Doodles and Animation...

Daddy spent much of the day at work, and Madison kept busy with activities in her workbook, and helping Mommy decorate the house for a somewhat patriotic season. It looked very nice when Daddy got home: he arrived with Mr. Josh from work. Tonight, everyone had a great meal together - Mommy cooked us all tacos. Then, we all had sarsaparilla and ice cream!

Tonight's movie feature was "Hook," yet another pirate-themed movie on the list that Josh wanted to come over to watch with us. Madison was really into it when Neverland came into the picture! This is a movie that gets better every time I see it. I didn't think as much the first time I saw it, but Mommy liked it, and Josh wanted to see it as well. You can't beat the performance of Dustin Hoffman, but the movie on the whole is really fun, and with a fantastic soundtrack. It's also somewhat dated - we were amazed at the huge sets that were built. With computers, they don't have to do as much these days. But much of everything in the past was built, and many of the stunts had to be done with real people - rather than any computer graphics or special effects. Anyway, it's a great movie. But a long movie. In fact, because the movie was somewhat long, Madison had to go to bed. But we promised she might get to see the rest of it later: it was time for bed! Our bedtime story tonight was about Neverland and pirates, and for a moment Daddy considered the fantasy foundation that Madison was being exposed to. Neverland has been a big part of this year, and Wonderland the year before that. There's been much in between all that, but those two places have had larger roles in our storytelling, books and movies.

Anyway, the grown-ups watched the rest of the movie after Madison went to bed. It was good to have Josh over too. His work is in animation, and he's been doing a wonderful job for KidPak as of late. He also creates the characters and mascots for each series. For example, our upcoming series in June is called "Boardwalk," so we asked him to create what folks call a barker - that's one of those guys who calls out, "Hurry, hurry, hurry! Step right up!" June's series will be somewhat of a mix between an amusement park theme, and a beach theme. It is a considerable step down from pirates, under construction and baseball - but it still has it's moments. One of these moments is quite possibly a barbershop quartet that walks the boardwalk at KidPak. Daddy hopes to get that together, and is even growing a handlebar mustache for the occasion. We'll see if that gets together.

Speaking of animation, Daddy did a quick flip-book animation for Madison this morning, which got big laughs. She was drawing a bit, so he drew up an animation of her throwing a ball to Daddy. Obviously, all of this was done in stick figure fashion. The ball isn't caught though. It bonks Daddy on the head, and he falls over. This got laughs, of course. And the neat thing about flip book animation is you can do it over and over again. It was also a simple demonstration to her on how to make cartoons, although she didn't quite grasp it entirely. She did, however, attempt to recreate the drawings on her own:

This is a self-portrait of Madison about to throw a ball. She looks very angry in this picture, and I hope there aren't any psychologists reading this.

"What is this? Some sort of the "Lord of the Flies" pre-school?"

- Peter Banning