It Happened to Me

I was in the kitchen when I heard suspicious splashing – coming from the bathroom! A quick glance told me that G and BB were at the craft table quietly employed. So where were the other two? Yes, horror of horrors, I found Z watching M playing in the toilet water!!! And it seems prior to the audible splashing, M had been fishing for the paper that someone had left in there. !!! !!! !!!

And I used to laugh at other moms whose kids would throw things like toothbrushes into the toilet...

Maiden Voyage

It took us a long while to figure out how to set this up. For one thing, getting a weighted bag around the correct limb takes a considerable number of tries; and then figuring out how to yank the anchor up and over with all our dead branches in the way. The written paper directions are mind-bogglingly hard to understand, and the online video makes it looks so easy. But we finally got them up into the tree.

Stair Pouncing

Born in the year of the tiger, I tend to attribute more cat-like qualities to M's budding personality. Like when she's crazy for a nap and fussy, she reminds me of a caged cat: I call her Wild Cat. Or her cat-like twisting agility when I'm trying to cradle her in my arms and she'd rather be upright looking out to the world.


Or the cute way she pounces on the steps as she's climbing up.

Sirens A-Wailing

Mere minutes after arriving home from the library this morning, I got a call from Drew: "Take the girls into the basement." Though I'm positive the tornado sirens weren't going off when I drove by them seconds earlier, I could hear them wailing as I unloaded the car. I thought maybe they were testing the system. The girls were excited, and a little worried, at the prospect of hunkering down in the basement. They'd overheard us talking about what happened in Joplin, almost three hours south of us. I reassured G, We'll be alright in the basement. BB wanted to know whether or not we'd have a house to live in. I popped in Veggie Tales to get their minds off things.

From what I gathered on the radio, there were two or three separate storm systems over the metro area, each producing multiple funnel clouds, a few of which actually touched down briefly within the city. (Damage?) Drew said, from the look of the online weather maps, Lees Summit, for the most part, came between two storms, with nary a drop of rain or wind from what I could hear from the basement.

After Sumo of the Opera was over, which was perfectly timed to coincide with the end of the severe weather warning, BB asked me, "Is our house still here?"

Freehand

There's been a spate of new babies, which I painted these onesies for them. If I had had time, I would have liked to have dyed them too: white is such a difficult color with babies.

End-of-Year Zoo Field Trip

Yesterday was the preschool's annual end-of-year field trip to the zoo. This year they read the Parrot Tico Tango, and showed the kids blue frogs; a rainbow boa constrictor, which they could touch if they wanted to; and a double yellow parrot. The latter is so named because he's got yellow on the front and back of his head.

Ms Stephanie let M play with her cell phone.

Unlike in previous years, Drew took the whole day off, so he didn't have to rush back to work afterwards and we were able to wander out into the main part of the zoo. We saw the new polar bear exhibit, which he was very active swimming laps in his enclosure; ran into two families we know from church; had a snack; played on the playground; and saw the Sumatran tigers. We had originally planned to have lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant downtown, but by the time we got there the place was packed with the business lunch crowd, bad timing on our part, so we had Chik-Fil-A.

Triumphant Catch

This little guy made the mistake of ducking into one of our gutter spouts to hide – and being seen by Drew doing it. Drew caught him by tying my laundry mesh bag over the opening and flushing him out with the garden hose. At first Drew was intent on drowning him (for all the trouble he's caused in our garden in cooperation with the squirrels), but decided poisoning would be better, and in the end let him go in the nearby park.

Dual Purpose

Drew and I celebrated 9 married years yesterday.

I wanted to take various pictures of the girls together, like standing in a line, but after this one was taken, Z didn't want to cooperate anymore and then M got upset.

And while I had the camera out, I took some pictures of the lion and the tiger: 11+ months.

In the evening, Elizabeth came to babysit. Originally, Drew and I were going to have dinner sans kids, but M has separation anxiety, the worst of any of the girls and the most vocal, so she won a seat to dinner at the Rheinland in Independence. (Their Jägerschnitzel was fabulous! The homemade apple strudel not so much.)

Where Does the Time Go?

I just don't know how a week gets away from me like it does. I'm wrapping up the homeschooling year with G and next week is BB's preschool field trip to the zoo.

Another Flyer

It didn't take BB long to figure the balance bike out, so once she got up the courage to try, it's no surprise how easily she took to one with pedals.

Spy Vehicle

Drew brought one of the office trucks around to the house yesterday to pick up his forgotten cell phone. The girls climbed inside – can you say 'pink'? –, and I did the pretend wave goodbye. It was awfully cute how they got their seat belts on all ready to go. (The netting in the back is to ensure that the computer equipment in the trunk doesn't come flying forward in a collision.) And then we made them get out so Daddy could go back to work.

One Each

I had G putting clean dishes away and her elbow knocked a cup out of the cabinet. It took a spectacular fall onto the counter and so all over the floor. Five minutes after I had that mess cleared away, Z who was helping to clear the table and had a drinking glass in her hand, fell down smashing yet another of my dishes to pieces.

And the next day, when I went to pick BB up from school, she was horsing around with my Pyrex bowl in her bag and this was the result.

Whatsamacallit

Drew brought this goo-gak-silly-putty-slime stuff, a mixture of Elmer's and liquid starch, home from the science fair he was judging. G and BB have played with it before at school, but this was a first for Z, who cried when it started to do its dripping bit. I think she expected it'd be like Play-Doh?

Free Public Gardens Day

Friday was National Public Gardens Day. Powell Gardens is one of only three gardens in the area that participate in the free admission offer and is the closest to our house, so guess where we went? This visit was vastly different from last year's. For one thing, the sun was shining and not too hot. And there were tons of people! Including five or six busloads of kids, an assortment of nature photographers, and even a couple of homeschooling families that we know.

First thing we did was find a sunny spot to have lunch.

And then we toured the Jurassic garden. Z was a real trooper and actually walked the entire way, not an inconsiderable distance.

After that, I thought for sure the girls would be ready to go home, but they insisted on visiting the edible garden and the big apple sculpture. I convinced them that they didn't want to walk all the way out to the barn, so we stopped to see the fountain (below), which some kids were playing in.

Artichokes.

BB really wanted to jump in the fountain, but I wasn't in the mood, so she contented herself with watching.

G took these pictures (with my camera) while we waited, and then we went home.

Obsessed

Late last night I heard the pitter patter of feet climbing out of bed and going to use the rest room. And then,

BB (whispered): Mama, will you go downstairs with me?
Me: Why?
BB: To play just one game of Uno.

Tasty

M's also discovered how to make the spit bubble, but that video's a little more elusive.

Playdoh Nativity

Note to self: white Playdoh doesn't show very well on digital film.

Freestanding

Last week, M managed to get to standing a few times before I finally turned the camera on, and then of course she wasn't able to get the same results. It's the camera's fault.

The Dress

I only just found out last Tuesday, from G's piano teacher, that there's an exhibit at Union Station showcasing Princess Diana's wedding dress and about two dozen other gowns that she wore. And to celebrate Friday's nuptials between Wills and Kate, US hosted a party and big screen viewing of the event. Between the hours of 3am and 6am, there would be free admission into the Diana exhibit; between 6am and 10am, admission would be $5; and after 10am, admission would revert back to the regular $25 per person.

Happily, there were only moderate crowds when we arrived at about 9am. The exhibit, which was broken up into four main parts – Diana's childhood, her wedding to Prince Charles, the funeral, and miscellaneous gowns –, had video clip montages that we had time to watch at least three times each. Their favorite, of course, was of Princess Diana's wedding. No pictures allowed, so I took one at the very end of the replica wedding cake that some local bakery made.

Then we went up into the main part of Union Station and had a look around. There's actually not much to see: a few restaurants, a few shops, and Science City, which I've heard is geared more towards 2nd through 6th graders.

We had a snack outside, and then took a circuitous route back into the building and so to our car,

stopping briefly at some fire fighters' museum on the way. The FF on duty remarked, as we strolled in the door, "That's a lot of pink!" (I was wearing coral.) I told him, "You don't know the half of it."