Garden News

If you've noticed the lack of garden posts this year, it's not that we don't have one. It's just that we seem to have even less time than usual to tend to it this year. We completely missed the radishes, somehow, but we had a couple of heads of lettuce, and we are now catching up now on delicious snow peas and strawberries.

We hope to have some tomatoes at some point, if the tomato plants can survive the aphid attacks. And green peppers, and zucchini.

End of the school year

Benjamin had to miss the end-of-year school show for the parents on Friday, since we wanted to be very sure he was not contagious anymore before unleashing him upon the world again. He was more than disappointed, especially when he heard that Noah ate about twelve little cups of chocolate mousse. 

The 3rd-5th grade class performed a small play based on Lafontaine's fables. Benjamin's class (1st & 2nd grade) sang three songs (one about "children's rights," so Benjamin has been telling us lately that he has the right to a home, that we can't kick him out, not even at 18). And Noah's preschool / kindergarten did three little songs, one about "galettes," one about cousins, and the French version of "The Farmer in the Dell"... it's all pretty similar until you get to the end, where in the American version, the cheese stands alone. That could seem sad, until you hear the French version, in which the cheese gets beaten! 

The boys are still keeping us entertained at home...

Benjamin and Noah were playing "Daddy and kid" this morning. Noah, the "kid," said to Benjamin, the "daddy":
"Et tu me fais confiance que je fais pas de bêtises, hein, tu me fais confiance."
("And you trust me, I won't do anything bad, hm, you trust me.")

Sounds vaguely familiar, somehow... he's got this kid role down.

A bit earlier he asked "daddy" if he could "get up in the middle of the night to go to work." (Like someone else he knows...)

And then later on in the day... 

Noah: Mommy can we go outside?
Me: What did Daddy say?
Noah: He said nothing.
Me: Oh? Nothing?
Noah: He said no.
Me: Oh. Well, I'm too tired. Go tell Daddy Mommy is too tired because Daddy snores all the time.
Noah: [goes nowhere, fiddles with random things in my office]
Me: Hurry, go tell Daddy before you forget.
Noah: Mais je le tiens dans ma tête. (But I'm holding it in my head.)
Noah: (two seconds later) You said what?

Clearly he has my memory skills. I'm so proud.

Benjamin has a sub this week as his teacher is out for training, and one day next week, his class is going to an amusement park. So the last few days ought to go fast for him. And for me... guess I should start thinking about end-of-year teacher gifts soon.

Reason #268 to marry a Frenchman

Homemade chocolate mousse. Enough said.

Math problems with Benjamin

Benjamin is out of school this week thanks to the chicken pox. His teacher sent some work home for him to do before he goes back.

Today he came to ask for help with this problem: 

"A squirrel has 30 acorns. He splits them up between 3 other squirrels so each has the same number. How many acorns does each squirrel have?"

 They had a big blank rectangle to draw whatever they needed to help them figure it out. Benjamin drew four squirrels and wanted to divide the 30 acorns among all four. He couldn't understand why I told him we only needed to divide them among three of the squirrels. 

So I cut up 30 small pieces of paper and drew three small squirrels on a paper so he could see how to split them up. I said, "I am the squirrel. I give ALL my acorns to these three squirrels. I don't have any left. You see?"

His reply: "But you will be hungry!"

This is why math is hard. Word problems have no compassion.

First Harvest!

Noah was very excited about the first potato harvest. 

And we enjoyed a wonderful homegrown meal - new potatoes, snow peas, homemade bread (not with a machine!), and a chicken... the chicken was from the store, to Frédéric's great disappointment. He keeps hoping I am going to give in and say he can have chickens in the back yard like many of our neighbors. 

I say, our neighbors give us fresh eggs already, I think we're good.