Scratch Paper

Geek Girl is very environmentally conscious.  She's constantly telling us that we've left a light on in a room.  She is also very efficient in her use of scratch paper:

Eleven years and counting...

Geek Girl turns 11 today.  It has been a busy weekend of activities, only some of which are specifically birthday-related, but a good time except for late both evenings, when various meltdowns occurred.

The most recent meltdown was triggered because Geek Girl -- deeply engrossed in one of Terry Pratchett's books -- ignored several warnings and kept reading even when told it was most definitely time to stop.  Much wailing and crying begins.  I remained calm, which apparently made things worse ("You're not even getting upset!  _wail_ _sob_"), but eventually Geek Girl calmed down, too.

[Just a brief diversion to note that I think we're definitely in the early stages of pre-teen emotional instability.  Should be a fun few years...time to learn to meditate standing up.]

I gathered up some homework papers and the book and headed out of her room to get Mama Geek for their nighttime ritual.  Geek Girl followed me, which was unusual.  She gave Mama Geek lots of hugs, and hmmm, shocker - the book suddenly reappeared in her hand, having been oh-so-surreptitously picked up.  (Read: I saw it happening the whole time.)  I took the book back, and Mama Geek said, "Oh, we trust her, right?"

I picked up the cue and handed the book back to GG, saying, "Oh, yes, of course.  We trust you, Sweetie; we know you know it's bedtime, not reading time."

Back to Geek Girl's bedroom for our traditional goodnight ritual.  At the end, Geek Girl says, with a frustrated yet resigned tone: "I can't even sneak reading, since you and Mommy said you trust me!"  

I just smiled and said, "Well, Sweetie, of course we trust you."

Geek Girl: "Then why did you just pick up my book light?"

Me: "Well, you won't need it anyway, right?"

GG: "Darn it."

The other funny part is that she wants me to set an alarm for the middle of the night, which would correspond to the exact moment she was born.  I just said, "Do you know what Mommy would do to me if I woke up in the middle of the night just to come wake you up so you can be awake at the exact anniversary of your birth?"  

GG, just as sweetly as anyone could muster: "You could just set an alarm up here, just for me.  Mommy wouldn't even know."

Me: "Nice try, kiddo.  Go to bed now."

She is currently sighing and making the usual noises she makes when trying to fall asleep and not fall asleep all at the same time.  Plus residual sniffling.  I should probably go help with that.

Brace Yourselves!

(Can you hear the groan from Geek Girl and Mama Geek?)

Geek Girl got braces today!  They are much simpler than the ones I had as a kid -- no bands, just brackets.  Plus she got to pick the color.

Here's a before picture, following a request to "look demonic":

Yeeeesss, preciousssss

She actually resembles her aunt (my sister, to be precise) in that one more than I've ever seen before...hmmmm.

"So, how have you been?"  "Mrghfjgph..."

After -- blue braces abound!

She has blue-green bands holding the main wire in place.  Tonight's dinner: milkshake.  


Oh, and Geek Girl wanted me to post a picture of the mascot for her orthodontist, Penny:

Penny for your thoughts, kid

Penguin Day

[Note: GG wrote this last night, but we waited until now to post it...]

Right now, I am wearing penguin PJs. I think penguins pretty much sum up my day.

First, this morning, Mommy made me try on long johns and a parka that made me feel like a penguin for no apparent reason.

Next, I was reading a book that took place in a cold place. Penguins live in cold places.

Finally, we went to an ice skating rink where the thingies that less experienced skaters use for balance are penguins. I found out that I am very good at falling down on ice skates, and composed a (sort of) epic poem commemorating how it feels to have fallen down on your bottom on ice at least four times. Here it is:

Owie owie owie ow,

Ouch ouch ouch.

Owie owie ow,

Ouchie ouch ouch.

Ow.

Here are some pictures at the rink:

 With a penguin in the background:

And some videos:

Then, when we were done, we got cupcakes. Yay!

[Edit this evening: Some people Daddy follows on Twitter said it is #PenguinAwarenessDay.  Did you know that some penguins dive 900 feet down to eat squid? (I read that in Zoobooks.) ]

Ice Storm

Daddy Geek is in San Francisco for his annual meeting.  He missed the first snow of the season.  Which was followed by freezing rain.  No school today.

Geek Girl and I stayed home yesterday.  We don't live next door to our favorite neighbor geeks anymore so we'll see how we do today. 

Power is still on, but I've entered the outage reporting phone number and our account number into the iPad.  

Rainbow Closet

Geek Girl is in charge of putting her clothes away.  Since her room is now on a different floor, I haven't really been paying attention to the state of her closet.

Yesterday I decided to finish unpacking her box of clothes.  We sorted through her clothes and found more hangers.

Later in the day I took a peek at her closet -- now it's a lovely rainbow:

Haven't I blogged about this before?  Yep, back in December 2009.

End of summer excitement

How did it become September 1st already?

We've had a busy summer, including trips to Pittsburgh, Cape Cod, and Milwaukee (post coming on that sometime), and business trips for Daddy Geek to southern California and Japan.  Geek Girl continues to grow like a weed -- she's only about one centimeter shorter than Mama Geek -- and we discovered that 10-year-old girls use email like texting (ack).  Geek Girl has also been learning to ride her bike, and has taken a few 10+ mile rides with me, including her first group ride.  And she has read 84 books so far this summer (she just asked: "Do you think I can make it to 100?!")

Oh, yeah, and we moved houses within the same town.

But this post isn't about any of that.

Rather, we've had an interesting weekend already.  We decided to things off right with a family bike ride along the W&OD Trail, and it was going to be lunchtime while we were on the ride, so naturally the destination was Nielsen's Frozen Custard in Vienna.  We had been there for custard before, but we learned on this trip that they also make some pretty good sandwiches.  Mama Geek and I shared an Italian grinder, Geek Girl had a salami sandwich, and we shared a coffee custard and a "concrete" - vanilla custard with Oreos.  Yum.

On the way back home, Geek Girl had her first real bike accident.  I was right behind her and still don't know exactly what happened, but down she went and ended up with a pretty good scraped knee and elbow, and lesser cuts and assorted bruises.  A kind stranger offered us bandages and such, and we got her patched up for the ride home.  To her credit, Geek Girl toughed it out for another four miles to get home with only minimal complaints, and by the time we got home, she thanked us "for making me ride home, Daddy".

(Memo to Daddy Geek: remember to make a small bike first aid kit and bring it along for future rides, since grace seems to run in the Geek family...)

We'll spare you the wound pictures, but here's a picture of Geek Girl giving me the Pre-teen Death Glare after we got her cleaned up and the injuries properly dressed:

Geek Girl is displeased with being asked to model her bandages

Saturday was another beautiful day, so we walked over to the farmer's market for fruit and Geek Girl's post-accident breakfast treat:

Breakfast of Tough Geek Girls: freshly made mini doughnuts with sugar

The library is closed today and tomorrow, so a visit to drop off some books and pick up a few more was key as well.  Geek Girl's definition of "a few" leads to a stuffed backpack, and my back being 2" shorter than normal...but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Just for the heck of it, and to stretch out her arms and legs (we wouldn't want them to stiffen up after the injury, right?), Geek Girl and I went off to Sportrock Climbing in Alexandria to try some bouldering.  We traded back and forth and she did pretty well despite banging her knee into the wall a few times -- my grandfather's genes at work, I guess.  One unexpected treat: they had a slackline for folks to try, and Geek Girl made two round trips with me giving her a helping hand.  It seems Geek Girl had fun: she wants me to refresh my belay training so she can top-rope.

Today is yet another beautiful day, and less humid, so I indulged in a long solo ride on my race bike (thanks, Mama Geek!), through the northern Virginia suburbs, down into downtown DC -- this was perhaps unwise on Sunday of Labor Day weekend -- and up the W&OD trail home.  It was the longest ride I've done since before I injured my Achilles back in March, and it was great to get out for so long, but something tells me it's going to be easy to fall asleep tonight.

Our last bit of excitement will be this evening's block party -- finally a chance to meet our new neighbors.

Oh, and it appears Geek Girl is excited about school starting on Tuesday; she spontaneously wrote the following poem this morning:

School starts! It's
Exciting! Our classroom has a
Periodic
Table of the
Elements!
Ms. M is my teacher
Boxes of school supplies
Exciting colors on the floor in
Radial symmetrical patterns
(c)

(The copyright symbol is important, apparently.)

Have a Happy Labor Day Weekend, folks.