Ki-yah!

Check out my new gold belt!

Teacher's note

"Isabella enjoys all of the activities in the classroom. She loves completing all her activities, and is always ready for more! She enjoys learning and is always happy to be at school! :-)"

History.

A special TV morning! Here we are, squeezing in the inauguration between breakfast bites and getting ready for school.

The comments from me in the peanut gallery: "Why are people closing their eyes? They look like they're sleeping!" "Who is God?" "They said 'Franklin' - hee hee hee." "What's taking so long?" "Why does Obama need someone to tell him what to say?" "Why are you crying, Mommy?"

I'm 5!

...a martial arts birthday party at my dojo where I got to cut the strawberry and chocolate ice cream cake with a real sword!!

Thanks to everyone who celebrated my birthday with me! See more pictures of the day here.

Ready are you?

My buddy Ian and I have been obsessed with Star Wars for the last several months. I have been gossiping with him about Darth Vader, and asking Mommy about who is whose father. Mommy was horrified and felt compelled to show me the actual movie, The Empire Strikes Back, instead of me learning this bomb through hearsay. I watched the first half, with many skipped scenes, and enjoyed it! I kept bugging Mommy to watch the second half. She seemed reluctant, saying it was a little scary, but with enough persistence, she played it. Even with heavy editing, I totally FREAKED OUT!!!!!!!! I told my parents "Movies should not have so much fighting; I don't like movies with fighting." I regressed a bit and wanted to listen to Little Mermaid's "Part of Your World", a princess song of all things! I insisted that I had to watch innocent brother-sister bunny show "Max and Ruby" to help me forget the horror that I just saw. That night I clutched onto Mommy's hands soooo tight! I told her that I was going to have nightmares! I didn't want her to leave me. Mommy sat in the dark with me for 45 minutes for me to fall asleep - unprecedented! I sat up freaked out whenever she got up, asking her not to leave me. Mommy spent the rest of the night upset with herself for traumatizing me at such a young age.

I admit that I get scared easily in movies. The parts that seem to scare me the most are emotional outbursts. For example, I get upset watching Mary Poppins when the father and mother argue, and skip scenes from Max and Ruby when the sister tells the little brother "No, Max!". I don't like the dog in Toy Story.

However, by the next day, I was playing fight with my lightsaber again, and didn't seem particularly upset, so I guess all is well that ends well? But now I keep asking Mommy, "Why does Luke say 'NOOOOOOOO!!!'" and "Why does he have red on his face?" I seemed particularly transfixed on Luke's reaction.

Give me a battle scene with explosions every 10 seconds and I am mesmerized. Give me strong emotion - FREAKY!!!