End-of-Summer Fun

Tie-dying

Just like his Dad.

Ahh...fire.

Enjoying nature.

Storm Troopers

First Day of School

Sam started second grade today, Maria started sixth grade.

Sam had a pretty easy beginning, although he has given me extremely limited information about his day. He seemed in a good mood after school, so I'll take that as a good sign. Here's the information I got from my interrogation. His favorite part of the day was recess. He likes his teacher. It's fun to be in the same class as Gage. They all read their "Mad-Libs" summer assignment, many of which were funny. And a whole lot of "I don't knows."

Maria had a good day too. Although last night at dinner, she had a fever of 102 degrees and we were very worried she would have to miss her first day of middle school! She just had some kind of bug that was very short lived - finally admitted to us that she had been feeling bad during most of her time at Easton with Grandma and Grandpa K., and had even fallen asleep on the way home - which should have been a red flag to me since that never happens - not even on 10 hour car rides. I think she was going to hide it as long as she could, because she did not want to miss her first day of school. But we gave her Advil last night, and that made her feel good enough to eat her dinner heated up at 8:00 last night. At 6:30 this morning she had no fever, so she went to school. And she has been fine all day. Plus, she's in our building now, so I knew if she started feeling bad she could always come to one of us.

Anyway, 6th grade is very different because the kids move around for eight different periods, and they are with a different mixture of kids for each period. There was some moving around in the 4th and 5th grades, but the classes stayed intact. I didn't get a huge amount of information from her either, but it seems like she did OK. She has math last period - and for some reason that class in an hour and ten minutes long, so that doesn't make her very happy. But she also has one teacher for science, social studies, and study center, and she really likes her. Lily, one of her best friends, is not in any of her classes, but she gets to see her at lunch. Recess was also her favorite part of the day.

Ben and I both had a fairly easy start, but it can be hard to tell on the first day how your classes are really going to be. We'll be in a honeymoon period for these first few weeks.

YMCA 5K

Yesterday Ben and I ran in the Union County YMCA's 5K. I made a fairly last minute decision to do it - based mainly on the point that soon Sam will start Saturday morning soccer and it will be difficult for Ben and I to run in the same race for quite a while. And with this race being in town, the kids could stay here by themselves as Ben and I would not even be gone for two hours. Also, I have been running quite a few miles (15-16) per week and though maybe I was up to beating my personal record. After Hops Over the Moon in June, where I ran in the evening in 90 degree heat and missed my personal record by over 4 minutes, I was pretty discouraged to ever run in another 5K. But I really thought I was ready for this one.

So Ben and I signed up on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning I ran a 5K in our neighborhood to see what my time would be if I really pushed myself. That morning I made it in around 31 minutes (my last best time - at the 5K in May -was 32'37"). So I felt good about this upcoming race. Until a few hours later when my left hip started to feel pretty sore (I've been battling this pain for almost a month and its one of the reasons I have been mostly on the treadmill lately). So I took Advil and hoped for the best. Thursday I still had some pain, but felt pretty good on Friday (of course I didn't run either of those days).

Race morning was overcast , about 75 degrees, and slightly humid, but much better conditions than my last race. It was very small - maybe 30-40 people running, and maybe 20-30 more walking. When we set off, people around me settled in their pace and there was really no passing each other. I was definitely at the back end of the pack - I think fewer than 5 runners were behind me. But my only goal was to beat my old time, so I kept telling myself it didn't matter.

The course wasn't very well marked, although by the time I got to the turns they had people telling us where to go. Ben, toward the front of the race, didn't have the same luxury and missed a turn, making his final run less that 5 kilometers and his time should be disqualified - he was pretty unhappy about that. We have since heard that there was a race in the same park last weekend, and their signs were still up (along with ours), so without someone there to tell you where to run, it got confusing. I didn't have trouble because by the time I got to these spots they had people there to tell you where to go. (This was only one problem in this poorly run race - Ben actually e-mailed the Y with his complaints - but I'm not going to get into all of the problems right now).

So anyway, I kept up what I felt was my usual pace pretty well - easy with so few runners around me. The last mile was very hard. I was huffing and puffing and my stomach hurt, but I just kept telling myself I was not allowed to walk - I could slow to a snail's jogging pace - but the second I walked my personal record chances would be gone. My hip hurt some in the beginning, but then felt somewhat better after I warmed up. Since I set my iPod to a 5K, it gave me my pace in km/hour instead of mile/hour, which was no help at all since I always train in miles per hour. So I had no idea what my actual pace was during the entire race, I just had to go by my instincts. Not my best decision, that's for sure.

Ben, Andy and Lindsey were at the finish line to cheer me on (Andy and Lindsey did the kids 1 mile run/walk), and although I was too tired to think about it, Andy checked with the timer after I crossed the line, and we think my time was 30'11". I have been waiting for the Y to post official race results but so far there is nothing on their website. Either way, even if I was slightly over that time, I still beat my last best race time by over 2 minutes.

I'm so happy that I was able to set a personal record, but not in any hurry to race again - I may wait until November. I do wish it had been a good race for Ben too. For me, if this race had gone badly, my racing days may have been over. After all, I run to stay in shape and hopefully keep a few pounds off - not to be a racer (I know I'll never be super fast). But it is kind of fun to challenge yourself and makes the everyday running a little more interesting.

Summer Wrap-Up

We just returned from Maria's Back to School night at the middle school, so I guess our summer vacation has offiically come to an end. And as usual, I have mixed feeling about going back to school. On one hand, we've had an awesome summer and have gone to a lot of cool places. The kids are finally old enough to do a variety of things during the summer. But on the other hand, some boredom has set in, and it's just time to get back into a routine, back to learning stuff - I hope Sam hasn't forgotten how to read!

This summer was in some ways the easiest yet as a parent. The kids really do a very good job of entertaining themselves for most of the day. But they usually count on having neighbors Mason and Lindsey to play with in the evenings. Last year, Sam complained about being bored a lot and constantly asked "What are we going to do today?" making me feel that I needed to organize something for us to do each day. This year he has only recently begun to ask that dreaded question. I do think the finished basement helps - some of these very hot days the kids disappear down there for most of the day. Now if they would only clean up the messes they make without being reminded...

Here are some Keller family highlights from the Summer of 2010:

The four of us went on a week-long vacation right after school was out, stopping in Staunton, Virginia to see Dan and Pam and then spending four days seeing the sights in Washington D.C., finally stopping in Pennsylvania on the way home to tour Fallingwater.

Attended Miami Alumni Weekend where we hung out with old friends, played in the Alumni Band, and spent the night in a dorm (always fun for the kids).

Sam played his first year of coach-pitch baseball.

Maria moved up to the Academy level in her second year of golfing with the Union County Junior Golf Academy and Tour.

We saw the Air Force Tattoo with Rita and Darrell.

Maria attended her second year of 4-H camp - five days and four nights away from home.

Ben and I ran in a 5K in Dayton at Hops Over the Moon with Andy and Lisa. The race was horribly hot and I was horribly slow. Ben won 3rd in his age division. The party after the race was a lot of fun, though.

We spent a weekend in Geneva with my parents and had fun playing at the Lake and also visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We went to Kings Island with the Smiths and spent the night before in a hotel with adjoining rooms (the kids thought that was pretty cool too)

We celebrated Ben's 40th birthday here with lots of great friends at the 25th annual Birthday Bash.

Celebrated July 4th for three consecutive days including Red, White and Boom in downtown Columbus, fire with the Smiths, and watched the Marysville fireworks too.

Maria sewed a "Top for Tween" and won her category for the county, qualifying to compete at the State Fair.

We also rode the rides at the county fair and had lots of good fair food, and Maria carried the banner for the Fairbanks band in the fair parade.

Three of us attended the Ohio State Fair and saw the Butter cow, rode some rides, and watched a very very long fashion show.

Saw Popcorn Pops with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.

Saw the Titanic Exhibit at COSI.

Saw Wicked in downtown Columbus.

And there were several sleepovers, tons of pool visits with Ben, and a few home improvement projects as well.

We really did a ton of fun stuff this summer. But that's what summer is supposed to be like. Now we're back to the grind for nine months - the long, lazy, free days have come to an end. We sure did enjoy them while we could.

Summer Math Packet Rant

If you have spent any time with me this summer, you have probably already heard this rant in person. I apologize in advance, but I have to vent again or I might explode.

Maria is going into the 6th grade - the first grade of middle school. For a couple of years the middle school has had all incoming students complete a summer reading project. And I heard a lot of complaints about the size of this project, both form co-workers and parents of really good students. I don't think most parents have a problem with their kids being asked to read over the summer, maybe write a reflection or two. But when the assignment becomes so big that it is taking up hours and hours of a student's summer, and they are still only in middle school, there is a problem. Apparently some parents complained excessively, and went to the school board to try to get summer reading abolished. But given how the parents went about this, and the fact that it got very ugly, the school decided to fight back. This summer they gave each kid summer reading and summer math. Now you might think that the addition of summer math was only in the best interest of our children's education. But Ben heard it straight from the boss's mouth - "Wait till those parents see that we added summer math too!"

Maria's summer reading project consisted of her reading one assigned book and then making a scrapbook page about a dog she either has had or would like to have. She is a little disappointed since she doesn't like dogs, but the assignment is very reasonable for a 6th grader's summer. The summer math, however, is ridiculous.

Maria is part of the first 6th grade class to have the summer math packet. There was an informational meeting about these packets in the spring, but we were given less than a week's notice about this meeting and had a dance dress rehearsal, so we had to miss the meeting. Not a big deal, as the actual math packet wasn't even ready to hand out to parents. I don't think a professional should invite all of his parents to an evening informational meeting and then not have the actual information to hand out, but that's me. Maria was given the packet on one of the last days of school, and we left for vacation two days later, so I didn't worry about it until we got back from our vacation.

My first hint that this might be a problem was when I overheard another mother talking at Sam's baseball game about how much work this math was, and how long it was taking her 6th grade daughter to even complete one problem. In the back of my head, I was thinking "How bad could it be - it's summer!" But I asked Maria to dig out the assignment and show it to me that night.

And boy was I wrong. Ten weeks worth of stuff (our vacation this year was only a little over ten weeks long). Each week was a page in length, broken up into six boxes, and each box had three multi-part problems. One box was to be done a day - for six days, each week all summer. And each box took at least a half hour to do - and that's if Maria knew how to do the problem. All in all, it was several hundred problems. To make up for being gone on vacation, or camp, or that fun summer stuff that is what kids are supposed to do in the summer, each child had to do hours of extra work.

On top of the length of the assignment, many parts were extremely difficult. It was supposed to be based only on the 5th grade standards that the students had already been taught. But my daughter is at the top of her class. If she didn't have any idea how to do some of it, I feel very badly for many of the other students. I spent hours helping her, looking up answers and methods on the online textbook, and even resorted to e-mailing the teacher our question (which he encouraged in his directions). He never even e-mailed back. If I worked during the summer, it would have been very difficult to have spent that much time helping her. Moreover, the posted online answers that we were encouraged to check came from another school district's site in another state - who most likely has different math standards. Being an educator, I would never steal a huge assignment like this, without doing the problems myself and then making my own answer sheet. At times the posted answers were even wrong and made no sense. I taught Chemistry several years ago, and spent many evenings working out problems so that I would be prepared to teach it the next day. That this teacher gave the kids hundreds of problems that he stole from somewhere else and never even worked out on his own in inexcusable.

But I have to hold my tongue. I work in the same school district. And the person that I would need to complain to would take my complaints and talk around them forever and then convince herself the school has done nothing wrong. Or worse, if I e-mailed her the complaints, I would receive a reply with lots of capital lettered words, underlining, and colored phrases for emphasis. And the tone would be extremely condescending. Trust me, Ben has worked for this person for many years. And in the end, nothing would change. But I have heard that many people in the community are also upset, so I have a feeling I won't need to add in my opinion.

Maria and I finished the packet tonight. We've spent 6 or 7 hours just the last two days to finally get it all done. And now I am worried that if everyone had trouble, the teacher won't count it as a grade. And that will make me furious, since Maria spent so long and worked so hard to do a quality job on every problem. So Ben and I decided we won't officially complain about the assignment, but if an acceptable amount of credit is not given for the assignment, then will need to say something. And the sad thing is, this is not a good way Maria to start off in the middle school - hating it because she had to work on math all summer. She's a kid, and summer should be about fun and lazy days, not integers and percents and story problems.

Wicked

Last night we took the kids to see Wicked. Ben saw it in Chicago with his band two years ago, but the rest of us hadn't seen it. We are all very familiar with the music, however, since Ben's marching band did a Wicked show a few years back, and we all listened to the soundtrack a lot.

All four of us really liked the show. I knew Maria would love it, but wasn't sure about Sam - we even asked him in the spring if he would rather stay with a sitter while the rest of us went. But he wanted to go, so we tried to give him story background before the show to help him understand and try to prevent having to answer questions while we were there. Both kids really enjoyed the Wizard of Oz movie when they saw it last fall, and even though there isn't a lot of the movie in Wicked (they are just slightly overlapping stories, after all), there was enough to hold Sam's interest. It was also pretty funny in parts, and I think the kids were able to get most of the jokes. Sam sat through an almost three hour musical and paid attention to the entire thing, and only asked once how soon until it was over (and that wasn't until close to the end). Maria loved it too. And they both were so well-behaved - they were two of the youngest people I saw there, and they acted like little adults. We were so proud.

Ben and I enjoyed the show as well. Ben got to see parts he slept through the first time he saw it, and I had fun comparing the book (which I didn't love that much) to the show.

Titanic Exhibit at COSI

Yesterday we went to see the Titanic Exhibit at COSI. It's only there until the end of the summer, and so we needed to fit it in during these last weeks of vacation. COSI had the same exhibit 5 years ago, in 2005, and we went then too. I remember that Maria was in kindergarten and became very interested in all things Titanic afterward - we read lots of books about the topic. Sam was almost 2 years old at the time, and had to be carried through the entire exhibit - at that time it was so crowded he didn't feel comfortable on his feet - in some cases it was almost wall to wall people. So needless to say, Sam didn't remember any of it and Maria's memories were limited.

This time they got much more out of it. Although Sam still was not interested in reading anything, when we got to the part about the sinking I started reading stuff to him because I knew he would have so many questions about how it sank. We each received a boarding pass when we entered the exhibit, and everyone but me ended up in First Class (I was in 2nd class). But at the end, when they list those who survived and those who perished, Sam was the only one who did not survive. They really play up the differences in the three classes on the ship, and I do think that might have made it more interesting for the kids. Another big hit was the huge chunk of ice representing the iceberg, that we could touch, and the video demonstration of how the ship went down. I let Ben watch that with the kids numerous times - he gets a turn at Sam's never-ending questions since he didn't see him all last week!

I really enjoyed the exhibit, and I think the kids did too. So far Sam's not interested in reading the same books we read with Maria 5 years ago, but when school starts, and he has to read something, he might decide they are worth a try.

Note - no pictures in the Titanic exhibit so I posted a boarding pass - this one is Ben's and he was quite wealthy. Also a picture of Ben and the kids trying to lift a car on a pulley system - we had over an hour to play at the regular exhibits at COSI too.

The Ohio State Fair

Yesterday the kids and I took a trip to the Ohio State Fair (Ben was at band camp). The trip was mainly so that Maria could compete with her 4-H clothing project that qualified for state at our county fair last week, but we figured as long as we were there we would stay into the evening so that Maria could have some fun after an afternoon of judging. The weather looked threatening, but ended up not raining for the 8 hours we were there. We got really lucky - except for the backache I had from carrying around three umbrellas in my backpack purse all day. But if I didn't have them, it would have poured all day, I'm certain of it.

First - Maria's experience. We got to the correct building in plenty of time - having not ever done this before I wanted to leave extra time in case we got lost or had some other issues. But we didn't, so Maria was all dressed and ready to go for her 1:00 judging by 12:30. Sam and I dropped her off at the correct place for her "circle judging" - and other than having all the girls in the same category sit in a circle I'm not entirely sure what circle judging is. Sam and I left then, and the person in charge told us to come back between 3 and 4 for the 4:00 Style Review.

Maria didn't tell me a lot about the judging. She said there was a lot of dead time waiting for the judging to begin, and that the women weren't nearly as nice as the women in the county judging. The only award available at State is an "Outstanding of the Day" award, which goes to the top 20% in each class, which in Maria's class was 3 girls. It is an honor just to be chosen to compete at State, though, and the competition was tough. I wonder if Maria's pattern was just not complex enough - we chose it mainly for its simplicity and the confidence that we could do a better job on a simpler pattern. And some of the comments on the sheet were valid but extremely picky ("gathers not distributed evenly around waist") and some not so valid ("white shoes would make the outfit pop" - she did have white shoes). So Maria did not get a special award yesterday, but she learned a lot from this entire experience and we are so proud of her.

While Maria was being judged, Sam and I had 2 hours to kill before we had to head back to the fashion show (where we had to be over an hour early just to get a seat in one of the back rows!). Sam was a real trooper yesterday - there was tons of just sitting around and he didn't complain at all (although he did keep busy with his Nintendo DS and my cell phone games). So while we were killing time we went in a few of the buildings, took in part of a horse show, and of course visited the Dairy Building where we had ice cream and saw the famous Butter Cow. Sam had no interest in seeing any of the animals in the pens, so without needing to eat, ride the rides (we were waiting for Maria to do that), or spend extra money to buy junk, our options were somewhat limited.

After the fashion show and awards, we were all ready for some fun. Maria had been competing from 12:30 until 5:30, and Sam and I had been sitting at the fashion show for almost 3 hours. So we had some dinner and then hit the rides. I bought the kids each $10 worth of tickets - their rides took 2 or 3 tickets each. But it was really difficult, since they like to ride different things, and with only me there one kid would ride something while the other one waited with me. And Sam wasn't tall enough for a couple of things he wanted to ride, which surprised him since he was tall enough for similar rides at Kings Island. They were also pumping annoyingly loud music throughout the entire ride area which made communication difficult. I was hot, and tired, my back hurt and now I had to carry Maria's bag with all of her fashion show stuff in addition to my backpack. I just wanted to get these rides over with as soon as possible and get home. And the kids were so careful about spending these 10 ride tickets - they were afraid if they rode something without first seeing all the options they would regret it later, so there was a lot of walking back and forth. The whole experience really made me appreciate a place like Kings Island more - which I knew ahead of time and would not even have braved the State Fair if Maria didn't need to be there. I do think the kids had fun on the rides, but it was stressful at times and they knew I wanted to leave. We finally got their rides done and had one more stop to make so that Maria could see the famous Butter Cow and have her ice cream. Then it was back to the car and we were home at 9:00.

No wonder we were tired - we were there for 8 hours. And I think we're all relieved to have a break from 4-H and fairs for a while. I know I was much happier getting up this morning knowing this experience is behind us. Now...back to summer math for Maria.

Curious George (or Sam)

Lately our son has been driving us crazy.

But in a good way, I guess. Asking questions is the first step in understanding. And so when Sam asks us question after question, Ben and I try to give him complete, thoughtful answers so that he can learn from them. Both being educators, I like to think we may have more patience with the constant questions than some other parents might. And I do feel, for the most part, that we do a good job of answering without making Sam feel bad about asking. I certainly understand how it feels to be the youngest in the family and just not "get it' as easily as the rest of the family. But it seems like keeping our patience is getting more and more difficult.

There are two reasons for this. First, Sam just really needs to go into great detail about how things work. I often wonder if he'll end up being some type of engineer when he grows up, with his insatiable appetite for explanations into the workings of all things (that is when he realizes that the job market for LEGO designer may be limited). My problem is that I don't really care about HOW things work. I just am happy that they DO work. So I usually cannot answer those questions and worse, have very little understanding for why it matters. This gets exceptionally old when the questioning occurs during movies, with current examples being the Muppets and E.T. He is very interested in CGI (Computer Generated Images), and about how things worked before CGI (you know, in the old days when Ben and I were kids). Sam would like to know whether each scene in E.T. is new and computer-generated, or a original scene and if they used the E.T. puppet or the E.T. suit. And if they used the suit, who wore it? And how did they still make the eyes move? And how close the person with the remote control has to be? And on, and on, and on. It makes me want to scream, "It's a love story between a little boy and his alien friend, and they have to say goodbye so they can each survive, and isn't it sad?" But I manage to refrain, and continue to try to answer his questions (usually with the help of Google and a glass of wine for my nerves).

The second reason Sam asks so many questions is because he just doesn't listen to the answer the first ten times he asks the question. I can't tell you how many times we have talked about having to go to the State Fair tomorrow. How often we've discussed the schedule, the meal plan (eat lunch on the way there but have dinner at the fair) and other things we'll see there (like the butter cow). Today, the three of us have talked about it a few times. Sam has asked many times how many more days - today I was able to finally say "Tomorrow we're going to the State Fair." Then several times tonight when going over details for tomorrow he'll say, "Why? Where are we going tomorrow?"

This is the questioning that really drives me crazy. And it happens frequently. And I wonder if it's not his lack of attention (he seems to do pretty well in school, after all), but if its really that X chromosome that he possesses, like his Dad ad all other males. Or what I've heard referred to as "selective hearing." In which case I guess I should just get used to all of these questions.