I have a new identity as nantwins. I'm terrible at those moments when someone is staring right at you, telling you that right at this very moment you need to choose you email handle and you will *never* be able to change it. Then your first four choices of a handle are already taken, and the next thing you know, you're something like nantwins. Forever.

We are watching the movie Tom and Huck right now after both of the boys have finished reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I think Frances is enjoying the movie more than either of them, but both very much liked the books. Ollie and I finished Little House on the Prairie this week as well, though I think we'll take a break before setting upon Farmer Boy. In the interim, we've settled on another Nancy Drew novel.

I realized about two weeks ago that Frances has never really played a board game. It's shameful, I know. Third child syndrome at its worst. So tonight we played Jungle Run (our preferred version of Chutes and Ladders using multicultural children on bent paperclip stands) and Monopoly Junior. While she had no problems whatsoever with the actual game play, making change, or adding money together for payment, she has a long way to go in sportsmanship! One advantage of waiting until she's 6.5 to play is that she at least has no problems with the workings of the game itself.

Tomorrow at RES I'm planning to give the board games class a choice of games. We have such a wide range of ages and interests that letting them create their own groupings seems to work best. I'll have Great States, Great States Junior. Clue, Monopoly, Lego Creator, and Sorry available to them. For Goop and Glue, we'll make our own no-cook play-doh. That sounds messy, but it is satisfying and time consuming, which are kind of the keys to success in that class--make the activity take time and have high enough interest that they can get plenty of mileage out of just mucking around in it. We only have two more weeks of class, and I'm ready for the break. I'm in winding down mode when it comes to regular schoolyear out of the house activities. I'm ready for summer and time freedom!

Whoo-hoo! We are finished with all of the requirements for the Bear Badge for Cub Scouts. We knocked out a last few things and filled in all of the requisite lines and boxes with signatures and checks, and we're well beyond the basic requirements. From now on, it's nothing but electives, if we choose them, though there are plenty that sound interesting and challenging, so they might make nice summer projects; I'm wondering if they can get arrow points past the May Pack meeting, since we'll have more time on our hands to do things like build crystal radios and tin can generators.

This weekend was the big campout, bigger still because we took the puppy with us. He did great--fell right to sleep in his crate as soon as we put him in there. Crate training makes everything so much easier. now if only we could get him to stop peeing on the floor in the house when he has his "free" time. No matter how high my supervision, it's never quite enough. Yesterday was one of those all-out days for everyone. We arrived at camp around 9:30 a.m. and were out in the sun playing dodgeball and tug of war, fishing, and riding bikes and running through the abandoned mine and pirate cave all day long. It was a wise, wise call camp was broken up at sundown because rain was coming. Even by the time we went home there were drops falling, and by this morning, it was soaking outside with occasional bursts of thunder. We got out just in time!

Now we're off into another busy week--Spanish homework tonight for tomorrow's class, board games, ballet class in the afternoon, and a puppy in tow through it all.