Peanuts

• Matthew likes lettuce on his turkey sandwiches. He calls it "salad." (From the comments on Facebook, this appears to be nearly universal. Who knew?)
  
• Melissa sang a song as she cleared the table: "Butter is yellow, butter is squish; when you put it on 'tatoes, it melts like ice..."
  
• Matthew came home with A Mark on his folder. ("Is that bad?" I asked Rachel. "Yes.") Apparently when the teacher told him to stop talking, he ... didn't stop talking. Anyone who has guested at our house will be completely and utterly Not Surprised by this.
  
• We had renters in our Draper house for a week and they're already breaking their contract. That's quick work there, guys. (Rachel's cousin, Heather, is managing it for us. She dropped by for something and saw the dog, in violation of the no-pets contract they signed. Supposedly, they are now looking for a more pets-friendly house with the dog at Grandma's for the interim.)
  
• Laptop keyboards are wrecking my wrists again. Kind of a pain to drag out the kinesis when I'm at home (and keep Isaac off of it). But it's literally more of a pain now, not to.
  
• I don't have much talent for Mongolian BBQ. First bowl was mediocre. Second was worse.
  
• Isaac gets into something he shouldn't. (E.g. our camera.) I put it where he can't reach it. Rachel considers the new resting place indecorous and puts it back where Isaac can reach it. It's the ciiiiiiiircle of life...
  
• Mom sent me some ointment I call "ben gay in a bottle." It's perfect for Matthew's minor bouts of hypochondria. "I have just the right medicine for your tummy hurting, Matthew." "What is it called?" "Placebo."
  
• Watched "Coraline" with Rachel (her pick). It's like "Uncanny Valley: the movie." The stylized humans are watchable enough, but the cat is just realistic enough to be disconcerting. Also: being an only child sure looks boring.
  
• Carmel apples for dessert. Matthew gave Isaac some while I answered a call of nature. I don't think I've ever seen such a sticky one-year-old. Bathtime ensued.
  
• Wednesday morning I left the headlights on in the minivan after driving Matthew to school in the rain. When Rachel had to take Melissa to preschool, the battery was dead. "Looks like one of the kids left the lights on," she said. Yes. Darn kids. I came back and jumped the minivan.
  
• Rachel has decided I should teach the kids French. Can't find any French-language TV around, and amazon.fr wanted to charge $25 to ship $40 worth of books. This could get ugly.
  
• Matthew: "It's really sad we had to move, huh, Mom?" It's been almost a year, he's made new friends, but in some respects Matthew is a glass-half-empty kind of kid.
  
• Rachel got a babysitter Saturday morning. Rachel did FSA paperwork and stuff and I worked on Carnage Blender. I'm not sure why she didn't just have me watch the kids while she was busy but I think it's awesome.
  
• The difference between boys and girls: Melissa "made an earth," which involved coloring a sheet of paper blue and folding it into a tube. Matthew saw it, slipped his arm inside the tube, and declared it "a robot arm gun. It covers up your human arm, and shoots."
  
• Somehow I thought my FSA year was the same as the calendar year. Nope, it ended in June. That's $500 down the drain.
  
• Melissa went shopping with Rachel and had a _great_ time. She came home with her prizes, and showed off one skirt in particular to her brother: "Look, Matthew! It has a heart on it! Do you _love_ it!?" Matthew was a good sport, and agreed that he did, in fact, love it.
  
• Isaac doesn't like to watch TV, but he likes to play "close the TV cupboard doors while the bigger kids watch." This is a blessing and a curse.
  
• Isaac could totally walk now if he wanted to, but he prefers to play it safe. He's up to four or five steps away from furniture now. On the plus side his head is unbruised more often than not -- not the case when Matthew was learning to walk (at nine months).