The Glowing Edge

Tag: Boys

  • DIY Ninja T-Shirt Headwrap (and Other Ninja Secrets)

    DIY Ninja T-Shirt Headwrap (and Other Ninja Secrets)

    The Maker is here to give you all the ninja secrets you need.

    I remember shooting this a couple of months ago, and being once again surprised at the stuff this boy keeps inside his head. I know, I know, YouTube. Still, for an 11-year-old dude, he impresses me.

    So. Click “play” and learn to make your silent secret ninja tee-shirt headwrap.

    And because the new video made me think of another he did, I’ve re-posted that one too, so that you can  find out how to do a ninja bow (both with and without a sword.

    But more importantly, you will uncover super secret hidden knowledge about any ninja fight you might find yourself in. Because unlike with normal people, there’s no ring, ropes, or bells. (Notice how I just made myself “normal”? That felt pretty awesome.)

    In fact, it’s terribly important that you watch the second video through to the end. Otherwise you could have your ignorant ninja head chopped off.

    I think.

    Maker-Ninja knows all. If you have ninja questions, please post them and I’ll implore him to reveal more of his hidden ninja secret knowledge.

    Image by thedalogs on Flickr

  • What Boys Eat For Breakfast

    What Boys Eat For Breakfast

    You knew this was gonna be weird, you just didn’t know how weird.

    I have to begin by saying that this is not at all an unusual breakfast food combination for any of the four guys I live with. But somehow the pepperoni-sausage-and-black-olive pizza, hard boiled egg, and cantaloupe just demanded I take a photo, and The Maker was willing, if not yet fully awake.

    And I was fairly pleased about his choice of whole grain toast, I might add. Fiber!

  • The Maker on Stilts

    The Maker on Stilts

    Summer’s here and The Maker, nearly eleven, has an entire raft of projects underway.

    Recently he disappeared for most of an afternoon and came home walking on these fantastic stilts that he made with his grandpa.

    Me: Dude! Those are awesome!

    TM: Thanks.

    Me: How long did it take you to learn to walk on them?

    TM: Three or four tries.

    Me: How tall are they?

    TM: The brace is eighteen inches.

    Me: So what do you plan to do on them??

    TM: Probably get past the creek to places I haven’t been.

    Me: Oh. (thinking for a moment) Where haven’t you been?

    TM: Past the creek.

    Me: Well, right. Of course. So you can wade across the creek on those things?

    TM: Sure.

    Me: Can you go up stairs?

    TM: Yup.

    Me: What can’t you do on your stilts?

    TM: Kick a soccer ball. And I can’t do “no hands” but I can do “one hand.” I hold one stilt in my hand and the other in my elbow pit.

    Me: Do you think girls will like your new stilts?

    TM: (uninterested) Sure.

    Naturally I commandeered the new stilts for my own turn. None of the boys believed I would get up on the first try, but they didn’t know I had spent half my growing up years on stilts.

    Stilts!

  • He Likes Pie!

    He Likes Pie!

    It’s possible this was written as a rap.

    Whatever it is, I found it folded up and drifting around my kitchen, as I find many odd bits of flotsam and jetsam in this house.

    I read it out loud, and found myself giggling. I particularly enjoyed the garbeldy-gook at the end. The Maker is ineffable, buoyant, inexplicable. Oh, and he likes pie; don’t try to convince him otherwise.

    Here’s the translation, as it’s hard to read in the photo:

    Hi, my name is Seth and I like pie, So you can’t

    deny it so just stop trying to make me not like pie

    because it is impossible for me to not like pie

    cause pie is my life

    blebertiedo?

    hipapotamonstrositybiltacilatantovela

    I located further evidence of the claim in the driveway. In case there were any doubt.

  • More Violent Toy Inventions by the Maker

    More Violent Toy Inventions by the Maker

    Stuff like this floats around my house all the time.

    I’ll be cleaning out the cat box and see a corner of lime-green paper behind the washing machine. Voila, I learn how to make my own Smoke Bomb. (I keep waiting to find secret love notes to girls, but so far none of those have appeared.)

    In case you can’t read it on the photos, I’ll transcribe these two gems for you. Btw, be sure to note the safety directions on the Battery Bomb. (???!!)

    Battery Bomb

    take a Battery and a clothespin and you clip the clothepin to the Battery then throe it doun. (do only on Grass)

    Smoke Bomb

    Get a sheet of Paper and scrible chalk on it and Ball it up. Once you step on it it egnites.

  • 5 Out of 5 Stars

    5 Out of 5 Stars

    As if there was ever really any doubt.

    Nonetheless, I have secured the hardcopy evidence and now I submit it into the loving care of the internets, who will be sure to NEVER FORGET that in fact, I rate.

    This also illustrates how cool I am to not only be palindromic (!!) but also up-side-down-ic. Any which way you spin me, I am clearly the wow-est mom ever.

    WoWMoM rulez. (Thanks, IceMage, for the lovely certificate.) (Which I deserve.)

  • First Snow of the Year!

    First Snow of the Year!

    Congratulations to The Maker, age 10, the boy who is first out into the first snow of the season.

    (I’m only barely remembering snow from earlier this year.)

    At least this year he didn’t put all the snow he could scrape up (which in NC, isn’t all that much) into my freezer. I know I took photos of that, but for whatever reason I couldn’t find them. Probably tagged them with “Wha–?” instead of “snow.” Any rate, these particular snowballs were launched joyfully outside at other people, and thus dispersed in an immediately effective and much more freezer-space-saving way.

    Oh, and the glasses are pretty wonderful, don’t you agree? I want me summa those.

  • A Pose for the New Generation

    A Pose for the New Generation

    This is how they look, isn’t it? This is the Ubiquitous Suburban Teen Pose.

    I mean, not all USTs are quite so gorgeous as the ones I particularly have given birth to, but still. This is how they walk from place to place, clean their rooms, dispense reports on their day, and feed the cats. It is their natural posture, evolutionarily adapted over the 14 minutes it took for the texting phenomenon to grab each child by the scruff and shove a wireless device into their deft hands.

    Amazingly, you don’t see many contusions on these USTs. Are they developing virtual rubber bumper car pads, as has been postulated by certain scientific parenting organizations?

    Dunno.

    But I can tell you that if you want their attention you’ll need to text them, even if you’re standing smack in front of their faces in the kitchen, taking their photograph.

  • Henry is a Lackluster Babysitter

    Henry is a Lackluster Babysitter

  • Old Sayings Can be Tricky

    Old Sayings Can be Tricky

    The Maker and I were having lunch together and I was telling him this fairly long, drawn-out story about how his father and I are so different. He was utterly still and listening to my every word.

    I explained how I was the bubbly social one and his dad was the reserved, quiet one (rock bands notwithstanding — c’mon, he’s the bass player, that counts as reserved). I recounted numerous examples then closed my rambling monologue with pithy sentiment tired old cliché:

    “And that’s why they say,” I finished triumphantly, “‘Opposites attract’!”

    The Maker considered this a moment, then crinkled up his brow. “Oh,” he commented. “I thought it was ‘No taxation without representation.”

    I feel like I probably deserved that.

    Image by dwulff (Awesome photo, huh? Cracks me all up.)