Weekend List!

Lists are Back!

Jill's List:

Say what?  (Homeland + Cape Town fans, you will be happy.)

Elias.  On the lookout for threats to national security in Cape Town.

The daily rituals of artists.  I learned that in order to be brilliant, I may have to up my caffeine consumption and consider a daily, public ice bath.  (You should also check out Info We Trust.)

Teaching children how to apologize.  What do you think?

Buddies.

How are you feeling about the Colbert announcement?  This is a pretty great retrospective-summary-reflection.  The bit about Neutral Milk Hotel at the end really got me.

After observing/participating in hundreds of labors and births as a nurse, it really, really seems that the women who are the least "prepared" end up with the nicest birth experiences.  I have definitely seen internet-induced anxiety interfere with perfectly normal childbirth.  This article seems to agree.

My advice: Take pictures of yourself in the mirror instead of Googling-while-pregnant.

Oh, so sad.  Bye, Piecora's!

And I'm also sad about this maybe-closing.  I spent $50 on pens last July at this place.  I was kind of hoping to go back-to-school shopping here with my boy... (See, I even wrote an ode on this very blog.)

And for those of you in Kinshasa...start training!  The 2014 Kima Mbangu 5K Run/Walk (here's last year's event page) is scheduled for Saturday, May 17th.  We spent some hours filming a very entertaining promo video this weekend.  (Thanks, soccer guys who helped with this flashback scene.) A still:

Sarah's List:

In honor of the return of Weekend Lists, here are some lists.

14 Celebrities that look like Mattresses. Seriously.

  by  =Nahemoth= 

9 Children's Book Morals for Adults.

20 Amazing Children's Room Ideas. #12 genius (and possible).

and

20 Rare Historical Photos. NASA before PowerPoint. Ha!

A new approach to sex ed for boys. 

Are we all in agreement that Comic Sans is terrible? I mean really, really terrible. So terrible that it's getting a makeover. What do you think of Comic Neue? Download it for free!

By bancomicsans.com (http://bancomicsans.com/pdf/nocomicsans8164.pdf) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Pope Benedict's only flaw: Using Comic Sans.

And how could geniuses make such a weird choice?

Why UPS Trucks Don't Turn Left.

  by  angeloangelo 

Everything you've ever wanted to know about tipping. Where does your demographic fall on the Tipping Spectrum?

And if you've been within earshot of me in the last 3 weeks, I've been preaching executive summaries of "The Overprotected Kid." Just in case you missed it, you must read it. Let's stop watching our kids!

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Free Draw.

The other day, another mom came by to pick up her kids, who were over for a playdate.  I was inside the house.  She stood of the porch and, laughing nervously, yelled into the house, "Wow!  You're brave!"

I smiled modestly and thanked her for complimenting my capable creative spirit, "Oh, well, I thought the kids might like some painting and the porch is the perfect spot..."

For what I believed I was being complimented.

A few seconds later, I realized I hadn't seen Lou in awhile.  "Awhile" in toddler time, which roughly equals two minutes or ample time to destroy something quietly.

So, while trying to wrap up the playdate, I sweetly called, "Lou! LouLou! Lou?"  She was nowhere.
Finally, the mom said, "Jill, she's here with me.  On the porch.  That's what I was talking about when I said you were brave..."

And there, was my daughter, wearing her fancy dress, standing on the table, meticulously smearing blue paint over every inch of exposed skin.

  For whom I was actually being complimented.  (This was the second time it happened.)

The playdate mom smiled anxiously at me.

While Lou is a paint girl, Elias' preferred medium is a really nice, top quality, fine-but not-too-fine pointed, black pen.  He spends hours filling up blank notebooks with maps, spaceships, cats, cows, and planets.  I have hundreds of pages of his work.  He blasts through blank notebooks at a disturbing pace.  Good thing South African sketchbooks are relatively cheap here.  (I am awfully tempted, however, by some of the gorgeous paper options listed here.)

We're planning a trip to the pen section of Pearl Paint this summer.  His mind will be blown.

Buy this original print (sans pink arrow) here.

We'll just make sure to keep Lou away from the paint.

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