Victoria had her daily dose of semi-solid food. Today it was bananas, which she loved. But no matter how much she loved them she got more on her outside than on her inside. As Diana whisked her away after the meal she announced “I’m changing the banana basted baby.”
Avery perked up immediately, “Basted? No, don’t eat the baby! I will miss her!”
I guess he knows what “basted” means.
Just found some old stories about the kids from 2005 and thought I’d share them as 2007 comes to a close. Remember, Claire was 5 and just starting Kindergarten and Avery was 2.
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Claire: Today in gym we had a foot contest. Everyone lined up, and whoever had the most feet won.
Daddy: Oh, was it a tie?
Claire: No. Eric won.
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Claire: Today in Sunday School we learned about good and bad.
Mommy: Oh, what did you learn?
Claire: I’m saving it for a surprise.
Daddy: Can you surprise us with “good†first?
Claire: Um, no thanks.
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Avery has been playing with Celestia – a computer space simulator. He loves zooming between the planets.
Today Mars is the brightest it will be for 60,000 years, so we all went out to see the bright red dot in the sky. I pointed to it and told Avery that that was mars. “Oh, marns? Whoosh.†He wanted me to zoom in to the planet.
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12/31/05 This morning Avery woke me up and, keeping a promise I made last night, I woke Claire. As I was leaving the room Claire asked me to wait, saying “When you get bigger it’s harder to do things.†Referring to climbing down the ladder on her bunk.
Avery immediately corrected her. “Claire not big. Claire small like Pluto.â€
Avery: Daddy, how long can I breathe?
Me: As long as you want.
Avery: Then I’m going to breathe forever.
Me: Uh, that’s . . . good.
For desert Avery chose M&Ms and Skittles. I put them in a bowl as he asked, but he got upset because he couldn’t tell which was which.
“M&Ms have an ‘m’,” I explained, “and Skittles have an ‘s’ on them.”
He was happy for a while, then got upset. “What does ‘E’ stand for? I found an ‘E’!”
I looked at it and laughed. “You silly, that’s an ‘m’ sideways.” I assumed he was joking.
He looked at it, careuly turned the M&M a quarter turn, and went “Oooooohhhh…”
I guess he wasn’t joking.
I came home from work early on Halloween to help with Trick-or-Treating visitors, a curfew meant an early start for most kids. Avery was already dressed as Superman, and Diana had sprayed his hair into the trademark curl. Avery was very excited to tell me something: reaching up he patted his head, feeling teh slight stiffness of the hairspray, and announced “I have Grandma’s hair!”
I told Avery that he didn’t have school tomorrow because of Columbus day, and he asked what that was. I explained about Columbus, and the queen of Spain, going to China and finding America by accident. I finished by saying he kept searching for China, but only discovered more of America*.
Avery put on his sad face “He didn’t discover me.”
“No,” I agreed, “that was a long time ago.”
Avery thought for a while and made a decision. “So tonight, when all the children go to sleep Columbus will come to their houses and discover them. And then tomorrow will be a holiday.”
* To all those who argue Columbus didn’t discover America because people already lived there, I’d like to point out this lovely little restaurant I discovered, even though the owner was quite aware of its location.
Last night was pretty tough on the whole family. Just as Diana and I were heading off to bed, Claire came downstairs and sat on the floor in the bathroom. When I asked her what was wrong she said she felt like throwing up. After loosing yet another throw of rock-paper-scissors I was on duty. An hour later I was still on duty, so Claire got a bowl just in case and went to bed.
She wanted a sippy, and when I returned she threw up over the bed and floor. I got the bowl under her and she went into the hall while I cleaned up (lots of paper towels and dragging both comforters to the laundry room).
At my prompting Claire went down to brush her teeth (always do this after vomiting — it can destroy your teeth) and threw up again in the toilet. An hour later she had thrown up two more times. That’s when Diana woke up again.
Claire went to bed and so did we. Then Avery came in twenty minutes later complaining about the noise. It was Claire throwing up for a fifth time. Frankly I’m amazed she had anything left, but a little of dinner did come up. At this point it was 1 A.M.
Avery woke me again at 2:15 asking what the name of the music in his head was. I couldn’t help.
He woke again at 3:00 complaining that he wanted his smell back. I don’t even think he knew what that was. I got back to sleep about 3:30 and told Diana I was pretty much finished. Diana says Avery and Claire managed to wake her up three times before she woke me up at 6:30 to feed Victoria.
So yeah, a bad night for everyone.
Last night was Avery’s open house at school. Noni watched the kids while we toured the school, met his teachers, and saw what he was doing. Some stuff was pretty well on target, and some seemed horribly below his current development. Hopefully they can keep the alphabet stuff interesting for a kid who already knows his phonics, especially since he’s known the alphabet for about two years at this point.
The teachers were nice, and since the BOCES school is actually based in a real school the facilities are great.
We took Claire and Avery to the science museum in Queens today. Victoria stayed with my mom, though we were prepared to take her if necessary.
The kids loved it. Avery was pretty excited about the rockets at the entrance, but we headed for the Cyberchase exhibit that had just opened first. Claire loved that, Avery not so much. They had a bunch of puzzles from the shows that kids could try to solve, and since it had just opened everything worked.
Avery, however, spotted a demonstration of the standard normal curve in the mathematics section next door and couldn’t be dragged away from the falling marbles. I looked in on a case of topology examples made physical. Nearby were a bunch of optical illusions that kept the kids busy until hunger took over.
Lunch was expensive and not very good. But afterwards we went to the space section and the kids had a lot of fun. Mostly it was about the possibility of life elsewhere in the solar system. Upstairs was a section called “networks” that seemed to be more about connection machines. Claire had some fun on the surfboard simulator, but Avery hated it.
Overall it was pretty fun, and we have to go again. hopefully next time we won’t get lost on the way.
Went on our annual apple picking trip with the Birnbaums. The kids enjoyed it, but not as much as last year because of the heat. The heat didn’t dampen their enjoyment of the rest of the day, however, and the kids had a such great time playing in the pool and later in the house that they didn’t want to leave, even as the clock hit eight.
On our trip back home Avery begged to go back, but we explained it was too late and he should just nap in the car.
“I’m too hungry to sleep,” he complained, despite the enormous dinner leaving everyone stuffed, “I’m so hungry and thirsty. We need to go back to Jason’s house so I can get something to drink.”