Rehearsal

Jordan is performing at Benaroya Hall tonight as part of LENS, a fundraiser for Children's Hospital. The featured guests are the indie rock duo Pomplamoose and the pop-electronica-ambient-something performer Imogen Heap; the boychoir is singing backup vocals for each of them. Last night there was an extra rehearsal downtown. I didn't know why we had to schlep all the way to some club room at the football stadium for a rehearsal, but whatever, I do what I'm told. During warmups the choir director explained to the kids that the next room they would go to would be a lot like this one except bigger and maybe a little chaotic because of all the instruments. Oh, I thought, the band, of course they are rehearsing with the band, and that's why we're here. Great.

Imagine my surprise when we went to the next room and there was a full 100-piece orchestra! And the rock stars too! I had forgotten that they are all performing with the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. It was pretty stunning. It was also a lot of work. There were something like six leaders for any one song (the rock stars, the orchestra conductor, the boychoir directors, and the composer responsible for the whole event, who was also playing drums). They had a lot to work out, in the "do you want us to come in on the second one of these? shall we hold this note a little longer? I need more strings here" vein. The boychoir had to stand at performance attention for a long, long time, sometimes singing and often just waiting.

For me, it was so darned exciting I was out of my skin. What an incredible experience, to be part of such a production, to see how much work real musicians have to do to make an event happen! I had planned to get a bunch of work done while Jordan rehearsed, and instead I was just so pumped up I ran around taking pictures and movies and kvelling with other parents the whole time. It was not actually a photogenic venue at all - it was very crowded, and there was no way to get everything in a frame. But here is a picture in which I have circled Jordan on the far left, the composer (Mateo Massini) on the drums in front of him, and then from left to right Maria and Ben the choir directors, the orchestra conductor, and Nataly Dawn, the singer of Pomplamoose (the instrumentalist Jack Conte is in the blue hoodie next to her). I also took a video of them all practicing a fun 70s hit.

After this event Jordan was exhausted. He had not been able to hear himself at all over the orchestra and the miked singers, so he had been working like a dog the whole time to be as loud as possible while also staying in tune, and when he wasn't singing he still had to stand at attention and be ready to sing on cue. He did this for 2.5 hours with no break. As soon as he was released he drank a quart of water in giant gulps. When we got home he went straight from the car to bed and slept for 11 hours. But he is also excited, and presumably tonight he will be able to hear himself.

Science project

Jordan gave a presentation today about his fourth-grade science project. It was great! He did the experiments with Dale and created the presentation with me.


At his presentation today, he was very poised and comfortable, and got a lot of fun comments and questions. "Where did you get those rocks?" "Did you come up with this question yourself?" "Was this a fun science project?" Jordan seemed to enjoy the whole thing very much. I did too.

Handwriting exercises

Jordan's handwriting homework involves a lot of fun equipment. First he uses these chopsticks to move beads from place to place, using a careful thumb-and-index-finger grip. He likes to sort them into color groups, or stack them.

Then he uses stiff tongs to do the same thing. Pinch to grab the bead, lift up by bending the wrist back, and let go to set the bead down. These tongs are challenging even for me.

Next he is supposed to pull these linked beads apart with his fingertips. This is so difficult as to be a little maddening. Yanking them apart with your closed fist is not allowed.

From there we move on to the fun therapy putty. The first exercise is just to massage it around to warm it up, but only with the fingers, not with the palms or the tabletop. Next he makes it into a snake and pinches it hard between thumb and index finger, sequentially all along its length, three times.

The last strengthening exercise is to hold the putty in one hand and push the thumb down into it. This is also very tiring. Dale has learned that his thumb hardly bends that way at all.

Then he does a little writing. These are the "frog jump letters": you start on the green dot (the lily pad), go straight down (into the pond), then frog jump back up to the green dot for the next move. I notice that when Jordan is doing this exercise, he uses a proper pencil grip. (Then he goes right back to his usual grip when we're done, but that is to be expected.) 

I also quiz him on how to make the letters. These letters are made out of just four shapes of "legos": a long straight line, a short straight line, a big curved line, and a small curved line. I say, "How do you make a P?" and his job is to say, "Long straight line, frog jump, small curved line." A B is "long straight line, frog jump, two small curved lines."

This is all fun and takes ten minutes if we're snappy. Aaron does it too, why not?