Life down here on earth

So much for culture

We went to the Natural History Museum on Monday. Sam was beside himself to see the "skeletons", but when we got there, he didn't really care all that much. He preferred running up and down the long open spaces of the museum. Jack was most impressed by the Gem and Mineral section. Being a novice rock collector himself, he was in awe of all the different kinds of rocks. He just wandered around muttering, "Whoa." We had a lot of fun, but when I asked them what their favorite part of the trip was, Sam said, "Running!" and Jack said, "The gift shop." *sigh*

There's a photo album from our trip on the left.

Toothless Wonder

After my last post, someone asked me if I really thought there was something wrong with Sam's voice. That person said they thought I was joking, but weren't quite sure. So in case it wasn't clear, I just want to say for the record, I was joking. There's nothing wrong with Sam aside from maybe his wanting to eat ice cream for every meal and his sometimes forgetting that he is actually potty trained. Oh, and the other day he poured and entire gallon of bubble solution out onto the patio, but now we're just getting to annoying and there's nothing the doctor can do for that. I know. I asked.

In other news, Jack lost his first tooth today. He's been feeling long overdue because he was one of only two kids in Kindergarten who hadn't lost a tooth. The tooth was getting extremely loose yesterday and today, it met it's demise in a most appropriate (for our house) way: when Jack tried to pull some Legos apart with his teeth. The look on Jack's face was priceless. He was partly thrilled and partly terrified to see a piece of himself break off that way. And he looks very cute now with that little gap in his smile.

Can you speak up? I can't hear you.

I think Sam needs to go to the doctor. There is something wrong with his voice. Sam's voice is really loud. And I don't mean just a little loud. I mean REALLY LOUD. When Sam talks, glasses in the cabinet shatter. His voice resonates through your body and pierces your eardrums even when he is just asking for a glass of milk.

MOMMY! I NEED SOME MILK PLEASE MOMMY! CAN I HAVE SOME MILK PLEASE? MOMMY! PLEASE CAN I HAVE SOME CHOCOLATE MILK? MOOMMMYY! MILK PLEASE MOMMY!

He's not yelling. We don't even want to talk about the yelling. Actual yelling will make your eyes pop out like Arnold in Total Recall. This is just his normal voice. The other day we were at Target buying a birthday gift for a party we were headed to. This is what it sounded like as we wandered through the toy aisles:

I WANT THAT! I WANT THAT SPIDER MAN THINGY! WHAT IS THAT? I WANT THAT! I WANT THAT THOMAS TRAIN! LOOK AT THAT THOMAS TRAIN! I WANT ALL THOSE THOMAS TRAINS! GASP! GEOTRAX! I WANT THAT GEOTRAX TRAIN! THAT YELLOW ONE! CAN I HAVE THAT YELLOW ONE? CAN I PUT THAT ON MY BIRTHDAY LIST? CAN I? PLEASE MOMMY?

He wasn't whining or crying for anything. He was just pointing out all the cool things that he saw and he wanted everything. We put everything on his imaginary birthday list and we were both fine with that. The wanting was not a problem. It was just that he wanted everything REALLY LOUDLY.

I wanted nothing so much as a little sound proof booth to put him in. Then I could push him around in his little pope-mobile cart and no one would have to listen to the deafening roar. I felt horrible for the other shoppers. They were all pointing and staring at that woman with the child with the Freakishly Loud Voice™. I tried to get him to use his "quiet voice", but, frankly, he doesn't own one.

Aside from the fact that his voice is louder than a jet doing a flyby over your house is the fact that he never. shuts. up. Ever. He will continue repeating what he is saying until you acknowledge his point (see "milk" above) and then he will move on to the next topic. If you've ever called my house on the telephone, you know what I'm talking about. My dad says he "doesn't have the luxury of an unexpressed thought." I say he can drain the energy from a full grown adult in 5 minutes flat with sheer loudness and non-stop talking.

So if you're at Target and you hear what sounds like a small child with a bullhorn, look for us. Sam will be the one with two volume levels on his voice: LOUD and BLEEDING EARDRUMS and I'll be the one with the industrial strength earplugs, shopping blissfully in silence.

Eat my bubbles!

Well, swim season is over and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I've got my afternoons free again. (Yay!) On the other hand, I had so much fun watching Jack swim that I'm going to miss it. He really got better as the season went on and I'm most proud that he worked so hard. There was an award ceremony after the last meet and Jack was thrilled to get an actual medal. It has his name engraved on the back and everything. (It even glows in the dark! I bet Olympic medals don't do that!)

If you've got the time to wait for downloads, you can watch Jack swim.

Broadband Dial up

I've tried to reduce the file sizes, but they still take a while to load. The quality of the dialup version is not very good. This was the final heat of the 5-6 year old Freestyle. The last heat has all the fastest swimmers in it, so if it looks like Jack came in near last, it's true. He placed fifth in the race overall and all the kids who placed above him were in this heat. The music you hear is the actual music from the swim meet, not something I've added.

After the meet, Jack asked if he could swim again next summer. I told him he could swim his whole life if he wanted and he said, "Yeah. That would be cool."

Strangest Bedtime Ever

[Background: Jack and Greg recently saw the movie, Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban. In this movie, one of the students has a pet rat who turns out to be a man in disguise. It's bad enough that this rat has been a family pet for 12 years, but when the guy finally shows his true form, as human Peter Pettigrew, he's rather creepy and rat-like himself. What do you expect after 12 years in rat disguise?]

I'm not asking

Sam is outside on the patio with half a popsicle. Jack is inside with a popsicle stick.

"Mommy. Sam is going to ask you if we can have another popsicle.

I'm not asking. I don't even want another popsicle.

I just want to know, when Sam asks you- because Sam is asking, not me- what are you going to say?"

When I say they can have one more popsicle if they want one, Jack says, "Okay, since you gave me the idea, I'll have green."

A geek of his own

I didn't know whether to cringe or laugh tonight as I watched Greg and Jack pore over The Definitive Guide to the Craft of "Star Wars: Episode 2: Attack of the Clones".

Greg was positively giddy that Jack was interested- really interested- in the cross sections of ships from that world. Jack asked lots of questions and Greg was more than happy to answer, pointing out interesting facts along the way. And the whole time words like "repulsolift" and "proton torpedo" and "coolant pumps" drifted over to me.

They spent extra time on Zam's Airspeeder and Anakin's Airspeeder because Jack had just built the Lego versions of those.

I don't know whether to be more concerned with the fact that we actually *own* this book or with the mounting evidence that Jack has The Knack.

Independence Day

We spent fourth of July at Eric & Nancy's. (There are no pictures because we forgot the camera and were too lazy to go home and get it.) They do it up right for all the neighborhood gang, especially for the kids. There was a giant jumpy thing with a slide and a water hose. There was a baby pool and a big pool and sack races and water balloons. There were chips and dips and cookies and cupcakes and snowcones. (A snowcone machine!) There were hamburgers and hotdogs and healthy salads, too, but Jack and Sam didn't care much about those.