Happy Hanukkah!

Since my temp job has me working nights during the week, tonight was the only real night that we could all celebrate together and open presents. By some miracle I managed to get dinner on the table -- lamb chops, pilaf, reheated latkes, salad -- just as Drew walked in. We lit the menorah, Rachel said the prayer (as she always has this past week; I'm so proud of her) and we all ate dinner, then went into the study (the repository for all the gifts and our de facto hangout place in the house) to open presents. THANK YOU Tia Daniella for the fondue set, and Aunt Kay sent wonderful books, and Drew bought Rachel a fabulous game for kids 6+ that I at first thought was too complicated but she was really getting the hang of it by the end of the night. It involves a castle, rolling dice to find treasure along the way, remembering what trees the treasure(s) are under, and being the first to tell the king. Anyway, Rachel won the first round.

Rachel is also getting very, very good at reading. She read half of a book from the library today about four female animals, all of whom have different skills -- soccer, painting, dance -- and she was a real champ at sounding out all the words. After a while she got so tired that she asked if she could just look at the pictures and I said, sure. I kept asking her if anyone had read the book to her before. She said that Daddy did "a long time ago, but I forgot the words so I'm sounding them out." Really, it won't be too long before she starts burying her head in books and we have to yell at her to stop using a flashlight under the covers and GO TO BED!!!

Rachel also announced that she had a bad day today. She said it when I picked her up from aftercare and I kept telling her to hurry up. "Can you please not yell at me because I had a really bad day!" she said, bursting into tears. Turns out that Ivy apparently zoned in on one of Rachel's classmates during recess and indicated a clear preference for playing with Addie instead of Rachel, and Rachel said that was so unfair, and that she felt left out, etc. and started crying. I tried to tell her that just because Ivy wanted to play with Addie, it didn't mean she didn't like Rachel, she just wanted to play with someone else, and that she should try to play with other kids, too. And then she said she plays tag with the boys but then gets bored and runs away, and I said that she should stick with tag because it's a great way of building up her ability to run fast.

Later, at dinner, she said she'd had a great day. Go figure.