Hobbies and Pond Update

Our son has become completely obsessed with Tolkien. He has that kind of personality, where he really gets into something, like 125%. It becomes all he talks about, all he thinks about, all he reads about. It was trains when he was a toddler, then (briefly) Cars, then it was a pirate obsession for a while, then he got into Star Wars, then Harry Potter, then Artemis Fowl. His other obsessions include, on-and-off, black holes, WWII (especially aircraft carriers, fighter planes, and tanks), and time travel.

Our second child is into baking and organizing. She has re-organized most of my kitchen cabinets and our arts cubby. She wants to bake something exciting every day. It’s exhausting – because I need to figure out if she can do stuff unsupervised in the kitchen while the grown-ups work (depending on the recipe), then I need to remind her 200 times to clean up after baking (including washing bowls, measuring spoons, cups, and wiping spills). Lucky for me, she also loves wrapping presents (I hate gift wrapping!!!) – so she’s been volunteering to wrap things for everyone except herself for all the birthdays and major holidays. This also means that she knows exactly who gets what – she does like to stay informed!

Our third child loves playing with toys. She sets up elaborate structures and scenarios and can play for hours. She also loves to tell stories and to make jokes. She is super competitive, so board games can get intense. She wants to start playing soccer again (once we feel comfortable… maybe after everyone in our family is vaccinated) but for now she seems content running races with her siblings and improving her animal-catching skills (frogs, mostly – older brother and sister are teaching her).

Husband and I don’t have too much going for hobby-like activities. We read for fun. Non-fiction for him, fiction for me (I just finished re-read of Ender’s Game). We have been watching 1-2 episodes of Mentalist almost every night. He goes running and biking and I go on walks (and bike rides once the weather gets a bit warmer). Most other things we do (cooking, yard work, taking care of the house and finance) feels like chores, not hobbies.

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There is a goose nest at our pond. Kids were feeding geese and ducks yesterday and saw one egg there – they were so excited! H. said that mother goose covered up the egg with some old leaves before she went off to get some food. Hope we get some goslings this spring! Hope they make it to adulthood… (There were a couple of goslings last year, but we think the foxes got them). Kids also saw a few tadpoles!