Somber Anniversary

WHAT NOT TO WEAR: I asked Annabelle to get dressed this morning and this is what she came up with - all by herself.

It provided us an excellent opportunity to talk about mixing and matching colors and patterns. Where are Garanimals when you need them?

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE: Regular readers will recall my vow last night to take back my house today after the Sculpey, glue and fondant covered activities of the past few days. And I did clean like a mad woman this morning from 6 to 7:30 or so.

But come 8 o'clock, CJ had only one thing on his mind. He wanted to right a wrong. For whatever reason, he woke up obsessed over the fact his Proto Man action figure has no shield. And I had to agree with him - if you play a Mega Man video game or look at pictures of Proto Man online, the dude ALWAYS has his shield. It's part of whom he is.

And even though I had just put away all sorts of Scupley and tools that could do the trick, I told CJ, "We can make a shield." Oh, and I had to go down to the basement to find a suitable wire to use for a handle for the shield. And wire cutters. And the drill.

Confident after his recent experience with using power tools, CJ insisted he do the drilling, which I thought was great. Then he, Annabelle and I collaborated on the size and shape of the shield. CJ positioned the handle and secured it with more Sculpey and then we baked it for 15 minutes. After it cooled, we placed it in Proto Man's hand and boy oh boy was CJ pleased. It was worth the mess. :)
SLIPPED THE SURLY BONDS OF EARTH: Twenty five years ago today. I'll bet you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all seven crew members.

This NASA photo (I'd never seen before today) shows the first sign of trouble - the grey puff of smoke from one of the O-rings on the rocket booster that failed in frigid temperatures. (It's across from the U in United States.) The kids and I watched a short (and not very good) History Channel video about the event and a YouTube video of CNN's live coverage of liftoff and the explosion (which is how I learned on that day 25 years ago).

Then, we turned to the obvious source for news - NASA. They had a very nicely done interactive feature about the Challenger crew, as well as the Columbia shuttle crew and Apollo I's crew.

We also talked about our visit to Kennedy Space Center and I reminded the kids that we visited Memorial Garden, where we saw this plaque ... And the towering memory wall, where all space program crew whose lives were lost in the line of duty are carved into polished black granite and illuminated.

Understandably, the kids were pretty upset after reading and viewing the Challenger info. I suggested they might try to write some haikus to help them express what they were thinking and feeling.

Annabelle wrote:

Twenty five years past
Challenger's final voyage
There was a teacher

CJ wrote:

Shuttle explosion
The Challenger is destroyed
People feel sad now

THE DECIDERS: This evening, the kids started exploring a really great civics education Web site, iCivics. On its "About" page, it explains, "iCivics ... is a web-based education project designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in our democracy. iCivics is the vision of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is concerned that students are not getting the information and tools they need for civic participation, and that civics teachers need better materials and support."

Neat-o!

Today, we checked out a game called Immigration Nation.

Annabelle was thoughtfully reading each potential immigrant's case and deciding whether or not she could let them into the country. CJ watched for awhile, and soon a mischievous grin crossed his face.

"Let me do it! I can really screw this country up!" he said gleefully. Note to feds: do not hire CJ for an INS position anytime soon.

MEASURING UP: While at Albertson's today, we hit up a Red Box and found a Wii Fit game featuring Nickelodeon characters. Before they could play, they had to enter some vital stats, including their height and weight. Annabelle measured CJ. I love how he's stretching to be taller. That must be some innate human compulsion ...
SWEET STUFF: And because our kitchen wasn't quite trashed enough (again), today we had to make more (from scratch) cupcakes and fondant. For, you see, neither CJ nor Annabelle got ot partake of any of the Yoshi -inspired cupcakes we made yesterday. They disappeared too fast from the buffet table at the art/science expo. Independently and repeatedly last night and today, the kids asked for more custom cupcakes, and I couldn't blame them. And so, I baked them and we decorated them together.


This time Christian even got in on the act. He made a righteous Mario cupcake for CJ.
Annabelle worked long and hard on a Princess Peach cupcake for herself. I'm impressed with her level of confidence in the medium (fondant). She knows what she has to do, dives in and does her best.