Easter Egg Hunts

It seems that every year there are more and more Easter Egg Hunts. This year we had the following:

1. Friday night there was an Easter Egg / pizza / movie night at the karate school. Pete and Sam both went (along with Pete's friend Brandon), so mom and dad had a romantic trip to Home Depot and Toys R Us. There were 80 kids at the event. Pete won an Easter basket (see picture, below) for finishing in first place in a competition they had. The competition was not egg-related. It involved various physical feats. Apparently Pete also won the other competition they had, so they gave the prize for that one to the second place finisher. This is also the event where Sam collided with another boy, who ended up with a broken nose.


2. The Easter Bunny left eggs scattered throughout the house for the kids to find Sunday morning.

3. Later Sunday morning, there were some egg hunting activities at Church. Pete won a large candy necklace for finding the match to his egg. They also had a little petting zoo, with bunnies, chicks, and lambs. The poor animals were outside in about 30 degree temperatures (April cold snap we have had for almost a week now). Sam also got a little stuffed lamb that he calls "lamby". Coincidentally, I think this is what God called Jesus.

4. Sunday 1:30 was the annual Merrywood Court Easter Egg Hunt (picture below - of course Pete is the only kid not plainly visible in the picture). This year they color-coded the eggs, with color restrictions on each of the age groups (to make sure the little kids could get some of them). The best part of this event is that everyone says the pledge-of-allegiance before the hunting can begin.

5. Sunday evening we did some additional in-house egg hunts. First mom hid the eggs, then Pete, then Sam, and finally dad. The best part was when Sam hid the eggs. We usually give little hints to help each other find things. For example, "If an egg is what you seek, walk three steps forward then take a peek" or "to find an egg in all this junk, look for something with a trunk". But Sam's hints are the best because they have no subtlety. They are always like: "If you want to be the winner, look on that shelf right there". Then he points to the egg and starts screaming.

Pop Music on Jeopardy

The generation gap became apparent the other night as I watched the Pop Music category in Jeopardy. Click here to see the questions, if you want to try them before reading the commentary below.

I am quite certain that Pete would know exactly 4 of the 5 answers - Justin Timberlake, Fergie, Panic at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance - and he would have no clue about the other one. In contrast, I also suspect that most of my generation would only be able to answer 1 of the 5 - the one about Madonna. (Is she still alive?)

Play Doh With Cousins

Here Pete is doing some Play-Doh with cousins Shayna and Skyler. Sam is not pictured - he must have run out to the store for some groceries.

Play-Doh is something that used to be easy:
1. Make an imaginary figure.
2. Put Play-Doh back in container and close lid.

With the newfangled Play-Doh kits, it is more like:
1. Take out various Play-Doh devices
2. Try to squeeze Play-Doh through various molds
3. Too hard to squeeze. Ask parents to help
4. Ask parents to spend 20 minutes trying to get Play-Doh out of holes/nooks/crannies in molds
5. Try to eat creations that look exactly like food
6. Throw all devices into large bin. Don't bother trying to close the lid

Also, you may have observed the Spongebob toys in the picture. These are like the "magic 8-ball". You ask it a question, and get an answer that contains a bad nautical pun. Sam is funny because he never asks it a question. He just makes declarations.

Dad: "Sam, ask Spongebob a question"
Sam: "Ok."
Sam: "I am going to have pizza for lunch and pizza for dinner"
[shakes it violently. looks for answer]
Sam: "It says Crab-solutely!!!"

Tee Ball

Pete has started playing Tee Ball. We have had three practies so far. He is on the Texas Rangers. Here he is playing shortshop. Clearly, his fielding stance resembles that of a well-known former Texas Ranger. You can see that Pete is wearing his Rangers cap in the picture. The reason he is wearing his Eagles shirt is that the Jerseys didn't come in yet.

Last week dad and Pete had the chance a few times for their first real catch - the quintessential father-son activity. Pete can catch most fly balls if they are thrown to his glove side at eye level. He is also pretty good at fielding grounders. By the way, it seems that 99% of all batted balls in Tee Ball are grounders.

Horsepen Hidey Hole

We went Geocaching on Sunday, joined by cousins Shayna and Skyler. Shayna is the one crossing the brook in the picture. The cache was called Horsepen Hidey Hole. It was a good cache, with lots of toys and two travel bugs. Sam took a Cookie Monster travel bug. We also left a travel bug that Shayna brought from Pennsylvania.

Cousin Skyler is funny. He is at the age where he is learning a lot of words. He usually says "no" before everything. This can mean one of three things. Sometimes it means "no". Sometimes it means "yes". And sometimes it represents a whole sentence.

Examples of Skyler-talk:

"no-night-night" - This means "I don't want to go to bed"

"no-juice" - This means "I would like some juice"

"noooo" - Walking to the playground on Saturday, this meant "I want to ride on Shayna's back"

Pete Wuz Heer

Good news - in case aliens invade Earth and investigate our kitchen door, they will know that Pete was here.


On a related note, if you had bet on Sam being the first one to write on the walls then you lose.

Trip to Radio Station

Pete's Tiger Scout group went to visit a local radio station last Saturday in Leesburg, VA. It is actually in an old house that was converted to a radio station, at the end of a cul-de-sac in a residential neighborhood. The station is WAGE 1200 AM, and has been operating for many years.

They recorded their own commercial, "This is the Tiger Scouts from Pack 1151. Good morning, Loudoun County!". Then the station manager played the commercial a few times during his oldies show. We heard it back at home right after the 11:00 news.

They liked the control room. Everything was computerized. They even lock the doors at night, and leave the computer playing syndicated shows until they come in around 5:00 in the morning. The station was a fascinating mix of old and new. For example, you can see the ancient clock on the wall, in the same room with the fancy touch screen. Other rooms had racks of old magazines and tapes, next to both old and new recording equipment.

Pete and Christopher found some satellite dishes just beside the station.

School Dance

Pete went to his first school dance last Friday. It was a luau, so he got to wear a Hawaiian shirt:


Mom, Dad, and Sam came also. After about 20 minutes of running around trying to get lost among the 500 people there, Sam was ready to go. He walked home with dad in the flying backpack (about 1 mile).

The dance included events such as limbo and hula hoop contest.

Carry the Seasons

Driving home from Tee Ball yesterday, Sam kept asking about the part in Elmopalooza with "carry the seasons". Pete said he didn't remember anything like that. And if Pete doesn't remember, there is no chance that dad will remember. So after dinner we watched Elmopalooza again.

It turns out that it was the part where Oscar asked if anyone had any pepper and Bert said he had some in his pocket. Then they were all giving Bert strange looks and he said "what, you don't all carry around your own seasonings?". Once we figured this out, it took a while to explain to Sam, as you can imagine.

I was reminded of the time we were listening to a song on the radio called "This Aint a Scene, It's an Arms Race". Pete kept asking what an Arms Race is. You would be surprised how difficult a concept that is to explain. Maybe next time I will just send him to Wikipedia, which is how anybody learns about anything anymore. By the way, explaining Arms Race is only half the battle, because you still have to explain what is meant by the title "This Aint a Scene, It's an Arms Race".

Caching on the Washington Old Dominion Trail

One Sunday afternoon we went out to look for a Geocache called "Encroachment" on the Washington - Old Dominion trail. We actually went on the "horse trail", which runs right next to the actual trail but doesn't get all of the bicyclists racing by.

Pete managed to find this cache completely on his own. It was in amongst the branches you can see of the left side of the picture. He also found another cache on the same trail, a week later, also by himself.

Sam decided to wear his Clifford sandals for this rugged hike. Then he ended up walking barefoot most of the way. Needless to say, Pete got to the cache site before he did. Sam also met two dogs on the hike - Bailey and Jordan.

Tournament #3

Pete finished 5th out of 15 entrants in his division at his third tournament last weekend. So he got his first plaque, for being a finalist.

Spelling Bee - Year 2

Pete and dad went to the Loudoun county spelling bee on Monday night. This is the second year in this tradition (click here for last year). The insufferable speeches at the beginning were shorter this year, so we got to see the whole first round, grab a snack in the cafeteria (letter-shaped cookies), and still make it home before 9:00.

We wrote all the words on paper before the kids spelled them. We fared better than last year, this time spelling all 91 words correctly. Although we had to guess on one word, sitzmark, with which we were not familiar.

The champion from Pete's school, Rebecca, was still alive through the second round when we left. We will have to check in the newspaper to see who won. Pete will first be eligible to compete four years from now in 2011.

Scout's Own

On Sunday morning of a camp-out, scouts do a service called "Scout's Own". This is because they will not be able to make it to church. There are a few songs, and some inspirational reading.

One of the readings we did talked about the things scouts need to be. I took special note of the part that said "Scouts are cheerful". Dad is always cheerful, but about half the time Pete is Mr. Grump. Dad tried mentioning this to Pete one afternoon when he was being especially grumpy.

Dad: "Remember, scouts are supposed to be cheerful"
Pete: "I'm not a scout right now"

Sigh. Well, it was worth a try.

Cub Scout Camping Trip - Soggy Morning

Here is what our tent looked like on Sunday morning of the cub scouts campout. The soggy ground is a result of the significant rains throughout the night. You may also be able to see the water droplets on the rain fly. By the way, there is someone sleeping in that green sleeping bag. The temperature got down to about 30 degrees, so the best way to sleep was sealed up inside the bag.

Caching at the Cub Scout Campout

Pete and dad decided to skip out during the dinner break and search for a geocache in the park.

Here is Pete after he located the cache (in the trunk of the tree behind him). We brought the octopus toy home for Sam.


Here is my failed attempt, on the walk back to camp, to get a picture of the sunset.

Cub Scout Camping Trip - Stations

Pete went to five stations on the camping trip where he learned about scouting topics. His partner was his friend, Christopher, who lives very close to us in Ashburn.

1. Fishing - Learned about types of fish native to the area, and techniques for catching them.

2. Hiking - Learned the 8 things that a cub scout should always have when hiking.

3. Planting - Planted some watermelon seeds.

4. Birds - Learned about some types of birds, and made a bird feeder from a pine cone.

5. Leave No Trace - Learned about leaving things in nature as you find them, not leaving trash, etc.

Cub Scout Camping Trip

Pete and Dad had a lot of fun on last weekend's camping trip with the cub scouts. This was re-scheduled from the fall trip, which was cancelled due to a chance of rain in the forecast. Ironically, it rained more on this trip than it was forecast to rain on the cancelled one.

Here is Pete sitting with the group as they hear about the activities scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Later this week, we will discuss more memories of what Pete did on the trip.

New Show

Pete has been watching the new game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader". It is essentially the same as "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire", with some kids thrown into the mix.

So we are pretty much done with "Deal or No Deal". This seems reasonable, since Deal or No Deal is probably of interest to people of Kindergarten age or lower, while "Are You Smarter" seems a bit more intellectual.

One cool thing about the show is they ask things that you forget when you get older, so in general Pete does roughly about as well as mom or dad. If you don't believe this, just watch the show a few times and you will see that the kids never get a single question wrong, while the adult contestants seem to be correct about half the time.

Dessert Monogram

Pete and Sam have different requirements for their ice cream dessert toppings.

Pete
Cool Whip
Rainbow Sprinkles
Chocolate Syrup

Cherry Syrup

Honey
Other (e.g. sometimes little marshmallows, etc.)

Sam

Just some chocolate syrup in the shape of an "S":

Blue Leaf

Our new code word for brushing teeth before bed is "blue leaf". This is because Sam always asks dad if he can "have a sip of green leaf", since dad's mouth rinse has a picture of a green leaf on it. So when mom brought home a blue rinse for kids, we started to call it blue leaf. The good news is that most of the time Sam has figured out how to spit it out instead of swallowing it.

Here is Pete holding blue leaf. He is wearing his cool Megaman pajamas that he got from dad for Christmas. Also, notice that the frogs from the old house have made their way back on to the walls of the boys' bathroom.

Colorful Clothes

Pete decided on Saturday that he wanted to wear as many colors as possible, provided that none of them match. So he ended up with his Snowshoe shirt and Eagles pants.


Side note, this is the last picture before we managed to cut his hair. His hair looked much better after we cut it - but somehow the next day he had it back to how it was before. He said he just messed with it and it reverted back. Sigh.

IHOP Walk

Pete's friend Caleb slept over on Saturday. We had a brisk walk to IHOP for dinner. It was during the height of the lunar eclipse, but it was too cloudy to see the moon. Here is everyone with their flashlights.


By the way, Sam was in the "flying" backpack.

For The Birds

We had some burnt bread on Saturday, so Sam and I decided to put it outside for the birds. Here is Sam watching one of the birds eat our bread. If you look at the top of his head, the bird is just to the right.

After this, we took down the snowflakes from the windows to start getting ready for spring. We tried to watch the lunar eclipse later in the evening, but it was too cloudy.

Sam on Youtube Revisited

Now that Sam's video on Youtube has passed 11,000 views, it is fun to go in occasionally and read the comments. I like the guy who said "this is as much singing as a donkey jumping into a lake". Very colorful - I have not heard that expression before.



If you can't read the comments in the picture above, you can click here to see the video page on Youtube.

Valentine

We had a meeting with Pete's 1st grade teacher to come up with some ideas that will challenge him in class. One of the things we realized is that they have a mandate to do several hours of literacy work in the morning, but Pete was tested as reading at a 5th grade level.

The first thing Pete started to do is bring home advanced books for reading practice. They label the books. I think when the book is rated 4.6, that means it is about right for a student in the middle of 4th grade.

The second thing Pete has been doing is special projects in class. Sometimes he does an activity by himself on the computer and then presents it to the class. Mrs. Vinson also said that he can do special projects at home and then bring them in and present them to the class.

Below is a valentine he worked on last week. He said he wrote it all by himself and typed it and did the artwork on the computer.

First Assembly

We went to the first grade show at Pete's school on Tuesday. It was very patriotic. They did poems and songs related to President's Day. See this earlier post to see Pete practicing one of the songs that they did. When we heard it with the music, we could see why he had carefully paused a few times during his practice video.

Sam had fun at the show too. He kept whispering questions, such as "Is Pete going to sing The Black Parade"?


The show was more multi-media than the assemblies when we were kids. Laptop, coordinated CD player, projector. It was almost like a U2 concert. They flashed some artwork on the screen. Below is a picture by Pete. It was hard to capture with the lighting and angle. Of course, Pete's picture had the straightest lines. He was probably sitting there with his ruler long after they had started the next activity in class.

Value

Pete and Sam both have a "treasure box" where they can keep all of those valuable trinkets they pick up here and there. Pete's treasure box has about two dozen objects of various origin. Too much to detail here - perhaps he will write about them on his blog sometime.

Sam's box currently contains these two objects:


We found the army man on the beach in Nags Head, and the silver keychain guy was found lying in the parking lot of dad's office. We think he may be the offspring of an unholy union between the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. As you can see, the situation in the treasure box has grown a bit tense for this little guy at the moment.

Of course, Sam has developed an attachment to these objects, so he does not want us to get rid of them. It is interesting to think about the concept of intrinsic value vs. market value for objects. My old toothbrush has $0.00 value, but if Paris Hilton used it to murder Clay Aiken it would instantly become one of the most sought after objects in the known universe. So it is fun sometimes to take objects and attach sentimental value to them.

Starburst Spinner

Here is one of Pete's recent K'nex creations. I think it is called the Starburst Spinner, but he will correct me otherwise.


Here is what they are thinking in the picture:

Pete: "Oh no! Sam is deviously planning to destroy my Starburst Spinner!"

Sam: "I am planning to destroy this Starburst Spinner."

Today's Assignment

Snow Bath

The boys were not interested in going outside yesterday to play in the 7 inches of fresh snow, so I brought some in for them to play with in the bath.

Rea's Party

Pete went to a party Friday night at Chuck E. Cheese. It was for Rea, a girl in his class.

Fortunately, there was another boy at the party too (one of Pete's friends, Mitchell). Pete shared his extra tokens that he brought with Mitchell. He informed me later that in fact he gave most of his tokens to Mitchell. Of course, this brought back memories of the vending machine from camp last summer.

It is a tricky concept what to teach children about sharing. For me personally, I often get more joy out of giving something away than from using it myself. Of course you want to teach sharing, and giving. But on the other hand you don't want them to give away most of what they have to others. Or do you?

This raises the broader question - do you always teach what you believe is right, but more difficult? Or do you teach what is the norm in society, if perhaps that will cause less heartache? What about other beliefs that go against the prevailing sentiment of society? Do you teach those things? As another example, do people endorse the vesre of the Bible where Jesus says "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well."? How many of these people do you think honestly teach that principle to their children?

Next Friday Pete has another birthday party at, you guessed it, Chuck E. Cheese's.

Exercise

Although this may appear to be part of a karate routine, Pete and Sam are actually doing an exercise video that we checked out of the library. This particular exercise utilizes a move called the "tiger claw". Now if we can just get a DVD which includes an exercise called "go outside", then we would have something.

Bad Strategy

When I put Pete to bed last night, I said "don't call me for anything, I still need to eat dinner." Usually this is enough to keep things quiet, but 20 minutes later I heard him calling me.

So I had an idea. I would bring my sandwich with me to his room. Then I would cover him up, point to the sandwich, and head back downstairs.

I was just exiting his room, when I heard a faint "hey, what kind of sandwich is that?" 15 minutes of questions later, it was clear that the sandwich strategy had backfired.

Hair Hair Everywhere

Do you remember the poem about "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out"? Well, replace Sarah with Pete, and replace garbage with "get his hair cut".

Here is a picture of Pete from about a week ago:


Here is my computerized projection of what he will look like by Friday:


We've been trying to explain to him how dreadfully long and messy his hair is getting. But he always twists it around to not be a big deal. Example:

Me: Did your cousins tease you about your long hair when you saw them last weekend?
Pete: No, in fact they only asked me one question about it.
Me: Oh. What question was that?

Pete: They just wanted to know how many months ago was the last time I had it cut.

Something Wonderful

Something wonderful happened this week.

It began with a nasty ice storm. It sleeted so hard on Tuesday evening that Sam was awakened at various times during the night. School was cancelled for the rest of the week. Of course, this means karate is cancelled also. We had to shovel heavy ice in frigid temperatures. While shoveling, we noticed that one of the car windows had shattered. We had to make many phone calls to get the repair scheduled. The repair place cancelled at the last minute, leaving mom and the boys unable to take the car to Virginia Beach. The best remaining option was to meet for lunch and swap vehicles, so dad could work on clearing out the shards of the broken window and patch it until such time that we can re-schedule the repair.

So we all met for lunch to swap vehicles, and had a wonderful family lunch together. I am overjoyed that a broken window gave us an unscheduled opportunity for a great lunch together.

Interactive Bedtime Stories

Once in a while I make up a bedtime story for Pete instead of reading an ordinary story. When there’s time, we do it “Choose Your Own Adventure” style, so Pete gets to determine the course of the story. The characters in the story are usually two young boys, with names like Jete and Yam or Geet and Spam.

Here are some examples of choices Pete would have in the story. See if you can decide which one Pete would choose in each example:

Jete’s mom calls him in to the house for lunch. If he puts his bike away in the garage, turn to page 35. If he leaves it out where Yam might try to ride it, turn to page 40.

If Yam puts the vegetables onto his plate, go to page 52. If he puts them into the blender, go to page 57.

If Geet sits to wait for someone to bring a key, go to page 80. If he tries to use Spam’s head as a battering ram, go to page 86.

Deliberate Practice

I thought this paper about "deliberate practice" was interesting. It addresses the myth that massively superior achievement is predicated entirely upon being born with a genetic gift. The true differentiator, according to the study, is an individual's ability to apply deliberate practice. This essentially means practicing something for many hours a day, for years, with directed goals toward greatness.

At first I found this discovery to be encouraging. This means that our children can achieve greatness, even if they are not at the top of their field at the youngest age.

But then as I thought about it, I was discouraged. You still need to be born with a rare gift. It is just the wrong gift that people look for. The gift is not skill. The gift is a rare sense of dedication.

I have come across many parents who feel that their child is one of those gifted geniuses in one field or another. Of course, it is almost impossible for them to see through their own bias. So something I would suggest for them is to think about whether they objectively find that the child will work at an endeavor for hours, pushing through frustration, showing marked, self-directed improvement over time. If so, then they really do have something exceptional.

Spotted on the Marquee

Once or twice on each episode of Drake and Josh, they flash a marquee prior to a scene at the movie theatre where Josh works. It is only on the screen for about 1-2 seconds, so I never paid any attention to the various movie names that are displayed. But yesterday Pete noticed something and asked us to rewind it.

Spelling Practice

Over the weekend, we did some spelling practice at the dinner table. I printed out a list of the all-time most popular tags on Flickr, and Pete and Sam would take turns with a word. On your turn, you need to spell your word and then give a definition (without using the word in the definition). I was pleased that Pete knows how to spell words like Chicago and landscape. Sam did not fare as well.

Me: "Sam, your word is car"
Sam: "b-e-q-u-p-l"
Pete: "Well, at least he did u after q"


Then Pete gave me a word to try:

Pete: "Your word is San Francisco"
Me: "San Francisco. A large, coastal city in Northern California where the 49ers play football."
Pete: "Pretty good. Except you used the word in the definition."

A Patriotic Song

Click the picture below to see Pete singing a song he learned for a show they will be doing at school.

Lo and Behold

Went searching for something on Youtube yesterday and found a surprise.

1. Go to Youtube

2. Search for "Drake and Josh". This is the name of a popular kids' TV show.

3. Scroll down on the first page of results.

When we tried this, we saw the following video with a history of 7,646 views:

Mosh Pit

If the concept of a Mosh Pit did not already exist, there is no doubt that Pete and Sam would have created it. Specifically, if you play any song by My Chemical Romance between dinner and bedtime, the living room will be instantly transformed into a mass of injury.

Spyro Skateboard

Pete called me at the office this afternoon to let me know the important news that he set a new record on Spyro Skateboarding II. He successfully performed the following moves in 2 minutes:

Half-pipe Leap
Triple Twisted Lime
Gnasty Gnorc
Double Twisted Lemon
Triple Towers
Quad Back Flip
Dr. Shemp
Thrash Master

Pretty Cool, Huh?

It does not take much for Sam to get excited. For example, a random lego creation will do.

The interesting thing I noticed when I looked back at this picture is that at the bottom of Sam's shirt is says "Pretty cool, huh?" - like a little caption for his lego thing. Too bad the shirt doesn't say what exactly it is supposed to be.

Greg Crittenden Memorial Park

We did a geocache last Saturday that was in a park just a few miles from the house.

First Snow 2007

Last Sunday we got our first bit of snow for the year. Not much, but enough for a little bit of sledding on the driveway and a snowman.