Last week Teri made Swedish Meatballs for dinner.
She ate some, Kevin had some, I had some, Alex had 8. Wow....
The next day, he wanted leftovers for lunch "balls" as he calls them and scarfed down the remaining 7 along with a little mac and cheese.
Curious, I asked Teri how many she made. Counting what we thought we each ate and came to the estimate of 30 meatballs for the pound of beef. That means in 2 somewhat equal servings Alex ate a half pound of ground beef in 24 hours....heaven help us when these kids reach their teenage years.
Donations will be accepted -smile-.
Sparked by the textbook that I'm reading for class I asked Kevin about dreams.
Did you have a dream last night?
No, I don't think so.
Where do dreams come from?
My brain, I think.(pause) They're in my eyes.
How do they get there?
Well, they come from down here (points to toes) and travel to here (draws path along body to eyes.)
They come in through your toes?
No, I don't think that's true, maybe they come in here (points to knees).
Do you make your own dreams?
No.
Where do they come from?
God puts them there.
Then he puts them in your knees?
ummm...(I can see him thinking through his previous thoughts)...I think so.
Does Alex dream?
I don't think so. Yes, he dreams. Everybody does.
Everyone dreams?
Well, not everyone. Bad guys don't dream.
Why don't bad guys dream?
Because they don't sleep.
Bad guys don't sleep?
No, because they don't want to get caught by the police.
On the way home from church this evening, Kevin was talking about getting Buster Bear (his stuffed Bear) a bear for Christmas. He was talking about going to Build-A-Bear.
Teri asked quietly if we should make him use his own money for it...but he heard and said, "Yes, I have enough money."
Jesse: Do you know how much a bear costs at Build-A-Bear?
Kevin: No
Jesse: How do you know you have enough, how much do you have?
Kevin: Thirty Dollars (don't know where this figure comes from)
Jesse: So if a bear costs $20, how much would you have left?
He then posed a random guess and I told him to figure it out and not guess...I heard counting for a while and finally told him he would have $10 left.
Kevin: How much is $20 in nickels. (He knows nickels and pennies)
Jesse: 20 times 20. That would be 400 nickels.
Kevin: FOUR HUNDRED?!?!
Kevin(dejectedly): I guess I'm not going to get him a bear.
I reassured him that he had more than enough...after all$30 is 600 nickels.
He then asked what would happen if we didn't have cars. I explained that only the very rich have cars (top 3% of the world) and that not everyone has a car. To which he followed up with asking what if we didn't have cars or stores.
Again, not everyone has cars and not everyone has stores...
Jesse: Some people have to get their milk from cows or goats.
Kevin: Where does cream milk come from? (cream milk is what he calls whole milk)
Jesse: Cows.
Kevin: Where does plain milk (2%) come from?
Jesse: Cows. Milk is sent to a creamery where they make sure there are no....
Kevin: YOU CAN MILK A GOAT?!?!
Guess tonight was a night of Interjections.
First I was sleeping and then daddy waked me up. Then we drived to church and then we stayed in the class for a little bit. Then, ta da, the school bus (actually, a charter bus) arrived. Then it took us to the zoo.
We saw lots of animals and got to ask questions. We saw howler monkeys, lions, prairie dogs, and gibbons. We learned that they walked with their hands up. We practiced walking like a gibbon and looked in the mirror for practice. I asked, "Why do pandas have black and white fur?" And the zookeeper said, "The scientist don't know." But I know exactly what the answer that the scientist will give me - "I don't know" is probably what they will give me.
I liked Mommy and Daddy being with me. I liked that we got to see all sorts of animals together. I thought the prairie dogs were special too. I also liked the monkeys. I liked eating and I liked the crocodiles, but we didn't go to the petting zoo.
At the end of the day we went to the gift shop and I got a shirt. Then daddy got something for Alex and gave it to him. We had to hurry down the hill. We stopped in the middle of the hill to look at frogs. We saw all sorts of animals in there, then we saw a frog. We saw snakes and turtles and then frogs. We saw some poison frogs, there were red ones and blue ones and green ones. Then we went to the bottom of the hill and got the bus.
There was three special spiders that didn't have any glass. There was also a big spider that could eat birds.
My favorite animal was gibbons and my favorite part of the day was going to the zoo. I think my brothers favorite animal was monkeys, I think he liked the little ones. His favorite thing at the zoo was the trucks that were working, I liked them too.
It doesn't seem like long ago (it's been about 9 months, I suppose) that Kevin declared that he wanted to learn to read. At the time, he was able to recite the alphabet, but didn't recognize all the letters. Not too long after that announcement, I saw Hooked on Kindergarten, which includes Kindergarten phonics, handwriting and math, on sale and bought it to use as part of his schooling. We started using it around April to identify letters and their sounds.
We told him that when he finished the program, he would be a reader and could get a library card and we'd take him to the bookstore to get any book he wanted.
Today, he received his library card. I thought that it would take a lot longer then 4-5 months to go from not recognizing letters to reading blended letter sounds, it's incredible how fast a child's brain can absorb stuff.
He checked out a large pelethera of books, as usual, but today, he used his own card.
As I mentioned in Tapping Out I've moved my blog to Live Journal. If you're looking for a syndicated feed, check there. Otherwise, read on and enjoy...public articles posted there will show up here.
One of the neat things about Kevin's schooling is JumpStart World. As he works through the levels, he's rewarded Super Gems (12 over the course of the year), that can be redeemed for real-life things. One of the rewards that we set up for him was to take him to see Underdog in a theater.
I had today off so he had a chance to cash in that reward. This is the first time that he's been to the theater and I think he enjoyed the experience. We went shortly after lunch, just Kevin, mommy and daddy. We got to the mall a little earlier than expected so we grabbed the tickets from the Egyptian 24 and headed to the sporting store to see the fish. We chatted on the way back about what he would have - he was really looking forward to popcorn and soda - and he decided on rootbeer. After getting inside, we hit the restrooms and then spent an inordanant amount og money on snacks (about $10 more than the cost to get in). They didn't have rootbeer so kevin got Cherry Coke in his kid's tray, which came with popcorn and Oreo cookies. He also had Nestle's Crunch bites and Sour Patch Kids.
No surprise, but we had the theater to ourselves so we sat dead center of the middle row that was at the top of the first flight of stairs (extra leg room!).
I don't know that Teri's a fan of Underdog, but I enjoyed it as a child and I though the live action version was done well. I enjoyed being able to share a piece of my childhood with my son. The only part of the movie that I didn't like was the adaptation of the theme song. They (Crow?) did a fast rock/rap type of song, which I really didn't think fit...I understand they can't do a 2007 remake and keep a song from the mid-60s, but they could have done better.
I don't remember Underdog having a back story, which was the basic plot of the movie and I think they did a good job of coming up with the question of how he came to be. Overall, it was a good movie. There were two plots of peril that upset Kevin. At one point Underdog is captured by the bad guy and something happens to underdog (which was upsetting enough for mommy's lap). The climax of the movie had a bomb scene - and a move to daddy's lap. I was glad that we had the theater to ourselves because Kevin was upset and screaming with concern about what was happening to Underdog.
Good movie, great day, and as usual, I enjoyed Patrick Warburton (as typecast as he is becoming).
Alex enjoys most green things, but seems particularly enamored with brussel sprouts. For dinner this evening he ate 7.
Not sure where he puts all that food.
We're home schooling Kevin and finding out that it was a good choice...and that there is no turning back as far as Kindergarten goes.
In Maryland, you have to be 5 by September 1st to begin Kindergarten. If you feel your child is advanced you can have them tested for this to be waived, but they have to turn 5 within 6 weeks of the cut of date - or October 15th in this case. Kevin was born October 29th so he can not enter Kindergarten until next year (2008-2009).
Late last year he began showing boredom with the Jump Start (preschool) computer games that we had. Jump Start was in the process of releasing Jump Start World but it started with Kindergarten. When it was release we figured we would see if he could handle it...and he's pretty much been sailing through with few bumps. He's on level 8 of 12.
He also started telling us that he wanted to learn to read, so when I say Hooked on Kindergarten on sale at CompUSA, I snapped it up and brought it home. It contains phonics, math and handwriting. Within two months he's half way through the phonics portion.
So, school started yesterday for our county and Kevin is half way done with reading, 25% with math, and well into handwriting. We need to look at social studies, science, language and fine arts, but I'm convinced that sending him to kindergarten next year would be the wrong choice. He'd be really bored.
By next year, when we start home schooling, he'll likely be doing 1st grade work during his kindergarten year. We're not pushing him in anything (except taking a break from school to play). I think it's going to be a matter of trying to keep up with him teaching wise...and we'll have to work on balancing our curriculum.
My Blog has moved...(sort of)
In the beginning it seemed like I was raising the white flag and saying that the spammers have won. But the more I thought about it, the truth is that they haven't won, I'm just not participating in the fight directly, I'm paying someone else to do it.
I've moved my site from MovableType to LiveJournal because I have to many other things in my life that take priority to blogging and figuring out how to stop the next round of spam attacks. If you read my blog on the site, it'll still be there, though there will be some minor changes that I'll not below. If you subscribe to by RSS, then you'll want to change your feed to these: 
. (Sorry, it won't do this automatically)
I've embedded my LiveJournal into my blogsite so it still looks the same, but as I mentioned, there are changes.
- The categories sidebar is gone
- I may find a way to show my LJ Tags, but that's a real low priority
- Search sidebar is gone
- No sense searching sillypuppies for posts that are on LJ, right?
- Last few comments and scrolled off side bars are gone
- They come from the MT database
I liked the things that are gone, so I may look for a way to bring them back. I didn't want to make a full jump to LJ because I like having my own site and, more importantly, I like the other sidebars that I have here...like what I'm reading, listening too, and TiVo stuff.
So, there you have it....
