Declan the cub reporter

For the second year running Declan tried out for a position on his school newspaper. One of the things I dislike about Neutral Bay is the competitive way they treat things like this - Dec was very disappointed when several of his friends got on and he didn't last year. Anyway, this year he has been made part of the team. His first meeting is this lunchtime and he's very excited by the whole thing.

Cooking team

For most of the last six months the boys have been helping me make dinner of an evening. I only realised that what had started out as an occasional thing has gently mutated into being the norm. Whenever I start making dinner they jump up to help - which I have to say makes cooking a much more fun daily task. It's very much like before the boys went to school, I used to enjoy going grocery shopping with them - a chore became fun with the company.

It's not all good though. In addition to learning some basic skills, like how to beat an egg, how to cook rice and so on, we have also managed to make Callum phobic about sharp knives and Declan scared of hot ovens.

Physics acceleration

A few weeks ago Cal came home saying that his science teacher had suggested he ought to think about doing Year 11 Physics next year. We thought it was a throw-away remark just saying Cal was good at science. Turns out it wasn't. The science teacher has now had Cal have a chat with the Physics head teacher and they will monitor Cal's progress this year and talk at the end of the year.

Not sure if the idea is a good one or even practical given he'll definitely be doing Year 11 Maths next year - but nice for Cal's interest in the area to be recognised.

Spit to Manly

As training for our Japan trip in a couple of weeks, we thought we had better do the Spit to Manly (our favourite Sydney walk). We had to buy Declan some new boots last weekend, so realised we had better walk them in also. It was a lovely morning, with people everywhere, so I took a few pictures.

When we got back, I decided to look up our old Spit to Manly trips. Here is the picture at the beginning of what was (I think) our first Spit to Manly - with Sue and Jack, when Declan was 4. Sadly the pole in the first picture has gone, I was hoping for some height contrast.

Scratch programming

Declan (while I haven't been watching) has been getting quite good at scratch programming. Here is his latest shoot-em-up game, which I found quite tricky!
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/19545303/

Callum's teeth - missing, hanging on and twisted

We went for the boys' regular check up a few weeks ago and the dentist was concerned enough about the way Callum's teeth were progressing to refer him to an orthodontist.

We duly moved on to the orthodontist visit which concluded:

1. Callum has no wisdom teeth, and is highly unlikely to ever get them.
2. He has a baby tooth with no second tooth beneath it. That's a problem, but not immediate one. If he had wisdom teeth they'd remove the baby tooth now and push other teeth in, but the lack of wisdom means there's no teeth to push in. As it is, once he stops growing he should get an implant. The situation is leading to weaker bone growth and that needs to be watched.
3. He has a top baby tooth that won't let go needs to be removed.
4. His canines are coming in twisted and will need to be straightened.
5. The molars are the real problem though and will require a chain to pull into their proper place. He has to have an operation which attaches a literal chain to the tooth which is then attached to braces to drag the tooth into the right place over a couple of years. 
6. Finally Cal's bite is too deep and that needs correcting too.

Nothing apart from removing the baby tooth can be done immediately. We need to wait for the second teeth to come through and then sort it all out. He'll need braces for 2-3 years and, sadly, they have to be metal ones to create the right anchors for the movement. That will probably happen in 12 months but depends on growth of his teeth which are not coming through at all quickly or evenly - normally you'd expect teeth to drop at same time on both sides, Cal's are not doing that, X-ray shows one side is lagging far behind the other - last molar on right hasn't even begun to develop roots while on left has them almost fully developed.

So this morning we did the first, and for the moment only, part of all this. Cal had the baby tooth that won't let go removed. He was very brave considering his needle phobia and got through the entire thing without trouble. Then when we were paying and preparing to leave he went all pale, sat down and vomited. It took a little while to get him back to normal and, poor boy, he had to go to school this afternoon and has clearly fully bounced back.

Exams are done for now

As I mentioned previously, Declan has been going through an exam season to hopefully give him maximum possible high school choice. His last one (Mosman High) was on Friday, and he said he thought it was good, so hopefully he did well.

Mosman High is still our preferred option, but for completeness we went to the information session for the new (as yet unnamed) high school in Crows Nest that is starting next year on Monday. Sadly they didn't tell us very much about the specifics of the school, mostly things about how public high school education works in general, with the specifics up to the (as yet unappointed) Principal.

Soirée

We had my choir over for a soirée last night. Callum and Declan enjoyed welcoming everyone, and then retreated upstairs to watch a movie with Evan while we all sang for each other.

For some reason only known to himself Declan decided to dress up in his jedi costume, and had a lot of fun looking spooky with candles.

Physics debates

We've all been debating a physics question lately - what would happen to us if gravity suddenly disappeared. It's been quite interesting talking about the pros and cons, and various forces. It culminated in a spirited discussion over dinner with the grandparents, Marta and Martin. Sadly the existence of two science Phds at the table did not give us a definitive answer.

Evan and I have decided that Callum is getting close to the end of our science knowledge, something we were hoping would happen a few more years down the track.

Python programming

Both boys did the Grok learning Python programming challenge this year - it is a challenge where you learn to code in Python by solving progressively harder programming challenges for five weeks. The one they did was really designed for Northern Hemisphere students, because it started just before school got back.

Declan did the intermediate challenge (having done the beginners last year) - "This stream is targeted at students in middle secondary school and above (14 - 18 year olds), but advanced junior students will also enjoy it!". We were very pleased that he finished it this time, which he didn't quite manage with the beginners last time. Callum gave him little bits of help along the way, and it was great to see them cooperating.

Callum did the advanced challenge (having done intermediate last year) - "This level is aimed at students in senior secondary school (16 - 18 years) or extremely talented junior students.". He didn't quite get through it, but Evan caught up with the team who run it, who said that the final few problems are aimed at university level programmers, so Callum didn't feel too bad.

Lan party

Callum had all his friends over a couple of weeks ago for an afternoon Lan party. We went down to North Sydney in the morning to get enough cables because it was just too bad having to rely on wifi when you are playing an action game; cables are faster.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, and not want to leave - even though there was no sign of the traditional pizza that goes with a Lan party.

Sponge cake update

Last weekend we decided we were sick of sponge cake and made a very tasty vanilla cake. Turns out what we need in this house is more vanilla, not lighter sponge. It was very popular. 

Don't know whether we will make anything this weekend - we have lots of people coming for lunch tomorrow, so we should probably make something.

Sponge cake

Callum and I made sponge cake last weekend, which did NOT turn out well, mainly because I forgot to put the cornflour in, so the texture ended up quite strange with not enough dry ingredients.

We decided to do it again this week. We followed the recipe completely faithfully this time, and it turned out reasonably well, but with a bit of a taste of leavening agent. We've agreed to do more research to see if we can find a better recipe. So if any of our readers have a recipe for a perfect sponge cake (the lighter the better) then we would love to try it.

Or maybe we just need more of our house favourite ingredient - vanilla.

Exam Season for Declan

Declan has just started his exam season. Because he is going to high school next year, we've put him in for three exams - the private school scholarship exam, the selective schools exam, and Mosman High School's exam.

The private schools (mostly) club together and do one exam, for which each school you apply for then gets results. We've put Declan down for International Grammar and Redlands (despite having rejected Redlands' scholarship offer for Callum). Declan trooped off to International Grammar yesterday to spend all Saturday morning doing that exam.

Next week, he has the selective school exam on Thursday morning (luckily just around the corner at North Sydney Girls') and then the final exam is the following Monday at Mosman High.

At the moment our favourite for Declan is Mosman High, but we are all hoping he does well in the others, both to give himself choices, and also so he can have the satisfaction of having done well.

His local school is the new school (not yet named) at Bradfield College, which would have the advantage of being in walking distance, and the advantage and disadvantage of beginning with just year 7 in Declan's year.

He thinks he did OK in the Scholarship exam, but it is always hard to tell with these things.