A few years back, I was invited to join the Movember Digital Challenge - led by Canadian social media maverick Sean Moffitt, and Movember co-founder Adam Garone - as the Montreal chapter's captain. Our mission was simple: to create a buzz and raise awareness/money on the digital networks for the fight against prostate cancer. The initiative was a smashing success: …
First, a triops update. They are even bigger. They are pretty groovy. If you are thinking of taking the triops plunge I’d say go for it. The kits are pretty cheap and once you get them through the hatching phase and past the cannibal phase you have yourself a pretty nifty science experience. A few tips: Keep them warm, use spring water not tap water, and be patient. Here’s a couple of pictures of them now:
I know it looks dead, but it’s not. They do this from time to time eating all the crud floating on top.
Happily swimming like a tiny horseshoe crab on meth.
We had our evaluation today. We passed. Yee-haw! It was a big sigh of relief. I suppose I always knew that we would pass, I mean it’s just Kindergarten, but it’s nerve wracking thinking how big a responsibility it is to homeschool your kid. It’s a great joy, though. Even though it had its trying moments and Little One decided he’d rather be in public school next year, it really was a wonderful experience. It took me awhile, but I did find a great group and that made the process a lot easier. Homeschoolers need all the support they can get. It’s kind of like running a marathon, you need to be around folks that know what you’re going through or else people just keep looking at you like you’re crazy to run 26.2 miles just for the heck of it. Mind you, I have no marathon experience, but I would imagine that’s what happens. With that said, I would encourage religious homeschoolers to be more open to the idea of supporting all homeschoolers, not just those that sit in a pew on Sunday. As a secular homeschooler I was unable to join many groups around here for the simple fact that I didn’t have a religion to claim. It had nothing to do with my ethics or morals, it had nothing to do with whether I was a dedicated and involved mother or not. They wouldn’t even take the opportunity to meet us because I am not religious. You’re missing out folks, in your bubble, you’re missing out on many folks that would love to just have to chance to support you and commiserate with you.
Alright, the serious stuff is off my chest, now onto the mushy stuff. I have loved this experience, even when I hated it. It was exhausting, but it was spectacular. I got to watch my boy grow before my eyes. I taught him how to read. I watched him struggle from reading “cat” to navigating entire books all by himself. We learned about addition and subtraction. We painted. We colored. We did our best Bill Nye impressions and conducted all sorts of experiments. I’m happy for him that he wants to branch out and try something new. He may get into school and love it or he may want to come back to our school at home. Either way, I’m good, he’s good. I can never, and would never, take back this year teaching my boy. So whether you’re thinking of raising triops or homeschooling your kid or running a marathon, do it. If you have an itch, scratch it. No matter what happens in the end, it’s all good in the ‘hood. Thanks for reading, thanks for giving me something to read. It meant more to me than you’ll ever know. Fish out.
I’ve lost count of our triops actual age, but who cares? They’re bigger, that’s all you need to know. They are enjoying their treat of brine shrimp in the morning. That’s the mess at the bottom of the tank in the video. We’ve still yet to see that pesky third eye, but they move so fast I don’t think there is ever hope of finding it. There are still two triops. The cannibalism has ceased for now. *crosses fingers*
I fully expected to wake up this morning and have the boy tell me there were no more triops. We moved the big boy tank into his room so he can keep watch over them. Thankfully he did not report that they were all gone, but we did lose one triop. Maybe he was the latest victim of cannibalism or perhaps he is the world champ at triops hide and seek. I have no picture today because triops are spazzy little buggers and they don’t like to sit still for photos. They are also taking nicely to hiding amongst the rocks, that happen to be very triops colored, so no video either. I can assure you that they love to snack on brine shrimp. I will report on their fondness for carrot in a future post, that is, if they survive until then.
Day 6 of our triops experiment: I hope they have their big boy pants on because they got moved into the “big” tank. I moved them out of the hatching dish a couple of days early. It seems we they are turning on cannibal on me. We went from 6 triops to 5 to 4 to 3 in a matter of days. We went from 4 to 3 in a matter of hours so I figured I’d better put them in the bigger tank with rocks and they’d have a better shot at survival. Geez for 220 million year old critters that can apparently live in puddles these things are a swift pain in the butt to raise.
