The Starting Block

Back in college, I was given a large block of balsa wood as a birthday present. I couldn't decide what to carve out out it, so I made a little sign that said "Potential" and set it on my desk where I could see it. I think the reminder did more for getting me through my classes than anything I could have made out of it.

In a Pine Car Derby, everyone gets either a wedge or a block of pine. You have to use it in your car; you can't substitute another piece of wood. You can add to it, you can subtract from it, but you have to use the block that came in your kit.

I put a fair amount of effort and creativity into Fiona's car, so it was a real treat to get to race day. A big part of the fun is getting to see what everyone else came up with. Given that everyone starts with virtually the same block of wood, the creativity is amazing.

Moooooooo. Come to think of it, this isn't all that unusual. I've seen a local limo with this theme, complete with fiberglass cow on top...

Wiiiiiiiiiii!

If it looks like that front wheel is floating in the air — it is. Having only three wheels on the track is apparently a common speed trick, and this fire engine definitely was speedy. Hmmm. Three wheels. I'm envisioning a motorcycle with sidecar for next year....

This is the car that won the races. The wheels are the standard wheels that come with the kit, but they've been turned on a lathe to get the lenticular shape, and polished with a molybdenum-graphite blend, which gives it a characteristic silver color.

Did I mention this was at church? In addition to the Golden Rule here, there was an entry named, "Faith, Hope, and Praise" which somehow reminds me of the buses in Latin America with Bible verses painted all over them.

One other observation on this golden rule(r): with weight placement being so crucial, it helps to have a design that has an obvious front and rear. Several such designs got run both ways down the track by unaware officials.

Coooool. I think the "engines" here are actually bullet tips. Weight and style!

Cheese Whiz!

Fast food. This meals-on-wheels entry got one of the top honors in the "Originality" category. It was fast, too!

Next up: Let's Go Racing!

As I found them

Often, as I'm walking through the house, I'll come across something the kids have been playing with, and have left to go do something else. Most of the time, the kids aren't there to explain what it was, so one just has to wonder what they were playing when they made these creations...

I can't help but wonder... is he breathing fire? Is it a speech bubble, and he's warning the other dinosaurs about the coming comet?

I'm not sure about this one, either, but I'm sure it would make a pretty good children's story.

I thought you'd never ask!

Once in a while, someone asks you to do the very thing that you want to do, to use that otherwise utterly useless skill in some amazing way... and you didn't even have to offer.

It was just such an evening. Fiona came over to me and held up an old pan that had been relegated to "toy" use. "Daddy, would you make me a wooden spoon? It needs to be about this long, and about this wide, and you can make it so it can scoop things."

Well.... yeah!

A piece of an old 2x4, the rasp of a bandsaw, the whir and flutter of the lathe, and the whine of a Dremel, and I had it:

OK, so it turned out more like an ice cream scoop than a spoon, but I like it. That was fun.

Now Deborah wants me to make her some spoons, too...

Wooden Toys

Say what you will about old-fashioned wooden toys — they do keep a dad involved.

Back when I was a kid, I wanted a train set for Christmas so, so badly, and I ended up pointing out what I wanted: a full set for $10, which was a steal even back in the late 70s. Now, keep in mind that the average lifespan of a Christmas-morning toy train is said to be four hours. My dad kept that thing running for years.

Now, when I return a fixed toy to the kids, they happily treat me like a hero... and I start to wonder if, just maybe, Dad had as much fun fixing that train as I did breaking it.

A Boy and His Train: Bank On It!

Aiden loves trains. He comes by it naturally — I was crazy about trains when I was his age; perhaps it's genetic somehow. Aiden also has always admired Fiona's "elephanty" bank (as opposed to the "piggy" variety) that my Aunt Martha made for her several years ago. So, when Deborah discovered that the local paint-your-own-pottery studio, Pottery Bayou (get it?) had train banks... well, it was obvious what needed to be done!

The difference between boys and girls

Fiona has taken to beautifying the world around her. This includes things that I might not have otherwise considered candidates for beautification, like work boots.

Perhaps when she gets older, I'll find she's knitted me a nice motorcycle cozy. That would be nice.

Dinosaurs get cold, too. So they need a scarf.

Somehow, I think if one has that much neck, you need a more substantial scarf — think Doctor Who — but I can't deny this dinosaur looks dashing and dapper.

* * *

Aiden, on the other hand, knows what dinosaurs are good for.

Seriously, Aiden has never seen a B-movie creature feature in his entire life, and he knew exactly what to do with a dinosaur and a car. No one taught him that.

Isn't it weird how we're wired?

An Early Inheritance

I love Legos. I got my first set sometime when I was four or five, and I have been adding to my collection by one means or another ever since, whether receiving them as gifts, buying them conventionally, through BrickLink, eBay, and yard sales, from purchasing a single piece to complete a project to buying smeone else's entire collection.

Needless to say, I have a bunch.

That's about 65 pounds of Legos. The under-bed storage container barely fits them.

But I have another problem — two small children, whom I also want to learn the joys of Lego. Do I turn them loose in my collection? I can't see that being a good idea right now. Do I just buy them their own? It's a good idea, but Legos are, quite frankly, expensive. (Whoever bought me that first set when I was young, I think, made a pretty serious investment.) Finally the answer came to me in the form of a 200-piece beginner's set that had been given to me on a recent birthday — maybe I could just separate out part of my collection, and share that.

It took a few nights of sitting there sorting through pieces as Deborah quilted and we listened to an audio book, but I finally had sorted out about 500 pieces that I thought would be appropriate for a Fiona. As I sorted, I noticed that a lot of the pieces I was choosing were ones from that very first set I had. I also made sure to include some of those pieces that I'd wished I had back when I was that age.

Her first words were, "Hey, there's a LOT of pieces!

The acid test then, was to see if Fiona thought I had chosen well. Judging from her reaction, I think I did. The effort to separate out all the slanting roof pieces was immediately redeemed when she said, "Let's build a house!"

The house that Fiona and Andy built. A surprisingly modern structure with a double-hip roof, skylights, slanting walls...

...and a big-screen TV on the roof. Who am I to argue? The blue pieces around the house are ponds, according to Fiona. I was about to suggest to Fiona that ponds aren't normally get that close to the house, but then I remembered that we'd only just gotten rid of the ponds that were closer than that to our own, real house.

Trees, Reindeer, Lincoln Logs, and Little Boys

Around here, whenever you take your kids in for any sort of appointment — doctor checkups, WIC, etc. — you get BABE coupons. These are good for all sorts of things; you can get a dozen diapers for one coupon, or children's snow boots for two. This year, we also got a letter with free tickets to the Festival of Trees, which is an annual fundraiser where people sponsor and decorate about a hundred trees for charity. You voted with your cash (a penny per vote) for the best trees; I presume there was some sort of prize for the contestants. You could also sign up to win one of the trees. So, a few weeks ago, we walked over — it was scarcely off our block — and took in the displays. The variety and creativity were wonderful. They had other things for the kids, too, like rides on a miniature train, crafts, and a live reindeer.

Aiden was particularly entranced by the reindeer, although he required some encouragement to go touch it. The foam ornaments impaled on the antlers cleverly provided both festivity and protection.

A week later, we got a call saying that we'd won one of the trees! No one knew which one yet, but they asked some questions about the kids' age and interests, and said they'd pick one out.

We got the Little House on the Prairie themed tree, complete with Lincoln Log cabins, and covered with farm animals and plastic period-piece people planting, hitching up wagons, hunting, etc. There were also gifts to go with it: Little House on the Prairie picture books, boots in the correct size for each kid, some drag-racing trucks for Aiden, and a hopping-frog setup for Fiona.

There were, also, the leftover Lincoln Logs in a big Ziploc bag. The cabins under the tree had been strung together with fishing line to keep them together until their decorative usefulness was over, but the rest of the logs were available for playing. Incidentally, these weren't the American Lincoln Logs, but a Chinese copy, which are still made of real wood and, in the case of the little chimneys, decorated by hand. Someone in China has the job of drawing a stone pattern on little wooden chimneys.

Paul, in typical fashion, set to figuring out what was the tallest possible structure that could be made with the available logs:

Aiden, also in typical fashion, knew exactly what to do with that.

Can I knock it down yet? Can I knock it down?
Just look at that mischievious smile...

OK, you can knock it down now.

Useful Creatures

I'm finding toys everywhere these days. I often joke that I used to shake out my boots for scorpions; now I shake them out for Legos. So I wasn't terribly surprised to come into the bathroom and find this setup:

Thing is, a dinosaur-vs-crocodile showdown on the edge of the tub didn't strike me as Fiona's usual style. More puzzling was that the installment stayed there for several days. It was nearly a week later that I learned of their true function: tools for short people.

See, Fiona is quite capable of going to the bathroom by herself. (Whether she always does what she's capable of... that's another story.) What she still has trouble with is turning on the light. So, believe it or not... the nose of the alligator is for pushing the switch up, and the curved neck of the dinosaur is for pulling the switch down. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it, but I have seen it, so...

In Memoriam: The Rabbit

Mr. Rabbit died today, at the ripe old age of two. Which, if you stop and think about it, is pretty darn old for a small rubber rabbit you get in an Easter basket. He died under mysterious circumstances, and his head was found in a children's book.

Mr. Rabbit's longsuffering characterized his existence. For more than two years, he was regularly stretched beyond all reasonable measure, often to four times his original length. He was eaten by crocodiles, banged on furniture, tied in knots, thrown to and from great heights, stuffed in pockets... and in all these things, he never let go of that carrot. He was, both literally and figuratively, loved to death. In this terrible time, let us remember Mr. Rabbit, for he persevered, despite all odds.

Monday's Champion

I'm having a Monday.

I'm sending out Mrs. Potato Head to do battle as my champion.