February 26, 2010

7 Quick Takes: February 26, 2010 (Vol. 31)

in about me,emotions,homeschooling,media,music,wrap ups

~ 1 ~

I’ve been a total Olympics junkie. Since I’m always a fan of late night television anyway, I have had a fabulous time watching it. Have you been watching the Olympics too?

I have to admit to being emotional when I watch it though. Eric would say, “When aren’t you emotional?” But, I swear — if any of those Olympians cry, I think I’m contractual obligated to cry with them. I just can’t help myself. I cry with them in both victory and defeat.

I just love the Olympics. I’m already looking forward to the summer Olympics in London. (Although it is a little unsettling to realize that when the Olympics open in London in 2012, I’ll be the mother of a teenager. Wow.)

~ 2 ~

Molly and I have been talking about what instrument she would like to play when she is older. Having never taken any kind of lessons when I was growing up, it’s funny to me to just automatically think that she’ll take music lessons. But, with two kids already taking piano lessons, it seems like a given.

I told her that she has to start with piano, since she can start that the earliest. Then, we were chit chatting about the possibility of the cello. I always wanted to play the cello. Of course, I should probably just take lessons, rather than live through her. But, our piano teacher does those lessons as well, and we were able to look at her cello not too long ago. Molly was pretty impressed.

This discussion made me think about a comedian we watched online talking about how much he loved playing the cello. Well, except one particular song. You must go watch the video (and then come back, okay?). I would embed it, but that has acted funny lately.

(Just a heads up: It’s just over five minutes long. Up until four minutes, it is totally clean. After that point, he does use three curse words. All are ones that could be aired on primetime television, I have noticed. However, that still doesn’t mean that kids should watch it after that point.)

~ 3 ~

Why is it that once I turned 30, I had to start having pimples again? Seriously — that’s not right. I didn’t have them very often when I was a teenager, and I felt lucky. Flash forward and here I am with breakouts. Boo! So wrong.

~ 4 ~

This week, Noah came out on the Wii Fit as being “at risk for being overweight.” I was pretty distraught by this. He is a big kid, but he’s also a really tall 10 year old. He was pretty bummed, and so was I.

All of the sudden, in the middle of the night that night, I said to myself (outloud), “Hey! We’ve never changed his height in Wii Fit!”

Yep, that’s what it was. The next day, I measured his height (4’11″, if you’re interested) and then we went in to Wii Fit and added in his extra inches. Apparently he was 4’5″ when we got the game. Let me tell you — six inches makes a pretty huge difference in BMI measurements. He was pretty thrilled, and so was I.

We also had to change Jack and Molly’s heights, as long as we were at it. Jack had grown five inches since we first bought the game, and Molly six inches.

~ 5 ~

I told the kids that I forgot about changing heights in the Wii Fit because I am not getting any taller.

“I’ll never get any taller than this,” I told the kids.

Jack chimed in, “Yeah – but I have heard that when you get older, you shrink.”

Thanks, kid.

~ 6 ~

My sister-in-law has been sending us some videos of their new baby, Elizabeth, with their new flip camera. Does anyone have one of these? (The flip camera, not baby Elizabeth.) Do you like it?

I go between thinking it might be something fun to have and we don’t really need it.

~ 7 ~

Watching the Olympics has reminded me that I need to teach the kids the words to The Star-Spangled Banner. It’s funny the things that you realize that you need to teach the kids when you homeschool. For this very reason, we started doing the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of our homeschool co-op this school year.

It may not be a surprise, but singing The Star-Spangled Banner makes me cry.