Waiting (Too Long)...

This is what happens when your big sister takes too long reading her book and finishing her homework! Marika finished her homework and then waited and waited and waited... zzzzzzz.....

The girls are enjoying school. Despite being spit in the eye by some boy, Marika likes kindergarten and LOVES homework (when will that change?). Mika has been getting homework packets every night (just review material), which she has to balance with her reading. She just finished Henry and Beezus - for the next few months, her books have to be a reading level 4.0 or higher and worth 4 or more points (see book ratings here: arbookfind.com). She doesn't seem to mind the longer books and appreciates that the stories are becoming more interesting. Next up? A Bear Called Paddington...

Meanwhile, we have a new science experiment going on. Since monitoring roadkill in the house (or even the backyard) is generally frowned upon, I took a very dead fig and placed it in an observation container. When I first found the fig, I was very excited that there were plenty of silphid beetles scurrying around it - as an entomology grad student, you could usually only find them on carcasses. I had hoped to see masses of maggots developing, but I wasn't so lucky.

However, a few days later, these brown pupae began to appear at the top of the container. You can see a whitish maggot below them (they seem naturally wired to migrate upwards). The girls are dying to know what comes out of the pupae (they have no idea and should be surprised).

And where did those fig come from? We have a lovely tree in the backyard. The ripe figs were D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S - and of course, silphid-and maggot-free. =)