Warrior Dash 2013

Urban Adventure 2013

Ski Trip 2013

T.F. Strikes again!

Yesterday, Travis lost his third baby tooth.

It came out in the middle of the night, so in the morning, he put it in a bag and then wrote a letter to the tooth fairy asking her why she collected teeth, and why she writes backwards.

Her response:

Here it is when viewing it in the mirror:

"Dear Travis,

Where I come from, teeth are very valuable. We use them for many different things, like jewelry or even houses. We don't need money, only teeth.

I write backwards because that is how I learned to write. I come from a special family of tooth fairies that are only visible in the mirror.

Thanks for the tooth!

T.F."

What I Taught my Kid about Manti Te'o

I've been absent from the blog for a while.

Sorry bout that.

I live in Notre Dame country, and the big buzz around here these days is the revelation that our star football player's dead girlfriend story is a hoax.

I, along with many others, was intrigued by young Manti's story amidst the tragic deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend within mere hours of each other. I watched him during the season, cheered him on, and rooted for him to win the Heisman. Finding out this pivotal story was not true has had an unsettling impact on those of us that drew inspiration from his leadership.

My eldest recently turned eight, and now that he's a bit older, I've enjoyed having some more in-depth discussions about all range of topics, like slavery and the civil rights movement, Christianity and homosexuality, love and marriage, all sorts of things. Naturally I keep things age appropriate, but you can bet we're talking.

So tonight, Manti helped me teach my kid some valuable lessons.

1) Everyone makes mistakes. Role models are humans too. Your childhood hero has probably screwed up. Maybe even a lot. But the way that person inspired you is still real, and you can use the way that they made you want to be a better person, and have that fuel your own life. 

2) Don't trust what you see online. People that you don't know in real life may not be what you think.  Use extreme caution with online activities. 

3) Some things have lasting effects. Manti's NFL draft stock has likely plummeted, and this story will follow him the rest of his life. Be aware that some bad decisions can change your entire future.

4) Don't judge people. We talked about how Manti may have been fooled, and then embarrassed about it, and then made up some lies to cover it up. Maybe he even made the whole story up to begin with. We may never even know the story, and it's not really our business to know. But no matter what, and no matter who was involved, we'll never truly know what was in these people's minds and hearts when this went on. And it's not our place to know that; let's focus on being the best people that we can be.

5) Own up to your decisions. What we do know about this situation is that some bad decisions were likely made, and if Manti tried to cover things up because he was embarrassed about those decisions, he certainly didn't do himself any favors. Be truthful about your mistakes, and people will help you through it.

So if nothing else, Manti, thanks for the good conversation pieces tonight. My eight-year-old and I got a lot out of it.

Building the Mammoth

Today, we built the mammoth wooden robot that Noah had gotten for Christmas. (Yes, Christmas, as in 11 months ago. It was sitting on the top of our basement toy shelves, we built the T-Rex robot that Travis had gotten months and months ago; we finally decided to break out the Mammoth today.)

Yes, we're happy!

The head and body

Diligently finding the right part

While the boys and I toiled over the mammoth, Sophie gathered all the spare pieces, and sorted them by shape. 

Almost done 

 Proud of her collection

 Scooter the Mammoth

Fun Saturday project!!

Mean Streets 2012

On a Mission

Below is video from our Nocturnal III: The Mission race this weekend. It was a three-part race; Ben and Tiffany did the 13-mile bike race; Shawn and I did the 3.5 mile trail run; then all four of us teamed up for the night-time adventure race, The Mission. It consisted of five checkpoints, lots of traipsing through the woods, some random obstacles, a little bit of getting lost and a whole lot of headlamps. I'm a bit disappointed we didn't capture any video of me as the "injured soldier" with my ankles zip-tied together attempting to hop a half-mile to the next checkpoint, but let me assure you that was a sight to behold.

It's a good thing Charlotte's not a butterfly

Travis finished reading Charlotte's Web last night.

He's kind of a sensitive kid; he refuses to watch Star Wars with me because he's seen a bit of it and it looked scary; he stopped reading one of his Magic Treehouse books the other night because it got a bit spooky; when Sophie and Noah get engrossed in movies like The Princess Bride, Travis leaves the room because "it just seems like lots of bad things are happening."

So when I tucked him in for bed and kissed him goodnight, knowing he was just two chapters away from Charlotte dying in the book....I hesitated.

I imagined him reading in his bed, like he does each night, coming to the realization that one of the best storybook characters of all time was not going to survive Chapter Twenty-One. I imagined his quivering lip, tears forming in his eyes.

I wasn't sure whether I should warn him of what was coming.

I didn't. Instead, I patted his sweet little head, left him to his book, and went downstairs.

About twenty minutes later, I decided to check on him.

I glanced in his room. He was up on the top bunk, engrossed in the book still.

I climbed up into the bed with him. He was on the last page of the chapter before THE chapter.

He finished the chapter, then flipped the page and kept going. I questioned him:

-----------------------

Travis, are you going to keep reading?

Well, mom, I only have two chapters left and I'm not really tired. I think I'm gonna finish the book tonight.

Okay, well, I just wanted to tell you....there is something really sad that happens in this chapter. I just want to make sure you know that and if you want me to stay here with you while you read it, I will.

Ummm...I think I know.

You do?

I think so. Why don't you tell me what happens and I'll tell you if I'm right?

Actually, why don't YOU tell me what you think is gonna happen, and I'll tell YOU if you're right?

I think....I think Charlotte dies.

......Yes. You're right. Charlotte dies.

I thought so. But.....

Yes, Travis?

I think it's okay. Because I think Wilbur will have her babies to be friends with. 

Yes, that's exactly what happens. Actually, what happens with Charlotte's babies is really cool.

I'm kind of excited to find out about her babies. I think they will help Wilbur to always remember Charlotte.

Yes, he will always remember her. And her babies are really neat. I think you'll really like that part. In fact, Wilbur gets to name some of her babies!

I can't wait to read about that. I bet Charlotte's babies will love Wilbur.

All right, well, it sounds like you're okay then. I just wanted to make sure you were prepared to read about this.

You know mom, most insects die after they lay eggs. Charlotte's not an insect, but I think it's the same for spiders too. It happens to the monarch butterfly, too, but the monarch butterfly only lays one egg and Charlotte lays hundreds!!

----------------------

Yes, Travis is sensitive. He's also incredibly scientific. Particularly when it comes to animals.

Fifteen minutes later, he came downstairs, book in hand:

Mom, Charlotte's Web is my favorite non-series book ever!



I had nothing to worry about.

--------------------------------
As a post-script: I finished reading the last four chapters to the other kids tonight. Sophie kind of lost interest, and in fact was mostly asleep by the end. 

Noah got a little teary-eyed when Charlotte died. Travis crawled in the bed next to him and said, "Noah, you have to listen to the next chapter, it's good news! There was bad news in that chapter, but you're going to love the good news!"

Noah begged for me to read the last chapter. Of course, I obliged. He giggled with delight when the first spider babies crawled out of the egg sac, then jumped up and down when they be-friended Wilbur. When the book was over, he grabbed Travis's hand and said, "Did you hear that book, Travis? Did you hear the baby spiders?!" with such utter joy in his voice I will never forget it.

FInally, he got something wrong.

I've mentioned before that Noah is a bit of a perfectionist.

When he colors outside the lines, or makes the tail on his lowercase "a" a bit too long, he gets upset. He has to start all the way over. It is so distressing to him that he just can't move on until the error has been rectified.

So I was quite pleased when the other day, he showed some signs of being able to accept some imperfections.

We were on the way home after a long day of school and work. Usually, I pick the kids up from my mom's house and, after loading everyone up and ensuring they've all buckled and that everyone has their jackets and lunchbags and mooses and shoes, I'll sit in mom's driveway and look through the boys' backpacks for a moment. Noah's will have some bit of work that he's done at school, cutting and pasting and tracing a few letters. Travis's will have his homework for that evening and a handful of graded homework, assignments completed during school, and tests and quizzes.

I review Travis's graded work to see if there is something we need to go over. I pick out the pages with errors on them (there are usually very few, this kid's work is chock full of VG+'s, which is the A+ of today's second-grader, I don't know if that's supposed to be more politically correct or what the point is, but whatever the reason, Travis is primarily a VG+ student), just so that Travis can take a look at them and see where his mistakes are. Most of the time it's something silly (he's notorious for forgetting punctuation at the end of a sentence).

Anyway, as we drive home, I hand the papers back to him so he can take a look at what he missed. (Don't worry, parenting zealots, I also spend a fair amount of time praising him for his good work. The entire exchange is quite positive and the point is not to just be talking about his mistakes but more to make sure he's got an awareness of what he can improve on.)

Anyway, at this point in the trip, Noah and Sophie insist on also taking a look at Travis's schoolwork. Sophie wants to look at whatever page has pictures on it. Noah wants to look at the math homework.

I don't know why, that's just the way it is.

So, we invariably spend time passing around Travis's work so that Noah can examine the math work (Six plus four is ten! I knew that already! Six plus five is eleven! That one's easy because you just add one more!) and Sophie can giggle at the pictures (This frog is cute mom. He has a hat. I wish I had a frog with a hat. I wish I was a frog. Mom, I'm a frog. I'm wearing a hat.)

So last week, this routine was humming along as per usual, Noah was reviewing the math homework, when he exclaimed, "MOM! I'm good at writing the number two."

That's great, Noah.

He continued, "But I'm GREAT at writing a backwards two!"

I'm empowered by this. My five-year-old no longer considers his tendency to write certain letters or numbers backwards as a failing on his part. Now he's decided he's just particularly talented at writing them that way.

That, my friends, is a talent.

P.S. NO, I'm not worried that I'm encouraging him to not care about doing things correctly. He's so insanely concerned with getting things right so much of the time that I consider it a step in the right direction that he now has the ability to accept what it means to be a five-year-old going through the learning process. I was worried about him getting discouraged too easily by not always getting things right. Being awesome at writing backwards....WIN!

Frolicking

Last weekend, I signed up me and the family for a 2K Fun Run. Ben ended up being out of town, but the rest of us powered through without him.

Actually, Ben was kind of with us in spirit, and he actually got a finishing time recorded, because I had picked up his packet and his race bib with timing chip was in my backpack during the run.

Anyway, I had a super-blast with the kids, they did a great job running the race, and I was very proud of them. When we finished, Travis said, "I want to do another 2k!", to which Noah forlornly responded, "Not me. I want to do a triathlon."

Could be I'm creating some monsters.

Here we are in the photo booth pre-race

Getting ready to line up for the race. We're excited!

Sophie, plugging along

A bit of a walk break

Travis ran most of the way, and this was one of his few walk breaks, but I love the expression on his face here.

Crossing the finish line!!!

High-fives for race medals!!

Happy finishers

Proud of my little brood

Good Practice

Took the kids on a 'training run' for our 2K Fun Run this weekend.

They started off pretty pumped.

This is awesome!!

Then they got a bit worn out.

How much farther??

Then they asked me to carry them.

I did not.

He's an Expert

Noah is showing Sophie how to trace letters on our dry-erase letter flashcards.

Sophie turns to me and says, "Mom, Noah's just a good 'B' maker. Right?"

Why yes, he is.

Parenting in the Next Generation

Yesterday morning, I woke up with an epiphany.

I'd had a dream.

That dream was directly tied to the fact that I constantly find myself saying to the kids....

"Change your attitude!"

I say that because I want the kids to understand that they are in control of their own attitudes, that even if bad things happen to them, the way they react to that is within their complete control.

In my dream, I was contemplating how I could get the kids to actually visualize that, at any given moment, they are selecting an attitude from a random list of any number of attitudes, and that they could feasibly decide to select a better attitude from that list.

I woke up having an ah-ha moment.

My first plan was to build an iPad app. I found a free app creator and got to work. I just wanted something simple, a literal list of "attitudes" from which to select. 

I had the kids help me with the list, coming up with both positive and negative attitudes. 

Building the app

A preview of our app during construction phase

Here's where I ran into a snag. Turns out, you have to pay the App Store $99 in order to get a developer's license to be able to upload. I love my kids, and I like this idea, but not a hundred dollars worth.

I thought I'd be able to create a personal app, and found some tutorials for doing just that on jailbroken iPhones, but I wasn't about to go that route.

So, we re-thought our plan. Instead of an app, I just created a second page on this blog titled Change Your Attitude! that has the same code as my app. 

Then we created an icon on the home page of the iPad that links directly to the Change Your Attitude page. 

Due to the length of the name, the iPad icon shortens its name to Change....itude.

Thus, Travis and I have lovingly nicknamed this program Changeitude.

 The kids pointing out the Changeitude "app"

Noah selecting an attitude

Feel free to check it out.

I'm officially frightened.

Alright.

Ben's a smart guy.

I'm pretty mathematically inclined.

So it's not surprising that our kids are smart. Left-brained smart. Like, tell me how much something costs in dollars and I will tell you how many 25¢ marbles that is worth smart.

Sometimes, Travis struggles with his Math Tracks at school. This is a program the school uses that prescribes certain math work to the students in a progressive method.

Despite Travis's stellar math skills, he falls behind at math tracks, I think because he gets bored with it. As soon as we start working on more difficult stuff, he shines.

Like, for instance, last night; when we went on the Math Tracks website and did the online flash cards. When we did the timed flash-cards for the level Travis is currently at, he got 16 answers in 2 minutes. When we jumped ahead a grade level, he got 34.

Oh well. We'll suffer through the easy stuff for now. But in the meantime, as Travis and I were working on his current-level flash cards, Noah sat behind him and whispered the correct answers before Travis was able to find the right key to type it in.

7-3 =

Noah: (four! It's four!)

9+4 =

Noah: (thirteen! I think it's thirteen!)

Terrific. Seriously, this kid is in Pre-Kindergarten where the extent of math is being able to identify numbers, certainly not addition and subtraction. I have a feeling we'll have another bored kid come time for first grade Math Tracks.