Smrt Lernins

Officer Daddyman’s sensei, whom I affectionately refer to as Ninja Houseguest, is in town from Japan and staying with us for the next week. While he’s here, he’ll be teaching classes around the Atlanta area and somewhere in Alabama, and then teaching a two-day seminar over the weekend.

This is going to be an interesting week for us, schedule wise. We have an additional adult’s schedule to accommodate, plus Daddyman’s schedule will be different, due to traveling around with Ninja Houseguest. Can the McLernins adequately integrate Ninja Schooling into our already busy schedule?

Hopefully, today won’t be the standard. We accomplished exactly science and Essay Town before zipping off to the airport where, in a nearly-British comedy of errors, I circled and circled, he walked in and out of the building, Daddyman called the airport and paged, and we finally ended up meeting inside an hour later with me in tears and him in mild frustration. I was not up for any more school by the time we made it back home at 3:30.

Tomorrow, Ninja Houseguest is being taken to a dojo south of the city by another ninja, so we’ll be able to go most about our normal schedule, up until Tank and Babypie’s 1:30 doctor appointment, where Babypie gets a checkup and we try to ascertain the roots of Tank’s speech difficulties. Hopefully, we’ll be able to squeeze as much work as possible into the morning hours.

Wednesday, I’ve decided the best course of action is to dump everything in favor of a field trip. Fernbank is currently holding an exhibition on water, which also happens to be the subject Captain Science has been studying in his PLATO Science units over the last few weeks. We’ll go down town for a few hours, enjoy Fernbank, maybe even eat a free hot dog, if they’re still doing the “Free Hotdog Wednesday” promotion.

Thursday, Ninja Houseguest and Officer Daddyman will drive out to Alabama in the afternoon, so we’ll have the pleasant distraction of bother of their presences during our school day. I’ll have to bring the kids to Math Olympiad myself or see if I can rope Patchfire’s husband into doing it. Maybe we’ll skip it, depending on how frazzled my nerves are by that point, though Captain Science really does enjoy it and it’s a good social outlet. I’m hoping we can have another meetup w/ the Mitnens, but I guess we’ll just have to see how that goes. *fingers crossed*

Friday, Daddyman has made it his goal to find “something interesting to do” in the area. Ninja Houseguest hasn’t ever had much opportunity to do touristy stuff when he’s here, so Daddyman wants to take him some place fun and interesting. Hopefully, it’ll be something we can tag along with in the name of another field trip! Any suggestions? We have to be back by the late afternoon for a friend’s son’s birthday party.

This weekend, it’ll be just me and the kids the whole time, so I think we’ll rattle around like marbles in a can for a while and maybe bug Nana a bit.

*phew* Ninja schooling sounds exhausting!

It’s National Coming Out Day! Today is the start of a new opportunity to help our LGBTQ family and friends feel supported and encouraged. Today, we can each make a commitment to create a safe space for our children to be who they are, not who we, someone else, or the world tells them they should be. We can make a promise to our children that it gets better and mean it. We can work to make those changes that will provide our children with equal rights, equal protection, and equal opportunity under the law, no matter who they love.

This weekend, I took my kids to the 40th Atlanta Pride Festival and Parade. I’d really wanted to get the kids down there last year, but Patchfire and crew bailed on me, and I wasn’t ready to brave the crowds with Babypie being so young. This year, however, we set off on our own on a grand educational field trip to the Pride celebrations.

Since I can’t let anything be just about fun (ask Captain Science; he’ll be happy to tell you that) and because I wasn’t precisely sure what to expect at the festivities, I got some conversations going before leaving and on the trip down to the parade. Captain Science and I talked about what he might see at the parade, about why Pride was celebrated, about what certain words means and what certain causes were about (like repealing DADT). We talked about how some words were originally derogatory (like “dyke” and “queer”), but have been reclaimed by the people who were once called those words — I related it to how people used “geek” or “nerd” as an insult for smart people, but now more smart people are saying, “You know what? I am a geek and proud of it!” We talked a lot about love and how it’s never a bad thing; if it’s a bad thing, then it isn’t love.

On the drive down, we talked about power and enfranchisement/disenfranchisement over U.S. history — that right now, straight people have all the rights and gay people only have some of them; if you go back 50 years, white people have all the rights and black people only had some of them; if you go back 100 years, men had all the rights and women only had some of them. We took it further back and talked about political/social power all the way back to the feudal system–when one person (the king) had all the power and nobody else had any unless the king said so–and how change in how many people have power is happening faster. We talked about ways in which more people having a part of the power is good and ways it might be bad. Tank shouted out that it could be bad because they might not do what you want them to do. Smart boy! We talked about what you do when people you share power with don’t agree with you. Captain Science was so engaged in the conversation.

At the parade, we stood next to a young man and woman who took Babypie’s picture (she was in the back carrier, wearing rainbow Babylegs and waving a Pride flag) and to an older man wearing a neck brace, who overheard me saying “at least it isn’t a coconut” when someone from a float threw bags of potato chips at us and asked if I was from New Orleans. It turned out that he’d moved from New Orleans 25 years ago to be with the man who is still his partner. Both couples helped the kids catch beads and candy and colorful bracelets. We got t-shirts and a neat rainbow bandanna that I wore for the rest of the day. Captain Science’s favorite float was one with the Peanuts characters dancing on it. Tank liked the marching band best. I loved the PFLAG groups, the men dressed as colorful fairies with giant Carnival-style wings, and especially the band of angels, who stood briefly and symbolically in front of the small group of loud homophobic “Christian” protesters with their hate-filled signs (a group that necessitated another conversation with Captain Science). The barrier they created between the hate of the protesters and the love of the parade attendees was more than merely physical.

After the parade, we got swept up in the moving crowd and walked down to the festival. So many people, happy and dressed in rainbows! Couples and families and big groups of friends, every age, every race, all of them beautiful. Tank was complimented on his shirt (which said “Hellooo Gorgeous!”) and Babypie received all manner of comments on her cuteness and fierceness (she was faux-slapping at people in the line for the ATM, which amused the guys next to us to no end). One young man praised Captain Science for carrying the big bag full of our stuff. Another stopped us, smiled, and said, “It starts here with tolerance, young ones.” We were given stickers and candy, Tank’s fondness for trifolding brochures was indulged at multiple booths, I bought a “Repeal Don’t Ask Tell” shirt and renewed my Human Rights Campaign sponsorship, we donated a dollar here and there to a few groups, and we split a delicious rainbow-frosted cupcakes. Tank was surprised when he saw a woman whose upper body was painted in a rainbow (in lieu of an actual fabric top) and said, “Mama! She’s nekkid!” though he did agree with me that they were just ninnies (the word we use with the babies for breasts) and not really that big a deal. We came home tired and with bags full of Pride swag.

I do think that young man is correct: it does start right there with tolerance. My kids are growing up knowing that whether they are gay or straight or anything else, there’s a place in our family and a place in this world for them. They won’t have to be remembered on some future October 20th, because they are loved and they know their family won’t allow anyone to bully them for their sexual orientation or any other reason. More importantly, they aren’t being raised to view being gay (or bisexual or transgendered) as wrong or weird; it’s just another way to be. They can’t conceive of a reason why gay people should have fewer rights than straight people. I hope that by the time my kids are grown that the world will reflect that same set of beliefs.

Captain Science is motoring through some stuff!

This week, he completed the second unit of his PLATO Earth Science, watching the main video, doing the application activity, finishing the 7-page packet, taking the practice tests (and getting 100% on them), and then passing the unit test w/ a 90% (27 out of 30 correct). He started the third unit today and completed the video and the application activity.

Math is coming along nicely. Captain Science completed lessons 4-7 of Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra/Fred’s Home Companion, including the first set of cities (which this book has instead of the bridges in the previous books). He got all the problems in Adin and Elberfield correct! He’s also enjoying the Math Olympiad meetings, though he hasn’t completed the homework for next week’s meeting yet.

This week in history, he read about the first emperor of ancient China and about civil service careers in ancient China. He wrote his first history summary of the year, choosing to write about the civil service exams, their importance, and the risks of cheating. A valuable lesson, if there there was one. He wrote a first draft and a final draft.

In computer programming, he started his first actual piece of programming, a very simple application that pops up the text “hello, world!” He also reviewed the previous chapter and did a short test on those chapters.

I think he has finally finished The Secret Garden. He’s dragging it out, possibly because I also gave him It’s Perfectly Normal his week, a book on human development/puberty/sex ed. He’s alternating between the two and, as long as I don’t bring up puberty, seems perfectly comfortable learning about it. If I so much as say “hair under your arms,” he gets mad at me and says, “Can we change the subject?”

Tank also had a good week. He’s working on tracing, which is as much an exercise for his patience as for his hand. He worked on tracing shapes, identifying and writing the numbers 1-5, tracing big A and little a, and identifying words that start w/ an “a” sound. He finished a few pages in his workbooks on matching and comparing, as well. We’re hoping his friend Dimhibbins* will be joining us soon, perhaps as early as next week, for some additional pre-K fun!

Babypie’s big thing this week has been working out a nice balance of smacking and biting with Badge the beagle. She slaps him, he gently bites her, I intervene and fuss at both of them, they both look chastened, and as soon as I walk away, she’s smacking him and he’s nipping her. Honestly, since neither one is crying about it, I suspect this might be how they play. Puppy pals, maybe?

Today, we wrapped up our day with a “surprise” field trip to Fernbank to meet up with some friends and go back through the gecko and Sensing Nature exhibits more carefully, now that most of the public schools are back in session. Much less crowded! We blew some great bubbles, played with the sound exhibit (where I was faux-chided by my friend’s husband for saying “the magic of science,” because he says that’s the very thing I rant about on my blog), and looked at a backlit gecko’s internal organs through its translucent belly. All three of my kid came home with small plastic geckos (which only cost $.93 a piece before my 10% membership discount).

Anyway, that’s our week in review. Our Michael Clay Thompson stuff came today, so we can jump right back into that come Monday!

Now for something completely different, we took a “field trip” for Secular Thursday, as my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece (5.5), and nephew (almost 2) are in town. We went to the Georgia Aquarium, with its largest salt water tanks and whale sharks and whatnot.

It sucked.

That place is the most poorly designed animal displaying facility I have ever visited. Yes, it’s huge. Yes, it’s flashy. Yes, it’s gorgeous. The flow and function, however, leave worlds to be desired. The various galleries are off a central lobby, so everyone mills about in the middle, taking pictures and staring and pointing. They park their giant strollers everywhere (this is why I babywear) and you can’t get by. They have absolutely no concern for other visitors. I’m pretty sure they’re all Yankee transplants or tourists, because surely no Southerner’s mama raised him to behave like this in public.

In the time it took for us to drive downtown, park the car, and finally get into the first area of the aquarium (which was just the play ground and “pet a shrimp*” section), we could have driven to Chattanooga and been halfway down the fresh water aquarium building. It has unidirectional flow, the Tennessee Aquarium. It may not be as big as the one in Atlanta, but even on the crowded day, you get in quickly and the traffic moves.

We only looked at half the exhibits and we drove home in the driving rain. I’m counting this as a full school day, because, frankly, the experience was so harrowing that I’m sure Captain Science must have learned something very important. I learned that I’d rather go to the TN Aquarium, Zoo Atlanta, and even the damn Gulfarium than spend one single cotton picking minute in the gorram GA Aquarium.

*No, I didn’t pet a shrimp. I don’t want to pet a freaking shrimp. I want to eat a freaking shrimp.