Just told Griffin that friends are coming this weekend to play D&D and he got REALLY excited. Then he tried to “get” me as a goblin, so I cast a spell on him. Then he said, “well, I have 100 hit points and you have only 5, so I won.”
— Text message from Sarah this morningÂ
Everything below is in Griffin’s words. It’s a bit stream-of-consciousness, but we just asked him to talk about Kindergarten. Occasionally we prompted him to give further details. – Andrew & Sarah
I like the puzzle maps. They are maps but they are puzzles: Africa, United States, and the other one that kind of looks like Africa (“South America?” “Uh-huh!”).
The trinomial and binomial cubes are boxes with blocks inside them and you try to match the pattern on top of the box.
I like the reading corner because it has a chair and there are two reading corners, one in the back of the room and one in the front of the room. I like the the one that’s up high with the stairs to go up, in the front of the room. I like to read the garden books and I like the pretend books and I like sitting in the reading corner too. There is only one garden book; it’s like a pretend garden and it goes all over the roof and he goes through it. It has lots of white flowers and yellow ones too. The pretend books are not real so like they are real books but they are not real people and stuff.
I like the computers too in the multi-purpose room. We try to match words sometimes.
We eat with silverware and sometimes our fingers. We have lots of tables which we have to set up. We sing this song before we eat:
For the golden corn and the apples on the tree,
for the golden butter and the honey for our tea,
for fruits and nuts and berries that grow along the way,
for birds and bees and flowers, we give thanks every day.
We also have another song that we sing at the rug:
Choo choo choo choo,
Choo choo choo choo,
Going up the tracks,
Choo choo choo choo,
Choo choo choo choo,
Then we come right back.First we go to Malaya’s house,
Then we go to James’s house,
Then we go to Crosby’s house,
Then we go to Tegan’s house.Choo choo choo choo,
Choo choo choo choo,
Going up the tracks,
Choo choo choo choo,
Choo choo choo choo,
Then we come right back.First we go to Griffin’s house,
Then we go to Harrison’s house,
Then we go to Serenity’s house…
We keep singing like that until we go to everyone’s house.
The play structure! I love recess. Now we go on the play structure. The grass is medium new and medium not-new. The play structure is new; it was already built when I started school but the grass was new so we played out back instead of in the front. We like to play and tag and in the sand box. I like playing on the play structure too. We get to go outside every day, except when it is raining or super super cold.
I like my teacher Kristen and also Angela and Corinne, my side teachers. Angela passes out the food and she speaks Spanish.
I miss my sister when I go to school. It is a long day; I sometimes get tired.
When I get home, I like to snuggle with Maggie and also I say, “Hello Mommy and Daddy” if Daddy is home. I like to play with Maggie and when Mama and Daddy make dinner we like to play.
A week before heading up to the cabin, Griffin and I walked to our local comic shop to pick up a new graphic novel (he chose Journey to the Center of the Earth). While browsing, I noticed that the latest (fifth) edition of Dungeons and Dragons was out. I couldn’t resist picking up the Player’s Handbook and the introductory boxed set. I wanted to read over the new rules, and I rationalized that I’d use them when the D&D activity gets going again at my school this winter. (Also, the fourth edition was garbage, so I hoped the fifth would do better.) Of course I didn’t have time to read them during the week, so I tossed them into my reading bag for the cabin. It wasn’t until we got there that it occurred to me that Griffin might be old enough to get into it. Sarah was game, so after our hike on Saturday, I opened the boxed set and had them choose from the five pre-generated characters. For posterity, here’s the group for our first ever family D&D game:
A bunch of goblins, some wolves, and a bugbear later and everyone gained a level. Griffin’s first request when we got home was, “Can we play some more D&D today?” (The answer was no, but the request warmed my heart.)
It was neat seeing how Griffin’s five-year-old mind grappled with the complexities of the game. His favorite part was definitely rolling the dice: at one point the group rescued a kidnapped knight and he offered to tell the story of his capture; Griffin responded with, “Can I roll the 20-sided die?” But he definitely followed the story, and has a remarkable memory for detail. He instantly grasped some fairly complicated mechanics around how often he can cast his spells, and a week later he can explain the overall quest and the names of the characters and places in the story. (Including a number of details that I had forgotten!)
Maggie, naturally, had only a loose grasp of things, but also enjoyed rolling the dice and paging through the rulebooks to see the pictures.
With Sarah gone this weekend, we haven’t had a chance for a followup game, but this adds a great new activity to our family menu, especially when the snows blow in. (I always hear Ned Stark… “Winter is coming…”)
Oh, and in case any gamers stumble on this post, my first impression of 5th edition is overwhelmingly positive. The core rules are elegant with an emphasis on flexibility, role-playing, and imaginative fun. The writers captured the spirit of what made the original AD&D so compelling, while streamlining the rules and updating them for the current generation.
After our glorious summer, the school year feels like we’re barely hanging on to a runaway train. On Friday, we fled the crazy for another taste of summer (with a dash of autumn).
The yellow cabin delivered big time. Not only was the weather outstanding, but the kids were 100% engaged, Â hiking with gusto, begging to get out on the water in the kayaks, and playing together relatively peacefully during down time. We also enjoyed some unexpected firsts: Griffin’s first time fishing, and our first family D&D game (more on that in an upcoming post). It felt like we were away for far longer than a weekend.
Enjoy the gallery below. Remember, they look best if you click on one to engage the full-screen slide show. (Also, don’t miss the postscript below for a glimpse backstage.)
PS: The last picture looks idyllic, and it was, but the picture misses a few telling details. As I floated in my kayak, taking in the stunning colors, Griffin, far behind me in the center of the lake, decided to start playing “echo” across the water. The echoes were, indeed, spectacular, so he proceeded to yell louder and louder, until his tremendous battle cries reverberated across the lake, drowning out all other sound. He was far enough away, and focused enough on his bellowing, that he couldn’t hear our fierce, whisper-shouted admonishments to cool it. As he continued ramping up, I wondered if any of our well-armed neighbors would take things into their own hands. Fortunately, and I’m not naming names, one of us channeled the voice of Thor, delivering the following carefully considered advice at 150 decibels:
“GRIFFIN . . . SHUT . . . UP!!!!”
As the echoes faded, we were aware that this sonic event was not only permanently etched into the minds of the Spring Lake community, but that scientists of the future will be able to see evidence of the interchange in tree rings and sediment cores.
Yup. That’s how it’s done at the Yellow Cabin.
Griffin woke up early this morning and intercepted me as I was finishing getting dressed. He wondered whether he had had a dream about a big “boom” that shook his bed or if it had really happened. In the darkness, in Sarah’s sewing room, we reviewed the facts. Had I had heard the boom? Was the dog next door barking? Did Maggie wake up? We determined that it was probably a dream, but it might have been a Boomba: a monster made of tires that can make really loud booming sounds. (This is the first I’ve heard of a Boomba, but Griffin knows many things that I don’t.)
Griff wanted to come downstairs and help me with breakfast. And he was a great helper—putting dishes away, starting the toaster, and asking many probing questions about my breakfast cooking technique. (Daddy, why don’t you put all the butter in the pan to watch it melt? What would happen if we turned the toaster to broil?)
Then, Daddy, can we listen to music? I put on my trusty Eels mix, and Griff sat with me while I ate, asking many questions about the songs and repeating the tracks that he liked. I explained that the lyrics had lots of inappropriate words, so he couldn’t sing them at school or at friend’s houses. He accepted this without question.
A few minutes later, someone peering in the window would have seen Griffin, in his PJs, and me, in my school clothes and backpack, pirouetting around the dining room, belting out the sublime refrain from Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues:
“Goddamn right it’s a beautiful day!”
And it is.
On Saturday we completed our annual pilgrimage to Franconia Sculpture Park, which remains as magical as ever. (In my understated way, I referred to it as the 8th wonder of the world when we first visited in 2011.)
This trip was further enhanced by the presence of our friends Katrina, Jason, and Hendrick who moved to Minnesota at the beginning of the summer. They were part of our birthing group in the bay area, and Hendrick was born just a month before Griff. It’s been fun seeing Griffin and Hendrick play together as full-size kids, when they used to gurgle on a play mat together back in Oakland. We’re grateful that both of our families have landed in the same place again.
I tried to mention the artists and the titles of their sculptures in the captions, though I didn’t record the outhouse one and can’t find it online. Most of the artists haves pages linked from a page at the Franconia website.  They all have interesting stories, but I was particularly struck by the story of Michael Richards, the artist behind the “Are You Down?” sculpture featuring three Tuskeegee Airmen in a black sand circle. He created the original sculptures in resin in 2000, and then began a residency at the World Trade Center. He was killed on September 11, 2001. Franconia led a successful kickstarter campaign to have his pieces cast in bronze (his original intent). The fully realized piece was unveiled on September 11, 2012. It is the only permanent installation at the park.
It’s been a great weekend for wildlife at the cabin. We spotted the otters cavorting in the lake yesterday, the first time Andrew and the kids have seen them. They were leaping and diving in the west bay, near the old beaver lodge. We got quite close to them in the canoe, and could clearly hear them chittering. Very exciting!
The loons are present as always, though they’ve kept their distance. Their calls, especially after dark, are as haunting and beautiful as ever. We also spotted a bald eagle on the island, along with a kingfisher and a smaller bird of prey, a kestrel perhaps? Some sort of white crane or heron flew low across the water too.
Beneath the surface we spotted a perch, plenty of minnows, a turtle, and lots of frogs and leeches along the marshy shoreline. Griffin loves the leeches and catches them with ease. He’s inspired us to be less concerned about them. They’re slow to attach, painless, easy to remove, and harmless. (Unlike mosquitoes and ticks, leeches rarely harbor anything harmful to humans since they primarily feed on amphibians.) I’ll take them over all the other bloodsucking pests.
During our swim yesterday we also found a sizable rib, probably from a deer.
Finally, we learned recently that there is a northern flying squirrel nesting near the cabin! They are nocturnal, so we haven’t spotted her, but Jeff saw her on his last visit. Her distinctive voice is quite noticeable just after sunset.
Enjoy a few photos below of some migratory mammals we’ve seen quite a bit of.
We packed up the car this morning and are off to the famed Yellow Cabin for a weekend of wilderness adventures. We forgot the good camera (doh!) but will use our phones to record a bit.
For starters, here’s our lively cast of intrepid adventurers on the journey north:
Arrival:
Today we headed to the always engaging Tamarack Nature Center. It’s a fantastic, free, county park that features rocks to climb, caves and tunnels to explore, an extensive stream and sand area (great for building huge dams), and a massive demonstration garden. Although we’ve been many times in the past, this was the first time this summer, and it’s very adventuresome.
Enjoy the pics — click to see big ones.
Today’s adventures were constructed around Sarah and Andrew’s dental adventures. The main excitement was at Nicollet Commons Park in Burnsville, about 20 minutes south of Saint Paul. It’s a free “splash pad” style park, with an extensive set  of pools, waterfalls, and fountains. It’s another new park for us — we read about it in a magazine highlighting local water parks.
Click on a picture to see an immersive slideshow.
