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| Since we let Peo see Shrek about a month ago, she's been obsessed, turning all of her toys into the characters and acting out scenes and her own scenes as well. Through this I've noticed that she calls the dragon Slay, because she thinks that's the dragon's name. After all, people in the show are constantly saying, "Slay the dragon!" But as of this morning I realized I had it slightly wrong when she started incorporating the dragon into Christmas carols. She thinks it's "Sleigh the dragon." I am amused and letting her go with it. (PS I'm such a nerd that I keep wondering what Buffy is doing in so many Christmas carols.) eta She's also into calling people a two-faced son of a jackal since I let her see Aladdin. She's calling herself that in the bathroom mirror right now while washing her hands. | ||||||
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Blatherings
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December 22nd, 2009
December 19th, 2009
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| During our craft session today, Peo announced, "All I really want for Christmas is a sister." Me: "That's all you want, huh?" Peo: "Yep, you can skip all the other gifts. A sister would be enough." I then explained the basics of why that's highly implausible. Plus, last week, she only wanted a brother, because that's what her friend at school has. | ||||||
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December 15th, 2009
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| In the last 48 hours, my watch band has broken, my beaded lip-balm-holder-keychain fell off my keys, a rock chipped my windshield, my passport photos were rejected, one of the four pack of outdoor bulbs I put into the new fixtures blew as soon as I turned it on, one of the two lights on the new range hood failed to turn on at all, the big toe of my "good" foot has turned into an ingrown-nail ball of pain, and a potential $3800 error regarding my foot surgery has cropped up. Know why? Because I was counting on getting lots done on my show cake this last week of Peo's school, and Corran is out of town until December 28 (family emergency), so as many possible things to cause havoc in my life appear to be piling up. So today I took Peo to school, went and got new passport photos taken (it wasn't the photographer's fault, it was because I was wearing a white shirt, but the photographer offered me free replacements which was nice, but I paid anyway since it wasn't their fault...and I've heard they're the only place in Austin that does Canadian passport photos right), got home, inhaled a quick breakfast just as the range hood installers arrived, listened to them complain and work for about half an hour because it turns out this fancy new hood is "professional class" which is translation for "does not fit into the standard hole cut into the underside of the cabinet", then called the podiatrist's office to discuss the weird billing error stuff that came from the insurance company (they think it's an error too but can't be sure until they see their version come in), then went outside to plant the replacement trees the Arbor Foundation sent since the last ten died (they arrived on Saturday so I really had to get them in the ground today or tomorrow), then weeded the garden since the weeds were killing my plants and I haven't been able to weed since the surgery, then sprayed not-very-eco-friendly RoundUp on the weeds that have taken over the xeriscape and swallowed Peo's sandbox, then cleaned up all that stuff, then removed the good and bad bulbs from their fixtures and put them back in the box to return, then had a shower, then had lunch, then put together the package with the passport photos, then got in a WHOLE 45 MINUTES of sugar work, then went and stood in line at the post office for 45 minutes (which is why I bloody well avoid the place in December and had been oh so sensible in sending out Christmas packages weeks ago), then realized it was too late for me to make it to the podiatrist's office to pay them the remaining deductible they've been waiting for pending the resolution of the previous insurance error (I told them I'd be in today or tomorrow), then picked Peo up from school, then battled insane stupid-people-cutting-me-off traffic for 40 minutes back, then returned the box of light bulbs to Costco, then did Costco shopping and almost forgot to get more bulbs, then got home and put the new bulbs all in (they all work, yay), then put the groceries away, then made dinner with Peo (hot dogs wrapped in store-brand crescent roll dough, but I let her cut out Christmas cookie shapes...only as I opened the dough did I notice that there was some crusty dough on the outside of the can so I went with the theory that it was from something else and cut off a bit from that end of the roll just to be safe and we're all just going to assume it's fine because I was so not up to dealing with her mega-angst if the promised special dinner didn't happen), and now... *wilt* *droop* I still need to make cookie dough tonight, though, because it has to chill for tomorrow night Peo can make cookies for her teacher so we can take them to school on Thursday, which is her last day before the holiday. And my feet hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt....*whine* Did I mention that I got in a whole 45 minutes of sugar work? Yay me. I learned that with certain spherical objects that have an indentation on one side, when you're making the line that goes around the middle, you have to turn the sphere against the knife and not the other way around or else the indentation makes your eye want to slope the line and then it looks all wrong and you have to do it over again. At least Peo is funny...she keeps singing Christmas carols with entirely mangled lyrics. I don't mean Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, either (although I sang that to her and she was amused)...I mean like "a faybe is worn" for "a babe is born" and "you'll go down in this tree" for "you'll go down in history". She only believes my corrections about half the time... And the Lion King is over now so someone is demanding her stories before bed... eta Forgot to mention the wonky iPod...first it got stuck on shuffle driving home from the overlapping Christmas parties I had on Sunday and Peo was in tears because she only likes the songs, "IN THE RIGHT ORDER!" Since then, it has developed a habit of the music player crashing out at the worst times...like the wee hours of the morning when it's on as a white noise machine so I get woken up by the ticking of the fan, or when I was in the middle of doing the gardening today, or when driving on the highway with Peo and she's finally happy that the songs aren't shuffling... | ||||||
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November 28th, 2009
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| GIP. Sticker art by Peo. Corran and I are endlessly amused by this. | ||||||
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November 19th, 2009
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Hahahaha...we caught an ad for Planet 51 while watching The Daily Show, and while we don't watch many ads, we had to go back and watch the full ad after we saw this guy: It's an adorable puppy dog modelled after Alien. I TOTALLY WANT ONE. You have to understand, I rewatched Aliens a couple of weeks ago and Alien vs Predator just yesterday for the first time, so it's particularly funny for me to go from thinking of hissing and drooling to, well, yapping and drooling. If any of you see the movie and think it's Peo-appropriate, come back and let me know and I'll consider taking her to her first in-theatre movie because I'm keen for the excuse to see that alien dog some more. We have decided she's old enough to see Shrek and have put it on hold at the library. Star Wars is still a bit violent for her, though. Mind you she's been having sword fights with invisible dragons in the backyard lately and likes to growl, "I'm a dinosaur-pirate who eats dragons FOR BREAKFAST." I have video of that and will catch up with photos and video one of these years... | ||||||
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November 17th, 2009
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| Peo and I have finally gotten our H1N1 shots and Peo now has had a seasonal flu shot too. I got my seasonal one weeks ago but nobody, including my doctor's clinic, knew how to get me an H1N1. I got it today because Peo's doctor put her on a short list to get it because of my compromised immune system (no spleen). In particular, Peo has to have the killed virus because the live one is a danger to me, so that got her on the list. The pediatrician's office called yesterday about a shot clinic today, so I took Peo out of school early for it, which annoyed her but she was pretty brave about it, considering how sore she was after getting a bunch for her fourth birthday last month. I asked if they'd do me too and they seemed happy enough to do it, as long as I paid up...yes, the three shots today came to a total of $70. I know a LOT of people who can't afford $70 right now. Here's to hoping this keeps us healthy for the next few months! | ||||||
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November 16th, 2009
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| Peo espoused two pearls of wisdom during her lunch today: 1) I was cutting a pear up for her and a bit fell off of the plate. I said, "This piece is trying to get away! Better eat it and show it who's boss." Peo said, "You are?" I said, "Good answer." :D 2) Later she said, "The day before tomorrow has the same name as today!" And she's right. | ||||||
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November 6th, 2009
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| There has been a lot of consternation and fuss over the last week or so that Hydrogen is so far away from Helium on the periodic table. Since they're 1 and 2, Peo wants them side by side. Oh, she'll tell you readily enough that she understands that Helium belongs in its column because it's a noble gas, but since Hydrogen is unassigned, she wants it moved over beside Helium. I don't have a good answer for why she shouldn't be right. She's also been playing with her letter magnets in an anthropomorphic way lately. This morning the two play themes met: Peo: "Moooooom! Hydrogen is lonely and has nobody to play with, so Oxygen is going to play with him!" me: "Good idea, because Oxygen likes to play with Hydrogen. Lots of elements like to play with Hydrogen because it's so reactive. In fact, Oxygen really likes to play with two Hydrogens at once." Corran: "Yeah, but Helium isn't!" Peo: "Yeah, so Hydrogen and Oxygen are going to take a class and Oxygen is going to help Hydrogen in the class." Me: "Is it a class about water?" Peo: "Yeah. And baby Boron is sad because it keeps falling over." Followed by self-play with elaborate narration regarding baby Boron and Mother Boron being helped by other elements, Mother Boron lecturing some elements in playing nicely, and later shouts of excitement that, "Part of Neon is in MY NAME! I have some Neon in my name!" | ||||||
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November 3rd, 2009
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| As Corran progresses through The Hobbit with Peo (as he is doing now), Peo has decided that she is quite offended that Gandalf lies so much in order to trick Bilbo into going on the adventure. It's even become something we hear over the monitor occasionally...random mutterings followed by exclamations of, "Gandalf is a LIAR! Lying is BAD!" Good. Everyone should learn early that even good guys that you otherwise like are capable of manipulation and lies, especially those in positions of power. eta Although now she's trying to figure out ways to un-stone the trolls. She says if they learn to control their temper (a la Beauty and the Beast) they'll stop being stone. | ||||||
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October 30th, 2009
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| Halloween pumpkin and costume under the cut: ( Read more... ) | ||||||
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October 28th, 2009
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| During dinner last night, Peo announced that she could not possibly go to bed because she had to get to Chicago for her paleontology club meeting. She was not pleased when we said she couldn't go to Chicago right before bed time, although she was less upset than when we refused to drive her to the airport a few weeks ago for her flight to China/Cartoonland to meet Kai-Lan in person. We have since been informed that the reason we haven't ever seen a Cartoonland plane is because they travel underground. (Of course if there was a paleontology club in Austin that let 4 year olds attend, I would totally take her.) | ||||||
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October 27th, 2009
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| One of the hallmarks of a "gifted" person that distinguishes them from other smart people is that, if you ask them a very basic question, you will frequently get a convoluted/overreaching and quite possibly incorrect answer. This is because the gifted mind assumes that a very basic question must have some other side to it, a hidden agenda, a trick answer, or something else to make it worth asking. It's a significant problem in testing gifted people of any age, because a badly made test can result in a highly gifted and knowledgeable person looking clueless. It's one of those things Corran and do ourselves, and when we spot it in others, we make a mental note that they're someone we might want to get to know better. Peo has demonstrated this occasionally, but came up with a good version on the weekend. After I took her to that Spooky Science Extravaganza I posted about earlier, I was trying to get her to recount what she'd seen to Corran. Regarding the experiment where the kids dragged a soapy film over bowls that contained water and dry ice, Peo told Corran that the bubble was filling with gas. I asked her what kind of gas it was, hoping for her to give a basic description like "white" or "cloudy" or "smoky". Instead, she frowned with thought for a moment before carefully guessing, "Noble?" | ||||||
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October 25th, 2009
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| It begins... Corran pulled out The Hobbit tonight and Peo got curious. He warned her that it could be scary with giant spiders and trolls and goblins and such. She didn't care. I told her that I learned to read with it when I was three, but that I had nightmares about the spiders. She said she wouldn't be afraid. So he started reading it to her, and she's already bargaining for more pages... I guess she did real bugs today when so many others (including Corran and I) were too squeamish to do so. They had cookies with actual grubs on them at the museum and she had no qualms whatsoever about eating them. Then again, she'd pick up crackers that fall on the ground in the park and eat them if I'd let her... | ||||||
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October 24th, 2009
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| I took Peo to GirlStart's Spooky Science Extravaganza today, which necessitated quick completion of her Tyrannosaurus Rex Skeleton That Has Just Been Dug Up By A Paleontologist costume (her choice, her description). I guess I did okay with quickie printouts of dinosaur bones from a Google image search, plus a paper-mached-over dinosaur hat thing from the dollar store (to be able to paint it black and white like a skull), because she won the prize for Cutest Costume. She says her favourite thing there was the demo of "blood cells" using candy. She also really enjoyed holding bubbles full of dry-ice-smoke, eating a graham cracker frozen in dry ice so smoke would come out of her mouth (I was a bit worried about the safety of that one but it went just fine), and picking apart an owl pellet for bones (which was pretty hard with adult-sized latex gloves on so we brought it home for further dissection later). My favourite part was when she surprised the lady at the "blood cells" table by beating her to the punch on the explanation of what white blood cells do. I also dug the volunteer going around in a giant Beaker costume (as in the icon). | ||||||
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October 17th, 2009
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| Here's a nifty milestone...Peo built her first electronic circuit today. With gobs of help from Corran, of course. She got a book called The Amazing Book of Facts at the resale shop yesterday and she's big-time into it. This morning she was reading about electricity so Corran decided to help her build a circuit. She explained to me how the electricity goes around and around, and how she has to touch the foil to the LED's wire to make it light up. She also explained to me that one AA battery wasn't enough and that they needed two. Video and pics were taken, and one of these eons I'll catch up. :) PS Only two years until she can start kindergarten... | ||||||
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October 7th, 2009
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEO!! Peo is four years old today! (I will let her read any responses to this post when she gets home this evening.) | ||||||
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October 5th, 2009
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| Peo learned the Mandarin words for red and green ages ago on Ni-Hao Kai-Lan. Today I did her a nice turn and looked up a bunch of other colours on a Pin Yin dictionary. Then I whipped up a document with very large text and put each set of words (the Pin Yin/Mandarin and the English) in the corresponding colour, since we have a shiny new colour laser printer. She loved it, and was particularly excited that I'd put the first seven in ROY G BIV order, since she's learned about ROY G BIV from the TMBG Here Comes the Science DVD. But as Corran pinned the document to the wall beside her maps just now before bed, Peo realized (with some prodding by Corran) that in Chinese, the colours don't spell out ROY G BIV. So she shouted, "Chinese Roy G. Biv isn't Roy G. Biv at ALLLLLLLLLLLL! He's someone DIFFERENT!" And then giggled maniacally. Incidentally, before anyone gets envious of a 4-year-old who is committing the periodic table of elements to memory, realize that today she got up while she was supposed to be napping to insist on reading another element first. I acquiesced just to get her back to bed, but then she lingered at the poster, whining things like, "Awwww, not Lithium! I've already done Lithium! I know all about Lithium." Repeat ad nauseum with a half dozen other elements until I finally made her pick one, and she did, then ran into her room and slammed the door. *sigh* | ||||||
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October 4th, 2009
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| Peo got sick yesterday. She had a fever after her nap and then when we tried to feed her some chicken soup for dinner, she claimed to be full, then wandered off and barfed her earlier meals all over the living room. At least we can confidently say that Seventh Generation's carpet cleaner does appear to get out blueberry barf stains... She knows that when she's sick she gets extra TV time (and she has attempted to oh-so-dramatically fake illness in the past to get this benefit, though it has never worked because she'll cough and say she's sick so I'll say then she needs to go to bed and then she'll either admit she was faking or claim she's suddenly better), so this morning she told Corran that two of her red blood cells were feeling better but three red blood cells were still sick, so she needed to watch three extra things on TV. At the end of each, she dutifully reported a new healthy red blood cell. One is still sick at this time. Oh, and we had to explain that white blood cells fighting off germs was a good thing, because on the TMBG video, they look angry and Peo knows that fighting is mean, so she thought white blood cells were bad guys. In other childhood geekery, we were talking about Mars, Red Rock Conservation Area in Vegas, blood, and other things that are red because of iron. Peo wants to know if the skin on her plum is red because of iron...anyone know? Presumably not everything red in nature is iron... | ||||||
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October 2nd, 2009
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| Peo has just asked Corran if there's also a Periodic Chair. | ||||||
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September 30th, 2009
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| I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I'm probably the only mother who ever had to console her crying almost-4-year-old due to having excitedly gotten a kids' book about the periodic table out of the library only to be CRUSHED, nay, DEVASTATED to discover that it didn't cover Curium. "*sob*sob* But I wanted to read about Curium because it's number 96 and I like 96!" (The book appears to only cover naturally occurring elements.) | ||||||
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Blatherings
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