A Friend Like Me

Hope's acting class performed the play Aladdin last weekend. Hope had the role of The Genie and she did a fantastic job. The role fit her well - part sassy, part sweet and very funny! Here she is singing "Friend Like Me".

She's done with her class until the spring but is already making guesses at what her next play will be. She can't wait to start up again!

Life is Rough

I got a loaner car today because our car is having some stuff done to it at the dealership. Our loaner is a cute little emphasis on the word "little" red Mazda 3. Like I said, it's a "cute" car, but definitely a very basic model. When we picked Hope up from school today she asked, "Why do you have to unlock all the doors by hand?" And as soon as we got in the car: "What's this? Oh, it rolls down the window - you have to turn it!" And as I opened the trunk at the store: "The trunk even needs a key????"

When I was exactly Hope's age my parents got divorced and I moved to Colorado with my mom and sister. I remember being amazed that a garage door could be opened without a garage door opener, and that ice cubes could be made using 'trays', rather than an electric ice maker.

Funny how our perspective can be so warped because of life's "little luxuries". I tried to explain to Hope that we should feel lucky that we have any car at all. That some people don't have the ability to buy a car and have to walk or take a bus everytime they need to go someplace.

She was quiet as we pulled into the garage and I turned off the car. I started to think that maybe my little lecture had an affect on her. Then she exclaimed, "Cool! You can roll the window up after the car is turned off! At least there's something good about this car!"

Bye Bye Room

We're gearing up for our big move this weekend. I hate moving!!! , so there has been lots going on - packing, painting, spackling, cleaning, more packing, more painting. Did I mention I hate moving? We're all excited to get to the new place, where we'll have more room to spread out, but Hope is having some anxieties about the whole thing. She says that she doesn't want to leave our house because her room "gives her comfort" and she doesn't want to be in a house that someone else used to live in because she "will feel like she's sitting on someone else's floors". I know she'll love it once we're there and get settled, but it may take some time. We started painting her room here back to a neutral white, so we let her write on the wall before we started:

"I love you room. Bye Bye. I love you. Love, Hope"

We've already started painting her room at the new house and she's gotten new bedding and has picked out new decals for her walls. I'm hoping the new room will give her comfort too!

Eeeerriieee!

Hope put a token into one of those fortune teller machines and this is what popped out:

I guess the fortune telling machine in the movie Big isn't the only one with magical powers.
I especially love the part about the understanding mother. ;o)

Hope's Debut

On May 2nd, Hope had her "stage debut" as a monkey in a performance of The Jungle Book for Peanut Butter Players, a local children's theater group. She had a great time and can't wait for her summer performance of The Biography of Mark Twain This sounds really boring, but I've been told it's a very fun musical - who knew? I guess we'll find out! The teachers only had 10 practices with these kids. They did a great job of getting them all together for a super cute show. I could be biased, but I thought Hope was adorable!!!

Hope is in the pink outfit near the middle. Her voice was easy to pick out, even in the midst of all of the singers. No one has ever accused this child of being "quiet"!

In "action"

Hope with Anna, her "monkey" friend, after the show

Lost and Found

Every year Hopes' school hosts what they call an "Oral Interpretation Festival", in which kids can choose a poem to memorize and perform. Here is a video of Hope's poem, "Lost and Found", from the school assembly. She did a great job! The parent performance was supposed to be tonight, but it was cancelled because today was a snow day! Hopefully they'll reschedule it, but I'm glad I made it to the school performance and got a video.

I'll post snow pics soon!

From the Mouths of Babes

Our articulate 6 year-old, usually very precise and purposeful with her words, sometimes cracks us up with the things she says. Here are a few examples from the last couple of weeks.

While I was helping her clean her desk, trying to get her to throw some old papers away:
Hope: "I have to keep that. Those are the notes for the first non-fiction story I ever wrote in 1st grade"
Me: (teasing) "Oh, you need to keep it for posterity?"
Hope: (rolling her eyes) "I don't even like asparagus."

Just after getting all of the furniture set-up in her dollhouse:
"Now it's time to 'install' the people!" I guess it's a computer driven culture :)

Talking about the beta fish that are in her classroom for a science unit:
Me: "What are you all doing with the fish?
Hope: "Right now we're just 'observationing' them.

Laying in bed last week:
Hope: "This week is a drug.
Me: "A drug?"
Hope: "Yeah, a drug."
Me: "What does that mean?"
Hope: "It's taking a long time to get to the end."
Me: "Oh, the week feels like it's just dragging by?"
Hope:" That's what I just said." It had been a long week!

Talking about what we could do with Sam's ashes:
Me: "We should take them to a place where she really liked to be and spread them there."
Hope: "Like on the carpet where we come in the door?"

These everyday exchanges are so easily forgotten. I'll have to keep using this space to record those I remember. I'll do it for asparagus, uh, I mean posterity. It will be fun to look back at them one day!

Hope's Law of Extremes

Hope is a child of extremes. There's really not a middle of the road for her. She's either really happy or really mad, raring to go or extremely tired, very gentle and kind, or, well . . . anyway. Well, this "law of extremes" applies in social situations too, in which Hope is either remarkably shy or tremendously outgoing. Usually, once she's comfortable with a situation, the shyness is completely gone and she let's her true colors shine through. She loves to be the center of attention, but it has to be on her own terms. The past few days have provided a couple of chances to have all eyes on her - and she loved it! On Friday she had a little play at school that she and her reading group put together. Today she went to her friend's "learn to be a model" birthday party and learned to strut her stuff on the catwalk! Here are a couple of short videos of her more extroverted side: (go down to the bottom and pause the music before you play the videos!)

This is just a tiny clip of Hope's play. She played the fisherman's BOSSY wife. Turned out to be a great role for her! Both her Grandmom and Nana came to the play and asked if the role was typecast!

Hope workin' the runway!

She just started an acting class last week, so this may only be the beginning!

Alarm Clock

Hope has always been a good sleeper. She slept through the night from 12 days old, she still napped at age 5, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times she's been up in the middle of the night. But she has never ever been one to sleep in. It doesn't matter how late she's up the night before. In fact, it always seems that the later she stays up, the earlier she gets up in the morning. This is NOT FUN on the weekends, but works out great on school days. When she's up at 6:15, it makes it pretty easy to get to school by 7:45.

Well, lately (as in the past couple of weeks), she has been sleeping later (only on school days), and I've had to wake her up by about 6:40. I go in quietly and turn on her closet light, turn off her fan and sit on her bed, patting her gently. Yesterday she informed me that she's tired of me "barging into her room" in the morning and waking her up and that I should just let her get up on her own. So, we are now setting an alarm clock, for the child that has always been my alarm clock, so that she will not have to be so rudely awakened by her mother in the mornings.

Last night we went through an alarm clock tutorial - making sure it was set for 6:40 a.m. - not p.m. - learning the difference between snooze and off, and checking to make sure the "little dot" was by the numbers so she knew it was turned on. This morning was the big test . . . and she came trudging down the stairs at 6:15. "I just couldn't wait for it to go off, mom. I was too excited." Tonight she chose to set it for 6:35. Maybe she can force herself to stay in bed until then. . .

It's not easy being the youngest . . .

As I was making dinner tonight and Hope and Ellis were playing in the living room:

Hope: "Sit, Ellis. Good job! Okay, stand up . . . now walk. Good job! Okay, stay there, Ellis. Don't move. That's a good girl!"

Me: "Hope, she's not a dog."

Hope: "I know."

Me: "So don't treat her like a dog."

Hope: "I'm not treating her like a dog. I'm just training her, so she'll come to us when we tell her to, and go where we a want her to go."