Easter 2018
Greetings to all!
He is Risen!
The past two Saturdays, which Xavier and I use as clean-the-house days during Rebecca's absence, I have told Xavier (who has not fully engaged in his part of the cleaning activities in order to indulge in his new toy obsession) the Easter Bunny is not going to hide eggs in messy rooms. The reason, I explained, was that the Bunny does not think you find his eggs in all the mess.
Xavier took that line of reasoning to heart more than I expected. Middle Earth has had his attention these past two Saturdays.
This year is the first year Xavier engaged in the egg hunt/Easter Bunny side of Easter. He knew what an egg hunt meant and eagerly anticipated it.
I did ask him from time to time, and this morning when he woke up, why is Easter important and what is the correct focus. His answer is always "Jesus died. He rose from the dead." Satisfied with his response, I turned him loose on the rest of the house.
Last night, Xavier went to sleep easier than I expected. I waited a couple of hours, broke out the Bunny Loot and put on my Bunny ears.
I learned a few things. First, I over-bought candy, and not just a little. One bag of jelly beans proved more than enough. Though, I did do well on the chocolate candies side.
Second, hiding Bunny Loot is not as easy as it looks on paper. Hiding the small toys in places to create the greatest impact was not so difficult. The candy surprised me in its difficulty. I hid it high, I hid it low. I hid behind doors, in toys, in nooks and crannies. The hunt to find places to hide candy proved laborious. Who knew?
A third thing I learned was how unsatisfying it was hiding candy and toys when Rebecca was not there to take part in the operation. Our first egg hiding, and it was not a shared event.
At last, I entered Xavier's room. I had thought to hide eggs in several places in his room, but decided to only place a toy and chocolate bunny in a place he would see when he awoke. Bedtime for Daddy.
Xavier, who went to sleep concerned the Bunny might not come, awoke with help from Daddy (we needed to make the early service at church today). It took a few minutes of Xavier chatting to me about a couple of subjects (one being he thought the EB missed our house) before he noted the Lego City kit and chocolate bunny near his bed.
His eyes lit up and light bulbs started turning on! He looked outside. The morning started unusually cold, and looked like snow (the EB hid no eggs outdoors). Xavier looked out the window of his room and explained he did not think any eggs were outside because of the weather.
His face then lit up as he realized if the EB left stuff in his room, then there must be eggs elsewhere in the house. "I think the Easter Bunny hid more toys in the house!" He ran through the house into Middle Earth.
It was awesome, his response to finding eggs. He noted those up high first. Squealing with delight, he pointed at them saying "There's some way up there!"
He raced around collecting his finds and putting them on a table. It took me a while to get him into the dining area to find his basket, which contained some loot as well.
Shortly after getting his basket, he saw it—up on the mantle of the fireplace—the BIG toy. One of the larger Lego City kits. If only I could bottle his surprise, innocent joy and excitement!
We only had about :35 minutes from the time he got up until we needed to leave for church. He got dressed and ate breakfast and we left with time to spare on the clock. That is an Easter Miracle!
Christ is Risen!
Xavier's Second Circuit
Hello to all.
With Rebecca away, Xavier and I have been looking at electricity a little bit, with our focus on building a traffic light. The idea is to start with a rudimentary circuit so Xavier can get the basics, then move on to a more robust circuit done on a breadboard so Xavier can help press components together. Once the breadboard phase is complete, we are going to solder everything into place, box it and build a pole to mount the LEDs.
Xavier has engaged this idea eagerly. We are still waiting for red LEDs to come in the mail (they were back-ordered). Every day Xavier checks the front door step for them when we come home from school.
Last weekend, it occurred to me that an electronic toy I had built in the early eighties might be something Xavier would get enjoyment out of. Since he has expressed interest in basic electronics, I thought this toy might help fan that interest, not so much to understand the way of electricity, but just to have fun.
The problem was, I had not seen the project in years, probably decades. It got packed up when my mother moved houses in 1986, and if it ever got unpacked it got packed up again when Rebecca, Xavier and I moved to our Lakewood home.
Well, that meant the project was in the storage dresser in the barn, or in one of the many unpacked boxes still lining the walls of the downstairs spare bedroom.
Checking the barn yielded no joy. That meant the spare room. What a task lay ahead! Fortunately, I fastidiously label boxes when moving. Hopefully something on the box label would lead quickly to finding the electronic roulette wheel.
Near the bottom of the second stack of boxes, a label did just that. Xavier and I opened the box, dug around and found something quite unexpected.
What a blast from my past! 1977 to put a point on it.
Needless to say, Xavier flipped out with excitement, like a starving dog at last allowed to devour meat when I got it untangled and handed it over to him.
As an added bonus, when we put batteries in it, it did not work. I say added bonus because now Xavier and I could troubleshoot it. One of those teaching moments to test Xavier's command of what he learned from his simple circuit a few days ago.
We got it up and working in short order, and Xavier has had a lot of fun with it. He even dug out his Hot Wheels to play with it (Hot Wheels rarely interest him now; he's all about building things).
As for the roulette wheel, we found that in the same box. Xavier played with that until the speaker wires broke free of the board. Dad needs to break out his soldering iron!
Xavier's First Circuit
Hello to all.
The week prior to Rebecca leaving for SOS, I suggested to Xavier a project he and I could do. I suggested building a traffic light. I thought he might learn a little about electricity and electronics.
Needless to say, Xavier grabbed hold of the idea with his usual all-hands-on-deck gusto.
After a couple of days, Xavier asked if we could build the stoplight "tonight". I reminded him we planned to build it "when Momma is gone."
This led to Xavier occasionally asking (or pestering) Rebecca with "Mom, when are you leaving?" He knew no traffic light so long as Mom was home.
True to form, Tuesday the 6th, after Rebecca had left (which she did at 0300 in the morning!), Xavier reminded me of the traffic light and informed me "Mom's not here."
I told him we did not have the parts for the light and needed to buy them. We did that day after I picked him up, but with no success. The first parts store opens only on the weekend, which we learned after driving all the way out to it (next time, I'll call first).
The second one, hard to find, did not sell to the public. Bummer and a waste of time. Again, I should have called first.
The third choice had closed before we left the parking lot of the second choice. I did call them. They did not supply what we needed. So, we had to order the parts on-line.
Still, I had enough parts lying around to give Xavier a primer in basic electricity. I gathered batteries, some jumper cables (not the ones used with cars) and a low-voltage light bulb.
Together, we connected the parts and watched the light turn on. Xavier got excited. I explained the concepts of how electricity flows, how in needs a "circle" called a "circuit" to flow. We watched what happens when the circle is broken.
Later, we added the idea of a switch to our simple circuit, and learned about that.
He still plays with it, trying various ways to connect things up. Sometimes they work, other times they do not. When they do not, he and I discuss why the light does not turn on and Xavier makes a change.