Wordless Wednesday

"A Dedicated Soccer Mom"

Learn more about Wordless Wednesday, and find the blogroll of others who are participating here.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling #113, the Political Parties of Our Government Edition has been published.






What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

I have an entry posted in this carnival. Check it out.

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

A fun twist in the Wednesday busyness

I just want to start by saying that every time we say "E, you are so weird" we get a huge smile in response. The boy is a comic and is constantly "on".

E often sticks his head into one end of the pillow cover from one of the pillows which decorate my bed during the day, and lay on the floor overnight. Well this morning, he decided to slip his arms into the bottom half, and he got stuck. R and I were in hysterics for a good five minutes while E jumped all over the place yelling "I can't get out! I can't get out!". I'm giggling now just thinking back on it. Once he let us actually get him out R tried to copy the feat, but he is just too big to fit.

So our day started with belly laughs; it doesn't get much better.

Yesterday we had a special treat added to our usual Wednesday busyness. (Firefox's spell checker tells me that's the way to spell it, but it looks so wrong!) We went down to Brooksvale Park in Hamden to do some candle-making. The husband of a friend of ours (Hi J!) is the Park Ranger there (they actually live on the premises), and they often do outreach to the community. Most of us were homeschoolers though!

We had an excellent time making candles. We had only dipped perfectly formed white candles quickly into color at Yankee Candle before, so making them from scratch was new to us. It's so easy! The boys asked if we could ask our friends if we could come and do it again some time; the Park Ranger is the dad of J, who is a good friend and was a guest at R's party, so the supplies are all available. They hoped that next time we could do it on a smaller scale with just friends. I said I'd ask, but I think we'll wait a while until they recover from this time!

Next we headed off to playgroup, where some friends from candle-making joined us. We were disappointed that only two other families, with preschoolers, showed up. The boys were happy to have older kids to play with, but when they left early we did too.

We did some usual running around errand stuff and kept busy in that end of our world until it was time to pick up our milk at 4:30. We were really bummed that it hadn't been delivered yet, because E's soccer was canceled for this school vacation week, so we needn't have stayed in Hamden all afternoon keeping busy while waiting for our milk. Oh well, we are used to our Wednesday routine, so it wasn't a big deal.

During that keeping busy portion of the day, we window shopped in TJ Maxx. E found himself a Transformer Stratego Game for only $7.99. I told him I'd lend him the money for it, but that meant he wouldn't have money for Dairy Queen later. He agonized until we were next on line, and then decided on the ice-cream!

So we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home. R had gotten a gift card for his birthday, and E spent his allowance. Yes, giant high-fructose corn syrup drinks right before dinner. Sometimes I give in.

We headed to the library next, where I picked up way more DVD's than I normally bring home. I'm working on my list for the next 10 on Tuesday, and I didn't have the materials to just write the names of them down. Maybe I'll actually watch some of them!

I was really glad to smell that pot roast cooking in the crock pot when we walked into the house at 6:15.

Our day ended with a lunar eclipse. Obviously this photo needs to be clicked on, so you can enlarge it and actually see something. E stayed up until about 8:50 so he saw the thing begin, R stayed up till about 9:30 so he saw it pretty close to total, and B and I saw the total eclipse at about 10:30. It never seems "total" to me though, because there is always a sliver of bright yellow from where I stand. Or maybe the darned thing only lasts 30 seconds and I always seem to miss it? Very cool, nonetheless. Sometimes I wish we had a telescope.

Wednesdays are always really busy, but almost always really fun.

Wordless Wednesday

"Something interesting"


Learn more about Wordless Wednesday, and find the blogroll of others who are participating here.

Carnival of Homeschooling

Carnival of Homeschooling #112, the One Room Schoolhouse edition, has been published at Homeschool Blog Awards.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

I have an entry posted in this carnival. Check it out.

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

O gets a taste of the homeschooling life

Today we had a visitor for the day. O's mom dropped him off at 8 am (yes, I was dressed, but only in sweats), and his dad picked him up at 4 pm. The boys all had a terrific time. They stayed busy the entire day, despite O's lamenting our not having a gaming system or broadcast TV.

They kept busy with Lego Bionicles for quite a while. O had brought one of his, and all the boys enjoyed playing with R's decent-sized collection.

They spent some time outside trying to get one of R's rockets to launch. When they couldn't get that to work, they spent some time with vinegar and baking soda and a soda bottle. I went inside when they started with that.

They used their TV time to watch Pee-wee's Big Adventure, which O had never seen before and really seemed to enjoy. At least I could hear them giggling over the sound of my ipod and treadmill downstairs. (Had to fit the treadmill part in - ha!) They also spent a little time online at the Webkinz site, since O had brought his.

I honestly don't know how they spent a lot of their time. There was no arguing though, and just a little wrestling. I was glad the two bigger boys included E the entire day. I did lots of laundry and served food when necessary.

When O's dad picked him up, I offered to take O again on Wednesday. His dad thanked me but said O is going skiing with his ski club that day. O proceeded to pretend to fall down the stairs and exclaimed "Oh, my foot is broken, I can't snowboard..."

I'm glad he had a good time.

R's 11th Birthday party for friends

Friday was the day we had R's birthday party for his friends. We spent the entire day cleaning and decorating the house, making the cake, copying a compilation CD he had put together to send each one of his guests home with, and generally getting ready for the excitement.

He chose a Spongebob pinata and a theme was born. I copied the design onto the cake, and we got streamers and loot bags all honoring the yellow sponge.

As the parents dropped their children off, some of them were surprised that I planned to supervise 12 kids alone for 3 1/2 hours. But I love this stuff. We had one guest who was 1/2 hour early, but that kept the boys busy while I finished up last minute whatever, and realized we were on our last roll of toilet paper. We had plenty of tissues though, and the kids thought it very funny when I announced this.

We played a couple of games to get to know eachother's names; the kids seemed to really enjoy them, and I was glad to be able to identify myself by my first name instead of my last, since we had school kids here who are used to Mrs.... for all female adults.

B called at the very last minute to say he would be about 30 minutes late picking up the pizza I had ordered that afternoon, so I called my dad and asked him to come and keep the kids busy while I ran to the bank, got money, and picked up the pizza. All went well, (a huge thank you to you, Nagy papa!) but that did put us a little behind schedule. We quickly ate our pizza and played another game which involved gum balls, and the winner went home with a jar of them.

Presents came next. R was thrilled to get several new Webkinz. He also got some Bionicles, some craft stuff, a cool bottle rocket that shoots with vinegar and baking soda, and I don't remember what else.

Then came the pinata. This year we did a pull-the-string one. When R picked out the Spongebob pinata we agreed that he could use a bat on it instead of using the strings which were attached, but later agreed that using the strings was a good idea. The kids are getting bigger now, and stronger, and one wrong swing could seriously damage something in our small house. The kids didn't seem to care though, they were just into fighting eachother for all the candy. E, who had been allowed to stay at the party despite protests from R, was disappointed that he only got a few pieces. The kids were all great about sharing with those who didn't get much though.

We sang Happy Birthday and the kids settled down to watch The Princess Bride while eating it. We had tried really hard to choose a movie which hopefully not a lot of people had seen, but to no avail. We had a few who hadn't, but not many. The kids seemed to enjoy it, but some got bored; it was long. R had been to a party where the guests all watched a movie, and that's why we did it, but I prefer to play games. We'll see how it works out next year.

During the movie the kids ate lots of cake and ice-cream, lots of candy from the pinata, Smarties, which I had bought for a game and didn't want left here after the kids all went home, and pretzels; same deal. When the movie ended the kids had about five minutes to bounce off the walls and burn off some of all the party food they had just eaten, so when the parents started showing up they all assumed that the whole evening had gone that way. Actually, it had been a very mellow and enjoyable evening.

Two boys stayed behind to sleep over. They had two hours to play before I had them turn off the lights at 11 pm. They kept themselves busy when they woke up at 6:30 till I did at 8. (I was happy to wake up and find one of the boys playing YuGiOh with E, who often worries that the bigger kids will leave him out.) They all enjoyed some of B's pancakes and played some more until they got picked up at 11 am. R had a wonderful birthday.

And it was fun for me too. And I'm glad that I'm managing to keep my social butterfly surrounded with kids his age...his circle keeps growing!

Valentine's Day with playgroup

Wednesdays are always so busy for us. We leave home about 11 am and get home around 7:30 pm: Library, AAA, McDonald's for lunch, dollar store for a Valentine's Day card for someone who needs one (all her old friends at playgroup signed it), playgroup, post office, Walmart (yes I'm ashamed every time I step foot in there), Staples, Wendy's for dinner, Thyme and Season for our milk, and E's soccer. Phew.

We all had a nice time at playgroup today. Yesterday we spent quite a bit of time working on boxes to receive valentines in. I often get bummed that the boys are not into crafts the way I am, but when I take something like this out for them to do, they really get into it. They especially love all my scrapbooking supplies. I have a shelf full of craft stuff that they know they can just pull things from any time they want, but the never do. I guess I need to pull the stuff out more often, since they always love it when we actually do it. You know, as unschoolers, I often just keep fun stuff around for them to find, but I'm realizing that sometimes they need to have it handed to them. Or more accurately, they need to be invited to join in doing it.

There were lots of kids at playgroup today. We made deposits into 20 boxes. And it seems like not many of the kids are into the yoga idea. We went late thinking they'd all be participating, and were surprised to walk into a room full of screaming kids and two or three kids with three moms in the corner doing yoga. The boys are really happy about that, and we will definitely be getting to playgroup on time from now on.

Lots of boys to play with. R is in heaven. I myself have been hanging back. Much as I am thrilled that R is in his glory, I don't do well with crowds. I never know where to plant myself, as people break into smaller groups. I guess the real problem is that I do want to plant myself, but everyone else seems to walk around mingling a little with everyone. My own preference is to have a few friends to talk with like in the old days when our group was smaller. Each person is very nice, it's just overwhelming to me to be with them all at once. It's always been a perpetual challenge for me. I'm getting beyond the need to change it and going back to accepting it again. In the past there have been people who left me feeling that I was somehow abnormal in this discomfort with more than four people at a time, and now I'm very happy to be back on the path of not caring whether it's normal or not, and accepting that it's just who I am. Of course that still leaves me sort of floundering at playgroup, but I'll have to relax and feel my way into it, I guess. The people really are all so nice, that it'll be a pleasure figuring it out among them.

Wordless Wednesday

"Kinesthetic Learning"

I'm going to keep my Wordless Wednesdays more on topic here. Check out my other blog for the "artsy" stuff from now on.

Learn more about Wordless Wednesday, and find the blogroll of others who are participating here.

R's 11th Birthday

We arrived home from Florida on Wednesday evening and B took off from work on Thursday to celebrate R's birthday. The two of them went to get bagels and while at the grocery store picked up the cake R wanted to have for that evening. When they got home, he asked if he could make it himself, because he "likes to make things". He made completely alone!

B made us all eggs and bacon and bagels for breakfast. For lunch we had a very nice time at Olive Garden. We had cake and ice-cream late afternoon, so by the time dinner came around nobody was hungry.

I was glad B took off from work, because after spending the entire day with the family R was okay with me going to my womyn's circle for 7 pm.

Our Vacation in West Palm Beach, Florida

I took our laptop on vacation with us, so I was able to write while I was away. So here's what happened during our vacation. Remember to click on the photos if you want to see them larger...


Thursday, January 24th

I am so glad I brought the laptop to Florida with us. This way I can write everything down and just transfer it over onto my blog when I get home. I also brought a USB flash drive, so I'll copy this onto that and maybe at the library along the way I can upload it all.

I'm glad I got most of the packing done on Tuesday. Yesterday I only had to worry about toiletries and cameras, books, and games; that sort of stuff. So we were able to go to playgroup as usual. It was a very enjoyable day. Strange though, that even at 35 degrees I was able to stand outside without a jacket; just a turtle neck. Most likely when I arrive back home I'll be used to this warm weather and will be bundled up with hats, scarves and gloves, like everyone else!

So we flew out of Westchester, New York on Jet Blue at 8pm. The boys loved it since there is free TV the whole way. They watched Sponge Bob and George of the Jungle and Mythbusters. As it got later though it was hard to find appropriate material. They ended up on HGTV and Animal Planet. I enjoyed Project Runway on Bravo. We don't have broadcast TV at our house (only do DVD's and videos) so watching TV was fun for us all.

The flight was uneventful. At one point R thought he might have to make use of the "barf bag" (he loves that name by the way) but he ended up fine once we leveled off. I was pretty upset to have my ears clog up again and not have them unclog...although I still had lots of coughing up of gunk every day, my cold was finally, after six weeks, lessening. I was quite distressed to have my ears become as clogged as they were on my worst days. I went to bed with clogged ears too. Fortunately, by mid morning today they were clear.

Today we had an easy going day. We took our time getting moving and started out at the pool in Grandma's condo developement. Then we did running around looking to purchase flip flops for the boys since I forgot to pack them. Also a few toiletries I forgot. We had lunch at a cool place called CiCi's; an all you can eat buffet of pizza. Salad too. And dessert. It was a good lunch, and the boys ate an enormous amount of food.

We headed to the grocery store after that for some kid friendly snacks to have around.

When we got back the boys took off for another dip in the pool and I sat down here.

Our vacation is off to a really wonderful start!


Monday, January 28th

Well we did end up at the library on Friday, where Grandma borrowed a couple of DVD's for the boys, and a few books for E to read to her. (R didn't realize we were taking books.) I never did get myself signed up to use a computer. The boys both did though and had fun playing Webkinz at the same time for once. Since we only have one computer with internet access at home, they have never had the opportunity to play games against each other before, and they had a fun time doing so.

We spent the weekend basically lounging around Grandma's condo. We've been taking a dip in the heated pool late morning every day for about an hour. Then we head inside, have some lunch and head out for some shopping; one of Grandma's favorite endeavors. We've hit Walmart twice, Target, a dollar store, Good Will, and Big Lots, so far.

We've been specifically looking for some pool toys. They do not allow jumping or diving into the pool, and since jumping into pools has been the whole point of going in one till now, the boys are not all that thrilled. My mother expected that we would spend all day at the pool, but without jumping; no way. So we've looked for pool toys. Noodles are allowed, and we've had races across the pool several times. We also found some cheap plastic boats at Walmart which have provided entertainment. But because it's winter, despite the fact that the weather says otherwise, pool stuff is off-season and stores don't have it. So we haven't been able to find those things you throw in that sink to the bottom for kids to dive for.

We did do some miniature golf yesterday. That was lots of fun. The four of us (the boys and Grandma and I) played the moderately difficult course and then after that the two boys went on (at a reduced rate) to play the difficult course. They had a terrific time.

I've been really enjoying all the plant life here. I've always enjoyed gardening at home, but never realized that the enjoyment would extend beyond my own backyard. I've been admiring all the different kinds of palm trees; it never occurred to me that there would be more than one. The variety is just amazing! I've been using up lots of memory sticks on palm trees and flowers. It's also been really cool to see shrubs in people's backyards, of things which we only grow as indoor plants in Connecticut. I've only been to Disney World and Ft. Lauderdale (at age 21) in Florida before, and I guess at those times I was too busy to notice the plant life. But this time around we are in a neighborhood rather than a tourist area, so it's been very noticeable to me. Walking to the library was such an enjoyable experience. I loved looking at everyone's front gardens. It's so strange to see Aloe Vera and Cacti and orange trees in landscaping! And like I said, the variety of palm trees is beautiful. What an enjoyment it's been for me to find this door open to step through!

Today we went to Lion Country Safari. I have to admit that I had thought it was going to be a tourist trap, but boy was I wrong! At first I was pretty miffed at the entrance price until I experienced the whole thing, and it was well worth the price. In fact, if we lived around here we would definitely have a membership to this place. It's one of those places where you drive through the safari in your own car. All the animals roam free and you can stop and look at them through your windows at your leisure. They provide a (free) CD to accompany visitors through the park, which is incredibly informative and well done. We got to see animals closer than we ever could at the Bronx Zoo!

It took us about 45 minutes to drive through the whole thing, and then afterwards we went into the "Safari World Amusement Park", which was excellent. They had an nice assortment of animals. We saw flamingos and toucans and a giant python; iguanas and all sorts of monkeys and macaws. We listened to a small talk around the "Alligator Moat", where we learned quite a bit about alligators, including how to tell them apart from crocodiles. The best two things though were definitely feeding the Lory Birds, small parrots which live mostly in Australia (and which was worth every penny of the $2 they charged for an obscenely small amount of nectar) and seeing the giraffe's up close in their feeding area. We did not spend the $2.50 for four crackers to feed them, but really did not need to; the woman on the platform was feeding them carrots and broccoli, and keeping them close by to the feeding area, so we got to see giraffes literally eye to eye. It was my favorite thing in the entire place. What a wonderful and meditative experience. Really incredible.

They also had a few rides there, mostly for the little kids. E did enjoy the Dumbo type ride though, and we all enjoyed the very modest ferris wheel and certainly the Safari Queen boat ride, which was very brief. Grandma also enjoyed having R and E paddle her around in a paddle boat, but it was getting close to the end of the day and the boys were getting tired, so that didn't last long.

They also had a miniature golf course there, which E insisted we do. He was even okay with the possibility of getting home too late to swim if we played. (He's been very insistent that we swim every day.) What a fantastic day we had today. Next time we come down to visit Grandma and go here, we will bring bathing suits so the boys can enjoy the Safari Splash Water Playground. It looked like lots of fun and they hated having to miss it. We did every single other thing they had there though. Except spend money on food for us to eat. Yay us!

I'm really bummed that I seem to be missing a 128MB stick; my largest one! I've taken 248MB worth of photos already and I am out of memory! Hopefully that stick is somewhere sitting near my computer at home because they don't make this size anymore. I'm kicking myself because I didn't bring the cable to connect the camera to this laptop and so I can't upload the photos and clear off my memory sticks. I think we will stop at the store tomorrow and pick one up, despite the fact that I already have two at home. We haven't even reached the half way mark of our visit here though and I certainly can't go the rest of the way without a camera.

We've been eating out quite a bit. R was very proud that he was able to order a second plate of the "all you can eat pancakes" we ordered at IHOP (International House of Pancakes). He had to call Dad and tell him all about it. We've also enjoyed trying Checkers, a fast food place which is popular here. It has no dining room. They have a drive through and a walk up window. R said his cheeseburger was excellent and wants to eat there again. The spicy fries were enjoyed by all. This evening we tried the all you can eat buffet at Kentucky Fried Chicken, where we have never eaten before. The buffet was pretty decent and we certainly got our money's worth.

So far we are having a really excellent vacation. I am even allowing the sun to touch my face by not wearing my hat, which is pretty much glued to my head all summer at home. Probably no one but B and maybe my dad will notice my "tan" but that's okay. It feels good to have the sun on my face, rosacea be damned.


Wednesday, January 30th

Well, it's officially one week now. I'm so glad we get to stay two weeks because it's taken me this long to adjust to all the sun. I've been so tired from it, despite eight or nine hours of sleep a night, but now I'm finally feeling myself again.

Yesterday we went to the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop. According to my 2006 edition of Fodor's book on Florida, it was to have been a "180,000 square-foot shopping-entertainment complex on 88 acres...a small midway with a Ferris wheel, a giant video arcade, and eateries...13 screen Swap Drop Drive-In...Hanneford Family circus still appearing several times daily." Well I wish I had taken the time to confirm all this on the Travelocity message boards before we went. No midway. No circus. A pathetic little flea market with four out of five vendors selling identical new things, and the rest selling fun junk. I did manage to find a used USB cable for my camera for $2. E got a couple of action figures and some large super balls. And a new baseball hat with a skull on it. R bought a couple of used Disney videos. Grandma got Uncle E a new leather belt for two bucks. What they did have was pretty cool, but I was expecting WAY more. They did have an indoor area which probably could have used some more exploring. The boys spent some money on arcade games and we had some pretty good fish and chips for lunch. We also enjoyed watching this fellow make hats and flowers out of coconut tree leaves. Grandma bought a few things and E will be going home with a very cool hand-made hat. Unfortunately there was not one movie playing on any of those 13 screens which was appropriate for us to see. Argh. That's actually two drive-ins close by which we haven't been able to take advantage of!

Today there was a lot of swimming. The boys and Grandma headed out to the pool bright and early, while I enjoyed an hour to myself watching repeats of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report from it seemed like two nights ago, since Jon was referring to the State of the Union Address. Have to say I really miss those guys.

Anyhow, after their swim we all headed to the library. Happily Aunt Debbie was available during her lunch hour back in Maine to play some Webkinz games with both of her nephews at the same time. The boys had a great time. I also took the opportunity to sign up for internet time to answer some email. I considered copying some of this onto my blog, but then decided I'll do it all at once when I get home. Then I can add photos too.

After the library we visited Checkers again for lunch, then went to the beach. Yes, the ocean. Lake Worth Beach, to be specific. We had a fantastic time, and I even got some photos and video of Grandma out there riding the waves with the boys. I rode them too; the ocean was so warm. We had actually stopped by the beach one day over the weekend, just to check it out. E had worn his bathing suit "just in case" and he and R ended up in the water (R with his long pants on), despite the cool weather. We stayed for only 20 minutes or so, but today we stayed for four hours. It was wonderful; 76 degrees outside the water and 73 degrees inside of it. Pure heaven.

Now R is enjoying a new episode of Mythbusters. We have all loved having TV again, I have to admit. I'm so psyched that B and I finished up watching season three of Lost on DVD before I left. Now I can watch the season premiere of season four tomorrow! And luckily, abc is the only station we actually get in our house, so B can watch it too.


Friday, February 1st

This is the life - sitting by the pool with a laptop while the boys swim. I don't know how long I'll have before they ask me to start throwing the diving rings for them though.


Tuesday, February 5th

Well "this is the life" didn't last very long. The battery on this laptop needs to be replaced, I guess. Oh well. Rather than write in here, I used the time to listen to some of the podcasts I had on my ipod. At some point I'll write a list of my favorites and post them on my other blog.

It's been a long time since I've been on a "vacation" like this; not since I was a kid and we went to Maine every summer, actually. Since I've been in charge of my own vacations, they have always been trips to someplace I've never been, to see and experience and learn about wherever that may be. Vacation has meant daily adventures. What we have here now is really just a taste of what it's like to live someplace else. I appreciate both kinds of vacations, but I really do actually like where I live, so living someplace else is only fun for ten days or so. So while we are really here to see Grandma, which never gets old, we are all looking forward to getting home and settled back into our own lives. R is such a social boy and he is really looking forward to seeing his friends. And we all miss Dad a lot.

Well even living at home we get out and do things, and on Friday we went to Morikami Japanese Gardens and Museum. What a lovely place. I really do wish I had a good camera. I got a few good shots but proportional to the amount I took, I didn't do too well. Still I got good stuff for several Wordless Wednesdays to come. I know that no one else enjoyed this place as much as I did. My mother wished she had her cell phone so she could "use the time" to make calls, but I'm glad she didn't; definitely would have harshed my mellow. The boys seemed okay with it; they enjoyed the different gardens and had fun running back to me and telling me "wait'll you see this, you'll love to take pictures of this". I'm glad we rented two of the audio guides, which were of the wand type and easy to share between the four of us. I think (hope) they added to my mother's enjoyment. They were informative and very well done. I was disappointed to not see as many flowers as I had hoped, but felt a lot better about it after listening to the program. A very enjoyable afternoon for me.

My Uncle E (my E's namesake) arrived Friday evening. He and my mother usually come together for the month of February. This is the first year my mom came down in January as well, but Uncle E came down just for February. I've never heard a definitive reason for the way my Uncle E is. My grandmother says that he suffered brain damage when he had scarlet fever at age three. Who knows? It's not Down Syndrome, and it's not the classic symptoms of Autism, but he's as my mother calls "learning disabled". To me he's always just been a perpetual 8-year-old who has trouble keeping his voice down.

I lived in the same household with Uncle E for several years. After my parents got divorced we moved to my grandparents' house, who then took off and left Uncle E (my mother's one year senior) and Uncle Larry (then 16) behind, while they retired to this very condo in sunny W. Palm Beach. My grandparents' house in New York was changed into a two family with Uncle E and Uncle Larry living upstairs and my family living in the bottom half. So I got to know Uncle E as if he were more of a brother. He's a cool guy, and I was looking forward for my boys to get to know him. Unfortunately Uncle E is easily excited (and as a result, loud), so whenever we see him at family functions, he's not at his best. So the boys have never gotten to know the man I do. And here we all are.

It's been mostly a good experience, although R doesn't have the patience I had expected. E loves his namesake and they have been having a great time blowing straw wrappers at eachother, blowing bubbles through straws into their drinks and laughing over fart jokes together. Like I said, perpetual 8-year-old. Come to think of it, I guess it's understandable that R doesn't have much patience for 8-year-olds these days.

On Sunday Grandma took the three boys to play miniature golf again (I stayed behind and caught up on some sleep). She herself was surprised at what a sore loser Uncle E is, and my E was thrilled to have Grandma to beat. She is such a willing loser.

R was glad to have someone to watch the Superbowl with. E and Grandma and I left the "men" to their pizza bagels and soda and Doritos, and headed over to Friendly's. E was really upset at not being allowed to stay and watch with them, despite the fact that the game would hold his attention for probably all of three minutes, so I knew food was the answer. E had some kind of giant blue drink along with his grilled cheese and french fries, and a "Monster Sundae" for dessert. That contentedness lasted all through a shopping excursion to a Bells outlet (sort of like Marhalls, but only their clearance section) where he also walked away with a Transformer action figure.

We came here with no toys at all (very very dumb move on my part) and looking over the laptop into the livingroom I count 13 Matchbox cars, a six-inch long metal car, two action figures in addition to the Transformer, three bouncy balls, and a blue spiky thing out of a claw machine. Grandma takes care of her kids!

Yesterday we went to the beach again, sans Uncle E who is the whitest person I know, and afraid of the water. Grandma and I both swam again; the water was warm. At the end of the day as we were leaving so many man o' war washed up to shore. They were so beautiful and sad all at once.

We checked out a pawn shop today. They are all over the place down here, and I've never been in one. Since my mom hadn't either, we went in to check one out. Disappointingly over priced. I wonder how they make any money, really.

They are all over playing shuffleboard now. I stayed behind for a little quiet. I think my mother wanted to, and I so appreciate her appreciating that I need it. E is constant enough; two of them together has been challenging for me, however much I love them both.


Sunday, February 9th

On Wednesday we took a final swim in Grandma's pool. Then we all played some shuffleboard together, taking turns keeping score. We wished we had discovered shuffleboard a lot sooner, because we all really enjoyed playing it. Unfortunately though, Grandma had done such a good job of allowing everyone else to win at all the stuff we had done the last two weeks, that no one wanted to be on her team!

Grandma took the boys to Checker's for milk shakes while I finished up the packing.

Our plane was about 45 minutes delayed in boarding, so we parked ourselves near a window at the airport and watched planes take off. The flight itself was a repeat of the one there; lots of TV. The boys squished in their last episodes of Spongebob, and I watched repeats (which I had never seen) of Project Runway, which I am totally in love with. Unfortunately their website has lots of crap on it, but no streaming of episodes, so I'll have to follow who wins by reading about it. Ugh.

It was really wonderful to see B waiting for us in the airport. We had an excellent time on our vacation, but we are really glad to be home with him.