Twinkle Toes

PRETTY THINGS: Today I was cleaning out a bench where we store the kids' shoes. During the process, Annabelle rediscovered her collection of dress up mules. She slipped on some pink ones (of course), and tried to convince CJ to try some on, too. He would have none of it. "But CJ, don't you like my shoes?" she implored.

"Yeah," he begrudgingly said, "but they're princess-y. Too girlish."

At that, I told the kids that it's OK for boys to wear "pretty" things, too, if that's what they want to do.

Annabelle thought that over for a minute and then replied, "Oh, so some boys love girls, but maybe some boys just like girls, because of what they wear. ..."

And while he didn't don the shoes, Annabelle did manage to talk CJ into dancing with her. :)

BOOK 'EM: Today we read "Safari Park," another title in the MathStart series by Stuart J. Murphy. This story followed five children to an amusement park. Their grandpa had given them each 20 tickets to spend, and they each had to figure out how to best use them by considering combinations of rides, games and food. It was easy to follow, and the concept held my kids' interests. This book got 6 (out of 6) thumbs up.

AFTERNOON SOCIAL: This afternoon we also read "You are a Social Detective!" Actually, I almost hesitate to just use the word 'read' because it was more than that. The book sparked many conversations, analogies, realizations, inspirations and more.

Subtitled "Explaining Social Thinking to Kids," it's written by speech/language pathologists Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crook. The illustrations by Kelly Knopp are fun, colorful and Simpson-esque (to my eye). As it's described on the book's promotional Web page, "We are good Social Detectives when we use our eyes, ears, and brains to figure out what others are planning to do next or are presently doing and what they mean by their words and deeds." The book also talks about expected behaviors (which make people feel comfortable) and unexpected behaviors (which can make people uncomfortable). CJ started gasping-for-air hysterically laughing at one point when, for no good reason, one boy blurted to another, "You have six cats." The other boy became uncomfortable, thought the blurter odd, and said bewilderedly, "Huh? I don't have any cats."

This book is a great teaching tool. I think we need to buy a copy (ours was a library check out). There's lots more information about the book on Garcia Winner's Social Thinking Web site.

PIER PEER: Tonight we all went on a field trip. The location wasn't all that exotic - Elliott Bay Marina, which is right next to Smith Cove Park and Terminal 91 - destinations we ride/run to often. However, this trip was different. We were there at night, to see things we don't see on our daytime trips down there.

Hosted by People for Puget Sound, Pier Peer event is billed as "Family-friendly night explorations: marine naturalists drop a light off a dock. We'll see what arises out of the deep dark and talk about the critters." Who wouldn't want to be a part of that!? (Yes, even on a night when it's about 44 degrees?) It was cool - we saw some crabs, colorful tube worms, a sea cucumber, urchins, a couple of fish, lots of plankton, and the biggest starfish any of us had ever seen. (It was the size of a dinner plate, at least.)

The photo above is from P4PS. I took some pix tonight and if there are any good ones, I'll share 'em tomorrow. If you want to see a short (90 second) video about a Pier Peer event produced by P4PS, click here.

BY POPULAR DEMAND: Per Nonnie's request, here is CJ's swollen-stickman-superhero