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J+M+J
Dad surprised Mom with some lovely tulips for Valentines’ Day! A little taste of spring.
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Family
St. Valentine’s Day Prep
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It was cold and snow, so I made a cup of tea and Valentines. First I brewed the tea, and then I added Cream and Maria gave me a cube of sugar from the sugar bowl she got this Christmas from Grandpa and Grandma Frederes.
Then I gathered things that I might use and spread them out of my desk. I got a couple of curious investigators while I began to work. First I cut red rectangles with a tool for cutting paper straight. I then cut pink hearts and taped them on the red paper. Then I cut creamy white strips out, on which I wrote ‘Happy St. Valentines Day.’
Happy Valentines Day!
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Rare Pictures
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Joseph and Alexander picked up the train tracks and the duplos all by themselves.
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Model Airplane
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Dad got a model airplane for us to build together. Here are pictures of out progress
It is thrilling to look at this pile of sticks and say, ‘I’m going to build a flying airplane out of that.’
Clamps holding the fuselage together. I glued the sides together.
Mixing up the epoxy. (Extremely strong glue.)
The tail is not glued on, just sitting on top for show.
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Chinese New Year
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Today marked the start of the chinese new year. To celebrate, Mom made Chinese food and we made Chinese Lanterns. Dad was supposed to bring home egg rolls, but he had choir practice and didn’t get to the restaurant before closing time. We said a prayer for the conversion of China, and then we ate by candlelight. Ooh, the food was soo good, but I had to eat small pieces carefully because I got my braces tightened this morning. The Chinese Lanterns we made were strung from one side of the kitchen to the other. Joseph really liked the lanterns.
Later Alexander fell down and scraped his knee. It was a very small little thing, but Alexander was about to cry. Joseph was very sympathetic. I told him to stick up his chin, grin, and bear it like a man. Then I started taking pictures. Alexander soon focused on the camera and completely forgot about the tiny wound.
I can’t believe Maria got Joseph to do this. He must have been tired, or he wouldn’t have sat still long enough for Landon to take the picture.
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Alexander and the Coins
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Our family was walking out of a Chinese restaurant today, and Alexander wanted some candy in in a dispenser that took quarters. He asked me for one of the pieces of candy and I responded, “No, Alexander. I don’t have any money.” Alexander looked around, and saw a statue that had coins on its lap and in its palm. Alexander ran and grabbed a coin and tried to put it into the place where the candy comes out. We took the coin from Alexander and put it where it belonged, at the same time getting Alexander out of the restaurant fast so he wouldn’t have time to cry. Alexander must have thought, “Are you blind? There’s a whole pile of money right in front of your eyes! Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to do the obvious myself.”
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Flying Model Airplanes
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Saturday was lovely. The temperature was 34 F, the sky was clear, the wind was not extremely bad, and even that died down later in the day. On this lovely day, Dad took Johnathan, Landon, Alexander and I to fly model airplanes with Mr. Wilson at a place for model airplane flyers. (The same Mr. Wilson that took me in the air balloon.) Mr. Wilson owns two model airplanes. One without a motor called the Gentle Lady, and one with a motor called the Cessna 170. We flew the Gentle Lady first.
This is the remote control. The same control is used for both planes.
To Launch the Gentle Lady, we thread a little string through a backwards hook on the bottom of the main body, or fuselage. Then the holder of the plane steps backward until the string is taut. The string is fastened on the ground across the field. The end of it is rubber.
We let go, and the string pulls the plane quickly and it sails into the air with the string still attached.
The string falls off when it is not pulled tight anymore, and the airplane is free to glide for a couple of minutes.
The airplane gets closer and closer to the ground.
Then it lands.
When it does land, Landon runs after the plane to bring it back, and Alexander or John Paul runs to get the string. Once Alexander bent over and grabbed for the string. He thought he had it in his hands, and so he went through all the motions of pulling it (he has to put his weight into the string because it doesn’t want to be stretched tight) without having it in his hand.
Sometimes Alexander with his little legs can’t keep up with us.
Dad readies to launch the plane.
Then Mr. Wilson got out the Cessna. He filled it up with fuel, and tried to start it, but it wouldn’t start. Mr. Wilson figured that he had plugged the tube that was supposed to be plugged into the fuel into the place for exhaust, and the tube for exhaust into the fuel.
He fixed that and then started the airplane with this thing that spins the propeller fast and starts it.
After a few crashes, it took off.
Vroom!
Neeroom!
Zoom!
This airplane really doesn’t have a limited time of flight, (except for running out of gas or crashing, of course.) You can steer it close to the ground and then back up into the air, unlike the Gentle Lady. It is also very fast.
The Cessna crashed and broke a propeller, so Mr. Wilson went home to get a spare. In the mean time, we went to eat lunch. Mom came to the restaurant to take John Paul home, because he was cold and did not have snow pants. He was a little tired of watching Dad and Mr. Wilson fly the airplanes. I could not believe Alexander did not want to go home, because he should have been needing a nap and usually little kids have short attention spans in watching stuff.
We met back at the field, and Mr. Wilson flew the little Cessna.
But first Dad and Mr. Wilson had to search for the perfect runway. Dad played with this picture a little.
Later we got out the glider.
A perfect landing.
Mr. Wilson showed me how the controls worked, and then he had me fly his hand pretending to be the airplane. Then he tossed it up in the air and let me control it down onto the ground.
I crashed, nose down. On my second try, I stalled and forgot which way was up and which was down and the planes wings flew off. Fortunately, we were able to put it back together again.
To give you an idea of the wingspan…
I got to launch the plane into the air for Mr. Wilson to fly. It bumped my head gently because I wasn’t holding it level.
Alexander never tires of tracking back and forth to collect the string.
Even at the end of the day, the airplane is still a source of fascination for him. Alexander behaved himself quite well considering his age.
By the time we got home, Alexander proved how much fun he had had in a predictable way.
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Makeover!
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My blog got a makeover, can you tell? It took Dad all of about thirty seconds to change it! The birds in the upper right and lower left are European Robins. I also added a page called Nature Notes that I will update frequently.
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My Day with Alexander
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Today I spent a lot of time with Alexander. I was getting afraid that he was having too much Star Wars play. So first I helped him get dressed, then I showed him how to fold his pajamas and put them away. Next I danced with him to music, which he really liked. Then I had him help me sort clothes by handing him some clothes and then telling him which pile to put it onto. After we had taken our piles of clothes and put them away, We started to make cookies. I took pictures and had Mom take pictures.
Mom making dinner.
After lunch I took Alexander downstairs and we looked at a book with pictures of birds and listened to my Identiflyer. He loves doing this and pressing the buttons. I am teaching him to know the names of common birds. He knows robin and blue jay well, but he sometimes calls cardinals ‘red jays’ and today he called a red-winged blackbird a ‘red blackbird’. Johnathan took these pictures, and he did fairly well.
I added this effect to this picture. I like it.
After he woke up from his nap, we peeled apart a chicken together.
After that we ate supper, and then I helped Alexander into his jammies and put him to bed. He was extremely tired from everything we had done that day.
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When It Rains, It Pours
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One person can’t get sick in this house without at least two others getting sick. Now John, Alex and Joseph are on antibiotics for strep throat. When it rains, it pours.
Catch-up
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I haven’t blogged for a few weeks, so I’ll just catch up in this post.
Early January, I’m pretty sure we had the January thaw. The January thaw is a warmer period in early January for the great plains region (in other areas it comes later in the month) that usually follows very cold weather.
I had fun putting together a puzzle that I got for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa Dykhius:
The next week there was the spelling bee. I got second place in the written test and third place in the oral spell down. I got out on the word rebellion (I am really mad at myself) making the same mistake I made in the city spelling bee last year, not spelling it with two l’s.
Then I came down with the worst sore throat of my life. I had body aches, a headache, vomiting, a fever, and a horrible sore throat. I couldn’t even drink water! It turned out to be Strep Throat.
I got on an antibiotic and it went away in time for my grandparents on Dad’s side to come over. Dad made a big Chevy’s (a great mexican restaurant) dinner with salsa, corn pudding, churro beans, fajitas, and guacamole from recipes in the Chevy’s cookbook. It tasted great! We opened up presents and I got this to add to my mounted atlas moth:
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Second Stitches Episode
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Today I was happily playing with a couple of stuffed husky dogs, when I heard Alexander start crying and Landon calling for Mom. I rushed to the boys room and saw Landon pressing a tissue to Alex’s head. Landon lifted the tissue long enough for me to see the cut. The blood, sudden fear, Landon’s yelling for Mom, and quickness of the glimpse made the wound seem to take up half of Alex’s forehead. I took immediate action. My first step was the logical, predictable thing for am almost-teen to do when she sees her brother seriously injured and is the oldest person around the room. I screamed at the top of my lungs. What is it about girls and screaming? I didn’t think about screaming. It must be instinctual. It must be imbedded in our minds from the days when-oh, never mind when. Wherever that impulse came from, I screamed. I think that was the loudest, most sincere scream I have ever done in my life. OK, enough about my scream. Next I got Mom. She took one look at the cut, (which I now realized was a whole lot smaller than I first thought), and said that Alex needed stitches. So she took him to acute care. (Something unrelated to this blog post about acute care: when I was little I thought it was called cute care and was only for little kids who were cute.)
When Alex and Mom got home I learned a little about the trip. Apparently Alex had his charms on. He talked a lot and had an interesting conversation with the nurse when she was putting on a disinfectant. He said, “I do not like that stuff because it is cold.” The nurse told him, “Oh, I like this cold stuff because it helps the owie not hurt so much.” Alex protested, “But I do not like it!” “But you need it to help the swelling go down.” “Oh, OK” Alex talked as if he knew what swelling was and if it would help it go down, well, it was necessary. After a while, Alex just got too cute, and the nurse went to get him a little hot wheel car. Alex liked that, so when the doctor came into the room and told Alex he as going to fix his head, Alex declared, “No, her is going to do it.” When the doctor was stitching him up, Alex was being held down, and the nurse was covering his eyes. Alexander did not like that at all. He couldn’t feel anything, but he screamed and screamed and fought. Mom said that was when she found out how strong Alexander was. The doctor said, “I’m almost done.” and Alex screamed, “No, you are done, you are done.” Alexander also screamed during the operation, “I’m going to go pee! I’m going to pee on the floor!” I wonder if he really had to, or was he just saying that to get away.
I put Alex in my bed to play nurse and I told him I would get some candy for him. Then I got him toys and blankets and pillows. I asked, “Alexander, is there anything you want?” Alex responded, “Yes, umm… candy!” Alex enjoyed the multitude of surprises he got tonight, but right now he is misbehaving in his bed. So, off I go to referee.
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New Year’s Celebration
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Dad took us to eat at a delicious Chinese restaurant for supper New Year’s day. After that we went bowling. While we were waiting for our food, we looked at the chinese zodiac place mats to see what animal we were. Dad said, “I’m a tiger.” Alex looked surprised and declared, “You’re not a kiger, you’re a Dad!”
After bowling, Dad asked if we could see the machinery in the bowling alley in action. The man he asked took us back and showed them to us. They were loud, but I am glad we got to see them.
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Sleeping Beauty
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I just finished watching my new movie that I got for Christmas, the ballet Sleeping Beauty in my nice, new, warm, and blue bathrobe. Oh, it was a beauty! (ha) The dancing looked very difficult and lovely. It made my blood pump. The fairies in it had lovely solo parts, and it was amusing at the part when Aurora pricked her finger. She went around the courtyard, showing everyone her pricked finger. She must have been so protected that she had never pricked her finger before! There was lots of jumping, and it made Alexander, Joseph, and John Paul want to jump around also. They jumped and spun and did anything else they thought was ballet-like. I love ballet!
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