My 13 year old just asked for a scientific calculator for his birthday. I'm tempted to get him a pocket protector too, but he wouldn't get the joke.

He's been using an online one for his geometry, since sin, cos, and tan are not exactly in-your-head work (though he does as much in his head as he can, which is a point of contention between us when I need to correct his work). He's never used a calculator before, Saxon doesn't allow it until Alg 2/Geo, so he's loving it. So now he wants one that'll fit in his pocket. Not sure why. But he'll need it for the SAT since they won't let him bring his computer!

Do they still count as toddlers when they are almost reading? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part? Anyway, I was noticing today how erratically they eat. Some days they seemingly eat nothing at all; I remember my mom quoting something about how they subsist on air pudding and wind sandwiches, and it really seems that way. And when they do decide to eat, it tends to be the weirdest things- not necessarily bad, just weird.

Yesterday I fought with Aeryn to eat a single 1/4c scoop of lovely homemade turkey soup from the Thanksgiving leftovers; it sat on the table from lunch through dinner and she finally ate it just before bed.

She just ate half an avocado. I think the only other thing she ate today was a clementine or two.

Considering the amount of food she eats, and the constant energy she expends, I think they should seriously consider studying toddlers as a source of perpetual energy. Never mind oil, or even wind and solar, we need to seriously look into toddler metabolism.

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The next day:
She just refused the other half of the avocado, stating that, "I don't like avocado," punctuated with an eye roll, just to show how little I know.

So the day our chickens were attacked, once we rounded them all up back into their protected little yard, one of the hens was so scared she refused to leave the coop at all. She also decided to sit on the one egg that had been laid that morning previous to all the drama/terror. By Friday or Saturday she was sitting on 10 eggs of various colors (she and one other hen lay green eggs, another lays cream, and the rest lay varying shades of brown). Well, chicken eggs take 28 days to hatch. Today was day 21 for the first egg and day 19 or 20 for the others. This afternoon we found 2 little black chicks sitting under Mama Chicken. While they are small, even for newborn chicks, they are fully developed and active. (And that's not completely surprising because our rooster is small.) Very weird.
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Ok, so I was just wrong. Actually it was two of my friends who keep chickens that were wrong. :P They BOTH told me 28 days! I just looked it up and, yeah, it's 21. So, no great miracle here, but great timing for our camping trip!

This morning we have a white chick and two more eggs hatching now. :)

This morning I looked into my back yard to see a huge brown dog with a chicken in its mouth.

MY chicken. NOT my dog.

I've always had issues with people who keep dogs and do not give them an outlet for their instincts or keep them on their property. And as Peter said, "I used to dislike dogs, now I hate them." (He's very protective of our hens, and was also outraged when a neighbor's rooster got in and was mating with one of them. :P) He also said if he'd seen it he would have killed it (though not sure how because we don't have a gun and it was a BIG boxer). He ended up killing two chickens, and half plucking another three, so we'll see how they turn out. All the others are missing some feathers- there are piles all over the yard.

Vic followed him home on his bike and spoke to the owner, who said he'd make good. Hopefully he will.

On the upside, we did not find any dead kittens in the yard, which would have been harder on the kids. They found them all hiding in various places and coaxed them into the house for some love. :)

So we spent the morning searching for chickens (one was hiding by my back door with her head hidden but her poor little plucked body sticking out- hey, I never said they were smart!), burying dead ones, dosing mauled ones with silver, and replacing all the bedding in the coop with fresh hay to hopefully prevent infections.

...I'm very proud. ;)

Our second son, Andrew, who just turned 10 on Saturday, was baptized on Sunday morning. Though he's been talking about it off and on for a year, it was still a bit shocking. Though not completely unforeseen. For the last few weeks he has been coming to me almost every day in tears about some thought or action that he regrets, some recent, some from years ago. So he's definitely been realizing his culpability and looking for the redemption that only our Savior can offer. I am very pleased that his heart is so tender and that he found the forgiveness that he sought. And I'm also really glad that we were able to answer his questions and concerns in a way that led him There.

But, wow, growing up is even harder when you're the parent!

We worship with a great little congregation now, and that fact was emphasized on Sunday. There are only about 32 people (and we're 7 of them!) and they're very much a family. While the services are orderly, they are not formal or restrictive at all. Thankfully. ;) After the Bible study hour, I only had 2 children sitting with me as the first song began, so I went to the back to round up the other 4- because my husband was missing too. I found him herding them up the little hall from the classroom and as I tried to hurry them he told me that he'd been talking to Andrew and that he wanted to be baptized this morning. As we walked in, I asked Vic what Andrew wanted to do, and he asked him (all in whispers as we sat down and joined in the singing), and he said he didn't want to wait until the end of the service. So after the song and the following prayer, Vic interrupted the boy leading the service and went up to the front to talk with one of the elders and tell him that Andrew wanted to be baptized right away. And that's exactly what we did. Right there, in the middle of the service. It was wonderful. (And a bit funny, since a couple of the men broke the projector screen while trying to get it to retract it out of the way, so they rolled it up and one of the elders held it over his head for the duration. :) And since Andrew is quite short and you couldn't even see the top of his head when he walked down into the pool, everyone got up and stood behind the podium right by the pool to watch. Vic was a bit startled when he looked up and saw everyone right there.) It's a great memory to have of the day.