Halloween Parade

Today was the annual Halloween parade and party in the park. Perfect weather for it yet again.

Carving a pumpkin for the contest.

Neighbor Georgia was Wonder Woman.

Lily, Gina, Ethan.


Caitlin was a bag of jelly beans.

Mounted police led the parade.

I don't know this lady, but I couldn't resist!

G&G Come for a Visit

My parents came for a visit this past weekend - my mom needed a Lily fix.

Lily's attempt to scare the squirrels away from eating her pumpkins. As you can see, it didn't work. Those are deer skulls that she found in the woods. Yup. We bleached them before we would let her touch them, of course.

G&G cheered on the Green Goblins, who once again lost to a team of midget professional soccer players. Lily took a ball to the face but persisted.

Grandma and Lily decorated the inside of the front door with paper bags, cut out pumpkins, and real forest debris. This is a project that only a former kindergarten teacher would take on.

Grandma and Lily also made a tu tu from one of those make-your-own kits. The instructions were unintelligible so they freestyled. Worked better as a hat.

Lily wearing the smashing Halloween socks brought by G&G.

It was a wonderful visit - thanks Mom and Dad!

The Green Goblins

Fall soccer is off to a great start, even though the Green Goblins got clobbered by the Purple Whatevers today. Lily continues to have fun and her coach said she has a "high soccer IQ." She certainly does keep her head in the game, and keeps kicking even when she's on the ground!

Homework!

First grade homework is a lot more intense than kindergarten homework. Lily wasn't that into it last week, so this week we made a big deal out of setting up a homework box and buying the necessary supplies for it.

Here's Lily organizing the box. She labelled the folders, and delighted in having her own stapler and scotch tape dispenser. Like mother like daughter. How long before she asks for her own filing cabinet for Christmas? (I was in 5th grade. And, in my defense, at least I wanted it to be red.)

We did this homework tonight - they're learning about maps in social studies, and Lily drew a map of her room. What, you don't know what all those objects are? Well, then, check out the key:

Yes, smack in the middle of the room is a pile of dog poo and pee (this isn't a frequent occurence at my house - a visiting dog last week had an accident in Lily's room and it made quite an impression on her). Also, notice the many shoes and dirty socks scattered about.

I hope her teacher has a sense of humor!

Claire's Latest Mosaics

Deb versus Email

My work email inbox - EMPTY! I've been trying to achieve this feat since we first got email in 1995. My email approach is to move an email from my inbox to the appropriate folder once I have dealt with it. There are thousands of emails in the folders on the left, but not a single one requiring my attention in the inbox.

Behold:


This means I have either reached peak performance or have become completely irrelevant. I'm thinking the former - I am involved in a major project at work, and still have multiple cross-referenced and color coded to do lists a mile long, but, at the moment, no one is waiting for me to respond to an email.


Ahhh, sweet victory.

It lasted for two whole hours, not surprising since it's a Sunday morning. Here's the offender, who is a wonderful person who is also working very hard on that major project, but who was promptly read and deleted.

Victory again, at least for a little while.

Mom versus TV

Neighbor girls Frannie and Georgia came over to play today. I have a rule - no tv when friends are over. Not because I'm opposed to tv, but I'd rather save it for when I need Lily to be occupied and there are no other kids around.

The girls: Can we watch TV?
Deb: No. Play with each other.
The girls: We don't know what to do.
Deb: Figure something out.
The girls: There's nothing to do.
Deb: You can help me clean.
The girls: That's boring!
Deb: Play with something in Lily's room.
The girls: Everything's boring there!
Deb: Use your imaginations.
The girls: We're bored!! We want to watch tv!!
Deb: You'd better stop asking to watch tv and find yourselves a project, or I'm taking Frannie and Georgia home.
The girls: Harumph.

Three minutes later, they were making a bow and arrows out of sticks, string, and milkweed pods. "See?" I said. "You don't need a tv, you just need your imagination." Then, Michael told me the idea came to Lily yesterday, while she was home sick from school and watching Man vs. Nature ... on tv.

Frannie.

Milkweed pod arrow