mathmom's blog

This weekend we had the chance to go down to a beach house of some friends of ours. October may not be the time you think of for going to the beach, but we had a wonderful time. The weather on Saturday was pretty bad: cold, raining much of the time, wet. I hadn't packed much in the way of appropriate beach clothes, so I encouraged the kids not to get too wet. We stayed inside or under the house most of the day. Eleanor went down to the beach, but Amanda sensibly stayed inside. I had a chance to play a board game that is kind of like Monopoly, but much more interesting, since in addition to buying things, you get to do things and make things. Sunday was much nicer, and there was a trip to the beach to go swimming. Eleanor went in a shirt and underwear (I had forgotten her suit!) and Amanda went down in a dress so she could go wading. In fact, since Amanda usually doesn't like swimming at the nearby indoor pool (it's too cold, she says), I insisted that she not be dres...

On Friday the girls were out of school, so we had a field trip to the Durham Museum. We had an excellent time. We saw the rocket ship, we saw the alligators, the drums. We met a friend from Eleanor's 4 year old class, and ate lunch. It was going great until Luke reached out for the slushie on the tray as I was carrying it to the table. Between the two of us, we spilled the slushie on Amanda's chair, my shoes, into my open purse, and my soda on the ground. Sigh. The huge spills of sugar on the floor did distract the wasps from our table, and we went back to get a watermelon slushie instead of the grape. The highlight came after lunch when we went to the remote control sailboats (between the two of them, Eleanor and Amanda sailed a number of boats. Then we saw the " ornithopter ". An ornithopter is a machine that flies by flapping its wings. The museum has a huge seat with huge wings attached, and a lift that lifts it 15 feet up in the air. If you twist a...

We arrived home on Sunday. It was only 2 weeks, it felt like longer. Fortunately, this wasn't all bad, since we had a mostly great time. We spent the last week at a resort in a small town in northeastern Wisconsin---close to the upper peninsula border. "Resort" makes it sound more glamorous than it actually was. This resort was founded (I believe) in the late 1800s, and many of the cabins were built then. The cabin we were staying with had a butler's pantry and the maid's room off the kitchen. On the other hand, they recently added a dishwasher. I'm not sure any house with a dishwasher can be called a cabin, but this is a definite improvement over the previous sink, which may have been the original equipment. We spent the week with my grandma, her kids, their spouses, kids and grandkids (got that?). We were 23 for dinner when everyone was there, including 5 kids (Eleanor was the oldest and Luke was the youngest). Luke was charming almost all of the t...

We've started our annual midwestern trip to see family and friends. On the one hand, it is useful to have all our family in one area of the country, on the other hand, it means that we inevitably miss seeing people, which is sad. Yesterday we woke up at 4:30 or so eastern to try to leave the house by 5 and the airport by 6. We did pretty well, leaving the house at about 5:20 and getting the plane all loaded by about 6:30... but there was a problem. Because of all the wonderful rain we've had recently, there was a lot of fog. At about 6 we could have taken off. By 6:30, however, the fog had come in and there was no chance of taking off until it lifted. So we took a walk, used the restroom, ran around in anticipation of 7 hours in a cramped airplane, and we took off at about 7:15. The problem with taking off so late is that the afternoon thunderstorms started to form by the time we got to the midwest . This meant that instead of flying for 3.5 hours in the airplane, we ...

The first, most important thing you should know is that our trip home from Colorado was not a disaster. Considering that we had to leave the condo at 9:15 (which we did, almost to the minute) and we were scheduled to arrive home at 9:50 pm eastern time, it could easily have been. But despite some wrenches thrown in the works, we were able to look at it as an adventure rather than a trial. Here's how it went. When you fly out of Montrose, CO, keep in mind that all the planes arrive at approximately the same time, and they all leave at approximately the same time. Thus everyone who is flying out of Montrose who needs to get a flight to the east coast needs to leave at 12 noon, so they all arrive at 10. When we arrived, the line for checking in to our American flight was out the door of the terminal. Our arrival was made more difficult because we had 9 (yes, nine ) bags to check (including our 3 car seats, Michael's skis and the boxes we had shipped out to Colorado). Fortunately t...

Eleanor had a great time skiing. In the 4 days of ski school she had, she went from barely skiing the beginner slopes to doing the same things I am trying to do. Her instructor said that she falls down a lot, because "She skis near the edge." Hmm , wonder where she gets that from (hint: not her mother). This is the reason I am in favor of teaching kids to ski when they are young, instead of waiting until they are taller and creakier and less bouncy. We decided not to give Amanda skiing lessons this year. She really didn't like the cold (she doesn't have an ounce of fat on her to keep her warm) and she doesn't quite understand that to stay warm she has to keep her mittens on and not touch the snow with her skin. There is a playground not far from where we were staying, so we went over to play the first day. Amanda insisted on sticking her mittened hands into the deep puffy snow, even when that caused her mittens to come off. Then she lost one of her boots ...

The most challenging thing about the place we are staying is having Eleanor and Amanda share a room. I shared a room with my sister until I was 12, so I know it is possible for two little girls to sleep in the same bedroom without waking each other up. However, at about 5 this morning I heard footsteps and went up to them. Amanda had walked over to Eleanor and woken her up so that Eleanor could help Amanda get out of her pajamas. I made them lie down and rest until 6, but each of them kept talking and singing... Amanda was throwing Baa up into the air and catching it, and then asking "Baa, was that fun?" Eleanor was making up a song, I think about skiing. Clearly no sleeping was going on. In most other ways the place we are staying is quite nice. They have heated tile floor heating, a whirlpool bath tub, a refrigerator that is much bigger than the one we have at home. The crowning touch, as far as I am concerned, is the master shower. In addition to the usual shower,...

To all passengers on the flight this morning, my apologies. The baby that was screaming was mine. He was not crying because he was hurting, he was crying because I wouldn't let him get down and crawl around up and down the aisle while we were going through turbulence. Holding Luke anywhere is becoming more and more like the greased pig contests I have read about. I get a good grip, and he wriggles and squirms until he gets free, or I get a better grip, or I get so fed up with wrestling with him I put him down. Upon reaching the ground, often he will cry to have me pick him up again. Mostly, however, he makes a beeline for the most dangerous object in the room: the hard corners, the outlets, the markers, the knives and forks, and so on. We did have some toys for him to chew on in the airplane. However, the best toys were clearly 1) the card telling us that we could pay 3 dollars for a candy bar, 2) the wrapper from his sister's fruit leather, and 3) the plastic beverage cu...

Yesterday we went to Target to pick up a few things for our trip. On the way out we picked up a snack of popcorn, but of course it spilled a little on the way out to the car (aided a bit by some small children...) It was a bit like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. When we got to the car I brushed the rest of the popcorn out of the cart and spilled a bit more on the ground. I then buckled Luke in and went over to buckle Amanda in. By the time I got to the other side of the car, the seagulls were swooping in to the popcorn on the ground near the drivers side. Luke was fascinated, but I closed the door (thank goodness for automatic sliding doors!). I then wanted to get into my door, but the gulls acted as though I might be wanting to take away their popcorn spill ("Mine! Mine!") I admit to being a bit frightened of birds, dating from watching "The Birds" in high school, and a run in with an aggressive pigeon at a coffee shop (don't ask). I...

We are taking a trip to Colorado next week to go skiing with friends. I have been getting a bit panicky about traveling with 1 baby, 1 newly potty trained food-allergic preschooler, one excitable kindergartner. To compensate, I have started compulsive list making. I enjoy making lists, especially since it reminds me of my grandpa who was quite organized, and always encouraged me to make a list. One day I spent about 45 minutes thinking of everything we could possibly use on the trip. The list was beautiful! I split it out into categories (eating, sleeping, playing, clothing), a separate list for things we need to buy there, things to ship there, and so on. I felt so organized, and much less worried. Unfortunately, I lost the list. I just can't win.

Yesterday afternoon the whole family went to the NC state fair. We had a good enough time that I think we are going back next year, although perhaps we will leave Luke at home with a sitter. We went right after Eleanor's school. Michael picked up Eleanor, I drove Luke and Amanda. Through an amazing bit of timing, we met in the parking lot and walked to the fair together, about a 10 minute walk (not bad at all, really). I had meant to get to the fair much earlier and see the parts that Eleanor and Michael claimed not to be interested in (the animals and crafts, mostly) but I was running a little late. Our area has been in a serious drought for the past few months, so I am not complaining that it rained (hard) on us as we were getting to the gate. But it does seem a bit hard that we planned to go to the fair on the one day in the past 3 months that we had a rainstorm. Fortunately, the rain was scattered, and the clouds soon moved off to water another area. We took the opportun...

One of the problems with writing a blog is that you never come up with your best ideas sitting at a keyboard. For example, I have written brilliant blog entries in the middle of the night, while I'm up with the baby, but you'll just have to take my word for it, since I forget all of them as soon as I go to sleep... For example, I wrote several entertaining accounts of our trip to Florida to see my grandma, but you'll just have to settle for what I come up with while I'm awake. Grandma hadn't met Luke yet, so we decided to make the 4.5 hour flight in Michael's airplane to see her. I didn't know when I went to sleep the night before when we would be leaving, if we would be leaving after Eleanor's school, at noon, early in the morning... When we woke up Michael checked the weather and asked how soon we could leave. We didn't get out as soon as I hoped, but soon enough. 4.5 hours in a 6 seat airplane is long. I remember when we first got the airpl...