Did Jesus have germs?

This was our topic of conversation over lunch today. I let them debate amongst themselves because I am sick (again--but I think it's been a couple of months, which is great) and it hurts to talk (and breathe and cough and also to stand up and sit down because my head feels like it really is going to explode every time there is an altitude shift. I mumbled that my head did feel like it might actually explode and Hudson said, "REALLY Mommy?" with grave concern in his voice, so I had to cut back on the melodrama). Anyway, it has been decided that Jesus probably had germs, but God decidedly does not. God is also the only one who can see individual atoms, according to Harper. I don't think there is any heresy in that logic. I am certain that if Jesus had germs, he did not complain about his head imminently exploding from the sinus pressure while young children were listening.

Well, we had a swell time with the Grandparents Pate. We went to the homecoming game at my high school. The drill team I was in for two years was having a 60-year reunion, and though it was poorly attended by anyone from my decade, I got to spend some delightful time with a few dear friends, and the husband and kids got a real bang out of seeing me and Mrs. Young perform the special Indian Fight Song Dance that the Indianette officers do down on the track during the third quarter. Would you like a look at Lieutenant Patti? Here she is:
Sometimes Batman calls upon her special powers of chanting "Scalp 'em, Indians! Scalp 'em!" while pretending to draw an invisible arrow from her invisible quiver:

I was really hoping the kids wouldn't ask about the whole Scalp 'em! thing because the explanation is pretty macabre, and also a touch racist. They did not.

You might be wondering where you can buy your very own purple and white Indian headdress emblazoned with your name in sparkling sequins. The heartbreaking truth is this--such unique splendor is not for sale. I made it with my own two hands the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. Here's how you do it: get a black felt skull cap, use copious amounts of hot glue, feathers, sequins, white rabbit fur, and some fishing line, and VOILA. You should try it. I'm sure there is a tutorial somewhere on Pinterest.

We went to a birthday party for my friend Carol yesterday afternoon, and an older gentleman, (who happens to be their family doctor) came over and asked if Hudson belonged to me. He then proceeded to tell me that Hudson reminded him of a young Thomas Jefferson. He'd been watching Hudson dance and stomp (there was square dancing) and interact with other kids, and his rosy-cheeked, curly haired musical exuberance coincided with what he and his wife had discovered about Thomas Jefferson as they read and researched during a road trip to Monticello. Future statesman?

That's probably more Teddy Roosevelt than Thomas Jefferson.

That will be all for today because I keep having spasmodic coughing attacks that make it feel like my alveoli have actually burst into flames. Blasted germs.

Animal observation

I had a lovely dinner with the Bible study girls at Merry's house last Thursday. A miracle was announced. Then, as I'm sure happened after many a miraculous announcement in the days of the early church, a possum appeared in Merry's driveway. Merry, it should be noted, had been getting up at various intervals during dinner to pound on the walls (looking a more than a little Crazed About the Eyes). There were Mysterious Scurryings coming from the attic. The Mysterious Scurryings had momentarily abated, so Merry opened her back door and saw a box on the driveway. A box that MOVED. And had a long pink tail. Brenda, the intrepid one amongst us, casually strolled outside and put a cinder block on top of the box while we all contemplated scenarios that would ensure Merry did not have a boxed possum behind her car when she needed to leave for work the next morning. I shared all of my recently acquired possum knowledge. Lori called her husband Matt, who, in addition to having a real job is also an aspiring Cattle Baron AND amateur animal trapper. Brenda, yet again, decided to take matters into her own hands. Merry closed the crack where Mr. Possum had been gaining entry to her attic, then Brenda marched out (in her high heels) and calmly took off the cinder block AND the box, and our marsupial interloper dashed into the next door neighbors' backyard. He was LARGE. Or pregnant. Hopefully, just large. Though pregnant would dovetail nicely with the previously mentioned miraculous announcement. (Dear Mother, It is not me. I have promised you that, should I be pregnant, you will not find out through a blog post. Love, Patti.)

We went to the Zoo Boo yesterday. The kids wore costumes because I thought it might make up for the missed party. Though we got there and realized that the festivities only happen on the weekends. I just can't get it right. Ah, well. They had fun anyway. The battery was out in the new camera, so this was the best I could do:
We got to watch the elephants getting their baths, then were delighted to watch baby Baylor the elephant go directly from his bath into the swimming pond in the new elephant habitat. Baby Baylor pooped right in the water, which, naturally, pleased the kids very much. He also practiced his trumpeting, which was pretty adorable.

Harper got the idea (from one of the Magic Treehouse books) to have a little notebook in which she jots down Animal Observations. Here are some from the zoo trip:

1. Chinmpansee Behavior: eats flies
2. ElephAnt Behavior: Aftr Bath SWiMs (and) (poops) (and) (trumpets)
3. Baby Shark Behavior: Swims at TOP of WATER
4. TurTLE Behavior: Swims Around Tank
5. Eels ArE COOL i've seen THiM AT The Zoo
6. Tomorrow i'm Going To GANDMOTHer
7. I'm Bringing 100 Thins

Those last two were more like journal entries. She did ask for help with some of the spelling, which explains why it's a trifle more decipherable than her independent attempts.

I will be taking a brief blog hiatus while we spend a few days with the grandparents. We've been packing all day and as soon as Sasha sees the suitcases come out, she begins to PANIC. She is either following me around right at my heels (I almost stepped on her numerous times today) OR she is curled up with her entire body touching the suitcase, one eye left open, as she warily surveys the activity. The kids are incredibly excited, as always, and are packing their own small bags with a regrettable lack of forethought. I see, for example, that Hudson has filled his entire bag with his football helmet. No football, however. Harper has, no doubt, chosen one THOUSAND small items which will inevitably end up strewn everywhere, and there will be great turmoil trying to find it all when it's time to come home. By the way, if you are a burglar who just happens to enjoy this blog, there are three very good reasons you should NOT see this as a golden opportunity:
1. The husband will be here.
2. The husband is an extensive Collector of Firearms (22, 45, 357--those numbers mean anything to you??)
and
3. Our electronics (and other belongings, now that I think about it) will likely be a huge disappointment to you. Unless you want a cheap t.v. from Sears.

Week in review: Farm fun and consolation pumpkins

Well, I have eaten five doughnuts today. And not small ones. Big, frosted, sprinkled Shipley's doughnuts. About once a quarter, I will get a doughnut craving, and the husband will go out and get a dozen and he will eat two, maybe three, and I will eat the rest over the course of a couple of days. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. Because my brain is sluggish from all of the refined sugar and lard, there will be bullet points yet again.

**We had the week off from school this week. Harper read her first Magic Tree House book. The one about the Olympics in ancient Greece. She is a fan. She also would like a tree house.

**We had a mosquito infestation this week. (the rain that so blessed our drought-devastated area also seems to have awakened an entire summer's worth of mosquitoes, who, in their dormancy seem to have been Plotting Havoc upon us all). The kids, after having only a few bites all summer long, now look as though they have a pox.

**We went to Dewberry Farm this week.

**Harper has been referring to Hudson as "Huffin" this week. I think it started out as an aspersion (BABY Huffin, she would say) it now seems to be a term of endearment.

**A sweet friend who teaches with the husband invited us to a pre-Halloween costume party. The husband, who generally eschews most aspects of Halloween, had decided that we would get dressed up and go. So, we did!!

**Except that the party was on Friday at 4pm, and we arrived on Saturday at 4pm. This is right after we knocked on the door, walked around the entire complex of condos, and finally figured out what had happened:

**So, we loaded our disappointed (but not as much as I might have expected) ballerina, Batman, and Cinderella (and Bob the Builder) back into the minivan and went to the St. Luke's pumpkin patch:
Cinderella is waiting very patiently for one of those pumpkins to turn into a carriage that will take her to another family who keeps a more accurate events calendar.

Then, the camera battery died and we went to get gelato. The end.

A tree dies in Houston

For a couple of months now, one of the huge oaks in our front yard has been dying. Its leaves rather quickly began to turn from green to an orangish-brown before even a hint of fall was in the air. Then, last week, one of its massive branches came crashing down on our neighbors' driveway, narrowly missing their car. We knew it was only a matter of time before it happened again, so the tree guys were called and yesterday, while we spent the morning at Dewberry Farm, and the afternoon playing with a new group of homeschooling friends at a nearby park, the oak was dismantled limb by limb (the husband said there were very precarious moments involving dangling men wielding chain saws)and, by the time we got home at 5pm, only a stump remained.

The mystery of the whole thing is that, in spite of the drought, the rest of our trees and all of the grass around the dead tree seem to be doing just fine. I suspect the roots of this one branched deep under the slab of our house and under the neighbors' driveway. It's all very Luke 8. The healthy tree in the good soil flourishing 10 feet away from the dead tree choked by concrete. What remains:

A couple of days ago, Helena fell and started crying in the front room. I was in the kitchen and went in to see what had happened. I asked Harper, who'd been coloring at the table, if she had seen the injury. She said, "WELL. She was running. In the House. WHICH is inappropriate." I told her I needed a little less editorializing and a little more fact recitation. "She fell. AND started crying," she said with Great Judgment and Reproach in her voice.

We had a great day at Dewberry, once I surrendered the crazy idea that I was supposed to try to keep our group of 40 all together. I got very few pictures, but trust me, there was Fun of all sorts. Harper always enjoys the rubber duck racing:

Helena (and her shadow) on the bouncy things:


Hudson racing in the go-carts:

One other thing I don't want to forget. On Monday night, the husband was teaching a late class, and Harper and Hudson asked if we could go outside and star-gaze after baths and stories. I said yes, grudgingly, because I say no ALWAYS to any requests to delay bedtime on days when I've mothered solo all day. Anyway, I realized it was a lovely night, and that I probably say no far more than I should, so we read two books to set the mood (The Big, Big Sea by Martin Waddell, ill. Jennifer Eachus, and On a Starry Night by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, ill. David McPhail) and went out to snuggle in the hammock. It was all going fine until I scooted too far to one end of the hammock and then the hammock stand toppled over, landing the three of us and Sasha in a big heap on the ground. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries, though I have a bruise on my left arm where I took the brunt of the collapse. I laughed really hard, and I think the stars were adequately gazed upon.

Week in review (a tad late)

My zeal for any consistent weekly posting wanes quickly. I don't think I'll do a day-by-day of last week, because it was pretty similar to the week before, but here are a few highlights:

**We went to the Children's Museum on Tuesday and discovered the fun treehouse exhibit we've been enjoying all summer has been replaced by a "blood-suckers" exhibit. I learned more than I wanted to about mosquitoes. There is also a tank full of leeches, and it made me happy when Harper said, "Like the ones that got on Nelly Olsen when Laura tricked her!"

**Speaking of books, I believe I've mentioned that the husband has been reading through the Narnia series with Harper and Hudson before bedtime. Hudson says "In Arnia" instead of "in Narnia" which makes me giggle.

**And on the subject of mispronunciations, Harper has always pronounced words that end in 'rn' with an extra 'i'. I first noticed it with the word 'pattern' which she pronounces "patterin." Other favorites are the planet of Saturin and the camping light lanterin. Now Hudson says them that way too. Feel free to call your neighborhood speech pathologist and send them over post haste.

**It was my birthday on Thursday and I am now 41. We went out to dinner and I got a dessert called Charlotte's Web and it was a trifle sort of thing with pieces of chocolate cake, white chocolate espresso pudding, whipped cream, and an entire Heath bar crumbled on the top. Happy birthday to me.

**My friend Molly called and invited me to join her at the symphony on Friday night. We used her dad's very excellent season tickets (5th row center) and thoroughly enjoyed the musical stylings of Idina Menzel. Idina Menzel was barefoot and full of amusing anecdotes. She sang songs from "Wicked," "Rent", (I'm not sure where that comma is supposed to go--it looks odd both ways) and "Glee." She stopped and apologized several times during the "Glee" song for making a symphony orchestra play Lady Gaga. The first half of the program (sans Idina Menzel) included Wagner and "The Funky Chicken." The conductor amuses me with his jiggy, energetic conducting and unconventional choices. He was trying to play songs that all had something to do with defying gravity (get it?) and chickens who try to fly do indeed seem to be in defiance of gravity.

**I had the thought, while watching the orchestra, that most of the musicians seemed to be about my age (now that I am "in my 40's") and this made me a little sad. I think it's officially too late for me to be a cellist in a symphony orchestra. Considering I've never actually played the cello. I had the same thought when we watched the ballet dancers a few weeks ago. On the bright side, the cello is much more likely than the professional ballet dancing.

**The kids do a presentation every week at our Classical Conversations group (it's pretty much show and tell) and this week Harper took an acorn she found and this visual aid:
I'll admit I encouraged her to take it up a notch after last week, when she brought a few of her rubber Squinkies and said, "My name is Harper and these are my Squinkies. I bought them at Target with some of my allowance money. Any questions?" Then another little girl got up next and showed the class this illustrated history of the ancient world that she had compiled when she was 4. There were paper dolls of Greek philosophers and pop-up pyramids and everything. It was awesome.

**I caught Hudson locking Helena out of his room one day and told him it was not allowed. He said, "But she plays with my Squinkies and she says 'POO POO' to me and she hits me!" I'm pretty sure at least two of those accusations are founded, but he still doesn't get to lock her out.

**Saturday night, the husband and I went to a dinner party with 3 other couples and it was delightful. At one point, the husbands were on one end of the table having a very spirited discussion about politics, while we on the Wife End discussed shopping and high school escapades and homeschooling. I thought to myself, "How grown-up we are!!" The other very big deal is that we had our first baby sitter who was not my mother.

**During the big Saturday house clean-up (because of the impending visit of the not-related-to-us babysitter) I found this scrap of paper on my desk, on which I had jotted a conversation between Harper and Hudson from around a year ago:

Harper: Hudson! Do you know that you did something very unkind?
Hudson: YES!
Harper: You ERASED my BEAUTIFUL drawing on the chalk board Hudson.
Hudson: I like red, Hopper.
Harper: I DON'T.
Hudson: You like pink, Hopper?
Harper: I like pink better than you! I'm not going to play sleepover with you tonight. I will make you play something you DON'T want to play! I will play by myself for the rest of my life.

It reminds me to be thankful for how much more harmonious their relationship is now.

And now, another week has begun. What will it bring, I wonder?

What's your point? Wednesday

I was going to write this entire post about the plagues in Exodus and how appalled I am by the Old Testament in general, but was gently reminded by my dear husband that perhaps it might be best to keep those thoughts to myself. He's right. Though poor Mrs. S got an earful at the park this morning. I have good friends who put up with me and my many eccentricities and bizarre notions. I'm thankful for that.

I think I'll do a short list of events that have transpired this week and their individual pros and cons.

1. The dog pooped in Hudson's room this morning, even though she had just come in from outside. CON. However, it has been a couple of months since this has happened. PRO. And no one stepped in it before we discovered it. PRO!

2. Monday during Hudson's nap time, he did not take a nap. CON. Then he came out and casually told me there was a lizard on his fire truck. I thought he meant a rubber lizard because we have several of those floating around at any given time. Then I went to check and it was a real lizard. I actually think lizards are kind of cute. PRO. Plus they eat roaches and mosquitoes. PRO. But it took me 20 minutes to finally catch this one (in a coffee can) and put it outside. CON. At one point, it was panting on one of the spokes of Harper's bicycle wheel, and it closed its eyes and seemed to be so exhausted. So I explained to him that it was important that he let me transport him outside because I did not want to find his tiny lizard carcass in Hudson's closet two months from now. He then tried to tell me something about how he had seen plenty of bugs to eat in Hudson's closet and I said, "LA LA LA LA!" and he closed his eyes again and let me scoop him into the coffee can. Also, during the Great Lizard Chase, Helena was busy filling up her nap diaper with something very foul, that would, perhaps, have ended up in the toilet if I had not been chasing a lizard. CON.

3. I am almost finished reading Jane Eyre. PRO and CON. I am really enjoying it, so much more than I did the first time I read it, and I don't want it to end. Even though I remember exactly how it ends. With the Brontes, happy ending is a relative term.

4. Everyone got a treat when Helena was finally successful in her excretory endeavor of the secondary kind on the toilet. PRO. We were at the Bass Pro Shop when she decided to perform. CON.

5. Hudson was doing some sort of Spiderman Activity on the back of the couch Monday when he slipped and slammed his chin down and bit his tongue really hard. There was lots of blood in his mouth. When he saw it, he started screaming and generally lost all control of his senses. CON, CON, and CON. Then he finally recovered, strapped on his guns and knives, and headed outside to climb the crepe myrtle. PRO.

6. I'm still working with the camera. Helena is, by far, the easiest to photograph. I can't really figure out why, when generally she moves the quickest. She was smiling sweetly at a bird in this shot. PRO. She was not wearing any pants. CON?

7. The kids are learning to read music and play songs on their penny whistles for our fine arts component. PRO. The kids are learning to read music and play songs on their penny whistles for their fine arts component. CON.

Week in review: donkeys to kablabi

The husband made something called kablabi for dinner tonight and it was delicious, even though he only gave it a C-. It's Tunisian and he read about it in the Wall Street Journal this morning. It's a garbanzo bean stew. Kablabi! Say it, you'll feel better. And not only did he prepare the kablabi, he also unloaded AND reloaded the dishwasher and did all of the cleaning up, something I doubt many Tunisian husbands do.

Let's review the rest of the week, even though I have technically begun at the end with all this kablabi blathering.

Monday:

Our second annual trip to the wonderful Oil Ranch. We rode a train, we took a hay ride to feed the cows and the sweet baby donkey:
We played a little miniature golf, climbed on rusty old tractors, bounced in a bounce house, milked an extremely patient cow named Daisy:The kids' favorite part this year seemed to be the barn, where they leapt around on huge stacks of hay bales and then moved vast amounts of hay from the ground floor to the hay loft. I think they could have done this for many, many more hours, but there were baby animals to visit with: A little lamb tried to escape, but Mrs. S was quite the shepherdess:
Then, as a grand finale, since we pretty much had the place to ourselves at that point, each kid got to ride the horses as many times as they wished! Helena hopped right on like it was no big deal:
I would love to post a picture of our whole group, but I don't have one. It was great to spend the day with the Swanks, Whiles, Rives, Wimberleys, and Wheelers though--even if I have no photographic proof!

The rest of the week was pretty low key. We stayed home on Tuesday and Thursday, played at the park with the Swanks on Wednesday, and went to school yesterday. On Thursday, Harper and Hudson decided to help me mow the back yard, which, because of the drought, hasn't really needed it most of the summer. They took the task very seriously:It's funny to me that they rarely want to do most of the easy tasks I ask them to do (for example, one afternoon, I asked Harper if she could push Helena in the swing for a minute while I ran in to put some clothes in the dryer and she complained and acted as though I had just asked her to mow the back forty with a pair of scissors) but they jump at the chance to do something that frankly isn't all that helpful (they can't really push the mower hard enough to actually cut the grass properly) but feels really difficult and important.

It has been raining steadily here for about 4 hours now! Our dry and weary land rejoices.