A Book About [Muffin Man]

Each phrase has a photograph accompanying it. Muffin Man in tiger make-up, dressed as a pirate, banging cymbals, riding his bike, sleeping, with his artwork, playing with his friend, cuddling with me.

[Muffin Man] is a tiger.
[Muffin Man] is a pirate.
[Muffin Man] makes noise! BANG!
[Muffin Man] rides his bicycle.
Shhh! [Muffin Man] is sleeping.
[Muffin Man] likes to draw.
[Deep Voiced Toddler] and [MM] are friends.
Mommy loves [Muffin Man].


It was a big hit.

Weekend: Short form

Saturday: Soup-and-Bread, Pool. (View of Fireworks from my window)
Sunday: IHOP, Wegmans, Playground and Pool with Deep-Voiced-Toddler and his mom.
Monday: Soup-and-Bread, some quiet contemplation, Mr. Spock and Friend come home, Lunch out, Pool, Wegmans, Dinner and Brownies.

I think something's not quite right with my oven. The brownies (recipe from Cooks Illustrated a couple of years ago) got a leetle over-cooked. They were still delicious though. Next I'm going to try the ones that Brooklyn Girl describes.

Tomorrow: Class and hanging out with Friend. Also homework.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Front row seat

Memorial day fireworks, right outside my window. I'm watching them as I type. Beautiful.

So glad I got Muffin Man to bed early tonight!

Countdown

In 15 minutes, I am leaving to pick up Muffin Man from Posh New Place. Today was a big day for him. He had his very first dentist appointment (and did very well, cooperative and no cavities) and his first full day of Pre-K.

This weekend he and I are on our own. Mr. Spock is out of town shmoozing with a friend. They will both come back here Monday afternoon so that Muffin Man and I will also have a chance to schmooze with said friend. This is important because soon our friend is moving to Canada to live with his new bride, also a friend (and frequent commenter, Hi Jenn!). She lives about as far away as you can get and still be on the same continent.

But the point is that MM and I are going to be on our own. The communtity pool is open this weekend, and it's going to be in the 80's, so we're probably going to spend quite a bit of time splashing about. We're going to bake those brownies I've been wanting to try and we're going to maybe eat a strawberry if it gets ripe enough.

We'll probably color and play with Tt(F)TE and almost certainly watch some movies. And I will try to focus on him and not get too irritable when he tries to weasel out of having some quiet time in the middle of the day.

And I will give him a book that I made for him today. A book that he just might be able to read all by himself. Maybe. Because I used words I know he can recognize even though he's not really reading yet.

So I'm going into the forest of short-term single parenthood. Don't send out a search party if you don't hear from me until Monday. I'll be back!

Today's class...

Was about the physical and cognitive development of children ages birth to 3 years. So naturally we discussed childbirth. And big news! I'm not the only mom in the class!
The teacher asked the moms in the class to give our opinion on natural vs. medicated childbirth and I said, "If I hadn't already been married, I would have proposed to my anesthetist. But then, I had pitocin." And the other mom said, "Pitocin is the pits." And we both did the surfer nod. The one so aptly demonstrated by Crush the sea turtle in Finding Nemo.

And then we watched movies of cute little babies being confused by trains that didn't stop when they should have (object permanance).

And my Linguistics class was notable for the amount of blue language that flew around as we were talking about infixes. In English the only examples of infixes are when an entire obscenity is placed in the middle of another word (ie: "Fan-fucking-tastic" or "Abso-bloomin'-lutely"). Great fun!

New News re: Nous.

Big scholastic news here at Chez Mystery!

Muffin Man is starting Pre-K! He visited for a few hours yesterday and today. Will do the same tomorrow and Thursday and then Friday they're going to do a big to-do about moving his name tag and folder to the new classroom. He's uncertain as to whether this is a good thing. On the one hand, the Pre-K kids get to do some stuff that the mere pre-schoolers don't. On the other hand, Deep-Voiced Toddler is not yet ready to make this move and will be left behind in the old class. Muffin Man doesn't like leaving DVT behind and doesn't really want to change teachers. But we're making promises about play-dates and his teacher actually spends part of each morning in the new class so things are proceeding.

The director of Posh New Place says they normally don't move kids into Pre-K this early, but that Muffin Man is "quite advanced". Thus ends the bragging portion of this post.


Yesterday also marked the start of my Summer classes. I'm taking 4 classes this Summer, 2 in the first half (May/June) and 2 in the second half (July/August). Each session is four weeks long and the classes meet more often for longer periods. This first half I'm taking Developmental Psychology and Linguisitics. So far in DP, we've covered research methods and ethics (briefly); Cognition and Learning; and Fetal Development. (Extra special thanks to Andrea from Beanie Baby for her in-depth analysis of how genetic counselling can be seen as eugenic in nature. I was able to take the "con" position in a pros and cons debate in class today. Also thanks to so many of you who have described CVS on your blogs so that I could helpfully point out that it carries a risk of miscarriage.)

In Linguistics, we're reading about Morphology. I am now going to get my (actually, Mr. Spock's) copy of the Oxford American Dictionary so that I can make an approximation of how many words I know. (Open a dictionary. Count the number of words you know on several pages chosen at random. Divide the full number of words you counted by the number of pages you found them on. Multiply that number by the number of pages in the dictionary.) I'll report the number later.


UPDATED: And the number is.....a little under 70,000. However, my teacher pointed out that there is no real way to tell how many words you know. When you factor in the family of numbers (1 through infinity), you actually know an infinite number of words.

A, A, A-, A, A+

That is all.

Past, Present, Future

As seen at Angry Pregnant Lawyer.

20 years ago: I was 17. Dating this guy. Hanging out with this guy.

10 years ago today: I looked like this.

5 years ago today: I looked like this. And conceived this.

1 year ago today: I wrote this.

So far this year: I've started and finished one semester at college. And I'm loving every minute of it. And am so grateful to Mr. Spock for working his butt off so that I can go to school full-time. I love you, sweetheart. Happy Tenth Anniversary.

Yesterday: I wrote most of this post.

Today: I celebrated our anniversary by taking my car in for an oil change, aren't I romantic?

Tomorrow: The three of us will take the train up to NYC to see my parents and grand-parents.

Muffin Man: Trend Setter.

Scene: Posh New Pre-school.
Personnel: Muffin Man, me, all his beautiful little classmates, and his teacher.

Muffin Man and I sweep in at 8:45. He has not yet had breakfast (bad mommy!). We put his jacket and backpack his hook in the cubby area and head for the breakfast table.

Me: Oooh, look! Waffles! Would you like one?
MM: Yes, please.
Me: Syrup?
MM: Yes, please.

I serve him. I look up. There is a herd of beautiful little pre-school girls surrounding him.

BLPSG1: Can I have a waffle, too?
BLPSG2: And me?
BLPSG3, 4, & 5: Me too!

Teacher: Wait a minute! Ten minutes ago you all said you weren't hungry!

BLPSGs: {silent}
BLPSG1: Muffin Man is having one. I want one, too.
BLPSG2, 3, 4, & 5: Me too!

I left them still trying to sort out how to split 2 waffles among 5 girls. They may have had to order up extra rations.

Tests are over. Now in other news...

Mr. Spock and I weeded a bit and planted some flowers in our front yard and some strawberries, tomato plants, and rosemary in our side yard. Gardening! I'm hoping that the strawberries and tomatoes bear fruit for us to eat. I've never eaten anything I've grown myself. This is exciting!

I placed an order from Amazon for some books for my Recent American Fiction class that I'll be taking the second half of the summer. Seven books, two of which I've read before. I've read parts of the others in the past as well.

Authors include: Cisneros, Walker, O'Brien, O'Connor, Vonnegut, DeLillo, and Carver. Turns out, "Recent" means "Since WWII". Which is fine. But seriously, our whole country's only 230 years old, pre-1960 counts as recent? Not that I'm complaining. I'm looking forward to the class.

Interesting discovery: when ordering more than a few items from Amazon, it makes fiscal sense to buy the books new directly from Amazon, even if you can get them cheaper used from their "marketplace". You save more on shipping than you pay for the books.

ROAR!!!!

DSC04789
Originally uploaded by Mystery Mommy.

Muffin Man formally dressed for dinner last Wednesday. Tiger face paint courtesy of the restaurant which has a "kids eat free, get balloons, and face painting" night each week.

He is also sporting his Summer uniform shirt from Posh New Place.

Brownies

Muffin Man and I made brownies yesterday. We used Moosewood's recipe and they came out really well...if what you want is very good chocolate cake. Which I love, but it wasn't what I was going for. Cakiness included: consistancy and a matte top crust.

So as soon as my Women and Work final is over, I'm going to try the recipe from Cook's Illustrated several years ago, which goes into great detail about how to avoid cakiness and get that true brownie panache. According to them, the secret is fewer eggs and a mix of semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate with a bit of cocoa powder. Also, more vanilla and less butter. Hmmm. I'm looking forward to trying it.

Still. The Moosewood recipe comes out deeply chocolatey and is really scrumptious with frosting. It just may be the best recipe for chocolate cake I've ever used. The question is, do I go down for one more piece before bed tonight? Or do I have some for breakfast in the morning?

(shhhh! don't tell anyone!)

But Muffin Man earned a huge reward today.

Huge.

It's been a full week. A week I tell you! Every poop he's made during the past week has gone into the toilet without prompting from me or Mr. Spock. But...I don't want to jinx anything. You know how our children are. Blog about it and it's gone.

So he's earned his reward and he's oh-so-happy being a veterinarian. With a lab coat. And a stethoscope. And bandages. And an emesis tray.

But....shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone!

Happy Mother's Day!

To my two moms: QuiltsAlot and SingsLullabyes. I love you both. See you next weekend!

To my sister and my grandma: Love to you too!

And to all the other moms I admire: You are all there on my blog-roll except Chris, and I'll be adding you soon. PS, APL, YT, Andrea, Susie Sunshine, Mommy D., Elswhere, Marla, Jody, CCW, Lawmummy, Anne Glamore, Lucinda, Suzan, PK, Susan, Jo(e), Klee, Angie, and I'm leaving people out, and, and, and especially Moreena. You are all sources of inspiration to me. Thank you for sharing your lives and your mommy-hood with me.

Two down - UPDATED

One to go.

I got an A on the Communications final, and an A in the course. Yay! That's two definite A's, one probable A, and two I don't know about yet.

UPDATED: I just got my final grade in Statistics: A!
So that's three definite A's and two I don't know about yet.

One down

Two to go.









Finals, that is.

Mama's got a brand new bag...

New backpack, that is. It is so sweet. It's a laptop bag, but it'll comfortably hold books. Which is mostly what it'll be carrying except for those rare times when I have presentations. Like yesterday, when I was hauling my laptop in one bag and my books in another.

Also, I bought a new binder which hopefully will actually bind. And paper. Ooooh.

What is it about new school supplies that get a person all giddy? I feel like I should put brand new pennies in my loafers.

Classes are over

I just posted my last assignment to our virtual class. I'm done with classwork.
Now I just have 3 finals to get through.

I've really enjoyed this semester. Even the parts that weren't so fun were interesting. I worked hard, never missed a class, sat up front-and-center in every class, and participated (maybe too much at times).

Excuse me if I'm not around much the next several days...finals...must...study...

Another Void

Yankee Transplant-

So much wit and wisdom. Two gorgeous daughters. Philosophy and insight into human nature. Anger and joy. Smart and funny. Whimsical and loving.

I'll miss your postings.

I wanted to know so many things: OD's prom and graduation and first days of college. YD's high school adventures.

Your life with The Attorney. Front porch photos.

Big hugs to you.

We'll miss you, YT. It's not fair to lose you and Corndog in the same week.

This Space Intentionally Left Blank

Corndog has taken down his site.

We may never know the story of his time in a fraternity.

We may never find out the end of the top 100 of 1978.

I miss him already.

Come back soon, Corndog.


We'll miss you, Corndog. Come back soon.

Well, that's a relief

The term paper, she is done. Not just done, but delivered.

Here is what my professor wanted included with the 13 page (including References) paper:

• Copies of all the sources I used (since my References ran a page and a half, you can imagine the heft). Fortunately, I only needed to copy the pages I cited from the two books I used, but I had to include complete copies of all 12 artucles.
• Copies of three previous drafts with peer reviews and the professor's notes.
• Copies of the draft and final version of my in-class presentation slides.
• and...I know I'm forgetting something, but it's in the folder, you can bet on it.

Thank goodness, I am able to use most of the paper for my W&W class (due tomorrow). So all papers for this term are DONE. DONE!!!!

On the down side, I did putridly on my Stats test today. But that's okay, he's going to drop the lowest score and I'm going to studystudystudy for the final next week.

Phew.

Only 4 days more of classes, then 4 finals, then Spring semester is over. And the Summer semester starts 3 weeks from today.

Anyone have any chocolate?