100 Days In School, The Sequel

Today was Tess' 100th day of school at Camden-Rockport Elementary. Tracy helped her make a heart with 100 little things glued to it, and Tess went to the school atrium and sang songs about 100. She came home from school with a necklace with 100 Froot Loops on it. She ate them all with Noah's occasional assistance.

Skiing With Precipitation

Camden, the village where we live, has a municipal ski slope on Ragged Mountain. Last Friday Tracy and I had our third week of skiing lessons and for the first time went to the top of the mountain. I cried like a baby on the ski lift, I was so scared. Tracy patted my hand and did an awesome job going down the slope. I made it down, too, verrrrry slowly. I'm looking forward to trying it again next Friday, without the human-generated precipitation.

Going Out to the Puffins in New Harbor, Maine

Grandma Cook with Tess and Noah, heading out of New Harbor to see some puffins on a windy July day.

Snow Fort Time Lapse Video, January 28 2009

Here we all are, making a snow fort on the blacktop of Noah's elementary school in this time lapse video:

Been a Long Time, But We're Back

Boy, it's been a long time since we wrote a post on the family blog. Nearly three years now, but we're back... and living in Columbus, Ohio where Tracy (coincidence?) has been engaged in a big ol' residency program.

Noah has written his first blog post today over at Irregular Times: a review of the book Abiyoyo by Pete Seeger.

Noah, the Reading Fiend!

Last night, Noah brought home a book from school about Balto, the sled dog who helped bring medicine to Nome, Alaska during a diphtheria epidemic. It was 49 pages long and had six or seven sentences on a page, with words like "Anchorage," "epidemic" and, yes, "diphtheria." 2nd grade level, the book said. Noah had never tried reading a book that long or that detailed before. His kindergarten teacher, Ms. Tustin, told him he could keep it a week to read it. Well, guess what: he just sat right down and read the whole book aloud, with a couple of hiccups (I mean, come on, you try sounding out "diphtheria"!) but otherwise all by himself. I was so proud I wanted to burst. He not only did a good job at reading, but more importantly maintained interest in the story and kept a positive attitude.

100 Days In School

This past Friday, Noah celebrated his 100th day in school at Club Boulevard Elementary. He cut out 100 stars from a sheet of paper and wrote out "This is 100 stars." Then he had a 100th day party and they did a number of crafts with 100 of a number of things. Noah was so excited about it; he was counting down the days. And since, he's been working at the idea of numbers around 100 and slightly bigger. Pretty smart of his teacher, Ms. Tustin.

The Young Sickies and Leaf Piles

Tess is sick today with a fever. I stayed home with her today, and I have something to confess. After I've given in to not being able to get household or career tasks accomplished, there's something really sweet and enjoyable about holding my sick sweetie until she (although beyond today Noah too) falls asleep, to look down at a small one and know I'm helping make the pain go away a bit and adding some comfort. It's one of those rare times when I can just give in to love wholeheartedly.

During a lull in the sickness (thank you, ibuprofen!) Noah, Tess and I went to the front yard and raked countless (Noah: "there must be a doodle leaves here!" Dad: "You mean a google." Noah: "right, a doodle leaves!") leaves... some of them into beds to do nature's work of mulching and fertilizing, some of them into a big pile. Tess didn't know what to do with the pile at first, but after Noah jumped right in she did her bit. Noah hopped and swam and buried himself and thrashed about, but Tess was more subdued (today's fever, not personality!) and just lay on her back in the pile, smiling, looking up at the big oak tree's bare branches and making little leaf pile angels.

I want to save these days up and come back to them. I really wish I could have today again. I love these kids.

Tess had Surgery, Noah's Kisses

Tess had surgery today, but if I'd gone out grocery shopping, I wouldn't have known it. She was born with a birthmark on her abdomen that started changing colors, and we were advised to remove it before it had the opportunity to become cancerous. Rather than bite it off ourselves, we took Tess in to Duke's Ambulatory Surgery Center. Snip, snip. Although the birthmark wasn't teeny (1 1/2 inches?), Tess spent only an hour or so in there, and then really only an hour or so coming out from under sedation and a local anesthetic. Then -- Boom! -- off she went, toddling on her merry way. What a resilient kid.

Tracy's going to take her practical examination in clinical skills in Atlanta, Georgia this Thursday. Bon chance, kiddo. Monday was step 2, and Monday evening Tracy got her first invitation to interview: at Duke.

Noah has been kissing Brooke Davies. He's told the boys in class about it, and they say "Ewwww!" He and Brooke Davies walked up to a gaggle of girls the day before yesterday, said "watch this," and kissed. They said, "Ewwww!" That's my Noah, ahead of the times.

Noah: Official Schoolkid

As of August 25, it's official: Noah is now a schoolkid. We are very fortunate to be close enough to a humanities magnet public elementary school to automatically get in. That's because we live in an area that is supposedly unappealing to white, middle income people because non-white and working-class people live in the neighborhood. We like it, because the prejudiced, highfalutin stuffed shirts have indeed moved out to their gated communities, and we don't have to bother with them trying to pass neighborhood regulations about the height of Christmas lawn ornaments. To try to increase the racial and class integration of Durham schools, they've invested a lot into Club Boulevard Elementary school, making it the kind of school that highfalutin stuffed shirt parents compete to get their kid into (the prejudiced highfalutin parents send their kids to private schools, where their little gumdrops don't have to bother with the wrong sort).

Yes, well, where was I? Right. Noah is now officially a schoolkid, and what's interesting is how he is beginning to act like a schoolkid too. The second of school, Noah turned to me and explained that he and his friend Edward played a game in the schoolyard in which the girls were monsters and he and Edward had to run from them, because the monster girls would chase after them, catch them, and kiss them. Noah related this to me with the mixture of earnestness for chase, nominal distaste for girls and underlying attraction to them that is classic elementary school. Is there a gene that activates this? Is it some kind of school culture? I don't know, because I can't be there to see things happen, and for someone who's used to being directly in touch with his son's life that's a bit hard to swallow. I take him to the front door, I get a goodbye hug and kiss, and off he goes. At the end of the school day we walk back home past or through the park and I ask him how things are going, but I get a 6-year-old's answer about 6-year-old things like games at recess, which kid got in trouble, and what was for lunch, not a 34-year-old's answer about the structure of the curriculum or how well Noah is fitting in socially.

That's life, isn't it...getting them started close in, then letting them go and have areas of their lives that don't belong to or even include you any more. Independence! It's what I've wanted for Noah since he was born, but now that it comes to it, I find it hard to let him go. Fortunately, Noah is having the time of his life at school, making it hard to dwell on all those Fiddler-on-the-Roof, Sunrise-Sunset, now-is-my-little-boy-a-bridegroom sorts of things.

Noah wanted everyone to see a piece of art he made the day before yesterday:



Noah says, "Hello. I can swim eight feet! Ba ba ba!

I have a really funny joke:

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Boo.

Boo who?

Don't cry! It's just a joke!"

Noah speaks

Hello, everyone. I'm about to ask Noah whether he'd like to say anything to the whole family. Noah?

"Guess what! Tess got her second tooth in, and I swam six feet. Yeah! I wonder how you would spell -- hey, stop that! Stop! Ha ha ha!

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Cowboy.
Cowboy who?
Cowboy aren't you riding on a horse?

I'm all done. Behbababa!"

Noah's art

On February 13, Noah made this piece of art. We all really like it, and Noah asked that everyone in the family be able to see it. So, here it is!

It's Been a Long Time

Well, it’s been a while since the last blog post. We really had wanted to do a better job of keeping up than this, but we’re persistent, so here’s a new post.

Tess is crawling! Wow, is she cute – her bum is so round and she’s so chunky. It’s only been a few days now that she’s been mobile this way, so she’s still perfecting her method. On the slippery wood floors, her preferred method is to put her hands ahead of her, then slide her knees, feet and bum, en masse, forward. She has discovered that this doesn’t work so well on carpets, so she crawls the traditional way there. It’s a whole new world now – we’re in trouble. It’s time for us to seriously baby-proof.

Another development- Tess’s first tooth is poking up, finally. We’ve been waiting and waiting, and it’s finally here. It’s on her bottom right, in the front. She doesn’t seem to notice it very much. Also, she’s a pinching machine, which makes feeding her lots more fun (not that it wasn’t fun already). Sometimes she can’t quite get a piece and she has to chase it across her highchair tray- pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch. Very entertaining!

Noah is getting so big, I can’t believe it. He’s huge! Well, actually, he’s at the 50th percentile for almost everything, so he’s average for his age, but he seems so big. It must be the comparison to Tess. His brain must be bursting out of its skull, he’s so curious and gobbling up facts as fast as he can find them. He’s taking swim lessons this winter, and he has special goggles. He’s discovered that if he puts his face in the water and opens his eyes with his goggles on he can see under the water! He hasn’t gotten the nerve to put his whole head under the water at once yet, only his face or the back of his head, but not both. He has swum, though! Very exciting. We’re reminding him of all the fun adventures we can have in the summer time if he can swim.

A couple of weeks ago, we discovered Wheels Family Fun Park here in Durham. It’s got arcade games, foos ball, skee ball, pool tables, a skating rink, go-carts, and mini-golf, all of which looks like it’s straight out the ‘70’s. I know the furniture hasn’t been changed since then. Kinda smells like it, too. But that’s worth it just for the biggest, coolest habit-trail we’ve ever seen. “Habit-trail” is our name for one of those tunnelly, crawly, climby, slidy jungle-gym things in the front of so many fast food joints. Well, this one beats the pants off all those. It’s in a gymnasium, if that gives you any idea. It’s three levels, and has a ball jumping pen, two trampoline-like things, countless slides and tunnels, rope climbing places, two zip lines, and lots of secret hiding places. There was a time when Noah would’ve been frightened or gotten lost or stuck, and at first I was a little worried that he would get lost this time. Nope. We went with Emma and Christopher and we almost didn’t see them for two hours. They came back to the table only for provisions. Except when Noah banged his lip coming down a slide – then he came to me crying and bleeding. We went to the concession stand for ice, and clearly the woman who worked there was used to this. She had all her supplies right there and made a bag of ice with great efficiency. Then we went to the bathroom to clean up Noah’s face. As we were coming out all fresh and clean and iced, he turned to me and said, “Don’t I look tough?” I laughed so hard at the time, but now it’s a little sad. He’s five going on 17. Then other times, he wants to held and cuddles like a baby. What a sweetie.

He has a hearing test on Wednesday. This is because of his history of ear infections, because six month ago when we made the appointment he was complaining of not being able to hear well out of one ear, and because we thought he was having a difficult time hearing us when we spoke to him. I’m expecting everything to be fine. I think when we thought Noah was having a difficult time hearing us, he was just distracted and so wasn’t paying attention to us.

We’ve been reading Winnie-ther-Pooh, the classics. It’s great. It’s funny – Winnie-the-Pooh is marketed as merchandise to toddlers but the stories themselves are much more appropriate for pre-school and early-school aged kids. The characters are complex and full of pathos (just think of Eeyore), and the plots have cute little twists involving misunderstandings and such. Noah loves them. We read them all straight through at every quiet time and every bedtime until we were finished, and now we’re reading them for the second time.

Noah's approach to the arts, sciences and athletics

Noah's been watching a number of science programs about stars and galaxies and things like that. So now occasionally he'll come up to us for an exchange something like this:

Noah: Did you know that eleven billion years ago our planet didn't even exist yet?

James: Really?

Noah: Yes, because it was all still in a supernova!

James: Wow.

Noah: What's a supernova?

He's just a sponge, and it's great. Meanwhile, something's turned on inside his noggin and his drawing has become very precise. Today, he made a car with windows, doors, headlights, and wheels made of macaroni. The car was driving on dirt he colored in, and the setting sun was shining in spaces just in front of the car and under its body. Holy moly! There are some details he hasn't gotten to yet, like the number of fingers on a hand. He just draws twenty or so hashmarks on each hand.

Noah's also been playing soccer in a preschoolers' league (no goalies) for a month now, and it's interesting to watch him. I don't think he's very interested in winning or losing, or in getting more points for his team. He chases after the ball, but his happiest moments are when he's devising specially shaped loops to run in to get to the ball -- circle this time, or oval? That, and social hour stuff -- finding the member of the other team that has the same number as is on his back, rhyming silly rhymes with the girl from the other team as they are both ostensibly battling each other for ball (but not really), and so on. The big deal is halftime, when everyone gets orange wedges. Whatever he's getting from it, he's having fun.

Tess Went Swinging

Tess went swinging for the first time today. It was so cute! Noah pushed her, and I had to keep reminding him not to push too hard. She really seemed to enjoy it - she was giving us big smiles and even giggling. At one point, Noah was pushing Tess and another little girl in the swing next to Tess, and that girl's mother and I were standing there saying, "Hey this is cool - Noah can do our swing pushing for us!"

Welcome

Welcome to the new webpage for the Jalbuena-Cook family. We'll be posting news here on the main page, and over on the right is a link to our photo album from the past five years.

There's a commenting section for each post here, so this is another way we can all keep in touch.

We're just getting started, so look for more soon.