Sary, Sary, Quite Contrary

Conversation with Sarah:

Sarah:  Mom, what should I have for dessert: chocolate or a tootsie roll?
Me:  Whatever you want.
Sarah: You choose.
Me:  You have to choose for yourself.  I don't know what you want.
Sarah: I want you to choose.
Me: Chocolate.
Sarah: But the tootsie roll will last longer.
Me: Tootsie roll then.
Sarah: Which one? You have to choose.
Me: Tootsie roll.
Sarah: But the chocolate is bigger.
Me: How about neither?
Sarah: No, you pick.
Me: Chocolate.
She ate the tootsie roll.  It's been this way ever since she could talk.  I choose not to be bothered by it anymore.

Rollerskating mouse

Upon entering the kitchen to make lunch, I tripped over a stuffed mouse wearing roller skates.  Someday I'm going to miss these little shenanigans.

Angel in a bikini

I was helping Noah with his CBS homework.  He was supposed to draw what I was reading.  It was a section from Revelation about angels wearing robes with a sash across the chest and holding golden bowls.  He scratched out a drawing, studied it awhile, then said, "Well, it looks like the angel is wearing a bikini and holding a dog bowl, but that will have to do." 

MLK

We were in the pool with LOTS of multicultural children at the hotel in Nashville. Sarah went up to one girl and announced, "My name is Sarah, I'm 5 years old, and I'm one hundred percent Korean and one hundred percent American." The little girl cocked her head quizzically and said, "Say what?"
Then Sarah said to me, "Thank God for Martin Luther King, Jr. Otherwise, we wouldn't all be able to be in the same pool together!"

Mistakes

I saw an interview with President Obama in which he said he makes at least one mistake a day, sometimes two. Today when Sarah spilled an entire cup of juice (again), I told her that even the president makes mistakes (my responses are usually much less gracious; it's a good day). Noah overheard the whole thing and said, "Do you think President Obama knocks over a cup of juice on the White House floor every day?"

Apple Pi

Once every few years, we have such an incredible homeschooling day that it makes up for all the rest (at least that's what I'm telling myself). We were certainly due for one, and today was it.

It all began several hours ago with an inspiration for a math lesson. I gathered the troops and told them to go on a circle hunt, with each kid bringing three things shaped like a circle to the kitchen table. Then I introduced the terms "diameter" and "circumference" and we talked about how to measure them. The kids made a chart of each object's diameter and circumference and then used a calculator to divide the circumference by the diameter. I pointed out that the answer was about 3, no matter what size the circle was.

I was about to launch into an explanation about pi when Noah interrupted and said, "Hey, I wonder what the diameter of my head is!" I asked him how we might figure out the diameter without jamming a ruler through his brain. He thought for awhile and then said, "Couldn't we just measure the circumference and divide it by 3?" So we did that, and then I told them that there was a name for that special 3.14 number.

As soon as I said it was called pi, my food-obsessed daughter said, "Can we make an apple pie?" That led to an English lesson about spelling and homonyms. Sarah couldn't be distracted from the pie, so we made an apple pie, which led to a big kitchen cleaning. All in all a great homeschool day.

The pictures (which I don't know how to keep in order--if you know, please tell me!) show the kids eating a long apple peel from each end till they met in the middle and using the long peels as a jump rope.

Too safe

Before chemistry class this afternoon, I gave the kids a speech about chemical safety. I told them we were going to be mixing some potentially hazardous chemicals and that they shouldn't touch them or inhale the fumes. Noah wanted to know what would happen if they did, so I read the warnings on the label of zinc oxide about diarrhea, nausea, headaches, etc. Sarah freaked out and ran out of the room. She returned with sunglasses on and held her breath the whole time. She refused to participate in the experiment and was even reluctant to watch us do it. She said, "I don't want to get diarrhea!"