Two calories.
Multiple flavors.
Portable.
Old school.

Luca finishes Kindergarten on Monday. We figured she would thrive in a structured learning environment and she has. She likes the structure, she enjoys her teacher and she likes to learn new things.

But she doesn’t like to admit any of that to me. When I come home from work, she’s give me a big hug and this exchange takes place:

Me: How was school today?

Luca: Not good.

That’s how it’s been for the past nine months. She smiles when she answers and it’s become a running joke. She knows what I’m going to ask her and I know what her response will be.

I know she’s doing “good” because her teacher has told us she’s an smart little girl with a lot of personality and competitiveness. My next year when I ask how school went I’ll get a “pretty good”.

I worked from home today which means I got very little work done. As my daughter strode off to Kindergarten this morning I off-handedly mentioned I’d be there to pick her up.

“So you are coming to my class and we can drive home in the new car?”

Well, I had planned to pick her up from the bus stop but she was so excited, so animated that I decided to go to her school and pick her up from class.

I parked and went into the school, ignoring the “All Visitors Must Check In” sign near the entrance. I walked down the hall to her class which was empty. But I could hear children’s laughs, voices and giggles around the corner. I peered around the corner to see Luca’s teacher walking about 25 kids down the hall towards the classroom. Some of the kids were skipping. Some were holding hands and a few were running.

But I loved the feeling in the school today. The kids had smiles so wide. Luca was near the last group and when she saw me standing in the hall her face lit up and she yelled, “DAD!!!!”.

That right there is easily the best feeling in the world.

Work can wait.

Now where was this video when our first three kids were going to the toilet training process?

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My 4 year old son can’t read yet. But don’t try to tell him that. He will play Nintendo games until he falls asleep. That means he’d play sun up to sun down if we’d allow it which sometimes happens when his mom takes a trip to Utah.

But that fact is that our son loves games. And he especially loves the Zelda games. He’ll play Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64 for a while. Then he’ll move to the Gamecube and jump from Windwaker to Twilight Princess. I don’t see how he can keep track of them all. But if you ask him where he is in any of the the games, he’ll give you a detailed description such as, “I’m in the forest cave where there’s lava and I need to get two more keys and free one more monkey before I fight the spider”. That’s just the type of kid that he is.

But when he gets stuck he will ask Kim or me to pull out the strategy guides and help him get through. Most of the time I can’t make out where he is in relation to the guide so I’m of dubious help. But he’ll open the books, look at the pictures and figure out the way through the levels at an amazing pace for a little guy.

My oldest daughter, Luca, found a website where she could create a calender. She picked a header picture and gave her calender a theme. The website automatically added any holidays to the calendar.

When she was finished with her design she asked if I’d print it to our color printer. I told her I’d do that but that she first might want to type in any special appointments on the calendar such as her Grandfather’s visit next month.

Luca looked at me and said, “I don’t want to type it. I want you to print it and then I’ll color it in myself with crayons and add stickers to it”.

I thought for a moment. I then printed her calendar knowing she was right. Typing in the special dates doesn’t make it very special, but coloring it in on her own would.

Sometimes the low tech approach is the best approach.