A week at home

I wasn't really looking forward to this week. KM was going to be in the US which meant that I had to put all three girls to bed every night. No break after a days hard work at home. Then on Monday morning, I noticed these spots on Caitlin's fore arm, and neck.  The all too familiar spots. The same sort Kristen had 2 weeks before when she was diagnosed with chicken pox. Something in me said that this was going to be a longer than expected week. I went to the doctor and he confirmed my suspicions. Chicken Pox. The very week KM had to be out of town.

Chicken pox meant that I had to take Caitlin out of school for a whole week. And for good measure I took Ellie out too. Just in case. That meant a whole week at home with the girls out of school. Sigh.

As it turned out, everyone had a lot of fun. The girls especially. And I? I just wasn't as tired as I usually am. I kept to my scheduled activities- something arty on mondays, science on wednesdays, cooking on fridays, with bit of other things in between, and managed to survive a whole week at indoors. Not even a trip downstairs to the playground. (I did manage to attend a google talk on tuesday, while my mom babysat! hooray!) But other than that were were pretty much indoors. Ellie and Caitlin had a blast playing together.  Caitlin's 10 pox(es) didn't seem to cause her much discomfort.  Kristen now that she can sit up and commando crawl could join in some of the fun. Amazingly Caitlin's usual whininess didn't get to me as much as it usually does. Must have been prayer.

We ended the week with the girls.......

a. making a collage each.

Caitlin always wants something fish-related. This time she wants to make a fish tank even though the lesson plan by the instructor (me) is to make a bedroom. Heck! Go with the flow I think. When I suggest making some seaweed, Caitlin says, do it for me I am so tired and runs off to bounce on the sofa. She comes back when I ask her to put the fish food in (thats all those little spots) and cuts just one rock (the bigger mass amongst the spots) for her fish.
 

Ellie sat down (and I am really amazed at this) for almost one and a half hours to design her princess bedroom. I helped cut the clothes for her princess out but she did pretty much everything else herself. There is a clothes stand on the right. Bed with drapes in the middle. Two dressing tables, a wardrobe with clothes and stuff in it, a tiny purple rug in the foreground and a toilet complete with a floor trap. (that's the architect in her.)

b. making their own dinner.

They love making their own favourite food. Pizza on whole meal pita, topped with heaps of Mozzarella, Cheddar and Parmesan, not forgetting the veggies- asparagus.

Caitlin's never serious when it comes to photos.

Ta-da! Pizza for dinner!

and here's Kristen, seven months old cheering everyone on.

Arty Farty Artwork

One of my resolutions for the year is to have a more structured home programme for the girls. For most part of 2010 I was 1) nauseous from my morning sickness, 2) achy because of the pregnancy 3) tired -my energy levels were at an all time low, 4) recovering from my delivery. We did stuff (now what did we do?) but largely on an ad hoc basis according to how I felt for the day.

This year, I decided to have a weekly schedule of after-school activities. Monday-Art or something crafty (what I enjoy doing). Wednesday-Science and Math (what I need to get the kids interested in because we don't do much of that), Friday-Baking or outings. And chinese every morning. (I think the girls have so much to catch up on because we don't speak it enough). I bought two great books on Amazon with lots of ideas so that I don't have to do my research online the night before. I just need to choose something in the book and follow the lesson plan.

We started with our first "formal" art lesson last monday: An introduction to the LINE. Adapted from a book called ART for the very young. What I did was cut up a whole lot of strips of different lengths and get Ellie and Caitlin start looking at what lines can do. The first exercise was to drop the strips of black paper all over and glue them down- let the lines become something. Caitlin wanted me to help her make a fish with the lines, and contributed the seaweed. Her next piece was titled "happy" because the lines "make me happy".

Ellie couldn't get past the desire to make her lines resemble something. Just drop the lines and let them decide what to be, I told Ellie. The end result was pretty interesting even if the most "random" drops were deliberate.

Last Wednesday, we experimented food colouring in a science lesson about with diffusion. Ellis's more calculated piece and Caitlin's more random one.

And yesterday, our 2nd Art lesson. Still on the subject on the LiNe. Using scotch tape to explore lines created in the negative space. Both girls loved the scotch-taping.

Caitlin's piece. (I had to fill in the orange background). She couldn't sit to finish her piece.  I thought she did a good job with the one horizontal line tying up the vertical ones.

Ellie's piece. Titled "Rainbow floor". "I want the floor in my room to look like this". Drawing is one thing Ellie will sit down for- no matter how long it takes.