Select Pics

Waiting for her milkshake at a tea shop after school.

Just after he lost his first top tooth, nearly a year since he lost his bottom two.

Keeping Busy on the Weekends

Painting, glitter glue, stickers...a perfect birthday gift. Good thing she got two!

Playing on the iPad...most favored toy of whole family

Trying out the yoga swing at a brunch. The hosts (ultimate frisbee friends) are watching. 

Tennis lessons

More tennis lessons

A New Look

Last night Miles woke up in the middle of the night with a fever and his other big front tooth hanging by a thread. If you recall losing your teeth as a baby, when a big tooth is still attached but by a dinky root, it's ...uncomfortable. There was to be no touching or even talking about the tooth, let alone pulling or twisting it. Miles had caught the fever his sister had last weekend, coupled with the dangling, darkening front tooth...and in the middle of the night...he was pitiful. 

As I lifted the mixing bowl to him when we thought a puke was coming on, he said, "You're being a good mom." Positive reinforcement in action! It gave me just enough energy to stay up with him until he finally fell asleep. In the morning, he felt all better, and the tooth was out!

Now he's enjoying a day off of school: from bed this morning, Can you bring me the iPad? After two hours of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, he hung out in the little avocado tree sining Ah-bi-yoyo, Ah-bi-yoyo...(he says it's from the book which the music teacher read to them...about a giant who lives in Africa called Yoyo. Ah...this is it! Pete Seeger...who would have guessed.) 

After some jumping on the trampoline, practicing the hold-one-foot-while-bouncing-on-the-other-foot trick, he has come in here to ask me 1) if I can draw Ingromination and 2) where is Momo (our nickname for Mambo...but he's only asking because that's what King Boomy said in the last episode of Avatar: the last Airbender.) I'm thinking we should get his hair cut!

Abomination, aka Ingrommination, Miles's selection

Wouldn't You Like to Be a Worm?

No. Not really.

Miles's class just finished a unit on invertebrates. In addition to caring for silk worms that became moths, and going on an "invertebrate safari" field trip, the kids worked for weeks to prepare for a big performance. Miles was a worm along with a few others.

H-E-R-M-A-P-H-R-O-D-I-T-E
Come on kids, get it right.
That old greek word, hermaphrodite.
There's no girl, there's no boy.
We're all the same in the earthworm world. 
There's no Mr. There's no Mrs.
There's no brothers. There's no sisters.
Don't you worry. Don't you fuss.
'Cause that's how nature created us!


The first time I heard vague snippets of Miles singing this as he played around the house, I thought, that's funny, it sounds like he's spelling hermaphrodite. And low and behold, he was. This was his (and all the kids, I was pleased to see) favorite song which they performed with much gusto - twice! Gotta love science.

Worms

Miles (with standard issue certificate for excellent work) and his Teaching Assistant Miss Boxter & Eliza

And did you know that worms have 5 hearts?

Sorry, I wish I could post some videos of the performance. Sweet and hilarious. You really can't underestimate the value of a first grade teacher with a sense of humor.

Sweet moment between Miles and his awesome teacher, Mrs. Breathnach

A few more from Eliza's 4th

This is a slideshow of a few more photos from the birthday. I'm experimenting with using Picasa.

Troutbeck - Springhide House

For our first Spring Break in Zimbabwe, we did not head for the beaches of Mozambique like half the families at HIS but headed to the mountains an easy 3-hour-drive to the east for a just couple of nights away. We were lucky to find out about this house from some local friends of ours who have been coming up here for 10 years. You need to bring everything with you from toilet paper to salt & pepper, but there are beds, comfy if a bit worn furniture, and importantly, Rusiya and her husband who are the managers of the estate and who, in true Zimbabwe style, took very good care of us. Rusiya cooked hot meals and took the kids to see her lambs and chicks. Her husband built fires in the fireplace at night when it got cold. We had loads of candles but were lucky that we had power the whole weekend. $15/person/night and half-price for the kids! I hope we can make it up again and bring friends during the month-long Christmas holiday we'll be here.

Springhide House, Nyanga National Park, near the town of Troutbeck

There are 5 single beds, 3 in this kids' room, 2 at the top of the stairs, and

her is one of two rooms with double beds, both with fireplaces.

"World's View" overlook nearby.

Up in the mountains, a lot of people come to fish, but you have to have your own gear. So we just took the kids out on the row boat which was not very easy to manage with the wind and broken oarlocks. (It's always helpful to have a good sense of humor while living in Africa since you are definitely going to find yourself in situations where things don't work quite the way they should.) While David golfed at the Troutbeck Inn, I explored the grounds with the kids. At home, we played board games and less traditional iPad games, and read, wrote, and had our drinks while the kids enjoyed climbing the boulders in the front yard. Even though we are at the tail end of the dry season (it actually rained on our way home and the risk of fire went from extremely high to moderate), it was still beautiful with blossoming azaleas and fresh smelling pines.

Veld fires purposefully set ths time every year everywhere in Zimbabwe

Lake at Troutbeck

Mambo the Kitten (never mind Eliza's haircut)