vonRoeschlaub Family News

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.”

Avery had his first day of school yesterday.  We waited outside with him until his bus arrived.  Even Claire wanted to be there and we drove her to school afterwards.  He must have liked it because he was eager to get back on the bus again today.  His only complaint was that he took too long to eat a cookie at lunch and the teacher had to take it away.

Hopefully he will continue to love school.

Tonight, as I read Avery his bedtime story, the space facts book once again, we turned to a page he hadn’t seen before.

“That is an atom,” I said, “everything in the universe is made of atoms.”  (I wasn’t about to start a discussion on the nature of dark matter.)

“Even the Earth?”

“Yes,” I said as he looked closely at the floor, “but they are too small to see, even with a microscope.  Everything you can touch is atoms.”

“But even the Earth?”

“Yes, even the Earth.  Even you are made of atoms.”

“No, I don’t want atoms on me!” he shouted, trying to wipe them off.

“You aren’t covered with atoms, you are made of atoms,” I explained.

“No!  I’m made of food.  I don’t want to be made of atoms!” He started sobbing uncontrollably.

I realized this had got out of hand and held him tightly and tried to turn the revelation into something good.  “It’s okay.  Do you know where atoms come from?  Stars make them.  We are made from stars.”

“I don’t want to be stars, I’m made of food, not atoms!”

At this point I decided it was best to let t drop and he calmed down after a while.  At least he was willing to go to bed without looking at the book anymore.  I think he was just as afraid to restart the conversation as I was.

It’s just a matter of time before he discovers the awful truth, though.

Last night I was trying toget the baby to sleep after her feeding and it wasn’t working. I sang a bit to her, she always likes that, but quickly ran out of good sleeping songs. I tried to sing Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'” but couldn’t remember all the words.

After a few attempts I went to YouTube and located a video using that as the sound track. She liked the song so I started going through our music collection. After a while I found that she liked the peppy songs better. It wasn’t long before I was dancing with her to a bunch of pop tunes (including “S.U.K.I.” which I used to bounce Avery to when he was a baby).

I was rather surprised when she fell asleep not in the middle of a nice slow ballad, but in the middle of “Banana Tengoku,” a mambo-style ending theme to the children’s cartoon “Donkey Kong.”

When we returned from vacation there was plenty of mail waiting for us. Melissa gathered it for us and the pile she handed over was surprisingly big. Fortunately, most of it was junk mail, but there were two boxes — both for Victoria. The first was a lovely dress from Emerald (my grandfather’s second wife), but the second didn’t say who it was from.

Diana started opening it, then stopped. “The box is blue,” she explained. Yeah, that actually is an explanation.

I sat down and held Victoria on my lap while Diana pulled out the Tiffany box. “This has to be from Kurt,” she said. The card inside confirmed it. We let Victoria pull off the ribbon (she’ll grab anything that touches her hand now) and opened it up. Inside the bag in the box (that was in a bag in a box) was a beautiful silver moon-shaped rattle.

It was probably just the shininess, but Victoria smiled when she saw it (a trick she learned two weeks ago) . Then she reached out on her own and grabbed it (a trick she learned less than a week ago) and popped it in her mouth (a new trick).

She eventually was willing to shake it a bit when we showed her how it made a noise, but I’m not sure she found that nearly as interesting as the taste. A definite hit all around.

Back from vacation. Here are the highlights:

The trip up was long and boring, and the kids watched all but three of the videos. We ate at Macdonald’s, breaking the rule my mother had set for the kids not six hours into the trip. Victoria was beyond incredible, even though she was awake almost the whole trip she hardly cried at all despite being confined to her car seat. We had lobster in Portland, Maine and stayed at a motel for the night. The kids went to the pool and I tried to get some work done.

The next day was to the Children’s Museum in Portland, then on to Tom’s summer house. The property was much bigger than I expected from the descriptions. I could only see one other house, and that only from the fourth floor catwalk. The ocean view was amazing, and the kids loved it. It was good seeing Rachel again, and Claire wanted to spend all her time with Rachel and Tenzin. Actually got some work done at the house, and also got to see the Rockefeller gardens (by invitation only) and a little relaxation. Karaoke late into the night, Tom’s a pretty decent singer.

Back down to Portland to see the worlds largest free-standing globe (it’s huge) and then on to the Sauter’s. Despite being a tight spot for nine people, it was a lot of fun. For one thing, there were plenty of adults to keep track of the kids, for another there was plenty to do. The kids spent the morning at the game farm, and the afternoon boating in the lake. The night we arrived we went out to see the loons.

After the Sauter’s it was Storyland, a fairy-tale themed park. Very clever, no royalties. It was surprisingly elaborate, and the highlight was the mad science lab where thousands of foam balls were vacuumed up and shot out of cannons or dropped from baskets in the ceiling. After an hour the kids had to be dragged out with a promise of shaved ice. Despite that, Avery remembers the five seconds spent on the log flume the most. He also liked the flying shoe (Winken, Blinken and Nod).

From Storyland we pressed on and arrived at Mont Tremblant around Midnight. My parents own a condo in Ste. Jovite. Sadly, it pretty much rained continuously while we were there, but Diana and I did get some alone time for shopping, and we traded off babysitting with my parents for a quite dinner at a wonderful place my father always goes to when he’s up there. There is an indoor pool, but the number of non-outside activities up there is pretty small, combined with the spreading coughing plague pushed us into heading home two days early.

The trip home was pretty dull. The only big stop was at the border. I tried to explain to Claire and Avery what a Duty Free shop was, but Claire seemed uninterested and Avery seemed confused. At least I had Victoria’s full attention, Unfortunately, she chose being in the shop for her first and only crying jag during the trip. I kept expecting a customs agent to show up and demand to see her papers. We did have her birth certificate and our marriage license, but that doesn’t make you feel any better when crossing the border.

Avery spent the night at my mother’s house and, during dinner, she slipped a bit of cube-steak on his plate. Avery asked what it was, but Noni knew if she told him he would refuse to eat it, so she just said it was a surprise and he didn’t have to eat it. Avery ate a piece. As short while later, he ate another. Before long the plate was empty and he was asking for more.

“Noni,” he explained, “I’m a big boy now. I like yucky food!”

Claire’s real birthday had a number of gifts and dinner with my parents at Yamaguchi’s (Claire had a sushi sampler, Avery had udon), but her party was on the fourth.

We had set it up at the local candy store and arrived a bit early to set up. It was hard to keep Avery from grabbing all the candy he could, but once the guests started arriving he was somewhat distracted. Claire screamed and ran to every person as they arrived. The store had a bunch of fun things set up for the party. They made candy sushi using Swedish fish and rice krispy treats, did some candy jewelry (little of which lasted long enough to be worn out the door), and sand art using powdered candy.

Diana is getting a reputation for her music CDs. Last year the American Idol CD had lots of dance tunes ready to be sung along with. This year the songs all had to do with candy. For posterity, the song list was:

1. The Sweet Escape – Gwen Stefani
2. Candy – Mandy Moore
3. Sugar, Sugar – The Archies
4. The Candy Man – Sammy Davis, Jr.
5. My Boy Lollipop – Red Sauce
6. Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It’s Flavor – Lonnie Donnegan and His Skiffle Group
7. A Spoon Full Of Sugar – Julie Andrews
8. I Want Candy – Bow Wow Wow
9. Chocolate Nut – James K
10. Candy – Tracey Ullman
11. Yummy, Yummy, Yummy – Ohio Express
12. Candyman Blues – Victor Johnson
13. Candy – Whigfield
14. Bubble Gum – Kid’s Night Out
15. Chocolate – Tricia Sebastian
16. Chomping Gum – Hap Palmer
17. Icky Sticky Bubble Gum – David Landau
18. Jellybean Jungle – Butterscott
19. Green M&Ms – Mary Arden Collins
20. Chocolate (Choco Choco) – Soul Control
21. I’m Your Gummy Bear (Ich Bin Ein Gummi Bear) – Gummi Bear
22. Don’t Brush Your Teeth While You’re Driving – Kirk Moore

Special thanks to iTunes for making the CDs possible.  And yes, we are aware that technically some of those songs aren’t “about candy.”

Yesterday my parents played hooky.  In order to be sure to get home before Monday, they left Canada on Saturday and got home Saturday night (it could have taken longer).  Since they couldn’t get caught at the house on Sunday, they snuck out to the beach and we went along.

It was fun to see how things had developed since the last time we were at the beach, August of last year.  Claire was willing to get her feet wet, but Avery was afraid to even touch the water.  He did have a good time burying himself in the sand, though.  Before we left Claire had even gone with Noni out past the breakers and done a little wave jumping.  As she was returning to the beach a breaker rolled right over her and she panicked a bit, but she still felt good about the ocean once she was back on shore, so I guess she’s feeling more confident.  She is definately a better swimmer than last year.

Avery enjoyed playing in the sand, but by the time we were going back to the car the sand had heated up and he had to run to Diana and get his shoes.  I toughed it out, but only because my feet are currently rather calloused anyway.

Victoria spent most of her time under the umbrella avoiding the sun, but Diana took her out for a brief touch of the ocean with her feet, which she did not like, and letting some sand get between her toes, which she did like.

Everyone got a bath once we were home, even Victoria.