Xavier's First Solar Eclipse
Greetings to everyone.
Today was a big event for us: a solar eclipse. I had not paid much attention to it; I thought the full dark band was passing through Denver. Well, not so much. We had 92.6% of it. Not too impressive, but still fun.
When we learned that Wyoming was the place to be to see the full blackout, Rebecca and I spent hours trying to find reservations. We exhausted Wyoming hotels and camp grounds, even tried scenarios of flying into Idaho. We even looked at Nebraska. Apparently, hundreds of thousands of others were more prepared for this day than we were. We did find one tiny hotel room for $600.00 a night. That was too much to pay.
So, this morning when Xavier got up, he and I built an eclipse viewer out of a Cheerios cereal box. We took it outside and tested it. Our first design needed a refinement (a smaller pinhole). We made the corrections and set it aside to wait for the eclipse to begin.
Xavier asked what we were doing. So, I took him downstairs and found my Earth globe and my Moon globe. I demonstrated to him what solar eclipse was using the ceiling light as the sun. He grasped part of it, but discovered he liked spinning the Earth globe more than listening to the science lesson.
Oh well, I thought. We have another one in seven years, and he'll be eleven then.
As it turned out, Xavier got far more excited than I thought. He got into the viewing of the eclipse and understood what was happening. We abandoned our cereal box viewer as its projection proved too blurry. With the two 3x5 cards, we were able to adjust the the distance to get sharp shadows.
We plan on being far more prepared come April 2024. We plan on being in the dark band. 2017 was our dry-run test for it!
Swim Lessons
Hello to everyone.
We signed Xavier up for swim lessons. He had two weeks of them, each one lasting about half an hour. As you can see in the photograph, Xavier was not excited by the lessons.
The first day the class had about nine kids. By the end of the two weeks, only three. We made Xavier stick it out to the end, which was a fight. Xavier spent more time climbing out of the pool and running away from the instructor than he spent in the pool. Rebecca spent her half hour not watching, but plopping Xavier back into the pool.
We decided after the first day that Xavier was going to learn comfort in the water. If he would not work with his instructor on floating, kicking, bubble blowing, etc., he would repeat the lessons with his parents. That meant going to the pool every night and working with Xavier.
This worked well. Xavier wanted to work with us, and did so readily. He even started telling us he "wanted to go to the pool—one without the teacher." Apparently, he did not feel comfortable with Miss Katie.
We now have Xavier putting and holding his head completely under water, blowing bubbles, floating on his stomach and on his back. We even crossed the biggest hurdle: having him jump from the edge of the pool into the water. He has even grown guardedly comfortable to be without a life vest on him, so long as a parent is holding him, or his is splashing around in two-foot deep water.
It's required some effort, but Xavier has learned a much greater comfort with deep water (deep meaning over his head). He still needs to learn to swim, but Rebecca and I agree, the comfort with water is what we wanted him to get out of his lessons this year.
He does not yet know it, but we signed him up for lessons again, starting in October. Now that he has the basics under his belt, now he can get what he missed these past two weeks.
Xavier the Pirate
Greetings to everyone.
Xavier had a week of Summer School. We signed him up for the Treasure Hunt week. The theme, as one may well guess, was pirates.
The art projects included a treasure chest holding pirate booty, a "Beach in a Bottle", a parrot made from a lunch sack and several other like projects. He made a hat, and got an eye patch (Dollar Store purchase by the school).
He enjoyed himself, coming home singing pirate songs all week.
Later, a friend (on a whim) purchased Xavier while at lunch with Rebecca and Xavier: a foam cutlass. We have spent several evenings running around the back yard clashing swords.