what we do all day

Lest our relatives think that all we do is watch American Idol, tap dance, crash scooters and call it school; today went something like this:

Fitness club - Kooka's brainchild, and she wants everybody to participate. Fitness club consists of loud music, accompanied by much consulting of "the exercise book" (an old CD case). There are many arabesques, splits, and jumping jacks. You have to perform all of the yoga/dance moves on a giant pile of pillows covered with a yellow comforter. It's a wonder nobody slips a disc. We cannot use the real gymnastic mat we own, because the owner of fitness club likes yellow. The best part of fitness club, is that you have to pretend to be more than one person - so the owner has more people to boss around. It's like fight club - only more dangerous.

Math - Kooka gets her book out and assigns herself four pages - which is funny, because I never assign her any at all - she's 4. She just likes to do it. She is working on addition - and gets 17 out of twenty right. Punk loves flash cards - so we play math dash, and then practice dividing with remainders - it helps when the remainders are marshmallows.

Reading - Punk goes first. He reads to me about ancient elephants - and we research a real-live, talking elephant in Korea. Then Kooka reads a Disney book to us. She is getting pretty good - it helps when the stories are about princesses or fairies.

History - We're actually on a bit of a roll with this. Punk likes history, and we are learning about the presidents. Mostly he likes the weird information; like the fact that John Quincy Adams had a pet alligator in the White House, or that George Washington hardly ever took a bath. His favorite presidents all have messy hair or exotic pets. But he has managed to narrow it down to one favorite:


Teddy Roosevelt was my favorite president. He really liked animals, and he looked good. He also liked to play a game where he would walk in a straight line, even if that meant he had to swim. Roosevelt had six kids who were allowed to do tons of cool things like take their pony up the White House elevator. That is why I love Teddy Roosevelt.

First of all, let me admit that Punk is a nature nut, who loves that Roosevelt created all of these national parks to explore, and he does truly admire the Teddy's adventurous streak. But before you think he's gone all fireworks and apple pie on us - the REAL reason he loves Teddy Roosevelt is because Robin Williams played him in Night at the Museum. Seriously, Punk has visions of Teddy Rosevelt being a wise-cracking calvary cowboy, who moonlights as the genie in Aladdin.

As for the rest of the day, it was spent dancing in a rainstorm, getting haircuts, shopping for father's day, having "rock out" time, reading scripts, writing letters, drawing comic books and yes, watching American Idol.