Thursday, April 16, 2009

Sweet heart Tee


I have been bitten by the sewing bug. Was already sleepy at 11:30 last night but was intchy to get my hands on the sewing machine again. Started on Caitlin’s fairy skirt, stopped when it needed pressing (to lazy to take out the iron) then dug out and old shirt of Elllie’s decided to added little cut out hearts to it over the food and ink stains. She now has a new shirt for school. Would have gone on but I was just too sleepy. This is really addictive!

Looking like a mermaid and other Ellie thoughts

We passed a picture of a mermaid outside a seafood restaurant when we were are the beach a couple of weeks ago. This was a tacky digitally altered photo of a real lady with a fish tail (ok mermaid tail) and fish scales stamped over where her bra should have been. Ellie, who has only seen Disney mermaids was rather intrigued. I supposed she was slightly puzzled about mermaids not wearing a shirt and wearing their underwear out. A few weeks later, when I was getting dressed, Ellie wisely remarked “when I wear only trousers and a bra, then I will look like a mermaid, right?”
Well, Ellie is potty trained but she still does her poo in her diaper. She will ask to have one on just for the occasion. We always encourage her to use the big loo. The other night I asked when she was going to use the big loo for her poo. “10 years old” she replied. Then the conversation moved on to sleeping on her own in her own room. “And so how old will you be to sleep on your own?” I asked Ellie. “14 years old” she replied. Do we really have to wait this long?

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Fairy Skirt



I finally set up my (I mean my mother’s) sewing machine, and just finished making (literally, minutes ago) my first skirt in almost 20 years. Doesn’t that sound like I am really old? Or maybe I made my first skirt when I was really little. I made that last skirt in school for my home economics class a long time ago, and well, the dress I made last week for Waffles doesn’t quite count.

Ellie is really into skirts these days. We have so many clothes for her but all she wants to wear are her skirts. There is this blue flowery skirt that she wants to wear almost every other day, even when it is in the laundry pile. So I decided to make her some skirts to wear to school. I found this great pattern online http://www.oliverands.com/patterns/Oliver+SLazyDaysSkirt.pdf and made Ellie a fairy skirt out of pink organza with tiny sparkly dots. This I hope will be the first in a series of skirts for school. The fairy skirt is meant as a dress-up skirt but I suspect she will want to wear it to school. Caitlin will get a matching skirt too but that will have to come a little later. Can’t wait to take a picture of them both in fairy skirts!

Going write all these details down so that I know how much cloth to get the next time I make a skirt.

Cloth Width: 60″. Bought 750cm for 2 skirts. The width of the skirt is the width from selvedge to selbedge Ribbon length is the same as cloth width.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I will read the big words

Ellie started putting sounds together around this date. Feb 27 2009. And now she’s reading most of the three letter words and some four letter ones and other more common larger words. I am amazed at how it has all come together. Just to make sure she wasn’t memorising the stories (also something I’m pretty amazed by) I’ve been reading brand new books with Ellie, leaving out words. The journey to literacy has been a bit of everything. The home made word cards, Ants on the Apple (the Malaysian published phonics book with the catchy song and simple illustrations), the Starfall website, My Baby Can Read videos, story books, rhymes and then, this year, more formal teaching at school. I was not very consistent with any method and worried that we were not getting anywhere, especially when Caitlin came along and I found my self busy managing two girls with different personalities needs and learning styles, but it HAS all come together.

When we read I now leave out the small words for Ellie. Just the other day Ellie said, “Next time you read the small words and I will read the big words.”