Books and Birds

ALL ABOUT IMAGE: I noticed at one point today CJ was walking around with a pencil perched atop his ear. I'd never seen him do that before, so I asked him what was up. He told me it was part of an attempt to look like the smartest person in the world. LOL. "Another way would be to read a Greek dictionary. With some glasses on," he added. Unfortunately, we don't have any Greek dictionaries laying around the house.

TIDE HAS TURNED: Recently, I noticed a hand puppet Annabelle made out of a paper bag. It was clearly a riff on Dora the Explorer. "Dora's" name tag cracked me up. Guess Annabelle considers herself to have graduated from Dora's fan club.

ALASKAN WAY: Did you know that there's a rocket launch site in Alaska? Neither did we, until a couple of days ago when I read a Minotaur 4 rocket would be launching from the Kodiak Launch Complex this morning.

And so, we tuned in to Spaceflightnow.com at breakfast time, awaiting an 8:49 our time launch. The rocket was (relatively) tiny, but it was still cool to see it go. On board was the TacSat 4 satellite. It will be positioned in an elliptical orbit tailored for communications with mobile military units deployed in war zones.

I found some Naval Research Laboratory/U.S. Air Force images of the 992-pound satellite being encapsulated inside the Minotaur's 92-inch nose cone. Pretty cool!
BOOKISH: We had to take some library books back today, so we did a little "reading down the pile" as I call it. Christian read the kids "Blast off to Earth - A Look at Geography" by Loreen Leedy. It involved aliens visiting Earth and taking note of its geographical features. They also read "There Once was a Sky Full of Stars," written by Bob Crelin with pictures by Amie Ziner. The text was all limericks, which provided an interesting twist on a familiar topic (our solar system).

We took books back to the Ballard branch, and there we found a great display for Banned Book Week. CJ, especially, was fascinated by it. There were books in jars, books with locks on them, a book in a vice, one covered in spray foam, and other visual interpretations of banning books. The kids were surprised to see their beloved Captain Underpants was a poster child for banned books, and when CJ saw that Harry Potter was on the hit list he proclaimed, "That is TERRIBLE!" loudly enough for the whole library to hear. :0 Normally, I'd be embarrassed, but by their smiles I could tell the librarians actually liked the fact that he had such a strong negative reaction to it.

PURTY BIRDS: It has been too long since we did a cartooning session, so today I let the kids pick out a project from the Activity TV Web site. They chose the "Lovey Bird" cartoon. The kids did a good job following directions - and adding their own twists to the formula. Bee's bird is pink (big surprise).CJ opted for purple. I told him I liked how he chose a different color for its eyelid - it really makes the bird's eye pop.