Ariel has a best friend at school, S. S is vivacious and outgoing, very charming. The girls hug each other when they arrive at school, and sit together every chance they get. It's SOOO adorable! We count ourselves very fortunate that Ariel has such a good friend, because she still takes saying good-bye a little hard sometimes. When Ariel sees S she is suddenly fine and can happily stay at school.

I filled out the questionnaire about Ariel's development, and totted up the scoring. Ariel is perfectly normal in all the areas except Fine Motor Skills, where she's quite behind. I'll ask her teacher what she thinks about it, but I'm not especially worried.

Zack was reading "Marvelous Land of Oz," which Ken and I both read in third grade (if not sooner). He felt it was a little long, and didn't jump to read it at reading time. I went online and looked up books at Zack's level (4th - 5th grade), and jotted down likely titles. Out of curiosity, I looked up "Marvelous Land" and found it was scored at the 8th grade level. Cripes!! On Sunday I told the kids we were going to the library, and asked Zack if he wanted to walk or drive. He said walk, because it would be good exercise and it would make us Green! So we walked, and it was quite lovely. I picked up some books for Zack, including "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and he picked out some science books. He's gotten so attached to one of his books that he took it to bed with him tonight. I'm glad.

The kids are obviously working on what their relationship should be. I often find myself telling Zack, "Let me be the mommy," because Zack is Very Concerned that Ariel should do things the right way. Ariel, understandably, resents Zack's concern and inevitably responds defiantly to him. There's a lot of back-seat arguing when we go to pick up Zack at school. It doesn't help that the winter sun is shining directly in Zack's eyes both going to school and coming home from it, so he needs to look towards Ariel's side of the car to avoid being blinded. Ariel, of course, shouts "Stop looking at me!" After a couple lectures from me on how family members should all Get Along, Zack has made an obvious effort to be downright gentlemanly to Ariel. It is so charming and heartwarming to see! Unfortunately, Ariel just views it as more of his bossy interference, so she's as grumpy as ever. I told him once or twice, though, that I noticed his efforts and I was proud of him and grateful to him.

I've started to make a dent in various piles of detritus. I'm trying to get our summer gizmos (snowcone and ice cream makers) put away before Christmas. I went through my closet last weekend and took out a bunch of stuff that I know I just won't wear. (Sweatshirts don't flatter anybody, ever.) Looking at what I have left, I realized I had a lot more long-sleeved shirts than I thought I did, and having lost some weight, much of it fits again. Hooray for shopping the back of the closet! There are a couple shirts that don't fit in the arms. I took the arms off of one as an experiment, and like the results well enough to do it to the other. I found this site recently, and I think I'd like to try my hand at doing some embroidered embellishment. I also have a mending pile that I need to get to.

I'm feeling very domestic lately; I guess it's one of those phases, like writing or drawing, that I go through.

Watched "Bend it Like Beckham" on Friday, then again a couple nights later with Ken. It's really good! I had a hard time understanding some of the dialog, what with the accents and the miscellaneous Indian phrases, but the story is wonderfully satisfying, and the characters are all warmly realistic. Next up is "Bride and Prejudice" by the same director.

We only had 9 trick-or-treaters. This after I bought twice the amount of candy as last year and made three whole jack-o-lanterns and everything. Ariel didn't even go out; she had a late nap and then when we woke her up she had a fit that lasted past 7:00 so Ken and Zack left without her. Zack raked in a healthy haul, anyway, and his spider costume looked great. I'll post pics soon.

It's bad enough knowing that a non-zero percent of everything we buy gets thrown out again because it wasn't eaten or played with or worn. Buying a whole suite of Halloween paraphernalia for Ariel and prospective guests that won't get used adds insult to injury. Ariel does like dressing up, so I'm sure the princess dress and crown will get used again within a year, and who knows, perhaps she'll want to be a princess again next year. Also, I made Zack's costume in such a way that all the spider gear can be cut off and it'll be a perfectly serviceable sweatshirt again. Go me!

I'll send the leftover candy (minus the Snickers bars) out with Ken next week to give away in class... but that's not what I bought it for, dammit.

We all watched "Monsters vs. Aliens" this afternoon as a family. I made popcorn and everything. Too bad the movie was mostly meh in the character design, scripting, humor, and animation areas. I asked Zack what he thought about a 27-year-old woman protagonist; was she as cool to watch as, say, Avatar? Zack shrugged and said "Sure." Good enough, then.

Caught up on sleep last night, happily. Even though I had another "running late" dream...so annoying. And I woke myself up with coughing several times. I'm starting to think I might have an allergy instead of a cold because this malady has lasted so long. Will fire up the Wii Fit on Monday, nevertheless.

Our house has been taken over by Spore. Not "spores;" just Spore. We got it for Zack as a gift for his meeting his reading goal for this quarter, and then he got me hooked, and watching me play got Ken hooked. Ariel is not hooked (yet), but enjoys lap-sitting and watching. It's much more entertaining (to me) than The Sims; that one was just re-creating real life, and I have enough of that already. Spore is about evolving a little animalcule into a sentient being which will be eventually capable of interstellar flight. Wheeee! None of us in the family are at the fire-starter stage yet, but Ken and I have centauroids--mine's an herbivore and his is a carnivore--and Zack has just been evolving one monstery thing after another.

Crap. All I need is one more thing to obsess over that isn't what I really should obsess over. But hey, it's a game interface! It's...research! Yeah, that's it. Research.

Read Cory Doctorow's "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town." Wish I'd read reviews of it before I did. It had some interesting premises, but ultimately wasn't very satisfying at all from a plot resolution standpoint. Too bad.

Haven't gotten on the WiiFit thing in at least 2 weeks. As soon as I get over this cold I'll face the music. I hope I can stay on target through the holiday season. I have/had only 4 lb to go to meet my goal! I like it well enough to keep on using it.

Zack wants to be a "devil spider" or is it "spider devil" for Halloween. I bought some black garbage bags, but I think it'll be easier to just get a couple of 3$ black sweatshirts from the thrift store and sew instead of glue all the arms. Will also buy a knit cap and some googly eyes. Ariel wants to be a princess, and I just got her a Target princess dress for that. I figure she'll use the dress all year long. She certainly loves the metallic pink shoes!

Hey, here's a fun video: The Silent Monks version of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. Only 3 minutes! Watch!