Angels Overhead

BACK IN THE MIX: I don't know what you were doing at 9 this morning, but we here at MPA were making royal icing.

Why, you wonder? Good question, considering we made a boatload of it yesterday to decorate cookies for our block party. However, yesterday's frosting and cookies were for the masses (and they lasted all of 5 minutes out on the table, might I add). Last night I promised the kids they could make their very own cookies today, and so, by gum, we did.

We mixed meringue powder, water and some powdered sugar to get our icing. It's a good exercise in patience, as it takes about 8 minutes to get the peaks to form. They took turns on mixer duty.

Then we divided the icing into four bowls. I let them each pick two colors. CJ picked red and black. Bee picked fuchsia and electric purple. She didn't stop adding drops of color to her icing until its color matched the swatch on top of the food color bottle.

Once they had colors they were satisfied with, they drizzled the edible paint over their butterflies, and then dragged a fork through the colors to blend them. Naturally, there was some sampling along the way. I'm sure it was for quality control measures.

Question: How does one get frosting on their forehead, anyway?

FAMILIAR ROAR: Shortly after noon today we heard the roar of jet engines and knew instantly that it was the Blue Angels. By the time I pulled the sun-blocking window shade up, they were out of sight - they move that fast.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy/Blue Angels.
But we know it won't be the last time we hear them over the next few days. This weekend is Seafair, and the Blue Angels will be roaring overhead several times over the next few days. I'd better keep my ears open and my camera by our big eastward-facing window.

AAARGH: "I got Rickrolled!" CJ exclaimed with disdain this afternoon. He had clicked on some Mario vs. Luigi link on YouTube and it was really a link to the Rick Astley video. Too funny!

FYI, CJ's in good company. An April 2008 poll by SurveyUSA estimated that at least 18million American adults had been rickrolled. I'd have to guess that number is well over 18 million by now, two years later.

BIG BEN: After our sugar fest ended, we read "A Picture Book about Benjamin Franklin," part of author David A. Adler's biography series.

We learned lots of interesting things about Franklin. For instance, he was one of 17 children (yikes!), and the 10th son born in his family. His dad wanted him to be a minister. Young Ben only attended formal school for two years - from the age of 8 to 10 - because that was all his family could afford. He worked in his brother's printing shop during his teenage years and later founded his own printing company, which was extremely successful.
This great 1914 Charles Mills painting by the Detroit Publishing Company, depicts Benjamin Franklin at work on a printing press.

He retired from printing in his mid-40s and thereafter devoted his life to his experiments, inventions and public service. Really, we're all lucky he was such a successful printer - if not, we wouldn't have benefit of his amazing innovations and statesmanship.

After reading the book, we hopped over to BrainPop and watched their Franklin video and the kids took a comprehension quiz. One of the things we discussed today was that Franklin did not invent electricity, he investigated and experimented with it. I think that's an important distinction. He did invent the lightning rod.

Did you know: Benjamin Franklin (the first postmaster of the U.S.) was on the first US postage stamp?

MOD SQUAD: This afternoon, CJ declared (for the umpteenth time) his desire to do a "mod" (short for modification, I presume) of Mario 64. In order to do so, he said he needs to download Toad's Tool 64. According to its Web site, "Toad's Tool 64 is the first and only graphically oriented Super Mario 64 level editor."

There's a video about the tool on YouTube. Also on YouTube are dozens of mods Mario 64 fans have made.

In reading the comments under the YouTube video, I'm a bit, well, concerned, that I won't be able to make this work. It sounds like it's pretty hard to use, and the people making those comments are hardcore gaming geeks. But I feel like we have to at least TRY to help CJ realize his dream of joining the ranks of the "mod" squad.

Stay tuned. ...

HEAD EAST: This afternoon, looking to mix things up a bit, we went over to the Queen Anne library. It's very close to home (5 minutes), and though it's small, it offers some diversity instead of just our good ol' Magnolia branch.

It's a great old building - a Carnegie library, one of 2,509 libraries worldwide made possible thanks to Scottish American businessman Andrew Carnegie's generosity. The QA branch was funded in 1911 and opened on New Year's Day 1914. There are high ceilings, lots of leaded glass and golden oak. We found a dozen plus DVDs the kids were interested in, as well as a number of books (yes, books!). After we had our haul, instead of making a beeline to the check out, I let the kids play around (quietly, of course) for awhile. They solved puzzles and messed around with the beads-on-wires type toys.

OVERHEARD: While in the library today ... a little girl was looking at the nonfiction books in the children's section, clearly interested in what she was seeing. Her mother came over and steered her away, saying, "Those aren't kids' books" and herded her back toward the fictional picture books. Lame.

AN INTERESTING READ: Today I read an opinion piece entitled "How do we teach kids independence in a fear-driven world?" I found myself agreeing with a lot of it (for instance her ending statement - "you need to give your kids freedom or they'll never have the skills nor the confidence they need to explore the world safely.") But I really disagree strongly with other parts of it - for instance, the author sending her 5 year old and a same-aged friend to go have a sword fight in a toy and bookstore while she ate in a nearby restaurant. (Frankly, the part that bugged me most about that scenario was thinking about the bookstore owner or employee - it's not their job to watch the author's squirrelly 5 year old while she lunches. I can't stand parents who do crap like that.)