Blue Jellyfish

Seth and I dropped Leah off at a production of Annie that was being performed at the local high school the other night. It was dark and the snow started to fall pretty hard by the time we got her all settled in and left for home (she was with her Activity Day leaders and other friends). On the ride home Seth kept telling me that if the blue jellyfish were on he could see the snow better. I of course had not idea what he was talking about and quickly changed the conversation. About a mile or so from home I turned on the high beam lights in the truck and Seth yelled out, "There is the blue jellyfish, now I can see the snow." Ah - it all started to make sense. I thought his description of the high beam indicator was pretty accurate - don't you? - jsl 

L & S

It was about 12:05 a.m. last night when I was ready to climb into bed. It was at that moment that I heard little feet dart from one room to the next against the floor. I went upstairs only to find Leah pulling the covers up and over her dainty body on my side of the bed. Instead of pulling her out, I decided to stay up for a little while longer to give her the time she needed to fall asleep so I could carry her back to bed. During that time frame I put these few videos and pictures together of Leah & Seth. They seem to do everything together...jsl

January 2010

The weather here can’t decide if it’s going to turn into spring. The sun shines brightly and today I took off my second layer for indoors, but the wind picks up and the snow in the front yard refuses to melt! My vote is for spring, but I think the groundhog has already turned in his vote and I lose this time.

Some cute happenings have been seen at our home this month. Leah was anxious to fulfill her month chore as Kitchen Helper and eagerly made lunch for everyone more than once. She got out all of the condiments for the bread, wrote down each person’s sandwich preference and then had to stand on tip-toes at the kitchen counter as she took on the hardest part…assembly. It was a treat to be served by such a happy cook!

We’ve lived in this house for nearly five years now and numerous things have come over the loft banister to land in the reading room…dirty laundry, stuffed animals, game pieces, Legos, dog toys, Nerf darts and more. You can come inspect the scratches on our fairly-new side table if you want proof! This month was the first time I saw an organized system of dumping, and it satisfied the teacher in me rather than bothering me. Levi and I have been studying simple machines in science and we had read about and experimented with pulleys, gears and levers, etc. (Perhaps Jeremy has posted one or our videos on the blog?) Levi’s spool of thread with a pencil handle slowly lowered a basket which he had carved out of soap. When the other children got home from school they were excited to join the fun, and soon we had another wheel-and-axle machine with an even bigger basket moving slowly up and down. The raising and lowering are even more fun when the basket carries something, so soon the children were taking turns in the upstairs position to twist the wheel, or in the kitchen finding little things like carrots, nuts, and toys to send up and down. From what I overheard, the rule became that the person upstairs would wait to roll the wheel until a double-tug was made on the string. Even more difficult was hoisting the basket while averting one’s eyes from it so that the arrival of its contents would be a surprise. This happened repeatedly over the space of several days…learning can be such fun!

I must record Seth’s development in his goals for a career this year. When kindergarten began, he was still quite sure that he wanted to be a Dog Pillower when he grew up. For those of you who are uneducated in this field, his job would entail lying beside a dog and stretching out his hand for the dog to rest its head upon. He has spoken of this career path for several months! Last fall at school Seth made a journal entry on the topic of what he wanted to be when he grew up. To my surprise he had changed his mind considerably! His chosen profession was now a Box Remoover. He patiently explained to me that he would be moving boxes from one place to another.  Although he is such a big boy and studying at the big school now, Seth often reminisces about our Laugh and Learn Preschool years together. One month we studied garbage and recycling and even went on a fieldtrip to the landfill. This year, he has announced quite clearly that he will become a Garbage Man when he grows up…very specifically, not the one who is driving the truck, but the one who rides on the back and lifts the garbage bags into the truck! In just one short year he has moved from make-believe jobs to realistic. This is both dear and a little bit sad for me, since he is my baby. I do have confidence that at a rate of three chosen occupations per year, Seth will have chosen the perfect career by the time he finishes his schooling!

In the past we have celebrated the New Year by counting down to 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. We blow our horns, drink our sparkling cider and everyone is in bed long before midnight. This year with the boys getting older, they invited over a couple of friends. We had four times as much food as needed (but you never can tell with a bunch of pre-teen boys!) and they enjoyed total reign in the basement. All food, games, movies, blankets, etc were contained…and they were actually much quieter than I had expected, which was nice. They barely managed to keep their eyes opened to see the clock strike 12:00 a.m. but insisted that they had had so much fun that we should definitely do it again.

Noah and Levi have graduated to wearing white shirts with ties to church. As you can imagine, Seth wants a tie. In a very loving and thoughtful gesture, Leah drew several differently designed ties (including a black bow-tie) on white paper for her brother to wear to church. It’s fun as a parent to sometimes sit back and watch a child take complete initiative for a project. This was one of those that I wasn’t strongly opposed to and wondered where it would lead. Seth was of course ecstatic! They first tried scotch tape, then searched for miscellaneous safety pins when that didn’t work. For several Sundays they forgot about the ties until they got to church and saw all of the men in the congregation in ties. Finally, Leah and Seth got their heads together and remembered everything before we left for church…picking out the tie, finding the safety pin, getting it in place without scrunching it too badly with his coat, and we were off to church. It was fun to watch as two different gentlemen observed Seth’s pinned-on, paper tie and nudged wives to look over or gave Seth a thumbs-up during the meeting. One came over after the closing prayer and told him how great he looked and that he wanted to go home and make a tie like that, too. Seth and Leah both beamed!

My sister Emily brought a delectable lemon cheesecake to the Leavitt family Christmas dinner this year. It was as beautiful as it was delicious…with semi-circle lemon slices wrapping the sides of the cake. Somehow her successful experiment has gotten me out of some work on July 1st of this year! On the drive home from Grandma’s Noah announced that he would hire Emily to make that cheesecake for his birthday cake this year. Well, a good laugh turned into reality when Emily gave Noah a hug a few days later and agreed to do it…and, at no charge!

One part of having young children that I will surely miss someday will be finding little surprises hidden around the house. Seth and Leah occasionally play that there is a mouse living in our house. They come up with some pretty interesting suspicions about this imaginary mouse! They collect clues by investigating and write them down in notebooks. They set various traps and make maps of where clues have been found. This week they gathered any game piece from our closet of games that was yellow. They also cut out shapes from yellow paper. These yellow items were placed in potted plants, shoes, under bed pillows, under tables and in laundry piles (clean and dirty). I am still finding pieces of “cheese” as I do my house chores. I hope that these game pieces find a way back to the correct boxes so that we can play our board games again!

P.S. I have to thank Leah for an unending supply of bookmarks—quite handy for a Mom that loves to read. She completely buries little papers under multicolor marker decorations…perfectly-sized for placing in a book!