Alice was bouncing around on Corwin and Corwin’s bed. I didn’t see what happened but it seems that she landed on Corwin and the footing wasn’t what she expected, so she slammed her lip in to a book shelf next to the bed, giving herself a major bloody lip. I pulled the screaming and bleeding child off the bed, but she wanted to be comforted by Mom who, unfortunately, was taking a shower at the time. I tried to calm Alice down but she flailed around so violently that I had to put her down, at which point she promptly ran face first in to a wall trying to find Mom. I ended up having to roust Mom out of the shower to hold Alice,who went from thrashing and screaming to just mewling as soon as she saw Mom. Mom, on the other hand, got to come out of the shower to an audience and ask “what can I wear that Alice can bleed on?”.
P.S. Alice was fine and no longer bleeding in 10 minutes or so. Sadly, I don’t think the experience was traumatic enough for her to constitute a learning experience, as she was back to bouncing on her bed within a couple of hours.
Corwin went off to skate with Jacob this evening. When he came back, he complained of his head being over heated, although Mom checked and his head seemed fine, a bit cool if anything. Yet he spent a while laying on the couch with a bag of ice on his head. We got a call later from Jacob’s mom when she got home that Corwin had fallen on his knees to much that the staff had recommended that he ice down his knees. After that I checked on his knees and yes, they were quite bruised and starting to swell. Not that Corwin had mentioned anything. I moved the bag of ice he was using to cool his head to his knee, even though it’s not likely to help much at this point.
Today was our big party day. We sent out invitations for an open house and some people actually showed up. We had a number of people show up who we had known very long ago who had moved back here but we had never gotten together before. One of our guests noted that he had met three different people, none of whom he had talked to in at least fifteen years.
All of the children had fun in the basement, although there was quite the cover of debris afterwards. I will say one thing about having other children over — all the toys that get ignored become suddenly wonderful toys once some other kid starts playing with it.
After it was all over, Charles discussed the event with Mom:
Charles: The party is over.
Mom: Yes it is. Charles, did you have fun today?
Charles: The party was a long time.
Mom: Yes, but did you have fun?
Charles: Yes.
Mom: Should we have another party tomorrow?
Charles: Yes.
Corwin: Jacob won’t be able to come if we have a party tomorrow, because he’s painting his room tomorrow.
Charles: I want my own room.
Charles, for some reason, has started singing “Everybody dance now!”, which is from when Mom still lstened to music. We have no idea where he picked this up from. Uncle Evil said that what he liked best was Charles’ falsetto. You’d think a child’s voice would already be pitched high enough, but Charles can do quite the high and piercing falsetto when he wants. Over and over and over …
Eventually, Mom decided that she’d dig out an old CD she had of this album and put it on for Charles. He and Alice thought it was great. They both went in to the living room with the stereo and starting dancing for all they were worth. Mom tried dancing with them for a while but had to sit out. The two of them wore me out as well. Mom watched them for a bit and said “Alice is going to be a club hopper, isn’t she?”. The girl does love to dance.
One of Corwin’s Christmas presents was Gnip-Gnop. Corwin practiced this on his own until he could get his balls through the loops rapidly. Once he had that mastered, he challenged various family members to games in which he crushed them like insects. However, Dad spent a game or two honing his technique and then challenged Corwin back. It was a tough contest but Dad managed to pull it out and win. He then jumped up and tried to run up the stairs to let Mom know that he had defeated the reigning champ. Instead, Dad twisted his ankle on the stairs and was lame for a few days. But, he remains the Gnip-Gnop champion of the house.
Alice likes to curl herself up in bed, even though she doesn’t like to sleep. She can move pillows around and pull up the blankets all by herself. But she always manages to stop herself and escape before she suffers the horrible fate of going to sleep.
Uncle Evil is in town for a visit this week. Corwin is running scared while Alice is unsure about how scared to be. Charles, however, said just before we went to pick up Uncle Evil from the airport “Uncle Evil is not a bad guy”.
Uncle Evil’s mere presence has already boosted the children in to a hyper state. It should be a fun week.
Charles and Alice are taking a bath together again. This is because Alice is in a phase were she really likes baths and if she hears someone say that, she’ll insist on being part of the experience. Today, for some reason, Charles suddenly announced that he needed a bath. I figured, OK, since who knows when we’ll get him back in the tub. However, Alice overhead Charles say this. She immediately perked up and the instant Charles started up the stairs she hopped off the couch and headed up herself. Neither Mom nor I were up to another major Alice hissy fit, so in she went. It was all I could do to get her clothes off before she hit the water.
Alice has discovered a new fun place to play. This is a picture from the first time she figured out how to do this. Mom reports, however, that being the clever little Alice-saurus that she is, she has had no problem replicating her initial discovery. Since she can’t be left unsupervised for more than a minute, she’s always assured of a parentally assisted extraction whenever she wants.
Alice is still a dedicated whirlwind of destruction. She’s figured out now that if a parent sees her in action, they’ll yell “No!” and then try to stop her. What she’s learned from this is to destroy faster once she’s spotted.
One present Charles got for his birthday was a snap together bead set. Charles likes this but it consists of a large number of small pieces, presenting an irrestible target for the Alice-saurus. The other day I heard cries of despair from Charles. Rushing over I saw Alice grabbing beads and flinging them around the room. I naturally yelled “No!” which brought an instant reaction from Alice — she grabbed the box and attempted to fling the entire set at once. Not quite the effect I was hoping for.
Corwin and Jack do some last minute studying for the church Christmas program
Charles was watching Jack’s Big Music Show in which the plot device was Jack wanting to be a space explorer while Mary wanted to be an opera singer. There was a song about this and one line was “Jack wants to fly to the Milky Way”. Charles thought this was hilarious. He repeated “Milky Way!” over and over for 10 minutes or so, reducing himself to giggles every time he said it.
The horde prepares for the opening after the initial sorting
Alice croons
Charles installs some of his new infrastructure
Alice enjoys the new kitchen
Alice definitely likes the new kitchen setup (which kept Mom and I up to the wee hours of Christmas morning with assembly). What she likes best about it is washing her hands, which she tends to do after every other activity. Alice isn’t much for clean but she does like washing.
The presens are opened. Corwin and Charles had great fun opening things although Alice didn’t really get into this year (C&C opened her presents). Mom got a good selection of loot this year.
Charles was able to pick out his presents by recognizing his name. He also opened one present which had wrapping paper around a shipping box. Charles opened it, saw in the shipping box and announced “it’s a box!” and moved on to the next present. We also achieved our primary goal for him, which was indicated by Charles exclaiming “I got a lot of presents!” once he had separated his presents in to a separate pile.
Alice got a dual-microphone karaoke machine which plays audio CDs. Alice thought this was the coolest thing. Mom had to fight her for it to install the batteries because Alice didn’t see how it that could possibly make it better.
Corwin was somewhat withdrawn, wanting to concentrate on opening and playing with his loot.
Dad: Charles, what color are your eyes?
Charles: I don’t know. I don’t have a mirror. A mirror helps you see that.
Dad: You’ve never seen yourself in a mirror before?
Charles: When I do my washing.
Dad: And what color were your eyes?
Charles: I don’t remember. I need to go home and look in a mirror.
This evening we went to early services at church. It was a nice service. Alice did her part by doing interpretive dances for all of the hymns, something I hadn’t actually seen done before.
We made the boys take pre-Christmas baths. I ended up putting Alice in the tub with Charles, because she came up to help and every time I took my eye off her she tried to climb in with Charles. I finally gave up and at least got her naked instead of letting her go in fully clothed as she had been trying to do. Charles, being filled with the Christmas spirit, agreed to share (he normally prefers to not let Alice in the bathtub with him). At least this way she pours water on Charles instead of the bathroom floor.
Corwin’s biggest concern about tomorrow is he has to wait for everyone to wake up (even Dad!) before he can open presents. On the other hand, he got to finish off the candy in his advent calendar.
Andreas and Matias were over yesterday and I ended up having to let Corwin game on one of my computers so all three could electronically rot their brains simultaneously. While Corwin was gaming, I noticed that he had bare feet. Upon inquiry, he confirmed that his feet were cold, so I told him to get up and put some socks on. He obtained a pair from upstairs and started putting them on in my office. As soon as he had one sock on, I grabbed him and tickled, because one of the house rules is that I get to tickle Corwin anytime I catch him wearing exactly one sock. It’s all part of my effort to teach Corwin to think ahead about the consequences of his actions.
The other day at daycare they played with fabric paints. As a result, Alice decided that she would honor her northern European heritage by painting her face blue and running around naked while destroying things.
A couple of nights ago Alice made me go down as well and we danced the night away in to the wee hours. Alice was in major grooving mood. She started out dancing on the chair in front of the computer but this proved to be too confining, so she hopped down so she could do some serious dancing. I tried to sit out but Alice grabbed my hand and insisted that I get up and groove as well.
For Charles’ party I moved the computer in my office Alice used down to the kids’ office. Alice nevertheless climbed up in the chair so play on the computer and was very puzzled when she was in position but there was no computer. So she demanded to play with tape instead.
The longer term result was
One of Mom’s projects this week has been working on a newletter to send out. She gave me a copy for review and after I finished reading it she asked, apparently in all seriousness, “do you have a cache of special paper left?”. I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing.
After a tour of my paper collection, Mom picked my Crane’s Crest Recycled, which is a 100% cotton paper. It’s a bit rough for writing on but works well for printing or typing. It’s got a good heft without being too weighty.
One interesting difference I have observed with Alice is her reaction to tickle missiles vs. the boyen. Instead of trying to deflect them, she just turns away and hides her head. As noted previously, the boys would aggressively defend themselves, attempting to hit the incoming fire as early as possible (i.e., as far out as they could reach). Alice giggles while I do this, so I don’t think it bothers her, she just find the counter attacking as much fun as the boyen.
HAPPY
FIFTH
BIRTHDAY
TO CHARLES!
Charles opens presents at his party
My favorite conversation of the day with Charles:
Dad: Charles, you say you’re five years old?
Charles: Yes!
Dad: When did that happen? When I went to sleep last night, you were a four year old boy. When I woke up you were a five year old boy. Did I miss something?
Charles: [in a lecturing tone] You need to get up earlier.
Charles got many presents. Mimi sent up quite a stash of goodies. She also put a rubber snake in to frighten Charles. Charles, however, consumed with the ecstatic joy of opening presents, never even noticed. I had to point it out to him later, at which point he yanked it out of the way so he could open the box and get the stuff inside.
Last night Alice was the first time Alice slept through the night in her new bed. She was Princess Grumpy-Pants in the morning, but one step at a time.
The Christmas tree is up and decorated. Mom ripped her hands up putting on the lights, as we seem to have gotten a tree with particularly sharp needles. Corwin enjoyed decorating the tree for a little while before he wandered off.
Mom also put lights around the edge of the sun room, which makes it look quite festive. Charles saw that and, after carefully observing Mom’s handiwork, asked “where the blue tape?”, Mom having used that to hold up the lights.
Charles was bummed out this morning. He asked Mom when Erica was going to come over and Mom had to tell him that she wasn’t. Mom tried to expain that Erica was busy and did things other than wait around to visit Charles, but I don’t think Charles believed her. I tried to provide an example
Dad: Erica has to buy Christmas presents for her family.
Charles: [A stricken look on his face] Why don’t I get Christmas presents?
Dad: You get Christmas presents.
Charles: But I don’t see them!
Dad: You’ll get them on Christmas.
Charles: [somewhat mollified] OK…
Alice used a new word today: “mine”. She and Charles were up in her bed playing and fighting over some balloons from the party yesterday. Charles was stunned by this.
Charles: What Alice say?
Dad: She said “mine”.
Charles: What that mean?
Dad: You know what “mine” means. You say it all the time. It means that the balloon belongs to Alice.
Charles: [clutching his balloon tightly] MINE!
Charles takes a break from the tea party
to check over his birthday tickets
Today’s schedule started with the children’s holiday program at church. Corwin was a shepherd this year and Charles was a sheep. The program was more traditional, primarily the story of Jesus’ birth with some hymns. The kids got to sit without having to move around. Charles claimed that he sang during the one song that involved the kindergarten set but we didn’t really see. I think Corwin sang, though, even though he ended up sitting by Jack.
After church, we spent a frantic couple of hours trying to get the house in shape for Charles’ party. Grandma and Grandpa came down to help out but even so it was a bit of a challenge. Of course, once the kids showed up the basement was covered with toys once again, but it was clean for a little while.
We had planned to have the older kids play on the computers (and I even moved one of mine to the kids’ office to provide more computation locations) but the older kids got bored with the computers within 15 minutes. For me, the entire event was mostly a blur but the the things that stand out:
No permanent injuries resulted and all of the kids had to be dragged away, rather than leaping at the chance to escape, so I consider the event an overall success.
Corwin had his holidy violin recital this afternoon. It was much shorter than previous ones, as there were only four children on the program. I think it went well, but I spent most of the time out in the hall with Alice. Mom had agreed to provide piano accompianment but Alice was in a very needy mood and wouldn’t tolerate being able to see Mom without being held by Mom.
Corwin looked very nice in his suit. I tried to get a few pictures but he was resistant. I asked him which was worse about the recital, having to practice or having his picture taken. Corwin said it was the pictures. As we were leaving, a number of the other parents were also indulging in photography. I asked Corwin why they got to take pictures and I didn’t. Corwin said it was because they didn’t put the pictures on the Internet. I countered that, now a days, probably some of them did, but that still wasn’t enough to get Corwin to hold still.
Charles still has trouble with pronouns and gender. He only very rarely uses the female pronouns “she” and “her”. This came up one day and Charles ended up declaiming that he was a boy and Alice was a girl. On a whim I asked him if his teacher, Miss Darcy, was a boy or a girl. Charles said he didn’t know and eventually that Miss Darcy’s gender was indeterminate (or both, he wasn’t completely coherent).
Charles has acquired the verbal tick of saying “poop” quite a lot. When he doesn’t want to talk about something, he starts answering every question with that word. Mom, understandably, is not overly found of this. At one point she asks Charles “doesn’t Miss Darcy get upset when you say that?”. Charles said “No, because I don’t do that at E D C L”. He’s such a considerate boy.
Mom was frantic today, trying to get things in shape for Charles’ birthday part on Sunday, given that we have a completely full schedule for the entire weekend. So naturally she decided it was the perfect time to put together Alice’s new bed. It’s perfect for Alice, since it has a ladder, a slide, a bouncy mattress and a hiding place underneath (you can see Alice peering out through the “window”). Mom took out Alce’s crib entirely, to hand off to Cousin Tara.
Charles likes the bed quite a bit as well, although we’ve forbidden Corwin from playing on it (particularly the slide, which I’m not sure would handle a Corwin-sized child). Alice struggled a bit with the ladder, although that was probably because she was tired (she doesn’t have trouble getting up the ladder to Corwin’s bunk). She liked the slide and very much liked the underneath area. Now we’ll see if she’s willing to sleep in it.
Alice can now say (sort of ) the names of everyone in the family.
This morning Alice, for the first time, demanded that she pick out her clothes for the morning. As soon as I said to the naked little girl “Let’s put on some clothes!” she hustled over to her dresser, pointed at the drawer and said “up!” so that she could be elevated sufficiently to make her selection. She picked out a nice pair of neon, horizontally stripped pants along with a horizontally stripped purple and pink shirt. And of course, her cute little purple shoes to accessorize properly.
Mom took Alice off to a dinner recently, which Mom thought was just a buffet kind of thing but turned out to be a sit down dinner. Alice was a good girl for most of it, until she tried to take off her clothes near the end.
Alice didn’t want to go in to daycare yesterday, running away when I tried to put her coat on. Instead of chasing her down, I just told Charles it was time to go and we headed out the door. Alice, without a pause in her crying, spins around and demands to have her coat put on so that she can go to.
Alice won’t eat breakfast, but she’ll happily eat old, dried out toothpaste that one of the boys left accreting on the bathroom sink.
On Monday, Alice for the first time, asked me to sit on the potty. She didn’t do anything, but she greatly enjoyed sitting on the potty and reading books.
I’ve decided to do something a little different this year. Since no one looks at the gift lists except two people who’ve already bought presents, I am just going to put up some stuff for myself. I don’t put stuff up for Mom because she’s so hard to buy for I need every idea for myself (although she might like some of these).
But beyond just having a gift list, I am instituting “virtual gifts”. The way this works is, you pick something on the list, let me know, then I go out and buy it. When Mom sees it and says “Where the $&#^* did that come from?!?”, I reply “Oh, it’s a gift from ”. Everybody wins!1
1 And I’ll still have the list even when nobody is willing to get me even a virtual present!
2 Yes, I realize it’s a complete sell out to current fashion, but I looked at a bunch of comparable products and this really does seem the best suited to what I want out of it. Small and light without being too small, solid state, useful display.
As we were driving home the other day, Corwin suddenly pipes up and asks Mom and I if we have wills. Something of an odd question, we thought. We explained that yes, we did have wills, why do you ask? Corwin was evasive as to his reasons.
Dad: So, does this mean that you’re planning to kill us for the insurance money?
Corwin: No! I don’t know how much that is!
Ah, now that’s re-assuring.
Corwin is starting to play with the Zome kits I have, building some interesting structures. The last ones I saw were a stellated icosahedron and a hypercube projection. Zome is wonderful for such constructions because the overall design and precision of construction means that interesting shapes are relatively easy to put together.
Corwin has also been bugging me about finishing his model rocket kit, although sadly I haven’t had the time to get back in to that recently. Hopefully the contracting work is now slowing down enough that I can have my life back.
Charles is learning to type. For at least one of the games that he likes, he needs to type in his name. He’s not clear on how his name is spelled (past the initial ‘C’ and ‘h’) but if I tell him the letters, he can find them on the keyboard and type them without help. He’s definitely improved on using the mouse and can use that almost entirely on his own.
Alice is still trying to figure out the mouse. Mostly she just touches stuff on the screen and waits for Dad to do the mousing. She definitely likes keyboards.
Alice is still a hunt and peck typist
Since we’ve returned from Chicago, I’ve been introducing Alice to the joys of scotch tape. We spent quite a long time Sunday and Monday evening with me handing Alice strip after strip of tape for her to apply to a piece of paper. She quite enjoyed it, except for those times when the tape wouldn’t behave as she wanted. Alice would fling her little arm around, trying to dislodge the tape. But if I tried to help, she’d say “no!” and snatch the tape back from me because it was her tape.
We played with some stickers as well, some of which Alice put on the paper, some she put in her hair and some she put in Daddy’s hair (although Dad wasn’t allowed to remove those, since they were still Alice’s stickers — apparently Dad’s hair was simply a handy storage location for them).
P.S. I also found out that my new laptop is light enough for Alice to easily pick up and wave around. So portability has its downside.
So, i hear claims that kids can’t scream for too long, as it’s very tiring and they wear out. Not Alice, though, our little bundle boundless destructive energy. Mom is out doing things for her class so I was home with the poopers, trying to put them to bed. I had to put on new sheets because of a Alice drinking problem the previous night. This went about as well as can be expected with Charles and Alice wanting to bounce and get under the covers the whole time. That is, until I made the terrible mistake of putting a pillow cover on a pillow Alice had. She had a complete melt down that lasted for right on 80 minutes, before she settle on some Blue’s Clues to calm her violated sensibilities. Now, two hours after she lost it, she’s still not looking tired. On the other hand, she’s calm enough now that I could get the stickers out of her hair.
As noted, we spent the weekend in Chicago. Jack, Corwin’s friend, came along for the trip. I think that was a net win, as it seemed to keep Corwin from being as bored as he normally is by quotidian reality.
We left the house at 5:15 AM to pick up Jack and make the train, scheduled for a 6:05 AM departure. The train was only an hour late, so that wasn’t as bad as last time. Charles, as expected, was frequently on the verge of hysterical panic at the thought that something had gone wrong and we wouldn’t get on the train, but once seated he was in a better mood, although he made it clear to Mom that Charles would be sitting in the window seat.
Once at the hotel, Alice took less than a minute (literally) to find pen and paper and start doodling. She then handed this off to Dad and headed for the bed, so she could snuggle down under the covers. This is not because she was tired, but just because she likes to do that. The knowledge that we’d be sleeping on the sheets that cleaned the bottoms of Alice’s shoes added that special family touch to her gesture.
After the bed, Alice started work on the various electronic devices near by. She particularly liked the phone, frequently picking it up and saying “hello!” in to it, followed by a babble of conversation.
The boys, meanwhile, had decided that their preferred activity for the weekend was watching TV in the hotel room. Instead, the boys were forced off to salt mines of educational activity.
We went to the Shedd Aquarium first. The boys seemed to enjoy it. We took in a dolphin show, although Alice broke down in tears when I refused to let her jump in the pool with the dolphins. Charles got to see crabs as big as Alice, although he wouldn’t get close enough to them (even behind glass) for me to get a picture that shows the proper scale. Corwin and Jack mainly wanted to see the sharks, although they did sit through the dolphin show.
After Shedd, it was off to Adler Planetarium. I think this was a bit more fun for the boys. They particularly liked the Mars Rover simulator and the meteor impact simulator (which fired pellets of ice at a floor of dust). The Liberty 7 display was a hit as well. Over to the left you can see the two astro-boys trying out a 1:1 model of the capsule. You might also notice how popular red shirts were, with only Charles and I holding out for a non-expendable color.
After all of that, we had supper. I managed to lose my gloves bewteen the time we arrived at the restaurant and the time we were seated. . While we were waiting, Alice got antsy so I took her outside. I figure a good blast of the icy wind and snow would convince her that she wanted to be inside, but she is made of sterner stuff. She quite liked the weather, at least for 5-10 minutes. When we got back to the hotel, Mom forced Corwin to go swimming, which he and Jack spent about an hour doing. After that, Mom and I were so tired we let the boys watch the TV they had been longing for all day.
The next morning we got up slowly, but we eventually made it out. Jack was a big help in trying to get Corwin moving. Alice tried to help by stomping on Corwin’s hand as he lay prostrate from the overwhelming weight of his backpack. Corwin himself wasn’t much help, although at one point he headed out the door, saying it was time to go without having managed to get his own shoes on.
The program for the morning was a transportation adventure for Charles. We took the subway up a few stops, then rode the Elevated Train around the Loop. At one point there was an area cleared out in front of a building with warning signs about falling ice. Charles like the signs, while the older boys liked the concept of ice falling out of the sky and wandered about in the clear area, actively tempting fate. We saw a big chunk of snow come off, but no life or limb threatening chunks of ice. This was a bit of a bummer for them.
We went to Marshall Field’s for a last look at the Christmas window displays (as it won’t be Marshall Field’s next Christmas). We popped in to get warm and look at the toys, although the selection wasn’t great. Alice, however, fell in love with a little pedal powered sports car and had to be dragged screaming away from it. We popped down to the basement for snacks (the boys were always looking for snacks). We then took the subway from the basement back to the hotel. Next we caught a trolley for Navy Pier to check out the Children’s Museum. Corwin and Jack found it OK, but Charles and Alice could have spent all day there. All of the kids liked the Water Works, even Corwin and Jack.
It was a good day for Charles, who rode in a (1) taxi (2) trolly (3) elevated train (4) subway (5) passenger train. It wasn’t perfect, however, as Charles asked about whether we could also try riding on a boat.
Charles: Can we go on a boat?
Mom: No.
Charles: Can we go on a big boat?
Mom: No.
Charles: What about a medium boat?
Mom: No.
Charles: Can we go on a small boat?
Mom: No.
Charles: How about a very small boat?
Mom: No.
Charles: I want to go on a boat.
Finally, it was time to go. We had a late lunch and headed out for the train station. As soon as the train was moving, Jack wanted snack. Once he brought up the subject, Corwin and Charles demanded snacks as well. I put them off for a while, since we had lunch less than 2 hours previously, but eventually I gave in and got some food for them. Alice slept almost all the way home so she could keep a parent up very late after a very tiring day. She’s considerate that way.
Chilling at the coffee shop
We made it back from the weekend in Chicago. Every one is tired and ready to crash, except for Alice. She slept most of the trip home and is a bubbling fountain of energy now.
Overall, I wasn’t overly happy with the pictures I took, but I think the kids had a good time anyway.
Corwin and Jack release the flood waters
Corwin makes the long trek to the hill
I took a break this afternoon from my near non-stop code slinging to go out with the gang for some sledding. We got about 3-4 inches of snow and it was cold so the conditions were reasonably good. We took Matias and Andreas for good measure.
Everyone had a good time, even Alice. Alice did not, however, go sledding. Everytime Mom got her anywhere near a slope, she’d panic and want some Mommy snugging. It’s hard to believe that Destructo-Baby is scared of anything, but I suspect that she’ll be doing crazy things on the slopes soon enough.
Corwin and I took a run. Either the conditions were much better than last time or Corwin’s put on weight, because I even after some last second foot braking I had to dump us so we didn’t go flying out in to the street.
There were also a lot of kids who walked back up in the sledding areas, which I thought was something that would have been knocked out of them long before (although I only saw one collision resulting from this while we were out). A couple of other parents noted the same thing and we all agreed that there wouldn’t be much sympathy for any body who got plowed while walking up the slope.
All in all, it was a good time, if a short one, since I made everyone leave when the sun went down and we didnt’ get out on the slopes till 4:15.
I to shoot a few videos:
Alice likes her computing hands on
Alice has been spending a lot of time using my new computer. As you can see, I had to take away the keyboard so that Alice wouldn’t go around deleting important files. So she grabbed an X-Keys mini-keypad I’ve been experimenting with and put that in front instead.
I have to say that the monitor has worked out well for something Alice uses. The glass goes all the way to the edge, with no bevel for Alice emissions to get trapped in.
On the other hand, this evening Alice tried to move a full sized keyboard in to place and I made the mistake of helping. This set Alice off in to complete meltdown mode. She ran all over the house, crying and calling for Mommy, who wasn’t there (but was out shoveling the driveway with the boyen).
We had a big snow today, resulting in several inches of accumulation. Mom had the boyen out shoveling the driveway a bit. It was a bit cold and windy to go out sledding, even though Corwin was home today, “sick”.
Corwin came home yesterday, announced he wasn’t feeling well and proceeded to puke heavily in to the toilet. I thanked him deeply for making the run from the couch to the bathroom in time. Given that Charles was out of it for roughly 12 hours, we figured Corwin would be up and about the next morning. He was, just not before the school bus had left. At that point his condition rapidly improved. Still, we made him spend a morning san electronic entertainment. Still, Corwin turned on the TV at 12:00:12, so he was still feeling a little out of it.
Charles had to get new socks from daycare, because they went outside and Charles got snow in his boots the same way he gets sand in his shoes, so it’s a wonder the place didn’t flood. I must get a picture of Charels in his new coat and boots, because he loves them so much.
Charles is home sick today. I was up late last night and took a shower around midnight. When I got out, Charles was kneeling in our bedroom, rocking back and forth wimpering. I asked him what was wrong and he told me “my bed is messy”. What he meant by this was that he had puked all over it (and the floor, and himself for the sake of thoroughness). Mom cleaned up the bed while I cleaned up Charles. After a bath, Charles told me his tummy was feeling better but as soon as I got him back in his room he puked again, although this time he tried to catch it in his hand to avoid making more of a mess.
We eventually got everything clean and Mom sat up with him for a bit, until he was feeling well enough to go back to bed. Charles’ primary comment on the whole business was “I not go to school tomorrow”.
So this morning, Charles is laying on the couch recuperating and he sees me walk by with a cup of coffee.
Charles: You be careful with that.
Dad: Yes, I’ll be careful.
Charles: Otherwise you might break it. [small voice] I always careful. I not break stuff.
Dad: Oh, and I’m not holding it right. I need to get the pinkie out.
Charles: Pinkie out?
Dad: Yes, when you hold a cup of coffee, you need to have your pinkie out like this. It’s the rule.
Charles: [dismissively] I never see The Wiggles do that.
Alice very much likes my new computer. She pesters me about it frequently. This evening she came in when it was turned off. I had also moved the mouse pad and mouse off. Alice immediately demanded the mouse pad, which she carefully put back in place and then put the mouse on it. She then poked at the dark screen and then turned, moved the mouse just a little bit, then jabbed at the screen and complained to me when it remained dark. She tried this several more times before I realized she was trying to disable the screen saver.
Alice is gaining a greater vocabulary. Two of her major new words are “Noggin” and “Miffy”.
I swear that as I strapped Alice in to the van this morning, she said “I need milk”. It’s certainly the kind of phrase she’d find very useful.
Alice’s favorite music video Not only does she like to see this one every other playing, but she gets very upset if I scroll the index image of it off the bottom scrolling list.
We were heading back to the house with Charles and Alice and I had put some folders in the well in front of their seats. Charles kept leaning over to fiddle with them. This upset Alice for some reason so I told Charles to sit up straight. He did, but within a few moments he was leaning over again. I castigated him for this and he replied “but you keep making turns!”. Now, Mom’s an agressive driver but I don’t think that even she can knock Charles over by cornering in a mini-van. I have to give Charles points for imaginative excuse, though.
Corwin passed another milestone last week — he got his first credit card offer. Mom didn’t want to explain it to him because he might actually fill it out and get one. But Dad was willing to pitch in, although Corwin’s attention wandered even more rapidly than normal. Hmmm, maybe I’m on to something there…
