29 April 2012

Chess in Des Moines, Iowa!

Elf, Emperor and I took a trip to Des Moines with my friend and her son, who plays at the KC Chess Club with us.  Here's Emperor posing in his Spock shirt with Tournament Director Hank Anzis.  For more pictures of the tournament, click here!
The medals were specific to the event.  Apparently each event features a different world champion for personal study.  For more news about the tournaments and player standings, click here.

Elf is chatting with his opponent before the game.  Emperor really, really liked the little girl across from him.  She taught him some odd "Spock, paper, scissors" game.
Emperor took home two trophies, but had to goof off for a second before placing them in their hallowed spot on the piano.
Elf took lots of pictures of the hotel room and all the "luxury" downtown Des Moines had to offer!  And he took one of himself, too!  The hotel had glass elevators and this was just a little scary that first time for Elf.





Here, some of the children who played pose for a final photo.

One of the trophies Emperor won.  A castle on a crystal cloud.  Trophies are engraved.  Niiiice.

27 April 2012

Cake in a Cup!

You'll enjoy making this Cake in a Cup in the microwave.  I think it would be a fun, inexpensive party idea when hosting a  small group of children as well.  The extra cake mix can go home in a ziploc baggie with this recipe for revellers to try at home.

Have the children choose a microwave-safe mug for their cake.  Next, dump a box of angel food cake mix and a box of any other flavour cake mix in a large ziploc bag.  Zip it very well and shake it, shake it, until both are thoroughly blended.  
To make your cake in a cup, put 1/3 cup of your newly-made mix into the mug. Add 3 tablespoons of water and stir well with a fork. Pop it into the microwave for one minute on high power. 

Another idea you might try is Cake in a Bowl.  Double your recipe and pop it into the microwave for a minute and 20 seconds.  You know your cake is done if you can poke it in the center with a fork and the fork comes out without cake on it.  I hope you enjoy this idea as much as we have!

26 April 2012

Some Assorted Thoughts

TMZ Reporting

I love how in some of their stories, they refer to this woman as "The Octo." Because judging from their other stories, they could never differentiate between starlets by using a nickname like "The Cleavage."

Anyway.

"Octomom" is in the news again for alleged child neglect.  According to her peroxide/pirate hairdresser, the kids are half-dressed and their hairdos are all bad so you can't tell who's a boy and who's a girl.  And they have potty seats everywhere and she locks the kids into their rooms. 

OK.

If you had 14 children and many of them were toddlers, how many potties would ever be enough?  And would YOUR house ever be clean enough to meet decent standards unless you had some help?    How much help does she get?  Because if I had 14 *little* children with me constantly, I might have to lock them in their rooms a sec while I opened the stove or took a shower.  I don't know.  I really don't.  I've never dealt with that.  Though I'm thinking she has disgusting decorating skills with the graffitti everywhere, and it sure looks like there are things she could improve on, but let social services sort it out. 

Maybe it's a real and serious situation, but this hairdresser seemed a little overeager to speak on camera to my mind.  Though yeah, spending over $500 on hairdos when your toilets don't work is prolly not so wise.

Remember Triptics?

I do.  When we'd go on a super-long roadtrip we'd call ahead and order Triptics from our AAA Office.  Then we'd wait in line to get them the following week.  It would have a flip map from beginning to end of trip and construction sites hand-stamped in there.  Oh yeahhh.  It was like MapQuest, only... 1970's/80's version on paper with highlighter.

Does anyone else remember doing "let's go down this road and see where it leads?"  These new dashboard thingo-s remove all the mystery.  I still want one, though.

I am going to Iowa this weekend with Elf and Emperor.  We'll be riding with my friend and her son who plays at our club.  It will be fun to get away and play in a new place for a tournament.

Frederick Douglass

A friend was blogging about a child whose essay about how Douglass relates to students today touched a bit of a nerve.  Today I gave Emperor an excerpt of Douglass's book, about how Frederick Douglass got an education.  Emperor returned the book to me this morning with a smile.  "That kid was so smart," he told me.

Yes, he was.  I am surprised at how little the local public school children know about Frederick Douglass, but then I reason that they're trying to prevent exactly the sort of situation Andrea blogged about.

Measles

I am so flippin' tired of all the judgment.  Calling parents crude names because they don't do something you think is important for their children's health is NOT going to convince them to do what you want.  It's not.  And I love how they place the blame for children contracting diseases on the parents who don't vaccinate. 

I'm not a doctor, but lemme tell you something.  Sometimes people go out in public with germs and they really should be staying home.  They infect others and sometimes people die because of their inconsideration.  That's the first thing.  The second thing is that blaming parents when children get sick means that you somehow think parents are godlike and can protect their children against disease.

They can't.  I got a medically documented case of the measles and my parents vaccinated me PLUS gave me all the "going overseas to Australia" shots.  Nobody blamed my parents because I got sick with the measles.  Nobody blamed parents for a lot of things back then.  I wish I coulda parented in the 1970's!  It sounds like a parenting Golden Age or something.  Only look at the dopey outfits parents got away with dressing their kid in.  Without judgment!  It was even considered GROOVY! 

But somehow?  If one of my children got sick with the SAME measles and I hadn't vaccinated?  Bad mom.  All your fault.

Also?  I want you to know that I have lost track of how many times people have asked me why my children are autistic and did I vaccinate.

EVERYTHING is my fault, people.  I admit it.  Earthquake?  Tornado?  Pestilence?  That's me, too.  Okayy, maybe just the "pestilence" part.  :/





24 April 2012

ANZAC Day

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
We will remember them.

From the Ode of Remembrance. 

Wishing all my Aussie and Kiwi friends a memorable holiday.  :)

Yes!

It's a pie crust cutter.  I like the idea of sprinkling sugar through the holes as well.  Other designs included little apples and squares.  Elf is displaying the very first pie he made with his cutter and new cake pan.  Cherry.

23 April 2012

What IS It?

Answer coming up tomorrow!  Meanwhile, here are some hints:  it belongs to Elf, and he specially wanted to get this at the homeschool convention.  It costs $4.50 and is made of heavy plastic.  It can be purchased in other designs, but I think Elf picked this one out because it's green.  Green is the colour all the little woodland elves love so much.  So of course it is his favourite colour.   

Speaking of little woodland elves, Elf took this picture of himself recently.  I guess he doesn't have the "flaunt it in the mirror and post this to facebook" social skill down yet.  Also, he forgot to look sultry and/or snarl.  He is almost 12; when is he going to learn these things?  :/  Ok, seriously, I thought this picture was cute and captured the sort of friendly person he is.

21 April 2012

Homeschool Convention!

I need to warn you that my pictures and comments, like the fliers that are distributed at the MPE Convention,  are not endorsed by MPE.  (Oh, good grief.  Why do they even need a disclaimer like this?  And including an email for information about their flier distribution policies?  Some people have too much time on their hands...)  Anyway, very year I say that I will NOT go back next year.  I wind up spending wayyy too much money when I go.  Emperor jumped about until I bought two years' worth of mathematics.  Siiigh.  Nearly $400.  I can be so firm with my children but the can I pleaaase have two years' worth because I think I will finish Algebra II way before next year's convention pleaaase types of arguments do work on me.  I admit it. 

I bought stuff from Paula's Bread last year at the convention and kept my gross-o cookie sheets until I could snag these at this year's convention.  Stainless steel, nice stuff, not what you get at Wal-Mart.  But my total with tax was still less than $100.  They will last a long, long time.  The pans I have from last year look almost new still so I know I will be happy with these.

I dislike how LIFEPAC teacher guides have different sections for different things.  Arg!  Just give the answers to page one.  Then the answers to page two.  And so on.  And whyyyy is there a sample day with recess scheduled in at the beginning of the book?  I don't need the micromanaging.  But Emperor decided to do LIFEPACs this coming school year for Communication Arts, so to save my own sanity I have used sticky-notes to mark my spot in various sections.

I don't know what I was thinking.  I bought some sort of DVD about how to make a sculpture.  And I bought some of the art supplies I will need at the convention.  Most of the time, I don't mess with music or art.  I find those subjects intimidating.

20 April 2012

All About Grandma

Rose absolutely LOVES going to "Gwan-ma's house."   Everything is Gwan-ma this and Gwan-ma that.

Recently, Rose's Grandma took her to the zoo!  Usually, though, they just hang out at Grandma's house.  Grandma's house is green.  Grandma does not like peanut butter sandwiches.  Grandma says it is NOT bedtime yet.

Grandma just had a baby!

Grandma used to be four, but now?  She is 27.  She just have it a birfday.  Next year, she will be five years old and go a kinnagarden.

18 April 2012

The Emperor's New Smile.

Emperor will get partial braces soon!  But first, two of his baby teeth need to be extracted.

Eeyow!  Emperor made it through!  See the holes in his head?  Next week, he will have a regular dental cleaning and the orthodontist will glue brackets onto some of his top teeth.
Emperor's baby teeth had very long ROOTS.  That means it wasn't a very easy process.  Poor Emperor has taken some Tylenol and is cuddling his stuffed tiger and playing Civilization all day on the computer.  Homeschooling and even his private chess lesson have been cancelled for tonight.  His father should bring some applesauce home so Emperor can have it for dinner.

14 April 2012

The Weather Song


I have about 50 half-sung songs still on my camera!  I finally had to go ahead and ruin the first part of the movie by shouting, "Now!" at her.  Forget the waving cues; she'd wave back.  Ha!  But Rose is very pleased and proud to be able to present this song to you today.  She and her little preschool friends sing it before they peek outside the front door to see what the weather is like that day.  I hope you enjoy it as much as she enjoyed being the star today.

13 April 2012

Pictures of Stuff.


Mr. McBearded Bagel wishes Woodjie a happy lunch!  Woodjie said his bagel was "woddaful!"
State assessment time!  Here is an "ohplease ohplease ohplease do well on the test so we can keep our jobs!" note from Mrs. P.  Apparently Elf was balking at taking the test because "the system is evil."  I don't know where he could have ever gotten that idea from.


Emperor always wears business socks just as you see here.  He refuses to wear regular socks.  Also?  His toes can never touch the front end of the sock.  Why would you want a picture of my socks, Emperor wanted to know.  It's just my socks.


In celebration of Autism Awareness month, we bought these T-shirts to support ASAN from thinkgeek.com. 

12 April 2012

Tuck in Your Shirt or Go to Jail!

Have you heard of the "school to prison pipeline?"  The BBC investigated Texas schools and found that cops issue tickets - I'm talking real, actual, go-to-court and pay your fine tickets - for school infractions that include not tucking in shirts.

You'd think the cops would be busy enough locking up child molesters, rapists, murderers, graffiti "artists," and other assorted thugs.  But I guess doesn't bring in enough revenue money in our down economy.  Let's expand our "paying customer" base, and watch the money roll in!

The story didn't get into that aspect, but think about it.  Court costs are not cheap if you want to fight and wind up losing.  Tickets aren't cheap, either.  I'd like to see a documentary about how much money these parents have to pay into the system once it sucks their children in.  I'd like to know whether the strict rules (such as shirt tucking) actually lead to so-called truancy because they set up an adversarial system and the child just wants to avoid the fight.

"More than one in seven Texas middle and high school students have been involved with the juvenile justice system," the article tells us.  I'm really scared of these JD's, too.  People with untucked shirts are a menace to society.  The cops are doing us a big favour.  Untucked shirts are like the gateway drugs of crime.  First the untucked shirt, then the killing spree.  Just like one-time marijuana use leads to kids winding up homeless junkie wino crackheads (if they inhale).  I've seen the edudrama in high school, so I know these things.

And there is this.  The idea that the juvenile court system is not public just makes it that much easier for abuse against the common person.  Only imagine these parents:  they'd desperately like to hush up the "infraction" their child committed so that he can have a good chance in his adult life.  They'll pay about anything they can afford, and do about anything that is do-able to get out from under the system's thumb.  And they sure don't want to talk to you about what their child did; he needs a job later.

I think things would improve immensely if the children didn't have to go into school in the first place. Schools would have to do a better job of attracting and keeping students.  No more literal captive market.  At the very least schools would avoid stepping on a teen's last nerve, and policies like this would end mighty quick.

A little off-topic, but I need to make a public service announcement:  senior skip day at Cityname North High School is tomorrow.  Patrick has been told if he wants to skip, he can call the school himself and tell them he doesn't jolly well feel like going.  It should be his right to have at least one personal day after all the years he's put in.

11 April 2012

Death by Homeschooling

A child has died.  A disabled child, unable to walk or speak, has been murdered.

Don't let the fluff-fluff story HSLDA is touting fool you.  Makayla Norman might have been under the care of several different physicians.  Maybe.  But it's been proven she was abused.  It's been proven in court what happened was murder.  Her mother recently pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges.

So let's not pretend that when the local paper squawks about how it's concerned kids are slipping through the cracks, that there are somehow not kids slipping through the cracks.  Let's not just go right to our talking points without pausing for a minute to remember that somehow, somehow, a whole bunch of people have failed Makayla Norman.  She is dead today because she received bad care from her mom and from her nurses, and because no one outside that small group of people checked up on her.

"School officials admitted they violated their own policies, failing to follow up on Makayla’s progress during her final seven years," the Dayton Daily News reported in December.  

And what consequence did the school district face for its neglect?  None.  Again, the Dayton Daily News is right in there swinging in a recent article. The article almost directly links homeschooling with abuse and it's pretty biased.  But then again, the paper is not gonna come out all pro-homeschool in an article discussing the aftermath of a stinkin' murder, people.  It wasn't easy on the schools, either.  But Makayla Norman's death has to do with homeschooling... how?

Remember, this child couldn't walk or speak.  What grade level would YOU put her in if you had a student like this tomorrow?  Right.  There isn't one.  This is about murder.  There are so many people who have failed her, and it isn't even a homeschooling issue.  Why are we even talking about homeschooling?

Can we just forget homeschooling a second here?  The way funding is being cut all over the place, who is looking out for disabled children?  Do we even care if they die?  I don't know if you know much about it, but states are cutting back in-home helps and they're cutting back on the very people who could be a good influence or be a good lookout, a watchdog against abuse. 

I think this mom is an awful example of humanity.  Was she public-schooled?  Does it matter?








09 April 2012

I Wisht I Was in Peoria


Whyyyy I am listening to this song over and over?  I keep thinking, wow.  Music used to be in English.  Some of the verses are even full sentences.  Sure, the song uses phrases like "five and ten-cent store-ee-a" to make things rhyme, but still.  What if Lady Gaga made a song today about something as mundane as missing the mud in Peoria?  Would it sell? Because seriously.  That's quality stuff.  If you want to really mess yourself over, though, try SINGING with it.  You think you can sing with it until you try it; it's lower than it sounds somehow.  Even stranger is the fact that there are about 50 different versions of this song on youtube.  So I am guessing this was a hit but I see no recent remakes on the 'web.  :)

07 April 2012

Update on the Children

Patrick will be graduating from high school in mid-May.  I am not looking forward to it.  It is driving me nuts.  I want him to get a license.  I want him to apply to college.  Just *twitch* driving me nuts not knowing what will happen next and I'm always afraid he'll make good on his threat to become a hobo.  I am working very hard on respecting his adulthood and all that by NOT fixing everything for him/ filling out his applications/ generally making that roto-helicopter sound above his head at all times.  My parents were kind enough to enable and all that when I was his age.  All I had to do was sign my name on the college applications; they even wrote the essays for me!  My essay (I learnt later) was about my leadership skills.

Hey, shut up, I at least attended and graduated from college, mmkay??  So I can fairly claim to have pulled myself up by my bootstraps, shown initiative and leadership and... well, you know.  All righty, then.

G is going to be 17 soon!  He is playing tennis at school, but on Saturdays he likes to come to tournaments with us.  He got a new chess clock, tournament bag and triple-weighted chess set for his birthday.  He mows our yard for us and we pay him $5 for the front lawn and $7 for the back yard and we alternate weeks.  One unfortunate problem we are noticing after his ankle surgery last year is that his shoes wear out incredibly quickly; he must be walking just a little oddly.  But praise God he can walk and live a normal life.  :)

Elf is doing well in school and says that the teachers all help him but most people don't talk to him.  He is ok with that because he now has a friend to chat with at lunch.  I've noticed that his genuine straight-faced questions are just HILARIOUS to the other children at the chess club.  One little boy says he would like all of Elf's "jokes" to be put into a book.  This is a problem, Elf said, because he really doesn't know when he is so funny because he is just talking. 

Emperor has an interesting take on just about everything.  We were watching Pinocchio and he asked, "Why would anyone wish upon a star? It's just a ball of gas." 

"Come to think of it, wishes are just fiction anyway," he said. "That's what anyone who is thinking would think."  Note there were no questions about the talking cricket or the fairy.  Hm.

Woodjie is enjoying his last few weeks of preschool.  He enjoys blowing dandelions in our front yard, but he is scared of dandelions that have no puffy seeds on them.  He throws those away and jumps back at the same time.  I don't know why those are still so scary to him; but they've always been frightening.  G used to be scared of dandelions as well if they are yellow and blooming.  Patrick used to chase him around the yard holding the flower out in front of him.  (G would find ways of getting him back later, don't worry.)  I think G is still pretty scared of dandelions, but most people don't go around trying to scare each other with dandelions, so I think we're good.

My big fear?  Sunflowers.  They are like giant eyeballs, looking at me!  Eyeballs are ungodly awful and scary.  D thinks that's really funny.  He and Patrick made eyeballs out of paper plates and taped them up in my room once.  Thankfully the eyeballs were positioned in such a way that they would not see me round the corner when I went to sleep.  Otherwise, they would have realized they won and scared me and I would have had to deal with staring eyeballs all over the place or even had to touch them to tear them off the wall!  eeee.

Rose seems to think only "Miss Erin" from the preschool knows anything of substance.  I tell her it's April.  "OH!  Miss Ewin say it Apwil!!"  Yeahh.  "Miss Ewin say it Fursday." Ok, kid.  Miss Erin said it Fursday yesterday, which means it's Friday today. 

I get a rumpled face.  "Miss Ewin say it Fursday.  DEN a Fwiday.  DEN a Easter!"

Welp, I can't argue with that.  I got a little PEZ dispenser for Woodjie's Easter.  Really stinks that there are no chocolate bunnies for him because of his allergies.  BUT.  There are many extra PEZ packages and the dispenser is a little Hy-Vee truck.  It's pretty cool, I have to admit.  I am also not going to spend $50 on candy and the eggs the preschoolers picked up with candy in them on Thursday?  They each get one a day until they are gone.  I am rationing all the Easter fun.  :)



 

05 April 2012

American Pride

I was digging through some old photos and decided to share this one with you.  Just because.  Happy Easter.  :)

03 April 2012

News Roundup!

The minimum age for a Facebook account is 13. So there's nothing preventing someone putting out a "13 year old girls around me" app.  The internet's Garden of Eden days are over.  Article

**
Suppose there are a very limited number of slots in a given specialty PRIVATE SCHOOL in the city.  So they make a test up... and only, say, a couple of minority children of doctors get in.  The rest of the kids are white.  Would it be OK to make cutoff decisions this way?

I'd probably be inclined to say YES.  That is fair.  Cut the mustard and pay your tuition or don't go. You can be as elitist as you want to be with your own money.

BUT.

Suppose it's a public school.  Is it OK to discriminate then?  Hmm...   There are parent groups out there  fighting to exclude special-ed children from their schools.  We don't want their kind here.  I "get" (believe me, I do) the need for special-ed and gifted-ed classes.  There needs to be some overlap, though.  We are all of us citizens together and I see zero reason why we can't all learn to play soccer or violin together, too.  Sure, one kid has calculus and the other is working on elementary addition.  But wow.  We can still share some common classes.  I don't get the hate.

Want to keep your kid away from kids like mine?  Go send your snowflake to private school.

**
In somewhat unrelated news, I voted for school board candidates today.  From what I see, I have a choice of two lackeys from a list of five. Yay me.

I vote not because I think the people I am helping to power are all that great.  I vote because um, sometimes... there are people I want to be sure do not get in.  Many of my friends are voting in that board race.  My concern is that with five candidates, the vote will be diluted and this guy will get in.  He's infamous.

I am sure he wouldn't be able to singlehandedly make the Park Hill School District teach "white culture" and kick all the special-needs kids out if he's elected.  But I have to admit to you... I believe (strongly!) in local rights.  In local people developing their own curriculum.  And then people like this show up and show me what that just might look like sometimes.  It just takes a bunch of yee-haws to mess things up if all decisions are TOO local.  If we forget that each person has civil rights.

**
I'm very "pro-homeschooling."  But I'm not very "pro-homeschooling because the schools get lots of money when they make things so hard that parents with special-needs kids leave and save the district a fortune."  It doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, is why.

Anyway.  Outraged.  Just outraged at this. I'm so outraged, on so many different levels and in so many different ways, that I just can't even fire off a coherent argument about the whole situation.  There are just too many angles to come at it from.  Wow.




02 April 2012

Spring Cleaning

So the big box of "cheese curl" packaging peanuts is sitting on the end table upstairs.  Small house, guys, and I just had tossed it about anywhere after my ordeal the night before.  I'm sorting through books and ohh... ok.  Having some coffee by the computer and checking my blogs early this morning.

Bleary-eyed... I will just get to it later...

Woodjie keeps talking.  He says two or three words together and they don't always make sense.  Usually they involve Rhyhorn or Nosveratu-something attack and some sound effects. Here he is talking to himself and looking at the box.

"Fffff rrrr aaaayy gah... Eye!  L. Ee.  What say, Mom?"

What say... I didn't say anything.  Ohhh... wait.  That says FRAGILE!  YAYYYY!!  WOODJIE, LOOK... You are READING!!!

Of course we had to do a big dance about that.  Lots of little bitty Woodjie arm flapping and happy blue-eyed face smiling stuff.  Yay.

Ok.  Sit down a second while I finish the coffee...  You smoochie.  You shouldn't be reading yet, I tease him.

"What IN air, Mom?"  and he is pointing.  And of course I had to sound out the whole "Blue Rose Pottery" note on the side of the box.  "OH IT PAWYERRY YAYY!  I see in air??"

Ughh... do you have to? (Yes.)  See... nothing but these bad cheese curls in there.  (I see it?  I hold it?)  Sigh.  Okayy.  (sniff, sniff) WOODJIE YOU ARE NOT EATING THAT ARE YOU??

"I no eat at.  Ee yucky eat it," and he looks at me all bewildered.  As if to say, how could you even think that about me?  I, eat packing peanuts... the very notion.

Well, fine, you just be that way.  Woodjie is also asking questions about this "egg hunt" that will happen at preschool on Thursday.  He is raising some objections about participating because "I lergic to eggs."  I am trying to convince him that we are just hunting FAKE allergens.  But don't open the eggs.  Because they might have chocolate inside.  And you are allergic to the milk in that.  Somehow this makes no sense to him.  None of it does.

THIS is the kind of thing that happens to a kid when he starts to get pushed into the regular-ed classroom.  They do weird things like "parties" and "learning to read." 

I am cautiously optimistic about next year.  Do keep the little blondie boy in your prayers, would you?  I was a smartie-butt and asked for a behaviour intervention plan (BIP) that would um... pretty much preclude the closet-locking on paper.  The flip side of it is that they would call me if things are out of control for too long... which is what I want but you know how that goes when you're at the doctor or whathaveyou.  Just hope it works out practically as well as on paper.  I know the teacher used to be Elf's kindergarten teacher and I like her so much.  She was so good with Elf.  And now to think she gets her very own little class of autistics each year.  Blessed!  We're all just blessed.

And by the way... I am soo proud of myself.  I found a way to get rid of the packing peanuts!  I shipped them out to some other chick!  Then it will be her problem what to do with them.

I. Am brilliant, I tell you!!  Squee!

01 April 2012

Forbidden Cheese Curls

Remember the pottery I just got?  Well.  It was packed in something that very closely resembles white cheese curls.  Patrick told Elf, Emperor and G that they should go try them!
Mmm... forbidden cheese curls... mmm...
*
G just chomped away and spat the gunk out in the trash after he realized how un-tasty it was.  Elf started in on the, "Mmm! Crunchy!" thing just as I was entering the room.  All I could think was, what do they spray their packing materials with?  Everyone had to rinse their mouth and generally knock it off/listen to me yell for a bit.  Elf was kicked out of the room for over an hour.   I'm just grateful no one swallowed these things.

I was upset most particularly at Patrick and G (what with their being 18 and almost 17) for trying these "curls," but I couldn't very well kick them out of their own room.  I removed the box.  I'm still not sure what to do with these "curls."  I think there must be a place to recycle them in town somewhere.  In the past we've recycled the old-fashioned "peanut" type things at the postal shop near McDonald's.  I'll have to dig through the box and make sure no half-bitten ones are inside before I try this getting rid of packaging materials trick again...

Emperor had no consequence.  Why?

See, he's allergic to milk... so... he didn't go try the cheese curls.  Smart boy.

I am going to turn into my father soon.  When my brother and I were riled as kids, he would frequently dispense such gems of wisdom as, "Stop ramming around!" and "Pick up a toy and play with it!" and "Knock it off!"  Add, "Don't eat the cheese curls!" to the list?  And I will be practically him.

On the one hand, I'm REALLY MAD at my kids, who should know better!  On the other, these "curls" really do have a very similar look and texture to cheese curls. I can't imagine we're the only family that has gone through a similar experience.

Bringing Garbage Home

Some people up the street were throwing this table away. It was in pretty bad shape and one of the legs was off. I've glued the leg back...