Taking Aaron to school

Aaron has been in first grade for about a month now.

The first week we started out walking together, him holding my hand all the way to his class room. After the first day I was the only first grade parent to do that.

Ours is one of those close to an elementary school neighborhoods filled at that time of morning with kids, moms with strollers, grandpas with small dogs, smiling crossing guard ladies with florescent flags... The school is about four blocks away and he would fill that time and space pointing out items of interest - "that cool racing car"(a Nissan 3000 gt)," That cat's name is Max" (one of that particular kind of Siamese who want to be in the middle of everything), "Oh My Gosh that's a huge Christmas tree!"(a Red Wood that fills one corner front yard and up about a hundred feet).

The second week we still walked together, but he didn't seem to need to hold my hand any more, preferring to stroll along on his own, pointing out kids he knows and greeting them, petting Max the Siamese cat, lobbying to take the "short cut"(about half again as long). We've had to have discussions about how most kids are freaked out by being hugged, especially at or near school or in public-it's kinda part of his boggle. He does well on those walks at stopping at corners and waiting for Dad. I only have to tell him to stop once or twice, as opposed to his usual three or four times when he's doing something at home-again, part of his boggle, hard to get his attention.

This last week he has decided it's better to drive there. The first couple of days he wanted me to park the car so I could still walk him to his classroom. Now he'd rather I just drop him off in the turn out so he can walk in on his own, like a "big kid".

I still watch him until he passes by the principal at the door, often stopping for a hug, and is in the school building itself.

Time, as they say, marches on.

I'm going to miss walking him to school.

I GAVE A CAMERA TO A FOUR YEAR OLD

Aaron's first evening with his new mini-vivitar.

(click on collage to enlarge)

.

.

.

Those shots of him were still frame captures from it's PC CAMERA mode-

.

.

.

.

Dad(I) chose when and clicked the mouse for those.

Ok, it's a "what was I thinking?" kind of event. This tiny little camera has only two buttons, and yet a full camera's worth of "modes" and "functions" .

.

.

.

It has a tiny little pop up view finder with the worst possible plastic view lens in it. This makes it nigh on to impossible to actually or accurately see what you're taking a picture of. Framing is, at best, an approximate kind of venture.

.

.

..

It has cryptic two character codes for functions which appear in the tiny and not well lit lcd display on the front of the camera. It will time itself out and turn off after a thirty second period of no button pushing. So the Dad has to tab to the correct code, hand it to the four year old and then say -

.

.

.

"go take pictures FAST, but remember to be very still while shooting, and remember to keep your fingers/thumbs out from in front of the lens - even if you DO think that's hilarious, and remember it has no flash so try to shoot stuff that's in good light(try explaining the photographic meaning of good light to a 4 yr old), and no, you won't get what you want if you hold it out like Daddy does his camera, 'cause there's no view screen to aim with, and yeah, I know it's hard to see through the little view window, and, and, There you Go!, you've taken a beautiful picture of something neither one of us can identify, and SURE, we can down load those thirteen pictures so you can see them and then start all over again......."

.

.

.

Ok, so it might be good to spend a little more than ten bucks for your kid's first digital camera....on the other hand, he couldn't be more thrilled with it, even if I could.

.

.

.

He particularly loves the PC CAMERA MODE because he can point the camera around (as far as it's three foot patch cord will go) and see what it sees, real time, while it's doing it. I still have to point and click the mouse on the capture still frame button. He can't be expected to do that, hold, point the camera, and try to tell it a story or sing into it because he Doesn't understand that it JUST DOESN'T DO sound.

.

.

.

And then the not well translated from Asian instructions on the included software will actually let you save to something else like picassa 3 so you can do an utterly heart warming, if not finely artistic, collage of your little person's first shooting experience with their own camera.

.

.

.

Ok, that was SO worth ten bucks, a half an hour's worth of frantic direction deciphering, and patient camera coaching of a four year old.

.

.

.

In retrospect, this would probably a lot more practical for, say, an eight year old, although an eight year old would be more immediately aware of the little camera's limitations, there by inciting I'm sure much lobbying for a bigger/better camera. Of course, I guess, many eight year olds now probably have a camera built into their personal cell phones that they can picture message with.... Ah, life in this, the best of all possible twenty first centuries........

.

.

.

And so it begins.......

The Pumpkin patch

Mt Hood Rail Road Great Pumpkin Express.......big fun for all the kiddies. It was very good with/for Aaron. About a fifty mile drive up the Beautiful Columbia River Gorge to Hood River, Oregon. Bas-xactly where they created both windsurfing and kite-boarding. BIG RIVER-BIG WINDS. lots of River GORGE(it deserves all caps). Small tourist/river recreation/ orchard and vineyard town. Old train. kid pumpkin patch excursion on Sunday afternoon. about an hour train ride each way to and from the pumpkin patch/pasture. They had a little three piece band playing everything from Old McDonald to Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Neil Young covers, a small hay ride around the pasture, little Hay maze(it was great-Arron could see over it-no freaking out), "bouncy house"-avoided like the plague, and he didn't mind, and all the other stuff you'd expect. Aaron behaved just fine, even totally wound up - we just kinda let him go. As usual, things seemed to go better for him when he wasn't trying to interact with other kids, though he did have a great time running around the pumpkin patch and throwing hay at/with the other boys about his same age.

Hood River is one of those charming, heavy on the Artist/craftsman populace little shopping/gallery/micro brew-winery places where I would love to live - IF I could figure out how to make a living without having to commute sixty miles into Portland(the Gorge frequently gets snowed or iced in during winter)

.....and that was our Sunday - the end.