Sugarland

MPA LITE: I apologize ahead of time. This entry is not the most cerebral or educational. It is, however, chock full o' chocolate and carmel-ly goodness that only Halloween can bring!!!

BUG OFF!: So first thing this a.m. I got some startling news via Facebook (hat tip to my friend Undine in Montreal). Are you sitting down? ... It turns out a roly-poly/potato bug is NOT an insect. It's an isopod, belonging to the Phylum Arthropoda, and Subphylum Crustacea.That's right, not a bug at all. It's closer to being a lobster. Apparently there are ginormous ones that roam the ocean floor (to borrow a line from Auntie Renee, "Wonder how they taste with butter. ...").

All these years of roly-poly lies and misinformation. ...

Oddly enough, just yesterday CJ was asking me about potato bugs (a/k/a Oniscus asellus, which has scads of regional names including armadillo bug, cheeselog, cheesey-bug, doodlebug, pill bug, roly-poly, parson's pig, potato bug, roll up bug, slater, Hodidod, Carpenter, Wood Bug, sow bug, pea bug, Chuggy-peg and Chuggy-pig). He asked if they can live after their shell (exoskeleton) is broken. I told him maybe for awhile, but probably not for too long. CJ being CJ, he decided he would make a machine that fixes roly-polys' protection when he gets older.

So, I shared this newsflash with CJ and I found a diagram of pill bug parts which we reviewed. From further reading we learned a roly poly might have 4 to 5 different shells in its life, as it sheds old ones when it outgrows them. I pointed out to CJ this was really good news, because if the bug - er, isopod - is able to grow a new exoskeleton, having a broken one might not mean its demise!

Also worth noting: Isopids are small crustaceans with seven pairs of legs of similar size and form.

An aside: In our roly poly research, we discovered EnchantedLearning.com, which has lots of info sheets and label-me diagrams across the spectrum of school subjects. Fantastic!

BUDDING BEETHOVENS: Friday means Muskigarten and today's class was fantastic as always. The kids actually wrote quarter and eighth notes today and have a true feel for what they mean! For the parent participation part of the class, teacher Nancy read "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything" to the class. Perfect for the season, it's about a mature woman who is followed home by something whose feet are going CLOMP, CLOMP, and whose pants are going WIGGLE, WIGGLE, and whose shirt was going SHAKE, SHAKE, and wearing gloves going CLAP, CLAP, and a hat going NOD, NOD, and a pumpkin head going BOO! BOO! The kids (and parents) got to use a wide variety of percussion instruments to represent the sounds. The kids LOVED it (and I thought it was pretty fun too).

HO HO HORROR: Let's just get this over with right off the bat. I am an idiot. I foolishly waited until the day before Halloween to try to procure green hair spray for CJ's costume. I should-and do-know better. What's funny is if I still lived in SW WA, I'd be fine. There would be a half dozen stores really close to home I could stroll into and pick up what I needed. But here in the big mean city, things are different. I have to compete with three million other people for things like green hairspray and non toxic white paint. ...

So today we stroll into the Ballard Fred Meyer today ISO the goods. I head for the spot where a sprawling Halloween display lived just a couple of days ago. But wait ... what's this? No orange, no black - it's a sea of red and green. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, we are officially skipping Thanksgiving this year and going STRAIGHT TO CHRISTMAS. Oh freaking no. We schelp up to a small display of the Halloween leftovers, near the customer service desk. There, I mill about with the rest of the losers who didn't plan ahead. Needless to say, no green hairspray to be had. I envision the next 5.5 hours of me and the kids stopping at dozens of stores between Ballard and Lynnwood in search of the stuff. First stop - Walgreens in Ballard. Really just a drugstore, from past experience I know it has surprisingly weird stuff in stock, so I've got my fingers crossed. As we pulled into the lot, Annabelle noted, "They're named WalGREENs, so they should have green hair color." I LOVE that thinking. So we storm in, expecting/praying to find green hairspray and lo and behold, after Mom did the Spidey crawl up the shelves, I found a box of colored hairspray shoved way back on an 8-foot high shelf and SCORE!!! There was one can of green in there. I am ashamed to admit how excited I was by this.

GONNA FLY NOW!: Today was The Day. "Our" new park was supposed to have its construction fences removed and be open for fun! So, when it was time for Kirby's noontime stroll, naturally we headed down the block and up the hill. The excitement built with every step. Would it be open? Along the way Annabelle admitted, "My heart is pounding."

Sure 'nuff, when we crested the hill, the fences were gone and happy kids were on site! There will be countless reports from Bayview Park in the future, so let me just say it was worth the wait!!!

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: About a month ago, when we were in Cookies, a local bakers' supply shop, CJ spied a haunted house (gingerbread house) kit and wanted to buy it. I told him we don't need no stinkin' kit - we could build our own, and that for sure we'd do that before Halloween. Well guess what? Today is Oct. 30. Since I am basically fanatical about not breaking a promise to the kids, today was gingerbread-haunted house day. We went all out. Our walls were fashioned from limited-time-only gingerbread Pop Tarts (tasty-but really too soft for our purposes-I wouldn't use them again). We had 5 colored sugars, cereal straws, Reeses Pieces, Halloweeny sprinkles, mini chocolate chips, fruit roll ups, Cracker Jack, candy corn and other sugary shapes. I made three colors of royal icing to act as our edible glue. We got our structures standing and as soon as it was time to decorate, Annabelle declared her intention to build a sweet house, not a scary house. Fine by me. So the kids spent about an hour decorating their places. CJ wanted to eat his immediately, but I was able to talk him out of it by giving him construction debris to snack on.

MONEY HONEY: "I'm rich! RICH!" Annabelle shouted as she extracted a $1 bill from a Halloween card sent by her grandparents. CJ, too, was quite pleased with the dough, having a new appreciation for cold hard cash after his tooth fairy visits. CJ says he's spending his $ on Cheez-Its and chocolate chips. Annabelle says she's saving her $ for something special-to be named later.

BACK TO SCHOOL: Friday night CeeJ and Bee walked the hallowed halls of their alma mater - Whittier Elementary, where they both attended preschool. It was the annual Whittier Halloween carnival. It was packed and chaos as always, but lots of fun and the evening ended on a high note, when CJ won the cupcake walk. Being the sweet brother he is, without hesitation, he shared his winnings with Annabelle.

Spandex, Ballet

WATCH ME!: Today marks the midway point for Annabelle's latest ballet session, which means it was family observation day (usually we're locked out!). When I told Annabelle we'd be sitting in, she replied, "That means you can take new pictures of me! We do different things in different classes," she explained, as if I needed coaxing to bring my camera.

Before we left for class I played Ballerina Girl by Lionel Ritchie and Tiny Dancer by Elton John to get everyone in the right frame of mind.

The lesson was more of the same - cute girls in pink outfits more clumsy and silly than graceful. But what else would one expect from a 4- to 5-year olds' ballet class?

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!: Well, just two Russians, and only to my computer screen and speakers. While searching YouTube for ballet-related songs this a.m., I discovered the dare-I-say delightful (don't think I've ever used that word before) Ballerina on the Boat. An award-winning cartoon from 1969, directed by Russian animation master Lev Atamanov, with a score by Alfred Schnittke. In digging around, I learned the film was choreographed by two dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet.

The 15-or-so minute cartoon follows a ballerina on board a ship. Hilarity ensues as the crew tries to replicate her graceful moves. But before long, the ship's captain becomes fed up with the antics. The ballerina retires to her cabin, only to reemerge a hero when the ship's endangered by a huge whirlpool.

I'm not sure I've ever seen an example of animation and score meshing so well. This 40-year-old film is an absolute treasure. Treat yourself and watch at least a couple of minutes (Part I by clicking on the link above [the title], Part II is here.)

BLOCKBUSTER: The kids and I hit the video store, er, I mean library, after ballet today. We came away with 8 videos and one book. What's wrong with this picture? (OK, in trying to make myself feel better, some of the videos are educational - Bill Nye the Science Guy and that ilk. But still, it just feels so wrong. ...)

ROCKIN' BOBBIN: This afternoon I was sewing the petals for the flower portion of Annabelle's Halloween costume. She was interested in the goings on and asked if she could operate the sewing machine pedal. My first reaction was Oh hell no!!!! Thankfully, I didn't screech that aloud. Instead, I realized that, of course, I should let her work the pedal. It was a teachable moment, right? Right. So I explained the primary parts of the set up to her (cable from pedal sends power to the motor, which spins to make the needle go up and down, which engages the bobbin, that kind of thing). Let me tell you, it's quite exciting having your hands near the needle when someone else has the pedal to the metal. Fortunately, no blood was shed and Annabelle got her first taste of sewing.

GET THE LEAD OUT: The only pieces of CJ's costume that are missing are the green hair spray and white face makeup. The face makeup is easy to find, so I wasn't worried about that - until I clicked on a link last night to a story that reports Halloween face makeup/paint is laden with lead and other nasty metals. DAMMIT. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? Slather him in Noxema? He might be glowing for days afterward, but I doubt he'd be down with that cold cream for long. So I spent a hour plus last night trying to think of workarounds. The best I can come up with is putting non toxic fingerpaint or even poster paint in a base of hand lotion and seeing if that will work. I also thought that perhaps I could use some of that sunscreen - zinc oxide - the kind that leaves a white stripe down your nose and cover his face in that, but where am I gonna find that in late October? Nothing's ever simple, is it?

WE'RE LYING TO OUR CHILDREN: The quote of the day comes from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan . "States are setting the bar too low. We're lying to our children when we tell them they're proficient, but they're not achieving at a level that will prepare them for success once they graduate." His statement comes on the heels of a discouraging new Education Department report.

Liftoff! We have liftoff!

Dawn of the Ares: Upon upping at 5:20 this a.m., the first thing I did was log into the NASA Web site to see what the status of the Ares I-X was. The rocket was still on the launch pad, awaiting a weather window, the countdown stuck at 4 minutes. I knew that it had to happen by 9 a.m. our time today or the launch would be put off a couple of months. So I watched and waited. Finally, at about 8:25 things looked favorable weather wise, so I gathered the kids around and they watched the countdown and the first NASA rocket launch of their lives. The shots of it roaring away from the launchpad were amazing, and then the footage from space was awesome, as well. We watched replays on the NASA site (highly recommended viewing!), which had several different angles of the event, including a cool one from an onboard camera, so you could see the buildings, roads, etc. getting smaller as Ares climbed in altitude.

I wouldn't be surprised if the launch is something the kids remember forever.

CALENDAR CATCH UP: We hadn't broken out the calendar in a week or so, and the kids are hot to figure out how many days until Halloween, so we got them out today. They figured out it's Wednesday (day after yoga, day before ballet), and that it was the 28th with little trouble. Yay!

DRIVING ME BATTY: Since the holiday is rapidly approaching, I thought it would be nice to get in another Halloween craft project. We haven't done any thing "batty" yet, so I went online and found a little tutorial about how to draw a bat. I liked it because it took what could be a daunting project (especially for Mr. CJ) and broke it down into bite sized steps that he could totally follow. (First draw a circle, then two triangles, then another circle, a couple more triangles - that sort of thing.) Against my better judgment, I let them watch a Scooby Doo Halloween special while they were drawing. Despite that, the kids produced a couple of cute bats on black construction paper post haste. I handed them scissors and told them to cut their bats out while I hopped in the shower. Mid shampoo, I hear crying. Specifically, CJ crying. "What now? Another crafting accident?" I wonder. So I hop out to find that CJ has cut his bat up into several bits. Ruh roh, as Scooby Doo would say. Obviously, CJ was was following all lines, instead of just the outline. I wasn't happy. I blame myself, of course, for letting them watch that blasted cartoon while working. So, off went the TV (Gee, I hope the gang solved the mystery!), and CJ had to draw and cut out a second bat, this time head, wings, ears and feet intact.

With the TV off, I played the perfect bat-ground music while they worked: The Count from Sesame Street singing Batty Bat.

HUNTING AND GATHERING: Halloween is Saturday and the kids' costumes are not ready. This hangs heavily over our heads. (Well, really I'm the only one worried about it. The kids just expect it to happen.) Anyway, one of today's activities was taking stock of what we do have on hand, what we need to procure and think about where we will find it. That's right, people, today MPA was all about good old fashioned life skills!

CJ has decided to be the Joker from Batman (no doubt inspired by Rick's get up last year and my fear of clowns). Annabelle has decided to be a bee. Incredibly, Annabelle can still squeeze into the bee costume she donned as a 1 year old, but it's a little short :). So we decided that would be the top half of her costume and that we'd fashion a flower for her bottom half (so she looks like a bee sitting on a flower). So it was off to Big 5 for black socks (bee arms/legs) and green socks (part of the flower stem. Then Goodwill, Value Village and the fabric store for the balance of the stuff. I think we managed to round up everything we need. Once home Annabelle and I stuffed and sewed legs to the bee costume. Tomorrow we'll fashion the flower. CJ tried on his Joker outfit and it will work fine. He also modeled a C3PO costume he found at Goodwill that he just HAD to have. At just $3.50 or so, I was happy to oblige-they play dress up year round and how often can you buy a droid for under $4? He did have one complaint about the getup, though. "I can't eat my Cheez-Its!" he lamented, trying to shove them through the mask. I told him that droids don't eat, so that's not a problem. The costume came off shortly thereafter.

PREPPED FOR THE PENNANT: The World Series starts today and you know here at MPA we embrace absolutely any excuse to learn about baseball, so today's featured reading was "Hey Batta Batta SWING! The Wild Old Days of Baseball" by Sally Cook and James Charlton. The very early days of baseball are revisited; baseball phrases like 'can of corn' and 'frozen rope' are explained; the genesis and evolution of uniforms is covered; the facts go on and on. A bit wordy for one sitting with CeeJ and Bee, but a fun read nonetheless.

TRUE CONFESSION: CJ and Annabelle were talking about their former preschool this morning and CJ admitted, "I always wanted to marry Miss Brooke," the teacher.

OVERHEARD: The kids were looking for a lost item in the living room and Annabelle found it, to which CJ said, "You sure have a smart brain, Annabelle."

Hopalong CJ

PATIENT UPDATE: MPA's most senior student is still quite hobbled from the aftermath of Annabelle's Killer Pickle project. "My foot is broken," CJ declared early this morning. Of course Annabelle quickly snapped back, "It's not broken, it's just hurt." At that, CJ explained that it feels "like a pitchfork is sticking it." Not broken, but definitely ouch. I didn't even know CJ knew what a pitchfork is.

We had to make some accommodations due to CJ's injury. On the midday dog walk he was stroller bound and there was no yoga for him this afternoon (though Annabelle still attended). Hopefully by tomorrow he'll be getting around a lot better.

COOPERATIVE CANDY HUNT: Before settling into "real" learning this morning, I let CJ and Annabelle have 15 minutes in Club Penguin. As I was listening to and watching them, it was obvious that there was, in fact, a whole lot of real learning going on. They were reading, using maps, solving riddles and working as a team (a/k/a engaging in cooperative learning) to complete the assignment - a virtual candy hunt. After CJ solved one riddle and discovered an item, Annabelle gushed, "Good thinkin', CeeJ!" The kids also both recently passed a test to earn the "tour guide" designation on Club Penguin. This means they can show community newcomers around the Penguin world. Cool!

PAPERWORK: This morning's paperwork featured more about map icons and terms, and we also did a Halloween themed sheet involving nouns and adjectives. CJ was slow to catch on, most likely because his brain wasn't available while I was reminding them what nouns and adjectives are. ... He finally came around and once he focused, he made short work of it.

BEETHOVEN MASH UP: After the kids finished their worksheets, I thought it was time for a musical interlude. I fired up Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for them (A YouTube version with graphical notation). It was powerful and fabulous. Next, I thought I'd mix things up with Walter Murphy's A Fifth of Beethoven" Not more than three measures into the song, CJ asked, "Is this disco motion?" Why yes son, yes it is. (In fact, the song was featured on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and it doesn't get any more disco than that, now, does it?) Not surprisingly, Annabelle couldn't help herself and danced to that disco beat. CJ tried to dance. Briefly.

Afterward, when I polled the kids to see which version they liked better (the classic orchestral arrangement or the funked up one, Annabelle declared, "The second one because it was cooler!" And then she started singing (well screeching really) a hybrid of "Disco Duck" and "A Fifth of Beethoven." :)

ARES I-X ON HOLD: First thing this a.m. we tuned into NASA TV to see what was going on with the rocket launch. We watched nothing happen for awhile and then learned the mission was officially scrubbed for the day due to weather (although the skies looked clear, high-level clouds "can generate precipitation static which can create a corona of static electricity around the rocket that interferes with radio signals sent by or to the rocket," according to the Daily Mail. Tomorrow, they'll try again. If it's a no go then, the flight will be delayed until next month. When Ares does finally launch, it will gather data collected by more than 700 sensors placed throughout the rocket.

STORY TIME: We read another chapter of All About Sam (his family moved and now he has his own room and a real bed instead of a crib). Next up was Bat's Big Game. I pulled it off the library shelf a couple weeks back thinking bat = Halloweeny. This book had nothing to do with Halloween, but it was a wonderful discovery. It's a retelling of an ancient story (with previous versions told in in Cree, Cherokee and Japanese, to name a few) that's also one of Aesop's Fables.

The Animals are competing against the Birds. Bat shows up, sizes up the competition and decides he wants to be on the Animals team. But as the game progresses, Bat keeps switching teams/allegiances, depending on whom he thinks will be the eventual winner. Finally, the Animals and Birds call BS on Bat's vacillating. "I'm sorry for you Bat," said Bear. "But a good player sticks with the team ... even when they are losing." I used a scenario the kids could relate to and asked them what they'd think if in the fifth inning of a game, Ichiro saw the Mariners were losing and decided to go join the Yankees dugout. They agreed that would be TERRIBLE. All said, an engaging book with a great message. I'm so glad we read it.

CRAZY CRAFT: Last night when we were at dinner (McMenamins Fremont, celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary), CJ was being silly, dipping his French fries into their ice water and marveling at the new taste sensation he'd created. They were dubbed Frycicles and though it was panned by taste testers (Christian and me) the kids were going on and on about the food and how they could introduce it to a larger audience. I told them that we could make a mock box of Frycicles for fun. So today we did. I showed the kids how to find clip art online and they chose a cereal bowl, French fries, and ice cube graphics. We printed those out and they cut them out and glued them to a Crispix box. I typed Frycicles and showed the kids what the word looked like in several different fonts. CJ chose a retro diner font because it had little starbursts that looked like snowflakes, which fit his Frycicles theme. He also came up with a couple of marketing catchphrases for the box. The box is cute, but I personally don't see Frycicles coming to a grocery store near you any time soon. ...

QUOTE OF THE DAY: From CJ - "Annabelle is a craftsy girl and I'm a scientisty guy."

When Crafts Attack

ANNABELLE SAVES THE PLANET: I woke up this a.m. to an email from Stefanie Hess of Watch Indonesia!, a non-profit human rights organization based in Germany asking to use one of the photos I've parked on Morguefile. Ms. Hess wrote, "For a workshop program with elementary school kids I would love to use a picture of yours [see above]. ... The little girl will take part in a story about Agus from Indonesia and Lena from Germany, within that the kids will learn about the tropical rainforest and how the energy consumption here destroys the forest in Indonesia for the production of palm oil. Also the material should get part of an CD used in schools to rise environmental and global awareness. We do not earn money with that and its strictly used for learning material for school kids here in Berlin."

Naturally, I told Ms. Hess that Annabelle (a/k/a Lena) would happily be the face of environmental and global awareness. :) Just yesterday a.m. when we jogged/rode bikes down to Puget Sound, CJ & Annabelle declared themselves the "Green Team" and gathered all of the plastic bottles they could find on the beach at Smith Cove.

GUEST LECTURER: This a.m. I was away from the campus, so MPA had a guest instructor - Mr. Christian T. Kisky. (Incidentally, the kids and Mr. Kisky remembered that it was a school day when I sent a text message home, reminding them around 10:30-ish.) At that point, Christian broke out our favorite Scholastic workbook and had the kids do some worksheets - penmanship and a continuation of our map unit. CJ's penmanship continues to impress me. He has come so far, so fast, it's fantastic.

As an MPA blog follower, Christian knows I usually play music for the kids while they work, so he fired up some tunes for the kids, opting for some "magical" classic rock. First up: "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf, which CTK calls "One of my all time favorite songs." He says he wanted a track "that wasn't going to make them get up and go to the computer" and one that he'd enjoy listening to, too. Apparently it delivered on both counts. In keeping with the 'magic' theme, next was Santana's "Black Magic Woman." Though Carlos Santana played his heart out, the children were unmoved. ; ) Oh well, at least MPA is doing its part to keep Dinosaur Rock alive!

PARK PATROL: The park improvement project at Bayview Park, conveniently located at the end of our block, is inching ever-closer toward completion. We have been following this project every step of the way. I even took the kids to a planning meeting months ago where they got to have some input about what they'd like to see at the new-and-improved park. On our midday walk today we found a sign at the park that says it is set to open on Friday, Oct. 30. Happy Halloween to us!

THERE'S BEEN A STABBING!: Last night Annabelle spied a jar of pickles in the kitchen and asked to have one so that she could make a Pickle Man out of it. OF COURSE! I enthused. At MPA we're all in favor of spontaneous crafting. So, Annabelle made her Pickle Monster and it sat overnight, without incident, until ... at about 1:30 p.m. today, after watching Zula Patrol, CJ was walking around the kitchen and he stepped on a wayward toothpick and somehow the thing sunk into his foot and broke off. We tried to extract what we thought was just a tiny tip of it, but no luck. :( So off to Group Health CJ & CTK went. Poor CJ was hurtin' for certain, enough to warrant a wheelchair upon arrival (he reeeeeally liked the chair, btw). So, Christian and CJ burned three hours at Group Health, where (after a few shots of Novocaine) they dug the toothpick tip out. It was a LOT bigger than Christian and I thought it was going to be, and so we're awfully glad we decided to take him there when we did. The patient is now walking around like a pirate with a peg leg, but he'll be OK by tomorrow, I'll bet. (By the way, in case you were wondering, the lead for the preceding passage was inspired by son Kennedy who alarmed us mightily one day several years ago when he screamed, "There's been a stabbing!" We were actually relieved to learn he'd just stepped on a nail.)
THE COUNTDOWN'S ON:
We're still keeping an eye on Ares I-X. At the launchpad, it has a four hour launch window from 8 a.m. to noon EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 27. If the launch is scrubbed, ground crews will prepare the rocket for a second try at the same time on Wednesday.
Image: The Ares I-X is being prepared for launch on Pad 39B. In the distance on Pad 39A, space shuttle Atlantis awaits its scheduled Nov. 16 STS-129 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Credit: NASA