January 25, 2008

What I Did During the SoCal Winter Storm of ‘08

First I cursed a bit because the Internet went down.

Then I cursed a bit because the Republicans were debating from Florida and making my head explode.

Then I decided to play doctor with the kids, as Princess Peanut was sick of spinning around after dressing HERSELF.

The children promptly got a fan (being used as a ‘head cut bandaid’) stuck in my hair.

We struggled over who could get said fan out of said hair best.

Both children tried, some harder than others.

The fan was freed after Mom realized it was actually two different toys stuck together and could easily be pulled apart.

Our garage is flooding and I’m pretty sure my back yard could use a canoe. Maybe some rafts.

Pray the internet says on.

January 24, 2008

When Martians Attack

Minding my own business yesterday and half watching/listening to the local news I hear “Do images from Mars show life on the Red Planet? Take a look and decide for yourself.”

Thinking I had lost my mind I glanced up at the tv to see THIS.

Ummm. Ok.

Now none of this would be a big deal except my son is really, really, really, really into Mars and the Mars Rovers.

Spirit and Opportunity are household names around here and Count Waffles, at not yet 5-years old, is convinced he will one day retrieve his buddies from Mars. He’s serious too. He also thinks his Mom gets to go with him, but that’s another story.

So when I saw the images on the news I debated showing our budding astronaut. Here’s the problem though-he’s afraid of aliens.

He has nightmares about them and they totally freak him out.

I didn’t post the pic here because I’m afraid he’ll see it-that’s how bad he MIGHT freak.

So I stopped myself from showing him these rocks that look like a person, because I thought he would cry or scream or be convinced there are aliens on Mars and we all need to run and hide.

Does that make me a hover-mom?

Should I let him see them and explain they are rocks?

I KNOW he’ll be totally fascinated by the photo and the shot from Spirit (which we’ve look at a million times anyway) but I’m so afraid I’ll add to his fears.

I’m a big geek, aren’t I?

We’re going to watch the Disney documentary Roving Mars. Again.

I need a hook up at JPL. Or something.

Done babbling now.

January 16, 2008

Dear PBS & the Creators of Super Why!

Thank you.

One hundred times, thank you.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, Super Why! on PBSkids is “geared towards children on the cusp of reading.” That means preschoolers. That means, my kids.

Despite my best efforts, I have a stereotypical boy who loves his numbers and counting and math and, until recently, abhorred the alphabet. He had no interest in letters, in reading, in writing, in even LISTENING to books.His preschool teachers keep telling me not to push and in the same breath tell me he’ll need to write his name come the first day of Kindergarten.

We’ve tried flash cards. Different kinds of books. All gently, all without really making him squirm. But I’ve been worried he would never pick up a love of reading, a want of words and sentences and paragraphs that make your mind wander.

Count Waffles will be 5 in March and while he can invent an entire city with semi-working plumbing in my front room, reading about one just doesn’t interest him. When I told him he could learn how to build it bigger, better, stronger from a book-he rolled his eyes, looked at me with that “don’t make me I get so frustrated” shrug and I let it go.

Then came WordGirl who peaked his interest slightly. WordGirl accidentally led us to Super Why!

And today…today my son spelled RED in my front room while asking me where he could find “that one car, you know mom, the red one -r-e-d, red.”

Holy crap. Did he just spell red? Wait. Does he even know what that looks like on paper? Can he…I mean could he…might he actually be able to READ the word?

I showed him a red crayon. I asked him to read the label. First he looked at me like I was insane. He looked at the crayon. He looked at me. I showed him the r. I showed him the e. I showed him the d. His eyes lit up.

Red, mom. That says RED.

I cried. He again looked at me like I was insane, but in that…Mom stop GUSHING way insane. He was damn proud of himself too.

Then he asked to watch Super Why! (horray Tivo) and asked to play the Super Why! games on the office computer. Could he get a computer like Whyatt? Could he get books like the Super Readers have? Isn’t his cape cool? I wish I could spin like that and make my clothes change. Did you know Mom you can have an adventure by reading? And on. And on. And on. And on.

It’s my understanding the creators of Super Why! are the brains behind Blues Clues. I just want to say publicly-

Angela C. Santomero and Samantha Freeman Alpert- this Mom thanks you.

Sincerely, (and I mean it)

Queen of Spain

p.s. not to be outdone, the 2.5 year old spelled SMART and pretended to read 3 books today. Show off. I have no idea where she gets it from.

January 15, 2008

The Fort That Ate My Front Room

I’ve come a long way baby.

There was a time any sort of mess freaked me out. If you came over for dinner I would take and clean your glass before you were finished drinking.

Now I can hang, to a degree, with toys all over and various forts in each room. I really need to vent about this latest Count Waffle’s creation though-as it has now consumed every square inch of our playroom (aka the front room) and every pillow, blanket, toy in the house.

It has plumbing people. Tubes that used to be wrapping paper holders and a toy keyboard stand. While I applaud and encourage my son’s inventions, I need to draw the line somewhere. I’m thinking this thing can’t expand beyond the playroom. I’m also going to need to vacuum, eventually.