I started a Latin course from The Great Courses last night. I want to be able to read St. Jerome’s Vulgate. I’m too tired to tell you why … because I spent today playing paintball with my 12-year-old son at (shouted in over-the-top monster-truck-show voice) XTREME PAINTBALL!!! This place was really cool. It has six different fields of varying terrain (including hills and woods) and lots of hiding places. They […]
I recently discovered that Netflix offers instant streaming of one of my favorite childhood movies: The Incredible Shrinking Woman. So of course I had to watch it with my kids. The boy was deeply skeptical; he had recently watched Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and complained that he was tired of movies where people shrink. I explained to him that this “new” movie was an entirely different animal. It does […]
Have you ever played Brain Quest? It’s a game that contains a series of cards hinged on one corner. Each card contains questions to challenge a child’s skills and knowledge in spelling, math, geography and general knowledge. My 7-year-old and I had a great time playing with these cards tonight out on the patio. She was cracking herself and me up. I wasn’t always sure when she was serious and […]
The ball of fur I adopted from the animal shelter decided it would be a good idea to wriggle her way through a wrought iron safety rail and jump four feet down onto a pile of river rocks in my back yard. She did not break any bones, but she did some damage to the spay the animal shelter had performed just five days earlier. Consequently, her parental unit had […]
Our first grader lost another tooth and found a new hobby. She is sending increasingly detailed questionnaires to the tooth fairy. Here are the questions and answers. Just so you know, I am not the tooth fairy. He is much funnier than I am.
I have a new toddler wandering around my house, putting her mouth on things it shouldn’t be on, whether it’s electrical cords, baseboards, or shoes, and struggling to discern the difference between my carpet and a toilet. Her name is Joanie. We picked her up from Town Lake Animal Shelter on Tuesday afternoon. She is named for another beautiful redhead, Miss Joan Holloway of Sterling Cooper. She’s darling, and a […]
My baby left a survey for the tooth fairy under her pillow tonight. I transcribe it below: Dear tot- h fairy are you real, _____ “I hope so,” be cause It too- k a long time… For tha- t toth to come out. sign in your na- me ______ What Do you Do with your th- eth. ______ ______ ______ I hope you Do not eat them!… thank you for […]
My parents were in Antarctica last week. At first I thought Dad was reliving the ’60s while Mom waved hello, but then I realized they’re making the number 7, as in seven continents now visited. Check out the penguins behind them! The fuzzy ones are babies. Mom says the weather was sunny, with temperatures hitting the 30’s. It’s summer there. I went outside this morning in Austin, Texas to this: […]
Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? ‘Cause I haven’t. But I did find this gem of a book today as I was cleaning up. It’s called The Big Caring Book and Daisies Too and Missions and Chores. Only it actually reads, The Big Caring Boog and Dasys to and mishons and chors, because my 6-year-old is its author. My favorite part was about Missions and Chores. Here is the […]
My kids wrote their letters to Santa weeks ago. For my six-year-old, it was a simple matter of sitting in front of the TV for half an hour and writing down the items that appeared in the commercials. This she did in checklist form: Then she wrote the letter itself: A couple of weeks ago she came home from school and said, “Mama, Anushka says there’s no such thing as […]
Flabby Brain 