Nate Nate

A For Effort, F For Execution

Jonah's interpretation of a Super Why song, delivered at the top of his lungs, and often:

"I REALLY LOVE TO SPELL! S-P-E-E-L!!! I REALLY LOVE TO SPELLLLLL!  S-P-E-E-L!!!!!!!!"

Things I've Learned From Yahtzee Junior:

1.  Nate, despite living in Southern California for more than half of his life and visiting Disneyland 3 times, cannot name a single Disney character.  "Which one's Mickey?" he asked repeatedly.  "I'll try for the one with the butterfly on its head."  "That's a bow, not a butterfly, and that's Minnie Mouse, dear," I explained.  "Mom!  You got the tiger!" "That's not a tiger, that's Goofy."

2.  Jonah is a whiz with the games.  Yahtzee (Junior, as he insists on adding every time), involves rolling to get 5 of a kind, so the first thing you have to do is figure out, from your first roll, which you have the most of, factoring in the wild card rolls.  After about 3 rolls, Jonah was faster at it than I was.  When Grandpa Toshi didn't realize that he had a wild card and went to put it back in the roller, Jonah jumped in.  "Stop!!" he cried.  "Don't put the wild card back!  They're very expensive!"

We think he meant "valuable."

3.  When my kids are obsessed with a game, they're really obsessed with it.  Last night, not one, but TWO kids had Yahtzee (Junior) nightmares that caused them to yell like they were in the middle of a very contentious game.  First Nate started complaining loudly that people were choosing the wrong character.  About an hour later, Jonah started screaming that he was so mad at Nate for moving Jonah's piece when Jonah wanted to move it himself!!  Neither kid ever opened his eyes during the entire exchange.  Weird!

In other news, we had a very nice visit with Grandpa Toshi and Grandma Debbie this weekend, capped off with Grandpa Toshi visiting the kindergarten class to tell stories of growing up in Japan.  The kids listened wide-eyed to a story about how kids in Japan wrote wishes and tied them to bamboo trees, and then wrote their own wishes and tied them to the bamboo tree that Grandpa Toshi and Grandma Debbie brought.  Nate was the helper.  It was a pretty excellent morning.

Apropos of nothing, I really don't want to forget how Jonah says "yellowpop" instead of lollipop, and "humbolla" instead of umbrella, and how he adds an extra "ah" to the end of many words.  And how he says really funny things.  For example, today in the car:

Jonah: "Mommy, I have big-a news!"

Me:  "Wow, what is it???"

Jonah:  "I don't know yet.  It's a surprise."

I Can't Imagine Where He Learned That; We Never Let Him Watch Television

This morning I handed a fidgety Jonah a piece of paper and a pen while Steve and I were trying to discuss his life with our new hero, pulmonologist Dr. Fong.  A few minutes later, he proudly handed me his work.  Jonah had written "PBSKIDS.ORG" on the paper and had sketched out the logo.  "Learn more about it at PBS Kids dahtorg!" he crowed.

It's a good thing Dr. Fong is way cooler than the gastro doc Nate saw in LA, the one who scolded me for letting my toddler watch tv when I got out a Grover puppet to help him through the exam.  I mean really!

Nate had a fabulous time performing at the Lower School Spring Concert this afternoon.  Nate has a habit of deciding to act out his musical numbers once the concert is underway, so when the rest of the K/1 crowd was singing "Hickory, Dickory Dock," we watched Nate pantomime climbing up the clock.  It was very cute.  And it turns out that there is no terror quite like the terror of watching your kid onstage and realizing that he's about to try to take off his sweater, when you know that will basically result in him just stripping down to Calvin Klein model attire in the middle of the show.  Luckily, it was over before he could get his top off.  The things we don't think to explicitly discuss beforehand!

Different People, Different Stressors

About a week ago, Nate started saying that he was going to walk to school on Wednesday, March 25.  We eventually learned that he had a fire drill at school on February 25, so he thinks that there will be one on the 25th of every month.  And Nate hates, hates, hates fire drills.  It's pretty legitimate; he is a guy with some oversensitivities, and the sudden eruption of a deafening siren, coupled with a stampede of kindergarteners rushing for the door, freaks him out.  (Earthquake drills, while also loud, involve crouching under a desk, so they at least do not involve the potential for trampling).

We tried to plan for it.  We talked about different strategies he could use: counting how long the alarm lasts, holding hands with a friend, asking the teacher what time the drill will start so he won't be caught off guard.  We even typed up a 7 part plan on the computer.  Nate rejected each suggestion in favor of his own: he would walk the 8 miles to school so that he would be late and miss the fire drill.  Both clever and not all that swift at the same time.

So this morning, I got a frantic call from the street outside of his school, where Nate was refusing to get out of the car.  He was genuinely terrified to walk into the building.  And really, what could be more heart-wrenching than that?  We decided that he would go to the office and first figure out whether there actually is going to be a fire drill today (turns out they are not quite as regular as he thinks).  But our teacher was very nice about offering to get him earplugs and take him outside before the next fire drill.  So he has graciously agreed to go to class for the day.  I'm just glad we finally figured out why he'd been resisting going to school for the past week.  Only Nate, you know?

Fun With Numbers

A few of the random numbers we've recently discovered Nate knows:

1.  How many pages are in each of the books on his bookshelf.   My "A-ha!" moment: Jonah pulls down Flat Stanley in Outer Space, and Nate, glancing at the title, remarks, "That book has 126 pages in it."  I look at the last page.  126.  Naturally, I grab another book off the shelf.  "Nate, how many pages are in this one?"  "144," replies Nate.  Correct.  No, I didn't go through it with every book we own, but dang, that is ... it must be something, right?  It's something.  It's a thing.

2.  How many minutes and seconds long every song (on Earth?) is.  My "A-ha!" moment: a song comes on the iPod, and Nate comments excitedly, "This song is 2 minutes and 48 seconds long!!"  I check.  He is right.  Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

3.  How many minutes and seconds into the songs are the parts he likes.  My "A-ha!" moment: We're listening to a new Decemberists song while we play a rousing game of Bingo after dinner.  "This song has no singing until 2:43," says Nate.  Steve and I crack up, then run over to watch the counter.  At 2:40, the whole family counts down excitedly, "3...2...1" and there is singing.  I'm not sure where on the cool-to-creepy spectrum this falls, but we definitely find it entertaining. 

Speaking of new Decemberists songs, imagine if you were five years old, and you had a favorite band that you loved loved loved, but you had no idea that bands come out with new albums from time to time.  So one day, when you woke up and went to go have breakfast like you always do, and your dad suddenly announced, "Hey, guess what Nate, a new Decemberists' album came out yesterday, and I downloaded it for you," you would be pretty excited, right?  Right.  So was Nate. 

Finally, may I just point out that it is entirely surreal to play Memory with 2 little kids who each appear to have something close to whatever it is that they call a photographic memory?  We play with 20 pairs, so there are 40 cards spread out across the rug.  Being 3 and 5.5, they don't think to start at corners or have any kind of strategy; they just turn over random cards anywhere in the game.  And, six turns later, when they turn over the other watch or dog or jack-in-the-box, they know exactly where (row 3, column 6) the other one was, with about 80% accuracy.  It's 100% freaky, man. 

They Give Nobels in Optomoplayfectionery, Right?

So a couple of weeks ago, the night we finished Nate's science project, Jonah wandered into the office and announced, "Daddy, now we have to do my science project."  "Tell him what your science project is, Jonah," prodded Mommy. 

"Well, um ..." -- and here Jonah gave the sheepish smile he uses when he knows he's going to say something that will make us laugh -- "glasses ... toys ... and candy!" 

And a little hard work and experimentation later, I present to you the definitive study of glasses, toys, and candy:

Dude!

While explaining to Jonah for the umpteenth time why I could not turn around and open a package for him whilst driving 60 miles per hour on the freeway, I apparently got a little wordy and, perhaps, boring, because right in the middle of my bit about needing to keep my eyes on the road, Jonah interrupted me with an exasperated, world-weary, "FINE!!!"  In perfect imitation of Mommy, I might add.

Naturally, I burst out laughing.

Jonah frowned in the backseat.  "How is Jonah frustrated, and Mommy is laughing?" he asked himself rhetorically.

Proof That We Are Getting Our Money's Worth

"Nous allons chanter Dan le Ciel," wrote Nate, "pour French Day." 

"What does that mean???" I asked breathlessly. 

"It means," Nate explained patiently, "We are going to sing 'Dan le Ciel' for French Day."

I kid you not, the capitalization was even correct.  This is a guy who had never met a lowercase letter that he wanted to attempt to write until a few months ago, who had never noticed the existence of punctuation, who spoke no more French than you or I (or possibly just I).  I am blown away by kindergarten.  Blown away!  These days, he knows where his food goes after it leaves his plate ("I have something stuck in my esophagus!" his friend Gracie recently exclaimed to her mom), he can describe the duties of a dozen career People in His Neighborhood, and, when given a topic sentence such as "Brr! It's cold!" he can write an entire essay as follows: "Brr!  Its cold  When its cold I put on a warm coat.  the cold week is this week.  it is chily out.  yesterday & [yes, ampersand!  he learned how to make an ampersand!] Today.  I dont like it is cold.  I did not like it about 1,000,000 times.  I do like warm on sunny days"

Seriously, about all I remember from kindergarten is show and tell and playing with blocks.  I can't even believe what they have 5 year olds doing these days.  But I am impressed.  And most of all, I'm excited that Nate, a loather of preschool, is so into everything that they're doing in school.  He plays Duck Duck Goose!  He does science experiments!  He grudgingly draws stick people in art class!  He's even started to be more interested in the content of the stories he hears than the number of the page he is on.  I've always found Nate endlessly entertaining, but I am really enjoying the Enthusiastic Kindergartn Participant model.

Cracking Me Up/Freaking Me Out

The good news is that someone has taught Jonah Butler how to play Simon Says.  The bad news is that his Simon only issues one command: "Simon says... touch your whole body.  Simon says...touch yourself.  Simon says...touch yourself again."  I could make a totally awful and inappropriate joke here, but I will refrain.

Nate's Simon is equally lacking in the creativity department, but at least he is not stuck on something that sounds dirty.  "Simon says...touch your ears," he begins confidently.  "Simon says...um...um...Simon says...um... ... ... ... ok, Simon says, blrreahdfodlfh."  "Simon says what???" I ask.  "Simon says...um...mmmmmmmm...uh...Simon says touch your nose!!!!!" he crows triumphantly.  I touch my nose.  "Simon says....uh...uh..."

Does it get old?  Actually, not really.  They crack themselves and each other up, and that's always nice.  They were having a great time playing Super Why games on pbskids.org earlier, and there was a lot of joint singing of the Super Why theme song.  There was a rousing game of 2-brother hide-and-seek while Mommy actually read a bit of Newsweek (for once, not a euphemism for Us Weekly!) and cleaned up the kitchen.

Remind me later to post some video of Jonah doing his frenetic dance to Jai Ho.  It looks like something you might get if you crossed a seizure with an acid trip, all with a huge grin.  You really have to see it to believe it.

Nate's Science Fair Project

Wherein Daddy presents Nate with some experiment options, sets up the project, and lets Nate make all of the necessary observations (or "ovservastions") and conclusions, acting as an occasional scrivener (though Nate did the bulk of the typing too) and constant photographer, but otherwise getting out of the way.  Nate's ovservastions are presented here without further comment, but there is a video at the end:

How Long Ice Melts

Question: What melts first?  Ice made with salt, ice made with shuger, ice made with sawdust, or just water?  What melts last?

I think the answer will be:  Ice made with salt will melt first, sawdust will melt last.

Kinds of ice: 

Ice with salt:  30g of salt, 170g of water.

Ice with shuger:  30g of shuger, 170g of water.

Ice with sawdust:  30g of sawdust, 170g of water.

Ice with water only:  200g of water.

First we put salt, shuger, water and sawdust into cups.  Then we added water.  We measured to 200g.  Then we put them in the freezer for a couple days.  Then we hammered nails on a board and put the ice on them.  Next every hour we made an ovservastion. 

Starting Ovservastions

1.                   Most of salt was not avalible for ice.  Maybe the salt did not let it be ice.

2.                   The shuger is almost ice.

3.                   The water is ice.

4.                   Sawdust is about ice.

Observastions after an hour

1.                   Salt is melting fastest.

2.                   Water is melting fast.

3.                   Shuger is melting fast.

4.                   Sawdust is really slow.

 Observastions after 2 hours

1.                   Salt is gone.

2.                   In my head I think water is melting # 2 3 or 4.

3.                   I think shuger is going to melt in # 2.

4.                   In my head I think sawdust is going to melt in # 4

Observastions after 3 hours

1.                   Salt already melted.

2.                   Shuger is about to melt.  Its going down to the nail 2nd place.

3.                   Water is going to melt 3rd.

4.                   Sawdust is melting 4^th.

Observastions after 4:45

1.                   Salt: gone.

2.                   Shuger is almost gone.

3.                   Water is half way gone.

4.                   Sawdust: slow having a hard time.

Observastions after 5 hours

1.                   Salt: gone

2.                   Shuger: gone

3.                   Water: almost gone

4.                   Sawdust having a hard time.

After 5 hours I went to bed.

Next morning observastion

1.                   Salt shuger and water is gone.

2.                   Sawdust is still there.

Conclusion:
I was correct. salt is really fast. Sawdust is too slow.

(If the video isn't working, try this: Nate's Science Fair Project.)