I didn't mean to make Bethy cry.

I asked the twins last night at the supper table if they would still love me when I have robot hands...

It's just a nod to the fact that I use my hands and arms a lot, especially for computer work, and they alternately burn and hurt in different places from the shoulders down (especially across the backs of my hands these days). I think it's a live possibility, if not a certainty, that I will need surgery someday.

And I've said this to Christine before. She said 'yes'. ;-)

But it made poor Bethy cry. Of course, she'd had a big day, so maybe she was emotionally fragile.

She came and sat on my lap for a little while. Poor Bethy!

After school Elizabeth said, "I bet I can make my tooth fall out today." I had no idea what she was talking about. Sure enough, she lost her tooth while eating a snack. I thought she was throwing up. I didn't even know her tooth was loose! That makes #7.

It's a big week for our second graders! Today was Bear Day. It started with a 2-hour delayed opening because of snow! Once at school, they had a teddy bear parade and snacks including Teddy Grahams and hot chocolate. They've been learning lots of bear facts and riddles. Wil's favorite - what bear does not need water its entire life and why? A teddy bear! Because it's not alive, of course.

Tomorrow is the big Habitat presentation. Wil studied beavers and Elizabeth chose sea lions. It's been frustrating at times coaching them through it, but in the end I am very proud of their work and how much they learned. Next up - famous Americans. Stay tuned!

Elizabeth received big news at ballet today. Her teacher would like her to start practicing with the next class up (D1) beginning next week. Her teacher said Elizabeth is progressing rapidly and that if she works hard over the summer, she could move up another level (D2) in the Fall. Elizabeth was quite overwhelmed by this development and isn't sure she wants to move up so fast. I told her she didn't have to do anything but try next week and see how she feels. It'll mean 75 minutes of ballet on Mondays with a 30 minute break between classes. I'm not sure she has the stamina at this point, but her teacher told her she could just start off with the barre exercises in the second class and go from there.

I suggested we go out to eat tonight to celebrate the good news. Elizabeth picked Wendy's chicken nuggets and frosty. Oh so glamorous.

Ten, 20, 30 years from now, I want to remember how the twins looked as they raced across the wet grass to get into the car to go to school. Lunch boxes in hand, their school bags, half as big as they are, bouncing on their backs.

Wil and Elizabeth are 7-1/2 years old today. Happy half-birthday!

Bethy was looking at Wikimapia over my shoulder and said 'I didn't know Canada was a country. I thought it was a state.'

I said 'It should be...'

No, not really ;-)

Then she said Daddy, who's the president of Canada and I said I have no idea.

Update: She's lying on the floor right now waiting on me and she said It would be fun if the house was upside down.

Hands in pockets

Wil's got this incredibly cute new habit where he puts his hands in his pockets. It doesn't seem to be out of insecurity. It just looks like it feels comfortable to him. He does it so much that when I put my hands in my pockets, it reminds me of him. I *feel* like him. Makes me smile :-)

Wil to Sean: What if a kid went to college before he was even finished with first grade, and when he finished college he got to stay home until he was grown up.

Sean: That's the part you'd like.

Wil: Yeah.

Elizabeth's "Lightning Share"

At school on Wednesday: I have some good news, some more good news, some more good news, and some bad news. The good news is I finally got my room organized, yesterday was my Daddy's birthday, and I got another American Girl doll for Christmas. The bad news is that my Barbie mall is in the middle of my room and all the stuff fell out, so it looks like my room is messy, but it really isn't.

Update: The Barbie mall got cleaned up and put in the closet. Elizabeth's room is now the cleanest, most organized room in the house. It's inspiring. If she can do it, anyone can.

Wil on Civ4

I was looking at the Civ4 manual the other night while lying in bed with Wil, waiting for him to fall asleep. He said 'Daddy, do you have rememorize all that to play the game? I said I knew most of it and was just looking for the stuff I didn't know...

We told the twins at the beginning of second grade that if they ever heard something they didn't know if they were suppose to say to please ask us before saying it. In general this has worked well for us. Lately we've been watching and listening to some of the early Harry Potter movies and books. Ron's language, particularly, is a little troublesome. He says "shut up" twice when we first meet him, and in the movies he says, "bloody hell" a number of times. The twins know "shut up" is frowned on, but we weren't sure what they thought about "bloody hell" until tonight. While listening to an audiobook, I casually mentioned that Ron says some things we don't say in our house. Wil whispered to me, "I think one of the things he says is 'bloody owl.'"

NFL week 8 wrap-up

I've got good news and bad news. Let me give you the bad news first:

The Vikings got their clock cleaned by New England. I searched the internet and found a radio station out of Kansas City that was broadcasting the game live on the web and listened to the first half. The Patriots owned them. It was never close one time. They knew the Vikings might could defend the run, so they turned Brady loose and he went berserk. Went to sleep after the first half. Ugh.

The good news is that I have Brady on my fantasy team and his 4 TDs + yardage equaled 29 points. Add to that 6 for C Jackson, 2 for C Taylor, and 6 for the Vikings defense and I came back from a huge deficit and beat my brother, Cory! Woo hoo! Takes the sting out of the Vikings getting obliterated.

Interesting side note: The twins are kind of interested in my fantasy football league. They like the Yahoo interface, especially when someone customizes an 'avatar'. They want to know who that's supposed to be. Kyle and Cory, especially, have interesting ones. They're interested in the team names and who those represent. They're interested in the voting system (who do you think will win?). They're interested in the 'smack' speech bubble feature.

For example, during the second half of the Indy game I kept chanting 'Reggie! Reggie! Reggie!' and I put it in my 'smack' speech bubble. They thought that was funny.

I exclaimed this morning at breakfast about my victory and said I could put 'Brady! Brady! Brady!' in my 'smack' bubble (which I have since done ;-). Bethy was kind of hovering around and I told her she needed to go get dressed. She actually got dressed and came back and said 'We can talk more about fantasy football now.'! Shortly thereafter she said 'What if you could send a speech bubble just to Uncle Cory and say 'Reggie! Reggie! Reggie!'.

When they're not exasperating, second graders are fun! :-)

Wil's creative brain has been working overtime.

Wil's creative brain has been working overtime.

Bethy picked Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone for our family movie night saturday. They really got into it and have been playing HP a lot.

Plus, Wil has been talking about Wizard's Chess (I've almost got him cured of saying 'chest') a lot. He recently got a new Lego catalog that has a Lego Vikings chess set that he has enjoyed looking at. A couple days ago he said to me

'Daddy, I have an idea for chess. We could make a Star Wars chess set.'

Then he really likes to think about who would be each piece.

Last night we were talking about who we thought should be the pieces for a Lord of the Rings chess set. I said I thought the rooks were easy: Orthanc and Barad Dur, Minas Tirith and the Hornburg. I wanted Shelob to be the black queen, but he didn't like that idea. He picked the Witch King of Angmar (the Morgul Lord, Chief of the Black Riders), based on the premise that the queen doesn't have to be a girl and can be the king's strongest servant.

(Ooh! I just had a good idea! The ring could be the black king (slow, more vulnerable, you capture it and win) and Sauron could be the black queen! Hmm...)

He picked a Harry Potter robe for his Halloween costume, though he doesn't (didn't - maybe it will change) want to pretend to be HP. We're going to watch Chamber of Secrets sometime this weekend to continue to get ready.

Something you never want to hear your son say: I want to be a robber when I grow up. Worse - he put it in writing in his "All About Me" book to remember for all time who he was and what he was interested in at the beginning of second grade.

Wil wrote this essay at school. It's for the "Greatest Grandparents of South Carolina" essay contest.


Here's the translation:

My GranPaul is the best. He played the Princess Game with me and Elizabeth. He put on a crown. We thought that was funny, then... I put on one. He used to drive a school bus. I got to ride the school bus. Now he drives a tour bus. We are good friends. Sometimes he calls me "Buddy." I like that. He is the greatest. Sometimes my family drives to the farm. I get to play in the sand box. The end.

Wil and I and FotR

[I started this on August 22nd. Let's see if I can get it posted...]

I started reading Fellowship of the Ring with Wil last night.

I'd grown tired of re-reading comic books. I liked 'em fine the first 3 or 4 times. Time to graduate to chapter books like Momma and Bethy.

I gave Wil a choice of Prince Caspian, The Book of Three, or Fellowship of the Ring.

Then, when the book came home, I said 'How about if we read some of the book, and then [your reward will be to] watch that much of the movie.' He thought that sounded like a great idea.

Then Christine said 'Maybe we [girls] would like to get in on that!' Bethy said yeah!, but she only wanted to watch the movies. She doesn't want to read all together.

(I think there's at least 3 things at work here:
1. She thinks it would be more boring than her books.
2. She want to do the choosing.
3. She wants to keep Christine to herself.)

So, at bedtime, Wil came and got me [working on my laptop] and said it was time to read our book and then watch the movie. Whoa. Come to find out, he thought we were going to watch some of the movie each night. I said 'No way. You'd get too excited and not be able to sleep.' He promised me he wouldn't, but I insisted he would and that we'd watch some friday night or over the weekend and he accepted that.

As we settled down, I asked him if he knew The Lord of the Rings is my favorite book in the whole world (he said no) and that I'm so happy to be sharing it with him.

So I started reading the 'Concerning Hobbits' part of the Prologue, and Wil was really busy with his stuffed animals and blankets. I thought about asking him if he was paying attention, but his comments showed me he was paying attention:

+ He thought I was talking about Hobbit ladies called 'madam', but I was talking about 'mathoms'.
+ When reading the history of Hobbits and how some lived by rivers and fished and swam, he knew (from watching the movies) that that's where Gollum originally came from.
+ And a few more I don't remember...

Then he started telling me about the hobbit apartment he was building with his blankets and stuffed animals and what the different rooms were and where they got their water. I'd even go so far as to say that he was imitating my reading cadence a little :-)

[I think I was originally going to write more, but this is going to have to be a good enough start for now...]

Favorite Lunchbox Food

I asked the twins to name their favorite lunchbox treat. I thought the answer would be Hershey Kisses of some variety. Instead, Wil wanted to tell me all the things he liked best in his lunch, so here it is:
peanut butter & jelly sandwich - he once told me it tasted like cake
grapes and apples
carrots
chocolate, any kind

Elizabeth's was similar:
peanut butter & jelly sandwich
apple slices
chocolate
cheesestick (string cheese)
water

I was surprised by the last one because Elizabeth is a big milk drinker, but she gave up buying milk in the cafeteria back in Kindergarten.

The Secret in Mrs. Clytus' Class

After school today, Wil was excited to tell us the secret in Mrs. Clytus' class. If you get on yellow, he explained, but then have good behavior the rest of the day, you get to change back to green. "That's what I did today. I'm going to do that every day!" He was so pleased, I had a hard time explaining it's better to stay on green all day. We're still very proud of his effort.

The First Day of Second Grade

Momma: What was your favorite thing about the first day of 2nd grade?
Wil: I stayed on green all day. That was better than recess.
Elizabeth: Recess, and... (thinking) that Momma had homework and I didn't!

What was your least favorite thing?
W: Assembly was talk, talk, talk, boring. Except for "Why Gator Hates Dog." (The new principal is from Louisiana.)
E: Computer lab was pretty much talk, talk, talk, boring.

What do you want your teacher to know about you?
E: That I wasn't supposed to get a Barbie until I was 6 years old, but I started getting them when I was 5.
W: It's fun to be a kid.

What do you want to learn this year?
E: More about Louisiana.
W: I don't actually know yet.

What was one of your favorite things about this summer?
E: Hershey, Carowinds, getting snorkle gear.
W: Peeling skin off Mommy. Swimming lessons.

During the summer, what did you miss most about school?
E: Mrs. Wertz.
W: Mrs. Janus, Mrs. Wertz, Mrs. Adair, and I think her name is Mrs. Church.

Daddy: Was anyone else besides me tired today?
All: Yes!

My boy, the budding philoligist

+ Wil discovers the Law of Velar Villainy: 'Daddy, I just realized something: Lord Vladek (from Lego Knights of Morcia) and Lord Vader have the same letters!' Bonus: 'velar' has some of those velars, too! ;-)

(Incidentally, the search led me to this great old languagehat.com thread where Jason, Jaq, Dorothea and I debated the attractiveness of the word 'blog'. Unfortunately, some famous internet dude showed up at the bottom to tell us he'd coined the term and that pretty much killed it ;-)

And then, Jaq, I discovered your old comments are still out there on the web: http://rateyourmusic.com/yaccs/commentsn/b=90000033403_and_e=112232750340001842 . Crazy.)