mathmom's blog

Yesterday, Amanda got home from school and wanted to go play on the play structure. Fine, I thought, and I put her school bag and lunch box on the porch. We played and went in, and I forgot about the bags until this morning. This morning, when I went to make Amanda's lunch, I remembered that the bags were on the porch. They hadn't gotten wet, so I brought them in and got out the lunch bag. It didn't take me long to realize that the lunch bag was full of ants. I chased them down, killed most of them, and washed out the bag. YUCK! Then I got to the school bag. The inside was coated with ants too. I emptied them into the sink, and washed them all down. If giant ants emerge from the sewers in a few months, you can blame me! In all, making lunch took about 10 more minutes than I expected, which was OK because today, I was running about 10 minutes early. Now we just have to get rid of the stragglers. Hopefully we are not in for a long process. In the mean time, I keep...

Last week, Ella found the bag of fiberfill and started rolling it on the carpet to make something somewhat yarn-like. She wanted to knit with it, but since she was rolling it back and forth instead of twisting it, it wasn't really strong enough. Daddy remembered that when he was a boy, he made a drop spindle and learned to spin with it. He offered to make a drop spindle for Ella, and tonight after dinner, we went down to the shop. We put together some found objects: a scrap of wood, a long thin bolt, a scrap piece of copper wire, some electrical tape, the only two nuts we could find that fit the bolt, and a very small nail. It's not perfect but it works. We grabbed a handful of fiberfill, and twisted some thread by hand -- enough to tie to the spindle, wrap around the shaft, and slip through the hook. Then we started spinning. Ella did some of the spinning, but fiberfill was really not intended for this, so it's hard to use and makes very unforgiving thread. Ella deci...

I am in a Bible study with some older women who have teenagers (and beyond!). We share prayer requests and just socialize, and they often share about life with their teenagers, various troubles they have and the new worries they have. It is interesting, but I have to say that I am grateful for the perspective. My kids aren't learning how to drive, they aren't trying to get independence, they aren't blowing up at me or keeping secrets... Right now their fondest desire is that I play with them. Taking the long view makes it a bit easier to spend time with them instead of wishing they would grow up. I'll be off the floor and away from the trains soon enough.

Amanda looked over my shoulder as I checked something on my phone, saw my current "wallpaper" background choice, and said dismissively, "That's la-a-a-ame!" Kindergarten. It's where the cool kids are.

We have been taking Luke to speech therapy, where he gets to play all sorts of fun games while learning to speak more clearly---he doesn't even seem to notice that he is learning something. The therapist has a small plastic tote filled to the brim with wind-up toys: airplanes, cars, flipping ladybugs... The other day Luke was playing with the toys and he started winding one up and watching the wheels on the bottom turn. The toy (a submarine driven by a fox) would go forward and then turn suddenly. Luke explained to me how it changed direction and then he asked the therapist, "Open it, please!" She was confused (part of the reason Luke is hard to understand sometimes is that he says such unexpected things) but he finally made her understand that what he really wanted was to look inside and see how the whole thing was put together. He actually tried to get it apart, before she distracted him with something else. Better hide our screwdrivers, I think. =)

Daddy drives the "school bus" every morning, and especially on Tuesday and Thursday when Luke doesn't go to school, it is a long ride for Amanda. About 30 minutes with the cro-magnon chauffeur who isn't a particularly good conversationalist, don't you know? At the start of the school year, Amanda amused herself with picture-heavy books like Olivia in which the picture really tells the story, and laughed delightedly at the funniest pictures; especially Olivia's reproduction of Jackson Pollock's painting on the wall of her room. A couple weeks ago, though, she started picking up a joke book and reading the jokes, telling her favorites aloud. In the past week, she has been reading longer story books with fewer pictures, such as Amelia Bedelia and Morris Goes to School . Just like Ella three years ago, there's nothing like regular stretches of intense boredom to drive a child to learn to read fluently!

I (Michael) was choosing a ring tone for my cell phone. Among the many choices was a classical old-style telephone bell that anyone who grew up in the AT&T monopoly would recognize as the sound every telephone used to make. As soon as Luke heard it, he called out, "That's a phone!" It's not entirely clear to us how he knows that is a phone more than any of the other ring tones he heard, many of which are used more often as ring tones than the classical bell (pun intended) sound. Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

...don't hide behind the business end of a flyswatter.

We are part of a CSA association (community supported agriculture) and we really love almost all of it. There are a few things we don't like to eat: NC grapes and eggplant are two of the biggies. Fortunately we get to choose which box of food we get delivered, provided that we request early enough. Unfortunately, for the past 2 weeks I have forgotten to request the correct box. Most of the default box is just fine (apples, peaches, loads and loads of cucumbers), but we've gotten peanuts in the boxes. First we got raw, then salted and roasted. I really feel anxious having them around the house with Amanda, like any minute she'll break out in an allergic reaction... We'll probably give away the raw ones and Michael will take the roasted ones into work, and I'll be glad to get them out of the house. Except that Ella and I tried the roasted peanuts this afternoon (Luke refused and had almonds instead). Peanuts are so good! There is nothing like them. We ea...

We went biking yesterday on the greenway . It was a bit silly---we had to drive 15 minutes to get there, and then spend time wrestling our bikes out of the car and putting them back together, then we rode down to the other end of the greenway and back in about 40 minutes. But it was exercise, and it was beautiful: clear dark blue skies, warm sun but cool dry air, leaves beginning to show tinges of color. We rode through woods and a field of black-eyed susans , as well as over the highway on a pedestrian bridge---something about being above cars moving at 60 mph is really fun. Can't wait until Amanda is a good enough biker to join us, although we'll have to find something else to do with the bikes other than bringing them in the trunk of the van. I'm grateful to be in NC in the fall.