Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

The Joy of Walden West Summer Camp Registration

The morning was not pretty for me.  Today was summer camp registration for Walden West, a date I'd had circled on my calendar for months, with auto-reminders coming at me once a week.

I remembered the date for weeks and then, this morning, I forgot. When I saw the reminder pop up on my phone at 7am, I flew into panic mode.

Registration opens at 7:30am and every session for 2-7 grades fills within minutes, with the exception of the week of July 4th.

I logged in, brought up the registration page and waited, my first choice session circled on the calendar beside me.

At 7:30 exactly, I refreshed my page. Scrolling quickly down to the session I wanted, I clicked the add button but nothing happened. The site was now live, but it kept asking me to enter a name.

I remember having trouble with this before -- and we've been to this camp two summers so far.

What was happening? I kept clicking add, hoping it would bring up another screen so I could then enter my kids' names, but nothing came up. I was stuck.

At this point, I may have yelled out some not-so-nice words in front of my kids. Mind you, this was at 7:30am, the time when most parents are busy getting breakfast ready and kids out the door.

So there I was, with this screen that was doing nothing while my kids were doing nothing when they ought to have been getting dressed for school. In a panic, I called my husband over. "Look at this screen, what do I do?" I cried.

"You need to put in their names in those fields right in front of you. Right there," he said, pointing out the obvious. But he added, "Welcome to a website circa 1998!"

Sure enough, the fields were there on the same screen I'd been staring out this whole time. It just doesn't pop out. All I saw was the "add" session button, that's it.

All the sessions were filling, spots left were zeroing down. The session I'd wanted was gone. The time was 7:32am.

So I went for another session and got in by the skin of my teeth. The rows of sessions were hard to eyeball and I very nearly registered my boys for two separate sessions. My hands were shaking.

I stumbled out of my office and down to the kitchen to finish making breakfast. I could barely think of what to do... my adrenaline was still racing. It's ironic to have to go through this stress just to register my sons for a week of stress free summer camp in the mountains!

Walden West is the only camp on our list that fills so quickly. The others usually have more availability because their programs are bigger and spread out amongst more locations. Walden West has one location for summer and that's it. Parents are limited to one week of camp per child unless there's availability later on.

It's crazy. I hate having to go through this just to get my kids into Walden West. But that said, even though we didn't get into my preferred week, they will have fun. Walden West is an amazing summer camp experience, the kind that kids will talk about when they're grown. It's a true summer camp, with no heavy curriculum, just kids and nature. It's probably a lot like Hidden Villa camp.

We are also going to Camp Galileo, a science camp with a curriculum. My kids love it there, too. I like to mix things up, a little bit of free roaming at Walden West and a little bit of structured camp at Camp Galileo, plus some other camps and mini vacations thrown in for good measure.

What are you doing this summer? If you registered for Walden West, do you have a method to the madness? Do you have two laptops going at registration? There was no joy in the process of registering for Walden West summer camp, none.

The take home message? For newbies, set up an account in advance so that all you need to do is the registration part on the big day. For returnees, make sure you log-in and do a registration run-through in advance, even if you've gone through registration there in years past. This will be our 3rd summer at Walden West and I still didn't remember what to do on registration day. I'd totally forgotten to do a run-through and registration day crept up even though I had reminders buzzing everywhere. I'm just lucky my laptop remembered my Walden West password.

See you at camp!

 

 

 

 

Camp Galileo: These Stars say it's all good!

It's February, the month I usually start thinking about summer camps.

This will be our second year of Camp Galileo (aka Camp G). Check out my son's video in that post and you'll see how engaged he was (at age 6) during his week of sleuthing about impressionist paintings as a "detective in Paris" this past summer.

My boys almost never vividly describe their day to me at pickup. They say that everything was "good." School was good. Camp was good. The birthday party was good. Basically, it means they're blowing me off. It means, I did it and it was GOOD and now I'm busy playing so leave me alone! I have to wait a few hours or days for the details to come pouring forth. Some details never come.

I mention this because last week, I recently had the chance to sit down with the team at Galileo Learning and explore beyond my kids' one word descriptor. Turns out the word "good" is just a springboard for the Galileo Innovation Approach which means, always: Be Visionary, Be Courageous, Be Collaborative, Be Determined and Be Reflective.

This mindset, repeated in the curriculem for every theme, at every camp, year after year is important. Children will learn, over time and with repetition, to use this mindset when faced with a challenge; and they'll learn how to gather knowledge in the process of creating and bringing a new idea to fruition.

School gives my kids the basics. Camp Galileo teaches kids what to do with those basics in a variety of disciplines such as art and science. I wish that Camp Galileo were an after-school option for kids, so that they could take what they've learned in school and apply it in a way that's fun and reflective of real life matters.

My kids are Camp Galileo campers, that is, they are between Pre-K and rising 5th graders. When they become rising 5th to 8th graders, they will be eligible for Galileo Summer Quest (one week format) where I'm sure they'll beg me to sign them up for Video Game Design camp. Rising 4th to 8th graders can apply hands-on learning in science and technology at The Tech Summer Camps. And new this year, is the Chabot Space and Science Camp for rising 4th to 8th graders. All of this falls under the guidance of Galileo Learning.

There are four Camp Galileo weekly themes lined up for 2012. Nebulas (pre-K and kindergartners), Stars (rising 1st/2nd graders, like my kids were last year) and Supernovas, rising 3rd - 5th graders) can look forward to themes that can be divided into art, science and outdoors.

Briefly, some highlights are:

Galileo Olympics: Greek Art and The Science of the Games

Nebulas will construct a leaf-adorned victory head wreath and make a foam stamps to embellish their ancient Greek tunic.

Stars get to mold their own gold and bronze medals and fling about new terms like "fluid design."

Supernovas will be crafting with paper-maché and using impulse force. My kids have never done paper-maché so I'm sure this will be a fun, messy project. Then they'll learn about owls and as any Harry Potter fan will tell you, owls are not only wise, but they're magical as well. Then, if that were not enough, my boys will have the chance to test out a bow and arrow during an archery event. 

I'm thinking we might go with this theme, as it might awaken an interest in this summer's 2012 Olympics in London.

Celebrate the Golden Gate: SF Art and Bridge Engineering

San Francisco is our backyard stomping grounds and I know it like the back of my hands. Sometimes, we go about as natives and other times, we just play tourist. I love how this theme is relatable to the day trips we make to San Francisco.

Nebulas will learn the history of the Dutch Windmill (the one out by Ocean Beach) and then make their own out of clay.

Stars will craft a Lombard Street collage and learn to build a bridge.

Supernovas will make a 3D painted lady (Victorian house) and engineer a suspension bridge. I'm sure it will all be trickier to do than it looks!

Leonardos's Apprentice: Renaissance Art & Inventions

Evidence of Leonardo's influence is everywhere. My boys and I recently watched a Nova episode called Mystery of a Masterpiece. I have a massive coffee table book on Leonardo which my grandmother passed down to me. My boys have read many books in which Leonardo appears as a character (like Monday with a Mad Genius). I like that I'll be able to round out what my boys learn during a week studying Leonardo just by looking around me.

Nebulas will embellish a Renaissance sketch book and explore the concept of sink or float, to name a few of the activities they'll be doing.

Stars will pratice shading and painting to make clouds. I'm an Art Vistas docent at my kids' school so I enjoy anything that ties into the work we're doing there, and yes, we have learned to make clouds!

Supernovas will paint their own frecoes.

Galileo Rocks! The Art and Science of Music

This theme links art masters like Picasso and Matisse to instruments depicted in their works.

Nebulas will make sea masks and design drums of different diameters.

Stars will use a kalimba to explore prong placement and length in relation to pitch. Then they'll get their groove on and practice rhythm and movement.

Supernovas will create a mixed media collage (think Kandinsky) and make a guitar out of nylon, cardboard and wood!

My kids will be doing two weeks at Camp G (some people do 4 weeks or more!). We've yet to nail down the themes, but one thing is certain, I will NOT be packing lunch! New this year to Camp G, lunch and snacks will be provided by ChoiceLunch. It's an additional fee, but after 9 months of packing lunches this school year, I am done. And it's not like I'm giving my kids the license to gobble down pesticide laden junk food, either, no - it's ChoiceLunch, which provides healthy, hormone and antibiotic free meats and dairy. We're going to give the lunch option a go.

The other thing I like about Camp G is the counselors. All the lead instructors are college graduates. With less than 10 percent of applicants accepted, landing the role of a Camp G leader is prestigious indeed!

A camp is a camp is a camp, right? Wrong!

So what I learned from my kids is that in its simplest interpretation, "good" equals fun. But what I learned from the hard working team at Galileo Learning is that good and fun equal the Galileo Innovation Approach. It means that slowly and without realizing it, my kids will pack along some helpful tools they'll need as they go out into the world. They'll learn ways to be visionary, courageous, collaborative, determined and reflective.

According to my Stars, it's all good.

Did I mention the discount? Refer friends and you both get $40 off. In fact, you'll get a $40 reduction with each referral. That's a crazy discount.

This is an original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Disclaimer: Galileo Learning invited me to a discussion centered around the Galileo Innovation Approach. They are giving my kids one free week of camp each because they want to hear my feedback, both positive and negative. So stay tuned for our post-camp write up later in the summer!

Unsupervised play in Bend, Oregon

We are spending our spring break this year in Bend, Oregon where my family has a vacation home. We head up to Bend several times a year and this year my boys are coordinated enough, at age 5, to ride their bikes and scooters about the quiet, safe neighborhood. They quickly made friends with the kids in the Bend house neighborhood. These kids were running about everywhere, on bikes, on scooter, on foot. 

"Not in the street! " I warned my kids. NOT IN THE STREET!

But the Bend kids were riding bikes in the street! My kids looked my way and pleaded their case with looks that begged, "But all the other kids are in the street!"

So I let them ride in the street. Up and down the street, into a cul de sac, around the block. My boys had never known such freedom!

A Halloween Birthday at Disneyland

My twin boys will never not know that their birthday is coming. The signs will be few at first, a falling leaf, a chilly morning. Then, a dot of orange here and there, and finally, a sea of orange pumpkins and they will know. Fall is in the air, our birthday.

My boys are fall birthday boys, born in my favorite season. So what did we do to celebrate their big fifth birthday this year? We headed to Disneyland!

Looking over the Halloween at Disneyland site, I was mesmerized by the promises of a Disneyland transformed for Halloween. Disneyland is a special place when it's not a holiday, but dressed up in spookatcular style? There's nothing else like it. What a visual treat!

We'd been to Disneyland once before, in the unadorned month of May back when my boys were just three. At the time, I'd fretted over the type of stroller I should bring. This time, I'd planned to go on my twins' birthday. I'd heard that 2009 was like a twins convention at Disneyland -- but we didn't end up going on their actual birthday; it just didn't work with our schedule. The nice folks as Disneyland did treat us to a one night stay at the Grand Californian hotel and that was a gift the entire family enjoyed.

The Grand Californian made me smile from the very instant we pulled up to the front doors on a warm October Saturday. Tourists, most dressed in sunny weather attire, were bounding in and out of cars. I looked at my boys and hoped they were making a memory out of this. I love my own summer vacation in Southern California memories but mine were full of motels and neon signs, not Craftsman artistry!

In the warmly decorated lobby, my boys made themselves comfortable in front of a television showing classic Disney cartoons. They were in stitches over the classic slapstick fare of Donald Duck and Goofy - they'd never seen anything like it! It was so nice to have my boys sit still during the 15 minutes it took us to register at the front desk. A few minutes later, with our luggage stowed until our room was ready, we settled in for lunch at the hotel's Storytellers Cafe, future home to almost all our meals (let's say it was convenient and family friendly - oh, and yummy!). 

After lunch, we headed to the adjacent California Adventure Park which we told our children was really a part of Disneyland (it is, in a way...). "Where are the Pirates of the Caribbean?" they kept asking us to which we'd replied, "We don't know...let's keep walking." I suppose we could have used our tickets for two days at Disneyland rather than splitting up the parks by days but I'd wanted to take advantage of the hotel's close proximity to California Adventure and there were a couple of rides I'd really wanted to check out (Toy Story Mania, Soarin Over California, Tower of Terror). For the record, I forgot to wear the 3D glasses on Toy Story Mania until the ride was nearly over and kept wondering why puffs of air kept shooting past me. My boys didn't love Toy Story Mania and they much prefer the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland instead. Soaring Over California was amazing and exhilarating and we loved breathing in the scent of the orange groves! At night, once the kiddos were tucked into bed (a bunkbed AND a trundle bed!) at our luxurious hotel, I made my way over to the other hotel...the Tower of Terror which I LOVED, with apologies to the strangers into whose ears I SCREAMED and SCREAMED.

My boys ended their day in bubble wrap bliss. Our kind friends at Disney Resorts had sent over a fun-filled gift basket plus balloons for their birthday. My kids were thrilled to have received such a special gift! They got mouse ears and markers and autographed photos of Buzz Lightyear and Peter Pan. But imagine a big hotel bed filled from corner to corner with bubble wrap! I don't know, in my mind, that runs a pretty close second to a fun-filled day at Disneyland.

The following day was the Big Day and by that I mean, my boys both realized their recent dream of attending the Star Wars Jedi Academy. My biggest worry had been how to deal with the sibling rivalry repercussions if only one of the boys had been chosen. I'd cautioned my boys, prompting them to be prepared to be disappointed if only one or none of them had been selected but I think because we planned our outing so well, the boys did both get chosen and it was exciting for them and exciting for their parents! I'm not a Star Wars fan and everything I know about the genre is by proxy and still, I was terribly excited to see my boys become full-fledged jedis on their fifth birthday. What a gift for my 5-year-old boys!

By midday, the crowds at Disneyland were enormous, but we'd been able to already see and do so much because we'd done everything between the hours of 7am and noon, before the heat of the day, and before the groundswell of crowds. Why was it so crowded during what I'd thought was the off-season? In talking with another twin mom friend of mine who'd also battled crowds there in October, we think it's because Disney has done such a effective job of marketing a Disneyland transformed into a whimsical pumpkin patch. Indeed, what a sight it is -- if you can look beyond the crowds.

So back to the hotel we went, fleeing the heat and the throngs of people. There are three pools at the Grand Californian, all of which were easily accessible via back elevators which pretty much deposited us ten feet from our hotel room. Sweet! I'm swimsuit averse, as I have been since I was a self-conscious adolescent so I monitored my boys from the sidelines while daddy took the plunge with our boys. They tested all three pools. The first was large and inviting - and in full sun. The second was round and fully shaded and so slightly chilly. The third had a mini slide for toddlers and a longer twisty water slide for stronger swimmers. My boys did both! How better to top off a morning at Disneyland than with an afternoon at the pool? My boys were having the time of their lives. The pool supplied towels and if needed, life jackets, so we really didn't have to bring those bulky items with us.

After the pool and after a gluttonous run on the buffet at Storytellers Cafe, we pushed the limits of  exhaustion for one final evening visit to Disneyland, hoping to catch the 9pm showing of Fantasmic. But the crowds were just too immense so we didn't have the patience to stand in line for any more rides. I pined for the empty streets of Disneyland at 7am... We ended up using our single strollers that evening and just strolling about the park. By the time 8:30pm rolled around, our little birthday boys were passed out.

And with that, my children exited Disneyland in the fashion of generations of children before them, collapsed in utter exhaustion!

Thank you Disneyland and Disneyland resorts. We can't wait to go back!

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

À bicyclette!

Cue the Yves Montand, my boys are riding bikes!

Last summer, my then 4.75-year-old boys had been riding their heavy 18 (or 19"?) bicycles with training wheels since this past spring. We'd long since abandoned the tiny 12 (or 13"?) bicycles with training wheels since graduating to the bigger bikes. But the mom from whom we'd purchased both sets of bikes (at different times) told me to go back to the smaller bikes when it came time to learning to ride without training wheels. "Remove the training wheels and the pedals then take them to a small, grassy hill and they'll learn to balance," she said.

I'd known for some time that my boys were ready to ride those 12' bikes. The only problem was that those tiny bikes lived at grandpa's home for short rides down his street and in his back yard. Grandpa didn't believe the boys were ready, always erring on the "older is better" side - for everything. I begged him to take off the training wheels. "Then we'll give it a try the next time we're over, " I explained. But every week when we visited, the training wheels remained on. Finally, I just removed the training wheels myself (but kept the pedals on), brought my boys to a local school and within minutes, my boys were pedaling and pedaling fast. This was three months ago. Most of our same-age friends also hit this milestone around the same time.

Three year's ago, while vacationing in Bend, Oregon, the Target there had wooden balance bikes (similar to the popular Skuut) on clearance for TWELVE DOLLARS. I don't know if it was some kind of reverse psychology, but I didn't go for it. My mom told me, "You have so much stuff for the boys already," and it was true, I'd been trying to downsize the number of toys. I walked away without the balance bikes. They usually run around about $100 so I really should have snapped up those bikes at Target. What was I thinking? They could have been up on their bikes years ago! But then again, why would I want that?

You Checked the Tide Tables, Right?

I spent many a childhood weekend perched precariously over wet and craggy rocks, peering into tide pools. My father would wedge his fishing pole into the rocks while we played and played. My mother stayed behind in the parking lot, reading Sunset magazine in the comfort of the car (and this was way before the advent of cell phones, so I imagine she sometimes had a very long wait.) I recall going tide pooling out at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, but it's been built up a bit since then and for the life of me, the exact spot where we used to hunt for Starfish and sea anenomes must be no longer accessible because I can't find it.

Now that I have my own children who, at nearly age five, can easily

scamper across those tide pool rocks, I've been wanting to take them to the tide pools. We have an

Usborne book called On the Seashore, which I've been reading to my children since they were barely able to walk. It introduced my boys to the concept of tide pools and then we pulled it all together with the first of many visits to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Tide pools are the perfect touchy, feely play areas that children love. Use one finger, I always cautioned and never lift an animal out of its habitat. Play gently, learn fiercely and leave it alone!

Finally, a friend mentioned that she and her husband had taken their son to the tide pools in Half Moon Bay recently and that they were thinking of going back, they'd had so much fun. We decided to tag along because, for one thing, it's always nice to follow someone who knows how to read tide pool tables what they're doing.

So last week, we set out together for Half Moon Bay by way of Lemos Farm. Low tide wasn't expected until 6pm so we pretty much had the stretch of the day to play amongst the pumpkins and ponies.

"We're going to the beach beneath the Ritz Carlton," my friend said, "then we can have the kids use the clean restrooms there afterward." She's a little OCD about the clean bathroom thing, but then again, so am I. I thought it was a winning idea!

We ended up reaching the tide pools around 4:30pm. I looked at the beautiful, tiny stretch of windswept beach. Where were the tide pools? We continued walking, waves crashing on our left, sheer cliffs on our right. I kept eyeing the surf with trepidation, crossing my fingers that they'd checked the tide pool table correctly. "Low tide is at 6pm, right?" I asked nervously. "Right," they assured me. Still, I couldn't help but look up and down those sheer cliffs, looking for a spot where we might be able to escape the pounding surf, if need be. It was kind of like knowing the location of fire exits in a hotel.

Ok, so I was a little nervous. I don't know, it's just something about the cold, hard Northern California surf that intimidates me.

Where I thought the stretch of beach ended actually continued around a bend but the frothy surf was still licking the part of the cliff that formed the bend. When the surf receded, our friends scurried to the other side, before it returned, leaving me to think that I might very well high tail it back to the safety of the car and check my email on my phone read my magazine like my mother had done.

What if they were wrong and the tide was coming IN? We'd be stranded. How would we manage to hold our boys up on that cliff all night long until help came? (Obviously, I know nothing about tide tables and yes, I'm a worry wart at times.)

We decide to follow our friends and oh my, oh my, am I ever glad I didn't give in to my fears. Suddenly, the familiar black, craggy rocks of my childhood appeared. Tide pools! Even at 4:30, the ocean revealed more than enough for us to revel in. The sky was slightly overcast. It was windbreaker weather, utterly and purely refreshing. Immediately, we got down to business hunching our backs over stranded pools of sea life. I can't believe that I'd been missing out on all of this. It had been decades since my last visit to any substantial tide pools. Decades!

We tried to teach the boys to be attentive as to where they walked. We pointed out starfish, hermit crabs, sea anemones and even somebody's lost sunglasses. I hope it won't be decades before my boys visit tide pools again. In ten years time, even, so much will change.

Original post to Mad About Multiples.

Motherhood Hit the Pause Button on my Wanderlust.

People are always remarking that I take my kids everywhere. They're right, we do. My husband and I see each weekend as a opportunity to explore, but by explore, I mean we're not global explorers, we keep it local. It's more of a practical choice. When I was a grownup without kids, the ONLY thing I wanted to do was travel abroad. I dreamed about it, made plans in my mind to find a place to skip off to for a year. "We'll work as nannies in Europe somewhere," a friend with a similar case of wanderlust had suggested. "Let's do it," I'd replied. But we never did. Soon after, motherhood and marriage hit the pause button on my wanderlust.

There was a period in which I spent the bulk of my time trying to find my inner French woman. For about a year, my schedule allowed me to indulge in three French classes at the same time. I took courses at a local college, at my local Alliance Francaise and joined a book club in Woodside where we read French classics (ok, well, I stumbled through it, but I didn't care, I was poolside with my fellow francophiles, eating brie and drinking strong coffee.) When I wasn't studying all things French, I was busy making plans to visit France. My wonderful friend Claire and I would schedule time off work to go play and have early morning caffeine withdrawal feuds in France. We had friends there and when no one was looking or listening, we'd pretend we were French. I remember driving home from the Quimper factory in our little rented car, chatting away in rapid fire, cringe worthy, broken French, just the two of us, Frenchies for the drive home. In a crowded room, I can still hear a French conversation float to the top of all that noise, taunting me to chase a life I didn't have. 

Ikea Småland Gave Me 45 Minutes to Buy Nothing

We started using the Ikea play area, known as Småland, about a year ago. Before my kids were potty trained and before they'd reached the minimum height requirement, I'd eye that place with curiosity. Would my children like it in there? Would I be comfortable leaving my kids to encounter germs play there? Would Ikea Småland give me enough time to buy something?

Visit after visit, as I'd push my double stroller full of double trouble into the nearby elevators, I'd glance over at Småland and think to myself...another year...six more months...two more months and finally, bingo! My twins were 4-years-old and well beyond being potty trained and well above the minimum height requirement so off to Småland we went. We were all excited about our first trip to Småland. This is going to be a win-win, I said to myself, smiling in anticipation of 45 blissful kid-free moments to roam about Ikea and for free (Ikea doesn't charge for use of Småland.) We went off-hours when I knew Ikea would not be crowded.

The first thing I noticed was that, despite the friendly sign that beckons children into the "Magical Forest," this was drop-in day care. I knew it straight off the bat. Nobody welcomed us in like they do on the first day of preschool. Nobody sent us loving smiles. Instead, I heard, KEEP THE BALLS IN THE BALL PIT. DO NOT THROW THE BALLS, PLEASE! I wondered to myself how many times they probably screamed that throughout the day. Soon she'll be screaming that at my kids, I figured, resigned.

We got off to a rocky start, not knowing the procedures for checking in and all. Mistake #1: My boys took off their shoes and held them in their hands while we lined up for entry.

YOU NEED TO GET A BIN.

Gilroy Gardens: PB&J is Not Contraband

Buried deep beneath a pile of swimsuits, a bottle of sunscreen, extra clothing and bulky beach towels lies the contraband, a soggy PB&J sandwich that only Flat Stanley could love.

As my children and I head toward the front gates, the Gilroy Gardens guards are performing due diligence on the No Outside Food rule, sifting through diaper bags and backpacks for Outside Food.

I zip open my bags as we near the gate, prepping for the inspection. "Move along, no Outside Food in here, " I want to say to the security guards. Surely a PB&J sandwich can't be contraband? My small soft sided cooler reveals only ice packs and bottled water. As expected, my bags pass inspection. Over the past year, I've learned that it's not the bottled water or the dry snacks that they're after; it's more like the obvious lunchtime fare like sandwiches; if that's spotted, then even the dry snacks may be confiscated.

Center of Attention at the Exploratorium

The young comedian stepped up to the podium and grabbed hold of the mic. The stage lights were shining brightly into his face, blocking out the audience, but he could feel them there. It was a full house. "Knock 'em dead, " I wanted to shout, but I knew that would be distracting to him. "What? What did you say, Mommy? Who's dead?" he'd ask, stepping off the stage.

"Say hello, say your name!" I suggested instead.

"Hello, HELLO! My name is Cheese Boy and I'm here on stage..." he announced, his voice echoing.

But the audience booed! Yes, they booed at a 3-year-old during his first moments on stage! What an unforgiving audience! Hmf!

But Cheese Boy kept smiling, though he looked up at me for reassurance.

"Say your joke, " I encouraged.

"Knock, knock...who's there?" he began, then changed his mind, "Why did the underwear cross the road?"

The audience burst into laughter, even before the punchline was said.

"They loved it!" I yelled from the sidelines.

Cheese Boy laughed nervously.

"Underwear!" he repeated, for emphasis.

"Boooooo! Booooooo!" the audience retorted.

"Oh, they didn't like that one this time, " I cautioned.

"Why not?" replied Cheese Boy, still smiling but looking a bit unsure.

"Why did the underwear cross the road?" asked Cheese Boy, boldly trying out the same joke.

The audience roared, again before the punchline was delivered.

"Because the carrot was waiting!" continued Cheese Boy as the audience clapped and whistled in approval.

Cheese Boy went on to try out a few more fragmented jokes that only a preschool boy might find amusing. His jokes were hit and miss. Sometimes the audience ate it up, sometimes they booed and hissed. What an emotional roller coaster for my little stand up comic, but that's exactly what the experience of the MIND exhibit ("Center of Attention") was supposed to be, a simulated experience in front of a "live" audience. 

"Come on, " I said, stepping out of the limelight within the photo sized booth, its tiny walls covered in black fabric, "Let's go find the shadow box!" And with that, we skipped off through the Exploratorium, in search of strobe lights.

Original Chalk and Cheese Chronicles blog post.