Midweek tidbits

No scintillating commentary today, just a few random thoughts to keep the week going.

• Don't look now, but the Metropolitans are in first place. I realize we're not even 1/6 of the way into the season, but it's refreshing to be competitive again
• "Idol" is tightening up. Will be interesting to see who's in the bottom 3 tonight. Not a big Shania Twain fan, but some pretty solid performances last night
• Got a new putter for Christmas and picked up a new Cleveland 56 degree wedge a week or so ago. Road tested them both for the first time this past Saturday and shot 83, some of my best golf ever. Itching badly to get out again (or maybe that's some kind of rash).
• My favorite new kid quote: Somehow the topic of Roman numerals came up over dinner a few weeks ago, and I was quizzing the kids on what each letter represented. The boys went back and forth, but Molly of course was completely lost on the discussion. To bring the conversation back to her level, at a break in the quizzing she interjected apropos of nothing at all, "You know what's good? I like yarn." That's been my mantra since then.

Bartlett's got nothing on this girl

I never wanted this blog to be purely a listing of all the great and funny things the Fink kids do day in and day out (thus turning it into "The Family Circus" without the cartoons), but I think I forget sometimes that part of my mission here is to do at least a little bit of that. Molly's got more quotes and quotables on a regular basis than the rest of us combined, and I really should do a regular feature on them. We keep a book with some of the best of all the kids' quotes and favorite sayings, perhaps I'll go back and dig up a few someday to post here.

She let out a great one tonight- we were watching "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian", and Ben Stiller's character was talking to the female lead, a historical museum figure come to life. I asked Molly, "Hey Molls, who's that lady?", knowing that she had just gotten a McDonald's Happy Meal toy of this character and her famous plane within the past week. She looked unsure at first, then remembered and said "Oh yeah! It's Amelia Airforce!"

I'm sure Ringo Starr never had this problem

I have a love-hate relationship with Silly Putty. It fascinates me from a science/chemistry standpoint and is a great stress-reliever at times. I even have a Silly Putty egg in my top desk drawer at work, and often will stretch and pull the stuff while I'm on the phone. But the kids know that one of my biggest pet peeves is finding empty Silly Putty containers around the house, because an empty Silly Putty container means that somewhere else in the house there's Silly Putty stuck to something. (I hold the same disdain for magic marker caps for much the same reasoning.)

Molly's been playing around with Silly Putty lately, and fortunately gets it back into its ovoid home most of the time. Unfortunately last night, she was thwarted in her attempts to put away the Silly Putty properly as it had become adherent to the surface she had smoothed it out on- the rubber-coated drum head of the Guitar Hero drum controller. To her credit, she came to report the situation right away, but in a somewhat comical exchange, was pointing to the family room because she couldn't get the words out to explain what had happened. (This condition, which I refer to as "Fonzi's palsy"- named so because of Arthur Fonzarelli's inability to say the words "I'm sorry"- is quite common in the preschool population.)

It was clear immediately that the Silly Putty was not going to be removed easily. Cooling it with an ice pack for 20 minutes or so made it a little less pliable, but still didn't get it to chip off as I hoped it might. So I sat down, and for the next 60 minutes or so, slowly scraped away pieces of Silly Putty with a razor blade until only a stain remained.

Molly was happy to see that she hadn't caused any permanent damage, and didn't bat an eye when I told her I was throwing the Silly Putty away. Hopefully any further attempts at Silly Putty play will involve just the Sunday Comics.

the prodigal family returneth

the weary travelers rolled in on thurs night, and it's like they never left. back to the usual routine of pokemon and legos, with a little wiffle ball mixed in. one more week until school starts for the boys, then molly starts preschool the week after that.

still getting bits and pieces of information from them at various times about their journey- fun to see what triggers those memories. best line had to be from molly, though, who upon getting ready for bed on thurs night when they returned, looked for a place in her room to put her dirty laundry and asked "how long are we going to be here?"

hard to believe it's taken this long...

office got a call this AM from a panicked mom of a 3 1/2 year old, asking for me and reporting that her daughter had put a lego up her nose and it was stuck. i called the mom back as soon as i could, but as it turns out, she managed to get the lego out before i could call her.

molly has promised never to do this again.

happy molly day

molly's b'day today- she came downstairs with me this AM, the boys were eating their breakfast before school, and said to her "happy birthday molly!". her response: "thank you. where's my cake?"

next step, her own iphone

put molly in a "big girl bed" this weekend. it's been in the basement for months, but she's had no desire to leave the crib so we hadn't pursued the transition at all. still had no desire to give up the crib, but we finished a room makeover for her this weekend, complete with purple ceiling, pink walls, new chair rail, new mini-chandelier, and felt it was the right time to bring out the bed.

so far, she seems to like it- we'll see how things go next week when the boys are back in school and we're all in more of a routine.