Is the sky still blue?

On Friday, my school was closed and so were the kids', so I took them to a little neighborhood park near downtown Raleigh that we'd never been to before, called Isabella Cannon Park. It was adjacent to the Rose Garden, so we went there too. Of course, Simon just looked for bugs the whole time.

Alice made a dirt slide.

It is hard to overstate how devastated Zac and I are about Trump winning the election. It was good to get out and be distracted by the beauty of nature and to remember that one way or another, the world will go on.

I also take solace from a Japanese children's book I read Alice recently. In it, a poet is tricked by a fox into giving up the rights to his cherry trees to the foxes in exchange for two gold coins (which are really just river stones that have been magically made to look like coins). The next day, after the magic wears off, the poet realizes that he really just has river stones, but instead of being mad, he notices how beautiful the stones are and is inspired to write a beautiful poem.

I don't think we'll find much beauty in Trump's presidency, but it probably won't be as bad as we imagine, and I think that no matter how bad it is, we can always try to focus on the good and beautiful moments. You know how whenever people visit poor countries, they always come back talking about how happy the people are, despite their miserable conditions? We can do that too.

Afghanistan Alice

My friend Amy at work came upon this  traditional little girl's outfit from Afghanistan at a fundraiser and brought it for Alice.

So, Trump may be our next president, but at least we're not living in Afghanistan. It could always be worse.

The last day I believed in Americans...

I took this selfie because I wanted to remember what I looked like on the day our country elected it's first female president.

So much for that.

Simon loves bug legs

Alice's first sentence

Using her memory of her sight words, Alice wrote this sentence: "Look at me do it."

She's no prodigy, but she's coming along nicely learning her words and trying to write. We gently encourage her, but don't push it so it never seems like a chore. And we all know that actually trying to get Alice to do anything against her will is a fool's errand.

Bond Park Bug Hunting

On Sunday, Zac took the kids to Bond Park, so I could stay home and work on getting my conference presentation together. As usual, Simon just looked for bugs the whole time, while Alice took advantage of all that the park had to offer.

Later that night, Simon was still mesmerized by all his bugs. He is truly obsessed.

North Cary Park

Zac took the kids to North Cary Park today, and I stayed home and did five loads of laundry and other household chores.

The morning started out a bit rough, but Zac reports that after about 4 snack breaks, the kids finally perked up.

 

You know what they say: there's someone for everyone.

Alice's first quarter of kindergarten

Wait--she's 1/4 of the way through kindergarten already?  What?

Good to know Alice is proficient in civics and government.

Early voting

We've had early voting going on here for about two weeks, but the lines were always quite long, so when I tried to go the first week, I chickened out. The idea of waiting in line for over an hour with Alice just seemed impossible. So I waited a week, and I figured Thursday afternoon (with Saturday being the last day) would be a good time to go. I wanted to take Alice with me to vote for our first female president, so I packed a voting survival bag, including snacks, water, books, and crayons.

Thankfully, it was beautiful day and most of the line was outside, so I was able to let Alice run around a bit. She actually did great, and only needed to partake of the snacks. We got through the line and voted in about 40 minutes total.

To celebrate, we explored the parking deck and I let her climb a tree on the way back.

Although we didn't cross paths, as we were heading out, Zac and Simon were arriving to vote. Zac reports that Simon spent the whole time in line looking for bugs, and eventually found a dried up worm.

Bag Monster

Where's Alice?

Trick-or-Treating

On Monday, right after supper, we got the kids into their costumes and prepared for trick-or-treating.

The kids had a blast, although Simon tuckered out pretty quickly and had to be carried from house to house. The most delightful part of the night was hearing him squeal, "I'm a cicada!" over and over at the houses. He had three things to say, Trick-or-treat, I'm a Cicada, and Thank-you. He never seemed to get them in the right order, but it didn't matter.

Back at home, Simon was happy to fill up the candy bowl. (The kids get one treat after supper if they eat all their food.)

A day without kids...

On Sunday, my parents took the kids to the park and watched them all day, so Zac and I could go out without the kids. We went shopping at REI, had lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant, went to our friends' house to play games, then out to eat with the game group. It was so nice having time without the kids!

Skating to bed

It's amazing how good kids are at delaying bedtime.

Halloween at the mall

On Saturday afternoon, while the kids were napping, my parents put together Simon's homemade cicada costume that they had brought with them. Then we went to the nearby mall for their trick-or-treating (really, just another chance for the kids to dress up).

We hadn't told Simon about the costume, so was super thrilled to find out he was going to be a cicada for Halloween.