Audrey was given an assignment for math to gather stuff around the house which represented a given set of 3-D geometric shapes. Thanks to Jeana and me, she was able to “find” a number of candidate items.
The assignment was to form a castle, robot, or invention. With a few large boxes accumulated, Audrey set out to make a castle. Something, however, just wasn’t clicking in my mind for this project.
Then, an idea popped into my mind (as if from heaven itself), and I began stacking her shapes into something new. She looked on in disbelief thinking I was a lame dad for not wanting to help with her castle.
With the cans on the bottom for legs, a diaper box for a torso, something for the neck, and a cube for the head, I presented the possibilities of a robot! Still, Audrey was not convinced. Jeana asked, “What about the ping pong balls?” (which were found to represent the sphere shapes in the project). I grabbed the ping pong balls, and placed them against the cube, exclaiming, “Eyes!” And Kate added that a tin-foil wrapped ice cream cone could be the nose.
Ding ding! Audrey’s face totally lit up and the sell was made. Construction of the robot could now begin.
We had two cans of spray paint on hand, yellow and a dark red (which really came out looking brown-ish). Oh well, what can you do? You persuade the others that these are the best two colors. In the end, Kate said something about the brown-ish red color looking like something from Mars, which led to the name Maria, the robot.
All the kids loved Maria, and Simon insisted on being in the picture. Audrey requested that Maria be stationed next to her bed that night, but I objected. Maria slept on top of the TV cabinet downstairs.
I drove Audrey and Maria into school on the project’s due date. I felt a bit like my mom (who has been known to fasten a seatbelt around a doll for transporting in a car) when we loaded up the car because I felt compelled to buckle Maria in. Audrey acknowledged that really was the right thing to do, and of course, I wanted to protect the investment of my previous two nights. Wait, I have to back up. Before being able to buckle Maria in, I first had to decapitate her to make her fit. Don’t feel bad, decapitation was a feature of the frosting container neck which attached the head with the container’s lid. (Let me tell you, it was fun teaching the girls the meaning of the word decapitate.)
When we arrived at the school lots of people complimented Audrey on her robot. As you can see from the picture, this robot was life size! Imagine seeing Audrey trying to carry that behemoth! Yes, it was a comical site.
We found out later that Maria was such a source of distraction to students in the classroom and that Audrey’s teacher banished Maria to stand outside the classroom alone.
“Audrey, did it make you feel good that so many people liked your robot?” I asked. She agreed that she felt pretty special.
