flea

Casper's class watched a movie about Claude Monet recently, and she came home full of chatter about the China Bridge, and benches, and water lilies, and his 8 children, and painting in the garden.

Last night at bedtime she pointed to a painting made by mr. flea's grandfather, which she keeps propped on her bureau, and told me she wanted to make a painting like that. It's of sunflowers, done in a thick textural style vaguely reminiscent of Van Gogh, on a canvas board. So we talked about Monet again, and painting from life in the garden this weekend. She wants an easel and a real canvas. I think those canvas boards are quite cheap, actually, and we could get her some acrylics (we only have tempera paint and watercolors right now). An easel is probably pricey, but we talked about how we could make one using a chair.

She was full of what she would paint (our big yellow rose bush which is in bloom) and where she would position herself. Surprisingly mature, for 6, I think.

In other news, she seems rather stressed about the CRCT (standardized tests) which start next week. She seems to be doing fine on the practices, and Mrs. C told me she's only ever had one student fail, and that student was not a native speaker of English. I think Mrs. C is stressed about it, though, and that communicates to the kids. And there is definitely teaching to the test going on - the content piece I think they would cover anyway, but they spend a lot of time on the format and practice tests. Sigh.

Yesterday I was on furlough, Dillo's school was closed for the day, and Casper had her first day of spring break. We had a pretty nice day. Dillo watched TV in the morning while Casper helped me bake biscuits and played Sasha dolls. At 11 we went for a walk to Ike & Jane's, the local indy coffee/donut shop. The kids were very sweet at sharing their donuts - Dillo would give Casper a marshmallow off his "lucky charms" donut, and she's give him a bit of her chocolate (she had red velvet chocolate frosted.) I was hoping to visit the liquor store and a consignment shop over there, but the troops were a bit restless, so we visited the hardware store (where they did not have stakes, broccoli seedlings, or low-impact paint stripper, but did have polyurethane and wheelbarrows, both of which I ogled.) We walked home and had lunch on the porch in the warm warm sun, and then Casper built fairy houses in the garden while Dillo did water gun stuff and I washed window frames. A very brief TV break and then Casper spontaneously asked if we could go to the playground at her school. We coincided with people we know, which was fun. No real problems until 5:30 when we started making oatmeal cookies and they started bickering and whining.

Today started off with a huge ball of suck, however. We got to the YMCA for spring break camp, paperwork filled out and check written, only to be told they were full. Oops. It never occurred to me that might happen. I'd have signed up earlier if it was online, but they only sign up on paper and their office is only open 9-6, and we just didn't make it over there what with one thing and another. So Casper came to work with me. mr. flea suggested we call Good Dirt, the local pottery shop, which we know has spring break camps and I was just lamenting would be fun for Casper except it's so pricy and their hours are not geared for working families. Well, they had space, so I walked Casper up and signed her up for the week. It's $55 a day, but a small group (10-12), nobody we know but a bunch of little girls in her age group. It only runs 9-3, so I have to go fetch her. I am still working out how we'll swing it with my 8-5 work day. It's a 15(me)-20(me + Casper) minute walk from my office. She was happily watching Secret of NIMH on Hulu before I got through to Good Dirt, so maybe we can do some office afternoons, and maybe my neighbor can pick her up some days.

While Casper is adequately cared for at the moment, I am still feeling completely terrible about the mixup, and expect to be for some time. As usual, I feel like our lives are just barely hanging together, and the house of cards may tumble at any time. It's not a good feeling, and this mishap adds extra "you're an idiot" feelings on top. Joy.