It's Wild Here

Vocadigitemesis

[On Fridays, Jamie and I do a free write based on the prompt given at the Bravewriter blog. In honor of Croc-Man, here is Jamie's free write for the week, which I realize is  rather irreverent but I'm sure Jamie means no disrespect. You can read the whole prompt by clicking that link above.  It's been a great week for the BW blog - if you scroll down you will see an excellent post about homeschooling style, and a picture of two boys I know... they're famous now! ]

Vocadigitemesis is a little known disease affecting squids across the ocean blue. Terri Erwin, wife of the acclaimed crocodile hunter and mother of two children, in the event of the death of her husband has renamed herself, Squidy Hunter. She parades around South India attempting an Australian accent and harassing squids everywhere. She says was the first to discover this new disease and most people believe her because she’s a celebrity and she’s single. The new disease affects these poor animals in a horrific way, Terri says, “Oi found ‘er wif vomit comin’ out o’ ‘er tenteeculs!” The translation from the faked Australian is, “I found it with it’s tentacles spewing vomit.” If this disease were to affect humans, you might find yourself vomiting from your fingers. So watch out for Terri Erwin and her accent! Oh, and vomit spewing squids as well…

Farewell Croc Hunter

What a sad day for animal lovers and animal-TV-lovers, not to mention Steve Irwin's kids.

Steve Irwin killed by stingray

Evan just reminded me of the story of Steve taking risks with his kids around dangerous animals. I'd forgotten that story.  He was obviously a risk-taker.

overheard in the living room

Little Bear (on TV): Father Bear, would you ever catch a whale?
Father Bear: Oh no, they're much too big, and I wouldn't want to hurt them - I think they're magnificent creatures.
Little Bear: Me too...
Ryan in a quiet voice: me too...

No Vacancy

The house of boys is full.

 

updates

A Lion in the House  is a documentary created by two lovely local people. I can't tell you how it is because I can' t bring myself to watch it, but as soon as I'm past the late-preg, early-newborn stage, I plan to see it.  I love the village where I live and it's always exciting to see my neighbors achieving cool things like front-page PBS.org status. wow. 

Speaking of PBS, Jamie is up early on this dreary rainy day, sitting in Evan's chair watching this episode of Nova, Newton's Dark Secrets.  It's a pleasure and relief to see that, even in the face of a rigorous and structured academic curriculum, he has retained his natural curiousity about other thinky things.  Other things going on with Jamie:  reading The Secret Garden, watching World Cup Soccer, drawing drawing drawing, in PhotoShop and on paper, hanging out with friends Kira and David, pitching in on housework more and more with very little complaint. What. a. guy.

Jeremiah's occupied by lots of trampoline jumping and Ryan-duty. He's patient and indulgent with Ryan and his very unfair toddler rules. Jeremiah is blasting through the Dragonball graphic novel series faster than our library system can possibly keep up.  He has a couple of standing weekly playdates - Nathan and Daniel/David - and usually sees friends at least 2-3 more times each week. Soccer camp begins next week for both big boys.

There's no shortage of Ryan content on this blog, but a few new obsessions:
the hose (to do list for today: babyproofing gadget for a faucet)
the doorbell (known is the "beep")
3 and 4 word sentences (woot!)
Raffi, on the toddler tape player with headphones
lip-synching to They Might Be Giants, which is acceptable enough to the brothers that it need not be limited to headphones.
helping with household chores - he is a very good clean diaper stacker

Evan:  World Cup watching, in very sane moderation (thank you!), almost daily evening walking with the family, regularly accepting 3-boy duty while I take time for myself, sometimes for shopping and errands, sometimes for leisure. 

weekend

[knitting content below]

Rainy Saturday street fair:  Katie and Audrey discovered their canopy wasn't waterproof :-(  Brought Katie a poncho, wished her luck and bought veggies from farmer's market. Oh my, the strawberries around here... we cannot get enough.

Brenda came, defended her supplies against the curious hands of Ryan. She said she thinks I need to eat and drink more regularly - I know, but my appetite is just weird. One day, I eat; the next day, nothing sounds good and I'm just not hungry. It doesn't help that the baby seems to have stretched out into my lungs.  Could I just carry my digestive organs around in a backpack? Because then I think I'd have the space to carry this baby AND nourish myself.  Everything else looks good, and we spent so much time talking about other things that I forgot to ask her some sort of obvious questions about birth supplies. There is surprisingly little required...

Went back to Street Fair with all boys except Jeremiah, who was playing all day at his friend Nathan's house.  We watched the belly dancers, trapese girls, got firefighter hats, balloons, and went to the bookmobile sale. Jamie and I helped pack up books after the sale, and Jamie spotted a couple of reference books he wanted for his writing/drawing. He's been amusing us by reading from his new book of quotations.

Katie stopped over on her way home. Audrey is just about the sweetest thing, geez. She's got this nose you want to grab and the softest head, I just bury my face in her fluff. Ryan, apparently, agrees, and cannot - CANNOT - stop touching her. I know it's funny, but seriously, I think I might have to never sit down with our new baby, because he was not to be distracted from the baby. At all. Wouldn't let her nurse, etc.

Sunday. Groceries and World Cup Soccer. Grammy and Grandpa came for dinner, strawberries for dessert, of course.

OTN: finished two MDK warshrags, starting the MDK kimono. I saw someone did it sleeveless, on the MDK knitalong website. That sounds good - I may do some short sleeved or sleeveless for summer. Right now, I'm using some very badly self-spun yarn and bigger needles than the pattern calls for - hoping for a size to fit when baby is mid-winter, not newborn. The wool is soft, but not on-baby-skin soft.

this and that

The boys have decided to spend a good portion of their allowance each month on a service like netflix, except for video games. They want to try out a variety of games without paying the huge purchase  price. The biggest reason, though, is probably that they want to play games that are more violent than I want to have in the house on a long-term basis. My compromise with them at this point is that they can play some of those more violent games (within reason) but on a short-term basis. I'm not willing to own them and have them played and stared at daily for weeks and months on end.  Fortunately, they are just as interested in trying out all kinds of other games  - sports games, racing games, various Mario games.

The boys and I watched Mrs. Doubtfire last night.  When I realized they'd never seen it, I ran out with Ryan because our little local movie shop had it to rent for $1.  I'd forgotten how long the sad divorce part goes on. It's really gloomy and the boys seemed very drawn in. They loved the humor with Robin Williams and said it was a great movie overall. 

Ryan has become quite skilled at stacking duplos and getting his trucks across the floor at a good speed.

Evan is sick with a cough/chest thing.

The Patriots and Bengals are out of the playoffs.  Pathetic. So, football is over until next year - just as well.

Little Bear

So, probably most parents have had the experience of expecting their child will enjoy a certain thing that a) they liked as a child or b)they like now but are too old for, and then of course - you see this coming - the child wants no part of it.  The examples are endless, in my case.  However! My toddler has granted me one small pleasure, in that he loves that sweet, gentle animated Little Bear program on Noggin. I love everything about that silly show -the art, music, characters, story. My bigger boys wouldn't give it the time of day.

Ryan loves anything to do with bears, including Pooh and any old teddy. But his favorite is Little Bear. I think if there WERE a television show that could be actually healthy for a toddler (and I don't really think there is), it would be Little Bear.

   

home from vacation

Dressed to leave for the airport. Are we geeks or what? (Yes, I wore green too)

The first place we went after arriving in Boston - Watertown, where we lived when Jamie was born. Here is my firstborn sweetie sitting at that house. He really wanted to see it,  and seemed satisfied and touched when we went.

Here is some old-fashioned paper notebook blogging I did on our no-screens vacation:

August 26
This is the day after the big lobster party at the beach house Bill and Beth rented on Cape Cod. The trip has been really nice. The boys are managing nicely without their TV, computer and video games. They have spent many hours playing, reading, swimming, talking and testing a new card  game called Phase 10.  It's a lot like Liverpool Rummy.

Dardi came for the day yesterday. We followed Ryan around while Evan and the boys socialied. J and J met some friends, ages 11 and 9, and they've had a great time - Alex and Jacob are their names. They want to get together again, but I think it's unlikely. It is wonderful to see the boys are quite comfortable talking with adults and are also very eagerly able to befriend children. (I have in mind common socialization-related criticisms of home education).

The book I'm reading is very moody and a bit depressing. It is The Testing of Luther Albright and I'm not thrilled with it but the writing style is nice and there's a mystery that I want to discover. So, I read on.

Maria is the au pair here for B and B.  She is from Panama. She is very sweet, happy and attentive. We've been practicing a LOT of spanish with her and we are planning to become email pen pals.

The weather is completely wonderful. The breeze at the Cape is cool and the sun is hot. The sky is clear. So far, only about 30 minutes of rain.

Evan and Ryan are getting lots of dada-baby time together, and loving it.

The no screen situation inspired me to consider other regular family retreats we can take that would be no-screen but tons of fun, not so far and not so expensive:

- camp at John Bryan State Park
- Great Bear Lodge
- some camping place with cabins - Buck Creek? where? in KY or MI?
- Indianaopolis Children's Museum weekend (weekdays?)

Sunday, August 27
We're going to meet Steve Crowley at a park where our kids and his kids can play. We haven't seen Steve in 10 years!

War is Sad

Jamie started to watch this episode  of Nova,  Battle Plan Under Fire.  I was half-listening, and decided to walk in and ask Jamie how he liked it.  He looked unhappy - not devastated, but a little sad.  He said "it's bad."  I asked what he meant, and he explained that the technology was impressive, but the bombs were still bombs, and they hurt a lot of people.

I think the reality of our family's opposition to war has sunk in for Jamie, a little more today. I explained that the feelings he was having were the same feelings that motivated us to be sure our family participated in the public protests against the war, and he just  nodded.

The boys and Evan attended Little Boy, a peace play produced by the YS Kids' Playhouse. Here they are at the performance.