oh so random

A List:

- I'm blogging at 2:58 a.m.  Yes, that's a.m.  Don't ask why.

- Changing my blogger template seems to have caused Google Analytics to stop tracking my site.  So I tried to remove the new template, which seems impossible.

- I hate computers.  Really, I always have.

- Cookie baking paraphernalia is still sitting on my counter.  I have yet to do the dishes, or change the laundry.  Don't ask why.  (Hint:  I wish my baby would sleep.)

- My eight-year-old son is not into memorizing addition facts to 20.  Not to mention subtraction facts.  I've decided I'm done with that.  Moving on.

- My other son, two years younger, knows them all without ever having used a single flash card.  Some people just have a brain for mathematics.  Others do not.  Why fight it?

- Japan is getting away from rote memorization and standardized testing, while America is rushing more towards their old model.  Creativity scores in American children--particularly in younger ones--have declined since 1990.  Wasting any more time on memorization of facts seems futile.  Creativity is more important.  As long as he learns the multiplication facts, he'll do fine.  I wouldn't want him going through life needing a multiplication table in his briefcase.

- Seriously, I don't know if he'll have a briefcase.  I imagine him as a forest ranger or insect genius.  Definitely a scientist of some sort.

- The non-mathematical son uses big words.  The mathematical son does not.  We all have our gifts.  Peter will be a well-spoken scientist.

- Don't tell Peter I mentioned that he doesn't have a head for mathematics.  He can come to that conclusion himself, but let it not be because of something I said or didn't say.

- I am blessed beyond measure.  Now please just get me a housekeeper.

- Anyone else out there not sleeping?   (New four-time Mama Jess?)  Welcome to the Middle-of-the-Night-Club.  I have chocolate chip cookies to share.

- Tomorrow (or is that today, since it is now 3:15 a.m.?) we are going to a literacy playroom at the library, instead of the park, while Daddy sleeps till noon.  The humidity is awful here.  I know.  Paul, my mathematician, loves weather data and checks it online several times a day.  It all started when we shut off the cable earlier this year.   Peter, my anxious one, wanted to know how we would hear about tornado warnings without cable.  I said we would just check the weather online.  So, come summer, he made me do it often.  Especially if it looked like a storm was brewing.  Lo and behold, they fell in love with the weather site.

So that's how it was decided that Momma is not taking four kids to the park with two thunderstorms expected, in addition to rain-forest type humidity.

- When we mentioned to Californians about moving to Ohio, those in the know said, "Oh, boy.  Get ready for humidity in the summer!  It's awful!  And buggy!"   I'm happy to report that this is the only summer out of five that the humidity has been jungle-like.  And as for the bugs?  They keep my family entertained.  So there, California!

- I spend a significant portion of my day looking up bug facts.  First, we have to find a picture that matches the insect.  It has to be a perfect match.  Then, we use the given name to look up what it eats and how it should be housed.  Sometimes we get into mating habits and how the insect benefits our world.  Are we having fun yet?

- All sarcasm aside, I do love science.  It beats math any day.  It's just that the pics of some of those caterpillars could give you nightmares.  If my baby would let me sleep long enough to have a nightmare, I probably would.  It is teething?  Who knows?  She won't let me check the progress of the last tooth--her bottom incisor.

- My baby will be 20 months in a few days.  That hurts.  Only four more months of babyhood left.  Husband is out working graveyard, but if he were here, he'd say a hallelujah that our baby days are ending.  I can't ever get enough, which is probably why God has me enjoying her in the middle of the night too.

- Do you think I should go and do the dishes, and just count my sleeping from 9:30 pm. to 1:00 a.m. as my sleep for the night?

- No, because the second I get started, she'll wake up again.  And that will be frustrating.  But equally frustrating would be trying to do the dishes in the morning, while also trying to keep four children quiet until the library playroom opens at 10:00 a.m.  It's air conditioned, you know.  And my children love the library.  Like the park, it's free.  Free is very good.  Free is very, very, good.

- I've decided to go and do the dishes.  And sleep for an hour or so more, should she let me.  Before she wakes at 6:30 a.m.

- Life is good.  Well-rested is a word I will use in my future.  I will.  Right?