Who are these individuals and what have they done with my happy children?
What a day we have had, which was really not helped by a house checkup from the energy guys really freaking early, a dentist appointment, which Madison hates, smack in the middle of the day, and a couple of client calls.
Nothing major happened, aside from the dentist. Just a bunch of whiny fits! No one would do easy spelling or math on their own, and both threw fits about it even when I was on the phone with a client. I had to kick them both upstairs. Then, afterward, the only thing they could do when they whined their non-complaints at me was to laugh.
We got essentially nothing done.
It's not like I can really complain, though, I'm just nit-picking in the metaphorical way, whereas LB is doing it for real. So I count myself lucky.
I'm sure everyone has days like these.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
She's losing it
By she, I mean Ella.
And by it, I mean her little British accent.
Not that Ella has ever visited Britain. But she's never said her ending Rs. She's always said them like David Attenborough. (Or like a little kid who can't say her Rs.)
So "birds" was always "behwds" and "warm" was always "wawhm" and "star" was always "stah" and "fork" was always "fawk."
True, it's always meant she sounded less articulate than Madison, but it's always been Oh. So. Cute.
Well, she's starting to say those Rs like an American and it's breaking me up like no other milestone has.
And by it, I mean her little British accent.
Not that Ella has ever visited Britain. But she's never said her ending Rs. She's always said them like David Attenborough. (Or like a little kid who can't say her Rs.)
So "birds" was always "behwds" and "warm" was always "wawhm" and "star" was always "stah" and "fork" was always "fawk."
True, it's always meant she sounded less articulate than Madison, but it's always been Oh. So. Cute.
Well, she's starting to say those Rs like an American and it's breaking me up like no other milestone has.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Spanish went great today
After a couple of years of flirting around with Spanish in the form of little "Spanish clubs" and the like, I decided it was time to get more serious about it for both the girls and me. (I can understand baby Spanish, or, at least, the Spanish that is spoken slowly to a hard-of-hearing 8-year-old, but I can't speak it to save my life. French, which I learned in high school, always gets in the way.) So, after weighing my wallet, I decided not to go for Rosetta Stone and instead ordered Visual Link Spanish for about half the price. It's not specifically for kids, but Madison and I had liked the free online lesson.
The bunch of CDs came yesterday. We installed them on my computer this morning.
And, actually, we did that lesson that was online. It's Lesson One.
I have to say, everyone liked it. Everyone paid attention. Everyone repeated after the instructor. Everyone seemed to learn. Everyone is looking forward to Lesson Two.
Everyone can now say, "I need to go to the bathroom."
("Necesito ir al baño.")
So far, a success.
Happy Birthday, Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan, the Father of the Modern Skyscraper, was born on Sept 3, 1856 in Massachusetts. We had a wonderful discussion of him at this morning's birthday. It led to all kinds of interesting things: the science of steel and load-bearing walls and the Chicago Fire of 1871, and Form Follows Function. The discussion culminated in the girls (led by Ella) turning over their daily printed schedules and drawing their ideal floor plan for a house, based on the idea of form following function.
This is what home schooling was meant to be.
And, we got in some great snuggles this morning before we started the day.
I live for days like this.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
She's running for President of the House
Influenced, no doubt, by talk of the election, Madison has announced that she is running for President of the House. So far, she is delighted to be unopposed. But that hasn't presented her from having her alter-ego, Erstwhile Reporter Virginia Parker, interview Madison as the prospective President. Here is the "newspaper" article she distributed throughout the house this weekend:
Madison May Ross in a Position of Greater Power
Hello. Virginia Parker here, just back from a interview withh 39 year old mother of Madison May Ross. Debra Ross said that she thoght that Madison May Ross should have the position of greater power.
Ella Ross who happened to pass bye agrees.Madison May Ross atempting a position of Even Greater Power
First day of school
The first day of school worked well. I think everyone had a good time. The girls had some homeschooling girlfriends over in the afternoon; those girls had started today, too. So it was nice to celebrate together. Madison and Ella always like having these girls over. These friends have serious dairy allergies, and Oreos are artificial enough that they contain no dairy. So we always serve Oreos when they come over. This, too, is a big deal.
(The leftovers are not calling me from the downstairs cupboard right now. They are not.)
Today, I realized anew how much more smoothly everything goes if I have the schedule and assignments written out ahead of time, one page per child per day. So I'll try to have that done the night before, each day. I've already printed out tomorrow's work schedule, which includes the things we didn't get to today (which was spelling). (In spelling, by the way, we're doing Writing Road to Reading in the following way: We're taking five words per day on the WRTR list. I'm going over them with the WRTR annotations. And then, the girls take the words to their computers. They open a document I've prepared, type the words five times in lower case, five times in upper case, and then print out the document and handwrite the words on the lines provided on the page.)
Our new Spanish program, Visual Link Spanish, arrived this afternoon. It's cheaper than Rosetta Stone. The girls and I did the free lesson online that week, and Madison liked it enough that I thought we'd give it a whirl. (Ella tuned out. Let's see what happens when it's part of school.)
(The leftovers are not calling me from the downstairs cupboard right now. They are not.)
Today, I realized anew how much more smoothly everything goes if I have the schedule and assignments written out ahead of time, one page per child per day. So I'll try to have that done the night before, each day. I've already printed out tomorrow's work schedule, which includes the things we didn't get to today (which was spelling). (In spelling, by the way, we're doing Writing Road to Reading in the following way: We're taking five words per day on the WRTR list. I'm going over them with the WRTR annotations. And then, the girls take the words to their computers. They open a document I've prepared, type the words five times in lower case, five times in upper case, and then print out the document and handwrite the words on the lines provided on the page.)
Our new Spanish program, Visual Link Spanish, arrived this afternoon. It's cheaper than Rosetta Stone. The girls and I did the free lesson online that week, and Madison liked it enough that I thought we'd give it a whirl. (Ella tuned out. Let's see what happens when it's part of school.)
Monday, September 01, 2008
Beginning of an era
I set Madison up with a blog today. She's in seventh heaven changing around all the settings and posting.
I'm not going to link to it, partly because I don't want there to be any public links to it, and partly because, really, it's not that interesting. I mean, what's an almost-9-year-old going to say. Here's her first post:
I think, though, that this will be an excellent motivator for getting her to write. I know it is for me.
I'm not going to link to it, partly because I don't want there to be any public links to it, and partly because, really, it's not that interesting. I mean, what's an almost-9-year-old going to say. Here's her first post:
first post
Okay, I am new, this is my first post, but hey the fact is I stopped spinning round wondering what to write is good right? oh come on! do I really have to write worth writing about? okay fine
I will. well it might be a good idea. what did you have for lunch? hey! that is to worth writing about! well never mind my next post will be okay!
bye!
I think, though, that this will be an excellent motivator for getting her to write. I know it is for me.
Tradition!
We've been watching the movie of Fiddler on the Roof after dinner the last couple of nights.
I am endlessly fascinated by having an adult experience of things I watched or read as a kid. Fiddler on the Roof is a good example.
We had the Zero Mostel record of the Broadway Show as a kid, and I know all the words to every song. I was in the show in a summer production when I was 16 (as Motel's mother, I had one line). I saw it on stage several times. So I knew that show.
I even thought I knew what it was about. Tradition, right? Sure. Now, the show is somewhat ambivalent about tradition, as are, I guess, a lot of people. But for sure, the show was about how letting the father choose the husband for the daughter was a tradition that was no longer useful in the early 20th century, and so would have to go.
Well, okay, fair enough. But the kid Me didn't understand at all about tradition. Well, my kids are in a really different position, with parents who are perfectly happy to Pause and Explain. In our house, Madison is the second biggest fan of the Pause button (David is the biggest fan). We do a lot of Explaining.
What doesn't get brought out in Fiddler is any real commentary on the issue of tradition per se. Yes, the girls end up marrying the man of their choice, even Chava, who marries the non-Jewish soldier...but that's where Tevye draws the line. I think the show is ambivalent about tradition (sometimes it sustains, and sometimes it gets in the way of real life), and that's about the only conclusion to draw.
What we here in the Ross house are thinking and talking about, though, is INTRINSICISM, the relevant issue vis-a-vis Tradition.
Now, don't get me wrong, we love traditions. Traditions, properly construed, are extremely valuable for a family, for kids. We do a Birthday of the Day. We pass the Oplotek at Christmas and give each other best wishes for the new year. We take the girls to the Highland Gathering in June and explore their Scottish heritage and listen to the bagpipes. We go to Brown's Berry Patch with our Cuban friends every Fourth of July to pick cherries and celebrate freedom.
Family traditions give kids a sense of security and confidence in what they can expect. They are soothing. They form a chain of memories, a solid base from which kids can extend themselves.
But! But.
Tradition simply for the sake of tradition is wrong. There must be a reason for any individual or family to adopt any particular tradition. Hear that? We don't make chrusciki simply because the girls are partly Polish, and that's what you're "supposed to do"--we make chrusciki because it's the most awesome pastry in the world, and we also enjoy the story about the girls' great-great grandmother Karolina that goes along with it. We don't eat pork on New Year's because the girls are Cuban -- in fact, they're NOT Cuban! But our dear friends are, and Tatiana's roast pork is delicious, and we think about what pork used to be able to mean to Cubans before the Revolution, and we think about the same things that Americans of Cuban descent think about when they eat their New Year's pork and mourn the fact that their families back in Cuba can no longer get meat.
So! Let's say it loudly:
SOME TRADITIONS ARE STUPID AND HORRIBLE AND SHOULD BE TOSSED OUT ON THEIR EAR!
And the ones that are empty or done for no reason are a waste of time and should be abandoned, too.
An unexamined life based mostly on tradition is not a life well-lived.
I am reminded of a talk I saw Marsha Enright give over 10 years ago, in which she advocated thinking about everything we do in daily life, down to the handshake, and having reasons for each thing. For most things, there IS a good reason; it's just important to be aware of it. It was a really good exercise.
So...examine your traditions, and make sure there's a good WHY for all of them.
I am endlessly fascinated by having an adult experience of things I watched or read as a kid. Fiddler on the Roof is a good example.
We had the Zero Mostel record of the Broadway Show as a kid, and I know all the words to every song. I was in the show in a summer production when I was 16 (as Motel's mother, I had one line). I saw it on stage several times. So I knew that show.
I even thought I knew what it was about. Tradition, right? Sure. Now, the show is somewhat ambivalent about tradition, as are, I guess, a lot of people. But for sure, the show was about how letting the father choose the husband for the daughter was a tradition that was no longer useful in the early 20th century, and so would have to go.
Well, okay, fair enough. But the kid Me didn't understand at all about tradition. Well, my kids are in a really different position, with parents who are perfectly happy to Pause and Explain. In our house, Madison is the second biggest fan of the Pause button (David is the biggest fan). We do a lot of Explaining.
What doesn't get brought out in Fiddler is any real commentary on the issue of tradition per se. Yes, the girls end up marrying the man of their choice, even Chava, who marries the non-Jewish soldier...but that's where Tevye draws the line. I think the show is ambivalent about tradition (sometimes it sustains, and sometimes it gets in the way of real life), and that's about the only conclusion to draw.
What we here in the Ross house are thinking and talking about, though, is INTRINSICISM, the relevant issue vis-a-vis Tradition.
Now, don't get me wrong, we love traditions. Traditions, properly construed, are extremely valuable for a family, for kids. We do a Birthday of the Day. We pass the Oplotek at Christmas and give each other best wishes for the new year. We take the girls to the Highland Gathering in June and explore their Scottish heritage and listen to the bagpipes. We go to Brown's Berry Patch with our Cuban friends every Fourth of July to pick cherries and celebrate freedom.
Family traditions give kids a sense of security and confidence in what they can expect. They are soothing. They form a chain of memories, a solid base from which kids can extend themselves.
But! But.
Tradition simply for the sake of tradition is wrong. There must be a reason for any individual or family to adopt any particular tradition. Hear that? We don't make chrusciki simply because the girls are partly Polish, and that's what you're "supposed to do"--we make chrusciki because it's the most awesome pastry in the world, and we also enjoy the story about the girls' great-great grandmother Karolina that goes along with it. We don't eat pork on New Year's because the girls are Cuban -- in fact, they're NOT Cuban! But our dear friends are, and Tatiana's roast pork is delicious, and we think about what pork used to be able to mean to Cubans before the Revolution, and we think about the same things that Americans of Cuban descent think about when they eat their New Year's pork and mourn the fact that their families back in Cuba can no longer get meat.
So! Let's say it loudly:
SOME TRADITIONS ARE STUPID AND HORRIBLE AND SHOULD BE TOSSED OUT ON THEIR EAR!
And the ones that are empty or done for no reason are a waste of time and should be abandoned, too.
An unexamined life based mostly on tradition is not a life well-lived.
I am reminded of a talk I saw Marsha Enright give over 10 years ago, in which she advocated thinking about everything we do in daily life, down to the handshake, and having reasons for each thing. For most things, there IS a good reason; it's just important to be aware of it. It was a really good exercise.
So...examine your traditions, and make sure there's a good WHY for all of them.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
You know you're busy when...
...you sigh with the sinful pleasure of taking two full hours to vacuum, Windex, wash, and Rain-X both cars. And take out all of the crap that's been accumulating in the glove compartment for years.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Maximum Ride
Madison's friend Max has enjoyed the Maximum Ride series of books by James Patterson, so last week I got Madison the first of the three that are out in paperback. She inhaled it, and so on Thursday we made a special trip to Barnes & Noble and got her the second and third. She read all day yesterday and finished both. Keep in mind that these are Young Adult books of 400 pages apiece.
She was in bed this morning rereading the end of the third book, and called to David as he passed her room.
"Hey, Dad!" she said. "Come here, I want to show you something."
She flipped to the back of the book where there was a sample chapter from the fourth book in the series, The Final Warning.
"Look, it says here: 'Now available in hardcover.' And, you know, they didn't just slap a title page on a hardcover book and sell that, there's an actual book."
(It loses something in the retelling, I'm afraid.)
The Final Warning is mostly checked out in the Monroe County Library system, but I've found a copy at a library in the city and we can hop in to get it this morning.
She was in bed this morning rereading the end of the third book, and called to David as he passed her room.
"Hey, Dad!" she said. "Come here, I want to show you something."
She flipped to the back of the book where there was a sample chapter from the fourth book in the series, The Final Warning.
"Look, it says here: 'Now available in hardcover.' And, you know, they didn't just slap a title page on a hardcover book and sell that, there's an actual book."
(It loses something in the retelling, I'm afraid.)
The Final Warning is mostly checked out in the Monroe County Library system, but I've found a copy at a library in the city and we can hop in to get it this morning.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Just ugly naked people
Today's Birthday of the Day is the neoclassical French Painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, who was born in 1780. 
This is his famous painting "La Grande Odalisque," from 1814. I remember it particularly from my freshman Art History class at college; apparently, Ingres loved a long, elegant back and neck, and would often lengthen the finished work with an extra vertebra or two.
David was talking about his subject matter being beautiful. "That's not beautiful, that's ugly!" proclaimed Madison.
"Ugly? Really?" David asked.
"It's a naked woman, Dad," she replied with heavily scornful emphasis, as though that should be obvious to everyone.
David -- who, I might point out, is a man -- just blinked in response.
This is his famous painting "La Grande Odalisque," from 1814. I remember it particularly from my freshman Art History class at college; apparently, Ingres loved a long, elegant back and neck, and would often lengthen the finished work with an extra vertebra or two.
David was talking about his subject matter being beautiful. "That's not beautiful, that's ugly!" proclaimed Madison.
"Ugly? Really?" David asked.
"It's a naked woman, Dad," she replied with heavily scornful emphasis, as though that should be obvious to everyone.
David -- who, I might point out, is a man -- just blinked in response.
Monday, August 25, 2008
I predicted it
I said on the phone to David as I was finally on my way home last week, "The girls have been so good that I really wouldn't be surprised if they relax a bit and start fighting with each other and complaining and fussing a bit when we're home."
Yep.
They spent the weekend kind of sniping at each other. Throwing (albeit minor) fits over nothing.
But I'm taking my observations last week to heart, and I'm not worrying about it. Managing things, of course, but without worrying about it. My kids are still the best.
Actually, Ella's whining may have been because she was coming down with a cold. She was up for hours last night and she and I are both really under the weather today.
If we have to be sick, it's so good to be home.
When I consider how actually bad things actually happen to some people, it's quite easy to maintain equilibrium, even when minor frustrations appear and kick at my shins. And no, it's not the ex-Catholic rising up in me and admonishing me that I have no right to be miserable when so-and-so has had it so much worse. Really, it's not that. Because I have known and loved people who have had actual tragedies and survived them, I draw on their strength and examples, and decide how I should be in the face of trouble. It has the effect of helping me maintain perspective.
Yep.
They spent the weekend kind of sniping at each other. Throwing (albeit minor) fits over nothing.
But I'm taking my observations last week to heart, and I'm not worrying about it. Managing things, of course, but without worrying about it. My kids are still the best.
Actually, Ella's whining may have been because she was coming down with a cold. She was up for hours last night and she and I are both really under the weather today.
If we have to be sick, it's so good to be home.
When I consider how actually bad things actually happen to some people, it's quite easy to maintain equilibrium, even when minor frustrations appear and kick at my shins. And no, it's not the ex-Catholic rising up in me and admonishing me that I have no right to be miserable when so-and-so has had it so much worse. Really, it's not that. Because I have known and loved people who have had actual tragedies and survived them, I draw on their strength and examples, and decide how I should be in the face of trouble. It has the effect of helping me maintain perspective.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Corn
Since Madison was born, I have had a (sometimes violently uncomfortable) sensitivity to raw corn. It took a while to figure out what was causing the problem, but we eventually narrowed it down.
Every summer or two, when corn season was at its height, I couldn't resist trying just a nibble to test whether it still made me sick.
It always did, even last year. Even the baby corn in Chinese food sent my digestive system into a hissy fit.
But this year, my problem seems miraculously to have disappeared. I tried a few bites about three weeks ago and I was fine. So, two weeks ago, I ate half an ear, because, you know, I couldn't resist, 'tis the season. Again, no problem. And then last week I had actual whole ears of corn on three separate occasions, because everyone served it to us while we were away friend- and relative-hopping, and lo and behold, no reaction whatsoever.
I had some again last night. I'm fine today. Go figure. It's almost as if parts of my anatomy were saying, "Gosh, she's turning 40 soon. Let's console her a bit and give her back the corn."
I wish medical science would catch up and explain the vicissitudes of the human body, but I'm not holding my breath.
Every summer or two, when corn season was at its height, I couldn't resist trying just a nibble to test whether it still made me sick.
It always did, even last year. Even the baby corn in Chinese food sent my digestive system into a hissy fit.
But this year, my problem seems miraculously to have disappeared. I tried a few bites about three weeks ago and I was fine. So, two weeks ago, I ate half an ear, because, you know, I couldn't resist, 'tis the season. Again, no problem. And then last week I had actual whole ears of corn on three separate occasions, because everyone served it to us while we were away friend- and relative-hopping, and lo and behold, no reaction whatsoever.
I had some again last night. I'm fine today. Go figure. It's almost as if parts of my anatomy were saying, "Gosh, she's turning 40 soon. Let's console her a bit and give her back the corn."
I wish medical science would catch up and explain the vicissitudes of the human body, but I'm not holding my breath.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Home
I'm...home. Yes.
We did have two days at the Jersey shore, though, last weekend, in the middle of our adventure. And just to show that actual fun was actually had, here is a photo of the girls with their cousins on my cousin's boat in Bayville.
We had lots of lovely dogs on this trip. Needless to say, it only inflamed the girls' desire for one of their own. That's Brandi, the dog that wears a life jacket on the boat and rides on a boogie board.
I will say this: I do love that Subaru. So I'm glad I got it fixed and we have a few more years out of it. Especially because as expensive as another motor was, it was a small fraction of the cost of a new Subaru. I will take better care of it than I have been doing, because I think that I had skimped a little on maintenance, and the mechanic could tell.
On the other hand, right now I want to take that Subaru exactly nowhere. It's still too full, anyhow. I must unpack. Unpacking is easier than packing. And you're not worried that you're forgetting anything.
We did have two days at the Jersey shore, though, last weekend, in the middle of our adventure. And just to show that actual fun was actually had, here is a photo of the girls with their cousins on my cousin's boat in Bayville.
We had lots of lovely dogs on this trip. Needless to say, it only inflamed the girls' desire for one of their own. That's Brandi, the dog that wears a life jacket on the boat and rides on a boogie board.
I will say this: I do love that Subaru. So I'm glad I got it fixed and we have a few more years out of it. Especially because as expensive as another motor was, it was a small fraction of the cost of a new Subaru. I will take better care of it than I have been doing, because I think that I had skimped a little on maintenance, and the mechanic could tell.
On the other hand, right now I want to take that Subaru exactly nowhere. It's still too full, anyhow. I must unpack. Unpacking is easier than packing. And you're not worried that you're forgetting anything.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Staying positive here in the Super 8 Motel
We're here in Kingston for one more night.
I hope.
The mechanic thinks he can finish the car tomorrow. Which is good because I returned my rental car this afternoon.
The kids have been SOOOOO good. I bought the little goddesses books this morning at Barnes & Noble. If there is one thing I have learned from this trip, it is that I have two kids who, when the chips are down, will go with the flow and stay cheerful and flexible--they'll just follow my lead. So what if they occasionally get a little crabby and whiny when they're at home? I no longer have to worry that somehow they'll turn out to be whiny adults. Because, already, at 7 and 8, they can do it right when it's important.
In the past, some of the force of my insistence that they not act like whiny kids has come from my determination not to raise whiny adults. People who give in to their kids' whining are doing them no service, certainly. I loathe whiny adults. But now, really, I know that I don't have to worry about Madison and Ella. This week has been great proof that they've already got this pretty much under control. It's not that I won't point it out in the future when they are whiny...of course I will...but I can do it with a more relaxed attitude, and a smile. What a load off my mind!
I hope.
The mechanic thinks he can finish the car tomorrow. Which is good because I returned my rental car this afternoon.
The kids have been SOOOOO good. I bought the little goddesses books this morning at Barnes & Noble. If there is one thing I have learned from this trip, it is that I have two kids who, when the chips are down, will go with the flow and stay cheerful and flexible--they'll just follow my lead. So what if they occasionally get a little crabby and whiny when they're at home? I no longer have to worry that somehow they'll turn out to be whiny adults. Because, already, at 7 and 8, they can do it right when it's important.
In the past, some of the force of my insistence that they not act like whiny kids has come from my determination not to raise whiny adults. People who give in to their kids' whining are doing them no service, certainly. I loathe whiny adults. But now, really, I know that I don't have to worry about Madison and Ella. This week has been great proof that they've already got this pretty much under control. It's not that I won't point it out in the future when they are whiny...of course I will...but I can do it with a more relaxed attitude, and a smile. What a load off my mind!
Still stuck
I'm still stuck downstate. I got a cryptic email from the mechanic which included the phrase "talk to you in a few days." But my rental car is up today. My plan for this afternoon is to plop myself and the kids in the mechanic's place and have the girls make sad sheep's eyes at them and talk about how much they miss their daddy and how they wish they could finally go hoooome.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Well, I predicted an adventure
It has been some adventure. We are still in the middle of our trip, but I hope the adventure aspects are over.
Monday: Whacking at rocks with hammers in the rain to try to discover Herkimer Diamonds. Kind of fun in a muddy, physical, futile sort of way. You have to be in a certain mood to spend a lot of time hitting rocks in a search for tiny clear crystals.
I left my driver's license there, though, by mistake taking along three hammers. Didn't realize it until that night when I was camping, two hours away. I called them Tuesday and got my driver's license number just in case I was stopped by a cop. The significance (and prescience) of this move will be clear below.
Monday night to Wednesday morning: Imagine the three of us in a in a leaky tent meant for two people at 41 degrees in the rainy, rainy Adirondack Mountains. The nights were kind of hellish.
It was a tiny pup tent; Madison bagged the idea of sleeping in her own tent, which was the orange one, so we crowded into the green tent together for security and warmth. The girls bore up well. I had a hard time sleeping, what with simultaneous claustrophobia (not really able to turn over for fear of bumping into wet tent or sleeping child) and agoraphobia...just me and the girls out in a tent in the middle of nowhere, where there might be bears. I didn't tell them about the bears, then or ever.
The first night it rained so hard I put them in the car for a while and turned on the DVD player, for a Night at the Movies with David Attenborough's Life in the Freezer. It seemed that cold.
The days were fun, with friends...we went canoeing during a sunny intermission on Tuesday, which was great.
Consensus is: More camping? Sure! As long as there is a nice dry cabin somewhere with indoor plumbing, they're all for it. Especially if we're with Max and Henry again. And, preferably, Daddy. Mommy prefers to have Daddy along, too. Daddy would have come in handy. Though not in that tent.
Wednesday afternoon: On the way down the NYS Thruway to visit my friend Anne, the car engine died, violently. No accident or anything, but a sudden giving way with loud noises when I was traveling 65 mph. Got over to the side, girls safe, got car towed. Engine deader than vaudeville. I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture of the car, because I was too busy charming the rental car people to take my BJ's photo card and the driver's license number I'd scrawled on a piece of paper the day before, in lieu of an actual driver's license. It WORKED. I think it was because I was a cheerful confident lady far from home with two little kids and a dead car and it was a young, not-yet-cynical guy. I smiled and smiled at him.
Wednesday and Thursday, some relatively blissful camping out in the living room of my friend Anne's house, seeing her wonderful kids and generally getting absorbed into her busy, happy family. They're always so welcoming. Most of this time was spent on the phone with AAA, various car towing agencies, mechanics, etc. trying to find out what was up with my car, two hours north. Thursday, they found a used engine that would work with my Subaru Outback. Good thing, because I love that car and I would vastly prefer not to have to get a new one right now. Even with the 132,000 miles. The idea of never getting in that car again sent Madison on the edge of hysterics, she hates getting rid of anything. It looks like the car will be saved. But not until NEXT WEDNESDAY.
So I've been cooling my heels at various friends'. Tomorrow is my cousin's beach house for (I hope) a couple of days. Maybe some actually good photos where I'm actually relaxed. Then back up north. Fingers crossed that the car is actually ready on Wednesday, but of course who knows. Meantime, work will be piling up.
And, I miss David.
I wrote this in my weekly email out to the KidsOutAndAbout.com list:
I'm not sure when I'll have internet access again until Thursday. I will probably post an update...after I sleep, sometime near the end of the week.
Monday: Whacking at rocks with hammers in the rain to try to discover Herkimer Diamonds. Kind of fun in a muddy, physical, futile sort of way. You have to be in a certain mood to spend a lot of time hitting rocks in a search for tiny clear crystals.
I left my driver's license there, though, by mistake taking along three hammers. Didn't realize it until that night when I was camping, two hours away. I called them Tuesday and got my driver's license number just in case I was stopped by a cop. The significance (and prescience) of this move will be clear below.
Monday night to Wednesday morning: Imagine the three of us in a in a leaky tent meant for two people at 41 degrees in the rainy, rainy Adirondack Mountains. The nights were kind of hellish.
It was a tiny pup tent; Madison bagged the idea of sleeping in her own tent, which was the orange one, so we crowded into the green tent together for security and warmth. The girls bore up well. I had a hard time sleeping, what with simultaneous claustrophobia (not really able to turn over for fear of bumping into wet tent or sleeping child) and agoraphobia...just me and the girls out in a tent in the middle of nowhere, where there might be bears. I didn't tell them about the bears, then or ever.
The first night it rained so hard I put them in the car for a while and turned on the DVD player, for a Night at the Movies with David Attenborough's Life in the Freezer. It seemed that cold.
The days were fun, with friends...we went canoeing during a sunny intermission on Tuesday, which was great.
Consensus is: More camping? Sure! As long as there is a nice dry cabin somewhere with indoor plumbing, they're all for it. Especially if we're with Max and Henry again. And, preferably, Daddy. Mommy prefers to have Daddy along, too. Daddy would have come in handy. Though not in that tent.
Wednesday afternoon: On the way down the NYS Thruway to visit my friend Anne, the car engine died, violently. No accident or anything, but a sudden giving way with loud noises when I was traveling 65 mph. Got over to the side, girls safe, got car towed. Engine deader than vaudeville. I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture of the car, because I was too busy charming the rental car people to take my BJ's photo card and the driver's license number I'd scrawled on a piece of paper the day before, in lieu of an actual driver's license. It WORKED. I think it was because I was a cheerful confident lady far from home with two little kids and a dead car and it was a young, not-yet-cynical guy. I smiled and smiled at him.
Wednesday and Thursday, some relatively blissful camping out in the living room of my friend Anne's house, seeing her wonderful kids and generally getting absorbed into her busy, happy family. They're always so welcoming. Most of this time was spent on the phone with AAA, various car towing agencies, mechanics, etc. trying to find out what was up with my car, two hours north. Thursday, they found a used engine that would work with my Subaru Outback. Good thing, because I love that car and I would vastly prefer not to have to get a new one right now. Even with the 132,000 miles. The idea of never getting in that car again sent Madison on the edge of hysterics, she hates getting rid of anything. It looks like the car will be saved. But not until NEXT WEDNESDAY.
So I've been cooling my heels at various friends'. Tomorrow is my cousin's beach house for (I hope) a couple of days. Maybe some actually good photos where I'm actually relaxed. Then back up north. Fingers crossed that the car is actually ready on Wednesday, but of course who knows. Meantime, work will be piling up.
And, I miss David.
I wrote this in my weekly email out to the KidsOutAndAbout.com list:
Have you ever noticed that sometimes, it's all in how you tell the story, both to your kids and to yourself?
Approaching a stream of bad luck as an adventure, a challenge that you can cheerfully work through together and talk about later really beats letting your kids see you frustrated or dejected. Like, yesterday...
I realized what a difference it makes to a situation to focus on the positive, especially while we were waiting on the side of the Thruway (BEHIND the car on the other side of the guard rail, not in front of it...really important tip, in case someone hits you). We were LUCKY, I told the girls. It was a beautiful sunny day in August rather than a snowy midnight in February, we had just come back into cell phone range, and the Thruway Authority came within half an hour. We read Calvin & Hobbes on the side of the road. I was able to rent a Kia nearby and load in our camping stuff. An adventure, truly. If I can find a replacement motor, so they say, they can fix it...next Wednesday. We shall see. In the meantime, we are getting by on sheer cheerfulness fumes, and the generous hospitality of an old friend--seven hours away from Rochester--and the fact that no one is sick or hurt, so nothing can be that bad.
I'm not sure when I'll have internet access again until Thursday. I will probably post an update...after I sleep, sometime near the end of the week.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
It should be...an adventure...yeah, that's it!
Starting tomorrow morning, I'm off for a couple of days camping in the Adirondacks with the girls, and some good friends who have kids the girls' age. Tents. Two small pup tents. And, rain is forecast all three days, with highs in the 60s.
Rain. In a tent.
Good fishing weather, right? So I bought a couple of fishing rods (our friends are bringing theirs), and I really do hope that if actual fish are caught, that an actual grownup other than I would be okay with doing the actual removal from the hook and tossing them back in. I know, I'm an actual wimp.
We're starting off tomorrow going to the Herkimer Diamond Mines (if I write it up, trip is tax-deductible!) and seeing if we can dig some up. Then up north to the Adirondacks.
Then several days of meandering through the northeast visiting friends and my newly rediscovered family, who as it happens have a house at the Jersey shore.
I am so not packed. Why is packing so hard? I hate packing.
In other news, I am two chapters in to my next Frontier Team book, and a fair amount into the first round of editing the first book. When I get back from the trip, that's when I'll start querying publishers.
It's 9:30. Better get cracking. I mean, packing.
Rain. In a tent.
Good fishing weather, right? So I bought a couple of fishing rods (our friends are bringing theirs), and I really do hope that if actual fish are caught, that an actual grownup other than I would be okay with doing the actual removal from the hook and tossing them back in. I know, I'm an actual wimp.
We're starting off tomorrow going to the Herkimer Diamond Mines (if I write it up, trip is tax-deductible!) and seeing if we can dig some up. Then up north to the Adirondacks.
Then several days of meandering through the northeast visiting friends and my newly rediscovered family, who as it happens have a house at the Jersey shore.
I am so not packed. Why is packing so hard? I hate packing.
In other news, I am two chapters in to my next Frontier Team book, and a fair amount into the first round of editing the first book. When I get back from the trip, that's when I'll start querying publishers.
It's 9:30. Better get cracking. I mean, packing.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Dave Barry
Dave Barry is in China for the Olympics, writing columns so that the trip is tax-deductible.
Here is his first:
Dave Barry: Is this wall great or what?
Pretty much classic Dave Barry.
Here is his first:
Dave Barry: Is this wall great or what?
Pretty much classic Dave Barry.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Happy Birthday, Amazing Randi
James Randi, champion of all things rational, turns 80 today. He is most famous for offering a (still standing) $1 million reward for anyone who can prove psychic ability, paranormal activity, or the existence of a supernatural.
Happy birthday, Amazing Randi. Madison really, really wants to meet you.
Happy birthday, Amazing Randi. Madison really, really wants to meet you.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Actual camp, actual quiet
It's a week of actual camp for both girls, and actual quiet for me. Kind of blissful, although I feel guilty to admit it. I'm getting a lot done, although, let's be fair, I could do about 3/4 of this work even when they're around, as long as my head is down and they're doing things reasonably on their own. And, I only get until 2pm, when I have to leave to pick them up.
I'm glad Ella opted to go to camp, and not just because of the time this gives me. She's been having such a hard time doing classes and things that don't involve me since January ("I have that feeling in my belly, Mom"). I had originally decided not to send her, just Madison, to this terrific nature day camp this year that they've gone to every year, but she said in June that she'd like to go. So, good. And both girls have a lot of fun. (The people who run this camp are really great, they're naturalists who promote science, not politics -- this camp has less of an environmentalist focus than Madison's engineering camp did at the beginning of the summer.)
So why does it annoy me so much that every single morning this week, Ella asks me in that whining way if she HAS to go? It shouldn't, it really shouldn't, given that this is difficult for her and I'm the Extraordinarily Understanding Mommy. I swallow my annoyance and cheerfully say, "Yep! What are you going to wear today?" while thinking to myself, "Isn't it about time that you stop whining at me, you 7-year-old, you?"
Okay, back to work.
I'm glad Ella opted to go to camp, and not just because of the time this gives me. She's been having such a hard time doing classes and things that don't involve me since January ("I have that feeling in my belly, Mom"). I had originally decided not to send her, just Madison, to this terrific nature day camp this year that they've gone to every year, but she said in June that she'd like to go. So, good. And both girls have a lot of fun. (The people who run this camp are really great, they're naturalists who promote science, not politics -- this camp has less of an environmentalist focus than Madison's engineering camp did at the beginning of the summer.)
So why does it annoy me so much that every single morning this week, Ella asks me in that whining way if she HAS to go? It shouldn't, it really shouldn't, given that this is difficult for her and I'm the Extraordinarily Understanding Mommy. I swallow my annoyance and cheerfully say, "Yep! What are you going to wear today?" while thinking to myself, "Isn't it about time that you stop whining at me, you 7-year-old, you?"
Okay, back to work.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Pride in math illiteracy
Erin O'Connor, a professor in the English department at the University of Pennsylvania -- boy, I wish she'd been there in 1990 when I was scandalizing that department with my refusal to bow and scrape before the PC literary theorists and my insistence on publicizing this fact -- ponders the detrimental effect of the pride many humanities scholars take in their math illiteracy. From her blog:
She said it better than I could.
Someone somewhere--perhaps even on this blog!--is going to say that Orzel is a self-important catastrophist and that it really does not make sense to blame those poor math-challenged, absent-minded humanists for a problem that might better be pinned on the usual suspects, the leaders academics love to hate. So let's just skip that step and talk about how it is the duty of college professors to embody an ideal of intellectual inquiry, awareness, curiosity, and ongoing learning; about how that requires a humbleness about what one does not know as well as a sober firmness about what one does know; and about how, within that obligation, a grandiose dismissal of entire fields of knowledge--as too hard, or too obscure, or whatever--such that the person doing the dismissing somehow elevates his or her academic cred with disciplinary colleagues, is way, way, way wrong. It sets a devastating example for students--and it does have an effect on the intellectual viability of our nation.
She said it better than I could.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
MV
And the bestest picture of all from Martha's Vineyard...
This is from the ferry coming home.
They really are mostly that way, those two.
God, I love them.
Update: Oops, no, wait, maybe I like this one best:
This is from the ferry coming home.
They really are mostly that way, those two.
God, I love them.
Update: Oops, no, wait, maybe I like this one best:
Friday, August 01, 2008
No problem, I'll just use a little physics here and...
...get Ella's surprise new armoire up our front steps?...
No, sadly, this will have to wait for David to come home from work.
I had planned for the whole thing to be a fait accompli while the girls were at a friend's house and David was at work. You know, to get that in there and totally reorganize Ella's clothes and room. (She's had my grandfather's cheap old smallish particleboard dresser with the drawers whose bottoms are coming out, for far too long.) It fit perfectly in the back of the Subaru wagon. But I was just too cocky to think I could figure out how to get it up the front steps alone. Actual muscles turned out to be necessary for the whole enterprise. So my fait accompli is still a big fat non-accompli sitting in the driveway.
Yeah, I had some sense that wrapping 2/3 of it up in a tarp would help, somehow. Don't ask.
No, sadly, this will have to wait for David to come home from work.
I had planned for the whole thing to be a fait accompli while the girls were at a friend's house and David was at work. You know, to get that in there and totally reorganize Ella's clothes and room. (She's had my grandfather's cheap old smallish particleboard dresser with the drawers whose bottoms are coming out, for far too long.) It fit perfectly in the back of the Subaru wagon. But I was just too cocky to think I could figure out how to get it up the front steps alone. Actual muscles turned out to be necessary for the whole enterprise. So my fait accompli is still a big fat non-accompli sitting in the driveway.
Yeah, I had some sense that wrapping 2/3 of it up in a tarp would help, somehow. Don't ask.
It wasn't the bird references that caught me, though
More people should read
John Enright's beautiful poem that he posted yesterday.
I don't think John would mind if you were to print it out and thumb-tack it to the wall beside your desk, as I did.
John Enright's beautiful poem that he posted yesterday.
I don't think John would mind if you were to print it out and thumb-tack it to the wall beside your desk, as I did.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Cool bird stuff
Early last month, I wrote about how I won this cool iPod full of bird songs in a contest from 10,000 Birds. And then, HarperCollins, who sponsored the contest, by mistake sent me the book I hadn't won instead of the iPod I had won: The Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America. I let them know that they'd made the error, but I was so happy that they'd sent me the book that it barely mattered. Because the book is awesome. I took it to Martha's Vineyard with us, and as the kids can attest, I kind of went a little nuts. And I wrote about it in last week's KOA newsletter, thusly:
Interestingly enough, now the 10,000 Birds folks want to publish this as a guest essay on 10,000 Birds! I just got the request from Mike, one of the editors, who coincidentally just moved to Rochester last month.
And, the iPod arrived today. It's amazing. But the weird thing is, it arrived with ANOTHER copy of the book. So I'm giving the new book away on KidsOutAndAbout.com. The HarperCollins publicity folks thought that was pretty cool.
Now I just have to find someone to send me an awesome binocular-camera, and I'll be all set. :-)
I'm having a new experience with my kids this summer, one I mentioned a few weeks ago: We received the awesome Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America book from a contest at 10,000 Birds, and have been going gangbusters with it. Okay, well, I have, and Madison and Ella are being swept along happily (as though they had a choice!).
Interesting to me is that my new experience of constantly trying to identify birds is remarkably like my experience of first learning physics as a teenager. (I know that sounds odd, but bear with me.) When I first started understanding physics, it was as though my eyes had suddenly been opened to a whole new world that had been all around me all the time: I saw everything in terms of motion, mass, and objects' relationships to each other. It was as though a new layer of mental life was suddenly available to me. My brain was busier, and happier.
Well, it's the same thing with birding. I'm still a total novice, but I (and the girls, to some extent) suddenly see a new dimension to the world. Before, we'd see something flying by, and our minds would barely register "bird." If we were lucky, we might identify "robin," "cardinal," "sparrow," and "starling." But now, something flies by, and we see beak shape, and wing span, and breast color, and flight pattern. Our brains are starting automatically to run through our list of what we know and what we don't know, comparing what we just saw with those birds we have identified as a result of this book. "Quick!" someone will say (and not always me). "Get the book before I lose the colors in my mind...let's see if we can identify what it is." Yesterday, Ella and I saw a towhee. I'd never heard of a towhee before we looked it up and determined that this was the bird. The point is, before a few weeks ago, I wouldn't even have noticed much beyond "bird." Now, the whole world is a-flying, and our brains are now attuned and enjoying it.
The fact is, all learning can be like this. No matter what new thing you decide to learn about, it will open up a whole new way of looking at the world. It can be birds. Or math, or anatomy, or politics, or training for a marathon, or orienteering, or jazz music, or WHATEVER. There is a real joy in applying oneself to something new, a joy that may leave many of us after we leave school (or even before we leave school). So I encourage you to find that something new to learn about with your kids, and show them not just that learning goes on forever, but that it adds rich layers to our lives.
Interestingly enough, now the 10,000 Birds folks want to publish this as a guest essay on 10,000 Birds! I just got the request from Mike, one of the editors, who coincidentally just moved to Rochester last month.
And, the iPod arrived today. It's amazing. But the weird thing is, it arrived with ANOTHER copy of the book. So I'm giving the new book away on KidsOutAndAbout.com. The HarperCollins publicity folks thought that was pretty cool.
Now I just have to find someone to send me an awesome binocular-camera, and I'll be all set. :-)
Happy Birthday, J.K. Rowling
Ms. Rowling, you have provided my daughter Madison with much joy, and me with a writing standard I can't hope to match. Happy 43rd birthday. I hope you're living the happy life you deserve.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
A perfect day yesterday
With an unfinished book no longer hanging over my head, it was a perfect day at the beach yesterday. 81 degrees, low humidity, not a cloud in the sky, perfect surf.
Well, it was almost perfect: I applied the girls' sunscreen somewhat imperfectly (should have applied a third time), and so they're still groaning a bit this morning.
The water was awesome: Warm and welcoming and just surfy enough. I spent quite some time out in it, swimming around and floating. I marveled at how much easier it is to float in salt water. It seemed even easier than it has in the past, somehow...and then I remembered that the more fat cells you have, the more floaty you are...so I dispelled that thought quickly and just concentrated on the lovely up and down feeling. Up...and down...and up...and down...and OH MY GOD can it be true? Yes, it is...I've made myself seasick floating in the ocean! I had to swim frantically to shore, flop down on the nonundulating sand, and take some deep breaths to avoid barfing in front of all of the proper people on the beach.
That's one thing about Martha's Vineyard...people are so proper that going to the beach is quite a different experience than in, say, New Jersey. No swearing, no inappropriate behavior, that's just the way the people are. Didn't even see anyone smoking.
Oh, and we saw a SEAL about 40 yards off the shore. So cool. Wish I'd gotten a picture. But we did get photos of other unusual marine life:
Well, it was almost perfect: I applied the girls' sunscreen somewhat imperfectly (should have applied a third time), and so they're still groaning a bit this morning.
The water was awesome: Warm and welcoming and just surfy enough. I spent quite some time out in it, swimming around and floating. I marveled at how much easier it is to float in salt water. It seemed even easier than it has in the past, somehow...and then I remembered that the more fat cells you have, the more floaty you are...so I dispelled that thought quickly and just concentrated on the lovely up and down feeling. Up...and down...and up...and down...and OH MY GOD can it be true? Yes, it is...I've made myself seasick floating in the ocean! I had to swim frantically to shore, flop down on the nonundulating sand, and take some deep breaths to avoid barfing in front of all of the proper people on the beach.
That's one thing about Martha's Vineyard...people are so proper that going to the beach is quite a different experience than in, say, New Jersey. No swearing, no inappropriate behavior, that's just the way the people are. Didn't even see anyone smoking.
Oh, and we saw a SEAL about 40 yards off the shore. So cool. Wish I'd gotten a picture. But we did get photos of other unusual marine life:
Friday, July 25, 2008
Dance the samba with me, folks
The book is done. A Perfect First Draft.
(According to Anne LaMott, all first drafts are perfect first drafts.)
The Frontier Team. Midgrade novel. Eighteen chapters, 150 pages, 39,000 words. And hey, its protagonists are home-schooled, although that's not really the focus of the book.
Of course, now the work really begins. A month or so of editing, and then goodness knows how long to find a publisher.
But it's done. And fortunately, I love editing. It's the writing that's like bleeding. Editing is more like using Starfleet Medical gizmos to heal a scrape on the kneee.
(According to Anne LaMott, all first drafts are perfect first drafts.)
The Frontier Team. Midgrade novel. Eighteen chapters, 150 pages, 39,000 words. And hey, its protagonists are home-schooled, although that's not really the focus of the book.
Of course, now the work really begins. A month or so of editing, and then goodness knows how long to find a publisher.
But it's done. And fortunately, I love editing. It's the writing that's like bleeding. Editing is more like using Starfleet Medical gizmos to heal a scrape on the kneee.
Vigorously relaxing
Despite the clouds and rain here on Martha's Vineyard this week, we've been getting in birdwatching and beach time every day. I have gone a little nuts with bird identification thanks to my great new Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America book. I wrote in my KidsOutAndAbout.com newsletter yesterday that beginning birdwatching feels very like when I learned physics as a teenager; it opens up a rich new layer of the world around me that I hadn't known existed. Then, I suddenly saw everything in terms of motion, mass, and objects' relationships to each other. Now, I see the whole flying world in terms of beak shape, and wing span, and breast color, and flight pattern, and we all rush to open the book to figure out what it is. Ella and I saw an eastern towhee on Wednesday. I got a pair of binoculars with a digital camera in honor of having won the bird stuff, but it takes miserable photos, as you can see from this one, which is the best of them:
What can you expect, though, from a $29.99 pair of binocular cameras from CVS. That's a female pileated woodpecker, I think.
Anyway, we are relaxing with our customary vigor:
Investigating what gets into our snorkel masks:
Running away from the waves as the surf gets stronger:
Whining when the surf knocks us over:
Mugging the Ross Scowl into the camera:
Dashing frantically after our floaties when they get away from us in the wind:
And we don't let no stinkin' rain get us down when we want to walk through the cute little Victorian Methodist camp in Oak Bluffs:
What can you expect, though, from a $29.99 pair of binocular cameras from CVS. That's a female pileated woodpecker, I think.
Anyway, we are relaxing with our customary vigor:
Investigating what gets into our snorkel masks:
Running away from the waves as the surf gets stronger:
Whining when the surf knocks us over:
Mugging the Ross Scowl into the camera:
Dashing frantically after our floaties when they get away from us in the wind:
And we don't let no stinkin' rain get us down when we want to walk through the cute little Victorian Methodist camp in Oak Bluffs:
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Vining away...
We made it to Martha's Vineyard yesterday.
I was a packing goddess. I had lists. I checked things off. I got the car "vacation serviced" last week. I had all bits of clothing we own washed by Sunday afternoon. I "shopped at home first" to get together a box of food and staples in a way that would have made Cindy proud and which saved me having to pay Island prices for things I already had. I packed the car Sunday afternoon by referring to mental rules of geometry, fitting this into that seamlessly. All we had to do Monday morning was put in those last bags and get out of town.
Except we couldn't get out of town. I happened to suggest that we stop for bagels on the way out, and the car died, right there in the parking lot of the Bruegger's. The AAA guy used Sprite to dissolve some of the crystals fountaining out of our battery enough that he got us jumped and on our way to the mechanic. The mechanic was so embarrassed that he hadn't noticed the battery problem last week that he got us in and out of there pronto with a new battery. So, I am lucky I was craving a little carb action on the way out of Rochester, or we'd have been stranded somewhere on the Thruway until we got someone to install a new battery.
And then, today, our first full day at the Vineyard, we were all set to go to the beach. No matter that it was foggy, we were excited to get out there in the sand and surf. The girls had new noodles and snorkels packed very carefully in the pool bag. We had our beach towels and books. The camera was charged. We were ready.
Except that the Packing Goddess had forgotten to pack my bathing suit.
I was a packing goddess. I had lists. I checked things off. I got the car "vacation serviced" last week. I had all bits of clothing we own washed by Sunday afternoon. I "shopped at home first" to get together a box of food and staples in a way that would have made Cindy proud and which saved me having to pay Island prices for things I already had. I packed the car Sunday afternoon by referring to mental rules of geometry, fitting this into that seamlessly. All we had to do Monday morning was put in those last bags and get out of town.
Except we couldn't get out of town. I happened to suggest that we stop for bagels on the way out, and the car died, right there in the parking lot of the Bruegger's. The AAA guy used Sprite to dissolve some of the crystals fountaining out of our battery enough that he got us jumped and on our way to the mechanic. The mechanic was so embarrassed that he hadn't noticed the battery problem last week that he got us in and out of there pronto with a new battery. So, I am lucky I was craving a little carb action on the way out of Rochester, or we'd have been stranded somewhere on the Thruway until we got someone to install a new battery.
And then, today, our first full day at the Vineyard, we were all set to go to the beach. No matter that it was foggy, we were excited to get out there in the sand and surf. The girls had new noodles and snorkels packed very carefully in the pool bag. We had our beach towels and books. The camera was charged. We were ready.
Except that the Packing Goddess had forgotten to pack my bathing suit.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
More on the Math Wars, from David
The following is from my husband David, industrial mathematician and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, as a follow-up to my post below on the Math Wars article as addressed recently by CNN. He was, needless to say, less than pleased with the way the article addressed how New Math is being taught in American schools. Here are his thoughts on the matter:
Deb asked me to write a few comments on CNN's recent article on the Math Wars.
A few years ago, I argued against the recent trends in mathematics education in an article called The Math Wars, in which I present the thorough case against the approach promoted by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Please feel free to read that article, as I'm not going to rehearse the whole argument here.
I'll just summarize my thoughts on the CNN piece, which offers a "black-and-white" summary of the Math Wars:
The kids are being shortchanged. I say this as someone whose job it is to teach calculus to young adults who've just finished high school and are studying to become engineers or scientists, and as someone who has spent 20 years as an industrial scientist and an applied mathematician. High school graduates these days do not know the math that they need to know. The reason that they don't know it is that those who were responsible for teaching it to them didn't teach it to them.
The claim that schools that have done away with traditional mathematics instruction have done so because they want "to prepare kids for a new world" is ridiculous for many reasons. The most important is that the job of math educators is to get students to understand math, and the best way to understand math is to master the traditional algorithms.
That is: The best way to get students to understand math--the best way to get them to grasp the conceptual structure of mathematics, the best way to get them to integrate the whole structure of modern mathematics at the abstract level--is to have them learn, apply, master, and come to love precisely the traditional methods that the modern NCTM approach abhors. The position supported by Pat Cooney and Hank Kepner in the CNN article is not merely mistaken; it is diametrically opposed to the proper method for teaching students mathematical concepts.
My wife and are home schooling our daughters in large part to avoid their wasting time on this sort of nonsense.
The traditional approach has the wonderful, and useful, feature that students who have mastered the algorithms can actually do calculations. But its most important feature is that it provides the tools that students need in order to get inside the abstract structure of mathematics. For a detailed argument for my claim here, please see my Math Wars article. The CNN article discusses an admirable parent, Ms. Morey, who's teaching her son traditional math. She, bless her,
What this responsible parent probably doesn't know is that her son can not only divide numbers better than his teachers, he will probably grasp the nature of ratios and the operation of division and the structure of decimals--and, in the end, perhaps, how the solutions of certain differential equations reflect the quantitative facts of polymerization--because she taught him long division.
One problem, Cooney says in the CNN article, is that parents remember math as offering only one way to solve a problem.
This what we call a straw man argument. The traditional approach to mathematics never involved the claim, implicitly or explicitly, that there is only one way to solve a problem. Everyone understands that there are special ways to solve special problems, quirky methods of multiplying by nine using that finger trick, multiplying 199 by 7 quickly by doing 200x7 then subtracting 7, and on and on and on and on.
But, in a serious sense, there is only one "way to solve a problem." That is, there is, e.g., exactly one universally applicable, perfectly reliable, optimally efficient, method for dividing one number by another: long division. And these qualities--universal applicability, reliability, efficiency--are precisely the qualities of good conceptual thought: They characterize what effective abstract thought is all about.
The author of the CNN article was provided with a typical sitting-duck example for the anti-traditional-algorithm approach:
This, of course, is like the 199x7 example that I mentioned above. It's a special example. The propaganda for the NCTM approach is full of such examples. Let's amend it a smidgen:
In the article, Pat Cooney is quoted as saying:
Well, yes indeed. It's a shortcut. That's what conceptual thinking is all about. That's it! That's the reason that humans live the pleasant easy lives that we do and animals live, well, like animals: We have the cognitive shortcuts of conceptual thought, and they don't. If education isn't about shortcuts, that is, about cognitive efficiency, about effective abstraction, about methods of organizing our awareness of the world into manageable units, what is it about?
Is it about, as Ms. Cooney suggests...intuition!? Please note carefully what Ms. Cooney is saying. The traditional method, because it's a shortcut--by which she seems to mean that it's a reliable, efficient, universally applicable method for solving a large class of problems--is bad. Intuition, whatever that is, is better.
In fairness, I want to recognize that math folks often use the term "intuitive" to refer to methods and facts that have become thoroughly automatic; effortless. And, this automatic quality is an important feature of conceptual thought. But such automatic, effortless, awareness can only follow from thorough mastery of the traditional methods.
********************
Please feel free to send questions or comments to me at dsrsma@rit.edu.
___________________________________
David S. Ross, PhD
Professor, School of Mathematical Science
Rochester Institute of Technology
Deb asked me to write a few comments on CNN's recent article on the Math Wars.
A few years ago, I argued against the recent trends in mathematics education in an article called The Math Wars, in which I present the thorough case against the approach promoted by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Please feel free to read that article, as I'm not going to rehearse the whole argument here.
I'll just summarize my thoughts on the CNN piece, which offers a "black-and-white" summary of the Math Wars:
They call it the Math Wars: The debate, at times acrimonious, over which way is best to teach kids math. In its most black-and-white form, it pits schools hoping to prepare kids for a new world against reluctant parents who feel that the traditional way is best and that their kids are being shortchanged.
The kids are being shortchanged. I say this as someone whose job it is to teach calculus to young adults who've just finished high school and are studying to become engineers or scientists, and as someone who has spent 20 years as an industrial scientist and an applied mathematician. High school graduates these days do not know the math that they need to know. The reason that they don't know it is that those who were responsible for teaching it to them didn't teach it to them.
The claim that schools that have done away with traditional mathematics instruction have done so because they want "to prepare kids for a new world" is ridiculous for many reasons. The most important is that the job of math educators is to get students to understand math, and the best way to understand math is to master the traditional algorithms.
That is: The best way to get students to understand math--the best way to get them to grasp the conceptual structure of mathematics, the best way to get them to integrate the whole structure of modern mathematics at the abstract level--is to have them learn, apply, master, and come to love precisely the traditional methods that the modern NCTM approach abhors. The position supported by Pat Cooney and Hank Kepner in the CNN article is not merely mistaken; it is diametrically opposed to the proper method for teaching students mathematical concepts.
My wife and are home schooling our daughters in large part to avoid their wasting time on this sort of nonsense.
The traditional approach has the wonderful, and useful, feature that students who have mastered the algorithms can actually do calculations. But its most important feature is that it provides the tools that students need in order to get inside the abstract structure of mathematics. For a detailed argument for my claim here, please see my Math Wars article. The CNN article discusses an admirable parent, Ms. Morey, who's teaching her son traditional math. She, bless her,
...feels no guilt. She says her son was relieved to learn long division. "He wants a quick and easy way to get the right answer,"
What this responsible parent probably doesn't know is that her son can not only divide numbers better than his teachers, he will probably grasp the nature of ratios and the operation of division and the structure of decimals--and, in the end, perhaps, how the solutions of certain differential equations reflect the quantitative facts of polymerization--because she taught him long division.
One problem, Cooney says in the CNN article, is that parents remember math as offering only one way to solve a problem.
"We're saying that there's more than one way," Cooney said. "The outcome will be the same, but how we get there will be different."
This what we call a straw man argument. The traditional approach to mathematics never involved the claim, implicitly or explicitly, that there is only one way to solve a problem. Everyone understands that there are special ways to solve special problems, quirky methods of multiplying by nine using that finger trick, multiplying 199 by 7 quickly by doing 200x7 then subtracting 7, and on and on and on and on.
But, in a serious sense, there is only one "way to solve a problem." That is, there is, e.g., exactly one universally applicable, perfectly reliable, optimally efficient, method for dividing one number by another: long division. And these qualities--universal applicability, reliability, efficiency--are precisely the qualities of good conceptual thought: They characterize what effective abstract thought is all about.
The author of the CNN article was provided with a typical sitting-duck example for the anti-traditional-algorithm approach:
Thus, when a parent is asked to multiply 88 by 5, we'll do it with pen and paper, multiplying 8 by 5 and carrying over the 4, etc. But a child today might reason that 5 is half of 10, and 88 times 10 is 880, so 88 times 5 is half of that, 440 - poof, no pen, no paper.
This, of course, is like the 199x7 example that I mentioned above. It's a special example. The propaganda for the NCTM approach is full of such examples. Let's amend it a smidgen:
Thus, when a parent is asked to multiply 838 by 37, we'll do it by multiplying 8 by 7, put down the 6 and carry the 5, and so on. But a child today might reason that...er...um...well...I'd better check with Ms. Cooney about this.
In the article, Pat Cooney is quoted as saying:
"The traditional way is really a shortcut,"..."We want kids to be so confident with numbers that it becomes intuitive."
Well, yes indeed. It's a shortcut. That's what conceptual thinking is all about. That's it! That's the reason that humans live the pleasant easy lives that we do and animals live, well, like animals: We have the cognitive shortcuts of conceptual thought, and they don't. If education isn't about shortcuts, that is, about cognitive efficiency, about effective abstraction, about methods of organizing our awareness of the world into manageable units, what is it about?
Is it about, as Ms. Cooney suggests...intuition!? Please note carefully what Ms. Cooney is saying. The traditional method, because it's a shortcut--by which she seems to mean that it's a reliable, efficient, universally applicable method for solving a large class of problems--is bad. Intuition, whatever that is, is better.
In fairness, I want to recognize that math folks often use the term "intuitive" to refer to methods and facts that have become thoroughly automatic; effortless. And, this automatic quality is an important feature of conceptual thought. But such automatic, effortless, awareness can only follow from thorough mastery of the traditional methods.
********************
Please feel free to send questions or comments to me at dsrsma@rit.edu.
___________________________________
David S. Ross, PhD
Professor, School of Mathematical Science
Rochester Institute of Technology
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Guess I'm a renegade parent
CNN just posted a story about "renegade" parents teaching their kids "old math." (HT to Melissa Wiley.)
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/18/renegade.math.parents.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest
One problem with the article, of course, is that there is no mention of whether the New Math works, and as my mathematician husband David can tell you from the college professor's standpoint, it most certainly does not.
David and the chair of his department at the Rochester Institute of Technology started a brand-new Summer Math Institute which they hosted for local high school math teachers (public and private) a few weeks ago. It's been obvious to the folks at RIT for a while that the math that kids need to succeed in math and science in college is not what kids are currently being taught by the New York State Standards. Interestingly, teachers understand this and are extremely frustrated by it. So this seminar, which RIT designed through lots of conversations and meetings with high school math teachers during this past year, showed teachers what kinds of math students are learning in college, how engineers and other scientist use math in their jobs, and what kids need to know before they get to RIT. RIT is a second-tier engineering school, not the top tier, so its students--while they may differ from others in that incoming students actually want to be scientists--are more representative of B-average students that public schools are turning out. And, they don't know math.
The seminar was a resounding success. I was pleased to hear that high school teachers care about this stuff, enough that they gave up a week of their vacation to learn about it. And, David says, they were very willing to integrate their new knowledge into how they teach their kids and what they emphasize, even though, of course, they can't change the New York State Standards. Of course, I was not pleased enough about this actually to send my kids to school. But it illuminates how very bad it is for mathematics to be run by a small committee at the top of a government structure.
I have been trying to persuade David and the department that they should be going further with this. Yes, the SMI has started and is already very successful. But they should also be establishing the RIT Mathematics Standards tutorials and exams for high school and incoming college students, which should be developed independently of the public school system, for subjects going back to algebra. They could be marketed to those high school students and homeschoolers who want to ensure that they know what they need to know in order to succeed in college science and math. They can market them like the Achievement Tests, to give students a commonly-accepted certification that they have attained a certain level of knowledge, for business and colleges to review as part of interviews/entrance exams.
I believe, of course, that home schoolers would generally wipe the floor with the public school students, like they do on the spelling bees. But I mostly think that it's an awesome way to draw attention to general educational deficiency in the U.S. without RIT having explicitly to point fingers at public schools. People will draw their own conclusions, and this may help state departments of education sit up and take notice.
UPDATE: David has just posted a more detailed analysis on another post here on this blog, entitled More on the Math Wars.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/18/renegade.math.parents.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest
One problem with the article, of course, is that there is no mention of whether the New Math works, and as my mathematician husband David can tell you from the college professor's standpoint, it most certainly does not.
David and the chair of his department at the Rochester Institute of Technology started a brand-new Summer Math Institute which they hosted for local high school math teachers (public and private) a few weeks ago. It's been obvious to the folks at RIT for a while that the math that kids need to succeed in math and science in college is not what kids are currently being taught by the New York State Standards. Interestingly, teachers understand this and are extremely frustrated by it. So this seminar, which RIT designed through lots of conversations and meetings with high school math teachers during this past year, showed teachers what kinds of math students are learning in college, how engineers and other scientist use math in their jobs, and what kids need to know before they get to RIT. RIT is a second-tier engineering school, not the top tier, so its students--while they may differ from others in that incoming students actually want to be scientists--are more representative of B-average students that public schools are turning out. And, they don't know math.
The seminar was a resounding success. I was pleased to hear that high school teachers care about this stuff, enough that they gave up a week of their vacation to learn about it. And, David says, they were very willing to integrate their new knowledge into how they teach their kids and what they emphasize, even though, of course, they can't change the New York State Standards. Of course, I was not pleased enough about this actually to send my kids to school. But it illuminates how very bad it is for mathematics to be run by a small committee at the top of a government structure.
I have been trying to persuade David and the department that they should be going further with this. Yes, the SMI has started and is already very successful. But they should also be establishing the RIT Mathematics Standards tutorials and exams for high school and incoming college students, which should be developed independently of the public school system, for subjects going back to algebra. They could be marketed to those high school students and homeschoolers who want to ensure that they know what they need to know in order to succeed in college science and math. They can market them like the Achievement Tests, to give students a commonly-accepted certification that they have attained a certain level of knowledge, for business and colleges to review as part of interviews/entrance exams.
I believe, of course, that home schoolers would generally wipe the floor with the public school students, like they do on the spelling bees. But I mostly think that it's an awesome way to draw attention to general educational deficiency in the U.S. without RIT having explicitly to point fingers at public schools. People will draw their own conclusions, and this may help state departments of education sit up and take notice.
UPDATE: David has just posted a more detailed analysis on another post here on this blog, entitled More on the Math Wars.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Say howdy!
Hi! It looks as though readership of this blog has recently doubled...from the longstanding ~five readers to TEN WHOLE READERS. I installed the free SiteMeter functionality to this blog, and was fascinated to see readers from a couple of locations that I don't recognize. So...Do I know you? Phoenix? Michigan? California? Anyway, welcome!
This blog mostly provides a way for me to record Madison and Ella's progress through life. Since they were born, David and I have been writing a Book of Madison and a Book of Ella. I copy the posts to separate files periodically, and David writes privately. We'll combine our observations and bind it into books for each of their 18th birthdays. So, you may not find everything you read here to be interesting or relevant. I never particularly intended this to be insightful public commentary or anything--those who regularly read what I write publicly on KidsOutAndAbout might find themselves shocked, and that wouldn't be too good for business. On the other hand, if you find what I write pithy or inspiring, well, great!
If you unknown readers care to drop me a line just to introduce yourselves, send it to ross@axton.com.
This blog mostly provides a way for me to record Madison and Ella's progress through life. Since they were born, David and I have been writing a Book of Madison and a Book of Ella. I copy the posts to separate files periodically, and David writes privately. We'll combine our observations and bind it into books for each of their 18th birthdays. So, you may not find everything you read here to be interesting or relevant. I never particularly intended this to be insightful public commentary or anything--those who regularly read what I write publicly on KidsOutAndAbout might find themselves shocked, and that wouldn't be too good for business. On the other hand, if you find what I write pithy or inspiring, well, great!
If you unknown readers care to drop me a line just to introduce yourselves, send it to ross@axton.com.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Beginning of the end of an era
Ella, who is 7, breastfed until she was 2 1/2. She's always loved sleeping with us, and I attribute the remarkable closeness she and I have partly to these two facts. She is snuggly, oh my how that child is snuggly. And it's always been nice how she likes to sleep with us. She sometimes starts out there and stays all night, and if she starts out in her own bed, or if at any time we move her to her own bed, back she comes at some point in the middle of the night. This habit was solidified when David had moved back up here to Rochester in late 2006 and I stayed behind in Virginia to sell the house. Three months of blissful sleeping with Mommy, for Ella.
I have a daily snuggling quotient, it seems, and Ella fulfills that, with much joy all around.
But. The girl has been in a growth spurt lately. Couple that with the fact that it's summer, and Ella (unlike Madison) radiates body heat. And also the fact that in her sleep she will fling her arms around you, or twine her legs through yours. Nice, but not very restful.
So. It's time.
She has chosen the prize she will get (four plastic coconut cups she's been coveting at Target) when she makes it to 7 nights in her own bed. She got the concession from us that if she comes in, in the middle of the night, we'll walk her back to her room and tuck her back in. (Not so restful as letting her cuddle in, but necessary.) She's on Day 5 and last night she made it all the way through in her own bed without coming in. Only 2 more days.
My baby! :-( Very bittersweet, for me.
On the other hand, last night I got great sleep and today I'm working like heck to finish my book this week, before we go on vacation.
Ella in 2002:
Ella in 2003:
Ella in 2008:
I have a daily snuggling quotient, it seems, and Ella fulfills that, with much joy all around.
But. The girl has been in a growth spurt lately. Couple that with the fact that it's summer, and Ella (unlike Madison) radiates body heat. And also the fact that in her sleep she will fling her arms around you, or twine her legs through yours. Nice, but not very restful.
So. It's time.
She has chosen the prize she will get (four plastic coconut cups she's been coveting at Target) when she makes it to 7 nights in her own bed. She got the concession from us that if she comes in, in the middle of the night, we'll walk her back to her room and tuck her back in. (Not so restful as letting her cuddle in, but necessary.) She's on Day 5 and last night she made it all the way through in her own bed without coming in. Only 2 more days.
My baby! :-( Very bittersweet, for me.
On the other hand, last night I got great sleep and today I'm working like heck to finish my book this week, before we go on vacation.
Ella in 2002:
Ella in 2003:
Ella in 2008:
Friday, July 11, 2008
Worthwhile to post the poem, too
Here is a translation of the poem "Stream of Life," by Rabindranath Tagore, which Siddique adapted for "Dancing."
Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
----------------------
You can see the lyrics of the song in Bengali, as adapted by Garry Schyman and Palbasha Siddique for the song "Praan" (which you can download from Amazon.com or iTunes) on this YouTube.
I hope they're getting rich.
Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
----------------------
You can see the lyrics of the song in Bengali, as adapted by Garry Schyman and Palbasha Siddique for the song "Praan" (which you can download from Amazon.com or iTunes) on this YouTube.
I hope they're getting rich.
You must see this video: Dancing with Matt
Today, I learned how to embed a YouTube video in this blog just so I could bring it to anyone who has not happened to see it yet. It is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. I keep wishing it were longer than four-and-a-half minutes.
I found a really interesting article about it here. Notice the poem translation on the right side. The girl singing, Palbasha Siddique, is a Bengali girl who lives in Minneapolis. She's only 17!
David's favorite part is in the Demilitarized Zone, Korea. There's also a clip from Central Park, where we had our first date.
I found a really interesting article about it here. Notice the poem translation on the right side. The girl singing, Palbasha Siddique, is a Bengali girl who lives in Minneapolis. She's only 17!
David's favorite part is in the Demilitarized Zone, Korea. There's also a clip from Central Park, where we had our first date.
Green green green engineering camp
Madison came home from camp yesterday, smiling again at me in that way.
"Okay, guess what we talked about TODAY at engineering camp?" she asked.
"Oh, gee, did you save whales?" I asked.
"Nope."
"Refuse to cut down trees?"
"Worse."
"What could be worse?"
"Organic food, of course. Did you know," she continued, mock-innocently, "that organic food has more minerals. Yep. That's what they told us. More minerals. That's why it's better for us. So it's time to start buying organic food, Mom. Right? Or we'll all start dying soon."
I groaned.
"Aren't you going to bang your head against the wall again?" she encouraged.
I complied.
"Okay, guess what we talked about TODAY at engineering camp?" she asked.
"Oh, gee, did you save whales?" I asked.
"Nope."
"Refuse to cut down trees?"
"Worse."
"What could be worse?"
"Organic food, of course. Did you know," she continued, mock-innocently, "that organic food has more minerals. Yep. That's what they told us. More minerals. That's why it's better for us. So it's time to start buying organic food, Mom. Right? Or we'll all start dying soon."
I groaned.
"Aren't you going to bang your head against the wall again?" she encouraged.
I complied.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
I guess it really IS Beatles week
...because Laura has a new review of the family board game Ticket To Ride up on the KidsOutAndAbout.com web site.
This is one of her family's favorite games.
This is one of her family's favorite games.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
It's not the end of the world, Ella!
Oh, wait, I guess maybe it IS the end of The World...
This is the big cardboard book we use every morning to identify where the birthday of the day comes from. This was no one's fault (heh, heh...just a little tectonic plate humor for you there). It just came apart tonight due to years of enthusiasm.
Thank goodness for clear packing tape, because there is no way we're giving THIS book up anytime soon.
Rewind idea
I just love this idea from Mrs. Hannigan's blog: Have a magic invisible rewind remote control device floating somewhere near you, which you can pluck out of the air at any moment, point at the children, and direct them to rewind and try that more time, this time properly. She swears it works:
http://mrshannigan.blogspot.com/2008/07/wait-rewind.html
Update: It just worked with Ella. Just after lunch, it was time to start looking at the patterns in the 7 times table and she started moaning about it. "Wait!" I said, pulling the rewind device out of the air. I pointed it at her and said, "Rewind!" and made that sound that you always associate with rewinding but which is not reproducible on screen... and she giggled and tried a better response.
http://mrshannigan.blogspot.com/2008/07/wait-rewind.html
Update: It just worked with Ella. Just after lunch, it was time to start looking at the patterns in the 7 times table and she started moaning about it. "Wait!" I said, pulling the rewind device out of the air. I pointed it at her and said, "Rewind!" and made that sound that you always associate with rewinding but which is not reproducible on screen... and she giggled and tried a better response.
With a wink and a glint of a smile
Madison told me that large chunks of the engineering camp that she's currently in are replete with environmentalist junk science.
She's got such a good, smiley attitude about it; it doesn't bother her at all. She's extremely good about dissecting the doomsday junk. ("Don't use hair dryers, don't use air conditioning, get your parents to use fans instead, because global warming is drowning the polar bears".... Really. Not kidding.)
David can't decide whether to write a polite note to the director of the camp. He's fairly incensed that HIS university, an engineering university, is propagating this crap when they should be doing, well, engineering. (To be fair, they do one bona fide engineering project each day and Madison is enjoying it.)
It really doesn't bother her, it kind of amuses her, and if she wasn't herself able to separate the garbage from the worthwhile stuff in her good old mental recycling bins, I might be encouraging David to write away. But I think he should wait until after the camp to do so. She's fine, the kids are nice, the counselors are nice, she's having fun, and she knows gloom-and-doom stupidity when she hears it. And, frankly, she likes being able to come home and see how many of my buttons she can push by describing it.
But yes, I think David should write a note when it's all over, unless they shape up pronto.
She's got such a good, smiley attitude about it; it doesn't bother her at all. She's extremely good about dissecting the doomsday junk. ("Don't use hair dryers, don't use air conditioning, get your parents to use fans instead, because global warming is drowning the polar bears".... Really. Not kidding.)
David can't decide whether to write a polite note to the director of the camp. He's fairly incensed that HIS university, an engineering university, is propagating this crap when they should be doing, well, engineering. (To be fair, they do one bona fide engineering project each day and Madison is enjoying it.)
It really doesn't bother her, it kind of amuses her, and if she wasn't herself able to separate the garbage from the worthwhile stuff in her good old mental recycling bins, I might be encouraging David to write away. But I think he should wait until after the camp to do so. She's fine, the kids are nice, the counselors are nice, she's having fun, and she knows gloom-and-doom stupidity when she hears it. And, frankly, she likes being able to come home and see how many of my buttons she can push by describing it.
But yes, I think David should write a note when it's all over, unless they shape up pronto.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Ringo
Today's Birthday of the Day was Ringo Starr. So we did a lot of Beatles facts today at breakfast.
Each evening at dinner, it's the girls' job to remember the facts; for each one, they get a nickel. You know: When was he born, where was he born, what did he do, can you name the Beatles song that was Mom and Dad's wedding theme ('Til There was You), etc.
In answer to the question "What was the Beatles' nickname?" there was dead silence for a few moments.
Then Ella ventured a guess. "The Four Short Guys?"
Each evening at dinner, it's the girls' job to remember the facts; for each one, they get a nickel. You know: When was he born, where was he born, what did he do, can you name the Beatles song that was Mom and Dad's wedding theme ('Til There was You), etc.
In answer to the question "What was the Beatles' nickname?" there was dead silence for a few moments.
Then Ella ventured a guess. "The Four Short Guys?"
Damned girls
No, not MINE. My girls are not damned.
But those other 'tweenie twits, damn them.
Okay, it's not quite so bad as that. Yet. I'm borrowing the trouble from a future whose inklings have only just started rearing their ugly little coifed heads.
(Have you ever seen a metaphor as badly mixed as that one? Almost certainly not.)
The inklings were around last week, in the form of Isabelle. Or Isobel. I don't care how she spells her name.
She was a 9- or 10-year-old at the drama camp where Madison spent her days last week. And she was nasty. Nasty to mine, on Tuesday, as well as to other girls, as Madison reports. For example, Madison asked nicely if she could sit next to Izzie at lunch, and the little wench glared and snarled, "Don't you dare." Madison was a little freaked by it. Not traumatized, mind you, not enough so that it was the very first thing that she reported about the day. But it WAS the second thing. And the girl talked nastily about the "other Madison" in my Madison's group. ("No one likes her. Don't YOU go being friends with her.")
So Madison and I had several talks about it Tuesday night, all of the "hold your head up, you don't need to stand there meekly while people give you crap, this is HER problem not yours, here is how you need to think..." and generally pep-talking her into some backbone. Madison asked me to have the counselor keep an eye on the perp on Wednesday morning. So I did. ("Yeah, we noticed she's a little spitfire," said the counselor. "We'll keep a closer eye today so that we make sure everyone has a good experience this week.")
And then...
Seems that the backbone pep talk worked, too well.
"Guess who I ate lunch with," said Madison after I picked her up on Wednesday. "Isobel! She asked me to sit with her, and I thought it would be rude to say no...actually I was kind of afraid she would be mean to me if I didn't but mostly it was that I didn't want to be rude...so I did. I gave her my chocolate, too."
It didn't even occur to my Madison that she could really be hurting the Other Madison and anyone else to whom Isobel had been mean, just by sitting with her.
I could see, suddenly, so clearly, how these things get started with the girls. One bad apple and then a lot of misinterpretations and confusion about how to navigate these things.
I did tell her something that I'd never needed to emphasize before: It is not rude to politely avoid people who are mean to others, and in fact REALLY not rude if you point it out to them that they're being mean. And, when you notice someone being mean habitually, you ABSOLUTELY do not play with them. Ever. You play with the people they're being mean to, unless of course you don't like those people either. And we never give them chocolate.
I wanted to shake the mean girl. I wanted to skip the next seven years for Madison and land her nicely on the other side, where it's easy to not care about the popular girls. But I didn't want to make too big a fuss about it, because then it would be sure to loom larger than life in Madison's mind. So on Thursday, the final day, I didn't even ask who Isobel was at the performance for the parents. And that was that.
What I didn't say to Madison was that starting almost exactly at her age, there were girls from the fourth grade through the twelfth grade who thoroughly scorched my soul with their nastiness. I'm still bitter, 30 years later. My baby cannot, WILL NOT, damn it, become one of those people. But as I saw last week, the subtleties of it are just so hard to negotiate when you're young and inexperienced, and nice.
Fortunately, these next two weeks she's at Engineering Camp at RIT. I'm hoping she finds some friends-forever soulmates among the brainy geek computer types like her.
But those other 'tweenie twits, damn them.
Okay, it's not quite so bad as that. Yet. I'm borrowing the trouble from a future whose inklings have only just started rearing their ugly little coifed heads.
(Have you ever seen a metaphor as badly mixed as that one? Almost certainly not.)
The inklings were around last week, in the form of Isabelle. Or Isobel. I don't care how she spells her name.
She was a 9- or 10-year-old at the drama camp where Madison spent her days last week. And she was nasty. Nasty to mine, on Tuesday, as well as to other girls, as Madison reports. For example, Madison asked nicely if she could sit next to Izzie at lunch, and the little wench glared and snarled, "Don't you dare." Madison was a little freaked by it. Not traumatized, mind you, not enough so that it was the very first thing that she reported about the day. But it WAS the second thing. And the girl talked nastily about the "other Madison" in my Madison's group. ("No one likes her. Don't YOU go being friends with her.")
So Madison and I had several talks about it Tuesday night, all of the "hold your head up, you don't need to stand there meekly while people give you crap, this is HER problem not yours, here is how you need to think..." and generally pep-talking her into some backbone. Madison asked me to have the counselor keep an eye on the perp on Wednesday morning. So I did. ("Yeah, we noticed she's a little spitfire," said the counselor. "We'll keep a closer eye today so that we make sure everyone has a good experience this week.")
And then...
Seems that the backbone pep talk worked, too well.
"Guess who I ate lunch with," said Madison after I picked her up on Wednesday. "Isobel! She asked me to sit with her, and I thought it would be rude to say no...actually I was kind of afraid she would be mean to me if I didn't but mostly it was that I didn't want to be rude...so I did. I gave her my chocolate, too."
It didn't even occur to my Madison that she could really be hurting the Other Madison and anyone else to whom Isobel had been mean, just by sitting with her.
I could see, suddenly, so clearly, how these things get started with the girls. One bad apple and then a lot of misinterpretations and confusion about how to navigate these things.
I did tell her something that I'd never needed to emphasize before: It is not rude to politely avoid people who are mean to others, and in fact REALLY not rude if you point it out to them that they're being mean. And, when you notice someone being mean habitually, you ABSOLUTELY do not play with them. Ever. You play with the people they're being mean to, unless of course you don't like those people either. And we never give them chocolate.
I wanted to shake the mean girl. I wanted to skip the next seven years for Madison and land her nicely on the other side, where it's easy to not care about the popular girls. But I didn't want to make too big a fuss about it, because then it would be sure to loom larger than life in Madison's mind. So on Thursday, the final day, I didn't even ask who Isobel was at the performance for the parents. And that was that.
What I didn't say to Madison was that starting almost exactly at her age, there were girls from the fourth grade through the twelfth grade who thoroughly scorched my soul with their nastiness. I'm still bitter, 30 years later. My baby cannot, WILL NOT, damn it, become one of those people. But as I saw last week, the subtleties of it are just so hard to negotiate when you're young and inexperienced, and nice.
Fortunately, these next two weeks she's at Engineering Camp at RIT. I'm hoping she finds some friends-forever soulmates among the brainy geek computer types like her.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Great, gorgeous independence
We had a wonderful Fourth of July. Our dear friends were up from Pennsylvania to join us on our annual pilgrimage to Brown's Berry Patch. That's about a 45-minute drive from Rochester, which is significant around here because we're spoiled with getting anywhere within 20 minutes. Waterport is midway between Rochester and Buffalo, out in the middle of nowhere. It not only has great cherries and strawberries and raspberries and blueberries to pick, but a terrific little "Barnyard Adventure" playground/maze/farm animal section for which they charge about $3.50 per person to play as long as you want. Awesome little store inside, too.
Since we go there every year on July 4, I had the idea a month ago to ask Farmer Brown's daughter, who is in charge of publicity, if they would be willing to offer a free pass into the Barnyard Adventure for all KidsOutAndAbout.com readers. I'd create the coupon and people would need to print one for each person.
I'd had the idea, I confess, mostly because I knew that we'd be going, and I wanted to save our family the extra $14. So, quite self-interested. But of course, I wanted it to have the effect of bringing lots of readers out to Brown's. And they thought it was a great idea. But little did I expect it to have quite the effect it did. Apparently, there were literally hundreds of people out there in Waterport using their coupons to get in. The people in front of us into the Barnyard Adventure had one. So did the people in back of us. I saw two coupons blowing over the ground in the wind. And then when I was in line to pay for my cherries, Mrs. Brown found me and hugged me, and someone else recognized me, and then there was a chorus of "Oh, that's you? Hi! I read your web site!" and "That's why I'm here!" all around me. Very odd. Fun, though. I felt great. I love the idea that it brought them so much business. Mrs. Brown said that it's been a very slow season so far because of fuel costs, and she was totally lit up to see the crowds there on Friday. It was a gorgeous day, too...so, to be fair, I'm sure Mother Nature had more to do with the crowds than my coupon. But still.
A little idea, a few minutes creating and posting a coupon, a mention in the newsletter...and then, crowds of people out there having a blast, saving money, and picking pounds of cherries with their kids...and a huge profit (at least I hope) for the worthy folks at Brown's Berry Patch. You gotta love capitalism.
Here are some photos of the girls and Dario:
Ella picking cherries:
Madison picking cherries:
A few of the best people in the whole world:
Tony and Tatiana are from Cuba, and there is nothing like spending Independence Day with them. They are so INTO it. The cherry orchard is like what everyone imagines paradise to be...handfuls of the sweetest fruit just there for the picking. Unimaginable under a communist dictatorship. Tatiana said it brought out the Cubana in her whenever one of the cherries hit the ground--painful, the idea of it being wasted when so few people there get adequate nutrition.
And then an afternoon of cooking and making cherry ice cream, and fireworks at Harris Whalen Park with a couple of other dear Objectivist friends, Tom and Susan. One of those great, uncomplicated, satisfying days.
Since we go there every year on July 4, I had the idea a month ago to ask Farmer Brown's daughter, who is in charge of publicity, if they would be willing to offer a free pass into the Barnyard Adventure for all KidsOutAndAbout.com readers. I'd create the coupon and people would need to print one for each person.
I'd had the idea, I confess, mostly because I knew that we'd be going, and I wanted to save our family the extra $14. So, quite self-interested. But of course, I wanted it to have the effect of bringing lots of readers out to Brown's. And they thought it was a great idea. But little did I expect it to have quite the effect it did. Apparently, there were literally hundreds of people out there in Waterport using their coupons to get in. The people in front of us into the Barnyard Adventure had one. So did the people in back of us. I saw two coupons blowing over the ground in the wind. And then when I was in line to pay for my cherries, Mrs. Brown found me and hugged me, and someone else recognized me, and then there was a chorus of "Oh, that's you? Hi! I read your web site!" and "That's why I'm here!" all around me. Very odd. Fun, though. I felt great. I love the idea that it brought them so much business. Mrs. Brown said that it's been a very slow season so far because of fuel costs, and she was totally lit up to see the crowds there on Friday. It was a gorgeous day, too...so, to be fair, I'm sure Mother Nature had more to do with the crowds than my coupon. But still.
A little idea, a few minutes creating and posting a coupon, a mention in the newsletter...and then, crowds of people out there having a blast, saving money, and picking pounds of cherries with their kids...and a huge profit (at least I hope) for the worthy folks at Brown's Berry Patch. You gotta love capitalism.
Here are some photos of the girls and Dario:
Ella picking cherries:
Madison picking cherries:
A few of the best people in the whole world:
Tony and Tatiana are from Cuba, and there is nothing like spending Independence Day with them. They are so INTO it. The cherry orchard is like what everyone imagines paradise to be...handfuls of the sweetest fruit just there for the picking. Unimaginable under a communist dictatorship. Tatiana said it brought out the Cubana in her whenever one of the cherries hit the ground--painful, the idea of it being wasted when so few people there get adequate nutrition.
And then an afternoon of cooking and making cherry ice cream, and fireworks at Harris Whalen Park with a couple of other dear Objectivist friends, Tom and Susan. One of those great, uncomplicated, satisfying days.
Creeping closer to that magic "I love reading" day...
Ella had a first this morning.
It was Sunday, so it was an eat-breakfast-when-and-what-and-how-you-feel-like-it kind of morning. I was working on the laptop at the dining room table.
Ella poured herself some cereal, got a spoon, and then, lo and behold, brought out a chapter book and stuck it into this plastic book-holder-upper thing that will allow you to read while you're eating (probably meant for cookbooks). And then, without comment, she flung herself down next to me and started reading as she munched. It was Flat Stanley. I sent a silent message of gratitude to Jeff Brown.
It was Sunday, so it was an eat-breakfast-when-and-what-and-how-you-feel-like-it kind of morning. I was working on the laptop at the dining room table.
Ella poured herself some cereal, got a spoon, and then, lo and behold, brought out a chapter book and stuck it into this plastic book-holder-upper thing that will allow you to read while you're eating (probably meant for cookbooks). And then, without comment, she flung herself down next to me and started reading as she munched. It was Flat Stanley. I sent a silent message of gratitude to Jeff Brown.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
10,000 Birds iPod contest...believe it or not...
Well, our birding horizons have just been dramatically expanded because...
...We won the big contest from 10,000 birds.
Yes, we...me, Madison, and Ella! If you click on the link you can see Charlie's daughter's jammy finger pointing to our name on his laptop! We won an iPod from HarperCollins, just LOADED with bird songs. Charlie emailed me today to tell me that we'd won. Yay to HarperCollins for donating the iPod! Yay to 10,000 Birds for hosting the contest!
Each day for 10 days, Charlie posted a fragment of a post from 10,000 Birds, and each day we got to search through the site, identify the URL of the post that the fragment came from, and send that URL to Charlie in the hopes of winning one of 10 Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America that 10,000 Birds was giving away. Day by day, we searched, found, and sent in that day's URL. But we didn't win a book.
But...there was more to the contest. If we diligently collected the first letter of that post each day, then the 10 letters could be rearranged to form the name of a species of North American bird. And so before June 30, we were to send Charlie all 10 URLs and the name of the bird.
The name of the bird was BLUETHROAT. Isn't he cute?
He lives in western Alaska.
We cannot wait to get that iPod. Ella, in particular, is just going to go nuts with it. And so am I!
...We won the big contest from 10,000 birds.
Yes, we...me, Madison, and Ella! If you click on the link you can see Charlie's daughter's jammy finger pointing to our name on his laptop! We won an iPod from HarperCollins, just LOADED with bird songs. Charlie emailed me today to tell me that we'd won. Yay to HarperCollins for donating the iPod! Yay to 10,000 Birds for hosting the contest!
Each day for 10 days, Charlie posted a fragment of a post from 10,000 Birds, and each day we got to search through the site, identify the URL of the post that the fragment came from, and send that URL to Charlie in the hopes of winning one of 10 Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America that 10,000 Birds was giving away. Day by day, we searched, found, and sent in that day's URL. But we didn't win a book.But...there was more to the contest. If we diligently collected the first letter of that post each day, then the 10 letters could be rearranged to form the name of a species of North American bird. And so before June 30, we were to send Charlie all 10 URLs and the name of the bird.
The name of the bird was BLUETHROAT. Isn't he cute?
He lives in western Alaska.
We cannot wait to get that iPod. Ella, in particular, is just going to go nuts with it. And so am I!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Biz Kid$ - new PBS show
There is a new PBS show on in the afternoons called "Biz Kid$." Well, it's new to the Rochester area, anyway; I have a feeling the programs have been showing elsewhere for a year or so.
Madison happened across this program last week and loves it. It's mostly about entrepreneurship and money, both of which subjects are near and dear to her heart. It's produced in conjunction with Junior Achievement.
But. BUT.
A show from late last week was about paychecks and taxes. You know: Why it is, when you get a paycheck, there are all of these amounts taken out here and there for FICA, Social Security, etc.
And, see, they explained what these things are. They explained how Social Security will help you save money for retirement. They explained how the tax money that is taken out builds roads, funds the police, educates our kids, helps the poor, heals the sick...YOU KNOW, all of those vital things our benevolent government needs to take care of to make the country work. "Oh!" the kids on the show say, feeling proud that their work helps make the world go round by paying taxes.
No discussion of whether this may or may not be a good idea. No discussion of whether it is moral for a government forcibly to take the money you make and give it to someone else, or fund huge government initiatives that themselves may or may not be ethical. No sense that any of this is at all an issue...no, no, just a treatment of government as benevolently looking out for your interests. See, it's no big deal at all, that you don't get to keep your own money, you just hand it over to us and we'll take care of spending it.
Well, it was a teaching moment. For Ella, at least. Madison already knows what I'm going to say.
A lot of the Biz Kid$ stuff seems fine, inspirational, even. I'll just need to keep tabs on it.
And, when this morning I asked Ella what she remembers about the show, she mostly remembers that the kids on the show are chagrined that someone is taking their money. So, while I think this defeated the purpose of the show's organizers somewhat, the end result turns out kind of okay from my perspective.
Madison happened across this program last week and loves it. It's mostly about entrepreneurship and money, both of which subjects are near and dear to her heart. It's produced in conjunction with Junior Achievement.
But. BUT.
A show from late last week was about paychecks and taxes. You know: Why it is, when you get a paycheck, there are all of these amounts taken out here and there for FICA, Social Security, etc.
And, see, they explained what these things are. They explained how Social Security will help you save money for retirement. They explained how the tax money that is taken out builds roads, funds the police, educates our kids, helps the poor, heals the sick...YOU KNOW, all of those vital things our benevolent government needs to take care of to make the country work. "Oh!" the kids on the show say, feeling proud that their work helps make the world go round by paying taxes.
No discussion of whether this may or may not be a good idea. No discussion of whether it is moral for a government forcibly to take the money you make and give it to someone else, or fund huge government initiatives that themselves may or may not be ethical. No sense that any of this is at all an issue...no, no, just a treatment of government as benevolently looking out for your interests. See, it's no big deal at all, that you don't get to keep your own money, you just hand it over to us and we'll take care of spending it.
Well, it was a teaching moment. For Ella, at least. Madison already knows what I'm going to say.
A lot of the Biz Kid$ stuff seems fine, inspirational, even. I'll just need to keep tabs on it.
And, when this morning I asked Ella what she remembers about the show, she mostly remembers that the kids on the show are chagrined that someone is taking their money. So, while I think this defeated the purpose of the show's organizers somewhat, the end result turns out kind of okay from my perspective.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
PowerPoint
I showed Madison PowerPoint yesterday, and today she spent four solid hours working on it, making slide shows, learning things I didn't know that PowerPoint could do. She's a fiddler, that kid. She is perfectly happy to mess around in a program and discover what it does. She LOVES doing that.
I can't wait until we get the robot. And her two-week engineering camp at RIT starts a week from tomorrow.
She spent a little while prancing around today, showing us her creations and telling us how much she loves computers, working with photo editing software and putting her new creations into PowerPoint slide shows. So I'm thinking it's about time to figure out how to hook up our VHS-C video recorder to the computer, and get her some friendly video editing software, and let her go nuts.
We actually know the guy who was the principal designer of the original PowerPoint; an objectivist, as it happens. Dennis Austin. Thanks, Dennis, for giving us all of this power!
I can't wait until we get the robot. And her two-week engineering camp at RIT starts a week from tomorrow.
She spent a little while prancing around today, showing us her creations and telling us how much she loves computers, working with photo editing software and putting her new creations into PowerPoint slide shows. So I'm thinking it's about time to figure out how to hook up our VHS-C video recorder to the computer, and get her some friendly video editing software, and let her go nuts.
We actually know the guy who was the principal designer of the original PowerPoint; an objectivist, as it happens. Dennis Austin. Thanks, Dennis, for giving us all of this power!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Not the contest for me, I fear
Today I brought the kids to the library for their summer kick-off book reading event (theme for this summer: Catch the Reading Bug), and while they were variously immersed in decorating a paper butterfly (Ella) or reading (Madison), I dove into Literary Marketplace to do some research about publishers to whom I might submit my book.
I've been reading Erika Dreifus's Practicing Writer blog, and she recently recommended entering contests as a good strategy for getting your writing done. And when I was looking at the publisher's entry for Knopf Delacorte Dell today, I noticed that they have an annual contest for their Yearling imprint: For a First Middle-Grade Novel. See the rules online, the notice said.
So when I got home, I read the rules. Wow, entries have to be postmarked between April 1, 2008 and... Monday, June 30. That's THIS Monday. I'd already planned to finish the book this weekend in a marathon session. Could I get it done in time to postmark on Monday? Probably, yes. That would be a real fire lit under me, that's for sure. Maybe this would be a heck of an opportunity...
Oh, shoot. The rules say: Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while under consideration for the prize.
That wouldn't be so bad if the editor-judges hadn't given themselves the luxury of waiting until October to respond to you. OCTOBER!
So, I think that's out. I have momentum here, there's no way I'm twiddling my thumbs until OCTOBER. That only leaves me 7 months until I turn 40, for pete's sake. And...it's a FIRST NOVEL contest. Doesn't that mean that everyone who might enter it is in the same position as I?
Maybe I'm kidding myself, thinking that someone will accept this for publication before then. Anyway, I'm just not willing to take the risk of delaying my submissions for 4 months.
I've been reading Erika Dreifus's Practicing Writer blog, and she recently recommended entering contests as a good strategy for getting your writing done. And when I was looking at the publisher's entry for Knopf Delacorte Dell today, I noticed that they have an annual contest for their Yearling imprint: For a First Middle-Grade Novel. See the rules online, the notice said.
So when I got home, I read the rules. Wow, entries have to be postmarked between April 1, 2008 and... Monday, June 30. That's THIS Monday. I'd already planned to finish the book this weekend in a marathon session. Could I get it done in time to postmark on Monday? Probably, yes. That would be a real fire lit under me, that's for sure. Maybe this would be a heck of an opportunity...
Oh, shoot. The rules say: Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while under consideration for the prize.
That wouldn't be so bad if the editor-judges hadn't given themselves the luxury of waiting until October to respond to you. OCTOBER!
So, I think that's out. I have momentum here, there's no way I'm twiddling my thumbs until OCTOBER. That only leaves me 7 months until I turn 40, for pete's sake. And...it's a FIRST NOVEL contest. Doesn't that mean that everyone who might enter it is in the same position as I?
Maybe I'm kidding myself, thinking that someone will accept this for publication before then. Anyway, I'm just not willing to take the risk of delaying my submissions for 4 months.
It's the Jersey Girl in me
I know this is kind of silly, but I had to post because I'm so excited. The Legos folks are sending me a sample kit of the Mindstorms Robot for me to review on KidsOutAndAbout.com! Woohoo!!! This kit requires a mixture of building and programming.
The way this happened is that Madison has been wanting to build a robot for AGES, as well as start programming. Well, our dear friends got one of these Mindstorms robots for their 8-year-old son, and he absolutely adores it, has spent hours learning to program it. They recommended that I get one for Madison.
So I told Madison that I would give her one as an end-of-the-year-congratulations-on-all-your-hard-work present. I told her this before I understood what the price tag was. YEEOUCH! $249.
Oh well, that's an expensive promise to make, but once I make them, I don't break promises except in extreme circumstances. First, I started thinking about clients to whom I could propose new projects. But then I started a little brainstorm about Mindstorms. How about a review for KidsOutAndAbout.com? So I spent the early part of this week tracking down the right people to talk to, and got passed to a publicity firm in San Francisco today. And it turns out that they would be DELIGHTED to send me a free Mindstorms for me to review! They're supplying press releases, and photos, and instructions, and the woman is even doing some of the research for me, to find all the stores in western New York who carry it. She just called me back. I explained how confusing it is when people visit the Mindstorms.lego.com web site, and said how my review would be guiding parents through the confusion. She asked if I were on deadline, and I explained that I am not ACTUALLY on deadline, but SPIRITUALLY I am, because I want to get this out the second week of July so that parents can use this as a summer project for them and their kids.
I felt like dancing when she said, "Sure, we'd be happy to send you the kit. I'll put it in the mail today and you should have it early next week."
It's that whole FREE thing bringing out the New Jersey in me. I was so happy that I even brought laundry downstairs and pre-treated stains and loaded the washer. Yes, THAT excited. Now I'm going to go help Madison clean her room. You know, to make a nice neat place for her new robot.
The way this happened is that Madison has been wanting to build a robot for AGES, as well as start programming. Well, our dear friends got one of these Mindstorms robots for their 8-year-old son, and he absolutely adores it, has spent hours learning to program it. They recommended that I get one for Madison.
So I told Madison that I would give her one as an end-of-the-year-congratulations-on-all-your-hard-work present. I told her this before I understood what the price tag was. YEEOUCH! $249.Oh well, that's an expensive promise to make, but once I make them, I don't break promises except in extreme circumstances. First, I started thinking about clients to whom I could propose new projects. But then I started a little brainstorm about Mindstorms. How about a review for KidsOutAndAbout.com? So I spent the early part of this week tracking down the right people to talk to, and got passed to a publicity firm in San Francisco today. And it turns out that they would be DELIGHTED to send me a free Mindstorms for me to review! They're supplying press releases, and photos, and instructions, and the woman is even doing some of the research for me, to find all the stores in western New York who carry it. She just called me back. I explained how confusing it is when people visit the Mindstorms.lego.com web site, and said how my review would be guiding parents through the confusion. She asked if I were on deadline, and I explained that I am not ACTUALLY on deadline, but SPIRITUALLY I am, because I want to get this out the second week of July so that parents can use this as a summer project for them and their kids.
I felt like dancing when she said, "Sure, we'd be happy to send you the kit. I'll put it in the mail today and you should have it early next week."
It's that whole FREE thing bringing out the New Jersey in me. I was so happy that I even brought laundry downstairs and pre-treated stains and loaded the washer. Yes, THAT excited. Now I'm going to go help Madison clean her room. You know, to make a nice neat place for her new robot.
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