A Brief History of Everything

We enjoyed this cartoon today.

We Wrapped Presents

For Ivy's 7th birthday. We did it fancy style by reusing old craft supplies.

Meanwhile

Aleks spent several days watching the Human Clock on our computer, usually while listening to one of the Harry Potter novels (he's really into them and carries the ipod around all day long).

Other Stuff We Did

We babysat our friend Jack several times since the new year. Bastian showed him how to knead bread (this was after Aleks and I examined the yeast under the microscope). We made lots of delicious bread from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It really does work and it really is awesome. The kids agree.

I Was Busy

Even before the last two posts (or more), I was busy doing a (feminist) theatre production (to very positive response) and so I spent most of January not thinking about my children much except to feel guilty for not being a better "homeschooling" parent, doing more to get them out and about, and fulfilling my duty as their mother to enrich their lives and prevent them from brain-melting via endless computer games and dvd viewing. Instead, I spent January in the blue glow of backstage.
But here and there, we did some things about the house and occasionally I remembered to photograph it for proof. We used the microscope the boys got for Christmas to look at the prepared slides and sometimes to look at things we found ourselves, like this pear, dyed red with liquid that came in the set. Also, we looked at onion skins, yeast, and some other stuff I can't recall.
We finally pulled our Rorschach snowflakes out to see how the epsom salts fared (the sugar solution started to grow mold early on and got pitched). After more than a month, we had a few crystals, quite different in shape and size from our borax crystals.
The boys climbed on Papa here and there.
And did some crafty stuff too, I'm sure. At least some painting.
More to come...

White Winter Walk

I've had the photo from our walk at Shaker Lakes as my avatar on Facebook for quite some time now and looking at it all the time has put images of the hills at Squires Castle covered in snow into my head. No idea why, but there you are. Thus, it became imperative that we make it out there and see it for real. As soon as we started walking, the boys started whining and Jon called from home, where he was locked out of the house, but we went onward anyway (Jon got a neighbor friend with a key to come let him in).

We spied a lonely little glove on our gnarly tree.

We discovered tracks. These belong to dogs, but Aleks found deer as well.






Aleks and I had a long talk about the point of school and about his future. He ignored everything I had to say and kept talking about the walk and other things. He eventually decided that he does not want to be a lion tamer or a snake charmer as an adult. Or a plumber, though he did not illuminate for me why precisely that is. In the end, he said he'd like to be a paleontologist or a miner (he's very into gems and gemstones). I may be getting a bit ahead of myself with all of this, but my laziness in combination with reading a book about families that included lots of perspectives other than my own on all manner of matters has inspired my fear and anxiety of late. Thus the talk about it to involve Aleks and see what he thought.

He didn't really. Think, that is. The future is out there still for him. Way out there. I should learn to get cozy with that. Every winter I go through this. Sigh.

In the end, I know they're healthy and happy and I've got nothin' but love for 'em.

Shoreside

I remember as a child being at the beach in North Carolina, where my family seemed to visit every year or so in the summertime, and being told a story of visiting the beach in the winter and there being snow on the ground. To my young mind, this did not make sense. I only pictured beaches with hot weather and white sand, not with cold wind and ice. Eventually, it made enough sense to me, but I still had gone all my life without having ever seen a beach with snow on it, like in the story. So we decided to visit the lake during winter. It's no Carolina, but it has beaches and water and from photos I'd seen online, spectacular ice formations where waves usually form during warmer months.
The kids threw ice chunks out onto the frozen lake. Of course. What else are you gonna do out there?







Cocoon of something... Not sure what. Maybe a monarch that never hatched, judging by all the milkweed, but maybe they cocoon in Mexico??? Thank you Facebook friend - this is a praying mantis egg case. Yay!
Aleks is currently missing two teeth on the lower set. It's cute.
Bastian wanted to bring ice home. I told him that it probably had seagull poop in it and that I'd rather not.
The city. I think I'm officially a naturalized citizen.