Teddy Bear

The other day, Johann was playing with my old teddy bear. I told him how that was my teddy bear when I was a kid. He went and found his bear and told me "This is a daddy bear and this is a baby bear".

Then, at bed time, we had to go looking for the bears. Johann had been playing with them together, so that's how we found them. On the way back to his room, Johann went into our room and put my teddy bear on the bed, presumably so that I could have it when I went to sleep.

I thought that was very considerate.

mwz

Checkers

The other day, I taught Frances how to play checkers. She picked up on the rules quickly. Even though she is still getting the hang of the strategy, still she periodically surprises me with a really good move.

We have been playing every now and then. We've started handicapping the game by starting me with fewer pieces. Frances is fairly competitive that way as long as I tell her when pieces are in jeopardy of being jumped.

Frances really likes to get kings or princesses as she calls them. It's an exciting event when she gets one. The second game we played, she looked sad said, "I didn't get any kings" (she hadn't started calling them princesses yet). So, the next game I made sure she got at least one king. It makes her happy. Now that we are handicapping though, she can get her own princesses.

The only downside to the games are that Frances has the attention span of a four year old. I have to keep her on task the whole time.

On the whole, it is a lot of fun to play with her. I just feel a little bad
because Johann wants to play too but he is to young yet.

mwz

Soccer

Francis has been playing soccer again this fall. The last few games she has been playing really well. She runs all over the place and has had several drives with the ball. I've been so proud.

Finally, this week Francis scored a goal after being so close several times. She has had instances where a teammate has kicked the ball in after she dribbled it all the way to the goal and then last week she drove it down and then a girl from the other team kicked it in.

But this week she stole an inbound kick and took it right to the goal. She hesitated a bit in front of the goal but there was no one near by so she kicked it in.

During this whole thing, Johann plays on the sidelines. Either Arial or I will kick a ball around with him for some of time but he usually watches some of the game. He is very good about the whole thing (until the team gets snacks and he doesn't but Francis usually shares something with him).

All in all, soccer has been fun. The next thing she is signed up for is tennis. :)

mwz