Corwin finally had to go back to school today. No more long, lazy days wondering when Mom or Dad would finally snap and turn off the TV. Corwin had wanted to go back to the place with the indoor water slides but things have just been too hectic lately to get organized enough ahead of time to make it happen. We’re still trying to decide if we want to go out to the Atlantic coast for a week as we did a couple of years ago. Corwin has stated that he’d rather go to the water park, but I think Mom would prefer the beach.
We made it back from the Children’s Museum without any major meltdowns or accidents. Corwin and Charles had a good time, although Charles was more responsive when asked afterwards. He’d say his trademark “Yesssshhhh” whereas Corwin would respond “stop asking me that!”.
Mom was a bit concerned when we started out, because Corwin was excited about watching DVDs in the van, Charles was excited about just riding in the van and Dad was hot to play with his GPS unit. The Museum itself seemed to rank somewhat lower.
However, the boys quite enjoyed it once we got there. When we first got there, Charles refused to go in to the exhibits but preferred to sit on one of the benchs in the hall and play with his new train cars on the ledge behind the bench. Eventually we got him in to an exhibit that involved water and he was OK after that. There were several places that had train set ups which Charles liked, although he didn’t like the fact that the really nice model trains were behind glass so he couldn’t touch them.
Corwin covered most of the Museum, wandering about in his peripatetic way. He didn’t wear out on the exhibits until about 15 minutes before close, at which point he hit the Museum store. The end result is that both Corwin and Charles had to be dragged out even though it was closing time, which probably counts as a success. Alice didn’t seem to care much one way or the other, however.
Jacob’s mom alerted me to some girlie clothes for sale cheap at a yard sale last Saturday. However, it was a slow morning (Alice had been cranky the night before), so we didn’t make it to the sale.
Fortunately, the yard saler was a friend, so Jacob’s mom trundled over the clothes for us to peruse at our leisure. Not sure about Jacob’s mom’s motivation. It think it is part a misplaced need to buy girl clothes (she just had a boy baby), and concern that my baby is underdressed (my stance is that sleepers and onesies are fine for infants).
However, the dresses weren’t too frilly, kind of nice actually, so we bought quite a few of them. Alice wore her first dress this Wednesday. Now we just need to get one of those bow head bands.…
Took Alice to the doctor last Thursday to get her second hepatits B shot. She took the shot like a trooper. She squealed while it happened, but calmed down pretty fast after I got to pick her up.
Corwin came along. He was concerned on Alice’s behalf about the shot, and he wanted to know whether he and Charles had had shots as babies.
They weighed Alice too before the shot. She is now 10 lbs 10 oz. Finally bigger than all but the most extraordinary newborns!
It rained quite a bit yesterday and the dead end street next to the house flooded as it usually does. I had been out to pick up Charles because Mom had an engagement at the University. I was distracted dealing with Alice upon our return so the boys managed to get out their wheeled vehicles and tromp through the puddles before I noticed. At that point, I figured they were in for baths anyway, so I took them down to the pond (the preparation for which is an epic tale in its own right, due mainly to Charles’ sensibilities and lack of diction).
The pond was quite full and the run off stream was filled to capacity. Charles spent his time digging in the sand. Corwin played in the stream for a bit. He did like the tiny (2 foot) dam and the waterfalls going over it, but he complained that the water was too cold. I was a bit concerned about going over the grass while it was soaked, but the stream only flows right after a rain.
The beach had a big channel dug in it from the runoff. Not satisfied with the natural beauty of the valley, the boys immediately started on some water control projects. They created dams and ponds, although Corwin learned about failure modes for earthen dams. He eventually got to the point of making three layers of dams so that he could watch them collapse in sequence. Charles helped with some of the excavation and adding additional water to the system to encourage its collapse.
After a couple hours of transforming a pristine sand valley into a devasted area of failed large scale engineering projects, we headed home for some baths.
We’re finally taking the ghost out for a real day trip. We’ll be driving over to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum for a day of fun. Last week was Corwin’s spring break, which he spent most of glued to the TV. Mom and I got bogged down at work and couldn’t get the time away to do anything (although Corwin was fine with being a vegetable). Corwin and Charles are excited about the trip. Charles because he just likes riding in the van and Corwin because he will be allowed to use the DVD player. I’m not sure how much I’m going to enjoy after staying up all night with a squirmy Alice.
UPDATE: We had a slow morning because Mom and Dad were tired and Corwin had soccer practice at nine, so we didn’t get moving early enough to get there in time, so we’ll be trying again tomorrow.
Mom let me go out for an evening yesterday to a Wierd Al in concert. Mom was originally planning on attending but somehow, mysteriously, things worked out such that she couldn’t go. Just a sad coincidence, I suppose. Corwin was tired, I guess, because he refused to go as well.
Anyway, it was a very good concert. Wierd Al did a nice selection of songs from his body of work. As one reviewer commented, he had more costume changes than Cher. There were three large screens behind the stage where video clips would play while the band changed costumes. It was all good, but the encore with The Saga Begins and Yoda was particularly good. I missed not hearing King of Suede or Frank’s 2000 Inch TV but he couldn’t do everything.
Now I’ve got a cool Wierd Al shirt to wear. This is the Life.
Corwin is doing well, although he’s picked up the annoying habit of parroting things that Mom and Dad say instead of responding to statements or questions. I got him back a bit on Saturday.
Mom had dropped the two of us off at the bowling alley while she did some home improvement shopping. We were late so we only got in one game before a bowling league showed up.
I didn’t bowl very well, but I still beat Corwin (I had informed him that if he got a higher score, he was grounded, although I don’t think that really affected his game). Corwin got a 96 despite his technique. Have the gutters disabled helped him quite a bit as he would frequently bounce the ball off them back in to the pins. It didn’t affect my game as I never had to make a corner pin. Mom later told me that we could have played without the guards but I didn’t realize that at the time. The alley is actually heavily automated. You sign in using a touch screen panel and it keeps score for you, showing you which player is up. There are options to raise or lower the guards apparently, but by the time I had found a ball and returned to the lane, Corwin had already signed himself in and was bowling.
Corwin’s current style of release is to charge up to the line with the ball clutched to his chest and then explosively fling it into the lane. I worked on him a bit to get him to swing his arm with the ball. He did that a few times but he’d immediately lapse back in to fling mode. He was impressed the one time I got him to watch me release because I managed to do it right and he couldn’t hear the ball touch the lane.
When Mom retrieved us, Corwin and I both had to sit in the back of the van because Mom had purchased some 8 foot lumber to build her guarden beds and the front seat was folded down to accomodate them. As we traveled, I attempted to enage Corwin in conversation but he decided to do the parroting thing. I then informed him that every time he did that, I would tickle him. Corwin responded to this gambit by becoming more subtle.
Corwin: “You’ll tickle me every time I copycat?”
Dad: “Yes. I think that’s fair.”.
Corwin: “No. I think that’s unfair.”
Dad: “Unfortunately, that’s the way it is.”
Corwin: “Unfortunately, that’s not the way it is.”
Dad: “Maybe I’ll just tickle you anyway.”
Corwin: “Maybe I won’t just tickle you anyway.”
Yes, with an eye for loopholes like that, Corwin turning out to be a lawyer-jock seems more likely all the time.
Since I don’t have much material right now, I’ll just give a short roundup of how things are going here.
Charles is doing better about sleeping in his bed. It’s been over a week now and he’s only resisted once and that was because Mom hadn’t read to him yet. Charles was very slow getting up this morning but he was laying awake on and off in his bed and didn’t run over to ours. I even pulled him out at one point to get him to wake up and he went back to his bed. It’s looking like we’ve finally worked this one through.
Alice seems to be sleeping a bit better, although every second or third night she decides to stay for hours and gets very cranky if she’s lain down. If Mom gets desperate than Dad takes Alice down to sleep on the couch. Dad can actually sleep there and prop up Alice in such a way that she’s not horizontal. That seems to be the key when she’s in one of her moods.
Alice’s coloring seems noticeably better to me. She seems much less ruddy, which probably means that her bilirubin problems are behind her now.
Some long time friends of ours, Fred and Jennifer, came over for a visit. They live in California but were out visiting family. They brought their son Sean (2 years old) along. They all liked the basement, which is nearly as big as their entire house. As we showed them around the house, Corwin immediately ran off to get his pinewood derby trophy. Fred acted suitably impressed which made Corwin’s evening.
As part of the visit I got out the big glow sticks. These were a hit, as always. Corwin and Charles popped outside for a bit to sword fight with them but it was windy and chilly so they didn’t last long. Charles made Corwin switch at least twice, even though the sticks were identical. Corwin is saving his in the refigerator (the sticks glow well a second day if they’re keep frozen) but Charles left his behind the TV, where it wasn’t found till the morning. Sadly, there’s no point in saving just one because Charles will need a new one and it seems unfair to in effect punish Corwin for having the foresight to save his. But it also seems wrong to not save Corwin’s. Ah, the moral dilemmas in raising children.
Since this has been rather a poop themed month, I thought I’d share our morning adventure in poop with you all.
It started with Alice, who, after saving for a day or two, finally let loose while I was hold her on my lap. It didn’t sound all that impressive but when I opened her up, she’d blown out her diaper. For the boys, blowouts were a back side kind of thing. Alice is a bit different in that she blew out in the front, all the way up to her armpit. This is probably a sign that we need to put a bigger size of diaper on her.
Next up was Charles, presumably in revenge for restricting his milk at night to prevent diaper overflows. Charles got up around 8 AM and went down to play on his computrer while I caught up on some web stuff. After a bit, I caught of whiff of something not quite right and decided that Charles needed a bath and new diaper. When I went over to pick him up, however, he’d blown out his diaper rather spectacularly over over himself, the fabric covered chair and the floor. I don’t know if he had a normal but large poop which he spread by bouncing up and down and wriggling in the chair, or that he blew his diaper out up front. What was odd was that it wasn’t until I came over to pick him that his poop encrusted state caused him distress. I dropped him off in the upstairs bathroom for Mom to clean and bathe while I was tasked to deal with the floor and chair. We still need to wash the rug in the bathroom, and I’d recommended against using the red chair in my office and my insides still hurt a bit from all the dry heaving, but otherwise we’ve recovered. I just hope that Corwin doesn’t get competitive about this.
We’re still concerned about Alice’s eye color. Mimi, my mother, has been agitating for a blue eyed grand daughter since we got married. However, before Alice her grandchildren were four boys and one brown eyed girl. The announcement of Alice’s upcoming arrival gave her some hope, but it’s looking like it will be another disappointment for Mimi. Mom and I think that Alices eyes are going brown, although they may end up hazel. It’s remarkably hard to tell because we can only look at them in low light situations. If there’s any kind of bright light, Alice will close her eyes (and of course, she’s sleeping most of the time when we’re awake enough to check). However, they’re still very dark and if they were going to be blue, I’d think that we’d see some lightening by now.
On the other hand, green / hazel eyes would be neat (my father had that eye color) because then we’d have different eye colors all around. And we’d be able to tell Mom and Alice apart.
On Sunday evening I decided to be more forceful in the Charles potty training effort. To try and prevent another overflow problem, I tried to get him to use the potty before going to bed. I got him on the potty but he wouldn’t actually use it. I tried the running water trick, and the hand in warm water trick but it was all completely ineffectual. I did notice that he was so thirsty that after a bit he started pulling his hand out of the water and sucking at the drops, at which point I gave up and put him to bed.
Charles got up very early Tuesday morning (4:45 AM) and wanted to come sleep in our bed. Seeing an opportunity, I demanded that he use the potty before he was allowed in. I once again got him on the potty, but he still refused to use it. I decided to wait him out.
Shortly after 6 AM, Mom woke up and came in to spell me while I caught up some sleep. Mom gave up around 7 AM and sent Charles to his own bed. I should note that Charles was sitting on the potty for almost all of this time. So we now know that he can hold his bladder for at least a couple of hours, as long as he is sitting on a toilet.
I was sitting on the couch with Alice on a recent morning when I had to get up to provide milk for Charles. I didn’t want to wake up Alice, so I gently let her slide off me on to the couch. Well, sort of on the couch. Secant, our big cat, was sitting next to us and Alice ended laying on Secant. Secant was apparently OK with this, as I had time to wander off, deliver the milk to Charles and get my camera to take a picture. Alice is a warm little baby like her brothers and Secant is a cat who frequently sleeps directly on top of the warm air vents, a perfect match. At least until Alice weighs more than the cat.
We keep the sippy cups on a floor level set of shelves by the refigerator. Mom used to keep the cups, lids and stoppers assembled but with the press of time she has given up on that. Charles, however, has not. He took off downstairs this morning after some deviltry upstairs. I heard him banging about and went down to straighten things up. I found him sitting next to the shelf, carefully matching lids to cups, putting in the stopper and screwing on the lid before putting it carefully on the shelf. Apparently the extra 3 or 4 seconds it had been taking Dad to do that assembly was unacceptable slowing down the milk delivery process. But Charles wouldn’t tell Mom or Dad that. Far better to engineer a solution that doesn’t require verbalization.
I know I shouldn’t write about other people’s children, but if they interact with mine they’re fair game.
The den mother’s 4 year old daughter Chloe was at the Pinewood Derby as well. She’s a very chatty little thing, although a bit of a gold digger. At the last den meeting, she asked me if Corwin and Charles could stay over. I told her that I’d look in to the issue.
While Mom, Charle and Alice were watching the races, Chloe came over to play with Charles, although Charles didn’t think very highly of that. At one point she was smothering him with affection and I had to rescue him. I offered to let her take Charles home, but she had changed her mind since the last time (women!). Shortly afterwards, Chloe wanted to hold Alice. Mom didn’t think she was capable, but Chloe claimed she was quite capable and demonstrated her “strong muscles”. Having been rebuffed by Mom, Chloe wanted to hold Charles. I should note that although Chloe is a year older, Charles noticeably outweighs her. For this reason, her attempt to hold Charles (despite her impressive physique) was doomed. The result was a Chloe and Charles pile on the floor as Chloe slowly sank under the mass that is Charles.
Chloe’s next project was collecting gifts and money from the audience. She told me that I should buy her a Po doll, since Charles had his Dipsy doll with him. Her mom told me that she got a cupcake out of someone else. She tagged me for a quarter. Charles had made a mess so Chloe helpfully picked up a napkin and brought it over. As I reached for it, she said “that’ll be $29.11”. I told her that I wasn’t going to pay that much for a napkin but I’d be willing to pay a quarter. Chloe was fine with that, as long as I paid up front.
Is this what Alice will be like in 4 years?
Charles is doing a bit better about sleeping in his own bed. The last couple of nights he’s let me put tuck him in to own his bed without protest. At first I would have to stay in his bed with him to get him to sleep (one sign of progress was when, about a week ago, Charles came in after I put him in bed and dragged me over to his room, rather than trying to stay in ours). After a while I was able to just sit nearby and read to him. But now I’ve been able to just tuck him in two nights in a row. Patience with persistence has let us gradually change Charles’ behavio and hopefully this represents a break through where Charles has finally accepted sleeping in his own bed.
We’re still struggling with potty training and bed wetting. These are closely related, because we can’t make Charles use the potty before he goes to bed. He now has enough bladder control that when he finally lets go it’s too much for his diaper to handle at one time. I put a fresh diaper on him right before tucking him in but still, Mom and I take note on those nights that Charles doesn’t wet his bed. We haven’t worked on potty before bedtime because we’ve been more concerned with getting Charles to sleep by himself. But it might be time to start working on potty before bedtime.
Today was the big race. Corwin and I had to run out this morning to the office to do some final work on the car, to bring it up to the correct weight. Corwin and I went to the Boy Scout store yesterday to pick up some extra goodies, including weights for the car. Back in my day, those were made of lead but modern, ecologically insensitive boys apparently use zinc these days. As it turns out, however, zinc is a somewhat stronger metal than lead. This makes working with it a bit more of a challenge. Corwin can’t use lead because it’s hazardous but he can’t really work with the zinc either because it requires the use of dangerous tools. Maybe I should have gone with the BB and epoxy scheme.
We went to the office because it has a scale we could use to weigh the car. It took a lot of cutting and grinding to get the weight down to the legal limit. I worked on the weight for a bit after the scale was at 5 ounces because I wanted to be sure that it would pass even if our scale and the official one rounded differently. It ended up taking about an hour to get everything set. Corwin selected the location for the weights and put them on after I had adjusted them.
We then returned home, put some graphite on the wheels and headed out for the race. I was impressed with how much difference the graphite made. The wheels easily spun almost twice as long with graphite.
My one true hope for the event was that Corwin would win at least one race. A total of 21 cars were competing and they actually did it as a round robin so every car raced 20 times. After waiting while everyone got registered and voted for the best looking cars (there was one other car that had been painted by the child, so Corwin’s wasn’t off the bottom end of the scale in terms of visual quality) it was time for the first race. One of the two cars went off the track so they called for a re-run. The two kids immediately took off down the track for the cars. Unforunately, one of them got tripped up in the cables and knocked the timing electronics box on the ground hard. It never worked again during the day. I looked at it a bit but the insides were wirewrapped circuts (people still do that? Amazing!). Something had been jarred loose but none of us could figure out what. My primary thought during this whole process was “At least it wasn’t Corwin”.
The event went on in manual mode (just like when I was a boy…). Eventually it was time for Corwin’s first run. It was over in three seconds and Corwin won! Mom had arrived by then and I told her “OK, that’s enough for me - he’s not going to get skunked”.
But it wasn’t enough for Corwin. He kept on winning. By the time he’d won 7 or 8 times he was literally bouncing whenever they’d call him up for the next run. About the same time I mentioned to Mom that while my worst fear was a shutout, my second was a victory for Corwin, because then what would we do next year? Mom just laughed at me the way she does when I tell her I’m going to pick up other women. However, Corwin ran up a 14 win streak before being done in by car #1, which was the car of one of the other boys in his den, named Seth. Corwin won the rest of his runs so he finished 19-1. Two other cars (#1 and #8) also finished 19-1. As best as I can tell, Corwin beat #8 who beat #1 who beat Corwin.
They tried doing a three car double round robin but that ended up in a three way tie again. The cars were so close in speed that which ever was on the right side track won the race. Finally they resorted to timing the races by hand. This was slightly better than just flipping a coin but at least it looked more reasonable. As it turns out, the hand of fate favored Corwin that day and he won the entire derby. I was very proud of the fact that when they announced second place for Seth, Corwin didn’t spontaneously bounce to his feet and shout “I won!” out loud. I could seem him straining in place but he held firm. An unyielding mountain of will, that boy.
On the way home, Corwin asked me if Mom or I had even won a first place trophy. Not in the pinewood derby, I told him, but he said that he was asking about any trophies. What does he think of his Dad to wonder if I’d ever won first at anything in my entire life? I pointed out that I had won a few first place trophies, mostly for math. I asked Corwin when he was going to start winning math trophies. He said that he was going to concentrate on Pinewood Derby - that was his thing.
As I write this, Corwin is still carrying his trophy around. I told him to put it in his room but he said “I want to hold it!”.
Charles, on the other hand, wasn’t very happy about the trophy. His response was “me too!”. As I was unable to supply a first place trophy, Charles popped upstairs and got one of Mom’s running trophies (which, being one of Mom’s was of course first place). He then carted that around so that he could be like Big Brother. I was surprised that Charles remembered that Mom had trophies. Clearly Corwin didn’t.
Later in the evening a painter came over (we’re looking at redoing some of the exterior paint and finish). Corwin spent his time interupting the painter, Mom and I to point out various interesting facts about his car (such as, it came in first). Especially cute was Corwin coming over to the table, slapping down the trophy and saying “I was in the Pinewood Derby today”. Mom finally put a stop to that by making Corwin go practice the violin.
Corwin’s godfather’s wife just had her first child, a boy named “Bleys”. He weighed in at 7 lb, 14 oz. and 20 inches long. Everyone is doing well.
We talked to Corwin’s teacher yesterday about Corwin’s progress in school. She said that he as a good kid who was doing well, so it wasn’t the most exciting meeting possible. He’s already reading at the level he is expected to by the end of the year.
He did a puppet play with another child in his class, although he refused to talk about it with us. His teacher said that there had been some creative differences between Corwin and his partner. Corwin had wanted to the puppets to journey to Mt. Everest but they compromised on the Arctic. I was surprised that Corwin knew that kind of geographic detail.
Corwin’s story that won a school contest didn’t win at the district level. Oh well. I’m still impressed that he writes well enough to be in the running.
The oddest part was that an evaluation was done on Corwin and his highest percentile was in “Artistic Ability” and his lowest was in “Academic Skill”. That’s not on track for being an engineer!
I once had a co-worker ask my why I referred to my little poopers as “poopers”. This is, of course, a question only one without children could ask. Later on, his wife had twins and he sent me a note saying “OK, after one week and 150 diapers, I understand”.
Charles was demonstrating this in fine form the other day. I got home a bit late (around 7:30) and of course, Charles had a full diaper. I took care of that, after which Mom ran out to the store, leaving me with four boys. Before Mom got back, Charles had once again filled his diaper. As I took him up to change him, I sang “poopy Charles, poopy Charles” to him. He responded with “poopy Daddy, poopy Daddy”. At least his language skills are improving.
So, the next morning, Charles managed to fill another diaper. As I ripped him away from the computer to take him up to the changing table, we had a little conversation.
Charles: “Nooooo! Firetruck!”
Dad: “Charles, you made poop in your diaper. You need a new one. You’re a regular poop machine”.
Charles: [very slowly] “poop … machine? … VRMMMM! VRMMMM!”
Jacob and his family have been coming over to visit a bit this last week. This is Jaxon1 and Jared, Jacob’s little brothers. They’re sitting on our couch, having their minds rotted away by modern video entertainment while their mother tortures me. I’ve been working on doing some remodeling in my office and she’s been doing layout and design of the setup. For this picture, she’d dropped by to show me the latest drawings.
We also had Jacob and Jared over last night. We have a parent-teacher conference this evening for Corwin. We tried to get babysitters (because Corwin isn’t allowed to go and Charles would not be much help) but both Sophie the neighbor girl and Erica had neglected to clear their schedules with us before committing to activities! The disrespectful youth of today. Shocking.
As a result, we traded off with Jacob’s family. We got Jacob and Jared last night and they’ll get stuck with Corwin and Charles tonight.
What did they do while they were here? Well, Corwin hadn’t used all of the paint from his pinewood derby effort so the boys got in to that. From what Mom tells me, they spent most of the time seeing who could mix the grossest, blood looking color. They managed to create some colors that were a bit stomach turning, especially when spilled on the floor and you weren’t sure it was really paint.
Corwin did help me a bit while I was cleaning up, although he showed no interest in that until I got out the spray cleaner. Corwin was willing to help with that.
1 No, that’s not a typo.
The boys got in to the sticker supply the other day. I’d bought some little sticky page markers, which the boys like because they dispense easily (more easily than normal stickers). With their usual level of restraint, they emptied the entire set of them onto every surface and many non-surfaces. We were picking them off the floor and other places for a couple of days.
As you can see here, Charles even used them to enhance his hairstyle. I didn’t put those there, I just discovered them. Even Mom ended up with one in her hair (although she forbade me to take a picture of that).
It was quite an effort to get this picture. At first Charles wouldn’t sit still, and then he noticed I was using my cute little camera which he still covets. Eventually, though, I triumphed, even if the picture is a little out of focus.
The den meeting went OK, no fatalities or big disasters. Decorating the treasure boxes was a big hit, although figuring out the hidden objects did not work as well. The kids were much better at it than I had anticipated and too bouncy to have them all in one line. Next time I need to make sure I have enough to have them all do stuff in parallel.
There were only two rough spots. The first was after we did the hidden objects, I gave them out to the boys. I got to see first hand pack behaviour. At first there was just shouts of “me! me!” with regard to who wanted one, but then one boy said “I want the hammer!” and instantly every other boy shouted that he wanted the hammer too.
The same thing came up with snacks. Mom bought a six pack of blue drinks and a six pack of red drinks and one of blue drinks. As soon as I gave a blue drink to the first boy, everyone else wanted a blue drink as well and there weren’t enough to go around. Corwin demonstrated his independent streak by asking for a red drink since red is his favorite color. The lesson here is don’t have differentiated items for packs of young boys.
While Corwin was building his car, Charles wanted to participate as well. Because of the use of real paint and power tools, I couldn’t let Charles get too involved, which distressed him greatly. Mom came to the rescue by going out to the garage and finding a chunk of wood of roughly the same size as Corwin’s car. Charles happily applied some sanding sealer to it, after which he went off to do other Charles activities.
Later, after Corwin painted his car, Charles went on to paint his block of wood. He primarily just glooped paint on to the block, creating a surrealistic blend of red, black and yellow stucco decoration. As soon as he was done painting, he wanted to hammer on it, because he had seen me hammer the wheels on to Corwin’s car. He was in for another disappointment as I insisted that he let the paint dry (and as thick as it was, that took a while). Of course, by the time the paint was dry Charles had forgotten about it.
I managed to get roped in to leading one of Corwin’s Cub Scout den meetings. I’m not quite sure how that worked out but the den mother has probably had years of intensive training all aimed at achieving this kind of mind control. Further, any woman who voluntarily invites 10-12 young boys over to her house on a regular basis is flat out crazy and you don’t mess with crazy people. Nod, smile, agree is a much better way to go.
On the other hand, this responsibility meant that I could order stuff from Oriental Trading Company with only some minor rolling of the eyes from Mom. I got some pasteboard treasure boxes, some stick-on gems and iridescent stickers. Along with some markers it should be an interesting exercise in decoration. Alternatively, it could be humiliating exercise in ruining Corwin’s view of his Dad, the seminal “you’re embarassing me!” moment. But, hey, I like to live large and dance on the precipice.
Alice weighs 9 lb 13 oz and is 22.5 inches long. The Doctor said that was a good weight gain (2 lbs since last month). He was a bit concerned about her coloring, so he had her do another bilirubin test. She also got 4 immunization shots, so she was pretty grumpy for a while.
Alice was a popular girl on our business trip. Most of this is because she is just so cute, but it was also that she was a good girl (I blame that on Mom). There was quite a bit of “oohing” and “ahhing” between the sessions as people would come over to check her out. She didn’t spew much during the day (and not on anyone except Mom once or twice) which helped enhance her image.
One of the evenings was a team building event. Alice spent most of the evening being handed around to various people who wanted to hold a baby for a bit. Alice was very patient with the whole experience, probably because that, being her mother’s daughter, she immediately recognized the career enhancing nature of the situation. I’m sure Alice is just planning ahead, realizing that it’s hard to be the spoiled princess if your parents don’t have well paying jobs.
There was one incident, though, that was almost a problem. One day when we got back to the hotel, Alice spewed a bit. I got her towel out of the baby carrier and noticed that it had chunked brown stuff on it. I decided that maybe that wasn’t the best towel to use so I went and got a different one. After getting Alice cleaned up I noticed that her outfit had the same problem. Mom became concerned that we’d been showing a poop encrusted baby to various people. She then checked the carrier and it was encrusted as well. Mom became quite concerned but then noticed that there was half a brownie in the carrier as well. She’d apparently put it there after a break and forgotten about it. Silly Mommy!
Next Saturday is the Pine Wood Derby for Corwin’s Cub Scout Pack. I had been putting off building the car due to the rush of things but with just a week before the big event it was time to get started.
I persuaded Corwin to do a simple design, with a shallow wedge in front and a longer wedge in back. I tried cutting the edges off with a hacksaw but I managed to bend it up. While I was looking for my nice wood cutting blade Mom got out the big wood saw and had at the block. It was not quite as smooth as a finer blade would have done, but it wasn’t bad.
The next step was some sanding. I did a first pass with my palm sander and then it time that special moment in every man’s life when he first finds the love that will be with him forever - power tools. After showing Corwin how to use the sander, I gave him the block and sander and he fired it right up and started sanding.Oh, what a precious moment it is to pass the lore and joy of power tools down to the next generation.
After sanding a bit, we went down the basement and put some sanding sealer on the car. After that dried Mom got out some acrylic paints (sadly, Corwin’s not old enough yet to use a power painter, but some day he’ll be man enough to handle it). Corwin actually worked on the painting for a long time, although he finished with the car first and then spent a while mixing paints to see what colors he could make. The orange on the top of the car is a Corwin blend, a custom color he made especially for this vehicle (if it weren’t so precious emotionally I’d auction it on E-Bay). Corwin helped me grind and polish the axles, marking his first use of a Dremel drill. After that I put in the wheels to produce the butt kicking hunk o’ wood you see in the picture. All that’s left is to put in some weight to give this baby some pep.
The hardest part was convincing Corwin that he couldn’t play with the car like a toy until after the big race. I expect that it will last until the day after the race, at which piont Corwin will play with it for a while and then leave it where Charles can get a hold of it. No car, however sturdy, can survive that.
I think one of the memories of Charles I’ll carry with me is his happy dance when he has a new toy car.
Mom went to Walmart today. She announced this fact beforehand which caused Charles to instantly demand pants. He also submitted to socks, shoes and a coat, if that’s what it takes to ride in the car. At one point Mom was conferring with me as to her purchase list while Charles was pushing on her leg saying “c’mon”. He’s got his Mom’s headstrong nature and his Dad’s monomanical focus.
I don’t think Mom got Charles anything the first time but by the second trip he’d worn Mom down and she bought him a new toy car.
I found this out as I’m looking to see if Mom needs help with the groceries. Charles rushes over to me saying “open!” and holding up the package with the car in it. As I work on opening it, I can hear Charles start breathing faster. He’s making these little pre-happy moans and then he starts bouncing up and down on his toes.
Dad is opening the package and then I will have my car!
I have the package open in moments and I hand it to Charles, who pounces on it like a starving peasant on a fresh baked loaf of bread.
I then discover something else about Charles and his cars. He has many that are the typical hauling truck you see moving furnitute and such around town. Of course, these are not put together with the highest amount of structural integrity and it doesn’t take much time with Charles for the backs to pop off. Like the first people to try hagis, Charles has made a virtue of necessity. After just a few minutes with his new truck, he asked Mom to pop the back off. When Mom told him that it wasn’t supposed to come off, Charles resorted to a technique that’s succeeded in the past - throwing the truck at the ground as hard as he can. Sadly, this car is made of sterner stuff than other ones and stubbornly refuses to disassemble. Charles seemed to accept this, but I suspect that he’s just biding his time until he has a better throwing arm.
Alice finally had a poop today. She hadn’t done that for the last few days of the trip, which was convenient but disquieting. However, her bowels are still functional. According to Mom, Alice made up for the missed days in a single effort.
It’s quite a contrast from the boys, who would poop three or four times a day. I remember days now and then when I would change three poopie diapers on Charles before I dropped him off at day care. Just today Charles had to be changed three times from about 2:00 to 8:00 this evening. Corwin wasn’t quite as consistent performer as Charles, but he did it with a lot more gusto, enough that we referred to him as “Storm-Pooper”. That’s a boy who gave meaning to the term “blowing out a diaper”.
Alice, however, seems to be made of more delicate stuff. I blame Mom’s influence.
We’re all back now. Mom left yesterday and I got in this afternoon. The boys were fine, if a bit indifferent to have Mom and Dad back.
My trip was routine, if long, while Mom had bigger adventures. It was so windy that her first flight was canceled and the second was a couple of hours late taking off. When she finally made it back, it turned out that a seat belt buckle had gotten in the way of the door, causing the interior lights to stay on and drain the battery. She managed to hitch a ride home with Jacob’s family. After I got back, we managed to get the car started with help from our boss who was on the same flight as I was.
Mom and I are dead tired, but hopefully we’ll recover in a few days.
Alice got through her first two plane trips fine. The pressure changes didn’t seem to bother her at all. She only cried a little bit, primarily when she got hungry. Otherwise she mostly slept through the whole thing, as you can see from the picture. She doesn’t seem to miss her brothers very much.
As part of this expedition, Mom bought a new snugli for Alice. It has worked out well. Mom can actually get Alice in to it without help (previous version normally required two people).
Mom actually let me drive from the airport to the hotel even though Alice was in the car, but after a bit of excitement involving a concrete barrier on the highway, Mom’s back at the wheel. I still say she distracted me.
Mom and I are off on a business trip this week. We have Alice with us but we had to leave Corwin and Charles behind. Erica and Grandma will be looking after them in the house while we’re gone. Unfortunately, we had to have the neighbor girl babysit this afternoon until Erica could arrive. So we had to leave them with someone they hadn’t stayed with before (although, since she’s a neighbor, they’ve met her).
Corwin was completely unconcerned. It’s a grand adventure for him and he always enjoys spending time with Erica and Grandma. Charles is a different case, though. He’s much more dependent on Mom and Dad. I dont’ worry so much about leaving him with Erica (of whom he is quite fond) but it was far more heart rending that I had thought it would be to leave him as we headed for the airport. I couldn’t explain to him (as I can with Corwin) that Mom and Dad would be gone for just a few days.
As I headed for the door he looked up at me with those big blue eyes of his and his concerned expression. I had picked up Alice’s carrier but Charles stopped me and made me put it down. Then he grabbed Mom’s hand and put it on the carrier saying “hold Als”. He pushed me back and then sent Mom and Alice out the door, closing it behind them. I was then taken over to my office and told to sit in my chair while Charles watched Corwin obliviously playing on the computer. I sat for a moment, until Charles was absorbed with watching Corwin and then took the opportunity to sneak out.
P.S. We checked in with Erica this morning, everything is going fine. Mom and Dad are just overly concerned. Erica got stuck with Charles, but at least this means that Corwin won’t come over in the middle of the night complaining that Charles is snoring so loud.