Ian

William has been invited to one of his friends' First Communion.

What's involved?

On school days William needs to get up around 7:30, to be ready on time. But I'm usually up around 6:30, and William seems to like the peaceful company, so he often gets up earlier and we just hang out. Matthew (like Amy) generally sleeps later, but sometimes he also comes plodding sleepily in (usually carrying his pillow with him, for some reason -- in case he falls asleep while walking, I suppose). I figure it's fair to give them until 7:30 with no responsibilities before starting our morning dash. This morning, both William and Matthew got up early, and at Matthew's request William read to him from a Big Book of Fairy Tales. This is the Gingerbread Man.

Amy has been away at a conference for the past few days, so I and the boys have been doing guy stuff and skimping on homework and so on. (Most of William's homework is in Chinese, anyway, so I can't do much to help or even tell him what he's supposed to do. I have been insisting he gets some done, but only a couple of pages are complete.) William and Matthew have dragged me to the playground every day, for baseball and soccer and basketball and general clambering on play structures and slides and swings and running around.

William's soccer team is doing pretty well this year. If I haven't lost track, we have won three games and lost one. (I am vaguely an assistant coach again, which again means tying shoelaces and retrieving balls from the woods, because I still don't actually know the rules of soccer.) They have got the concept of positions and passing and much of the basics, and often remember them even in the heat of battle. The games are fun to watch; especially little Gage, about half the size of the rest of the team (and about a third of his size is eyes) but who whirs around at about 90 mph with his legs spinning, exactly like a Flintstone cartoon character; of course this mode of transport is unsuited for non-animated beings and Gage falls down about every 45 seconds, but the part of him that isn't eyes is entirely rubber bands and springs and he rolls back to his feet without missing a beat.

William is doing pretty well. He handles the fundamentals pretty well, but lacks a killer instinct and isn't very aggressive about getting the ball away from defenders and driving to the goal. When playing our defense he works out fine, but on offense he tends to be rather passive and wait for the ball to come to him instead of taking it. However, he doesn't mind playing defense, and we have several power forwards already. Most importantly, William has a wonderful time at games and practice.

Even so, he's still more enthusiastic about baseball. We go to the park to throw and catch and hit most days, and he's improving. His batting is good; even though I am not good enough to adjust his batting stance all the time, he usually gets some good hits. He'll be playing baseball as soon as soccer season ends. This year he'll be a returning veteran; the teams are machine-pitch first and second grade, same as he was on last year.

Matthew is also keen on baseball, though not as obsessive as William was at that age. When William was four, he had been batting well for nearly two years; Matthew has just got interested. He throws well, and occasionally catches a ball if I can manage to throw it precisely into the center of his glove; much to his leaping pride and excitement. This is his last week in day care for the summer, as Amy now has the summer off and will hang out with Matthew (and William, when his school ends) for the summer.

Last year around this time, we went to the Lansing Lugnuts/MSU Baseball team first annuals "Crosstown Showdown". This year William and I tried to go again.

Unfortunately, so did about 15,000 other people. This year's game presumably got a lot more publicity, and was a much nicer evening as well, because whereas last year we waltzed in and had plenty of room (about 6000 people attended last year, I see) this year's crowd set a park record of 12,862 people, and William and weren't among them. There was a gigantic line for tickets, and an equally gigantic and slow-moving line to actually enter the park after you got your ticket. We stood in line for over half an hour, arriving at the window about 25 minutes after the game was supposed to start, and learned that there were only standing-room-only tickets left, on the lawn at the far end of the park, where you can't actually see home plate or first or third base. With another half hour to wait in the other line before getting in, and the game only supposed to be a 7-inning job, I decided it wasn't worth it and walked out.

(I had actually tried to buy tickets online, but their web site refused to cooperate. As it happens, I noticed yet another ridiculously long line, at least a half-hour wait, to pick up will-call tickets! --again followed by the wait to get in to the park. So that would actually have been just as bad.)

With just the $5.00 parking fee to pay, and a very disappointed William at my heels, I tried to cheer ourselves up with a trip to a pizzeria; where I left behind both my baseball cap and William's. (I lose more hats that way. But I phoned back and will retrieve them tomorrow.) But the pizza was decent, and we watched hockey on the TVs there, and William eventually decided to take it philosophically. We'll go back for more Lugnuts games this summer, when they're not so popular.

This weekend was the first really warm one of the year, and we spent it doing appropriately spring-like things.

Saturday was William's first soccer game of the year. His team from last fall has reformed completely intact, and in their practices last week -- aside from a vast excess of 7-year-old-boys-freed-from-winter goofiness and easily-distractedness -- they picked up more or less where they left off in fall, remembering that positions do exist and sometimes staying in them, occasionally passing to each other, and usually not actually tackling players on their own team. What's more, the kids grow and gain coordination so fast at this age that there are dramatic improvements in their skills, especially a couple of the kids (I asked if Gage and Jordan had spent the winter practicing, but no).

Last year's first game was a scoreless tie, and their second a 0-1 loss. This year they broke through the barriers right away with a 3-0 win -- all three goals coming courtesy of Jordan, who drove through the other team's mob at about 75 mph and slammed past the keeper. William did pretty well, playing on defense throughout and doing a good job of positioning and moving the ball forward -- not so much on passing, but his teammates still haven't figured out how to be available for passes, so that's not his fault.

Afterward, and much of Sunday, we worked on the yard and stuff -- I put in the front screen door, replaced the broken trackwheel on the deck screen and put it back up, we cut down last year's garden and cleaned up a half-dozen bags of yard waste and turned over the vegetable garden, and so on. I also stopped by MSU's plant sale, but only picked up a few things. It's still a little early for planting and I didn't want to be moving wagons-full of flats back and forth next cool night.

It's William's spring break. We had no concrete plans for going anywhere, but we did sort of vaguely think that we would like to go somewhere. I've been wanting to see the Darwin Exhibit for a long time -- it started in New York (I missed it there) and then travelled to Boston (just after I left the area), Chicago (last Christmas we couldn't make it to Chicago) and most recently to Toronto, its final stop; so I thought maybe we could go to Toronto over the break. We could also visit Auntie Morag, Uncle Max, and cousin Dash. The logistics surrounding the trip were a little daunting, because Amy is highly allergic to cats and Morag has several, so ignored everything and hoped it would sort itself out.

( Read more... )

Cap'n Matthew navigates the gallant S.S. Daddy's Chair across the perilous Office Ocean.

Matthew is eating his breakfast when he turns to me and says confidingly:
"I have a girlfriend at school."
Me: "Really. What's her name?"
"I don't know her name. ... It's a very long name."
"Is it this long?" (holding my hands about 3 feet apart.)
"Yeah! And she has hair like this and her hands are very long too."
"Oh yeah .. and does she have a banana in her ear?"
"Yeah."
"Hey, I know that girl!"
"And she eats oatmeal ... and bugs!"
"Mmm, bugs!"
"And she eats rocks ... and trees ... and a microwave ... and chairs ... and, and dishes!"
"I like a girl with a hearty appetite! You should introduce me some time."

It's still, at best, cool outside, but a number of milestones suggest that spring is either here or lurks around the corner.

• Most of the snow has melted. (I don't know how much snow we got this year [any useful sites that list snow accumulation? NOAA might have it, but I haven't found it yet if so] but I heard that Detroit got 60-70 inches, which sounds about right for us too).
• William's soccer team hasn't actually started practicing yet, but we have received the game and practice schedules.
• William dragged me out to the back yard for an hour yesterday to play baseball.
• William also had a baseball skills clinic yesterday, which he enjoyed no end. There are two more, and he's already prepared his baseball gear so he can leap into it next Saturday with no delays.
• We saw a couple of gaggles of geese heading North.
• And in the definitive sign that spring is nigh, Matthew fell into a puddle.

Amy and William enjoyed their ski trip so much they decided to go back again, and this time they talked me into coming.

The ostensible reason was so that Matthew could come as well, since he insisted he wanted to go skiiing too. Two kids would be too much for Amy, apparently, so I was the babysitter, chauffeur, and general valet. We drove up on Friday evening; it turned out to be a mildly irritating trip, because fairly intense snowstorm blew up. It never got too bad, but visibility was pretty bad at times, and the roads got slippery enough to make driving a little tricky. Still, we got in to the cabin around 10:00 pm, slept fine, and the next morning met the people who were sharing the cabin. Our friend Julia and her family were there. (The skiiing was their idea; her husband Dennis is a serious skier, once on the Ukranian national team, and their older son is competing in the US Nationals this year. Their younger son Daneel is in Matthew's day care, and they are good friends. Daneel is a pretty good skier, too, especially considering that he can't use his legs.)

We went out to the mountain and began our day. I don't downhill, but I did do some cross-country -- not much, just five miles or so, but it was fun. William strapped on his skis and promptly left his mother behind, his one day of skiiing making him more adept than her ten years of (intermittent) practice.

Matthew tried the skis, but decided within five minutes that this wasn't as much fun as he had thought, so he spent the rest of the day inside the lodge. Once I got back from my little workout, my mission was of course to look after Matthew and, as necessary, Daneel and other kids that got dropped off. I had my computer with me, wishfully hoping to get a bit of work done, but that was a FAIL as I eventually turned the computer over to movies to keep the kids entertained.

We drove back late that night, Amy and William squeezing their money's worth out of their lift tickets, and arrived home at a little before midnight with two sleeping boys.

The next day Amy walked stiffly around the house, trying to avoid stairs as much as possible. William, who had skied more aggressively and energetically than her, wasn't troubled at all, zipping through his skating lessons and a further hour of free skate with careless abandon.

Forecast A: 1 to 2 inches of snow tonight, another 1 to 2 inches tomorrow.
Forecast B: 2 to 5 inches tonight, another 2 to 4 tomorrow.
Forecast C: 1 to 3 tonight, 1 to 3 tomorrow.

For no prize: Is William's school going to be canceled tomorrow?

Update: About 3 inches of snow last night, latest forecast calls for another inch. School was not cancelled (or delayed).

Headline in today's MSU State News:

"Night sky illuminated by rare view of lunar eclipse"

Hillary Clinton == Coco Crisp.

(Except that I like Coco more.)

Amy and William went up to Boyne Mountain this weekend to ski, and Matthew and I stayed home to do guy stuff. We've watched hockey on the TV, eaten cheeseburgers and pizza at Old Chicago and pancakes at iHOP, shopped for computer accessories, and passaged cells in the tissue culture lab.

Next, we're going out to kill a cave bear and wear the skin.

I invited my former mentor, in whose lab I worked for 12 years, to give a seminar here. He arrives today, and I'm a bundle of nerves. What if his flight is delayed? What if he doesn't like the place? What if he doesn't approve of my work? What if he criticizes my lab? What if my students -- or the Chair of my department, that's one that just occurred to me -- is rude to him? What if he sees through all my carefully constructed act and denounces me to the world? I've arranged meetings with various people -- what if they don't show up? Where should we take him for dinners? Who should go? What if he doesn't wear a warm-enough coat? What if no one shows up to his seminar?

Yes, I've done this dozens of times with visiting speakers and it always works out fine, but this is DIFFERENT, dammit!

Last Saturday, William spent the day playing chess. The next day he spent the day skating.

William started taking skating lessons last fall, November or so, and it's quickly become one of his favorite things. After his Chinese school on Sunday mornings, we scarf down a hasty lunch and dash over to the rink, rent a pair of skates, and then he is taught for an hour and -- the real highlight -- gets an hour and a half of just ice time at the free skate. He's learning pretty quickly (he's been bumped up a class already) and several of his friends usually turn up to the free skate, so he can play tag and have races and dash in and among the hordes of circling skaters with his buddies.

Last Sunday, on top of the lesson and the free skate, there was a special hockey clinic. I guess this is part of an organized series of clinics across the country (or maybe just the state) aimed at getting kids into the game, but we'd signed up without really knowing what to expect.

As it happened, our clinic was taught by none other than the MSU hockey team (the Spartans) -- last year's NCAA champions and perpetual contenders. The players helped the kids get on their gear, guided them around the rink, hauled them to their feet when they fell, gently passed back and forth, played goalie while the kids shot at them, and generally gave them a great time. Most of the Spartans seemed to be having a good time with it, and were goofing around with each other; so we'd see a massive Spartan deliver a thunderous check to smash a teammate into the boards, then hoist a tiny four-year-old back onto his feet; crack a 150 mph slapshot at the far goal, then tap a delicate pass directly onto the four-year-old's stick.

William had lots of fun, especially since he got to wear the full hockey gear. The jerseys weren't numbered, so once he was on the ice we couldn't tell which one of the helmeted, jerseyed, masked 4-footers he was and we had to work through a checklist (red skates, tape holding up his stockings, jersey tucked in) to figure it out.

He got to keep the hockey stick and the jersey (I took the hockey stick away from him five minutes after he got home, because seven-year-olds and hockey sticks are not a good match inside the house) and he may have learned something. In any case, we will certainly try to catch some of the MSU hockey games this year.

We've probably had 6 - 8 inches of snow so far today. The forecast is for another 2 - 4 inches tonight, and perhaps a few more tomorrow.

Will William's school be cancelled?

My guess is no, but I wouldn't be surprised by a cancellation.

Update: And the answer is .... closed. Wusses. Third time in the last 8 days.

William's getting pretty bored with my office these days.

When William's chess coach asked him to play in the tournament, I was picturing a room with maybe 50 or so kids playing each other.

I was not expecting a couple of thousand kids -- at least two hundred in William's age and skill group -- filling several ballrooms.

William has taken it all in stride and apparently plans on confounding his opponent by playing his first game while balanced on one leg of his chair.

( Updates )

William had a good time, and is looking forward to playing in the tournament again next year. We need to work on his end games in the meantime, though.

William has a busy weekend. Normally these days he has piano lesson on Saturdays, Chinese school on Sunday mornings, ice-skating lessons Sunday afternoon, and free-skating time until nearly dinner. This weekend we had to move the piano lessons to Monday evening, because he has an all-day chess tournament. On Sunday, squeezed in between his Chinese school and his skating lessons he will go to a hockey "clinic" where he will learn, I assume, what a "puck" is and how to hold a "hockey stick".

William learned a little chess from his uncle Geoff last time he (William) was in Beijing. He liked it, and played with me on and off for a while. Last fall we found that his school has a chess club after school on Thursdays, and since he stays after school anyway, he thought it would be fun to sign up.

The coach for the chess club takes it rather more seriously than I ever did (not that that would be hard) and William's elementary school apparently always enters a team into the local tournaments. We thought little of it and William wasn't interested in entering, until one evening the coach called us begging us to have William sign up for the team. Apparently he's the second-best player in his age group, and without him the team would be much weaker ... Anyway, we asked William (without pressuring him, I think) to think it over, he did so, and eventually decided that it might be fun to give it a try after all.

I am not a very good player -- I never was, even when I played against Geoff every evening for a couple of years, and I have got worse since I only play a game every two or three years. I can still beat William (I can't make myself completely throw a game of chess, though I do reward good moves) but it's getting harder; I have to actually think about my moves now.

The tournament is an all-day thing, and William will play five games through the day. We've loaded up his backpack with books and toys and audiobooks and so on, and we'll see how he enjoys it.