Overheard – Riley's First Blog

Falling asleep

sage — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 05:59:51 +0000

Riley was taking a while to fall asleep tonight. Among the things she said:

How come Charlie has a loose tooth and I don’t and she’s younger than I am?

How long before a new tooth comes in? (Uh… maybe 2 months?) How many weeks in a month? (4)

1 month plus 1 month equals 8 weeks (giggles)

Riley plus Damon equals 6

Two Rileys plus Damon equals 11

Homophone

elise — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:31:45 +0000

This evening I was reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to Riley before bed and had the following exchange…

Elise: (reading) “‘And when Lucy was tired of eating, the Faun began to talk. He had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest.‘ (pause) Riley, do you know what ‘tale’ means?”

Riley: “Yes, it’s a homophone! It’s like what an animal has on its butt, like a mouse or a cat or a dog, and it’s also a story. It sounds the same but it means two things and it’s spelled differently.”

I made her repeat it again for Sage because I was so impressed. She is going to be totally set for SATs in 14 years. She said she learned about homophones from her teacher, Lerenik. Her preschool is pretty great, they really have making-learning-fun figured out, and Riley loves it.

Clouds

sage — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:05:20 +0000

“Do you know why I like clouds?”
“Why?”
“Because clouds make rain and rain makes rainbows.”

Mayflower

elise — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:24:52 +0000

Apparently Riley has been learning about Thanksgiving at the daycare. The other day she came home with a little replica of the Mayflower, and today she had a story about what it is…

“The Mayflower is a boat that the pillowgrims flew over… I mean sailed over in because the people in the place they lived wouldn’t let the pillowgrims do what they wanted to do, so they left in the Mayflower and came here so they could do what they wanted to do.”

Spanish

elise — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:14:05 +0000

This evening I was trying to get Riley to go upstairs with me and get ready for bed… Among other things I said “Vamos!” to which Riley replied, “mommy, why do you say vamos instead of vamanos??” Schooled by a 3-year-old on my Spanish grammer, how embaressing!

TK

elise — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:01:08 +0000

Yesterday morning I heard the awful news that our beloved Massachusetts senator Teddy Kennedy had died. Sage and Riley were upstairs getting ready, so I went to tell him the news. We talked about it for a while, then Riley broke in to ask what we were talking about. I explained that a really nice really great man had died, and that we were very sad about it. She thought for a while then sad in a tiny little voice, “is only his bones left and all his skin and everything else gone?” I said no, not yet, then asked how she knew about that. She said, “daddy told me about it when we went to the museum and saw the dinosaurs,” referring of course to when we went to the natural history museum months ago and saw the dinosaur skeletons. Amazing how little kids minds work.

(I hope this post isn’t in any way offensive… Kennedy dying before healthcare reform could be passed is just so sad. I hope we can still make him proud and get something meaningful passed in his memory)

Our little patriot

elise — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:49:38 +0000

Oma Peggy arrived today, and brought a wooden US sates puzzle for Riley with her. Riley is a big fan of puzzles and wanted to do it right away. They were working on it together when Riley noticed the statue of liberty. She pointed at it and said, “With liberty and justice for all!” Oma Peggy was of course surprised (who wouldn’t be?) and asked if she knew the pledge of allegiance… so Riley starts reciting…”I pledge-allegiance-to-the-flag-under-god-united-states-under-god-america-with-liberty-and-justice-for-all!” as pretty much one long continuous word said very quickly (and with a very proud grin on her face). I’m guessing Lucy has been doing some America teaching at the daycare because of the 4th of July?? It certainly didn’t come from us. Pretty entertaining. I wonder if she has any idea what she’s saying…

An Awesome Book

sage — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:56:57 +0000

While reading An Awesome Book (a book from Jorge about dreaming big):

not a million quiet dreams
a million dreams that roar
a million dreams so loud they scream
so loud they scream and shout
so super huge they say “hey world,
guess what i’m dreaming ’bout”

Riley: “I don’t want to dream those dreams.”
Elise: “Why?”
Riley: “Because they’ll wake me up.”