A day or two ago, I heard one of my guileless children talking to his brother about how this great book said that they could make fires with a magnifying glass. Just another reason all this reading books stuff isn't necessarily a good thing. Given my enthusiastic pyromania when I was a child, I thought maybe I should try to make this an adult-monitored activity rather than just trying to forbid it.
So, we got out some magnifying glasses (plastic and very cheap) and experimented with what would catch on fire quickest. Old leaves were the best, but clumps of dead grass worked really well too.
It was at about this point that Theo poked his head out the door, grinning and said, "Juvenile Delinquency begins at home." Defending myself, I said, "I'd rather them have supervised... and this way I can give them suggestions, I mean guidance, I mean... you know what I mean." I returned to the boys and Theo returned inside snickering at me.
I told Kai and Rowan about keeping the smoldering materials on the concrete, keeping water nearby and never trying to set anything living on fire. The last microbonfire, we put out with a babyjar full of water. I told them to use their fingers to test the heat. If it was too hot to touch, it was too hot to leave -- always stay with your fire until it's out.
They did the best job of investigating, testing hypotheses, and developing theories of any scientific fooling around we've ever done. Why didn't I think about incinerating things before? Anyhow, after about an hour, I tore them away from their experiments and brought them inside to talk about things like optics and how to determine focal points, the things a fire needs to burn, how to put a fire out by taking away it's fuel, heat or oxygen (water takes out the heat, stop-drop-roll smothers it, etc), and how if they want to do fire experiments they need to bring mom or dad out to help or at least observe. They sat and listened attentively, asked probing questions and were very engaged. Generally this is the part of our experiments when they get antsy and try to sidle away. When I was done, Kai actually said, sincerely, "Thanks for the lecture, mom."
WHAT? He said, "Lecture means 'teach', right?" Stunned, I nodded and walked away. This behavior of theirs seems very suspicious.
I have been asked if we can do this again after breakfast tomorrow.
Keep those diplomas coming, Kai! This is more the quarter-mark, but I didn't want to bum him out. 
Yeti says, "You think I would even look at those flowers you got for Mother's Day? Don't be ridiculous." Yellow lily pollen will be her downfall.
I think if we have a family flower, it might be the Iris, if for no other reason than my father has painted lots and lots of them. Other flowers in the running would be the Rose, Pansy, and Marigold. Very pretty: appearing at first complex but then on second glance simple in its repeating symmetries. In this type, I think of it as the 'default', I like the shifts from mauve (sienna? medium carmine? maroon?) to purple to cream to orange to bold yellow. I also think they look like the kind of plant that would eat an unwary space traveller in a low-budget sci-fi adventure.
A day or two ago, I heard one of my guileless children talking to his brother about how this great book said that they could make fires with a magnifying glass. Just another reason all this reading books stuff isn't necessarily a good thing. Given my enthusiastic pyromania when I was a child, I thought maybe I should try to make this an adult-monitored activity rather than just trying to forbid it.
Again, a bit monochromatic, but when you're taking pictures of a white cat... I need purple curtains and orange cream cheese. That would liven it up. If you're not familiar, the post title is from a popular silly-captioned-animal-picture web site called I can haz cheeseburger?.
Our pretty kitty has been lonely since OGMO died. She's now much more affectionate. She also thinks it's awfully quiet since our two howlers stopped caterwauling, so she's taken up the duties. She even knows which room gets the best echo.
We had a very late b-day party for the boys. Between illness and lack of available dates, we were a couple months late. It was a ton of fun though. We went to the Butterfly Pavilion and got an upclose look at many invertebrates as well as a talk from one of the staff members. Goodies, sugar, balloons, sugar, piñata, sugar, bugs, sugar, dancing and vegan cupcakes from Tee & Cakes. I think the best part was sending all those hopped up kids home to their parents. ;)
Jasmine just adores holding animals, especially little furry spiders and caterpillars. I seem to get a lot of these photos, but then she does it over and over and over again.
Kai is a master of 'those looks'. I think the red hair also added to the general attitude. He loves that stuff. We tried to use a turquoise semi-permanent dye, but just turned his hair silver -greenish for a few days. I think I'll have to be more aggressive to get a good color out of it.
