The Incredible Edible...Tooth?

After Lindsey lost her last tooth so quickly we've been waiting for more to pop out. I noticed that one tooth seemed to have moved over, as they've done in the past, to make room for the permanent teeth that would be coming in.

Finally I asked to see where her tooth had moved only to find that the tooth had been lost at some point in the prior week! She couldn't tell me exactly when, but that she had been eating a bun at lunch, then suddenly that tooth had hurt and then it didn't, and she kept eating her bun. She didn't realize it was gone until I discovered it.

She thinks that perhaps the tooth stuck in her bun and she may have eaten it. I can't believe she lost her tooth and didn't even notice.

The tooth fairy did not visit our house for this one.

When Did You Last Walk in the Rain?

Have I mentioned how much I love my city?

Tonight I had plans to meet friends at a nearby restaurant for some after-bedtime drinks and conversation. It was only three blocks from our house, and, despite the rain, I decided to talk. I donned my raincoat and my umbrella and set out.

I am still breathing deeply from the smells I took in during that walk.. The air had a damp, worms-on-the-sidewalk kind of smell, but with an autumnal hint of the changing seasons. The air was warm so it was comfortable walking, and I was protected from the elements. The sound of the rain was peaceful; even the woosh of tires of the cars going by me had a calming effect. I think I enjoyed the walk there and back as much as I enjoyed the social outing.

When was the last time you walked in the rain?

I need to do this more often.

An observation by Marissa

The scene: Mom and 5-year-old daughter walking back from a local festival, where above photo of horseback riding was taken. They pass the local high school on the way home.

Marissa: Mommy, is that the school I'm going to go to when I get older?

Mom: Yes, sweetie it is.

Marissa: I don't want to get bigger. I want to stay 5 forever.

Mom: Me too, Marissa, me too.

Phineas Lives Here

My girls are stuck on a Disney show called "Phineas and Ferb." For those who don't know it, every episode follows the shenanigans of two brothers who are constantly making inventions and whose older sister, Candace, is always trying to "bust" them making these things. And they don't just make things: they will make forts that are 10 stories tall, rockets that go to the moon, submarines that they can shrink to explore the microscopic world, and so on and so forth.

One morning Lindsey decided she wanted to make a time machine. So she asked for some cardboard boxes, got some fuzzy pipe cleaners and tape and went to work.

When she explained what her machine did, it's actually more of a transmogrifier (to use a Calvin and Hobbes term) than a time machine. You push a button telling it what you want to transform into, enter the machine (the pink and green playtent), and come out acting like whatever button you pushed. Your options are cat, dog, baby or teenager. She had all of us get in and test it out -- it worked pretty well, although for a while she had two teenagers for parents and nobody knew who was really in charge.

Here she's demonstrating how you push the button to choose what you want to transform into.

She also had a clipboard made of a piece of cardboard in which she recorded who had used the time machine and what they transformed into. We all had to re-enter the time machine to transform back, especially me since I had to become responsible enough to make dinner. Otherwise it might've been Mountain Dew and Pringles for dinner.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider

A new neighbor moved into our flower box last week.

We've decided that she's a girl - she was pretty big as far as spiders go. We were fascinated watching her make her home. It was incredible watching how she used her back legs to put the silk where she needed it as she threaded her way around and around the web. Once it was done, she planted herself right in the middle, waiting for her prey.

She was there several days, but it rained one night and she moved out. It was fun having her while it lasted.

Adult Supervision Recommended

Saturday morning I left the house for an hour to run a few errands. I left the girls at home with their daddy. They had already spent hours in the morning watching cartoons, so the tv was turned off and screen time (i.e. tv, computer, ipod games) were off limits.

I came home an hour later to find this:

After a fun session of moonsand sculpturing in the dining room, Marissa had moved on to painting in the kitchen. Well, at least ONE craft got done at the correct table. But the craft accidentally moved to the floor when two of the paint bottles spilled over.

I arrived home in time to find Marissa hauling the mop and bucket up from the basement to clean it up. I actually couldn't be mad at her, she knew she'd made a mess and was trying to clean it up.

And then there was this:

And where was daddy? Taking a bath, getting his pulled hamstring a much-needed soak. Though I'm not sure the timing of this soak was much-needed.

His answer? Well, they weren't doing those things when he got into the bath 20 minutes ago.

Yes honey, that's why they call it adult supervision. If you supervise the activities, you can predict what may happen next and prevent it by, say, recommending that opening all four bottles of paint at once is not a good idea.

And in case we forget, this is not the first time. Remember the infamous green paint incident? Why is it that the paint is always green?

The Fastest Tooth in the West, subtitled The Inverted Vampire Look

Thursday night Lindsey informed us that one of her teeth was quite wiggly, and demonstrated how much she could move it back and forth.

Biting into an eggroll at dinner made the tooth get even looser; it was literally lying prone out of her mouth, like a plank on a pirate ship.

While reading stories at bedtime the tooth came out in her hands.

It happened so fast, as a matter of fact, that the tooth fairy wasn't ready to make a stop that night -- Lindsey had to wait until the following night when the tooth fairy took her little tiny tooth and brought her a dollar.

Perhaps it was Lindsey's new look that kept the tooth fairy away for a day. It's not every day you see only the "vampire" teeth missing from a young girl's smile; perhaps the tooth fairy was afraid that some fangs were going to grow in their place.

Or perhaps Lindsey's mommy had a mom's night out and didn't get back home until 11:00 and hadn't notified the tooth fairy that she needed to make a stop before the fairy had already passed by the neighborhood.

Whatever the reason, Lindsey was happy to get her dollar on Saturday morning!

So Marissa...How Was Your First Day of Kindergarten?

-- She loves Minneapolis KIDS and playing with Lindsey with all the toys.
-- The zhu zhu pets at Minneapolis KIDS are the BEST.
-- The boringest part was the "bee" rules, which they reviewed in Mr. Carlson's class. "Bee" responsible, "bee" respectful, "bee" your best, etc. I hope she doesn't find following those rules "boring."
-- She doesn't like Mr. Carlson's class because she doesn't know anybody in it. (Keep in mind Mr. Carlson's class is her actual kindergarten curriculum -- if she didn't have working parents that's the only classroom she would be seeing right now.) But...she does like Mr. Carlson himself, so that's good.
-- She LOVED the media center (today's term for the library) and loved it when Mrs. Knight read the class a book.

Her one area of worry on her first day was the PIN system that they use for breakfasts and lunches. Each child has a PIN that they have to enter when they buy their lunch, and she was worried that she wouldn't know it. She used it twice her first day, at breakfast and at lunch (to buy a milk, she brought a lunch from home). One of the staff let me know that by lunch on her first day she had already memorized the PIN They asked if anyone knew their PIN and she, along with some 1st and 2nd graders, raised her hand. She got to go to the front of the line and used it with ease.

That's my girl!

On the other hand, she sat at the allergy table at lunch with her peanut butter sandwich. She understood that some kids at the table were allergic to peanuts, but she didn't think that included peanut butter, so she thought it was okay that she ate her peanut butter sandwich there. We tried to explain but the concept didn't really get through. We'll have to let the teachers know so they help her know where to sit. We certainly don't want her endangering other kids because she doesn't think that a peanut allergy and a peanut butter allergy are the same thing.

The really great news from my perspective is that throughout our long Labor Day weekend she is counting down the days until she goes back to Mr. Carlson's classroom. I'm thrilled that she's so excited.

You Know How Those Refrigerator Manuals Are...

...always telling you to do stuff to make sure your frig runs at optimal efficiency.

One of their tips for optimal energy efficiency is to always keep your refrigerator full.

No worries here!

After a trip to Costco, a trip to the grocery store, and a full meal for which we've got leftovers, I'm pretty sure this is as full as we can make it.

First Day of Kindergarten

How can you resist those pigtails?

That smile?

Those kisses?

Marissa was so excited for kindergarten this morning it was thrilling to see. She expressed a little fear the night before about whether or not she would know how to use the number machine in the cafeteria (where the students have to enter their PIN to buy lunch). But Lindsey reassured her that the staff would help her out and Lindsey would be there to help. What a good big sister!

Marissa helped make her lunch and couldn't wait to get going. We dropped the girls off at Minneapolis KIDS as we would normally do, to keep the routine as close to normal as it will be. It helped in that Marissa and Lindsey got to be together for the first hour or so before having to go to their separate classrooms.

It was also wonderful to meet up with friends there -- Ava S, Lindsey's good friend and classmate, and another new kindergartener but an old friend, Maria L! She gave us one last hug and kiss and she was off playing, while Lindsey and Ava pulled out all the new toys they had already spent two days discovering to show Marissa and Maria.

 

At the end of the day I couldn't get her to settle on one thing that was her favorite thing, but she did tell me what the "boring-est" part was -- the bee rules! These are Lake Harriet's behavior rules: "bee" respectful, "bee" kind, "bee" your best, etc. I hope she doesn't find it "boring" to follow those rules.

We are so proud of our littlest peanut and are excited for the new discoveries she'll be making this year. In the meantime, she was a little pooped out from the day, and so here she is as of a couple of hours ago. I swear, I'm going to take photos of my kids sleeping all the way through high school, it's just so adorable.