We began President’s Day weekend with a flurry of activity out of the house, and then returned home to a cozier flurry of activity inside the house. Some of us chose to doodle, while others dabbled in 3D programming, while still others cooked and wrote and read.

Mr. Enigma sat down to draw in his sketch book. The Duke walked by on his way to do something else, noticed that Dad was drawing, peeked over his shoulder and asked, “What are you drawing?”

Monkey see, monkey do

They talked about the drawing for a moment while my husband kept working. Suddenly, The Duke grabbed a chair and pulled it up alongside Mr. Enigma’s recliner. Then he went into his room, grabbed his sketch book and pencil, and sat down next to his Dad and began drawing.

They worked that way for at least half an hour, and what a special, bonding time it was. Completely unplanned and uncoerced, creativity begot creativity.

While this side-by-side drawing was going on, my daughter was hogging my laptop, programming her first 3D animation in Alice. She took the tutorial and spent about an hour noodling around. Her finished piece was, as she put it, “A Shakespeare kind of thingy,” by which she meant a whole bunch of characters fought, declared their love for each other, and died, all in a 20-second animated movie.

What was I doing? Well, my daughter was using my computer, so I read, started getting dinner ready, and took pictures of my family just hanging out and doing stuff. It was a good day.

To see scenes from my daughter’s first movie, click the link below.

Keep reading… »

Meet Ooch (a.k.a. Brett Outchcunis), a professional yo-yoer (sp?). He does the most amazing tricks with a yo-yo, AND he gets paid by Yomega to promote their products and teach people how to yo-yo. He’s especially good with a crowd of kids, which we learned this past Saturday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Family Day in Boston.

How’s “professional yo-yo guy” for an unconventional job? Can’t you just hear the adults (but probably not his parents) in Ooch’s youth needling him with comments like, “Those yo-yo tricks are great, but you can’t get a job as a yo-yoer. Why don’t you apply yourself to school/work/something-serious-but-uninteresting like you do to that yo-yo.”

Heh. And here he is now, still playing with a toy and actually getting paid to do it, a living testament to do what you love and the money will follow.

You hear that kids? Do what you love, follow your dreams, and don’t let anyone tell you you can’t. [/steps off soapbox]

During Saturday’s show, which focused on the physics of yo-yos, Ooch invited my daughter on stage to demonstrate a key physical property of the ever-popular “around the world” yo-yo trick: centripetal force. Ooch is clearly blown away by my girl’s mad cup-swinging skillz. Who wouldn’t be?

Tags: yo-yos, Ooch, Brett Outchcunis, AAAS, yo-yo physics, do what you love

Whew. I think I’m finally recovering from all the excitement - I’d forgotten how much energy it takes to win a Super Bowl!

So which one is Goliath?

The Giants deserved the win. They won three tough playoff games on the road, including the NFC championship game in Green Bay where it was so cold it looked like Tom Coughlin’s face was going to fall off. And on Sunday, they played hard the entire game and even recovered from a couple of big mistakes. As the lead changed hands for the final time in the 4th quarter, it was hard to contain my exuberance in a room full of Patriots fans.

So I didn’t.

It’s a shame we live in hostile territory, too far from NYC to take the kids to the parade today. They were rooting for the Patriots — silly kids — but I bet they would have enjoyed the celebration in NY. It might have even helped them put their sports loyalties in the proper perspective.

I’m thinking about taping the front page of yesterday’s local paper to the window next to my front door. It sports the headline “Super Shock” with a large photo of a dejected Tom Terrific.

Would that be mean?

Tags: NY Giants, Super Bowl, Patriots

You seriously can’t argue with this:

Because all holidays have been created by humans and are, therefore, made up, our family decided that we not only could but should make up our own winter holiday. We haven’t finished figuring out just what our holiday will be, but we do seem to have agreed that any quality holiday should at the very least include:

• chocolate
• comic books
• family
• food
• music

Those items aren’t listed in order of importance, although I would argue that chocolate does, indeed, rank first.

Happy winter holidays, no matter how/if/why you celebrate.

Tags: winter holiday, holidays, chocolate, family

I‘m somewhat new to the medium of comics in general and graphic novels in particular, which is odd because for 15 years I’ve been married to a guy who owns hundreds, if not thousands, of comic books. They’re all bagged, boarded, and stored away where the kids can’t get their sticky little fingers on them — unless they ask first. I admit I’ve been a bit of a book snob, looking down on comics as a lesser form of storytelling, as genre unworthy of my precious little free time, rather than as a legitimate storytelling medium or format that works well for many genres. Until recently, I not only had no interest in comics, but I actively stayed away from them. I mean, really, aren’t comic books for kids?

Why, yes they are! Some of them, anyway. (But many, if not most, are not.) And miraculously one day my kids started reaching the age where they could appreciate comic books. And poof! I was seeing comic books lying around the house. Turns out, comic books are a fantastic medium for my son because he’s still learning to read. He can follow the basic storyline of a decent comic book even if he can’t read the text. And comic books don’t make him feel like he’s reading a “baby book,” as some of the cute-little-bunny-laden early readers make him feel. Plus, even after he’s read a comic book to himself, he still wants me or my husband to read him the book from cover to cover, so he eventually understands the entire story.
Keep reading… »

Tags: graphic novels, comic books, comics, book snob, learning to read

That is the question.

But it shouldn’t be.

Check out the discussion at Joanne Jacobs’ blog about bathroom breaks in school. Here’s the USA Today article that prompted the blog post.

Bathroom bullying and vandalism are real problems that schools must obviously address, but that doesn’t mean kids shouldn’t be allowed to use the restroom when they need to. Want to get rid of bullying and vandalism in the bathrooms? Keep a limited number of bathrooms open at any time (depending upon the size of the school and the age range of the kids) and have an adult sit in the hallway nearby to check hall passes and to make sure nobody’s doing something they shouldn’t be doing in the bathroom. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, the tone of some of the quotes in the article and the blog comments make my head spin. Not only do some teachers not care that students are waiting too long to use the bathroom because of idiotic teacher and/or school policies, but some teachers (and I emphasize “some”) just really don’t like their students.

One commenter at Jacobs’ site brags about telling students that if they want to use the bathroom during his class period, they have to stay after school for ten minutes. He claims he never really makes them stay, but that doesn’t make his blatant power play and humiliation of the students any less despicable.