Refreshing Beverage

One of Colin's little friends is totally into Star Wars. Yesterday, we was energetically acting out a scene for me, culminating in Han Solo's capture when he gets frozen in carbonite.

"He goes down into the chamber and..." (at this point the little guy mimics Han Solo's grimaced expression and frozen stance) "...he's frozen carbonated!"

So basically, Han is a Coke Slushee.

Flylady Sucks!

I have been a disciple of Flylady for several years now, but there are a few problems with her reasoning. They really don't account for 4 year-olds.

One of her mandates is to get dressed (including shoes) first thing every morning and put on make-up. I don't usually wear make-up, but this morning I thought I'd do ahead and make the effort.

In the five minutes it took me to apply a little blush and lipgloss, Colin took his bowl of cereal to the upstairs bathroom (spilling several times) in order to "perform an experiment." As far as I could tell, the "experiment" was to see how much mess one person can make.

So, Flylady's "only takes 5 minutes" directive actually cost me about 25 minutes -- 5 for the make-up, 10 for cleaning up the mess, and another 10 for yelling at Colin. (I amortized this over the course of the morning, berating him whenever he begged for more cereal.)

He's supposed to be watching a video right now. If he isn't, I shudder to think what damage has been wrecked during the time it took me to blog this.

Superhighway Accidents

The problem with the internet is that, every now and then, a seemingly innocuous search results in more information than you wanted to know. Like the time I wanted to buy a "shag rug." I was at work too. How embarrassing.

I am putting together a little cookbook for Colin, and since he can't read, I am using little pictures to help him identify the ingredients. For the chocolate chip cookie recipe, I needed a picture of brown sugar, so I did an image search on Yahoo!, and got an eyeful.

Apparently, education really is a lifelong process.

CadenWatch

I have mentioned Caroline's "boyfriend" Caden before. I recently found a picture of the two of them at Caroline's third birthday. I can't believe it's been that long!

Well, the two of them don't get to see each other very often now, since they go to different schools, but we still try to get them together as often as possible. They were both devastated yesterday when we had to cancel a playdate because Caden's brother was sick.

Caden said to his mom that Caroline is still his girlfriend, but that she is going to have to be his secret girlfriend. Apparently a boy in his class said that if Caden had a girlfriend they would have to kick him out of the Boy Club.

"So," Caden said, "she's still my girlfriend, but I'm just not going to tell them that."

It made me think of a time when they were younger -- one of Caden's friends told him that girls have Cooties. Caden declared that most girls have Cooties, but not Caroline.

I wonder what forms you have to file for a Cootie-Exemption?

My daughter, the author

Caroline can't spell for beans, but she sure can write! She was given an assignment to write sentences about a tree. The sample sentence was "my favorite climbing tree is big." Here is Caroline's essay (spelling corrected):

"My favorite tree has smooth dark and fat branches. I love to climb it. This may sound silly, but I call it the Mother Tree because it looks like a young woman Ent."

Gee, I would have expected a second-grader to know that female Ents are called Entwives! Sheesh, what a dummy. ;-)

Imaginary Numbers

Colin is showing a lot of interest in numbers. He adds numbers for fun.

Recently, we mentioned that the largest number actually named by scientists is a googolplex. He was quite fascinated by this, and quickly grasped that it cannot be the largest number that exists, because you can always add one to any number. That's my guy.

He has been trying ever since to wrap his head around the number, which is, of course, asking a lot of a four-year-old's brain, since the number only exists in order to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity.

But, in the end, he decided that since there has to be numbers larger than a googolplex, it is up to him to name them. So far, my favorites are "a bagel" and "a million trillion billion car dinosaur."

I wonder if 10 to the power of bagel is a bagelplex?

Crossing Guard Update

A while back, I told you that Colin didn't like the new crossing-guard, an African-American male. Well, our friend A.J. didn't last; he had a small problem with actually showing up. (Great guy, though. Always enjoyed talking to him.)

So now we have a new crossing-guard, a pretty, young, Caucasian Mom-type. Colin took one look at her and was so relieved that he blurted out: "She's my favorite crossing-guard!"

The crossing-guard was amused. "My first day on the job," she said, "and I'm already popular!"

Bad Parents

I am guilty, your honor, of bad parenting.

As proof of my bad parenting, I offer up Exhibit A:
My children spent Saturday afternoon watching the Texas/OU game and bellowing the following traditional cheer: Give 'em hell, give 'em hell; OU sucks!

Exhibit B:
Both children, ages 7 and 4, know the words to, and frequently sing, the following song:
Deck the halls with gasoline
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Strike a match and watch it gleam
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Watch the school burn down to ashes
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Aren't you glad you play with matches?
Fa la la la la, la la la la

These are just the felony offenses, your honor. There are misdemeanor charges of unbrushed teeth, hair badly in need of cutting, allowing them to have the free cookie at the grocery store at 9 am or right before dinner, and giving them hotdogs for breakfast.

I'd say I was looking at a lifetime sentence, but parenting already is.