This morning, I was drinking coffee and sitting in front of my window on the world, ie my computer, when I noticed a particular friend of mine appear in my Instant Messenger buddylist. I said, “Hiya!” and she asked me what we had planned for the day because she needed something to do, so we made plans to meet up and let the kids all play with each other.
I hurried TheBubster through her ABCs & 123s; currently she is writing a sentence by tracing and then copying the words, the content is about Ancient Greece and her mathematics worksheet is Addition and Subtraction exercises with the number lineJust as an important note, we are not yet dealing with negative numbers but it is possible that we will introduce them relatively soon. Then we hustled down the Westside Bike highway to get to the park.
The kids all got along swell. My friend made a comment about how good LittleBud’s is with a soccer ball. Later a complete stranger came over to the field to express his opinion that LittleBud has potential to grow up to be one of the “top 99% of football players in the World.” It was a bit outlandish to hear this, but the boy does love chasing after a ball.
After we were exhausted and overheated, we went home to wait for a surprise. I knew what it was but the kids were not expecting it at all, they just knew it was a surprise. When it arrived, TheBubster helped figure out what to do with it and how we should put it together with the large wooden box we found last week on the sidewalk. Pictured below is the kids enjoying their new surprise.
Finally, I got an email today from Kidzui, which is an adaptation of the Firefox Web browser which has curated content for kids. I like it alot because it gives TheBubster a great deal of freedom to explore the web and find things she likes, that are entertaining and sometimes even educational. It lists all the websites that she visits, the videos she watches and several other areas of interesting data is reported and I can make selections about permissions. Anyways this video keeps popping up in her list of watched videos, TheWife and I found it hilarious so you are all forced to watch it as well.
On a day like today; hot but not too hot, sunny and clear despite pronouncements by weather advisors that there will be rain; jumping in the bakfiets with our school supplies and a bag of food is exactly the way to do things. I did not create a map before hand because I wanted to leave some room in the day for spontaneous exploration, plus I was not certain exactly how far I wanted to go.
We ended up going a long ways.
As we were enjoying a transverse jaunt through Central Park, TheBubster posed a question that was especially relevant; the question in question also demonstrated a curious and insightful mind. She asked me, “Why is it harder to ride the bakfiets uphill than downhill?”
BOOM!
It was as if we were at home and Hell’s Bells rang out “Time for school robes and studying”, there we were, me huffing and puffing up the hills of Central Park and explaining, as best I could, Sir Isaac Newton’s work to a five year old. We discussed our planet, the sun, Jupiter, the moon, various bodies of various sizes (mass) and things of various distances from one another like space stations and ships on the oceans or even bakfiets. The amazing thing was the fact that she seemed to understand what I was talking about, certainly she will not be able to recite the description from memory in verbatium, however she does now know the reason a fully loaded bakfiets is harder to pedal uphill than it is to coast downhill.
She also understands that The Bronx is one of five boroughs in New York City. She already knows Brooklyn and Manhattan and now she understands that The Bronx is up and the Battery is down…
After we found a park with a children’s festival where she tried to jump Double Dutch, we went to Randall’s Island and did some writing and mathematics. She is having sentences from a workbook about Ancient Greece for writing and her work with the number line and the functions of addition and subtraction has progressed to the point where she does not really need to be reminded to check the sign before making the jumps with her spaceship. See the spaceship is a triangular piece of cardboard that serves as a pointer for our little game of jumping up and down the number line. The ‘+’ or ‘-’ only serves to tell her which direction the jumps are being made. I love that she is getting these concepts quite easily and the hardest part of the work right now is to get her started. Once she is doing the work, it gets done well.
So it was a long and exhausting day in the Eckenrode House Bakfiets School but we are all satisfied with the results.
<p>On Friday, TheWife ,also known as TheMommy, had oral surgery; new donor bone was hammered into her jaw to rebuild it. She was strictly told not to lift anything substantial or to make any great physical effort as it would not heal properly and the graft would fail, so to prevent the kids from jumping on her all day Sunday I dropped them into the bakfiets and set out on a random adventure.
Initially, my idea was to go and find some Crocs for the boy because LittleBud had seemed to fall in love with the ones that belonged to our little houseguest. Every time she would come home and take them off, he would scurry over and slip his feet into them. It was not just her little pink ones that he liked but Crocs period because we will wake up in the morning and put on his sister’s yellow shoes on. Its quite a funny sight, him in these slightly too large yellow shoes and his nappy padding around the house.
Anyways, the adventure Sunday turned out to be more surprise to us all than I planned. It was Sunday morning and the shops were all closed so there was no buying little shoes.
At this point, we just moved out to the edge of the island and rode the bike; looking at the water and the other side. As we were on the eastern shore of Manhattan and the greenway is not continuous; the United Nations building interrupts it for security purposes (I am sure they could secure the perimeter of that building with a greenway if they really wanted too but I digress….). This meant that we had to ride up a ramp, back into the main avenues and around the building and back down a ramp onto the greenway. We actually had to do this again further along because the greenway stops where the highway runs right up next to the water’s edge.
Finally, we came to a third ramp at 96th street. It was starting to threaten rain, so I took it with the intention of headed west and downtown to our home, but then at the top a saw that the ramp splits in two directions. One way goes west into Manhattan, the other goes over the river to Randall’s Island. We had a quick chat about what happens if we get rained on and everyone sort of agreed that we’d just get wet and so we crossed over to the east.
Randall’s Island is a cute little place that has athletic facilities and an insane asylum. There are nature reserve areas and a decent sized track and field stadium next to each other. There is also a huge car park and a place where outdoor music concerts take place. In fact while we were there a Puerto Rican organization was warming up for a summer party. There is also a Golf center with a driving range and mini golf. We stopped at that place to get some drinks and use the restroom. TheBubster then used her best requesting forms and asked to place some mini golf. So we did. It was great fun with the three of us, even more fun because I did not try to keep my score; I am certain that if I had Little Bud would have found a way to beat me!
So because you have sat through my prose or maybe because you skipped ahead, here are some photos.
On the way home both kids fell asleep in the bakfiets and I had to carry them both upstairs (four flights! heavy!)
I’m very premature as I compose this note. Its only in the first thirty minutes of the Australia v Ghana match. After a terrible first match against Germany where they lost 4-0, the Socceroos had hoped to muster up a good performance against Ghana. Well, that may have flown out the window as one of their players has been handed a red card and Ghana evened up the score as the result of a penalty kick. The rest of the match will be emotionally draining for anyone who has the slightest interest in the result. There’s 60 minutes of play where the national team from Ghana will have one additional player, even maintaining a draw will be a daunting task.
Yesterday was an emotional roller-coaster of the same sort.
Every four years, since I was twelve, I have eagerly watched the World Cup unfold its tournament to reveal the new champions. For a great amount of that time, I was able to select the time to cheer for at the beginning of the match. One game its England, the next its France, then Brazil, then Paraguay; this is because the USA was never really involved. Soon I began to evolve favorites that I stayed with throughout the tournament. This turned into a selection of three teams to favorite at the beginning and my experience was shaped by this attachment.
After a visit to the Netherlands when I was 16, where I got to see World Cup fever strike a footballing nation, I began to align my fanatical cheering with the team from Holland; Oranje! Oranje! Oranje! When The USA began to get invited to the dance, I could still practice my three favorites drill because did the USA really have a chance? I didn’t think so.
A few more cycles down the road and USA started to perform well, and it was neat to be able to cheer for my homeland in the dance. So my three favorites began to have one slot filled by default. Then I married an Australian.
This year’s World Cup has the odd distinction in my life of being the first time that all three of my favorites were filled before qualifications were done. What’s more, they are all in groups that play their group matches in the same two day period. This is good because, while I get whipped about as the theatrics on the pitch happen for two days, I get three more days of passive watching matches.
Yes, I meant passive. As an illustration of non-passive or attached viewing, I give you this example. Yesterday, at halftime, Team USA was down two goals to Slovenia. After the second goal, I instinctively uttered a growl that had origins from both my gut and that part of my brain that we share with reptiles; LittleBud began weeping and crying because he was scared. I comforted him by holding him and rocking him and I told him that its okay we’ll get it back. Three minutes into the second half, the USA scored a fantastic goal; I leapt out of my chair and screamed “Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllll! Gol! Gol! Gol!” Yes, I screamed it in Spanish, ran around the apartment, pulled my shirt over my face and fell to my knees; LittleBud gleefully ran after me and fell on top of me and hugged me. We were Team USA.
ten minutes later, my internet stream went terribly wonky as lots of people in the country tuned in with their web browsers and swamped the servers, so i relied on text messages from my father, and a radio stream to hear about the equalizer scored by the coach’s son. The goal that was scored but discounted by a dubious foul called by the referees that would of won the match for Team USA demonstrated just how determined they were and the level of skill which they can bring to the pitch.
t is because I was born in the USA, it is because I grew up in the USA, it is because the USA is completely discounted by so many people in this tournament, that it is fun to ride that roller-coaster especially as this has been decades in the making. Australia’s program may need more work, they have the raw material, there needs to be some polishing. I hope this match with Ghana turns out to be three points for the Socceroos. Being a fan of Holland feels sort of smug at the moment because they are so heavily favored and are living up to those expectations.
I should start out with a simple statement of fact. The quadrennial sporting event known as the FIFA World Cup, henceforth known as The World Cup, has started. The World Cup is a tournament played between the national teams of 32 countries which has successfully completed a two year long campaign to be included. Football, also known as soccer blah blah blah blah. I see I have lost nearly all of the Americans in the crowd. Anyways, the tournament is on and it is being played in South Africa. So time zone shifting puts the early game at 0730, which is pretty much when LittleBud insists that we get up and do things for him. So that works out.
I watch matches on my computer from the free stream at Univision. Yes. I know it is in Spanish, I have been watching football in Spanish so long now, that I can not listen to the blithering idiots‘Muricans at ESPN anyways. One of my favorite memories of childhood was watching Spanish television broadcasts when I was twelve of The World Cup as it was played in Spain. There were a couple of boys from Spain visiting their grandfather; who lived in my neighborhood; and we all huddled around the telly and watched the matches and then ran outside and played our own games until we could not see anymore. Ah! the memories….
But I digress.
This weekend, while the English were buttering their fingers and demonstrating some hospitality to Team USA; maybe it was out of guilt over what they had done to our Gulf; our family rode over into Brooklyn to visit the opening of a new bicycle shop that sells Dutch Bikes. NOTE: that’s my ear leading TheWife along the Westside Bike Highway. The bike shop is called Rolling Orange Bicycles and it is a beautiful and very Dutch looking store full of Dutch Bikes and bakfiets. Bud had a cupcake, TheWife and I had lekker coffee with cake and we rode some of their fancy bikes. While standing in the middle of an asphalt field, I heard a yell from two different directions that meant only one thing, Team USA tied up with the English. So we left and went to a quiet field in Prospect Park where I watched the rest of the match on my phone because I live in the future baby.
After we had dinner at a Greek restaurant, TheWife took her bike and rode the subway home. LittleBud and I knocked off another lock in our Key To The City Quest. this one was a cute little cabinet that had a bubble machine in an alley.
This morning, I woke up early and watched the Holland versus Denmark, cleaned house, put on my Oranje jersey and rode my orange bike around the city and high-fived all the Dutch people, we also sang songs and exchanged victory stories plus a couple other things that I am not at liberty to discuss… Not that I am actually Dutch, its just that all those years of watching football in Spanish, I must have been reprogrammed somehow, or maybe I’m just a socialist. Anyways, I leave you with some pictures of LittleBud unlocking the lock at Trinity Church as a continued assault brandishing our Key To The City.
Hello there, New York. We now have the Key to the City. Yup, that’s right, we have a key to teh city and it works, it actually opens up stuff. This is all thanks to the artist Paul Ramirez Jonas’s creative imagination, there is an art project which covers the entire city of New York. Within each of the five boroughs of the city there are locks that the key opens. When I read about this in my news feed from the Gothamist I knew that I had to get one of those keys for Bud. Turns out the way it all works is you exchange keys with a friend or someone else, so we were both to get a key.
We like to cover a lot of ground in the bakfiets everyday, but this art project gives us extra incentive to go further and into new places. There is a great deal of excitement buzzing through the city about this project so it’s going to be a blast. Immediately after reading the news, we packed up and headed off to Times Square. We did not have to wait in line because we got there before it opened, so there was no line. We played around in the immediate area after volunteer manager asked us if we were going to leave the bakfiets parked next to their set up long. I told him, “we’ll leave when Bud gets a key.” After an hour and a half, they made all the preparations for the opening, which was going to have the Mayor give a speech. A guy walked over to us and began to talk about the bakfiets and question how we liked it and such, cause he’s got a kid and they just us the regular child seat on a bike and so forth. Then he revealed that he was the artist behind the project, said it was great meeting us and stepped into the presentation area. So we took that as a cue and when to the head of the queue.
We walked through the empty queue, filled out the paperwork, received the keys and mounted the presentation stage. The Artist guided us through the ceremony as I bestowed a Key to the City to LittleBud. I did not think that Bud was gonna be able to decide to give me a key, so we made it only a ceremony in one direction. Then as we were leaving, Paul shook my hand. We stepped off the platform and a professional photographer took our photo (the one above). We mounted our bike and rolled off.
Yesterday morning we went to our first lock to see what was inside at the Whitney Museum. Pretty fun.
Its been a week now that TheBubster has run away to Florida forever and ever. Yes that’s right, she seems to think that this extended trip to Nana’s is permanent and I guess since there is not really a good guideline that indicates to her mind exactly how long six weeks is, then it might as well be forever. One of the stipulations for her to be allowed to make this trip, especially because of the amount of time she’d be gone, was that she had to continue to work on her school agenda everyday; school days for us follow the traditional Monday through Friday with normal holidays off. So her books and practice pads and other items made the voyage as well. I know it helps having some of the same routines continue everyday as she is away from us, plus music lessons are definitely back on the agenda at my Mom’s house.
In the meantime, TheWife is working late this week as there is a big push at the agency. So this leaves Bud and I with lots of time together.I believe I am the one who is most deeply effected by the absence of the loudest and noisiest and most active person in the family, so I end up putting Bud in the bike and riding around all day for days on end. This means I am getting lots of pictures of him taking naps in the bakfiets; which is exactly why we decided to get the bike, for the naps, not necessarily for the photos. There has been an unintended consequence to all this riding about, the house has quickly grown messy. The dishes do not do themselves, the clean clothes do not put themselves away and the dirty ones definitely do not jump into the basket on their own. To make matters touch more difficult, I played cricket on Monday and my forty year old body has been very, very sore making it painful to contemplate taking any action on this front.
On a slightly related side note, I did take my first wicket on Monday; I bowled a googly and the batter edged it so that the wicketkeeper was able to collect it from the air and thus sending the batter off the pitch. All the Jamaicans made a bigger deal about that than I was expecting, they went so far as to run off the pitch and inform TheWife that I had just taken the first wicket of my life. I do have to say, I have never had the opportunity before so that’s part of the delay but now that’s out of the way, I guess I can get on with the rest of my life.
As you can see here, Bud is really relishing his freedom, as I am certain that TheBubster also is enjoying hers. We are looking forward to the reminder of the month to see what surprises it brings to us all.
Ok, a week ago, I had my graduation from college. I totally could not sleep the night before because I was afraid that I would sleep through the alarm and miss being able to drive out there early enough to be on time- I know, how ironic right? My mom even came up for the occasion and everything. So today, I got an email from the official photographer with proofs, so I was wondering which of these, if any, I should order. So a little help here please.
The overall view inside the tent.
The Handshake with the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences
We waited and waited and waited, and finally it arrived. The teamster thought it was a couch and he was trying to tell his dispatcher that he was not going to carry it up the stairs by himself.
I am going to play didgeridoo for a corporate event in Boston, so the kids are home with Mommy all day, I imagine they will have a wonderful time. That is all.
p>On Friday, TheWife ,also known as TheMommy, had oral surgery; new donor bone was hammered into her jaw to rebuild it. She was strictly told not to lift anything substantial or to make any great physical effort as it would not heal properly and the graft would fail, so to prevent the kids from jumping on her all day Sunday I dropped them into the bakfiets and set out on a random adventure.
I should start out with a simple statement of fact. The quadrennial sporting event known as the FIFA World Cup, henceforth known as The World Cup, has started. The World Cup is a tournament played between the national teams of 32 countries which has successfully completed a two year long campaign to be included. Football, also known as soccer blah blah blah blah. I see I have lost nearly all of the Americans in the crowd. Anyways, the tournament is on and it is being played in South Africa. So time zone shifting puts the early game at 0730, which is pretty much when LittleBud insists that we get up and do things for him. So that works out.
I watch matches on my computer from the 
This weekend, while the English were buttering their fingers and demonstrating some hospitality to Team USA; maybe it was out of guilt over what they had done to our Gulf; our family rode over into Brooklyn to visit the opening of a new bicycle shop that sells Dutch Bikes. NOTE: that’s my ear leading TheWife along the Westside Bike Highway. The bike shop is called 
In the meantime, TheWife is working late this week as there is a big push at the agency. So this leaves Bud and I with lots of time together.I believe I am the one who is most deeply effected by the absence of the loudest and noisiest and most active person in the family, so I end up putting Bud in the bike and riding around all day for days on end. This means I am getting lots of pictures of him taking naps in the bakfiets; which is exactly why we decided to get the bike, for the naps, not necessarily for the photos. There has been an unintended consequence to all this riding about, the house has quickly grown messy. The dishes do not do themselves, the clean clothes do not put themselves away and the dirty ones definitely do not jump into the basket on their own. To make matters touch more difficult, I played cricket on Monday and my forty year old body has been very, very sore making it painful to contemplate taking any action on this front.
