mathmom's blog

The parking lot was a mess. People were parked on the grass, in every spot, walking down the middle of the road. I had Ella and Amanda (who was sick for tue first day of school for the second time in her life).  I really didn't want to get out of the car, but for the first day of kindergarten you need to, right? "Can you drop me off? I've been waiting forever to be dropped off on this side!" (as opposed to the preschool side). So, apparently, one does not need to be taken in to class on the first day of kindergarten. I had a report later that he finished his checklist all by himself, and he wasn't scared by the experience at all. I did sniff a little on the way out of the parking lot, but we had so much to do, I recovered quickly. If I were an inspirational family blogger, at this point I'd write about the black swallowtail butterflies emerging from their chrysalises today. But since I'm not that kind of blogger, I'll leave it to your imagination. (

We were at the children's museum with my 2 year old niece A. and she did the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.  Part of the museum involves pink and purple buckets, which can be filled with green balls.  There are lots and lots of balls, but a semi-shortage of buckets---they were around, but you had to look for them. Because of this semi-shortage, buckets did not sit on the ground unattended for very long.  A. had set down her bucket to go get some more balls and a slightly older child (maybe 3 years old) came and grabbed it.  A. noticed, and the older child and A. pulled it back and forth for a while until I distracted A. by telling her to look behind her.  There was another bucket, just like the one she was fighting over, on the floor right behind her.  As far as I could tell, the buckets were exactly the same, and this would eliminate a nasty scene. The older girl grabbed the bucket and ran, and A. walked slowly over to the bucket.  She was not convinced that it

This summer I wanted Luke to learn two things: bike riding and swimming.  The bike riding came easy (see previous post).  The swimming, not so much.  He refuses to pay attention to what anyone else suggests, he refuses to put his head under the water except with his face up to the sky, he won't kick with long legs...  So swimming is slow. The one thing he has finally learned is treading water.  He calls it "dreading water," which seems oddly appropriate.  He can actually dread water all the way across the shallow end, so it's almost like swimming, but not quite. I think we'd actually need to get him into lessons in order to teach him to swim.  He'd benefit from a teacher who is not his parents.  He might also benefit from having some other kids to watch: as I may have posted before, Luke learns things very well by watching others.  Where Ella tends to reinvent the wheel (pretty well, all things considered), Luke takes whatever techniques seem useful and ma

This is the last full week before school starts.  We did lots of stuff, since my sister was visiting (yay!).  There was swimming, the children's museum, the bounce house, Pullen park, more swimming, including swimming after dinner, which was much more exciting than daytime swimming as far as my kids are concerned.  We were pretty busy. Today we went to Amanda's before classes start playdate.  Ella played at her friend's house while the little kids and I did many many errands.  Then taekwondo. Tomorrow we need to visit the library.  We also might go to the doctor, as Amanda is complaining about feeling weaker and weaker...  who knows.

We've been visiting family.  I sat down to write this at the end of last week, trying to remember what we did every day, but I found that I wasn't sure what happened which day.  This is close =) Monday: Went to Duluth.  Saw the beach, the train museum (and the other museums in the same building), the beach (this time in swim suits) and dinner at Grandma's.  I think I remember eating at Grandma's when our youth group visited Duluth, but I'm not sure... Tuesday: Made bread in the morning, played with cousins in the afternoon. Wednesday: Maybe went swimming?  I got out of it somehow by promising to make dinner and set the table so we could eat as soon as the kids got home.  I think I got a good deal =) Thursday: Played with cousins in the morning.  Recuperated (at least I did) in the afternoon. Friday: Went for a bike ride on the river trail.  Luke rode at least 8 miles, the last 5 without stopping.  He finally has learned to start his bike without pushing it