Jacob's Class

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Originally uploaded by jessica_c_rhodes

Tonght, Jacob's dance class had practice and then a Christmas party following. He's getting a lot better, though is still very obviously the only four-year-old in his class. As long as he's happy, we're happy.

Ole'!

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Originally uploaded by jessica_c_rhodes

This is Jacob the Bed Time Warrior, or as he prefers to be called "Super Mario Snoopy Link Smash Brothers Galaxy." He's been wearing the full set of armour every night this week.

Overheard...

Now that Jacob is starting to read, every time we pass a strip mall we hear a voice from the backseat saying, "Open. Open. Open. Open. Open..." as he reads the neon signs in their windows.

Ella has become quite the accomplished singer, her favorites being Electric Car and The Blood Mobile from Here Comes Science. Does she understand what she's singing? No, but she does it with such heart...

Aw, how sweet. Wait a minute...

Today while driving through one of Indiana's beautiful semi-rural roads, Jacob spoke up from the back seat. "This place has all the things I ever want in my whole life. The trees are beautiful."

Later, we were watching Bambi. During Bambi's mother's death, Jacob piped up again. His comment: "Can we try some deer meat sometime?"

-Kris

The Children's Museum

Saturday the fam met up with Jessica's high school friend, Jennifer and her son, Ray. We met at a German bakery and had Danishes (or Germans, I guess) before heading downtown to the Children's Museum. Once there, we hung out with some Storm Troopers...



We watched The Ella Show...


We pretended to be mummies...

We pretended to be dinosaurs...

We put goop on a skull...

We rode the carousel...

(Ella thinks that when the guy says "yee haw" he's saying "ni hao." Ella prefers to greet her horse in Chinese.)

We had a tea party...

We dug in the dirt...

And we saw some cool art.

A good time was had by all.

In what is sure to turn out to be a spectacular parenting error, I (Kris) have taught Jacob the most basic technique of effective argumentation:

Here is something that is less likely to turn out to be a parenting error. We are helping Jacob learn to read. Here is Jacob giving a reading from the classic early reading canon. For the record, before we began recording, we watched him figure out what the passage means all by himself--well, with a little help concerning "the".

Today I (Kris) took Ella to the art museum. I wasn't sure if she would be completely bored or only mostly bored. But it turned out, she liked it quite a bit.

Her favorite painting was one titled "Saint Joseph and the Christ Child" by Sebastian Martinez. I can't find a picture of it online, unfortunately, but it's a picture of Joseph pulling a three year old Jesus away from a bowl of fruit he's reaching for. For some reason, Ella really latched on to this painting, gazing at it for a good five or ten minutes, asking me a lot of questions about it. "What are they doing?" "Why does Jesus's daddy say 'no'?" "What does Jesus say?" "What does Jesus's daddy say?" "What does Jesus say?" "What's the fruit for?" "It's not their fruit! It's not for Jesus!" "Can Jesus borrow it?" And so on.

She was also quite fascinated with a sculpture of three year old Jesus, innocently naked and reaching forward, looking sort of intense and curious like he's about to touch something with an unfamiliar texture. "Is he mad?" "Hey, he got a penis just like Jacob has a penis. Cause Jesus is a boy!"

After a while, we went to the contemporary art section. One of the installations consists in some silhouettes painted on the wall, with a projector projecting a background scene onto the wall. Ella ran in front of the projector and yelled "Look at the shadows! Look at my shadow! My shadow's dancin'!" and with that, she began to dance, carefuly watching her shadow as it echoed the dance.

We have mislaid our battery charger, so I had no batteries and so had no camera. I really wish that I'd had it today because it's difficult to explain how beautiful Ella's dancing was. It managed to be both toddler-spastic and ella-graceful at the same time.

We next proceeded to come in severe danger of getting kid fingerprints on several abstract paintings. Ella next accused a museum attendant of being a statue. When he laughed at this, she looked somewhat amused but betrayed. "Hey, that's not a statute! You're not a statue!" When he acknowledged this, she then volunteered "I'm not a statue either. I'm a Ella!"

Another installation consisted of three giant sculptures of donkeys standing on carts. Ella was very interested to find out which was the mommy, which the daddy, and which the baby. She begged to be allowed to pet them, and then to be allowed to look inside one's nose to see if it had any boogers.

The last piece we looked at consists ins about 48 transparent panels making a floor, under which are tens of thousands of tiny figurines of men and women holding the panels up. You're allowed to walk over them at will, and Ella willed to walk over them. We spent ten or fifteen minutes in there as she walked, then ran, then tumbled and twirled back and forth over the panels.

We then shared a lunch downstairs of apples, cheese, bread and a cookie while she read some of the kids' books the museum's cafe has conveniently displayed in its dining room.

Then we picked up Jessica from work and told her all about the great day we'd had.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4CXxLBgfR8

Electric Car

Amazing!!!

Jacob can now read!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ella can reach the lightswitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jessica has been running!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kris has been writing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Jacob's been recognizing words for a long time now, but for the past couple of days, he's been sounding out everything he sees and is doing a great job deciphering the results. He can write the entire alphabet and all the numbers 1-10.

**Ella has been saying that she's not a big girl because she can't reach the light. Now she can, so now she is.

***Jessica has joined a gym and has been running a mile every day.

****Kris has been writing grant proposals as a side gig.

Absolutely Tacky

I'm embarassed to say this, but for Christmas, the Rhodes Family would like only flat things. Flat things include: clothes, books, DVDs, Magna Doodle, Aqua Doodle, puzzles, coloring books (no colors, please), and stickers. We are also able to accept edible items such as fruit snacks, popcorn, and hot chocolate. We are limited on space, and though the kids would absolutely LOVE other kinds of toys, we just don't see how we can make everything fit.

Jacob's Likes:
Super Why
Star Wars
coloring
board games
books

Ella's Likes:
ballerinas
Ni Hao Kai Lan
coloring
dresses
Dora the Explorer

Kris's and Jessica's Likes will be few, but available on Amazon's Wish List shortly.

I maybe should have posted this earlier, but my brain is stuck in October...

I'd Like to Report a Kidnapping

Ella the Angry has been kidnapped and replaced by an imposter.

For the past week, she has been wonderfully pleasant, charming, and an absolute delight. I hope this is a phase that she stays in for a while...!

The Childrens' Museum

Today we went to the Childrens' Museum. We met up with my friend from work, Bethany, and her husband, Drew, and four-year-old daughter, Layla. We saw dinosaur bones, a meteorite, and all kinds of other exhibits. We actually skipped two floors of stuff, so we'll have to go back again to make up for it! Jacob's favorite part had a crane and diggers. Ella's favorite part had Eli Lilly's daughter's playhouse. Both kids had a great time, but Ella busted her lip so we went home. She was tired anyway and fell asleep in the car before we'd even left the parking garage.

Happy Halloween!!!

This Halloween, Jacob went as The White Rabbit and Ella went as Ella's in Wonderland. We just did our block, as it was kind of chilly and the kids can't really walk that far anyway. Ella surprised us by being very into the door knocking and talking to people. Both kids yelled "Trick or Treat! Happy Halloween!" and were polite when getting their candy. Our last house was our own, so we brought in our pink-nosed children and warmed up by dumping their bags on the table to inspect the loot. Soon it was bedtime and Kris tucked the kids into bed, Jake in his bunny mittens and Ella in her tights.

Are You KIDDING Me???

Jacob woke up this morning with a fever. This has been one a week for three stinking weeks! Ella is fine. Kris is fine. I'm still playing catch up with last week's cold... ridiculous!

Sized Up

The kids had a WIC appointment yesterday and had their measurements taken. Jacob is 38 lbs, 8oz and 41" tall. Ella is 28 lbs, 8oz and 36" tall. Both had finger pokes, but only Ella cried. Luckily in Indiana, you only have to have the poke once a year. The kids got shiny band-aids and stickers.

The Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we went to the Tuttle Orchards Pumpkin Patch to pick out our pumpkins and take some Halloween pictures. Ella is Ella's in Wonderland and Jacob is the White Rabbit. The kids were only nominally interested in pumpkins- they mostly wanted to play in the play area. It was a nice day and in the 60s, so we played until they shut the place down. Today is cold and rainy so we lucked out!