Cousins

This past weekend, we enjoyed a visit from Don, Shana and Sarah. I think they had a good time despite the heat. Helen was off from school. The girls all played great together and life was good with an extra little blue-eyed blonde running around!

Future Engineers

Check out the concentration on those two! We visited the Children's Museum Sunday with Don, Shana, and Sarah who were in town from DC. My girls love it even though it is so crowded on the weekend. The weekdays are much nicer when all those pesky people are at work or in school!

Close encounters

Just decided to take this snapshot today of Helen playing computer games to watch just how closely she must be to the computer screen (or anything else) to see it. She is so bright that everyone, including her mom, often "forgets" that her accuity is really 20/200. Since my vision is 20/20, I can't really imagine. But if Daron takes his glasses off, he probably sees about as well as her, which is to say that he can see nothing but blobs. It is truly unfathomable how well the mind and body compensate for that which we do not have. But it does make a mama a little fearful now that big kid's school involves field trips! Kind of like when she first started going on playground equipment at full tilt and would just fall flat because she didn't see a step. I guess what I mean is that a mama never really stops worrying does she?

Idle hands

When it comes to my 2 year old, my secret weapon is beads. Whenever I need a few free minutes or if I need something to occupy her in the doctor's office, I break out the beads. I have a ziploc bag of them just for on the go. Daisy will sit and painstakingly put on those little beads until she reaches the end of her string. Something about this process mesmerizes her. Now, how many homemade bead necklaces can one mom wear at a time? That is another story.

Mommy School

Helen has always loved to do "mommy school." She was curious and a natural learner right from the start- learning English in the rapid-fire light bulb going off kind of way that conjures up Helen Keller in my mind. So it has naturally progressed to workbooks, computer games, etc. Well, now that she is in kindergarten, we are starting to begin school-assigned homework (which she is not as keen on doing), but we are still continuing with Mommy School. Her kindergarten teacher handed out a Math CD that we are going through. It has tests at the end of each chapter. We have been doing a few tests at a time to start with- no lesson since she already knows the information for these early chapters. It has been a great way to practice how to take a test but more importantly, how to use her Magnabrite magnifier.
She is also doing the kindergarten level Hooked on Phonics and for the fun part, yesterday we did "Art." I read about warm colors and cool colors and then we drew trees in each color set. Helen determined that cool colors were more appealing to her and I couldn't agree more!

Dancing in the Rain

The title of my new blog is from one of those email sentiments that gets forwarded around the universe. The premise of the story is an elderly man who visits his wife who has Alzheimers. Someone asks him why he still goes if she doesn't know who he is. He says, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is." It goes on to say that true love is the acceptance of all that is, has been, will be and will not be. Finally it says, "Life is not about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain."

I think around our household, the adults are starting to feel that life in this country is too frenetic and that we are missing some of the simpler things- the things that you like to remember when you are old and gray. I'm pretty sure what happened at the Grammys, whether we had the perfect lawn, new toys, new furniture, an extra hour of work, the latest winner of Survivor, and road rage are not in that category. So here's to slowing down and really looking...and dancing in the rain.