mathmom's blog

Luke, climbing under the sink (it is empty): "Hi, I'm going to New York City. Bye! I push the button." He closes the doors. I hear a "hmmmmmm..." noise. I didn't know you could get to new york city on the elevator... on the other hand, maybe it was a transporter.

Sunday night at my house: Me: "OK, Luke, it's time to get into jammies !" Luke: It's not night! Me: But it's 7:15 (later than usual bedtime), and so you need to brush your teeth and get ready for bed. Luke: (going over to the window) Look Mama! It's still morning! It's not time to go to sleep yet! Me: You still have to go to school tomorrow at the same time, so you need to get to bed. Luke: (grabbing the carpet with his fingernails as I drag him off to his bedroom) ( ok , that's an exxageration .) Noooooo ! When we had finished getting into jammies and brushing teeth, the sun was starting to go down and he said, "See Mama! Now it's night!" I'm glad we don't live in Alaska (or England, for that matter). He had trouble sleeping last night, due to bad dreams. When I asked him about them, he said, "I will tell the pumpkin to go away!" Apparently they were about a pumpkin, "and that scared me and made me cry.

We were playing "guess the number" at breakfast today. It goes like this: "I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10," "Is it 5?" "Higher." "7?" "Lower." "6?" "That's it!" Eleanor brought up the idea of using fractions, and her number turned out to be 3.5. Then Michael started in. "I'm thinking of a number between 3 and 4." 3 1/2? lower. 3 1/4? lower. 3 1/8? higher. I figured out as soon as he started that the number was pi, and so we had a discussion about the fact that you could get closer and closer with fractions, but never guess the exact right number. This is hard for much older kids, I'm not sure exactly what Eleanor got... Then we had to discuss what pi measures. The idea that you want to know the exact distance around a circle makes sense, although Eleanor figures that in the real world, you could just take a measurement and it would be good enough. I star

During the winter Olympics we recorded some days and watched them later (less commentary, no commercials, no hockey) (sorry, hockey loving friends). One day we watched figure skating, downhill skiing, and the snowboard cross---4 snowboarders going down the hill all at once. Guess which one Amanda wants to do when she grows up. Not figure skating. She thought the snowboard cross looked good. I guess at least it's not hockey =)

We have 2 unopened bottles of Diet Coke in our pantry. We got them for parties, more than a year ago, I think, and now we're saving them to put mentos in , whenever we get around to it. Luke has been playing with them lately---I got him to stop throwing them, so now he rolls them around. Today he found some pencils the girls had gotten from valentine's day. He took two and started singing his favorite song, "My Favorite Pillow," while banging on the tops of the bottles. He then gave me a pencil as well. I started banging, and he said, "No! It's a violin!" So I played the violin, and Luke played the drums and sang. Here are the approximate lyrics to "My favorite pillow" (the louder the better, especially in the car or in restaurants): My favorite pillow! My favorite pillow! Fire truck! Fire truck! My favorite pillow! Fire Truck! There's a fire station! Fire truck! etc.

We were getting ready to go get Eleanor, and I sent Amanda out to the car to get something. She came running back in, breathless. "Mom, there's a dog in our car!" I tend to leave the garage door open to give the kids the opportunity to ride bikes, and I also have the bad habit of leaving the car doors open, so I wasn't entirely surprised, although I hoped it wasn't our next door dog, since he's a Golden Retriever and very big. I also hoped it wasn't some other sort of animal that Amanda had mistaken for a dog... Sure enough, the little neighborhood dog (a Shih - tzu , as I later found out) was snuffling around in our car after crumbs. This is the dog that followed me onto the porch last summer, and he's really sweet, but not shy at all. I got him out of the car, looked at his tag, and went inside to get the phone. He followed us right in and started looking around the table for more to eat---he seemed a bit astounded by the sheer volume of crumb

I managed to organize the games cabinet. This means I put all the random pieces back in their correct boxes, and I threw out the ones that have lost too many pieces (except Blokus , which will never be the same after Eleanor broke the pieces so she could spell her name). It doesn't look all that different, frankly. I did make the lowest shelf for games the kids don't need to touch, the top shelf is for games they could (theoretically) play by themselves, and the middle is for games they can play with a grown-up. Most of the games on the middle shelf are there because there are so many pieces in them that I don't want them gotten out at random: Candyland , puzzles, dominoes, card games, etc. Luke, Amanda and I tried paying a few games. Amanda really enjoys playing games at school, and is especially good with shape games. Hmm , I should pick up some tangoes for her... At any rate, we played " Cariboo " which involves matching cards to pictures on doors, usi

We got a little bit of snow last night, although it doesn't look as though school is closed or delayed. Eleanor's assessment: "That's the kind of snow that melts right before you go outside."

Yesterday Eleanor and I went to "Family Aerobics" at the gym. It is meant for kids older than 6 and their whole families---there were quite a few girls with their moms, but also dads and sons, and a few families. I think Eleanor mostly went because she wanted to see the mysterious "upper floor" of the gym ( cardio and weights)---only 12 year olds and up are allowed up there. She was pretty convinced that she wouldn't have any fun, and kept repeating that, but I'm not sure. We were called out just as class started to change Luke's diaper (they won't do it in the child care center), so we missed the warm up. The class was marching on these half ball things, which I think Eleanor would have enjoyed. We then played "jumping jack tag," and Eleanor got to be "it"(one of 3) for one of the games. Jumping jack tag is a bit like freeze tag, but you go to the edge of the room and do jumping jacks instead of being frozen. Also, you