Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Shackleton Speaks VII



Shack's strong suits do not include reading and writing. Given an assignment to choose five of his ten weekly spelling words and write sentences, he goes for brevity. Also, he doesn't worry too much about the spelling aspect of spelling practice. This week's list included "flake" and "public". So, he told the teacher: "I like con flakes." The other sentences were similarly structured and short. My favorite, however, was "Not in public!"

We learned this week that our wireless internet connection is sufficiently robust to support downloading Netflix movies through the Wii. Amazing. It works great. We now have a 30 day free trial so, naturally, we spent a half a day last week watching movies. We saw the gorgeous movie Babies. You've heard about that. It's that fly-on-the wall (well, fly with a super hi-def movie camera) documentary that follows four babies from four different parts of the world through their first year. Lots of amazing photography and lots to think about. One of the babies lives in tribal Africa. He's a lovely little guy who gets through his first year with no baby equipment, toys or diapers. In one scene, he leaves a deposit of baby poo on his mother's knee. She grabs a corn cob and cleans herself off.

Shackleton turned to his sister and I and asked, "Anyone want some corn"? We shouldn't encourage him, but we can't help ourselves.

Maybe some con flakes?

Hope all is well with you usual stoppers-in. Thanks for continuing to come around. I haven't been out there much lately but I hope to catch up soon. Happy Halloween.