Friday, November 27, 2009

Bribery

Daughter, arriving at 2am: "Mom, I'm cold."
Daughter in my bed at 3am: "T-e-n spells ten! Hey! Mom! I can spell ten!"
Daughter in my bed at 4am: sits bolt upright, an announces in manner of eureka: "Hey! I can draw fruit!!"
Finally made warm milk for daughter, which worked.
Son, arriving at 6am: "Mom. I'm bored to death."

And this is why they are having a sleepover at grandma's tonight.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Oh Yeah!

Am happily bragging today about my great emailed news from the magazine Appleseeds: my pitch to write a piece on medieval "dirty work" got accepted for one of their upcoming themed issues! Now, how to write a long and interesting piece, and then hack it back into a well- crafted 300 word mini-masterpiece ... I got done with my first example of wonderfully disgusting work and it was already at 344 words, so clearly I should aim for haiku.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Two Year (k-12) Itch

Son, eating breakfast: I'm not going to school today. Yesterday, I quit.
Me: No you didn't.
Son: I... retired?
Me: Nope.
Son: Oh! I dropped out!
Me: NO, YOU DIDN'T.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Week? What week?

We elected to skip: the city trick or treat, the YMCA trick or treat, and the university safe trick or treat this year in honor of "we survived a play and then got fevers so really, we should stay home in the evening" week. We then celebrated birthay number 8 for Son. Guest of honor at the party: a vulture! and an owl, scorpion, snake and hissing cockroach, all from the university's Nature Reach. I do actually feel like a cool mom, having figured out how to work education into a birthday party... and it was the first one the NR had ever done one, too. There, that's my boast for the day!

We spent many hours this weekend selling boyscout popcorn at the supermarket, outdoors. The boys had many, many opportunities to help folks to their cars and return carts!

And then... there was trick or treating. We had a pega-corn (unicorn with wings) which was son's costume when he was 2, but daughter at 5 can squeeze into it like it's an amazing pair of knickerbockers. She complemented the look with stripy tights. Son wore a skeleton costume, and his bag is also a cloth skeleton with legs and head, so he held it up and told everyone it was his kid brother, a pain in the neck. What hams.

Me, to determinedly trudging daughter, on the walk home: Shall we slow down? We're nearly home.
Daughter. Nope. I have GOT to get to bed!