A list!
1. The giveaway. Alright, here’s what’s what on the giveaway: I can’t decide. I like them all. There aren’t a lot. Everyone wins!
I’m going to email you guys with details and will ship out prints etc next week.
2. Thank you SO much for the perspectives on pushing the kids to do work they hate. Really, really helpful stuff. I’m going to re-read that entire thread often as this issue comes up in new ways.
3. Now here it is, midnight. Did you know that until the mid-1800s nobody paid much attention to what time it was? Stupid train schedules ruined everything. Before that you just got your kid to yoga class sometime in the afternoon, and soccer games were day-long events so you know, show up and start playing if you want to. It’s not like it matters! It’s 1837. Like any of this is going down in history anyhow.
We are studying the 1800s right now, so I’m full of exciting facts about western expansion and capitalist jerks running the railroads and corporate responsibility and the wild west and bison and trails of bodily fluids and Sitting Bull and inevitable wars and holy moly have you ever thought about all of the individual parts that had to be made before they could build a single steam locomotive? It was a lot of work! They didn’t even have power tools! How people stayed motivated to see that whole project through is a real testament to what humans will do for money.
Everything is all jumbled up, and I am finding the 1800s a little overwhelming. So much happened all over the place, so much changed. Even if you only focus on these United States — which is not possible but IF — it’s still crazy. Inventions, art, music, science. Emmigration, Indians, slavery. Factories, pioneers, wars, business, on and on.
My dad suggested following the history of New York City. Now that we’ve waded in and I’m overwhelmed I understand why a microcosmic approach might have been better.
4. So next week is the civil war. The boys are really excited… we live in Georgia afterall; battlefields are part of the scenery here. Nicolaus says he hates that he was born in a slave state. To him there really is no justification for the confederate side of things. Graham just thinks the soldiers wore great hats.
5. I think I forgot to tell you that my hair is purple now. And it looks weirdly natural.
6. We are on the verge of hopefully very exciting Nerdy Baby news. Hoping hoping hoping. It looks promising, but until everything is 100% definite I don’t want to say. Shhhhh I have said too much!
7. One of Graham’s pet fish died this week. Her name was Cutie Pinkface and he misses her an awful lot considering he used to forget he even had fish for days at a time.
We keep having conversations like this:
I’ll be talking about something nerdy, “… that’s why the job was so dangerous. It was a lot better once the railroads were forced to install the new coupling for connecting all the cars…”
“So the cufflink the thing that was cutting their fingers off?”
“Right. But it’s not cufflink, it’s couPLing.”
“Ohh! Why is it called that?”
“Well, a couple means two of something that are joined together. When you connect cars together you are making them into a couple… you are coupling them.”
And this is where Graham adds in a sad voice, “My fish used to be a couple, but the one that was named Cutie Pinkface died and now Spotty Head isn’t part of a couple anymore.”
Ooof. This weekend we might have to go to Petsmart.
8. The boys told me yesterday that it’s okay if they don’t get along well once they’re grownups because Graham wants to live in Egypt and Nicolaus wants to live in Greece. And those things are super super far from each other, like probably opposite ends of the Earth.
I made them go get the globe and each find their future home and oh no! We’re going to live close enough for frequent visits! We’d better figure out how to get along afterall.
9. I fell asleep for two hours just now, on the couch with a very cute dog curled up nearby. I forget what the ninth thing was going to be. If you ever have a chance to take a nap on the couch with a very cute dog, do it.
10. Because there should be ten things in a list, right? This week the boys earned money by helping me clean house and pack orders, then they spent that money on — swear to goodness — marbles. You know the sound of two dozen marbles rolling around on a wood floor? I do! I know the sound of two dozen marbles rolling around on a wood floor.
It’s a neat thing though. They study them, they talk about them, they trade them and make deals, they race them, they admire them in the sunlight. They do pretty much everything except play the game marbles.