Year of the Rock

There seems to be a confluence of curriculum in 1st, 4th, and 8th grades in the Bloomington Public School system. All three kids are doing earth science this year. Elizabeth's science class began with an overview of the geo-spheres and now they're discussing geologic time. Robert was waxing poetic this morning about metamorphic rocks and just a few weeks ago they were studying erosion. His classroom worked with models of the Elwha Dam so they could predict what will happen when it is removed. Colleen's classroom is keeping it simple and fun by gathering a rock collection.

Speaking of our good earth, what's with the trees this year? Our leaves all turned and fell but our neighbors' trees are mostly still green. Should we be concerned?

Odd

Like most people (I hope), I find some odd things while sorting laundry. Tonight I found the following in the pockets of Robert's jeans:

rock
quarter
Lego person head
AAA battery
pencil top eraser
empty Milky Way wrapper
half a yellow crayon
rubber band
green froot loop (uncrushed)
and.... drum roll...
a clove of garlic

Perhaps it's Halloween related. Whatever the case, I'm glad I checked the pockets before throwing them in the washer/dryer.

How about you? What crazy things have turned up in the laundry at your house?

Four days in ...

So we're four days into our grand Bloomington adventure. Cate is safely in Ireland with Patty and Jeannie. And so far the kids have gotten all their meals, have been to bed on time, the laundry and dishes are caught up and all that jazz.

Elizabeth is trying not to let the extra authority go to her head. I do definitely need her help, just because I'm still working at home during the day. But in the afternoons she has taken to crocheting upstairs in our bedroom while watching TV. She needs her alone time, after all, and basically neither of us is going to get much of it the next few weeks. She and I also have a touch-base meeting every night, where I encourage her to speak freely. She did ask one good question and I hope she will continue to be honest.

Robert shows most outwardly how much he misses his mom. Colleen will mention Cate in passing and Robert will instantly look a little sad. He mopes. He recovers. He doesn't like to talk about it. Tonight he didn't feel much like dinner but he was quick to remind me that he had a whole sandwich for lunch instead of his usual half, so I didn't make a big deal out of it. He asked if he could have cereal for dinner, but I told him cereal for breakfast, PB&J for lunch and cereal for dinner was not going to cut it.

Colleen is doing great so far. She doesn't have a whole lot of worries. Someone gets her breakfast in the morning. She plays on the computer, reads books, gets outside a little bit but has a hard time getting her siblings to go along with her outside. She and Robert each got a new Webkin in a care package from Patty, while Elizabeth got a Harry Potter game for the Wii. My goodness, they can kill a lot of time with those things!

Elizabeth has the night off, sleeping over at a friend's house. Much deserved. There she doesn't have to help get anyone ready for bed or clear dishes. Well, she might have to clear the dishes, not sure.

For a high-tech guy, I keep the calendar pretty low-tech. Any new appointments or items for the to-do list are on the one-a-day calendar on the desk in my home office. Tomorrow is pretty busy. Robert was invited to a classmate's birthday party, Elizabeth needs to be picked up from the sleepover, Colleen is spending the night with Neil and Alicia and Elizabeth and I are going to a family get-together. So, today we had to go out and buy a gift and drop Elizabeth off at her friend's. Also, Mom came over and picked up the kids and took them to the park for a few hours, helping them knock an item off the bingo card.

Sorry, no pictures. But I promise they are all still alive.

The drain brain

Robert is a big fan of listing pros and cons. If you want to know every eventuality or consequence to even the simplest choice, Robert is the one to ask. He can dream up dozens of consequences, several times removed from the initial question.

Recently he debated whether we should fix a slow drain in our bathroom sink. He googled the problem and found several easy fixes but he hesitated because seeing the water in the sink might teach Colleen exactly how much water she was using and possibly wasting when she brushed her teeth. Then he changed his mind because he didn’t think it would take her that long to learn that lesson and it would probably be more expensive if the clog got larger over time.

He told me that “plumbers are expensive because they are skilled at stuff nobody wants to do themselves.”

Robert offered to help me plunge the drain but, as he said, “for safety issues” he didn’t want any part of pouring boiling water down the drain.

The little things

I opened up Google Maps this afternoon to plot out a potentially crazy trip for a D3football/D3hoops weekend in November and had to smile -- the default location on that service seems to be a little hit or miss but it remembered who I was today and displayed the satellite image of our neighborhood here in Minneapolis.

It reminded me, also, that I have this list of adjustments that I've had to make (or try to make) over the past few months now that we're not in Northern Virginia anymore.

Such as one that's pretty basic: remembering to dial 1 in front of 703. Definitely not a local call anymore. I think I finally have this down.

Going up and down the creaky stairs from the main level of my parents house to the upstairs. They creaked back then and creak even more now. Only now I'm worried about waking up the kids rather than waking up mom and dad.

Driving at what's considered a normal pace out here. And keeping my hands off the car horn.

Remembering that shows start an hour earlier. Or that 4 is CBS and 9 is Fox rather than NBC and CBS.

Remembering to call the Interstate around here I-94, not I-95. This also took a long time to adjust in the other direction, when on the east coast.

There's a whole new round of remembering what's east of me and what's west of me. In Connecticut I had the same problem, since New York City had been east and north of me for so long that it was ingrained in my head that way. Except getting on 95 ... err, 94 ... err, 95 in Connecticut, NYC was always west and south. Here it's getting away from the thought that Minneapolis is west of me, or north of me, 100 percent of the time. I've confused Cate probably a dozen times already.

But I'm not going back on one thing. I'm going to keep calling it soda. It seems like everyone knows what I mean.