She's a Genius!!!

I know I am a proud parent. I usually try to temper my opinion of my kids with a healthy dose of skepticism about how smart they are, realizing full well that all parents think that their children are prodigies. Having said that...Sabrina is a genius.

Sebastian has always shown academic promise and prowess. Heck, by the end of Kindergarten, he was working on fractions, contractions and compound words, which I have come to understand is not...how would you say?...normal. We knew before he started school that he would do well, as he easily and quickly "got" just about anything we threw at him. Our biggest concern had to do with how he would handle boredom when the other children in his class were learning the things that he already knew.

Sabrina on the other hand has always been more laid back in the area of academia, choosing instead to apply her efforts to social skills that will serve her well in her quest for world domination. She's not going to take control by force, it will be by charm alone. Apparently she has decided that her work there is done for now. Within the last couple of weeks, I have seen her inner reader emerge at break neck speed. It started with the sight words that she knew, from pre-school...anywhere that she would see "can", "was", "it", "the", she would proudly proclaim it...next she started to make the letter sounds of anything that she saw in front of her...usually at the top of her lungs and to the great amusement of anyone that was around. Mothers, fathers, grandmothers and Uncles all would stop to praise the precious little peanut that was working so hard to sound out c-e-r-e-a-l in aisle 4. This attention of course did not go unnoticed, and must have given her a bright idea, because now she is putting the sounds together and forming her words. This week she has read 6 Dick and Jane stories and is starting to branch out to slightly more complicated books. And oh yeah, in case you weren't keeping score, she is 4.

Wow. For just this moment, I have taken my Jade colored classes off and am proudly sporting a rosier hue...my child is a GENIUS. My two little geniuses are sitting at the dining room table, reading their respective library books...and I couldn't be prouder.

Of course, this again raises the question, what the heck am I going to do with her for a whole year while she waits to be "old enough" and therefore "ready" to go to Kindergarten???

I need some good info on homeschooling STAT!

Finally Cashing In On Reproducing...

Last night the incredible, the wonderful, the long awaited happened...I was folding laundry and the girl child asked if she could help...so I lobbed a cloth napkin in her direction and said "Have at it!" Moments later she held it up for me to see, "Here Mama!" and there it was. A perfectly folded napkin, that *I* did not fold. That is a first in our house. I clapped enthusiastically...perhaps more so even than I did at her recital, and presented her with more to fold.

Finally, someone else can help with the laundry! I don't know as I have ever been prouder....

Sabrina on Bats

"Fruit Bats eat fruit, Vampire Bats eat butter."

And now you know.

I'm SOOO Mature....

I stumbled upon this nifty site that will gauge the reading level needed to understand your blog...I know, just what I need, something else to fret over...anyway, because I am terribly predictable and clearly a bit narcissistic, I plugged in the url for this here blog 'o mine and was slightly dismayed when I learned that my ramblings clock in at a tepid "Junior High School" reading level. I quickly changed the screen, lest anyone else (read: Tim) amble by, look over my shoulder and scoff at my pimply faced writing...then clicked back and typed in the url of a few of my favorites.

Boy was I relieved and somewhat smug to learn that the Godmother of Blogging, Dooce, scrapes by at a paltry Elementary level!

So, what that means is yeah for you, gentle reader, is that you could totally read some of the Babysitter's Club or Sweet Valley High series! And with little to no difficulty! Just don't try to bust out with some Tolstoy, or we might both be in trouble.

Kindergartner No More

Congratulation my little man, on finishing your first year of school. Hard to believe that it has been a whole school year already! You are now officially a first grader!!! And it is now officially summer vacation...and you two are now officially stuck home with mommy, all day, every day until September.

Heaven help us all.

If a Dog Could Be Nominated for Sainthood

Yesterday was a fun day at the old Boyum Ranch...the boy woke up crying that his tummy hurt, so he stayed home.

We kept it nice and quiet, with the boy laying on the couch watching me go through the paces on Wii Fit (more on that later) and Anya, my trusty Husky/Shepherd mix, laying on the floor, directly below him.

All of a sudden I heard a noise, and the dog jumped up and started running around in circles. I looked over and the boy said, "I threw up." I saw the pile on the rug, so I sent him to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth and proceeded to grab the garbage can and paper towels to get up the big stuff and the carpet shampooer to get the rest. After all was restored I gave the boy a bucket and prepared to get back to my Yoga...and the dog ran by again, looking anxious.

I turned to tell her to calm down, when I noticed that the boy had thrown up ALL OVER her back...and she was trying to get at it, but couldn't reach it. After I got done laughing my ass off, I cleaned her off...at which point she went right back over to the boy, licked his hand and laid back down below him.

I don't know that I would have forgiven him so fast.

Mystery Solved...

We have located at least one of the other chicks...apparently they haven't gone far...

It is entirely fascinating to me how quickly they have gone from ugly jelly bean birds to fairly self-sufficient creatures. Really impressive.

Now I am ready for them to GO AWAY.

No more bird poop please.

What's the Big Hairy Deal?

As I think I have mentioned, or at the very least alluded to, we have 3 rather large dogs. All of whom are at least 50% husky. All of whom are keenly intent on shedding as much of their hair onto my floors, clothes and furniture as is canine-ly possible. Anyone who has ever had or read about a husky knows that 2 times a year they lose the soft downy undercoat in an extravaganza that has been affectionately dubbed a "Blow-Out". Unlike the usual, year round shedfest, the blowout involves massive patches of hair just falling off like some cartoon version of hair leprosy.

Seriously, cautionary tales of what a mangy mutt might look like have NOTHING on what a Husky mid-blowout looks like.

During this festival of fur dropping my vacuum never gets put away. Instead it is called to duty 3-4 times a day.

Happily we are passed the summer blowout session and I have been able to trim back my vacuuming to once a day.

Until yesterday.

I had read about some magical tool, called a FURminator on Dooce.com a couple of weeks ago. Dooce went on to extoll it's virtues after using it on her trusty pooch, Chuck. Although I was impressed with her enthusiasm I was lukewarm about the product since Chuck is a short haired, sleek looking pup, rather than a great fuzzy beast like our pack.

Yesterday I was over at a friend's mother's house for a girly activity and was admiring how hair-free her floors were, despite the fact that she has a rather long haired golden retriever. Well, out she pops with the FURminator and explains that this marvelous tool was the key to her hair free floors.

I "Oooo'ed". I "Ahhh'ed". I inquired where I could obtain such a magical instrument. And then I found out the cost. $60 for a doggy brush. For reals. I was crushed. There was NO WAY that my husband would EVER green light such an extravagant expense for grooming...not when he already spent $500+ on my Dyson Animal so that I would have the suction needed to clean the hair up in the first place.

So, while I sat there, considering which organ I could best do without in order to sell it on the black market and gain the proceeds needed to purchase this magical item, she popped out with another one, which she had been planning to give to my friend. My friend, being wise enough to recognize the look of desire in my eyes generously invited me to take it home and give it a test drive...all I can say is WOW.

Seriously folks, this thing ROCKS. The dogs aren't real impressed, but DAMN the hair it gets out. And for the first time, EVER, I can pet the dogs without being covered in their hair. Of course I have been running the vacuum cleaner about every 5 minutes to collect the gigantic piles of hair that I have been brushing off our dogs, but I feel very confident that I will be able to step back my usual efforts to once every other day or so once I have finished torturing them. And then I suppose I will have to give it to my friend. Because I would very much like her to remain my friend. And she too deserves a hairfree house.

And Then There Was One...

I found a better, clearer picture of the ugly featherless cherubs from the day they were hatched...curiously enough, this one was taken with our old, point and shoot camera, whereas the other was taken with our nice, expensive SLR...which I couldn't get to focus on the babies to save my life...

See what I mean?

Anyway that was taken on May 23rd.

These are from today...and only one of them is still in the nest...and the nest is decidedly un-nest-like now. I had no idea that they grew up so quickly...again, these were taken with the old point and shoot...

Can it really be that they have left the nest so early? That amazes me...and is a relief. Though Mama Bird and I had come to a grudgingly peaceful coexistence I was *not* loving the bird crap on the porch...and she was equally unfond of the frequent powerwashing of the porch to remove said crap that I was doing. Once this last one leaves I can ponder replacing the plants in my hanging baskets as the Robin Ordeal has killed off my fuscias. Mama killed the one with the nest, and what I can only presume was Daddy Bird killed off the one next to it by constantly hanging out in it. Sadly the third one, on the end, died of neglect, because I just couldn't bring myself to deal with that one when the other two were beyond rescue...anyway, another chapter ends...wonder what is on the next page.