Sweet and Innocent... or a Really Good Fake Out?

Jasmine really liked the fairy ring headbands at the Dealers' Room at Mile High Convention. It's the kind of souvenir we can afford and she's a difficult girl to say no to. Li Mei really knows how to turn on the cute.

Photographing Jasmine with the standard flash is really tough. Her eyes don't exhibit the normal, easily corrected red eye because they are transluminescent. Look close at the top raw photo and you can see the light passing straight through the outer ring of her iris almost as easily as it goes through her pupil. It's not hard to understand why she loves sunglasses. When she's older, we can get contact lenses that have an opaque iris that may help with that... not to mention the nearsightedness.

Rock Star

Jasmine came up to me and said, "'Tar." She waited a second or so and then requested again, "tar." She's been watching a lot of Laurie Berkner lately, so it wasn't that hard to figure out what she wanted. We don't have a real guitar around here anymore, but we did have something a bit more her size: Guitar Hero!




I think I know what to get her for her birthday (November 19). I wonder if Fisher-Price makes a Flying V and an amp that goes up to eleven. Here she demonstrates the power stance for rhythm guitar.

Wow, she's going to be 4. That's hard to believe, but she's certainly looking more her age than she used to. She's now wearing 2T and 3T clothes and a year ago it was 9mos-sized clothes. Notice the skull and crossbones belt; that's Kai's but she likes to wear it and say, "Aarrrrr!" It's also the only belt we have that's completely adjustable and therefore fits her.




She's got the artistic, Jimi Hendrix, lotus-eater, guitar expression going on in this last pic.

Eventually the boys wanted to play the game and Ms Mei was really not in the mood to share. She went to bed after a bit of a crying jag. Poor thing.

Awwwww, Zebra Butts!

Last Saturday the weather was beautiful and we went to the zoo. I should have known something was wrong when I saw, in a steady stream, people walking to the zoo from many blocks away. It was free day. UGH! Just finding a bathroom without a mile long line is a nightmare on free days. Crowds really stress me out in general, but my kids have all inherited my tendency to absent-mindedly wander around. Cat herding on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.




We did meet a beautiful little girl, J_____, and her mom when they spotted Jazz's cane. It turns out J_____ has monocular vision and we had many vision stories to exchange. We were seperated in the crowds a little while later, but if you're out there, drop me a line. Hope to see you at Anchor Center!

Pumpkins

This is my first attempt at creating a stencil and then carving it. I used a pic of a big lubber we found in a nearby open space, printed it on an 8.5" x 11" paper, traced the main elements using my light box, then altered some blocks as I was actually carving. I think the antenna needed some greater width, but overall I was happy with the result. It really didn't show up well until we had it outside in the dark and lit.

The rest of the pumpkins got stencils that we downloaded from free places on the web. The boys agreed Jasmine should have this Banshee design. I didn't inquire into their choice.

Pirate Skull for Kai.

Classic skull for Rowan.

This year they did a great job pulling out the pumpkin guts. Kai was still a little squeemish, Rowan was pretty gung ho and Jasmine just wanted to taste them. The boys poked the stencil designs into the pumpkins and then I carved them. Kai REALLY wanted to use my little pumpkin jigsaw, but I was worried about broken blades. I'd broken about five of them just getting the hang of it the year I first got it. Next year though, I think I'll buy some extra blades and let them carve out the tops.

Sugar Weasel Number Three

As always, it's hard to get a picture of Jasmine's face outdoors. Here she is on the trail with her cane. It wasn't a good cane day. She was copying her brothers' behavior of whacking things with their walking sticks instead of finding the path with it. At least at Roxborough the paths are fairly flat and sandy rather than rocky and unpredictible. She still has the tendency to ask to be carried when the ground is uneven and I have to insist that she walk. This day she eventually settled on letting me be her guide rather than using her cane. She did walk close to a mile which is very impressive on uneven ground -- that in itself takes a lot out of her. We walked about a mile and a half, in about two and a half hours.

Jasmine really participated in this Halloween. Last year's she was still getting used to being with us, eating regularly and walking. Jasmine did a great job saying Trick-or-Treat and Thank you or Bye-Bye. Now she regularly says, "Candy?" She has gotten exceptionally good at getting her brothers to share whatever they have after she scarfs hers down. They're sweet and she's simultaneously shameless and cute.

Sugar Weasel Number Two

You might be wondering what a sugar weasel is. If you have kids and you've dealt with them after Halloween, you might not be wondering at all. Our kids had their candy confiscated after 24 hours because they were absolutely insane... not just the average insane that we've grown used to, but full-body mood swings with hyper-roller coaster kinetics.

Here's Rowan with his hair combed. It's a hard situation to document. Gads, he looks so grown up already.

Sugar Weasel Number One

We've made it through another Halloween. I felt like a bum of a mother since we purchased costumes for the second year running. It's for the same reason that my Blogging has been non-existent this past couple of months. School and job search. I graduate December 15th with my Master's of Science degree in Applied Mathematics with a Certificate in Computational Biology. Woohoo. Just a few homework assignments, on presentation and a final exam and I'm finished. Hard to believe. Now I'm exploring the careers that exist in the crossover between Biology, Mathematics, and Computer Science and trying to find one that fits me.

I took a little break a went to Mile High Convention with the kids and then the past two days went to Roxborough State Park and crunched through scrub oak leaves with them. Here's Kai with his best smug look.