MIT Courses for FREE?!? Kitchen Chemistry

So, ok, I've been neglecting my dear little blog for Pinterest and the Benjamin Moore color picker app because I'm eyeball deep in remodeling projects. But as an aside, the other day I did a random search for "Kitchen Chemistry" - since we'll be doing chemistry next year for school. What should I find but this?

MIT, yes, that MIT, offers a free, online course in Kitchen Chemistry. The course syllabus is a list of culinary delights. Guacamole, Death by Chocolate Cookies, Scones and Coffee. Sound like fun? Do you think St. Nick is going to be taking this class on his own? Not a chance.

St. Nick is truly looking forward to this (Pancakes!) and was blown away by all the other fabulous offerings in his areas of interest. So was I, not to mention courses in MY areas of interest.

To the Waiter at El Haragan ...

... Thank you for giving St. Nick the check.

Our dinner last night went something like this:

St. Nick: Ed's parents owe him ninety-five bucks. Where's that $15 Mom had for me?

Mom: What $15?

St. Nick: I want my money. You owe me fifteen bucks.

Mom: That's the money we spent at the bookstore (aforementioned book orgie).

St. Nick: (growing hysterical) You never told me that's what the money was for! I want my money! You owe me!

Mom: Ummmmm. No.

St. Nick: YES YOU DO YOU OWE ME MONEY YOU DO YOU DO YOU DO!! THAT WAS MY MONEY I NEVERWOULDHAVEBOUGHTSTUPIDBOOKSIFIKNEWIWASUSINGMYOWNMONEY! I WANT MY MONEY. YOU OWE ME!

Mom: (thinking that was the Wrong thing to say to a writer is at a loss for words)

He did eventually calm down. And then the waiter, who watched the whole thing, handed St. Nick the check. All I can say now is, Thank You.

By the way, El Haragan is a yummy new Mexican restaurant. If you're local, check it out. The fajita nachos are delicious.

The Same Dumb Mistake

What is with me/us? We keep making the same moronic decision year after year after ...

This morning Dr. D and I had the last of our hastily rescheduled parent-teacher conferences. Today, St. Nick. Overall a glowing report. He's smart, creative, a good kid. But in eerie similarity to Fish's conference last week, St. Nick is distracted, unfocussed, rushes through his work without attending to detail. Fish, in addition, talks obsessively and in great detail about Minecraft.

Minecraft. Ah. Ugh. Mine-crap, we've come to call it (with a German accent, of course - Mein Crap!).

In many ways it's a fabulous game. Not even a game. A creative universe. I mean, I've played the pocket edition a couple of times. I dug a tunnel through a mountain and marked the entrances with torches and made a staircase to the mountain top where I started on a house before I got bored. If I had patience/coordination/unlimited TIME to waste, I could easily spend hours and hours and hours creating all sorts of cool places. And I don't even know how to spawn or make a crafting table! St. Nick has won awards of some sort for his skins and other designs. Fish talks on the phone with his school chum while they both play on the same server. I hear little shrieks of, "No, no! He got my pickaxe! It was a diamond pickaxe!" Jillions of parents rave about and defend the game, saying it's educational and creative and encourages all the right things.

Plaguing Starbucks Everywhere: Kidism

We've heard of racism and ageism, sexism and more, but over the weekend we experienced yet another "ism." It could be seen as a sort of reverse ageism, I suppose. It's nothing less than: "Kidism."

Here's the story (of course there's a story!) ...

Picture it, Sunday morning, Dr. D had left early for a meeting and to take Mud Pie to children's choir practice, so it was up to me to rouse and ready the boys and Rowdy. No problem, except as is typical of Sunday mornings, we were out of cereal/milk/anything else to eat for breakfast. So I hurried the boys and made it to D&W with ten minutes for a donut.

Added bonus, this D&W has a Starbucks inside. Mama was not yet entirely roused (read: Zombie), so I sent St. Nick up with my debit card to order me a cup of coffee.

A few seconds later he returned saying, "They were too busy. I have to go back up in a minute."

"Busy? But there's nobody up there!"

Punishment Fail

Apparently our new school requires students to call home when homework isn't completed. As if making a call during quiet reading time is a Mark of Shame.

Obviously, they do not know St. Nick. Call Mom? During the day? From school?! He spent ten whispery minutes explaining that, yeah, his assignment wasn't supposed to have white space and he just totally didn't know so yeah he's fine and lunch was great and there are other kids waiting to use the phone so bye!

I will be Very surprised if St. Nick ever does homework on time again.

Update: two more calls. And we're now halfway through week 3 of school. Hmmm.

Summer Vacation Day 3

Here's how my week (first week of vacay for the kiddos) has looked:

Monday: in tears (me) by 8am.
Tuesday: in tears (me again) by 11am.
Wednesday: so far so good (me) and it's 3pm! St. Nick and Mud Pie, however, have both shed a few tears. And Rowdy, well, you know babies.

Recreation

This week ...

• One minivan breakdown which took three days to fix (its Brain died, and yes that's as expensive as it sounds).
• Two all-morning meetings with Baby.
• Three dozen diapers sold online.
• Arranged one newspaper article featuring cool stuff friends did.
• Five million phone or Skype calls.
• Six million hours in the Jeep - see minivan above and note: Six people will NOT fit in a five-passenger vehicle.
• Eight gazillion emails.
• Half a book read.
• Eighty ooglesalakfhgozillion gallons of nursie-milk-spit up on my shirt(s) (and skirts, shoes, floors, etc.). 

This is what I do after a long, stressful week:

Good Kids Rock

Dr. D travels a lot during the fall - prime time for academic conferences and other such nonsense activities (since he's a Doctor of Ideas, not a medical doctor).

Mornings without Dr. D can be a little crazed. Who makes the coffee? Who urges the kiddos to hurry up, get things together, don't forget ... ? And if I happen to have an appointment in the morning, who on earth is going to take care of things so I can get ready to go? I may drop the kiddos at school uncombed and unwashed (that's me unkempt, not them), but an OB visit is altogether different.

What to do. This time I charged St. Nick with the words, "I'm taking a shower. Make sure Fish and Pie eat breakfast, ok?" "Ok, Mom." "Really, they need to eat and so do you." "OK, Mom." "And you all have to be done by the time I'm done." "OK, MOM!!"

Ok, so I headed up to the shower, and came down a few minutes later to find everyone fed and quietly getting their bags packed, and this waiting for me on the counter:

I couldn't have wished for a better morning, or a tastier breakfast! Thanks to my great good kid!

Missing Members

Bedtime rolled around with the usual mix of exhaustion (parents) and bickering (Pie and Fish). This time the argument was over who brushed teeth first. Everyone ended up frustrated, so we spent some time in Pie's room sitting together and talking about Family and how much we love one another. Little hearts softened, siblings made up and said Good Nights and I Love Yous. All was well.

But then Pie started to cry.

"What's wrong?"

"I miss St. Nick!"

See, big brother has been with Grandma in Ohio for the past week. "We all miss him," I said, and Fish started to cry too. Soon Dr. D and I were joining in. Our family hasn't felt complete to me for the past seven days, but I hadn't known the little ones felt it too.

So to soothe our hearts, we called Grandma and said Good Night to St. Nick, then Fish and Mag each put a picture of their big brother in their room. We pick St. Nick up on Tuesday, which isn't soon enough for any of us.

Sibling Bonding

St. Nick usually does little with Maggie beyond coo at her (in the same voice he uses for the cat), but here's a rare moment captured. He's setting aside his anti-girl biases and is acting as ... drum roll ... hairdresser!

See it, believe it.

Sibling Bonding

St. Nick usually does little with Maggie beyond coo at her (in the same voice he uses for the cat), but here's a rare moment captured. He's setting aside his anti-girl biases and is acting as ... drum roll ... hairdresser!

See it, believe it.

Things St. Nick does *instead* of schoolwork

He'll do almost anything. So far this morning:

1. Watch Sesame Street with his younger brother.
2. Put messy pigtails in his sister's hair.
3. Pet the dog.
4. Pet the cat.
5. Make his own breakfast, involving the toaster, the refrigerator, etc.
6. Blow a granola bar wrapper from one end of the table to the other and back again.
7. Write a list of his favorite websites.
8. Run in circles making monster noises.
9. Ask me five million questions (unrelated to school), until I snap "Quit it! I'm not going to bug you about doing your work, but you're not allowed to keep me from doing mine!"
10. Inform me that we need milk and proceed to take inventory of the cupboards and refrigerator in case we're going to the store today, which we aren't.
11. Hide.

And all this before 10am. Ah, the joys of homeschooling.

Is Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney Worth a Fight?

You know you're a kiddie lit geek when you're arguing with an eight-year-old over who gets to read the library books first. St. Nick snagged this one, I sneaked it while he was playing his Nintendo DS, and he sneaked it back later. I, gracefully I think, allowed him to finish it (see, I have learned to take turns) and then I got my chance to read it.

The illustrations, the voice, the story all catapulted me into life as a skinny middle school boy. This is possibly the most fun I've had with a book since I slipped Captain Underpants into the library bag (that one I wouldn't allow Nicholas to read until I'd "previewed and approved" it).

Ultimately, this is a story about friendship and integrity, and here the protagonist is an antihero of sorts - modeling these qualities (realistically) via negativa. All Greg's plans to do evil, be popular, avoid responsibility, backfire. But it's not a downer - the book is hysterically funny. Greg joins the school's Wizard of Oz production as a tree, in hopes of beaning "Dorothy" with an apple; he becomes a safety patrol officer to get out of pre-algebra. So many of Greg's great ideas are horrendously and innocently flawed. Much like the child I had to ask for permission to read his book.

The same child who couldn't understand, as previously mentioned, why his Orchestra Instruments teacher thought the drawing he did during class was inappropriately ghoulish ...

"You don't think an alien pulling his head off is a little too scary?"

Exasperated sigh and eye roll followed by, "He's not pulling his head off, Mom. He's putting his head back on."

Ah. I see.

That #$%& Co-op!

Halfway into first hour at coop this morning the director knocked on the door. She had St. Nick beside her, and neither of them was happy. He was being kicked out of class for his first time ever. Kicked out! Sent to the office! Sent to sit in the hallway! Whatever that horrible thing was that happened to the bad kids in school, but never to me. How have I managed to raise one of those bad kids? Is St. Nick a bad kid? Am I a bad parent?

For the next two hours I had half the moms in the school giving me advice, asking questions, trying to be helpful. Helpful of my son's "Special Needs." But why is it that the other two hours of class passed without incident? How is it that the second hour teacher has found ways of getting St. Nick out of his funk and into the group, without bringing him down, red faced (both him and herself) to talk to me about how disrespectful and disobedient he's been? And what on earth is so bad about letting him observe rather than participate?

Homeschool Co-op Strikes Again

Another day of our new coop down and this time I sent St. Nick armed with a notebook and box of pencils, to take notes. He didn't think this would help. "It's sooooo boring, Mom! What am I gonna do, WRITE?"

"No, no, you can take notes in pictures, sweetie."

"What kinda pictures? Pictures of dumb birds?" (Cue five minute rant about how birds have feathers and he already knows birds have feathers, etc.)

"Not if you don't want, you can draw whatever kind of pictures you want, that have a little to do with what the teacher is saying, maybe." Maybe was added because I really do know better.

"Anything I want?" (Cue that look of cogs and wheels turning up there in his head behind his eyes, a scary look that usually precedes something ingenious and often destructive.)

"Sure!" (But the look gets stronger so I backtrack.) "Well, nothing inappropriate or scary."

"Ok."

Ok.

After class his teacher came up to me saying, "St. Nick could hardly contain himself, he wanted me to see his picture so badly. Quite a kid, that St. Nick." Something in here eyes warned me.

At this point I'm a little annoyed (again) about the environment, the culture that's waaaay too close to what's shown in the previous post. So when I asked, "St. Nick, so what's this picture you drew during class?" I was pretty sure I didn't want to see a drawing of dollies in a field of daisies. Of course, I know St. Nick too well to think I'd ever get a drawing of dollies in daisies from him (though he did draw an adorable Apple Dumpling doll for his sister once). Still, I didn't know quite what to expect. This is what I got:

I laughed the whole way home.

Math with Money

Math. We're on Singapore 2A, exercise 10 and I'm finding that St. Nick has no trouble at all doing math when we do the money-related problems, like Sam has $30 and wants to buy the book, how much more does he need? (The book costs $32 - must be a textbook - so he needs $2, obviously.) St. Nick hardly has to think about this, even when it's more complicated (like Sam has $86 and buys the pencil for $15 ...) and we break out the base ten blocks. Easy.

But working on the exact same types of problems using imaginary apples and pears or cupcakes and cookies? No good. Then it's tears and "I don't get it!" Which makes math about as fun as, say, handwriting.

Hmmm.

Oh, Sigh.

Our first homeschool coop was this past week and already I've gotten a call from the director to talk about my son's "special needs." Special needs? Like classes that are interesting?

Pardon the sarcasm; I'm such a horrible person. He, apparently, tried to hide, escape, etc. etc. during the second of his two classes, and when he saw me in the hall before his third class he put on his fiercest angry face, which is really pretty comical, but also embarrassing since no one else's little cherubs flashed angry faces. I don't think they even have angry faces. I'm beginning to wonder if they have wills, or if they've been drugged. Or maybe most homeschoolers just manage to breed sweet smiling obedient children who can sit in one room for two solid hours listening to somebody's mom talk about music or birds or whatever and not be bored out of their gourds. I can't breed that sort of child. It would, honestly, be a miracle of genetics if Dr. D and I managed to produce a child like that.

Anyway, I've had my required conversation with St. Nick about staying in the room, not being a distraction and so on. And I'm fantasizing about the local charter academy every time I drive by the sign that says Limited openings in K, 2nd and 5th! Oh, yeah, I'm so ready for that.

Dr. D has his "Sunday Personality" going on today. I.e. grouchy about everything. Right now he's cleaning toilets and muttering profanity under his breath because the Ajax was in the upstairs bathroom and not under the kitchen sink where I guess he thinks it belongs. Funny, since he uses it maybe once for every, say, hundred-seventy times that I use it. Of course, after cleaning both toilets he will insist for the next few years that he cleans the bathrooms more often than I do.

Whine whine whine. Too bad I'm out of cheese.

The Miracle of Dawn

This is something I'd ordinarily save for my little homeschooling journal, but since it's book related, and really just fabulous, I'll share it here.

Today St. Nick, who is seven and technically in first grade, cajoled me into taking him and his siblings to the library. This was our conversation on the drive there:

Him: Mom, do you know why I like going to the library so much?

Me: (Slightly irritable - I didn't really want to drag out in the rain and Mud Pie had a fashion meltdown on the way out the door) To get movies?

Him: Nope.

Me: Really? (Truly surprised) Then why?

Him: Well, I do like the DVDs but I love the books too. Want to know why?

Me: Sure.

Him: The books are sort of like movies, only better. When I read them I make pictures in my head and it's just like watching a movie but without having to watch it.

Me: (Momentarily speechless)

Him: Yup. I use my imagination. It's really powerful and I can see the stories just like movies. So that's why I like the library so much.

Me: (Still speechless)

This has been one of the greatest privileges of motherhood. I labored with St. Nick over letters and sounds, over sound bingo and Bob Books and the laborious sounding out of word after word. There were times I doubted my ability to teach this most fundamental skill, and doubted his ability to learn. Times when I suspected the dozen or more books he keeps squirreled beneath his pillow were there just for the pictures.

And now I know they were - but not the pictures drawn with graphite or a brush, but those created within. Within his mind, and ultimately, within his soul.

To see this dawn in him is to witness a miracle. I understand a little better what might feel like to look down from the heavens and see that the world is good.

Romulus and Remus Come Alive

Today, as I was reading Famous Men of Rome (Haaren and Poland), St. Nick announced that he knew this story. It's in our book of myths! I got it and we found the page of the Romulus and Remus story. Then St. Nick abandoned his Legos and got paper and a pencil to draw a picture. A Cute, starkly cubist* picture of an animal with two people riding it, and a very angular (almost Aztec?) sun and clouds.

He then dictated a poem that I wrote down. Here it is:

The Wolf and the Babies
by St. Nick

This is the wolf,
This is the sun,
These are the babies on his back
When the clouds
Run in their run.

His favorite part of the Romulus and Remus story, however, was not the wolf. Rather, it was when the boys grow up and return to cut off Amulius's head.

*It's interesting to me how St. Nick seldom tries to draw things realistically. His drawings are very angular, but with contrasts of curves, and even when he's drawing something "real" like his brother, the drawing will be very much an impression - self-consciously so. Funny since we've not studied art at all yet. I know I was always trying to capture the thing as realistically as possible at his age (and still now, on the rare occasion I try). I don't know what this says about him as a person, if anything, but I like it.

Grand Ohio Adventure

One full day back and hardly a moment to reflect. In short, the visit to Dr. D's parents Thursday through Saturday was one of the easiest but strangest we've had.

First, we went out for pizza with Dr. D's parents to our absolute favorite pizza place ever - Marion's, which defines good pizza. Really. It just doesn't get better, even if it comes on cardboard trays and we all were crammed in a corner of a very busy restaurant. Delicious and fun. After which we all went to the pool. Dr. D's dad hung out in the hot tub and his mom sat and watched while the rest of us frolicked. Or while Fish and Mud Pie frolicked and St. Nick screeched every time anyone came near him. The water was only up to his chest, but he's always been touchy about the water. Swimming lessons were a disaster, and that was when he was 2.

Now for the strange thing: We stayed in a hotel. A Residence Inn, to be exact - two bedroom suite with a living room and kitchen. All to ourselves! It was bliss. Well, mostly. We expected it to be bliss, and it sure seemed like it would be. Night one we put the boys down in the queen bed and Mud Pie in a portable crib (she barely fit) and all were out by 9pm. Only Mud Pie awoke a handful of times between 11pm and 3am. 3am is when Fish's cough woke him, and heaven forbid he be awake alone. So he chatted to St. Nick until he woke, and Pie of course joined in the fun. Dr. D went in with Fish, St. Nick came in with me, and Pie lay awake happily kicking her feet in the crib. Finally, around 4am I sent St. Nick to the couch (far, far too wiggly) and slept until 7:30. That was good enough for me. I let Dr. D snooze until 8:30, but I knew breakfast was done at 9, so we all dragged out of bed and had a truly incredible full hot delicious breakfast. With coffee. Lots of coffee (for lucky Dr. D. I'm off caffeine).

And what do good hotel-staying parents do after breakfast? Return to the pool, of course! More frolicking (Fish and Pie). More screaming (St. N.). But fun.

Now, after the pool, the parents got smart. We went to Walmart and bought children's Nyquil and some pool floaty toys, like an inner tube and a raft. But, alas, next stop was not the pool, it was a shopping center to meet Dr. D's parents for lunch.

We got there half hour early. And we saw this fascinating restaurant called The Pub with authentic British goodies, and Dr. D and I were dying to go there, and we even convinced the in-laws to go there, and it was fabulous - the decor, the menu, the servers, only ... there was no children's menu. So, despite being slightly embarrassed (mostly me, and slightly is a slight understatement) we left and went to Panera instead. There we learned that a kids menu is not a must since our kids don't eat real food anyway. They were cranky (see above on how we all slept), we were cranky, the poor in-laws didn't know what to do with us.

Dr. D wanted some time to talk with his dad before he starts stem cell replacement next week (can understand that), so Mom and I took the kids and walked around the shopping center. Highlights: Great bookstore, cool bathrooms (sigh. life with kids), and nice level sidewalks for running.



We fetched Dr. D and Dad and went back to Legacy (where they live) to hang out. There I remembered exactly why we opted for a hotel, and decided that yes, a night of very little sleep was much better than seven people in a two-bedroom, one bath townhouse. We took a walk, and ate a yummy dinner, and spent some time gabbing, and went back to the hotel where we ... drum roll ... went to the pool! Much more fun for St. Nick with the floating toys.



After which we made use of the Nyquil and let St. Nick stay up so Fish and Pie could sleep. Then he slept on the sofa and we slept (wonderfully) in the other room. Next morning was yet another delicious breakfast and yet another visit to the pool. I was getting a little pooled-out by that point.

And then it was time for the six hour drive home. Heaven be praised for technology, like VCRs in minivans. Since then we've gone to church (fantastic service), straightened the house for two Sunday afternoon showings, visited two open houses (one of which I went to myself while Dr. D and the [fussy] kids waited in the van), ran an abundance of errands, and finally really truly came home.

For a photo-journey of our trip, click here.