Welcome Melanie

I'd like to introduce you to our new fish, Melanie. She is unique because the design on her tail looks like Mickey Mouse ears - hopefully you can see it on the picture - I took several pictures so that it was easily visible, but that darn fish would not stay still!

The kids were excited to get a new fish, although we were only getting one, which meant they had to agree. Once the saleswoman showed the Mickey ear design on Melanie Maria was sold, but Sam took a little convincing. Then they had to agree on the name:

Maria: How about Kathryn or Caroline?
Sam: How about Rosie?

Pause

Maria: How about Kathryn?
Sam: How about Stinky?

And so it went for a few minutes. Then,

Sam: Whatever. Maria, you can just name the fish.

Pause

Maria: How about Melanie?
Sam: Yeah! Melanie.
Maria: We'll call her Mel for short.

So it's official - Melanie has joined Salty and Seaweed. We decided to hold off on getting another snail - we had a brown algae problem earlier this week and want to make certain it's taken care of before we get a pet that eats everything off of the sides of the aquarium.

Washing Machine Fixed

Ben was able to replace the drain pump on the washing machine this afternoon, and it's running great. It was a hassle for him yesterday to find the part (luckily he has a student teacher so he had plenty of time to call around), and we ended up ordering one and paying a lot extra to have it shipped overnight, as opposed to waiting 5-7 business days. It was sitting on the porch when we got home after school, and Ben was able to replace it fairly easily. We are all thrilled - still had that nagging worry that we may have been wrong and ordered the wrong part. But it works, and I'm working on getting caught up on laundry around here.

Sam's Assessment

Sam didn't have a parent teacher conference (they're not until January), but today his teacher sent home some assessment and feedback on each child's progress so far. I've included a page from his journal (so cute!) and additional information was as follows:

Letter ID: 26/26
Sound ID: 21/26

Journal Notes: "Doing well writing. Using punctuation."

Other comments:
Behavior concerns: "None" (YAY!)
Academic Concerns: "Sam has really taken off! He is reading! Journal looks great. Keep up the good work."
Other Comments: "What a sweetie! Love his dimples." Don't we all?

So glad he is doing so well. Sometimes, when I picked him up from pre-school two years ago and had to sign behavior forms because he had misbehaved repeatedly, I was really worried about how he would do in school. Looking back, we really wonder if some of that behavior was because his communication skills were so lacking that the teacher couldn't understand what he needed and he lost his temper. Some of the problems were directly related to his stubborn nature, as well. I'm just glad he is doing so well now.

Christmas Pageant

Maria got the part that she so wanted in the performance of "Best Christmas Pageant Ever." The show is a community performance and Maria auditioned over a week ago. The story, if you haven't read it, follows a local Christmas pageant that has been taken over by the 6 children of the "bad" family in town, the Herdmans. The Herdmans (6 brothers and sisters) have never had any role models at home and don't know anything about the real Christmas story. Maria got the part of Gladys Herdman, the youngest Herdman. The description of the character, according to Wikipedia: "She's the smallest, and the fastest, and she's mean, and she bites." Maria had a great time reading for the part at auditions and is thrilled to get to play Gladys. It was the best part for someone Maria's age.

Performances are at the First Presbyterian Church in Marysville on the following dates:
Sunday December 7 - 4:00 and 7:30
Tuesday December 9 - 7:30
Saturday December 13 - 4:00 and 7:30
Sunday December 14 - 4:00 and 7:30

Tickets are fairly cheap, I believe. Let me know if you are interested and I can get tickets for you - since it's performed in a church there's not a huge amount of seats, so it would be best to get tickets in advance.

Broken Washing Machine

Yes, my washing machine broke down in the middle of the 2nd load this morning. I had about 5 more loads to go, including towels, clothes and sheets. I tend to put off all laundry until Sunday, and then spend all day Sunday doing it. The advantage to this is that I am here to remove loads as soon as they are dry, which cuts down tremendously on my ironing (I actually hardly ever iron anything unless it's a special occasion - working Moms can't do it all, and I choose to give up ironing). Anyway, the sheets were in the dryer and the washer was in the middle of the first load of clothes, when an alarm started going off and the dryer stopped working. I checked the error code, and it had something to do with the drain or drain pump. So when Ben got home from the grocery, I let him look into the matter more closely.

The pain about all this was that since the washer wasn't draining, it was full of water which had to be dumped out (pitcher by pitcher) before he could even get started. He spent a couple of hour cleaning the drain and hose and drain pump, including using the shop vac to pump out the excess water. Turns out we need a new drain pump (you can tell by the noise it makes it's just not working), and of course the parts store in Columbus was closed today. The earliest Ben will be able to get there is Tuesday. Luckily, I did two loads yesterday morning, so we should have enough clothes to get by as long as it gets fixed by mid-week. After that, we may have to start pulling pants out of the laundry basket.

Maria's Parent Teacher Conference

Tonight we had Maria's parent/teacher conference. (Sam's isn't until January, after the first set of testing for kindergartners.) Ben and I both went, and the kids played on the playground while we talked with Maria's teacher, Mr. Hammond. Things went well - she's doing great in everything. He did have a couple of areas to work on improvement, but it was a very good report. He said the thing that stands out most about her is that she takes her time and does her best work on every single assignment, always only handing in her best work. I sure hope she continues to do that - as a high school teacher I can tell you that quality is not very common! He also observed that she is very quiet (I always was in school too, if you can believe that) but loves to participate in class.

When it was time to go, Sam cried because he did not want to leave the playground. The after-school Panther Paws were playing also, so he was with his friends. Ben and I observed three girls running up to hug him when he arrived on the playground - apparently the girls all still love him. Anyway, Sam cried the entire ride home, and then for about 10 minutes after we got here. He still can cry a lot when he doesn't get his way - still waiting for him to grow out of that! But at least he wasn't kicking and screaming, just crying.

Election News

Quick election update - Fairbanks levy passed by 112 votes - 52%. We were happy, actually a little surprised that it was so close, but passing is passing. So we can expect business here to continue as normal, with our small yet still present raises for the next two school years (our 2% raise each year for the next two years would not have happened if it had failed).

Also, watching the election results with Maria last night was fun. She knew about the electoral college from school, and loved watching the results from each state. It did help that the results were going the way we wanted them to, for a change, in the Presidential election. Anyway, Maria even asked to stay up later and was sad that Ohio had not been called either way by the time she had to go to bed at 9:15. Quite a learning experience for her, and being such an "historic election," hopefully she'll remember it for a long time to come.

RIP Sheldon

Yesterday we lost our dear snail, Sheldon. He was with us for one month, his actual age is undetermined as we do not know how long he was alive before we adopted him at the beginning of October. His death was a bit of a surprise, we have no idea why he ended up floating, foot crusty and unresponsive, in our tank less than 24 hours after we cleaned it.

The kids took it surprisingly well when we broke the news at breakfast this morning. No tears were shed, I think they expected it when he had floated all afternoon yesterday (a floating snail does not necessarily mean death, and Sheldon sometimes floated and then acted fine, but he had never floated for so many hours before).

We were planning on adding a new fish to our tank this weekend anyway (we are proud members of the Free Fish of the Month club at Jack's), and so we may get a Sheldon 2 while we are there. We are going to ask first if we were taking care of him correctly, and how long they are expected to live. He did provide entertainment to watch, but may not be worth getting another one if we can expect it to die within a month's time as well.

Sick Boy

Yesterday we had tickets to see the 2008 Tour of Gymnastics, which included several Olympic medalists from this summer. We heard about it through Maria's gymnastics teacher, although we didn't go with the group. The show started at 5:00, and we had a haircut scheduled beforehand for Sam at Cookie Cutters on Sawmill.

All was fine until mid-morning when Sam started to complain of a stomach ache. Not that unlikely, so I gave him the puke bowl and some Sprite and figured it would pass in a little while like most stomach aches do. Until an hour later when he threw up. Afterward he said he felt fine and wanted a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. He ate the entire sandwich, and although was more subdued than normal, he did do some playing and even went outside with Mason and Maria for a while. Three hours after lunch and the sandwich had stayed down. So we asked him how he felt, and he said fine, so we decided to go ahead and take him to the show. Sam is a pretty healthy kid - we think its been almost two years since he's had a stomach virus, so we really thought maybe it was just an upset stomach that had passed.

We stopped at Target on the way and picked up some things, then went to get Sam's haircut. He seemed fine, just a little quieter than normal. At the show we got concession stand food for dinner, and he didn't eat anything but drank his Sprite. During the first half he sat on the edge of his seat, clapped along to the music, and seemed to be enjoying himself. Then came intermission.

Ben took the kids to the concession stand to get popcorn. Sam picked up one piece of popcorn and threw up a little bit. Ben gave Maria the popcorn and sent her back to our seats with me, and Ben got Sam to the bathroom, but not before he got sick a few more times before they reached a toilet. Luckily, we had brought an extra change of clothes for Sam in the car, and the very nice people at the door allowed Ben to leave and come back in which is against the rules. But during the second half, Sam was miserable and Ben finally took him to the car until it was over and Maria and I joined them. Since then he is acting like a sick kid, and did make it through the night, but came to get a little while ago. So now we're on the couch, watching cartoons, at 6:00, although it feels like 7:00 with the time change. Looks like he's going to miss his first "Hoop 'n Scoops" at the Y this afternoon. Maria has auditions for "Best Little Christmas Pageant Ever" this afternoon so I really hope she stays healthy. Hopefully Sam's the only one who gets this!

By the way, the gymnastics show was pretty amazing. Well, the gymnasts were amazing. The teen band that played several songs were loud and bad, and made my head hurt. Maria really enjoyed the gymnastics though.

Maria's Report Card

Click to enlarge

Yesterday Maria received her first report card this school year (can you believe the school year is already 1/4 of the way over?). This year has been the most difficult so far - Science, Social Studies, and Math are their own courses with different teachers, and she has many more tests that require studying that she has in the past. We are especially proud of her for doing so well when the coursework is so much more difficult.

I should also mention that Sam (who only gets two report cards this year) is also doing well at school. He no longer complains about his Popcorn word book, and usually writes each word much more that the required 6 times. he is also learning more words and doing more of our reading each night. Mrs. Wilson tells us that he does well and seems to like school.