Thanksgiving Week

I was on vacation this week, which meant that my four year old and I were able to ride the train up to visit my parents.

On the ride, we were reading Magic Treehouse: Afternoons on the Amazon, and we came to an illustration of a rainforest scene. She and I took turns naming the animals in the picture. When it was my turn, I said, "And what is that? An armadillo?" 

My daughter responded matter-of-factly, "Yes, it's a nine-banded armadillo." 

I looked at her skeptically, and asked, "How do you know that?" 

"Because it's not a three-banded armadillo," she answered.

I googled nine-banded armadillo, not even knowing if there was such a thing (there is), and saw that, yes, nine-banded armadillos do live in South America.

Then I googled three-banded armadillos and, sure enough, the armadillo in the picture could not be one because three-banded armadillos live in the savannah.

When asked where she learned this, she said The Cat in the Hat cartoon.

(Six months ago, bad behavior led us to go "no TV," and we were able to focus on habit training. The decision yielded the desired results, so I began allowing my daughter to watch cooking and travel shows with me. We now allow her to watch some PBS Kids, which is how she became an armadillo expert.)

Prior to going out of town, we went to church and she made a "Helping Others" bank.

Because I was off from work, I got to go with her to Classical Conversations (something she usually does with Daddy).

One of the many things they did was learn to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on their tin whistles. One mom had the great idea to teach them the fingering by doing this:

We visited with family and friends, got lots of rest, and ate delicious food. It was all very relaxing.

Here is my daughter playing with a set of wooden blocks Grandma and Poppa made (cut, sanded, and painted).

This is a story she dictated to me one evening:

I love that there is zero conflict.

She also learned to play Guess Who...

...and colored some hieroglyphs.