Friday, October 23, 2009

Halloween Party Postponed to November 8, 1:30 to 3:30

Gwen is sick, and when the doctor announced it was probably H1N1, we decided to postpone the party until we could be relatively sure the flu had run its course through our family. After notifying about half of the kids of the party delay, however, the doctor said the test results came back negative, so it is NOT the flu.

Anyway, we hope to see you rain or shine on November 8th! If it ends up being "rain," we'll find someway to bring the party indoors, but otherwise count on an outdoor party.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Fame

Of course, you've heard about the "Balloon Boy" hoax. You've probably heard of that survey that found that one third of kids responded with "Famous!" when asked what they wanted to be when they grow up.

In Gwen's defense, I think she likes reading this blog more than she likes the thought that others are reading it. The other day she asked me when I would write in the BLOG again.

"I don't know, honey. When I have time. Or when one of you does something remarkably funny."

A few minutes later, a song came on the radio and she started jamming to it. I tried to keep a straight face, but I couldn't. Gwen looked over and said, "What, you think I'm funny?"

"I'm afraid so," I laughed, more than a little afraid of hurting her pride.

"Good!" she responded. "Put it on the BLOG!"

It took us awhile to explain to her that describing her dancing was not the same as seeing it. All the same, it was still pretty funny.


Now for news of my niece Chloe ...

Have you ever been on the phone with someone and felt powerless to control what was going on at the other end of the phone?

Well, the other day I was talking to my niece Chloe on the phone. Chloe has days when she is kind of chatty, but she also has days when she is distracted. This was clearly a distracted kind of day, so I finally asked, "Chloe, are you watching TV?"

"No, I'm playing with my Mom's Nintendo DS. I figured out her password on this game, and I'm changing it."

"Oh ..." I said. "I'm not so sure that's such a good idea Chloe."

"I'm changing it to 'RREEQQEEABCEERIJ..." and she rambled on a few letters.

"Um, Chloe, I sure hope you're writing this down."

"No," she replied glibly.

"How are you going to remember it, then, when your Mom wants to log back in?"

"I'll just remember."

Great. "Um, Chloe, maybe this would be a good time to turn me back over to your mother."

There was a pause, and at first I thought maybe she was doing what I suggested. Then, "I just changed her language options to Chinese!"

Groan ... well, I hope her mom doesn't need to play that game for awhile ... or that Chloe was pulling my leg.


The other day, the kids and I went to the local bookstore to buy some Christmas presents and pick up some books that had just come in. We could not have been in the store for twenty minutes, and I did not leave the lights on, but after loading the kids into the car, I turned the ignition and got nothing but the tick-tick-tick of the flywheel.

I looked in the backseat, where the kids were comfortably reading. Outside it was cold and rainy, and we really were parked right in front of the bookstore, so I said, "Kids, the car won't start. Do you want to come in with me or stay out here?"

"Stay out here," they chorused without looking up.

"I'm going to lock you guys in, okay?"

"Okay," they replied, still not looking up.

So I locked the kids in the van, stepped into the bookstore and tried to call Adam on his cell. Nothing. Then I borrowed a phone book and called the nearby automotive repair shop to ask for a jump. Fine, they'd be there in ten minutes. I went out and climbed back into the van to wait.

Ten minutes later, I saw the repair shop van pull up behind me. As I opened the door, Xavier shifted in his seat and said, "Mommy! Why are we still here?"

"I told you, honey. The car won't start, so the guy from the auto shop is here to jump the battery."

"The car won't start?!?" Gwen cried, a look of panic crossing her face. "What are we going to do?"

I reassured her that we would be on our way in a minute, and we were. Whew! I don't know whether to be disappointed at how little they listen to me, or just glad that they love reading so much.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

B is for Bad, D is for Disaster

We were supposed to go to a scouting event last Saturday, but we didn't because I had a cold and did not feel it prudent to go spend all day chasing crazed little boys around. Adam was willing (not "ready and willing", just "willing") to take the kids himself, but he wasn't happy about it, and the kids had a birthday party in town they could attend, so we attended the birthday party.

At the party, I was talking to the mother of another third grader. At our school, kids are not evaluated with the "A-B-C-D-F" scoring system until third grade, and the other mother made the observation, "We're a little apprehensive about the new grading system. I mean, Ned (her son) couldn't care less, and we can yell at him about school until the cows come home, but he doesn't care. We're the ones who worry about his grades."

I nodded with knowing sympathy, but ... I don't really have that problem with OUR third grader. The problem we have can be illustrated more like ... this:

The other night, when I was helping Gwen get ready for bed, she suggested that our new bedtime regimen (of letting them stay up until 8:30 but not allowing them to read in bed anymore) wasn't working for her. She said, "I think my grades are coming down because of it. I used to get As all the time, but NOW I've gotten a few --" (voice drops to horrified whisper) "B's!"

You know, this is going to shock some people, but I don't worry about my kids' grades so much. Their health? Sure -- that's why we started enforcing this new bedtime regimen. Research has shown that kids who go to bed at set bedtimes are healthier than their "read-in-bed" counterparts. More to the point, when we come to bed at 10:30, we are now finding Gwen asleep -- that wasn't true before. No, the reason Gwen is getting B's instead of A's is because she spends all her time reading and not enough time on her homework. "Gwen, not that I care, but the reason you are getting B's is because you've gotten slack on your homework so you can spend more time reading."

"No, I haven't! I do my homework!"

"Yes," I said patiently, "but you rush through it so you have more time to read. And, anyway, B's are still good. I'm not worried about B's. Now, if you start bringing home D's ..."

So, today Gwen brought home a D. It was just a quiz, not a test or a report card grade, so I looked at it and simply said, "Well, I guess we need to spend more time on our homework."

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" she cried, bursting into tears. Me, I just saw a letter, but she saw ... catastrophe. Fifteen minutes later, I managed to distract her with her homework. Then her Dad came home and we had to go through the whole thing again.

Some parents comment that they wish their kids were a little more like Gwen and more diligent about their grades. All I can say is, Be careful what you wish for.


Tonight Gwen told me that she had to teach her Social Studies class tomorrow.

"Oh?" I asked. "What are you going to teach them about?"

"I'm going to teach them about the execute-ive branch." (Yes, she pronounced "executive" as if it were something they do to death penalty convicts.)

"Well, maybe under the Bush administration," my husband replied.

Saturday, October 03, 2009

If Life gives you watermelons, make jack-o-lanterns


So, take a look at the picture above ... notice something strange about the feller in the middle? Yup, he's a watermelon.

This has not been the best year for our garden. Our pumpkins were infected by two kinds of pumpkin-vermin and so the pair flanking the jack-o-lantern above are actually a couple of the large specimens (which is to say, they are slightly larger than a softball.)

We planted several hills of two kinds of watermelons, and only one plant came up. It did not start producing melons until the beginning of September. The first three we harvested sounded hollow, but were far from ripe. This one -- the fourth -- sounded really, really hollow and it was bigger than the other three, so we were optimistic ... but it turned out it was hollow. So we decided that we'd have to make do with the materials at hand. There are six more melons in the garden, but given that it is October and we have already had our first frost, I'd say chances are good that we won't be much luckier with them. Oh well, better luck next year.

We watched Jackie Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx" with the kids the other night. Xavier loved it, but the word "Rumble" seemed beyond him. Several times through the week we had that video, Xavier would wander in and say, "Mom, can we see something in the Bronx?"


By the way, Henry is back from Iraq! His tour was supposed to run until November 9th, but he is back early. As luck would have it, he returned just as the newspaper was running an article about a local businessman (Henry) who was serving in Iraq. If you haven't checked out his blog, see the link on the right -- it is interesting reading.