Spinach Pie, Oh My!

This weekend was a blast! The gyrls and I spent the night at Janelle’s house.  When we spend the night at Janelle’s house we always know we are in for a treat.  Janelle’s grandmother loves to cook and we looooove her cooking.  Mrs. Ada, Janelle’s grandmother, offered to make us an apple pie.  But before we could jump for joy, Janelle said “how about a spinach pie instead.”

Huh? Sienna, Joy, and I looked at each other like Janelle had lost her mind, a spinach pie instead of an apple pie?  Later, Janelle explained that her grandmother has diabetes and she should not eat sweets.  Janelle looked up diabetes on the computer and learned that her grandmother should avoid foods with a lot of sugar, like cookies and cake.

Mrs. Ada agreed and reached into her tin recipe box and pulled out her spinach pie recipe.  We helped gather the ingredients:

1 box of chopped spinach

1 cup low fat cheddar cheese

1 cup fried French onions

3 eggs

1 cup light sour cream

Piecrust

I grated the cheddar cheese and Janelle cracked the eggs.   Sienna measured the other ingredients and Joy mixed everything together.  Mrs. Ada poured the green mixture into a piecrust and placed it into the oven.  “Ok, 30 minutes at 350 degrees” she said.  “Go play, I’ll call you when it’s ready.” To tell the truth, I was not looking forward to eating it.  I had already decided I was going to politely say that I was not hungry. 

We heard the kitchen timer ring and followed Janelle into the kitchen.  Mrs. Ada pulled the pie out of the oven and Janelle, Sienna, and Joy lined up with plates in hand.  “Where’s your plate sweetheart?” Mrs. Ada asked.  I had lost the courage to say I wasn’t hungry and she handed me a plate. 

Imagine my surprise as I chewed my first bite of spinach pie.  It was delicious; it didn’t taste at all like spinach. I guess I learned my lesson; food can be nutritious and delicious.  

Halloween is here!

Only 3 days until Halloween! No one is surprised that I’m going to be a doctor for Halloween.  I already have the scrubs and lab coat, I just need a stethoscope to hang around my neck.  I have one of those plastic ones from a toy doctor set, but for my costume this year I want the real thing. Janelle said she’d ask her grandmother if I could use hers.  Janelle’s grandmother has to have her blood pressure checked every day so she has a real stethoscope at home.

Janelle’s chef costume is awesome! Her grandmother sewed her some really cool chef pants and a tall puffy chefs hat.  She’s going to hold an eggbeater in her hand.  Sienna is wearing a DC United soccer uniform that she had signed by her favorite player.  Joy is going as a judge, she is wearing her brother’s graduation robe and a frilly white shirt.   Her mom bought her a gavel to carry.  We all got together after school today at Sienna’s house to try on our costumes and her mom says we look great.

But Halloween wouldn’t be Halloween without one of our parents giving us a safely speech.  We’ve heard this speech so many times we know it by heart:

“Eat only the factory wrapped treats, only walk on sidewalks, always stay with your group, and don’t forget to put reflective tape on your bags.”  

The Prodigyrls agreed to follow the rules and we're ready for Halloween! My mom is our chaperone this year and we are going to meet at my house at 6 PM.  From there we’ll march for a bit in the neighborhood parade and then we have mapped out a rout around our neighborhood.  Our rout hits all the houses that hand out the best candy.  Our first stop, Mrs. Jennifer’s house on Holly Street, she always has the best treats!  

Banish Bullying

On Monday we were allowed to wear hats to school in support of Anti-Bullying week.  I wore my favorite pink Washington Nationals cap and Janelle wore her chef hat.  To tell you the truth, I have never been bullied and I didn’t think any of the gyrls had either. I was wrong.  At lunch Janelle told me a secret, she was being bullied on her school bus.

We had an assembly and learned that bullying usually involves 3 things:

1.   Imbalance of  Power:  That means the person doing the bullying has control or power over the person being bullied.  That makes the person being bullied feel like they can’t do anything about it.

2.    Intent to Cause Harm: This means the person bullying wants to hurt you.

3.   Repetition: The bullying happens over and over again.

At the end of the assembly we signed a pledge promising to tell our parents or teachers if we are being bullied.

In Janelle’s case, the person bullying her is a 5^th grade boy who rides her bus.  He teases her about living with her grandparents and calls her a stupid 4^th grader.   Sometimes, if he likes what she has for snack, he takes it from her.

I love riding the school bus.  I was wondering why Janelle said she hated it and why her grandparents had been picking her up from school. I made Janelle promise me she would tell her grandparents about what was happening. Thankfully she did and that boy is no longer a problem.

Helpful Homework Hints

OMG! 4^th grade is no joke.  We have homework every night.  I always have math and spelling homework.  When I get home from school I’m starving and exhausted.  My mom is always fussing at me to sit down and start my homework right away.  I want to say “No, can’t I have a break, I just got home.” But I don’t, mom would say I was being disrespectful.  But it’s true.  When I get home all I want to do is have a snack and chill. 

Guess what? Today at school our counselor told me I was right! OK, she didn’t tell just me. We had an assembly about success in school.  She said we should remember 3 things when it comes to homework.

1. We should only have 10 minutes of homework for the grade we’re in.  4^th grade = 40 minutes of HW.  I need to start keeping track. 
2.   My favorite, wait 30 minutes from the time you get home to start your homework. Kids need time to relax.
3. Work in a neat and quite place.  She said not to do homework in a busy place where people are talking or watching TV.  I think I’ll start doing my homework in the living room, it’s quite there.

I told my mom about the assembly and now she’s on board.   When I come home I’ll have a snack, relax for 30 minutes, and then go into the living room to do my homework.

This year is going to be a S-U-C-C-E-S-S!

A little about me

Ok, I guess I’ll tell you a little about me.  My name is Nicole and I’m in the forth grade at Prodigy Academy.  I live in Prodigy Park, a neighborhood in Washington, DC. The legend is that there is something in the water in Prodigy Park and all the kids raised here as special, that’s how my neighborhood got it’s name.  I don’t know if it’s true or not or if the legend of Prodigy Park is one of those stories our parents tell us to make us feel good about ourselves.

I live with my mom and dad and my older brother Chris.  He is in the 7^th grade and he picks on me all the time.  We have a little white dog named Fluffy that I got for my birthday last year.

My favorite color is purple and I love anything with peace signs and glitter. I like dogs, small ones, and I love to dance.  My favorite subjects in school are math and science. I don’t like PE and I don’t like broccoli.  Most of all I don’t like Asthma. I hate having asthma. I can’t play with cats and I can’t go out when it’s cold.   

I guess there is one good thing that has come from me having asthma, I met Dr. Dana.  Dr. Dana is the doctor that took care of me the first time I had an asthma attack. She gave me special medicine that made me feel better and she told me all about asthma.  Dr. Dana is awesome and I think it would be cool to be a doctor that helps kids one day.

Well, that’s all I can think of about me.   

Prodigyrls, the beginning

Everyone always asks us how our group came up with our name.  Janelle, Sienna, Joy and I have been BFFs since kindergarten.  Last summer when Sienna had her birthday sleepover we decided our group needed a name.  We had just finished watching the movie Grease and the girlfriends in that movie had a name, the Pink Ladies.  If they had a name then we needed one too.  

We must have come up with 100 names and none of them sounded right.  Sienna's mom asked us what message we were trying to convey with our name.  Message? I didn't know we had to have a message.  She said a smart group of girls had to have a smart name.  Joy shouted out "prodigy." That was it, prodigy + girls = Prodigylrs! We replaced the second "i" with a "y" for a special twist.

I grabbed a notebook and we each signed in under our new name, Prodigyrls.  We spent the night going over the rules of our group. Most were rejected, in the end we came up with one rule, HAVE FUN! Anyone could join the group as long as a) they are a girl and b) they promise to have fun.

In the morning we shared our rules with Sienna's mom and she said she only had one thing to add.  She wanted each one of us, and all future members, to write their dream next to their name.  "I want you guys to have fun, but I also want you to support each others dreams." Huh? It was easier to just do it than to fight it.  We passed around the notebook until each one of us had written our dream.

Mine was easy, I wrote doctor.  Sienna's was a no brainer, soccer.  Joy announced she wanted to be a judge.  Janelle took the longest to write her dream.  I was not surprised though when she wrote chef.

That's it.  That was the very beginning.