Michael's Run

We walked in Michael's Run this year, a benefit for the Respite Center that Lars attends.

when this whole world starts gettin' me down (click to hear song)

and people are just too much for me to face
I climb right up to the top of the stair
and all my cares just drift right into space

on the roof's the only place I know
where you just have to wish to make it so
let's go up on the roof!!

first day of school 2006

Joa was so excited and relieved that school had finally started. The Sunday evening after it recessed in June, I asked how his summer was going and he said, "Well, I think that's enough summer. I'd like school to start again tomorrow." Now it's three weeks into the year, and although not each day is heaven like it was the first two weeks, he'd still rather be at Sudbury Valley than anywhere else on earth.

bath

I came home pretty late from a meeting & was talking with Andey & Lars in the kitchen. Knowing he was taking a bath, I heard Joa talking in the bathroom & figured Gannon was in there with him. I went in to find him, prune-fingered, with the curtains draped around the bathtub, happily playing alone with a little plastic boat. It was such a sweet little-kid kind of moment, somewhat rare at this crossroads where he's slowly leaving paradise and learning bit by bit about some of the more disappointing aspects of life as a human in our current world. Balance: I'm trying to help him understand that for every awful fact he learns about our current state of affairs, there are billions of people offering each other trillions of loving, kind, generous actions every day.

this may not sound like English to you...

Tough day. Joa accidentally erased his very favorite starter Pokemon, a level 93 Blaziken named "Lars." He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. There are some things a mom just can't fix or even make the least bit better. Irreplacable.

Joa did decide that he wanted to rename another Pokemon "Lars." We want everyone to know that if you want to rename a Pokemon in Emerald, you can find the "Name Rater" in Slateport City, just up from the Pokemon Fan Club. You can only rename Pokemon that were trained under your trainer ID. If you want to get a Pokemon in a trade from a friend, and want it to have a different name, then ask your friend to rename it before s/he trades with you. It took us something over two hours, reading the entire Prima book on Emerald, and doing many web searches to find this out!

rollerblading & school

Joa fell madly in love with rollerblading this weekend! Was invited to a birthday party at Roller Kingdom & after saying he couldn't go because he was terrible at roller skating & then being reminded he'd never actually tried, he went & loved it. Now he's begging hourly to go back. School starts tomorrow & he and Gannon are so excited they could hardly go to sleep tonight. They baked a cake and wrote "welcome back to SVS" on it & are bringing it to school tomorrow.

stay tuned for Joa's blog

Joa says he wants to start writing a blog about what it's like to be Lars' big brother. Actually what he said was he's going to write about "what it's like to have a 2 year old brother who's blind." So stay tuned!

water boy

visit to Oregon