"Bike" by Maisie Jean

Summer is here! Summer is here! To celebrate one of her favorite activities, Maisie wrote (and illustrated) a poem...

bike

evry one likes bikes.
evry one flys fast too on thar
bikes but it gos to home
and it leads you some where
new.
by Maisie Jean.

Willie the Millipede

This winter is really really reluctant to give up its hold on us. Every time I think it's finally over... we get another round.

Thursday April 3.

Today we're looking at a high of 38, but it was only 28 this morning at the bus stop... with a wind chill of 10. Tomorrow's forecast says "chilly with snow and rain." SNOW!

One side effect of the never-ending winter is that when it does warm up outside, however briefly, everyone immediately runs out to take advantage of the sun and warmth... and we're no exception! As you may remember, Maisie loved biking last year, but never really got the hang of it on her own - she either rode on the trailbike behind me, or used training wheels. This year it's a different story!

She worked and worked and worked at it until she mastered the art of the two-wheel bike! She was bound and determined to figure it out, and didn't stop until she got there. Now it's all she wants to do.

Saturday wasn't the nicest day ever - overcast and maybe in the 50s or low 60s - but it definitely felt nice compared to where our weather's been. So when we got home from Girl Scouts and Suomi-koulu, the girls headed outside to play almost immediately. They rode their bikes around the block (Ella's doing great on her two-wheeler with training wheels) and played volleyball and soccer with the neighbor kids. After a couple hours of that (seriously, HOURS), they ended up in the backyard where they climbed trees, dug holes, made mud, and found some little bug friends!

First the girls found a roly-poly, which they attempted to sneak into the house so they could keep it as a pet. I explained that it wouldn't be happy in the house - we didn't know what it eats, and the cats might get it, so we needed to put it back outside. They reluctantly complied... but we had to have the conversation again when they found a little millipede.

They really, really, really wanted to bring the millipede inside to keep as a pet of their own. They even named it Willie! Ella especially was unhappy when I said no way, absolutely not, Willie needs to stay outside. So I suggested we write reports about millipedes that they could take to the Science Museum to get points at the Collectors Corner, and that seemed to make everything better.

You may remember that Maisie did this once before, with her pine cones poster. She's also brought in small fossils that she found on the Mississippi River banks. Ella hadn't traded before at the Collectors Corner, so she was excited to get started!

The next morning the girls worked on their reports, using their observations and information we learned from a U of MN Extension website.

Maisie's had more text...



Millipedes have 400 legs. They curl up when they are scared. They are small. They eat leafs that are falling apart. You find them in damp places. They are dark brawn. from Maisie


while Ella mostly drew pictures, and then told me what to write for the captions.

They are long and skinny. They eat crumbly leaves and grass. They curl up and they go straight. This millepede is on my hand.

bonus pic, with Ella's new short haircut

At the Collectors Corner, the Science Museum staff asked the girls a bunch of questions about millipedes and their presentations... What kind of animal is it? How do you know it's not a bird or a mammal? Does it have a skeleton? How did you learn about it? Where do they live? Why does it curl up when it gets scared? The girls did great, and were each awarded 2,500 points. They now busy planning their next reports, so they can get more points!

We had plans to go to Gramma Liisa's house for lunch, but we had a little time to stay and play at the museum. I think the highlight for Maisie was getting to be the helper at the Science Live! show about cryogenics.

She's holding a ball and describing its properties (soft, squishy, bouncy) before it takes a trip to "Liquid Nitrogenland."

It was a great weekend of outdoor learning. I was (am!) so proud of how hard they worked on their reports. The Collectors Corner is such a cool resource, and a great way to get kids interested and motivated in learning about nature and science!

Miscellany...

A few random thoughts for a Monday morning...

It's the middle of August and already you can tell that summer's coming to an end. Nights are getting cooler (yay!), it gets dark a little sooner, and morning comes a little later every day. At the same time, it's definitely still summer - days are warm and sunny, perfect for bike rides and playing outside. It's kind of a sweet spot in the year. We went to the farmer's market on Saturday and bought sweet corn, which I was surprised to see already. It was wonderful; the girls ate it all and we had to go back on Sunday for more so that Aaron and I could have some too. The vendor remembered us and said "I'll be back at Midtown from 3-7 on Tuesday if you need more!" I laughed, but yeah... of the six ears we bought yesterday, there's only one left. So we might need more tomorrow.

We're two weeks away from Maisie's first day of first grade. She's SO excited to head back to school and see her friends... we've only had a few play dates and birthday parties over the summer, so she really misses her buddies. I got her and Ella's school supplies bought this weekend - thanks to Amazon Prime, I was able to do it in my jammies on Sunday morning, drinking coffee. So much easier than running from store to store trying to find the right brand of watercolors.

Two days after Maisie's first day, Ella will start High 5, which is Minneapolis' public Pre-K for kids who will enter Kindergarten the following year. Priority is kids who get free or reduced-price lunch or receive special ed. services, so we had to cross our fingers for a spot. Luckily, Ella got one! It's half days, five days a week, which should be perfect. We wanted to find a program to help her get used to being in a classroom environment before she starts Kindergarten. We felt that it'd be a really hard transition for her to go from just being at home with Aaron, to being one of 30 kids in a classroom, for a seven hour day! Unfortunately it's not at Maisie's school - her school doesn't have a High 5 class - but they'll be back together the following year when Ella's in Kindergarten.

So, two more weeks of summer. The girls are heading up north with Gramma Liisa & Dylan later this week, and we've got our State Fair trip planned. Aside from that, it'll probably just be trying to pack in bike rides and Dairy Queen runs and other lazy summer activities while we can. Fall will be here soon enough, and winter close behind.

Southside Sprint

As I mentioned earlier, we've been doing a lot of biking lately. Maisie wakes up and wants to go for a bike ride almost immediately. It's fun for both of us.

Yesterday we all biked up to the Kingfield farmers market - me with Maisie on the tag-along, and Aaron with Ella in the Burley. Unfortunately, Aaron got a flat on the ride home! So I ran up to the nearest open bike shop/art gallery, Bikes and Pieces, to pick him up a new tube and tire.

Much to my surprise, there was a whole bike race going on! It was the Southside Sprint, which I'd never heard of before. They closed off streets to make a 3/4-mile track, and there was a whole festival atmosphere - local bike shops and other businesses had set up booths, and people were having fun and watching the races.

Given Maisie's newfound love of biking, I figured this'd be a lot of fun for her, so the two of us headed up there. We saw the tail end of the kids' race (which was SO cute!) and then watched the whole men's race. I didn't think she'd be that interested, but I was completely wrong. We pulled up a shady section of curb and sat there for an hour, watching the race.

We were really impressed by how fast they went (it was hot out!), and how close they rode to each other. I have no idea how they managed to avoid crashing into each other, at those speeds and with those small distances separating them. Lots of practice, I suppose.

When the race wasn't in front of us, we spent our time taking pictures of ourselves...

 And of each other!

My face looks SO red! It was hot out, what can I say.

We also ate popcorn from the Parkway (as you can probably see in our pics), had snow cones, tried to answer trivia questions that we knew nothing about (how many times did Greg LeMond win the Tour de France? Which American had the highest finish in the Tour de France this year? Which nation has the most wins in the Tour de France? I have no idea.), and just enjoyed being outside together on a sunny summer day.

Maisie's thinking about entering the kids' race next year. Or rather, I'm encouraging her to think about it - she's still not sure. But whether she races or not, I think this is going to become one of our regular summer activities.

Biking!

Last year, we got a trail-a-bike from a neighbor whose kids had outgrown it. We never got around to hooking it up, though. Maisie was enjoying riding her bike with training wheels, and her balance didn't seem to be quite steady enough for a trail-a-bike. I didn't want her to pull us both over!

This year, however, we hadn't yet gotten out on our bikes. First we had a long, chilly spring that was not great biking weather. Then it rained every day for weeks. Then when we finally had good biking weather, Maisie's bike had a flat tire! We tried to pump it up but it needs a new tube.

Enter the trail-a-bike! I found installation instructions online and on Saturday morning, Aaron and I got it hooked up to my bike. Maisie and I started out slow, going up and down the alley. She was pretty wobbly and first and kind of uncertain... but before long, she really got the hang of it!

On Saturday, we went to the Midtown farmer's market (4.5 miles RT), accompanied by Aaron with Ella in our Burley trailer. Then in the afternoon, during Aaron's and Ella's naptime, Maisie and I went up to the 48th & Chicago shopping area twice (2.2 miles RT), for a total on Saturday of about 13.5 miles. On Sunday, she woke up and immediately started clamoring for another bike ride! We went to the Kingfield farmer's market (2.5. miles RT) in the morning. We saw neighbors there, hit up a craft fair across the street, and Maisie was impressed by how many bikes were on the rack. There's something about biking to the farmer's market that just feels like the most south Minneapolis thing ever! Then in the afternoon, after the weather had cooled down, we all biked up to Walgreen's (just 1.5 miles RT).

Today, my legs and lower back are pretty sore! With my own solo rides, I probably only went about 20 miles over both days. But that's a lot for me, after a whole winter of not biking! And I know that when I get home Maisie's going to want to go for another bike ride. :) It's well worth it. It feels much safer on city streets than having her bike alone - since I'm in control, more or less, I know she's not going to go shooting out into traffic or something.

But mostly, I like that we're really spending time together and enjoying our mutual love of biking!