huck blog

little teacher boy

February 28, 2010, 5:28 pm

Huck's latest thing is teaching his animals (which includes his various Sesame Street puppets and dolls) everything that he's learning. Throughout the day he asks one of us (usually Troy) to be the voices of all his creatures while he shows them optical illusion after optical illusion from his beloved Walter Wick library book (which he's getting for his birthday a week from today so that he never has to part with it). He also likes to gather his animals to look at optical illusions on the computer, and as of this morning he's decided to teach Nemo math from his beloved workbook that he does for fun. (Again making me question if we're actually related.)

Like all children Huck has always loved to have books read to him, but unlike some children he has not been that interested in learning to read, so we haven't pushed it. (This has been hard on Mommy. Mommy wants him to read.) Then out of the blue last night he laid between the two of us and read all 64 pages of "Hop on Pop." It felt like a miracle. Troy and I kept sneaking each other shocked facial expressions as if we were watching our son win an Olympic gold medal against the odds, careful not to let Huck see us for fear he’d sense our happiness and stop. My favorite part about his reading style is when he gets to words he can't quite figure out and exclaims, "What the weasel?!" (And he slept with the book tucked under his arm all night.) Here he is reading to his little friends, because they need to experience all this good stuff too. God bless you, Dr. Seuss.

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jungle gym optical illusions

February 26, 2010, 9:26 am

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time-out

February 21, 2010, 5:12 pm

Today Huck told me that he is always VERY serious at school, but that he did go through a silly phase and now he's back to being very not silly. He told me that during his silly phase he got a time-out and had to leave his classmates and sit at a table all by himself for a few minutes. I said, "Oh, I see. And did it feel bad to have Ms. Dorothy upset with you?" He said it did, but that he REALLY liked being alone like that.

Here he is during a silly phase with green Fun Dip.

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winter break

February 20, 2010, 2:10 pm

We three began Huck's winter break with a stomach bug that passed from me to Huck to Troy with a few days in between for recovery. Now that the week's over we're all back to our normal stomachs and finally enjoying Huck's valentines candy. We did manage to squeeze in some fun, first with the visiting Hales from Los Angeles (Huck and Loy got engaged on Valentine's Day) and then the visting Segals from Maine (four boys and lots of toys in a huge Soho loft while it snowed all day long). We spent an afternoon with Olive and Bea (shown below trying to figure out Huck's optical illusions book) and we three Schremmers enjoyed the wintry Bronx Zoo and daydreamed of warmer days. Now we'll just have to wait for spring break in a month to enjoy more down time (and hopefully no sickness) together.

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doodle

February 17, 2010, 8:51 pm

Here's Huck's latest optical illusion invention. He filled a notebook with a whole bunch of sketches this afternoon and ripped them all out. I found a pile on the ground and decided to salvage this one. A little photograph of Huck's almost five year old brain.

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science fair

February 12, 2010, 10:00 am

Last week Huck's teacher Dorothy took me aside and asked if Huck could join his best friend Valentino as the pre-K class representatives for the science fair. After squealing and giggling for a few seconds I pulled myself together and said that yes, that would be fine. The next day she asked the boys if they would like to do this. She presented it as a big responsibility, explaining that they could not be silly and would spend the time answering people's questions about their bean sprouts. By the end of the school day Huck and Valentino had decided it was too much work and so they told her no. Upon hearing this devastating news I began passionately reminding Huck about his love for science and how much fun I was sure he and Valentino would have. Huck then yelled at me for several blocks saying things like, "This isn't about what YOU want to do! This is about what I want to do! And I don't want to do the science fair! It's too much talking!" I wish my dad could have witnessed this absurd public fight, for it would have taken him back a few years.

We ended up talking about it calmly, and over the weekend Troy did some puppet shows for Huck about science fairs and not wanting to do them. By Sunday Huck was convincing the puppets they should do it because it would be so much fun. On Monday Huck and Valentino proudly told Ms. Dorothy that they would love to be the science fair class representatives after all.

Then a big blizzard came and school was canceled and the science fair was postponed till Thursday. Then I got a horrible stomach bug early that morning and was sort of stuck in the bathroom. Troy told Huck that I may have to stay home that day and he said, "But she'll be able to come to the science fair, right?"

Huck and Valentino ended up having a wonderful time explaining to various grown-ups why some of their beans sprouted and why most of them did not. Turns out beans need moisture! I dragged myself to the school just long enough to pop in, ask a few questions and get a few answers (though they both talked at the same time so I'm not sure if I really learned anything) before hobbling back home and climbing into bed for the day.

Thank you, Huck. You made your sick mama very happy.

Huck was in charge of the data chart everyday:

Here they are as Serious (or angry) Scientists ...

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snow day! or "this kid loves to shovel"

February 12, 2010, 9:45 am

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poop

February 9, 2010, 1:59 pm

Last weekend we had our old friends and former neighbors Brian, Tiffany and Kadin over for a family sleepover and of course the boys were very excited to catch up with each other (as were the parents). We heard Huck say to Kadin as they were on their way out the door to ride Kadin's scooter up and down the hallway, "There are lots of people in this building who love me who I have to say hi to, and I'm sick of it!"

He also recently said, "I need a hair cut. It's driving me crazy!"

Well, you want to know what's driving his parents crazy? Would you like to hear what his parents are sick of? All day long, from the moment he wakes up till the moment he falls asleep everything and everyone is Poop, Poopy or ... wait for it ... Poopy Underwear. I want to find the four year old who started this because apparently they're all doing it. And on behalf of all the parents out there, we're sick of it!

Poop.

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winter

February 8, 2010, 12:58 pm

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$$$

February 4, 2010, 4:14 pm

Yesterday I was reading Huck’s school’s newsletter and commenting to Troy that they had raised enough money to hire an art teacher starting next year. Huck looked up excitedly and said, “Does that mean we get to send money to Haiti?”

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optical tricks

February 3, 2010, 11:05 am

Here's some insight into Huck's brain nowadays. We got this wonderful book called "Optical Tricks" by Walter Wick at the library on Monday, and it is full of amazing illusions. Huck is so obsessed with it that he says things like, "When I'm at school all I can think about is the book." After school he wants to go straight home to look at it and gets a little teary eyed at the suggestion of going to the park with his friends first. We've been trying to do these tricks at home but none of ours are quite as exciting as the ones in the book. They're impossible! "Or are they?" says Huck.

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