Science & Math Night is fun.

2005-02-16
1:31 p.m.

The kids and I went to science and math night at Oldest Son's elementary school last night. Some of the evening's events required tickets that, albeit free, were to be dispensed on a first-come-first-serve basis beginning at 5:30. We pulled in the parking lot at 5:25 and had trouble finding a parking spot. Wow, a lot of people take this night way serious! We still managed to get into two of the desired three events OS wanted to go to, so we fared well.

After scoring the tickets we wanted, we headed back to the cafeteria to pick up and eat the pepperoni pizza we had pre-ordered through the school. The cafeteria was packed as well, but we found three seats together pretty quickly and enjoyed dinner.

The rest of the evening was spent touring the school and looking at various science projects different classes had done. Almost every hall had a table set up to guess the amount of jelly beans/M&Ms/Skittles/ Valentine heart candies, etc. Oldest Son wanted to make a guess on every single one of them, and Youngest Son tried his hardest to remove candy from every single one.

One event we participated in was a rock guy. He sets the kids up with trays of gravel and sand that they had to sift in water to find all the amethyst and quartz and tiger eye and other assorted rocks he'd hidden in there. We had a lot of fun doing that and came away with two bags of flushable rocks. **

The second event we attended was a reptile guy from the local nature center. He was obviously a man who loves his job, and that made him even more fun to watch. He came around with two different kinds of turtles, a snake, a lizard, and a baby alligator that all the kids (and parents) could touch. Both kids really enjoyed that, but I like my reptiles at a distance. Preferably behind glass, too. Except for turtles, because even I can outrun them.

The reptile guy just happened to have the same first name as Youngest Son. Before the program started I was fussing at Youngest Son to quit kicking his brother's chair (oh, yeah, the fun never stops), and he immediately piped up and said he had the same name, and his mom used to say it the same way, and to this day it stops him in his tracks when he hears it. It brought laughter from the audience every time I had to repeat it during the program, because reptile guy would freeze as well.

I got a chance to talk to OS's teacher last night, too, and she bragged on how much OS's handwriting is improving. It's been a struggle, but we're getting there. It was really nice to hear.

I also saw his teacher from last year, who loves beaded jewelry and oohed and ahhed over my keychain. Love that! She wanted to know if I was going to participate in the school fair this year. I don't know when it is, so I can't say for sure yet, but I probably will.

It was a fun night, and I can see why all the kids get excited about it. Why didn't they do these neat things when I was in school??

Hubby called last night and announced his dismal bowling scores. He said the whole team was about 40 pins below their averages. Bummer. But he sounds like he's having a good time, and today I saw a couple pictures of him on the tournament website. That made him happy.

I went to WW at lunch today and lost a whole 1/2 pound. Let's see...that averages 1/4 pound each for the last two weeks. Still better than gaining. Not bad, considering the amount of Girl Scout cookies I've eaten.

Ever since Hubby left Saturday, I have been in the biggest funk. There's a lot of parts to it, but a big part is my sister-in-law's accident last Valentine's Day and two months later my brother and sister-in-law's motorcycle accident. I have been crying at the drop of a hat since Hubby's been gone, and I am especially jealous that he got to see my family Monday.

I'm also just scared something will happen between now and April 24, the date of M & F's accident. I don't know why I think just because it happened last year it will happen this year, but I feel this cloud of worry overhead, and that we all need to be extra careful. I'm not particularly superstitious usually, but I will exhale after April 24.

Must get back to work, but I just wanted to take a few minutes to update. Maybe I'll post more later in this week and give a tally on the amount of crap in this house I'm attempting to get rid of while Hubby is gone. He has trouble throwing away even plastic butter containers, so I have to do my best to clear out stuff when he's gone!

** Some of you may not have heard this story, but Youngest Son flushed a pretty good sized rock down one of the upstairs toilets a few weeks ago. Those pipes are obviously just behind the wall in the foyer, because that's where I was standing when he did it, and I heard that rock bump and clang all the way down that wall. And I knew EXACTLY what had just happened, as he had been carrying that rock around a few days and leaving it in various places upstairs. Never did I dream he would flush the damn thing, though. Now I can't help but eye every rock and wonder if it's flushable.

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