Science!

Michael rushed to meet me at the door today. He could not wait to tell me that he had memorized the first 14 elements of the periodic table. I did not know that he knew about the periodic table. But whatever, no time for questions, because he proceeded to recite the first 14 elements. He did not have them down pat. But close. And (get this), he even looked up pronunciation of the elements he was unsure of on his iPad. Wow. When he gave me the chance, I asked if he is studying chemistry in school. "No. I got the book from the library." Okay. He then started telling me facts about different elements. For example, the atomic weight of hydrogen (or maybe helium), the fact that many elements are formed from bombarding one element with nuclei or atoms of another element, that Einstein has an element named after him, that a certain element, if cut up into very small pieces, will combust if it comes into contact with oxygen, etc. He sat down with his book on the elements and kept reading and offering little bits of information. It was great. Will Michael's new-found interest in chemistry be lasting? Obviously I do not know. But either way, it is fun for now.

If Wishes Were Horses

Although I think both boys do actually enjoy school, they never seem to want to go. Neither resists it, but Sunday evenings usually contain at least one plaintive,"I wish it were Friday evening." Spencer needs variety though. He does not want to make the same boring old wish each week. Recently he has tried out, "I wish it were Friday evening every day." That did not satisfy Spencer though (and I do not think it was because of the paradoxical "evening every day" issue), so he set off in an entirely new direction, "I wish we won the lottery." Spencer seemed to think that great wealth would mean no school. I told him that winning the lottery would not in fact excuse him from attending school. He let that soak in for the next couple hours. Until bedtime. As I was tucking him in, he said "I wish we won the lottery and Michael and I were done with college, and we still lived here together with you and Jon. Then we could all hang out together and just relax." I would like that too. The days do get busy and hectic sometimes. I love the time on the weekends when we all get together on the couch with popcorn and watch a movie and just relax. I am glad that Michael and Spencer enjoy these times together right now too.

Autumn Leaves

Apple Orchard 2011

No Offense

One day over the summer, Spencer sat down next to me and said, "no offense but your legs are fat." If that was not bad enough, he followed that lovely comment with, "no offense but your neck has a lot of wrinkles." I explained (or, attempted to explain) to Spencer that the fact that he prefaces a comment with "no offense" does not guarantee that the person he is criticizing will not feel bad or offended.

Fast forward three months, in the morning, before school. As the boys are walking out of the house, I asked them to wait so that I could check my hair. Spencer responded, "you look beautiful," slight pause, then "...sort of." Michael, who always wants to make sure that nobody feels bad, countered with, "you look more beautiful than a supermodel." Obviously Michael's comment was way over the top, but it was sweet of him and I appreciated it. If the conversation had ended there, I likely would have forgotten all about it, but it did not end there. Spencer reproached Michael with, "don't say that to Mom. That's not true."

He did not add "no offense."

First Day of School 2011

Everybody at our house wished that summer could stretch on indefinitely. Needless to say, it did not. However, the boys rallied on the first day of school and seemed genuinely excited as we set off in the morning.

Spencer is in third grade. He is taking the bus to school this year.

Michael is in fifth grade. He is also taking the bus. He was much happier than he looks in this picture

Chicago 2011

We took a family trip to Chicago this summer instead of our usual lake/cabin vacation. We stayed downtown near Millennium Park. The highlights from the trip included a trip to the top of Sears (now Willis) Tower, an architectural cruise on the Chicago River and into Lake Michigan, and visits to the Field Museum, the Chicago Art Museum and the Science and Technology Museum. The boys really enjoyed all of the sight-seeing. On the last day of the trip we watched part of a movie being filmed. It was a scene involving a big pane of glass breaking on a car. The movie's name (at least the working title for now) is Powerman.

Spring Break 2011

Jon and I took Michael and Spencer to Florida for Spring Break. Spencer had an assignment for class to keep a journal during the trip. His teacher expected the finished journal to be 70-100 words. Spencer likes to exceed (sometimes far exceed) his teacher's expectations (and rightly so I think). Spencer's completed journal was over 1000 words. He may be a (tiny) bit of a showoff, right? Spencer began his journal while on the plane down to Florida. He noted what time we left the house, what time we got to the airport, what time we boarded the plane, etc. This practice of documenting the particulars of our days continued for the first three days of our vacation. Spencer noted what we ate at each meal and what activities we engaged in during the day. I suggested to Spencer that he should include his impressions of our activities, what he enjoyed particularly in a given day, etc. I read over what he wrote the next day. He interpreted what I said as a suggestion to add adjectives to his account of what we did. So, instead of "we ate hamburgers for dinner," Spencer wrote, "we ate yummy hamburgers for dinner." He also wrote, "we ate cool cereal for breakfast." In addition, after Nichole's family joined us at the house, and we dragged four beds into one room for the five boys, he wrote, "we went to sleep very snug." The journal was a very good account of what we did. I would like to include it here, but unfortunately it is currently with Spencer's teacher. The boys and I flew down to Florida on our own because Jon was on a business trip. Jon met us in Florida later on the first day. I mention this fact not because it was difficult to travel with the boys alone, but because both boys were very concerned with the timing and schedules of the airplane departure, the taxi and the water taxi. I attribute this to the fact that they do not trust my abilities with regard to travel. As evidence of this assertion, before we left the house, Michael started plotting the timeline. He needed to know what time we had to be to the airport. From that he determined what time we should leave my mom's house (we were dropping Luka with her) to get to the airport and thus what time we needed to leave our house to get to my mom's house. At the airport, both boys were concerned with how long it would take to check our bags, and how long it would take to get through security (although both lines were short and we were at the gate early). Their concern continued while waiting for our luggage ("what time are we supposed to be at the taxi?") and while on the taxi ("what time are we supposed to meet the water taxi?" and "how much longer until we get there?"). Are they nervous travelers or don't they trust me to get us where we are going? The house we rented was very nice. It was bright and sunny inside and had numerous patios and decks for reading and/or enjoying the warm, sunny days. We spent most of our time on the beach and at the pool. We also enjoyed taking short, golf cart excursions to the ice cream shop. We spent an hour or two each morning looking for shells on the beach. We ended up bringing home a lot of shells. Last night Michael suggested that we should give shells to various people. He is concerned that our family and friends will feel sad if we do not give them some of our sea shells. Perhaps he is right. Interestingly (at least to me), after a few days of collecting sea shells, we began to learn the names of the various shells we would find. This was largely due to a poster in the house that showed names and pictures of common Florida shells. The boys assigned different characters to different shells. for example, spiny jewel boxes are warriors, lightning whelks are horses, calico scallops are dwarves, and olive shells are wizards. There were half a dozen others, but unfortunately I cannot recall any more. Michael did write up a cheat sheet (because that is how he rolls), but (sadly) I am unble to locate it.

We saw a great deal of wild life in Florida. I have included pictures of a number of animals that we encountered. We saw dolphins on three separate days. One day, a large group (or pod) of dolphins swam back and forth in front of the beach for quite a while. It was fun to watch. We saw a number of animals on a sunset cruise. Unfortunately I neglected to bring my camera along with me on the cruise so we have no pictures of those creatures. The boat stopped and gathered up a starfish and a giant conch, both of which we were able to hold. We also saw skip jacks (which are fish). A small shark swam past the boat and later we saw a manatee (or, more accurately, the nose of a manatee). Finally, we saw a lovely sun set.

In addition to collecting shells, we enjoyed making sand castles on the beach. The boys and I thought this was great fun. This fact is clear (I suspect) from the number of pictures of sand castles that I have included. Note: there are at least a dozen more pictures of sand castles which I have not included. We typically built one big castle with a large wall protecting it from the waves and then constructed other buildings which we would connect to the main castle. As each new building was added, or when a structure was improved, the boys would ask me to take new pictures. The boys took a lot of pride in what they built. Given the amount of time they spent and the effort they expended, I believe their pride was well placed.

One morning we went kayaking on the ocean. I enjoyed it very much. I would like to spend more time with the boys and Jon hiking or canoeing or kayaking. The boys enjoyed it as well, although they did not like the water dripping on top of their heads and backs as we paddled. Wimps! As mentioned earlier, Nichole and Andy and their three boys joined us for the last four days of our vacation. It was great spending that time together. All five boys played very well together and seemed to like running around the house, playing hide and seek, looking for lizards and swimming in the pools, as well as taking nightly trips for candy bars and snacks (bugles were the hands down favorites). I also learned that Sponge Bob Square Pants in on the tv 24 hours a day. Nobody shall convince me otherwise, even if they have a tv guide in hand.

The boys enjoyed our vacation very much. The weather was perfect - warm and sunny. The trip was relaxing for Jon and for me. All was good. And continues to be so.