Rumpus: The Chronicles of Max and Henry: January 2010

Monday, January 25, 2010

"Rain, Rain, Go Away!"

Henry and Max (AKA the peanut-butter faces) sing a rainy-day classic:

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Where's Noah When You Need Him?

It's been like a biblical flood around here this week -- five straight days of rain, wind, hail, thunder and lightning. In fact, I really could have used an ark yesterday morning when I drove Max to preschool. Not having an ark handy, however, I had to settle for a 4-wheel-drive Subaru to navigate the rain-swollen streets.

The worst thing about the rain for a mother of two young boys is definitely being house bound. Max and Henry need to get outside and run around. It wouldn't be unusual for us on a "normal" day to go to the park once in the morning and once in the afternoon. So what do we do when nature screws up our plans? Well, we cry and have tantrums and abuse our brother or the cat and watch too much TV or refuse to watch TV. We get out all of our play dough or paints, make a huge mess, and then grow bored in five minutes. We beg to go outside to splash in the rain and then we cry when water gets on our faces or on our pants. In short -- we drive Mommy absolutely out of her mind (and, as Scott would tell you, that's a short trip).

The forecast shows more rain for today and tomorrow, but it is supposed to clear for the weekend. Already I'm envisioning a ray of golden sunlight breaking through the clouds and falling on the sodden play structure at the park. Cue the Angels. Hallelujah!!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

My Little Scientist

So, today at lunch Max asked me, "Can we put water in a cup and see what would happen if we put it in the freezer?" I was surprised and delighted by this unexpected show of scientific interest. Before you knew it, we had water turning into ice in the freezer and ice melting into water in the cat's dish. Max would check on both "experiments" every few minutes and report back on the progress. Having determined that water turns into ice, Max next asked to see what would happen with milk and with juice. The whole family enjoyed discussing the difference between liquids and solids, though I decided to leave discussions of water vapor for another day after I caught Scott showing a mystified Max diagrams he had drawn of hydrogen and oxygen and their chemical bonds. The kid is only three, Scott. Let's take it slow...

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Happy New Year!

If anyone ever needed a brand new start, it's the Gerber family, so we toasted the new year with sparkling cider and then consumed copious amounts of chocolate cake. A sweet start, indeed!

Here's to brighter days ahead in 2010...