Rubber Hits the Road

ALARMING START: Nothing like awaking in the pitch black to your spouse standing at the picture window yelling down at a man in the alley, "WHAT DO YOU WANT!?!" Ah yes, just another casual Friday around MPA.

Though I didn't hear the initial commotion, apparently at 5 a.m. a man began rapping on our basement door. He was trying to rouse us to tell us he found a cell phone (specifically Christian's cell phone) on our back stoop.

I'm thinking if spied a phone on someone's back porch, I would probably try to tuck it under the eaves (it was misting) but I probably wouldn't pound on their door at 5 a.m., unless their house was on fire. But hey, maybe the dude is just a LOT more helpful than me!

So Christian retrieved his wet phone, thanked the man, and put the phone in the oven (in hopes of reviving it - it was wet and DOA). And so started our day.

By 5:20, I was making cookies for a delivery later in the day. At 6 a.m. CJ stumbled out of his bedroom into the mostly dark house and asked, "Why are you making cookies in the middle of the night?!" :)

THE 'SPIEL: This morning at Musikgarten, the kids spent a lot of time getting to know their glockenspiel better. By the end, they were even (partially) accompanying one of the songs on their latest Musikgarten CD.

HIT THE ROAD, JACK: By 10:15 we were I-5 southbound, to drop off some boxes and Super Bowl cookies and for a whirlwind visit with G&G. The kids got in a couple of rounds of croquet, though tournament rules were definitely not in effect.
The car ride to and fro was filled with singing and creative storytelling on the kids' parts. We also played a few brain games, including hangman and the shopping list game. (You know, the first person says, "Kirby went to the store and bought hot dogs" and the second says, "Kirby went to the store and bought hot dogs and peanut butter" and with each turn, the list gets longer. I don't think we got past 5 or 6 items in all of our attempts.)

CRASH LANDING: Just before bedtime tonight, Annabelle was laying on her stomach on the top of the couch's back pretending she was an airplane. She apparently lost an engine or two and started shouting, "Mayday! Mayday! I'm going down!"

I asked her where she learned the term 'Mayday' and she said from watching cartoons. Then she asked me why people say Mayday.

Well crap, I don't know. For whatever reason, in my 44 years, I just never wondered why pilots or captains in distress say "mayday." But now I know. Apparently "mayday" is an anglicized version of the French m'aidez (help me).

I just asked Christian if he knew why people say "mayday." He replied, "Because of m'aidez or 'help me' in French." Now I feel even more lame.

WORK CREW: Tomorrow we're all scheduled for an Earth Corps work crew at Golden Gardens Park north of the Ballard neighborhood. We're scheduled to plant trees and pull weeds for four hours. In return, we're supposed to receive vouchers for free admission to a Disney theme park. If it pans out as advertised, that should save us around $320 when we visit Florida and Disney World in May. That's certainly worth four hours on a Saturday, plus it's good to get out and help improve the gem of a park we enjoy.

The Sky is Falling!

SUNNY MORNING: Not only did the sun rise this morning, you could actually see it! It streamed in through our eastward-facing windows.

I noticed I could see the kids' shadows behind them, on the front of our kitchen island, so I suggested they play shadow charades. They were totally down with that idea, and took several turns striking different poses. Two I caught with my camera were Annabelle's tree and CJ's elephant.

MUSIC TO MY EARS: Since the kids were up early enough, we had time for them to get in a jam session before ballet. I had them fetch and set up their glockenspeils and we reviewed the proper way to grasp the mallets and how they were to hold their arms while striking the notes.

They started in on a few drills and I ran upstairs to fetch something. It was so nice hearing the tinkling downstairs (and no, it wasn't Kirby making a puddle on the floor). I miss the days of having Rick and Ken around, providing live in live music on a regular basis. Here's hoping CJ and Annabelle will get as much enrichment and enjoyment out of music as their older brothers did.

SCHEDULE SHAKE UP: On Thursday mornings, our S.O.P. has been to drop Bee at ballet, then CJ and I walk to the Magnolia branch of the Seattle Public Libraries system, check out a bunch of DVDS, er-I mean books, and then walk back to the community center to collect Annabelle. Well that was B.B.C., or before budget cuts. In an effort to contain costs to match reduced revenue, the library system is cutting hours back at several branches, including Magnolia. So it doesn't open until 11 a.m. now, which is when Annabelle's lesson ends.

So today, CJ and I burned the clock by walking to Albertsons for Super Bowl cookie fixins, and then over to the post office. He even had 10 minutes or so to play in the park adjacent to the community center.

I guess the upside of the schedule change is that Annabelle will be able to join us for our library visits. Today, she and CJ read a small pile of big books together.

LITTLE CHICKEN: This afternoon the MPA student body and staff watched "Chicken Little." The movie we screened was an animated version from Disney, released in 2005. But before I hit the play button, we all talked about the age old fable, with roots reaching back to Aesop and beyond.

I asked the kids what would be wrong with going off half cocked, running around freaking out and yelling that the sky is falling? The kids generated a number of negatives to that scenario, including that you'd scare people, that people would think you're crazy, and that if it wasn't true, people would think you're a liar, and wouldn't believe you if it was true in the future, like The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

I was planning on the movie being background noise for me while I was working on a baking project, but I found myself actually watching and listening to it. The plot advanced at a good clip and the movie featured baseball and aliens, with music by the Barenaked Ladies, Elton John, and R.E.M. What's not to like?

Take away messages from the film: Every day is a new day; Communication between kids and parents is key; It's important to tell the truth. Good stuff.

SHORT STORY: Today's retelling is short and tomorrow's may be even shorter, as we're taking a road trip down to the 'Couve to deliver some goods and check out our old haunts.

The Day the Music Died

THAT'LL BE THE DAY: This morning CJ asked me what an anniversary is. I told him it's a day you remember something. Oftentimes it's something happy, like a wedding anniversary, but other times it's something sad, like the day someone died. That brought immediately to mind that this is "the day the music died" - the anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly, 22, (along with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper) in a plane crash in 1959. So while they worked on writing some sentences (groundhog leftovers!), I played "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue" for them. That was followed by Don McLean's "American Pie" a tribute to Holly. (A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile ... bad news on the doorstep - I couldn't take one more step. I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride, but something touched me deep inside the day the music died.) Of course the kids were singing along with the chorus by the end of the song. Weezer's "Buddy Holly" was another must (I forgot how great that video was!).

NOT NASA: At noon the kids and I undertook a project that's been hanging over us for months. The box has been sitting on the shelf screaming, "Build me!" Finally, the kids have started screaming, "Build it!"

That's right, today would be the day we'd finally construct "The Meteor Rocket." It promises the rocket, powered by baking soda and vinegar, will make 100-foot high flights.

The box also proclaims (in all caps) that it's one of the TOP 32 TOYS OF THE YEAR (Family Life Magazine) and says it's "Recommended by Parents' Choice." What could go wrong, right?

We got out the instructions and made sure all of the parts were included. Good news, they were. The first step was making the tailfins by affixing silvery contact paper to balsa wood, and then using a template to cut the fins out of the wood. I had the kids apply the foiled paper (that went mostly OK) and CJ traced the templates onto the now-shiny balsa wood. That went not so OK - after they were cut out, one fin was rather horribly misshapen. Crap.

Our next step was to affix the fins to a plastic liter bottle using glue. Aloud I said, "Well THAT's not going to work." I don't know of any glue that would really and truly make balsa wood stick to a smooth plastic bottle. I'm already envisioning duct tape at this point. ... I flip forward in the directions seeing what other gems await and see a supplemental at the end with an alternative method of attaching the fins without glue. (Quite clearly I wasn't the only rocket builder who had a "huh what?" moment regarding those.) So we used a plastic band of sorts to attach the fins to the bottle.

Next, it was time to cut some red film for the fuselage. We were told to cut it 10 and 5/8 inches. I made a big deal of measuring it exactly correctly - showing the kids the 1/8 mark on the tape measure and telling them how important it was that we cut it out at exactly that size. Which we did. Only to find out their measurement is wrong. The nosecone (which they provided) that is supposed to fit in this 10 5/8 inch fuselage is too big to fit. That's awesome. Time for more tape.

So the rocket is rickety (balanced on one bad tailfin), and it's crooked (thanks to the nosecone nonsense), but it's constructed, and as long as their "fueling module" (a couple of rubber corks and a tube) works and our baking soda and vinegar react the way they should, I figure we'll get at least one flight out of it. We'll probably give it a go tomorrow afternoon.

AMBUSHED!: We went to Fred Meyer this afternoon to pick up a couple of items. As we're cruising the wide, back aisle of the store, where the housewares and bedding displays are, I see a teenager about 20 feet away jump onto one of the displays, a half-length double bed done up in Valentine-y colors. Soon after, a second teen jumped on the display, too. I thought to myself, "I'm pretty sure those displays aren't meant to be sat upon," and hoped that Fred Meyer staffers didn't bust 'em.

CeeJ & Bee are trailing me as we walk past the display. I see the teens are now semi-reclined on the bed and feigning sleep - until the kids walk by and then they pop up and out and scream, "Boo!"

Well, as you might imagine, Bee and CJ screamed and jumped and I laughed and said, "That was awesome!"

CJ had recovered a bit at this point and said (with a bit of bravado), "Oh, you were trying to scare us, weren't you?"

Annabelle didn't have any trouble admitting to them, "I fell for it!"

ZIP IT: At the one point this afternoon CJ started spinning a story for Annabelle - something about a fish who got shot "and the doctor couldn't save him." Annabelle started fretting and attempted to make an inquiry about the plot line, but CJ brusquely cut her off, saying, "Save the questions for the end, OK?"

PRIVATE LESSON: Tonight CJ and Christian had the Tae Kwon Do teacher all to themselves. Usually, there are 7 or 8 students total. Why the dojo ghost town? Well, on Monday night they had a sub. Instead of easy going Ms. Ahn, it was hardcore old school Tae Kwon Do dude. And said dude told the class on Monday that there would be a sub on Wednesday, as well. Guess that was enough to keep the masses away!

Shadow Dancing

Photo from visitpa.com
PHIL 'ER UP: Today's Groundhog Day and boy did we go whole hog for groundhogs!

From an article on Live Science and a video on The History Channel, we learned that groundhogs are about the size of our dog Kirby - no bigger than 21 inches and 12 pounds max. Members of the order Rodentia (in other words, they're rodents), groundhogs are in the Sciuridae family (which includes squirrels), and belong to the genus Marmota.

Groundhogs have long, grayish guard hairs tipped with brown or a dull red covering a dense, woolly undercoat. Another trait they share with Kirby: many groundhogs have a patch of white fur around the nose. Groundhogs' incisors which never stop growing (thank goodness gnawing keeps them in check). They usually start hibernating in October and awake in March or April - unless you're Punxsutawney Phil and live an alternative lifestyle, shall we say. Unlike his groundhog brethren, Phil lives in an enclosure next to the Punxsutawney Memorial Library with his "bride" Phyllis and a couple of other marmots.

While Phil's purported to be 124 years old (the groundhog and his shadow tradition in Punxsutawney dates back to 1886), we are dubious. His relatives live up to six years in the wild and just 10 years in captivity.

We found that Animal Planet had a special "Day of the Groundhog" feature, including written info about groundhogs, footage of the creatures, and historical information about Groundhog Day. After checking all that out, we took the Groundhog Day Challenge quiz from the Discovery Channel.

DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: In researching Groundhog Day activities, I found a Web site new to us. Artists Helping Kids with Arts. There, I found a quick-and-easy make a groundhog project using supplies we had on hand (including empty toilet paper rolls ).ORDER UP: The kids completed a Groundhog Day alphabetical order exercise from Apples 4 the Teacher, using 16 words, including some that started with the same letter, so they had to do "tiebreakers" (comparing letters deeper into the word). While they worked, I played "Shadow Dancing" for them. That just has to be Punxatawney Phil's theme song, right? I followed it up with "Shadows in the Moonlight," just for good measure. (Wow, when was the last time you listened to an Anne Murray song? Talk about a blast from the past. ...)

HISTORY OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Why groundhogs as the harbinger of a longer winter or earlier spring? The Discovery Channel has a fantastic timeline of the evolution of Groundhog Day. It's packed full of information from ancient times to present day and did a really great job of explaining the mishmash of ancient pagan (the festival of Brigid, called Imbolc or Oimelc) and early Christian (Candlemas) traditions. Some of Pennsylvania's earliest settlers were German and they brought traditions with them, transferring some involving European hedgehogs to groundhogs.

After we brushed up on history, together, we tackled a rather challenging 96-piece Puxatawney Phil jigsaw puzzle online.

GROUNDBREAKING GROUNDHOG: As you might expect, P. Phil has official Web sites (yes, plural - one being VisitPA.com, then there's http://www.punxsutawneyphil.com/ and there's also a third, groundhog.org, the official site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club (the latter wasn't loading for us earlier in the day - no doubt its server was getting overloaded!).

But this year, for the first time, Phil's forecast was sent via text message and Twitter.

It's also worth mentioning Phil has his own YouTube channel, which the kids loved, might I add. The videos depict someone in a groundhog costume battling it out with someone in a shadow groundhog costume. Some of the videos are just funny, but a few are downright weird dookie - Twin Peaks-esque. For example, most of the Groundhog Dreams series, including Chapter 2: Dining for Marmots.

GREAT GROUNDHOGS!: Together, the kids read "Great Groundhogs!," an early reader chapter book that I scored at the library last week. I did a quick Yahoo! search and actually found a lesson plan (a several page PDF) to go with the book (gotta love the Internet!). It came from ABCteach.com (a site I'd never seen before), and included vocabulary, a word scramble, a word search puzzle, comprehension questions, a fill in the blank page, a true-false test and a writing activity. That kept us busy for awhile!

February First

FUNNY MONTH: We started the day out by making a calendar for the new month. We talked about things that make February special, including its brevity, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Groundhog Day and, of course, that whole leap year thing.

While CeeJ and Bee filled in days, dates and marked standing appointments (yoga, music, ballet, Tae Kwon Do) I played our calendar day standards: "Calendar Cat" and "Chicken Soup With Rice." I added Josh Groban's "February Song" to the mix for good measure.

PUSHING PAPERS: We hit the workbooks this morning, but instead of going to the half dozen K/1st grade ones we have, I used a (supposedly) grade 2 reading workbook for CJ and a "Moving from 1st to 2nd Grade" book for Bee. We're definitely done with the straight up K/1 stuff - it's just busy work for them and life's too short to fill it with busy work!

STEP BY STEP: The kids took a break from bookwork and we shifted our attention to housework. Specifically, putting new carpet on the spiral staircase treads. At first blush one might think, "That doesn't sound like good schoolin'," but I'd argue that it is. For instance, last week CJ & Annabelle had helped me measure the stairs and pick out new carpet (we had to find a remnant that was big enough), so there was some math goin' on there. And I think it's good for them to see the steps of the home improvement process, and have a hand in it when they can (even if they don't pursue careers in construction, it sure is good to know how to do things yourself).

Today while we were installing the carpet, Annabelle was very eager to have a hand in it. While cutting the carpet and stapling it to the treads was out of her league for safety reasons, she was a perfect candidate for the most fun part of the job - putting the "new" treads in place.

ACROSS THE POND: For some math and science fun, I thought we'd pop over to the BBC's amazing Web site. I pointed my browser to their KS2 Bitesize: Maths homepage. We played a game featured prominently on the page: "Questionaut."

Its graphics were stunning - kind of Edward Gorey-Tim Burton-MC Escher lite.

I figured that "KS2" would mean the activities were geared for K-2 grade students. And maybe they are. But if they are, well, the British wee ones are learning a whole lot more than primary aged students here. ...

The questions involved everything from prepositions to dividing decimals. And then there were some language difficulties (yes, we and they both speak English, but they call their quotation marks "inverted commas").

That said, there were a lot of questions the kids were able to figure out on their own (especially the science ones). But answering the questions wasn't the only challenge in this game. There were eight worlds, and at the start of each world, you had to figure out how to make the character(s) inhabiting it give you the questions, and it wasn't always obvious or easy how to do so.

Overall, it took us a little over an hour to win the game. We'll definitely visit the site again.

DONNING THE DOBOK: Today marked the start of CJ (and Christian's) second month of Tae Kwon Do classes. Last Friday, we scored a CJ-sized uniform (called a dobok in Korean) that was just $6 at Value Village. (They're $25 to $40 or so new.) Tonight was the first time he got to wear it. I forgot to ask Christian if the dobok improved CJ's abilities. ;)

Now all he needs is a black belt to go with it! : )