Tidbits

Proof my kids are city folk:

When we drove to the lake in July, a giant moose held up traffic by meandering across the road directly in front of us. It was a memorable sight. Michael offered a prize to any child who saw a moose again in the canyon as we made the trek back to the lake for Labor Day.

We saw quite a bit of roadkill, a porcupine and a turkey vulture, but no moose. By the end of the drive Seth was getting desperate to win a prize.

Around the last bend he shouted, "I see three cows, does that count?"

To which Alice replied, "Cool! Are they wild?"

Complicated:

The other day I was standing in line behind someone at the grocery store who couldn't afford all their food. I wish I could keep hundred dollar bills in my purse and just hand them to the checker every time that something like that happens. Only I wouldn't buy their beer and cigarettes. Sometimes generosity can get complicated . . . how does one say, "I'll pay for your oatmeal but you have to put the Budweiser back in the case?" I guess I'm not a true philanthropist.

Silly:

I was asking Thomas about pre-school the other day, and he commented that sometimes it is hard to pretend he can't read . . . because no one else in pre-school can read, so he thinks he shouldn't either.

Mysteries:

Instead of "Show and Tell" Alice's class has a "Mystery Bag." Each child gets a turn to take it home and put something inside that they want to share. They then write five clues about what is inside and see if the class can guess what it is. She wanted to put the twins in the mystery bag . . . but they wouldn't fit. I called her teacher and explained the situation and arranged for the twins to visit during mystery bag time. My favorite question from one of her classmates was the incredulous, "Both of those came out of you?!?"

Orphans:

I took Alice to see a community production of Annie last week. She has become very concerned about orphans, and would like to invite every orphan she meets to live with us. She also pointed out that Daddy Warbucks was kind of lame, because he really could have afforded to adopt all the kids in that orphanage, but didn't.

Headgear: Guess how much a custom baby-head-shaping-helmet is. Just guess.

Exoneration

Oh, I'm sorry . . . did you want me to blog? I'm behind you say? Alice's birthday was positively weeks ago and you haven't seen pictures of her Easy Bake Oven yet? What excuse could I possibly have for neglecting the internets such an extended period of time?

Well. I'm reading a series about Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte's wife.

And there are swimming lessons. Lots of them.

And volunteering at Cub Scout camp. I almost died of little boys yelling and kicking up dust.

And sending the kids to Vacation Bible School. Michael has unfounded fears that our children learned to be Pentecostal, but they loved it. And I went running as much as I liked every day right after I dropped them off. Bliss. And as far as I know, not one of them has yet shouted out "Hallelujah!" in the middle of primary.

And my dear neighbor has a new baby. Sometimes I just go over and hold him and admire his tiny perfect toes while the neighbor's mom (who is visiting to help out) un-picks and re-sews the patches onto Seth's Cub Scout uniform because I have the fine motor skills of a naked mole rat. No offense, naked mole rats. The kids really like to look at you in the zoo, but it seems like you spend most of your lives bumbling clumsily around in your tunnels with no particular regard for your limbs or the limbs of your tunnel-mates.

At some point I'll come around and catch up. I know you are all dying to see Alice with her contraption that bakes Lilliputian cakes over a hundred watt light bulb.

Thinks I've Been Thinking

I made a career (albeit a short one, but a career nonetheless) out of teaching children how to read. After all the times I've seen it, it still never ceases to amaze me how magical it is once a child finally figures reading out. All of a sudden, they just know how to string the sounds together to make words and new worlds open up because of it. And even though I've seen one of my children learn to read before, I'm just as excited for Alice . . . because it has suddenly clicked. Today she can read. Last week she couldn't (if you don't count phonics readers). Isn't it amazing?

Next week Michael and I will have been married ten years. And that has me thinking another think . . . Isn't it funny how ten years can feel like such a long time and such a short time also? As I've aged perspective must have aged with me. $10,000 doesn't seem like nearly as much money as it used to. $100,000 seems to have diminished in value as well. A week doesn't feel like very long to wait for something big (a birthday or a holiday) anymore, and every year when school starts I find myself asking where the summer has gone. I remember hearing adults talk about time and money this way when I was a child, and thinking they were nuts. Even if we are nuts, I wouldn't trade these ten years or make them move any faster or slower. They have been perfect. Though an extra $10,000 wouldn't kill me.

We finally relented to the children's incessant pleas for a pet and added a betta fish to our family. They seem happy with it, even though it is not a dog. The fish naming process was interesting to overhear. First he was named Fish. Then Silver. Then Lightning. Then Seth wanted Laser Head and Alice wanted Happy Fish, so they compromised with Happy Laser Fish, which was his name for all of a day. Michael kept plugging the name Eric but since the kids have (thankfully) never seen Monty Python, the humor of a pet fish named Eric is lost on them. Finally, one morning the two kids came to breakfast with a consensus. The fish is named Redhead. Thomas still calls him Silver. And Redhead, in his quiet fishy way, calls Thomas The Harbinger of Fishy Doom and Destruction that will Probably be my Death.

I suppose we'll have to wait to see how long that little boy will actually keep his paws out of the fishbowl.

Avid

He became distracted on the way home from the school bus stop.