The Mouse and Motorcycle Thank You Note

Our younger son has been slogging along in a very demanding tutoring program this summer.  He has done some amazing work and deserves much parental applause... But I know that his accomplishments are due to the unflappable and unflagging support of his tutors.

It takes me five minutes of bartering and bickering to get him to read two lines of a TV program synopsis. But with his tutors, he has been happily reading Beverly Cleary's 1965 book "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" and that is considerably more challenging than cable listings.

It is always impossible to sufficiently thank the people who are endlessly patient with my kids.
When confronted with an unsolvable problem, I often resort to drawing on napkins.

I wanted to add my son into this picture, but did not have the time to pull off a portrait. I was really trying to get at least five hours of sleep last night (The New York Times ran an article recently that said that sustained periods of five hours or less a night result in irrevocable hardening of the arteries....so I am already in big trouble)

I still did not attain the artery saving amount of five hours of sleep...but at least I did not annoy my son by drawing a picture of him.

Cargo Bike Gang

Too many characters ride in the cargo bike:
(Not one of my better drawings, but definitely the most characters on one napkin ever)

We've been taking a cargo bike to school and camp, more or less every day for five years.  During that time, the kids have gained something close to 100 pound combined, and I have aged at least 20 years.

Starting in the fall, the kids will no longer be at the same school. One will be traveling beyond reasonable biking distance to the upper east side of Manhattan. Therefore, as we finish up these last weeks of summer, we are making the daily bike trip to downtown Brooklyn for the last few times.

I have mixed feelings. The daily routine of biking has been mostly a good thing.  The excessive exercise has probably kept me from completely falling apart physically and mentally. It has certainly kept me from abandoning my misbehaving sons on a subway train. But it has always been a slightly anxiety-inducing daily grind: The weather is most often too hot or too cold. I am rarely not dangerously sleep-deprived. And many pedestrians and motorists seem to hate me for the outrageous decision to bike my kids to school and are happy to shout their opinions at me from their car windows or often, their position standing in front of us in the bike lane.

I am very pleased and overwhelmingly thankful that, besides the frequent verbal hostility, we have made it through thousands of miles without an accident or an interaction that left physical marks.

It is probably time to stop anyway, given the kids' increasing size and heft. If you are one of our few readers who is not my mom, you are probably wondering why my sons are not riding their own bikes to school by now... Well, while I had often fantasized about that happening eventually, the trip is 5 miles, mostly around the very windy Brooklyn Navy Yard, and culminates in a rather nasty stretch of riding in traffic in downtown Brooklyn. And my kids have never been very interested in self locomotion.

At any rate, since we were approaching the end of the cargo bike phase, it seemed like there should be some sort of commemorative napkin. The kids came up with an endless list of characters that have appeared on the napkins over the last five years that they thought should be riding in the bike. They argued over who should get to sit on which character's shoulders. And they berated me this morning for failing to somehow work in Doctor Who's Tardis.

I had to draw the line somewhere.

(You can see a photo of us on the bike on a rainy day in 2012 on this bicycling photography blog: gudphoto.com)

Huggable Army

Excessive Depiction of Video Game Characters:

Today is the last day of camp, so we have two final indulgent napkins. My younger son requested that I draw ALL of the the Huggables from Battle Bears.  There are considerably more than you see here... I missed the one wearing the ugly Christmas sweater and the one wearing a pleather bondage mask as well as the many color variations.

Generally speaking, the kids are most pleased when I draw something that looks just like the video game.  My son was very happy with the quantity of characters here that I more or less copied straight from the source.

So happy in fact, that he was willing to overlook the fact that I had drawn him in the middle.

Judy and Yoshi from Dr. McNinja Web Comic

Last night we were catching up on "Paleontologists, Politicians and Prologue," the latest installment of Christopher Hastings' webcomic, Dr. McNinja.

The kids love the over-the-top randomness of many of the characters and events in the story.  The Doctor's secretary and driver is a large gorilla named Judy. Gordito, Dr. McNinja's 12 year old moustachioed sidekick, rides Yoshi the raptor.   When we came to an image of Judy the gorilla giving Yoshi the raptor a piggyback ride while he imitate Gordito, both kids said, "I want that on my napkin!"

I was just not capable of rendering the exaggerated facial expressions of both characters late last night.  The picture is a lot funnier in the comic.

Flying Creature from Doctor McNinja

The kids were very taken with the weirdness of this flying Dinosaur creature
in Dr. McNinja's "Paleontologists, Politicians and Prologue."  The female, eye patch and epaulet-wearing president of the United States uses it to exile her treasonous vice president to space, while she and Dr. McNinja ride in its mouth.

Interest was expressed in having this creature on a napkin. By the cold light of the morning, it was clear that my rendition was more lame than fantastically weird. Too much pink and purple too....

Huggable Hugs the Bear from "Total Drama Island"

Some Total Bear-on-Bear Action:

Our younger son has been watching the TV show "Total Drama Island" and its various iterations.  The Total Drama franchise is an animated parody of "Survivor" where a group of superficial fame seekers are tortured by a smarmy host while they struggle to not be voted off of the island.

I have to admit that my feelings about an 8 year old watching the show are mostly not positive.  It is a show about conniving adults and the nasty things they do to one another regarding sex, money and other body functions. The show's Wikipedia entry, however, notes that it was a very popular when it was first released, and that, "Many of the fans viewed the show as one of the best cartoons of its time."

Total Drama has a reoccuring bear character.  Our kids often exclaim over his cuteness, which perplexes me.

My son was very pleased with this napkin because I made it look just like the cartoony bear on the show....None of that nasty creative license that I sometimes indulge in on these napkins.

Battle Bears Huggable with Rainbow

Watch out for headless pink teddy bears:

Apparently the Huggables in Battle Bears Gold can remove their heads and blast their foes with rainbow power. 

I am not clear on the details.

Giant Pet Ant

The kids' takeaway from seeing the "Ant Man" movie over the weekend was that they need a giant ant for a house pet.

As their father and I pointed out, they are already doing a fine job of feeding many pet ants already. Our apartment has old wooden factory floors with deep gaps between the boards which serve as excellent ant highways. Thus the ants rarely have to reveal themselves on their frequent trips to retrieve the many morsels of food that our kids courteously leave for them on the floor.  But make no mistake, they are there in full force.

In one of our kids' favorite scenes in the movie, the hero's cute daughter feeds the accidentally-enlarged dog-sized ant scraps from her plate under the dinner table. Nothing would please our kids more than passing off some brussel sprouts or kale to a cool pet.....except maybe climbing over the couch while riding on an even bigger pet.

Couch climbing is technically forbidden in our apartment, but it would be hard to argue with an ant who is big enough to be a cast member of the movie "THEM!"

Battle Bears Gold's Huggable with Lady Liberty

While my older son thought it would be unpatriotic to depict a giant teddy bear threatening the Statue of Liberty, his younger brother had no such reservation.

I have to admit that I am a bit unclear on the specifics of how the Huggables work.  I think that in the more recent iteration of the game, Battle Bears Gold, one can play as a Huggable.  In the earlier games, they are the antagonist. 

There are multiple versions of the Huggables, but the clear winner seemed to be the one who sports rainbow tipped chainsaws. 

It was a late night.  I did the best I could at the time.

Clumsy Ninja Sitting on the Manhattan Bridge

I can't believe I agreed to draw two bridges in one night.

My sons considered my suggestion that the Clumsy Ninja should sit on the Manhattan Bridge to be almost as good as the idea of Kirby eating the Brooklyn Bridge.
Nevertheless, the younger son pointed out that I did not do a very good job of drawing the bridge as sagging under his weight.

It's true.  Two New York bridges in one night clearly exceeded my abilities.

Colossal Minion at Wall Maria

I think we have all agreed:
Enough with the Minions.
 
But....the kids are always open to a reference to the colossal Titan reaching over the wall from the manga/anime series "Attack on Titan." And there is a giant Minion in the recent movie, so the comparison was inescapable.

Ok. Now we are done with the Minions.
For a while, at least.

Some of our previous Titan-at-the-wall examples:

Deadpool

Pikachu

Ganondorph

Commander Wolffe Rides the Pachycephalosaurus

Continuing to scrape the bottom of the obscure dinosaur barrel:
9Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #15)

Commander Wolffe is kind of a hard-headed guy, isn't he?
I originally ruled out the thick craniumed Pachycephalosauruses as being too small to ride, and too hard to pronounce, but here we are.

It is summer camp not Quaker school, so guns are allowed, kind of.

Luke Skywalker with Brachiosaurus

Yes, I am aware that Tatooine would be a rather inhospitable place for Brachiosaurs.
(Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #14)

Having decided to draw the wistful, horizon-contemplating farm boy Luke, rather than the Force-trained, light saber wielding Luke, somehow the Brachiosaur scene from Jurassic Park came to mind.  Sam Neil tells the kids that the Dinosaur is just like a big cow....although probably not one that you would find on a moisture farm.

Card Game Inside Jurassic World's Mosasaurus

Zara says, "Go Fish."

One of the  napkin ideas I proposed to the kids while we were biking to camp yesterday was to draw the Indominus Rex, the Pteradactyl and the ill fated assistant/babysitter Zara sitting around a camp fire toasting marshmallows inside the Mosasaurus ala Gepetto and Pinocchio in the whale.  (Belated Spoiler Alert!)

The kids' responded, "Oh, that's what happens at the end of the LEGO Jurassic World game!...Except they are playing cards and using a flare for light."  I decided to follow the LEGO logic and draw the characters playing cards and using the flare also because... firewood would be wet... and where would they have gotten the marshmallows anyway? (We need to keep these napkin images plausible after all)

 I always appreciate LEGO games' humorous lack of fatalities. As I mentioned in a previous Jurassic World themed post, Zara's death in the movie by Pteradactyl and Mosasaur seemed unnecessarily nasty and it feels nice to provide her with an afterlife.  I discovered last night, while trying to find an image of her, that interestingly, she is also the first female death in the history of the Jurassic Park/ World franchise. Gender politics aside, unlike all the other deaths, her demise was particularly memorable in its awfulness and  has been an ongoing topic of conversation for my sons long after the movie.

I did not find any images online of the LEGO game card game scene until I sat down to post this today.  It appears at the very end of the game.

The kids said I did an ok job anyway.

Minions Ride Shark

We're going to need a bigger shark:

Did you know that it is Shark Week?
While we had recently been discussing the possibility of watching "Jaws" in honor of it's 40th anniversary, we missed the important news that it is Shark Week until yesterday.

Since it also seems to be "Minions" week in advance of its opening on Friday, I thought a team-up was in order.  I addressed the napkin to both boys since it wasn't a  request, and I was not sure if either would be willing to take it for lunch.

While delighted by Sharks and Minions in general, the kids were not convinced by my Shark/Minions week napkin logic. They both took a back-up napkin to camp today instead.

Chewbacca Rides a Suchomimus

Star Wars Rides Jurassic World Dinosaurs #12:
The Suchomimus, another obscure dinosaur with a bad name

Captain Rex and the Metriacanthosaurus

Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #11:
A cool guy rides an obscure dinosaur that definitely needs a nickname.

The Jurassic World website identifies the Metriacanthosaurus as a "fleet footed carnivore" that eats other dinosaurs and rates a "High" on the "aggression index."  I cannot say for certain, but I do not think this particular animal actually appears in the film.

Captain Rex, a character from the earlier Star Wars animated series "The Clone Wars," is certainly one of the kids' most favorite helmet wearing/weapon wielding guys.  There have been a couple of Halloween costumes and many hours of pretending here.

I thought Rex needed a feisty dinosaur, but I seemed to be running out of the obvious choices. The Metriacanthosaurus's name is a real mouthful, but I liked the stripes, and thought they went nicely with Captain Rex's hand painted clone armor.

Emperor Palpatine and the Mosasaurus Celebrate the Fourth of July

Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #10:
Palpatine shows his patriotic spirit with red, white and blue force lightning.

Minions Offer an independence Day Bomb Pop to the T-Rex

Bombs Away.

Our kids love Bomb Pops. These popsicles offer an opportunity to dye one's face (and shirt...and shoes) both red AND blue. 

During my early, optimistic parenting years, I often tried to deny my sons the sublime pleasures of hideously artificially dyed frozen treats..."Sure, you can have an Ice, Sweetheart, as long as it's Coconut." Success was limited. In fact, my parents have a multi-photo picture frame that displays a series of snapshots of their grandsons sticking out variously artificially pigmented red, blue, and black tongues.

I'll bet Minions and extinct reptiles don't worry about artificial food coloring in their popsicles.

Wicket the Ewok Rides a Dimorphodon

Malicious Insipidity Rides Again:
Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #8

While we were discussing who should ride what next in the Star Wars/ Jurassic World series, the two kids ended up having a nasty little spat.  I was having trouble deciding who to put on the Mosasaurus, (the giant aquatic dinosaur who solves the Indominus Rex problem at the end of Jurassic World) so I suggested to them that maybe it should be an Ewok.

And of course if there is an Ewok anywhere, as far as my sons are concerned, it has to be saying "Yub Yub!" This idea of a napkin with an Ewok saying "Yub Yub!' was so entrancing that each of the two kids insisted that he had to have it. As usual, their logic was persuasive but contradictory.  The younger kid argued that the Star Wars Rides Dinos series was his, so he should have it. The older kid argued that it wasn't fair for his brother to have the whole series and that he should get to have at least one.

The situation started to devolve quickly, and since the kids were riding in the cargo bike at the time, I couldn't allow much pinching and poking to transpire without all of us ending up horizontal in the street.  I used my best "how to deal with toddlers squabbling over the same toy" tactic:  Rather than wisely mediating the conflict, I just introduced another variable: "So what do you think a Jawa should be riding when he says "Utinni!"?

The older kid was immediately mollified by the idea of having a Jawa saying "Utinni!" on his napkin.  While the younger one wanted that one too, he was satisfied with his ownership of the Ewok saying "YubYub!"

Crisis averted: everyone would have a drawing of a little creature saying some cute nonsense.  The dinosaurs were kind of beside the point.  Neither ended up on the Mosasaurus....I'm thinking maybe Emperor Palpatine....