Two anecdotes that demonstrate, perhaps, the cognitive phenomenon known as "mommy brain"...or maybe it's just the ethereal nature of memory and intuition...or maybe I'm just a dork.

#1: "The existence of forgetting has never been proved" - Nietzsche
Last night Isaac was watching me open Gmail, and he suddenly asked whether he could have a gmail account of his own. I was ambivalent (and have not really resolved this yet), but the question jogged my memory and I suddenly remembered that I created a gmail account for Isaac, way back in '04 when Google first released gmail.

A moment or two of digging in my own gmail archives produced the username that I used for him, along with the first email message that I sent to test that his account was working -- in which I said something like "Hi baby, aww your first email!" which both kids found very funny. :)

Then I logged out of gmail and put in Isaac's username and, since I figured there was no chance of me remembering what password I would have used, I clicked the "forgot my password" button. It gave me the security question, which I made up when I created the account. The question was: "[what is] your ugly animal toy."

Well!! I suppose that nearly eight years ago, when I was creating this account, I probably thought I would never forget that ugly animal toy. Oh the arrogance (or perhaps naïvete)! In Sept of '04 this probably seemed the obvious choice, but in May of '12 I was stumped. I racked my brain and could not remember a toy that Isaac played with that I would have described as an "ugly animal toy." The only animal toy I really remember is this awful plastic caterpillar that sang annoying songs -- but I wouldn't have described that toy as ugly; annoying yes, ugly no.

So I spent some time looking through photos of Isaac from that time period, hoping to see something in a picture that would jog my memory again. The kids greatly enjoyed looking at those pictures (and dang, Isaac was such a cute baby! :) ) but no dice. Eventually I just started putting in some guesses, and one of them actually worked, to my great surprise. I won't tell you what it was, in the interest of security (although we've since changed the security question), but I'll just say that even after having guessed it, I still don't actually remember that toy. Mysterious. Shall have to ask my mom whether she remembers it.

#2: "There is no truth. There is only perception." - Flaubert
The kids and I (and my mom, and sandykidd and Baz, and pekmez and her family) recently participated in the Science Festival Chorus of the North Cambridge Family Opera -- which is a mouthful, but what it means is that this community group (the NCFO), which puts on a modern opera every year, also performs every year at the Cambridge Science Festival. They sing songs about various science topics; this year the topic was biology and earth science. We performed our concert three times, singing about 20 songs by British composer David Haines on topics like evolution, mutation, DNA, and so forth. Several of the songs talk about various creatures on earth and the various ways in which they are adapted to their environments. We had a TON of fun with this, by the way; it was the kids' first real choral-singing and performing experience, and it was so fun to do it with them. We will definitely do it again next year.

One of the songs is about a funny little creature called an axolotl, which is a type of salamander that is native to just one lake in Mexico. It is a great song, really peppy and catchy -- we will find ourselves singing it weeks or months or years from now, I'm sure. :)

Over April vacation, my kids went to vacation "camp" at the local YMCA, and on one occasion they took a field trip to the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence. When they got back, Isaac told me that they had seen an axolotl at the zoo. Something in his expression made me think that he was pulling my leg, so I was skeptical. Ruthie was all, "no really, we did!" but she also had her expression that often tells me she's joking or trying to fool me. Later, I managed to get her alone and asked her whether they really saw an axolotl or whether they made that up to fool me. She said that they had made it up and it wasn't true.

But it got me curious as to whether there might be a zoo that does have an axolotl that we could visit some time. So I googled, and to my great surprise, up pops the Roger Williams Zoo!!

So I went and asked Isaac again, and he confirmed that he did indeed see it, although it was sleeping and pressed up against the side of its cage so he didn't really get a good look at it. Ruthie says she didn't see it at all. I speculate that she walked right past it without realizing, since she can't read well enough to have seen the label.

In conclusion, the moral of this story is that I am absolutely terrible at judging when one of my kids is telling me the truth or pulling my leg. ;)

So I started a new blog. It's not meant to replace this one, because I think of livejournal as the place where I write about the minutiae of my daily life, random things I think about, etc., whereas the blog is for writing about books that I'm reading and what I'm thinking about them.

Here's the link to my book blog in case you'd like to check it out.

I see that I forgot to post here on Ruthie's birthday. Well, uh, she had a birthday. :) Now She Is Six! And a very volatile six, I might add. Ruthie has a lot of what her preschool teachers used to call "strong feelings." Lately, everything is about fairness with her. If her brother gets a particular treat and she doesn't, it's not fair. It's still "not fair" even if she got a treat yesterday and he didn't, mind you. It's also "not fair" that she is expected to pick up her clothes off the floor, flush the toilet after she poops, sit down and eat when dinner is ready, etc.... I struggle so hard not to say "well, life isn't fair," because I remember how much I haaaaaaaaaaated it when my mom used to say that when I was a kid. :P But sometimes, what else can I say?

But Ruthie is also delightful and loving and smart and funny. If you aren't following me on Facebook, you're missing out on TONS of funny things that she says. I should really go back through those posts and copy them out to somewhere I can hang onto them, because man, she is a veritable fount of hilarious sayings lately. I'll just copy-paste the latest one:

This year, for Little League, Isaac has to wear a "cup" to protect my future grandchildren. ;) This morning he tried it on for the first time, and put his jeans on over it to make sure they fit. Then he was knocking on it with his knuckles and laughing at the sound it made, and Ruthie goes, "You have a penis drum!"

Ruthie loves to draw, and to make stuff out of paper. She is endlessly creative with markers, scissors, paper, and tape. She loves to sing and dance too. Recently she had a bit of a cold, and was using a lot of tissues during the night, and since her bed is a mattress on the floor, it wasn't convenient for her to reach the trash can. So she got a small basket (from some toy) and put a plastic bag into it for a makeshift garbage receptacle. I was really impressed with that ingenuity, where some kids might have just resorted to tossing their snotty tissues on the floor. ;)

Anyway, she's a great kid and I'm constantly amazed and delighted to be her mom. :)

A couple of weekends ago we painted our car. We used tempera paint (also known as poster paint), which washes off easily with water, so as soon as we get a decent rainstorm, the car will be back to normal (i.e., boring) again. In the meantime, we've been having a lot of fun with it.

I'm not sure exactly where the idea came from. It just hit me one afternoon out of the blue, and became a bit of an obsession. I googled extensively over the next few days. When I started out, I felt sure that one of two things would happen: either a) I would find out that painting the car was not feasible for some reason (illegal, maybe, or damaging to the car, or???) or b) I would find a whole bunch of blog posts from mommy-bloggers who had done it and would offer tips, tricks, suggestions, and of course pictures.

To my surprise, though, neither of those happened. I found precisely one mommy-blogger post, and in that case it was a nonfunctional car that the family had decided to junk, and the mom let the kids paint it before they called the junkyard. But other than that, nothing. I was surprised. I kept googling for a while longer, sure that I would find something to explain why no one had apparently ever thought of this before. Meanwhile, I googled tempera paint and read all about how safe it is (quite literally safe enough to eat, in fact, although of course I don't recommend that and did not mention it to my kids).

At last, satisfied that it seemed legal and safe, I decided to do it. Still I said nothing to the kids, though. I snuck off to the local arts and crafts store (Michael's) one Saturday afternoon when I had an hour of kid-free time, and I bought big 16-ounce bottles of tempera paint in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white. I also bought lots of different paintbrushes of all sizes and types. That evening, I suggested to the kids that we take the car through a car-wash. They love that, so of course they were excited. We got the car washed and I still said nothing about painting it. That night after they were asleep, I snuck outside and painted a small "J" in blue on the side of the car, as a test. The next morning I splashed some water on the J and rubbed it with my fingers; it came right off, and most importantly, there was obviously no damage to the car's paint underneath. It was then that I knew we were Go! :)

I put the kids in the car and headed for my mom's house, because she lives on a quiet cul-de-sac where we could walk around the car and feel safe, unlike our street which is quite busy. On the way over, I told the kids that we were going to paint the car. At first they were disbelieving, but excitement began to grow, especially in Ruthie, who loves to draw and paint. I handed her the package of assorted-size paintbrushes that I had bought, and she examined them carefully, already choosing which she would use for what.

We got to grandma's house, parked the car, poured paint into small plastic cups, put on oversize t-shirts as smocks, and laid down some basic ground rules. No painting on the windows (the kids were quick to understand why this would be unsafe). No painting yourself or your sibling. No paint on the license plate or headlights. And then...I set them loose! :)

Well, when I say "them," I mean us, of course. My mom and I participated too and we all had a blast. At first, each of us claimed one door for our own, but soon we were branching out to the other parts of the car and "helping" each other with the other areas. It was a nice sunny crisp day, and we had a great time. We used the red and white paint to mix up a little bit of pink, and the kids had fun experimenting with different proportions to make brown. By the time we were done, some of the paint was already starting to flake off, but the car looked fantastic overall. We drove off to the monthly SMC meeting, and I told the kids to watch the faces of the pedestrians we passed. We got a lot of amusing and amused looks! The kids were excited by the thought of driving to school the next morning. :)

So, it has been over a week now, and the reaction has been great. At the kids' school, all of their friends have ogled the car, along with a lot of kids we don't know (and more than one mom asked me more than one question about it!). At the grocery store and other random places we go, people stop us to comment on it. When we drive down the street we can see people doing double-takes. :) It has rained a few times, but only lightly, so the paint is smudging and such but still largely intact. Of course, it's March in New England, so surely it can't last...but we're really enjoying it as long as it does!

( Some pictures behind the cut... )

In conclusion: this is a great activity for a weekend afternoon, preferably when the weather is forecast to be dry for several days afterward. It's quite economical too; the paint was only $2 per bottle and we have a LOT left; the paintbrushes were about $10 total, but I did buy way too many -- you could easily do it with half that, and of course, we can and will reuse the brushes as well.

I also have some Deep Thoughts(tm) about why it seems like no one ever does this. Perhaps I shall manage to get those down in a post at some point.

(Insert the usual astonished/embarrassed sentence about how long it has been since my last post, here.)

So, a lot to post about, but let's start with: We got a new kitty. It was my big Hanukkah present to the kids (and myself).

( all about our new cat )

Anyway, so aside from those minor, uh "logistical" issues, we just love our new kitty. Oh, and this would be where I post pictures, right? Well, if you're my Facebook friend and you somehow managed to miss them, some of the pix are here. And here are a couple more -





(In that first one you can see a bit of her belly which was still naked from being spayed. It has taken a long time for that fur to grow back!)

When will I learn not to leave a lengthy but unfinished post sitting around in a browser that crashes frequently? Sigh.

We're almost two months into the school year and it's going swimmingly so far!

( all the exciting details )

Since I see that my last substantive post was about summer camp, that means I didn't even post here about our last-week-of-summer adventures! So here's a quick recap.

Back in the spring when I was signing the kids up for summer camps, I realized that none of the camps covered the last week before school started (final week of August) so I decided to take that week as vacation and figure something out. After I had put in for the vacation time and been approved, I started to get excited about the idea of taking a whole week to spend with the kids -- to do all the fun stuff around our area that I always want to do, but that we never manage to do because I'm working and I don't want to go places on weekends because I think they'll be too crowded.

( And here's how it went! )

So uh, apparently I haven't been posting here, eh?

Has it really been that long? Wow.

This is a post with no substance to it. I'll try to do an update later. But I mean...aren't you my Facebook-friend? And don't you follow me on Twitter and google+ too? Because if so, you already know all there is to know...right?

Meh. But somehow I still feel like there's journaling to be done in LJ-fashion that I don't apparently want to do anywhere else. So I'll be back.

Over the past couple of weeks our evening routine has drastically changed. Instead of "leave work, pick up kids, go home," it has become "leave work, pick up kids, go to the pool." The pool!!

( How my kids stopped worrying and learned to love swimming )