August 2008

Myrna in her natural environment.


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August 2008

Tuesday, August 5:

Had a wonderful time at EduFest. Lots of good stuff there, and lots of terrific people. I like that the strands allow you to cover a topic in more depth. I’m hoping to get back there next year.

The week before I left, Rupert was in the process of building the perfect bird trap. He built two or three models, which didn’t work, before he finally perfected his trap. He sat a chair below our deck and set strawberries and raspberries on the chair to attract the birds. Then he sat on another chair on top of the deck and held a long stick with a string attached to a box. He waited quietly all day long to drop the box on the poor unsuspecting birds, but every time he tried, the birds were just too fast for him.

I asked him what he planned on doing with the bird if he caught it, and he said, “I’ll keep it for a pet.”

I told him he couldn’t keep a wild bird as a pet. He responded with, “Other people do. All birds started off as wild.”

So, I explained to him about how some birds have been domesticated and bred in captivity. He said that was no problem. He’d catch a wild bird, wait for it to lay eggs, then when those eggs hatched, the young birds could be bred in captivity. Problem solved.

Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about it. Rupert has yet to develop an efficient trap. I think he’s come to this conclusion now, too, as he’s lately been spending more time trying to catch them on video instead.

Monday, August 11:

We just reached the end of one continuous round of company and out-of-town trips. Life can begin to get back to normal again--just in time to get ready for school to start next week.

We’re going to try to squeeze in as much summer as we can before then. Rupert is going to camp out in his clubhouse, Pandora is going to have sleepovers, Magnolia is going to sleep in, I am going to pull weeds, harvest vegetables, and indulge in late night reading sessions. Hubby is going to finish off his good-weather honey-do list.

I picked up two fun books for my kids--The Dangerous Book for Boys and The Daring Book for Girls. I highly recommend them. Lots of terrific ideas and fun things to do. Probably more fun to get them at the beginning of summer, but if you get them today, you’ll still have time to squeeze in some fun activities before the snow comes falling down. (Unless. like me, you live in southeastern Idaho, and then there are no promises.)

Tuesday, August 19:

Yikes! School starts this week. I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be, but it feels as though summer vacation hasn’t had much of a chance to really get going.

Rupert has been busy taking apart his toys again. This time he was building a tracking device, using an old bullet casing that he found and some parts and pieces of other items. He needed a screen, so he disassembled a hand-held video game. I don’t know how he thinks he’s going to make everything work, but I can’t say that I mind eliminating a video game.

Pandora is growing up and making steps in the “I’m a girl, let’s go shopping” direction. She will never be a girly-girl, but she is beginning to care about what kinds of clothes she wears and what her hair looks like. She says she’s not excited about school, but she keeps reviewing her scheduling and she has her class routes all mapped out.

Magnolia has discovered that she won’t be able to graduate a whole year early, but if she really pushed things, she can have enough credits to graduate after the first trimester of her senior year. She’s a junior this year, though I think that in real life, she’s about 28--at least in some ways. I’m sure she would agree with me.

I’ve got my own school supplies ready--mainly my computer. As soon as the kids get back to their school schedule, I have to get back to work. I have an article that’s overdue and books to write. Too many ideas and too many directions!

Friday, August 22:

School has been in session for one whole day now, and so far, so good. Everyone seems happy. I’m going to hang on to that feeling and hope for the best this year.

On Wednesday, we took the three kiddos to Lagoon, an amusement park in Utah. We decided to have one last summer hurrah, and it really turned into more of a harrumph. Yes, we had fun, but Rupert was feeling sick to his stomach before we even got started. I am the world’s wimpiest amusement park attendee. I agreed to ride the tram with Pandora, and I spent the entire time saying, “No, really, don’t talk like that, Pandora, and please don’t move--it makes the cart jiggle, and that little connection that you pointed out, the one that supports the entire tram could jump the line and we’d end up like Humpty Dumpty. Please, don’t even breathe very hard.” While Pandora just shook her head and laughed at my death grip on the bars. When I wasn’t begging for my life, I was lecturing her on her flip flops and how she could avoid loosing them in the tree tops or on a roof. Occasionally, I would find a bright spot, like the ideal place to fall. When we passed over one of the higher roofs, my anxiety took a brief respite as I contemplated the distance and the greatly increased odds of survival.

There is something about heights that brings out the best in me. With every foot of space between me and the ground, my stress levels shoot up accordingly. I have never had any desire to be an astronaut. The earth looks just fine from where I’m standing.

We ended our day with Rupert proving that he did, indeed have a stomach bug, and he proved it in the back seat of the van. Pandora and Magnolia scrambled to help while simultaneously dramatizing their disgust and giggling at the predicament. I looked at my husband and said, “Well, you wanted to make memories. Mission accomplished.”

Summer vacation is done and gone, but we’ll always have it right there, filed away in our brains--the family trips, the walks to the snow cone shack, the fresh-picked strawberries, and the trip to, but especially from, the amusement park.

Wednesday, August 27:

Magnolia is pushing herself to her limits this year in school (of course, we’re only five days along thus far). She is taking the hardest classes she can take, because she wants to stack up on college credit, as well as an extra zero-hour class early in the morning, because she wants to graduate early. This week, she has to memorize all of the states and their capitals for her government class, every French-speaking country and its capital for her French class, and about sixty different bones or types of bones (I’m lost by this point) for her anatomy class. She’s trying to work twenty hours a week, which doesn’t help. But then she decided to top it all off by checking out the book Twilight from the library--just for fun. It’s only about three inches thick. At least if she’s going to overwhelm herself, she’s doing it in a nice, well-rounded way.

Okay, I’m going to depart from my usual comments and say something that I’ve just got to get off my chest. How come every online news site has a picture of Madonna touting her latest tour, and they are all tacky, raunchy, pathetic, desperate, and in the same pose? Does Madonna have a hip problem or something? Because she can’t seem to put her knees together. They appear to repel each other as if by some polar force. I think she needs medical attention, or maybe psychological attention... or maybe just attention.

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