SOLSC #31 - That could be a slice, Dad!

For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.

That Could be a Slice, Dad!

I've been slicing all month and my 6 year-old daughter has been an inspiration for many of them. Actually, Clara has been an inspiration for countless slices the past four years and this is the first year she's shown some interest in my writing. We have been having discussions about why I choose the slices I do and she is asking if various things that have happened might make a "good slice." So here are some slices she suggested over the past few days:

- A walk on the cold and windy beach up in Maine where we found a perfect sand dollar, watched snails move and saw a live clam with its "foot" out of its shell.

- When she lost her small stuffy that she had just bought with her own money. We looked all around the car, retraced our steps through my grandma's retirement home, and had given up. It was found after 25 minutes of tears and searching in the handle above the door where she had placed it for safe keeping.

- A fashion show while trying on outfits during a shopping trip.

- Finding a huge and intact moon shell on the beach. She heard a mermaid splashing in it!

- How the beach changes with the tides each day. She was amazed that the waves were crashing right where we had been walking a few hours earlier.

- Her jumping in piles of yellow foam that the wind and waves were pushing up onto the wet sand.

So these are some great ideas for me to keep going with my slicing and my writing overall. Thanks for another great month everyone! 

My final tally this year is 30/31 days with another day where I was about an hour late. I wish I were still perfect but I'm still proud of my efforts. I'm even more proud of my students who did such an amazing job of slicing, especially since they only had school 14/31 days during the month. Most sliced all 31 days!

SOLSC #29 - Hotel Fort

For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.

Hotel Fort

My daughter travels very well and until this trip has gone to sleep well, even when we are in the same hotel room. We get a double-queen bed room with my wife and I in one bed and my 6yo in the other. We turn out all the lights but one so we can read, and Clara has usually gone to sleep close to her normal bedtime.

Not this trip.

The first night, we all were exhausted so we went to bed about the same time and after some tossing and turning, we were all 'out' quickly. The second night, Clara would not go to sleep until we turned out all the lights and even then it was hard. It was after 10:30 before she was asleep. Last night, I tried another tactic.

Since the light has been part of the problem, at least according to her complaints, I built a fort over her on the bed. The cozy seaside inn (It's actually called The Seaside Inn) we are staying in has tall headboards with posts on the beds. I tied an extra blanket around the posts and used extra pillows to prop up the blanket further down on the bed.

It seemed an instant success! Clara quickly settled down, snuggled with her stuffys and cooing about how wonderful the fort was. I was ready to award myself the "Dad of the Day" award and had a Facebook post prepped in my mind with the hashtag #dadftw (For The Win) at the end of it.

Over an hour later, Clara was making small rooms for her animals in the fort and was excited by the prospect of giving mom a thumbs-up from the fort when she returned from an evening out with some family. In the end, she got to give the thumbs-up to her mom, was awake until almost 10:00 and slept well through the night, once she was asleep.

So, while I didn't really win the battle of bedtimes with my brilliant idea, she is still excited by the fort and is lobbying to just leave it up for tonight. At least I'm a cool dad for her, even if she won't go to sleep at her bedtime, on this trip.

SOLSC#28 - A Crapple?

For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.

"We could name it a Crapple!"

That's what I just heard my daughter say.

I'd been sitting in the high-backed chair in our hotel room, laptop on my lap, trying to get my slice going for the day. A conversation about Asian pears had been going on because there was one cut up on the table as a snack. I really wasn't paying too much attention. But then in that loud clear voice of a six -year-old, my daughter said, "We could name it a crapple!"

I looked over at my wife, a little perplexed, while also silently shaking with laughter. She said, "We were talking about the Asian pear." I continued looking at her, still perplexed.

My daughter helped out. "Because it's like a crunchy pear apple. A crapple!" She looked satisfied having explained herself so well and took a big bite of her slice of Asian pear...or should I say crapple?

SOLSC #27 - Rainy Day in a Small Town

For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.

Rainy Day in a Small Town

We are visiting my 95 year-old grandmother in Kennebunk, Maine for our spring break. It's not exactly an exciting spring break and the weather is less than optimal for walks outside when she needs a break. But, after a morning and lunch of catching up, Bubba (What I named my grandma when I was two) was clearly ready for a break until dinner time.

So with three hours on out own and a dreary sky casting down a steady rain, we decided to go for a walk. Kennebunk and across the river Kennebunkport, are lovely little towns with long histories. The houses and shop fronts are nothing like we experience in Colorado. But it's also not tourist season and most of the shops are closed, including the cozy-looking coffee shops where we could warm up with a little nip.

But the library is open.

It's a large sturdy, brick building with two stories and a friendly atmosphere. Each floor is full of inviting rooms with built-in book cases, large windows, comfortable chairs and boat paintings and models. On the first floor, a small room with even smaller door gave me my first clue that it once was a bank. With a few questions, I learned that was indeed the case. Next it became the customs house for all of Maine, before that operation was moved to Portland in the 1920s. At that time it was bought and donated to the library district. This library is almost 100 years old!

So while I slice on a computer in the YA room, my six year-old daughter sits in a cozy window seat reading Dr. Seuss and Mo Willems books, and Susan does some book browsing of her own. The rain outside is steady from low clouds. Inside it is bright and warm and I'm going to start reading an interesting book (chosen by it's cover) and see if it would be good to buy for my classroom.

SOLSC #26 - Hard Landing

For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.

Hard Landing

Landing in Boston is always a little weird to me. Like many coastal airports, the approach tends to be over the water, and then about the time I start to get anxious, the ground appears twenty feet below and zipping by at 200 mph. 

Today, we were on final approach into Logan (Boston's airport) and I think we came in a little high. When the ground appeared under the wing, we seemed higher than usual and it was clear there was some wind by the way we were being bumped about.

The pilot brought us down quickly and we touched hard and bounced a couple of times before coming down for good. But it wasn't just a simple 'bump-bump-bump.' I was in the very last row and at first contact, we were at an angle and I could see the top of every heard jolt to the right in unison with my own. There was an obvious correction and the next bump caused every head to jerk left before we were airborne again.

In that split second before we came down again, a lot was going inside of me. Adrenaline started coursing through my body. My brain was trying to decide if it was just a bit of a rough landing and to stay calm, or if this would be a newsworthy event and I should let myself get scared. I waited for the next feeling of the wheels on the ground, eyes wide and brain wondering what direction the heads would move next. 

Every head nodded slightly forward at the third and final touchdown as the tires gripped evenly and the plane started to decelerate. My hand unclenched from my wife's with and extra squeeze and I made a silly joke about the contents of the overhead compartments probably shifting "during flight," parroting the taxiing announcement of the flight attendants.

It was not newsworthy. Phew!

SOLSC #25 - My stomach aches...and it's a good thing

For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.

My Stomach Aches...and it's a good thing

Before the break of dawn:
The stars winked out
The last sliver of the old moon's pulled the sun over the horizon
Peach brushed the sky;
We gathered

Coffee mugs carefully wrapped around each other,
Morning embraces and high fives
Quick catch-up, and then,
We overcame group inertia
And were off

Foil wrapped breakfast sandwiches
More coffee
A bathroom break
Sixty minutes wedged into the backseat with three not-small men,
We unfolded our limbs into
Crisp morning dew,
Steam from the river,
The disc golf course

Two rounds of play
Peppered with insults, jokes, fist bumps,
Shenanigans!
The eight of us took everything too far,
Built joke upon joke,
Laugh upon laugh,
And couldn't have been happier

My stomach aches.
Cheek muscles exhausted.
Laugh lines deeper than before.
Belly and heart overfull.

SOLSC #24 - Dandelions

For the fourth year, I am participating in the SOLSC and guiding students from my classroom and my school on the same writing journey. Here is the link to our school blog and the 15-20 students who are participating in the Classroom Challenge.

One Million Dandelions

It's been a dry winter in Denver and until yesterday, we had gotten less than a tenth of an inch of precipitation in March. Last night, it rained, sleet/snowed and got everything nice and wet.

Today, it was in the 50s, windy and the skies were sunny when the clouds were not racing by. I got home after school and went outside to check for eggs in the chicken coop. While my eyes were initially drawn to the bright daffodils and I was checking for tulips to be budding, I suddenly realized that my lawn was dotted with dozens of dandelions. 

I know they were not there yesterday. 

Obviously the roots and leaves were there, camouflaged in my grass. But after just a spot of moisture, the leaves were bright green on the brown-green grass and the yellow flowers had just appeared as if the dandelion fairy had visited.

How long before they burst into the little puffballs of seeds that my daughter won't let me do anything about since they are so fun to blow?