Sunday, May 29, 2011

Spring Sing, Maker Faire

It has been RAINING this month. Not a whole lot, but we all know that part of the mortgage is going toward predictably warm and sunny weather in May and I, for one, am a little resentful. Johnny's school held their annual Spring Sing outside despite the rain (it was almost cancelled because there were no contingency plans in place because as I mentioned, it's not supposed to rain in May). Kids wore their winter gear and sang under a little tent.




Last weekend, we went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo, where it was also cold. Lots of cool stuff to see and do:

Climbing up a work of art

that you can pedal.

Pretty awesome. 


Same booth, different stuff to try out.
Next to the Halo costume maker booth


Johnny is tired.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Flat Stanley's Visit

An old friend of mine from Chicago brought his family out to SF for spring break, and we spent a little time with them. Their youngest son, who's Dan's age, enjoyed himself enough that we became the recipients of Flat Stanley.

(As you may or may not know, Flat Stanley is the protagonist of a series about a boy who is flattened by bulletin board and takes advantage of his new shape to mail himself places, get into and out of things ordinary people can't, etc. It has become a common 2nd grade project to mail a Flat Stanley to some faraway place and ask for photos and information to be mailed back with him.)

Well. We couldn't let AC down. So we took Flat Stanley out and showed him a good time. What a great excuse to get out and do something fun!

First the Monterey Bay Aquarium (well, we do that one fairly often, considering the distance):


Dan and Flat Stanley looking out over Monterey Bay. We often see sea otters playing by the rocks.

Johnny is tired.


The next weekend, we all went to SF, rode the cable car, visited the Maritime Museum in Marine Park, and hit the ice cream shop in Ghiradelli Square:

In line for the cable cars



At the Maritime Museum

It was kind of windy.

Golden Gate Bridge in the background!

And there's Alcatraz Island.

Rowing

Hot fudge sundae at Ghiradelli Square. Johnny had a tantrum when this arrived at the table because he had actually asked for a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone, NOT a sundae. It took him a few minutes, but he got over it.

Breezy and a little chilly, too.



Monday, May 23, 2011

Just for fun







Johnny found the photobooth icon on my laptop and we played around with it for a while. Thanking my lucky stars for curious children--I never would have touched it otherwise. 

Civil Disobedience III: The Universe is Laughing Up Its Sleeve

All of that agonizing over what to do about testing, how it would go over, how Dan would feel about it. And then this:

Dan sailed blithely through Days 2 and 3 of testing (Tuesday and Wednesday), sitting at his desk and reading the Boxcar Children series. On Wednesday afternoon, the carpool mom called to see if she could take the boys out for ice cream, since it was so hot. Okay, sure.

A few minutes later,  I got a text saying that Dan had a headache and wasn't feeling well--had even refused ice cream, a sure sign of illness--and that she'd be bringing him right home.

By the time he walked in the door, he was in tears; he had a full-blown migraine with fever, upset stomach, everything. He didn't even make it up the stairs. Just curled up on the big chair in the dark, cool downstairs room and cried.

He was still quite sick on Thursday, and on Friday he was about 85% so I kept him at home and he missed Testing Days 4 and 5. Then on Sunday afternoon, Mother's Day, just after RT left for a 5-day work trip, I found nits in Dan's hair. So Dan missed Days 6 and 7 (Monday and Tuesday) as well.

On Wednesday, he returned to school for the eighth and final day of testing.

So in all, Dan participated in testing for one day, abstained for two days, didn't even make it to school for four days, and abstained the final day. Whew! So the effect of the conscientious objection was somewhat diminished--not enough consecutive days for it to make an impression big enough for kids to go home and tell their parents. But who am I kidding--chances are they wouldn't have anyway. And I need to stop taking myself so seriously.

At least he didn't have to do the make-up tests.

Monday, May 16, 2011

So much to talk about, but

no time right now. So instead, a quote from today.

Dan (without irony): Mom, can you think of anyone in this house who's really skinny?

Um, you?

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Civil Disobedience II

And on Monday evening, after the first day of testing (actually, it was a day of bubbling in name, school, etc., and doing a bunch of sample questions together), Dan said, "I think I don't want to do the tests, after all." He asked a couple of questions along the lines of "It's not like at Hogwart's, where you have to pass the test in order to move on to third year? You don't have to pass the tests to go to third year?"

So I wrote the note to the principal, emailed his teacher, and dropped him off at school with Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke.

Dan ended up forgoing Dragon Rider in favor of the Dragon Slayer's Academy series and the Boxcar Children series, which his teacher has in the classroom. His friends asked why he wasn't taking the tests, and he replied that his mom said he didn't have to. The standard response was apparently, "Oh."