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Aquinas, did I say you are MY hero?

I'm chuckling over this one. Perhaps I should offer my condolences on her adolescence while I can get in there early? As you know, we have one of those teeshirts.

DD, on her "Principal's Award" as a graduating senior:

Meh.

(Apparently, the school gives just one of these annually. She was going to put the certificate into the recycling until I stopped her!)

I've never posted on this sort of thread - but this one was pretty eye-opening: DS6 is lying on stomach building lego thingy. He rolls over, sits up, spreads his arms wide and announces "Death has to come before peace."

We have a long chat about war, why it starts, and what it takes to end it. Along the way we deal with logic glitches such as, "Why can the president start a war if he doesn't have to fight in it?" and "If it was worth dying for at the start, then why does it stop being worth dying for just because you are losing?"

DS concludes with "None of this sounds reasonable. Do you know where my big flame [lego piece] is?"

But I doubt we've heard the last of this topic....

DD5 was home from school today with a fever. We were listening to a local radio station as I was tidying up breakfast. A song came on which included the lyrics, "My head's under water, But I'm breathing fine". DD turns to me and says, "You know Mommy, when he says that in the song, it doesn't mean that he actually put his head in the water. It means that's what he feels like." We went on to have a discussion about metaphors and similes.

Later she wanted to know what was the oldest object in the universe. Yesterday at school they spent the day counting to four. Sometimes it's good to stay home.

DD11's Observations from history class: Pocahontas suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, Lincoln was a racist (but just not compared to other racists of the time), the girls in the Salem Witch Trials were hysterical drama queens. For the latter I sent her on a 'witch hunt' to Google ergot poisoning -- that should make for fun class discussion.

When your 8 year old reasoned that she knew that Santa used Amazon which is why she searched there before writing her letter to Santa but didn't think he was me because she never saw the Amazon boxes. LOL

We are going to have to spill the beans on Santa this weekend which is what brought that into my head. Innocence has to be lost eventually I suppose - sigh.

Thanks Tigerle, you're too kind!

When your 7 year old decides to memorize pi and does so, by studying a page with pi written on it, to 100 digits, in 30 minutes. When she then watches a youtube clip of someone 'singing' pi and stops it around the 80th digit and points out they've made a mistake. When she then goes on to compose her own version on piano... When she can still readily recall 100 digits of pi having not recited it for months.

When you're not surprised to find your 7y/o in the bathroom reading "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks two hours after you sent her to bed.


When you avoid talking about any of your child's achievements with anyone except your husband.

When I was running errands around town, DS5 was excited about doubling numbers (2+2, 4+4, ... into the thousands) in his head.

When your DD10 is freaking out because her teacher wants her to read for 300 minutes this month and then you remind her that's only 5 hours and she stops, looks at you and then says, "That's right. Oh I can knock that out on a Saturday afternoon if it's raining." If it's nice out she plays golf on Saturdays.

Talk about confusing, over-reacting to 'not as important as golf' in less than a second. Car companies wish they had 60-0 breaking as good as hers.