A Little Bit of Awesome

My five-year-old just asked me to sing "Praise To the Man" for a bedtime song.

At last! Some Sharks!

Matthew and Malia are off-track and due to the fact that we never saw any sharks while we were on vacation in July, I felt that a trip to the aquarium was in order. Today was a perfect day to go. Not only are all the kids in school except for the year-round B-trackers, but it is early in the school year and a Monday so there were no field trips happening. The whole place felt nearly deserted which was great because we didn’t have to navigate any crowds to see the exhibits.

We saw the penguins and otters (all of whom were super active), the new Asian clouded leopard, macaws, frogs, and many, many fish. But the highlight of the trip was, of course, the sharks! Malia was thrilled and insisted we sit and watch the “shark show” for a good 20 minutes which is a long time for an energetic five-year-old.

This afternoon she watched “The Little Mermaid” and the beginning of “Finding Nemo.” Then she promptly renamed her stuffed shark (previously known as Sharky) Bruce.

Olympic Enthusiasm

We’re still watching the Olympics. I watched most of the things that interest me as they happened, but Matthew was already in school and really, really wanted to watch (he is my sports enthusiast after all) so we recorded everything and he started making his way through them when he went off-track. It is actually a great way to watch. We skip all the commentary and commercials and just watch the actual events. We can make it through a 4-hour block of coverage in about 45 minutes. We recorded everything, so we’ve been zipping through a lot of the less popular events that air during the day (The boys have discovered that synchronized swimming is strangely mesmerizing.) as well as the prime time stuff. This evening we were watching/mocking rhythmic gymnastics. While we were busy comparing the hoops and clubs portion to a circus act, Malia was creating her own gymnastics routine:

When I asked her if she wants to be a rhythmic gymnast when she grows up, she told me she just wants to be a mom. In spite of that, she was certainly enjoying herself.

Status Quo

Today was Matthew's yearly visit to the allergist and due to his amazing improvement last year, I was actually really anxious about today's visit. I didn't expect another year of vast improvement, but I was sincerely hoping that he wouldn't get worse again. Staying where he was would be ok, but I really didn't want him to backslide. The four foods that we've been able to add to his diet over he past two years (almonds, coconut, milk and egg in baked goods) has been a great boon and has given Matthew more options than he's ever had before. Taking things back out would be hard for him.

In spite of the fact that his total IgE jumped back up to its previous level, his individual allergen numbers stayed at last year's level. That is actually unusual since a rise in total IgE is usually reflected in the individual IgE numbers, but I'll take it. The only individual number that went back up was egg but since Matthew is still tolerating it well in select baked items, it won't change any of his food options at this point.

So it turned out ok. Maintaining is better than slipping backwards anytime.

Tippity Tappitty

I believe there is a special place in heaven for people who teach tap dancing to 5-year-olds.

Malia has been so excited that she's pretty much lived in her tap shoes since we bought them two weeks ago. And there was an unholy din as all the girls got their shoes on today. So yes, kudos to those who teach tap to tiny toed girls.

The Ugly Truth

I still feel stupid. And my typing accuracy is way down.

This is what your hand looks like...

...after you very nearly slice off the pad of your finger while cutting watermelon which is especially stupid considering you spent 3 1/2 years working in the fruit and veg prep area of BYU's food services department while you were in college in which position one of the very first lessons they taught you was how to safely peel and cut melons without hurting yourself and thereby avoiding spilling copious amounts of blood, getting five stitches and traumatizing your 5-year-old.

I feel very stupid...and ow.