Trying not to read anything into this...but sakes alive! Nice bow tie.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
100 years old
Robert tells me it was the 100th day of school and his class was assigned to draw a picture of themselves at 100 years old. This was Robert's piece:
Trying not to read anything into this...but sakes alive! Nice bow tie.
Trying not to read anything into this...but sakes alive! Nice bow tie.
Robert Piano Tinkering
Robert and Alice are taking piano lessons from a conventional teacher, but she has the kids working on all sorts of things. Robert has been going through the beginning Suzuki method book. It's allowed him to play really complicated music really early on, which he loves. This morning, Robert was playing around with some chord progressions he learned from Suzuki and he figured out a couple more on his own to create these little songs that I caught on video:
Check out that big smile at the end! He's so stinkin' proud of himself.
Check out that big smile at the end! He's so stinkin' proud of himself.
Friday, March 3, 2017
What?!
How Robert managed to throw up on BOTH sides of his bedroom door, I may never know, but it's impressive.
One day, I will be done cleaning up someone else's barf.
*sigh*
One day, I will be done cleaning up someone else's barf.
*sigh*
Mantis Update
I thought I'd let you know how the mantises/mantids are getting along.
Five weeks ago, we found 9 baby praying mantids in Robert's closet. About 20 more hatched out over the next week or so while I struggled to find food for them. Even after I found food, a couple have died every few days. Last week, we were down to 9 again and there was a HUGE size differential between some of them. I'm pretty sure 4-5 were female (big!) and the rest were male (small!). Today, I'm down to 4 huge mantids. Well, huge is relative, because they're about half an inch long. Maybe 3/4ths of an inch for the biggest.
I'm calling them all "she."
It's hard to tell how all the males ended up dying over the last couple days, but I can tell that some of them were consumed (i.e only head and legs left).
When your natural instinct is to pounce on and eat anything that's smaller than you, you might end up hurting the ones you love, y'know? Erk.
They're certainly growing and they're starting to change colors. They're a little greenish. I added a few more natural items into their container, thinking they could probably use some hiding places from each other. The crickets appreciate it, to be sure :) Here's a video I took of the mantis ladies in their enclosure. I had just dumped in a fresh batch of crickets and the girls wasted no time filling their bellies. One mantis, in particular, caught an especially "large" cricket for her size. I was too late to record the pounce, but you can see their little wrestling match as she tries to get a good grip with her spear-like front arms. The mantis eventually wins (not shown). If my awesome commentary drives you nuts (like it does me), feel free to watch the video in mute. You won't hurt my feelings :)
Five weeks ago, we found 9 baby praying mantids in Robert's closet. About 20 more hatched out over the next week or so while I struggled to find food for them. Even after I found food, a couple have died every few days. Last week, we were down to 9 again and there was a HUGE size differential between some of them. I'm pretty sure 4-5 were female (big!) and the rest were male (small!). Today, I'm down to 4 huge mantids. Well, huge is relative, because they're about half an inch long. Maybe 3/4ths of an inch for the biggest.
I'm calling them all "she."
It's hard to tell how all the males ended up dying over the last couple days, but I can tell that some of them were consumed (i.e only head and legs left).
When your natural instinct is to pounce on and eat anything that's smaller than you, you might end up hurting the ones you love, y'know? Erk.
They're certainly growing and they're starting to change colors. They're a little greenish. I added a few more natural items into their container, thinking they could probably use some hiding places from each other. The crickets appreciate it, to be sure :) Here's a video I took of the mantis ladies in their enclosure. I had just dumped in a fresh batch of crickets and the girls wasted no time filling their bellies. One mantis, in particular, caught an especially "large" cricket for her size. I was too late to record the pounce, but you can see their little wrestling match as she tries to get a good grip with her spear-like front arms. The mantis eventually wins (not shown). If my awesome commentary drives you nuts (like it does me), feel free to watch the video in mute. You won't hurt my feelings :)
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Swimming
I caught James' stomach flu full force yesterday. Not pretty. Not fun. Almost all better today. Better enough to attend my second swim lesson and swim .85 miles over 1.75 hours (.48 mi/hr average). I wore my sexy, hot pink swimsuit. One lap showed me this suit had much less drag but the same baggy problem as my last one :( I ended up knotting the shoulder straps just to keep it from falling off. Ugh.
I also tried all the strokes I remembered from junior high (breast stroke, freestyle, backstroke, sidestroke) and discovered that freestyle is definitely the toughest for me. Maybe it's the only one I'm doing right ;) Anyway, that boosted my confidence a little.
The sleeker swim suit instantly improved my flip turn, too. Much less drowning this time.
Once I got the flip turn basics, my swim teacher asked me to do as many laps as I could without a rest. Um, well, my first attempt was a whopping 1.5 laps. By the end, I could just barely get to 2 laps (50 yards), then had to stop and suck in oxygen for a couple minutes.
So, it's hard, but I'm not discouraged. I'm really pleased that I had the energy to swim almost an hour straight with short breathing breaks between (30sec-2min). I'm glad to be pushing my limit.
The swimsuit issue makes me rethink the kids' bathing suits for their swim lessons, too. Robert, in particular, wears those ridiculous baggy, knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved rashguard. I wonder if I could get him to try something sleeker. Would he even put it on? Worst case scenario: he hates it and I just try it on James and Matthew when they get older :)
I also tried all the strokes I remembered from junior high (breast stroke, freestyle, backstroke, sidestroke) and discovered that freestyle is definitely the toughest for me. Maybe it's the only one I'm doing right ;) Anyway, that boosted my confidence a little.
The sleeker swim suit instantly improved my flip turn, too. Much less drowning this time.
Once I got the flip turn basics, my swim teacher asked me to do as many laps as I could without a rest. Um, well, my first attempt was a whopping 1.5 laps. By the end, I could just barely get to 2 laps (50 yards), then had to stop and suck in oxygen for a couple minutes.
So, it's hard, but I'm not discouraged. I'm really pleased that I had the energy to swim almost an hour straight with short breathing breaks between (30sec-2min). I'm glad to be pushing my limit.
The swimsuit issue makes me rethink the kids' bathing suits for their swim lessons, too. Robert, in particular, wears those ridiculous baggy, knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved rashguard. I wonder if I could get him to try something sleeker. Would he even put it on? Worst case scenario: he hates it and I just try it on James and Matthew when they get older :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
