Magic Marker Monday: Helping others

When the 4th and 5th graders were offered a chance to run for student council, both Bearhug and Cuddlebug decided they wanted to run (they each ran for different positions). One of the requirements was to write a short essay describing a time they helped someone and what they learned from it. Here are their essays (click to enlarge).

Cuddlebug wrote about helping a Kindergartener (not his brother) get to car riders at the end of the day for the first two weeks of the school year. It was something he volunteered for.


Bearhug wrote about helping a little boy's parents at church by playing with him to keep him entertained (he loves playing with younger children and has expressed an interest in babysitting when he gets older).


For reference, here's the snake he's referring to. It's kind of squishy, making it one of his favorite things to play with :).



They didn't end up winning their elections this year, but it was a good experience so they may decide to try again next year. Either way, I am proud of them for the effort they put in :).


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Trout hatchery

A few weeks ago we took the boys to the trout hatchery to check it out. They raise trout, and also have a fishing pond where you can fish for trout and are pretty much guaranteed to catch something ;). Great place to take kids!



They had a box of fish food there, the boys had a great time feeding the fish :).




After feeding the fish, we headed down the trail to the fishing pond.



Since we were really there just to see what it was like we hadn't brought our fishing poles or gear, but they had some poles there for kids to use and there was a guy there with his sons who was kind enough to give us a piece of their bread to use for bait. I'm all for fishing with bread rather than icky worms ;).





Bearhug and Cuddlebug each caught a fish, but dh threw them back before I could get a good picture. We'll be heading back soon (prepared this time with poles and bread!) so I'll make sure he holds them a little longer next time!



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Swim party

Photos from the end of summer Cub Scout swim party.

Bearhug and Cuddlebug *loved* the waterslide.




Little Bitty mostly stayed by the steps...


...he got brave toward the end and started jumping (onto the top step, that is) :)





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WW & SEW: Sleepy boy

Little Bitty was so tired, he feel asleep before bedtime. He curled up and fell asleep in the cat bed :).



The cat was unimpressed.


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Social skills online

For a long time, Cuddlebug and Bearhug kept asking me to sign them up for "Hatena ID's." Their Nintendo DS's came with a game called "Flipnote Studio" in which you can make your own flipnote animations.

Remember when you were a kid and would see those drawings on the edge of a page, and if you flipped the pages fast enough, it would look like an animated drawing? It's like that, only electronic.

The boys had made all kinds of flipnotes, and wanted to be able to share them on the Hatena website.

The thought of them interacting in an online community like that (granted, it's mostly kids, but it could be anyone!) made me really nervous. When I finally checked it out and we agreed to sign them up, we laid out a series of ground rules.

They are not to use their real names, location, or any other personal information in anything they post. They know that doing so will mean we will no longer let them use the website, for an indeterminate amount of time (probably forEVER).

Any comments on their flipnotes, "fan" adds or anything like that sends a notification to my email address, so I can monitor how others are interacting with them.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to track comments that THEY leave for others without just clicking on all of them individually.

But one day I saw an email with a rather unfriendly comment to Cuddlebug and went searching to see what that was all about.

Turns out Cuddlebug had posted a rude comment to someone, which I could tell stemmed from his not understanding something they'd posted and getting offended by it. Sigh. Of course they would have no way of knowing that, but even so it's no excuse because he KNOWS better than to say mean things like that to anyone.

As far as I could tell, the user in question is a girl, probably a teenager or maybe pre-teen. Of course when Cuddlebug posted his rude comment, her friends all jumped in to her defense. One of them even posted (to him) "your comment looks like it was written by a 3rd grader!" (groan). Well, just a few short months ago, he WAS a 3rd grader... Cuddlebug is a master arguer, so he just kept on going too.

I marched upstairs to have a little talk with him about not being rude to other people online, even if they post things that we may not like (especially since it was clear that he had been the one to instigate the "rude comments." I told him he needed to apologize to her.

Well, she managed to block him before he could leave her an apology note.

Honestly, I was glad she chose to block him instead of asking all her friends to start spamming him with mean comments in return (I've seen enough online spats, even among adults, to know how they often turn out).

The next day, he sadly told me that hadn't been able to apologize to her because she blocked him.

Well, apparently a few weeks later he came up with another solution (and I was impressed that he was actually still thinking about it).

He posted a flipnote addressed to her with his apology and a cute animation that he made.

What's more, she actually saw it and posted a kind comment in return (and she unblocked him, which made him happy).

He learned something through that experience, about being kind to others, about apologizing when we hurt someone, even if it was unintentional, and about the peace that comes from making amends. I'm proud of him (and thankful for the girl who took the time to let him know all was forgiven). :)



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Magic Marker Monday: Family Portrait

Bitty made this adorable family portrait at school :).



Every time you give him a piece of paper, he draws a cat, so I suspect that's how dh ended up with whiskers in this drawing, lol.

Then again, I am bald here so who am I to give dh a hard time about his "whiskers"? ;)

I love that Bitty drew himself in his favorite color - pink.


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A love of reading

I love that my boys all love to read :).



Dh and I love to read, and we've always made sure to have lots of age-appropriate books around for the boys since the time they were babies. I love that they look forward to new books as much as toys or games.

Bitty has a bag that he always keeps filled with books to take with him wherever we go. Here's a video of him reading one of his new ones, "Martha Speaks: Farm Dog Martha." This was taken the first time he read it, so some of the words were new for him.



(If you're familiar with the book, you'll notice that the video skips some parts. The whole thing was around 8 minutes long so I edited some parts out to make it a little shorter.)


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Cub Scouts, history, and a famous Aspie

Cuddlebug and Bearhug decided to give Scouts another try this year. It's been three weeks and it's going pretty well so far.

A couple of weeks ago the Scouts were asked to find information on two famous people to share at their den meeting. One of the people Cuddlebug looked up was the creator of Pokemon, Satoshi Tajiri. We learned that Tajiri has been diagnosed with Asperger's.

When I read that it made me smile because it totally makes sense. Dh and I have commented before on how the games seem to be such a good fit for kids on the spectrum. Hundreds of available Pokemon, categorized into different "types" (and subtypes), and each having its own stats across a range of different areas (attack, speed, defense, etc.). Endless fun for kids who love to categorize things and have a knack for remembering complex statistics. No wonder they are so good at the games ;).

Anyway, so I pointed it out to the boys and explained that Asperger's is a type of autism. They thought it was pretty cool to have something in common with the guy who created their favorite game ;).

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Pictures from 8/28 - DC trip

I am hopelessly behind on blogging but I wanted to share some pictures from my trip to DC for Restoring Honor rally on 8/28. My mom and I went together and we had a great time!!

I would have loved to take the whole family, but my boys and crowds? Yeah, not so much... I brought lots of pictures and keepsakes home to share with them though :). And some cool light-up toys and space ice cream (freeze dried) from the Air and Space Museum ;). Bitty was the only one that actually liked the ice cream, I guess he was excited to find ice cream that wasn't cold.

It was an amazing experience to see so many everyday Americans coming together from all around the country, people from all walks of life and all ages, from infants in strollers to great-grandparents in wheelchairs and everyone in between. It was an honor to see so many veterans there as well. If you're interested, you can see the whole program (from C-Span) here.

(warning - I tried to limit myself but there are still LOTS of pictures in this post)

We arrived Friday afternoon (the day before) and after we got checked into the hotel, decided to go scope out the Lincoln Memorial so we'd know how to find our way there the next morning.

Judging by the lawn chairs, blankets, and coolers, it looked like people were already starting to gather for the next day's event (technically there is no camping allowed at the Lincoln Memorial but the grounds are open all night so we found that several families had done "shifts" in order to stake out a good location). These were taken ~6:45pm on 8/27:



We got a few hours sleep and took the last train before they closed for the night, just before 3am. By the time we walked from the metro station to the Lincoln Memorial, it was around 3:30am when we arrived. There was already a good-sized crowd gathered and a steady stream of people arriving, which continued for the rest of the morning. We were early enough to find a spot under the trees that was reasonably close - we could have gotten closer but we preferred a spot that would be shady when it got hot later in the day :).






The woman in the red shirt that says, "2nd Generation Patriot" also had her family there wearing similar shirts that said "1st Generation Patriot" and "3rd Generation Patriot." Very cool.


My mom and I :).


Around 8am I decided to walk up to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial so I could get a better view. The crowd was jam-packed even on the sidewalks so it took about 30 minutes to get there. Had to laugh when I saw this guy along the way, now there's one way to get a better view ;).



When I walked up the steps and turned around, what an amazing sight (the picture doesn't quite do it justice). Both sides of the reflecting pool were completely full (beyond the trees even) and people were filling in at the far end of the reflecting pool. This was taken about 8:30am, so there was still an hour and a half before the rally was scheduled to begin, and the steady stream of people arriving continued.


After that I didn't take as many pictures, but I did get these two just as the rally was getting started (10am).



I grabbed the camera again when I happened to look back and see people actually sitting on top of the porta-potties to get a better view. Umm... can't say I would've wanted to be up there. lol. If you look closely on the left, you can see another guy up in a tree, this one even managed to take a cooler up with him – resourceful :).


(Interesting history on the Black-Robe Brigade here)

Love this, it was sooo hot outside and a fire truck that was parked near the WWII Memorial had turned on their hose so the kids (and a few adults, lol) could cool off :).

Last picture of the day, as we walked back to the metro station. Ended up taking us something like 2 hours to get back to the hotel (the Smithsonian metro station was closed and we ended up having to walk several more blocks to the next one) and we were EXHAUSTED but it was well worth it.



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My mom and I spent three days in DC so we did some sightseeing while we were there. I have been to DC several times but always for work or school so I never really got to do sightseeing before. It was great :). And I think it was the first time she and I have gotten to spend that much time together since... well probably since I lived at home (and no, I'm not going to date myself by telling you when THAT was, at least not today, hehe). There is still so much we didn't get to see, I think we're going to have to take another trip ;).

Arlington Cemetery


We were able to see the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The words didn't really come out in the picture, but on the tomb is engraved, "HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD"


Washington Monument (complete with tourist-y photos of ourselves, hehe)


Lincoln Memorial (including one taken from inside the top of the Washington Monument)



Vietnam Veterans Memorial


Other sights around DC

At the National Archives we had the opportunity to see the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They don't allow photography inside so I don't have pictures but it was such an inspiration to see them!

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Random tidbits

This post was actually written two weeks ago, apparently I forgot to publish it... still catching up from being out of town last weekend (had an awesome trip with my mom to DC for 8/28!).
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At church, Bearhug was playing with this so I asked him, "is that a ghost?" (obviously, meaning a pretend ghost). Without skipping a beat, he answered, "no, it's a piece of toilet paper." LOL :)

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We met a young man yesterday at a local barbecue place (one we have missed for years but they just built a new one near us, yay!), he noticed our boys are twins and told us he has an identical twin also. He said how much he misses him, as his twin brother is a Marine and will be deploying soon. My heart ached for him, and as we left I found myself in tears at the thought that someday, our twins will be adults and may have periods of separation like that too :(. I know all kids do when they grow up, but there is just something about that twin bond... with the exception of those first few days in the NICU, Cuddlebug and Bearhug have never spent more than a few hours apart at a time. (sniff) I wish the best for that young man and his brother, and hope it is not too long before they are able to spend some time together again.

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I just fixed Cuddlebug a snack and after he ate, he told me, "congratulations, Mom, you made me happy again!" lol, he was pretty cranky when he was hungry.

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Bitty has discovered the PBS Kids lineup and, true to form, has become rather obsessed with several of the shows. Super Why, Word Girl, Word World, and Martha Speaks are among his new favorites (and Thomas of course, but that's not new for him). He's gotten pretty adept with the DVR and now searches the menu ("men-ooooh") to record his favorite shows on his own (scary, huh?).

Our tv is currently broken so he's having a little "PBS withdrawal" but he's handling it reasonably well. (a little better than dh considering it's the beginning of football season, poor guy!)

I love to hear him quoting the shows and singing the songs, three of his new faves are all about reading ("the powuh to WEAD!"); he LOVES to read so that is right up his alley ;).



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