Last week we finished reading "Marvelous Land of Oz" to Zack, and then I reviewed it with him, and on Friday he took the test. He got 10 out of 10!! Woo hoooo! That's one of the parenting moments that you really live for. Made a distinctly mediocre day very happy indeed.

On Saturday we went to TJ's house for her Art Walk & Craft Show. She had more artisans in the barn than ever, like 8 or 9. Two fabulous older women had a booth with lots of simple crafts, but they had come up with an idea of using kelp stretched over driftwood to make rattles. Brilliant and beautiful. It was then that I started kicking myself for not bringing my checkbook. Aargh!!

Cherise had brought her two neices, Noelle and Brooke. Noelle is in 5th grade and Brooke is Zack's age. By the end of the afternoon, Zack was calling her "Brookie." Meanwhile, Ariel had discovered the 4-yo daughter of a friend-of-a-friend, and they stuck to each other like glue. I was so gratified to see that Ariel is more eager to be sociable and make friends.

Got caught up on some Dr. Who recently; the specials. Next season isn't out on DVD yet. Afraid to look when it might be available for fear of seeing spoilers. In the meantime, I started watching an old Tom Baker story, "The City of Death." Ken sat down to watch with me. I said, "You'll be asleep in 15 minutes." I was right on the money!

Oh yeah, also enjoyed "Bride and Prejudice," which had some nice spins on the old story. Extended song-and-dance numbers, for one! Very "easy on the eyes," as one commenter put it.

Had an interesting, inadvertent science experiment the other day. I wanted to sauté some garlic and onions for a pasta sauce. I put them both (separately) through my mini-chopper, then put them in the pan with butter and oil. Well, as they got hot, they started to turn green. And the mess never cooked, and it never started to smell at all good. Ken did some googling and found it was a chemical reaction, and the advice is to sauté the onions first, then add the garlic. Lesson learned! I will also avoid chopping the onions quite so finely; it seems they just turn into mush which doesn't cook.

Off to Motown soon, for T-day. No science experiments in the forecast, happy to say.

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.