Rowan is actually really enjoying piano now. I was just upstairs listening to her play (and playing with her), and she was taking one of her favorite songs and transposing the notes from the left hand to the right hand and vice versa. Genius.

We took a family adventure hike (after Boulder's Shortest Saint Patrick's Day Parade) up on Dakota Ridge. Pam had taken Rowan and Griffin up there in the previous days, and so they continued a dragon adventure game they had already started.

There were ogres and dragons, and the kids all had magic swords (long sticks) that Griffin had found which gave them magic powers.

Berit had the power of moving large objects (boulders) with her mind.
Bridey had the power of speaking to dragons, specifically Eragon, who guided them.
Rowan had the power of seeing into the future.
Griffin had the power of speaking really really loudly.

At various intervals the kids would all thrust their sticks together in the air and exclaim, "All for good, and one for all!!"

Towards the end of the hike, after the game was actually over and they'd even gotten rid of their sticks, Rowan's legs hurt and she was sitting down crying and confessing to me that she actually didn't like her power - seeing into the future - that it was Berit's idea that she have that power, and that she wasn't actually even very good at it. It was distressing for her.

Today, Berit and Griffin and I went on a "bus adventure." It was a beautiful day, so we walked to a bus stop not far from our house and grabbed a bus from Lafayette into Boulder where we walked over to the YMCA and went swimming for about an hour. Then food at Whole Foods, after which Pam and Rowan rendez-voused with us to spend the rest of the adventure at the playground.

Griffin is very advanced.

Berit's pinhole camera photos:

Thursday night is the science fair at Berit and Rowan's school. Both of the girls did great with their projects, learned a lot and had fun.

Rowan picked a project about natural dyes. She took cabbage, red onion skins, and cherries and boiled and mashed them until the dye seaped into the water in the pot, and she dyed some cotton strips to see which of them made the best dyes.

Berit made a pinhole camera out of an oatmeal can and took some pictures. That, in itself, was pretty cool. But then we went to the darkroom rental place to develop them, and we ended up getting a 2 hour lesson in how to develop black and white paper in the dark room. It was fascinating, and Berit ended up doing all of her own work there. I swear to you I could drop her off at the darkroom tomorrow with some more photographic paper to develop and she could do it all on her own. Ask her how.

On the way home last night, Rowan and Berit are in the back of the van whispering about something so I suspiciously ask them to tell me what it's all about. Rowan says, "Oh, we're just talking about which boys like Berit," at which I really perk my ears up, meanwhile Berit's denying it all along.

Turns out they're whispering because Rowan snagged an extra brownie from the party we were at which they are attempting to share without my knowledge. Rowan is actually just throwing me off the scent.

Tonight, Rowan had some kind of reaction to something perhaps. She started hyper-ventilating, teeth chattering, and saying she couldn't breathe. There were no other symptoms - no fever or closed throat. After several minutes, she calmed down and seemed to be fine. We don't know if it was the expired Benadryl from 1999 that Pam gave her that cured her or not.

This afternoon, I asked Berit to read one of those Magic Treehouse books to Griffin though Merit was still here and she got mad and burst into tears. Naturally, I over-reacted in kind, as I am wont to do, and told her that I do a lot of things for her that I don't necessarily want to do at the time, and then I grabbed the pinhole camera that I've been building with her for her science fair project and the photographic paper I bought for her today and thrust it at her telling her that she could do her own damn project.

God, I want to be the Buddha so badly , but when it comes to parenting I am so freaking far away from that it's depressing to me.

Of course, I had to make amends, not only to Berit but also to my amazingly empathic daughter Rowan, who was in tears over me being so mean.

This morning there were lots of girls in the house as Berit and Rowan both had friends sleep over, so Griffin and I escaped to breakfast in Boulder at the Village Coffee Shop, followed by used bookstore (I very recently turned him on to the Magic Treehouse books and he can't get enough) and swimming at the YMCA. Twas a great adventure.