Zoo in a Jar

Earlier this week I mentioned Marge’s pet spider . . . well, she still has the body of that poor arachnid in her jar, and she’s added an entire menagerie of six-legged friends. The past three days she’s scoured the house for Asian “ladybug” beetles and drops any she finds into her jar. Some of them even make it there alive. There’s another unidentified beetle hanging out there as well. I’m a little concerned what things Margie will discover as spring draws near and insects start hatching. Please, no June Bugs!

“Mom, my animals is soooo happy in here!”

Dog Police

You gotta love living in a small town, especially when you can read stuff like this in the newspaper every week:

• 7:04 a.m. Two stray dogs are running on East Freeman Street. Officer en route.
• 8:45 a.m. Caller’s dog named Lucky is missing. Advised her of above strays.
• 10:10 a.m. Lucky returned home with dog friend. Caller will bring dog friend to Police Department.
• 2:10 p.m. Man reports that his dog is missing. Told him dog matches description of Lucky’s friend.
• 3:16 p.m. Must be spring because two dogs are making nooky in alley behind Stout Street. Officer advised.

My all-time absolute favorite appeared in the paper last fall. I clipped it out and use it for a bookmarker:

• 1:45 p.m. Gas station has brown dog in custody. Officer picking up dog.
• 1:51 p.m. Officer is at residence where brown dog told him he lived.
• 1:53 p.m. Brown dog lied. Officer and dog en route to Police Department.

If you’re an officer covering calls like this do you find yourself depressed or just plain laughing yourself silly?

Screamy Day

Something bit Junior in the shorts this morning, because he’s been crabbing at me most of the day. He had four screaming fits before 1:00 this afternoon, compared to his usual two or three per day. If only he could tell me . . .

Looking out on our backyard I see NO SNOW! OK, if the opposite bank of the river wasn’t obscured by fog I’d probably see a snowbank or two over there, but it’s not on our property. We’ve successfully banished snow from our property. Spring is threatening to take over. I know, I know, don’t get my hopes up.

This morning while Junior lay on the changing table, Marge walked over and pulled one of his socks off. She kissed his toe and said, “There, I kiss him on the toe so he won’t lie to me anymore.” Then later this morning she informed me, “Mom, I burst some of your bubbles.” Ain’t that the truth.

Two Pictures

Today I’m just posting a couple pictures.

When Twiggy visited yesterday, Baba spent some time reading to her. See, they’re not crazy all of the time:

Baba finally decided which instrument to buy with the money he’s been saving for the past few months. We found a child-sized guitar at Target last night, and he’s been serenading us this morning. He asked to play lullabies for Junior this morning, and later I heard him playing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” with Margie singing along:

Whistler’s Mother

Twiggy and Daisy are visiting today while their mom shops for groceries, so I’m trying to write in between trips upstairs to ensure no one kills or maims anyone else.

Today you may call me Whistler’s Mother. Yes, Baba learned to whistle over the weekend! This morning while he babysat Junior he whistled him to sleep with tunes from Mr. Rogers, and he’s treated us to a concert most of the morning. I imagine he’ll be wanting a dog soon; after all, any boy who proves he can whistle ought to have a dog!

Speaking of pets, Marge has an interesting one. Yesterday morning she came to me with something pinched between her fingers saying, “Mom, look at this crab!” I nodded and brushed her off, thinking she’d found another Asian “ladybug,” until I saw eight rather long ugly legs dangling underneath her index finger. Marge’s “crab” turned out to be a rather large spider. She begged to keep it, so I found a jar for her and she dropped the hapless creature inside. Having been pinched between a toddler’s vice-like fingers for several minutes, by that time the spider seemed to have given up the will to survive; however, Marge blithely replaced the cap and carried the jar around while the rest of us prepared for church. During church she gave us a surprise by pulling the jar out of her backpack and settling her pet onto her lap–apparently she sneaked the jar into the backpack at home while Mommy and Daddy were preoccupied with her little brother.

Baba just stormed down the stairs crying, “Mom, good news! Twiggy just whistled by herself! I taught her.” Now he’s back upstairs trying to teach sign language to the youngers.

Learning the Alphabet

Lately I’ve noticed that Marge is starting to pick up on letters of the alphabet. She’s known “T” for quite awhile, it being the first letter of her name, and now recently she’s picked out “E” because it’s the first letter of her brother’s name. It’s time for Marge to start learning the alphabet!

In my opinion, the best way for a child Margie’s age to learn new concepts is through frequent exposure throughout a normal day. This corresponds with the Grammar stage of the classical model of education–the soaking up of knowledge that all young children do (for more information about this idea, read The Trivium in a Capsule, an article by Harvey & Laurie Bluedorn). As the mother/teacher, my job is to guide the soaking so that Marge heads in a direction that will lead to skills useful for God’s kingdom.

How does this high-falutin’ idea translate into teaching the alphabet? Instead of setting aside time every day for “preschool,” I’ve printed out letter posters from Jan Brett’s website and will be posting them around the house in places Marge frequents (like the kitchen and the bathroom). During the day I will talk to her about the letter in question, pointing out words that begin with the letter and repeating the sound(s) it makes. Appropriately, we’ll begin on Monday with the letter “A”.

Easter Egging

Yesterday morning I had a brainstorm idea–invite my sisters and nieces over for an Easter Egg Coloring Party. Here are the results:

Everyone arrived for the party around 10:30 this morning (cousin Heidi came along to lend much needed and appreciated help). This month’s Family Fun magazine included ideas for dying eggs, so we tried a couple of new techniques. To produce marbleized eggs we dropped a tablespoon of oil into the dye cups before placing the eggs in (the idea being that the oil would stick to some parts of the egg and prevent color from adhering–results were so-so). We wrapped some of the eggs in rubber bands before dropping them into the dye, and this worked fairly well as long as we were patient enough to let the eggs dry before removing the rubber bands.

After finishing the eggs we ate homemade pizza for lunch and then went to DQ for treats, compliments of Papa and Mimi.

No word yet on whether the kids got more dye on the eggs or on their hands.

Future Lawyer

Overheard while Baba and Marge played with blocks:

Baba: Marge, may I have one of your orange blocks?
Marge: No.
Baba: Please, Marge, you need to share!
Marge: No.
[pause of about two minutes]
Baba: Marge, I’ll trade you one of my orange blocks for two of yours.
Marge: Sure! [trade is made]

I’m afraid we have a future lawyer here.

Babysitter For Hire

Babysitter For Hire:

Yeah, I know he’s a little young, but it’s a shame to waste this kind of talent.

Math Problems

This is a message for my dear husband:

The squirrel fell from the tree.

For the rest of you: this may or may not mean we’re ready to take over the world. You’ll just have to wonder. Bwaaaa, haaaa, haaa, haaaaa!

Back to our regularly scheduled cartoon . . .

In math Baba is working on addition +1. He learned the concept well in his Primer book, and he has the +1 facts memorized. However, he’s been stumbling a bit on the word problems at the end of each lessons. For instance, I gave him the following problem today:

“Jenna has 5 CD’s in her collections. Lauren’s CD collection is one greater than Jenna’s. How many CD’s does Lauren have?”

He accurately wrote “5+1″ to correspond with the first half of the problem, but he insisted the answer was zero. Had I written “5+1″ on a sheet of paper he would have easily written “6″ as the answer because he knows “5+1=6″. But for some reason when the equation is connected to a word problem, everything he knows leaks out of his ears.

The good news is that he has at least fifteen years before anyone will expect him to make a major contribution to the workforce. I have time.