Neighborhood-Kids All Local. All for Kids. All the Time.

So, here’s a way to get your kid’s bedroom cleaned up: let her paint a wall after she cleans it. And we came up with this even before Randy Pausch died on July 25. In case you don’t know, he was a computer-science professer at Carnegie Mellon University with pancreatic cancer who advocated, among other things, letting your kids paint their bedroom walls. I didn't find this out till after he died and after painting the wall. And all at once, the wall feels bigger now than a mere painting project. It feels like a tribute.

Leah was so stoked about the idea, she spent a whole day—and I’m not kidding—going through her stuff and putting it away or sorting it into one of three bags: recycle, toss, give away. Suddenly we could see the floor. And she admitted she actually liked it that way. Till now, she’s always maintained she prefers her room “messy” (read: disaster zone). I'm telling you, Randy (is that too familiar?) must have been onto something with the bedroom painting. 

We went to the paint store and she chose all shades of blue swatches, and when we got home she taped them up on the wall and studied them for a day. She settled on a deep cobalt. “I want to paint polka dots on top,” she said. Polka dots? Right away I was wondering about the work involved, the days of drying time, but she had it all figured out. “We’ll sponge them on. It won’t take long.” Martha Stewart would be proud.

Two days later, her wall was blue. We traced chalk circles around a plate, and we sponged lime green, white, and turquoise polka dots. (The latter two from our basement stash.) After the paint was dry, we wiped off the chalk marks, and she had textured polka dots that remind us of snowballs.

She loves it. It did turn out well, I must say. We made a good team. Me, the work horse, Leah, the visionary. Best of all, she has become room-proud and doesn’t let clutter build up (which, now that I know about Randy, kind of pales as the point).

Ty is inspired and is asking when we can paint his room in polka dots. All the walls, not just one. I’m still waiting for him to start tidying the clutter.  But we may do it anyway just to honor Randy's memory. 

Ty and I went to Eagle Hobbies this morning (Leah is working at horse camp again), on the corner of Bay and Holly across from the Bay Street Village. If you’ve never been here, it’s worth checking out, especially if you’re the parent of a boy. It’s a total boy-boy store, full of models, model paints, games, lots of games, of the like you’ll find nowhere else, comics, kites…the array will keep you busy. (And, it must be said, not a single computer game to be found—from what I saw. This place is about interactive stuff, not losing yourself in a screen.)

Ty loves this store. And if the inventory is any clue, so do the D&D folks and those into Warhammer. We wandered for some time, pulling games off the shelf to read the descriptions on the back. Eagle carries Heroscape, Star Wars games, and other games aimed at the younger set, but I can see this store holds appeal for older boys, too. I ran across one game that’s all about street gangs, building them, and trying to take over turf. Ty wanted to buy it. I told him he was too young. Inside, I was thinking he would always be too young for street gang games.

But, having just finished Why Gender Matters by Leonard Sax—I’m doing some research for an article—I feel like I have a better understanding of boys’ inclinations. So does Eagle Hobbies. This place abounds with zombie games, war games, and figurines that look like they belong in a Lord of the Rings game (maybe they do; what do I know?). Sax would concur that all this stuff is normal for boys to want to play with.

I don’t get it, but slowly I’ve stopped worrying about boys wanting to play-shoot each other and wrestle each other into the ground. They do take the risks that the books say they do—mine does, anyway—and they do compete as much as the books say they will. So the only time it’s not okay with me, I’ve decided, is when the other boy isn’t okay with it—well, that, and when it truly gets out of hand. (But that other mother can get a little tricky if she’s not into it, and there are lots of them out there.) Still, say various authors, better to act out your fantasies through play and games than in real life. So I’m starting to relax and try not to see our boys and men as loony war nuts. Did I really say that? (When I was a kid, I related more, back before the estrogen and motherhood took over.)

Eagle also carries Settlers of Catan, Blockus, Apples to Apples, and even a word game called You’ve Been Sentenced, with which you build goofy but grammatically correct sentences for points. Your girl might find something here. But unless she’s into dragon stuff (I know there are plenty who are), she will likely be underwhelmed.

The hardest part of our visit for Ty was keeping his money in his pocket, but he wisely chose to keep saving for the Heroscape game he so yearns for. We’ll be back.
 

So, we devoted last weekend to competition. Kind of ironic because I’ve been researching the effects of competition on young kids for an article, and the news isn’t good—but that’s another topic.

Ty’s competition was a big one—the elementary state chess tournament, held in Redmond. Some 1400 kids and their families (6000 people or so) gathered at a massive church for a day of chess. Picture it. Crowded halls, noise, lines for T-shirts and coffee and sandwiches, kids, parents, strollers, camping chairs, laptops. And then periodically, waves of humanity all trying to get to the same place at the same time.

By the end of the day, we were spent. I can’t even imagine how kids can concentrate enough to play chess, but they do, and I’m utterly impressed. Perhaps it’s actually more peaceful to sit across from a kid your own age and play a game you love than to deal with parents in the aftermath. 

And at the state level, you can bet there are parents who care about the outcome. Really care. These aren’t the parents who value speed or teamwork or hand-eye coordination—they’re the ones who value intelligence. You can practically feel the brainpower at work in this kind of setting. (But there are lots of regular parents, too, who are there to support their child’s love of chess.)

For me, coming from a sports background, it’s all eye-opening with its own set of vernacular. You hear such things as “Aiden, you’re white on board 36,” and “Now take it slow, don’t just think about your move—think about what he might be setting up.” I say “he” because the tournaments are dominated by boys. There are girls, too, but not nearly as many. The other thing you hear—way too much—is “Did you win?” My personal twitch.

In contrast, Leah spent Sunday afternoon trying out for the Whatcom Development League—that’s the more competitive soccer league for 5th and 6th graders. Leah doesn’t typically like competition, so Curt and I were surprised she wanted to try out. She doesn’t really mind if she doesn’t make it because then she'll have more time for horses, her other love (she'll find out in a couple weeks). When we arrived at the fields to register, the woman behind the table told Leah everything would be fine and the most important thing was to relax and have fun. Leah and I looked at each other. “She is relaxed,” I said.

Completely different setting from chess but no less competitive. I could tell by the way the coach addressed the parents he was trying to head off potential tantrums. “Your daughter’s score is purely numerical,” he said (read: objective). “If your daughter doesn’t make it, you can contact us and we can give you her scores, let you know what things she needs to work on.” 

Okay. Huh. This competitive stuff feels like such a slippery slope. You think it’s for fun, and then suddenly it’s not. 

I did not manage to play one prank on my children on April 1 (and, really, that's as lame as you can get when you're a parent). I was too busy spending the afternoon in the lobby of my surgeon’s office, waiting to hear how my ankle looked (good, in case you were wondering).

While I waited, unbeknownst to me my kids were doing their best with April Fool’s Day, bless ‘em. And I didn’t even really figure out their tricks until they told me about them, that’s how out of it I was.

But I did wonder, as I slapped dinner together, why the salt shaker had pepper in it. And it turns out the pepper shaker contained sugar (so that's why it was white!). Except we couldn’t taste the difference. The only way I knew was by Leah’s fork pausing above her plate.

“Did you put salt in this, Mom?”

“Yep.”

“From the shaker by the stove?”

“Yeah.” Why does she care, anyway?

Chuckle, chuckle. “You put sugar in, Mom.”

“I did?”

She also put salt in the water pitcher, hoping I would take a big salty drink. (So that’s why the water was so cloudy. I thought the filter had started leaking some weird white sludge.)

The next morning when the neighbor kids came to pick up my two for the walk to school, Leah’s buddy stooped to pick up a nickel on the front step.

“Hey,” she said, “this is glued on the step.”

And so it was!

Ever since, I’ve been noticing random pennies and nickels on our sidewalk, on the outside window sash, on the back patio—all glued in place. Leah’s best trick that keeps on tricking.

Thank goodness my kids have a sense of humor, anyway. I promise I’ll try harder next year.
 

For the first fifteen minutes of the allotted Earth Hour on Saturday night, we forgot to turn off the lights. But then our neighbor called to remind us and we all sort of slapped our foreheads. Oh yeah, Earth Hour.

 So we turned off the lights, but we couldn’t decide if it was bad form to finish watching the new Nancy Drew movie. We noticed that our other neighbors across the street seemed to be watching TV without the lights on—as evidenced by the blue glow flickering through their curtains—so we decided it was okay.

After that, we played Clue by candlelight, which is what I imagine the founders of Earth Hour had envisioned when they came up with the idea. Then Leah and I went online to check out what we were participating in (such is the busy life of a parent). Honestly, I have no idea if Earth Hour makes any difference at all, but I like the idea of solidarity with world neighbors, and I'm a sucker for wild storms set to music. 

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxu3MluKl8A