Office update: Final edition?

  My son was in another play, as evidenced by this clandestine photo taken during the curtain call. (That's the curtain call, people, so I don't think I'm breaking the no-photos-during-the-performance rule.)
  He had a great time and got to hang out with friends he knew from other plays. There was singing and dancing in this one, so he continues to learn.
  But that's not what I'm writing about. I'm writing about my cow costume.

  The cow costume is getting some laughs. Or maybe I should say the cow is getting some laughs, but I'd like to throw some credit toward the costume.
  I didn't design the thing, but I did figure out how to build it, and then sewed it together. It wasn't what I was expecting when I volunteered to help with costumes. I was imagining sewing on buttons and fixing ripped seams. But you want a cow costume that lets both actors' heads show? OK, I can do that, too.
  My mother taught me to sew when I was young. I started using the sewing machine when I was about 8. Like some Medieval midwife passing along forbidden knowledge, she warned me, "Don't ever tell people that you know how to sew. They'll want you to do all sorts of stuff for them."
  She was right, of course. Once, a co-worker whom I hardly knew wanted me to hem some pants. There are tailor shops that will do that work for you. But not for free.
  But hemming strangers' pants and making an awesome costume for your kid's play are different animals, even if it's not your kid who will be wearing the costume. I was really happy that the director said the girl in back could have her head showing. That would take a professional level of maturity to be satisfied with bending over and hiding into the back of a cow costume for the entire performance. It says right in the script that the cow has a big hump on its back, so there you go.
  On the day of the first performance, the director called me at one o'clock and said she had some "disturbing news." The cow head was missing. I am sure some sticky-fingered kid stole it I guess we'll never know what happened to it. She asked if I still had some fabric, and could I at least make a simple hat as a substitute.
  Well, no cow costume of mine is going to have some lame hat for a head, so I quickly made a new one (make a bunny hat, add horns, and voila, cow head). The costume designer told me it's under lock and key now.
  But just as I'm not writing about my son being in a play, I'm not really writing about the cow costume, either. I'm writing about my former office.

  I wrote about this mess in January. I updated in February. At the time, I was thinking I wanted the weather to warm up so I could paint the walls. And now, what is it, June, almost July? The room is shaping up, though I doubt I'll paint it. What finally provided me with the proper motivation to clean it? The cow costume, of course.

  It is hard to make anything if you have to drag out all your sewing stuff each time. I'm hoping to keep the sewing table clear of clutter so I can sew more costumes, maybe, design a dress with my 6-year-old, and make myself some pajama pants. I'm dreaming big.

  The piano and play kitchen have switched places. I could feel the improved feng shui right away; that is, the feng shui of not tripping over crap. The piano is now center stage, and the kitchen is tucked around the corner. I even bought new educational posters. (You know how I love educational posters.) One is titled "What is a Fruit?" and the other is "What is a Vegetable?". I am amused that the publishers avoided the tomato controversy; it appears on neither.
  The play is done, we have some free time back, I got my sewing stuff organized and cleaned up the office. To summarize:

My new milk trick

  Today I took the girls to Burger King for lunch. Cookie calls it "Burger King's," because, you know, there's McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King's.
  But this is not a "kids say the darndest things" post, nor is a post of self-recrimination for taking them to a fast-food joint. I'll save that, and the fact that the Burger King veggie burger is pretty good, for another day.
  This is a "parenting tip" post because I discovered something wonderful.
  You might know that you can get a little plastic bottle of milk with a fast-food children's meal. My girls usually don't finish their milk. So today, I opened only one of the bottles and stuck in two straws.
  "You can share this one," I said, "and if you finish it, we'll open the second one."
  One girl couldn't stand to see the other take a sip without taking one herself. The sips got longer, and longer, and longer. They bumped heads a couple times, and I had to remind them to take turns. In a couple minutes, they had sucked down the first bottle. In a couple minutes more, they had sucked down the second.
  I wouldn't call it a food fight. Competitive eating, maybe. Whatever was going on, though, I obviously took notice.

Springtime is for babies

  We have a lot of babies around the house these days. The other morning I saw two baby deer eating clover in the backyard. I went out to take their picture but could only find their mother off in the woods. After looking around a bit, the babies reappeared; they must have been hiding. These babies are no doubt the same deer that I'll be angry at next year for eating my gardens, but for now, they're pretty cute.

  There is a robins' nest under our front deck. I first saw the nest after it was completely built but didn't have eggs in it yet. I considered whether the robins would get too stressed trying to raise a family in that location; it's right between the two doors to our house. I figured it would be fun to observe them, so I left the nest there, and a few days later, there were eggs in it.
  Late one night, I was working on the computer with the window open and I suddenly heard loud bird noises. It's a strange thing to hear in the middle of the night, so I wondered if it was the robins fussing over their eggs hatching.
  The next morning I checked, and there were baby birds instead of eggs. I took a photo a few days later. It's hard to focus because the nest is tucked so tightly under the deck.

  There is a groundhog family living in the woods. And under the deck. And in the backyard. And under the shed. As the summer progresses, we find more holes. I know that groundhogs can create quite a mess, but we think they're fun to have around. It seems that there are three of them, parents and one baby, and that they've created a network of tunnels with entrances over 50 feet apart. I've tried to photograph the groundhogs, but they're skittish. I took a picture of the hole entrance in the woods. I can't believe how much dirt they displaced. It's hard for a picture to show the size of it, but really, it's huge.

Marathon fans

  The runners are in town for Grandma's Marathon, run every year along the scenic North Shore of Lake Superior.
  Every year, I give some thought to going out to cheer them on. Every year, I either forget or won't get out of bed. Every year, I spend the rest of the day feeling like a loser because I can't even get out of bed, yet all these other people are running a marathon. All day, I'll feel like I missed the party.

  This year, we made it to the party. We packed a water bottle, crackers, sunscreen, noise makers, sidewalk chalk, bubbles and a spy glass. We sat ourselves at about Mile 20 and cheered. "Way to go, Pink Shorts!" "Keep it up, Green!" "Good job, No. 5283!"
  A friend of mine who is a runner told me it's good to have a shirt with your name on it because then people will cheer for you. I see that now.

  Because while some people might argue that the day belonged to the winner, No. 6, Lamech Mokono, I would say it belonged to the thousands of people determined enough to try to finish the race. Yesterday, I talked to someone with a lot of running experience about race-fan etiquette. I had never gone to the marathon and wondered whether noise makers and such would be welcome. Would 26 miles of hearing that get annoying? He assured me that any cheering would be appreciated.

  Take Kelly, for example. The people by us were cheering for her, and more than one person named Kelly ran by the "Kelly" sign and smiled. I think next year, we should make signs with names on them, just to cheer people up. Judging by the runners who did have their names on their shirts, I think "Lisa" would be a good name to try.

  Not too far into the race, I looked behind us to see several people wearing Al Franken T-shirts. Then I noticed that one of them was Al Franken. (He recently got the Democratic endorsement in the U.S. Senate race here in the dear state of Minnesota.)
  "Hey!" I said to him. "It's Al Franken!"
  And what did I say next to the man who might become one of the most powerful people in the country?
  "I'm totally taking your picture!"
  I told my son to shake his hand. Gameboy looked at him, confused. I said to Mr. Franken, "Well, sir, are you going to tell him who you are?"
  "I'm running for U.S. Senate," he said.
  He laughed. As he walked away, Gameboy and I had a quick refresher course on the three branches of government.
  "Remember? There's the president. Then there's the Supreme Court. Then there's Congress, the people who make laws.
  Still nothing.
  "This isn't just for the state, honey; it's for the U.S. Senate!"
  Still nothing.
  I conceded. "OK, sure, it would be cooler if he were already in the Senate, but still ..."
  Gameboy just shook his head at me.

  Mr. Franken, the actor and politician, knows how to project his voice well, so if you're wondering, here's what it's like to hear him cheer people on for several hours.

  "Yeah!" Loud, with a little irony.
  "You're gonna finish!"
  "Nice job."
  "Way to go, you guys!"
  "You're gonna make it!"
  If you're walking, you might hear: "I like your strategy!"
  And just one time, he yelled to someone in the middle of the pack, "You can still win this thing!"
  One man ran up to him and said, "Al, I need a favor. Can you meet me at the finish line?"
  After a tiny moment's awkward pause, Mr. Franken said, "I'll try."
  The runner guffawed and yelled, "In about an hour and a half!"
  Psych.

  So Al Franken might have been my celebrity sighting of the day, not even coming close to almost making up for the time I missed George Clooney, but for my children, the celebrity of the day was Barb.

  Barb is the nice woman whose house we happened to sit in front of. Before long, she was letting us use her bathroom, refill our water bottles and help ourselves to the buffet she had set out for her friends. Later, she even brought the food out to the sidewalk for us. The girls ate all her watermelon, and she said they were adorable. "You have the neatest kids!" That's Minnesota Nice, people.

  The kids didn't think watching people run was as fun as I did, but I had a great time. We left by about noon, so anyone running slower than a four-and-a-half-hour race or so missed us and our enthusiastic support.
  As we packed up to go, there seemed to be one thing missing.
  So I ran across the street and got it.

"... but I'd really like to direct."

  My daughter was recently in a weeklong acting class. At the end of the week, the kids performed "Anansi the Spider" stories onstage. My daughter was one of two girls who played Anansi — at the same time. They hooked their arms together and took turns saying lines. With the addition of a stuffed-sock arm on each side, they had eight limbs. It was a nice example of creativity in theater.
  Although they only had a week to prepare, my daughter remembered all her lines, and she said them loudly. It seems quite the success, considering my main hope was that she just get on the stage.
  I thought to write this just now because I overheard her playing with her little sister downstairs, pretending to be animals. She's directing her.
  "Run around! Growl! TERRIFY me!"
  Anytime now, I'm expecting her to ask me how their playing "reads" to the audience. Are these growls terrifying enough?

Cute baby animals invade Valhalla

  Heroscape is a kind of board game in which you build the board from hexagonal plastic tiles and choose an army of figures to place on the battlefield. You roll dice to attack and defend to see whether Kelda the Kyrie Warrior beats the Venoc Vipers or whether the Marro Stingers beat the Roman Archers.
  The text on the game's box describes it like this: "The lush lands of Valhalla have now become a war-torn and desolate ruin. Heroes and warriors from all worlds and times are now ready to wage war in Valhalla, and you have come to lead them. ... Will you be cunning and powerful enough to crush your enemies and claim victory?"

  But be warned. If you leave your Heroscape stuff out where your 3-year-old sister can find it, Valhalla might become populated with pink unicorns and baby polar bears.

  Notice that the shark and hippo are in the water. She's so smart.

Igneous art

  I like going to the rocky beach instead of the sandy beach for a variety of reasons, but one is that the rocks at the rocky beach are fun to look at.
  I have this book, which is a nice guide specific to the North Shore of Lake Superior. It's a small, 40-page paperback, which is a good size if you're hauling stuff and kids with you.



  The book will help you identify rocks, but if you want to create great art like this, you're on your own.

Woman's face

Flower

Dinosaur

  And Cookie's contribution:

Snowman
  (That's the face on top and three snowballs below.)

My new "scrapbook" blog

Funny Homeschool Stuff is a blog I just started. It's a scrapbook of stuff I find on the Internet. I won't post everything I find about homeschooling, just what I think is funny. I'm starting out with three youtube videos, but I'll find other kinds of things, too.

It always seems lazy, a little lame, even, to publish a youtube video on my personal blog. It's not like I wrote and created the thing, after all. However, if the whole purpose of a blog is to do nothing but post other people's work, it's not lame at all!

On the sideline of the stroller parade

  I want to be clear that this isn't something that bothers me so much as befuddles me. Parents face enough judgment from strangers without me jumping into the fray over their strollers.
  Yes, it's strollers that have me scratching my head after attending an annual event that sees lots of kids and parents squeezed into the gymnasium, hallways and cafeteria of a local high school. As we headed for the $1 hot dog lunch, we found ourselves stuck behind a slow-moving stroller parade.

  I want to say again that it didn't annoy me, but it gave me time to observe (and discreetly photograph) how big these strollers are, cumbersome and hard-to-maneuver. It appeared as if the baskets under the strollers were filled, too, with everything the family brought and dumped.
  I am not a Stroller Mom, unless I'm at Mall of America or Disneyworld, where you can tell me it's $15 to rent a double stroller for the day and I don't bat an eye as I charge it to my room. Totally worth it. But usually, it seems like a bigger inconvenience to fold up a stroller, lug it in my trunk, get it out, put all my stuff — and child — in, and spend the rest of the day confined to places where the stroller can go, especially considering that chances are, the child will want to walk, and I'll be stuck pushing an empty stroller.
  I live on a gravel road, so that's part of what shaped my opinion. I have a jogging stroller, which we've used sometimes to go for walks, but that's usually in the evening when we're hoping the kid will fall asleep. Otherwise, I want the kids walking when we go for a walk. And if they're not walking yet, I'll carry them. It's good exercise for me, it's good for the baby to be held, and then there's no stroller to deal with. Isn't carrying a 15-pound baby easier than pushing a 40-pound stroller? I'll admit that I've never done the math, but it seems to me the answer is yes.
  And what about the children in these strollers? Don't they want to run around? They seemed content to sit and observe. I suppose if that's what you're used to, that's what you'll do. Again, though, to compare it with my personal experience, it's hard to understand. If I had taken my kids, at age 2, to a spring carnival, with moon-walk bouncers, a bean-bag toss, balloons, clowns, duck pond, magicians, etc., and strapped them into a stroller, would that have gone well? Well, no. They would have wanted to get out and run around. And why not, I would think; isn't that why we came?

Another woodpecker tree lost

  A storm blew through last night, and it's not uncommon for us to lose a tree or two. This time, I didn't see any down in our yard, but when I went to the street to get the newspaper, I found a tree smashed to pieces, lying across the street. A few cars had driven around it, leaving deep tire marks on the muddy side of the road.
  I dragged as much as I could to the side of the road, then looked at it closer. There was a nest in it, I hope abandoned; there was nesting material, but I didn't see any bird eggs. It seemed to be a woodpecker nest, or maybe a thrasher. The nest area was a couple feet deep, and the hole was two-and-a-half inches wide. I know there are pileated woodpeckers living around here somewhere; I hope this isn't where.



  I brought the kids out to see the nest. I looked a bit on a google search to see what might have been living there, and to my surprise, the first thing to come up was how to get rid of woodpecker nests. I guess people don't want birds messing up their trees. I've never thought of the trees around my house as mine, I guess. They belong to the animals. I just don't want big wasp nests.
  A couple years ago, we had a nest full of baby woodpeckers right in the backyard. It was two full weeks of constant baby-bird noise. The cheeping would get higher in pitch when the parents came by with food. Those were some hardworking parents, bringing food back again and again. And then, the babies must have flown away, because they were all gone. The next year, that tree blew down, too.
  I used to feed the birds. I liked watching them swoop onto the deck and hearing them scold me for getting too close to their food. I thought of it as a nice homeschool activity, too, observing nature. But as the kids started getting bigger and eating more, I had to compare the cost of birdseed with the cost of groceries. I decided to buy the groceries.
  Given that, I especially appreciate the natural habitats around our house. If there were birds living in that nest across the street, I hope they find a new home close to my home.

How vandals learn the alphabet

  My 3-year-old continues to decorate the house in her cute, naughty way. The latest subject was a wooden alphabet puzzle.
  I started to clean it up, then took a picture because it might be good to collect this kind of evidence. "Remember the time...? No? Well, let me show you."
  It cleaned up easily, and I kind of hope she'll do it again. It seems like a good way to learn letters, vandalizing them.
  Last night, we watched the movie Akeelah and the Bee, about a girl who goes to the National Spelling Bee. Part of the story was that she learns spelling better when she's jumping rope. Sometimes I think my youngest child is like that (not the genius speller part, that is, but the jumping-around-while-you-learn-stuff part).

Another time warp has occurred

  The year before my first child was born, I was a volunteer reading buddy at a local elementary school. Once a week during lunch, I would read with a 9-year-old girl. One day, she brought her own book, which she had bought at the school's book fair. It was a biography -- unauthorized, even -- of the band Hanson, comprised of three brothers -- homeschooled, even.
  The book was short, and we got about halfway through it that day. The thing is, she never brought it back. I never got to read the end.
  This created an odd curiosity about the band. I say odd because I had never yet heard their big hit, "MMMbop." I was not in the teenage-hearthrob demographic. I didn't even have a child, but I had a feeling I'd want to homeschool. I kinda wanted to finish the book.

  A couple days ago, I saw on AOL News (screen shot above) that one of the Hansons and his wife had a baby. "Wow," I thought. "I wonder which one." I looked in disbelief when I realized that it was the little one, the one who was about 12 when we were reading that biography, the one my little reading buddy thought was too young to have a crush on; she liked the middle one.
  Wow.
  Again, I find myself with no further point beyond the fact that time flies, and little boys grow up really fast.

The other beach

  I like to take my kids to the part of the lakeshore we call the Rocky Beach. But it's not the only beach in town. There also is the Sandy Beach.
  I don't care for the sandy beach. There are more people. There are biting flies. There is, well, sand.

  But if you go beyond the sandy beach, there is another sandy beach. Just off this beach is a hiking trail and tall, shady trees. My husband is in the picture above, the tiny figure walking on the path. As we walked and I lagged behind enjoying the scenery, it occurred to me that this would be a great location to make a Bigfoot movie.

  Many of my friends say they won't drive as much this summer because of high gas prices. I won't, either, so I'm grateful to have nice places to go so close to home.
  It looks like it's hot out, but it's not. I was concerned that Princess, in the short sleeves, would get cold. She assured me she was fine. (I'm one of those moms who is always cold, incredulous that everyone else isn't.)

  Cookie practiced writing her name in the sand. She blogged about it later.

  Here is the face of a child tired of his mother taking his picture. Too bad, dude!

  We have until late September, I'd say to enjoy bare feet and sunshine. Four months of nice. Four months of gardens. Four months of green.

  The bark of a red pine, the state tree. Welcome to Minnesota, y'all.

Talent show

  My 3-year-old girl has discovered that she can make people laugh hysterically by doing a backward eye cross. I'm not sure what else to call it; it's like she crosses her eyes, but they go out instead of in. I was laughing as I tried to take a picture, and didn't get "the look" at its best, but I think you can still see what I'm talking about.
  I feel compelled to point out that this is the same child:

  This photo was taken at the skating rink, where it was pretty dark except for the disco lights. I like the effect, but that's not the point. My point is that usually, her eyes look just fine.