Birthday Interview

With some coaxing, Amelie agreed to do the birthday interview again this year. 

1. How old are you? 9
2. What is your favorite color? Turquoise (no surprise there)
3. What is your favorite toy? My Kindle (I really thought she was going to say Bakugon - which is kind of like a strange combination of a transformer and a Pokemon that Amelie recently got all of the neighborhood kids playing with.)
4. What is your favorite game? Merge Dragons
5. What is your favorite song? Hmmmm. "Old Town Road." There is a debate going on about whether it is a country song or a pop song. 
6. What is your favorite animal? Fox
7. What is your favorite book? I don't actually .. Nnewts
8. What is your favorite movie? Isle of Dogs
9. What is your favorite TV show? The Dragon Prince
10. What is your favorite thing to eat? Udon noodles
11. Where is your favorite place to go? Grandma Mary's
12. Who is your best friend? Kaitlin
13. What is something you learned last year? That male platypuses have poisonous spurs on their back legs.
14. What is something you'll learn now that you're 9? I know that there is a unit on the Oregon Trail in Unit C, so, that. 
15. What is your favorite part of school? All-school picnic on the second-to-last day of school, which is tomorrow. What is your favorite special? Media Center.
16. Who is your favorite teacher? Ms. Malloy
17. What is hard for you to do? Spell
18. What is your favorite thing to do? Flower weave 
19. What is your favorite thing to do with friends? Sleepovers
20. What do you like about Me (Mama)? You? (pause) That you're more strict on James than Dad. 
21. What do you like about Dad? That he is very kind. 
22. What do you like about James? Hmm. He's my friend when no one else is around (sometimes). 
23. What do you like about Leah? (laughs) There are a few options for this one. I'm going to do the silly one: That she  is a Hattie attracter (laughs) 
24. What do you like about yourself?  Please skip this one. Really? You can't think of anything you like about yourself? No. 
25. What do you want to be when you grow up? Veterinarian. 

Here's the link to last year. 

Dog!

We got a dog!

Exciting news! We picked a dog out from the Puppies for Parole program and waited and waited for him to graduate. Here is the picture we had from the program website. Sam and I were calling him "majestic dog" when we were deciding. James really wanted us to get a boy dog.

I picked him up a little over a week ago from Tipton correctional facility. He enjoyed the car ride back to Columbia immensely, but he was just a little shy to warm up to us.

After great debate and some run-off voting, the kids settled on the name "Spark," because his picture looked a little like the character from this graphic novel: 

Though as you can see, the Sparks in the book is not a dog but rather a dog robot suit controlled by two cats.

Here's a photo of the first day we had him - he's been getting one or two walks a day.

He's a little bigger than I thought he would be - maybe 80 pounds. We'll find out at the vet next week.

The website said that he was a mix between a golden retriever and an Anatolian Shepherd dog, which I suppose would explain the size and his somewhat curly tail. He points at small mammals, too, which as far as I know neither retrievers nor shepherds usually do, so there's likely something else mixed in.

He likes to chew and fetch sticks, and has been absolutely wonderful with the kids. He also walks nicely on the leash without pulling, can sit and lie down, came already house trained, and doesn't bark much at all - though he valiantly defended us from the trash collector, recycling truck, and school bus today.

He is amazing with Leah, who took to bossing him around immediately.

What a good boy!

Mother’s Day

James brought home a Mother’s Day worksheet he had filled out in kindergarten. This is what he said about me:

My mom’s name is Cristl

Mom’s favorite color dark pink
Mom’s favorite food cheese
Mom’s favorite car minivan
Mom’s favorite drink tea
Mom’s favorite flower tulip

My mom likes to sleep, likes to read, likes to plant, likes to exercise, likes to eat, likes to cuddle

My mom taught me to walk (he wrote something else first and erased it, but I can’t tell what it is)

My favorite thing to do with mom cuddle

Amelie did this in kindergarten, too:1https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2015/05/mothers-day-book.html?m=1

Library

Here are James and Leah waiting (again!) for Amelie to come out of a library program:

It looks like she thinks he might be reading something more interesting: