We wake up to wet, heavy, beautiful snow. Indeed, it is the only wet snowfall of the winter. For the first time it's not impossible to roll a snowball!
It stays just a breath above freezing. Still, the cheepers are not happy.
What? Snow again? What is this??
Java is the brave one today. She is determined to make her way up the path.
You bold sweet thing! This is no weather for a chicken! (I pick her up and carry her to the dryness of the garage.)
Breakfast. At the kitchen table, so that we can admire the snow hitting the screen on the porch.
I shovel paths, Ed shovels the driveway. The cheepers appreciate the clearings.
Snowdrop is thrilled to be coming to the farmette after school. Snow play!
(Yes, one pink mitt and one purple mitt. Do you like them, grandma? I picked them!)
But as we came into the farmhouse, ostensibly to put on winter wear, she changed her mind. The warm house, the favorite toys, the snacks, the books -- they trump the snow outside. Perhaps she is making a statement: I'm ready for spring, nothing else will do!
At some point, water play douses her clothes. Snowdrop's dream of wearing pj's is realized!
Clothes dry off on the heating vent.
And now the little one is getting ready to go home. Just one more wild play of ball!
And, with the last few minutes left, she returns to her story.
To be continued. Tomorrow and the next day and the day after.
We have a few cool days ahead. Ah, but what a small price to pay for what comes then!
It stays just a breath above freezing. Still, the cheepers are not happy.
What? Snow again? What is this??
Java is the brave one today. She is determined to make her way up the path.
You bold sweet thing! This is no weather for a chicken! (I pick her up and carry her to the dryness of the garage.)
Breakfast. At the kitchen table, so that we can admire the snow hitting the screen on the porch.
I shovel paths, Ed shovels the driveway. The cheepers appreciate the clearings.
Snowdrop is thrilled to be coming to the farmette after school. Snow play!
(Yes, one pink mitt and one purple mitt. Do you like them, grandma? I picked them!)
But as we came into the farmhouse, ostensibly to put on winter wear, she changed her mind. The warm house, the favorite toys, the snacks, the books -- they trump the snow outside. Perhaps she is making a statement: I'm ready for spring, nothing else will do!
At some point, water play douses her clothes. Snowdrop's dream of wearing pj's is realized!
Clothes dry off on the heating vent.
And now the little one is getting ready to go home. Just one more wild play of ball!
And, with the last few minutes left, she returns to her story.
To be continued. Tomorrow and the next day and the day after.
We have a few cool days ahead. Ah, but what a small price to pay for what comes then!
S is so expressive :)
ReplyDeleteI was glad to see you had Pete the Cat. It’s Cadence’s favorite book and why not? It’s the huge favorite of every preschooler I’ve ever had. And I know this because we make “favorites” graphs every week. It’s a good way to start preschool math. I take photos of 3 or 4 books that we read in the past week, make a graph, each child gets their own name label, and they go up at circle time to post their name in the column of their favorite, So - more, most, less, fewer, equal, zero - are some things we learn. And I post the graph in the hallway for the parents so they can, crucially, follow up and get those books from the library.
Now back to Pete the Cat. You should know that the brilliant Eric Litwin only wrote the first three, I think, of the Pete books. Then he sold the franchise, so to speak, to his illustrator who has commercialized the Pete thing beyond belief. The books look the same but they are not nearly as well written.
I can’t stand instilling the attitude that “I have to collect them all”. Any time I meet someone who says they are a “collector” I think, oh I see. And if they say they are a “completist” well then I think they’ve told me more than they’d meant to.
So back to Pete the Cat!! I first heard “I love my white shoes” when a librarian friend read it to my class. She was using my class as a lab for her graduate work. Her reading blew me away! She changed my way of reading to children. Be sure, be SURE, to check this out. It’s the author Eric Litwin singing Pete the Cat the way he hopes everyone will read it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nUubMSfIs-U
My best to Sniwdrop :)
Right now, we have Snowdrop's return to Pete: he was her favorite a long while ago and then he got pushed aside as new characters came and went. (You told me then about the video, :) but I will say this: I think I am not good at many grandmotherly things -- I don't bake enough, I get stuck on favorite foods and dont step out of comfort zones, etc etc. But I am one thing: a very very impassioned outloud reader! So, Pete has had his song going here for a long time.)
DeleteAs for the issue of the sold franchise or diminished authorship -- it's a mixed thing. It was quite clear Eric put his pen down with Pete books. It seems that most beloved characters suffered a similar fate -- someone else takes over and boom! The magic disappears. Olivia is another example. Pinkalicious is one more. Characters that were sold, and even picked up by PBS, but the proliferating books are just so far from the originals. On the one hand, I miss the wit and beauty of the original texts, but there is often an element left that recalls the character and sometimes that is enough. I have a couple of the I can Read Pete books and they're just fine for what they are. In any case, since bookstores have disappeared and I buy mostly from Amazon (meaning I can't really preread), I pay attention to reviews and synopses. I still wind up with some duds, but mostly, at some point in her life Snowdrop comes around to loving most of the books around here. The danger is more that I tend to pander too much to my taste and hers. I did that with my daughters too. I leave it to the schools to broaden their reading material! :)