my favorite place

I took the kids to the Science Museum today. Roen was excited and said, "Oh, the science museum is my favorite place.
Simone said, "My favorite place is Mommy cuz she's my best friend Greta." Sometimes, my daughter is just so sweet. Lately, she's been telling me that she's going to be just like me when she grows up. I write these things down so I can look back on this in 13 years when she hates me and cringes at the thought of even being related.

Sim has adopted another cute saying that I just love. When I get her ready for bed, she says, "Are you making me nice and cozy!" I think it just sounds so wonderful to think of bedtime that way.

I'm glad that Sim has been nice this week because some week's she is really tough. Also, Ro has been driving me nuts about having short hair. He's kind of bugged out that I have short hair and yet I'm NOT a boy. How can this be? We've had lots of discussions and the dilemma remains unresolved in his mind. There's a dearth of short haired mommies in the world.

In other news, Ro is adapting to school and learned two new phrases which he uses liberally.
1. Kind of but not really
2. Gross!

Fall

Autumn is setting in and I'm excited. It's my favorite season. So, we went on a nature walk yesterday. We saw four deer and many Canada geese, squirrels and chipmunks. We spent awhile playing with a grasshopper, which gave Simone many happy squeals of delight. We also saw Monarchs, crickets and bees and threw leaves into a marsh. I was especially happy to find the crickets because I've been trying to explain the chirping sounds they can make but I've been unable to actually find a cricket to show them.

At home, my gardens are mostly dying. The sunflowers are heavy and bent over and look rather like a showerhead. Some of my sunflower heads are the size of a dinner plate, huge and very heavy. Simone liked to stand under the sunflowers and squeal, "Shower! Shower!" and then I vigorously rub all the stamens off and they fall all over her.

Ro is already asking how much longer until we get some snow. I think winter is definitely his favorite season. He'll get his wish soon enough as fall always seems to short too me.

A pox on you - or maybe a goose bump.

Ro has been randomly anouncing that he has chicken pox for the last few weeks. I think he first heard the term back in March when I got Shingles (Chicken Pox redux) and has ever since confused it with getting goose bumps. He's been bothered by goose bumps for quite awhile now too. Whenever he got goose bumps, he used to say, "Oh no! My hair is growing!" and then have a sort of mild freak out.

You can tell when Ro gets goose bumps because he stops whatever he is doing and just stares at his arm or the affected area. Instead on commenting on hair growth, he says, "Oh no! I have chicken pox!" It's fun when he announces it in public because everyone within earshot suddenly turns to stare at us. Having an audience makes me want to say, "Oh no honey that's not chicken pox. It's the Bubonic Plague." But, I just assure him it's only goose bumps.

Off to Kindergarten

Big Yellow, originally uploaded by skweerell.

Ro had his first day of kindergarten on Friday. He had a practice day last Wednesday but Friday was the first real day where he took the big, yellow bus both ways. So far, it's going well.

I was quite surprised when he suddenly got a lot more opinionated on Friday morning. He didn't want to wear the clothes I picked out at all. He picked out his own outfit. He also didn't want the snack that I picked out. He picked out a different one. Ro usually doesn't have an opinion about clothes.

I had a meeting at the school Friday so I got to sneak a peek at Ro running around on the playground with some other boys. When he got home I asked him what the boys names were and he didn't know. He frequently identifies kids by their shirt color and today was no different. He said, "I played with the boy with a red shirt and a boy with a black shirt."

His teacher is doing some fun things with them. They made gingerbread men today and the teacher put them in the oven - but then they disappeared. They ran away apparently but the left a message in the oven and small brown footprints in the classroom but Roen doesn't know where they went. He was so excited by the whole idea that he didn't even eat snack at school today during choice time. He used his free time to scour the classroom for the gingerbread men with no success. The message said they're in the Main Office and they'll come back soon or something.

I have to say, it's so nice to have Ro tell me about school. Last year, he would only say "It's fine." Or, just tell me that he didn't want to talk about it. Now, he wants to talk all the time.

Weird Kid Things

campfire, originally uploaded by skweerell.

I've been tagged twice now, so I'll make one list for each kid but I won't be able to continue the tagging because I really suck at having a blog since having a second child. I never know if I'm going to blog again tomorrow or next month.

Five weird Roen things

Roen has been spending a lot of time under our couches. This morning, I got up and went down stairs. The living room was silent. Then, a small storm trooper marched out from under the couch and asked me if I wanted to go hunt for bad robots with him.

Ro also spends considerable amounts of time camping in his room. He sets up a tent and lots of blankets and everyone joins in, cars, robots, Mario, bionicle creatures, etc. The camp fire is my old paper star light pictured above. Ro especially likes to employ his light sabre for roasting marshmellows over it.

I told Roen that Daddy was going to mow our rather overgrown lawn. He was appalled. "Oh no! What about all the flowers?", says he. Then, he runs around and picks all the dandelions he can and then forgets about them five minutes later leaving them to wither on the driveway. I'm not sure how he perceives this as saving them.

Ro sometimes has absurd excuses for not wanting to play with friends, do his house jobs, or go to bed. The other day, he told a friend that wanted to play, "I'm too busy! I'm waiting for a magazine to come in the mail." It has that sort of "busy washing my hair" quality to it already and he's not even a teenager.

We have a betta fish named Jimmy. Ro makes up long drawn out fish songs and sings them to the fish. He wants me to do it too. I sing a Twinkle Twinkle little star version. "Twinkle Twinkle little fish. How you sparkle in your dish." etc. He accepts it but is now pressuring me for other remakes like Itsy Bitsy Fish, which will require more thought.

Five weird Simone things

Sim was strangely shuffling down the hall with her little barefeet. I realized she was trying to walk while standing on puzzle pieces, so I asked her what she was doing. She hopped off the pieces and said, "My footprints!" I thought that was clever.

Simone's best "keep busy" hobby is peeling the paper off of crayons. In restaurants, she colors with crayons for about 30 seconds before asking to "Tear Paper! Tear Paper!"

Sim frequently walks around the house with a bucket over her head.

Simone's favorite game is called Squish the Cake. I fluff up our down comforter into a billowy puffy cake and then pretend to be a baker trying to keep her from squishing the cake (i.e. belly flopping on the cake). She can do this for ages.

When Sim sees anything Christmasy, such as Santa, Rudolph, a Christmas tree, she asks, "Is this jingle bells?" I kind of like it. I might tell everyone Happy Jingle Bells this year.

a worker no more

Grandma and Grandpa are putting in a new hardwood floor. Ro went for a visit mid-project and got to play with the wood and move it around on the floor, etc. He went on and on about how he was going to be a worker when he grew up and build lots of things. Then, he got a splinter. Cue: Hysteria

Afterwards, he told Grandma and Grandma he didn't want to be a worker anymore and he was really upset because he didn't know what he wanted to do when he grew up anymore. He switched to train driver for about a week and now he wants to be a race car driver because "being a worker is too dangerous." A complete career change from a splinter. I told him being a race car driver is dangerous too but he assures me that he can be fast and careful.