Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Selena as Galileo

Lots has been going on since the last time I posted.  Preschool has started.  She is going in the afternoons three days a week.  Going in the afternoons has been much better.  She likes it and seems to be more involved and aware of what is going on.  She is coaching Allie about manners and things.  She'll tell Allie, "At school we do it like this, so we should do it like that at home."  She doesn't remember many of the kids names, but hopefully that will come.

We also did a session of outdoor soccer through the Y.  Her Papa kept wanting her to sign up, but I told him I wouldn't sign her up till she was begging.  Well she started begging.  The team was co-ed 3 and 4 year-olds with a 45 minute practice and a 36 minute game for 6 weeks.  She was definitely into it, but did get pushed around some by the boys.  One practice she said, "Soccer sure is fun, except for the boys."  There were three girls on her team and they would frequently run off the field and sit and watch.  Selena seemed to want to play, but wanted to be with her friends more.  The first few practices and games she got pretty tired.  She said soccer was harder than it looked, but she would tell herself that she was tough and to keep going.  By the end of the season she didn't get tired and it was hard for her to come off the field, she was always on the verge of tears.  She scored a goal in the last game of the season.  She also had one game at goalie that I was very impressed with.  She knew where the goal box was and would come out of the box to block a kick, and use her hands inside the box.  There were other times when all the girls decided to sit in the goal, then they got distracted and didn't really stop anything. She was torn between signing up for indoor soccer or swimming, but she decided to do swimming lessons next.

We went to the Puyallup fair, as is our tradition, and she got to do Mutton Bustin after two years of waiting.  When she was two, she was too young.  Last year they said she was too small and pulled her off the sheep before it ran out the gate.  This year she got to do it.  She didn't stay on long, but she popped right up and ran out of the arena.  Her face was covered in dirt.  She said it wasn't what she expected because she expected to hold on longer.

She is still very much into dinosaurs and has seen almost every single Land Before Time movie and TV show.

Being a DIY'er has been backfiring on me.  Selena thinks that I should be able to make every single thing.  For instance she wanted to fly somewhere, and I said it was expensive, so she said we should build our own plane. Cute, until she starts throwing a tantrum because I won't.  So then she decides we should make a boat instead, a real one, that really floats.  And another tantrum.  She has grand plans for me to make her a long-neck costume for Halloween.  I don't know how that is going to work.

She definitely has a creative spirit.  She is constantly drawing, and making books, and cutting out cardboard to make things.  Often she recruits me to help her.  For instance I should color her picture because it is getting a bit boring for her.

Other anecdotes:
- I took her out kayaking to assuage her boat building desires.  She said it wasn't as exciting as it looked.  She also was very scared of the seaweed.
- One day we were driving to visit my brother and family and Selena tells Allie, "Allie did you know that the sun doesn't go around the Earth, the Earth goes around the sun."  Allie says, "No way."  Selena says, "Yes it does.  It really, really does."  Allie says, "You're kooky."  I have no idea where Allie came up with the word kooky, but I felt like they were recreating the debate between Galileo and the Church.





1 comment:

Lauren Wayne said...

She did Mutton Bustin'! Awesome. We were passing all the signs for it at the fair. Hooray for her — I love that her only disappointment was in how long she held on. I bet she'll improve her time next year.

We have the same tantrums about boats and cars and trains and robots "that really work." Sometimes I can distract Mikko long enough with the planning phase that he forgets to be mad we never actually built it. He recently designed a double-decker boat that has a boat on the bottom and then a ladder connecting it to a boat on the top.