An Attention Grabber

Orin has devised a new way of getting attention.

If you find this a little scary,

you are not alone.

Crazed Ashes Child

One of Orin's new favorite activities is playing the game

"Ring Around the Roses" which he refers to as "Ashes."

Ever since I mistakenly taught him the game he has become

completely obsessed with it.

Now whenever someone comes over, the first thing he will do is

try to lure them into playing the game with him.

They inevitably fall for his tricks and play a couple rounds,

which in Orin's book means that they will play with him immediately

and for as long as he would like

every time they visit on subsequent occasions.

I swear he has a running record of victims.

Chris is on there. So am I.

But when all else fails, Orin is not above playing Ashes by himself.

After all, the game can go on forever if you never reach the

verse about how "we all fall down."

Who knew a seemingly harmless nursery rhyme

could do this to an otherwise normal child?

Yard Work

At some point last year, we came to the general consensus that

from the outside, our house looked like a large white cube.

Ever since then we have talked about projects we could do

to make our house look less cube-ish.

During the winter is was too cold for yard work

so our discussions were confined to the kitchen.

But now that Spring has officially set in

(I define the first day of Spring as the first day I spot wildflowers blooming)

it was time to end the procrastination stage and begin getting to work

fixing our cube problem.

Here is what we were starting with:

The first step was to plant some trees,

but in order to do that, we had to dig some holes.

Orin helped by standing in the holes after completion.

He would then assess each hole for shape and depth

before giving us the okay.

We planted 4 trees.

Then it was time to plant some ornamental grasses.

Once again, we needed to start with a hole.

We are hoping that the grass ends up looking

slightly more appealing than it does now.

Next it was time for a slight sprucing of the side of the house
with the addition of a couple of bushes
and an entire packet of wildflower seeds.
We then ran the RotoTiller over our grass/moss/ dead grass

combo, which some people refer to as our lawn

and planted a bed in the front yard, which we lined with rocks.
And then, for good measure, we repeated the process
on the other side of the walkway.
Feeling that we needed more rocks, we decided to build a wall.

It was tedious, sweaty work but it paid off nicely.

And presto!
we now had a rock wall around our cube.

Hummm... more to come.

Samson

The other day we went to OMSI to see Samson,
one of the most complete T-Rex skeletons in existence.
Orin has had a growing fascination with dinosaurs
ever since I attempted to cure his inability to take
reasonably-sized bites of food by teaching him
to open his mouth "as wide as a T-Rex".
He was all about it.
Dinosaur later became his first 3-syllable word
(followed closely by "bicycle" and "ah-jah-da."
which is Orin's word for water)
So Orin was understandably excited
when we told him about Samson.
However, like any good thing, we made him wait to see the
dinosaur until after we had toured the space exhibit,
where Orin got to sit in a rocket-ship
and weigh himself on Earth, the moon, and Mars
(he is still 20 pounds on this planet).
But eventually, we found ourselves climbing the 3 sets of stairs
leading to the T-Rex exhibit.
When Orin first saw Samson, I am not sure what he thought.
Compared to his dinosaur magnets and his brightly-colored
wall hanging, this 40 ft 6 ton beast
was in a whole different category of awesome.
The skull you see in this picture isn't even the real skull
(the real one is in a case off to the side) because it is too heavy
to be supported by the metal frame holding the other bones in place.If anything, the trip to OMSI that day changed Orin's status
from a dinosaur enthusiast to a dinosaur fanatic.
Who knows what will be next.

School Days

A couple of months ago, Orin started going to school.

I wasn't planning on starting him so early, but a friend of mine

knew a Montessori teacher who had just started up her own school

and was enrolling new students.

Orin and I decided to go check it out and fell in love with the place.

Here it is from the outside:

And the inside:

This is the classroom (angle one)

(angle two),

the kitchen,

and, most importantly, the fish tank.

It might have been the fish tank that sealed the deal,

or it could have been the fact that we both instantly adored

his teacher, Ms. Jessika, but either way, we were sold.

Orin has been going a couple times a week ever since.

The Montessori style emphasizes self-directed
(the children get to pick which "station" they would like to work at
and the amount of time they would like to work on a particular task)
learning through movement
and focuses on teaching children "real world" things
like cooking, gardening, and problem solving.
Here are a few pictures of Orin and his classmates in action:

I decided to finally post about his school today because

a. it was the first time I remembered to bring a camera

and

b. this afternoon was the class Valentine's Day party.

As soon as I arrived I was greeted by the
usual swarming mass of children

led by Orin, who later became way too interested in his pink cupcake

to sit for the class picture.

After we ate our cupcakes, there were valentines to share
and more candy to be eaten before we collected our little paper hearts,
washed the pink frosting off our faces, and headed home.

While Orin is not at school,
he spends his time monkeying around

or just hanging out.

More to come...

Mega Garden Update

Now, for another update.
Although this is probably totally unwanted,
I am going to give you the latest scoop on my gardening project.
See, this is my first year planting in the ground
(I am not counting the squash last year)
and I feel the need to write about every single step,
even if it is not interesting to anyone but me.
That being said,
last weekend we broke out the RotoTiller.

I have been killing the grass on the site of my garden-to-be
for a few months now,
but I decided that we should till the ground up anyway,
just to be safe.

So we borrowed a tiller from Jon and Hillary and set to work.
Actually, "we" does not include me...
Steven and Casey did the tilling while I held Orin
who had decided that he was not sure about the RotoTiller
and was clinging to me with a surprising grip for someone so small.

After the bed had been thoroughly tilled
I covered the entire area in 3 bales of hay,
following a friend's tip that the way to avoid weeds
is to plant starts directly into several inches of hay.

Orin, relieved that the RotoTiller was gone,
appointed himself to the position of Project Supervisor.

A couple hours later, there was nothing but hay,
hay, and more hay.

Isn't it beautiful?

Spring is in the air...

Fish!

The other day Casey and I were at the zoo with Orin
looking at one of O's favorite exhibits,
the glass-sided pond, when we realized that we needed a fish tank.
Not only did we need a fish tank, but we had to go get it Right Now.

It actually was not quite as impulsive as I am making it out to be,
we had been meaning to set up a tank for a while
and with Orin's newly remodeled room
we thought it would be the perfect time.
So we drove to the aquarium shop where we picked out
a tank, lights, rocks, plants, a heater, food, a net, decorative marbles,
a little rock tunnel thing, a background, a filter, and
that's it.

No fish.
Apparently, they won't let you buy fish anymore
until you have "ran the tank" for a few days.

Undeterred, we went home and set up the tank,
taking the utmost care to clean and prepare
everything just as we were instructed.
Then we waited.

The first "fish day" we were bursting with excitement.
We had been told that we should introduce fish 2 at a time
with a day lag in between introductions.
Our first two fish were neon tetras.
The night after we brought them home was nerve-racking.
Would they survive? Was our water temperature okay?
What about our pH?
I never realized that fish tanks we so complicated.

Two mornings later, we got 2 more fish
and then two more,
and then two more,
and then four more (breaking the rules... so rebellious)

So far, they are all doing great and Orin just adores them.
"Fish," he points out enthusiastically.
"Mama!" "Fish"
His very first pet.
And with that, his new bedroom was complete.