she exclaimed.
   
   I knew I couldn't explain the entire effect to her, but this was the Hall of Science after all, so I figured I should at least make an effort.
   
   "It's not magic, it's science," I told her.
   
   "What's science?" she asked.
   
   "The spring is somewhere else, but the mirrors make it look like it's there."

That night, after we all got home, Fiona told her mother about the highlights of the visit. The stinky armpit got the most attention, but then I asked Fiona to tell Andrea about the spring.

"You reached out for the spring and it wasn't there!" Fiona told her.

"Really?" Andrea responded.

"Yes," said Fiona, nodding solemnly. "It's science."