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The Second Law of Thermodynamics

“Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics.”- Seth Lloyd

Just in case you’ve forgotten the second law of thermodynamics, here it is courtesy of Wikipedia :

The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and explains the phenomenon of irreversibility in nature.

It involves other stuff as well including Kelvin and Clausius and stuff that looks like this:

–

In case that didn’t make things clear we can look to Woody Allen for help –  “It’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Sooner or later everything turns to shit.”

That my friends was how my day went. It started beautifully, with waffles, well behaved children, a clean house and great swimming lessons….. then the second law of thermodynamics hit.

-air went out of tires

-Clara puked

-the house was no longer neat and clean

-things were forgotten

-the computer malfunctioned just exactly when I really needed to put in a DVD for Ivy

-staples could only be found for the hand staple gun while the electric staple gun was the only staple gun seeming to still be in existence

-clippers were dull

-children snuck bubble mix into their beds at nap time

-math functions failed miserably

-building supplies were short

-straw bales fell apart

-stuff broke

-diapers went from clean to dirty

-laundry piled higher

-Clara screamed, and screamed and screamed

and the day was no longer beautiful.

Fortunately by that point there wasn’t much “day” left anymore and we spent a lovely evening with some new friends while watching the entropy attack their house.

Now we have returned home, energy has been spent to attempt to reclaim some of what went awry, plans have been made for tomorrow and I have quit for the day.

Taxes don’t seem to be going anywhere, death is inevitable and one can only do so much against a thermodynamic law, I’m giving up the fight until tomorrow!

*note: The author of this blog realizes that not all of the above items are technically functions of the second thermodynamic law. Some are functions of other laws such as; the law of the kids will be the worst when you need them to be the best, the law of never give Clara anything with dairy in it even on accident, the law of Jessie can’t divide, and most importantly the law of projects with kids never go as planned.

Let Them Climb Counters!

As a general rule children are discouraged from climbing on kitchen counters.  But I say…

…if you teach your kid to climb on the counter……and you teach another kid to bring her dishes…

…they’ll empty your dishwasher and put away all the dishes.

Leaving you free to watch and take pictures.

It’s a good deal.

So…

Let them climb counters!

A Diabolical Plan

I think my kids are conspiring to drive me crazy. I’m not sure that it is a malicious plan or if they’d just like to eat chocolate yogurt for breakfast and black jelly beans for lunch and they figure this is the best way to get them.
It started last night.  Clara screamed, and I mean screamed, in her sleep. I do not understand why. I don’t even understand how. But she did.

This morning I’m all bleary eyed and sleep deprived and Clara is still yelling. I’ll give the girls credit, starting with sleep deprivation is pretty smart. Puts a person halfway to crazy in itself.  Then Ivy enters with phase two of the plan: Have conversations with so many contradictions that Mom will have no idea which way is up.

I offer scrambled eggs. She says no thanks.  I make scrambled eggs for Clara.  Ivy denies ever saying no and asks politely for eggs for herself. I look at the pan and realize that I have made enough for both girls. I am just tired enough that I can’t quite figure out what happened. She did say she didn’t want them. Didn’t she? But then why did I make so many eggs?

Yelling continues, talking continues.

“MOM MY SHOWER IS TOO HOT.”
So like any nice, helpful, sane mother I go and turn the knob to adjust the temperature.
“Why are you makin’ it colder mom? Don’t make it colder!”

Cue Clara peeing on the floor and yelling more. Wait, she did say it was too hot right? So then it needs to be colder, right? Pee, there is pee on the floor. Where are the diaper covers?

Then just when I think they are about to crack me Clara runs over and gives me a hug and Ivy asks if she can snuggle with me and I forgive them for their diabolical plot.

Until I start wondering if this is just part of the plan, are they softening me up before the next barrage?

So quickly I jumped into the offensive; Clara goes down for an early nap, Ivy is promised a movie and I’m getting a Diet Coke.

Wish me luck!

 

Wind Boats

With the weather oscillating between spring like and dead of winter we’ve been forced to make some tough decisions lately.

For instance if staying in the house on a cold snow-less wintry sort of day do we want to:

A: Make horses talk all day.

B: Come up with other kid friendly projects and crafts to do.

It’s a tough choice, my feelings on talking horses can be found here, but cute craftiness is not one of my strong suits.

Desperate to avoid talking animals, I headed for the internet. I may not be crafty but I can Google with the best of them! I found The Toymaker‘s website a few years ago, a few clicks we had piles of paper toys and crafts at our fingertips. With a computer and a printer even a crafting deficient Mom such as myself can pull off an afternoon of fun!

These wind boats were the biggest hit, even Clara could blow hers across the floor. The Toymaker has moving toys, paper dolls, cards, finger puppets, 3D animals, trucks and marble mice, it’s worth a visit on a nasty spring day.

Unless you like making animals talk, and if that’s the case can Ivy come visit next time it rains?

Ivy and the Zoo

Usually I like to put pictures with my posts. You know the whole picture is worth a thousand word thing.

Tonight I thought I’d be different.

So here we have pictures of our trip to the zoo, and random things Ivy said after we got home.

When Clara and Ivy were emptying the dishwasher together:

“Clara is so nice to her big sister and she helps with the housework.”

About an hour after Clara and Ivy gave Piper a shower, from which they emerged just as hairy as the dog:

“Do you know why my butt is kinda itchin’? ”Cause of the hair. Pipers hair is on my butt makin’ it itch.”

Ivy’s irrefutable logic in my attempt to eradicate the word potty from our language:

Ivy: “I’m going potty right now!”
Me: “Oh, OK.  You could say I’m going to the bathroom right now – it’s more grown up.”
Ivy: “But I’m not grown up.”

How’s the Push Ups?

Things I have learned while doing my push ups:

1) Six weeks of push ups is enough to have people comment on your arm muscles.

2) This is a program that works…if you don’t skip and don’t cheat. Taking off time for being sick still counts as skipping and cheating when it’s time to do another test.

3) Do not attempt to read the charts if you are confused with your < and > symbols, this will result in frustration, pain and feeling like an idiot.

4) OFG’s can do a heck of a lot of push ups!

5) John really hates Rod Stewart, but it will apparently push him to greater push up heights before he quits in favor of running.

6) This preference for running is nothing like the behavior of the man I married… I suspect aliens.

7) Fun music (not Rod Stewart) helps when I do push ups.

8 ) So does a dirty floor- can’t collapse in a heap if you are afraid of your floor.

9) I am brilliant at discovering excuses not to do housework.

10) If you tell enough people about a crazy work out idea, many will join you, others will join them, push up craziness will spread. It will be awesome and inspirational!

I know you are all out there, leave a comment, tell us how it’s going, tell us about your friends, inspire us all!!!

Then check out my cousin Jenny’s blog if you need even more reasons to do push ups: http://skiingmama.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/how-many-push-ups-can-you-do/

Don’t forget you can see how those of us brave enough to broadcast our results are doing here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkCenthS4rIwdFowaS1ja1JmNEtraFFYalhOY1JNSlE&hl=en&authkey=CNvHxIQB#gid=0

Feel free to join at anytime!!!

Who Says?

Who says you can’t have fun on a 36 degree drizzly day?

I can tell you that two kids, one mom and ten brave chickens can have at least five whole minutes of good puddle splashing fun in weather like that.

And then the chickens decide that puddle jumping is really more of a duck thing.

And the kids boots fill with water.

And before you know it the mom has two crying children and flock of disillusioned chickens all headed home.

Poor chickens, they didn’t even make it in the house for the hot chocolate drinking.

Chicks in the House

For Ivy’s birthday this year she was given an incubator and a dozen hatching eggs.

For three weeks we turned eggs multiple times a day and managed not to knock the incubator to the floor nor throw or drop eggs when Clara crawled up to “help.”

The day we came back from Michigan the chicks had started hatching and by Monday morning Ivy was the proud parent to six baby chicks.

When Ivy first got the eggs we asked her where she was going to keep them when they hatched. Her answer was the were going to stay in a box in her room with her real toys so she could play with them.

I laughed. That would be ridiculous.

The baby chicks lived in the house for three weeks.

So much for the laughter.

At first Ivy was very concerned about monitoring them:

“Mom, you watch my baby chicks for me, don’t let them die.  I’ll be right back.”

Now, baby chicks are not new to my girls. Clara knows that she’s not allowed to grab them but she hold her cheek out for a “nuzzle” when someone else picks them up. Ivy is good about picking them up with two hands and screaming when her sister tries something inappropriate:

“Mom! Clara threw a Dora chair at the baby chicks! …. Don’t worry it didn’t kill them!”

It turns out the house involves a lot of baby chick hazards. Clara was fond of “giving” them toys to play with – read that as chucking random items on top of them. Ivy just worked on rubbing the feathers off with so much handling and making up with a games to play with them. It should be mentioned that baby chicks don’t really play games. Her first game was she would lure baby chicks over to her fingers and then when they would peck her she would “peck” them back with her hand causing them to fly to the other side of the box. Not a good game.

Then there was the other olfactory hazard of baby chicks in the house. At first it wasn’t so bad. Ivy would open the door to the room they where in and when she smelled the hot wood shavings and baby chicks she’d say in a voice full of excitement:

“Can you smell that? – It’s baby chicks!”

In the last week the smell had changed a bit from fresh shavings and warm chicks to plain old chicken poop.

On the upside we had some very nice nights with our bedroom window open for the fresh air.

Speaking of chicken poop… one of the last days they were in the house it was rest time. Clara was napping, I was laying in bed reading and Ivy was playing with her chicks in my bed room. Then I hear:

“Mom? Did you ever have a baby chick poop on your bed?”

Possibly in a slight, although unwarranted, panic I said “IVY!”

Ivy laughed and responded with:

“I was just kidding there’s no poop!”

A thorough check confirmed that she had indeed been joking, but there was a lot of chicken feed in my bed.

Now the chicks are outside, my house smells better, and there’s no more chicken feed in my bed.

A normal mother would be pleased by these events.

Never having been accused of being normal I’m plotting what we can hatch next!