Our countdown chain is getting shorter, and that can only mean one thing: Papa’s house! With 18 days to go, we are excited and ready for Christmas and some much needed vacation time with family.

With 3 weeks in Utah we thought it best to split the time as closely as possible between our families. Which means the 15th through the 27th will be with Brooke’s family, and the 28th through January 8th will be with Jeremy’s family.

We are beginning to make plans. We are going to see the Lights at Temple Square for Family night on the 17th, Grandma Eastman’s birthday on the 18th, the Wilson Family Christmas party on the 21st, and a big tailgate party for the BYU football game on the 22nd (pending an official invite to the Las Vegas bowl). Christmas Eve will be with Jeremy’s family, and Christmas day with Brooke’s. Of course a party will ensue on the 27th for Brooke’s birthday, and a possible trip to Idaho for the Rexburg Temple open house the first week in January.  Besides from being busy, the kids are looking forward to playing with their cousins, watching Thomas’ basketball games, having pop at Papa’s house, and just being home.

Wishing you all a Happy Holiday season, we’ll see you very soon!

We took the kids to see Disney’s latest, Enchanted, on Friday. I wasn’t looking too forward to this, but I was curious to see how a physical portrayal of cartoon characters would go over. It goes over really well, but loses steam down the line.
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Want to see Ben’s kindergarten classroom, a Tom Sawyer-esque cabin, and what I did with the Thanksgiving Turkey? Have a look.

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Halloween was a blast, or so I hear. I had a class from 5:30-8:45 that night. I did let them go a little early though. (Wasn’t that nice?) Ben was a spider, and Miles was a Wizard… Which he thought was a “witch.” We stopped trying to correct him. Brooke made both costumes, and Miles’ in particular was very nice.

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They call Letchworth the “Grand Canyon of the East.” I’m thinking there are a lot of people who have never been to the Grand Canyon, or there are absolutely no other canyons in the East. (Pictures included.)

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One of the coolest places to be a kid is in Rochester. The Museum of Play includes the National Toy Hall of Fame.

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Miles has started potty training. At times like these you have to choose between being constantly grossed out, or turn your maturity clock back a few decades. You should all know which direction we took.

We’ve been sitting him on the toilet, but he seemed to have no idea what he’s supposed to do once he’s there. Finally this week, he let out a little gas, chuckled, and told Brooke, “‘scuse you.” Then he did it again. Later that night he demonstrated this incredible, newly-discovered talent, excusing me each time.

It’s no wonder nothing’s coming out of the kid: He doesn’t eat anything. Tonight, after not touching his lasagna, he wanted a treat from his Halloween bag. Brooke asked, “What happened to your lasagna?”

“I lost it.”

Other updates: We’re doing our own Thanksgiving for the first time. I’m all for keeping it simple, but Brooke wants the whole nine yards. We’ll see how that turns out.

Work is still good. Today, someone asked me how “school” was, and I realized how funny it was: Here I am, over 30, with a doctorate, and people still ask me, “How’s school?”

I had a paper accepted to AERA, which will be held in New York City in March. Somehow, NYC doesn’t seem as glamorous when it’s in the same state.

I also finished correcting my article for Computers in the Schools. The problem is that I did the work for that paper almost two years ago. I don’t agree with half of it now.

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It’s a fairly popular opinion in educational reform movements (and fairly well documented) that school is less about acquiring knowledge and skill than it is about learning to conform. Everything from the schedule and the bells to the authority structure mirrors the working environment. Whether or not this is optimal for learning has never been questioned because the system produces a working population with just enough knowledge to do what they’re told both explicitly (“vote for me”) or implicitly (“buy this product”). Ben, who has never had a tough time conforming, announced to me today that the family now has “assigned seating” at the dinner table. Oh, this is going to be a fun twelve years.

Grammar and other rules are often completely arbitrary, but function only in so much as two people agree to conform to them. I was asked to make the following “corrections” to a paper I had accepted for publication: “website” should be “Web site,” “preservice” and “inservice” (as nouns and adjectives) should be hyphenated, as well as “email.” That’s right, a journal on using computers in schools actually requires the spelling “e-mail.” What’s next, I have to spell it “Micro-soft” (as it was originally) or the more ironic “MICROS~1″? I wonder if it would be “podcast” or “pod-cast”. Would they accept the improper “Javascript”?

Of course, it’s not always me fighting against conformity. I actually fight for it sometimes. Today I had the “you will stay in your bed until you’re asleep (you so-tired-your-eyes-are-red-and-you’re-so-crabby-no-one-wants-to-be-around-you baby) war” with Miles. His stubbornness grants him superhuman powers of persistence, and he was even screaming for Ben to come help him before all was said and done. (Literally, “BEN! COME! HELP! MEEEE!!!”) Eventually he got so exhausted from bawling and from climbing out of bed just to be put back in, that he meekly asked for more milk and then fell asleep.