Monday, March 2nd 2015

For “Favorite Book Character” Day at school, Gavin chose Greg Heffley, aka: the main character in all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney.

Famous Anti-hero

ClaraJane on the other hand, chose the lady from Tomie DePaola’s endearing “Pancakes for Breakfast,” a current obsession.   Here she is in fact making CJ’s favorite food: butter!

Pancake Lady

Here they are in character:

Pancake Lady & Greg Heffley

Don’t be fooled by Gavin’s bummed expression, he’s actually *acting.*   They’re both in character!   That is, pleased as punch with herself, and bummed out at the world around him, respectively:

Take two

I made it all out of extra large men’s undershirts I had around (albeit originally intended for dear hubsand. Sorry Babe!).  Also paint, glue and some fabric paper onto which I printed some scenes from the books for context.

Pancake Lady from behind

Once at school I snapped these action shots.  To my delight, his painted backpack hung rather like a real backpack:

Painted backpack

Here’s Cousin Miles as Harry Potter!

You can put a spell on me any time, Baby

And here’s our dear friend Zaida:

Pippi Longstockings

Being that with all the snow days there hasn’t been enough distraction from school lately, in addition to Spirit Week, assembly day, Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, Read Across America Week, first-of-month meetings and Movie Night this Friday, our school is also hosting it’s annual BOOK FAIR in the library this week.  Naturally we had to go there immediately after school today with the speed and precision of so many cartoon bullets.  Admittedly the kid had a pretty singular raison d’être today:

Decisions…

Magnanimously, I agree to buy *two* of the three he wanted, promising he could get the other when he finished these.  By this afternoon he’d already finished one of them.   I am both deeply honored, sheepishly proud, and rather disturbed about budget.  I console myself that the book fair at least raises funds for the school library, although I’m also heading to ebay immediately after this post.

ClaraJane shows me how they sign “Quiet” in the nap room

The other book he got though, is a Diary of a Wimpy Kid “Do-It-Yourself.”  It’s deliberately incomplete, with all kinds of prompts to assist the reader in writing their own story.   Gavin was obsessed all afternoon, evening, and night.

Could not, did not wait ’til we got home

ClaraJane does not know what a diary is, and calls it “Diarrhea of a Wimpy Kid.”  For her part she decisively chose a book called “Pinkalicious,” and insisted on buying it her “SELF,” … after insisting I give her the money first.

Shh! Mom’s taking our picture again

Yes, I pulled the car over to take these shots.  And YES, I take too many.  But if you can literally not get enough of something… this is what happens.  Spoiler Alert:  Welcome to my personal CrackBook.

Speaking of “Do It Yourself,” although I’ve been working with him to sound things out and spell instinctively, he was so voracious today I didn’t have the heart to refuse him every time he asked me to spell a word.  It kept happening so I introduced him to “My First Dictionary,” which is graphic and helpful… albeit not comprehensive enough for him I’m afraid.  A great start though… especially for freaking first grade!

How do you spell “metal”?   Not a *medal*… the other kind…

I don’t even know what’s happening in that diarrhea.  At one point he goes, “Mom I need a dice.  Do we have a dice?”  So I give him the *die* (stupid word), and he’s rolling it and writing stuff down.  Then, “Mom, when I grow up, how many children should I have?  Zero, One, Two or Ten?”  (Those were apparently the only choices.  I went with two, but only because he asked.)

Later I had to hide the book on him so he could get ready for bed, then he was back at it until we cuddled, and back at it yet still after that.  I told him I had really wanted to post photos of him & his sister on my blog today but I’d spent almost the whole day WITH them so there hadn’t been time.  (Nothing new there.)

“Well, I guess your time with your husband is it then,” he concluded, for me.

That time has come and gone as has another reasonable bed time for me.  But who needs bed time when recapturing one random day in the deluge of days not in order of significance but by the grace of luck and blessings and God and love.

Amen and pause for now.  (After “publishing,” without editing alas.)  Tomorrow’s another day.