Mmmm, Donuts!

HO HO HO!: Christmas came early to the Kisky household in the form of Kennedy, who was on our doorstep at 7:30 this morning, donuts in hand. (Have I mentioned CJ adores donuts? Oh, and he adores Ken, too.)

So CJ was in bliss this morning - until he made a disturbing realization: There were three donuts in the bag. One was for him (he chose a chocolate frosted round donut), one was for Annabelle (she chose a chocolate frosted bar) and then there was a maple bar. Neither Ken nor I wanted the maple bar, which meant it sat there in its white bag, taunting CJ.

Seriously, the unassigned maple bar was totally eating at him. He wanted to know who would eat it. When would they eat it? How would we decide who eats it and when they eat it?

Finally, I told him that he could have half of it after music. (I did this suspecting that if I hadn't told him that, he would have spent the whole damn music lesson obsessing about the maple bar.) It satisfied him and he was able to get back to important stuff, like watching cartoons. Crisis averted.

FUN & GAMES: Today was the kids' last Musikgarten until 2010. For the last 10 minutes of class (the part parents are in on) they played a fun game of hide and seek. While the future seeker was hiding his or her eyes, another student would hide a small purse and the rest of the group would sing (to the tune of "Yankee Doodle"), "Lucy Locket lost her pocket(book), Kitty Fisher found it. Not a penny was there in it, just a ribbon 'round it." Once it was safely hidden away, the seeker would go looking for it, and while they were searching, classmates would pound on hand drums lightly or piano if the seeker was "cold," or forté if they were getting close. The closer the seeker was, the louder the drumming became. The game was a nice twist on hide and seek, and a great way to reinforce those two musical terms.

PORING OVER IT: I had to do a couple of things upstairs, so I asked the kids to take turns reading a story out of their new "High Five" magazine in my absence. I listened from afar as they read "Cow Food," an adventure of Tex and Indi and their cat named Cow. Rather than rushing back downstairs, I waited to see what they would do when they were done with the story. I was hoping they'd just keep on going, further perusing the magazine. Sure 'nuff, that's exactly what they did. They read a recipe for Mac and Cheese Muffins (and begged to make it), took turns reading another story, and did some word find and hidden picture puzzles.

IT'S BLITZ!: When the kids got back from music today, they were hungry, so I got them a mid-morning snack and let them watch the last half of The Price is Right for the first time in weeks. I'm working on stuff around the house and not paying much attention until the "Showcase Showdown" at the end got my attention. I glance over at the screen couldn't believe it - there stood the Seattle Seahawks' mascot, Blitz, on TPIR stage. Of course, I immediately recalled that TPIR host Drew Carey has a significant Seattle tie - he's part owner of the MLS team, the Sounders. Anywho, the showcase featured a trip to Seattle, tickets to a Seahawks' game, a VIP event with Warren Moon and a new SUV to use for tailgating. Nice! Unfortunately, the dude who bid on it was like $10k under - apparently he doesn't realize the value of some face time with Warren Moon. ; )

While we're talking prices, let me take this opportunity to report that for the last two days, every time we go into a store (which is a lot this time of year), CJ has been a price tag reading fool. He totally has the dollars-decimal-cents thing down. Excellent!

ROLLIN' ALONG: So, Annabelle decides instead of walking during our midday sojourn, she wants to scoot. I knew I'd end up carrying the thing, but went along with her request. Neither she nor CJ are quite coordinated enough on it yet to scoot uphill, and the sidewalks and streets in our neighborhood are typical for Seattle (translation: riddled with potholes, cracks, and poor drainage). So, of course, I wound up carrying the scooter 95 percent of the way. Oh well, more exercise for me. ;)

FULL CIRCLE: What's on the menu tomorrow morning? Yes, donuts. Again.

We'll be meeting a former classmate from kindergarten (and her mother) at Top Pot Donuts for a reunion. CJ hasn't seen his friend since last June. She's a super sweet girl who recently sent CJ a letter telling him she misses him. So tomorrow they'll have a chance to catch up.

Tonight I talked to CJ about some of the questions he might like to ask her (No, not, 'What's in your fridge?'!) and things the two of them might talk about. Hopefully he'll remember some of the "script" tomorrow. ;)

I've decided to leave Annabelle at home because if she comes along, she will dominate the conversation and try to direct every interaction. It's who she is, it's what she does. ;) I'll be the first to admit that often that is very helpful when it comes to CJ and social situations. However, he really needs to be able to go it alone, and not count on Annabelle for all of that "interface" stuff he'd often rather not deal with. And I know without a doubt that CJ can be conversant and engaging and outgoing - because I see him do it every day. I think the trick with him is he needs to learn that he doesn't always get to decide when he cares to engage and when he doesn't. Those darn societal norms need to be heeded!

Nutcracker Sweet

SPECIAL PERFORMANCE: Though Bee's ballet is officially over for winter session, I had her signed up for a special, one-class event called "Nutcracker Ballet" this morning. Though it was at the same place (the Magnolia Community Center) and with the same teacher, it was a big departure from her typically-very-regimented regular class. It was a fun-filled 90 minutes where the girls got to try on different costumes, watch a video excerpt from "The Nutcracker," do some coloring and drawing and there was even a gift at the end - a pretty little nutcracker, of course.

It warmed my heart when Annabelle walked out of class, walked right up to CJ and handed her prized nutcracker right over to him. She knows he has quite a thing for nutcrackers of all shapes and sizes. He was so pleased and thanked her repeatedly and spent most of the rest of the day with the green nutcracker in his hands. Throughout the day he asked Annabelle different things about what she'd done in class and asked her to show him how a nutcracker dances. She demonstrated a few moves, and we also checked out a few videos on YouTube of various performances of The Nutcracker.

DUTCH TREAT: Our mailbox today held a couple of great surprises. One was an oversized envelope with funny looking stamps, which intrigued the kids. Inside was a Christmas card with unfamiliar words printed on the front and inside. What was familiar, however, was the photo on the cover. I held it up and asked the kids if anything looked familiar. They both recognized that it was a picture of our aluminum Christmas tree - and wanted to know what the "funny" words on the cover said. Mercifully, there was a note tucked inside that translated the Dutch for us. It said (sic), "The text on the front can be translated as: ..wishes you cosy holidays and a mentally healthy 2010!"

I'll second that notion!

So, it was fun to see a leftover photo I'd parked on Morguefile.com find a "home" on the front of a non profit health organization's holiday card. It's a small world after all! Speaking of which, of course then we had to get a globe out and locate The Netherlands.

GIMME FIVE: Also in our mailbox today was the first issue of a magazine that Gma & Gpa bought the kids a subscription for - "High Five." It's a product of in the "Highlights" line, and based on our initial leaf through, it looks like it's going to be a terrific resource for MPA. There are stories, games, fun looking math exercises, craft and recipes ideas - even a bilingual story. We're looking forward to exploring every last page! Looks like there's even an audio edition and a parent/teacher (that's me!) guide online!

COYOTE TROT: It was a decent (translation: not freezing and no torrential rains) afternoon, so we took Kirby and the Street Sharks (action figures) to our neighborhood park for P.E.. Before we left, CJ remembered that last time we were there (well over a week ago) he wanted to draw Lost Lake (not sure what the genesis for that) so we brought some chalk along and did just that. On the way home the kids, as has become their usual routine, the kids looked for signs of our "friendly" neighborhood coyote.

STICKY SWEET: Believe it or not, at separate times today, each of the kids asked me where maple syrup comes from (CJ asked while eating pancakes this morning, Bee asked upon spying maple leaves at the park). So, when we returned from the park, we hopped on line and learned about maple syrup (including by watching a video about production at the Canadian Organic Maple Company). It's a more complicated process than I thought it was. I thought they just tapped a tree and the stuff flowed straight into bottles, which were then carted to the store. ;)

GOOD v. EVIL: All day today, CJ kept asking about angels and devils. At first I blamed it on the Veggie Tales (he'd picked one of their DVDs from the library recently), but as it turns out, Tom & Jerry are the genesis of his ponderings. He explained to me that in the cartoon "that gray cat" sometimes has little people sitting on his shoulders. CJ explained the shoulder sitters "both look like him," but one tells him to do good things and the other tells him to do bad things. CJ thought one was an angel and one was a devil, which is one way to look at it. I'd always thought that shoulder sitting device used in cartoons represented an internal struggle of conscience. ... Anyway, we had a several short conversations today about angels, devils, and trying to do the right thing even when someone's trying to get you to do the wrong thing.

AND BY THE WAY: The sun didn't rise above Queen Anne hill (to our east) until 8 fricking 30 this morning. Boy, I'll be glad when the days start getting longer.

Dark Days of December

REINDEER GAMES: This morning we started off with a writing exercise. I told the kids, "Imagine that Martians had just landed on earth and everywhere the aliens look they keep seeing things about a reindeer with a red nose. How would you explain Rudolph to them?" I asked them to write three sentences about it. We brainstormed a little together to come up with words they might use (Rudolph, reindeer, sleigh and Christmas) and I wrote those on the white board to help (none of those four are spelled like they sound!)

To say CJ was slow out of the gate would be an understatement. He sat there, pencil hovering over paper, for a "good" 20 minutes. The trouble? He wanted to write a sentence that started with the word "he" and he said he didn't know how to spell it. This is ridiculous for two reasons - 1) He does know how to spell it and 2) even if he didn't know how to spell it, he most certainly could have sounded it out, because he knows all of his letters and letter sounds. But that aside, he was suffering from a full blown case of Perfection Petrification. I told him to go ahead and leave the table, go sit on his bed and chill out and report back when he was ready to get to work. About 15 minutes later he emerged, cured (at least temporarily) and soldiered through the assignment.

As a soundtrack for their Rudolph writing assignment, I played different versions of "Rudolph," of course - including a guitar only version by Sungha Jung, a Korean teen who knows his way around a guitar.

Also in the reindeer vein, I wrote all of the reindeer names on slips of paper and had the kids alphabetize them. I'd just introduced them to alphabetizing last week, and this particular challenge was a good one, because there are, for instance, three reindeer names that start with D (Dasher, Dancer, Donner), so it was a good challenge - and they got to learn that if the first letter is the same, you go to the word's second letter. And if that is the same too (Dasher, Dancer), you then go to the third letter.

EPISODE 7: Today, during our radio theater interlude, Cinnamon Bear, Jimmy, Judy, and the Crazy Quilt Dragon met up with Presto the Magician who was of absolutely no help in their quest to find the silver star for atop the twins' Christmas tree.

Table work today also included a couple of reading comprehension and sequencing exercises. They both aced those quickly, with zero help and with flying colors.

CLASS REUNION: This afternoon we were invited to the home of one of CJ's classmates from Befriended. It meant driving to Bellevue in the pouring rain, but hey, we'll go a long way for a good time. ;) So CJ and Annabelle got to spend an hour and a half playing with three siblings, all boys, ranging from 18 months to 6 years old. On the way over, I talked to CJ about things he might say to or ask his classmate. CJ's first thought?: "What's in your fridge?!"

I couldn't help but laugh.

They played with and alongside each other really nicely for the most part. At one point they were even all dancing together to a CD called Movin' 2 Math by Jack Hartmann, former child psychologist turned full time kiddie music maker. One of the songs, "Make Any Shape and Freeze" had lyrics that instructed them to make various shapes with their body (a gorilla, a body builder, a shark, a chicken, and so on) and then freeze. It was entertaining watching their different dance styles.

On the drive to and fro we listened to "Here Come the ABCs" by They Might Be Giants and "Grammar Rock," from Schoolhouse Rock fame. Good stuff.

Getting Nowhere Fast

MULLING MILLIONS: When I announced it was math time this morning, for whatever reason, it went over like a lead balloon. I remembered that we have a couple of math-related DVDs that need to go back to the library soon, so I proposed that we watch one of those as our math lesson today. CeeJ and Bee were thrilled. So, we watched a "Reading Rainbow" episode called "Math is Everywhere." It featured the book "How Much is a Million?" The illustrated children's book uses clever examples to help illustrate just how much those "illion" numbers are.

For example, the kids learned that if they were counting to a billion, it would take 25 years, and that if a billion kids were standing on one anothers' shoulders, they would tower up past the moon. A trillion kids would stack up almost as far as Saturn's rings and it would take 200,000 years to count to a trillion.

Part of the "Reading Rainbow" episode was a visit to Giants Stadium to see how employees and vendors use estimation to prepare for games.

Keeping with the numbers theme, we tuned into "Numberjacks" for the first time in ages. The kids used to watch it daily. It's pretty elementary stuff - well below their age level when it comes to mathematics - but what makes it interesting is that it's in Spanish, so the kids get to listening to that language and pick out as many words as they can.

BEAR IN THE AIR: Since it was raining so hard, we didn't take Kirby on her mid-day walk. Instead, I had the kids throw her toy bear for her to fetch. I asked CJ to throw the bear 13 times. After every couple of throws, I'd ask him how many time he'd thrown it, and how many more he had to go. He was able to come up with the 13 - # = answer almost instantly!

YOGA WOES: The kids had yoga today and the class itself was AOK, as usual. It was the Seattle traffic that made it trying. It took us 45 minutes to get there, the teacher was 10 minutes late (due to traffic) and it took us over an hour to get home. Not sure what the massive gridlock was all about. Yeah, it was a little rainy, but hell-o! This is Seattle, people! Fortunately, before we left home, I had the presence of mind to grab the CD "SpongeBob's Greatest Hits" that I found at the library last week. It kept the kids entertained for the duration.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?: I love reading micro local papers, and a couple of days ago I picked up the Magnolia News. On the front page was a photo of some young, local ballerinas. The lead paragraph reads:

As it does every year, the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker
has cast several girls and boys from Seattle. Included in this
year's cast are several girls from Magnolia, including Ashley
Ochsner, 9th grader at Holy Names Academy; Eileen Kelly, 9th grader
Seattle Prep; and Katharine Grimm, 9th Grader Seattle Prep
(pictured). Additional Magnolians include Alexandra Sheldrup, 5th
grader Our Lady of Fatima and Mary Luken Raz, 6th grader at Pacific
Crest School.

At that point, for me, the story became about something other than ballet. Five neighborhood kids listed and NONE of them, not ONE, attends public school. And Magnolia is considered a creme de la creme neighborhood, one with the best Seattle Public Schools has to offer. It really serves to underscore what seems to be the case in this city - way more often than not, if someone can afford to send their kid to private school, they DO send their kid to private school. Sigh. And the more I read about the current climate in SPS, the more disheartened I become about the prospect for things improving measurably anytime soon.

Though a person reading this might think otherwise, I am actually very PRO public schools. I've volunteered thousands of hours in public schools, taken a lead role in bond and levy campaigns, blah blah blah. And I do (almost always agree) with the adage, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." But I'm also not a big fan of beating one's head against a brick wall and in my experiences with SPS, there's a whole lot of brick. Hell, I saw it from Day One, when I went to sign CJ up and the extraordinarily rude woman in the enrollment office basically said "bite me" in response to questions about school assignment from two parents in line ahead of me - and she definitely counseled them to go enroll their kids in a private school.

BONUS SHOTS: Here are a couple of 'leftovers' from yesterday's field trip to the Pacific Science Center. They're of the kids in the Gemini capsule, CJ checking out tides in the greater Seattle area, and the kids with Hong Kong Phooey (a favorite from my childhood!)

Finally, a Field Trip!

MORNING MEETING: This morning we got the most important business out of the way first - the kids put their letters to Santa in envelopes and addressed the envelopes. I do believe that's the first time they've ever addressed an envelope themselves. CJ was r-e-a-l-l-y slow because he was worried about his letters being perfect. (Naturally, I told him they didn't have to be perfect, but he'd have none of that.)

HE'S ON HIS WAY: For this morning's music, I played a bunch of different versions of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" for them. We started with the Jackson 5, worked our way through Springsteen, Ray Charles, The Supremes , Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra (with lyrics we'd never heard before), a horrific track from "Disco Noel (1979)" and even a head banging version by Alice Cooper (cool!). I also found a version by Bahamian folk guitarist Joseph Spence who kinda growled his way thru the song. Frankly, the vocals sounded (to me) like a cross between Adam Sandler and Beavis (of Beavis and Butthead fame). CJ laughed because the guy apparently didn't know the words. "Bad singer!" laughed Annabelle. But reading the comments on the video, supposedly this guy is some kind of virtuouso on guitar. Um, OK.

We followed all this up with a karaoke version, to help the kids cement the words in their own minds.

CAUGHT IN A TRAP: CJ asked to play an old favorite, "Mouse Trap," today. As far as actual game play goes, it's pretty lame. The fun in this game is the construction of the convoluted trap. I made the kids read the (25-step!) construction instructions and identify the parts involved, though I mostly handled set up. Then they played/argued over the game for a good 30 minutes.

MATH NINJAS: We hadn't done any flash cards in ages, so for today's math, we went old school. (Back in the day, flashcards were about as close to a PowerPoint presentation as we got!)

The kids were totally into it. In fact, I was especially shocked by how quickly CJ popped up with the answers. I guess the competitive nature of it (gotta be first!) kicked him into overdrive.

BIG COLD: Today's science speak was all about glaciers. What inspired us was the recent story about the mammoth iceberg approaching Australia. We took advantage of BrainPOP's free lesson plan and watched a video about glaciers. We learned there are two types of glaciers: valley and continental. We learned that glaciers move when snow piles high, the glacier compresses and its bottom layer starts to melt, turning into a putty like substance. Valley glaciers are all over the world. They can be very powerful, carving through landscapes like a bulldozer.

FIELD TRIP!!!: We have gone waaaay too many Mondays without an official MPA field trip, so this afternoon we headed out to the Pacific Science Center! First stop was the special animation exhibit. The kids were in Cartoon Network heaven!

One of the first attractions we visited was a station where the kids could try their hand at stop motion animation (our mini lesson in stop animation last week came in handy here).

The kids also got to become part of the action in two exhibits. One was another example of stop motion animation; A camera took 14 separate shots of the kids in various poses and then knit them together in a video. In another, "bullet time" filming was demonstrated. It involved multiple cameras at different places and angles, all firing at the same time. Then those frames are put together, and the action appears to be in super slow motion (think fight scenes in "The Matrix").

After the cartoon exhibit, we wandered over to the regular exhibits at the Science Center. There, the kids found out how much they'd weigh on each planet in our solar system, sat in a replica Gemini capsule, saw naked mole rats, lots of reptiles and insects, large, animated dinosaur models and more.

At 3 p.m. we headed over to the small stage area, where a demonstration about illusions was going to be held. The emcee was the energetic Dr. somebody, in a tie-dyed lab coat. Soon, the good Dr. needed a volunteer. As you might imagine, CJ's hand (and whole body) shot up at that request. Happily, CJ was selected! He bounded up on stage, where he was asked to play catch with the Dr. (I'll admit that made me cringe a bit, because, well, historically, catching and throwing a small ball has not been CJ's gift). However, CJ did a great job! Then the Dr. had him put on some goggles that apparently changed his vision quite a bit - shifting things over to the left by several inches. When the Dr. asked CJ for a high five, CJ missed his hand completely and repeatedly! Of course CJ thought that was hysterical. When his volunteer gig was over, I told CJ I was really proud of him. He was a good listener, followed all the directions, and exuded enthusiasm. After the show, unprompted, CJ went up to the emcee and extended his hand and said "thank you." :) Very nice!

RADIO THEATER: Once home, we engaged in about 60 minutes of radio theater, acting out the parts as we listened to a couple of episodes of "Cinnamon Bear," a Christmas classic dating back to 1937.

MORE, MORE, MORE: To finish the very busy day, the kids watched a Reading Rainbow DVD featuring the story "Gregory, the Terrible Eater" and segments about how food is prepared for various people and animals in a variety of settings.

What with Monday's 12 hours of activity, I think Tuesday is going to be MPA lite. ...