[Geocaching] With My Son

Ever heard of Geocaching?

Click Me!

Don't worry, me neither. My wife, however, has been well aware of this for YEARS and kept it a secret for the first 6 months of our relationship. Either that or I began courting her at the end of fall and it just never came up until spring was upon us. Depends on whose side you're on.

Geocaching is a fantastic idea if you have a family and want to spend a day outdoors, if you're an adventurer itching to explore places you've never been to or even by yourself or with a friend looking to explore the crevices of places you're already familiar with. Geocaches are hiding everywhere -- I guarantee that if you visit the above website and search for caches near your area there's at least one hidden in a place you know about. It could be a place you have spent so many summer days hanging out with your friends, never the wiser that tucked neatly behind the bushes in the corner of the park is a treasure that a whole community of people have shared. Maybe it's a playground or wooded area that you have driven past a thousand times but never really noticed.

That was certainly the case for me. My wife and son are not as familiar as I am with the area we live in; I've been here for 20 of my 25 years and they moved in a little over two years ago. The first few caches we ventured out to find were new and exciting locations for them. I recognized the sites immediately and was amazed that for all these years there was an incredibly cool society of people sharing a secret right under my nose that I had now become a part of.

Deacon, much like any kid, is a big fan of "prizes". When we told him that we were going to be going on adventures (another kid favourite) to look for secret (another!) hidden prizes, he was beyond excited. The first cache we sought out was in a residential area off to the side of a road that we had driven past hundreds of times. There was a beautiful wooden bridge over a stream that leads to the reservoir. Geese and ducks were all around. In fact, a small flock of geese flew so low they almost knocked Deke's hat off! But where was the hidden prize? Like the video says, our GPS led us to the area and now it was our turn to make the Marsico Family's first discovery. It wasn't in clear view, but the clue gave my wife and I immediate confirmation of where we should look. We couldn't find it, though, and my son suggested "how about Daddy goes under the bridge?"

I guess the clue (an overplayed, underrated Red Hot Chili Peppers song) was more literal than expected, so I hopped over the side of the bridge, rather gracefully*, and found myself face-to-face with our first ever successful geocache! Deacon was elated and would not let go of the little stuffed American Flag star that we found, carrying it with him for the rest of our caching day (we found nothing else, sadly).

Since that day we have gone on many more geocaching journeys, some fruitful, some not, but always educational and fun. Deacon has been able to study leaves and other plants in different forests that our GPS has led us to and he's learning how to read a compass. Much like many of the activities and games we partake in, he is gaining knowledge through fun and interactive experiences that he gets to share with his family. This is one of the core factors of a successful homeschooling program, but we'll get deeper into that later.

Most importantly, he, my wife and myself are spending quality time together out in the fresh air as a family building memories that will last with us forever, whether we have the tokens to remind us or not.


- Nicholas A. Marsico

* Classic!

Other sources:
Getting Started With Geocaching
Geocaching: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article

[Making Music] With My Son

I possess the smallest amount of musical talent that a human could possibly have while still maintaining the ability to walk a straight line. I'm tone deaf, have no sense of rhythm and I probably couldn't play "Chopsticks" on a piano if it was pre-programmed to automatically run.

My wife began playing the piano at age 6. When she was 10, she tested the pants off the musical aptitude test and was recommended to play the obscenely complicated oboe. The art of percussion took hold when she joined the high school band and was prominently featured playing, among other instruments, the quads and snare drum. To make this comparison even more drastically one-sided, my wife grew up in Michigan where school marching bands vastly overshadowed the football teams they represented.

So... where do you think Deacon acquired his knack for all things music?

As I write this, he's in the other room singing a medley of songs that we have introduced to him and that he's heard on the radio in accordance to the proper pitch, tone, beat or whatever (sorry, I know nothing about music in the technical sense). It sounds like it should. That's what I'm saying. Deke has progressed from tapping his foot to the simple beat of a song to playing his Fisher-Price drums with intensity while singing along and directing me on guitar. In his own words, he loves to "rock out".

Conversely, ever since he chose the ivories of a beautiful grand piano over the plastic buttons of the iteration of an instrument from a dying fad, Wolfgang Amadeus Deacon has been begging us to enroll him in piano lessons. Until he's old enough for that he can continue to immerse himself in amazing pieces such as Danny Elfman's "Ice Dance", one that you may know from the classic Tim Burton film Edward Scissorhands, along with works from Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi and a plethora of others.

Being exposed to music at an early age can help with a child's language development and ability to hear, understand and distinguish sounds. Learning an instrument and playing music helps sharpen the ability to concentrate on a task. Dancing (a future topic here, most certainly) aids and enhances motor skills.





Deacon is going to be way more talented than his parents.


- Nicholas A. Marsico

Other sources:
Music and Child Development
Importance of Music in Early Childhood (Associated Content)
Importance of Music in Early Childhood (Music Together)
Importance of Exposing Your Children to Art, Dance and Music

[Reading] With My Son

My wife and I, over this past year, have toned down the amount of television and video games in our lives in favor of board games, coloring (though not nearly enough), arts and crafts, and most importantly, reading.

Deke is a smart kid and being read to day and night has taught him things that many adults wouldn't be able to tell you. Ask him who painted the Sistine Chapel, what galaxy we live in or how old the average alligator lives to be. If he's feeling especially cynical he'll roll his eyes and lethargically answer you with a tone in his voice that conveys his emotions quite specifically: "I'm not your monkey and these questions are too simple for my highly advanced intellect, father!" The proper response to this, should you ever find yourself on the business end of my son's understated venom, is to ask him how to spell Michelangelo. Then you pump your fist victoriously and walk away with an over-exaggerated swagger while he looks on with a face covered in exasperation and utter confusion.

Every night before bed the Deeker and I choose a book, get inside his bed tent and spend at least half an hour reading. He stops me and asks questions about the story and I point out different sight words for him to read. When we get to his favourite passages in our most-read books he recites the words along with me. It has become a great bonding experience -- the rest of the world doesn't exist when he and I are in his room with each other and a story. He may not want to go to bed, but he knows that his daddy is going to be there, every night, to cuddle up and share a bedtime story.

Being read to has already proven to strengthen his imagination; he and my wife caught The Tale of Despereaux on TV a few weeks ago, and to his dismay the film looked nothing like the world he had created in his mind during the time we spent reading the novel before bedtime. He still enjoyed the movie, but he preferred the book and wants to read it again. It was one of my absolute proudest moments as a father. We want Deacon to love reading just like us, and that was certainly an indication that he's on his way.

- Nicholas A. Marsico

Other sources:
Benefits of Reading to Children
Reading Before Bed

[Swordfighting] With My Son

Interestingly enough, as opposed as my wife and I are to perpetuating violence and violent behaviour, Deacon and I consistently endeavor into the realm of reckless abandon. He has taken great interest in one of my favourite pastimes, professional wrestling (which we will cover at a later date) and he loves video games in which he can control a character that can throw a spin-kick or toss apples at the baddies.

Deke loves to emulate any physical actions that he finds exciting (go figure, he's 4) including trapezing over the furniture into pratfalls akin to what he sees on the "big balls" from WipeOut and shaking his butt like the baby in the Just Dance 2 commercial.

Thanks to the Wii Virtual Console we have been able to revisit old favourites and explore the worlds of games that we have only heard about. I introduced my son to some of my favourites and he has become a big fan of Super Smash Brothers and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. His favourite character in SSB is Link, the wood elf (I believe...) who is the main character of the Zelda series. Link, for those unfamiliar with him (check out the links*!) is a sword-wielding elven fairy boy (Nintendo's words, not mine) that finds himself tasked with saving the royal land of Hyrule. He fights giant green spiders, backflips over pits of lava, sneaks past castle guards and encounters zombie skeleton dog-things. One would surmise this to be a 4-year-old's dream.

As destiny would have it, Target's mostly $1 item bargain section recently stocked up on cheap foam swords. Deacon's head exploded. When it creepily regenerated he begged for the swords, citing that he wanted them "because I love you", a tactic that almost never works with us any more. We promised that if he was good, we'd consider buying them the next time we shopped at the aforementioned French boutique. He was good (ish) and we bought the swords, putting us out $3, which caused me to reconsider staying in college due to the ongoing accrual of debt.

People would probably pay to watch Deacon and marvel at his swashbuckling acumen (which would pull me from the debtors' hole), but more importantly he and I have spent hours going back and forth with our swords and pillow shields. He's Captain Jack Sparrow and I'm Davey Jones, he's Link and I'm a generic video game bad guy or we're both good guys and we have to get rid of the ghosts and zombies. I sometimes wonder if Dekey's predilection for serving martial justice is a sign of his understanding of good versus evil or a warning sign that this exposure to animated violence may have a negative effect on him in the future.

Violence in the media is a largely contested topic; do kids exposed to anything other than the Wonder Pets** become maladjusted introverts completely unaffected by any brutality viewed in the future? Marilyn Manson has been blamed for students murdering their classmates and World Wrestling Entertainment is a regular scapegoat targeted by misguided groups such as the Parents Television Council. It is beyond obvious that children will mimic entertaining actions and verbiage that they witness, be it from people they meet or any mass medium absorbed throughout their formative years. This soapbox beneath me*** allows me to state that it's the job of the parents to monitor what their children watch, but more so it is their job to raise their chitlins with a proper understanding of "right", "wrong", "appropriate" and "inappropriate", among other values.

Let's open this can of worms up for discussion. Is television to blame for the actions of the impressionable mind? Do the creators of TV shows have to consider that children may be watching? Should the networks censor content or remove shows from their lineups because a kid might get the wrong impression? Or is it the job of parents to know what their kids are watching and playing and either stop it from happening or explaining the concept? Is there too much violence on TV? Does it matter? Does your mom hate it?

- Nicholas A. Marsico

* Get it? Links?
** Though I do have plenty of issues with this show.
*** Plus, I'm a father now. Not just talking from my derriere any more.

Other sources:
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology
Parents Television Council
Ridgewood High School, IL