What do you do?

We don't raise our children in a vacuum.  Unless one lives in a  remote area, choosing to shun contact with the outside world, a certain amount of exposure to wide-spread, popular media and culture is inevitable. I don't live in the wilderness.  I am raising my children in Silicon Valley, birthplace of the silicon chip and the internet, home of Apple, Facebook and Google.

I am more restrictive than most parents locally regarding how much access my children have to media; and here, I'm really talking about my older son because my toddler has no access to any of the computers or other electronic devices in the house.  Although we don't own any dedicated gaming devices (DS, Wii, etc...) I do allow my older son some access to games on the computer via the internet.  Even the limited access I allow him sometimes makes me uncomfortable.  I have enforced breaks from his access to the computer for weeks and even months at a time, however, a total media ban in our milieu, in our world, in our culture creates a feeling of imbalance also. And so I strive towards helping him (and myself) find a balance we are both comfortable with regarding the presence of popular media in our home and in our lives.

The thing that grieves me is this -- today my son told me that he has a few friends at school who spend their playtime talking about their computer games.  Because my son is not current with the latest computer-game trends, he has nothing to add to the conversation and so has been feeling left out.  On the one hand, I am appalled that children would spend their recess sitting around talking about computer games instead of running around and playing, and on the other hand I feel sad that my son is in this position.

The dilemma now gnaws at me: do I relax my standards and allow my son more access so that he can "keep-up" socially, or do I hold to my feelings and beliefs about media access and children?  I know that there is a grey area of compromise someplace in the middle, but I find balancing these matters tenuous and tricky.  An "all-or-nothing" approach would be so much simpler, but an "all-or-nothing" tactic is not really an option.

How do you handle such things?  What do you do?  Do you know of a way to balance such matters?  Any thoughts, ideas or feelings would be most welcome...

Geocaching Adventure

Yesterday afternoon Mr. Bloom was off mountain biking. Little Mr. & I had an hour or so before Mr. B. returned and we would start planning for supper. Sitting next to each other at the kitchen table, I asked Little Mr. whether he would like to work on an art project or go for a short hike in the open-space park down the hill from our house. His response was, "Let's go on a treasure hunt!"
Last weekend Little Mr. went on a geocaching adventure with a teacher from his school as part of a school fund-raising effort. This is what he meant by "a treasure hunt."

I quickly downloaded a free geocaching app on my iphone. We put on our shoes, grabbed our jackets, a few trinkets to leave behind in the cache box and off we went.

It took a bit of trotting back and forth, up and down the trails, scrabbling around fallen logs and peering into hollow trees... We both started to feel frustrated and were on the verge of giving up, but the sun was sunning and the shade was shading... Tiny birds were flittering and twittering in the tops of oaks...
And then we found the geocached treasure box we'd been searching for!

We headed home, feeling very pleased that we'd had such a successful adventure!

True Story...

I occasionally get an e-mail with one of those stories which make me roll my eyes & mutter, "Yeah, right." Then I check the Snopes website.

Tonight over dinner, my husband told me about one of "those" e-mails he received. My husband thought it was funny and forwarded it to my father (the "rocket scientist.") As he was telling me this story, I started rolling my eyes and muttering, "Yeah, right." He put up his hand and said, "Stop, just listen to the rest of the story..." So, I listened and was amazed. I encourage you to read to the end of this post for the full story and my father's response...

But first, a warning. Some might consider this story to be in poor taste, and it will certainly offend vegetarians. If you're anything like me, this little warning has only increased your curiosity. Just remember... you've been warned.

Here is the text from the e-mail which was sent to my husband (and then forwarded to my father):

Scientists at NASA built a device specifically to launch standard (dead) chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea was to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields. British engineers heard about the device and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made and a device was sent to the British engineers. When the device was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurled out of the device, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two, and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin. The horrified British team forwarded NASA the disastrous results of the experiment along with the designs of the windshield and asked the U.S. scientists for suggestions. NASA responded with a one-line memo -- "Defrost the chicken."

Okay... now you're rolling your eyes. Right? But here is my father's response, verbatim (except for names which have been edited to protect the innocent):

Not a completely true story. I knew one of the guys, G.B., who developed the test at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH. The rest of the story is true, however. They finally wrote a Military Standard with instructions for the dead chicken to be at room temperature before starting. G.B. was a manufacturing technology guy and worked with us on nickel hydrogen batteries. He told us about the windshield testing over dinner.

So, our military really did hurl dead chickens at the windshields of assorted aircraft. I guess sometimes the strangest stories are true.

Milk Carton Mechanicals

My father is a rocket-scientist (I'm not joking.) I am not a rocket scientist. I am not clever with mechanical things. I'm a neo-luddite at heart. However, a few weeks ago, I was over at a friend's house and flipped over a little mechanical toy -- when I saw the mechanics exposed underneath, I thought to myself, "I can make that!" I spent about an hour making one yesterday morning and then Sweet Child and I made another one when he got home from school. These were so much fun to make that I have to share them with you...

In anticipation of the project, wash out and save a milk carton, or two.

Cut off the tops of the cartons and trim the bottoms so that they're 3 1/4 inches high.


Cover the flat bottom of the carton and then the sides with paper. The bottom of the carton is now the top of your mechanical toy. Poke a small hole in the center of the top and then poke small holes in 2 sides of the box, opposite each other.

Using a needle nose pliers and stainless steel wire (19 gauge works well) create your crank and internal "camshaft" (this "camshaft" terminology was just supplied by my handy and technically-inclined Mr. Bloom...)

Insert your camshaft through one of side-holes. Maneuver the wire through the hole on the other side and bend it at a sharp angle (or into a large loop) so the wire will not pull back through the hole.

Take a straight piece of wire (approx. 5 inches long) and push it through the hole in the top of the box. Using your needle nose pliers, bend it in a small loop around the center of the camshaft inside the box. (TIP: You can pre-bend the little loop which will go around your camshaft. If you pre-bend your loop you will need to insert the un-bent top of the wire through the center hole from underneath the box.)

On the outside of the box, measure the wire approx. 2" from the top of the box. Bend the wire 90 degrees and create a loop (see photo above.)

NOTE: The first time I made one of these, I made plenty of mistakes bending the wire. I did a lot of bending, unbending and re-bending to get it right. When I made the second toy, it was much easier!

Now, you need to keep the "piston" (technical word again supplied by my Mr. Bloom) in the center of the camshaft. To do this, cut 2 small pieces of corrugated cardboard, 1/2 inch x 3/4 inch each, and 2 small strips of tape.

Roll the cardboard around the camshaft on either side of the piston and affix with tape.

It's a little tricky to work inside the box. I think this was the most difficult part for me...

Test your crank, and make adjustments. Now you're ready to create the little figure for the top of the toy. You will need a front and back for your figure -- glue them so they sandwich the loop on top.

If I were not too lazy to use photoshop, I would have loaded up the clip-art of the flying-fish and made a mirror image to use on the back of the figure. As it is, I used plain turquoise paper on the back of this figure to sandwich the wire.


Here's a little dragon Little Mr. B. and I designed together... And at the very end of this post is something my clever husband helped me set up...

If you have any questions about this project (or anything else) please feel free to post in the comments or find my e-mail by clicking on "VIEW MY COMPLETE PROFILE." I'd love to hear from you!

P.S. I tried adding a little bell to the camshaft of the fairy mechanical so there would be a little bit of fairy-music as she rode along on her flying fish. The little bell did not work, but I may yet take the whole thing apart (again) and try a different bell. I'll let you know if it works...