Leprechuans

Yesterday we had the following conversation in the car (St. Patrick's Day)

Katrina: Some girls on the playground said they saw leprechauns in the field. I saw them, too.
Me: You did. Wow.
Ethan: I saw leprechauns in the woods (at home).
Katrina: You did? Mommy, did he?
Me: I don't know, Katrina. He did play outside.
K: I'm going to call Ms. Rebecca and ask her (E's teacher). (K holds up her finger phone to ear) 'Ms. Rebecca, It's Katrina. Did Ethan see a leprechaun today at school? Yes, I didn't think so. Thank you.' Ethan, Ms. Rebecca said there weren't any leprechauns at your school.
Me: He didn't have school today. He saw one at our house after speech.
Katrina: I'm calling Mrs. S (E's speech path). (Finger phone again). 'Mrs. S, It's Katrina. Did Ethan see a leprechaun at your school? Yes, I didn't think so. Thank you.' Ethan, Mrs. S said you are making that up.
Me: Katrina, he saw the leprechaun after speech.
Katrina (thoughtful pause): Ethan did you really see a leprechaun in the woods?
E: Yes.
Katrina (another thoughtful pause): You really did? You aren't lying?
Ethan: Yes, I saw one in the woods.
Katrina (another pause) Huh.

So there you go - at least two leprechaun sitings here in Michigan. Anyone else see one?? Happy belated St. Patty's Day!

The Zoo, Disney on Ice, and Misperceptions

First, you can tell by the pictures of the kids at Disney on Ice that they were really not excited about having their pictures taken. Rather, they just wanted to eat $36 worth of cotton candy (they did come with mouse ear crowns though). Disney events are apparently quite pricey. The event though was great and we were about five feet from the ice. Very fun. We also went to the zoo on Friday. It was a warmer day compared to what we have had - about 40 degrees, but the sun was shining. There were very few people there and we had a great time wandering around.

I had to laugh while talking to a mom the other day at school. She was talking about how they used to live in Lansing, but they really love the West Coast and she went on and on and I was about to ask her when she had lived in California until I realized a few minutes into the conversation that she is calling where we live the West Coast. The West Coast of the Lake. Learned something new. She also mentioned that she used to fly in on a company jet regularly to Texas, but landed in Little Rock to refuel . Every time, she said, the same man climbed on the wing of the airplane smoking a cigarette while refueling the airplane. Yes, no words to say, just yes. I can believe that.

Kindergarten Conference

Last night, Greg went to Katrina's conference and she is doing very well. That being said, I am amazed at what they learn in kindergarten. In three hours, five days a week they have learned all their letters, they have learned to read, they can count to 100 by ones, fives, tens, and now they are working on doing it by twos, she can add and subtract, they have learned a lot of shapes and figures - cones, cylinders, prisms, squares, circles, triangles, rhombus, trapezoid, oval, octagon, and hexagon, she can write short stories, she can write 66 words independently in 10 minutes (the goal was 18 - had to brag about that one) - gosh, I think that is a lot. I don't remember learning much in kindergarten.

On a different note, last night I woke up around three and couldn't fall back to sleep and I began thinking of what all she learned. I started thinking about hexagons and octagon and how a square should really be called a quadrigon and then I realized that the word square is probably someway derived from "quad" as it has three of the four letters. Same thing with triangle and triagon. And yes, this actually kept my mind going until at least 4:30.

And I also started thinking about genetics and how Katrina has messy writing like me and I really don't care if my writing is neat or not and never have. She is also messy like me (former roommates take note) - she throws wrappers on the counter instead of putting them in the trash even though I've told her a million times to put it in the trash and her brother can do it. However, I do the same thing even though I know I will have to pick it up later. Her room is a disaster and can explode approximately 30 seconds after being picked up - I get it though. The same thing happened to me. Ethan can pick his room up within a minute and Katrina is at a complete loss as to how she can even clean it - she dreads it as do I. There is definitely no denying genetics, but I wouldn't want either one of them to be different than they are!

Pictures

Here, finally, are the pictures of the butterflies. If you enlarge the pictures, you can see a few butterflies. Isn't that wall of chrysalises amazing?? There were hundreds of them in there! I think you can also see the snow falling outside in the picture of the two of them.

Butterflies!

Yesterday was a snowy day here in Michigan and Greg was still on his boy trip to Vegas, so the kids and I loaded up and headed to the Meijer Garden Butterfly exhibition. It was stunning. A tropical jungle where all different types of tropical butterflies floated all around you. I will post pictures later - when we arrived there, I realized my batteries were almost dead in my camera, but I'm hoping I got some cute pictures of the kids. On Friday the kids don't have school so we're thinking about heading to the zoo if it isn't too cold. And then on Saturday is the long awaited Disney on Ice!! And even better, I finally remembered where I put the tickets to keep them safe! Ah, sweet victory!

Things that are not fun

One of several not fun things from this week - watching your daughter who does not have depth perception attempt gymnastics. Balance beam, doing flips on a bar - terrifying. But she seems to have liked it. I was kind of hoping she would say she didn't like it. No, I was really hoping she would say she didn't like it. She said all the other girls were better than her, but this didn't disuade her. My heart sank a few times during the hour long lesson, but she had fun. On the plus side, the gym didn't smell like stinky feet like the one in AR did. That was a positive.

Beer bottles and a Young Jedi in Training

One thing I forgot to post in my listing of Michigan facts is you can get ten cents for your pop cans or glass bottles. Grammy and Gunner brought us a big bag when they came to visit and yesterday the kids and I took them to the grocery store. You put one bottle in at a time in this machine and it spins the bottle to find the barcode and then it disappears. Then you put the next one in and so on. Kind of a sticky job, but fortunately there is a sink at the end. But the thing that struck me as funny yesterday was there was a college guy with bags and bags of bottles who smiled and talked to the kids. As he put in his hundreds of beer bottles, the whole place smelled like beer. And then I got the image of the party that must have occurred in my mind. And of all the Michigan kids who had been trained from birth to put their cans and bottles into a special bag as they are worth ten cents. And for some reason the image of this party struck me as very funny and I started to laugh. That is when it pays off to have small children by you so that you don't look insane. So we got a chuckle and $10.80 out of the experience!

Also, Ethan is now OBSESSED with Star Wars as is his father. We have Star Wars Wii, the movies, books, figures, ships, even shoes. . . and he talks about it ALL the time. Greg's dream has come true - someone who he can talk Star Wars with ALL the time. There are times when I have now said to the boy, "Ethan, mommy is done talking Star Wars. No more. Wait for your father to come home." And then I automatically hear in my mind Darth Vader breathing and saying, "Luke, I am your father." Darn you, Star Wars!!