The Narwhal - An Actual Arctic Animal

Greg and I are so proud of our first diorama together.  Our assignment was to create an entire arctic scene around our arctic animal: The Narwhal.  I always thought that the Narwhal was a fictional character (kind of like the unicorn) that animators "invented" to be part of the North Pole in all of the Christmas movies.  I was wrong.  The Narwhal is actually a whale that travels in pods.  The males grow two teeth, and one of them grows long into a spiral tusk.  They hunt plankton, shrimp, squid, and arctic fish.  Their predators are the Killer Whale, walruses, polar bears, sharks, and Inuits (who hunt them).  Not fictional at all...hmmmm...Fascinating!

In all seriousness, Austin worked really hard on this project.  We decided to do shrinky dinks, and Austin drew all of the animals himself.  Some of them (polar bear, walrus, and igloo) were printed out and copied onto the "special" shrinking paper, and some of them were drawn free hand.  He worked ALL DAY on Saturday on his drawing.  We did help him with the shrinking process (it involved a hot oven), but by the end, he was putting them in and taking them out himself.  Greg helped immensely with hanging the animals and securing the ice, although Austin decided where everything should be placed.  He was extremely focused and did an amazing job, especially considering that he worked on it ALL day.  We are proud of him for his work! He worked so hard that we rewarded him with ice cream after bath time.   (Macy dropped her chocolate shake all over the floor of the car.  She is slightly on the clumsy side.)  

We knew that sharks hunted Narwhals, but I couldn't figure out which shark.  This is our conversation while trying to "Google" the information:

Me: Would it be the Great White?

Austin: No, they live in warmer waters.  Great Whites don't live in the arctic.

Me: What about this kind of shark (I can't remember which one I found)?

Austin: Probably not because those sharks don't have teeth.  I don't know how it would eat a Narwhal without teeth.  The Narwhal has really thick skin and a lot of blubber.

Me: How about the Greenland shark?

Austin: Yeah, it could probably be the Greenland shark.  They are big, like Great Whites, and they have tons of sharp teeth.  Yeah...That's probably right.

Me: Whew!  (Thinking: I can now cross "sharks" off the list of topics that I can intelligently discuss with my 7-year-old.  Come on!  How could I not know that Great White Sharks don't live in the arctic?!?) 

Macy can be Austin's greatest cheerleader.  She walked in when he was working on it and said (very slowly with great emphasis): "Austin...that...is...so...amazing!  You are doing a really...really good job!"  She also gets very specific at times.  "Austin, you are doing a great job at staying in the lines."  It is so fun to watch them together (when they are getting along).

A couple of life lessons that I taught my son during this project:

• Even though the teacher gives you two weeks to complete a project, you should just think about it and mull over your ideas for the majority of the time.  Then, you should take the Saturday before it's due and devote the ENTIRE day to this one project.  It can turn out fabulously!
• Rather than keep the outline of the assignment and follow it exactly, you can just briefly look over it on the day that it is assigned, and then lose it.  Just do your best to remember everything and hope that it is good enough.
•  When you've finally finished, instead of putting it safely on a table or out of reach of your younger sisters, you should balance it on top of the staircase which tempts Macy (we've already established her clumsiness) to knock it down the stairs.  (Greg actually taught him this lesson.)  It was a close call.

Side Note: Sometimes I watch "Cold Case" (until I start having dreams about dead people and then I have to stop watching Jerry Bruckheimer shows).  I was watching one the other day about a woman who went to work while her husband went to war.  When he returned, he wanted her to quit her job.  She explained that she could never be content with being a wife and mother now that she had experienced "work."  This isn't a discussion about working mothers verses stay-at-home mothers.  It's just that as Greg and I were going to bed on Saturday night, we talked about how we will probably remember this day as one of the highlights of our life.  Maybe we aren't out there "changing the world," but we spent the entire day, working together as a family, helping our son and learning about a subject that he enjoys.  This really is a great time of our life, and there are days (like this) in which I feel totally content (and extremely grateful) being "just" a wife and a mother.