A Poem By Nick

Football's the best,

not like the rest.

The Saints are good.

The Lions are bad.

The Vikings are awesome,

the Cardinals are cool.

The Bucs are weird and

the Giants are tall.

Football's the best!

(Nick really likes football. And he's not afraid to write a poem that doesn't rhyme.)

Slediquette

Is just me or have people in Minnesota completely forgotten proper sled hill etiquette? I've taken the kids sledding twice so far this year and I've been confronted by:

1. Kids lollygagging at the bottom of the hill after finishing their run, leading to inevitable collisions and near-misses.

2. Small herds of self-absorbed parents holding impromptu conferences directly in the middle of the hill, paying no attention to the the kids at the top of the hill waiting to go.

3. Kids walking up the center of the hill instead of walking up the sides, while their parents look on.

I completely blame the parents for this sad state of affairs. Someone needs to teach this generation of kids the proper way to sled on a hill.

Two simple rules:

1. Kids: Unless your shoulder needs to be popped back into its socket, get up when your run is finished and promptly walk to one of the sides of the hill while watching for incoming sledders.

2. Parents: Unless you are performing a medevac, stay out of the way and chat with the other parents somewhere that isn't exactly in the middle of where kids are trying to sled. When you see your child breaking rule #1 above, tear yourself away from your iPhone and educate them so they know the proper way to do it in the future.

It's all so simple.

Pictures from a Summer Day

This afternoon we took a little trip to Langford Park and I remembered my camera.

Xander leaping on the monkey bars:

Nick riding fast:

Nick can climb like a ring-tailed lemur:

Xander tries to catch up to Nick:

This doesn't look comfortable to me:

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Minnesota Zoo

Allison took the day off today and we went to the Minnesota Zoo. The kids were not especially enthused about the trip (they've been to the zoo several times), but it turned out to be a great time. The Zoo has made many improvements over the past few years that have really improved the experience.

Here's Nick feeding his face with popcorn.

The highlight of the visit for me was feeding the giraffes. For a mere $5 you can buy two crackers and hand feed them to the giraffes. Very cool.

Here's Nick feeding the goats at the family farm. Xander had enough with the giraffes and refused to feed the goats.

Here's Xander driving a tractor at the family farm.

After the Zoo we stopped by Target so Nick could buy the skateboard he's been saving up for. So far no injuries, but he's finding it touch harder than he expected.
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Baseball Tonight

Nick is playing baseball again this summer. It's a fairly low-key event. The coaches do the pitching and the teams bat through the order each inning. They don't keep score. There are no strike outs. The only thing resembling real baseball is that once you hit the ball, if the defense gets you out, you are out.

It was a beautiful night for baseball and its always a good time to catch up with friends from the neighborhood. There's not much to say about the game. A bunch of kids hit the ball and ran around the field. Nick hit the ball pretty well in his at bats - they were all hard choppers which are basically impossible for kids this age field cleanly. He made some nice plays in the field and actually recorded a couple of outs while playing first base. All in all a great evening.

Allison took some nice action photos:

Mall of America

It was a rainy afternoon, so we cruised over to the Mall of America for some rides and a snack. I had some left over ride points for the Nickelodeon Universe theme park, so I figured this would be an inexpensive afternoon. To make sure there was no confusion, I had a discussion with the boys to make it clear that we would not be buying anything at the Mall. We could visit the Lego store, but we would not buy anything. Was I clear? Crystal. Or so I thought.

We started with the Lego store and we all ooh'd and aah'd at the new stuff. The kids didn't entirely forget about the "we're not buying anything" talk. Instead they said stuff like "I really wish we could buy {insert expensive Lego kit here} or {insert other expensive Lego kit here}." Or "why can't we buy {insert yet another expensive Lego kit here}?" It's like they understood the words I was saying, but they completely missed the point. Apparently I need to refine my speech.

After we had exhausted the possibilities of the Lego store, we moved onto the rides. Xander did a truck ride and Nick did the bumper cars (where he mostly drove in circles with a puzzled look on his face). After that Xander didn't want to go on any more rides. Nick only wanted to go on rides that Xander couldn't, but that he didn't want to go on by himself. Since abandoning 4-year-olds at the Mall of America is frowned upon, Nick was out of luck.

Since we'd hit a ride impasse, it was time for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. I'm not a big Cold Stone fan. The ice cream is good, but it is all just a little TOO MUCH. Too rich, too sweet, too many toppings. We kept it simple and walked away happy.

We browsed a few stores around the mall and then headed for home. It was a nice trip. Despite my grumbling about kids asking to buy stuff, the boys were actually well-behaved and fun to be with. There would probably be something wrong with them if they went to the Lego store and didn't ask to buy anything.

Now they have a friend over and they are all in the basement playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii. Ahh, George Lucas is the ultimate multi-media babysitter!

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Menudo Run

This spring Nick has been participating in his school's running club.  The payoff was taking part in this morning's 1 mile Menudo Run (part of St. Paul's Cinco de Mayo festivies).  

While it could have been a little warmer, overall it was a nice day for a run.  Nick and I were running, while Xander and Allison watched.  Xander was very sad they he didn't get to run.  :-(

Nick took off like a rabbit and I was worried that he wouldn't be able to maintain the pace.  However, he kept right on going and finished the mile going strong.  Nick had a great time and loved running with his friends.  All in all, it was a very fun morning.

Nick with his friends Tyler and Ian after the race...

Nick takes a minute to pose with Dad.  Xander demanded to be included, but then wouldn't look at the camera...

Pinewood Derby 2009

Pinewood Derby 2009 has come and gone.  I had one goal for this year's Pinewood Derby: I didn't want our car to finish dead last.  In this, we were successful.  We finished second to last.  Nick, I think, was just happy to be there.  He was just pretty excited about having built something.  If nothing else, our car looked pretty cool.  It had lots of cool stickers with flames and stuff.  Awesome.  I was far more concerned with how our car would do than Nick was.

Xander was less excited about the event, although he did enjoy the food selection:

Here's Nick showing off his car:

The real problem with our car was axle alignment.  I knew it was going to be a problem going in and after talking to some other Dads I have a better idea of what to do next year.

Here's how our Pinewood Derby worked.  There were 30 kids entered this year.  Our track has six lanes.  We randomly seed 6 cars for each heat.  The last car in each heat gets an 'X' on the big board.  Three X's and you are out.  Last car standing wins.

The format is tons of fun and it was non-stop action.  I was responsible for putting the cars on the track and starting them.  Let me tell you, I was busy.  By the time we got down to the finals, the two top cars had no X's.  They each won two races, so it all came down to the final race.  Very exciting.  I think everyone had a great time.

I tried to absorb as much as I could this year as I am going to be responsible for the event next year.  Hopefully I will remember how to put the track together...

Blue and Gold

Tonight was the annual Cub Scout Blue and Gold banquet.  We had a nice lasagna dinner and about 45 Cub Scouts earned a whole bunch of awards.  As promised, Nick earned his Tiger Cub badge and is now officially on the Wolf Trail.  He's pretty excited about that.

One of the highlights of the Blue and Gold banquet is the transition of the Webelos scouts to the Boy Scout troop.  Our pack has a ceremony where a special arrow is prepared for each boy and the arrow is then shot into a target.  This year a former Boy Scout made an English longbow as a gift to the troop and that was what was used to shoot the arrows into the target.  Unfortunately the elaborate hand-made bow broke after the third arrow.  :-(  Fortunately another bow was procured so the ceremony could continue.  :-)

The other highlight was a show world class yo-yo master Dazzling Dave.  He showed the boys a bunch of very cool yo-yo tricks, including a a yo-yo version of William Tell using one of the boys as a prop.  Instead of knocking an apple off the kid's head, he knocked a poker chip off of the kid's ear.  Pretty impressive.  He also taught the kids some useful stuff for getting started with a yo-yo.  Very cool.  The kid's loved it.

Allison took a bunch of pictures.  I'll post them when she makes them available.

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I Can't Hear You, I Have A Pencil In My Ear

Yesterday Nick had a routine doctor's appointment to check on the state of his asthma.  Well, his asthma is doing just fine, thank you very much.  His preventative medication is working very well and he hasn't had an attack in many months.  So everything seems good.

For some reason, as part of the exam, the doctor checks Nicks ears.  Left ear looks fine.  Right ear - not so fine.  There's something in there.  She has Allison and I look through the little device and asks if we have any idea what it is.  All I can see is that the object is red.  The doctor gets a probe and sort of pokes at the object.  Nick objects that this hurts.

At this point the doctor has no idea what is in Nick's ear.  She's not even sure if it is a foreign object or some sort of polyp.  Great.  For his part, Nick denies ever putting anything in his ear.  The doctor goes off and schedules an appointment for us with a pediatric ENT doctor for this morning.

Nick isn't really fazed by this, but Allison and I are worried that he has a polyp growing in his ear canal.  We make an agreement that we won't do any research on the Internet because that will just freak us out by demonstrating all of the potentially really bad things it could be but probably isn't.  Five minutes after this conversation I'm downstairs surfing the web, scaring myself shitless.

Needless to say, it's a long night for Allison and me.  Nick and I finally get to the ENT doctor at 10am.  The doctor pokes around in Nick's ear for a few minutes with a variety of instruments before announcing that the item in question is definitely a foreign object.  I manage to restrain myself from getting up and hugging the doctor and dancing with the nurse.  (I call this "playing it cool.")

After another few minutes and a bunch more instruments, the doctor finally manages to pull the object in question out of Nick's ear.  It appears to be a quarter inch long piece of lead from a red colored pencil.  Nick still denies having any knowledge of how it got in his ear in the first place.

Despite the title of this post, the item never caused Nick the slightest bit of discomfort or caused any symptoms whatsoever.  We have no idea how long it was in there.  If we wouldn't have had a doctor's appointment yesterday, it might have stayed in there for a long, long time.

Nick didn't think the experience was too bad and the doctor even gave him the piece of lead in a little cup to bring to show and tell.  That ought to go over well.  Allison and I are very relieved.  We're that special kind of relieved that happens when you worry very intensely about your child and then find out everything is okay.  Needless to say, Nick and Xander have been getting lots of extra hugs today.

Minnesota History Center

Since there was no school today, I took the boys to the Minnesota History Center in downtown St. Paul.  It's a great facility with lots of kid friendly exhibits on the history of this fine state.  The boys had never been there before and were reluctant, but I dragged them along anyway.

It was really a fun time.  They found lots of interesting stuff to do.  Nick loved being able to look through the binoculars out the big plate glass window facing the State Capitol.  He also loved Charles Lindbergh's biplane hanging in the lobby.  Xander liked the log cabin building area and driving the Greyhound bus.

My favorite part was the recreation of a St. Paul house that was originally built in 1888 and has been home to fifty different families over the years (it was converted to a triplex at one point).  Different rooms were about different eras and different families.  In the backyard they had a bunch of old school games kids used to play like dropping clothes pins into a glass jar.  The kids loved it.

Anyway, I highly recommend checking it out.  They even have pretty good food in the cafeteria.

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Winter Camp

Winter Camp has come and gone.  It was a great time.  Mostly.

The camp is located overlooking the St. Croix river just north of Stillwater.  We arrived Saturday morning and got settled into out cabin.  It was actually a dormitory, with a bunch of 4-person bedrooms.  The Tiger Cubs (1st graders) got the dormitory, the other dens were in cabins.

We started off with sledding down a pretty wicked hill.  Lots of fun, but a few bumps and bruises as well.  It was particularly hard on the parents and the Tiger Cubs.  :-)

After sledding we had a nice lunch in the camp dining facility.  One of the nice things about this camp is they have a dining facility and the parents don't have to do the cooking.  Sloppy joes and chicken noodle soup were perfect after a morning outside.

After lunch we had a nature hike with the Tiger Cubs where we collected a variety of pine needles, pine cones, bark, and leaves.  We also found a bunch of animal tracks down by the river.  After the hike, the boys did etchings of the things they found, which they enjoyed quite a bit.

Next up was a big game of capture the flag with the whole pack and the parents.  The game was played in the middle of the woods and was tons of fun.  Nick really got into it after he learned the rules and I really enjoyed it too.  We stayed out there until everyone was too exhausted to go on.  Running around through the woods in deep snow really takes a lot out of a guy.

After capture the flag, the boys practiced a skit to perform after dinner.  Dinner consisted of barbecued chicken, au gratin potatoes, and green beans.  It was pretty good.  Or we may have been famished after the afternoon activities.

After dinner there was a bonfire and s'mores.  After the bonfire, everyone returned to the dining hall for skits and a special appearance by Mini-me.  Mini-me is a Pack 22 tradition that goes back for years (from before any of the current pack leaders were involved).  It is the act where two people stand one behind the other.  One person is the head and legs, the other person stands behind and provides the arms.  Mike, the cubmaster, was Mini-me and I, as the assistant cubmaster, was the arms.  I can't tell you how much the kids love this act and how much they look forward to it.  The ones that had been to winter camp before were chanting for Mini-me back in September.  Anyway, Mike did a great job.  We tried to drink a few glasses of water and since I couldn't see what I was doing with my arms, you can imagine the results.  We also tried to eat a whipped cream pie with hilarious results.

After we cleaned up Mini-me, we got all the boys to bed.  I was in the bunk underneath Nick's.  He fell asleep quickly.  Just as I was just about to drift off, I heard a gurgle from Nick and then he threw up all over the place.

The situation was irredeemable, so I called Allison and she was gracious enough to come get us.  Nick was sad to leave, but the only thing we were missing in the morning was breakfast and cleanup, so that made it easier.  We thought Nick might be getting sick, but he seems fine today.  He ate pretty well yesterday, so it wasn't a case of too many s'mores.  Just his powerful gag reflex, I guess.

Anyway, it was a great time and we're both looking forward to summer camp.

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Thursday Already!

Where does the time go?  I've been meaning to post more often and here we are, three days without a post.

First off, my sister-in-law Holly was in traffic accident early this week and suffered a badly broken leg.  She's going to be laid up for awhile, so please send good thoughts her way.

Nick and I are getting ready for Cub Scout winter camp this weekend.  Fortunately the weather is supposed to warm up by Saturday.  (It was -20 this morning!)  Nick is very excited, but was disappointed to find out it was only one night and not an entire week.

Here's a photo of the boys with their Uncle Joe on Christmas Eve:

Lego Star Destroyer

One of Nick's big Christmas presents was the Lego Star Destroyer.  Now, Lego has two versions of the Star Destroyer.  This one and the "Ultimate Collector's Edition."  This is not the Ultimate Collector's Edition.

It took him two solid days, but Nick built the whole thing himself.  Here it is in all its glory:

Here are the boys posing with the completed model.  Xander didn't help, but he did spend a lot of time watching Nick build it:

The neat thing is that the superstructure lifts up and the top folds out allowing access to the inside.  The set includes Darth Vader, some Storm Troopers, and guys to fly the ship.  The only negatives are that it is a bit fragile and it takes up a lot of space.  Maybe Allison will let me hang it from the living room ceiling...

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Cub Scout Archery Day 2009

Today was Archery Day.  Every year the local Cub Scout district rents space at a warehouse and sets up a 50 lane indoor archery range.  The district does a great job organizing the event and instructing the boys how to use a bow safely.

Nick started off a little tentative, but after a few rotations he began to shoot with more confidence.  It was fun to watch that development over the course of just a couple of hours.  He was proud to score a couple of bulls eyes and after the first couple of rounds all of his arrows hit the target.  Plus he didn't accidentally shoot anyone, which was really all I was concerned about.

There were probably 300 scouts there when we arrived so it took a lot of time between turns.  However, the crowd thinned out and at the end Nick was able to shoot as much as he wanted until they shut everything down.

I was struck by the quality of the equipment.  All of the bows were nice compound bows, which were very easy for the boys to use.  A big change from when I was a kid.

I took a lot of pictures, but none of them really turned out on account of the poor light and the number of people wandering between the photographer and the subject.  Here are the best ones of the bunch:

Of course Nick now wants to go out and buy a bow.  I told him to start saving.  That's why he gets an allowance.  :-)

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Mr. Sneeze

Mr. Sneeze

Written By Nick Jacobsen 

Illustrated By Henry Breen

Mr. Sneeze sneezes a lot. He works at the pie store. He sneezes all over the pies so nobody really comes there. And he got fired. He has to find a new job. He just became a doctor and he helps people when they are sick. 

The End

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The Cinnamon Bear

This year we started a new tradition.  We've been listening to an old time radio serial called the Cinnamon Bear.  It was originally recorded in 1937 and has been broadcast somewhere every year since.  It has 26 episodes and we've been listening to one each night.  It will work out that the last episode will be on Christmas Eve.

I wasn't sure if the kids would like it, but they have.  It's been a big hit.  Plus they are learning important stuff, like what a looking glass is.  Or a velocipede.  Or how to say "wilikers!" when something unexpected happens.

Here's more about the show

Download all of the episodes here

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And then there were two...

Nick went down with the vomit bug last night.  Strange how this affliction strikes at night and by dawn the kid is on the road to recovery.

So far Allison and I have avoided getting sick.  Wish us luck.

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Welcome to the Vomitorium

Xander was up all night throwing up.  Therefore Allison and I were up all night.  Nick, the roommate, slept through it all.

Hopefully this isn't the sort of thing that will spread.  Fingers crossed.

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Some Pictures

Here's some pictures from the past few weeks...

Cub Scout

4-year-old on the ceiling

Birthday boy at the Mall of America

Christmas is coming!

Happy Birthday Darth Xander!

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