And Just Like That, The Tables Have Turned...

We built Riley's first ever big Lego set and by we, I mean mostly her. It's a little camper with a bike trailer that comes with a picnic table and grill. Totally adorable. Once it was done, Riley added every Lego mini figure and mega block Barbie figure she owns to this little party by piling them in the camper. Then, I suggest she ask Isaac to borrow one of his boy figures. I fully expected her to trot back to the living room with a ninja or a ghost...Nope.

She returns with mommy and baby dinosaurs! Now it's a scene from Jurassic Park! Dinosaurs pacing outside a camper full of people.

Just like that the dinos had been tamed and the girls were taking turns riding them!

I could not stop laughing! Talk about lemonade from lemons! Life lessons from a 4yr olds Lego imaginings.

Science Camp Week One Wrap Up

Isaac has successfully completed Beginning Lego Robotics. Pretty Cool. He actually owns the Lego Robotics set, but since Santa dropped it of it was mostly collecting dust. He learned to build and program a robot from scratch. He even learned about audio and light sensors. They had sumo tournaments where their creations went head to head. He said taking his creation apart on Friday was sad, but deleting the code he had written was sadder! Possible future career? I think so.(CORRECTION) He'll be learning C.S.I. Forensics and tackling Intermediate Lego Robotics next week.

He calls this one Katrina.

A Good Fit

I feel like Jane Goodall, but I'm observing baby nerds. Ten year old boys in their natural habitat, building with Legos and discussing computer games. Old enough to care about impressing each other, but not cool enough to succeed.

These are my son's peers in every way. This is the first time I am on hand to witness him "fitting in". Their social aggressiveness is painting him as the quiet one (HA!!).

Build and socialize and savor this moment of being perfectly matched. Their conflicts arise and dissipate so naturally. Like tiny waves of testosrone breaking, most often, on a shore of laughter. Delightfully discovering commonalities among a group of uncommons.

It makes me wonder when the first time I felt socially matched was. My first impulse is to say the drama office backstage in high school. Honestly, I probably did "fit" better there than anywhere else at that time, but I think the place where I felt the euphoric sense of being with people who understood me (and part of me hates to admit it!) was the teen lounge in the orthopedic hospital where I "grew up."

Don't get me wrong I'm not opting for the segregation of the disabled (although I could probably make a compelling case for teenagers!). I've always been quite at ease around the non-gimpy population. There's just so much pressure in adolescence. It was nice to find myself around people who "get it." That old elephant got to take some time off. We just existed in our microcosm without stares, tiresome explanations or being told how "brave" we were. There was a peace. We had drama over boys, broke rules and stayed up late.

When the slumber party ended I went back to being the "one" who walks funny and that was ok. I remember feeling at home with my nerdy video store "family" later and much later with my mommy group, but nothing touches the lounge. Perhaps it resonates louder in these days when the changes in my kids make my path a place full of opportunities again. What kindred spirits will line the road on the next leg of my adventure?

Lego Mania

Isaac used to do tae kwon do after school in 2nd grade. During that school year we moved and the commute to his class became inconvenient, but we stuck it out. It wasn't until we realized how little our Mr. Know-It-All was listening and engaging that we pulled the plug. It seemed like a good thing for him to do to get his energy channeled and learn a discipline, but once he knew basics he just stopped trying. Last year we took a break from extracurriculars because between regular work and gifted he had plenty on his plate.

Over the summer we went to a gymnastics birthday party and I thought that would be great for Isaac. Anything that gets him moving he's become far too sedentary. It would be high energy and fun, but the consequence of not listening would be injury so he'd have to tow the line. They gave me a coupon for a free class and I did some research. It's comparable to what we pay for Riley's dance class and the schedule works too. The problem is it's not close and I'm afraid to commit him to anything until the dust settles on 4th grade.

In the meantime my mom brought me a flyer about the library's weekly Lego get together. It took me, brain surgeon that I am, a while to figure out the alternating libraries deal. It is unfortunately never at our library either. However, it's free weekly social interaction outside of school. I figure it'll be a good way to test the waters for whether he's up to after school commitments yet. Today we drove 20min in the poring rain for: Lego Mania!

So many Legos! Divided into bins randomly. Everyone gets a bin and an area of floor to build on. They also had a selection of Lego building inspiration books.

It was a very small group between school starting and the horrible weather. The plus side was that she gave everyone two bins of bricks since there was only four kids.

Isaac was incredibly polite for the most part. Poor guy was the only boy today. That may never be the case at this event again. They had some really delightful old Lego pieces in the bins. Neat M.C. Esher style doors and even a Lego pterodactyl. I imagine some of these end up leaving in little pockets from time to time, not today though. The small group and number of adults kept everyone honest. I told Isaac to start thinking about cleaning out his Legos and making a donation to the library.

Isaac built a toy store. See, it has a display window in front and customers milling around. There's toy droids from Star Wars and pelicans among others. It also looks like he started building the bakery? or maybe diner? next door because I see a woman cooking.

It was a lot of fun if Isaac could scare of a group big enough I could see hosting an event like this at the house monthly. It's like a sewing circle, but for 10yr old boys.

Transform! Roll Out!

So, today we ditched the schedule idea. I dropped Riley off with her friends at school and took Isaac to the toy store. We bought school supplies. You heard right, school supplies! They were BOGO so I grabbed up some stuff for later. We also got two pretty cool birthday presents. Isaac made his first withdraw from his allowance account to buy two Lego Mini Figures. Apparently, it's always a surprise which one you get. This seems completely stupid to me. A girl would never buy a mystery Barbie or at least I wouldn't. He ended up with a repair man and a computer geek. It only occurred to me writing that out that Mike's kind of a hybrid of the two, funny.

Then we went home for some air conditioning and lunch. After that we headed out to the Transformers exhibit. It is a private collection that a college library put on display for the summer. The main focus was Optimus Prime. It was interesting. There were tons of toys, but also letters from actors who voiced the character in the various cartoons and movies. I thought that was great.

Great letter from Garry Chalk

Here's Isaac checking out the robots in disguise.

There were much more unusual items on the second floor. Starburst candy flavored "Optimus Lime" for example. Here are my two favorites:

This is a Mr. Potato Head called "Optimash Prime". I love that.

This is a Mickey Mouse Optimus Prime from Japan. So cool!

After all that Optimus Prime Isaac was overjoyed to see Bumblebee, his favorite Autobot.

Now to explain why Isaac can't have over 10,000 of anything until he moves out!