Love Grapefruit!

Here's my version of the XKCD fruit matrix. Usually I am always right in tune with XKCD, but this time, I had to take exception to their F*ck Grapefruit comic below.



First of all, grapefruit is not a sickly green color. Today's red and pink grapefruit have a beautiful yellow color with a pink blush. So I prettied it up and moved it into the tasty zone. Yes, they are still difficult, but luckily I have a special grapefruit knife which has a curved blade on one end and a double blade on the other end (to cut the skin sections with half the effort).

I also had to move a lot of the other fruit around and add yellow apples, my favorite apple. They may be easy for some, but I take the kid factor into account. I still need to peel and cut apples and pears as well as pit cherries before they can be consumed. And have you tried to pit seeded grapes for a toddler? Not even worth it. And bananas are easy and tasty, what happened there? The only fruit I pretty much left alone were pineapples and tomatoes. I guess fruit is a rather touchy and subjective subject!

Photo Hunters - High

I went to the archives this week and pulled some shots of Adam on the playground being up high.

Thursday Thirteen #37 - Dova's Sayings

Our four-year-old daughter Dova always amazes us with the things she says. Her sayings are often funny and sometimes quite profound. She is always cracking her teachers up at school. Here's a sampling:

1. Stop it! You're making my brain all crackly.
   


2. Don't make me rip your heads off! (Speaking to one person)
   


3. How come you can't control nature, you can only love it?
   


4. There will be no more breaking hearts because the heart is living to
   me and because there is friendship all over the world.
   


5. Dova: Would you be freaked out by eyeballs and blood in a bag?
   Mom: Yes!
   Dad: Dova, where do you get these ideas from?
   Dova: From my heart.
   Adam: Cool.
   


6. Dova: How do you spell 'curse'?
   Mom: Why do you want to spell that? That's not a nice word.
   Dova: Well, how do you spell it?
   Mom: c-u-r-s-e
   


7. Dova: How do you spell 'evil' curse?
   Mom: e-v-i-l. Where are you learning these phrases?
   Dova: From Scooby-Doo.
   Mom: (note to self, no more borrowing Scooby-Doo from the library!)
   


8. If Spongebob jumped out of the TV everyone will want him.
   


9. You'll just need to give him some water and he'll be just fine.
   


10. Would you like some fried onion hot chili pepper soup?
    


11. With jelly bean pickle sauce?
    


12. Dova: I need a boyfriend.
    Mom: Why do you need a boyfriend?
    Dova: Because I like boys.
    


13. Mom: Do you like boys at your school?
    Dova: No.
    Mom: Then which boys do you like?
    Dova: I like big boys like Adam (her older brother) because they make me laugh so hard.
    Mom: (too sweet!)

Wordless Wednesday - Easter Cookies

March 28 - Edited to add: Double duty post!! Check out Crazy Hip Blog Mamas Kitchen Cookin' Photo Friday.

Tuesday Toot - Adam Finishes Zelda

OK, I can hear the protests of parents everywhere saying that you shouldn't let your kids play too many video games, but in this case, I really believe this is quite an accomplishment and educational experience for this seven-year-old (or I've drunk too much Nintendo Kool-Aid). Prior to this, Adam played through most of his games without reading any of the text, but The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass required him to pay attention. After a while, he got stuck and kept asking me for help, which I couldn't provide so I went to Google. I printed out a 42 page walk-through from GameFAQ and showed him how to read the table of contents and navigate through the document. Now these walk-throughs are not written for first graders, so I thought that he would probably give up on the game. He did have to ask for help once in a while, but for the most part, he was able to find where he was and decipher what he needed to do. He solved puzzles, annotated maps, went fishing (his favorite) and fought plenty of bad guys. For the last battle, he needed some help from me drawing a figure. Afterwards, we both celebrated that he completed the whole game. Between the reading and puzzle solving, I'm sure that he actually learned something through the process. (Boy is he lucky to have a mom who likes video games.)

Now for the portrait... I often think that I try to capture perfect portraits of my kids so that I can always remember them as flawless children. For 1/500 of a second, they are actually perfect, and I can forget all the swirling chaos around the moment. Like when I ask Adam to smile, and he squints his eyes, and then I ask him to open his eyes, and he looks totally goofy. Or when Dova climbs up on the chair with him, or walks in front of the camera, or tells Adam, "Now it's time to mess up your hair" and he does it. And with props it is even more difficult, where he is holding the Zelda case crooked, especially against a striped shirt, or covering it up with his fingers or there is some weird reflection in his glasses. Speaking of glasses, Adam broke his third pair of glasses on the bus, so he is back to wear his first pair which is the only pair that isn't broken. You see? I NEED these photographs to keep my sanity! Thankfully, they humor me through the photo shoots. Plus it gives me an excuse to buy more photography equipment (this taken with my new F1.8 50mm lens).

Look-Alike Meters and Celebrity Morphing

We've always thought that Adam looks more like me and Dova looks more like her Dad, but this is telling us that they don't really look like either of us! This software is pretty cool, it automatically scans the picture and crops the faces out. From the people that brought us my previous Celebrity Look-Alike.

The morphing software creeps me out a bit, and here I am morphing into Christina Applegate and Josh Groban (of course I didn't pick easy morphing into Asian celebs).

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Old pictures - Free family tree software

Wordless Wednesday - Peepz

These are plush Peeps that look just like the real ones. I have to hide them from Dova because she loses them instantly. For a not so innocent peeps, check out the peep show at ICanHasCheezburger. Happy Peeps day!

Tuesday Toot - Dova is a natural skier

Two years ago, I took Adam skiing for the first time when he was five. I had seen tiny tots fly down the hill and always imagined that I would have kids that would do that. Both Doug and I learned to ski as adults, so we didn't have the experience of learning to ski before we could even remember. But during Adam's first lesson, he fell so many times and I felt sorry for him and thought he hated it. Afterwards, to my surprise, he said he liked it. After a couple more lessons, he quickly got to the point where he could bop down the bunny hill with no problem. I began to think that he was already past the age of fearlessness at age five, and simply learned to overcome it.

This winter has gone by under the blur of illness for me and after finally recovering to the point of considering to ski, it was halfway through March. Oh no, ski season ends in a few weeks! I quickly signed both kids up for lessons (Dova's first) and hoped for good weather. At first the kids were excited about going, but by the day before, the unstoppable whining began. After spending $160 for half day lessons and rentals for both of them, they were going to go no matter what, barring high fevers and broken limbs. Even after getting the equipment, Dova was still whining that she didn't want to ski and didn't want to take the class. But we found something quite amazing after we put her in the skis. She didn't fall down. She started to slide around and kept her balance. She even slid backwards and thought it was fun. The girl has unbelievable balance. She still kept yelling at us that she didn't want us to help or hold her hand, as she can be extremely independent, but then again, she didn't need our help, only a little to pull her up the incline.

Dova was still tentative at the start of the lesson. But after the instructor took a shining to her, she quickly joined the class. We checked in on her near the end of the lesson and her instructor told us that she had never seen a first time skier like Dova. She said that she skied as if she had been doing it for years, turning in both directions and stopping. Unbelievable! Dova told her that she could ride the "magic carpet" all day long. We watched Dova take the magic carpet up and fly down to the bottom with a graceful turn. Her hands were always poised to keep her in perfect balance. When the lesson was over, she tried to convince the lift operator to "have one more run". So maybe four is the magic age to start kids skiing. I really don't think one year makes that much difference and it depends more on the child. Dova has also had several months of ice skating lessons, so that definitely helps. (Adam started skating after skiing and that first skating lesson was also painful to watch, but he has obviously become a great skater and hockey player since.)

Here is what Dova's instructor wrote on her evaluation card:

Oh my goodness! She is a complete natural. We worked on waking in boots/skis, we did duck walking, straight runs and turning. FABULOUS! Definitely level 2 next time. Thank you SO much!

Of course Adam did very well in his lesson as well and moved up to level 3. Here he is slaloming through the cones:


Now Doug and I have the skiing bug and want to go again next weekend (the "I don't want to go skiing" whining has already started from the kids). The family that skis together stays together, right? Or simply goes broke in the process.

Photo Hunters - I Spy... A Mermaid

Oh my, that's a lot of food for one little mermaid! Dova helped make those sandwiches, including "apple sandwiches". Play food is one of her absolute favorite toys. For some reason, we can't find the ice cream cones, hope she didn't eat them...

Giveaway - Be Happy Without Being Perfect

In my enthusiasm to read this book where I am interviewed, I ordered my own copy and also received one from the publisher on the very same day. So I'm giving away a copy of Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Break Free from the Perfection Deception, which gives women perspective on how to avoid the Martha Stewart syndrome of constantly striving to be perfect.

Here's how to enter (US and Canada residents only please):

1. Send me a note using the form below.
2. For an extra entry, blog about this contest using this text and send me a link to your post.
   

   Angela at mommy bytes is giving away the book, Be Happy Without Being Perfect. Check out her contest post and enter by March 31st.
   

Winner will be chosen on March 31, 2008. Please fill out this form to enter (be patient with the captcha...):

Thurzday Thurteen #36 - LOLCat Edition

Here are my some of my favorite recent LOLCats:


























Check out more at .

Wordless Wednesday - Dova naps with her best friend

We were given this photo from Dova's preschool showing the girls sleeping together holding hands. Dova and Piper have been best of friends ever since they started this school as toddlers at 15 months old and are inseparable.

Hump Day Hmm - WTF at Tsongas Arena!

Adam's cub scout pack arranged a trip to see a Lowell Devils (minor league team of the NJ Devils) hockey game at Tsongas Arena in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was a fantastic event including a tour of the ambulance used by the hockey players, pizza in our own club room, front row seats in the end zone, a chance for one of the scouts to ride the Zamboni (more on another post), and a free skate on the ice after the game. The atmosphere was festive, everyone was in a great mood, and the Devils won in a shoot-off. I forgot to bring my camera, but the iPhone was a worthy substitute, and you can see the entire set of pictures here.

There was one incident that marred the event. All through the game, there were promotional giveaways, a Jeep and tons of shirts for the crowd. You can see the mascot, a "devil dog" throwing shirts here:


I saw a shirt come flying over the glass and come down right over the cub scout pack leader. Now this guy is top notch person, pulling strings to organize the details of this event and even putting Dova on his lap for a group picture (she is apparently dying to be a cub scout just like her brother). He reached up to grab the shirt, and fumbled it. In the time it took for the shirt to jump from his hands and reach the ground, a teenager from across the aisle dove under the handrail and snatched up the shirt before the pack leader bent down to get it. WTF!! The teenager ran back to his seat with the shirt, showed his mom (who did not witness this move) and the mom patted him on the back and said, "Good for you!" We turned to look at the pack leader and he just smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, Oh well. He handled it completely with class. We were outraged! Doug muttered, "That was really low." I was fuming. The worst part was that he actually got confirmation for his actions by his mom. I wanted to go over there, grab this misfit by the collar and tell him that he ought to return the shirt. Then again, I didn't want to make a scene in front of all these impressionable cub scouts. In the end I kept quiet and just filed it away for a blog post. What would you do?

Don't forget to visit Hump Day hostess Julie at Using My Words.

Tuesday Toot - Adam Writes!

Adam has had a lot of trouble so far in first grade getting his writing assignments done in class. It started way back in September and has been a problem ever since. He would come home after school, knowing that he was in trouble for not completing his assignment and then whine and mope for hours (no exaggeration) that he didn't want to do it. We knew that he didn't have any problems with penmanship or forming sentences and couldn't understand why he wouldn't do them. In fact, he came up with this fantastic sentence for the word "froze" in a spelling test:

When it was one degree, the power froze for a second.

He finally explained that he didn't like to write "fiction" and he only wanted to write truths and facts. So for a while, he did his assignments by writing facts about the picture and not a story. But soon that didn't work either. His teacher felt that it was a "compliance" issue, but we knew that there was something deeply uncomfortable about writing for Adam. She told us that he was the best writer in the class when it came to sentence structure and formation so he should be able to do the assignments. I tried to explain to her that he was having trouble with the creative process and not so much the writing part of it. I asked her to help him come up with ideas instead of punishing him for not writing. As soon as he sees that he is in trouble, it becomes a downward spiral where he gets completely frustrated and even more writer's block.

So both his teacher and I offered up ideas upon ideas for Adam's writing assignments, even factual ones, but he refused to use them because he didn't like them. I tried to explain to him that it didn't have to be perfect, it just had to be completed. I also tried to dispel the belief that fiction was somehow bad or not truthful by giving him the example of video games. Obviously Mario isn't real and all his exploits on Super Mario Galaxy are fictional stories. See those pigs in that picture? They like to play video games. Why don't you write about which video games they like to play. Even though he felt that wasn't a good idea, he got one assignment done with that notion. I told him, when you can't come up with ideas, you can always fall back on video games as you never seem have trouble writing about them.

So imagine our surprise when we got this assignment back today:

One day a girl flu her kite on a very windy day. The wind was so strong it blu her way up in the sky. In one week she went all the way around the wourld. When she got home she wanted to do it again. So... She went around the wourld a secend time.

Doug and I were completely astounded by this story and extremely proud of him. And his teacher must have been pleased when she wrote "Super!" as well. Adam was a bit embarrassed when I wanted to read the story to Dova, and almost didn't let me put it on the blog. But he knows that we are truly proud of him.