And Other Bad Words
We all (Mom, Alpha, Beta, and I) camped out in the back yard to look for shooting stars — tonight is the peak of the annual Perseids meteor shower. We saw a couple of bright streaks, a bunch of dim streaks, and a handful of satellites.
The grrlz got curious about the stars as we lay on the blanket, and we talked about the Big Bang, extra dimensions, time travel, landing on the sun, and extraterrestrials.
The girls passed a milestone of sorts: the rode their bikes past a town line today, en route to Livingston Park (aka Saunders Recreational Area) in Tewksbury.
Beta wanted to go for a bike ride, and Alpha didn’t want to do any chores, and they both knew that I’m a pushover for going on long bike rides. Beta chose the destination, because Livingston Park is pretty cool and we never let her go there.
Alpha led the way, as the park is on the way to Strongwater Farm (where she takes riding lessons). I think she wanted to prove she can ride her bike that far, as she wants to volunteer to work with the horses when she’s old enough.
While there, they climbed around a little:
On the way home we shall euphemistically say that we “held a few lessons on keeping bikes away from the car lanes,” or maybe “keeping to our side of the white line (and why that’s a good idea),” and leave it at that.
Alpha has officially taken her karate to the logical next step, and put herself on track for a black belt. This puts her into ‘Doshi Kai’, which basically means she’s not trying karate out anymore – she’s a serious student.
Here’s a segment from the promotion ceremony:
Missing from the video is me giving her the gold belt, and a short kata demonstration. Her kata are now crisp and confident.
Wilmington sits in region of Massachusetts that is sadly bereft of protrusive terrain. Coming from hilly Connecticut, I quickly noticed the lack of sledding opportunities.
It’s not all sad flatness, however. We have a great prominence left by the glaciers at the south end of town, by a local ball field. I’m not sure if the hill or the field have a name – Google Maps is currently mum. It appears to be about 100′ high.
From the road, you would never know a sledding track is there, except for the number of cars in the parking lot that appear immediately after a snowfall.
There are two sledding tracks, one steeper than the other. The flatter one is a favorite of the little kids, but the “ruts” tend to be better defined on the steeper track (ironically, making that one the safer track as you’re less likely to drift off-course).
For a couple of years now, I’ve been pushing all the snow in the driveway into a single pile at the end.
As few as six inches of snow makes a pile three feet high, with a run of eight feet.
The kids have dubbed it “Mt. Sled Helens.”
We don’t have many hills of any decent size in this corner of Massachusetts, so this fills the gap when I can’t drive the girls to the good sledding hills.
Alpha’s choice of birthday party was laser tag at MVP. (Last year we celebrated her birthday with mini-golf at the same place.) So with a small group of her friends and a couple of adults, we tromped in and had a great time!
I rocked the scores. Admittedly, there were more kids than adults (myself, Sam, and another adult not attached to our party) and a bunch of kids (again, not all attached to our party) but I really did wipe the other team out twice – two for two. Sam was a not-too-close second.)
I think we need to assemble some more adults and have another laser tag party there some time. It’s like paintball without the bruises.
Afterwards: pizza and cake and video games, of course. Gifts were exchanged, some of which Alpha was really excited to see.
Alpha is currently off for a sleepover at Rho’s house. (Like other greek letter-named people in this blog, that is not her real name – though I could imagine someone naming their child Rho so I feel like I should note that occasionally). After all the trouble Alpha had in adjusting to the move, I never thought that we would be exchanging kids with another family so regularly as we have with Alpha and Rho.
Just an aside: I was chatting with Rho’s mother during the party, and it turns out that Alpha and Rho were rating boys at the last sleepover. <sigh>
The kids are on April break, I took the week off to be with them, and Meghan is at work. It’s a great time to do something out of the ordinary, especially since it’s a bright sunny day.
I know – something educational! Something cultural! Art!
I brought my little heathens to the deCordova Museum‘s sculpture park. (The main museum is closed while they prepare for the summer exhibits.) It’s a huge outdoor exhibit, so they can run around and get some fresh air while taking in some mind-broadening experiences.
When I take the girls to art museums I coax them to pose like the artistic subjects (when possible – modern art gets a little hard). It makes them focus on the art at hand as well as learn to use their bodies, but best of all they think it’s fun.
This was our first time there, but I think we’re going to get a membership now. I had to drag the kids away and bribe them with lunch at a restaurant.