What did you do in school today?

Orthodox Temple

So, Mars and Ida disappear for hours every day and then if I concentrate, I can hear the occasional distant rumble of wooden blocks being pushed across the floor. Every once in a while, one of them comes downstairs to ask me for something specialized like "hot glue gun" or blue paper. I continue with my kitchen cleaning, or email communications, or even work out in my studio for a few hours. They have been working on a monolithic temple structure for weeks. It must be a genetic disorder; their brother Ivan built countless cathedrals and baseball stadiums with the same blocks before he eventually went off to animation school.

Sometime later in the day, maybe after dinner and before bed, I will go up to see what they have added to it today.  

I wonder privately what the people of this temple worship. They are OK with the graven image, as there is a beautiful tryptich of a mother and baby with two figures on either side ensconced on the top floor. Marsden copied it from something he had seen Ivan make for a cathedral many years ago, so I don't actually take the imagery too seriously. It could just be an homage to the breast-feeding mother, who has two other moms standing next to her talking about homeschooling.

So, as usual, it s another day with alot of art and design going on here at home, a bit of functional geometry and physics. Ida will come down and work in a math workbook if I remind her...she at least will know how to carry numbers. Marsden will have to bring her with him if he ever suspects someone is cheating him at Home Depot. Either that, or he will just continue to calculate in his head, which he is exceptionally good at. He remains vigilant about not poisoning his mind with any comprehension about how to write down mathematical calculations. Ida will also practice her violin when reminded, but Marsden will just pick up his guitar and play for awhile several times a day.

Meanwhile, their older brother Leo is asleep for most of the morning, having undoubtedly stayed up until the wee hours working on any one of his many web projects. He is at the tail end of building a website for a jewelry company, tying up the loose ends of a tutorial website that he and a friend are about to launch, and then the beginning of new project having to do with creating a visual chart application for social network users to be able to measure and chart their on-line activities....  and oh yes, he also took the PSATs this week just as a practice run for next year. He knows how to carry numbers.