We went to our town Christmas parade last night and it was so much fun! My oldest son was in the parade, with his high school marching band. And there is an awesome coffee shop in the town square where we were watching it from. I had the most delicious chicken salad sandwich and a yummy coffee.

The theme of the parade was ‘A Country Christmas’ and there were all kinds of ‘floats’ entered in the fun procession! There were very dirty muddin’ trucks, a funeral parlor limousine, and even a miniature carousel. There was even a truck from the Coop - I’m pretty sure that’s where my mother-in-law buys her horse riding apparel. I just love saying it - ‘the Coop’. It makes me feel so country, like an official, bonafide small-towner! I just love it - but, I’m a dork like that!

It is really just so sad, but, lately no matter how early I go to bed, I can NOT read! I can’t stand it!

Last night I went to bed at 9:30 and I really wanted to read just this one little article in my magazine that had just come in the mail - Website Magazine. I wanted to read the article about the controversy that is brewing around the internet, more specifically the blogosphere, about a certain type of advertising.

And I could barely read the first few paragraphs without falling asleep! I don’t think I even read the first column without just completely conking out!

And here is where it gets really sad - about a week ago, I went to bed at 7:30. That’s right, folks - 7:30pm. I completely thought I would get to relax in bed and read for at least a couple hours.

Do you think that happened? Nope. I was out - like a light!

I want to read - someone un-sleepify me!!

The book, The Mailbox, by Audrey Shafer, sounds so good. I think I’m going to put it on my book queue with my new book club for the kids. It is about a little boy who lives in one foster home after another and just leads a really hard life. Then, at the age of nine, he is sent off to live with his old uncle. His uncle is quite the grump, but, he has some amazing stories to tell and a heart of gold. He is a good, stable person for the boy. Sadly, the uncle dies when the boy is still quite young. The boy is terrified and so sad, and so he doesn’t tell anyone that his uncle has died. And mysteriously, the body disappears and lots of cards start to show up in the mailbox. One of the big themes of this book is interconnectedness and I think the author uses the symbol of mailboxes to represent that.

Everyone seems to have a little bit of a different take on it, as with any book, really. But with every review that I read, I just want to read the book all that more!

Oh my gosh! My son just missed a week of school. And it was a short week, since Monday was a holiday. And he has SO MUCH MAKE-UP WORK!! Which to me is really weird, since I have felt that the boys haven’t had enough homework at this school. I guess that just means that they just jam pack the school day full of work!

I have to say I honestly feel like keeping him home another day just so he can get caught up! He is still slightly feverish. He has asthmatic bronchitis. I took him to a clinic yesterday to have him checked out and get an antibiotic. I really liked the clinic. It was clean and neat and upgraded. It didn’t look like an old doctor’s office from the 60’s, like so many we’ve been to.

The doctor that saw him was really sweet and attentive, to both Shawn and me. That is definitely a plus - when the doctor can easily and comfortably converse with the parent and the child. She was really cool. She even had on sexy boots that were black and fishnets! That was a surprise to see! She had the outfit put together tastefully, it wasn’t tacky at all. It just made me feel more comfortable with her, to know there really was a ‘woman’ under that lab coat - and a cool one, at that!

I also forgot to get the doctor’s note for Shawn to have unexcused absences. If you have more than five per semester, you need a note. I’ll have to see if my husband can go by there tomorrow.

Back to this make-up work, though, oh my! I don’t know how I’ll get this kid caught up. I’m sure it just looks overwhelming on paper, and once we get to working on it, and once we talk with the teachers - everything will be alright. All of the seventh grade teachers said at the orientation that they are willing to work with the kids. Some of them come to school early and some of them stay late, and all of them are willing to give their time outside of class if a student needs it. So I’m sure as long as Shawn and I and the teachers stay in communication, we will get him caught up! Darn his asthmatic lungs, though!

Well, I had fun, anyway. I think Sammie was a little frustrated. You see, every week she has to bring home her math test and we have to work through the problems that she missed. The first one that she missed this time was about pentagons. She was supposed to draw four of them and color in (shade) to show 3 1/2. She had drawn them all teeny tincy and squishy so it didn’t really look like it represented 3 1/2. I sat there thinking of how a pentagon looks in my head, so that I could help her, and all that my brain was supplying was a stop sign, which is six sides. So I knew that wasn’t right - so I headed to the internet. I found some cool websites with information on pentagons. And I showed her what a pentagon should look like. And then I went off to start dinner - or balance the checking accounts - or something…

And when I came back, she had definitely drawn five-sided shapes, but, the bottom lines on the sides were straight up and down - so it looked like when a child draws a house. And I was not sure her teacher was going to accept that, or even if that qualified as a pentagon. So I went searching online some more. And I discovered that her shapes were indeed pentagons, but, they were irregular pentagons. So they did qualify. I suppose we’ll see if her teacher accepts that or not. I stressed to her that they were irregular pentagons, so that if she discussed it with her teacher, she could point that out. Now - her teacher could obviously counter with, “Yes, but, I wanted regular pentagons.” In which case Sammie would have to do them again, but, at least she could have an intelligent conversation with her teacher about it. And being that Sammie is as polite as can be, I felt safe arming her with that information. If I had a child that would sass the teacher, or rudely argue with the teacher, I would never help her out in that way.

Anyway, so let me tell you about the sites online that I enjoyed so much. The first place I went to was Wikipedia. I just love Wikipedia and their page about pentagons definitely had some cool information! From there, we visited one of the links in the External Links section. And boy, did we have fun there! It is the Math Open Reference site, and we had tons of fun playing with the pentagons there!

You can work with either a regular pentagon, or an irregular pentagon and drag its corners all around to change the size and even the shape (of the irregular one).

Sammie had long since run off, and Patrick and I were left playing with all of the polygons on that site! I think we had the most fun playing with the undecagon and the dodecagon!

The highest polygon that I remember learning in school was the octagon, so I was just having a field day with these long, silly words! And Patrick got to, one more time, laugh at his poor ‘ol ma!

I think I asked him about fifteen times - “Have you changed your undecagon?” Haha!

I have been bombarded with rockin’ cool science stuff in the last twenty-four hours and how could I possibly not share with you? I have to, I simply must!

I am telling you - science is cool now! I’m serious! You know who helped me figure that out? Bill Nye. That is right - Bill Nye, The Science Guy. The kids and I used to watch him all the time! We loved him! And he made science fun! Now why didn’t anyone do that for me when I was a kid?

And then came The Mad Science Guy - he was cool! He would show up in Richardson, TX - in our recreation centers and our library and make us laugh and make us ooh! and aah! He was great! I think he has a website, too.

Those guys aren’t who I wanted to tell you about today, though. (Oops, too late.)
This all started yesterday when I found a post on my friend, Marisa’s blog. Marisa tells us that Science is for Everyone. Oh man, have I ever learned that! I’m so glad that I’ve learned such cool stuff as an adult to get my kids interested in science! Marisa blogged about a very cool online science retailer called Edmund Scientific. It wasn’t always online. Nope - because, it was started in the 1940’s. I dug around a little bit on the site and found some very cool stuff. It reminded me of a store in Texas for homeschool families that we went to once for science project materials. We loved that store! The product that Marisa was pointing out was The Art of Soapmaking. You see, Marisa is a very skilled soapmaker, and she says that had someone told her when she was in school that making cosmetics was science, she knows she would’ve paid much more attention in her school science class! I can totally understand that!

I’m always preaching that about books - make it interesting, make it about a subject in which the child is already interested …and you will sell them every time!

Ok, moving on in this ‘Invasion of Science’ comes Barbara J. Feldman. You guys know I love her - that’s her Daily Factoid over there in the left sidebar. And I told you before about her SurfNet Kids newsletter. The newsletter she sent out today contained none other than….wait for it…science fair ideas!! Do you see what I’m saying here? It’s like a science fair conspiracy or something! “Let’s bombard Mrs. Lisa with science today, General.” Yeah. Ok, then - you can sign up for Barbara’s cool newsletter right here: SurfNet Kids Newsletter.

It doesn’t end there, though! Can you believe it? And this next one is really funny! It’s funny, because, not only is it part of the big Science Fair Invasion of Mrs. Lisa, but, it also appeals to the Hippie in Mrs. Lisa!!

It was my newsletter from Steve Spangler Science and in it he was talking about how to make a new kind of tie dye t-shirt, complete with video! And it looks really cool! It’s the perfect combination of chemistry and art that teaches the concepts of solubility, color mixing, and the movement of molecules. So you wind up with a rockin’ cool shirt - and you learn something along the way! How cool is that?

And then, to put the cherry on the cake, my awesome friend, Sam, over at Punkymoms, asked if anyone had any good science fair ideas. Too funny - science was everywhere today!

And thus ends my scientific journey I was happily dragged along today. I hope my sharing it with you has been helpful to you!

When you shop for a holiday gift at The Alzheimer’s Foundation estore, all proceeds benefit The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. This is a perfect time to make our kids aware of helping others in need, as this month is National Alzheimer’s Month. And it’s the perfect time to be shopping for gifts, too.

The money that goes to the foundation goes toward research to find a cure, but, also - it goes toward providing quality care to those afflicted, which is so important. People with Alzheimer’s do need hands-on, often around-the-clock care, and ensuring that they receive good care is so important and can be so difficult. Funding that can help families get through this difficult time is sorely needed.

I think it is so important to teach our kids about the different things that can go ‘wrong’ in people’s lives. I want my kids to know that life is not all about looking the coolest and having the coolest clothes and hanging out with the coolest people. Teaching them about something as common as Alzheimer’s is a good way to do that. So many of us will have someone in our lives with Alzheimer’s, or will get it ourselves.

And a lot of teens already have someone in their lives with Alzheimer’s and AFA is taking steps to help these teens cope with a very difficult situation. They have their own website, called AFA Teens. There are message boards where they can connect with other teens going through the same thing and lots of information on the site to help them understand Alzheimer’s better. They even try to get local support groups set up for the kids.

Another way The AFA helps families through this trying time is to offer in their eStore, a four part training DVD, that will help people learn basic skills for caring for family members with the disease. So when you purchase these DVD’s you are not only helping yourself and your family member, but, you are also helping the AFA, which in turn - helps your family member. So that’s pretty cool.