Frederick under the weather

Today Frederick was definitely not himself. For the first time since he was about two, he actually fell asleep on the couch and had a several-hour-long midday nap. Naturally I was there to give him moral support. Jami reckons it's allergies from the leafmold. That's her explanation for everything, though.

Ready for winter!

As we felt the first nips of Autumn I panicked and got on the 'phone to Walter the hippy wood guy (not as cheap as others, but the wood is always long dead and dried) and ordered SIX cords (I still don't know exactly how much a "cord" is - so I am at his mercy) of wood. And here it is, stacked up by ME at the back of the garage (he parked his truck at the end of our driveway, his large doughy (and yes, I mean doughy not doughty) sons tore themselves away from their GameBoy DSs long enough to load it from the truck into our wheelbarrow, and he ferried it from there up to the garage - a well-oiled wood-unloading machine). Of course, since that day we have had a heatwave. But NEVER MIND. To Winter I say: BRING IT ON.

Call Me Crazy (or Ishmael or something, I really don't care)

I mentioned some time ago that I have been taking a mosaics class at the nearby Flint Institute of Art (FIA--NOT the Flintstitute, as Simon thinks it ought to be named) for over a year. So far, Simon's reaction to all my pieces has been lukewarm at best. I finally challenged him to think up a theme that he would admire and appreciate and, unbelievably, he said, "This!" pointing to a page from a comic book printed in 1974. (So Grandpa didn't manage to incinerate ALL his prized treasures after all!) So, after much thought (WAY too much thought) I came up with a plan to make a replication almost 4'x4' in size. Here is the piece of plexiglass on top of the pieced sections of the picture:

The above picture gives some sense of scale, but here it is, slightly closer, so you can see the image:

And here are the so far uncut pieces of glass that will produce this thing. (And I mean that literally, as it's The Thing. But I am sure some of our readers knew that already. I didn't. I, I must confess, never heard of The Thing before a month ago.)

So tonight I will get started cutting these pieces down into more manageable size (about 1/4" x 1/4") and start getting them in place. I won't bore everyone here with daily updates, but you can find out more on my other blog (woolly-thinking.blogspot.com).

Water Park

Tomorrow morning Thomas is leaving for a 3-day trip to a camp on the other side of Michigan. He is a bit nervous because he believes he will be required to climb a 100-foot climbing wall. So we took him to a nearby park (next to the e coli lake which is filled with huge, gross, slimy carp) which has this climbing wall. He's still nervous about going, but now his main reason is because he is convinced he will committ some unforseeable social gaffe and the other kids will cruelly ostracize him. I'd like to be able to promise him that no such thing will happen, but based on my experiences of childhood I think Thomas's anxieties are completely reasonable.
Meanwhile, here is Frederick (sans shorts, socks and shoes) heading off in his own direction, both literally and metaphorically.

For reasons we don't understand, the water sprays suddenly started working and Thomas and Frederick had a wildly good time running in the sprinkling fountains. Simon and Frederick have been here dozens of times before and there wasn't even a trickle. It was very strange and magical, having the entire place to ourselves with the machines starting up and shutting off seemingly randonly.

And here's Frederick, now without any clothes, enjoying the ridiculousness of it all.

Frederick Jumps for Joy

School is still going well and so, it would seem, is everything else for Frederick.

Simon Wants a Hidey-Hole

Simon has been moaning and groaning about how much he wants a little shed of his own, where he can get away from it all. (Us, I suppose he means.) After much debate (read: heated disagreement), we settled on this back corner of our yard. The pond and tree stump will stay, the compost will have to resettle elsewhere. (No problem, Thomas is too creeped out to go there to drop off our kitchen garbage anyway. I think a big pile right next to the house will be much more convenient and educational, given the variety of lifeforms we support with that heap.)




But here is the problem: While Simon is strong of back and arm, he lacks the, shall we say, wisdom and insight to pull this project off by himself. If ONLY we knew someone with years of experience in shed/shelf/workshop building who could DIRECTLY supervise the project...

Baby Book vol 1

Last year, Thomas was given writing time during the school day. His writings were always interesting and off-kilter, and varied from space journeys to Indiana Jones-like islander adventures (involving the appropriately named Illinois James) to underwater escapades to haunted house mysteries. But I was surprised to come across an entry called Baby Book vol. 1. This is what I found:

Matt the cat was up at bat when a fat rat sat on his hat. Matt swatted at the cat with a flat mat. But that rat was a brat so he spat on poor Matt the cat, who was at bat.

Mail will be brought by a male quail, who likes to flail. He will not fail. He hit a rail. "I will not fail!" he wailed, as he flailed his tail. He gave his mail to a snail, with a boat with a sail, with a loose nail. The snail failed. The mail quail bailed.

Gary the merry fairy carried berries to a scary prairie. Barry buried these berries. Gary then brought cherries to that scary prairie, this time by ferry. Gary was soon very weary, so he went to the ordinary library.

Kate went to the gate to get a crate. Kate will wait. It got late. "This is not great! Where is my crate?" asked Kate. Just then eight crates came through a grate. "Great!" said Kate, no longer frustrated.

Chinese cheese was put on skis. It began to freeze. Suddenly it saw peas and bees. The cheese landed on a trapeze. It began to sneeze and wheeze.

Bob's pet was wet with sweat. Bob's pet will get a jet. The pet is no threat to the vet yet. The pet will forget the duet with Paulette. The pet plays the clarinet.

If only P.D. Eastman was still alive to illustrate these, I think we'd have a best seller.

What Is Thomas Up To?

Here is Thomas, busily working on a Wombat article after school yesterday. The Wombat is his school's newspaper, and he is one of the writers for it. He told me last week that he desperately wants to be picked by Mary, his teacher and the director of the newspaper, to be her co-editor. Apparently she told him that she would pick someone who is willing to work hard, enjoys writing, and is dedicated to making the newspaper an excellent literary piece. Ever since that Thomas has been doing backflips to get her notice--he writes an article every day after school, he speeds through his lunch to race back to class to work more, he skips his recesses to get to his articles in progress--he even wanted to stay after school the other day to do more work. I asked if anyone else wanted to job and, according to him, no one did. Trying to ease his anxiety a bit (without getting his hopes up only to be dashed--been down THAT road before!) I said, "Well, then your chances of being picked are pretty good. I think you can relax and just enjoy your writing. You don't want to burn out." He disagreed, saying that he had to prove to Mary that he knew how to work really, really hard. [Aside: Just so there is no confusion, Thomas is 10 and this is a "newspaper" for the middle school only, is published about 4 times a year, is about 4-6 pages long, and is filled with articles about recent school events, cartoons and such. He's already prduced enough material in this past week to fill 5 editions.] I had visions of him losing sleep (and he is--he stays up in bed writing until midnight or later every night) until this gets settled. I then asked when Mary is going to make her decision. "January," he replied. SHIT! We'll never make it!

MEANWHILE, his percussion teacher, Alyssa, emailed me last night to ask if Thomas would join the Flint Philharmonia, the orchestra for middle and high school age kids, run through the Flint Institute of Music. It seems that percussionists are in short supply and Thomas's sticking is desperately needed. Thomas was flattered, and excited but also a bit nervous. (And I didn't even tell him the part that they will tour in Spring and have a series of performances in Chicago--I'll leave that off until the night before.) Orchestra practice will be on Thursday, from 6:30-8:30 at night--and this is on top of his weekly piano, percussion and bassoon lessons. How will he survive? There's only so much Thomas to go around!