1. In the creek without a paddle
I went to pick Lola up from my mom’s house where she spends the day while the rest of us are at CC, often playing with cousin Rilla, and we ended up basking in the sunshine in the back yard while the kids played. All of a sudden we heard a splash and immediately looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when we could see the two girls. We counted heads, and I relaxed when I knew it was Luke. He and Leif were on the tire swing together and a vigorous push-off had sent Luke sliding off into the ditch. He was a great sport, and didn’t even give us a bad time about taking pictures before he finally said, “Uh, could someone help me out, here?”
Later he said to me, "Mom, I'm kinda glad I fell in the water. Because it was funny, I got to ride in the back of the truck, and I got to take a hot shower."
2. Shakespeare, wandering in storms, eyes poked out, and dead bodies everywhere
We were talking about attending a Shakespeare play this weekend and I asked Leif if he would be interested in going. He asked, "Which one?" And I answered, "King Lear." "Oh," Leif replied, "he's the one who wandered in a storm." Luke, who had just read the retelling by Leon Garfield, piped up. "That's not all he does!" [Luke's one-sentence retelling was that a guy gets his eyes poked out.] I handed the book over to Leif and told him that the story was on page 29. He responded, "Oh, yeah!" And then he cuddled up on his bed reading King Lear. Sometimes I really love my life.
And thank you, Life of Fred math, for the references to Shakespeare (in Jelly Beans). Something else came up the other day (I don't even remember what it was) and Leif said, "That's just like the end of Hamlet...Dead bodies everywhere."
3. Speaking of Life of Fred
In each Life of Fred math book, the author encourages students to find editing errors. He says that if a student emails him an error, he'll send a list of other errors students have found in return. Leif, who loves Life of Fred, also loves to find errors. [grin] So I emailed the author for Leif and Stan Schmidt sent a nice little personal email in return saying "Your son has good eyes! Give him a hug for me." And now Leif is on a mission to find more...
4. Speaking of businesses doing things right
A few weeks ago I recommended the movie The Boxcar Children. It is so darling and true to the book, and the kids love it. Well, the producer emailed me afterward, said thank you, and offered to send the kids a signed DVD. They just received it in the mail with Boxcar Children cards personalized and signed by both producers. They were thrilled. Seriously? That was super kind.
5. Speaking of kind people
When we gave our family presentation for CC, Luke mentioned that he loves to collect coins. A grandmother asked me later if she thought he would like a few coins from another country. I said he would. The very next week, she gave him several French franc coins. She had no idea that we had been studying the French Revolution, and Luke’s favorite song right now is “La la liberte. Eh e-galite. Fra fra-ternite!!” [CC peeps, take a look at the date on the left coin. Guess what our history sentence was this week!]
Have you experienced something funny or kind this week?
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