mamasewingcircus.com

Mom, you’ll be proud. I use my Zoology degree at least once every year when I choose not to make anatomically correct bones, but instead a whole pile of identifiable ones.

Meringue bones from our graveyard:

Will and Sylvie got Star Wars figurines for Sylvie’s birthday. For Sylvie, an Obie Wan; for Will, a Yoda aka Oda. Will has been active in play since the purchase. Apparently Obie and Oda used to be friends, but Obie Wan was a troubled kid and used to punch his friends. Now, Oda doesn’t like him.

Will has also been quick to adopt Oda into the family. Actual quotes:
“Oda needs to sit over there, he likes to swim in eggs.”
“Oda wants to go to the hammer park.”
“Oda doesn’t like Elmo. Oda wants to watch George.”

Just for fun:

Tonight the kids dragged me to the Lawrence Hall of Science Halloween fair. We were rather late getting up there, so we made it to only the juice table and the fortune teller before it was time for the Magic show. According to the fortune teller, Sylvie has a brother, is about 2, likes grape juice and bananas. Sylvie nodded her head in agreement. Both kids loved the magic show. I wonder how much magic is lost on a 2 year-old. We debuted the kids’ halloween costumes – Sylvie the monkey and Will the dragon.

Following the magic show was a costume parade led by – according to Sylvie – a very, very scary mummy. So scary, she came running for her own mummy.

The scary dragon:

The slain dragon:

The inside of a monkey:

An aside- I’ve been playing around with an iPhone app that applies filters to my pictures. Some of them salvage not so great pictures. Some just downgrade interesting pictures to grainy, polaroidish photos. Here are a few other filters:

Weekend America asked 10 writers to write scary stories that can be read in less than a minute. Here’s this year’s. And last year’s.

Here’s one way to watch the PBS Frontline Choice 2008. You can also download the entire show from iTunes.

Our kids are slowly becoming involved with this election as we’ve made them suffer through the conventions and then all 4 debates with us. Sylvie clapped happily everytime McCain or Palin spoke during the RNC – which I think says something about their demographic. And just like most Americans, Sylvie has stopped clapping for those two since the RNC, and has mastered “Barack Obama, yeah!!” Okay, so it still sounds a little more like “Bok Mama, yeah!” But, she proudly shouts it randomly throughout the day.

Anyway, on our run this past weekend we entertained the kids by having them find Obama signs, which in Berkeley is not that hard. Will asked why we don’t have an Obama sign on our house, and Doug said that it was because we didn’t know where to get one.

Tonight while I was making dinner some guy came to the door and Will came running to me screaming, “Mom, come quick! Mom, come here! …” Knowing it was someone asking for money, I figured my screaming daughter and bubblng bechamel were more pressing. A few minutes later Will came in deflated, “Mom, I wanted an Obama sign. It was the Obama sign guy and he went away because you didn’t come! Oh Mom!”

Look at those two boys. Will has always made his current age seem old. At 2 weeks, I felt like he’d been alive (and awake) for months. At 6 months, he had the speed and agility of a toddler. At 2, he seemed so self-assured and worldly. And now, at 4, when I turned around to ask him a question, and saw him slumped down in his car seat whispering, only to be turned away because, “Mah-aahm, I’m on the phone!” (a tube of paper he fashioned while I was fastening his seatbelt) he seemed 16. At this rate, he’ll be old enough to retire before I am!

They grow up so fast. I’m almost afraid to blink.

It has been a long time since I’ve worked on the small fun stuff – somehow quick flannel pants don’t count – so I dug a shirt out of the box waiting to go to Goodwill and went to town on a new shirt for Sylvie. Gap mens shirts are really soft and nice to work with. Since this one felt so lived in, I didn’t hem the bottom or the trim on the pockets, but instead finished them with a zig zag. It works.

I also figured out how to make Sylvie’s accidental felt sweater look more kid-like – plaid kissing ducks!

One of the few good things about the kids falling ill is that I got to spend some one on one time with Will last week. Monday he stayed home and we wrote daddy a love note – I made dotted letters which he traced. We made a garland of ghosts out of cheap napkins we had lying around. Will laid a napkin out un-folded, smushed another in the center, and then tied the head. Always a little scientist, he tampered with the ghost recipe making a few with two and three napkins in the head. He learned to tie a simple square knot. Thinking back to our afternoon, I’m not sure why I didn’t get him to make me a spider web out of our ball of string – the kid is amazing at tying knots!

The Christmas shopping season begins the day after Thanksgiving, but the Christmas crafting season goes all year round. In case you are at a loss for semi-manly ideas – I’m thinking we might make a round of keychains using techniques I’ve learned for making resin jewels. Here’s a tutorial for making resin jewels from threadbanger.

What man wouldn’t prefer a fob adorned with pictures of loved ones to generic fobs?