On Being Mischievous

It's four o'clock......

........do you know where your toddler is?

{p,h,f,r} Snow Day Edition, Take Two

{pretty}

I warned you she would probably take up most of my pretties.  Those big eyes!  Those smushy cheeks!

And what was she looking at out of that window? Why it's another snow day.  We got a warning email last night from the city telling us to prepare for power outages because of the ice.  Let's hope that's just them overreacting because we are most assuredly not equipped for power outages.  I did take the precaution of going over our coffee preparedness plan with Chris though and he assured me that in case of emergency he could heat our kettle on the grill to boil the water for the french press.  Priorities.

{happy}

This week I made the executive decision to give up on manuscript handwriting and switch David to cursive.  He just refused to form his letters correctly when printing.  Sure he would do it if I was standing over him drill sergeant style but as soon as I turned around he was back to starting at the bottom of the line or the wrong side of each letter because it seems faster to him.  I tried telling him it wasn't faster in the long run and if he wanted neat handwriting he had to practice doing it correctly but he (shockingly) was unmoved.  The thing about cursive handwriting is that it forces him to form the letters correctly.  Try starting that 't' in the wrong spot now kid!  Plus, David thinks it's more fun.  Double mom win. 

We'll see how it goes but for right now we're both happier with the new arrangement.

{funny}

I found this Junior Deluxe Edition of The Water Babies at my new favorite used furniture store and thought, even though I've never read it myself, it was surely a sign that it should be our next read aloud.  Not that I needed a reason to buy it--I can't seem to pass up these editions because they always remind me of the ones at my grandparent's house.  

Well, do you know how a child becomes a water baby?  They drown, that's how.  Luckily the boys were fairly oblivious to that fact and when little Tom jumped into the water and then 'fell asleep' they were unfazed.  Since we started, I've heard daily choruses of "I want to be a water baby mom!"  Um, let's hope not children.  

Dying children aside, it really is a wonderful story and full of great lines:

"Besides, people who make up their minds to go and see the world, as Tom did, must needs find it a weary journey.  Lucky for them if they do not lose heart and stop half-way, instead of going on bravely to the end as Tom did.  For then they will remain neither boys nor men, neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring:  having learnt a great deal too much, and yet not enough; and sown their wild oats, without having the advantage of reaping them."

Or,

"You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster, has wit enough to make use of it."

And then my favorite,

"Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to cuddle them and tell them stories, and how afraid they ought to be of growing naughty, and bringing tears into their mamma's pretty eyes!"

Well, a mamma can hope anyway.  

{real}

And just to be sure you know it's not all lovely stories and beautiful handwriting around here....

I don't know what exactly happened here and the big boys have all blamed the sleeping John.  At least it wasn't an alphabetized shelf.

And, as always, click over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for more captured contentment.