What's in Ohio?

Once again, I have come up with a new answer for the question everyone seems to ask me, "But what's in Ohio?

http://www.daytondailynews.com/l/content/oh/story/living/travel/2007/07/05/ddn070607goroadside.html?cxntnid=dlh-070607

I knew about the big basket, but the tin man? Big Butter Jesus? Shopping in a candle? What more could you want?

That Attic Smell

Attics are always a source of material for the imaginations of young people. Think about how many children's books take place in attics. Steamer trunks that lead to different worlds live in attics. Poor little girls living in boarding schools are relegated to attics and then saved by rich neighbors. You could even see the famous Wardrobe of C. S. Lewis hanging out in an attic (I know, it was in a room at the end of a hall, but you could imagine it being in an attic). I think it is more than the fact that kids can climb up there alone and explore. There is something about the smell of the wood heated and cooled by the outside air year after year, the "cathedral ceilings" as they are called by real estate marketers, and the deep recesses and shadows. Attics are just cool.

Grandpa's new house has an attic. And while it's a new house for him, it's not a new house to our family. This was the house my mother grew up in. And her bedroom is up in the attic. One, single room with a nice hardwood floor and a big double window carved out of an unfinished attic with wide sub flooring boards exposed, and cheap wood paneling hastily tacked up on the ceilings. It's a great place for kids. There are boxes to explore. They can all be together on one floor, but if they want to get away to some privacy, they go behind the bedroom wall in a corner to be alone. There is one bed set up outside of the bedroom. Grandpa refers to that as the dormitory. He has visions of the kids all sleeping up there on that bed and the cots and other blow up mattresses. I hope he can get some carpet up there soon so they can take their shoes off while they are up there. Right now it is sliver city. But they still love it. Its away from the adults. There is elbow room. It is very dorm like. And it captures their imagination.

I think they will very much look forward to staying at Grandpa's house. Even if that attic does get a little hot in the summer.

Letterboxing, part deux

This weekend, I ferried the team out to Schenectady to visit my father. My sister from Kansas City, KS is visiting him. We don't get to see them often, so their coming back to civilization is a great reason for a trip out to Sch'dy.

I decided to check out some letterboxes while we were there and I also thought that bringing the niece and nephew with us might be fun both for the boys and for the cousins. So we became scalzidragonfireballs + 2 from KS.

We checked out the boxes at Union College. There are 4. We found 2! We were uncertain of the clues for the first box and we forgot to even look for the fourth. The boys were a bit tired and I didn't want to push them too far, so after we found box number 3, we just went for ice cream and then home. The stamps were very well carved and I showed all the kids how the log books were hand made. We got to see how all the boxes were put together and now Firstborn has a good idea of what we are looking for.

Cousin J found the first box. She can be tenacious. And she was very creative in applying the clues to what we were actually seeing. Don't want to print a spoiler, but the clues could not be followed to a tee on box #2. So you had to use logic and she did that well. So did Firstborn, but I dissuaded him since he was giving a suggestion but not showing me his logic. Had he shown his thinking, I might have said, go ahead and try it. It just seemed like he was desperately grabbing at straws. Next time, I will be more patient and ask him to explain why he is looking in that area.

Firstborn was able to find box 3 quickly. We won't take away points for the fact that it was out in the open. :-) We will give him great points for being very discreet when he found it and not shouting with joy the way his face showed that he really wanted to. We wanted him to find Box #3 because I want him to be excited about this. So when we were reading the prescribed plaque and he couldn't figure out how to pronounce the word Schenectady (he was looking at it upside down), I made a big show out of making him come around to my side of the stone to read it. As he came around the stone, he couldn't help but see the box. The whole time cousin J and cousin B were smiling over his head at me because they had seen it. Lastborn was totally oblivious as he usually is. But he mostly participates in letter boxing for the social aspect anyway.

Once we stamped in, I asked Firstborn to re hide the box "better than he found it." Silly me. He headed back into a pile of brush to "hide it good." so I had to explain to him that this phrase means to use the same spot, but cover the box more thoroughly.

We did have fun and cousin B thinks he would really like to look up some boxes in the Kansas City area.

While the kids did enjoy their ice cream at Stewart's afterward, I don't think that the ice cream was the highlight of the day.

It was so nice for me to have an organized way to show the kids the Union College campus, the Nott Memorial, Jackson's Gardens, and so many other sights in the area. We could see St. John's church from the distance though none of the kids could recognize "Grandma's Church." So that was a fun thing to do as well. Then I told them about how Aunt P and Uncle L had been married in that church and I pointed out the Union College building where they had their reception and told them about how Aunt P had a bagpiper lead us all as we marched across Union Avenue (4 lanes of traffic) to the building at Union College and how traffic had to stop for our little parade of about 100 people.
I pointed out the Dorms and how they are all called houses just like in Harry Potter. Firstborn even said he liked the campus and might be interested in going to College there "if only they had Chemistry there." Well of course Union offers Chemistry. So maybe he will be attending Union too. We only have to wait 8 years to find out.
So how many other college campuses have letterboxes hidden in them. :-) What a great way to start the kids thinking about going off to college.

Our first letterboxing attempt

This Sunday, we went out to find The Three Bears. We found none.

The boys were wary of the idea. I tried my best to explain it to them, but of course their young minds began to fill in the blanks and create great imaginary ideas of what it would be like. This worried me. I would like to do this as a way to share my interest in the outdoors and to be able to find our way around some of the little known areas of Dayton once we get there.

It's one thing to say, let's go check out X park. The boys often fight an idea such as that because they have no idea whether there will be something great there or whether it will be another boring place mom drags them to. With Letterboxing, I can say let's go to X park. I hear they have a letter box hidden there. We have a discrete purpose for our travels. Something to focus on.

So I was nervous going out. I also wanted DH to join us for the first excursion so that I could get a lay of the kind of land used in these things. Will it be safe for a woman and kids? Am I risking my kids? What happens if one of them gets tired. I'm certainly not in better shape than my kids are at this point. Maybe I'm setting myself up for a drastic situation. Worry! Worry! Worry!

The boys showed their true colors as we entered Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Park in Billerica. I've driven past this park many times and seen the RC planes flying around, but I have never actually entered the park. The boys were really excited to find the playground at the entrance to the trails. That was enough treasure to keep them happy for the whole day. But they condescended to tag along with mom into the woods to find the real point of our journey.

We followed the directions to the best of our ability. The clues lead you first to Pappa Bear's box. But we were uncertain when the clues told us to stop at the fallen tree with the orange marker after the third tree with an orange marker. Do you start counting the markers at the beginning of the orange trail or at the next marker? We started at the beginning, but I'm not sure that was right because we found no fallen tree with an orange marker. And frankly, that seems like an important piece because in the woods, there are lots of fallen trees.

We tried to use logic but things were just as cloudy. Which rock is Pappa Bear's boulder in a giant stack of boulders. Again, we tried to use logic. But to no avail. The idea of letterboxing is to hide the box in a way that disturbs nature as little as possible. Firstborn thought we needed a shovel. But that would have disturbed nature. I found what I thought was the perfect boulder for Pappa Bear and it would have been a great place to store a letterbox because there was a boulder below it, making it easy to stash a box between and cover it with leaves.

I tried using a stick to swipe under the boulder, but nothing was there. I was relieved that no wildlife came racing out to attack, but dissapointed that no box at least rattled around in there if not came flying out with the swipe of my stick. We tried "under" many big boulders. We dug under the leaves and I explained to the boys that a box should be under the brush, not under the dirt. There must be some sort of natural hole to hide it in and then camoflage it with leaves and sticks.

After about a half hour of looking and Lastborn tagging along saying these woods give me the creeps, we decided to leave Papa Bear's Box behind and see if Mama Bear wanted to visit with us. Apparently, Papa Bear is in a grouchy mood today. We followed a long trail over a hill and past many more stacks of boulders. I pointed out to the boys that these great granite outcroppings are a feature of the northeast and that we would see few of them around Dayton.

They were not impressed. Eddie was still talking about how creepy things were and Ken was still walking way too fast and getting way ahead. Meanwhile, I was trying to read through the clues and not trip over roots and rocks, and the mosquitoes were coming out as the sun seemed to dim more and more by the minutes. Mama Bear's box was supposed to be hidden behind a tree just off the path at the 4th yellow marker. Again, do we start counting at the intersection of the blue and yellow trails or after that one? It might have made a big difference. Because we pursued the only tree that even remotely fit the description of the tree in the clues, and we went behind it but found nothing that looked like a good hiding place. We walked around looking for a hole under the leaves. We moved leaves and twigs looking for a hiding place and we replaced everything so that no one would know we were there. Again, Firstborn wanted a shovel.
I suspect that if we went to the 4th marker and looked for a tree, we would have found a tree with a hole in the back of it, but the mosquitoes were getting hungrier and so were the boys. We gave up after 15 minutes of this and headed back to the car without making an attempt to find baby bear.

I expected the boys would give me a very hard time for our failed outing, but was surprised. They liked the hike even if the woods were creepy. Firstborn was certain that the clues were flawed and I tried to explain to him that we are very new at this and probably missed something.

They seemed even more intrigued after the hike than they were before. Well, Lastborn complained of being tired, which is to be expected considering he had attended a party at a zoo earlier that day and spent the entire time running around like a madman.

I mentioned to them that there are boxes hidden at Union College in Schenectady and that maybe we could go out with cousin J to see if we could find them. First born liked the idea. Lastborn was silent. So I suggested that Lastborn could stay home and I would go with Firstborn and J.

This morning, Lastborn asked if he could go to find the boxes at Union. He was nearly in tears. I told him of course he could. He thought I didn't want him along and I explained that he seemed like he didn't really have a good time. Well, I guess I was wrong.

Maybe it's a good thing that we didn't find our first boxes. I think it made the boys even more interested in finding boxes now that they know they are so well hidden.

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

Firstborn is very interested in foul language. He is enticed by the power of it. He wants to know all the words and of course we know he uses them around his 10 year old friends. But I am proud to say that he is usually proud enough to not use foul language around his parents or teachers (except in acrostic poetry).

Boy-next-door is also very curious. He is a bit better at keeping his mouth shut in dangerous situations though. A few months ago, I mentioned to his mother that Firstborn has been collecting nasty words because boy-next-door is "a collector" in Firstborn's terms. I think she felt threatened by this, though no threat was intended because she shot back at me that her son says that Firstborn knows more words for the F word than anyone he knows. This came as a bit of a shock to me at first and then it made sense. Apparently, some of the 4th grade boys were bragging that they knew the F word in Chinese and German and all kinds of other languages. Not that I would trust the veracity of their translations, but it all adds up.

So the other day in the minivan, Firstborn accused Lastborn of using a naughty word. It wasn't a terribly bad word and I explained that to the boys, but I also called Firstborn for throwing his brother in front of the bus like that.

"After all, Firstborn," I told him. Boy-next-door says you know more words for the F word than anyone he knows."

This silenced Firstborn just long enough for Lastborn to shout out, "Like B-E-E-P!"

Took me a moment to figure that one out. I almost had to pull of the road because of the laughter.

The Mario Bros. Boogie.

I've wanted to get Dance Dance Revolution for the kids since we bought them the GameCube a year and a half ago. But it is expensive and DH was convinced that the kids would never use it. The kids were pretty convinced too.

However, report cards came in. They both did relatively well. Lastborn made honor roll and Firstborn would have but for some social pressures that led to some less-than-perfect behavior. However, Firstborn came in second on most-pages-read for the year. Second wouldn't mean much if we wern't so convinced that the kid who came in first cheated.

Yes, he's been turning in his book forms on the last possible day for the last three semesters (Hmm. Are we waiting to see how much firstborn reads before we make up our number?). And this semester, he surpassed Firstborn by only 20 pages . Twenty pages turned in at the last minute. He confessed to Firstborn that he couldn't really tell which books he had read. He reads so many, you know. He has a hard time remembering which ones he has finished. Right. Shady character at 10 years old.

So to celebrate Firstborn's great reading, I purchased the DDR pad and ordered the discontinued DDR Mario Edition from a neighboring store that had it in stock. We had to wait until Tuesday night (3 days!) for it to come in.

Last night, I had Lastborn try it out. He was very reluctant and made me do the dances. Now there's a laugh. But I enjoyed the bit of a workout.

Eventually, Lastborn was addicted and trying every song.

Unfortunately, his little legs are easily tired by the task. It's a bit of a stretch between dance pad buttons. Before long, he was sitting in the middle of the pad smacking the buttons with his hand.

I think the point of the purchase was to get him up and exercising.

Rules are simply guidelines.

Firstborn and next-door boy also played for a while last night. The game is a hit.

Piano Recital

Like the horrible mother I am, I forgot my camera.

Firstborn had his first piano recital. It was nice to see how much ahead he was from the other kids who have started before him. One boy was taking for 2 years and another for 3 and Firstborn was playing ahead of them in the books.

Firstborn also turned out to be quite the clown. When the planned first player was unprepared to play first in the program, Firstborn stepped in. He's not the kind of kid to let a little nervousness stop him and I'd like to encourage that quality in him, so I offered him up to the instructor as first victim, I mean, performer. He gladly stood up for the cause and sat down to play. After all, he had no idea what he was supposed to do and he knew everyone knew that he was a newbie. He messed up a couple of times on his first piece and then played the rest of the program flawlessly, even adding an extra little stylized chord to the end of his last song.

And when he finished his solo pieces, he stood up for the applause, bowed and said, "Thank you. Thank you very much." in his best Elvis.

He came back into the room to play some duets with the instructor after intermission. Again, when the audience applauded, he bowed and did his Elvis bit. The audience loved it and one dad shouted out, "Firstborn has left the building." as Firstborn left the room.

He really enjoys his piano classes and his teacher enjoys him. So, it is a great fit.

Fine Dining in Beavercreek, OH

While the house is on the market, I find myself searching the Internet to find info on the communities we are looking at.

Searching for restaurants beavercreek oh returned this gem.

I am so looking forward to this.

Empathy

We have survived the great family milestone of having "the talk" with our eldest son. In fact, we have quite enjoyed it. Explaining to a 10 year old where babies come from can be quite fun if you remember your sense of humor. This age is so delicate. 10 year old boys think everything having to do with this is gross. And Firstborn was no exception. He revels in the fact that he is old enough to know these things, but it will take many months of therapy to get him over the horror of what he knows.

In fact, DH and I have to measure our joy in grossing him out. There's only so much therapy we can afford.

But this weekend, when Firstborn was being a normal mouthy 10 year old, DH made some comment about "I made you once I can get rid of you and make another?"

Firstborn responded with "Oh sick, don't remind me."

DH loved it. When he repeated the story to me, Firstborn had to chime in. "I know what you guys went through. I wouldn't want to put you through that again."

Hmmm. :-)

Books are killing our children

For the past few days, Firstborn has been sucked into the depths of Septimus Heap. He started the first book of the trilogy last summer and was quickly diverted back to Eldest in preparation for the Eragon movie. He wanted to have both books read before the movie came out in case they put some plot bits from Eldest into the movie. I'm loving his interest in reading the book before seeing the movie.

When he finished the first in the Septimus Heap series, we bought him the second because he seemed to enjoy the first quite a lot. By the time he launched himself into the second, we had lost him for good. Every second, this book is opened. He never fully closes it until he passes out at night. He walks around the house, book tucked under his arm, index finger marking his place. He brushes his teeth with brush in one hand, and book under the other arm. He eats with his finger in place. Placing a bookmark in the pages would take too much time from reading the book.

He has given up on our get ready by yourself challenge. The challenge was that if he proved to me he could get ready on his own in the morning with no nagging, he could start playing video games in the morning after he is ready and before school. He doesn't care anymore. He would rather read and be nagged.

That whole thing got me thinking. I know countless mothers who refuse to buy their kids game systems for fear that they will become addicted. I know countless more who routinely take the systems away from their kids because the kids can't control their obsessive desire to play. They can't understand why a child would give up outside playtime for a game system.

I know no mothers who feel the same way about books. It's acceptable in this world to roll your eyes skyward and say "That's just johhny. He loves his books." But no one feels the same way about gaming systems. Yet it is the same reaction I seen in Firstborn with his books. He is obsessed. He can't wait to read. His teacher threatens to take away his books until reading time.

The media has certainly done a good job of demonizing video games. You play too much and you will end up with CTS or tendinitis. You play too much and you'll get a blood clot! Have you ever heard of someone warning against reading in one position because you might get a blood clot? Never. I guess it's OK if a 10 year old dies from a stroke while reading because at least he was using his mind. Right? And believe me, if firstborn doesn't learn to use something other than his finger as a place marker, he is definitely gonna hurt some tendon somewhere.

It is very difficult not to react negatively to our children's obsessive compulsive behaviors. But it can be interesting when you put them into perspective.

Shock the chiropractor

Recently, Lastborn's teacher has begun a campaign to have him put on ADD drugs. Now, she is fully unqualified to do this and she knows just how far she can go in this pursuit. But luckily, so do I. Believe me, if I felt that he needed the drugs, I would put him on them.

However, recognizing that her job is not easy (remember, there is a reason I dubbed him Lastborn in this blog), I am pursuing ways of making her life more wonderful that stop short of placing him on meds. To that end, I attempted to bring him to a wonderful chiropractor. Not that I feel that chiropractic cures everything, but if his wriggling is the result of a sore spine, let's just get that fixed and move on with life.

Lastborn was far from the compliant patient. The whole experience left him so nervous that I was beginning to give those meds a second look.

He would not sit still, he would not listen. Overall, he presented worse than what the teacher was describing. While I joke about Lastborn's behavior, one of the reasons why he is still alive after these last 7 years is because he never acts this way for me.

Of course, a visit like this is bound to provide blog quotes. Isn't it?

The chiropractor had this wonderful life size replica of a spine with little rubber tubes standing in for nerves. Lastborn was fascinated and began asking questions. Was it real? Was it the spine of a snake? Did he remove that spine from one of his patients? The chiropractor was patiently responding to these questions and enjoying the whole interaction until Lastborn popped out the following quote:"

I saw a real spine once and I touched its wiener!

I looked over the table to where the chiropractor was covering his face with his hand, his body jerking slightly with suppressed laughter.

"Something tells me you don't hear that from all your patients." I said.

At that point, he lost all semblance of composure and told me that his wife should really get a look at this one.

That statement left me wondering if maybe he and his wife had a fight that morning and he was just thinking of a rare and unique way of getting her back or if he wanted to just share the "joy" of this rare child.

We'll find out next week. . .

Growing Up, Growing Out?

The problem with a kid like firstborn is that in his efforts to fit in and adapt to his world, data gets lost. On the one hand, this makes my life infinately easier. On the other, it makes his infinately harder.

Firstborn has always been able to come up with adaptive behaviors. So much so that before we had him professionally tested for SI, he didn't look much like an SI kid. And when we did look at behaviors, I would never have marked him as defensive. He seemed more seeking or mixed to me than defensive.

That was one of the wonderful things about testing. I was able to learn that some of his behaviors were covering up a deep defensiveness. Take for example the fact that Firstborn never commented on smells. It's not that he couldn't smell things. Quite on the contrary, he could smell only too well. But his lack of reaction or commenting on smells stemmed from his efforts to ignore something that bothered him.

Another example is in the handwriting arena. I thought he had good handwriting in K and first grade. Indeed, it looked very nice. The problem was, he was gripping the pencil really hard and pressing down really hard in order to numb his fingers so that he wouldn't have to feel the touch of the pencil. Hmmm. The imprint goes through 6 sheets of paper and the edges of the sheet curl up.

As Firstborn grows up, he learns new coping skills. It's easy to think he is growing out of this disorder. His nervous system is catching up or exposure to sensory input is increasing his ability to organize his reactions. I find, however, that I really need to be more aware and open with him, because in some cases, he is simply internalizing his differences and developing conclusions that might not be true.

Take yesterday, for example. One of our first really warm days and both boys were wearing shorts and short sleaved shirts. As a toddler, these transitions would bring one or two rough mornings as Firstborn struggled to organize in his brain the new input of the different clothing. Either he was feeling breezes on his hairs that he could neither ignore or reconcile or he was feeling the touch of fabric on his skin. I have not heard the complaints since he has been able to dress himself, but I do notice a reluctance to change seasons. I figured that the SI issues were the main reason for this, but he insisted that fashion was driving his clothing decisions.

Yesterday though, that cover was blown. He complained about his shorts being too short. They hung just above his knees. Shorter than the current fashion, but not short enough to be mocked by his peers. So I asked him why he thought they were too short.

"It feels funny," he replied. I can feel the wind on my hairs.

So I explained SI to him and why it made him feel funny. My hope is that in understanding what is going on with him, he can logically work his mind around some of the new sensations. I also hope that he will be able to communicate with me when sensory input is bothering him. I told him about when he was a toddler and would throw tantrums pulling his sleeved down to his wrists to avoid the feeling of air on his arms. He thought that was pretty funny.

So while he is growing up, he's not really growing out of SI.

I love freecycle

Fusebeads
Shelf unit
Golf shoes
Quilting material
babyfood jars
coffee cans
magazines on RC airplanes
A church pew


All things that have found a home on Freecycle in the past few months. This weekend especially we have been frantically freecycling. It is amazing what we have a hard time getting rid of. the baby food jars for example. Why we saved 2 boxes full of baby food jars is beyond me. They had 6 years of dust on them. DH was unwilling to part with them at first. But then when he heard the stories the recipients told him about why they were taking the items, he realized that it would be much better to give them away than carefully wrap hundreds of tiny jars for the move. After all, if he really finds he needs baby food jars once we get to Dayton, well, there's always Freecycle!

school projects

I know they mean well, multi-sensory learning and all that. But these projects have got to go. They become like viruses, spreading from one classroom to the next, from one elementary school to the next until they become the district project. And we parents spend our time connecting the contagion path until we find the source of the virus and heap our dislike on that particular teacher.

Case in point, the brown bear project in 4th grade. It started as a project where the kids had to write a book using the pattern of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? A truly annoying storybook that all K teachers read. Only for the 4th grade project, they had to change the words to Washington, DC, Washington, DC, What Do You See? Altogether too much punctuation for one project. The book had to include pictures of at least 10 attractions in DC, at least 5 of which should be hand drawn by the budding genius.

OK, so it's neat. But my son had to do one in 3rd grade too. Revolution, Revolution, What Do You See? Oh come on. Though he did enjoy drawing pictures of bloody battles in which the only color used on the page was red for the blood. I knew the Washington, DC project was coming up because this was one of those projects where one 4th grade teacher starts the idea and they all think it's just so cute, they have to do it in their class too. So now, it's expanding to 3rd grade.

I was just recovering from the Washington, DC book when Lastborn brings home a project they did in 1st grade. Mayflower, Mayflower, What Do You See? Sigh. Can anyone have an original thought?

The next wonderful project to attract my ire is what our school refers to as The Land Form Project. In 3rd grade, each child must study a land form and either make a poster depicting that land form or make a diorama of that land form. My next door neighbor's son got a plain. How exciting. Of course everyone in the class wants to do the volcano; parents included. But only 2 volcanoes are allowed per class or it would soon turn into "The Volcano Project." Firstborn chose caves. He had lots of data to base his report on and really knew his stuff. Of course, with this type of project, it is really hard as a parent, not to take over. It is fun. So Firstborn fought to do the project by himself and, you guessed it, he was one of the only kids who did.

As an aside, these are exactly the types of projects that simply don't get done by kids who's parents are not involved in their schooling. The boy down the road who has had DSS called on him because of excessive missed days of school (in third grade) didn't turn any project in. I can imagine this. He gets no academic help from his parents and he's being asked to do a report for which he knows that most of the kids are turning in a project built by their mom and dad. Why should he even try and how would he know how to begin.

The Land Form Project has pretty much stayed within our school walls, but give it a year or two and it will become a curriculum requirement for 3rd grade.

The latest this year is the Bottle Buddy Project in which the 4th graders must read a biography about an American and write an oral report about the book. Then they must create a model of that person using a 2 litre soda bottle. In our school, they can't buy doll clothes to clothe the bottle, and they can't spend a lot of money on supplies. Firstborn read about Hershey. His bottle buddy will be sitting in front of a giant Hershey kiss and the paper strip from the kiss will have his story summary printed on it. The summary has to be in some way attached to the bottle buddy. This was all his idea, but somehow I am supposed to navigate him through this process without doing any of the work myself. Somehow, Firstborn is supposed to make clothes to fit a 2 litre bottle. And one of the grading points is "does the project look like it was made entirely by the student?" Ha. Let's see what gets turned in.

And yes, The Bottle Buddy project has become a district-wide project. Because, you see, there is so much educational value in dressing a 2 litre bottle.

Correction/retraction

No double entendre was meant in the last post about polishing the wand. Though it is rather funny.

-ology

Firstborn has discovered the -ology books. Dragonology, Wizardology, Piratology, and so on. These are the perfect books for him; a combination of reference and fantasy that every geeky little boy would love. Plus, they have cool gems on the cover and sometimes, pockets and foldouts. All in all, a wonderfully enjoyable read.

The downside is that the reference format in which they are written can be confusing to a 10 year old boy. He believes in dragons. He's sure they exist in Europe and Asia and Canada. And after all the titles Egyptology and Pirateology are further proof since Egyptians and pirates did exist. He did have a dragon egg on his Christmas list. Funny how Santa couldn't find one.

I have a high tolerance for this blurred line as long as he isn't going on and on about his fantasies. I count my blessings that it's just dragons and wizardry he believes in and I share his interest in fantasy literature enough to enjoy the times we can talk about common book interests.

This month, Firstborn was given a copy of the Magic Wandmaker's Guide. Another in the -ology series. This one comes with the equipment used to make a magic wand. Firstborn is thrilled with not only the results of the kit but also the stories. It has made for some fun tales from the minivan. I was driving him home from school the day he got the book. He was pouring over the pages, barely breathing and I asked him if he was excited to make his own wand.

I have to read the whole book first. If I don't, there may be dire consequences. I wouldn't want to age thirty years.

"Huh? I replied."

"Well, the book talks about a guy who didn't read the whole guide and mixed the kinds of wood he used in his wand. The wand caused a fissure in the universe and he aged 30 years in one minute. I wouldn't want that to happen to me."

"Well, certainly. " I replied as if this all made sense.

Then yesterday, I noticed he had the wand while we were waiting for the bus. Firstborn already gets picked on a bit by the kids at school. The last thing we need is for him to show up in his goggles or carrying his wand. So I reminded him he couldn't bring toys to school and asked if he wanted me to bring it back to the house for him.

"No way. No one else can hold my wand. If the wand comes into someone else's hands, their aura can damage it."

He's been fiercely protecting and hiding the wand from his little brother. I'm thinking maybe making a wand case for it might be in order.

Oh. And he wants to know how to polish the wand. Apparently, the power is greater if the tip is polished. Last night he asked me how to polish a wand.

snow day?

A big storm was predicted for today. First it was rain, mixed with snow. The next day it was up to 2 inches in our area. The next it was three to six. The numbers kept increasing till we were hearing that we would get a foot of snow today on the 12th of April.

I have two theories about the weather reporting in the Greater Boston area.

1) They use a football pool method. Each meteorologist picks a random square and one will end up being right or at least close.
2) Our local grocer (DeMoula's Market Basket) pays them to forecast big snowstorms whenever it needs to bring up its profits a bit. Every storm ends up being forecast as "the next blizzard of '78." They all look like fools the day after, but none lose their jobs.

Well we prepared last night. We tried everything we could to make a snow day.

We wore our PJs inside out.
We put a spoon under our pillow.
We did the snow day dance.

And now, for the first time in the blogosphere, you too can see the snow day dance.

Lastborn went first:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=447209251173810968


Then, Firstborn had his chance:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3336139426875483111


But, alas. Not enough snow to close the schools. Lastborn cried. Firstborn has become used to the disappointment. They are both looking forward to "fog days" in Ohio.

The hustle and bustle of 4th grade. An essay

I possitively, absolutely dislike school! I have to wake up at five o'clock. I have to hurry to hockey at five o'clock! and I have school at nine (I usually have to climb the chimney). I guess it kind of qualifies for quality. I can't deny that usually I am pretty funny. It's not the teachers or anything, I just hate school!

Mom's note: while this paragraph doesn't hold well together, you've got to give him credit for the topic and clincher sentences. And how would you fit chimney into that topic if it were you?

Blog on

As always, she says it so much better than I.

http://norling.blogspot.com/2007/03/you-cant-stand-up-to-pee.html

This was an early paragraph by Firstborn.


I can't wait to go to the Great Barrier Reef! I can't wait to see the tentacled species and other animals! What if I discover a new school of fish, because people say that seventy five percent of the worlds' areas are submerged in water and that we've only discovered fifteen percent. What if I could save an endangered species?! I just can't get my mind off going to the coral reef with my brother!