War on Science

Please note that I have accurately tagged this as a "Rant."

And here we all thought that Bush and Darth Cheney were too busy trying to start a war with Iran to focus on anything else. Nope. Turns out they have nearly infinite capacity for mischief.

All of that denial about global warning was apparently part of a coordinated attack. And the House Oversight Committee Report on it is pretty clear. Inexcusable. Really, really inexcusable. For shame.

How'd we get here? Is it that Americans are functionally illiterate when it comes to science? Is it that we don't pay attention? Is it that the consequences of full-on stupid aren't instant, long-lasting and hit-you-over-the-head obvious? Go ahead and guess my opinion on that one...

So, since we've clearly let ourselves down by assuming that our elected leaders wouldn't purposely steer us down a path toward a new Dark Age, isn't it time for some action?

How about a science debate?! Sign their petition. It's a good idea.

First Day

Elise and Mommy, ready for Elise's first day at her new school. As you can see, she's a little apprehensive. Teri Bear's ear doesn't make it into Elise's mouth unless she's pretty worried, or falling asleep.

As it turns out, school was good. I had to spend some time with paperwork and parking and other such things, so she was on her own for a little bit, had me with her a little bit, and then spent the rest of the day at school on her own. She did a great job.

One thing I noticed was that Elise did a much better job of following directions when I wasn't nearby. She's normally pretty good at following directions, but school is a different story altogether. She seems to really need a personal invitation, and her previous teacher wasn't interested in doing that. So, when I watched Elise space out and put Teri Bear's ear in her mouth when she was asked to join a line, I was pretty nervous.

Well, talking with Linda (Elise's teacher) after school, I was relieved. Yes, Elise had needed personal invitations to follow directions. But unlike our previous school experience, the teacher continued to say that Elise didn't seem to be defiant. She needs to feel comfortable and safe about what's going on and then she's fine.

Can you hear that sigh of relief? I have a lot of confidence that this new school is going to work out.

Old Tree, New Tree

With birthday festivities over and done with for another year, we put up the Christmas decorations this afternoon. Elise is a fabulous helper, and we have a nicely decorated tree to prove it.
It hasn't always been so easy to put up the tree. For the past five years, we had a gorgeous but humongous tree. Nine feet tall, as big around as a VW bug. It put a real cramp in our living quarters every year. This picture from last year shows it shoved in a corner with half of the bottom branches unassembled, and it still took up the entire living room.


So, a few weeks ago I sold the old tree on Craigslist to finance a new, smaller tree. The guy who bought it called after assembling it at home to say how thrilled he was, so it's nice to know it went where it is appreciated.

The new tree is not quite as bushy and full, but it also takes up significantly less floorspace. It is also hinged, comes in 3 manageable sections, is pre-lit, and stores in one convenient box. All in all, a better bet for us.

Elise's favorite ornaments to put on were the six glass hummingbirds that Grandma Char gave to Andy several years ago. They're all hanging in a flock on one side of the tree. The one ornament we had to fight to get away from her was our traditional tree topper, seen here:


Oh yes, we have a fuzzy representation of our parrot on top of our tree ever year. The difference this year is that it takes a chair rather than a stepladder to get it up there.

Party time! Excellent!

The birthday girl had been looking forward to this party for eons, and spent all morning asking if it was eleven o'clock yet. As party time approached, she insisted on putting on her new princess dress and her tiara. You may not be able to tell from the above picture, but Elise really liked being dressed up for a party in her honor.

We invited three friends and their parents, keeping to the total number of kids present to the number of years the birthday girl has under her belt. I learned this from my parents and I have to say it is a fantastic idea. Just the right amount of crazy.

One really good thing about having a party for this age group is that it takes very little to entertain them. Andy blew up a mess of balloons this morning, and the kids had a blast. Check our our girl in motion:

Also, having a cat when your guests don't have pets is aces, because they spend all of their time inhaling the dust bunnies under your beds while trying to lure said cat out of hiding. Kid entertainment and housecleaning all in one!

When it was time for cake, Elise was ready. She loves candles, she loves being serenaded with the happy birthday song.



And here she is, telling us her birthday wish. "I wish that I will grow up to be big."



And foof! Beautiful candle extinguishing technique.


Our favorite parts were watching the kids chase balloons, and watching the giant smile on Elise's face as we all sang to her. It's possible that Elise loved every single minute of the party. She kept hollering, "This is so fun!" and "This is such a great party!"

Excellent.

LOL Grinch

Flapjack takes her shot at stardom. The cuddly snowman can't save you now, big guy.

Four Years Old!

That's right, our girl turned 4 years old yesterday (December 4th). Huzzah! For some unknown reason, I neglected to take any pictures so you may have to take my word for it that she was adorable and fun and had a fantastic day. It's very nice to be doted on for a day, no matter what your age.

The day started at 5:30am, when we heard loud and clear from upstairs, "Oh maaaaannnnn! It's hard to sleep all night when it's your birthday in the morning!" At this point, we figured sleep was no longer our friend and we'd better get up.

Not being big on delayed gratification ourselves, we "did" presents first thing. Elise actually liked her new baby doll enough to play with it and snuggle it, which I considered to be a real coup. In times past, she's held dolls by a leg or a strand of hair and carried them at arm's length like they're radioactive or something. This one, however, she likes and I think it will be fun for her.

Great Grandpa sent some really cute clothes at which Elise gazed with one eyebrow raised. Clothes are awesome when you're the parent trying to come up with cute stuff for your kid to wear, but when you are that kid they seem kinda pointless. Ah well.

Along with the doll, we got Elise a kid-friendly digital camera. A spendy gift, but also sturdy and in its second design iteration so I figured it was probably worth the money. I remember how much I loved my first camera (though did not remember how I got it and loved hearing my dad tell the story when we called the other day) and what a new window on the world it was. On the one hand, film made every shot count and I was careful about many of my shots. On the other, careful can also lead to neurotic. I'm glad we've managed digital imaging for this generation.

Picture taking has been good for Elise in another way that I was hoping for as well. She is often confused by perspective, and it's only recently that she has started to understand that I can not see which Candy Land card she's drawn unless she turns it to face me instead of just her. The camera seems to be giving her a lot better grasp of what she can see versus what others can see. And honestly, it's just amazing to see her working on documenting the most important things in her life. We have a lot of pictures of Mommy and Daddy and Flapjack, not to mention the stuffed bear and cat. At some point, we'll get the pics off the camera and post some of the more choice ones as a slideshow here.

Elise's favorite gift of the day came from Grandma Char and Grandpa Karl. It's a little car and camping trailer made by Fisher Price. Two girls with a purple car and a pink trailer are all outfitted for camping adventures. Hours and hours of fun. This evening, she was pretending that various tinker toys were food to cook over the fake campfire so that the girls could have a huge feast when their friends came to sleep over. Awesome. There's a "radio" in the trailer that plays some cute little tunes and that gets us up and dancing. Elise REALLY likes this toy, and I don't blame her. It's cool!

(As an aside, whoever designed the packaging for it should seek professional help for their twist-tie fetish. Each little piece of plastic was secured with a minimum of two ties, most of which were taped down inside of folded bits of cardboard. This has been a growing trend in toy packaging, and I hate it. So, all of you crooks who like to steal bits of toys out of their packages, knock it off so that the rest of us can experience a little less frustration, okay?)

After presents, we made pancakes for breakfast and had a fantastic time with that. Then, more playing before friends Kaden and Danea arrived to play and then go out to lunch. They brought with them a beautiful princess dress which Elise wore with style and grace. She may well have been born a princess and we never knew it. It was fantastic to see the three kids playing together and having so much fun. We were floored that Elise was so gracious about sharing her new toys with her friends. It was clear that she was just loving sharing her fun day with friends. The sort of thing that warms parents' hearts.



Lunch, cupcakes, naptime, and then a trip to the doctor for Daddy. (His leg is mostly better-that was a good present for our girl, lemmie tell you!) We went out for dinner, and the fantastic waitress at the restaurant brought out an ice cream sundae for the birthday girl. The whole place lit up with the smile Elise produced when she saw it and the candle. How does such a small person get so big with joy personified? I dunno, but I love it.

A fabulous birthday all the way around. Or as Elise said after dinner, "This has been quite the birthday, hasn't it?" Our big girl, four years old already.

It Must Be December

There is frost on the rooftops this morning! Wow.

Poll results will be analyzed and contest winners will be announced at some point this weekend. Stay tuned for more exciting details!