National Aquarium in Baltimore

When we decided not to go to Raleigh, I made the decision to take the boys to the Aquarium in Baltimore on Thursday. I kind of figured they deserved at least one outing over the long Christmas break. Lang's mother was terrified I would lose a child and therefore joined us for the adventure.

Our annual membership ends on the 31st, thus making our admission free. This was the key reason why the Aquarium was our destination and not the Train Museum in Baltimore.

Below is my attempt at getting a picture of all three boys. I should know better by now...but I will forever keep trying. Joseph doesn't cooperate and the boys can't help but look at him instead of the camera. When he does look, it lasts only a moment and the boys aren't quick enough about looking back. Personally, I find the background in this picture to be creepy. That is a giant snake in that habitat looking for a way to escape.

OK. So I have to admit to a bit of bitterness with this next picture. When John first got his fish nearly EIGHT years ago, we had a fabulous blue lobster in the tank. We also had/have one of those catfish, algae sucking, bottom dwellers named Algernon. Algernon (a non-aggressive species...hah!) body slammed the lobster until he died. Algernon is now close to a foot long. At the aquarium there was a tank full of blue lobsters...not that I was able to get a good picture of them.

Joseph had a great line as we were watching the shark/ray tank. Pointing to a sand shark he asked, "Can I ride this one?" My response. "No. You can't ride this one." Joseph: "Why not, Mom?" It was interesting to me that he asked why not. I'm not sure he knows what it means, but he has heard it so much in conversation (and been asked so many times) that he applied it correctly. He's a smart cookie, applying phrases he picks up as he can. But he can't always process their meaning and as such often misapplies them. This one was dead on.

After lunch, we enjoyed the Dolphin Show and the 4D Immersion Theater showing Polar Express. As usual, Joseph refused to wear his glasses. The Immersion Theater was pretty impressive...but none of us liked it when the seats jabbed us in the back.

After our time in he Aquarium, we went outside to see the USS Constellation. All three boys played with this mock ship wheel.

John found a rather large anchor.

There was also a rather cool cannon, which lots of kids found exciting, making it rather difficult for me to get a picture of the boys. Of course, James wanted a picture with his head in the barrel. Next time.

Back to the Blog

So I am fearful of making a New Years resolution to better (or even at all) attend to the family blog. Nonetheless, I am realizing that so much happens in this family of mine which is forgotten. So...here goes. I'm also thinking this might be a place to do some reflecting. If for some reason you choose to follow this blog...when reflections happen...please feel free to skip right on over.

For our vacation this year we are staying home. This was our original plan. We like the time to catch up on projects and just be homebodies before re-entering our hectic life. After heading to Raleigh for a funeral in mid-December, we decided we'd like to spend time with family there as well and made plans to leave today (Wednesday) and return Sunday in time for work/school. Our family has been passing a cold/flu bug around and Lang was the last to succumb...yesterday. This made travel a no go.

Our big goal this week is to finally finish the boys' papers. We promised James' teacher in September we would do something with his obsession for Pearl Harbor. Originally I had planned a presentation poster, but we did that already with James' Space Shuttle/Kennedy Space Center report. So...now he is writing his first paper. John has written several papers, but it has been just over a year since his last one. He is out of practice. When he took interest in Roanoke Island, I forced the issue. We've had books checked out from the library for both boys since Thanksgiving. They were due today.

James' report is lacking in organization. There was no way he was going to re-read his books and take notes. He has been reading them off and on since September, after all. Knowing that notes were then not going to happen, we are instead trying to walk him through it by way of a series of questions. So far, so good. Since James is only in 1st grade, we are allowing him to dictate the report to me. As such, his finished product will be typed. Below is a picture of James studying a portion of one of his books before he explained it to me in his own words.

We are trying something new with John's paper. Like James, he had read all the books without taking notes (grrrrr!!!!). So, I helped him with his notetaking. As he found facts, I typed them into PowerPoint. I then printed them "handout" style. For the most part, he was able to cut out just the slide as each fact. Sometimes he went too fast for me, or I poorly grouped facts and he had to do further cuts in the slides because there were multiple unrelated facts. His big accoplishment was to cut and sort today, which I had him do in his room to protect the project from his littlest brother.

I have recently discovered that Joseph has a knack for building, given a reference or specific goal. Last week I took out Block Buddies and he went from Level 1 to Level 4 in less than an hour. At the end, he built this horse with minimal assistance from me.

Yesterday and today we took out Block Buddies again. He self-entertained yesterday for an hour building many of the examples on the provided cards. Below is a duck...which he did entirely by himself and I was lucky enough to not only see it, but snap a picture as well. Today he also played with blocks allowing him to create a marble track. I didn't get a picture, but he was quite taken. I am intrigued by his interest and obvious abilty in guided building and will be looking into other options to encourage him in this area.