Star Light, Star Bright

Every Wednesday night there is a free star party on the roof of the physics building on the U of U campus. Anyone can go and look through their big telescopes. Last night we took the boys to the star party. It was perfect weather, clear and not too cold, and we were able to see some fun things. This is what we saw (although, with the exception of the moon and Albireo, our images were nowhere near as clear as these):








Matthew seemed to enjoy the view of the city more than looking through the telescopes, but the rest of us enjoyed the telescopes. It was pretty cool to actually be able to see the bands of clouds across Jupiter. As a random note, Nathan looks through the telescope with his lazy eye because he can only close his right eye by itself. But he said he could see okay!

My Least Favorite Indication That Winter Is Coming

Rachael and I just spent half an hour chasing a mouse through four rooms of my house before finally trapping it under a bowl. As I speak (or type), it is sitting across the room from me giving me the heebie jeebies from beneath its mixing-bowl-sized jail cell. For any of you who may not be aware of how I feel about mice, feel free to get inside my head here. I think our biggest weakness during this escapade was our tendency to flinch or give off a girly shriek every time we caught sight of the nasty little thing. My toes are still curled under and if you don't think it hurts to walk when one's toes are curled under, check in with any poor Chinese girl who has had her feet bound. But seriously, YUCK!!!!!

But I must admit that anyone walking in on us during our little adventure probably would have laughed their heads off. We were both crouched down like football players preparing for the hike, too afraid to get on the floor, holding mixing bowls with a death grip. Furniture was moved and items were thrown all over to get them out of the path of the rodent. At one point we had books, boxes, a folding table, the ironing board and the pack and play barricading off three sides of my bed in an attempt to trap it on the other side.

(an hour and a half goes by . . .)

Okay, once was bad enough, but TWICE is completely unacceptable! Even as I blogged, I caught sight of another mouse. This one was eventually trapped inside a tube of brown paper, one end pressed against the wall, the other end pressed against the bottom of a mixing bowl. Unfortunately for me, I was kneeling there with the bowl pressed up against the tube with enough tension to keep the other end flush against the wall and no way to keep it there. And then I started to hear the mouse scrabbling around in there. Augh! Bless Rachael for holding the bowl while I got the fire safe to prop the whole contraption into place.

This is why God invented exterminators.

Academic Glee

Last week Daniel brought a note home from school stating that he had been invited to join Perspectives, the gifted program in his school. Daniel has been very ho-hum about school so far this year, so it was wonderful to have him come bursting through the door this afternoon and declare, "Perspectives started today and it was AWESOME!!!" I'm absolutely thrilled that he is in an academic situation that he enjoys (and the fact that it is teaching him some critical thinking skills doesn't hurt either).

I Should Know Better

This morning was my day as the volunteer parent in Nathan's class. Last month I left Matthew with a babysitter. This month I thought I would take him with me and just see how things went. I have no idea what I was thinking. After all, this is the cookie thief we're talking about. Nevertheless, I took him with me. And the result was a morning chock full of mischief and chaos.

The morning started off just fine, seeing as Matthew was strapped into the stroller, but I knew from the get-go that I wouldn't be able to keep him in the stroller all morning. So when I was involved in a task that kept me sitting at the table, I released him and gave him a paper and a pencil. That kept him occupied for all of about 2.5 seconds, after which he made a beeline for the computers. Luckily for me, they were turned off so his tapping of buttons didn't cause any harm, that is until one of the keyboards mysteriously slid off the desk.

My next task was some one-on-one work with students in the hall. Matthew enjoyed the relative freedom of the hall and I enjoyed the relative lack of things for him to break. After a few minutes of mindless wandering, he discovered that he could push the garbage cans up and down the hall. About halfway through the ABC flashcards with student #3, he discovered that he could put his blankie in the garbage can and conveniently push both around the hall. I know. Gross. At least the only things in the can were one piece of paper and a couple dried up wads of gum. The blankie was quickly confiscated and hit the laundry as soon as we got home.

Nathan's teacher keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer next to the door of the classroom and has the kids trained to take a squirt when they arrive in the morning or come in from recess. Having observed the kids at this routine, Matthew quietly walked over during the next transition period and helped himself. I do believe that his hands were more sanitary this morning than they have been at any other point in his young life. After I moved the sanitizer out of his reach, he discovered the Sharpies, pens and the electric pencil sharpener. Taking him away from all those sources of entertainment was the cause of shrieking episode #1.

Recess duty was calm (as calm as recess duty with a playground of five and six year olds can be anyway) and Matthew enjoyed himself immensely. Going back inside inspired shrieking episode #2.

After recess I was off to the library to make copies of a workbook for the kids. Shrieking episode #3 began when I wouldn't let Matthew sit at the rug and fold his arms like the other kids. Once the shrieking stopped and I arrived at the library, I got the machine all set to copy, collate, and staple and pressed the button to get it started. Sometime around copy #11, the copy machine suddenly lost power. It appears that although the power switch was in no way conspicuous to me, it was exactly at eye level for Matthew. After turning it back on, I learned how to open every door and clear every possible mis-feed. During my learning process, Matthew managed to get up onto a chair and bring one of the library computers out of hibernation. Commence shrieking episode #4.

My favorite bit of mischief for the day occurred during the last portion of the morning. The children were each given a large outline of a heart. They were instructed to divide the heart into as many parts as they wanted and make a picture inside each section that would tell about something they loved. My task was to label each section because let's face it, some five-year-olds' renderings of their beloved Fido look suspiciously like the portrait of Grandpa. I labeled a few drawings, looking up just in time to see Matthew pulling cleaning supplies out from under the sink. I dashed over and put them away, then plopped Matthew down on a tiny chair at a tiny table hoping it would entertain him for a few minutes. Several moments later I glanced up and noticed that he was holding a glue stick from the basket that was, unfortunately, right by the tiny table. It was one of those big, fat ones, the ones that go on blue and dry clear. But I wasn't concerned because 1) glue sticks are nontoxic and 2) he can't get the lids off anyway. I know now that my thinking was flawed, but it seemed like good reasoning at the time. Anyway, I wrote butterflies and rainbows a few more times (it appears that five-year-old girls are extremely fond of such things) then glanced at Matthew again. My first thought was, "Oh, good. The lid is still on the glue stick." Then I looked up at his face and saw a big, blue circle on each cheek.

I'm very grateful that kindergarten is only two and a half hour long. And next month I will be getting a babysitter.

And The Good News Is . . .

Matthew had an appointment with the allergist today and we actually got some good news. First, he isn't allergic to fish or shellfish which will make me breathe a bit easier when I crack open a can of tuna. We're definitely not going to be feeding him fish anytime soon, but it's still a stress reducer. Second, he is still not allergic to tree nuts and since it is very rare for someone to develop an allergy to tree nuts after the age of four, if we can keep him away from nuts until then he should be fine in that area. Third, his doctor feels like he would be a good candidate for anti-sensitivity therapy to decrease his reactions to milk and egg when he gets a bit older (around kindergarten age). The only bad news we got was that we are pretty much stuck with the peanut allergy. But we already knew that so it really wasn't an emotional factor in today's visit. And as usual, Matthew had everyone in the office wrapped around his finger by the time we were done.

Who Stole The Cookie From The Cookie Jar?

This morning I made cookies for tonight's Family Home Evening. I set them on the racks to cool and then went to check my e-mail. A few minutes later I noticed that it was suspiciously quiet. I peeked into the kitchen and saw this:

So starting from the scene of the crime, I followed the telltale trail of crumbs . . .




until I found the remains (minus one full cookie) . . .

and the culprit.



At least he helped me vacuum afterward.

Halloweenie

To celebrate the arrival of October, we spent Friday evening preparing for the season of ghosts and ghouls by putting up our Halloween decorations (all three of them) and making Halloween themed sugar cookies. Nathan's art lesson at school this week was about blending the primary colors to get other colors, so mixing our orange frosting became reinforcement of principles taught at school. I thought it was a fabulous excuse to make cookies.

Our pumpkins and ghosts were frosted in the traditional colors except for Nathan’s. He had an orange ghost because it was friendly and a white pumpkin because it was haunted.


Once he was convinced that putting up the girl skeleton was just as much fun as putting up the boy skeleton, Daniel enjoyed himself a good deal, as evidenced by the following photo.


And Matthew was right in the middle of everything, letting me help frost his cookie for about half a second before deciding he absolutely needed to do it himself and being enormously pleased about eating a cookie as big as his head.



I don't get nearly as jazzed for Halloween as I do for some of the other holidays, but it is definitely one of those holidays that is a lot of fun when you have little kids. Daniel and Nathan really love the dressing up, the enormous amount of free candy, and making our house look a little bit Halloweenie by scattering Jack-O-Lanterns and ghosts around. (And there isn't anything not fun about saying a word like "Halloweenie!")

Ick

I'm so glad I have boys because when I find a spider in my bed while I'm taking the sheets off to wash them, there is someone to squish the heck out of it.