Just in Time

Just when I thought I was a really horrible mother for subjecting my poor sons to days stuck inside, melting their brains with endless video games and movies, due to their father's four things-resembling jobs and need to rapidly finish the PhD dissertation for defense, coupled with my daily, lengthy rehearsals for the feminist theatre production I'm in, I found a spot of free time in the middle of the day and used it up on taking them to the Botanical Gardens to look for the chameleon who lives there. We found him on a vine. Then we looked at all sorts of other bugs and animals, identified birds and butterflies, discovered a colony of leaf cutter ants carrying bits of leaves in orderly lines several yards long, noted rainforest plants that collect water high in the canopy, played with toys, went for a walk outside, then trekked to the Winking Lizard restaurant where they have a live iguana in a huge built-in tank. Finally, we got Aleks' hairs all cut.
I would like to take this to mean that I am not such an awful mother after all.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Blank Blank Games

My children seem to believe that they can type anything they like followed by the word "games" into Google and they will automatically find lots of homemade internet video games to play. Today when I heard Sebastian telling Aleks to "type 'Sloth Bear Games,'" I tried to assure them this was a baseless assumption to be getting on with. Apparently, I am wrong though. There is a sloth bear game on the internet, it's just that it's a quiz and not a game where sloth bear icons find their way through mazes or attack random groups of zoologists and/or circus ringmasters with laser guns or something.

Then Natty and I had to Google sloth bears just to find out what the heck they were and if they were real. They are real and they are weird.

Today

I'd like to see justice rain down like water, personally... So today we watched:

Then we read:

And we talked about people who are different than us and Aleks thought it was the most ludicrous idea that anyone would be prohibited from doing something because of what they looked like.

So, It's Been Snowing...

It's been snowing for days and days. It's still snowing, from what I can see out the window from my computer in the living room. We went out in it to shovel the walk and put down salt. Well, I just carried the salt from the car and dressed Bastian for inclement weather. Jon did the shoveling. Bastian followed him around.


Kids are kinda weird. This is the sort of thing that Bastian does ALL THE TIME. I don't have any idea what he's saying it's like in the end. I did get he said it was a moon at first...

Squid and Whale Battles Everywhere

The kids got several packages of capsules that you stick in water and when they dissolve you have a little piece of foam in the shape of some thing. One package was all dinosaurs and the other two were marine life, I think. Tonight in the bath, while playing with the foam shapes (which must be discerned), Aleks discovered a sperm whale and a giant squid and made them fight. Heather's obsessions have rubbed off on us in significant ways.

Playdoh

Bastian got a playdoh set for Christmas. This is what the boys do with it.

New Years Eve

We usually make party plans or have a sleepover with the kids for New Years, but this year we decided to just stay in with the boys. Jon got them sparkling apple juice.
I got us sparkling wine.
Bastian fell asleep before midnight, Aleks' first loose tooth finally fell out at about 11:30, Jon couldn't find a streaming ball drop video anywhere, and we missed the countdown. When we saw it was midnight already, we said our "Happy New Year"s and gave each other all kisses. There wasn't much noise outside, which is unusual for our block. Jon and Aleks went on World of Warcraft and watched the fireworks in Thunder Bluff.
They loved it.
I told them they were nerds.
The toothless wonder! He wrote a note to the tooth fairy explaining that he would like for her(?) to give the tooth to his parents (spelled parints) so he could see it in their hands when he called (spelled cold) for it. It was very cute. He cried when he thought she might take it away. I told him he explained it very well and I'm sure she'd honor his request.