Monday, April 30, 2007

The Cheat

I admit it, I cheated. I used my computer fairly extensively the last two days of "No TV Week", not for work purposes. Also I slipped in a little web browsing during breaks at work, which was probably against the "No TV Week" rules too, but overall I did substantially cut down my internet time, even picking up a book and one quarter: "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink, and "Open Secrets" by Alice Munro, the latter of which I've only party finished. Max and Emmett did not cheat at all.

For the most part "No TV Week" was a breeze. You'll be disappointed to know, however, that we didn't actually get to do much of anything anyone suggested, but that's not a bad thing. The boys were content to play with their toys, and managed to fill up every day to the breaking point, being just as upset about having to end the fun and take a bath as ever. Which is not to say that they weren't anxious to get back to their video game time allotments today, and watching of Curious George in the morning before school. Yesterday there was plenty of video-game related talk from them, discussions of what they were going to play in their "afternoon time" and their "evening time".

We did do some of the suggested ideas, though. We never did the lady bug rocks, but there is still talk about them, so hopefully we'll fit that in in the near future. They enjoyed building their Lego Star Wars kit and playing with it - a "V-wing fighter" that Mom-Mom gave Max, and they "helped" me plant some grass, though we didn't finish that task, only managing to do one side of the walkway. Their grass-planting "help" was more akin to hindrance, but they had fun doing it. For them it was mostly the watering that was fun, which consisted of a little watering and a lot spraying the water around at things (including at one point, into the open front window) and each other. Yesterday was filled with a visit to the Honeygo playground, a visit to a TV/videogame-free-for-the-day Liz's house and a visit to the inner harbor with David S, including a ride on the water taxi to Fells Point and back, which Max declared, Fun, "until it got boring". They were both enthralled with the water taxi, actually, but Max wanted to get out at Fells Point and we didn't do that. He was a little scared on it, but I held him tight.

I should end this on some clever note, but this is it. It was a good, if somewhat exhausting, week.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Data Entry

This is one of those obnoxious "GIF animations" that you sometimes see on web pages that repeats over and over and over, so I've put it on a separate page to keep it from making my blog unreadable. Having said that, it's at least a little bit funny if you have seen at least some Star Trek The Next Generation. Here it is.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Student of the Week


Max is Student of the Week in his class this week. Things started off in a rocky fashion, with power going out at the school (at many schools in Baltimore County) due to high winds. Max was to bring photos of himself and his family to school. Here is one of the photos he's taking with him.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Into the Void

Bek decided that last night was, having just arrived home pretty late after a 10 hour drive from Michigan, the perfect time to announce to the boys that next week, according to Catonsville Elementary, is "No TV Week". This means no TV, no computer, no DVDs, no video games. You can imagine the enthusiasm of the boys for this idea, especially at such an opportune time. After Bek shifted blame onto the school, I said I thought it was a good idea, and indeed I do think it's a good idea, but that doesn't mean I'm not now terrified of the coming week. So we need activity ideas. We've got to keep these guys happy, so please post your ideas sooner rather than later - No TV Week is coming up fast!