The Witch Head Nebula, about 1,000 light years away, in honor of Mr. B’s and my reading of Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, which we are taking slow, since it’s the last one before the concluding book due in July. It’s also got more "kiss-kiss, boy-girl stuff," as Mr. B. calls it with wrinkled nose to show his disgust. So much that I find I have to read around those descriptions, partly because they’re too old for him and partly because he dislikes them anyway.
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Posted in Library, Mr. Boy, Space
Tagged Harry Potter, Witch's Head Nebula
Mr. Boy, age 7, saw his first PG-13 movie tonight, "Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire." He said it wasn’t scary because he knew what was going to happen, but he didn’t like all the "boy-girl-kiss-kiss stuff." He really wrinkled his nose at the Christmas dance scenes. In fact, the movie was pretty intense. Lord V. is certainly more creepy-looking than ever. I didn’t miss the House Elf rights movement subplot, which was vanished entirely, and Mr. B. didn’t seem to notice. All of the movies have gotten better since the first one tried to be a movie-about-a-book. The rest have been pretty good movies. And Mr. B., having been through most of the Star Wars movies, is pretty unflappable. Now that we’ve seen all the HP flicks that are available–and are still plowing through "HP & The Half-Blood Prince" for a bedtime story–we have only to await the next movie due out in July, "HP & The Order of the Phoenix," so far unrated. But surely it won’t be an R. They’d lose most of their audience that way.
Mr. B.’s 7th birthday is coming up later this month and, as always, he started planning weeks ago. He had vacillated on whether to have a basketball birthday in the gym at the J, or go back to Inflatable Wonderland for a second theme party of some other kind. I had argued for something other than basketball because, although he is fixated on it, not all of the friends he’s inviting care that much about it. Plus, I know they’ll all have fun on the slides and enclosed trampolines at IW in Cedar Park. Last night he seemed to have made up his mind: Inflatable Wonderland with a Harry Potter theme. We’ve been reading the Harry Potter series and are halfway through The Goblet of Fire, which is pretty exciting. Very attached to Mr. P., he is. "I wish I could live Harry Potter’s life," he said this morning on the way to school.
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Posted in Mr. Boy
The Witch’s Broom Nebula, in honor of my and Mr. Boy’s embarkation on the second novel in the Harry Potter series. Mr. B. already identifies with Mr. P., as one might expect. /NASA
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Posted in Library, Mr. Boy, Space
Tagged Harry Potter, Witches Broom Nebula
Mr. Boy and I mutally suffered through the madhouse of the first grade Xmas party at his school this afternoon–him making crafts at three separate tables at top speed, then playing competitive games such as jumping from one end of the gym to the other holding a soccer ball between his legs. My problem was trying to get our new Nikon S10 point-and-shoot to focus and shoot fast enough to catch the action. Digital cameras are a lot of fun, but their shutters aren’t made for writhing, twisting six-year-olds. I might have gotten two good shots out of thirty. Finally it was all over, and we went back to his classroom to pick up his backpack and jacket, wish his teacher felicitations of the season, and then went home. School’s out for two weeks. He doesn’t have to go back until Jan. 9. What are you going to do with him, the sympathetic keep asking me. Oh, we’ll find something to do. For instance, at the moment, he’s making Mom a knight’s helmet out of paper. He just stopped by to measure. He said Mom has "a really big head," but mine was close and he would measure on mine. So he did, went off to make the helmet, a mask really, came back and tried the fit and pronounced it good. He’d already made her a paper shield and a sword. She’ll be thrilled, I’m sure. He keeps asking if it’s time yet to read Harry Potter. Another fifteen minutes I said, for no particular reason. Just another arbitrary adult. HP is a hit so far. When I read the sentence about poor Harry living in the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley’s, Mr. B. actually gasped. A sure sign we will be reading the HP series for a while.
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Posted in Mr. Boy
Tagged Harry Potter, Nikon S10, school break
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 