mathmom's blog

Eleanor's last day of kindergarten came on Friday. I had no idea how hard it would hit me---she is growing up and growing out on her own. She's grown a few inches, and she is much more mature in her behavior. The biggest obvious difference is that she learned how to read. But she has also learned to follow a schedule, to participate in a group, to make and lose and re-make friends on a deeper level than seeing them once at the park. She is closer to being able to make her dreams come true without help (the latest one is a cooking club: "Eat the Alphabet!" More on that later). She is by no means perfect, and I will complain about the things she does in this blog sometimes (even knowing that she reads it sometimes---Hi Eleanor!). But I'm pleased with the change I've seen over the past year, and I am looking forward to seeing the change next year. The biggest change for me, of course, will be having to take care of 3 kids full time this summer. I'm try...

So I've been tagged with my first "meme:*" a parody of William Carlos Williams' poem, studied by high school students everywhere. Here's the link to Chanson's post, and you can follow her links back to the original parodies. I'll post my poems first, in a fruitless hope to make my attempts seem better. This is just to say I have finished the crossword puzzle that you left on the kitchen table and which you were probably saving for when you had a moment to sit down and relax Forgive me It was right there and I wasn't thinking From Luke: This is just to say I have dumped out the entire box of cereal that you left on the edge of the counter and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me so tempting and exciting. And now the original: This is Just to Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me They were delicious so sweet and so cold *If you don't know what a meme is, thi...

Today we managed to get to the neighborhood pool for the first time since it opened. We had been meaning to go for some time, but had been hampered by being extremely busy with end of school stuff, or by it being 55 degrees and raining. We got to the pool as soon as we finished picking up Eleanor from school. Since we had to stop for gas, it was about 3:30 or so. Then between kid wrangling and equipment wrangling, it was 3:40 or so before we walked up to the door. Unfortunately, there was a sign posted above the door saying "Pool Closed". (The sign wasn't visible from the road, or we wouldn't have gotten out of the car.) Fortunately the lifeguards came to the door and told us that the pool didn't open for 20 minutes. I correctly estimated that this would be the amount of time we would spend getting ready, so they let us in. We got ready and went to the pool. We didn't get in right away: it really was cold, and there was too much else to do. The girls...

Luke is a "big, big help" around the house. The latest example: We had been missing our camera for a week or so. We looked everywhere we could find, including all the ridiculous places we knew it couldn't possibly be. Finally, Michael decided to buy a new camera, at 3 o'clock on Tuesday. At about noon on Tuesday, I had found the camera on my sewing table in plain sight. My theory: We left the camera where Luke could find it, and he absconded with it. He took it and put it on the ground under the table so that he could take bobbins out of my sewing table, climb up on the chair and unthread the sewing machine, take pieces of fabric out of drawers, etc. Then Tuesday he found it again, and put it up on the sewing table. Sometimes I wish he weren't quite so helpful. Today I was sorting laundry and he took one of my shirts, put it in the washer, took it out, and ran away with it. He came back with his head through the correct holes... Amanda claims that she did...

When I was little, I would make projects in school for my mother. I always assumed that she loved them, she never gave me any reason to think that she didn't. As I grew up a little, I looked objectively at the things I gave her and decided on my own that she really didn't love them, she loved me and was too nice to tell me that they were not worth keeping. I mean, who needs all those bookmarks and pots anyway. I stopped (mostly) giving her handmade things for mother's day, unless I thought they were really objectively worth keeping. This year Eleanor made me a necklace with a heart on it. "It's symmetrical!" she told me, and pointed out how she had made the beads the same on each side. Every time I would talk to her about school, she would mention that they were making a surprise, but that I shouldn't ask any more about it. When she brought home the present in her bag she uncharacteristically brought her bag right up to her room and hid it in her clos...

We tried to go to the neighborhood pool today, but it was closed. So instead of moping around the house (which was my first instinct, I admit) I got out the inflatable boat wading pool and Amanda, Luke and I washed it. We got very wet. I think Luke had a good time splashing, I know Amanda had a good time. Eleanor came out at the end to help us "water the lawn". We washed a few more things that were hanging out under the porch: our big Christmas tree stand, a watering can, an inflatable sprinkler... My favorite was Amanda standing in the tree stand saying, "I'm Amanda Christmas tree!" I had fun chasing Eleanor with the hose, Amanda tried to wash us all, Luke wandered around with the washcloth scrubbing things and generally splashing in the water (although he wasn't sure about the hose). Eleanor tried to show the rainbow from the hose spray to Amanda, but I don't think Amanda understood what she was talking about. All in all, I felt like a good moth...

I just sat down to write about how Luke is getting into more trouble these days, when I looked up and saw that he had climbed onto the chair by my sewing table, gotten the scissors down, and was walking around, opening and closing them. I jumped up to get the scissors away (careful not to run, since then he would think I was chasing him and he would run away) and managed to bang my little toenail back. I put the scissors away and Luke started taking books out of the bookshelf... This is one reason I haven't posted as many blog entries as I wish I would. (The other reasons involve laziness and reading other blogs and trying to think up comments for them...) Let me give you one more example: We had just had the house cleaned, including the floor washed. Luke managed to climb up onto the kitchen table, upset a glass of water (getting many things on the table wet). I grabbed him off the table and walked into the kitchen to get a rag. As we passed close to a counter, Luke manage...

Eleanor and Amanda have very firm ideas about how the world should be. Unfortunately, their ideas only sometimes match reality. Eleanor yesterday went to the local kids museum. She saw there a tool that she had read about, but hadn't ever talked about before. "Mama, is that a CRAW- chette hook?" "Yes, that is a crochet hook!" When we talked about it later, she steadfastly refused to pronounce the word in the standard way. I think she feels that everyone else should understand her, she has no real need to make herself understood. When pressed, she would only say,"I like to call it a CRAW- chette hook." Amanda this morning was eating corn flakes. She asked for some more: "Mama, could I have some rice krispies ?" I answered, "Sure, you can have some corn flakes." "Well, I think they are rice krispies . What letter does rice krispies start with?" We discussed this, and when we had determined that rice krispies s...

The FNDP (friendly neighborhood developmental psychologist) long ago told me about a true or false question on one of the exams for one of her classes. The question was: "Comprehension precedes production: True or False?" The answer was true. Although the question was probably obvious in the context of the class, the answer has always bugged me. In some senses this is obviously true. Luke understands much more than he can produce. In fact, all I have to do is say "Luke!" in a warning tone, and he will look at me and either drop what he is holding or start running away from me, which seems like an extraordinary amount of meaning and understanding for one word. Whenever I say "Hi!" he'll wave. When I say "Hello!" he'll hold his hand up to his ear and talk on the phone. I can ask him to come here or do something, and he understands a great deal. What he says is much more limited. Michael is convinced he says lots of things, I am l...

Just when you think you've gotten everything figured out with kids, something changes. For example, Luke used to get up between 6 and 7, and then exactly 2 hours later he would be ready for his first nap. His second nap would vary (depending on if he got woken up before his preferred 2 hour nap was done) and then he'd be ready to go to bed at 7. Now, Luke is not ready to go down for his first nap 2 hours after he wakes up. This is a problem because I need to leave to pick Amanda up from preschool at 11:30, and if Luke didn't go down before 9, he might still be sleeping when it's time to leave. The other problem is that I just don't know when to put him down, and so I am likely to either do it too early (so he cries in his room for a while) or too late (so he cries in his room for a while). Amanda used to go to bed at about 7 and wake up at about 7. With Amanda you can't be sure that she slept that entire time (she enjoys playing alone in her room...although ...

Eleanor loves riding her bike, so we decided this weekend to take the plunge and get her a 20 inch bike (so she doesn't have to pedal crouched over, even with the seat all the way up...) Michael took her to all the bike shops in town, finally found a gender-neutral yellow bike that Eleanor likes, and bought it. It has hand brakes, which she is getting used to using, as well as gears, which she has used going up one of the steeper hills in our neighborhood. Hmm , I think her bike has almost as many gears as mine does. Michael has taken her out on several neighborhood bike rides. He rides my bike (which recently got fixed) with the seat all the way up. She does very well, and his main focus is teaching her to look before she crosses streets and to obey traffic rules. She will be one of the few bikers in our neighborhood who do obey them... When Eleanor moved up to the yellow bike, Amanda got to have the purple bike. She has been waiting eagerly for this ever since we got the b...

Three responses to eating off the floor: First Child: "No no honey, don't eat off the floor, it's dirty! Yuck!" Second Child: "Well, I suppose one or two dirty cheerios won't kill her." Third Child: This is great! He's eating something, and the floor is getting clean at the same time! "You missed one over there!"

I wrote earlier that I went to the dentist on Tuesday, and had no cavities. The reason I had no cavities is that all the places where I can get cavities have already been filled. Today it was the girls' turn to go to the dentist. Eleanor was "a little nervous," but she said it turned out really well. Amanda was all eyes, and basically said nothing the whole time but watched everything. They both did very well. The dentist asked if Eleanor was the higher strung of the two, which I thought was very observant. He noticed that Amanda was generally more laid back and went with the flow better... They both did very well and enjoyed the toys at the end. Unfortunately, they both seem to have inherited my teeth (which I got from my dad) instead of Michael's. This means that they are very crowded and coming in crooked (orthodontist, here we come!). In addition, Eleanor shows a tendency to get cavities between her teeth and grind her teeth. Amanda has deep grooves in he...

Luke has taken to playing with the talking, moving "My little pony" that Amanda's grandmother gave to Amanda for Christmas. When the pony lies on its back and wiggles, he wiggles. When it is sitting up, Luke pushes it over and it says, "wheeee!" and Luke imitates it. He carries it around and tries to squeeze its foot to make it keep talking. I do appreciate that he is interested, since it keeps him occupied while I'm changing his diaper or getting Amanda into her jammies. However, I don't think the designers had Luke in mind when they designed the toy. Note: Amanda likes the toy too, she calls it her "baby unicorn". Needless to say, she plays with it in a completely different way than Luke does.