squirrel momma

Whose Idea Was This?

In a moment of weakness I may have allowed Nut Boy to ask Santa for a full size drum set for Christmas.

 

Of course Santa brought it. And set it up (temporarily!!!) right around the corner from my studio.

Loud.  Really loud.  Eardrum rattling loud.

You know, if you rearrange the letters in Santa it spells--oh, never mind.

That's How I Know It's Monday

So I stripped the sheets off Nut Boy's bed, schlepped them down two flights of stairs, and was proceeding to stuff them into the washing machine when a soccer ball fell out and rolled across the basement floor.

?!?

Definitely Monday.

Dietary Question

FYI:  more weedlings, seedlings and bats going up in the shop over the next week...

And now, a dietary question that was just posed to me by Nut Boy. If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?!!  Ha!

Guts

Ever wonder what the inside of a VCR looks like?

Nut Boy did.  And now he has LOTS of extra parts for, uh, buildin' stuff.

Driving Like a Cat

Have I mentioned that Squirrel Girl is taking driver's education?  In my state they start early--14!!!--but after driver's ed she'll be required to practice for 50 or 60 hours with a parent in the front seat before she's allowed to get a "real" license at age 16.  

So today Squirrel Girl is finishing up three weeks of classes at Jungle Survival Driver's Training. They emphasize defensive driving, with a jungle theme. A really big, over the top jungle theme.

Oh, but wait, it gets better!

Jungle themed cars! Now, at first I was rolling my eyes at cars painted to look like lions and tigers (that sedate rain forest one above is an older pic I pulled from their website). But then I realized how much other drivers pay attention to those jungle cars, which is a good thing to ponder when I'm sitting at home worrying about my 14 year old out with her instructor, driving on the highway for the first time. Hopefully she's learned to drive like a cat, alertly scanning for predators and ready to react with lightening fast feline reflexes...okay, okay, enough with that metaphor.

...

One last thing.  If you tried to download the free pincushion pattern pdf yesterday, you may have noticed a glitch.  All better!  

Indy Jr.

Yesterday Nut Boy marched into the backyard, his giant coil of heavy duty marine grade rope slung over his shoulder (yes, I have a son who saved his allowance to buy a giant coil of heavy duty marine grade rope).

I was sewing, not paying much attention to what he was doing over by the treehouse, until I heard him start humming the Indiana Jones theme song.

When I looked up and saw him swinging back and forth from his homemade rappelling harness I have to admit my heart stopped in my chest.

Then I took a deep breath and reminded myself that if he fell it was only going to be a few feet, onto the woodchips, and he did much crazier things on the playground at his school. But really, how did Indy's mother survive it?

Upcycling Fireworks

For one week out of the year, in early July, our family gives in to barely restrained pyromania.  This year, however, we were bothered by all the plastic trash left over from some of the fireworks, especially the "champagne bottle" poppers.

  

Nut Boy was the one who came up with the genius idea of turning them into robots.

He's even got a name for them: Pyrobots!

Moving at the Speed of Light

Because my children are 4 and a half years apart I feel like I have had a generous serving of the bittersweet knowledge of how fast time flies. It really hit me the other day when the gym where both my kids have taken gymnastic classes for years held an open house, and I tried to snap a picture of Nut Boy doing a round off from the balance beam.

As I was trying to capture a 10 year old boy in mid flight I was remembering when my daughter was just beginning gymnastics almost 12 years ago. Her little face checking for me in the waiting area, excited to be trying something new but also intimidated by the kids who already knew how to do the Holy Grail of preschool gymnastics, the cartwheel. And now my son, fearlessly flinging himself off the balance beam in that picture...I can remember the exact feel of his sweaty little hand in mine when he was not yet two and I would guide him down the length of the beam, making sure he walked in a straight line, one foot in front of the other, and didn't fall.

Next weekend I'll be watching from the sidelines at the state track finals as Squirrel Girl stands confidently at the starting line, exchanging a smile and a joke with her teammates while she arranges herself just so, waiting for the starter's gun. And Nut Boy will be donning pads and helmet and playing the last lacrosse games of the season, too busy during the game to even glance at the sidelines. Neither of them needs to hold my hand any more to succeed. But I have to tell you, it's still hard letting go.

Squirrel Man

Let's just say that you've got a wacky kind of personality, and you happen to have the Spiderman theme song stuck in your head.

"Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can..."

Then let's say that you send your son outside to put squirrel food on the peak of the treehouse.  And you follow him outside with your camera, bellowing, "Squirrel Man, Squirrel Man, does whatever a squirrel can!"

Whereupon you realize your rather straight-laced neighbors are sitting in their backyard.  Giving you some mighty strange looks.

Ahem.

Reading, Reading, Reading

Nut Boy's school has a project they do every March ('cause March is Reading Month) called "Read Around Michigan".  The fourth graders record the minutes they read, and for every minute they read they get to travel one mile between cities.  For example, from Detroit to Battle Creek it's 114 miles, which is 114 minutes of reading.

Because these are 9 and 10 year olds, toys and sugar are the motivator.  For every city they "visit" they earn a ticket to be entered in a weekly drawing.  Let's just say that Nut Boy became a little obsessed with improving his odds, and in the last two weeks he's read:

Flush by Carl Hiaasen

The Report Card by Andrew Clements

Scat by Carl Hiaasen

The Demigod Files by Rick Riordan

Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams

There were parts of other books, too, but I won't go into those.  I'll keep things simple and give Nut Boy's micro reviews:

Flush: good

The Report Card: okay, really easy read

Scat: really good (the strict science teacher get dragged off into the Florida Everglades)

Demigod Files (this one is actually a short little extra in the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series"): pretty good, really short and easy read, can't wait for 5th Percy Jackson book to come out

Tunnels: pretty good and hard enough 

And now we've run out of books to read around here, but hey, at least we're well stocked with Easter candy and chewing gum.