More Firsts

Circles painted by Red Fish. This is the first time she has tried to paint a particular shape to my knowledge.

Little miss New Fish has started cruising a little around the edge of the furniture. She is growing up too fast!

The Social Calendar

The last few days have seemed insane. Saturday we went to my nephew B's baptism and had a fun lunch with family afterwards. Red Fish tried out a slip and slide for the first time. Then we had a BBQ with our friends Mark and Annie on Saturday night. Sunday was my Mom's birthday and we took the girl's bikes over to ride on her sport court. Monday we walked around the temple grounds at Red Fish's request. We went to a concert at the park and had a picnic. Tuesday we had swimming lessons, a birthday party, and speech therapy. Today we went to art group. I'm tired.

With Gammie on her birthday. New Fish hates the grass so she holds her legs up so they won't have to touch the ground. It's pretty funny.

Sitting in the MG

Trying out the bike helmets

Our local park has concerts throughout the summer. We've been going for the past couple years. We take a picnic and spread a blanket out. It's awesome.

New Fish was jumping up and down to the music. I think she loved it! Red Fish spent most of her time dancing and running around the park.
Red Fish had her first swimming lesson. She proved that she is in fact, part fish. She was blowing bubbles, kicking her legs, and the teacher barely had to hold on to her at all. I can only imagine how much more of a maniac she will be by the end of the summer.

Art Group Day 2

We used liquid watercolors on watercolor paper today. We used crayon to resist the paint and also did some salty bits. You can tell they are busy having fun because nobody is looking at the camera. I love it. 17 kids today (15 painters.)

Goodnight Kisses

I carry the freshly bathed New Fish into her room. I love to hold her close and press my cheek against hers. I love the fresh baby smell and the way her squishy baby cheek crinkles when she smiles. She laughs and turns her face into my neck. Ah babies. There is nothing like it.

I'm reading in bed and Red Fish runs in and pounces on me. I get a tight squeeze, she shakes me to let me know how much she loves me and gives me a quick kiss as she bounces out of the room. There is nothing like the boisterous hug of a happy little girl.

I'm watching TV with Two Fish before we head upstairs for the night. He gives me a soft kiss on the top of my head for no reason at all. Just a habit to make sure we both know we are loved. There is nothing like a spontaneous kiss from the love of your life.

And yes Blue Fish likes to wait until I'm almost asleep and pop up over the side of the bed to give me a slobbery lick but it isn't nearly as special as my other nightly kisses.

Triumph: Life After the Cult--A Survivor's Lessons

By Carolyn Jessop

I found Carolyn's last book, Escape, fascinating. This new book isn't nearly as good. While I applaud the girl power tips, I was bored with the long retorts to the critisism Jessop has received. Just read the her first book.

2 years

Lately, Red Fish has been very interested in the temple. She wants to drive by or walk around the grounds constantly. She talks endlessly about her uncle M getting married to E at the temple this summer and by talk I mean gesture wildly and say their names over and over. I've been trying to tell Red Fish about how we were sealed in the temple to her two years ago. Trying to break all this down for a two year old has made me think a lot about what it means to be sealed to my family forever. I feel so lucky. I've got to say I was a little bummed we didn't need to be sealed to New Fish (she was born under the covenant and automatically sealed to us.) It's such a cool experience, I wish we could do it all over again.

Apraxia Update

We've switched pediatricians and I'm very happy about it. We have appointments with several specialists over the next couple of months and we've already started with some extra speech specialists. So now Red Fish will be getting speech therapy through the school district (which we've been doing for over a year) and a local hospital. She is also going to start a little preschool class that should help. We do speech therapy at home everyday for about an hour so it adds up to a lot of practice.

Lately we've found that Red Fish absolutely loves flashcards for some reason. So I went to the dollar store and bought one of every kind of flash card they have. We go through letters, colors, animals, animal sounds and whatever else we can try to sound out. I wouldn't normally drill a two year old on letters but Red Fish loves it and it combines consonant and vowel sounds, which is exactly what we are going for.

This week I felt like we made a huge breakthrough. Red Fish was able to string several consonant and vowels sounds together, she tried her first two syllable word and also combined two words together for the first time. Pretty exciting stuff around here.

Baby's First Painting

Red Fish had fun experimenting with some of the new painting tools. Mostly she tried to copy what New Fish was doing and made sure to sit on one paper and have the other on her lap. I tried mixing corn meal into Red Fish's bowls of paint to give her a more interesting texture but it didn't work out the way I had hoped.
New Fish had a great time. I thought she would try to eat the paint but she just squished in her hands a lot and wiped it on the paper. Both girls were giggling the entire time like this was the most hilarious thing they've ever done. New Fish also managed to turn most of her body purple. Who doesn't love purple babies?

New Fish's first painting. I'm very proud.

Here is Red Fish's painting. I think this finger paint is a little too watery to mix corn meal in. Maybe next time we will try something more viscous like tempera and sand.

Art Group Day 1

We had a great time playing with liquid watercolors today. We started by looking at Strange Stains and Mysterious Smells: Based on Quentin Cottington's Journal of Faery Research by Terry Jones and Brian Froud. We practiced using splatter techniques, spray bottles, bingo bottles and brushes on a big tablecloth. Then everyone got their own texas snowflakes and bleeding papers. I think they all had a great time. I'm looking forward to all of our projects this summer.

How gorgeous are these? I love the colors and the way the kids mixed the paint. I am totally inspired by the way children create. I'm pretty sure I could watch them all day.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” - Pablo Picasso

 

Glitter Liquid Watercolor - Set of All 8

Liquid Watercolor Texas Snowflakes

100 Liquid Watercolor Diffusing Paper Shapes

 

Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China

by, Jung Chang

Chang's memoirs fall someplace between a historian's broad view and a novelist's deeply personal story . She has a beautiful way of chronicling a good deal of political history and still portraying how the events actually felt. She puts a face on tragedies that effected millions of people. This book changed my worldview of politics.

Wild Swans is a poignant look through the eyes of three generations of women living through the turmoil of 20th century China. Chang describes the traumatic events of communist and maoist China. The contrasts between the lives of women born only decades apart is very telling. Chang's grandmother grew up during the age of warlords, concubines and foot binding. The end of the Japanese occupation and the Kuomintang/Communist struggle to create a new China infiltrates her life and the lives of her family members on a very real level. Chang's mother became a communist revolutionary only to be denounced, incarcerated and tortured during the cultural revolution. The author herself grew up during a transitional time of political upheaval and terrifying atrocities. Chang's descriptions of the cultural revolution were particularly disquieting to me.

The capacity of everyday citizens to turn to violence and evil is truly unsettling. The atrocities commited by friends, neighbors and coworkers during the cultural revolution disturbed me to my very core. The most unsettling of Mao's heinous abilities was his ability to pit people against each other. My stomach hurt just reading about it.

While reading this book I couldn't help but feel gratitude for the freedom, education, and basic humanitarian rights I enjoy.

If by chance you plan to read this on Kindle, know that the editing is VERY poor. There are a lot of mistakes.

Sometimes..

it's just fun to glue stuff on paper. Gotta love random stuff from the dollar store.

Tidings From The Tub