But they say that by the time they get to lunch, the food's warm, not hot. No doubt warmer than it would be without the insulated jar, but....

I'm thinking that like a tea cozy would help keep them warm longer. What would be the best material to make such a thing out of? (Can't find anything on Etsy, and the company doesn't make any of its own.)

Ana's school does Spanish once a week. I'm not impressed, but then, I didn't expect to be. Eva's class doesn't seem to do Spanish, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I doubt I'd be impressed with her elementary-level Spanish either. (Even in MIDDLE school, I passed first year Spanish three times. Every year they just made us retake the same exact curriculum, starting with hablo.)

Can't afford actual Spanish classes. I can at least read the language, very easy writing system there. I want a nice simple after-school textbook or program that we can do a few lessons a week and actually learn a little of the language. (Also, same as above but with French or any other language.)

Some of you homeschool! Help me! Shipping possibly no object, who knows?

What we're reading next, I have no clue. I'm welcoming suggestions! Something a little lighter where nobody dies of smallpox. (That's the part we just finished, with her little brother dying of smallpox. I didn't tell the nieces, but things don't cheer up until the end of the next chapter either.) I mean, this is a great book, don't get me wrong, but I like to alternate in all respects. Maybe we can read The Exiles or, I don't know, Dancing Shoes or something. (Huh. Where *is* my copy of Dancing Shoes?)

Question: What can I do with paperback books to make the cover last longer? Or to preserve covers that already show signs of wear and tear?

Also, I'm going to have to start another running list of chapter books to purchase. If anybody wants to contribute, let me know. I also need advice (and lots of it!) on graphic novels. For the love of god, do I ever!

Honestly, I'm not sure any schools in the city do, they focus a lot on reading. (And come to think of it, I'm not sure they do enough science either, but that's another issue.)

So I've started going extra math with the nieces in the evening. Not much, but a few minutes here and there, that's my plan. Just as a supplement, right?

Yeah.

Ana goes "MORE math? REALLY?" and I know she needs to review basic math facts (I'm going to absolutely go through my Games with Math book and start doing one every day, she has got to get her addition and subtraction through 20 memorized, it'll make her life much easier) and sneaks books and changes the subject and generally tries to derail the whole process. (She also needs to work on freezing up when questions are initially hard looking or when she feels she has insufficient time, and on working out what to do with word problems.)

Evangeline goes "Can I do another? Can I do another?" and sneaks the workbooks away from me and does extra pages on her own time. She does stuff where, logically, she shouldn't know what to do because I haven't read the instructions - but she works it out anyway, automatically filling in the right letter to the box or whatnot. This is a girl who is just good at doing workbooks, who is just good at taking tests. It's not fair, you know? They're both more than smart enough, but Evangeline is going to be lucky through school if she continues being good at taking tests.

Of course, Evangeline is also reading now. Ana, of course, is into graphic novels. The other day we took car service (as we do every week) to the YMCA for swimming, and it was a blissful change from most weeks when they talk loudly, squabble, play "INVISIBLE PUNCHBUGGY NO HITBACKS!", fidget a lot, and generally test my patience. This week Ana took out two books, handed the first one in the series to her sister, took the second for herself, and they sat and read right up until I actually dragged Evangeline into the changing room. Evangeline mostly studied the pictures and sounded out a few words, but still - it was quiet! SO QUIET!

And since I'm being random, on the subject of changing rooms, is there a reason I'm the only one who insists my little kidlet change in and out of her own clothes? It's not like the people "helping" their kids are getting out of there any faster than I am. And am I wrong for thinking it's a bit absurd (I'd say daft, but it's not actually in my dialect and would sound weird if I did say it) that, in the girl's changing room, where Evangeline is the oldest child (boys can go in up until the age of six, but the other children in the room were all 4 and under), people are holding up towels for their kids to change behind, and shooing them back behind the towels? Isn't under six (under 4!) a bit young for that sort of affected modesty in a changing room? Am I weird for the fact that I don't object to Evangeline just, you know, changing her clothes in the normal way? (And when she's older and starts asking for that sort of modesty, isn't that what the separate changing areas in the women's locker room are for? That's certainly why Ana changes in there - she dislikes the chance of being in a room even with small boys to change, and she likes having a separate, closed-off stall to change in if she pleases.) For that matter, there are two (two!) closed-off single-stall bathrooms in the girl's changing room, and four shower stalls. If this level of modesty is really needed, wouldn't it make more sense to just appropriate one of them for a few minutes rather than do the whole "behind-the-towel" dance? It makes sense in a public area like the playground or the beach, but in the actual changing room?

I mean, it's not like I'm letting Evangeline run around the place naked, but for the brief moments between off with the bathing suit and on with the panties (let alone her actual clothing, by which point I really don't care), does it matter if she's, well, naked? In the changing room? AM I THE WEIRD ONE HERE?

(It may just be this group. LAST session we had swimming on Wednesdays, and though there was much "helping", nobody did the towel thing that I saw. THIS session we're on Tuesdays, different group of kids, and it was towels all over the place.)

but getting into a groove and getting into a rut are two entirely different things?

I know that you're not supposed to boil certain vegetables because they lose some of their vitamins to the water. You're supposed to steam them or cook them in some other way instead.

I often try to get rid of spare vegetables by adding them to something else. Carrots, for example - the nieces don't consistently like carrots (that is, when one does the other doesn't), but they're cheap and we always have them, so I'm always grating them up finely and adding them where they're relatively inconspicuous. This helps bulk out the meal slightly, makes it a little more nutritious, and I get to move some carrots out of the fridge! (You'd think I'd learn and stop buying carrots, but then I see a few pounds of them for a dollar in the dubious produce section, and even old carrots keep. The siren call of carrots cannot be resisted...!)

Now, I've recently started making spinach rice. It's a good way to use up spinach (you buy it, but it doesn't get used that fast!), and it's yummy. You cook the rice same way as always, but when it's almost done you toss spinach leaves and butter (or margarine) on top and let it cook a bit longer. And in the process, I discovered that if you add very finely grated carrots to the rice BEFORE you cook it, and stir it in, the rice turns a pretty orange color, but that's about all. I love it!

Except... do the vitamins go away or not? I know that some of them disappear into the water when boiled, but then the water gets absorbed by the rice, so...? Are the vitamins gone now, or are they part of the rice, or what? (My knowledge of nutrition is somewhat limited, admittedly.)

The big bug had a bag.

The duck made a quick quack.

I stood and stared at his stuttering steed.

Kit-kat, ship-shape, hip hop. What's it called when you do that? I can't think of the term. I remember rhyming of course, and alliteration, but what's this again?

Edit: Thank you, steorra! It is apparently known as para-rhyme or double consonance. English certainly uses it enough for effect that I *knew* I couldn't be the first one to notice it and want a name!

Also, consonance of just the last consonant is called Half rhyme.

And from that roof I get the biggest icicles. I'm sure we have icicles on all sides of our house, which I simply can't reach, but the ones I can get to from my window sometimes get as big as my arm or larger - I swear one year I had one bigger than Ana! But of course, she was smaller then.

I used to take these icicles for myself to lick and then throw out the window or keep in the freezer until summer (something which never works as well as you think), but now I give one each to the nieces. Oh, I know you're not supposed to eat snow anymore and all that, but they don't really eat that much of it before they get bored!

So the big icicles, in the corner by my window, are all gone. (We might get more again soon, it's been snowing off and on all day.) But the little ones I couldn't reach, at the far end, are still there. And it's so strange - they had started out going straight down, like you'd expect, but now that the snow on top has melted some and they're hanging on by a thread (one just popped off just now!) they're all leaning in at an angle, towards the porch. Maybe the base of the icicle wears away unevenly? But why on the side *away* from the sun, then?

1. The kids keep coming home from school cranky and yawning. They get to bed too late.

2. When Jenn and/or 'dul gets home, it's already pretty late, and that's when they start cooking dinner.

3. Bonne-maman eats too late.

4. I'm home all day.

These added up to...

5. I should just make dinner every night instead of twice a week.

Which is what I'm endeavoring to do - prep dinner during the day, heat it at dinnertime. Anybody have any simple meal ideas? They should NOT rely on dairy (some substitution is okay, but it adds up fast), and they SHOULD have a good amount of vegetables or fruit in them.

Today I made:

Black beans with corn, red pepper, garlic, and culantro (that's not a typo)
Kale with tomatoes and sweet chorizo (bonus, the sale gave me three ounces of the spicy type free, so I'll use it elsewhere)
Sweet plantains with lime juice
Rice

So you can see that I have a green veggie (the kale), a yellow/orange veggie (the corn, and the mangoes for dessert), a red veggie (the tomato and red pepper), some starch (brown rice and plantains) and, of course, some protein (black beans and the chorizo). So that's a pretty complete meal, and other than the fact that mangoes cost a dollar apiece right now and I don't like them it was all pretty inexpensive, though it'll be cheaper still if I plan my menu in advance for next week. That's why I'm asking for ideas! Ideas for sides or for main dishes (which do NOT need to be meat-based) are appreciated. No crock-pot, so nothing like that.

(It's a short book! It's easy to read it several hundred times in rapid succession!) When Gerald first sneezes, he sniffs and rubs under his trunk, presumably wiping away his snot. But when he sneezes the THIRD time, his tissue goes all the way to the bottom of his trunk. OMG CONTINUITY ERROR!!!

Which all raises an interesting question. Do real elephants sneeze?

The answer is apparently yes. Incidentally, I love looking at pictures of elephant family groups, they resemble ours with older siblings and whatnot. I don't know of many animals that can do that.

Also? Videos of elephants painting. You don't see people teaching dolphins to paint!