thewallises

Last weekend Jacob asked if he could pleeeeease have a lemonade & kool-aid stand. Sure. Okay. So we encouraged him to do some planning, making a list of all the things he would need. Omie (my mom) was here and so she went with him to the grocery store to buy cups and colorful straws (which Jacob was convinced was an absolute must for a successful lemonade stand).

Today was the big day. When we came home from church he painted a sign, helped Steve set up the table, made the drinks, got the cash box ready and off he walked to take his seat. He had an entrepreneurial confidence about him- this was the way to strike it rich! So cute.

After being open for business for 3 hours there’s a lot to report:

• 4 neighbors came out, our friends the McGregor’s came out, a DaVinci teacher and a whole slue of amazing Young Life peeps came out. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Each and every one of you seriously rocked Jacob’s world today. And my mama heart is overflowing with gratitude that all of you made the effort to come our way just to help him realize his dream of a lemonade stand being a success. You all seriously rock! And you are the reason it was a huge success!!! Thank you!

• clearly advertising works! Without advertising Jacob would have sold 13 cups (due to our neighbor’s interest in seeing his stand). Steve and I posted on FB last night and a grip of YL friends made a concerted effort to come stop by, rocketing his sales to 63 cups!!!! Wowsas!!

• Jacob is now off to an amazing start with his quarter collection! Last night while Steve and I attended a friend’s wedding, Jacob and Natalie were able to spend the night at their grandparents place. What a treat it was for Jacob when Grandpa showed him his own coin collections. And what an extra special gift it was for Grandpa to present to Jacob his very own blue book so that he could start his own quarter collection! For a boy like Jacob who is fascinated with currency and also loves organization, this is the best of all worlds that make him happy!

Before last night he didn’t know that each of the 50 states has their own quarter. And he also didn’t know that each of those state quarters either has a “D” or “P” indicating if the coin was minted in either Denver or Philadelphia.

With all the quarters that were rolling in with today’s lemonade/kool-aid business, he’s already found:

Delaware-P, Delaware-D, New Jersey-D, Georgia-D, Connecticut-D, Massachusetts-P, South Carolina-D, Virginia-D, Indiana-P, Ohio-D, Louisiana-D, Alabama-D, Missouri-D, Michigan-D, Texas-D, Wisconsin-D, California-P, California-D, Oregon-D, Nevada-D, North Dakota-D, Idaho-P, Montana-D, Washington-D, Wyoming-D and Hawaii-P

• green was the preferred color of straw choice by customers. Jacob would exclaim with surprise “Wow! Another person wants a green straw! Green is definitely the favorite!” There were a few who wanted orange, a few pink and only two chose yellow.

• he learned what a “tip” is. Our neighbor Javier drove up in his car hoping it could be drive-thru lemonade stand. Too funny! He asked for one cup of lemonade but gave Jacob two dollars. Jacob was confused why Javier had given waaaaay too much money. Javier told him, “It’s your tip.” Jacob looked up at me with the most confused look and whispered, “Mama, what’s a tip?” When he realized that Javier was paying him $1.75 extra just for the nice service- whoa!!! that put a h-u-g-e smile on Jacob’s face and a whole new understanding of how deeply satisfying a great big tip can be for someone in the service world!

• he learned about good customer service: greeting people, being polite, making eye contact, not touching the rim of the cup or the end of the straw where people will place their mouth, realizing that each person may like a different quantity of ice in their drink and asking about that, pouring the same quantity of drink in each cup to keep a standard, and saying ‘thank you for coming’.

• he learned that money can be made selling lemonade!!! Tonight he said to me, “Mama, wow! Last week I bought Natalie a penguin for $40. And today I already made $11 and a whole bunch of quarters for my collection. Wow. Mama selling lemonade REEEEEEALLLY works!” And that’s why, I’m afraid, he’s already dreaming up having a lemonade stand every weekend. Ha!

Thank you so much to all of you who helped make this day such a success for Jacob. Thank you. Thank you.

Yesterday morning as Steve headed to the kitchen to make some coffee, Natalie zoomed past him to beat him there. “Daddy, daddy can I pllllleeeeeeeeease make your coffee for you???”

She had watched Steve make it several times and now she felt ready to do it all on her own. She didn’t even want Steve standing on the same side of the counter. Ha! She wanted to be Miss little independent making the coffee all by herself. So Steve sat at the counter on one of the stools, watching her pour the coffee beans into the grinder, grind them up, put the filter in place, pour the grounds in, pour the right amount of water in and turn it on. Quite impressive I think for a 4 1/2 year old.

Natalie stood there with a mug in hand waiting, waiting, waiting as the coffee brewed. She was bursting with excitement at the thought of getting to serve Daddy his morning coffee. When it was finally ready, she lifted up that full coffee pot, carefully poured it into the mug, descended the two steps of her kitchen ladder and with the greatest, proudest smile in the world served daddy his coffee. A very, very sweet start to the morning.

This morning was a rough morning. I could barely lift my head off my pillow. Raging headache. Stuffed nose. Eyelids that weighed a ton. Pressure everywhere in my head from my sinus infection. It was 6:30am, the kids had climbed into my bed and were arguing. Natalie had started singing a song to me “I love you sooooooo much, my love for you could fill 1 pot, 2 bags, 3 pots, 4 tea cups and 5 chevy vans”…..all the while Jacob was saying “no Natalie you can’t say pots again. You already said pot for the 1 number, so you can’t use it for the 3 number too.” Natalie ignoring him…..singing…..he getting louder trying to tell her why it didn’t make sense. And also trying to teach her about syllables because somehow in his mind that was going to help him justify arguing with her about it.” All the while my headache raged. Steve was already long-gone. He had headed to LAX to catch a 6am flight to Sacramento to be at a Youth in Govt. event which was a first for his school. How in the world was I going to make it through the day???

I sent Natalie off to the kitchen to get herself some cereal. Food always makes things better. Next thing I knew I heard arguing in the kitchen. Apparently Jacob had volunteered to help pour her cereal but she had a certain way of it being done and he wasn’t complying. So the arguing and Natalie’s crying continued. Grrrrrrr……..when Jacob came to tell me all about it I told him that I needed the gift of sleep. Thankfully then all was well for awhile and I got to sleep in.

But then the arguing started up again. Okay. Okay. It was time for us to get out of the house. Somehow that seems to work on off days like this. I’m not sure why…..but if one of them wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, it works to just get out of the house. It’s almost like it resets things in a magical way.

So I told them we’d start a fun new thing of visiting parks and discovering our favorite features of those playgrounds. So today we visited:

• Rocket Ship park, on Marine Ave. right off of Aviation Blvd. As we pulled into the parking lot they said “but this one isn’t new! we’ve been here before!”. Yes, I know. I know. But it’s been ages since we’ve been here. The kids’ favorite features: climbing through the hanging tire-things. And the spinning circle-snowman thing.

• Veteran’s Park in Redondo Beach, right by the pier. I think the last time I was at that park was when Jacob was less than one year old. I had met up with some Beach City moms that were from a Yahoo group I was a part of. That was an awesome group of all new-moms who supported each other as we all trekked into this new land of being a mommy. The kids’ favorite feature: the spinning things. They laughed their heads off as they went round and round and round, getting dizzier by the second. They seriously laughed their heads off!

We came home and we all took naps. And then the rest of the day was so much better! Jacob spent the rest of the day (seriously 4 hours!!!) quietly in his room engineering a really complicated Geotrax train track layout. Natalie spent the rest of the day quietly and happily cleaning her room and then playing vet, putting bandaids on her stuffed animals who were ‘hurt’.

And now thankfully I am starting to feel on the mend. Thank you God for carrying me through this day.

It all started over a month ago. We headed to the Long Beach Aquarium with a friend of Jacob’s from school. He had $5 in his pocket that his mom had sent with him in case he’d like to buy something while he was there. My kids didn’t understand what one could possibly buy at the aquarium; all of our previous visits I had managed to walk right past the gift shop without them ever inquiring what was in that room. They were clueless. But not anymore. Ha!

So we walked into the gift shop at the end of our time at the aquarium. Only taking a few steps into the store Natalie instantaneously fell in love with this huge stuffed-toy penguin on display. A $38.95 penguin!! She asked “Mama, may I pleeeeeeeease get this?” Um. No. No way. X-nay. Definitely not. Are you kidding me? A $40 penguin??! Don’t even think about it. Did I say all of that? Absolutely not. But that’s definitely what went through my head. We had never shopped at gift shops before. This was a new concept. Would we ever buy something in a gift shop? If yes, how much would we spend there? Would it occur every time we frequent the aquarium? There were a whole slue of conversations we needed to discuss. So right now the answer was simply “no”. She couldn’t understand.  The only thought that ran through her mind was “you mean I’m going to need to put this beautiful, soft and cute animal back down and walk out of here without it in my arms?????” She has thankfully learned that my ‘no’ means no. So she put it down. Her eyes full to the brim with tears. But she complied and walked out of the gift store without a single complaint about it. So that night as I tucked her into bed I praised her for how she had responded. I thanked her for obeying me and not whining, stomping, complaining or throwing a tantrum about it.

The next few days she kept talking about the penguin. How cute it was. How much she loved it. How she wished she could one day get it. And this talk went on for a good week. All of a sudden one day Jacob said, “Natalie, I tell you what. For your next birthday, when you turn 5, I’ll buy you that penguin for your present.” Her jaw dropped in amazement and then she did a happy dance, throwing her arms around her brother’s neck and said “really, Jacob??!” Thank you! Thank you!” I reminded him that this penguin cost nearly $40. He said he would take what he had saved in his wallet ($8) and begin saving even more. He would do as much recycling as he could and would just save, save, save until he could buy this for her. Wow.

He started off with his $8 he had in his wallet from his previous savings from recycling efforts. But then within a day he had $13. Natalie had decided on her own that if her brother was going to try to reach this goal for her, she would empty her wallet of its $5 and contribute to his savings fund. The concept of them being a team really hit home. They had a common goal of purchasing this penguin.

He received a surprise contribution of $7 to the savings fund from grandparents which brought him to the incredible place of having $20. Whoa! He was sooooooooo excited! He was halfway there!

So the next week Jacob pleaded with me if we could please take our recyclables in for cash. After all the work of sorting and taking it in, he was able to add $3 to his fund…..the weeks went by, kept his eyes open in parking lots for fallen coins…….he asked if he could do 100 worksheets of math for $5, I giggled and said “no way, buddy,  education is a gift and I’ll never pay you to learn.” So for weeks he stayed put at $23. But he was okay with that because Natalie’s birthday was still 5 months away. He still had time. He was hopeful and determined to make it happen somehow.

Well then the big surprise came in the mail this week! Inside each of their early-sent Valentine’s cards from grandparents was a $5 bill for each of them. $5?!?!??!?!?! Whooooaaaa! That brought his total to $28. As soon as Natalie saw her $5 bill in her card, she turned to Jacob and handed it over to him and said, “here Jacob, so I can help you save for my penguin.” Bam! All of a sudden he went from having $23 to now $33, after receiving this fun mail. Oh boy! Excitement was high.

In my mind I kept thinking, “wow this is all happening so fast! He’s earned on his own$11, been given $5 from Natalie’s savings and received as a gift $17 from his grandfather.” I was hoping it would slow down a bit and get stretched over 5-months of time instead of being on speed-mode in order for him to really appreciate the value of money and working hard for it. But today indeed he worked really hard!

At breakfast time Jacob asked if there was any way he could earn some money. We don’t give our kids money for chores. We’ve recycled all that we have so far. So how else could he earn money? This was a great question. Steve had ahead of him a day of work in the backyard. So he made a proposition to Jacob that since pulling weeds is above-and-beyond the regular job of chores around the house, that he would be willing to let him earn some money doing that. So he pointed out to him the 6feet x 12feet garden area we have that is now full of weeds. Last year the kids planted seeds of all sorts of vegetables, but now it was just one big weed jungle. Jacob at first asked if he could make $5 pulling the weeds. Steve and I thought $2 was more appropriate. And so Jacob began….

Steve taught him how to use the ‘weeder’ to dig down deep and remove the weed by its root. And Jacob sat there digging and pulling for two hours. Yes, I know, at this point it seems like child labor to consider he made $1 per hour. But in the moment it seemed like a reasonable amount of money. Perhaps it’s because we were estimating it based on the amount of time it would take a grown-up to pull the weeds. But for a 6-year old it was a whole different time scale.

We took a break for lunch and then Jacob returned to work for another hour. He ended up raking the whole area and waiting for Daddy to come inspect his work. You should have seen the look on Jacob’s face when Steve handed him the two one-dollar bills. A look of significant pride and “I did it!” satisfaction. This was indeed hard-earned money!!! And Jacob felt good. He ran to his room waving the $2 in the air, sooooooo excited to combine it with another three dollar bills he had, to ask me for an exchange of a $5 bill. He was smiling from ear-to-ear; he was just so excited!

In the meantime Steve started trimming the hedge in our backyard. As the branches fell to the ground in heaps along the entire length of our yard, I said to Jacob “I think you might be able to strike up another deal with Daddy. Ask him if you can earn money picking up all the clippings from the vine.” Mind you, this was a whooooooooooooole lot of work! Piles upon piles upon piles (probably two or three trash cans worth) of greenery to pick up. Steve and Jacob made a deal- if he picked it all up, he could earn $5.

When Jacob’s brain processed that the $2 from weeding + the $5 of picking up the hedge clippings could bring him to his goal of $40, his eyes lit up with excitement!!!! He would finally have enough to buy Natalie that penguin!!!! I told him that if he was able to do the work in one hour, we would be able to drive down to the aquarium and he could buy it today. Jacob sprinted to Natalie to share the good news with her. She was busy making a mud pie on a rock; piling up mud and then sprinkling tiny bits of gravel she had filled daddy’s work glove with. When she heard what Jacob was saying she screamed with excitement! She couldn’t believe her ears! I told her that if she helped him pick up all the cut greenery, we could leave even sooner. They needed to do it in an hour or less.

The two of them raced with excitement to the furthest wall of our backyard and started picking up armfuls of the cut greens. And that’s when Natalie began and never stopped saying: “Jacob, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Jacob…..oh Jacob….I can’t say thank you enough…..Jacob you have made me feel so special saving all this money for me……ohhhhhhhh Jacob thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. Jacob I was wishing for this day to happen……my dream is coming true……ohhhhhhh Jacob you could have done other things with your money but you chose to save it for me. thank you Jacob. thank you. thank you. I am soooooo excited that today is the day. Oh this is my lucky day. Oh Jacob I need to warn you that I’m going to hug you so tight. Jacob I’m just so excited. You really saved all that money for me. For me. You didn’t have to. But you did. Oh Jacob, thank you. Jacob I am so grateful. Thank you.”

And her effusive thanks continued for 40 minutes as they worked together scooping up huge armfuls of the cut branches and dumping them into the trash can. Jacob’s generous and giving heart was beautiful. Their teamwork was beautiful. Natalie’s gratitude was beautiful. My heart was swelling with joy and thanksgiving that I have such loving children, who love on each other so profusely. This is a mama’s dream.

So at 4pm though we all quickly changed into cleaner clothes, we still smelled like we had been working outside. Ha! Fingernails filled with dirt. Hair that had that earthy smell of dust and dirt. But Natalie had her heels on! She wanted to celebrate this special occasion looking fancy. Jacob shared, “Mama this is the most exciting day of my life. I have never bought anything so expensive before!”

And how appropriate that all of this happened today when we also had the last chapter to read of “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” (written by Richard and Florence Atwater, originally published in 1938). I had started reading this book to them in this unit of “Oceans” that Jacob is studying at school. I loved how it talked about the Arctic and Antarctic and brought to his mind the thought of expeditions at sea by scientists to head to the Poles. So here we were, the four of us driving to Long Beach, with me reading aloud the final chapter of the book. As I read I began to cry. Steve and the kids looked at me probably thinking “what’s going on with mama?” But there in the last chapter Mr. Popper (the main character) is faced with the decision of either signing a contract for thousands upon thousands of dollars to allow a movie to be made of his penguins -or- instead to send them off with the admiral on a ship to a colder climate where they will thrive. So as I’m reading about Mr. Popper making the decision that was not in his best-interest, but instead what was good for the penguins…..and reading the details of his farewell to the penguins…..while at the same time I was feeling all of the emotion of the beauty of Jacob’s heart for Natalie and his willingness (as a six year old) to spend 4 hours of his Saturday doing hard labor in the backyard as well as giving to her his hard-earned and saved up money…..

yeah….the tears began to flow.

As I read the last line of the book we arrived at the parking garage of the aquarium.

And the four of us walked in, headed to the gift store, I asked them to pose for a picture. Natalie put her arm around Jacob with this look of “I am the luckiest girl alive to have this boy as my brother”. And Jacob held up his Thomas-the-Train wallet in two hands with this big smile and a look that seemed to say “I have a gift of hard-earned and carefully saved money in this wallet that I know is about to make my sister feel super duper special and I’m really really happy to do this.”

When the lady at the cashier rang up the penguin and I stepped to the side to let Jacob step forward and count out his money, I explained “he’s wanting to buy this for his sister with his own money”, the lady’s eyes instantaneously filled with tears and she said “that has got to be the sweetest thing I’ve heard or seen all day today.”

Natalie thanked Jacob profusesly.

Jacob walked out with a sense of deep, deep satisfaction.

Tonight Natalie went to sleep with her arms wrapped tightly around the neck of Lulu, the giant penguin that now lives in our home.

Every time I look at this big penguin, I will see the love and sacrifice Jacob wanted to give Natalie and the profound message of importance and significance that caused Natalie to feel.

Oh dear Lord seal them together for their lifetime. I pray a blessing over them. May they be as tight, as loving, as intent upon making the other one feel special and loved and significant their whole life long. And may I never forget this moment.

by: Jacob Wallis

High Tide

Loud, Wet

Splashing, Tumbling, Crashing

For six hours the moon’s gravity pulled the water

Calming, Relaxing, Stepping

Quiet, Dry

Low Tide

Oh the beauty of experiencing high tide and low tide in the same day! I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “negative” low tide. But with this week’s full moon, the low tide was incredible! In the morning, seeing all the water crashing up against the peninsula and hearing the tumbling of hundreds of rocks as they were swept back with waves was quite awesome! But man oh man did their jaws drop when we returned later in the afternoon, down the same pathway and  all that water had receded. That was exactly the reaction I was hoping to elicit: pure eye-opening awe and amazement. And that is how I like to teach about tides. So this morning when I taught Jacob the structure of diamante poems, my heart fluttered with joy at how he could recall his experience from a few days ago and write this poem with such precise word choice. The experience was real and stuck. Success!

High Tide. 8:30am.

Low Tide. 2:30pm

On Sunday Steve was cutting Jacob’s hair. Natalie asked, “Daddy can you cut my hair too?” Steve glanced at me silently asking with his eyes “is that okay with you?” Getting her hair cut? Sure. By Steve? Um no. No offense to Steve- he does an awesome job cutting Jacob’s hair as well as his own. Love, love, love how much money he saves us with that pair of scissors and buzzer! But cutting girls hair is different. I know because one time I tried giving Natalie a bit of a trim and though I tried my best to end on the left side at the same length I had cut the right side- yeah, it didn’t work out that way. And this time she was requesting a very short, above the shoulder cut.

So on Tuesday while Jacob was at Aladdin rehearsal, she and I headed over to SuperCuts. She was jumping for joy that I was taking her “to a beauty salon in public!” That’s what she kept saying and how she has recounted the story to various people. Perhaps the “public” part of her excitement is because last week in her preschool class they played “beauty salon”. But this was for real!

I’m not sure exactly how it happened…..but in cutting 6 inches (I’m guessing)…..she somehow gained about 4 years in age. She looks like an older girl to me now. And boy did she walk out of there with an extra step in her gait. She’s one very very mature little girl for a 4 1/2 year old. I sure do love my Natalie to pieces!!

Last night our friend Laura brought an enormous dessert tray of Hostess treats to our bible study group. Twinkies….Ding Dongs…..Ho Hos….Powdered Donettes….pure junk food to the max! Man did it bring back memories of my childhood. I remember how much I looooooooooved the treat of getting to eat a twinkie or ding dong. Oh and zingers- wow, now those were pure heaven as a kid! Peeling off the top layer of frosting, eating the cake and then ending with that whole frosting delight. Oh man. Good memories.

So I saved a couple of delightful desserts to treat my kids to a surprise this week.

This morning as I was packing up Jacob’s lunch, I asked him if he’d like a fun treat of either a Twinkie or Ding Dong. He didn’t know what they were so I tried to describe the flavor as best I could. He chose a twinkie. So I packed it in along with his pb & j sandwich, a ziploc bag full of sliced cucumber and a container full of cut up kiwi. I wrote him a note, as I always do. It said: “Buddy, I hope you are having a fun rainy day at school. I’m excited to hear what you think about the twinkie. Love, Mama :)”

This afternoon as we drove home after his day at school, I asked: “So Jacob what did you think of the twinkie?” “Mama, I didn’t try it yet. ” “No? Really? Any particular reason why Buddy?” “Yes, mama. It’s because I still have 3 slices of cucumber left.”

And that’s when my heart swelled with pride. An unexplainable joy and a  deep, deep respect for my 6-year old son filled my thoughts. I imagined him with ironclad will power, holding off on trying a delectable, new dessert because he has fully internalized the message that dessert only happens if you’ve first eaten all of your growing food. He’s a rule follower. Our family’s rule is no dessert until your plate is empty. And today his baggie was not empty- it still had 3 slices of cucumber left. And yet he could have thrown that rule out the window, considering he was at school, not at home and not in the clutches of his parents who would have held him to that rule. And yet today he made that self-controlled and great decision all by himself, out of our presence and influence. I am one proud mama today.

At home tonight he asked if he could trade his twinkie for the ding dong. Yes, Buddy, yes.

And so tonight he tried a ding dong for the first time. It was sweet to see how he ate it. He took little nibbles on the hard, chocolatey crusty coating, all the way around its perimeter….round and round he went. Then ate all the chocolatey cake, round and round. And finally was left with the frosting core.

So cute.

Monday, Feb. 6th (1:30pm) The kids and I went on a harbor cruise, touring the Los Angeles Port. Fabulous 45 minutes out in the channel! This was “Port- Part 2” Fieldtrip.

One of the many highlights was coming up alongside a H-U-G-E cargo ship. The kids and their friend from school were fascinated (as was I) watching the big, heavy duty cranes load cargo containers onto the “Ever Charming” ship from Germany.

• Monday, Feb. 6th (6:00pm) When we came home later during the day, we looked online at the website: http://www.marinetraffic.com and found that “Ever Charming” has been moored at this Evergreen shipping dock in San Pedro for 3 days. There it was, in live satellite feed, marked at the port. So awesome!
• Tuesday, Feb. 7th (7:00am) This morning we looked online at the website again and ‘lo and behold were shocked to learn it had departed at 4:55am. We saw it on the map, already having past Malibu and nearing Santa Barbara. It even displayed the track it had followed.
• Tuesday, Feb. 7th (4:45pm) Now it has past Half Moon Bay on its way to San Francisco. Its destination is the Port of Oakland.
• Tuesday, Feb. 7th (7:17pm) It is almost passing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. If you were standing on that bridge right now, you’d definitely see it!
• Tues. 2/7 (7:27pm) It’s already passed under the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s on its way to passing Alcatraz Island.
• Tues. 2/7 (8:30pm) It has also passed under the Bay Bridge. It is now moored in the Port of Oakland.
• Wed. 2/8 (8:00am) Still in Oakland.
• Wed. 2/8 (10:45pm) Ohhhhhh I’m excited! It’s destination has been posted. Taiwan!!! But it says its ETA is Feb. 27th. Whoa! That’s a long time. Can’t wait to tell the kids in the morning!
• Thurs. 2/9 (7:30am) Kids are sitting at the breakfast counter. Just logged on to the site. They see that ‘Ever Charming’ has returned under the Bay Bridge, back under the Golden Gate Bridge and is now out in the Pacific Ocean, having just left the bay. Its destination reads: US OAK > TW TPE. We’ve just looked up what those letters stand for. It’s headed to Taiwan (Taipei). Super exciting! I also just learned that it all depends who you ask- the people who live in Taiwan view themselves as an independent country. But if you ask others, they are part of China.
• Thurs. 2/9 (6:15pm) WHAT!??! It’s “out of range”. No data. No records. No point on the map anymore for the ship! Just realized that no ships in the Pacific Ocean are visible. The website only shows marine traffic as it pertains close to land. Wow- wonder why that is. Okay, this morning it said its ETA would be Feb. 27th. That really confuses me. Why would it take 18 days to cross the Pacific Ocean? We’ll need to check in daily and see when it reappears on the map.
• Fri. 2/10  Out of range.
• Sat. 2/11 Out of range.
• Interesting addition to following our ship….
• On Saturday our dear friends the Ballards went on a whale-watching trip. While they were out on their boat they took notice of a ship that was docked at the exact same port that our Ever Charming had been! That ship that the Ballards spotted was the “Hatsu Crystal”. As soon as Jacob and Natalie saw their family photos, they wanted to start tracking the Hatsu Crystal as well.
• So here we go……tracking two ships now:

I am hooked. This stuff is absolutely fascinating to me! So much of it intrigues me!

What exactly is in all those cargo containers?

How in the world is all of this stuff organized and managed at the port?

When you watch the cranes taking containers off and then forklifts loading them up on trucks, and then those trucks driving away….how in the world is it all kept straight what is where and who’s taking it and to what location?

It is mind-boggling that within range there are 36,607 ocean vessels out in the water right now. How far-reaching is that range?

Just looking at the world map, it is AMAZING how many ships are out at sea right now! I just checked out the Aegean Sea, east of Greece. The place is teeming with cargo ships and tankers!! Amazing!

Now I just checked out the Panama Canal on this website. This is soooooooooooooo amazing!!! I seriously can’t wait to show this to Jacob tomorrow! We have been studying about the 4 main oceans, the 7 continents, that items have a “Made in________” label, that things are exported/imported and all that fun geography stuff. And as we were discussing oceanic routes that possible ships might take in order to deliver their goods, we started talking about “what if there was a short cut to get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean”? That’s when we started our conversation about the Panama Canal.

But this is cool beyond cool! Clicking on the satellite image of this website, getting a minute by minute live feed of the placement of every ship in the ocean all over the world. So we can now see all the ships waiting to pass through the Panama Canal. This is crazy cool to me!!! You can click on every little dot and discover the country of origin of that ship!

So we’re going to keep our eye on “Ever Charming” and see how long it stays in Oakland, CA. and where it heads after that. Will we be able to see it eventually go back to Germany? I don’t know. But how cool would that be!

The combination of home school learning and technology is making me one very, very happy mama right now!

Today every part of me felt a resounding conviction with our decision to have Jacob in a hybrid public school-homeschool. There are days when I wonder about the homeschool part of the decision. Especially those days that have been difficult because I’ve been met with “I don’t want to do that” or “I need a break” (after 3 min. of writing time) or “I want to go play instead”. I tell myself he says these things because he doesn’t yet “get” school. He doesn’t have any point of reference of what it means to be in a 5-day a week public school. Had he gone to public school for a year or two and if we would have pulled him out of that model, then he’d be more accustomed or trained to the idea of school every day. Not to mention, home has always been a place of indirect learning and a lot of play. So when he’s home with me for 2 1/2 days, perhaps he just thinks that’s continued play-time, as it has always been. Thankfully he’s now beginning to more fully realize it also comes with math worksheets, handwriting practice, reading comprehension questions and all that regular school stuff.

But today was a day that completely and fully solidified in my mind why I love love love love love LOVE that there is a homeschool aspect of his education. As my dear friend Heidi said, “today we hit the homeschool JACKPOT!!!” Indeed we did!

Jacob’s public school teacher has assigned us to “visit a community space that is related to the ocean”, have our child notice what people are doing there and write & draw about those observations in a field journal. So I picked going to the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. Considering that it handles 25% of all container ships that come to the United States, I was hopeful we would observe lots of activity. Not to mention there would also be commercial fishing boats, fish markets, warehouses, cruise lines and all the other ocean-related activity going on.

At 10:15am the amazingly educational experience began!

#1: The parking lot of the Acapulco Restaurant @ Ports ‘O Call

The first thing Natalie exclaimed when we got out of the car: “Mama! Mama! I see star fish!!!!” And, yes, sure enough, there they were affixed to the rocks in the water below our feet. We stood here looking across the channel, watching truck after truck after truck heading out of the port, carrying a cargo container that had just been placed on their backs. Do trucks have backs? Okay, maybe not. But you get what I mean, right? We watched a mega forklift lift up a container off of one truck and then stack it up as though it was a lego-block. Jacob took notice that there were words on each container. Some said “CHINA SHIPPING” others said “EVERGREEN”, one said “ITALIA.” So we talked about how these containers come from different parts of the world on these ships, get unloaded here and then taken by truck (or train) to parts of the city, state or even country.

#2: The row of commercial fishing boats

Here we were met eye-to-eye with a beautiful, large pelican that was sitting atop what we thought was the lifeboat of the larger fishing boat. We observed that affixed to all these fishing boats were rows of H-U-G-E lightbulbs. Hmmmm…..why are all these fishing boats docked here during the day-time? and why do they have all these huge light sources? Hmmmm…..we asked the kids. “Maybe because they go fishing at night”. Great deductive reasoning! Okay, so that led us to the next question: why would it be better to fish at night? And that my friends is when the fun of the day really began!

As we were standing alongside these fishing boats, I noticed a suburban pull up right along the first boat (with the pelican) and a man hopped on board the boat. “Kids! Kids!” I whispered. “Let’s go see what he’s going to do on the boat!” So we all walked over there and asked if he was a fisherman and wouldn’t mind answering a question of ours.

“Is it better to go out fishing at night? If so, why?” And check out what we learned! These fishermen leave the dock at 4pm to head out to sea. They stay out until about 6am! They turn on their lights and the fish are attracted to the light, so they rise higher up closer to the surface of the water. Then the skiff, the smaller boat, turns on its lights and is used as a decoy (keeping the fish attracted to the lights). Then the larger commercial fishing boat lowers its nets and circles the skiff and, in so doing, catches all the fish that came up closer to the surface. During the day-time fish tend to swim lower in the ocean, but at night-time they are more active at higher levels. So interesting!

And get this?! This one particular boat specializes in catching squid and sardines. In one expedition they will come back with 100 tons of squid. 100 TONS!!!!??!!! Isn’t that crazy beyond crazy?!?! That is soooooooooo much squid I can’t even wrap my mind around it! But, wait, it gets more interesting! There are 40 commercial fish markets in San Pedro’s port. Each market has 3 designated squid/sardine fishing boats that sell their catch to that market. So that means there are 120 of these boats! If each one brings in 100 tons, we’re talking about 12,000 tons of squid coming in from one night of fishing!!! Okay, so he didn’t say that all boats come in with that big of a catch. He did say it’s very competitive and it’s all about which boats can get out to the best catch the fastest.

The past 3 days his boat has been docked. It hasn’t been good for squid or sardines these past few days. Get this! Fishermen have the option to pay for an information service. There is a plane that hovers over the ocean using highly sensitive sonar information. That plane can ascertain what quantities of squid or sardines there are, where they are, how deep they are, etc. which is all the info. these fishermen need to determine if it’s worth the trek out to the ocean or better to stay put. He said that when the information is released then it’s just a matter of speed. It’s a race of all those fishing boats to see who can get there first. Wow! Talk about cut-throat competition. Around 7am-8am all these boats deliver their catch to the commercial fish markets and return to moor themselves. Right now it’s really good tuna-catching in the evening.

We thanked the man for all that he taught us and started walking down the boardwalk to look at the other fishing boats. He called out after us: “Wait. Would you like to come on board the boat and see everything?” WHAT?!??!! Had we heard the man correctly?! And so we did. Heidi and her two children along with myself and Jacob and Natalie all stepped aboard his boat.

#3: On-board the Commercial Fishing Boat 

So we learned that the “galley” is the kitchen on the boat. There are 7 men that are a part of this crew. This man who was sooooooooo kind to teach us all of this and invite us onto the boat is the engineer, in charge of caring for and making sure the boat’s engine is always running well. Every man has his own specific job that is critical to the whole operation. Here were four of the bunk beds. They even had a washer and dryer in this little room! We learned about “small-mesh” and “large-mesh” nets, the pulley system they use to haul in the 100-ton catches and the refrigeration system that keeps all the fish cold until they get to the market. The kids were BEAMING! None of us could truly believe how lucky we were to be invited onto this man’s boat! We saw the bathroom and learned that not all boats have one. The big “steering wheel” is only there for looks; they use other switches and controls to move the boat. The hilarious part of this was needing to jump back from the boat to the dock without falling into the water. There was a considerable gap between the boat and dock, that somehow had seemed so much easier to traverse when coming onto the boat. My nervousness turned into unstoppable laughter. Heidi held her hand over her heart, hoping not to have a heart attack. Here we were feeling like we’d be stuck on this boat forever unless we jumped off back onto the dock. The kids jumped graceful as gazelles without a seeming worry in their mind of falling into the ocean. After a lot of mental prepping and “we can do this” talk- the grown-up mamas finally did too! 🙂

We said our goodbyes to our super fun friends the Ballards…..and our educational field trip continued.

#4: A Fish Market

It seemed to make perfect sense to make a stop and look for squid and sardines, since we had just learned so much from Mr. Anthony about these fish he goes out to catch on the fishing boat.

Which then turned into a conversation about the difference between buying a whole fish versus a fillet of fish. What does “fillet” mean? Why does the whole Tilapia cost $5.29/lb. and the fillet cost $9.99/lb. What does “/lb.” mean? How much does a fish weigh? Oh, so many great questions and great thinking going on! The man at the fish market had a big smile on his face and loved being roped into the teaching. He weighed a whole salmon for Jacob so that he could see it weighed nearly 15 lbs. and therefore cost $120. Jacob started to understand how it is that fishermen make money, with each catch. And what kind man! He filleted a fish for us and let us come up close to watch the process. It then was made abundantly clear to the kids why mama is willing to pay so much more to have a nice, clean fillet. 🙂

I asked the man if we could closely examine the gills. There we were, each carefully feeling the feathery soft gills, with blood still dripping from it.

We saw perch from the Nile River, shark, Dungeness crab, octopus, red snapper and so much more.

#5: Crossing the Vincent St. Thomas Bridge

The kids were jumping for joy on the backseat. They were soooooo excited to cross over the bridge! And to see a high-up view of the port with all of its huge cranes at all the berths, the incredible amount of cargo containers, the many train tracks everywhere……it was all an incredible vista!

#6: Counting/observing all the trucks on the 710 Fwy.

And now we have a very intimate understanding that each one of these containers that rides on a truck, once sat on a very large cargo ship that brought it here from another country in the world. So there Jacob sat looking out the car window, shouting “Evergreen! Cosco! China Shipping! Hanjin! Maersk! CMA/CGM!” with each truck that we passed or was headed southbound to the port.

#7 IKEA

And so now the fun begins of connecting all these pieces of knowledge and experience. Tomorrow we will check the labels of the items I bought, find those countries on the world map, guess the oceanic route that item may have taken in a cargo container to get to our port. I love it that IKEA has so many items from places other than China. I’m actually really surprised by the array of countries!

• Roll of art paper- Lithuania

• Candles- Poland

• Beads- Thailand

• Plastic design cards for beads- India

• Vase- China

• Cute, decorate tray- Turkey

#8- World Map & YouTube

So when we got home, I had Jacob identify the continents, where we live and think of our dear friends the Ludwigs who just made a big move and transported all of their stuff in order to live in England. They were afforded one cargo container to use to transport their possessions, furniture, toys to England. So I asked Jacob “Which way do you think the ship took to get to England?” He pointed across the United States and said “I think it went across the country in a river and got to the Atlantic Ocean.” Would have been a perfect moment to pull out the map of the United States and show that wouldn’t be possible. Perhaps I’ll do that tomorrow. Instead, I told him “no.” So then he motioned that the ship must have gone all the way south around the tip of South America. Possibly yes. And so the conversation began about how nice it would be if there was a shortcut.

And so began our conversation about the Panama Canal. Jacob, so keen on the learning potential of YouTube, asked with great excitement, “Mama! Mama! Can we please look up the Panama Canal on YouTube?” Sure. And so there I sat with him on my lap, watching a video of a huge ship passing through the canal, while listening to an explanation about the locking gates and how they work.

Pure fabulousness! This kind of themed, subject-intertwined, rich, first-hand learning is what I thrive on.

And the fun continues tomorrow…..

Today’s beaming smile on Natalie’s face brought back memories of my own childhood. I remember how invigorating and fun it was to rearrange my bedroom furniture! Having that “new” feeling in my room. And today for the first time Natalie felt that feeling. As she lay in her bed’s new location, scanning the room for how different it felt, she said “Mama, it feels like the walls have been stretched out”. Yes! It has. Truly. Her room feels bigger now. I love this new arrangement. But more than anything I love how excited she was to take on this task this morning. She was a busy beaver walking out of her room over and over again with armfuls of possessions, putting them in the living room until everything had been properly emptied enough in her room to facilitate an easy movement of all the furniture. I’m curious to know if she’ll be surprised in the morning when she awakes……will she forget about her room’s new layout and then wake up to the surprise of it being a fun new reality? I can’t wait to see how she reacts in the morning. 🙂