Polly wolly doodle

...is the current song everyone in the O. home is singing or whistling. Reason? We watched "You Can't Take It With You," with Jimmy Stewart, as our Sunday Night Feature. I can't believe I'd not seen it before! It was a hoot, and good family fun. We only watched part of it Sunday night (it got too late to continue), so we finished up tonight. This is a movie I want to own! One of the few times that I'd seen Lionel Barrymore as a lighthearted good guy (I can't escape the vision of his "Mr Potter" character, the scurvy little spider of "It's a Wonderful Life.") Oh, this film is a Frank Capra film too, so it's chock full of feel-good moments.


I found a very useful/useless web site yesterday, with useful/useless Latin phrases like, "Quid agis, Medice?" (What's up, Doc?). Or, how about: "fac me cocleario vomere" - "Gag me with a spoon!" Another good one: "cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt," which, being translated, is, "when catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will own catapults." I was surprised to see that there are quite a few goofy Latin web sites like this around. Latin is on my list of languages to learn, actually (yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes) - because it's just so darn useful for understanding English. Yep, dead languages are cool.

Math is breezing along charmingly right now. It's all about inches, feet, miles; cups, pints, gallons... and metric stuff too - cm, dm, m, km; g, kg; L, mL. SOOOOO nice to polish off three math lessons in 30 minutes. Enjoying while I can, because NEXT on the math menu is multiplying/dividing with factors/divisors above 5. Sigh. I am going to make them complete the multiplication table EVERY DAY so the patterns sink in.

And what lovely weather today! It was difficult to stay inside to teach piano. I'm pointing a few of my students toward WSMTA's "adjudications" (this used to be "auditions," Crystal, did Mimi ever do this to you?) - where the students present two memorized pieces of contrasting style and/or period to a master teacher, who evaluates not only their playing, but my teaching. At any rate... I had planned for 6 students to be in this... but now I'm down to three. One is playing sports and isn't practicing right now; another one just isn't interested; and I learned today that a third student will be taking off the final quarter of the school year from piano. She plans to come back for summer lessons. Joy, a tuition gap to fill.

Gruff. These are all my higher level students. I have a couple of really bright kids coming up, though, so in a year or two I'll have more intermediate/late intermediate players. And the not-so-bright students...can keep going along as usual, so long as they love music and love me. :) :)

We just had a laundry folding bee in my bedroom. I know Flylady says not to put clean laundry to be folded in your bedroom, but this is my house! Anyway, A. tossed the clothes to their owners, while the rest of us folded/put away. He matched socks for me (woot!) while I folded towels. It's a good system, and lovely now that the kids are old enough to fold their own clothes.

And, on the subject of putting things away--here's a great idea I stole from FlyLady: The House Fairy. The House Fairy comes and checks the kids' rooms from time to time and leaves them a treat if their rooms are neat and clean-- or an encouraging note if they are not. D. has kept his room picked up now for a month. He's gotten 3 or 4 treats out of the deal. I'm pretty sure he knows I'm the House Fairy, but we keep it on the QT. This way I am not nagging them to clean their rooms, it's all the HF's deal. S. has gotten a couple of treats, but she simply doesn't see the piles of clothes or toys in the corners of the room. The HF has gently pointed this out in a note or two... "Great job..keep up the good work... what about the toys under the piano?" - but so far it hasn't paid off. Oh well, in time. And the HF's visits are totally random...meaning, whenever I have a treat handy and the kids aren't expecting it.

Which reminds me, The House Fairy is overdue. Probably tomorrow sometime!

D. has just come into my room to show me his latest monster drawings. It's 10:30 p.m. No wonder the kid doesn't sleep at night... his thoughts are all of monsters! But the drawings are pretty cool. What will this child grow to be, I wonder?

Wordsworth's answer, of course: the child is father of the man.

Ergo, he'll be what he is now, just bigger.

May God help me!
:)