Doing the impossible: Teaching Art Appreciation to a 5-year old and a 10-year old

I know it sounds impossible – but I actually pulled this off. You know how half the time, well ok for me it feels like most of the time, I feel like I strike out more often than I hit a home run. I hear myself saying more often than I care to admit “Well, that didn’t go as well as planned.” But this time? This time I hit it out of the park. It began when my mother told me about an exhibit going on in San Francisco: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and beyond at the de Young Museum. I rushed right over to my computer and bought tickets for Sam, the kids, my parents, and me before I even thought twice about it. Then of course it dawned on me that spending the afternoon in a crowded museum, looking at old pictures on the wall probably...

Sure Sign of Overtiredness

Zach was throwing up most of the night last night. When he wasn’t throwing up, I spent the time trying to fall back to sleep, a wasted effort. So I’m really short on energy today – and brain power. While I was driving Rachel to her day-camp, Sam stayed with Zach back at the house. In my head I was mentally listing off what I needed to do that day, how I would juggle it all with Zach staying home. On one mental item, I thought “we should feed him the BRAT diet today – I think that’s what they usually have you do with a kid that is recovering from vomiting, etc. Ok. BRAT diet… Bananas… Rice… Apples? No Applesauce, right…? And something starting with a “T”. What the hell is it....

Butterfly

The Beach House we stayed at must have been a butterfly haven. I was once told that people like to plant for butterflies, but not enough people plant for the caterpillars (that turn into butterflies) – but this house must have had both types – since earlier in the week we saw that monarch caterpillar, and then later in the week we kept seeing monarch butterflies. (Obviously not the same creature, but it was funny the in order in which we saw them) I particularly like monarch butterflies – and according to wikipedia, they’re supposedly seen across the U.S. but I can’t remember the last one I saw that wasn’t in some kind of “butterfly zoo.” Another unique-to-this-area insect: Lightening Bugs / Fireflies. We used to see...

Beach House Backyard

Another reason for my weight gain from our vacation