1st grade smile

Books

Leo's teacher is really into writing books. I think the whole school is actually. It's their way of teaching kids to express creativity with a who-cares-if-you-can't-spell attitude.

In class, Leo made a book of "Contin" or counting and it says "one M&M, two bananas," etc. He loved it and read it to his girlfriend Foster in the Kindergarten playground. Last weekend was Foster's and her sister's birthday, so Leo made up two very elaborate book/cards for them. Foster's was a counting book with "one M&M", etc on each page and pictures of the M&M's and all. When he got to 10, he started making jokes, like "Even if you line up all the balls, there are still only 10 of them" or "Even if you put them in a triangle, there are still only 10 balls", etc. I think it was based on the "Even if you line up all your boogers neatly, they are still dirty" line from "The Holes in Your Nose". For Foster's sister, he made a 'lift the flap' book called "Where are My Toys". A little kid is looking for her toys and looks under the bed and behind the shelves and finally finds the toys somewhere. There are little flaps that you lift and under them it says "no toys here" or "here they are". I think this was based on a board book that we had when Leo was like 2 years old called "Where's Spot?" Anyway, great fun, and I wish I had copies of them to paste in a scrapbook! But I'm sure Foster and Grayson are really appreciative!

Second Soccer Game

Leo's second soccer game went a lot better. He actually got to play a bunch this time which was good. He was pretty hot and melty before even getting on the field, however, which made my cheerleading job pretty hard. The coach has all the kids rotating positions so they learn how to play everything. If you can't see the video above, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSfcGp8sd2s

He got to play goalie, which he has been wanting to do forever. He even got the sticky goalie gloves. No goals on him and no saves either, but he got to do a lot of kicks to teammates when the ball went out of bounds. It's a good role for him because he's a very slow kicker and very deliberate and has good aim. I kept yelling at him that he could use his hands. I think he kept forgetting that. He stuck really close to the goal the whole time.

The second clip is Leo playing defense. He might have even kicked the ball once, I think, although he spent a lot of time just watching and sort of jumping up and down in excitement. At the end of the clip he gets tired and it's just so funny to watch. I don't have it here, but at one point, the goalie is going to kick the ball and every kid is watching this except Leo who is turned the other way!

I don't have any clips of him playing offense but he ran the whole length of the field like a banshee playing offense. He seemed to think he was playing both offense and defense. He tried really hard.

We came home and he immediately wanted to practice in the backyard, so I think that's a good sign.

Experimentation

Leo loves experiments. As I write, he's mixing glue and hot cocoa powder and who knows what else in a cup on the dinner table. I can't wait to clean up.

Last night we went to a community dinner, which was great fun, and Leo overhead Lily's mom talking about avoiding foods high in sodium. Leo perked up, "sodium?" He has a fascination with sodium ever since I told him about the Great Sodium Drop in college where we dropped sodium in the Charles River and watched it burn. I explained, "no, not elemental sodium, just sodium chloride". He's like, "oh, salt". Lily's mom said, "maybe you can play with some dry ice?" Leo said, "and maybe some liquid hydrogen?"

Tonight I got the annual physics at MIT magazine which basically talks about how great the research at MIT is and begs for money. I said, "hey Leo, you'll like this, it's all about physics experiments." He opened it up to a section on kids touring Junior Lab, which is the junior level yearlong death physics class. You spend an entire year recreating all the classic physics experiments of the last 200 years. It's death, because it's way too much work - it's really hard to get those experiments to work right and you have to write them all up in gory detail. Anyway, I said, "This is Junior Lab where you get to spend a whole year doing nothing but physics experiments." Leo said, "YAY! I can't wait to take Junior Lab!"

It's great fun creating a warped child.