Boo has been really fascinated by the discovery of "Ardi." It started last week, when she asked me why we have hairs all over our bodies, and I explained about our evolutionary ancestors having hair to protect them. Just a couple of days later the news about Ardi finally hit the front pages. When the drawings of what Ardi may have looked like appeared, I showed them to Boo and explained a bit about how Ardi's traits have changed some of our thoughts on hominid evolution.

But I think the big attraction for her, really, is the simple fact that Ardi--and Lucy--are girls, like her. I know it was just chance that two of the major game-changers in hominid evolution happened to be females, but it really hit me hard to see how much that simple fact changed Boo's perceptions. Ardi and Lucy might be hairy, and have ape-like features and long arms and--in Ardi's case, anyway--feet that look like hands, but they're still both girls, and she can identify with that.

I really hope that as she gets older, we don't always have to go back four million years for our female role models. :)

One of Boo's homework assignments is that she has to write a sentence every day describing something she learned in class. Usually I ask her what she wants to write, then I help her with the spelling by sounding the words out. Not surprisingly (because this is, after all, English that she's trying to spell), she doesn't always guess the correct vowel, and last night she got really discouraged about it.

This is one of those parent situations where there was really nothing I could think of that was encouraging. Saying what I felt was the truth ("Yeah, English is a bitch to spell and even if you're really smart you'll probably be really grateful for the invention of the spellchecker for the rest of your life") wasn't, I thought, exactly the uplifting words of encouragement she needed.

So, I told her about The Great Vowel Shift instead.

My thinking--if it can be called such--was that if she knew that the vowel sounds weren't always spelled the same, that they were arbitrary and messy, she might feel a bit better about finding it hard to do. Amazingly enough, this worked.

Later, I had to Google how to spell "pink" in Hebrew, but still, mostly a win in the mom column.

So. We have met Boo's new Head of School...

...and she is Yvonne Hartman.

My husband and I went to a Meet the Head of School and Have Coffee thing this morning, and as I listened to her talk and answer questions I really, really had to work hard not to roll my eyes. Okay, I understand that management jargon is probably the way Things are Done now, but I felt like I was listening to a politician dodge the press rather than a Head of School talk to parents.

I do understand that it's not an easy gig. (In fact, I was amused that the questions were evenly divided between "why aren't the kids running around more?" and "why aren't the kids studying math/science more?", neatly displaying the never-ending conflict of parent expectations in microcosm.) I don't, though, like to come away from a meeting feeling that the person in charge hasn't really said anything. I also feel like that a meeting with her would be more like a battlefield than a conversation.

It's entirely possible that this first impression will be proved wrong, and it's also possible that, even if it isn't wrong, these will be qualities that will make her a good Head of School.

That doesn't mean I won't still think of her saying, "If it's alien, it's ours," every time I see her.

Every year, my mom takes myself and Boo to the beach. Boo drew a picture of the beach, and as it encapsulates our experience pretty well, I thought I'd share.

( Boo's Drawing of the Beach )

I am pin-less, cast-less and have the ability to be splint-less at will. I still have a couple of stitches in (literally, like, two stitches), but those will be coming out next week. I'm cleared to do pretty much anything I want so long as it doesn't hurt beyond certain parameters. At the moment, those parameters are very small, but it's nice to be able to eat a meal without worrying about breaking my pins lifting a soup spoon.

( Medical Details )

( Personal Details )

The timing of all this good-feeling is fortuitous, as it turns out. Boo's school is going to be closed today and Monday because more than 30 kids (about a quarter of the student body) and half the teachers are sick with the flu. They haven't specified if it's H1N1 or suspected H1N1, which irritates me greatly because, hello, I'd like to know, but the school is advising everyone to avoid other people for a few days. The Jewish Community Center will be taking kids from Metro schools in the daycare-aftercare program, but kids from Akiva need to stay home. That means it'll be just me and Boo. As much as it's inconvenient, and as much as I don't want Boo or me or Al or anyone else to get sick, it's also kind of nice to be able to take care of my own kid for the first time in weeks. :)

We have also released Tom back into the wild. Or tried. We opened up the garage door for him, but as of a few minutes ago he was still hiding under his favorite shelf. He seems to be very well healed up, no sign of his injuries apart from a slight bald patch on his foot. Boo has been taking care of his medication for that last few days, and has proved a very able assistant.

In other words, the household is on the mend. :)

ETA: I should really learn not to tempt fate by posting things like the previous sentence. Right after posting the above I realized that I didn't actually feel that well. Current condition: sore throat, aches, fever 100 degrees.

I would headdesk, except that would hurt. I'll headpillow instead.

I have returned!

Well, okay, I returned last Sunday. But I returned with a horrible cough and sinus infection, and it's only been in the last couple of days that I've felt like uploading and organizing the mass of pictures I took on vacation. I'm composing a more detailed post, but I think it will be more efficient to begin with the pictorial highlights.

To that end, I've made a set on Flickr. It's big, with 129 pictures, and most of them have comments about the trip. If this does not deter you, and you'd like to experience the full chronicle of our Kiawah holiday in pictures (well, not really the full because I took a little over 500 pictures and only uploaded 129), go here:

Kiawah Beach Trip 2007 Photo Set on Flickr

For those wishing a less comprehensive photo tour, visit the quickie ten-picture tour below.

( Kiawah, the quickie ten-picture tour )



Bye-bye, beach. See you next year!

Pattern: Boo's Sparkly Socks.
Yarn: 1 100g/425m skein South West Trading Company Tofutsies (50% superwash wool/25% Soysilk fibers/22.5% cotton/2.5% chitin) in #730 (Light Foot). 1 87yd skein Lana Gatto Crystal (63% viscose/20% Nylon/17% Polyester) in #4112 (Pinks)
Needles: 2.5mm (US 1)
Gauge: 9 sts = 1"
Notes: Flush with the success of the Fixation socks, I decided to make Boo a pair of pink socks. I showed her the pink yarn I'd bought, and she asked if it was "sparkly." I said I'd see what I could do. The next day, I went back to where I'd bought the Tofutsies, and found a matching pink eyelash yarn that certainly qualified as "sparkly." (And it was on sale.) So, I cast on more stitches than I needed, added the sparkly yarn, and ribbed the cuff in sparklies. After the cuff ribbing, I reduced the stitches to a more normal circumference and just knitted a basic sock. If I had it all to do again I might not double the yarn, and I almost certainly won't rib the eyelash parts, but the effect of the cuff was exactly as I'd hoped: big and floppy and foldable down to a nice anklet, but also capable of staying up.

( More Pictures )

( More Pattern Details )

I took approximately three billion pictures during Boo's field trip to the Bicentennial Mall and Farmer's Market yesterday. For those of you not native to Nashville, there's a huge mall in front of the state capitol. It was constructed in 1996 to celebrate Tennessee's bicentennial, and includes a 1,400-foot wall of history, a ninety-five bell carillion (one for each of the counties in the state), an amphitheater, a nine-ton floating marble globe of the world as it was during World War II, and a plaza with thirty-one fountains (to represent each of the rivers that flow through Tennessee). The fountains are pretty much designed to be played in, and the kids had a fantastic time:



( More pictures under the cut )

Boo's playschool class went to the zoo last week. A dozen 4-year-olds were set loose in the wilds of the Nashville Zoo, with the following results (some numbers estimated):

Number of children per adult: 1.5
Escapes: None successful
Rest stops in two-hour period: 6
Bottles of water consumed: 60
Organized pee breaks: 2
Emergency pee breaks: 47
Animals seen: 10
Meltdowns for reasons of fear: 2
Meltdowns for reasons of hunger: 23
Meltdowns of unknown origins: 3
Children lost: 0
Parents lost: 2
Moment most likely to be remembered: The peeing giraffe

More pictures here

Since Boo and I met up with the rest of the playschool on our own, we were able to stay a bit after the others left. We continued on from the Unseen Adventures building (this is where they have fish, snakes, insects, and other smaller critters) and set off to see tigers. The tigers were sleeping in the far corner of their enclosure, but we did get to glimpse them, so it was all good. Being there with the rest of the class was fun, but I really enjoyed the one-on-one time with Boo afterwards.

I can't believe it. I actually *did* come home and upload the pictures from vaklam and melissagay's son's birthday party. They can be found here.

Sadly, Boo apparently cleared off her camera, so we lost the pictures from her playschool friend's party this morning, and several pictures from the park that I would have liked to see. There are only three pictures on it from today, and Flickr won't let me upload them because they aren't JPEG even though they totally are. Well, at least that's how my computer labeled them. I'll see about converting them.

I've reduced the file size on all these. If you need any of them in super-high-quality files, let me know.

My daughter, as some of you may know, is completely obsessed with volcanoes. I believe this to be a direct result of her watching the "Firebird Suite" portion of Fantasia 2000 approximately fifty billion times. She was eventually moved to create her own visual interpretation of the video, shown here:

( Art, with artist's commentary, under the cut )

In Boo news, she is now 38.75 inches tall. She grew a half-inch at some point last week. Seriously, you blink and you miss it. In another 1.25 inches, she'll be tall enough for a booster seat, and in about five weeks she'll be old enough for said booster seat. She's probably way short on the weight requirement, though, so we'll have to see if two out of three is good enough.

I'm not actually that anxious to upgrade her. Although the standard is 40 inches, 40 pounds, and 4 years old, she can still stay in the seat she's using until she weighs more than 40 pounds or her head sticks up more than halfway over the back of the seat. She's quite a ways from both of those benchmarks, and my understanding is that if kids can keep riding in their restraint seats even when they're bigger than the Tennessee Dept of Safety says they have to be, so much the better. Well, so long as they're within the height and weight said seat is rated for.

Speaking of 4s, we had an amusing exchange last week. Boo was asking about her birthday, and told me her birthday was in October and she'd be 4, etc. I reminded her that Mama's birthday was also in October, and she asked me how old I would be. I told her I would be 40. She was delighted. "We'll be the same!" she said. And I said that, yes, our ages would certainly start with the same number...

Boo's latest fascination is gymnastics. She adores the Angelina Ballerina books, and I bought her a couple of DVDs of the TV series, one of which includes an episode about Angelina's friend Alice being in a gymnastics competition. Our bed has now become a balance beam and a floor exercise area. I nearly had a heart attack watching her leap from the bed, announcing mid-leap that she's going to do a split, see her assume that position mid-air and land splat on the floor in said split, grinning in triumph. I do give myself points for stoicism for witnessing this without screaming, shrieking, or otherwise freaking out, and saying instead, "Very good, now please don't ever do that again."

ETA: The LJ "Update Journal" button today says: "Update Captain's Log." :)

ETA2: LJ also says: "Aye, aye! Updating journal." And "Edit Captain's Log." I love Talk Like a Pirate Day.