Emma brought home her 3″ binder of schoolwork on Friday. The highlight was her essay on Christopher Columbus. Putting her to bed I told her how impressed I am by her writing. “I love to write,” she told me. “When I grow up I think I want to be a writer instead of a scientist.”
“Well,” I said, “you could write about science, like your essay about plant fungus.”
“Yes,” she replied. “An artist doesn’t paint just one picture.”
(click on each picture – oddly twice – to see the essays, plus a bonus poem)
Emma was looking closely at my whiskers, and told me I should shave my “scratchies”, which is what Emma has called them for years. Inspecting more closely she said “You have some missing.” “Missing?” “Yes,” she said, “there are some empty sockets.”
Above, a very chilly Emma on a very chilly day.
We went on another day trip this sunday and it was cold: 16 at the summit, and with wind chill, -24. Sometimes wind was so high that it slowed our descent significantly, nearly to a stop at times. Thew few times I removed my glove to fix something or take a picture it became seriously painful.
Despite the cold, we had a great time. Here is Emma and I on the lift.
Even the lodge was cold – in the high 50s. Here we’re warming up and having lunch:
Lucinda and Indea above.
We had a great first ski trip of the season – just a day trip to Bear Creek, about an hour from us. It was a gentle re-introduction for Indea; she was very timid at the beginning but having the time of her life by the end of the day.
Somehow we had managed to solve Indea’s mitten problem in the days before we hit the slopes. Getting her dressed for the snow had regularly been a 45 minute ordeal – nothing was ever right. socks, underwear, shirt, mittens, hat, scarf – every single thing had the potential for disaster.
The first few times we went up the chair lift we told Indea repeatedly that we have to wait until we touch our skiis down to stand up from the lift, recalling her incident last year where she jumped off the chair too soon and fell a number of feet onto the slope well before the disembarkment point (scary). Only one incident this time – Indea didn’t quite get on the chair and Lucinda’s quick reaction grabbed her and pulled her on. Emma and I were further back in the line and I saw a ski and a pole go flying and attendants charging in, but it was fine.
For Emma it was a return to the familiar though, and she had a great time. Together she and I did all of the blacks (hardest) with no problem, and for the first time I felt confident that she could do it. Her turns and stops are quite improved.
Emma has been having a terrible time transitioning into 4th grade. She hasn’t transitioned well since she was born, but this has been particularly difficult – tears in the evening and before school, lots of drama around homework, etc. This Friday is the first field trip to Penn’s Archeological Museum and she’s very nervous about it. At bedtime we were discussing it while Indea sat on my lap. I was trying to understand what was troubling her and asked, “What are you afraid of? That you might get lost?” She nodded. “What would you do if you got lost?” I asked, and before Emma could answer, Indea piped up: “I’d be excited!”
Emma chose a green pumpkin.
Indea is carefully separating the seeds.
Since we’re cooking lots of interesting things I thought I’d start documenting them.
Tonight I made my quick-and-dirty ravioli, optimized for the speed of making it rather than how nice it looks. However, we had a fantastic cheese shop ricotta, and fresh mozzarella, and garden parsley, and sauce from the tomatoes we canned last month.
Emma loves it, but Indea could do without the parsley and all those other “leafy green things” I put on pasta and pizza.
We love decorating cookies in our house. Somehow we’ve gotten into the habit of making them for Halloween. I make a simple confectioner’s sugar icing and color it.
Personality studies in cookies: Indea’s on the left, Emma’s on the right.
All of them are carefully thought out and have stories behind them, such as Emma’s white ghost who is jumping rope.
