mathmom's blog

When we were younger, our family would get together with another family and make gingerbread houses. I had a lot of fun, especially exploring the house of the other family, and playing with her Fisher Price record player. My father, being an engineer, took the entire enterprise very seriously. We didn't have "royal icing", we had "mortar". We didn't merely make gingerbread houses, we constructed them. Dad had all sorts of techniques to bring his houses to a higher standard: Instead of cutting out pieces on the counter and moving them to the cookie sheet (which can warp the pieces) or even cutting out the pieces on the cookie sheet, we would bake a big sheet of dough and then cut out the pieces when the dough was still soft and warm. Of course the pieces had been arranged so as to waste the smallest possible amount of dough. We always used a pizza cutter to cut out the pieces and make nice straight cuts. When assembling the house, use paper "hinges...

Yesterday, as I rushed down the stairs from the office on my way home from work, my phone rang. It was from home. I answered, ready to say, "Yes, I'm on my way home now" but I heard a muffled voice, barely rising above screaming in the background, say, "Luke cut his head badly and he's bleeding a lot. mmrmph ummmph rrr ..." Ella doesn't do so well with telephones; she sometimes forgets to hold the microphone near her mouth. Apparently Kim had asked her to call me while she took care of Luke. Probably the incomprehensible bit at the end was something like "We are getting into the car to go to the hospital" but I had to ask for her to repeat herself a few times. It was half a minute before I realized that I was talking to Kim, not Ella. I never knew before that Ella's voice is like Kim's! She was telling me that she couldn't tell whether he cut himself badly enough that we should take him in to let a professional take a look. Mean...

The other day we went to Historic Oak View County park (all of my local readers should go there, by the way) for their sleigh ride and cider celebration. They had storytelling, a band, hammered dulcimer, and the house was decorated for Christmas. They also had Santa Claus, and since we got there early we were able to go see him before there was any line. Unfortunately, it was also before I was able to prepare my kids. We really don't talk very much about Santa around here---the closest we get is watching the Phineas and Ferb Christmas special. So Amanda and Luke were left without very much context. Amanda went first, and when Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas she said, "Nothing." He asked if she was sure, and I mentioned that she had wanted a pony and we talked about that for a while. He asked again if there was anything she wanted and she saw the big basket of mini candy canes on the floor, for giving out to kids. "I'd like a huge basket of...

Amanda has branched out in what she is learning to write. Unfortunately, she hasn't got spelling down, but since she spells it like it sounds, it's not too hard. "farm Amanda, to Joolyona" (from Amanda, to Juliana) "my marmad" (my mermaid) It's times like these I think of Mark Twain's " Plan for the Improvement of the English Language ." (This is posted at a government web site, which makes me want to see what else is posted there...)