Pi(e)

photo by pauladamsmith

One day last year, my husband came home from work and happily told me about all the pies that had been consumed by his colleagues and himself that day. Said something about it being "pie day". I thought it was a good idea, a nice diversion from office life, and good for them for their creative morale-boosting efforts.

One day last year, a friend of mine invited me to a National Pie Day celebration at her home. I wasn't able to attend, but I thought it was a great idea. I mean, who doesn't like pie?

Last week my husband lamented aloud the fact that he wouldn't be able to visit his old colleagues (having since left that job) during their pie fest, because the day falls on a Saturday this year. Bummer.

Today I saw a note my husband had written, indicating that he was trying to decide what kind of pi to make on Saturday. I asked if he meant to spell it that way. He said yes.

My friend is a pastry chef. (And may I encourage you, if you have not done so already, to find yourself a friend who is a pastry chef. They're just good people to know. Like mechanics, only their work areas smell a lot better.) She celebrates National Pie Day.

My husband is an engineer. He celebrates Pi Day, which is of course on March 14.

It all makes sense now. Either way, there's pi(e).

All in the family

I try not to publicize my kids' names all over the Internet, but for those of you who know us personally and already know their names, I thought I'd share an interesting tidbit. We chose the spelling of our youngest daughter's name because we liked it - nothing particularly spectacular there. We've already taken some heat for it, too. At a routine lab visit, the registration coordinator who was doing our intake gave me an annoyed look and said, "Any other weird spellings I should know about?" Thanks, lady.

On to the cool part.

We recently discovered that Andy's great-grandmother's middle name is the same as our daughter's first name - and it's even spelled the same way. We had no idea. Cool, huh?

Not on our watch.

"...researchers have focused on the influence of the social environment on children's math and science achievement. Very early on, boys are given the chance to tinker with toys or objects (for example, building blocks, Legos, racing cars, and simple machines) that involve many of the principles inherent in math and science. Girls often lack these experiences, so they enter math and science classrooms feeling insecure about their abilities. Girls then begin to believe they cannot do math and science as well as boys."*

* Reprinted with permission from the National Network for Child Care - NNCC. Jovanovic, J. and Dreves, C. (1995). Math, science, and girls: Can we close the gender gap?. In Todd, C.M. (Ed.)., *School-age connections*, 5(2), Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service.

Ordinary Celebrations

What a great weekend. My husband and I weren't able to go out for Valentine's Day or my birthday a couple of weeks ago, so we postponed and went out this past weekend instead. Now that I think about it, our Saturday was very similar to our typical Saturdays during the first three years of our marriage - that would be before children. We wandered around an antique store for a while before going to lunch. We ran a few errands. (Yeah, I know. Not romantic. Just a heck of a lot easier without children.) We browsed a bookstore and had dessert and coffee. Then we went home to find our oldest daughter coloring pictures with Grandpa and our youngest daughter sleeping in Grandma's arms. Perfect. It made me realize, as dates always do, that we really need to make more of an effort to get out, just the two of us, more often.

Later in the afternoon, a dear friend who recently moved out of state and was in town for the weekend stopped by to meet the baby. She is expecting her own baby in a few months. I am pretty excited about that. She'll be a great mother.

Today was another great day. After church this morning, we went to "Uncle Chris' store" (as it is known 'round these parts) and fed the ducks at the pond. When we got home - well, we quit our parenting class. We've been attending a parenting class on Sunday nights, which has been really good, except for the timing. It makes our Sundays long and stressful, and the girls are awake way too late. We finally decided it wasn't worth it. I've got to say, it was really a relief to resign from the class. We turned our free evening into Family Night. Andy made pizza, which we ate in the living room (we don't eat dinner in the living room at our house) while watching Sleeping Beauty. Andy and our oldest daughter built some pretty amazing block sculptures. We finally counted and sorted the contents of our daughter's piggy bank (or, as she calls it, her pickle bank, which is indeed a pickle jar) into Giving, Savings, and Spending. The contents included pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, toy money, stickers, and buttons. Andy took her to the store where she bought her very own bag of Chips Ahoy with her very own money - 16 quarters and 4 dimes. I'm sure the cashier appreciated that.

I know this weekend was really nothing to write home about (although apparently it is something to blog about), but it was really great. My house is not clean (although my MIL managed to do all our laundry and clean our windowsills and blinds while she was babysitting) and I did not cross much off the to-do list. Come to think of it, I didn't even write a to-do list. But my husband and I spent time together. We spent time with our kids. We spent time with a friend. I'll put off the to-do list for a weekend like that any time.