THE GREEN(wald) HOUSE … (growing rosemary & raising a little wolf)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rosie’s new obsession this month is “last one down is a rotten egg” when going down the stairs. Then she changes her mind frequently and decides that “last is best”.
She has been singing the thanksgiving songs she learned at school, and she performed them with her class when we had a potluck thanksgiving dinner with her school. We made scalloped potatoes, that Rosie called “skeleton” potatoes.

She has been playing a lot with her brother - playing hide and seek, tag, duck duck goose, house, and doggie (with Sammy as the doggie of course). This morning they were pretending their bowls of oatmeal were birthday cakes and sticking the spoons straight up like candles and singing Happy Birthday to each other.
She is so excited to be learning to read and spell. She is always trying to read words and signs and asking what things say or how things are spelled. She is reading stop signs, no parking signs, the open signs on buildings, telling Sammy how to spell his name, how to spell MOM, telling Sammy he needs to take an N-A-P. She loves school, though sometimes she comes home on her full day exhausted and tells me “I had a hard day”….

We had our first parent-teacher conference at Rosie’s school at the beginning of the month and it was everything a parent could hope to hear. The teachers love her and say she is a joy to have in the classroom. The other kids look up to her, they said she is the leader of the other kids. They are impressed with her reading skills and can tell she loves to learn. Joe and I were both in tears during the conference hearing the glowing praises of our little girl. Now the big decision is whether to continue with the Montessori way of learning. Rosie really seems to be able to be self-directed and thrive in this learning environment where she gets to choose what she is interested in, and I would hate to squash her love of learning in a more controlled environment. There is a public Montessori school in the area (ie - FREE) - but it would be a 30-45 minute drive each way. It is definitely something we will be seriously researching in the next few months. I just took a few books out of the library on the Montessori philosophy and how it works in grade school to see if it is something we want to commit to for Rosie.

Sammy still worships his big sister (most of the time) and tries to copy whatever she is doing. He can easily count to 10 when they are playing tag - and he knows the way to play games, saying “ready or not here I come” and chasing her around the house. He also loves playing chase with the doggie. He has a lot of cute sayings he took from Rosie:
“oh my gosh!” “it’s my favorite” “he’s so adorable!” (said when watching Aristocats) - and my new favorite, at dinnertime - telling me about the dinner I made “it’s delicious!”
He is still mumbling quite a bit, especially when he is tired, and sometimes even I can’t understand him. He is such an active boy, always jumping on the trampoline, running through the house, kicking a ball or throwing a ball, making mountains of pillows and jumping or climbing on them. This morning he was playing basketball and saying “oh man” when he missed and “all right!” or “high five” when he makes it.

We had a great thanksgiving at Uncle Jack and Aunt Arlene’s house today. We are all home in bed now with full bellies and are thankful for spending time with family. We plan on decorating the house for the holidays and getting a Christmas tree this weekend.

Good night from the Greenwalds

Happy Fall!

We had a lot of fun in October! We went apple picking at a local farm/orchard near us. The kids had a great time picking and eating apples.

And we had a super fun Halloween and celebrated Joe’s birthday too! Rosie decided what we would all be this year. She wanted to be a strawberry, and she decided I would be a banana, Joe would be a pear, and Sammy would be an orange. It was a fun and challenging craft project for me and I think they all turned out pretty good!

After the kids went through their candy stash, they got to choose 3 things to keep, and then the rest of the candy they left outside their rooms, and the Halloween Fairy came in the middle of the night and took their candy and left new toys for them instead!

Rosie has been really enjoying drawing and coloring lately. She has now started to put bodies on her people, and really long legs and long fingers. She still loves school and is really starting to write and spell a lot. She is constantly sounding things out and reading words, or telling me how something is spelled. I wanted Sammy to take a nap in the car one day, but if he hears the word “nap” he protests, so I asked Rosie to be quiet so Sammy could take a N-A-P and she sounded it out and told me it spelled nap! She drew a picture of me and wrote “Mom” all by herself too! She taught herself how to whistle and is very proud of her new skills!

She has been talking and worrying a lot about death and dying, I think it is normal for this age, and especially with my Grandma Billie recently dying. Rosie has been wishing (with dandelion flowers) that I would never die and she told me she didn’t want to be a grandma, because then grandmas would die. I try to be lighthearted and just say that everybody is born and everybody dies, it is a normal part of life and it’s nothing to be scared or worried about.

She is always talking about the future, and planning for her birthday and every commercial she sees on TV is the new thing she wants for her birthday. She has also been telling Sammy that when they are 7 they will lose their teeth and the toothfairy will come and leave them a whole QUARTER!

Sammy has been a cutie lately, and a cranky nightmare too as he is not really napping unless we are in the car around 2-3pm. He still imitates Rosie, and his new phrase he learned from her is “Oh My GOSH!” He has been wanting to play soccer and is kicking balls around the house constantly, and he is really good at it too! His new favorite song (learned from his dad) is “Blitzkrieg Bop” and he requests it at bedtime and then sings it himself too. He loves music and loves trying to play Joe’s guitars and LOVES to bang on the drums!

He has been mumbling a lot lately, it drives me crazy and I am trying to teach him to enunciate. He will say “Mommy? Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa water pease?” He is counting and trying to learn the alphabet. He recognizes some letters and knows the value of numbers up to 3. He also knows his colors, because anytime I dress him in anything blue/yellow he says “”Go Blue” or “Michigan Daddy”(maize and blue)!

He is still waking up at night quite a bit and wanting me to come sleep with him in his room. I hope this doesn’t last long. Though it is hard to complain because he is such a cuddler, always giving me kisses and wanting to cuddle and telling me “I love you mommy”.

Short and sweet update this month - bye for now from the Greenwald kids! Next month’s update will probably have some photos of SNOW - yikes!