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Happy Secret New Year!

Back in it! Again. For real this time.

So here's a secret: March 1st is actually supposed to be New Year's Day. You see, when the early Romans came up with the calendar, there was only ten months, and what's now January and February were known as the intercalens, or "time between years". That's why those later months don't go along with their own names (like how October is the tenth month instead of the eighth month). Indeed, "March" refers to Mars (Martius) and was supposed to be the beginning of both the farming and the military season.

In my experience, very little seems to get done in January and February, and things that are supposed to happen in the new year don't happen until March anyway. So I'm starting to think that March 1st might be a better time to start those resolutions. And thus, I hereby dub MARCH 1ST AS "SECRET NEW YEARS", and once again commit myself to the campaign of the #MorningFunManifesto.

The Facebook Live stuff hasn't been working so great, admittedly, but I want to try more of itbecause 1) the kids like it, 2) I want to get better at it, and 3) I want to use it as a trying ground for new ideas about livecasting. Like, I want to see if consistency and keeping it to 5 minutes long help. Eventually it might be a daily thing, but I'll probably have to work up to that. Anyway, the blue dates should be Facebook Live shows, tune in if you like seeing experimental stuff.

Motor up and revvin' for the Twenty One Seven

Hello again! Back in it, and the resolution for this year is...

Discipline makes things easier
Organize your life
Discipline / Practice Makes Perfect
Discipline / Health is Wealth
Discipline / All things in moderation
Discipline / Plan your work, work your plan

So like Dead Prez said, trying to do more DISCIPLINED JOURNALING in 2017, and this blog should be part of it. I might not be posting every day, but I will be trying to put out stuff on social platforms using the #MorningFunManifesto hashtag, and collecting the best stuff (or stuff I feel needs more explanation) here.

Note: dates in dark blue in the calendar should be Facebook Live events. The kids are into that.

Join us, won't you?

Explaining the long hiatus

Been a while, right? 

Sorry everyone.  

Well, it's been another long hiatus from blogging. A few explanations for this: 

1) I've been doing a few livecasts here and there on Facebook and Instagram using the #MorningFunManifesto hashtag  

2) the kids have really started playing with each other in the mornings, and I kind of don't want to get in the middle of that

3) I'm a lazy lazy man and blogging while you have a job is difficult  

I have a plan to do a month of Pokémon themed yoga soon, which I'll announce when it happens. But I just wanted to throw up a note to say, yes, I'm feeling very guilty about ignoring this blog for so long. 

September 19 - Detective training

The kids were looking for Ragamorf this morning, so I saw an opening to do something fun for detective training. Ragamorf is a stuffed animal designed by Takashi Murakami - no idea where the name "Ragamorf" came from, I thought at first it might be based on the scientific term for rabbits (Lagomorpha) but I don't think the kids were ever exposed to that term. Anyway.  We searched together to find her, looking for clues and interviewing other stuffed animals to see if they knew her (him? its?) whereabouts. We finally found her in a bin. 

After the kids had breakfast I subtly grabbed Ragamorf and hid her in one of my display cases. Then I wrote out a few little notes in the form of clues leading to one another and hid them around the house. They actually found the second one before the first one (which said "RAGAMORF IS MISSING") and started trying to decipher the clues. The second clue led them to a pigeon shaped pillow, who when questioned (like a stool pigeon) led them to a clue that simply said "LOOK UP". After a few minutes of looking at the ceiling, Lyric finally looked down a bit and saw Ragamorf. 

Hiding in plain sight

SELFGRADE: A-. I liked how organic it felt. 

September 16 - Feats of strength

It felt like a while since we last did Feats of Strength, where I have the boys lift heavy(ish) items while I chant "FEATS OF STRENGTH! FEATS OF STRENGTH!". So I had Zephyr try to do a squat press on one of our dining room chairs.  

I tried getting Lyric to do it, but no dice. But then Zephyr decided he wanted to try and pick up Lyric and see how far he could carry him around! Take it away, tiny Hercules! 

I totally blew it by having Lyric face Zephyr instead of facing out, I really want to see his face when he's being carried. But oh well, next time.  

SELFGRADE: B. Not bad for something thrown together, I guess.  

September 13 & 14 - Pokèmon Hunt /Mystery Elves

So for Superhero Adventure, what we normally do is play pretend as superheroes together. This time, due to the Pokemadness that has descended upon our house, I had said it would be a Pokemon adventure. But I had a plan to try and get the kids to subtly learn about cleaning up their toys. 

Lyric, modeling the pokebelt

The kids had gotten Pokebelts on Lyric's birthday last week, so we strapped them on and started hunting through the house for loose Pokèmon figures and cards.  My plan was to show them how we could thoroughly look through a bin or a box, empty out all the contents (and subtly separate out the junk while doing so), and then IMMEDIATELY put it all back and leave it clean. Every so often we'd find a Pokèmon figure and I'd tell the kids to throw it in their pokeballs. 

Zephyr goes to capture a Torchick in a pokeball

Did it work? We got through a few bins on the first day and a few more bins the following day. I know FOR A FACT there are still rogue Pokèmon floating around in the house somewhere, though. I guess the house got a little more clean and I modeled some neat behavior for them, that was good. 

But what I neglected to do until the very end was commit to engaging in imaginative play with them. They kept asking me when Team Rocket was going to get there to battle. I tried a bit at the end of the second day to indulge them, but cleaning had kind of triggered my compulsiveness and I don't feel like I gave it my full effort. I still think the general concept was sound, just next time I should devote a certain amount of time to just playing with the kids. 

SELFGRADE: B. Good concept, definitely room to improve.  

September 9 - Comic book drawing studio

We're refinishing our dining room table, so we did some drawing on the floor and a lamp table this morning.  

Zephyr was working on a comic while Lyric was drawing his own Pokèmon  

I helped Lyric a bit drawing the basic shapes for a Pikachu and a Jigglypuff, but then he essentially took over. 

Not too shabby! 

Meanwhile Zephyr was going all out on his own awesome Z-me comic. I took a video of him explaining what he was working on: 

Zephyr takes us through the Z-Me comic he's working on for comic book drawing studio #MorningFunManifesto

A video posted by Robert Sosin (@chompyduchamp) on

September 8 - First day of Teddy Bear School

First day of school today, and (not so much by coincidence), first day of Teddy Bear school. The kids set up the classroom: 

Classroom setup

I did an Instagram story of the boys going over their lesson plan, but I still haven't figured out how to embed/save those things. An interesting development was that the top bunk has become a "teacher's lounge", where one of the kids go while the other is teaching.  

The teachers, with Lyric in the teacher's lounge. 

There was a roll call and then Zephyr did a math lesson where he asked various stuffed animals to do basic arithmetic. Notable: he asked them what 1 - 2 was, and he seemed to have an understanding about negative numbers from his coding work. Then he handed out imaginary pencils so the stuffed animals could do a writing assignment: 

Teaching writing

Then it was Lyric's turn to teach them science. He went into a diatribe about planting a seed.  

Teaching botany

Meanwhile, Zephyr sat in the teacher's lounge pretending to drink coffee.  

Not sure where they learned about what happen in a teacher's lounge. Clarence, perhaps

But then it was time for actual school! 

First day of actual school looks

Back in this thing! 

SELFGRADE: A-. It was pretty cool to see their lessons applied and in action. 

September 7 - Coding Camp

Well yesterday was Lyric's 5th birthday, and you know how we do... It's hard to say no to someone on their birthday. So long story short, the kids stayed up late (in bed at 9p) and, as always, were up early (5:30a). This made for tired and cranky kids this morning, which was sub-ideal for restarting morning activities. But restart morning activities we did!

Today was Coding Camp, and there was an exciting new video available on Hopscotch called "Subway Surfer", but Lyric was too cranky and fussy to sit for it. Zephyr made an attempt, but kept leaning on me, both to do certain steps of the coding for him and quite literally resting his head on me. I tried taking a candid photo of us coding together, but he found me doing it and tried to smile. I think you can get a feeling for his weariness from the photo:

Trying so hard to act natural. It's exhausting.  

We got about halfway through before Zephyr told me he needed a break. We'll try to finish it tonight.  

SELFGRADE: C. I blame myself for the sleep thing, but we tried doing something at least.  That was positive. 

An important lesson

Boy oh boy, blogging this summer has not panned out. The reason why is patently obvious to me: I simply cannot do morning activities with my kids if they're able to watch TV or play video games in the morning. I just can't compete with that when I'm tired and groggy, it's too easy a way out. I recognize that there's all these studies about raising creative children and setting rules, saying things like:

One study compared the families of children who were rated among the most creative 5 percent in their school system with those who were not unusually creative. The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule.

But, sorry, no TV in the morning before school has to be a rule if I'm going to do my morning activities. It's more to force me into action than anything else. Well, that and I'm going to lose my proverbial shit if I have to listen a few more times to the cycling commercials that constantly loop when nobody is watching the on-demand channel.

We'll start up the no TV in the morning thing again next week, when school starts up. Then hopefully I can get back on the blogging. Fingers crossed.

August 17 - Pokèmon Treasure Hunt

This was a kind of dry run for the kids birthday party activity next month. I tried my best to meticulously document all the prep work the night before on Instagram, so I'm going to try and let those pictures tell the story.  

Neatly organized materials used.  

Intro clue.  

Zephyr reading the intro clue that morning

Clue #1 was in the fridge behind the ketchup

Zephyr and Lyric puzzle out clue #1

Found the Dodrio in the tomatoes

The Dodrio and its clue led to our Spanish-speaking skull, Señor Cranio

Clue #2 was on Señor Cranio

They looked in the wrong Pee Wee lunchbox at first  

Eventually they found the right Pee Wee lunchbox, with Growlithe inside

Growlithe and its clue led to the sweater drawer

Clue #3 was in n the sweater drawer and led to the flower mug

Seel's rhyming clue led to under the dining room table  

Lyric found clue #4

Clue #4 led to the Zingo box

Zingo searching

Mew and its clue led to the treasure in the laundry bin

Deluxe Japanese screaming Meowth and scotch tape dispenser Jigglypuff were in the treasure chest

Victorious treasure hunters

The one thing I want to correct for: The kids IMMEDIATELY starting fighting over who gets what Pokémon. Hopefully at the party there will be SO MANY POKÉMONS that this won't be as much of an issue? We'll see.

SELFGRADE: A. Mostly for remembering to meticulously document everything on Instagram, that was a big step for me. But it worked well, kids solved the puzzles entirely on their own, it was straight-up thrilling.