February 24 – Diving Catch

70 degrees in February requires some play time!

February 13 – Slack Line

Our friend Conor on the slack line in Phoenix.

February 12 – Rock Stars

We made it to Phoenix. Here are the Rock stars, reunited.

February 8 – Legos

I helped #2 son put up a blog about his lego creations. And sports. We took some pictures for the header image. This was the favorite!

January 21 – Squirrel Appreciation Day

Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day! How will you celebrate?

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My 12 year-old adopted this salty guy from the Habitat for Humanity shop for a mere 25 cents.

January 19 – Swinging

Here’s what I love about this picture. My almost 14 year-old is a kind, nurturing, thoughtful, person. As he hits those teen age years, we don’t always get to see that side of him.

We aren’t fighting with him over the hair. Life’s too short.

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Here’s why I can hardly breathe when I look at this picture.

My nephew, who is 6 and in first grade, has Stargardt’s Disease.

Stargardt’s is a juvenile onset macular degeneration. His vision has already deteriorated and he is learning Braille for when his vision gets worse. There is no cure, well… stem cell research may provide something someday. It is genetic, and my twin nieces have the markers for the disease also, although their vision is o.k. now. They all wear hats and glasses because they tend to be very light sensitive.  (And they never complain!) Every year, they drive to UCLA to see a specialist. Their mom is a special education teacher, who is getting her vision/mobility MA. Dad stays home with the kids.

My boys do not have the markers for the disease.

January 11 – Wrist Rocket

Today I bought my son a wrist rocket and ammunition. (marbles, I guess.) We set up a box in the backyard and took aim with 2 rules:

1. Don’t aim it at a person.

2. Anything you break, you pay for.

He asked about animals, I told them he might kill one and Karma’s a bitch.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the changes since I was a pre-teen. I lived on a lake from age 2 until 18. For hours, my parents never knew where we were. We swam, sailed, canoed, fished and wandered in the woods. No one drowned. No one was abducted. Some frogs died. Today, though, life is different, right? Wrong, according to Don Tapscott, author of  Grown up Digital.

Since the early 1990s, crime-both property crimes and violent crimes including murder – has been dropping. The number of violent offenses committed by juveniles ages 12 to 17 declined 61 percent from 1993 to 2005, while those committed by persons older than 17 fell 58 percent. And when it comes to nightmare crimes like sexual assault, statistics show that the perpetrators are rarely strangers. Nearly all the time, they are people the victim knows, and often they are people the victim knows very well.

Fear, Tapscott agrees, is not the only problem. Parents these days have plans for their children. Plans and ambitions and schedules. We drive them to piano, soccer, tutoring, give them mobile phones, then expect them to answer whenever we call. So kids move indoors, where they are in control. Many can operate most of the electronic equipment in our homes better than we can. Forget the blinking VCR, kids are programming home computers from the car to tivo the football game at home.  Tapscott believes that this net generation is changing family dynamics, shaking up the typical family hierarchy.

Whew! And that’s just the chapter on family. His book covers how the net generation’s brains work differently, how education and the workplace are changing, shopping, democracy, it’s all there. And soon, I’m going to read it.

I picked up the book because we are having trouble with screen time and our boys. They are glued to an electronic device most afternoons and weekends, so I’ll admit, I started with the chapter on family. Then I started reading Last Child in the Woods.

Then I bought the wrist rocket.

I don’t think he’ll kill a squirrel.

January 3 – Sumi-E

#2 son spent 5 weeks in art class mastering Sumi-E painting.

Students began by creating specific brushstrokes and the project ended with a field trip to the local pond for inspiration. I was so surprised to see his portfolio at conferences! Although he literally ripped his art notes in half today (new semster starts Monday), he created several Sumi-E paintings in one day that were framed and given out to family for the holiday.  I consider that a successful semester in art for a 7th grade sports-loving boy.

Science Fair part 2

#1 son spent 90 minutes today on the downtown mall attempting to get passers-by to estimate a distance. Close to 50% agreed to stand on a mark and guess how far a sculpture was down the mall.

We were struck by:

1. how many people wouldn’t even look at him as he was asking for their help.
2. how poor most estimates were. The range was from 20 feet to 350 feet. The sculpture was 180 feet away.