Sunday, November 14, 2004

Another 2 birthday party weekend. Aidan had school off Thurs & Fri - and Quincy ended up getting off on Fri as he got all teary eyed and quivery voiced at the thought of going to school when his brother got to stay home (guess who told him all about it?). Friday twin boys from Aidan's school had their party at a "local" playground which has recently been renovated meaning has all the cool play equip like the spiderweb and xmas tree thing. They even had Gayle come and do music with the kids - she goes to both boys schools and both of them really like her - usually. Here at the party they pretty much only played with each other and when Gayle was there they took it as an opportunity to play on the equip at the other end of the playground where they had the place to themselves. I was a bit disgusted. Party #2 was Theo - old best friend from Miraloma. It was at Theo's house and there were not very many kids - Ella, Theo, Aidn & Lillian from Miraloma, Kai neighbor, Margaret & Jamie from new school (and old friends). Worked out great from Aidan's perspective. They had pop rock things and Theos Dad did colored smoke bombs outside much to the kids fasscination. Guess what color smoke you get when you have blue bomb next to yellow bomb? Then came Strawberry Teardrop - a clown. Karen the mom told me about 10 more kids had beeen invited and I have to say it would have been a positive madhouse should they all have attended! There were lots of balloon things she made - mostly "swords" as it turned out - by request. Oh well - they are all in a violent mock fighting phase - what can I say.

My kids are still all about "the bad guys" and jail and what dastardly things they can do to the bad guys. Aidan being the worryer that he is once asked me "but there aren't any REAL bad guys in this city are there? Or maybe just one?". I dont remember if I blogged about our trip back east but we got to listen to 20 min monologues about what they would do to the "bad guys" - I remember Aidan would pour maple syrup in his eyes so they would stick shut... then there was something about making them dead and mixing them up in a bucket and then throwing them in jail. Hmm. I am considering putting down as one of my elementary school choices (which I would probably get) Harvey Milk - it is very close and several friends who go love it - and our local principle's kids go there. One of the things making me hesitate is that 60% are bused in from the really poor parts of town - where kids really do see some horrible things by bad guys. I am not sure Aidan will be up for hearing about any really bad stuff. The school is really warm and inclusive and one of the small schools where teachers know everyone, they have morning circle with the whole school, all spend time with the PE Coaches learning about takign responsibility for self and various self-esteem building things, paid art teacher, salad bar 2x a week (only school to have - and I have to believe may be only time some of these kids see fresh fruits & veggies). They also say their own pledge of allegiance to the world instead of america which i really like. And the fact that the kids do get bused out of there neighborhood means that their parents do care and want something more for them - they could be going to their local school instead. We'll see - I still have some research to do on this school and many others.

The last few days the kids have been playing "kitty" (altho Q already had been pretending he was one) and concurrently "mommy & baby". It is pretty funny to watch mommy Q comforting / hugging baby A. Lots of high pitched talking and meowing. I think part of this game was started with our visit to Thomas on Thursday - he has been into mommy & baby since adoption of baby sister Ella is imminent. In fact they left Thurs around midnight for China. Should you want to see more visit http://www2.caringbridge.org/asia/ella14/ altho I guess you need username etc - if interested let me know and I'll forward them via email.

The boys have also been very into building "Forts" this week. Altho guess who does the actual building? Yours truly of course. At least they are pretty easy to clean up and have the benefit of not having lots and lots of little pieces of things all over the house.

I set up a Kindergarten blog for use for people from our coop and Aidan's school in their search. I am hoping that people will share impressions and pepole actually with kids there will share their experiences. So far 1 friend wrote me back a long email with her thoughts - I then cut and pasted it into site. And 2 others have made comments. I really get annoyed sometimes how if you want something done you have to do it yourself - and even then participation is so hard to come by - several people thanked me for it and have looked at it but of course haven't actually made any comments themselves. I send out alot of emails on our listserve at the preschool and sort of feel like they don't even get read anymore - or people just arent' interested in helping out etc. I just furnished our new Break Rm / Office. Some people seem to love it, some people don't understand why we didn't use all "free" stuff (I bought stuff from IKEA). It is a really tight space and I spent alot of effort to try to maximize storage and usage and have it look nice on a tight budget with of course no help - so I do'nt really want to hear any comments about how else it could have been done. Put up or shut up.

Pete is trying to get our 2 indoor kids to go outside and enjoy our nice weather this weekend. Ha ha!

Yesterday I left the top of the car open abit. When we came home I threw on my vest. Upstairs I felt something in my shirt and reached back and got stung! I thought I had brushed it out but didn't see anything on the floor so after a moment or 2 I took my shirt off and saw a bee crawling around in it! Yikes! My first ever bee sting - it hurt off and on most of the evening. In my shirt in my home.

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