Ben's New Room

Today, pre-Halloween festivities, we moved Ben's room into what was formerly the guest room and moved the guest room into the bonus room, which had been Ben's room... Why Ben had occupied a 20 by 20 square foot domain in this house when space is at a premium, I am not quite sure. It had something to do with the fact that Joel wanted a "dedicated guest room" and I went along with it because I was convinced I was having a boy and that the bonus room could be the bedroom for both boys and all their toys, leaving two extra rooms upstairs, one for the guest room and one for my office. Of course, we all know how that turned out, and two years later my office was still in my bedroom and I was beginning to complain loudly that we needed to do some rearranging. So today we finally made it happen. Now Ben has a much more appropriately sized room, and the bonus room is now home to the guest bedroom furniture, a futon which is serving as a couch/extra bed, and little tv which will eventually be replaced by another big screen tv. Soon my desk will make the move up there, and eventually it will be joined by an elliptical, the aforementioned new tv, some video game chairs... and we'll have a nice multi-purpose room.

Halloween 2009

The kids went trick or treating with their friends Jared and Evan this evening, and did not seem to notice that it was RAINING though mom and dad sure noticed... Rebecca did not want to put on her bunny costume, and it was too warm for it anyway, so we settled on tutu and bunny ears. She was not scared at all of the halloween decorations/ trick or treaters, and ran up to every house saying "I want candy!" Some pictures below, though I had to put my camera away after a while when the rain started really coming down.

Anniversary Dinner

Not only did Joel's parents babysit for us last night, but they also gave us a $100 gift certificate to one of my favorite restaurants, Blue. I had the poached pear and baby arugula salad (which is the best salad on the entire planet), the duo of wild boar ("Grilled tenderloin and crepinette of shoulder braised with porcini mushrooms over chestnut risotto, served with rainbow Swiss chard and black currant marmalade"), and for dessert we shared the cake di chocolat (a molten chocolate cake) and the creme catalana (like an orange flavored creme brulee).

I really liked the wild boar tenderloin, but not so much a fan of the shoulder. Everything else was excellent though! Joel was not so fond of the duck entree he ordered, which was unfortunate, but otherwise we had a great meal. There was live music and a masquerade ball going on there, which made for good entertainment ;)

The kids, as usual, had a great time with Nanny and Papa! Thanks guys!!!

Thursday Highlights

1. Today was a teacher inservice/ conference day (as is tomorrow) so Ben did not have school. The JCC offers day-long programs for occasions such as these, so today Ben went with them on a field trip to a corn maze and went swimming in the indoor pool among other activities. Tomorrow he goes with them to Space Kidets, an indoor playspace with inflatables, arcade, etc, and swimming again. He is having a nice break from school!

2. This morning I stopped in at the book store and found some materials to help Ben practice his writing. I got some cards that are dry-erase-board material on one side, with a dry erase marker. I got a set for practicing numbers 1-30, uppercase letters, and lowercase letters. You practice tracing each letter, starting at the circle and ending at the star and following the directional arrows. You can erase it and draw it over as many times as you want. And there's extra room on the cards to practice free-hand as well. Tonight I showed Ben the number set, since he'd been telling me he wanted to practice writing numbers with me. He seemed to enjoy being able to easily write and erase as much as he wanted. I am rather baffled by the fact that he can draw a perfect figure 8, but the number 3 stymies him even after I explained that it's just like a B without the straight line, and he can make a perfect capital B. During the course of our practice, Joel discovered that he writes his own "5" and "7" improperly. So Joel needed some remedial work as well. Ben helped him with his 5's.

3. After I picked the kids up this evening we were playing in the cul de sac before dinner, and Ben and our neighbor Miller found a snake in the street. As they were watching the snake a car came down the street and ran right over it... the car was going very slowly, since it's a dead end street, but neither me nor the other adult present really wanted to pick a snake up out of the road... so unfortunately we all just stood there and watched the poor snake get run over. Poor thing. The snake was rather mangled after the event, but still alive! Barely. Ben and Miller were beyond fascinated with this event, and kept riding their scooters over to look at it. "Look! Look! It moved! It is only a little dead! Are those it's guts?" Rebecca walked up to it, bent over with her hands on her knees, and said "SQUISHY! Yuck!" Shortly thereafter Joel came home from work, and inadvertantly put the snake out of its misery...

4. Rebecca looked up at the moon in the sky tonight and said "Look! Banana!" I am a little concerned about what's going on in that head of hers that she thinks a banana could be up in the sky. It reminds me of this book of hers that we have, and every picture in it is of some kind of animal. And every time she gets to the picture of the star fish (no matter how many times I have told her it is a star fish) she says "COOKIE!" I think she might fail all those tests where you have to single out which thing DOES NOT BELONG WITH THE OTHERS.

Seven Years Ago Right Now I Was In Aruba

(Sigh).

Thank you to Jon and Carolyn for finding some wedding pictures for me... at some point I will buy a new scanner and re-scan some pictures, since my scanner broke and I couldn't find any of the ones I'd scanned oh so many years ago...

Ben's First Report Card

This afternoon Joel and I had Ben's first parent-teacher conference and received his first report card of his public school career... a very momentous occasion... there really were no surprises. The grading system up through second grade is a number system of 1 through 3 for each category with 3 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. He got "3"s in all of the reading subcategories, "3"'s in all of the math, science and social studies categories, and in the "character development" section he got "2"'s for "takes care of materials", "completes tasks", and "works independently". These are all related to his absent-mindedness (losing pencils, forgetting things in his cubby, leaving his backpack on the school bus, etc, as well as his fine motor problems (discussed below).

Writing does not get graded in the first quarter, but we had an in-depth discussion about his writing skills. Basically, he is improving, but doing his letters and numbers and free-hand drawing are much more difficult for him than for other kids. His teacher said she's thought about referring him for occupational therapy but wanted to hold off since she has noticed he is improving and that when he puts his mind to it he seems to be able to do it. She showed us some examples of his work, and on a couple of pages I had to unfortunately point out to her that he must have gotten someone else to do parts of it for him! I felt bad saying so, but in one picture it looked like he had drawn some trees, the moon, a night sky... all fine and looks like Ben's ability... but then there was a picture of a bat and a bird and I am sorry but there's no way my son can draw a bat or a bird. As Joel put it, "That's a better bird than I can draw right now."

On a positive note, she said that when she tested his reading comprehension, he had one of the highest scores in the class. He was able to answer questions about a story that was read to him, and make inferences about things that were not explicitly stated such as the time of year, character motivations,etc, and retold the story to her in great detail.

So, overall a good report card, and we're just going to keep an eye on the writing/ drawing issues and see if he continues to make improvements.

Seven Years...

Three states of residence, one apartment, two houses, five jobs (seven if you count Joel's moonlighting gigs), five cars, three big screen tvs (just had to throw that in), AND THE TWO BEST KIDS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD later... HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME AND JOEL!!! Wondering what the next seven years will bring... thinking no more houses or kids, but maybe another car and another big screen tv... lol ;) I am trying to find a digital copy of one of our wedding pictures to post but having some technical difficulties. Since our anniversary falls on a not-so-good day of the week for going out, we're waiting until Friday night to celebrate.

Pumpkin Picking

This morning I took the kids to Hodges Dairy Farm to do the obligatory fall pumpkin picking/ hay ride activities. Joel was working, and Ben had a 1:15 soccer game, so we had to find a pumpkin patch that was open on Sunday morning, and close enough so that we could get there, not be too rushed, and get back in time to eat lunch and get over to the JCC for soccer. We did a pretty good job, despite my initial misgivings about the whole idea. Ben was very insistent about wanting to pick pumpkins, since our planned outing last weekend got rained out. So at the last minute I gave in, hastily found one that was open, and off we went.

It was actually pretty fun, if a bit chilly and windy this morning. We picked a couple of pumpkins, did a hay ride, saw some farm animals, wandered around in a corn maze (well actually I think it was grass not corn), and slid down a hay stack (them not me). With the aid of the drive-through window at Burger King, we managed to make it home to eat lunch and get to soccer on time. Below are some pictures from our pumpkin-picking extravaganza.

A Quick Run-Down

So I just noticed that I haven't posted in a few days so here's a quick run-down:

1. We got our new kitchen table on Tuesday. In case I forgot to mention it, we bought a new kitchen table the other weekend. I had been campaigning to get rid of our old one for about two years now and finally managed to convince Joel. The new one is not fancy but hopefully sturdy enough to put up with the kids' abuse. Most happily, the new chairs do not have any padding on them, which means they won't get disgustingly dirty like our old ones did.

2. Rebecca spent the day yesterday home with me with a fever, albeit a low one, and after a dose of motrin she was her usual happy and pesky self all day which made getting any work done rather difficult although I managed. I was worried she might be getting the flu, but her fever never really spiked... the highest it got was 100.7 and it was back down to 99.9 this morning. I took her to preschool this morning, but made an appointment for later this morning to have her ears checked, since now I think the culprit might be an ear infection.

3. Ben has been doing well, among his activities this week have been school spirit day at Chick-Fil-A, which he dragged me to for dinner Tuesday night so that he could get his attendance taken and hopefully win a treat for his class... the place was mobbed with kids from his school, and of course when asked what he wanted to eat Ben said, "a hamburger." I patiently pointed out the name of the restaurant to him, and explained that they only have chicken. As if he has not been to Chick-Fil-A 50 times. He also had his school book fair this week, and came home yesterday with some predictable titles -- a Ben 10 book, a book on dinosaurs, a book on spiders, and a book about all different animals' teeth and what they use them all for, which we read last night and was actually pretty interesting.

4. Joel is in Chicago for a conference, he left Tuesday and comes back tonight. So he has missed items 1, 2, and 3 above.

5. Go Phillies! Though I will admit I fell asleep at the beginning of the 7th inning... though the Phillies seemed to have everything in hand at that point... I woke up just as the trophy thing was being awarded. On to the World Series... Maybe I can make it through some of those games without falling asleep... but probably not.

Chuck-E-Cheese, Where Joel Can be a Kid

Yesterday we were supposed to go pumpkin picking but the weather did not cooperate so we met a friend at Chuck E Cheese for the morning. I think at some point I did inform Joel that those ceiling tunnels are not supposed to be for grown-ups...

Dinner At The Movies

Last night Joel's mom awesomely offered to babysit and Joel and I went out to dinner and a movie. Or more precisely, we had dinner at the movies. We went downtown to the movie theatre at The Epicentre, which is really cool because it's got this fancy restaurant inside it called The Mez and you can order from the bar and then go into your movie with a pager, and they page you when your food is ready, and you go get it and bring it into the theater with you. The theater has bigger than normal seats with a little tray built into the arm rest that you can put a plate on. Now, I wouldn't order something that you needed to eat with a knife and fork, because that might be a little bit of a challenge technically, but I ordered a pressed cuban sandwich and Joel ordered a barbecue chicken pizza, both of which were perfectly suited to eating while watching a movie. And delicious I might add.

So, it was a neat experience to get to eat dinner (and drink beer!) at the movies... and it is a good solution to the problem that when we go to dinner and a movie I usually either feel rushed during dinner, or feel like I am going to be out way too late. So... now I know I can do both at the same time :) The movie we saw was Zombie Land, which was a bit gross in parts, but very funny. And I hate zombie movies. But zombie comedies are I guess OK in my book.

We also walked around The Epicentre a bit, which was the first time we'd been there. It's a three-story collection of restaurants, bars, the movie theater, a bowling alley, and some retail stores located right in the middle of downtown. Pretty neat. We found a fancy asian restaurant there called Enso that we want to try when we have a chance-- we stopped in and checked out the menu. $21 for orange chicken -- that better be some mighty fine orange chicken!

Anyway, it was a good date night place! I am sure we'll be back.

Soccer Returns

Ben had soccer again today after a long hiatus because of all the Jewish holidays over the last month - every one of them fell over a weekend, so the JCC was closed pretty much every weekend of the last month. Today was picture day, and I have rarely seen kids looking less thrilled to have their picture taken... Here is Ben and most of his team (there were a couple kids out sick this week).

The last time Ben had soccer we were all sweltering in the heat; today we did not have that problem since it was about 55 degrees and cloudy. Becca got to skip her nap to cheer on her brother, but she kept trying to run onto the field and kick the ball. Fortunately Nanny and Papa were along for the game as well. There was a Family Fitness Fun Day thing going on as well, so Nanny and Becca checked that out during the second half of Ben's game. Ben's team lost to Nazareth United, but it was a good game. Ben had a couple of long drives down the field (do you say drives down the field in soccer?) but no goals.

Ben's cheering section:

All's Quiet on the Western Front

Okay, Southern front.

Rebecca, Joel and I do not have the flu yet. Now that I have written that sentence, I am quite positive that within the next five minutes one of us will get sick. But shouldn't we be almost out of the woods, since Ben's last fever was a week ago today? One would think... No... mustn't think... thinking will just jinx it some more.

Joel's parents and I attended the Richard Dawkins lecture at Queens University last night. It was quite entertaining. Since it is his book tour, he mostly read some passages from his latest book (The Greatest Show on Earth) and took questions from the audience. We did not hang around for the book signing, though we did buy his book, because the book signing line was so long. It was really quite a treat for me to attend, since I have been a fan of Dawkins since high school, when I read The Blind Watchmaker.

Of course, no lecture by an atheist/ evolutionary biologist would be complete without at least one Creationist outside the lecture hall handing out leaflets. Now, I didn't read the leaflet from beginning to end but some of the highlights suggested that believing in evolution will make teenagers commit suicide and encourage them to have homosexual thoughts.

It really doesn't deserve comment, so I won't...

For Those of You Who Think I'm Falling Behind On The Blog Because I Skipped One Day

(And you know who you are)...

Here are some Monday highlights:

1. Ben went back to school today. He seems back to his usual self, and has had no fevers since Thursday. We stopped at school Friday and picked up a folder of assignments he'd missed, so we've been working to get caught up. We did a few assignments last night and a few more tonight and I think we only have two left. He's been a good sport about doing his missed work. From what I understand, a lot of kids in his class have the flu -- six kids were out today. The rest of us are flu-free so far but every five minutes I tell Joel I think I am coming down with something. ("I think I am coming down with something.")

2. I took my car to an auto-body shop to have it photographed for the insurance company. The guy estimated the repairs to cost $115. Considering that my car took most if not all the damage, you can see this was a serious accident indeed...

3. Rebecca was a bit of a feisty girl tonight. She got put in time out twice, first for throwing a cup across the room and then for throwing her food on the ground and stomping on it. When she got sent to time out she didn't even cry. She just marched over to the corner by the front door (which is where we send her for time out), plopped down with her back against the wall and stared at the Phillies game on TV until we told her she could get up. She also colored all over her arms with magic marker even though when I handed her the markers and paper I told her SPECIFICALLY to only color on the paper and not on herself. When I scolded her for coloring all over her arm she looked mystified ("how did THAT get there?") She of course was ridiculously cute despite (because of?) the orneriness.

Daddy and Becca

They both have barbecue sauce on their faces but aren't they adorable??

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

So, y'all remember the other day when I mentioned I'd been in a minor fender-bender with a Ford Expedition... So minor it could barely be classified as a fender-bender? Well, I got a call from my insurance company today, who'd been contacted by AN ATTORNEY'S OFFICE who is representing the driver of the other vehicle, WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE BEEN INJURED in this minor fender-bender that didn't even damage his car... but wait... wait... it gets better... the driver claimed that his car that was involved was an early 90s model Ford Ranger pickup truck. While we were exchanging information, he mentioned to me that his "other truck" had been rear-ended the week before. So I can only surmise he is trying to pass off the damage to that truck, and some injury sustained in that accident, as having taken place in the accident with me. After I gave my statement to the insurance agent (wherein I emphatically made known that I had in no way, shape or form hit a Ford Ranger pickup truck, and that the car I hit appeared undamaged except possibly for a very slightly bent trailer hitch), I called the police department. They had a brief report of the accident, which mentioned the make and model of the car as being a Ford Expedition. I had them fax the report to the insurance agent. I also have an appointment Monday to have the damage to my car photographed (which so far as I can tell consists only of a broken front license plate holder thingy that has the dealer name on it where I bought the car).

Anyway, I am very pissed, at people for being so dishonest, and at myself for not getting out my camera and taking a picture of the other car when the accident happened!! But, hopefully my insurance company will be able to get to the bottom of it...

The Hottest Ticket in Town...

... If you're a geek like me, is to the Richard Dawkins lecture next Wednesday at Queens University. It's been sold out since it was first announced back in the beginning of September, but I scored tickets on craigslist just now... YEAH!!!

The Flu, Day 4...

Yes, there is a day 4... despite how chipper Ben looked in yesterday's video, he did spike a fever later on in the afternoon... so I kept him home again. For some reason today he has been able to occupy himself quite well with his Leapster (I bought him a Star Wars: Jedi Math game yesterday). I guess he's getting used to his quarantine!

The Flu, Day 3: Going Bananas

The Flu, Day 2

For Ulysses' sake, I hope that cats cannot get the flu! Ulysses has been Ben's buddy today. Ben seems to be feeling a lot better than yesterday -- his fevers seem to have subsided, though I am waiting for his morning dose of motrin to wear off completely, before I will really know for sure. He got a full dose of the Tamiflu this morning finally, after I mixed it with his motrin and coaxed him to drink it in between sips of gatorade. I think this afternoon will be the real test of how he's feeling though, because he just ate some chicken nuggets and has not had any motrin since this morning... so I am waiting to see if he will be okay or wilt before my eyes! Keeping our fingers crossed...

The Flu!!!

I had hopes that we would be spared... but of course that was wishful thinking. Ben woke up this morning feverish and nauseous, and by noon it was clear that he was pretty darn sick -- lying listlessly on my bed drifting in and out of sleep. His fever hit a high of 103 despite around-the-clock Motrin, and after conferencing with Joel we decided to check with his pediatrician to see if she wanted him to come in. She did, and gave Ben the rapid flu test, which came back positive. She said if I wanted Tamaflu, she'd write him a prescription despite the CDC's guidelines that it should be saved for people who have other health complications... so I said... GIVE ME TAMAFLU! And she did. Except for the problem that there's like one pharmacy in the city where the liquid Tamaflu is still available... but we found that pharmacy and navigated that hurdle. The pharmacy in question actually does home deliveries, and they were scheduled to deliver the Tamaflu to our door, but due to a delivery mix up (the prescription got left behind), I had to send Joel out for it anyway. But, it was a nice thought anyway... I am not sure how effective Ben's first dose of Tamaflu was however, because not only did he spit half of it out (apparently does not taste anywhere near as delicious as berry flavored Motrin), he also threw up a few minutes after taking it as well. Poor kid.

Anyway, Ben will likely be home sick for the rest of the week. Trying to keep Rebecca, Joel and myself from getting sick is a daunting task... we've not let Rebecca near Ben at all today, and I've been compulsively hand-sanitizing like every five minutes, but I am sure both of us, if not also Joel, will be sick anyway in short order...

Touch A Truck

Today I took the kids to the Touch a Truck festival, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like... they have all kinds of trucks -- ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, construction equipment, a helicopter, boats, etc and the kids can climb on/ in them. They also had a bounce house, pony rides, food, balloon art, etc. To my surprise Becca got just as much enjoyment from climbing on all the trucks as Ben did. She especially seemed to like the ambulances, and at one point was sitting in an ambulance in between two paramedics, having a chat with them. Her favorite thing was probably the bounce house, which I shouldn't've let her go in because it was for ages 3 and up, but she wasn't about to take no for an answer. She sat down, took her shoes off, and planted herself firmly in line. So I gave in, since they were only letting a few kids in at a time anyway. When it was time to go we watched the helicopter take off, and the kids both loved that -- even with (Or maybe because of) the noise/wind from the helicopter blades-- they were jumping up and down in excitement as the helicopter took off.

It would have ranked as a pretty successful outing, except that on the way home I rear-ended a Ford Expedition at a stop light. I was traveling at an excessively slow rate of speed, and there was no damage to the Expedition and not really any damage to my car except for that the Expedition's trailer hitch went through the front license plate holder thing of my car. But I don't think any actual car was damaged. But, yes I have learned my lesson -- I need to spend more time watching the road and less time fielding food, beverage, toy, and radio requests from the back seat!

Here are some pictures from the Touch A Truck festival: