Today, Bad Parent

As I noted in the comments to yesterday's post, this morning we headed out to the 4-H County Fair to see how the girls' project fared (yesterday morning they presented their project to the judges).

What was their project? BoyOnTop asked. They've started a magazine they have titled "Rat and Rabbit Magazine." It is a bimonthly (using definition 1: ocurring every two months, not definition 2: ocurring twice a month [is this not the stupidest word there could be? meaning two very different things at the same time? "Here is the bimonthly report on the bimonthly software updates" -- riiiiight]) magazine chock full of informational articles, product reviews, and Q&A advice columns.

This project has been great for the Consort and I because now instead of having to answer, "Name the types of hay that are OK to feed to your rabbit..." or "Name two requirements that your rabbit must meet in order to compete in rabbit hopping competition..." or, better yet, "List the signs of heat stroke in rats, organized by stage of dilemma..." when we are trying to play a computer game or read a book, we can tell them, "Just write an article about it!!!" and they leave us alone. (Of course, this has meant that they disappear for hours on end in the office, stealing my desk chair and chattering away, so that I have to either put on earphones to drown out their noise with music or do my work in some other, quieter, room.)

This morning, we found out that "Rat and Rabbit Magazine" took the gold ribbon! Best in Class (class being Communications). Woo hoo! This was their first year in 4-H, and they weren't sure how the projects were supposed to be organized (never having gone to the County Fair before). The judge yesterday got them very excited as she suggested they bring their magazine to their local library and offer to have the library keep the past issues in the stacks (oh, my!).

The bad parent part comes in here. See, I brought the camera yesteday morning. But there wasn't anything to photograph. Many of the projects hadn't been submitted yet (we went first thing in the morning on the first day), and I couldn't really take a picture when they were presenting (they keep the parents out in a "waiting pen" while the kids go to the table and do their stuff for the judges). Today, I forgot the camera. One of our friends said she'd take a picture, but as I typed this I realized that ... maybe we can get the Consort to go with us to see the exhibits and I can take the camera then! Phew. Not that that absolves me of bad planning, of course.

How have the girls taken their success? A little too well, I fear. They're already talking of putting the magazine online, so they can actually get it out to people. And using color graphics rather than black and whilte copies of photos. And they have been playing around with designing return address labels and business cards for the magazine. (Thanks alot, vistaprint.) And noting that if the magazine becomes a webzine, they can then get submissions from other rat and rabbit aficionados for guest articles... and.... and.... (What have we started?!)

And I will finish off with another multimedia humor link. This is very funny, and guess what? It isn't even political:

Punctuation in E-mail.