The Girl Child had a math day at school yesterday where the students took the parents through various math stations and showed them how they were learning addition, comparison (greater than, less than, and equal), geometry (how to manipulate shapes), patterns (which she told me is a design that is repeated), and a little bit about probability. It was great fun, although it was scheduled at 12:00 to 1:00. GC really enjoyed being my teacher as she explained each activity to me. The Viking Bride had an obligation at the Boy Child's school so I got to go to the GC's program.

After school, I took her away with me for lunch, just the two of us. Well, I had lunch and I let her just have dessert since she had eaten lunch earlier at school. Over lunch, we had a wide ranging conversation and I told her that I was having difficulties with her definition of pattern since I thought that the word design implied a conscious decision to create something and that seemed to me that it would leave out the patterns created in nature. She thought for a second and told me that wasn't right. First, she said, the patters in nature were created by God. She pulled a leaf off of her sprig of mint and held it up to show me the tracing of lines that constituted a pattern. She reminded me that the world and everything in it was created by God and therefore it was all a conscious design. Or, didn't I believe that God created the world? I decided simply to assure her that I did and enjoy her reasoning, complete with visual aid.

It was a gorgeous day in Westport. It was 75 degrees (or 24 celsius) and blue skies everywhere. I came back with the GC and collected the BC, changed into shorts, and took them both to the beach playground to run around for an hour or so. The ice cream guy was out and, after playing, I bought them each a popsicle and we sat by the edge of the ocean while they ate their ice cream and we all chatted. It was idyllic.

Hope you are all as great as we were yesterday!

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Ok, not quite. Still, the Viking Bride was lurking outside the Boy Child's classroom yesterday (or the day before) so she could observe him at play without his knowing it. Her lurking skills require work. The Boy Child spotted her and exclaimed to his little friends:

Yikes! Its my mom!

We have no idea why he said that but I have been amused all day by it.

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The Boy Child has a cold. Things leaking from his nose all over the place. The Girl Child is a little hoarse. I woke up at 12:30 this morning with a huge sneeze that, much like a trumpet, heralded the arrival of full congestion. Yuck.

Thank goodness for Sudafed. I am just starting to feel human again. As human as any lawyer feels, that is.

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We escaped this weekend. We bundled the children into the car and escaped with them to that well known tourist destination: New Haven, CT. Ok, it actually was a lot nicer than I had expected. There were loads of beautiful buildings and nicely groomed streets.

We started off at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, making pizza in New Haven since 1925 in coal fired brick ovens. The pies came out on superbly crisp crusts. The kids and the Viking Bride split one pizza while I had my own small one with anchovies, sausage, cheese and mushrooms. The kids bravely tried the anchovies but did not care for them. The pizza was worth a trip all by itself. Really. Pepe's is most famous for the white clam pizza, which I will certainly try next time. Here's a review of the place, if you are interested.

Apres lunch, we got back in the car and headed over to the Peabody Museum of Natural History to check out the dinosaurs. There were plenty of fossils to excite interest. One of the guidebooks said that the musuem had a collection of shrunken heads which sparked a nice little discussion in the car about cannibals. The kids were interested in cooking methods, among other things.

The museum was quite lovely and we went ahead and joined, especially since we found out that we could then sign up for sleepovers with the dinosaurs, which I think that the children would adore doing. I would, of course, hate it, but would force myself to go. Ahem. Small museums, while lacking the resources and world beating curatorial staffs, are almost always worth a visit and have quite a lot of charm on their own.

All in all, a successful Sunday outing.

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