October 18
Well, Halloween is a'comin, and we finally have all our ducks in a row. All I have left to do is put the star on my magic wand and hem Jake's dragon pants. Sadie's all set to be Chicken Little, Jake's thrilled to pieces with his red dragon costume, and I have all the pieces to the Fairy GodMama costume which will likely be my Halloween mainstay for the next several years. Steve? Well, I have a feeling he will put on his Cowboys jersey and be happiest handing out the candy. Last year we had some father trolling the neighborhood with his kids, and he was dressed in full Batman gear -- what fun! Jake is very excited about this, and as an added bonus, one of his classmates has a birthday party the day before which of course will be Halloween themed. Then there's the day at school with the costume parade, and then the evening events cuminating the whole shebang. The cats are the only ones who hate Halloween around here, because the damn doorbell rings all night and they freak out and run down the cellar stairs every time.
Read a couple of fantastic books this past weekend. Caroline Cooney's The Girl Who Invented Romance was funny! Girl trying to figure out the difference between love and romance builds a board game around that question and uses it as a project in her sociology class. Lots of fun, and she learns a lot watching the situations around her with family and friends. The board game is included in the back of the book -- we are laminating it this week and we'll be playing it in the media center soon. Twilight was another romance -- wonderful and unexpected. It's a high school romance/vampire/suspense story, and doesn't fit neatly into any box you try to shove it in! Great for my 8th grade girls -- excellent writing and plotting, and it's CLEAN! Unusual as most writers who are trying for a little edginess tend to throw at least one fairly graphic sex scene in for that purpose, and it doesn't always work. This works on so many levels -- I want to ditch everything and read it again!
The Radioactive Boy Scout was good too. Heavy on the science material, but that's necessary to understand how a kid with a Boy Scout Handbook and a 1950's era Golden Book of Chemistry could attempt to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard and have to have the EPA come do a fullscale cleanup. I just HAD to find out what in the world he read that made him think he could pull that off -- and how he got hold of radioactive stuff to boot. I ended the weekend with another Caroline Cooney book, her new one, Code Orange. High school procrastinator tries to pull together 10 pages of notes on a biology project on a virus, using old books his decorator mother bought from a doctor's estate, and winds up exposing himself to smallpox via some old powdery scabs in an envelope from the 1918 smallpox epidemic in Boston. Are they still viable? How can he tell? Now he HAS to do his research in order to figure out if he's going to die or not ... and in posting some of his information online he becomes a target for terrorists who see his potential as a biological weapon of mass destruction. Whew! What a ride!
It finally stopped raining here and Noah didn't show up, but the town got worried enough about the dams on the Byram River to call the state in the middle of the night last week, so we DID get a lot of rain (12 1/2 inches) and it did make things dicey here and there. The weather is now much better, the kids have been outside playing every day and wearing themselves out, and it looks like it will be dry for a while now. Can't believe we have ANOTHER hurricane brewing (Wilma). Enough already! At least it doesn't appear that it will head for the upper Gulf Coast (yet).
Powerball is tomorrow night, and there are lines all over Greenwich with people from all over making stops to buy their tickets for the 340 millionish jackpot. I'm going to ask Steve to go buy a couple quick picks tomorrow just for fun, as there probably won't be lines up in Danbury like there are here. Wish us luck! Maybe if we win a little we can afford chairs to go with the dining room table we ordered last weekend!! :)
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Mama Ball Says
Had Open House for the 7th and 8th grade parents tonight. I think it went very well overall, but it was a pain in the neck late this afternoon because we couldn't begin the presentation setups for the teams until after all the kids had left, and then I had to leave to go pick up my munchkins. I think I have just been getting too tired lately and I can't seem to catch up -- feel like I'm constantly playing catchup which is irritating. I don't mind doing that occasionally but on a constant basis it is pretty wearing. I decided tonight that I am going to start having "Guilt-free No Days" where I say no to everything until I have caught up on what I already have on my plate. Tomorrow should be a good starting off point for that.
Jake finally decided on his Halloween costume this weekend ( a dragon) and we found two on ebay: a red one and a green one. He liked the red one (his favorite color), so we bid on that one and won it. He was thrilled to pieces! So we are all literary characters for Halloween this year: Sadie is going as Chicken Little, Jake will be the dragon Thorn (from the cover of Christopher Paolini's newest book, Eldest), and I get to be the Fairy GodMama. I decided that this year I was going to put together a really fun costume, and when I found a really funky fancy gold lace dress on ebay, it made sense to do this ... so now I have the tiara, dress, and makings of a magic wand, which is this weekend's project. When you work in a middle school, you can still do this sort of thing and get away with it! I love Halloween.
We had our first "real" playdate at our house yesterday. Jake's friend Chris came over with his older brother and they all played together for a couple hours. It was nice because I got to have some grownup conversation with Marilyn, Chris' mother! I was amazed that the boys really didn't trash the house. They were all great! I think the chocolate chip cookies helped. Sadie kept checking them out, but she was good too -- didn't get in their way or do her Godzilla act, which was nothing short of miraculous.
We measured the kids last night on the basement door. Jake grew just over an inch since June, and Sadie grew two and a half inches. Whew! The amazing part is that Jake did all that growing eating next to nothing for the most part, and Sadie has been eating everything in sight. They are both among the taller kids in their respective classes.
Found two new Robert Sabuda pop-up books at Costco, so I picked them up for the kids for Christmas. I love his pop-ups -- they are absolutely ART. I got the Winter's Tale book for Charlotte and Sadie, and the Dinosaur book for Jake and Owen. I really like getting each kid a book for Christmas. Must be that inner librarian coming out of me. ;)
It's going to be a busy next couple of weeks for us, but I am hoping that things will settle down a bit in November. Steve told me that we are doing Christmas Day here at our house this year again, so we have to get busy and figure out what we're doing for dining room furniture. I don't want to have folding tables and folding chairs again this year! We found a nice table at the Lillian August outlet in Norwalk, and the price was reasonable, but the chairs were *ahem* an arm and a leg, as were the china cabinet and server pieces. We'll see what I can get him to agree to. Wish me luck.
Jake finally decided on his Halloween costume this weekend ( a dragon) and we found two on ebay: a red one and a green one. He liked the red one (his favorite color), so we bid on that one and won it. He was thrilled to pieces! So we are all literary characters for Halloween this year: Sadie is going as Chicken Little, Jake will be the dragon Thorn (from the cover of Christopher Paolini's newest book, Eldest), and I get to be the Fairy GodMama. I decided that this year I was going to put together a really fun costume, and when I found a really funky fancy gold lace dress on ebay, it made sense to do this ... so now I have the tiara, dress, and makings of a magic wand, which is this weekend's project. When you work in a middle school, you can still do this sort of thing and get away with it! I love Halloween.
We had our first "real" playdate at our house yesterday. Jake's friend Chris came over with his older brother and they all played together for a couple hours. It was nice because I got to have some grownup conversation with Marilyn, Chris' mother! I was amazed that the boys really didn't trash the house. They were all great! I think the chocolate chip cookies helped. Sadie kept checking them out, but she was good too -- didn't get in their way or do her Godzilla act, which was nothing short of miraculous.
We measured the kids last night on the basement door. Jake grew just over an inch since June, and Sadie grew two and a half inches. Whew! The amazing part is that Jake did all that growing eating next to nothing for the most part, and Sadie has been eating everything in sight. They are both among the taller kids in their respective classes.
Found two new Robert Sabuda pop-up books at Costco, so I picked them up for the kids for Christmas. I love his pop-ups -- they are absolutely ART. I got the Winter's Tale book for Charlotte and Sadie, and the Dinosaur book for Jake and Owen. I really like getting each kid a book for Christmas. Must be that inner librarian coming out of me. ;)
It's going to be a busy next couple of weeks for us, but I am hoping that things will settle down a bit in November. Steve told me that we are doing Christmas Day here at our house this year again, so we have to get busy and figure out what we're doing for dining room furniture. I don't want to have folding tables and folding chairs again this year! We found a nice table at the Lillian August outlet in Norwalk, and the price was reasonable, but the chairs were *ahem* an arm and a leg, as were the china cabinet and server pieces. We'll see what I can get him to agree to. Wish me luck.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Mama Ball Says
Can't believe it's October already. Everyone down south is fine, and Mom and Dad are getting ready to spend most of this month traveling -- first to Arkansas for flyfishing, then on to Texas to visit friends and family. They are supposed to go to Austin and see cousin Scharon's boys play football, so that ought to be an experience. There's no high school football like Texas high school football.
Jake and Sadie have had mild colds all week (and were nice enough to share with us, so we've all been hitting the cold meds and Kleenex). Hopefully we will get a break from that soon. Steve went into the city with Peter and Ross to go out to dinner at Sparks last night. They had a good time and met the mayor of Bridgeport there. Jake and Sadie and I were all in bed VERY EARLY!
I spent the night Friday night at school -- we had our second annual Student Government Constitution Convention and sleepover in the media center. Much less constituting this year (just amending last year's) and a lot more fun stuff! This year it was the boys who were up all night, so I got a lot less sleep, but we still had a really good time. This is my major time contribution to the group as their meetings mostly take place when I can't be there. I think this year I'll be doing more with them, though, as they've started asking if they can have their own website (of course the answer was a resounding yes from me) and they will need a lot of guidance on that part. Great group of kids!
Jake and Sadie have had mild colds all week (and were nice enough to share with us, so we've all been hitting the cold meds and Kleenex). Hopefully we will get a break from that soon. Steve went into the city with Peter and Ross to go out to dinner at Sparks last night. They had a good time and met the mayor of Bridgeport there. Jake and Sadie and I were all in bed VERY EARLY!
I spent the night Friday night at school -- we had our second annual Student Government Constitution Convention and sleepover in the media center. Much less constituting this year (just amending last year's) and a lot more fun stuff! This year it was the boys who were up all night, so I got a lot less sleep, but we still had a really good time. This is my major time contribution to the group as their meetings mostly take place when I can't be there. I think this year I'll be doing more with them, though, as they've started asking if they can have their own website (of course the answer was a resounding yes from me) and they will need a lot of guidance on that part. Great group of kids!
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