I had lunch with my son and his first grade class, yesterday. I had visited him two or three times during his kindergarten year, but this is the first time this year. It was a surprise for him, and though he normally doesn’t like to be surprised (he likes to know what’s going to happen next), he was very happy to see me standing at the cafeteria door when his class came walking down the hall in a nice, quiet line.

I held the door open for the class, and he stopped and stood with me. Twice, he announced, “This is my dad,” to his friends as they filed by us. When everyone was in the big room, he grabbed my hand and led me to their section of the tables. He had a big smile on his face, and it made me feel real good that he was so happy to have me with him.

He always brings his lunch, in his soft, red lunch case (not really a “box”), so we took a seat immediately. A couple of his friends went through the food line, but soon the whole class was seated and eating and talking and being silly 6 year olds.

They have terrible table manners. Talking with their mouth full, dropping crumbs and liquid everywhere. It was good to see that it wasn’t just my 6 year old who acted like that. Although, they seemed pretty good about taking their paper and plastic trash to the garbage cans.

One kid was obviously the class clown. He was up, down, all around the table, cracking silly “jokes,” getting everyone to laugh, and generally the being a big disruption. The noise in the whole cafeteria is as you would expect it to be: loud. The “cafeteria monitors” (teachers with lunch room duty) would come by occasionally and quiet the noisiest kids or crowds. One boy told me, “That’s Mrs. ~. She always comes by and gets us in trouble for no reason.”

The cafeteria workers were all middle-age women. About half looked like the stereotypical “lunch lady” we all picture in our minds, but the other half distinctly did not.

The lunch food was served on white plastic-foam plates, and today’s menu was burgers and french fries. I saw one kid open his cheeseburger and place several fries on the meat, then added ketchup, and then put the bun back on top. You know, that’s not a bad idea. I might have to try that recipe the next time I have a burger and fries. But he then added more ketchup to the top of the bun, and so when he tried to eat the sandwich, he got the mess all over his hands. I’ll learn from that mistake and just keep the ketchup on the inside of the sandwich.

It’s interesting to note that the kids segregated themselves into boy tables and girl tables. Last year, when I visited his kindergarten lunch, the boys and girls mingled. My son’s “girlfriend” always sat beside him, and all the tables were gender mixed. But this year, they are definitely keeping to their own gender for lunch companionship.

When their 30 minute time was almost up, the cafeteria monitors rounded the class up and had them stand to the side in a line. I said good-bye to my son and went to stand by the exit to watch them leave. I held the door open as they came through, and my son again stood by me until everyone was out. He gave me a big hug and said, “Thanks for coming Dad.”

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

We went to my hometown county fair last evening. This is the first time I’ve been to the county fair in over 20 years. (We’ve been to the state fair a few times over the past several years.) I remember the county fair of my younger days—going with family, going with friends, going with a date. The lights, the sounds, the smells, the shoddily-assembled rides, etc. were all there last night.

We went a bit before sundown and stayed a bit after sundown. My boys loved it. I had fun, and I think my wife and mom had fun, too, but it really wore us out. We had pizza slices and cheeseburgers for dinner, and I got a funnel cake for dessert. The first half of a funnel cake is great, but the second half gets to be a bit much. So I only ate about 9/10ths of it.

I slid down the Fun Slide with my 2 year old (the 6 year old didn’t like climbing the open and rickety stairs up so high). That slide was taller, faster, and more of a ride than I expected—was pretty cool.

The 6 year old drove a bumper car by himself for the first time. The 2 year old wanted to ride the bumper cars, too, and I was going to ride with him, but it was only one person per car, and the little guy was under the height limit. He cried in disappointment.

I took the boys into two fun houses. The first one was a maze of glass and mirrors. It’s actually pretty hard to find your way through that kind of thing. You have to choose direction by feeling the walls, because the disorienting effect of the mirrors and the invisibility of the glass defeats visual attempts to find the path. I’d love to go through a really big maze like that. The whole effect is really cool, and the boys laughed and shouted the whole way through.

The second fun house was a disappointment. The floor was supposed to be moving in places, but it was broken, apparently. At one point, there were rollers on the floor to make walking difficult, but the rollers were stuck, so they didn’t do anything. But the boys still laughed and shouted the whole way through.

I also took the boys into the petting zoo to feed the sheep, goats, donkey, and lama. The boys dropped most of the feed pellets on the ground when the animals tried to eat out of their hands, and then they’d run back to the vending box for more food.

The wife and I rode the Ferris wheel together. I was interested in seeing the fair from up high, and my wife was interested in waving to the boys down on the ground. We didn’t even think of making out while up there alone. The Ferris wheel used to be an excuse for alone time and kissing.

I also rode the sky drop thingy, alone. It has a circular seating arrangement, facing out, around a tower 120′ high. The circle seat rises slowly up the tower, with the riders’ feet hanging out over open air, and then it freefalls about 100′. That was more intense than I thought it would be. For one thing, there is no warning when you’re about to fall. I expected there to be brief stop or bump or click or something at the top just before the drop, but nope, you just suddenly plummet. Falling is a very unnatural feeling, and I had the natural panic emotion for split second. But the experience was very cool. I’d have loved to do it another time or two, but we didn’t have time for it (nor enough tickets).

This year’s fair was about half the size of the years when I was a kid. The rides and attractions were arranged on only half the fairground area; the other half was empty and open. Among the missing attractions were the freak show tents. (I’d never gone in one, myself, but some of my friends did, and they explained that they just had pictures of freaks, or statues “representing” the freaks.) Also missing were half the rides and some of the big eats places. There was still enough to thoroughly entertain the boys for two and a half hours, but it was a noticeably smaller fair to me.

Still, it was a fun experience for my boys. It completely exhausted all of us, especially us parents and grandparent. The smaller size was a good thing for us, I think, because it made it easier to get around. I’m wondering if the state fair would be too much this year, what with both boys walking.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

My first grader has homework, Monday nights through Thursday nights. It’s all cute, simple stuff that is actually kind of fun to help him do. For instance, one piece he did last week and has received feedback on is a page of comparisons.

The instructions for parents are:

Dear Family Member:
We are studying the ideas of more than, less than, and about the same. Please help your child complete the table below.
Thank you for your cooperation.

The instructions for the homework are:

Write or draw five household objects in the table below. After comparing the lengths of these objects with the picture of six [chain] links on the right, circle “more,” “less,” or “about the same.”

My 6 year old chose and measured these items:

Shoo – “About the same”
blik – “Less”
sdoftanomol – “More”
Kop – “Less”
Book – “Less”

The teacher gave my son a star on his page for this homework, but she put a question mark next to “sdoftanomol.” I’m a bit surprised she apparently could translate “blik” (block) and “Kop” (cup). I helped my son do this homework, so I know what all the items were. “sdoftanomol” cracks me up every time I look at it. It’s obvious once you know what it is supposed to be.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I’m not really liking my new cell phone. My old phone was not a flip phone, so when I pulled it out of my pocket, the display and keypad were right there—I didn’t have to flip it open to see who was calling, what time it was, or to start dialing. The keypad numbers were all raised rubber buttons, so I could dial by feel, without having to even look at the phone.

My new phone must be flipped open to see the menu and to dial. It’s also slick, physically, so handling it with one hand is not easy. And the buttons are flat on the keypad, so I can’t feel them to dial without looking at it. It looks cool and all, but for handling, my old clunker was better.

The only feature I have come to like with my new phone is the ability to record sounds and use them as ring tones. I can have a different sound/ring for every contact in my phone book. So far, though, I’m only using one ring for all calls: my two young sons saying, “ring ring, ring ring.” It’s really cool, to me. It’s probably annoying to anyone else hearing it.

It took me half a dozen tries to get the boys to do it right. I explained what I was doing, showed them how I was going to do it, and even did a couple tests with them before actually recording anything.

I wanted them both to say “ring ring” together, but ended up going with the oldest saying it first followed by the youngest repeating it.

The first few tries to record the sound came out like this:

(Before comma is 6 year old, after comma is 2 year old.)

“ng ring, . . . . . . . . . . . ring ring.”

“ring ring, what is dat?”

“RING RING, hehehe WING WING.”

“Say it now?, say now?”

Child voice talent. How do directors work with them?

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com