Mold-A-Ramas at the Willis Tower, and Quinn Turns Seven

Do you know the story of the Taoist Farmer?  I heard it the first time in a martial arts class many years ago.  The version of the story I remember is that the farmer's horse runs away, which seems like bad luck, but then the horse returns with two wild horses, which seems like good luck.  Then one of the wild horses throws the farmer's son breaking the boy's leg which seems like bad luck, until all the able-bodied men in the village are soon conscripted into war.

Quinn's recent birthday felt like that all day.  There were both figurative and literal ups and downs, actual dark clouds along with rainbows and tears.  It was exhausting, and not a birthday we are likely to forget.

When I asked Quinn a few weeks ago what he'd like to do for his seventh birthday he was ambivalent.  Since he could take or leave a friend party, I decided we should just stick with family and do something interesting.  I suggested a trip to the Willis Tower (still the Sears Tower in my heart) for a trip to the Sky Deck and to add the two Mold-A-Ramas they offer there to our collection.  He loved the idea.

My thought was that if we were going to make the visit to the Willis Tower for Mold-A-Ramas at some point anyway, may as well tie the overpriced experience to an important moment.  I figured every time we drive through Chicago in the future we will see that famous skyscraper and remember celebrating Quinn turning seven.  What could go wrong?

Well, the weather, of course.  We woke up to rain, and wondered if driving all the way to Chicago just to look at the inside of a cloud at 1,353 feet up in the air was worth the trouble.  With the Museum of Science and Industry as a backup plan we decided to chance it.

By the time we reached Chicago the clouds had broken up and we decided to the top of the Willis Tower we would go.  We parked several blocks away, enjoyed a windy walk downtown, made our way through several lines to buy tickets (Ian was free with his military I.D.!) and wait for an elevator, and then we were on the Sky Deck.

It really is amazing.  Pricey enough I doubt we'll do it again, but certainly worth doing once.  The views every direction are tremendous, and there are four glass decks that protrude a few feet out from the building so you can look down to the ground underneath you from where you are standing.  The kids all felt very brave.

Quinn Can Bike

Quinn learned how to ride a bike last week.  He did it with very little help and no training wheels.

He's six, and when I asked him recently on a nice day if he'd like to learn to ride a bike this summer he shrugged and said, "Okay."  He's been reluctant to try in the past, but he's great on a scooter so I knew he'd have the balance for it.

The things Quinn is good at he is very good at.  He reads at at least a sixth grade level, his geography is better than that of most adults I know (myself included some days), he's gotten off to a strong start on piano....

A Pianist in the House

Quinn started piano lessons the first week of February.

I have been offering him the chance to take lessons on either piano or a violin family instrument since he was two.  (I know two sounds unrealistic, but in Quinn's case if he'd been interested I have no doubt he would have been just fine.  He's always been a serious, focused kind of child.)

I don't believe in forcing children into music.  I think everyone should have a certain amount of education in it in order to appreciate it better, but playing an instrument is hard and without an internal passion to want to pursue it the result is joyless, so what would be the point?  I let Aden beg me for a year to take violin before I finally pulled one off the shelf at the violin store for her and got her a teacher.  (And no, I don't teach her myself because that is fraught with danger, plus I think a relationship with a music teacher is special and I don't want to deprive her of that.)  Mona started violin because Aden plays violin, which isn't the ideal motivation, however there's nothing wrong with it either.  They both enjoy it, and though Quinn has happily sat in my lap to watch them practice, he never expressed any interest in trying it himself.

But then came the report card.  A few categories marked less than perfect and Quinn was on a mission.  We conquered shapes and we conquered oceans because the boy likes to check things off a list.  Then he wanted to conquer music.

Report Cards

My kids got their report cards last week.  They all seem to be doing fine.

Although, honestly, Montessori report cards are a little odd.  There are lists of skills broken down by category, and for each item Aden and Mona receive an X, a / , or a - .  At first glance it always takes me a minute to figure out what is going on.  An X is good on this scale.  Aden had lots of Xs, and some of her /s from last semester had gone up to Xs.  Same for Mona.  There is also a list of behaviors that get graded with a U, an S, or an R (for Usually, Sometimes, and Rarely).  They each had a U for most everything, and a few places had upgraded from an S.  I seem to recall Mona getting a bunch of Ps at some point and I still don't remember what those were, or if I was supposed to be Pleased or Perturbed by them.  Anyway, both girls had nice comments from their teachers saying they are working hard and getting along well, so that's great.

K5 is graded differently, so Quinn's report card took me longer to figure out than his sisters'.  One page of it had a long list of categorized skills, but he was graded on a scale that went from 1 to 3, 1 being good, 3 meaning needs work.  The second page was general areas like Reading and Math and they were scored from 1 to 4, but this time 1 was minimal and 4 was advanced.  So on one page you want to see 1s, and on the other page you don't.  I have no idea why they don't use the same system for the kindergarten students as they do for the older kids.

In any case, Quinn's report card had a few things on it that took us slightly by surprise.  But his classroom has had a lot of upheaval because his teacher moved away at the winter break and other than saying a brief 'hello' at the pickup we have not really met his new one.  She seems very nice and Quinn likes her, but I don't know if she graded his report card or if his previous teacher did.  Regardless, it had things on it we didn't get.