Talents

Caution: Bragging parent ahead... As a parent you tend to think everything your child does is amazing.  And when they start interacting with other kids their age, it's hard to objective about their strengths and weaknesses.  It's also hard not to project your own issues on your child and live vicariously through them.  And it's really fun to imagine what sort of person they'll grow up to be. Anyway, it's been interesting this year to see how Eliza stacks up with other kindergartners and to get objective information from her teachers.  It's interesting to see what traits she seems to have inherited from each of us and how she's also her own unique person. 

I've always loved reading and been pretty terrible at math and science.  In some ways Eliza is a lot like me and I sort of expected her to be the same way. What I'm finding though is that even though she can read, she still much prefers us to read to her instead.  I'm a little dumbfounded by this because I remember feeling like the whole word opened up when I learned to read and I'm surprised she doesn't want to read everything she gets her hands on like I did.  We had a parent-teacher conference this week and though she's doing fine in reading and already ready to progress to first grade, I was surprised to learn that she had done quite well on her math benchmark.  I hadn't really pictured her being better at math than she is at reading; I'll assume she got that trait from her father's side of the family. :)

Yesterday we got an invitation from the school district (not her individual school) inviting us to see Eliza's art in an exhibit.  Apparently her art is one of 1,500 selected from 111 schools in the city.  When we asked her about it, she had no idea which piece of art was selected (she literally makes an average of 4 pieces of art per day) so we are excited to see the display!

She started gymnastics again about a month ago.  She did gymnastics when she was 3 but it obviously wasn't too serious.  She went to a friend's gymnastics birthday party and several parents commented on how she was a natural and seem to have a lot of upper body strength for a 6 year old.  E kept asking to start taking classes again so we finally found one that works with our schedule. Last week in class her teacher also commented on her upper body strength.  They've been running laps in gym at school and when I asked her about it she said she and her friend Jude are the fastest in the class.  Like I said, this is definitely a bragging post, but it's fun to notice her strengths.  So far she seems pretty well rounded!

Train

A couple of weeks ago S finally took the kids on a train ride he's had his eye on probably since Eliza was born.  S has a thing about trains.  Maybe from living in Europe where mass transit is much more efficient; maybe just because he's a dude who likes trains.  He's always looking into where we could take a train.  He's the one who convinced me to take the train from NYC to New Haven and the one who convinced me to take the overnight train alone from Paris to Barcelona (something I'm pretty sure my parents are happy they only learned of after the fact.) For years he's been trying to convince me to take a train to see my brother and family 3 hours away.  Keep in mind the train ride takes 6 hours but he still thinks it would be a great adventure.  We've taken the kids on the metro train several times just for fun.  So, he finally booked a (sort of expensive) trip out to see the grandparents.  I drove the 3 of them to the suburbs to catch the train and then he spent 1.5 hours (each way) going to see his parents for a couple of hours.  Granted by car this same trip would have taken 30 minutes. :)  But, look how happy they are. And they made a fun memory.  It's nice when parenthood turns out like you pictured...

Bowling with your wife

Our household really likes this catchy tune from Broken Bells, Holding on for Life.  The kids have misinterpreted the lyrics though and their version is much more upbeat.  Instead of holding on for life, Ezra and Eliza think the song goes, "Only dynamite! Bowling with your wife!" Reminds me of when that Pumped Up Kicks song was popular and Eliza thankfully thought the words were "Better run, better run, Albino Bowler" instead of the real lyrics, "Better run, better run, outrun my bullets."  I'm not sure why my kids think so many popular songs involve bowling. :) Also reminds me of when I was that age and a song about a cheating husband called "Your Nobody Called Today" was popular and I thought the words were "Chicken and dumplings when I asked her name" instead of "She hung up when I asked her name." And now I understand why my parents never corrected me!