Hey all… it’s Tuesday, the day we snoop through Noah’s diary. Why? Because we can. And because cartoon characters can’t sue for invasion of privacy.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025, 11:15am: Day 2 of being shunned by my eldest daughter for the crime of taking her to school as required by law.
Well, I mean, in theory I could homeschool her but then she’d be mad I made her go to the living room without allowing her to watch cartoons.
One year I decided to humor her homeschooling demands over the Christmas break with a week of “Viking Homeschool” and you never heard so much complaining.
“I don’t wanna get up early and row 360 miles to England.”
“I don’t wanna eat authentic Viking cuisine.”
“This isn’t real English monastery gold booty, this is plastic crap from the dollar store.”
Well, you wanted to learn what life was like for our Viking ancestors and you wanted to try being homeschooled. Real learning happens by experiencing.
Frankly, I think most of the problems kids have in school these days is from making them sit in little desks and listen all day. I mean, when I was a kid, we still had that, but we also did or at least watched lots of cool science experiments like making batteries with potatoes and growing bean plants in styrofoam cups and the ol’ collapsing a hot can with cold water experiment.
I mean, Ursula had fun at that summer STEM camp I sent her to a while back LINK even though she hates science and math class, but they built little candy catapults and she likes weapons like that.
But at school they seem to just lecture about stuff and Ursula doesn’t like listening. They talk a lot about local nature stuff and Ursula doesn’t care about that.
She likes dinosaurs and catapults and her Nerf blasters and supersoakers and Lego and stuff like that.
And archery, though she’ll never admit she likes it.
I think what I gotta do is institute a weekly science day at home after school. Sundays won’t work because of extended family dinners and stuff. And then there’s Thorsen Family (plus Frank, plus Adam and Duke’s girlfriends) Sunday Bowling up in Langford on Sunday evenings.
Saturdays we try to get Ursula to do chores like cleaning her room after watching morning cartoons then it’s Thorsen Family Arcade Day followed by Thorsen Family Saturday Skate Night after dinner at the rec center on nights when I don’t have a gig. (I know perfectly well that if I’m not there to drag them all roller skating, they have a little Thorsen Family Mutiny and stay at the arcade. Which is fine from a family time angle but the idea is to get us all up to speed at the roller rink so we can do Thorsen Family Saturday Skate Day outside at the Gorge in the summer.)
Then she’s got ballet on Wednesdays and gymnastics on Fridays, archery on Thursdays, her Creative Kids class followed by karate on Tuesdays…
I guess we could do Mondays right after school ‘cause she doesn’t have that highland dance class that she hates and Agnes insists on until 4:45.
So… it’s settled. Monday is Thorsen Family Science Experiment Day.
I’ll see if Ursula has any ideas of what she’d like to learn about next Monday… assuming she’s willing to speak to me when I pick her up from school later.
I don’t think it helps that Ruth’s on her annual New Year’s Resolution Diet and imposing it on the rest of us. Yet another reason for Ursula to refuse to speak to us… well, at least not directly. She did bring Mr. T-Rex to dinner last night and would tell him things that he was to tell us and of course we can hear her telling Mr. T-Rex to tell us that she’s not speaking to us until we have pizza for dinner and let her drop out of school.
So, I guess that’ll be Saturday since they have pizza at the arcade. In the meantime, I’ll get an earful from Ruth when I get home from band rehearsal tonight.
