The Stump (A Poem by Nathan)

The Stump
It is all about a stump

I heard a bump When a clump
of sumth fell on the stump
it hurt my ear so I Jumped
to my feet and ran to the
stump an i saw that a
clump of wump had falen on
the stump i was shocked to
see it had falen on the
stump very much off of 
the tree on to the stump
but when i came closer I saw
it was just a clump of Gum it
fooled me to see that it
was a clump of Gum and i
was fooled so i jumped
into the dump an it was
smelly so i jumped out of the dump.

(An original poem by Nathan)

Please Call Him "Mr. President"

Nathan's school has "History Day" in the spring, where the students dress up as a historical figure that they've studied so far in school.  In Kindergarten there hasn't been a formal history curriculum, so the kids could pick a Bible figure or someone from one of their unit studies: Christopher Columbus/explorers, pilgrims & Indians, presidents and composers.  Nathan immediately picked Abraham Lincoln, I think because Lincoln wears a top hat and Nathan has one from a magic set he got from his birthday.  I was thrilled - an easy yet distinctive costume!

Nathan had a pair of black pants, a white church shirt and the aforementioned top hat, then I made a beard and a bow tie out of black felt and elastic.  But that wasn't enough - Nathan likes to be thorough! - we needed a black jacket.  We called the neighbors, no luck.  Thankfully Gran and Aunt Karen were coming over that evening for dinner and I thought Gran could help me turn a piece of black jersey fabric into something resembling a jacket.  Well!  Gran and Aunt Karen went a step farther and stopped at a thrift store and found a perfectly oversized black suit jacket for Nathan!  Gran took up the arms (significantly) and we were in business.  And did I mention Nathan wanted to be thorough?  He had also brought up the idea of dying his hair black, but then decided that might last to long in his hair (thank goodness!)

And as for the post title, Nathan was hoping that people at school would call him "Mr. President" for the day.  I'm not actually sure if anyone else called him that, but I sure did!

Not to be left out, Sarah looked through the list of First Ladies on Wikipedia and decided to dress up as Martha Jefferson Randolph, daughter to Thomas Jefferson and acting First Lady during his presidency (her mother had previously died).  Aunt Karen and Gran came through on her costume too... what you can't see the resemblance?  The matching yellow dresses of course!

The other funny anecdote is that earlier in the week Nathan asked one of the girls (P) in his class if she was going to dress up as Mary Lincoln.  When she said she wasn't, Nathan replied "Too bad, because then we could have pretended that we were married!"

Kid-made Swings

I was so happy for us to have a yard again once we moved away from Boston.  I think its so important (for them and for me) to be able to shoo the kids out into the yard and let them be bored and then come up with all sorts of surprising things to do.  They've used some of Brian's tie-down straps (which have been hugely popular for their outside play both here and at the old house) and turned one tall bush into a swing set all on their own!  Here's the video they let me take of them, but then Nathan discovered that he could also turn himself upside down to hang!