Skater Dudes Around the City

 Maceo and Cassius have gone pretty far in on skateboarding thanks to gifts of skateboards from Mamy and Maurice. We've now visited five (5) different skateboard parks in the DC area, and we've ranked them, too.

1) Walker Mills out in District Heights, MD. A really big skatepark with "street" elements like curbs to jump off and hand railings to slide along. It also has swimming pool-type bowls à la the 70s California skateboard culture. The best of both worlds.

2) Shaw Skatepark. This is the biggest skatepark in DC and it's not far from our house. This is mostly street type stuff--lots of ramps and benches/platforms to jump on and off.

3) The Langdon Skate bowl--This is a pile of old tires sprayed with cement to form what looks like a big empty swimming pool. It's nearly always deserted, and the boys like it. I like it because it's DIY and because it's close to home.

4) Here's a new contender--the RFK skatepark down at RFK Stadium in Capitol Hill. We went there yesterday. Here you can see Cassius, surrounded by activity, work tirelessly on a trick. His personality is pretty well suited for skateboarding!

5) Melrose Skatepark in Hyattsville--This one is also quite close to our house, but it's rather small and sometimes rather crowded. When it's empty, though, it's great! This is the first one we ever went to, so it has some sentimental value, too.

City Boys and Summer Bucket Lists

 It's not technically summer anymore, as you can tell from the last post about back to school. But at the beginning of the summer, the boys and I made a list of things we wanted to do over the vacation. Maceo had an interesting one that only a city boy would think of--he wanted to ride one of the electric scooters that are all over all metropolitan areas nowadays. So, I made an account, and yesterday we found a scooter in Brookland to try where no one was around.

At first, Maceo had a little trouble with controlling the throttle, so I had him, and then Cassius, stand on the scooter with me while I rode it a little to give them a taste of how it worked. Then, they zipped around on the sidewalk for a little while, super pleased with themselves. 

This morning, one of the first things Maceo asked me was, "Can we do electric scooter again today?" I've created a monster.

Peas in a Pod

 The boys' school is fully distance learning until the middle of November. (Mine is fully distance until at least the end of September, and then hoo boy, I hope I don't have to go back). Luckily, a good friend in the neighborhood invited us to be a part of a pod of families so that the boys a) would be able to have interactions with other kids every day, b) would have some peer pressure to actually do their school work, and c) would be out of the house 4 days a week so I can get some work done teaching my classes without having to oversee them taking their classes. We're a few days in and it's been great! They started on Monday at the Kings' house:

Here's 2020's version of the first day of school. Notice Cassius is
wearing an Alternative School shirt from around 1977.

Kelly was kind enough to send out pictures of the children doing their work at her house. 

2nd graders in their Zoom meetings.

Mr Casual takes part in class.

On Tuesday, I hosted. I was a bit nervous, but it turned out ok. There was only one episode of violence and Cassius felt very badly about it afterwards, the kids were great, I've decided perhaps daughters are better, and we all survived! 

Lesson learned: separate the young scholars in the future.

Mid-morning playing/burning off steam.

The "studious" 4th grade boys.

They look studious, but I learned that they join their meetings 
and then immediately start reading Big Nate comics on their iPads.

I'm pretty sure that's Big Nate on the screen
and not school work.

The boys will be rotating from house to house. It's just the beginning, but with tweaking and adjusting, it seems like it could work pretty well, and perhaps we'll make it to Christmas Vacation intact!