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September 30, 2005
Changing the Sig Line
'Cause I don't have a four-year-old any more. My only PM baby, Griffin officially turned five 14 minutes ago.
We celebrated by letting him pick dinner (pizza) and activities (videos). Tomorrow we'll have his pirate party, complete with a pirate ship cake. It's half decorated, waiting in the freezer for sails, treasure, and pirates.
Tell me, how would you go about making a pirate ship cake? Would you read the directions carefully, mark of the dimensions on the cake and measure before you cut? Or would you ... ah ... look at the picture on the internet and hack away confidently? Did you know that if you end up with four pieces of cake at different heights, you can, eventually, make them look all the same if you use enough frosting?
There's going to be some kids on sugar highs here tomorrow, yes siree.
(Conversation heard earlier at our house: "No, Griffin, you don't want to make a cake entirely out of frosting. It would taste good, but after you ate a little bit of it you'd feel sick. Trust me, I know what that's like.")
Stay tuned to see how ambitious I get with the sails and rigging.
Griffin was my earliest baby (just barely 37 weeks) and my smallest baby (8 pounds, 7 ounces). We had planned a homebirth with him but my body (or his body) had other ideas. My blood pressure got dangerously high so we nipped into the hospital for an induction. We were lucky enough to have a great OB who not only gave us excellent medical care without unnecessary interventions, but treated us with respect and listened to what we had to say. In fact, Griffin's birth restored my faith in OBs. (That faith was originally shattered when I had Connor.)
Today he's a big, sweet, stubborn, dinosaur-loving boy, who uses his brain to figure out the world around him in the most amazing ways. ("Mom, is our Earth in space, inside a big giant brain?")
Posted by lynx at 9:59 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
September 28, 2005
Paper Crafts from Canon
Yesterday I rediscovered Canon's 3-D papercraft site. We put together the Jurassic dinosaur and lunar landing dioramas. They have African savanna dioramas, origami, ornaments, buildings of the world ... enough to keep kids busy for a good, long time.
Posted by lynx at 9:24 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 27, 2005
You Think?
Hat Tip Joanne
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September 26, 2005
Yep, That Was Some Hurricane ...
As y'all know, we got nothing. I know that's a good thing, but a little rain would have been useful.
We drank the wine anyway. It was there. But we didn't drink it with the tuna.
No hurricane, and it's still hot as Hades here. It was 102 F yesterday. Is that fair? No, it's not. In fact, I ignored our traditional Mabon (equinox) dinner, because it's too hot for that fall stuff. Instead, we had chicken slathered with pesto made from the garden basil, and cold pumpkin pie. Voila! It's fall.
School is stressful. We've come to that point at which in order to do all the things I'd like to do, we have to do school both in the morning and in the afternoon. And every bit of me rebells against that. I don't want this to be a day-long gig. I want to work in the morning and play and relax, or hide, in the afternoon. We do our school work in the mornings, and by lunch time I feel like I've been herding cats all day. I want OUT!
There are two solutions, as I see them. One is to wiggle into the mindset that this is my job, and jobs typically last all day. We'll just buckle down and assume that "school" goes until 3 pm. Or, I could figure out how to weave the work throughout the day, so that it feels like "life" and less like "work." The second one is the ideal, but I seem to be missing some essential ingredient into putting it into practice. If we do something fun mid-morning, like go the park, for instance, we never seem to get back into the groove of work for the rest of the day. But if we stay in and work a full day, I end up being stressed and grumpy. I'm not getting something I need here. What is it?
Posted by lynx at 10:53 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 22, 2005
Holy Hurricanes, Batman!
Yesterday some forecasters were saying that Rita could still be a Cat 1 hurricane by the time it reached the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Jeepers. This is God laughing at me for all the times I've said "Oh, we're far too far north to worry about hurricanes!"
Ha ha.
Of course we're not remotely prepared for that kind of storm. We've been meaning to get our emergency kit together anyway, so I ran around town today buying water, batteries, instant coffee, red wine, cans of tuna, etc. And I was not the only one doing so - not by far. Several stores are out of bottled water now.
Now it looks as though the storm will not give us more than a couple of inches of rain. That's okay - we're prepared! ...for anything short of needing shutters or boarded windows, anyway.
Posted by lynx at 11:57 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
September 20, 2005
I get them mixed up ...
so I've decided that we should just combine Constitution Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day into Talk About the Constitution Like a Pirate Day.
Think it'll fly?
Posted by lynx at 9:36 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
September 19, 2005
Conversations Heard Only at Our House
(I held up a flash card for Connor, on which was written the Latin word "fenestra." "Fenestra" is the word for "window," but Connor was stumped and couldn't remember it.)
Connor: I don't know. Give me a hint.
Me: The Thirty Years' War.
Connor: Oh! Window!
And then we started singing a Trout Fishing in America song.
Do any of you have any idea what happened here? Or have we left you all in the dark?
Posted by lynx at 12:02 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
September 17, 2005
Won't this bill die, already?
Ah, Chris did it for me, and better than I would have.
Repeat after me: HONDA bad. No federal involvement good. This is nothing more than the federal government desperately trying to get its fingers on something it has no control over. Let's make it go away, m'kay?
Update: More information, and some excellent links. Please read them.
Posted by lynx at 9:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2005
Books
Recently on the Well-Trained Mind board, there was a thread in which people shared lists of books that really meant something to them. Books that affected their lives. Here's my list, in no particular order. These are books that either formed my mental landscape as I was growing up, or literally caused me to change my life when I was older.
* Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series
* "A Little Princess," by Frances Hodgson Burnett
* Mary Stewart's Merlin series, especially "The Crystal Cave." This is my favorite treatment of the Arthurian saga. I gave one of my sons the middle name Emrys, in honor.
* Roger Zelazny's Amber series
* "R is for Rocket" - Ray Bradbury, and
* "A Sound of Thunder" by Bradbury, the first science fiction short story I ever read.
* "A Severed Wasp" - Madeline L'Engle
* "A Wrinkle in Time" and, especially, "A Swiftly Tilting Planet," also by L'Engle
* "Dragonsong" - Anne McCaffrey
* "The Lord of the Rings," even though I didn't read it until I was 31.
* "D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths"
* "Bones of the Moon" by Jonathan Carroll. Brilliant, disturbing, bizarre stuff.
* "Jane Eyre" - Charlotte Bronte
* "Night" - Elie Wiesel
* "Immaculate Deception" - Suzanne Arms
* "Dumbing Us Down" - John Taylor Gatto
* "Climbing Parnassus" - Tracy Lee Simmons
* "The Well-Trained Mind" - Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
* "The Mists of Avalon" - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Posted by lynx at 10:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 13, 2005
You'd Better Believe It, Baby
| Katharine Hepburn You scored 26% grit, 14% wit, 57% flair, and 14% class! |
| You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women. Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the |
 |
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes on Ok Cupid |
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September 12, 2005
Tired, but Happy
Jeff left early this morning, so I was up earlier than normal. I blogged our butterfly pictures, did my weights circuit, and worked on my Latin. I missed my self-imposed deadline for finishing Henle Unit 7, because I got lost in the swamp of pronouns and interrogatives. Relative pronouns ... interrogative pronouns ... interrogative adjectives ... interrogative particles ... words that sometimes mean one thing, but sometimes another ... tense sequences ... yikes!
As usual, the older two boys got up and polished off math and Latin before the younger two were up. It's nice when that happens, as we get uninterrupted, quiet time to work in which Mom can fully focus on the tasks at hand. On the other hand, it means the little ones sleep too late. Ah, well. This morning we did a lesson from Right Start B, on subtraction as a missing addend. The boys found it to be easy. Afterwards, Aidan did a little work on basic division in Singapore 2A, and Connor worked on division and on distances in Singapore 3B.
Did you catch that "B"? We are FINISHED with Singapore 3A! Finally! Yippee! It took a year, folks. A whole year. But we did it. Thankfully, the Singapore Math folks seem to have made 3B an easy book (weights, measuring, distances, basic geometry, a few fractions).
Connor started chapter 16 in Latin for Children this morning. He watched the DVD lesson for the chapter, read the chapter in his book, and we discussed it. Today he was introduced to the imperfect tense.
Aidan started chapter 8 of Latina Christiana today, but he hates the DVDs and begged to skip them. Forever. So back in the box they go. I can't blame the kid. These DVDs are good, they're thorough, and they're long and boring. Today he was introduced to the second declension masculine.
After that it was time for the little ones to be up, and time for the butterfly to hatch. After it hatched we took it outside, helped it climb onto the vitex bush, and watched its wings unfold. We found one of her nice, plump siblings, and plopped it into the jar. I hope it has enough parsley to last the night.
The temperature was nice, though humid, so we decided to take our first park day since, oh, April or May. We came home tired, hot and hungry, so we rested, cooled off and ate, in various orders.
Then it was back to school work. I read some chapters aloud out of "On the Banks of Plum Creek" and "Atticus the Storyteller's 100 Greek Myths." While I read the boys worked on making notebook pages; Aidan's was on Texas, and Connor's was on the Alamo. Afterwards Connor read half of a biography on Davy Crockett. They both practiced piano, we did a few chores, and then headed to a friend's house for playtime and dinner.
Whew.
We're tired.
Posted by lynx at 10:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Patience Rewarded
We watched the chrysalis all morning. It finally emerged shortly after 10 am. Another female!
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The Caterpillar Who Lived
Yesterday, the caterpillar that took a premature flight across my kitchen stretched its new wings and proved that I'd done it no lasting damage. Yay!
Here is our caterpillar. Sorry about the fuzzy image, but I have not yet perfected the art of taking pictures through the sides of glass jars:
Here is what they look like as babies on the parsley:
Since last week, we have found several more babies, and even a few eggs, on the parsley. The boys check on them every morning, but we usually leave them in the garden while they're babies.
Here are our chrysalides. One made a brown chrysalis, the other a green. We think the brown is better camouflage when you make your chrysalis on a stick. Perhaps this one is smarter than the other.
Here is our newly hatched black swallowtail butterfly along with its chrysalis.
And here she is in all her glory (if they have more blue across the backs of their wings, they're female). Isn't she gorgeous?
The green chrysalis is going to hatch today - at any minute, in fact. I hope it waits until the sun is up.
Posted by lynx at 5:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 9, 2005
Boys
Leslie, I don't know if you read my blog, but I just saw this post you made last month on the Well-Trained Mind board. Thank you. I wish I had stumbled upon it yesterday.
These boys ... Connor, at age 9, is an alien being to me. He is like his father, who is also an alien being. I don't understand how their brains work. I don't relate to how their brains work. I don't grok their thought processes. Connor is calm. He's easygoing. He doesn't show much emotion, until it suddenly erupts in a small explosion of absolutely stubborn unreasonableness. I don't see it coming. I don't know how it got there. I'm blindsided. And I know that what he says he's upset about is not what he's really upset about. I want to figure it out and get to the bottom of this. And he can't. Poor boy. He builds up emotions, erupts and then wants to just go quietly away. But Mom's rug has been pulled out and she wants answers.
Leslie's advice, in this wise post of hers, is to let it go. Treat the outburst like a storm. Take cover. Let it rage. Remember that they get overwhelmed, and often don't even know why. And then, later, talk. Yes, that's the advice I need. Let it go. Let it pass. Try to refrain from jumping in and grappling with both hands, beating and pounding until the storm looks like something familiar.
Sigh.
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September 8, 2005
Must ... have ... sugar ...
Yesterday, I bought jelly.
A little while ago I walked into the kitchen. The jar of jelly was on the counter, open.
It was half empty.
And there was a straw sticking out of it.
Posted by lynx at 11:35 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
First Scout Meeting
We had our first pack meeting on Tuesday. At the meeting I got:
* The list of the five million activities the Boy Scouts have planned
* The price list for the uniforms, and the instructions on how to take out a loan to buy them
* No idea of what to do next
I went up to the leaders after the meeting, and said "Hi, I have absolutely no idea which dens my kids are in, or when they meet, or what to do next."
They nodded and said "Yes, that's right."
Whee! I'm clueless and in the loop, all at the same time!
It will get better, right?
Posted by lynx at 8:27 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
September 6, 2005
All I have to say about Katrina
I really don't want to talk much about Hurricane Katrina. We are doing our part by donating to charities, and by helping out the refugees who ended up in our area.
This is really all I want to say beyond that: This tragedy has served to highlight a couple of truths that we have forgotten, and we would do very well to remember them.
First, we don't control nature, it controls us. We've been remarkably successful at making ourselves comfortable, and even safe, in the face of day-to-day natural forces, which is why it is such a slap in the face when nature wins. But the forces of nature are far greater and far stronger than we are, and nature is going to win, every time. Humans can't change that. Governments, certainly, can't change that.
Second, you cannot and should not depend on the government to keep you safe. Your job is to work first to keep yourself safe.
Here's a bit of writing on the subject by Wilfred McClay, in which he points out that the reason we are so angry is because we have been so successful at mastering our environment.
Hat Tip to Mungo
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September 1, 2005
And another thing!
Kathy Jo takes on the whole Latin-centered thing.
How did I miss her blog before? Not only is it a great read, funny and thought-provoking, but it has a different Douglas Adams quote every time you refresh the page. Plus, she put a bowl of dirt under the bed in Oklahoma on which she birthed a baby, so that he could be born on Texas soil. As the mom of four little Texans, I can respect that.
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