The Alexicisms keep rolling in...

Alex is skeptical that Santa really knows whether he's been naughty or nice. How does he know these things? He is creeped out by the Santa Claus is Coming to Town song. "Mom," he says, "He's not God."

And speaking of God, this was tonight's blessing, in part, "and thank you for our sweet baby Molly, even though she wrecks a lot of things..."

On Monday I volunteered the morning in Alex's classroom, which was nice. His teacher is uber-organized and ever so good at her job. I used to teach school on the pedagogical equivalent of spit and duct tape, but this lady has a curriculum, and lesson plans, and goals, and materials. No wonder Alex's schoolwork always looks so nice. Anyway, they do "Writer's Workshop" every day which involves creative spelling. Then, since the teachers cannot always read the kid's creative spelling, she has them read her the story and she'll go and pencil in the right spelling for later reference of what in the world they were talking about. It was neat because at our conference in October, you could really see the evolution of Alex's spelling even in the short time he'd been there. Anyway, he had written that he climbed a hill and "putd" a flag on top. He read his story, said "put a flag on top", then said, "no, I spelled that wrong. That's put-ed." We are running out of things he still says wrong, but "put-ed" is one, and "heared". Just another example of a child's logical, pattern-forming mind trying to make sense of a language that makes no sense. "Butcept", of course, is one I cannot explain.

Thanksgiving at the Purple House

It is very important to be lazy during Thanksgiving.


Molly likes to sit on top of tables. Molly likes to eat. A winning combination.

Alex planted a flag on a hilltop to claim it as his. He also wrote about it Monday at school.

Next up, a video of the kids + Fred building a marble run...

If the embedded video doesn't work, try this link...



And Molly showing her love...

Ditto about the link...

Mah!

Alex has always been more or less indifferent to sweets -- I mean, he likes them more than broccoli, but less than jumping off the couch. A lot like Josh -- more than green peppers, less than kayaking. Molly, on the other hand, is *my* girl. So when Alex came home from school today with a fancy caramel apple sprinkled with chocolate and M & M's all wrapped up in wax paper, Molly was going to have a piece of that. Or ten. They very sweetly shared bites of caramel apple and after every bite of Molly's, while Alex was taking his, she would say "MAH!" which seems to be her version of "mas" aka "more" in Spanish. Either that or she is developing a hard-core Boston accent.

Alex also brought home his class's suggestions for "How to Cook a Turkey". Each kid described the process. Here's Alex's: "I would put it in the stove. Then turn the stove on. Wait a little while for it to burn. I would take it out and serve it on the table."

Alexicisms

This is from a couple of weeks ago, when I was sick & miserable.
"Mom, if you were a superhero you would have two powers. One is that you could cough, and blow everybody out of the room. And the other is super-nasty tasting hair." I have no idea what to make of that.

And these are from today; Alex has pink eye and an ear infection and so got to play hooky from school, but the folks at Wendy's are on their own. He wanted sweet and sour sauce and I had to try to keep Molly from throwing all our food on the floor, so I told him to just go up to the counter and ask. He went, then came back and said, "Uh, mom? Do I have to say it in Spanish?" "No, honey, you can ask in English." "Okay, but they're all speaking Spanish back there."

Later tonight, when he wanted some help from his dad on a project: "Hey, dad, you know how I don't have four arms?"

Party Time

At Gymboree, to celebrate Hailey's 1st birthday. Hailey is the sweet young thing in plaid here. Molly is wearing a dress that was mine when I was a baby. Thirty years later, smocking is back in style, and Molly's ready to boogie. Only weird thing is -- it's really short, and it's a 2T. I guess I flashed my bloomers everywhere as a toddler. She didn't care, she got lots of props on her dancing every time the music started. And Alex and Hailey rubbed noses and Alex didn't care a whit that he was two to five years older than every other kid in the place, he had a great time.

Alex got game

Alex and I (this is Josh) have been playing basketball in the driveway lately. I shoot at a regular goal and he shoots with a smaller ball at a 6-foot goal. We made up a way to compete, which is that we play best out of 4 shots, me shooting from about 15 feet away and Alex shooting from pretty close to the basket.

Last night's results were pretty typical. He won 8 games, I won 4, and we tied 8 times. He's pretty proud of beating me. "You've been playing basketball a lot longer than I have, Daddy" is the sort of thing he says.

Note the bandaid on his leg. He scraped his leg but did not complain too much. We played a few more games, and then he saw a tiny bit of blood on his leg and ran inside to Mommy. A bandaid fixed everything and he came back out to continue beating me.

Good job, America.

I wasn't going to gloat too much, but Karl Rove was on NPR last week just as smarmy as you please talking about how the interviewer had his math, but he, Karl, had "the math" and the Republicans were going to hold both houses.

I guess the math is "wait, is 229 greater than 196? Whoops."

"Shopping for the Dragons"

That's what they call the gift card program. I'm going to put up a partial list of retailers, there are more here, but there are many not relevant to our area and it takes a while to go through. If you want to order any of these as gifts or for yourself, Alex's school gets a percentage between 2 and 25% depending on the retailer.
Ace Hardware, amazon.com, Amoco/BP, Barnes and Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, Belk, Best Buy, Blockbuster, Borders, Bruegger's, CVS, Dick's Sporting Goods, Dillard's, Dream Dinners, Eddie Bauer, Express, Exxon, Gap, Great Harvest, Hects, Home Depot, JC Penney, K Mart, Lands End, Limited, LL Bean, Lord & Taylor, Maggiano's, TJ Maxx/Marshall's, Office Depot & Max, Old Navy, Olive Garden, Outback, Panera, Pier One, Papa John's, Regal Entertainment (movies, I think), Restoration Hardware, Ross, Sears, Shell, Staples, Starbucks, Talbots, The Children's Place, Toys R Us, Walgreens, Wolf Camera -- as well as most of the lower end and fast food chain restaurants. Thanks for listening.

Halloween -- the Re-creation

Molly does not like wearing her hair hat. Sad Princess Leia.

Not technically, at either Halloween or the Halloween recreation, but a sweet picture with Nana.

Jedi fight stance being demonstrated as Princess Leia looks on.

Pictures will be forthcoming

CORRECTED VIDEO -- If you had trouble playing the youtube video, it should be fixed now.

Well, we finally got a new digital camera. Unfortunately we only got off one, terrible, Halloween picture. We will dress them up again if need be, Alex will certainly not mind. In the meantime, please enjoy Molly dancing with Elmo.