Reading and Writing

Now that she is reading so well, Honor has decided to start writing stories. She has always been very eager to pick up a pen and paper and express her creativity. As a toddler, she used herself as a canvas. Yes, we would be the parents with the child at day care who was stained multi-colors from non-permanent markers that weren't quite non-permanent. She also colored on other things that she knew she wasn't supposed to. Books, puzzles, the wall. She knew it was wrong... you could tell she knew! But she did it anyway. Fortunately, that was a very short stage in her career and she quickly moved on.

Even before she turned 3yo, she enjoyed freestyle coloring, drawing, and painting more than coloring books:
Like her brother, her creations, pictures or letters, would often be upside-down and backwards. When she started learning her letters and asking to have words spelled, all the letters would be scattered randomly around the page. Eventually, she got things turned around and lined up.

Until only recently, she's been more determined to learn how to write words, than she has been to read them! "How do you spell ... ?" has got to be her favorite sentence, although she is getting to be more adventurous and is writing by sounding out the words. She's also learned to send text messages with my (I mean 'our') phone.

She sat down one afternoon and wrote these two stories. No particular reason, she was just in the mood to write:
Once upon a time, there were fairies, and they had kids. The kids were walking and they saw a baby and they brought the baby home. The End. Honor 6
Once upon a time, there was a mermaid. The mermaid had lots of kid mermaids. The kids were scared of sharks, and once a shark came, they were scared. The End.

She'll be blogging in no time!

Caring for our kitty

We are missing our Misty cat...

...but we are coping as best as we can.

Misty's 'brother' misses him too and has been very demanding of extra love, attention, snuggling and playtime. The first couple of days after we lost Misty, Ramzi needed ALL of our attention, ALL of the time. He followed us everywhere and was awake most of the day... he's usually napping most of the time as he's an old kitty. He had to keep an eye on us I suppose. Make extra sure that we didn't leave him too. He's feeling a bit better now though, more reassured, and back into his routine of sleeping most of the day when the kids are out, although he is still being extra cuddly in the evenings when everyone gets home from school and work.

I'm doing a lot of 'hand/paw' holding:
Ignore the mess of boxes, please! We are preparing to move.

We got the cat carrier out to clean it up and get the cat used to it. He was actually very happy with his new fort. Especially when Honor got home from school, fixed it up for him, and played in it with him.
Ramzi trying to get in while Honor is trying to explain that she isn't done fixing it yet.
Mine!
Hey! Whose fort is this anyway?

Move over and let me in!

And yes, kid and cat both fit happily in the carrier together. Goofers. I am glad they have each other.

Angel Misty

On Friday morning, our 'big cat' Misty passed away. He was an old guy, over 13 years old and in declining health, but we had hoped he would pull through and stay with us a few more years. He's been with us through so much, and has always been such a good big brother to our non-fur-kids. We are going to miss him so much.