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! 

Maceo on Laughing Gas

I'm just going to put this right here for your viewing pleasure:

Another Swim Meet

Maceo tried out a new stroke in this week's meet--the back stroke.

Look at that arm extension!

The exciting season is coming to an end with the divisional meet this weekend. Only the top two swimmers in an event are counted in the competition, but everyone gets to participate. However, as it stands now, Maceo is the second fastest in his age group in the breast stroke and the freestyle! So, I think he'll be one of the swimmers who counts along with his friend Wesley whom he's known since he was 4 months old or so.

Look at that form!

Look at that speed!

I made a little chart so Maceo could see his improvements in numbers--his freestyle time in the 50 meters has gone from 47.08 to 44.66 and his breaststroke from 34.68 to 29.88! It's pretty exciting and he likes being on the team so much that he said he'd like to do swim team this fall.

Sadly, Cassius does not like competing on a team even though he really likes swimming and swim team practice and he's gotten so much better in such a short time! He can even do a butterfly, and it's super cute because when he was showing his form to me yesterday at the pool, yes, he was really moving, but also his swim suit was a little big so with each dolphin kick, his half naked little bottom was poking up out of the water.

Alert! Alert! Second Swim Team Meet!

Just to keep you updated since there's so little sports to follow nowadays--

Maceo took part in two races this past meet--he came in second in his heat for the breast stroke, and he came in second to last in his free style heat (but first for kids his age as he was racing older kids). I'm hoping that tomorrow at the third meet, he'll take part in three events--either backstroke (which is what he wants to do and is signed up for) or butterfly which is what I think he'd do really well in. Either way is great, and he seems to really enjoy being a part of the team.

Cassius finally took part in a meet and won his free style heat! He has quite an impressive freestyle stroke. First of all, his arms stay almost completely straight, so they really slap down on the water with ferocity and make a frightful splash. Secondly, he heaves his head and shoulders out of the water to breath, although he does work to practice taking breaths on both sides. And third, he's so cute and small!

AND THEY'RE OFF!!! That's Cassius in lane 6.

Look at the effort! Look at the splash! He's speeding along!

Maceo in the breast stroke race.

Freestyling to victory! (Well, not victory this time, but some day!)

My neighbor Houston is already talking about college scholarships for the boys. He really is.

Swim Team has Begun!

We belong to a neighborhood community pool about 10 minutes from the house, and the pool has a super swim team. I mean, I think they're good swimmers, but what's really great is so many kids take part, the coaches are super nice and team-oriented, and Maceo and Cassius have friends on the team. We've wanted them to take part for the last few years, but the boys were too timid to commit to it. Until this year! Finally, now they both are on the team and they both really like it. Maceo especially is quite good, and Cassius just seems to have a great attitude at practice. They had their first meet last Saturday and they'll continue having meets pretty much every weekend. With COVID, it's actually ideal! Each team swims at their own pool, and then the coaches share the times for each event and the winners are determined. So, not only do the meets not last so long, Maceo and Cassius don't have to overcome the fear of swimming against strangers with lots of strangers watching. Both boys signed up for the free style race, and both boys were signed up by their coaches for the back stroke. Maceo did very well in his free style heat, winning it with the second best time for his age group on his team and coming in 4th overall! Cassius, on the other hand, refused to participate. Maceo also refused to participate in the back stroke. However, buoyed by Maceo's success, both boys eagerly signed up for the next meet. Maceo is doing free style and butterfly, and Cassius is signed up for the free style! So, perhaps we're on our way to being a sporty family!

Maceo with a very good start!

He's in the lead!

He's been working on a flip turn,
but decided not to try it in this race.

Maceo free styling to victory