Dark

It's bedtime, but the boys are outside in the dark riding their scooters with wheels that light-up when they scoot. They've turned off the yard lights, and even come inside to turn off the lights at the back of the house. Once in a while, one of them messes up and triggers the motion-sensor lights on the shop (oops!). It must be spring - it's warm enough to play outside in the dark.

Smarter than he looks!

We went to Noodles for dinner today. It was kind of chaotic - zillions of teenagers in formal dresses had decided to eat there before the dance. We lucked into a table, though, and got our food. After eating we wanted to leave pretty quickly to make room for others. Between telling Luke to stop playing with the window blinds, wondering why Emmett was wearing the crazy glasses he got with tickets at Boondocks last week, and asking each kid if they wanted to bring their drinks (vanilla root beer!) home with us (Emmett, no, Luke and Henry, yes), I left my purse on the seat in the booth. As I headed towards the door, Henry jumped back into the booth. Just as I started to say, "Henry, we're leaving!" I realized that he not only knew I'd forgotten my purse, but he was getting it for me. Not bad for a not-quite-three year old!

It was AWESOME!

This year for Emmett's birthday, I just didn't have it in me to top "Spy School" (was that just a year ago? Or has it been two?), so I suggested that we take his two best friends to Boondocks for his birthday instead of a party at our house.

The boys had a great time - Henry played in the little kid play area, and the "big kids" did everything - mini golf, go-karts (Luke rode along with dad), a "virtual roller coaster," laser tag, and mini-golf again. As played by Luke and Jacob, mini-golf is an aerobic event. You put the ball on the tee, hit it once, then dash to the green where you corral it into the hole asap. Then you run to the next hole and do it again. My theory is that they were cold so they had to keep moving. And of course, they repeatedly refused sweatshirts.

After we were done playing, we had dinner and ice cream sundaes. On the way out, I asked Emmett how it went, and he replied, "It was awesome!" with the kind of enthusiasm that makes a mom forget that she's exhausted from the past four hours of constant vigilance keeping track of everyone. I think they all had a great time.

Cleaning up

I've finally began teaching / expecting the kids to help keeping their environment cleaned up. They're not bad, once they get going.

Last week, Luke invented the "shoving everything into the closet" method of cleaning up his room. After way too little time he announced he was done. When I went into his room and said, "Alright, where did you shove everything?" he smiled sheepishly. Then when I found the pile in the closet, he seemed almost proud of himself.

Best Day Ever!

When David's not home for dinner, I often make french toast for the boys. Today I also happened to have bacon on hand, so I cooked that up, too.

When Luke found out what was for dinner, he yelled, "Bacon?!? Mom, this is the best day ever!"

What do I say to this boy?

On Tuesday mornings, Emmett and Luke are now getting tutored in Spanish at Maria's house while Henry and I go to music class. When I picked them up today, Maria told me this story.

Maria got a call from her daughter at school, who had forgotten her lunch money. Emmett was very concerned that she wouldn't have any lunch, but Maria assured him that she just had to call the office and authorize them to lend lunch money to her daughter (which Maria then did). Now apparently obsessed with the topic of lunch, Emmett started telling Maria that school lunches are really not very healthy or good tasting. I'm not sure where he comes by this info - he's never been in a school cafeteria and he loves corndogs. I watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and maybe he was paying attention. Anyway, Maria agreed and said her daughter prefers to bring lunch but mornings are so busy that sometimes they don't make lunch. Like a dog with a bone, Emmett went on to suggest that she make lunch the night before. Or make 5 lunches ahead on Sundays. The saving grace in all of this is that the discussion was happening primarily in Spanish.

Fortunately, Maria knows Emmett pretty well and didn't take offense. At least I'm not the only one who gets his "helpful" suggestions.

Emmett said...

Emmett was drinking some milk this morning and as he finished the glass, he said, "Ahhh... Good to the last drop!" Was that the world's most obvious advertising line that he just stumbled upon, or did he hear it somewhere?

2011 Christmas Card

Flurry Of Snowflakes Holiday Card

Create photo holiday cards this Christmas season.

View the entire collection of cards.

Murderous Maths

Emmett has been reading and re-reading and re-reading all of the Murderous Maths books, and enjoying them immensely. He told me that you can't have a right triangle with an obtuse angle in it. I, being a geek and kind of mean, said, "Well, you can't unless the triangle is on the surface of a sphere." We've talked about triangles on spheres before, but I was a bit surprised when he confidently responded, "Correct!" His dad, not to be outdone, wondered about a triangle on a hyperbolic plane (shaped like a pringle), but shortly concluded that it could only be done in spaces with positive curvature. Emmett has it coming at him from all sides...

Henry and the advent calendar

I got chocolate advent calendars for each of the boys. Emmett and Luke understand what's going on, but Henry was intrigued by the idea that there were all of these chocolates inside and he could only eat one each day. He carried the calendar with him all around the house. He opened a future door or two, but he didn't eat the chocolate. At first we thought he'd eaten it, but we found it later and it had just fallen out. One day about a week into December, I saw him open a future door and dragging his nail across the chocolate, eating just the tiny shard he scratched off. He had no intention of eating the whole thing, but he just couldn't resist a little taste.

I would have loved to see how this all turned out over time, but later that day Henry left his advent calendar on the floor and Jenny (our greyhound) had far less restraint. Nothing could be salvaged, though we did go get some replacement chocolates so Henry still gets his daily treat. (and no more for Jenny!)