Day +958: Parent-Teacher Conference

We had another parent-teacher conference on Monday. They are always fun, because Teacher Julie loves our kids and it's fun to hear her stories about them. We started off talking about Isaac, and about how he's getting to the point where the other kids are sort of flocking to him. Julie says she doesn't get what exactly it is, but somehow she thinks Isaac has "kid charisma". The other kids jostle to sit by him, and when Julie plays the name game they always call out "ISAAC!" with real enthusiasm. Very fun for a parent to hear, of course. She says both of our kids are really good at imaginative play, and she told the story about how Isaac was asking her all kinds of details about her rug: the flower pattern, what it was made of, how it was made, etc. It was the first time any kid had ever spoken to her about the rug. Later on she saw Isaac take a piece of fabric outside to the straw and pretend he was making a rug, and when the kids came back in he got some of the other kids to make rugs with him by laying out fabrics on the floor.

Mina is doing good with school too, although she really only wants to play with the older girls and Riley and Anika are the only other 4-year-olds left now. When neither of the girls are there she mostly plays by herself. We've tried to encourage her to play with the boys or with the younger girls, but I guess it's tough to have high standards for your playmates. She says Mina is really advancing in her math abilities these days, which is kind of a relief because she thought Mina might be a little behind in that area during our last conference. Mina made a cognitive leap the other day by recognizing that three groups of blocks could go into the three boats that were there. Julie said Mina was quivering with excitement and was thinking about all the ways she could use this new concept of object grouping. Another story she told is about the "magna-blocks" -- little magnetic blocks that come in all different shapes. Julie always calls the shapes by name, including the right triangles and the isosceles triangles (all sides of equal length). Mina recognizes which are which, but she was worried that Julie was hurting the other triangles' feelings. Julie didn't get it at first, so Mina explained that Julie was calling some triangles the "right" triangles, and the other triangles were not the right triangles.

Julie really thinks we should send Mina to the Waldorf school for kindergarten next year. She thinks Mina of all the kids would really benefit from the structure and rhythm of the Waldorf system. I can see exactly what she means, and we'll apply for her. We probably won't be able to afford it, but Isaac will be able to go to NPG for free next year due to San Francisco's new universal pre-K program, so it may not end up costing us that much more than we are paying this year. We'll see.

We're in the process of doing our Christmas shopping for the kids. They've both been very specific. Isaac has been asking for a banjo for Christmas ever since the "Heart of Cole" Street Fair back in October, and Mina always asks for a baby. I'd like to get Mina interested in the musical instruments, but when I asked her if she didn't want an instrument for Christmas, she said "No. I'm not very good at instruments. Isaac is good at instruments. I'm good at taking care of babies." It was pretty hard to argue with that, so that's where we left it. We're still deciding on the banjo. He already has the guitar, so the banjo wouldn't really give him anything new to do. He also sometimes asks for a tuba, but that's not much help. I'd kind of like to get him a quarter violin. We have to figure something out PDQ.

Isaac is still fascinated by the garbage man, and last week he asked to go down and talk to him. He's a very nice man, and we found out a lot about him. His name is Placido, and he has three daughters named Raquel, Anjelica, and Christina Maria who are 16, 14 and 10. His father also worked for the company, and Placido has a picture of himself when he was a little boy sitting in his father's truck. He offered Isaac to sit in the driver's seat for a minute, but Isaac was too shy. But when we got upstairs Isaac cried and cried because he really wanted to go and sit in the garbage truck. We'll have to find another time to go out and say hello to Placido again. Placido looks forward to seeing Isaac and waves at him every week.

We went back to the Velveteen Rabbit again this year. Or rather, the rest of the family went "back" -- for me it was the first time. It was very cute. Mina and Isaac paid close attention, and Isaac kept asking questions. Julie had been reading the story at school, so Mina understood exactly what was going on. Last year she was so enraptured by it, that when it was over she cried and cried and kept saying "I want the Velveteen Waaah-biiit!" This year she enjoyed it, but her focus these days is mostly on playing with her friends and she doesn't have quite the same level of enthusiasm for things like this as. We're going to another Christmas play on Saturday, and to the Nutcracker on the 27th. Should be interesting to see how the kids enjoy those.

Grandma Lyn has been here visiting for over a week now, which has been really nice. Mina was so excited the day Grandma arrived that she didn't leave her side all day, and she's been sleeping with Grandma on the aerobed. We went and got our Christmas tree on Sunday. We followed our tradition by walking down to Cole Street and picking out our tree at Cole Hardware, and putting it on my shoulder to hike back to the house. Very quick and easy compared to hiking through the snowy woods looking for the perfect tree, but it's pretty nice to all walk down and back together. We have lights on it, but Keri and Lyn have been so busy with baking Christmas cookies and shopping all week that they haven't gotten to decorating it yet. Grandma leaves Sunday, and then we'll spend Christmas with friends here in San Francisco rather than flying up to Washington. It will be nice to have it at our own house, although we'll really miss seeing our families.