It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s A . . . Rubber Band?

In our pack, the cub scout leaders have a tradition of rotating through each of the scout derbies (pinewood derby, space derby, rain gutter regatta) so that each boy will have a chance to do all of them during his time in cub scouts. This year was the space derby and since this is a derby I had never seen before, I had no idea what to expect. Neither did Kevin or Daniel. But let me tell you this: space derby is tons of fun!

As with all derbies I've witnessed, there are some rockets that definitely have a lot more parental work than cub scout work but Daniel's is not one of those. He did it all (with instructions and supervision, of course) and was mightily proud of his creation.


The rockets have propellers that send them flying across the room on fishing line and the goal is not to go the farthest, but to get the most points. Each section of line is given a point value and the boys try to figure out exactly how much to wind their propeller to get their rockets to stop in the highest point areas.

(Daniel's rocket in action)

Instead of doing elimination rounds like in the other derbies, each boy gets two practice runs and four real runs and points are totaled up at the end to find the winners. I loved this since I know it can be discouraging to spend weeks working on a vehicle only to be eliminated after one run. Broken rubber bands are common and a hazard we were well warned about. In between his third and fourth runs Daniel replaced his rubber band five times. He was a bit bummed but it all turned out okay. There were three winners from each den rather than just three winners from the entire pack and Daniel took first place in his den! He was very surprised . . . and pleased, of course.

Rewriting the Lyrics

Lately Matthew's favorite music has been the soundtrack to "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." He listens to it multiple times every day. Now, I don't mind this too much since it is about fifty billion times better than listening to the Wiggles or Thomas the Tank Engine songs over and over and over. It doesn't make make me crazy, make my head ache, or cause me to bleed from the ears as some tunes can. He has listened to is so often that he can (and does) sing almost the entire thing. It is pretty entertaining. As he was singing along this morning, I heard him belt out the following line from "Joseph's Coat": "I look handsome, I look smart, I am a walking Walmart." Apparently he has no frame of reference for a "work of art."

The Dresser Of Honor

Auntie Esther is on vacation which means that postcards for her nephews are inevitable. Matthew received a postcard in the mail today and about 2.5 seconds after I finished reading it to him, he taped it up in his place of honor: his dresser. As you can see, the postcard is important enough to rate a spot next to his family and his giant carrot.


Another tidbit: Once he got it hung up he pointed to the bear and asked, "Who is that?"

He’s Nine! (And A Half)

My birthday is only a couple of weeks after Christmas so when I was a child, my parents would give me my birthday present from them around my half-birthday. It was nice to get something in the middle of the year instead of getting everything new all at once and then waiting for an entire year for something new. Since Daniel's birthday is just a few weeks before Christmas, we presented him with the half-birthday option at his last birthday and he was all for it. So today he got his birthday present from Kev and I and we had half-birthday cookies to celebrate his half-special day. He received a model and his very own set of model making tools.


He also got a headboard for his bed. He is the kid who has already been warned (and grounded a few times) for reading with a flashlight after bedtime so we thought a headboard with shelves for a few books and a place to hang a small desk lamp would be terribly useful. And to his credit, he has not been found reading after hours for a while now so hopefully the lamp-holder won't inspire him to choose poorly.

Here We Go Again

Nathan is down to two hours of patching a day. I think we should be more excited, but we've been here before and it didn't lead to being done with patching like it was supposed to. Nathan has also had another prescription change (not uncommon in a child who is growing as fast as he is) and Kev and I think that may have contributed to his less than favorable performance at his last appointment. If his prescription had been checked then we think that he may not have needed to go back up to four hours a day. But we didn't know and it never occurred to me that two months was too long to go without checking his prescription. So here we go . . . again. And hopefully in two months he will really be done.

A Boy And His Cake

This evening Nathan got his real birthday cake for his extended family celebration. I made cupcakes for the party on Friday, but they didn't turn out all that well. Since they were to be decorated with white frosting and black music notes, I bought black decorating gel to make the music notes. Huge mistake. The gel ended up looking like strange blobs of goo sitting on top of the cupcakes and then the blobs started bleeding black into the surrounding frosting. As a music major they pretty much won't let you graduate unless you can make a passable music note and if this had been my final I definitely would have failed. It was not pretty. So I revised my previous plans and just tinted frosting black for Nathan's big cake. Things worked out much better in buttercream.


And Nathan was pleased.

He’s Much Taller In Person

A few years ago Aunt Connie invited us to go to the zoo and the outing just happened to be scheduled for Nathan’s birthday. We had such a good time that going to the zoo has become a birthday tradition for Nathan. This year when we broached the subject, Nathan decided that he would rather forgo the zoo this year in exchange for spending a Day Out With Thomas. Although Nathan has passed the stage of Thomas the Tank Engine, I think there were several factors that went into his decision. First, he was only two the last time we went and he doesn’t remember any of it. Second, he has always been fiercely protective of and overly indulgent with Matthew (When Matthew was newborn Nathan would tell people, “That’s my baby.”) and I think he knew it would make Matthew happy.

There was much excitement prior to the big day (Matthew found an ad for the event and kept it for over a month) and by the time we pulled into the parking lot Matthew was nearly bouncing off the walls. He caught his first glimpse of Thomas as we pulled in and nearly went ultrasonic. Standing in line for our wristbands didn’t seem to phase him, but when we tried to put his wristband on, Matthew freaked out. He did not want to put the thing on and I could not understand why. It was white and yellow (his favorite color), everyone else had theirs on, and it even had smiley faces on it. It took Kev’s mom reminding me that the last time Matthew had a wristband was when he had stitches back in October to bring the whole wristband-phobia into focus. So after much cooing, cajoling, and coddling we managed to get the wristband on and went off to see Thomas . . . which turned out to be a huge mistake.


Apparently Thomas is much bigger in person and any self respecting three year old knows it’s not wise to stand on the tracks when a train is coming. Once again, Grandma to the rescue. From higher up, Thomas was not nearly as intimidating.


When we asked Matthew about Thomas over dinner this evening, his response was, “He was HUGE!”

Things mellowed out after that. While Matthew didn’t want to stand on the tracks in front of Thomas, he was terribly excited to ride in Annie and Clarabel. Nathan wanted to ride in an open air car and Matthew wanted to ride inside so Kev went with Nathan and the rest of us climbed on together. Then Daniel went right and Matthew hung a left to ride in the car directly behind Thomas, so our group of seven ended up riding in three different cars. He absolutely loved riding the train. He was all smiles and sunshine the entire time.

Everywhere he looked there was a friend to be spotted. In addition to Thomas, Annie, and Clarabel, Matthew caught a glimpse of Harold the helicopter and he even spotted Mavis amidst the other engines parked on the tracks. But I think meeting Sir Topham Hat just might have been the highlight of his day.

There was some serious hero worship going on.


I just have to say that whoever arranges these events does everything they can to make it just like in the movies. Matthew could not have been happier.

Nathan had a grand time as well (I think half of his excitement was ferrying Matthew around to the various events of the day). From the looks of it, he’s enjoyed the view from his open air car.


Daniel was completely entranced by the real work of the steam engine occurring on the track next to Thomas.


He and Grandpa observed the train while Nathan and Matthew played miniature golf. Nathan probably would have played golf for hours if we had let him. Perhaps that needs to be one of our next outings.



We had a great day! And it seems that everyone wants to visit the railroad again, even if Thomas won’t be there.

Prime

When Nathan came home from school today with two hours before the party began, he brought four friends with him. One of the other moms called me to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. Who, me? Crazy? With seven small boys running around? No way! A few hours later the numbers expanded to sixteen for awhile so seven was no biggie!

On the other hand, seven is a biggie for Nathan considering that he is officially no longer a six year old. He chose music as his party theme and while music definitely makes for easy to plan party games and party favors, I’m hoping the other moms in the neighborhood don’t hate me this evening. There was a fifteen part kazoo chorus going on over here so hopefully one (or three . . . or four) won’t make them too crazy. Although, as a person whose life has a soundtrack (There is always music in my head and if I’m really lucky it stays there. Spontaneously bursting into song in the middle of Sunday School can be a bit embarrassing.), I imagine that the cacophony of kazoos, slide whistles, duck calls, drums, and other assorted music makers is what it will sound like inside my head when I go crazy.


Pretty much the only time the party was quiet was when all the musicians were noshing on pigs in a blanket, chips, and cake. And Nathan got more presents than he even knows what to do with, one of his favorites being his own fishing pole! Trust Uncle Jon to be able to spot a young outdoors man in the making!


After the madness retreated (at least when twelve of the fifteen young ‘uns went home), Nathan received his presents from our family.


This picture happened just about the time Nathan realized that he was receiving . . .


. . . this. He has had a hankering for a remote control car and after searching long and hard, Kev found one that fit the bill. I think his birthday was a success, at least we had a good (if overly noisy) time!