Venus and Serena Against the World in the New York Times focuses more on the Williams’ father than on the sisters, but it’s an interesting read anyway.
Rogue monkey? A guy with a bunch of tigers and tortoises in his back yard? Civil disobedience from a 106-year-old? What’s a Monkey to Do in Tampa? is pretty much the greatest thing I’ve ever read. And it’s also from the New York Times!
At one point, the two men were staring into tangled brush, stumped, when Manson tilted his head and saw the monkey perched with ninja-like stillness above him, close enough to touch. The two primates locked eyes. Then the monkey turned and was gone. “And that’s really when the story began,” Manson told me. It was the third week of January 2009. Now, more than three and a half years later, the macaque is still on the loose.
“Anne of Green Gables” got slightly more interesting this week, what with Anne Scandalously Putting Flowers on Her Hat and the Amethyst Brooch Mystery. I’m still not enjoying it all that much, but the kids are into now so onward we go.
Poppy finished Alexander McCall Smith’s “The Great Cake Mystery,” an “Arthur” book and Ursula Le Guin’s “Catwings” and “Catwings Return” this week. She said she liked “Cake” because the protagonist “figured out the whole thing all by herself.” Girl power! She was flying through her solo-reading books so quickly that I was worried she wasn’t actually reading them, so she’s started writing short book reports when she finishes. You can read her thoughts on “Catwings” and “Arthur and the Cootie-Catcher” on her blog.
Pete’s “Five in a Row” book this week was “Madeline.” I didn’t think he’d like it all that much, since it’s all about little girls. I’m happy to say I was wrong, though. He loved it!
Math
Pete has been concentrating on learning the days of the week and the months of the year this week. We also spent some time grouping little plastic bears as part of our “Madeline” story. We lined 12 bears up “in two straight lines,” and then he explored different ways to group them. And after that the bears had some sort of bear battle, because that’s the sort of guy Pete is.
My friend Laura asked on the Butterscotch Sundae facebook page whether I had any advice for helping her little guy learn the months of the year. I didn’t have any special tricks or tips, but Angela pointed us to this song on YouTube:
Poppy started working on time and clocks yesterday. She already has a pretty firm grasp on telling time, but still enjoyed playing with the clock.
History
The Roman Empire is coming to a close this week, and the Barbarians are closing in. We were supposed to have a Celtic feast last night for dinner, but we were out too late looking at cars so we ended up going to Cook Out instead. Poppy decided it would work as our feast since we were eating with our hands, just like I’d told her we’d do. I have a hunch that the Celts didn’t eat all that many cheeseburgers, though.
Extra credit
Poppy’s ballet classes resumed this week. She’s moved up a level this year, which means she gets to wear a burgundy leotard instead of a light blue one. The burgundy girls have a bigger role in “The Nutcracker,” but they also have to do a weekly rehearsal for it. The rehearsal day is the same day as her ballet class; we have yet to decide whether she’s going to do it. An hour and a half seems like a lot of ballet in one day for a 7-year-old.
Poppy memorized “Toasting Marshmallows” this week. It’s a cute little poem, and Poppy really likes the quick-moving part at the end. Pete’s poem this week was “The Cat of Cats.” He can hardly get through it without laughing. Cats are grade A humor to the 4-year-old set, I guess.
I’ve submitted a couple of posts for syndication at BlogHer in the past, but they’ve never been interested in any of my stuff. It’s been quite a while since I’ve submitted anything, so I was surprised and excited a few weeks ago to get an out-of-the-blue email from BlogHer asking if they could syndicate the post I wrote about blogging after the Type-A Conference on their site. And I didn’t even submit it! Maybe the secret is playing hard to get.
