Little Emma on the Prairie

Emma's Brownie troop had a field trip yesterday to this historical museum. The girls had such a blast dressing up like children 150 years ago. Here's a picture my friend Beth took of Emma with her friend Madeline...


I didn't get to go on the field trip, unfortunately. But last night, Emma regaled me with facts and tales about life in the 1800's. She told me that the parents ate dinner first and then the children. She also mentioned that the children were often responsible for emptying the chamber pot. She said "Boy, kids had it rough back in the olden days!"

A girl and her kitty

I really don't have anything spectacular to write about. All I have is a picture of Emma with her beloved cat Sami...she loves her kitty so much! And despite the rather pained expression on her face, Sami loves Emma too!

Catching our breath...

Ever since school started in the fall (or late summer), we have been insanely busy. I mean INSANELY busy. It's not that I have Emma signed up for 100 activities or anything. It's just that the few things she is involved in have swung into high gear.

This weekend was especially crazy. We started off with a Brownie meeting on Friday night. Saturday morning, we had to get up early to participate in the ALS charity walk (my employer was a corporate sponsor.) Then we rushed off to catch a big youth horse show downtown. We left that early so we could make it to our local FCC chapter's Moon Festival by late afternoon. We left home at 9 am and walked in the door at 9 pm, both exhausted. Today was a little less hectic...just church, going to a big local art fair and horseback riding lessons. Next weekend looks slightly less hectic, but only slightly.

Emma and I both like being busy, but this is a little too much...I hope it slows down a bit. But looking at our calendar, I don't see it - at least for the next several weeks.

Anyway, here are a few pics from the weekend. This is Emma at the horse show, indulging in one of her favorite activities...


Here she is at the Moon Festival, hanging with her friend Hope...


And this is Emma deep in the creative process while painting at the art fair today...


So because we've been gone all weekend, the house is a mess, the lawn needs mowing, and I only got about half the laundry done. I did manage to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store so we wouldn't starve this week. But that was about the extent of my accomplishments. Better luck next week, right?!

It's homework time!

When your child enters first grade, suddenly there is this thing called homework. Emma received her very first homework assignment today. She was very excited at first. Then reality kicked in...as you can see from these photos!






She only had about ten minutes of work to do...just some vocabulary words she had to copy. They give the kids homework on Tuesdays and Thursdays which isn't too bad. But if she's this exhausted from doing ten minutes of homework now, what are we going to do a few years from now when she has two hours of homework every night?!

Emma, Emma, quite contrary...

I don't know if it's being in first grade, if it's just a phase, or if I'm just a lousy parent, but Emma has developed a real attitude of late. Could it be that she is coming to the realization that her mommy is not a dazzling genius who knows everything about everything? I was hoping she wouldn't find this out until she was like 30.

Anyway, we're going through a rough patch. Maybe it's just adjusting to the start of the school year or something. She's always been this incredibly sweet and compliant child - we didn't even really have terrible twos - but she's been so whiny and pouty all week. Nothing horrible, but a lot of contradicting me and arguing over every little thing. It's wearing on me.

Plus, it took her all of four days of school to get in a little trouble. She got put in time out in school today for talking. Emma had a real problem in kindergarten with talking in class when she wasn't supposed to. We had her pretty well back in line by the mid-year point. But I can see now that we (meaning her teacher and I) will have to keep on her. So I told her she couldn't play on the computer the rest of this week...and if she got another time out, no computer this weekend. She really loves playing games on the computer, so I think this got her attention. We'll see...

I don't want to make it sound like I've got a spoiled brat on my hands...she's still very sweet like 90% of the time. But that other 10% is testing my patience right now!

Anyway, here's a picture of my little angel...let's hope our week gets better!