ANZAC Day

April 25 is ANZAC Day, the anniversary of the start of the attack at Gallipoli in WWI. The slaughter in the ensuing battle was enormous, great enough that Turkey, the target of the Australian and New Zealand attacks, has renamed the beach where the landings took place to ANZAC cove. Turkey, in conjunction with Australia and New Zealand, also holds a commemorative event there each year.

Just pondering....

Sleeping

Jackson took this....

Something already gone...?

I have this creeping sense that, in the future, looking at these pictures will be a wistful experience--sad and yearning, but not bitterly so.


These photos seem to me to capture a particular moment, of two people who already aren't quite the same as they were in the picture. When will Peter again wear two hats in such a silly way? How many more times will Miranda hold him like this on her top bunk? How long will they even be this particular size--in body, mind and soul? And how long before their relationship gets a lot more complicated than it is rendered here?

Sometimes I look at photos of youngsters, people about whose lives I might know a little bit, maybe something serious, grave, or even tragic, and I think, "You don't really have any idea of this thing 30 or 40 years down the road." None of us knows, of course, but I "see" it when look at those kind of pictures.

I obviously don't know what will happen for these two, but I've already been through enough with them to understand that very little works out the way I/they/we plan for it to, so I can generally and abstractly imagine the wistfulness of unfulfilled hopes, expectations, etc. I certainly hope and pray against overwhelming tragedy--the small tragedies in life are grave enough--and hope and pray that those inevitable disappointments are surmountable. But when those tragedies--big or small-- come, I suspect these will be two of the pictures I'll reminisce over.

Pesach

Almost every year we have a Passover Seder. Sandy has been doing them for 20-odd years. That's (some of) us with copies of the Haggadah in front of us.

Miranda and Fawn (Peter's two-day-a-week nanny)

Suzanne S. with Peter; Sandy with Peter.

"Hey, I see what you're doing, taking that picture....Am I in?"




Margaret Anne & Peter

Have to Crawl Before....

Peter is very close to crawling--he's doing that rocking back and forth on all fours, and he slides himself around pretty well.

And with Miranda's instruction, I think he'll get there a few minutes earlier.

The Walker

The dizzying array of distracting devices is one of the reasons Peter remains as "easy" as he is.
This one is the walker. If you've paid close attention, you've seen the Peter Pop-up, and the play mat. He also has a bouncy chair, and, of course, the floor. Often you can rotate him through each--maybe 8 or 10 minutes per--and he's set.

Gotta love the bears...standing guard, ready to serve.

WASL is PHUN?

There once was a girl taking WASL
Who thought the test was a HASL
But not losing HART
And feeling very SMRT
She found it not so really AWFL

Well, I'm not much of a poet, but it's fun. So fun that we're having another WASL Poetry Night.

My 8th-graders write poems about WASL and we go to a nearby "coffee house" Thursday evening and read them.

Are we WASLniks?

Connection to Peter? I don't know...he likes when I recite poetry, I think.

Jr. Daffodil Parade

Jackson played snare with the Internationally Recognized Mighty Truman Titans Marching Band (that's how the teacher signed them up).

Miranda carrying the banner for L&L Learning Center, where she goes after school each afternoon.

Peter cheering them on.

WASL

We're half way through WASL--the Washington Assessment of Student Learning--Miranda and Jackson half way through taking it, I half way through administering it.

(It looks nothing like that photo, by the way. But if anybody put images even roughly approximating the real WASL in any public domain, well, I don't want to think about what would happen. Suffice to say, even the teacher's union lawyer probably couldn't help you on that. I asked Jackson and Miranda to re-enact their taking of it so I could photograph them, but they declined. For an example of a WASL-like 8th grade reading test, click here.)

I don't mind the idea of standardized tests, or WASL per se. It does seem strange in the implementation, though. The tests don't really seem to matter for much--for students--until 10th grade, where I guess you have to pass them to graduate. Except that math is going to be dropped out of that requirement.

Miranda is pretty stressed about hers. 3rd grade is the first year you take the test, and she's been nervous, and then distressed that she didn't finish in the "regular" time. (You have all day, if you need it, but there's a long test-taking window each day. Most kids finish in this window--ours is 165 minutes--and those who need extra time go to the library to keep working.) She was also telling Sandy that they have to put these cardboard screens around their desks so that other kids can't look at their work.

I like that they ask some questions that require some explanation and examples. The type of question they ask, though, seems to fall in a rather narrow range. The questions aren't terribly analytical, and the reading "ability" examined is fairly specific--from what I've seen of Released Items, which are rejected test items, and from what I've heard students say after the test. For all the hue and cry about "critical thinking" (an expression I despise--I prefer analytical thinking), the reading questions don't really require all that much of it.

So, all in all, a mixed bag, in my mind.

Klaipeda in July?

I know I told a lot of people that we would not be taking any big trips this summer. Well, we just might go back to Lithuania, after all. It seems LCC-International University’s (interesting that the photo on their home page--when I looked--was of the Chinese basketball team, Yao Ming and all, playing the Swedish team) Summer Language Institute still needs a few teachers to fill their roster, so they put out a call for people to come. And we’re reconsidering.

Obviously, it would be a whole different trip with Peter, but we’re thinking the hardest part would be the flights. Once we get settled in Klaipeda, we should be okay. It helps that we know what the place, the program, and the procedures are like…we can more easily imagine Peter and us together there.

Sandy likes this one...better?

Even though I'm all sweaty, she likes these, so...here they are.

A Father & Son Series

What can I say...a moment to cherish.

Y Run For Kids

The best weather of the year, and it was the big YMCA Run. Another first, Peter's first 5K.

Leaving from Harold Tollefson Plaza downtown.

Heading north out of downtown, Old City Hall in the background.

And then, looking out over the Tide Flats.

And next to the grain loading dock.

Then, after a u-turn, we headed back to the same spot, which took us past ______ (name that building--neither Sandy nor I remember what it is).

Then we dashed to the finish...in just under some large number of minutes in the area of 3/4 of an hour.

Uncle Lonnie?

A fictive kin of Peter's, Lonnie just doesn't know it yet.

More Firsts

First time watching Andy Griffith.

Infant Pattern Balding!

More important firsts

Peter's first cereal.

First time on the lap of Jim Price--affectionately known by us as "Adios...Jim," so named by Miranda, who is in the background.