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We finally moved. After about 3 years of looking, we found a house we both agreed on and that the sellers agreed with us on the price.

The good news is that it was only a few miles from our old house, so we could move things in stages. First, some boxing up some things and moving them over. Then, one big day of moving furniture. Then, more cleaning and boxing of secondary items.

The bad news is that it was only a few miles from our old house, so we didn’t have to move everything at once. We can keep going back to the old house for things we forgot or weren’t important at first. Which means that the move is dragging on. A bunch of stuff (e.g. boxes of winter clothes) is still at the old house, because it didn’t have to move. Now we still have to get it out of there, but there is not as much motivation any more.

I’m finally back to a zero balance at the library. We had overdue books since April.

They weren’t accumulating fines since April. As soon as I realized they were overdue, we renewed the check-out to stop the fines.

The fine was $11. And it cost $4 to pay to replace the book if you give up and say it’s lost. But the library is generous in that whatever you pay to replace the book is applied to the fine.

But along the way, other books came and went and accrued fines. Here’s a tip: if you let a 3-year-old check out books on your account, don’t let them out of your sight. He will set them down somewhere and then promptly forget where.

So the total was $17 today, and we are the proud owners of two small books.

… if we can find them.

We understand there are 5 physical senses that the human body has. People have tried to introduce various things as a 6th sense, but that is still nebulous.

Having observed current culture, I see the need to document the 5 cultural or social senses.

• Sense of entitlement
• Sense of outrage
• Sense of unoffendability
• Sense of awareness
• Sense of immediacy

But these 5 senses have come at a cost – they replaced other senses that had withered due to lack of use. Here are 5 senses that people used to have, and what they should have instead of the senses listed above:

• Sense of responsibility
• Sense of direction
• Common sense
• Sense of shame
• Sense of purpose

It’s not unusual for one or more of our boys to grab some sticks or leaves to play with and then try to bring them in the house. So when my wife came home and saw this:

she assumed one of the kids was playing with some nature and left it outside the front door.

Then she looked up.
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For some reason, I’ve been reading books when it’s not summer vacation. Rather than wait until my annual summer book review and write an interminably-long post, I decided to write about them now.

Here they are, approximately in the order that I read them.

• No Talking by Andrew Clements
  Story about kids in elementary school. I read this just because Alpha was. It was mildly amusing. Nothing objectionable that I remember.
• A Love that Multiplies by the Duggar Family
  This is not a sequel to 20 and Counting. It is about one-third rehash and two-thirds new stuff. The other book was more about their life stories and this one is more about how and why they do the things they do. Not necessarily for children to read. Most parts are fine, but some topics are geared more towards those familiar with, umm, childbirth-type topics.
• Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax
  I laughed, I cried, I worried.

  What is our transition event for manhood? What ritual must American boys complete in order to be considered a man? And I mean a good, positive cultural event. Killing his first antelope maybe?

  It’s a little reminiscent of the point of the movie Courageous.

  There are a lot of things working against males in the world today – that was the part that had me worried. Mainly the various chemicals. Don’t believe me – read the book.

  Not for kids, but I think parents – especially parents of young boys – should read this book. And his previous book Why Gender Matters. His religious and cultural views don’t always align with Christianity, but his conclusions are good.

• Good Pictures Bad Pictures by Kristen Jenson
  Preventative maintenance is recommended for a number of things – your car, your water heater, your furnace, etc. How about preventative maintenance for your child’s mind? Specifically your child and the internet. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? A few minutes here and there going through this book with your child and discussing expectations and preparing him to avoid bad things online will save him from bigger issues later in life.

  This book is for a parent to read to a child. Have it on hand and go over it with him before you hand him the keys to the internet.

• Your Legacy by James Dobson
  This reminded me a little of what Rob Rienow talks about. Interesting background into his family history. The stuff that’s not family history is stuff you probably already know but need to be reminded of anyway. It’s meant for parents, but if your upper elementary-aged child wanted to read it I wouldn’t see why he shouldn’t.
• The Search for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
  Good book. Interesting and imaginative world.

  This is the first book of a trilogy, but it stands on its own – the ending is satisfactory without any other books.

  I’d say 3rd or 4th grade on up. There is a bit of violence, but most of it is of the dissection-of-animals variety.

• A Hero for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
  Second book of the series. It doesn’t stand on its own – the ending does not feel like an ending. There is one bad word – but it is not so bad that the FCC bans it.
• The Battle for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
  Third book of the series. And the final book, as far as I can tell. A little more violent than the others, but nothing particularly gruesome unless your child is a vegetarian for humanitarian reasons.

  One of the characters does go into some vague musing about truth and it could possibly confuse young minds. Set those minds straight with the poem of the Blind Men and the Elephant. And evolution is mentioned in passing – more of a synonym of “change” than of a belief.

• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
  Science fiction by a classic author not normally associated with stories of outer space. It was more interesting than I expected but, as it was written before people actually flew into space, it feels dated. I’d say high school on up.

We went to the science museum in Toledo recently. The lower level of the museum has a section set aside for temporary exhibits. Temporary can be days or weeks or months. This particular exhibit seemed to be one of the longer ones at 3 months, since it was rather extensive.

It was a museum of guitars.

They had a giant guitar, some things to play with and try, but it was mostly guitar displays.

Early guitars, classical guitars, electric guitars, modern guitars.

I don’t know that there were many guitars of exceptional importance or value, but they had a wide range, all with placards indicating their places in history.

They did, however, have one rare guitar. It’s not the best photo, but it will give you the idea. I think they managed to get one of the original models for this display, so it is somewhat rare as there aren’t that many surviving from the early years.

That was my favorite guitar display of the day.

It is tempting to give an electronics device (iPad, Kindle Fire, anything else that has games) of some sort to youngsters who act up, in order to get them to sit still at an event.

But don’t.

That ends up being a reward for misbehaving. It should be this: sit still, and then you can play afterwards. Not this: you get to play if you’re being disruptive.

Which behavior do want to reinforce?

If I may try an analogy here: Raising kids is like firing a gun. Assume the kid is the bullet. You as a parent have a target for them to hit.

You do have a target, right?

Even if it is just “to become a productive member of society”, you should have a goal. You should have a plan to reach that goal, too. But that’s another topic.

So you want your kids to hit the target. The target is a long way off. What does a bullet need in order to reach the target?

Two main things: propulsion and constraint.

I’ll skip propulsion – the point of this post is boundaries. Constraint is the boundaries you give them.

A gun with a short barrel is inaccurate – the bullet has a low chance of hitting the target. Similarly, a child with no boundaries is going to veer off somewhere.

When is it easiest to correct the course of a bullet – at the beginning of its travel or near the end of its travel? At the beginning, I would expect. I’ve never tried to correct a bullet at the end of its travel. The same applies to people. Get them on the right course early, and it will save you and them much effort and grief later.

The right course at hand for this topic is being able to survive without being amused by a glowing screen.

And if you’re not familiar with the etymology of amuse, you should be.