Babushka Approved

Last night my pal and I unpacked and split up our tin of Bulgarian surplus ammo. It was awesome. There was an "Inspected By..." paper mostly in Cryllic that I cannot even begin to understand, the tin opened like some kind of eastern bloc sardine can, and the rounds were wrapped in little packages of 10. I kid you not. 300 rounds, each group of 10 gift-wrapped with a little commie bow of proletariat twine. I had read about this on a website I frequent (theboxotruth.com) but it was still a little startling. You totally CAN picture scarf-clad babushka grandmas wrapping bullets on an assembly line.

Birthday Bonanza

Cayden is making a brown plate the most arduous way possible, using every color in the rainbow.

So Big

Cayden recently got his first backpack (Buzz! Lightyear! ) with a Christmas gift-certificate to Toys-R-Us and looks unbelievably old. As he is fond of telling us, "I'm not a little boy. I'm a big boy". Yes you are son, heartbreakingly and wonderfully big.

Spring Break is Near

I'm hoping by the time it's over to have found my desk again.

Drafting Table

Drafting tables, for the sake of teaching drafting, are a thing of the past. Even at my high school the kids do their drafting on CAD (Computer Aided Design). Accordingly the drafting tables at my school are mostly used as portable desks and being 50 years old they have taken some abuse. Ok, a lot of abuse. So when I found out that I would be hosting a student teacher this winter I formulated a plan to refinish one of the destroyed drafting tables and put it in the back of my room as a spare teacher desk.

I picked out one that still had its footrails and brought it home for reconstructive surgery. At first I figured I'd do the whole thing but due to space and tool constraints I settled for just pulling off the work surface, refinishing it, and then reattaching it.

The sanding wasn't too bad. I started with a 50 grit belt sander to tear off the top layer of shellac, pencil, sharpie, and amateur scrimshawing. I then switched to a random orbital sander with 100 grit, then 220, and then hand sanded the final before painting on 4 coats of water based polyurethane.

Then I stuck it on its legs and brought it back to school. All told it was a quick and dirty refinishing of a pretty basic piece of wood. That being said, the wide grain and blond color of the wood (maybe maple?) underneath the original stain and shellac is very pretty and it makes a nice addition to my classroom.

not the one i refinished but a good example of the condition of these desks

mine had a few more sharpie renditions of reproductive organs

Indoctrination Complete

Cayden at breakfast this morning: "Mamma! That's the NPR song! NPR is good radio. I like to hear the words the boys and girls are saying on the radio."

965.7 miles to Mt. Katahdin

We had to take advantage of the copious snowfall of last week so we went out to the AT today to do some snowshoeing. On the way out Cayden established what would constitute an emergency so that we could go get water from the water tower. He likes water towers a lot.






Me: " If there were 4 squirrels would that be an emergency?"
C: " If there were 4 squirrels and the firetruck ran them over, then they would be squashed."
Me: " Would that be an emergency?"
C: "Yes."

Snowmageddon

I think the snow of the last 48 hours is the most snow I have ever seen fall at once. Not counting the blizzard of '76 for which I was two years old and stuck at my teacher's house.

CH2S (Thioformaldehyde)

Yesterday Cayden came running out of the back room with a shrink wrapped unopened video in his hand. He asked me to identify it for him but I had no idea where it came from. "Can you tell me what movie this is?" he repeatedly queried me. "Um, I've never seen that movie before in my life kiddo, sorry."

2 hours later while picking up in the spare room I found the scattered remains of wrapping paper all over the floor and the mystery became clear to me. I brought the paper into the kitchen and related the following conclusion to JD while Cayden listened on: "Hey Mommy, somebody found the present from Nana & Pop-Pop up on the table in the spare room so then somebody went and got their stool and then somebody decided that the present was for them so then somebody unwrapped the present."

With no guile whatsoever the kid immediately yelled "It was Cayden Hoyt Henry Sprayberry!"

Snow Woes

Waking up to 8" of fresh snow is very exciting for everybody. Until we actually get outside that is.

Serious Progress

Warning: this post is entirely about bodily functions that are not good dinner conversation. So, for months now when people ask me if Cayden is potty-trained, I look them in the eye and say, "He's not wearing diapers?". Which is a fancy way of saying no. He picked up peeing on the potty pretty readily, and honestly we probably transitioned him out of diapers a little too soon. But, if you cloth diaper there is not much difference between washing four pairs of pants a day and 8 diapers a day, and his teachers are on board with experiential learning. Cayden had a good learning curve because his teachers would have him change his own pants and underwear (to the best of his ability), and that started ti cut into his play time. He has been paying more and more attention to his body, and honestly only has an accident once or twice a week at school now (more on the weekends because we sometimes forget to remind him to go). Pooping on the potty has been a little bit of a different story. It is really hard for him because there is such random reward. Your average 2 year old will always have at least a little pee to put in the potty, but you can't really summon a poop on command. So, we kind of backed off that front because he was getting really frustrated. We settled for having him tell us when he had a poop accident, and told him that acknowledging a poop as soon as it started would help him learn when it was going to happen. And it looks like this may *gasp* have actually worked. For two poops in a row, Cayden has announced that he is going to poop on the potty, gone to his potty, and done the deed! Granted he has made the announcement about 10 times, and only two resulted in a poop, but he is consistently trying instead of getting sad and frustrated when "it won't come out!". It is a little weird to be proud of him for this, but learning this skill has required Cayden to work on some emotional maturity and patience that he just didn't have 4 months ago. I think that we may actually be able to retire the diaper laundry bin by this summer, an event that will be accompanied by an entire bottle of champagne on my part.

Had it coming...

C: runs into kitchen crying
J: What's wrong Cayden?
C: Toku hit me!
J: Were you poking Toku?
C: NO!
T: What were you doing when Toku kit you?
C: I was tickling him. Just a little bit. I am going to go tell Toku no hitting.
C: runs into living room Toku! No hitting! ROAR!!!

Tyson Likes his Christmas Present

Of course, I didn't get a picture of his previous round. His grouping was a *little* less spectacular.

Wait For It...

That's right! It's a disposable recycling bin!

Son of a Knitter

"That's a Y Mommy. Y is for Yarn."

Eating My Hat

I discovered a great game this summer with my Dad. You pick up a Williams & Sonoma catalogue and commence mocking the absurdly specific and expensive tools they have. Take Exhibit A : really? A 100$ hot chocolate maker? Have you people never heard of a microwave? Or a cooktop? However, much to my chagrin, I have found a thoroughly superfluous 'cook's tool' that I want: the potato glove. I know, I know. I am not normal.

Hawks attack Cows....who knew?

To go along with his deep and abiding interest in communication is Cayden's new obsession with telling stories. Whenever JD or I are telling a story to each other in his presence he asks what we're talking about and listens carefully to our explanation. So obviously this has led to him telling us his stories.

Another First

Saturday, 5 December 2009.

The Emergence of Testosterone

This week has seen a significant shift in the imaginative play in our household. For many weeks, we have been little kitty and mommy kitty. We talk in high voices and giggle and are very cute. Now we are seeing increasing occurrences of dinosaurs. Little dinosaurs roar and yell and stomp. They do not giggle, they spit. Happily, they still like to snuggle with mommy dinosaurs ("snuggle" = a little dinosoar crawling sweetly into my lap, then sudden flailing and roaring while the mommy dinosaur rapidly ejects the baby dinosaur in a futile attempt to avoid injury).

You have to draw a line somewhere

C: (snatches at my nose) I got your nose!
J:  (continuing game) I got your ear!
C: I got your nose!
J: I got your other ear!
C: I got your nose!
J: (snatches at the top of Cayden's head) I got your free will!
C: No, Mommy. Don't take my free will. Put my free will back!