Save The Bees!

Paprika is now 6 years, 3 months old. Life with her is so magical, it is hard for me to put it into words sometimes.

Paprika loves artists, musicians, and writers. She loves learning all about Frida Kahlo, Picasso, Beethoven, and children's author Ezra Jack Keats. She wants to be an author when she grows up, and an illustrator - and to win a Caldecott Medal for a book she authors/illustrates.

I know she can do this - she spends all her time afterschool writing and illustrating her own books. Yesterday she made one hundred sketches of fairies. She is always creating and going to amazing places in her mind.

Paprika loves playing the piano. She just started lessons in September, and so far all of the songs she's played have been one hand at a time. The other day she said: I really need to work on my Cubism in piano. I had no idea what she meant until she said: I want to use both hands, you know, so the sound is cubist. Three dimensional. 
 



She is loving school, even though she is really (REALLY) far ahead of everyone else. She enjoys the novelty of it, and when I ask her at the end of the day what her favorite thing she did that day was, she almost always says school.

In her kindergarten class, they are learning to count and color in little bears on worksheets.  Then she comes home and starts writing (and solving) her own multi-step math problems in addition/subtraction/multiplication/division.  She tells me:  I have to know math really well since I'm going to be an astronaut when I grow up.



We have been trying to do some playdates with a few girls in her class, but it hasn't quite worked out because of busy schedules. Paprika really is not particularly interested in doing playdates. She has this one friend at school who LIVES to see Paprika. But Paprika is fine with a playdate, or fine without one.

We were supposed to have a playdate with this little girl on Tuesday, but then the little girl had to cancel because she was going to get a Christmas Tree with her family. The little girl was so broken up, and Paprika was fine. I think Paprika gets all her "friend" needs met at school, and then she comes home to her very best friend (Ginger) and she is very content and happy with that.







Paprika is still a friend to all insects - everything from butterflies to roly polys to snails to spiders to ladybugs!  Yesterday when she came home from school, she found a Roly Poly in our yard.  She greeted the roly poly as you would a dear, long-lost friend.  She said:  Oh Roly, I haven't seen you in ages!  Please come inside and have lunch with me!  Oh, Roly, you are the dearest friend!

Then, I mentioned that we could make Roly a bed so he would be more comfortable. She looked at me and said: How could you forget Roly is a SHE?!




Every little bug has a history and a story, and they are often invited inside to sit a spell.    Especially snails when it's raining - Paprika does not like to see snails stuck outside in the rain.  ;-)

The funny thing is that Ginger does not like insects at all - not one little bit - so you can imagine how that goes!  ;-)  For example, a week or so ago, I was driving the girls to Paprika's school when a bee landed on Ginger's leg.  Ginger is terrified of bees.  She started screaming.  She was frantically trying to kill the bee (all the while strapped in her carseat).  Paprika (also strapped in) was horrified that Ginger would try to kill the bee, so she started screaming (and crying), trying to save the poor bee's life.  Then Violet got scared because Ginger and Paprika were both screaming and crying, so SHE started screaming and crying.  And here I was, just trying to get Paprika to school on time!  Ha!

There was no way Paprika was going to see that little bee die, so I pulled over to the side of the road and ushered the bee to safety.  And we weren't even late for school!  All's well that ends well!  :-)