A video on education

Heya-

for anyone interested in education, your own or your children's, or the future of the world, I think that this is a super video. It is 20 minutes long, but there is a lot of good humour, and is also stimulating intellectually. A must-see for teachers and recommended for parents. I really enjoyed it, obviously, if I'm blogging it. I must think there is something of import there. The only downside is the BMW commercial at the end.

creepy coincidence

So I know these 2 ladies. One of them is from Nova Scotia, one is from Kansas. They don't know each other at all. I am their Kevin Bacon.
They have the same name.
They are both singers, both altos.
They are both blonde.
They have remarkably similar personalities, in my opinion. Remarkably.
They both had a terrible 1st marraige.
They divorced.
They remarried and had the marriage that people dream of, love love love, and were the envy of most all their friends because of it.
Their 2nd husbands were diagnosed with really similar fatal diseases, giving them 2 years to live, within a couple years of being married. One of these husbands has already died. The other is still in the 2 yr window.

I mean really. Is that not freaky? The universe is a vellly intellesting place. Creepy too, sometimes.

Any sugar daddies out there??

This is a shameless plug. My hypocritical apologies for the fishing.

Follow this here link to the Litriocht (Every Irish book in print) website, to a wishlist I have compiled. It is kinda like registering for a wedding or something... if you happen to want to buy something for Anna for Christmas or just in general, here are a few great ideas! This is a bunch of Irish books, to further the cause of bilingualism. You can pick something off my wishlist and buy it for me - er, her. There are something like 400 more books on the site in that age category. I sifted through to the 10 or so that I thought best. Although, I'm sure there are 100 others just as nice.

For Christmas delivery, time is running out! Hurry! Make a rash decision! Prices starting at only 3 Euros!

No one understands me.

Maybe I should paint my nails black.
Watch this if you don't get what I mean by that. Don't watch it with young children around. But from my background, that is hilarious.

I should clarify, since I am yet to make any sense so far this post. Some people understand me and my extremely small audience jokes, just no one with whom I'm regularly in contact.

When I'm running around the yard with Anna, I find myself making all these jokes that I crack up at, but no else gets, because they are referring to things like :

-my Grandpa's made-up language
-expressions excessively used to the point of humor by one of the sports announcers on Ireland's Raidi0 na Gaeltachta.

and other things that would just confuse the vast majority of people. Oh well.

Niamh doesn't care. She laughs with/at me even when I make these inacessible jokes. Usually. Sometimes even she gives me the blank stare.

A River Runs Through It

Did you know I had a river in my back yard?
ya, me neither.




Anna found it. You see, we have kinda clay-ish soil, and after a bunch of rain, which we have had the past week, any holes or in this case, trenches, become reservoirs. So Chris dug this trench around our garden a couple years ago to help with drainage. It was a great help to the garden. Anna calls it "the river."













These holes-come-puddles are the finest features of the yard, if you are 3. Funny, they were kinda one of my least favourite parts. While I fastidiously avoid them, she makes a bee-line for them as soon as she is released into the yard, and will spend most of her time outside jumping in them.




See exibit A:

This is her rear about half-way through this escapade.
It got a lot worse. I suppose this is just normal kids, but I always tried to stay so clean, it is funny to me.

Now all this running and play in a water-logged yard would have been great, if the bottom of my boots didn't look like this:

For your benefit and clarification, I have circled the areas on the soles where there is no longer any rubber. These shoes have served me faithfully, year round, for approximately 7 years though, so I am not criticizing. But still. I have tromped over the globe and danced many's the dance in them, but I think they have now had the biscuit (a local expression).

If anyone has about $200 burning a hole in their pocket, these would do me nicely for a replacement. :)

Mommy Superpowers

So far as I can tell, there are a few special dispensations that God gives mothers upon the birth of their children, like Lactation. But there are others.

I've seen in myself, a super power to catch dangerous flying objects, including the child themself.

Once, a wine bottle came flying off the top of our fridge headed straight for Anna's wee head. I turned, lept and *pak* - caught the flying bottle in mid-air, just like some great wide-receiver or something. Everyone looked at me with gaping mouths, in disbelief. If you know me, you know that I am NO athlete, which made this all the more difficult to swallow.

Another time Anna was rough housing with Chris on the bed, and she took a leap, and her lil' head was headed straight for the footboard. I spun around from a couple feet away, apparently having seen and perceived from the eyes on the back of my head, and shot my hand out, intercepting her head just before it bashed, like something from a superhero movie.

We can only call on these powers when they are needed. They are not just there all the time to show off with or anything.

God also gives us the ability to see invisible things. We can find lost things that take on an invisible cloak to the rest of the family. "Where's my ____?" The seeker can look and look and look to no end, staring at the desired item even, repeatedly, and not see it. Moms, however, can find these invisible things. It's a gift.

On another note, my Dad is here visiting! So if you find me absentee, that is largely why, for the next 2 weeks. Yeah! So nice for my family to meet my family, my kids, esp. with a new baby! This is the first anyone on my side has met her. :( Distance can stink. Poor Dad, this is the first time he has been to visit since 2 years ago, when Anna was only 19 months old. Crazy, eh?