I didn't know she knew that word

  We were driving around town when Princess saw the biography I'm reading about Queen Elizabeth I.
  "You're reading about Elizabeth?" she said. "Why didn't you tell me? She's my hero!"
  That got us talking about the famous English monarch, how she never got married, some of the reasons this might have been, how limited her choices were in whom she could marry. I told Princess about how Elizabeth's sister had married a Spanish prince and it hadn't been a popular or successful union. But getting married was expected of women back then, most especially a queen.
  "People assumed she would get married because they thought ruling a country was too difficult for a woman."
  "Didn't women work back then?" she asked.
  "Yes," I said. "There were maids and store clerks and stuff like that, but women couldn't be things like lawyers or doctors."
  "So," Princess observed, "they could work, but just not at anything that made any money."
  I laughed and told her that was about right.
  She responded: "That's just so ... " (she paused for a moment, searching for the right word) " ... demeaning!"

Mary Travers, rest in peace

  Folk singer Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary died today. I listened to their music when I was a kid, so her death is sad for me. I think of her as someone who did a lot with her life. It makes me feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I have read a few obituaries that describe her as the "sex appeal" of the group. At first this made me mad, but now I'm thinking that would be a pretty cool thing to have in your obituary.

“Up her sleeve” is just an expression here

  Today I was washing dishes when Cookie brought in her plate and cup. She had eaten lunch on the deck and was being very good to remember her dishes.
  "Dat wunch was duh best wunch I ever tasted," she said. "You're duh best cook whose food ... I ever eated!"
  I told her thanks, and that it made me happy for her to say something so nice. Her lunch was fish sticks, cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices, so I wouldn't call it "cooking," but I had prepared it for her.
  As I was glowing in the compliment of my newly-well-behaved 5-year-old, I looked at her plate. She had not eaten the cucumbers.
  "Ah well, that's OK," I thought.
  Later, I went outside and saw her tomatoes sitting there. Hmmm.
  So now I'm left to wonder: Did she really like her lunch? Did she innocently believe she had eaten her food, or was she playing me? Has she learned that fussing about her food is the surest way of being told to eat more? Is she a magician, throwing compliments with the wave of a hand so I won't see the food up her sleeve?

Cookie is in kindergarten

  The public schools in my district started the year today. It's the first day of school! We don't follow a school-year schedule, preferring to learn stuff as it comes up and take breaks when we're tired. I bought a school record-keeper from a dollar bin and realized later it doesn't include weekends. I'll just write all that stuff down on Fridays, I guess.
  So even though the day might not hold the same meaning for me as most people, I did take a picture today of Cookie, our new kindergartner.

  Cookie accompanied me to the zoo because her big sister had a class there. We said good-bye to Princess, and I hoped we could keep busy for two hours. (Not really possible at our local zoo, I'm afraid. An hour-and-a-half is a stretch.)

  It's nice sometimes to do something like this with just one of the kids, to be able to pay attention to all the little things they notice. And all the big things: "Dat beawr is scawwry!" (Again, I'm thinking of the escaped-zoo-animal plan.)

  Her wingspan matches the great horned owl.

  She brought her "school book" and worked on letters at the start of words.

  Gameboy was around, too, on this first day of school, but he couldn't take his nose out of his book for a picture. His dad is on vacation from work, so they went to the library.

She's still our favorite ref

  Here's Princess playing as goalie in a recent soccer game. The game was a good example of how homeschoolers we know show up in unexpected places.

  Unfortunately, knowing the referee didn't result in us winning the game. Dang!

Extreme drive to the middle of nowhere

  The TV crew from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" was in my part of the country recently. I heard this house will be the two-hour season premiere on Sunday, Sept. 27. It's an eco-friendly house, well insulated with its own windmill, that kind of stuff.

  As we approached the house, it was clear the producers were ready for a crowd. There were a motor home parking lot, a spectator parking lot, numerous tents surrounding the house. The family owns acres and acres of flat land around their house, which seemed to have influenced the choice to pick this house. I don't understand how they'd manage in cramped quarters.

  The parking lot reminded me on the Renaissance Festival, parking on the grassy field. Volunteers pointed our way. Temporary fencing corralled us.

  We passed what we imagined will be the kids' new playset.
  The house was about half done. Rumor had it that after they taped the big "move that bus" scene, the family had to go live in a hotel because the house wasn't really done.

  We didn't see any famous faces, but a dump truck unloaded a bunch of rocks. That was the most exciting thing to happen.

  There were a lot of volunteers standing around.

  The bloodmobile was there, along with its blood-drop mascot. I had recently discovered I'm anemic again, so I did not donate blood.

  As we were driving away, Princess saw one of the show's designers (I think she said it was Michael) driving toward the house, his car full of children's costumes. She didn't mention it in time for me to see him or take a picture, so we'll see if it's on when the show airs. I'm always at work on Sunday nights, but my husband and kids enjoy watching this program together.

  The kicker of this 30-mile drive into Wisconsin was that we passed a really cool playground. It has a dinosaur stairway!

  We stayed and played for more than an hour. They liked the slide with a skylight.

  And the bouncy airplane.

Question authority but teach respect

  President Obama will be welcoming the nation's children back to school next week. You can watch it live Tuesday, Sept. 8, at noon Eastern Time on the White House website. (We'll need to watch it later; the live broadcast conflicts with Princess' class at the zoo.)
  Would we watch it if the speech were being given by President Bush? Yes, of course. The president is the president, whether you agree with his policies or not. And I hope that parents teach their children that on the one hand, the president is our leader and deserves respect, but on the other hand, the president is just a person, he or she answer to you, the citizens of the country, and if you disagree with his policies, you should work hard against what the administration is trying to accomplish.
  But you shouldn't disrespect the person. That just reflects badly on yourself.
  So, you can imagine that I don't understand the uproar over President Obama's address. In case you missed it, there's uproar. Some people don't want their children exposed to someone else's ideas at school. Excuse me? Isn't that what school is?
  I could understand this attitude coming from some of the conservative homeschoolers I know. Their entire motivation for homeschooling is to keep their children safe from anti-Christian ideas. This is not my motivation for homeschooling, but I think I understand their choice and respect it as a freedom-of-religion issue.
  But if you're already sending your kids to school, I hope you've talked to them about how, although they need to respect their teachers, they don't need to always agree with what they're being taught. It's OK to question things and think for yourself. It's the same thing with the president's speech.
  So frankly, I'm embarrassed for the people who are trying to turn this into some big deal. It smells of desperation.

Fair photos

  This year for the county fair, Gameboy went nuts with my digital camera. A lot of kids did the same, as shown by the large number of entries this year in the photography categories. I think it's great that digital cameras have made it so much cheaper for kids to do this. When I was a kid, of course, you had to buy the film and process it all. Now we upload what we want on shutterfly and buy prints for a dollar or two each. This photo of a deer in our yard was in the category "color animal, wild."

  Here's a shot of our cats, in the "black-and-white animal, domestic" category.

  Here's Cookie, holding one of her own fair entries. The photo was in the "color portrait, child" category. Her drawing was in the oil pastel category, and I named it "Abstract" for her. I don't want to ask, "And what is it?"
  I like how her drawing is messy and her hair is messy. I like the light, too. I told Gameboy it's nice to have a picture of what she really looks like, and not all dressed up to go to a portrait studio. He liked that.

  I can't believe this one didn't win a pink or purple ribbon. I mean, it has an American flag in it, for cripes' sake! The county fair people love flags! I told gameboy it might be because we entered it in the "color flowers" category, and the focus isn't really on the flowers.

  Here's one of the cats in the category "color animal, domestic." He caught her tongue out as she was drinking some water. I also like how her whiskers contrast with the water bowl.
  Gameboy is excited to try more photography. Maybe we'll look for some other contests. I already had a bad taste in my mouth over the whole paint-by-number thing, and then I saw the feedback on his photos.
  In the rule book, and you know I'm all about the rule book, it states that "photos must be framed; matting encouraged." So, I spent about $90 on frames and mats to enter his 10 pictures. I told him that we'd save the frames to enter pictures in future years, but now more than half of them are hanging in my house.
  The feedback from the judges, which is given on photographs but not artwork, was the same on every photo: "Double matting would improve presentation."
  "Double matting?" I exclaimed.
  I complained to my husband.
  "Well," he unhelpfully offered, "double matting does look nicer."
  "What is this?" I replied, "A children's photo contest, or a matting contest?"
  "Well," he offered, "you could try double matting next year."
  "Oh, we're totally double matting," I said. "We're triple matting. Quadruple! We'll have six mats!"
  He was amused and confused. As I've explained, he doesn't get the county fair like I do. Though I'm sure he'd say he does.