Repair

A connection in the lever has given way under heavy use, and needs to be repaired. The light on top still won't stay up, despite the new coat of paint and a new set of velcro.

Circuits

I'm almost finished, but so tired that I can't seem think straight enough to sort out how to connect the last piece of the puzzle ― it's a motor that will create a low rumble, as if the rocket's engines are being fired. (My son refers to this as "The Rumbler.") The switch has already been installed, but I need to work out how to connect it to the motor and the battery pack. I try two or three times to sort it out in my head before I give up and decide to draw out a diagram, instead. One crumpled piece of paper later, I think I know how everything works. And it does.

I hadn't anticipated spending virtually the entire week on this, to the exclusion of almost everything else. Other projects have been ignored, e-mail left unanswered. I had this persistent idea that I was "almost finished," as if just one more hour was all that was needed to complete this. But everything works. My son is excited at the new features and has already made several voyages to the outer planets. (Interchangeable photo prints with the images of various planets are placed in a small viewscreen.)

Wednesday

I had to break open one of the plastic toys when the screws wouldn't budge. My arms are covered with flecks of silver paint that look like quicksilver.

I've bought three sets of electronic toys over the course of three days ― the wires that connected the various elements were unusually thin and delicate, and far too easily broken. I don't know enough about how or why these components are put together to try to repair them ― so I just start over again, and try to be more careful the next time.

My soldering skills have not improved.

Monday

My son has been insisting, for several weeks, that I try to fix the light inside, on the top. I thought it'd be simple to connect it to one of the unused switches on the console. And with everything apart, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to give the top a new coat of silver paint, and seal it this time. (In doing so, I learned that it's best to avoid using spray paint while wearing sandals.) And I'd wanted to update some of the sounds with something that seemed less like weapons being fired. And I had this really clever idea for a rocket engine...

Rocket Science

I spent virtually all of last week finishing a project I started (I think) two years ago. It might even have been three.

I had this brilliant idea that I could, without too much trouble, install all sorts of flashing lights and sounds and whatnot into a discarded Little Tikes Space Rocket Playset, to bring it to life for my son. Of course, I had no idea how to go about doing this, and I'd never done anything like it before -- but I expected I'd be able to sort it out as I went along.

I must have spent close to $150 on various colors of LEDs, wire, an assortment of buttons and switches, and anything else I thought might be useful (or just look interesting). I bought an electronic toy with a sequence of flashing LEDs, took it apart to see how it worked ― or, at least, what I might do with it ― and carefully connected it to the series of LEDs I had installed (in the front panel that already had non-functional controls and a steering wheel and lever).

My desk was covered in bits of wire and metal, pieces of electrical tape, and an infinite number of loose screws. The inside of the panel would quickly become an impenetrable maze of wires ― but somehow, it all worked. it worked! In fact, it worked so well, I bought another one of the toys to disassemble (I think I did something to damage that one, so I had to buy another after that), and installed an additional set of flashing LEDs.

I painted both the steering wheel the large circular knob on a lever a bright, vivid red. I had this idea that the lever should make some sort of a sound, as if the rocket's engines were being activated. I found a toy with appropriate space sounds ― but I made a mistake connecting it to the battery (which caused one of the components on the circuit board to explode!), and had to buy another. (I may have even had to buy a third one.) The switch in the lever was improvised with bits of metal, glue and electrical tape (a mechanism that had to be replaced two or three times), but it made an appropriately thrilling noise when pulled. Two small buttons activated other sounds when pressed.

I painted the top in silver, the original having been cast in an uninspiring dull red plastic, faded from years of sunlight. But the paint I chose never seemed to adhere well to plastic, and whenever I handled the top (and often when I brushed up against it), a thin coat of silver paint was left behind. I tried to install a light on the inside of the top, attached with velcro, so it could be removed when the batteries needed to be replaced. But it never seemed to stick.

I had a few other ideas, but I was so exhausted by the effort that went into this that I lost all momentum.

And after all that work? My son was never as interested in the rocket as I'd hoped he'd be. It sat, all but ignored, for almost two years. It's only been in the past few months that he's started to play, really play with it. Once it was decided that it should be moved into his room, which required that it be taken apart ― it wouldn't fit through a door any other way! ― I thought this might be a good opportunity to catch up with a few of the details I'd been neglecting.

Marshmallow Cookies

You know what I haven't been able to find in the supermarket? Marshmallow Cookies. There's this specific kind my son wanted (we saw how they were made on How It's Made, and bought a box, several months ago), but they seem to have vanished without a trace. I can't find them anywhere.

Nights

I've been working on another book project today. I finished most of the work more than an hour ago, and now I'm sort of meandering toward a conclusion. I hadn't intended to be up this late, really, but I find it's much easier to work when the temperature is in the mid-70s, rather than the mid-90s.

Bus

My son is taking the bus home from school this Summer, which is a new experience for both of us. (I'd been picking him up from an after school program.) Yesterday, I had to run a quick errand before he got home, and I thought I had just enough time to get there and back — maybe. But I got caught in slow traffic on the way home where the road was being repaired, and suddenly, my margin of error had become somewhere between thin and nonexistent.

At the end, I was racing through the streets in my neighborhood! After no small effort, I caught up with the bus a mere ten seconds away from the house. I had to actually pull over behind it, and get out and run up the street to meet my son just as he got off.

All this on only his third day of taking the bus home.

Has this ever happened to you?

Wild Raspberries

My son and I picked wild raspbrries in the backyard after school. (He's learning to spot the berries that are a rich, crimson red — those are the ones that are at their best and sweetest.) We've had a few plants appear from time to time — this seems to be the year they have finally taken. The small container we brought was soon so full that we had to bring it inside before we could even get to the other end of the yard!

Almost immediately he noticed that these tasted much, much better than the raspberries we buy at the supermarket. I tried to explain to him that the ones we find in a store had been grown to travel well rather than to taste good, but I'm not sure I was able to put that in terms he could understand (though I think it's a valuable lesson for him to have).

Everything

My son today came home from school and wanted to know: "When will everything end?"

It's difficult enough to answer this sort of question without trying to put it into terms a five-year-old can understand.

Project

I've been working on a book project, off and on over the past two weeks. It's been an enormous amount of work — in the end, it came to 584 pages (almost all of them text, with a considerable amount of formatting that needed to be applied by hand), and it needed to be done as quickly as possible. I managed to produce a first pass at the book over the course of two or three long (very long) days — I spent most of the day today on the (almost) final series of corrections.

But it's also been great fun. It's the first book for the two authors, and it's obvious how enthusiastic and excited they are to see the project they've been working on for so long come to fruition. I'm pleased to share in that excitement, even if only in a small way.

Raccoons

It's been an unusually busy season outside my back door — three mother raccoons have turned up over the past month, each with a set of offspring in tow. (I could only tell them apart because each successive mother had one more baby than the one before.) There was a moment of concern when one set came by in the late morning — the conventional wisdom is that if you see a raccoon during the day, it's bound to be ill and probably very dangerous, though the reality (I discovered) is that they occasionally look for food during the day, particularly when they're nursing.

Baby raccoons are unbelievably adorable. This evening when I went to leave food for the birds out back I found three of them hanging over the edge of my fountain.

Afternoon

We're enjoying an afternoon at the playground — I'm hoping to get a bit of work done while my son is otherwise occupied. I've just noticed that my son has become far too big for his bicycle! When did this happen?