Science FUNdaMENTALS

Sunday morning was a frosty memory that required the mind to wonder over past camping trips with warm coffee and early morning fires that mingle with the relaxing atmosphere that is the outdoors. Once the morning chill was removed by the late spring sun we were packed and head north for a hike. Lisa had a race, but the kids and I spent the early morning working on comparative anatomy in the forearms of animals as seemingly diverse as porpoises, bats, horses and humans. Sophia has a great deal of fun reading through my various biology books and both kids got into the ideas of feeling their bones and tendons in their arms. Merrick petered out after starting his day cheerfully but at the ridiculously early hour of 5 am, and missed out on our early morning science experiment on the kitchen floor. Sophia was wondering about the sun spot on the kitchen floor, so with a piece of tape stuck to the kitchen floor we tracked the sun/shadow movement as a function of time--she was really impressed at how fast the sun spot was moving and we had some time to pose some initial hypothesis.
With the kids dressed in their woodland gear and the peanut butter sandwiches in the backpack we headed to the Oconto forest for a hike. We hiked a new trail and found a series of small ponds, none of which held any tadpoles, and multiple areas of blossoming strawberries. The wintergreen was still conspicuous enough for Sophia to find and chew, although when offered to Merrick he just replied "No, I have gum." I was unsure if this was irony or the situation or a juxtaposition of antiquity vs. modernity at any rate, it was cute. We had a nice lunch break in a sunny area with a breeze that was enough to keep the early mosquito hatch away from our granola bars. Merrick ate his granola bars while walking often wandering off the trail to fall, each time hollering to me, "I fall down, I know stay on trail" only to be followed by him running past me on the narrow blackberry lined trails say "Here I am , I am coming, being polite." Sophia, to her credit, continued to talk about the quiteness of the woods. It was a really good trip in the woods with the kids, they had fun and we even found a new plant (the kids are knealing next to the new plant). We even found some mushrooms that I was 98% sure were morels--the 2% was enough reason to leave them in the woods rather than saute them for supper. A little botany, a little mycology.

Spring is Rushing Head-Long towards Summer

We have been busy with general spring things although much of which has been around the house. The kids and I got the garden planted a few weeks ago. With the recent rains the potatoes (blue, Russian fingerlings and white) peas, and beans are starting to come up. The kids also have their own garden plots planted. We spent an afternoon making four cedar boxes and preping the boxes with compost and soil and then went to the local Fleet-Farm and they picked out their seeds to plant. I lost track of what all the bought but I believe it was corn, watermelons, and some peas. That was the second rainy garage weekend, although each of the kids did get new rain boots and jackets so that we could still hang out, outside. They now have matching lady-bug rain coats. Merrick spent the day at day care telling his teachers that I also had lady-bug rain coat, so when I picked him up his teachers really wanted to see me in my lady-bug rain coat, complete with PVC antennae on the hood. The First rainy weekend was spent building several trellis for the new hops plants and then staining them with oil based stain. This was a mess but they had their rain coats on so that is about as good of a smock as you can get. Sophia seems to have a birthday party to attend every weekend and is playing soccer two nights a week so that is keeping us hopping. She is at the bottom of the age range in soccer this year and not as dominant as she was last year. She is enjoying it a great deal however and gets excited about playing each week--although the half-hour of playground time after the game combined with Soccer Mom's required treats might play a role as well.
On the third rainy weekend in a row we drove down to Appleton to go to the children's museum and that was enjoyable as touching is encouraged and the kids were able to play inside of a massive heart and the local herpetology club was there so all of the kids were touching and wearing variety of snakes. Merrick has also nearly mastered the game of Fungo, and has a remarkable ability to toss a ball to himself and then hit it with the bat. He even has a respectable percentage of hitting the ball when it is pitched to him. Most of the weekday evenings have been pleasant and we are spending as much time outside as possible given the time constraints of supper and bedtime. The birds are coming to the feeders regularly and the kids know most of them as individual species, and Merrick does a pretty good Mourning Dove. Some of the warmer evenings have allowed us to play the acoustics outside and added a video of Merrick's version of Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The yard has also seen the addition of a wood framed fence, another garage kid project, to keep Merrick from wandering over to the neighbors house. This is not a good look, but it is functional until a more permenant cedar one is built.

I told you, I told you, I told you, A parent's mantra

Both kids are back at school tomorrow and after a cool, cloudy weekend school is a good place for them. We spent the morning cleaning up the yard of winter's grip and getting the last of the raking done (not all of it, but the last that I plan on doing). Lisa was getting a much needed breather after my long weekend away and the kids and I headed up to the Oconto forest to do some hiking and potentially some geocaching. Heading into the woods with one child dressed in a blaze orange hat and the other one wearing what appears to be a fur-bearing animal hat --looks poor in hindsight but it was completely unintentional no matter what Freud says about my ID. I had a couple of geocache sites programed into the GPS although we did not get close enough to them on our abbreviated hike to let the kids in on this plan. Sophia slept on the way up and Merrick, fresh from his own nap, was very excited about going into the woods and continued to holler that he was going deer hunting. Every group of three or more trees was followed by his shouting "woods" and "go in there." This did seem to add some time to the half-hour trip. We eventually made it to the trail I intended on hiking this afternoon and the kids quickly found a turkey feather followed by deer tracks and large turkey tracks. We even found some horse tracks followed by the inevitable "parade tracks" that had Merrick shaking his head with a wrinkled nose and saying "gross, gross indeed." Merrick was on my shoulders for a very short time, actually only until I heard a very wet sneeze followed by his high voice saying "on your hat." We found a melt water pond for the kids to toss rocks into and then a large mud puddle in the trail. Sophia and I walked around the puddle--that is right there were three of us on this trip. I told Merrick twice to get a way from the puddle and Sophia grabbed his arm to pull him away. It was as if the Sirens of Greek mythology had a grip on the boy and he broke loose and ran into the puddle, stumbled fell and was drenched. The picture of them holding hands is on the return trip, Merrick is soaked and cold. I had been carrying him but that didn't stop his crying. When I put him down to walk thinking it would warm him up he and Sophia grabbed hands and he quit crying. Back at the truck I stripped him down and we all had a "truck picnic" of peanut butter sandwiches and Easter candy.

I am Baaack

Well this weekend was the culmination of Merrick's birthday week. At age two birthdays drag on like Hanukkah or the TV show, ER. At any rate we took the family out to eat on Friday night with a couple of other friends and their children. Not an outside activity obviously but the kids were very impressed by wonderful combination of all you can eat desserts and parental apathy. The Bryan boys (and Becky) were at our house when we returned. Friday evening was short for the kids, and Saturday's weather was nice enough to get some backyard soccer and wagon pulling out of the way before Merrick's party started. His party was well attended although it proceeded out of order (presents then food) he was highly impressed by his balloon bouquet and made sure that everyone that arrived was dragged into the living room to see the balloons. The required happy birthday song was sung by all, albeit so out of tune as to not need to pay royalties and was finished off with Sophia's solo of "ChaChaCha."
Merrick is starting to come out of his bashful stage and after a short respite in another room came running into the kitchen and announced in a clear young voice over the din of adult banter "I am baaaack." This generated enough laughter that he continued doing it for the next 8-10 minutes. As his party ended and he in some cases actually pushed people out of the door, it was naps for everyone. As the house woke up in various stages there was little more outside time in the backyard as the adults turned their conversations towards the pending snow storm and the holiday break to come.

blackmail springs eternal

With the weather oscillating between nearly warm and nasty cold, some days I have rolled Merrick's window down on the way home from school. He waves at his friends, holds his hand out the window and generally enjoys himself. Yesterday the weather was too cold and I told Merrick I wouldn't roll his window down when the following conversation took place:

Merrick: Daddy Window
Merrick: Daddy Window
Merrick: Daaaaddddyyy Windoooow
dad: no Merrick its too cold out to have the window down.
Merrick: Daddy Window
dad: no, its too cold
Merrick: daddy Window
Dad: no
Merrick: Daddy Kiss
dad: Merrick you want to give me a kiss?
Merrick: Window daddy

His voice tone changed and it was very clear he was willing to trade his affection for rolling down the window. From mere button pushing to blackmail, alas they grow up so fast.

Ruthless and Toothless

The weekend was one that was high on desire and low on accomplishment. We had some walks around the neighborhood, but did not make it to any of the hiking trails in the area. The ground is mostly exposed and the snow is only still in the deep shadow areas. Sophia played with the neighbor girl for most of Saturday afternoon. We spent the day putzing in the yard, although it was too wet for any real spring cleaning. Lisa did manage to loose her wedding ring while picking up sticks and then miracalously find it on Sunday morning. Saturday evening we had dinner with friends and Merrick showed his developing monsterness. His attitude is playful, but he is really pushing buttons, as evidenced by the picture (he was told to eat in the kitchen). A small fire to burn some brush, combined with a soccer game that turned into a baseball game. Sophia was board with baseball and Merrick quickly turned it into hockey, either out of boardom or necessity--the ball is much easier to hit when it is on the ground rather than in the air.
Sophia had a birthday party on Sunday for one of her school friends, but she did manage to pull out her first tooth just before we headed over to the party. We were a little late but well worth the new milestone. The tooth fairy is prepared and will give her a gold presidential coin tonight. Then I suspect we will spend most of tomorrow trying to tear her bed apart to find it.

Springing into Saturday

With the first beautiful weekend of the spring season, we still found ourselves indoors much to often. The snow is on its way out, but the revealing yard is one step above a 'sippi hole' and much of Saturday was filled with domestic chores such as hair cuts and oil changes. The girls did sneak out for a while and did their part to stimulate the economy with the purchase of some new summer dresses. Merrick chose to nap instead and I burned the large amounts of branches that fell during the high winds of last week. We did get a brief walk in and the kids took turns pulling each other in the wagon. Sophia tried to get out of the wagon after Merrick had pulled her only a few feet, he quickly hollered at her "no fair" so she politely sat back down so that he could get his fair share of pulling her. I was ok with not being given my fair share of pulling either one of them.
Merrick did spend some time exercising his Y-chromosome and turn a benign object into a gun. He was able to turn Sophia's scrunchies into projectiles and 'shoot rubber bands at the stars"
Merrick also spent about fifteen minutes emptying a bottle of antibiotic hand soap into the toilet, mixing it up into the expected lather and then washing the bathroom floor and walls with toilet paper. Obviously there was a mess to clean up. This situation left us as parents, (albeit initially inattentive) with the question of how do you clean a kid that has just been playing in the toilet with antibacterial soap--he should by the nature of his actions be cleaned, right? Being unsure of proper parental protocol, we figured our bases would be covered if we just gave him a bath. Between his morning bath, and now his mid day bath and figuring in his four changes of wet cloths from being outside for any duration longer than 30 seconds--he was pretty much wet all day long.