Charles had the media room sealed off again today. Our conversation, staggered over other events, went like this:
Charles: Don’t go there. That section sealed off.
Dad: Oh. Why?
Charles: To protect people.
[Dad drops by later to see Charles in the sealed off section]
Dad: I thought that section was sealed off.
Charles: It is.
Dad: Then why are you there?
Charles: It sealed off to protect other people.
Dad: Because it’s dangerous?
Charles: Yes.
Dad: Is there any propect of it not being sealed off in the future?
Charles: Not until Mom moves the laundry.
Dad: It’s the laundry that makes it dangerous for people?
Charles: Yes!
The soccer game went well for Corwin’s team. They won 11-0. I thought they should have pulled out the better players earlier in the game, say after it was 6-0 or so. I think Jack got three goals by himself. Corwin scored a goal as well (although initially he was in tears because he didn’t start).
The kids were doing a lot better at playing good soccer. There was lots of passing — Corwin got his goal on a long pass from Jack. Later, when they were both downfield again, Corwin was pressing the attack when Jack called out “It’s my turn to take it in!”. What was amazing was that Corwin actually passed back to him.
In the afternoon Corwin and I went to baseball practice. Corwin did pretty well, although he needs to learn that throwing baseballs at base runners is generaly frowned upon, not to mention that it doesn’t make the runner out even if you hit them.
As part of our wild night on the town I arranged to leave with children with friends of the family (Laurie’s parents). Corwin was very excited about this, asking about it in the morning and a couple of times after he got home from school. Charles had a positive attitude as well, if not quite as eager as Corwin. Alice didn’t seem to have much of an opinion one way or another.
We left them there for a long evening (about 4½ hours) but despite that the boyen were still wide awake when we picked them up. Alice had crashed out after failing to cause any sort of major or structural damage to their house.
Charles took the drop off in stride, but Corwin wasn’t clear on why his parents wanted a few hours without his companionship. I suppose it’s a symptom of just how often Mom and I go out to party. Anyway, he did at one point accuse of us wanting to do kissy stuff but I assured him that we wouldn’t be doing anything as cootie-inducing as that.
Today is Mom’s birthday. She’s not going to be home much tonight, as we are going out for a wild night on the town (as only two married engineers with children in a small MidWestern city can do). Feel free to express your birthday wishes for her in comments. Or send her e-mail if it’s something she should enjoy more privately…
Mom shares a violet with Alice after getting home from the lab and forgetting to turn off her visual security field
Charles has been spending a lot of time building with Legos recently. His major project has been his “Texas bus” which you can see here. We thought by “Texas” Charles meant “big” but he really meant “goes to Texas”. He had a Texas house for a while but it fell victim to a rampaging Alice-saurus before I got a picture of it.
Charles’ explanation went something like this:
Charles: How many cats does Mimi have?
Dad: Oh, four or five I think.
Charles: Mimi live in Texas. [holds up bus] This bus go to Texas. We visit Mimi in Texas.
Dad: Yes, we did. Did you want to visit again?
Charles: We not go tonight. It a long way to Mimi’s house. She lives in Texas. It very far. You have to drive for a long time and it dark now.
Charles had acquired the habit of closing doors, particularly the doors upstairs. It’s been frequently the case for the last week to have every single upstairs door closed when it’s time for Charles to leave. He particularly likes closing the door to Alice’s room, or as he calls it “the baby room”. Once I’ve changed Alice in the morning or gotten her fresh clothes, Charles closes the door and then puts one of his signs in front while announcing “the baby room is closed”.
P.S. Charles is now sealing off other parts of the house. When Mom took Corwin to his violin lesson, she also packed up Charles and Alice so I could be home alone for a while. As he was leaving, Charles stretched one of his cloth ropes across the media room and announced that the media room was closed for the duration. He made sure that I understood that I wasn’t to go in the media room in his absence because it was closed.
This evening Alice played chase with me for the first time. I would stomp loudly along behind her while she toddled as fast as she could around the house, laughing so hard she would almost fall down. She’s at that age where kids find it hilarious when a parent does the same thing they do.
Corwin had his first official baseball game today. I thought they lost but Corwin claims they won 5-2. Corwin was 2-2 at bat and one run but didn’t get anyone out.
Mom got in trouble from Charles because he spotted a mess of his artwork in the garbage. He carefully extracted it and told Mom not to throw his stuff out.
At daycare the staff asked me what I did for a living, because they’ve decided Alice is a baby genius. Three things tipped them off:
I have to agree that Alice is an annoying clever little pooper. Today she noticed that I was getting Charles ready to go to daycare so she popped off and fetched her shoes. Mom has to lock the cabinets with rubber bands to keep Alice from emptying them on the floor and Alice is clever enough to not bother trying the cabinets when she can see the rubber bands on the handles.
The new house has a hot tub / jazuzzi. We had never used it until last week when Mom, in her way, decided that we should start doing so. We had the local pool people out to clean out the gunk that had accumulated in it over the previous 1½ year of disuse. Finally, last Friday, it was ready and Mom started enjoying the glories of hot water and bubbles.
Alice seems to like it, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s that or being with Mom and having just a swim diaper on.
Charles tried it but he found it frightening and hot and won’t go in again. He’s not afraid to be nearby, though. Today while Mom, Corwin and Alice were in (Dad is out for a while with a very nasty blister) Charles noticed some wet footprints, went off to get a towel and started cleaning them up. I’ll miss that when he grows out of it like Corwin did.
Corwin tried the hot tub for the first time today. Mom invited him to try on Friday but she stated that he had to clean himself first, which was too much of a start up cost. Today he had to take a bath anyway which made it OK. He seemed to like it, which we expected as he’s been in other hot tubs before.
Corwin had his first semi-real baseball game today, although that’s a matter of some disputation. When they organized his team, the sponsors got enough players for two teams, so they split the kids. Corwin has played against this other twin team in a short, practice game so perhaps that counts. Today was supposd to be a series of short games against a variety of teams, sort of a pre-season double header. Corwin did quite well. He got the only hit for his team, made an out and while he didn’t catch the ball all the time, he at least stopped it (as opposed to watching it roll past two other players in succession).
However, it was so cold and windy (we had a freeze warning last night) that the first team quit after two innings, even though they were ahead. The team for the other game never showed up at all. I had poor Alice with me and she was pretty miserable so I didn’t let Corwin stay to practice with a few of hardier kids who stayed. Besides, I was hurting from spending an hour yesterday squatting and picking up rocks from the home field (it was squat and tear up my thighs or bend and hurt my back and I can deal with thigh aches a lot easier than back aches). I can also tell that pictures are going to be a bit more difficult to get than for soccer.
Oh happy days! Erica has finally surrendered to our brow beating and agreed to come back for another Summer of Fun!
No soccer update this week. The game was canceled, apparently because of the weather. It’s cloudy, 40°F with 24 mile per hour winds and possible drizzle / rain. The coach couldn’t understand why little things like that would cause the game to be canceled. I figure that it’s because the light conditions for photography were too poor (I like my zoom telephoto lens but it does need a lot of light). But just to keep your soccer thirst quenched, here’s a shot of Corwin attempting to launch a soccer ball in to orbit (I think this one landed on the other half of the field before the bounce).
Mom decided that we should all go out for pizza last night. While we were there, Mom was doing something and asked Corwin what 8×8 was. Corwin complained that he was only working on his 2s table. I responded by telling him that 8×8 was 2×2×2×2×2×2. He didn’t think that was any better, but I made him work it out anyway. Then it was the moment I had been waiting for — I was now able to introduce Corwin to one of the essential facts of life that a Dad needs to explain to his boy: exponentiation. In a matter of seconds I was able to get him to dive under the table to escape. Then I knew that the message was getting through to him.
Alice is quite a strong baby. I normally notice this when she’s being Princess Grumpy-Pants. When that happens and i hold her in the armpits horizontally she can lift her feet above her head, holding her entire body straight out. Changing her diaper when she’s not in the mood can be quite the struggle as well. Alice’s daycare staff commented on this to me today, as they frequently have to clean her hair after lunch (since she’s the princesss of mess) and this can be quite difficult because Alice is such a handfull.
This morning I noticed this Alice trait because she wanted to play with the sink again and the little ALICE bench wasn’t in place. She figured this out and went over to move it in to position. The bench is about two feet long and made of wood. I was surprised to see her pick it up entirely off the ground and carry it. She’s also got a bit of an arm on her so she would be quite the terror around 2 or 3 when she blends those two things together.
But as you can see, she’s not just a strong body — she is fashion incarnate as well.
This morning, for the first time, Charles had milk on his cereal. Normally he eats it dry, with the milk separate in a sippy cup, but today he asked me to put the milk on the cereal. He managed to eat it without spilling much more milk than Corwin normally does.
Corwin, on the other hand, is allowed to pour his own milk, although watching him try to heft a full gallon of milk can be a scary experience if you’re the one who would have to clean it up.
This morning Charles set up an “office” for himself on the couch and spent most of the morning “working” there. He’s got the wrap around desk just like mine, with his pad of paper and pencil (which is mostly what I’m using for work these days). When I told him it was time to do his morning cleaning, he told me he couldn’t because he had to finish his “work”. If you look closely, you can see the lines of Charles style writing he’s put on the paper.
In the background you can see his “green boxes”. It has a number of socks in it, each filled with toy cars. Charles offered me these several times this morning: “You want sock with cars?” and again this evening, at which point I finally broke down and accepted one of the socks with cars. It seemed very important to Charles.
Corwin had his last den meeting of the season yesterday. It was his turn for snack so I picked up some roasted miniature crabs and roasted seaweed. When it was time for snack, I put those out on the table just to see what reaction I’d get. It wasn’t the most popular snack offering we had had in the den…
Because I’m a softie, I had some backup mini-Oreos and Cheddar Goldfish, which seemed more popular with the scouts. A few of them did try the weird snacks. Nobody (including me) liked the little crabs but a couple of scouts liked the seaweed.
We got some sad news about Secant over the weekend. She’s had some problems with her mouth so Mom took her in to the vet last week. It turns out that she’s got an aggressive malign oral cancer that’s already got in to the bone. There’s not much hope for treatment, especially since Secant is at least 16 years old. Secant doesn’t seem to be much bothered by it at this point so Mom doesn’t have to make a hard decision quite yet.
Alice can now climb three steps up the ladder to Corwin’s bunk bed, as opposed to just the first one. This means that she can’t be left in that room for even a minute without observation. I used to be able to trap her in there while watching one of her brothers do their morning washing (which neither will do properly without supervision — Corwin “forgets” to wash his face every single morning). Her increased ascension skills render that untenable now.
Alice is getting better standing balance as well. While we were out at the pond Alice demanded to try Corwin’s scooter. She was able to stand on it while I pushed it around with only some help on keeping her hands on the cross bar. I suppose that’s a big advantage to being a petite flower.
I had to take the children to soccer practice tonight, as Mom was “working” late. As soon as we set down Charles gets his bucket of cars and starts setting them out carefully on the grass.
Charles: These are my cars in the parking lot. They’re over here because they are in danger.
Dad: In danger from what?
Charles: People! It’s twenty to six.
Dad: It’s what?
Charles: They in danger because it twenty to six. Over here is another parking lot [puts airplane off to the side by itself]
Dad: [Checks cell phone time. It reads 5:40. Freaky…] Charles, how did you know that?
Charles: This is my green boxes! [holds up car container]
Later everyone is home but Mom is still missing.
Charles: Where Mommy?
Dad: Mommy at work.
Charles: Mommy stay all night again?
Dad: I don’t know.
Charles: Is Mommy coming home?
Dad: Yes, Mommy will make it home eventually.
And she did! Princess Grumpy-Pants was happy to see her as well.
Alice has taken a liking to the sink. In this she follows both her older brothers, who also went through a phase where the sink and in particular running water in the sink was fascinating. I can still remember when running water in the bathtub frightened Alice so much that you had to fill the tub before putting her in. Now, she tends to want out as soon as it stops.
Her fascination with the sink is not without its downside. She likes to hop up on the footstool with her brothers when they are doing their morning washing. Needless to say this greatly irritates the boyen. It’s not just the sink — Alice quite likes her brothers and interacting with them so when one of them is using the sink, it’s double plus good.
The other day I was trying to wash Alice and she was having far too much fun with the sink and water for me to make progress. I figured I’d wear her out by setting her on the edge of the sink, laying on her tummy to play with the water. Sadly, Alice has her Mom’s level of determination and this didn’t slow her down a bit.
P.S. The stool was made by Mimi and reads “ALICE”. Also, here’s a video of Alice playing with the water.
Today’s big event was a church sponsored walk to raise money for alleviating world hunger. It was 6 mile walk around the town. The whole family went. Charles was in the stroller, pushed by Mom. I got Alice in the baby backpack. We made Corwin walk the entire way himself, which he managed while only starting to complain about half way through. Alice and Charles were well behaved too, with Alice taking a couple of naps in the early going. Mom put a hat on Alice and she was still wearing it when we finished. Charles was willing to stay in the stroller the entire time except when he needed to
Corwin’s soccer friend Jack’s family was planning to go, but he got sick (so sick he even missed the soccer game). Jack’s older sister and Mom were there, though and Corwin, being the intensely generous boy that he is, pestered Jack’s sister just like Jack would have had Jack been well enough to come along. She told me that Corwin made an excellent Jack substitue. It wouldn’t do, you see, for Jack’s sister to become accustomed to not being pestered. The shock of Jack’s recovery might too much for her then.
There was also a sign for our church group which fascinated the boys. When the leaders were first passing them out to the various groups, Charles said he wanted one and broke down in tears when I told him he couldn’t (since there was just one per group). When we started, Corwin insisted on carrying the sign for our group. Not too far in to the trek, however, Corwin became tired of holding it (I suspect not only boredom but the fact that it made pestering Jack’s sister more difficult). Corwin gave it to Charles, who held it up in front of him in the stroller. As Charles tuckered out from the exhausting effort of being pushed along by Mom, it moved to just be laying on him (as you can see) and eventually stuff under the bottom of the stroller.
Everyone was OK except for me, with one large popped blister on one foot and one small blister on the other foot. I expect I’ll only need a week or two to recover, during which I’m sure Mom will be happy to cover for me.
Here’s the picture gallery. Not too many, it wasn’t the very best opportunity for photography.
Mom’s Uncle Harry came to visit today. He was in the area for some other activity and decided that as long as he was nearby he’d come over and see the family. He got the tour of the house and then we wandered over to the pond. It was a very nice day and I finally got to show Corwin the huge grass carp that live in the pond (they’re very shy and hard to spot, especially later in the year when the water gets murkier). We found out that Mom’s cousing Erika (Harry’s daughter) is expecting a girl in a few months, which will be her first child.
After watching Corwin play, Alice gets his soccer ball and started kicking it around herself
This week, Corwin had to make a hard chioce — soccer game or Pinewood Derby regionals? As you can guess from the title, he went with soccer. That’s what I recommended, since he only got fourth in the pack I don’t think he would have gotten very far at the next level.
As it turns out, this was probably for the best because it was a beautiful morning to be out and the team was very short on players. Several of the better players were missing (some at the Pinewood Derby, some sick). Normally there’s enough kids to almost field two complete teams but today they only had one spare. Corwin played the entire game non-stop but was goalie for only one quarter. He also scored two goals on the way to a 5-0 victory. Josh also scored two goals and Megan got one as well.
On the photography front, I used shutter priority at 1/640 last time. This time I used shutter priority again but at 1/800. I think they turned out a little better. There’s still some motion blurring which I think adds a bit to the picture. You can see all of my wonderful efforts (and some soccer too, I guess) in this gallery.
Corwin recently asked us for a raise in his allowance. Why, exactly, I’m not sure. It’s not like there’s anything he’d like to buy that he can’t that would become affordable with any concievable raise in his allowance. Like, for instance, it’s not going to go up enough for him to afford one of these. What’s more bizarre is that most weeks, Corwin forgets to ask for what allowance he already gets. He could effectively double his allowance just by remembering it. I recommended this to him but he didn’t take it very well. He did, however, remember to ask for his allowance that weekend. Which he carried around like a prize until in a moment of forgetfulness, lost it1. Next time I think I’ll suggest not losing his money as way to increase his income.
1 Amazingly, Mom found the money out on the front lawn the next day. Being the softie she is, she gave it back to Corwin.
I just wanted to note that while many people have to put their garbage cans up on chairs / tables / etc. to keep their pets out of them, we do it to keep Alice out of them. We used to keep the lids down on toilets for the same reason, but that doesn’t work anymore.
Lucky for her she’s so cute:
On Tuesday, Alice fed herself for the first time that I’ve seen. I had fed her myself earlier, but left a half filled cup of yogurt and a baby spoon on the table with the Alice Grasping Radius. She pulled it off and started chowing down. She ended getting a reasonable amount of the yogurt in Alice instead of leaving it external. I have a video of it but I took it in the wrong orientation and it’s been a long, hard and so far unsuccessful struggle to get it fixed. (Here it is, small but viewable)
Alice also gave us a good scare today. Around noon I got a call from daycare that her hands were very cold and starting to turn purple. I said I’d pop over and take a look. I got there within 15 minutes. During that time Alice had apparently become cold and purple-tinged all over with “lips as blue as her denim pants” and then recovered, so by the time I saw her all she had was some not warm hands with a bit of darkening. Alice was not the least bit bothered by any of this, however, continuing to play normally the whole time.
We called the hospital and we’ll take her in next week for a look, or immediately if it happens again. The nurse I spoke to said she’d seen that kind of thing before, although she didn’t indicate what happened to those children. I guess we’ll find out.
Charles has been doing a lot of “writing” lately. He fills pages and pages with his brand of marks. Sometimes he hands out the results as messages, sometimes he hangs them as signs and other times he just keeps them to himself, as references apparently. Woe betide the one who throws any such note! I carried a set of these home from Corwin’s last Cub Scout meeting and Charles wasn’t happy because some of them got a little bent. He had some in to my office specifically looking for them so I was unable to make them quietly disappear.
This picture is from Uncle Bruce’s office. Charles has filled the whiteboard with his writing. I like the way Alice is humouring her brother by pretending to read the text. She’s such a sweetie.
I was informed by Alice’s daycare staff that she has exceeded their expectations and is, apparently, the messiest child they’ve ever seen. I was told that there was a little boy there of whom it was said “no one could be messier than him!”. That was until Alice arrived. She is now the champ. The staffer told me, with a bit of awe in her voice, “if you just give her a piece of plain white bread she will make a big mess out of it”. Oh yes, I can believe that, I told them.
When we took taken Alice off of the bottle that we thought the days of Alice dribbling milk all over everything were done. Nope. Alice has a remarkable knack for generating milk related messes even with a sippy cup. Just a few days ago I was holding her in my arm while she was guzzling and suddenly I noticed that my arm is getting wet. It was Alice dripping milk from her face. She is truly the champion of mess.
Charles was in quite the mood last night.
Mom served porkchops for dinner and so she gave herself and me sharp knives, with butter knives for the spawn. Charles didn’t much care for that and demanded that he get a sharp knife too, breaking down in tears at Mom’s refusal. He was sad until Alice, sitting on Mom’s lap, tried her own grab for Mom’s blade. I moved it out of reach while Mom told Alice she couldn’t play with it. Charles then started to lecture Alice himself, explaining that she wasn’t old enough to have a sharp knife, that she was too little and would hurt herself with it. I broke up laughing at Charles’ so earnest lecture. This really cheesed him off - “You stop laughing!” delivered with heavily furrowed eyebrows and a stern (for a four year old) voice.
Later on, Corwin asked for his allowance. Charles saw this and demanded his own dollar. Luckily Charles isn’t tuned in enough to notice the difference in the denominations of money so we could just give him a single. He carried it around with him the rest of the evening. As I was trying to get some work done after the kids went to sleep, Charles cames trundling down the stairs, hysterically wailing that “I want my tah-wah!”. As usual, I couldn’t figure out what he was going on about. Finally Mom, woken up by Charles’ heart rending cries of despair, explained that he wanted his dollar. I managed to locate it off the side of the bed and once restored to his monetarily complete state, Charles went right to sleep.
Mom took the day off to do our taxes. This put her in a wonderful mood as you can imagine. To add to our joy, we also got a letter today from the IRS claiming we owed another $45,000 in back taxes and penalties from last year. It was a bit freaky for a while after that. However, Mom and I tracked it down and it’s now clear that it’s a mistake on the part of either the IRS or the financial firm that we dealt with at our former employers. I’m still a bit disequilibriated. On the bright side, it looks like Mom plowed most of the way through and we have enough money to pay the still due taxes. But just in case, maybe I should set up a donation button …
This afternoon we made Corwin do another item from his list of Cub Scout requirements — help out at his church. I mentioned this to Jack’s mom and she pointed out that she’s a Sunday school teacher and could use help cleaning up after the ruffians little angels have departed. Sadly, we had already committed Corwin to playing live, in front of an audience, at a dedication for a new Steinway piano at the church. Corwin played the violin with Mom accompanying him (I begin to suspect that Mom did this just to get a chance at the Steinway). It went quite well, Corwin played straight through without music or any obvious stops. Corwin also managed to largely avoid my camera, so no good pictures from this outing.
Today was another soccer game. It was a bit warmer and far less windy today, making it actually a nice morning. The game was good and Corwin’s team even won (2-1). Corwin didn’t play goalie at all, though — mostly midfield and forward. He did get some good kicks in. He may not be as accurate but he sure can kick the ball further than the other kids.
But enough of that! The important part was that I got to wear my new shirt with the logo pictured to the left (does it look familiar?). I put it on a little while before we left, because it was a hectic morning and I figured better to have Corwin notice it too soon than to not get to put it on. I needn’t have worried, though. Corwin’s general lack of situational awareness came in to play. He didn’t notice the shirt until half time and only after I pointed it out to him. He immediately tried to button up my jacket so it couldn’t be seen, but the game started up again before he could do that.
In the evening we had the families of two of Corwin’s friends, Jack and Mara, over for a cookout. This was part of Corwin’s Cub Scout requirements. The kids got to playing immediately, no need for a parent to jump start anything. They played outside for a while and then headed, en masse, down to the basement. A general melee ensued employing various inflatable weapons. It was chaos incarnate down there but only a moderate background noise on the main floor, which I think shows that the basic concept a success of the kids play area a success.
Part of the play outside was with Corwin’s new basketball hoop. Mom went out shopping for cookout supplies and ended up buying a portable basketball hoop. I managed to put it together in the afternoon after Corwin’s game and shopping without killing anyone or losing any fingers. On the other hand, Corwin spent the entire time between the end of his soccer game and going off to baseball practice right before the cookout complaining about having to pick up instead of getting to play with the hoop. Now, of course, he’ll never go to Mara’s house again.
Corwin demonstrates why Dad should pick out the roasting sticks
You’ve got to be careful with children, and I suspect that they’re likely to make you a better person because they reflect any bad habit you have right back at you. The case in point to today is standard phrases Mom and I use with the boyen. We’re now hearing them from the boyen as well. Corwin, in particular, likes to berate Charles with stock phrases when Charles isn’t being cooperative (such as explaining that if Charles doesn’t eat his dinner, he doesn’t get a treat afterwards). I can’t decide if Corwin does this to poke at Charles or to be helpful. I suspect it varies from time to time.
Imperious little Charles can be funny and disconcerting this way as well. This evening Mom was four sheets to the wind from early morning hacking and I was trying to deal with the poopers.
Charles: I want some milk
Dad: I’ll see what I can do. You need to find your sippy cup first.
Charles: I not know where is it. You go look for it.
Dad: I’m not the one who wants milk.
Charles: I tell you to do that!
Dad: Sadly, you do not get to tell Dad what to do.
Charles: You do what you told!
I think he picked that one up from Mom. I gave him the mini-lecture on the key authority differences between “Dad” and “boy” and dropped his milk delivery to the bottom of my priority queue. I’m not sure how effective the latter was, as he seemed to have forgotten the request by then.
Living with Charles these days is like living with a large spider. His scotch tape habit has gotten out of control. I certainly appreciate the clever and inventive projects he uses it for, like
but there’s tape everywhere, like discarded bits of spiderweb. One runs into to strands of it stretched across various open areas, or has to break through it to open cabinet doors. Oh, how I now dread the words “I need some tape!”.
On Monday both Mom and I went to Corwin’s soccer practice, which takes place at his school. Off to the side is a small playground which Charles likes to play at by himself or with his cars. I don’t get to see Corwin practice soccer, even when I take him, because Charles always insists on going over to the “park”. Monday was no exception — Charles endlessly repeated “I want go park” until I gave in and took him over there.
Today was another practice and Mom was getting everyone ready to go. Charles turns to me and says “You go to soccer?”. At first I thought Charles was looking for some fatherly companionship but suddenly I realized that Charles had thought it through and realized that if Dad went, then Charles could go to the park. I gave him a big hug and told him what a clever little boy he was.
Alice visited the doctor yesterday. She got a MMR shot and generally poked and prodded. She was pronounced healthy, although her rate of growth slowed down a bit.
Weight is 19 lb 14 oz. Length is 30 inches.
Sadly this will be the last visit to the current doctor. Since he is not associated with a clinic, he can no longer get anyone to cover him on his time off.
Corwin will be playing baseball this spring, in addition to soccer. Mom took him to his first practice today. I was hoping that we’d finally found a sport that Corwin didn’t find compelling but it was not to be. Corwin had a great time and is now desparately eager to have his parents purchase the full range of baseball sporting gear. At least when he can drive it will be a mixed blessing instead of pure despair for us.
We finally got Corwin to go over and visit one of the neighborhood kids, Mara. We had all dropped by for a bit on Sunday while on a forced march nice walk about and Corwin noticed that they had a basketball hoop. Monday afternoon, after Corwin got home, he was pestering me to take him somewhere with a basketball hoop. I had to get some work done, so I suggested that he do one of three things:
This combination of carrot and stick was enough to get Corwin out the door and over to Mara’s house, where he apparently had fun playing. He needs something to do in that dead time between getting back from school and officially scheduled activities!
Since we’ve gotten back, Charles has been doing a lot more by himself with respect to getting dressed. He can now get his own underwear (it’s in a basket on top of his dresser, so it’s not within easy reach) and socks (in the same basket as the underwear). He will sometimes put on new clothes without prompting, which is actually a bit of a problem if Dad’s too tired to remember what exactly Charles was wearing the day before. Charles can sort of put his socks on but he’s not very good with the orientation (he has a similar problem with underwear). But he’s getting there.
P.S. A completely unrelated picture from our trip. After swimming the creek, Charles was cold so we bundled him up in towels. I wanted to get a picture but he wouldn’t even poke his head out. The J-Mom finally tricked him in to looking out by saying “Isn’t that Jessie over there?”.
I think Alice has her first word, “nana”. She uses it to mean either “banana” or “food that I want to eat”. She uses phrases to mean “Mom” but she’s not consistent about it. Alice is adjusting well to her new room at daycare as well.
Alice is fascinated by pens and pencils. She likes them even more than toilets or rooting in a garbage can. I have a hard time keeping them in my vest because if I pick up Alice, she’ll pluck them out. Instead of trying to distract her with a stuffed toy when she’s sad, I wave a pen near her.
Mom fixed the door to the cabinet that Charles broke. While she was working on it Alice got in to the DVDs. She cried piteously after Mom finished working on the door and put them away behind the glass, clearly visible but beyond reach.
Today was the first official soccer game of the Spring 2005 season. It was a cool and very windy day, making it rather brisk on and off the field. I had made Corwin wear one of his new hi-tech undershirts that we got for him in Texas so he wasn’t too bad off but some of the other kids were just in shorts and game shirts. Alice and Charles spent most of the time cuddling on Mom for warmth. Later Alice cuddled with Dad, which made taking pictures difficult. With the combination of Alice squirming and the wind good focus was just not possible.
Corwin started out as goalie but had some difficulty with the goalie vest. He got so tangled up in it that the coach came out to help but couldn’t figure it out. He had to take it completely off Corwin in order to get it on correctly.
On the other hand, Corwin had a good game day. He got lots of game time and made some excellent saves as goalie. Corwin played mostly defense. Even when officially on offense, he still tended to hang back for defense. A good game, even better because Corwin’s team won. They scored 4 or 5 goals, each one by a different player which is always a positive thing.
Talk to the foot
