Aurora's first manga

Today we went to Borders so Aurora could spend a gift card she got for there.  I picked up a Python book and thumbed through it for a while.  Then Kim needed me to watch Aurora because she wanted to go look at books in places other than the kids section, where Athena and Arianna wanted to hang out.

Aurora had already picked out a book, but was still looking around.  We went over to the history section for a while a checked out what was in store there, and then started heading back to the kids section.

On our way back we ran into the manga section, and I made a comment to Aurora about how I'd like for her to try manga to see if she liked it.  She started talking about putting her book back and I told her that she needs the book she wants to buy, not the one I want her to buy.

She asked me what manga was about, so I randomly picked up a book that looked like it may be something in her area and showed her the first page.  I showed her how the first page is what we normally think of as the last page.  I then put the book back and started looking for something that I thought was closer to what she may like when she asked me for that same book back.  I explained it was just a book I randomly selected, not necessarily anything I thought she would like.

While I looked around she thumbed through the book and declared she wanted to put her other book back and get the one I had shown her.  It is called Neko Ramen.  It is about a cat named Taisho who owns a Ramen shop and comes up with ridiculous ideas about how he can sell Ramen, such as using spaghetti noodles and calling it Italian Ramen.

I double checked she really wanted to get this book I just randomly grabbed off the shelf instead of the one she had already picked out.  She assured me she was, so she ended up buying it.

On the way home she read through the book and thought it was really funny.  She thought it was really weird how the excited faces look.  I explained that it is part of the manga art style.  It took us both a while to realise that you ride from top-right, down, then move to the top of the next panel to the left.  We started off thinking you started at the top-right, moved left, and then down, until we realised why the panels sometimes made no sense.

I hope Aurora takes to this manga thing.  Aurora and I have didn't interests in books.  She likes non-fiction and historical fiction type books.  I prefer science fiction and fantasy.

I have been able to get her into the Narnia series.  We have finished The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  At first she did not like The Magician's Nephew, but she gave it a second shot and started to get into it.  We are presently taking a break from the Narnia series and reading James and the Giant Peach.

So, if this trend continues, Aurora and I will have more things to do together.  Plus, it has been nice reading good children's books that I would otherwise not put any interest into.

As for me, I'm reading a chapter a day of an eleven-hundred plus page book on programming in Python, which is followed by another Python book that covers more advanced topics on the language and is equally as large.  Fun times.

Tallahassee to Atlanta for TMBG

It's been forever since They Might Be Giants came to Tallahassee.   I found out in December that they would finally be making an appearance in March.  I wanted to take my kids, who are fans of the three kids CD/DVDs they have put out.  I found out the minimum age was (I think) fourteen to get in.

I knew they did kids shows from time to time, so I looked at their other shows going on around the same time and located a kids show in Atlanta the following weekend.

So the Tallahassee show as a lot of fun.  It was kind of weird seeing the crowd.  I first saw TMBG when I was in middle school, and I don't think there were too many people older than I am now at that show.  This time there where only a few people who looked like they where probably in high school.
They even played the one song I was looking forward to, which is She's An Angel.
They played a good number of music off of their kids album.  It was a good marker to see who was a parent in the crowd, as only few people could be seen singing along.
Another really great thing about this concert is that both Kim and I were able to go ... TOGETHER.  It was awesome.  we never get time together to do anything that's just fun for the two of us.  I love going places with my kids, but it is nice for just Kim and I to do something awesome together every one in a while.
The following Friday I got my Vanagon cleared out, and most of our stuff packed for the trip.  I packed enough food so that we would have to stop along the way either.
One rather scary thing about this trip was that I had never driven my Vanagon more than around sixty miles outside of Tallahassee.  I was planning on driving there and back in the same day, an almost 600 mile trip.
We took the US27 route to avoid Interstates, and perhaps see some cool small towns.

The morning was cold, and the bus has no  heat, so I packed lots of blankets, which Aurora said didn't make her warm enough.  I had the car DVD player setup as well, and we started the trip with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Athena's pick.
The van ran great on the way there, and the girls ate the sandwiches and apples I packed for them.  We made it the whole way stopping only for gas, and odd looks at the van from the locals.
The van ran great the whole time, and was actually able to maintain speeds up to 70mph, when not going up a hill, which is pretty good for one of these vehicles.
We arrived twenty minutes before the show started, to the discovery that the show was soled out.  I felt pretty dumb.  Reminder to self, don't drive the kids six hours away for a show you don't already have tickets for.  The lady at the box office told us to come back when the show started to see if there was availability.  Indeed there was and we had entry.
The security guy made me go back to my car to leave the camera.  Note number two, keep camera in pocket when trying to get it into a show.  Other parents didn't have their camera on display upon entry and where snapping photos of their children and the band the whole time.
They Might Be Giants where much more into this show than the one in Tallahassee.  There was a lot more energy on stage.  It was really cool to see a packed room with children and their parents singing and dancing along to TMBG.  As a function of parents who get their kids into good music, it was obvious most of the parents there where pretty awesome parents, which is something I can't say for most places I go to take my kids for children's events.
Aurora was tired and sat down for the whole show.  Athena spent most of the times either dancing, or in my arms watching the band.  Towards the end of the show Athena made a friend and danced with her.
The kids favorite part started during the song bed.  At the end of the line "and so directly to bed I go" a canon shot out papier-mâché over the audience.  The kids where really thrilled to catch the falling pieces of paper.  This happened a few more times throughout the show.

A sock puppet, called "The Avatars of They Might Be Giants" did a show and sang a couple of songs, which the kids thought was pretty funny too.
After the show Flansburgh handed out stickers, which we all three got, and I followed up with receiving a high-five from Flans.
Afterwards we grabbed some Greek food, and headed home.  The DVD player seemed to have broke itself while we were at the show, so there where no movies, or any other entertainment, for the drive back.
Athena fell asleep first, and Aurora went out only later on in the night.  We got home around 11:30pm, and I was quite famished from the day.

Letters to Santa

The girls made these for Santa.

Making Lunches

School is starting up next week and my kids have been spending their last two weeks of summer in daycare/summer camp. That means much of our school routine has started back up, including making lunches each night.

I take feeding my kids right to be pretty important, so I don't leave it up to the whim of school to feed my kids well. Just look at the public school lunch menu and you'll see why.

Packing healthy lunches that my kids will eat is no small task but one I'm working down to some sort of soft science. It is soft because what my kids claim to like and not like changes semi-regularly.

When packing I have three criteria I try to meet.

• Little Waste
• Healthy
• My kids will actually eat it.

With lunches it is easy to have a lot of waste. Juice boxes/pouches and individually wrapped food items can make each of the three kids lunch have quite a bit of waste. I've purchased some small glad juice boxes which are just like kid-sized water bottles for keeping juice. With these I can purchase a large container of juice and just put a little in these containers and send them off to school. One large jug of juice that is recyclable is less waste than multiple juice pouches that have to go in the trash.

Source: http://www.glad.com/containers/gladware_containers.phpI've also purchased a bunch of small 4oz containers for putting food. These store great because the lids lock when stacked. With these I can buy a large container of some sort of food, like apple sauce, and divy them out into these smaller containers.

Sending your kid to school with junk food is easy. There is no lack of junk food at the grocery store. Often it tries to label itself in ways to appeal to kids, appear healthy, or both. The Kraft Lunchables tries to sell itself as "wholesome" when most of those are just low-quality meat packed with fillers and sodium, some crackers (with more sodium), very low-end cheese (which resembles cheese as much as Nehi resembles juice) and a small candy bar. Parents fall for these shortcuts in droves.

I've been using a system of trial-and-error to find things I know my kids will eat. For Aurora I've got shelled sunflower seeds, and Yo Kids yogurt, and Craisins. Athena likes her Apple Sauce and Arianna likes Nature Valley bars. These aren't necessarily packed with nutrition, but they are not bad and represent a good starting point to building a good lunch. They all get a 4oz cup of fresh fruit as well. Sometimes I'll pack them a few slices of lunch meat or a sandwich with any combination of peanut butter, jelly, and/or honey. Unsalted whole-wheat crackers are a favorite as well.

As much as I find eating healthy to be important, it is also just as important to live a little. Sometimes we'll get them snacks that go from not healthy to unhealthy. For not healthy we may get them Goldfish. For unhealthy it could be a sugar snack like Little Debbies. I think giving your children things that are considered unhealthy (candy, TV, etc.) in moderation is rather important. Your teaching your children these things are alright, you just have to enjoy them responsibly. You don't want to find your child like a Catholic freshman in college.

As the year continues I will keep experimenting with different foods and finding out who like what. I've already started building a list on paper. I will buy the different items I know I can rely on in large containers and divy them out in the smaller tupperware and hopefully be able to feed my kids healthy food that they will eat with as little waste as possible.

Aurora and Kim's blog

Last summer I had Aurora start a blog so that she would keep writing through the summer. Just last week Kim started hers and Aurora started blogging again now that school is out.

Aurora's blog is at http://aurorabaucum.blogspot.com/ and Kim's is at http://k1newman.blogspot.com/. Aurora's latest entry includes a really nice poem.

I hope that this time next year Athena is writing good enough to start one as well.

Networking

Yesterday I finally got something done I had been wanting to do for a while. I went up to Lowe's and purchased some CAT5e cable and wall jacks. I then went home, drilled some holes in the floor, and ran cables under the house. Next to my DSL modem I have two network outlets that run to my bedroom and the other to the girl's bedroom.
I had previously been connecting wirelessly. Wireless support in Linux is not stellar, and the cards in our computers have gone from supported to not supported, which is kind of odd.
With my new wired connections I have a full 100M connection between the PCs, and no wireless headaches.
For the jack in the girl's room, Aurora punched down two wire pairs into the jack.
One thing I was worried about was if I made even one mistake, then the run wouldn't work. I don't have any tools for troubleshooting problems with network cables. If any wire was out of place, or wasn't punched down properly, the only indication I would have of a problem is that my computer wouldn't connect. I would have no idea why. Testers can tell you exactly which wire is having a problem, but without that it would be up to me to make sure all wires are in the proper place and try to punch them down a little harder. If that would have failed then I would have had to just restripped everything and started over again. Fortunately everything worked the first time and I didn't have to worry about any of that.
Now I can very easily pass music and videos around from computer to computer. My next step is to get a Gig switch so I can go from 100M between computers to 1,000M between computers. Sweet!

Aurora and adding

Aurora just asked me what twenty plus twenty was. Before I could answer her she said, "No, wait, it's forty."
I asked if they had been practicing added two-digit numbers in school. She said, "No, I just remember I could count by twenties." She figure out in her mind how to add twenty and twenty without anyone explaining to her how to add two-digit numbers. Sweet!