mathmom's blog

Yesterday morning at breakfast, Eleanor was lamenting the fact that we don't have any pets you can hold in your hand. I think she was thinking about guinea pigs or hamsters. After breakfast we went outside to clear away the weeds from the sidewalks, and the kids found a few worms and poked the worms with sticks. Amanda picked one up and you could almost see Eleanor's mind turning---here was a pet you could hold! She raced inside for a place to put her worm. She filled a small Tupperware with dirt and leaves, and put the worm in its new habitat. She made one for her sister's worm as well. Then they went upstairs to play with their new pets. I didn't see them for an hour or two. I found out later that they gave the worms baths, watched them swim, tried to get them out of the water, played with them on the bathroom counters, and in general touched them a lot. Amanda's died pretty soon after it was brought inside. Eleanor's was looking dried out, shorter, ...

We have been bringing Luke in from the nursery to the church service during communion for the past few weeks. We get to take him up to the front during communion, and the pastor who is giving out the bread usually gives him a blessing. Today he must have been hungry, since he was very interested in the bread. "The body of Christ, broken for you," said the pastor, and Luke said (very politely) "Want Christ please!" I maneuvered his hand away from the paten (the plate that holds the bread) so that the bread wasn't dumped on the floor---I know that Anglicans don't believe in transubstantiation but it wouldn't have been good to have the bread all over the gym floor. I got the wine (we dip the bread into the wine) and Luke reached back to the bread and explained himself again, "Want Christ!" I carried him back to our seat, and he was wriggling the whole time saying loudly, "Want Christ! Want Christ! Want Christ!" I thought the who...

Luke has taken the plunge for potty training. He's been more and more interested in sitting on the potty chairs we've gotten out. A few weeks ago he started insisting on going to the bathroom with us at church and restaurants. Since it's hard to pull a diaper back up, we figured it would be better to try underwear. We bought train underwear and made a big deal out of them. Unfortunately, after using the potty chair once he decided he didn't want a diaper on anymore...my sister solved the problem by suggesting a pull up inside and underwear outside (that's why they gave her the fancy degree, right?). He's been really amazing, keeping dry for long periods of time, even on trips doing errands. He prefers the toilet to the potty chairs, which I suspect is because he is in part trying to imitate his big sisters. He has only suggested using the bathroom once (mostly I tell him to go). A few nights ago, he woke up crying. Michael figured out that Luke wanted t...

Saturday morning, I heard Eleanor get up at about 6:45, and I decided to catch her on her way downstairs. But when I got out of bed, she had already gone down the stairs. When I arrived in the kitchen, I saw her back through the porch door, headed outside. I made sure she wasn't still in pajamas, and waited. I figured she was looking for froggy (I had offered a large reward of 50 cents if she found froggy). But she didn't come back, and didn't come back... About 15 minutes later she showed up with a bucket full of weeds from the lawn. We pay 25 cents per pound of weeds, and she had decided to earn her quarter. It wasn't full yet, so she went back outside. After an hour of pulling weeds in the early morning (she said she went early in the morning before it got too hot) she earned her quarter. I am still impressed. Of course, the next day when she wanted to earn some money, she asked if there was anything she could do---besides pulling weeds. She's figured o...

One of the best tips I've received for helping kids to learn to get to sleep by themselves is to introduce them to a "lovey" as soon as is reasonable---preferably one that smells like Mama. With Eleanor I was afraid to do this until she could roll around, with Amanda we brought "Baa" into her bed much earlier, but with Luke we gave him " Froggy " as soon as I was reasonably confident he wouldn't roll into it and not be able to roll back. He is a pretty good sleeper, and I'm sure Froggy helped him sleep. Even now, he really wants Froggy whenever he's in his crib. Now that Luke is older, sometimes he and Froggy have pretend conversations, Froggy sometimes does things that Luke is doing (get dressed, eat breakfast, slide down the slide). Froggy is a "good friend." Another good tip I've received is to buy a replacement friend as soon as the chosen stuffed animal becomes obvious. Unfortunately for us, Luke chose a stuffe...

Well, Eleanor finally lost the tooth that has been hanging crookedly out of her mouth for weeks (months) now. And she lost one of her bottom teeth, too, with much less fuss. Yesterday she started complaining that her bottom loose tooth hurt a lot. She cried, wiggled, and suddenly she stuck her fingers in and pulled it out! She then made a model of the tooth out of air dry clay, complete with red marker where the blood was when it came out, small wrinkles, a "crack," and so on. She was very excited about the tooth fairy coming to see her---she lost the tooth a couple of times, but finally found it again and put it under her pillow. Unfortunately the tooth fairy must have been tired, because she forgot to stop by our house last night. We joked that she was just waiting so that she could pick up 2 teeth at once. Well, as Eleanor was going to bed, she was wiggling her tooth. It wasn't coming out, but she clearly wanted it to come out, so she finally asked Daddy to give ...

When we got home after 2 weeks on vacation, we had 2 ripe tomatoes! Yay ! They were very yummy, especially with basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar . If I can prevent the blight from killing the tomato plant, (and the deer from eating the tomatoes) we might have more in the next few days. The rest of the house was less productive. The lawn was a jungle, the sunflower had died. The fish were alive, but the water had gotten dangerously low because of evaporation---almost below the level of the pump, which would have been bad. The yellow fish appears to have broken something, she's a bit misshapen now (a humpback? I don't know). The ants found their way under the kitchen table. There are moths living in our pantry. I haven't checked the compost pile, which I need to do tomorrow. Things tend to disintegrate when you're gone, but they're slowly coming together again. Everything except for the laundry to be folded pile, which is glowering at me and reproachin...

I have previously posted about the advantages to flying a small (6 seater ) airplane to the places you want to go, instead of flying commercial. One serious disadvantage is weather*. We wanted to leave from the Lindon NJ airport early in the morning, so we could fly to Dayton OH and see the Air Force museum. We got up in time, got a taxi to the subway to the train station, even got to the airport in time. But then the storms, which I had hoped would blow over by then, got rolling. There was lightning and thunder. Lots of it, all around the area. We had a 6 hour wait in the Lindon airport, which is not a bad place, but not really interesting for 6 hours. The kids watched more Spongebob than I hope they will see for the next 10 years. When the weather finally started clearing up and we got into the plane, we had to wait on the ground for clearance to take off after other delayed airplanes (since Lindon is about 6 miles away from Newark, and we didn't want to risk losing Michael...

We had a wonderful time in NY. We stayed on the Upper East Side, not too far from Central Park and pretty close to a useful subway line. Here's what we did, besides visiting family: Walked a lot. Ask Eleanor how much she walked: Amanda and Luke traded off being carried and riding in the stroller, both of which are not options for a 7 year old. "A few blocks" seems much longer when your legs are short. Rode the subway. When I asked Amanda what her favorite part of the trip was, this is her answer. I think it made an impression on Luke, too: in the subway stations, when we were leaving, he continued to suggest that we "Get on that train!" Walked and climbed in Central Park. I was not prepared for how big Central Park is, nor for how big the rocks are. I was told that they flattened the rest of Manhattan for buildings, but they left the huge rocks in Central Park. Good choice. We saw the Alice in Wonderland statue, among other landmarks. Went to the Intre...

I packed very carefully for the trip---some suitcases for our trip to NYC, some for the trip to WI, carefully choosing which items of clothing go in which suitcases. We tried to pack really light (it involved washing three times over 2 weeks) and I carefully chose which shoes we took on the trip. Eleanor only has 2 pairs of shoes that fit: crocs and slip on keds . Amanda left the mocs at home, brought crocs and her "shiny shoes". Luke has more potential pairs, since he has a number of "upstream" boys giving him shoes. He brought crocs (Amanda's old ones, with new jibbits ) and tennis shoes, and wore the crocs in the plane. On the flight to NJ, Luke was doing his imitation of a monkey, climbing all over the cabin ("Nap? What's a nap?") As we were exiting the airplane we noticed that he had lost one of his crocs . We looked around, couldn't find it, and resolved to find a shoe for him in Manhattan. (I could have gotten out the pair o...

So (if you were wondering, which you weren't) I was on vacation for the past few weeks. We saw New York City (mostly Manhattan, a bit of Lindon NJ), Menomonie WI, and the Twin Cities. I'll post a few excerpts, but not a big travelogue---that's too much work!