mathmom's blog

We love going to the park near our house. There is a playground with shade. There are birds. There is a pond. There are walking paths. There are turtles, fish, ducks and geese. My biggest problem with the last set is that for many children, the highlight of coming to the park is feeding the animals. They love to go onto the bridge and dump crackers and bread and whatever into the pond and see what eats it. It seems harmless enough, except that there are big signs at either end of the bridge saying "DON'T FEED THE WILDLIFE!" The pond gets messed up since the animals don't eat the algae. The animals get messed up from eating human food. The geese don't migrate. And the guests at the park are bothered by pushy ducks who chase you along the paths if you don't bring food. (Ever since I watched "The Birds" I've had a bit of a bird phobia...) I admit that I once liked to feed the turtles. It is very convenient that they hear footsteps on th...

We (along with most of America, I think) have been enjoying watching the Olympics. I heard a report yesterday on All Things Considered about kids are staying up later to watch the games. Eleanor has been staying up a little bit later, but since school started for her last week, we mostly get her to bed on time. Eleanor's favorite part was the torch lighting ceremony. We have mythtv (a bit like tivo , but open source) so that every time I suggest watching olympics , she asks to watch the torch lighting ceremony. She refuses absolutely to watch women's gymnastics---a sharp contrast to 4 years ago when she loved watching "the girls doing gymnastics". Eleanor and Amanda both enjoyed watching rhythmic gymnastics. One of the "apparatuses' is a jump-rope type thing, and Amanda was leaping and dancing all around the room. My favorite was the ribbon---I think I will get the girls some ribbon. My favorite sport was synchronized diving. I had no idea that this ...

So today was the last Friday of summer (Eleanor goes back to school next week). Friday is "adventure day" in my schedule (Thursday is "Laundry day", Tuesday is "Library day" and so on), so I had thought about trying to go to the zoo or something if the weather was good (i.e., not too hot). That idea vanished yesterday when I got a flat tire. We just barely managed to get Eleanor to her class gathering at the jumping palace, there was no time to get the tire fixed. So this morning Eleanor, Amanda, Luke and I all headed to the car dealership to get the tire fixed, the inspection done, the oil change done, and a piece of the car hooked back in. (I think Luke has managed to take off part of the panel below the sliding door. He's talented that way.) We were there for 2.5 hours, watching the tv , playing with their legos , playing their video games and eating popcorn. I think the kids may have even enjoyed themselves... The weather was gloriously sunn...

Amanda learned how to swim yesterday! Well, sort of. I was "zooming" her from me to the edge of the pool, and she started going under the water and paddling towards the steps. Mostly I think she ended up walking on the bottom of the pool while her face was under the water, but eventually I think she propelled herself without touching the bottom of the pool. She refuses so far to wear goggles, but she was opening her eyes under the water: "I can see people under the water!" She's very inefficient at paddling and kicking, but she does go a long way, and she swims with a huge smile on her face. Way to go Amanda!

Yesterday, Eleanor and Daddy went to a municipal fireworks display put on by a nearby town. Today, Michael bought a 41-pack of fountain fireworks at the grocery store because he felt that his daughters would be deprived without having their own fireworks. As a child, he was used to setting off sparklers, firecrackers (especially for tin can rockets), small bottle rockets, catherine wheels, fountains, and other fireworks, many of which were actually legal. For some reason, he thinks that he should pass this on to his children. Luke quivered in terror at all fireworks that made noise, sparks, or smoke, or even had bright lights. After they went off, he blew at them because they looked hot and needed to be cooled off. Smart boy. Amanda: "Those were great fireworks. I need to go into the house to get my raincoat. Can you put my raincoat on me?" She watched them, but I couldn't get a picture of her watching the fireworks because she was hiding behind me with her hands...

Today we managed to get to the neighborhood pool for the first time since it opened. We had been meaning to go for some time, but had been hampered by being extremely busy with end of school stuff, or by it being 55 degrees and raining. We got to the pool as soon as we finished picking up Eleanor from school. Since we had to stop for gas, it was about 3:30 or so. Then between kid wrangling and equipment wrangling, it was 3:40 or so before we walked up to the door. Unfortunately, there was a sign posted above the door saying "Pool Closed". (The sign wasn't visible from the road, or we wouldn't have gotten out of the car.) Fortunately the lifeguards came to the door and told us that the pool didn't open for 20 minutes. I correctly estimated that this would be the amount of time we would spend getting ready, so they let us in. We got ready and went to the pool. We didn't get in right away: it really was cold, and there was too much else to do. The girls...