Off to Seattle!

Well, there's today, and tomorrow, and then we're going on a loooooong drive with a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and a certain amount of trepidation. But not to worry! I will leave you with several Seattle, Washington-themed videos!

 We will be back mid-August, and I may occasionally post if I'm feeling ambitious! Yay for Washington state!

Scary Smash

Kids are creative. They don't even have to think about it. For example,

I particularly like the milk stream. And the S.Q.U.A.T. Team. Kids aren't self conscious (well, not most of the time), and they're always putting together the world in fascinating ways. Like Saturday, when my four-year-old tasted chives plain. He decided they tasted sort of spicy, and started listing what must be in them. He started with "fireworks" and worked his way to "bone" and "green blood."

I can honestly say, I've never had a more interesting potato.

Pictures

Hmm. Well, from the very beginning I wanted my blog to be visual. But this post, while incredibly informative, is also very, very scary. I did not know Google image searches were a bad source of images (although in retrospect maybe I should have realized).

Side note: personally, as a creative person I'd be happy with any exposure that gave me credit--mostly because once I hear about something in a positive way three times or so I check it out. Take The Happiness Project, which I first read about on the lovely blog, Losing Sanity, and then read about on another blog I can't remember (oops!) and then read about in the New York Times. I've now bought the book. There's plenty of websites and comics I've followed because I found them on other websites I already like.

Essentially, I like links and reposts. But some creators have different opinions, which I understand. So...I will try to go back through and cite my sources (I am a horrible academic anyway for not doing it initially :). And I wanted to ask you: what do you think about all of this, as another blogger or just as a Surfer of Internet Goodness? I'm curious!

Here's a picture I DO have permission to post--it's "A Turret Gun" by my four-year-old. Well, okay, I don't have permission just yet. Wait a second...I'll ask. He said, "Sure!" Whew!

The Platypus

My four-year-old is very interested in eggs right now. And since there's only one mammal who lays eggs (CORRECTION: this is a lie--there is another. See the comments for details. Thanks, T.L. Bodine!), I figured I could list some interesting facts:

The male platypus has a venomous spur on his back feet. It can kill smaller animals.

The platypus bill feels like rubber.

The platypus swims with its eyes, nose, and mouth shut.

The mother platypus lays one to three eggs. She doesn't have nipples, like most female mammals--instead she secretes milk from two round patches of skin on her belly.

Yay for odd animals!

Fingernails

I've never been good at painting my nails. It feels weird to have color there, and every time I let a niece wheedle me into putting nail polish on, I get a little freaked out whenever I glance down at my hands. But these pictures make me wish nail-painting was an art I excelled at...

Shiny...

 

Scary-cool...

Something I might actually do.

My four-year-old made dinner...

So it came close to dinner time tonight. I turned to my husband and asked, "Do you want to make it, or should I?" He shrugged, and so I turned to my four-year-old. "Do you want to make dinner?" I asked. I was joking, of course. I suspected his idea of a good dinner would be s'mores, popsicles, and pudding, with ice cream for dessert. I thought he would say no.

But he smiled really big, pumped his fist, and said, "Yes!"

We ate hot dogs. Hot dogs and chips and strawberries and pickles. He heated up the hot dogs himself, in the microwave, which I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done at his age. And then he told me to write about it on my blog.

So I did.

We didn't have onions. We chopped up our own pickles. We did, however, use ketchup and mustard that looked just like this! Hooray!

Blow gun

I keep fantasizing about blow guns. Late at night, when it's actually dark out.

But only when the fireworks in our neighborhood start.

Let me explain: I have a four-year-old. He is terrified and excited by fireworks, so much that they make him tremble with joy and/or fear, depending on whether he can see them or not. The other night (Saturday night, to be precise), some people one street away started lighting fireworks at 9 in the evening.

This is okay. Even though my son woke up, I thought, "Surely they will run out of money to burn soon. 9:30, maybe, or 10."

No.

The fireworks kept going, from 9:30 to 10. Finally I pulled my four-year-old and his dad away from the bathroom window where they'd been watching. I told them to come to our bed and try to sleep, because I figured all of us in one bed was better than none of us in any bed. I told them the fireworks would stop soon.

They kept going. Boom after scream after boom, with my son wriggling at every one. They kept going until 11:30 at night.

This may not seem that late to you. But our two-year-old slept through everything. He would be up in the morning at 6 a.m., or 7 a.m. And our four-year-old would be tired the next day. When he's tired, he likes to throw things for reasons no sane person can predict. He ends up in time out. He says the word "stupid" a lot, because he thinks it is the cruelest word in existence and we're not going to tell him any worse ones.

Anyway, it was somewhere between 10 and 11:30, with a four-year-old poking feet into my back and tugging "accidentally" on my hair, that I started half-dreaming about blow guns. The darts inside would have tranquilizers, and they would be long and sharp. With that gun, I could creep out of our coul-de-sac, down the street, and over to where they were letting off fireworks. One blow, one dart each, and all the revelers could nap on the sidewalk. I'd hide their unlit fireworks. The noise would stop. And everyone, even parents, even four-year-olds, could finally get some sleep.

Now that I'm more awake, I think writers are weird.

But I still want a blow gun.

Happy Fourth of July!

My four-year-old loves fireworks, except now they keep waking him up. I'm off to make some toilet paper earplugs for his little ears--but between a barbeque, games, and our own little sparklers, it's been a fun evening. G'night!

I need to dig up some old posts...

...but I also have a lesson to plan for tomorrow. Lesson plan it is! Isn't it funny how you spend more time recovering from a vacation than you spent on the vacation? This is what it feels like to me, at least.

Happy Monday, everyone!