(Thanks to juggling lots of crazy deadlines, I am two months behind on these. Here’s the one that should have appeared on 4 May.)
We bought a new batch of chalk, and she has been spending many happy hours on the side porch, colouring and getting chalk dust everywhere. We were quite impressed with this monster:

Her current favourite book is The Day the Crayons Quit, and she is currently very into ‘writing’ in any form. She was doing a lot of ‘writing a message’ in the bare gardens with a stick. (A message to whom? Worms? Birds? Ants? We will never know.)
She went through a brief punching phase, which was very odd; I think she picked it up in self-defense from the three little boys at school who went through a very intense superhero/monster-fighting phase. We’re trying to finesse her need to defend herself and express frustration; it’s okay to stand up for yourself by removing yourself from the situation and/or using words, not so okay to suddenly throw your fist out in front of you.

Spring cleaning yielded the lightsabers and the wooden swords and shields on the side porch shelving, much to the delight of the kids. Owlet is a bit more aggressive, faster than she used to be, and slashes harder than she used to, so after a few yelps and complaints from Sparky, I surprised them with a pair of sturdy foam swords from the dollar store. They were thrilled, tore around the yard together, and created a very simple but enthusiastic game they call “Three, Two, One, Fight!”



This month marked a measurable interest in Lego, and once we had explained to Sparky that he couldn’t complain about her sorting through a stack of bricks he’d dumped on the floor while they were watching a movie, he was grudgingly okay with her building. His sensibilities are frequently offended by the directions her creativity goes in, however. There’s a lot of “That’s not right!” and “That is NOT a car.”
Her first real Lego creation was made of the back half a racing car, the front half of a jet nosecone, some bricks building up the back, and a weird guy inside. She was very proud of it. She sat on the stairs and worked to get it to stick together for ages, because the front and the back kept coming apart. I finally had to help. She was very proud of it.

Sparky’s working on not putting down her design choices:
OWLET: I made this! (Shows minifig to Sparky.)
SPARKY: This… has a red ninja’s legs, a female torso wearing a sleeveless top, and a head with no hair.
OWLET: Yes! And I made it for you!
It’s a challenge… and a work in progress.