What storm?

Ernesto had all the makings of an over-advertised B movie - all the hype and none of the substance. I've seen summer thunderstorms that had more of a punch.
Let's hope the Carolinas don't fare too badly.

The drill

Get the water.
Get the canned beans, canned fruit, granola bars, nuts, boxed milk, and juice boxes.
Top off the gas tank.
Collect the toys and potted plants out of the back yard.
Position the batteries, flashlights and matches throughout the house.
Finish the laundry.
And check the projected storm track every three hours.

And that's life in late summer in Florida, as we await Ernesto's visit.

We must be getting used to this, since most people seem a bit blase about this storm. Let's just hope everyone is right.

A butterfly in the hand ...

… is an impossible task for a 4-year-old.

Belated news again (since I’m slacking on the blogging, but getting caught up on household chores), but yes, darling, we got our butterflies.

It was Thursday afternoon when we arrived home from a busy day of work and play. I noticed something flutter inside the butterfly cage. Sure enough, our caterpillar experiment succeeded in a batch of five Painted Ladies.

“Mommy, look! The cocoons are all broken!” was the first response from my son.

Excitedly, we did our best to take care of the butterflies (lest they starve in the net). We picked several flowers, got a small cup of water and mixed some sugar in it. Then we sprinkled it onto the flowers (as per the kit’s instructions).

My darling boy continued to be fascinated with the butterflies, carefully watching them flutter about in the cage. Then he said good night to them before bedtime.

My husband, the darling red-headed biologist, decided that the butterflies would have to be released, though he had a few qualms about it, since he can be very adamant about the proper biodiversity, would have preferred to release the correct, native species. Our version, it seems, is more common to Europe and Africa.

Nonetheless, it was time to say goodbye and my son didn’t seem particularly heartbroken about it. He seemed to understand that they needed to be out in the world, finding other butterflies.

When the moment came, he seemed wary of touching them and was content enough to let someone else do the dirty work. In this case, it was Nana who sent them on their way.

Poor Pluto

A little late in the commentary, I know, but I'm still in shock that my universe has shifted so dramatically.

So the only thing to do is mourn, and to know that I'm not alone in feeling this way.

Visitations

I'm trying to keep a running tab of the international visitors to this blog.
Regretably, I didn't maintain a good list from when I first started. But here is the tab (as of Sept. 7).

Belmont, Queensland, Australia
Leichhardt, New South Wales, Australia
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Kaiserslautern, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Jakarta, Jawa Barat, Indonesia
Dublin, Ireland
Opera, Lombardia, Italy
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Utrecht, Breukelen, Netherlands
Cavite, Bacoor, Philippines
Montrose, Scotland, UK
Santiago, Chile
Alberta, Canada
Bangalore, Karnataka, India

The travel blog had guests from:
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Lleida, Catalonia, Spain
Osaka, Japan

And we've had visitors pop in from through the USA, from unexpected places like Ozark, Missouri and Phoenix, Arizona.

Welcome, everyone, from wherever you are.

The Great Negotiator, chapter 2

We have more proof yet that my son is an attorney in waiting. And a potentially Machiavellian one at that.

Recently, he tried to argue his case for sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed. I had allowed him to do this one night when he had bronchitis, but that was a rare treat for a sick child and I had no intention of making this a permanent habit.

My son thought otherwise.

At bedtime, he whined and cried and demanded to go to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed. I held firm to my refusal, though he cried for what seemed like forever.

Sobbing aside, he tried a sweeter approach. "Pwease, may I sweep in your bed, pwease?" Maybe he thought that saying please twice would gain extra points. But no go.

Then the negotiations began.

Maybe we can move my bed.
Move it where?
To your bedroom.
But there's no room there.
Yes there is. We can put it next to your spot.
But there's already my night stand there
We can move that.
No, we can't
How 'bout next to Daddy's spot?
No, we have furniture there too
But you don't need that.
Yes, we do.

Seeing that Mommy was not giving in, he moved to Plan B, my redheaded husband, to retry all the maneuvers.
Again, his mission failed, but he won a little compromise from Daddy, who agreed to let fall asleep in our bed, only to be to transfered to his own room in the middle of the night.

The boy pondered it and saw the compromise had potential. He played along.

A moment later, he was settled in the middle of the queen sized bed, pointed out to me, "This is a good space for me."

Then he glanced around the room, trying to discuss a furniture move again.

Surprisingly, all these negotiations didn't wear him out, though I was fading fast. He lay wide awake in my bed and found he couldn't fall asleep. So he saw the futility of the whole ordeal and agreed to go back to his bed.

In the end, I may have won, but if this is what he's capable of at 4 years of age, I'd hate to be at the other end of the bargaining table after he gets his law degree. Or his MBA.

The science experiment has begun

I tend to think that just about every kid who reads the Eric Carle classic about the very hungry caterpillar would fall in love with that book. My son is no exception.

What's really cool is now we're living the experience at home.

One of my favorites among my boy's birthday presents this year is a "live" butterfly garden. You get a butterfly mesh "cage." The larvae are sent to your home via express delivery and you set up the little caterpillars for your child to watch as they eat their food, get big, and go do their metamorphosis.

What's even better is that, given the short time frames involved, you get instant gratification from it. I was amazed at how quickly the larvae got big and then wove their little cocoons. The short span is perfect for your typically impatient preschooler.

At the moment, we're taking our first big lesson in waiting, since we have a week before the butterflies emerge.

But my boy is still very excited and asks to see the cocoons as often as he can. If all goes well, we should have five butterflies this weekend!

Testing myself

I have more quiz results. Yes, I know, but I've always been so obsessed with self analysis that I find them fascinating.

This one is for the World's Smallest Political Quiz.

Interesting to note that I come out as a Centrist, right on the corner bordering Left field and the Libertarian zone.

CENTRISTS espouse a "middle ground" regarding government
control of the economy and personal behavior. Depending on
the issue, they sometimes favor government intervention
and sometimes support individual freedom of choice.
Centrists pride themselves on keeping an open mind,
tend to oppose "political extremes," and emphasize what
they describe as "practical" solutions to problems.

I guess living in a red state may have had more of an impact that I realize, or I'm getting more pragmatic as I get older.
Or maybe Taoists tend to be more centrist, finding balance between the yin and yang.

Who was that caped super hero?

Faster than a crawling baby!
More powerful than a climbing toddler!
Able to leap from tall jungle gyms!

He’s not 2! He’s not 3! He’s a super 4-year-old!

My SuperBoy celebrated his big birthday, and now that the weekend is over, I have a spare moment to tell you about it.

We hosted a splashy shindig at the local water park. I wouldn’t recommend the pizza party that came with the birthday price (service was lousy), but the kids had a great time at the park. I never realized that my son could gain more and even more energy as the day wore on, but somehow he worked himself up to an absolute frenzy, ricocheting from wave pool to jungle gym to octopus slide to the river, everywhere he could be, as fast as he could.

What’s even more surprising is that he fought bedtime (though he took a quick car nap close to dinner time).

But he loved the park, so much so that he broke into a tantrum when we had to leave.

The birthday pro that he already is, my SuperBoy came to expect the presents and the cake (plural actually, since we had a separate celebration with his grandparents). We tried to tone down the impatience, but it’s hard when you know you’ve got cool toys and chocolate dessert coming your way.

Fun presents they were, though. My parents came through with their usual loud toy – a talking Lightning McQueen. Why don’t these things ever come with a volume control?

He got a very cool PlayDoh set, complete with a set of tools, causing My Darling Redhead to exclaim, “Wow, you have more hammers than me now.” That is an amazing thing.

He also got some great books, a nice Lego set and a cool butterfly kit (with fresh caterpillars arriving by mail, ready to cocoon themselves).

But Superman ruled the day. My boy had already ran several laps around the house, his favorite blankey wrapped around his neck. But now he’s got a nifty cape for that flying.

An educated consumer

I've started on basic economic lessons with my son - simply, that when we need something, we go to the store and buy it. We just don't take things without paying for it.

This explanation works out well when he wants something and I don't want to buy it, so I simply tell him I don't have the money for it. He seems to understand that logic.

It also works well, when I do agree to buy something but he wants to hold onto it, and then I tell him that he has to put it on the checkout counter so that Mommy can buy it and when I'm done buying it, he can have it.

Apparently, that wasn't all he knew about shopping.

Just before bedtime tonight, he approached his dresser, which has several of his current favorite batch of toys on top.
He explained, "I have to buy these things."

So he picked up a toy, waved it in front of his small mirror, adding some sound effects. "ChChChChCh'. He put it down, picked up another toy, scanned that in front of the mirror. He did that with all the toys until everything on his dresser had been scanned in.

"OK, I buy it all!"

M Con

Today I tried some new qigong-like exercises and heard a new perspective on Tai Chi. I picked up parenting tips from an educator whose six kids all have doctorates. I learned about a new-fangled Japanese healing therapy that uses infrared frequencies. And I got an awesome lesson on tropical storms from one of the nation’s hurricane hunters.

And that’s just a taste of what the Mensa World Gathering is all about.

Frankly, I didn’t know what to expect from my first convention. I’m never been to my local chapter events and only recently joined.

Still, this international event was coming to my backyard and I would have been a fool to miss it entirely. (Or as they would say in Mensa, maybe I should retest.)

Overall, the program has to be one of the most random lists I have ever seen. My experience with conventions has been limited to environmental groups and journalism, but with a group like Mensa, you could have a talk on almost anything.

And the program reflects that, but I guess that works because you have 2,000+ people in attendance.

Even the bad speakers today had something to offer, since it’s rare to get a chance to sample such diverse topics.

The social aspect of the group is interesting, too, which is centered around the Hospitality Suite (really more like an auditorium for a gathering this size). My only complaint was that it offered a lot of junk food. You’d think we’d be eating smarter than this (though I understand that it was rules by The Mouse that Ate Orlando that set restrictions on the chow).

I think the ultimate in randomness though was meeting a man wearing a T-shirt with this hilarious logo.

After I complimented him on the shirt, he said more people had gotten the joke at this gathering than other public places. Then we discussed one of those raging Harry Potter debates: Is Snape good or bad?

My parents won't buy me a sword

So I'll have to take what I can get.

Alter egos

My son has hit yet another predicted milestone: an intense fascination with superheroes. We haven't taken him to see the new Superman, or rented any other superhero video. His exposure at home has been limited to a couple of books about Superman, the Flash and Batman, which we got as hand-me-downs.

No matter. I guess the playground chatter about the superheroes has been enough. And he has witnessed the good guys vs. bad guys plot line in other movies.

But now I've got a boy running around the house, waving swords, shooting imaginary guns against unseen villains.

The whole family has been enlisted in the crime fighting effort.

"I'm Superman, you're the Flash and Daddy is Batman," he has said. And he has announced these new identities to his grandparents, just so he's being consistent with everyone.