My Daughter the Fraud Artist!

So, it's that time of the year again - report cards and parent-teacher interviews. Devlin's report card came home and it was what we expected - no major drama this year. Certainly his teacher agreed with our assessment that he needed to spend more time checking over his work for careless mistakes, but he was not struggling with any academic concepts. Her observation that he could get silly at carpet time wasn't a big surprise to us either. What was a pleasant discovery was learning that he got along well with all of his classmates, and there was never any issue with placing Devlin in any group format for group assignments. Given his lack of cooperation at home with his siblings, we were pleased to hear he possessed diplomacy skills at school. It is always disconcerting, though, to hear how entertaining he is with his stories, especially of what occurs at home!
We then hurried off to meet with Ceilidh's teachers. We expected it would be a quick "conference" and that we'd be told Ceilidh was not only adjusting well to senior kindergarten, but that she getting along with her classmates and seemed to be enjoying the year. It started out well with the teacher informing us that Ceilidh is  now a leader in the classroom. For instance, it was her unilateral decision to turn the "pet store" area into a Halloween store. She corralled her lackeys to keep out the junior kindergarten students until she had "re-organized" the store area and then graciously allowed the younger students into the store area. There were other examples of her "leadership" the teachers regaled us with, but we bluntly stated, "so you're telling us she's bossy." Which we see evidence of at home with Aisling. Or at least she tries to command her younger sibling.
But when we brought up her apparent laziness at home to attempt more difficult level of reading, the Early Childhood Educator stopped us mid-sentence to laud Ceilidh's excellent language skills. Particularly her Korean language skills.
"Pardon?" we asked, quite sure we had misunderstood.
"Well, when learned the Autumn Leaves poem, she recited it back for us in Korean! Whoever is teaching her Korean is doing an excellent job!"

Daddy and I looked at each other and started laughing. For one, we don't speak much Korean at home. (Yes, something I've been remiss in, but there's only so many hours in the day.) Ceilidh does know how to count in Korean, thanks to Halmuhnee, and we were also told she had already taught her kindergarten class that skill. Most of our Korean at home is limited to food items, and of course, the word for "dirty", as in "don't touch - it's dirty".

"I think she's pulling you leg," I sputtered in between laughs.

"No, she's very good at Korean!" the ECE insisted.

"No, I an assure you that while she knows some Korean, she certainly doesn't know any poems."

The ECE (who is most definitely not of Korean descent) didn't seem put out that she had been had by a 5 year old. In fact, I got the distinct impression that she believed we didn't think highly of our child. (More on that in another post.)

Well, we returned home and asked Ceilidh to recite Autumn Leaves in Korean for us. Ceilidh looked quite uncomfortable. We insisted on hearing the poem as she had recited in school. She would only whisper it into our ears. It was most definitely NOT Korean. Nor was it any language I recognized.

My 5 year old daughter is a fraud artist. Or she possesses an over-active imagination.

We're going to have to watch her like a hawk once she reaches the teenage years. Or implant a GPS in her.

She also told the teacher that she and her best friend Michaela are part of a reading club which explained their superior reading skills. The ECE wanted to know in which reading program we had Ceilidh enrolled and where it was located. Again, we had to advise the teacher that there was no such club, and Ceilidh was pulling the wool over her eyes.

Like I said, she's got a future as a fraud artist. Or maybe a spy.

Shart? Shark?

When we were expecting Devlin, we watched the movie "Along Came Polly", that starred Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was a comedy romance that provided lots of laughs. One particular scene introduced us to the term "shart", which as one character described as "you think it's a fart, but later you realize it was more than that".
After Devlin arrived, we began to employ that term in earnest for those teeny tiny bowel movements that accompanied the fart but was definitely not a full-fledged poopy diaper.
Recently, Aisling has been experiencing some issues with poop. It may be because of constipation, or it may be part two of an unconscious reaction to the impending arrival of a new sibling.  We've already been through one episode of regression with the poop training. We thought this was a non-issue and a thing of the past. Clearly it's not.
Last night, she announced to her father she had a poop accident.
Daddy checked the underwear, and declared it was "not an accident".

Daddy: This is not an accident. This is you going poop in your underwear. Poop should be in the toilet.
Aisling: No it was an accident.
Daddy: There is no way you can claim this as a shart. It is POOP in the underwear.
Aisling: It's not a shark. It's poop. Sharks live in the water!

Halloween 2011