Brian Cox

Last night we went to see Brian Cox's show - An evening of Scientific Phenomena. Callum and Declan were hugely excited to see him in person, which was lovely to see. The show itself involved a fair bit of real science (an explanation of the elementary particles, including the Higgs boson, for example) leavened with just enough humour and personal stuff that we all had a wonderful time.

In a highlight for all of us, Declan got to ask a question - using the microphone in front of 2,000 people to tell Brian Cox that he really liked the Infinite Monkey Cage, and asking him when strawberries die. Declan was walking on air for the rest of the night.

Home alone

We went out on Tuesday night and left the boys home alone. They handled their first baby-sitter-free evening beautifully. 

Typing discount

A few weeks ago, Evan offered Callum and Declan a discount on their typing requirements if they learned Python. Callum has enthusiastically taken up the challenge. Declan tried a bit and gave up. It emerged this evening that he gave up because he didn't believe the discount would be enough to earn him a new iPad - now we'll have to work out the tricky balance between not promising too much, and promising enough so that Declan is motivated to learn Python!

As an aside, they have both enthusiastically taken up the NCSS challenge, where high school students participate in a programming challenge that teaches them how to code along the way.

Maths result

Callum came home last week very pleased with himself. Unbeknownst to us, he had had an important maths test on Monday. Not only did he do very well (31/34), he came second in the class! We think this means he will be in the top maths class next year. We'll need to talk to the school to find out what that means for Cal's future maths career.

Plank - off

At Tae Kwon Do, one of the regular exercises they do is a plank - balancing on your elbows and toes with a completely straight body. Callum came home the other night very proud of himself for lasting two and a half minutes. So Declan, not to be outdone, challenged Evan to a plank-off after dinner tonight.

Evan won, but partly because Declan was so focused on sledging Evan that he forgot to focus on the plank itself. History does not record the time.

Saturday night cooking

One of Declan's homework tasks this week (he gets to choose from several) was to make cupcakes that looked like they had just been dug up from the garden. He was keen, so found the recipe himself, and managed to convince Callum to help him, so that together they made the cupcakes with no help from me at all.