Dinner conversation tonight:
Griffin: “In a way, we do have superpowers.”
Sarah: “How so?”
Griffin: “We can communicate. And we can love. And we have emotions.”
Sarah: “That’s very wise.”
Griffin: <…thinking…> “But, if everyone has a superpower, then I guess it’s not really super after all.”
Oliver, like all children, regularly exhibits dismay when things don’t go his way. In the past, this has always appeared as a bout of sad tears. Often he would hug us even while being upset that we were denying him what he wanted. Today, however, is different. When Oliver brought a book over to Sarah, hoping she would read it to him, she said, “Oh, smells like you need a diaper change. Let’s go change your diaper!” At this point, Oliver’s face turned red and he literally hurled himself on the floor, spinning in a circle, kicking his legs, and slamming his fists on the floor. His movements were so dramatic that he actually slid on his belly—like a maniacal crab—from the dining room into the kitchen.
His first temper tantrum.
(It was pretty adorable.)
“I am definitely going to go to college. When you finish your classes, you can just walk around, ride your bike, hang out with your friends. . . it’s like recess all the time!” — Griffin
Big transitions are afoot. Today is the last day of school for Griffin and Maggie at Cornerstone, and it is Andrew’s last work day at SPA. Not only are we all transitioning into summer mode, but Griffin and Maggie will be moving into new classrooms with new teachers next year. While this sounds entirely normal to those of us who attended regular schools, in the Montessori model, students work with the same teacher for three years.
Griffin has been in the same classroom since first grade, beginning as a neophyte being mentored by older students and ending, this year, as one of the third-grade leaders. Although Maggie first enrolled this year as a kindergartner, she was part of the top cohort in her classroom, working with younger pre-k students. In the fall, both of them, as fourth- and first-graders, will be entering a new world where they will grow for the next three years.
Maggie has been very excited about the transition, eagerly looking forward to her “Fly Up!” ceremony and the dance her class has been practicing. Griffin has more mixed feelings, leading to some conversations about the term “bittersweet.” He’s excited to continue learning and doing new work (in Montessori parlance), but he loved his teacher and will miss his many younger friends that he’s leaving behind.
In Griffin’s classroom, crazy hair day coincided with their celebration of the Indian festival of Holi, “The Festival of Colors,” which involved running through clouds of colored powders. The last picture, above, shows Griffin after the festival.
While reading the chapter on the battle of Helm’s Deep in the Lord of the Rings last night, Maggie exclaimed, “Whoa! The walls are 20 feet tall!”
“I know! That’s almost as tall as our house,” I replied, thrilled at her level of engagement.
“Yeah. . . . Did you know that dogs eat their own poop? And rabbits do too?”
Two of my passions—teaching and roleplaying games—came together in this short piece. After running a gaming activity at school this year, the fine folks at Steve Jackson Games asked me to write up a blurb about the experience. It went live this morning.
The target audience is definitely gamers (who else ends up on the SJGames homepage?), but it shouldn’t cause Muggle eyes to glaze over too much.
(See also a PDF version in case the site goes down.)
During dinner last night, we were discussing how messy babies are when they eat. In my customarily ridiculous fashion, I proposed that high chairs should be built inside large tubs. All the food detritus would fall into the tub. Then at the end of the meal, you pull a lever and a huge bucket of water dumps on baby, high chair, and tub, washing all the sticky, gooey, crumblies away. We laughed about this, agreeing that one of many problems with my proposal, was that the sudden deluge would be scary for the hapless filth monger in the midst of it.
I tried proposing heated dryers, but Griffin didn’t think that this would be enough. He suggested putting an umbrella over the baby. But this, I countered, would only clean the area around the high chair, without cleaning the baby himself (we were imagining Oliver as our first beneficiary). Griffin considered this, and responded, “What if we put some sort of water resistor over him?” I shook my head, misunderstanding, and pointed out that we need the baby to get wet. Griffin, in turn, shook his head, saying, “No, a water resistor.” I still didn’t get it, thinking he meant some sort of anti-water-force-field. He elaborated, “You know — an electrical resister doesn’t stop the electricity, it just kind of slows it down. So a water resistor would be like that, making it less strong.”
My jaw dropped. My nine-year-old just schooled me on electrical engineering, using the idea of a electrical resistance as a metaphor.
Patent pending.
Griffin and Maggie fondly recalled their joint birthday party in 2016 and decided to merge their parties again this year. Because we all love having parties outside, the endless winter of 2018 stymied our attempts to schedule it between their birthdays. We settled on the final weekend of the month, but even then our first two choices of parks weren’t open yet. We eventually settled on the Como playground near the Como Town mini-amusement park.
After all the weather hassles, the day was gorgeous. Breezy and warm in the sun and cool in the shade—perfect weather for a few hours rampaging around a playground. Sarah made two batches of cupcakes: Griffin had red velvet with cream cheese frosting; Maggie had vanilla with blue frosting. Griffin and Maggie (and Oliver, too) were exhausted and happy at the end of the festivities.
We weren’t trying to photograph the event, but I captured a few shots on my phone:
And two short videos of the celebratory songs:
