Homework and my short hair

Homework...ahhh....homework. Its a love hate relationship that I have with Sophie's homework. I'm really happy that Sophie goes to a good school and that they have high expectations for the kids. That's the good part, but the spelling words... my goodness. Do you know how to spell rationalization?

Really Sophie is pretty good about doing her homework, but Monday is book summary and those are always a little rough. I always start out with the encouraging, "Okay lets start your book summary. What book are you going to do?" Tonight the book was Rani in the Mermaid Lagoon, from the Disney Fairies series (super cute series). Then there's more encouraging, "lets add a little more detail here, Soph... What did Rani do at the fairy dance?" And then there's the correcting, "this needs a period and then you need to capitalize the next letter, wait... Do you think brother dove is a proper noun?....Yes, then what do you need to do to first letters...right." So really its kind of "our" homework isn't it?.. Tonight did go a little better and that was all due to Sophie's brand spanking new American Heritage Children's Dictionary. It is a wonderful thing! Whenever she had a question about how to spell something she just looked it up. We got it just this weekend at an outlet book store and I tell you it was worth every penny of the six dollars and ninety-eight cents! Sophie looked up purple, jewel, and middle all by herself without even asking me first... I had to take a picture of her with the dictionary. It was a wonderful stride for homework in our home!

Another great thing is that Sophie and I are part of a parent child book club. I am so excited for our first meeting. We are reading Ramona and her Mother, which is a laugh no matter how old you are. Tonight we read the part were Ramona squeezes out all the toothpaste from a brand new economy size tube. Its a funny scene and I was so happy when Sophie said, "I would never do that Mom. Sometimes I think that would be fun, but I would never do it because I'm not crazy like Ramona." Its just so much fun to talk with my sweet daughter about what she thinks and feels. I remember so clearly when she was Ben's age and we used to laugh at all the funny ways she would pronounce things ("grass-popper" instead of grass hopper was a favorite), but now she is talking about books and looking up words in dictionaries. Wow...its just amazing.

Oh, and I chopped off my hair! I donated 10 inched to Locks of Love. My hair feels so light and swishy now and the bonus is that Nina has a harder time grabbing it now! :)