Order Horizon

So we were at dinner, and Charles was attacked by Charles eating spiders. Charles overwhelmed, while Alice just watched. I asked Alice why she hadn’t helped defend Charles after a couple of attacks. The first time she said “I didn’t want to”, and the next time “I was busy”. I am sure Charles appreciated the sisterly concern.

Alice has discovered rules. I threatened to pinch her butt while she was in the bath and she announced “You can’t do that! That’s the rule!”. Later she made a rule about not making farting noises on her tummy while she was in bed. She’s been setting a lot of other rules, most of which I can’t remember anymore. Still, it’s good practice for when she starts having relationships with boys. If only Alice were as concerned about rules that apply to her.

Dad: Alice, can I cal you “hyper girlly squirrelly shaker pop”?

Alice: Maybe.

Dad: Maybe?

Alice: Maybe means “maybe”.

Dad: OK, then I’ll call you that.

Alice: Maybe means “no”.

Dad: No, “maybe” doesn’t mean “no”, it means “maybe”.

Alice: Then “no”.

Dad: I can’t call you “hyper girlly squirelly shaker pop”?

Alice: No.

Dad: What about Mom?

Alice: No.

Dad: But Mom can do anything!

Alice: Except call me that!

I finally heard the yipping of the coyotes last night.

Mom and I were tired and grumpy this morning, but eventually we took on our daily missions. Mom’s required Alice’s presence, so Mom went off to make Alice get dressed and discovered that Alice was already dressed. Mom was impressed that Alice got herself dressed until Alice admitted that Charles had helped her. I don’t know what motived him, but Charles is generally the first one of us dressed on days without early deadlines. While it’s not quite as good as Alice self-dressing, I am not one to look a helpful Charles in the mouth (likely to be lots of nasty food there).

Mom, being a soft touch, let Charles buy a remote control Wall•E (with his own money, at least) yesterday, and it’s been the hit of the house for the last two days. Charles and Alice think it’s great and even Corwin has played with it.

On the other hand, over the last couple of week Mom has been gathering up a huge mass of toys that that kids are willing to give up to donate to charity / toss (depending on the toy — some of them I wouldn’t inflict on Josh or Jack). So we may have net outflow this month. Maybe.

The biggest problem seems to have been getting a box to put them in. Alice and Charles consider the boxes I get for them special, because they know I only buy the best. Mom had to do some fast negotiating with Alice to use the High Tech Box, which was a constant companion for Alice and Charles for several days. It was a box that had many features, almost all of them constructed, attached, or drawn by Charles. The outside and inside were complex tapestries of sophisticated controls and accessories. I still remember when Alice was inside the box and Charles rolled it over on its top, showing that Alice couldn’t roll her way out of a cardboard box. Whatever I spent on the toys for Dad inside, it was worth it to bring that kind of joy to my children, and it’s a sacrifice I will willing make again in the future, when it becomes necessary. I know Mom stands behind me on that, because she loves her children too, and nothing is too much for their happiness.

I know we’ll all miss High Tech Box. Click below for a brief pictorial remembrance.

Charles makes improvements while Alice supervises

The box in repose

A loyal playmate for all the children

We’ll all miss you, High Tech Box!

Mini Rage first flight

Today was the annual rocket launch for the rocket club, so I was there instead of Corwin’s swim meet. Corwin came by later, once he was dry.

I had intended all year to get some cool new stuff ready, but of course time slipped by until it was too late. Corwin, however, managed to build two rockets since his last launch, they only needed some paint. So the few days last week that I had time to prepare was spent on helping Corwin get his rockets painted for the launch. He learned about priming, masking, and why grip strength is important for using spray paint.

The launch went well. The early morning weather was very marginal, but since it was the big launch and tomorrow didn’t look any better, the decision was made to go ahead. That turned out well, as after a few hours of miserable weather the day gradually turned very nice, although the wind was near the limit for safe launching most of the time.

I focused on getting in as many flights as possible early one, both to get things moving and because no one else was flying so I got my pick of launch pads and didn’t have to help out with administrative tasks. By late afternoon I had to stop for those reasons, but it was fine as I had already done more launches than I normally manage.

I didn’t fly any big rockets, as I am mostly out of motors for them and most are broken and waiting repair. Sigh. I flew the Green Rage 2 three times, twice having to retrieve from the buildings east of the park. So at least I got some exercise.

Corwin flew his rockets three or four times, his little one only once and the rest on the rocket he built for his Webelos den. The paint job turned out well and he named it “Min-Rage”, presumably after my “Green Rage” rocket fleet. The first flight was on an A8-s and it was a low flight, but that was good because it ended up landing very close to the spot landing stake (70 inches) which is much closer than any one else managed. The other flights used B6-4 motors and Corwin had to do some walking to get those back. I helped Corwin with the first couple of flights but after that he did all the preparation himself. Afterwards he lamented that, while fun, it would have been more fun if he had more rockets. I think I might be able to fix that …

Corwin had a swim meet this morning. It’s the third one for the team, but the first one where Corwin actually swam. The weather looked bad and I thought they’d cancel, but after a couple of hours of futzing it was on. I, unfortunately, was unable to attend due to other engagements. Mom had the privilege of taking the entire spawn set to the event and then enjoying several hours of quality time with them.Mom says they were well behaved (for them), which I deduced from the fact that we still had three children afterwards despite the proximity of a large quantity of water.

Mom also tells me that Corwin did decently, even though he was set as the sacrificial lamb for some fast heats. I think the team has next weekend off, but then maybe, perhaps, I will finally see an actual meet for myself.

This evening we all went to see Wall•E. I think it was mostly Mom’s idea, but the kids were reasonably enthusiastic. Charles liked the idea enough that when he, Corwin, and I were out shopping Charles picked up a copy of the Wall•E game. Naturally, he couldn’t actually play it, so Corwin did while Charles and Alice watched avidly (along with Abby while she was here).

But we made them stop playing the game so we could go to the movied. We all thought it was a good movie, especially Alice and Charles. So five buttery fingers up from all of us.

Today was a special day. Alice had to go potty and she was in a grumpy mood, so when I took up my station outside the bath room to watch, she said (oh, frabjous day!) “don’t watch me!”. Is my long voyeuristic nightmare finally ending?

[We’re going by a long display of Nintendo DS games. I notice Charles staring at them longingly.]

Dad: So, should we get you a DS for your birthday?

Charles: Yes!

Dad: Then you’d be happy for a while?

Charles: Yes.

Dad: For at least a week or two?

Charles: Yes.

Dad: Cool! [gives Charles a hug]

Charles: Maybe

Corwin, as noted, gets to sit in the front seat much more often. This is annoying in the van because he turns on the butt warmers. In late June. He then leaves them on for the next time I’m in the seat, or he forgets which control activates which seat (you’d think the “left for left, right for right” arrangement might clue him in, but you’d be wrong) and turns on both, just to be sure. I am left wondering why he doesn’t get a heating pad to keep his butt warm while he’s sleeping.

Batting with enthusiasm

Charles got to play first base one inning this evening, although that’s not as critical as it is in higher levels of play. He played outfield the first inning and second base the third inning. We almost had a loss of game because Charles remembered to bring his bat and glove but then left them in the van. I had to walk almost 30 meters or so to get them, which almost drove Charles to tears. But, eventually, after an near endless wait of a couple of minutes, Charles was properly equipped for the game.

Charles did well (for his age) with fielding, being one of the more aggressive and enthusiastic fielders. Mom’s right, though, I really need to work with him on throwing.

Oh, and Erica’s dad showed up to watch as well.

Alice has been suffering a lot this summer from insect bits. She got a couple of nasty ones on her upper arm that left a rash and mottled skin for most of a week before it faded. Now she’s got a big one on her back and another right below her left eye, the latter having swollen enough to make that eye squinty. This morning Mom thought the swelling was worse, but I thought it wasn’t as bad. We’ll see how she looks in the evening.

[Alice tries to take her cup full of water up to the sink, but spills it on the way]

Dad: Oh, Alice!

Alice: I was just trying to put my cup away.

Dad: Maybe we need to go the girl store and get a better Alice.

Alice: I am a better Alice!

Dad: OK. We’ll keep you, then. Problem solved!

The “no finger in nose” shot

Corwin has hit several personal growth marks in the few weeks which I have neglectfully failed to note.

• Corwin biked over to Jack’s house all by himself, managed to cross a busy four lane road without getting squished. That’s the only serious traffic obstacle between here and there, the rest of the path being quiet residential streets or sidewalks. We are hoping that this will mean more time at Jack’s house, but so far we haven’t gotten Corwin to do it again.
• Corwin can now build his own beating sticks. He practiced in the run up to his birthday party and capable of assembling one from parts. We just need to go over measuring a bit and he’ll be able to go from the raw materials to a completed weapon.
• We’re finishing Corwin’s rockets for the big rocket launch this Saturday. He built them mostly by himself, now we just have to paint them. Corwin’s struggling with that primarily because of his lack of upper body and grip strength. It’s almost all he can do just to get the spray paint button down, which doesn’t leave much for control once the paint is flying. But he’s getting better.
• His game installation skills have matured. All he needs now from us in that regard is permission to buy or a credit card number to order online.
• We’re much more willing to leave him home alone for an hour or two.
• He can take pictures with his cell phone and send them to me or one of my photo websites.

Late afternoon and early evening was spent working on the tree house. Mom bought a bunch of planks for the cross beams and flooring. I had thought she’d get big 4×8 foot sheets of plywood, but she decided on planking. She also got some large metal spikes with 4×4 inch hollow tops. We, by which I mean I, pounded those in to the ground for two of the posts to keep the tree house from sliding away from the tree. We had a few alignment issues, but some pounding and “well, whatever” attitude brought us through to an officially declared successful conclusion.

Mom dragged us out to a local food / arts event, which promotes the variety of food and art in the local area. It was actually a very nice day for it, warm but not hot and only a couple of little sprinkles. Corwin, as usual, got a temporary tattoo although he opted for the washable instead of the semi-permanent¹. Alice got a cute coronet made of a red/purple plastic ring with hearts and lace attached, along with a long set of ribbons that hang down to near her feet. Charles’ loot was a a PVC bow with some foam & dowel arrows. Mom wasn’t enthused about it, figuring it would break in a day or two, but I figured it cost less than we spent on lunch for him and would last longer, so why not?

We wandered a bit so Mom could check out all the artsy / crafty places. One booth was sponsored by the US Army. We tried to get Charles to talk to actual soldiers, but he refused to interact at all. Maybe he only likes being the general. In the end we let Alice have round in the bounce house which ended badly (Mom: “Alice, are you done?” Alice: “Yes” — leaves bounce house, then melts down because she left the bounce house). At that point we decided everyone needed a nap so we headed on home.

¹ Because he’s on swim team now, that distinction actually matters.

This morning was Corwin’s first swim meet (there was one last Saturday, but because Corwin missed all of the practices due to being in Vacation Bible School, we didn’t know about it until too late). Unfortunately it clouded over and thundered on and off. Every time there was a peal of thunder, they’d make all the kids get out of the pool. After a couple of hours of that, the opposing coach (their team was hosting) announced that if things hadn’t cleared up by 10 AM (from a 7 AM start¹) they’d just bag it rather than make every one wait the whole day. Right at 9:58, a downpour started. The poor coach didn’t even get to make the final announcement as everyone packed up and left spontaneously at that point.

The funniest bit was all the squealing kids as the rain came down. I can see that normally, but these kids were swimmers at a swim meet wearing swim suits — surely getting wet shouldn’t be traumatic!

¹ We were almost early, getting there just before 7, but Corwin had forgotten his goggles so we had to go back. It turned out not to matter, at least. Corwin has already had to buy a new pair out of his own money because he lost his parentally supplied pair somewhere at some practice. I should set up a pool for when he’ll have to buy the next pair.

Gah! I managed to walk barefoot through some poison ivy between our yard the and field. Gosh, it itches! Still, I managed to hit a tennis ball thrown in the air with my paintball marker.

As part of his exciting and glamorous life style, Charles took his friend Josie to his acrobatics class because it was “bring a friend day” there. Mom had the privilege of being the escort and she says they had a good time. I guess it beats a brief yet opposing encounter at second base.

Today was Charles’ last day of Cub Scout Day Camp. I spent the day with him yesterday, because I had volunteered to be one of the adult minders (“walkers”) required to keep the camp from descending in to young boy chaos. After a day long exposure to other children, I feel better about Charles and sorrier for many other parents. Kickball was the worst — by the end of that period over half the kids had dropped out to sit by a tree in preference to playing. Charles soldiered on, even though later he told me he didn’t much like it¹. I was surprised at the kids who played but seem to have no concept of the game (after playing it every day for a week) and would watch balls just go sailing by, then stare blankly at the other kids who were yelling “get the ball!”.

Ah well. I had to go today because it was family day (which I had overlooked in planning my schedule for the week). I had originally planned to just take Charles, but Mom decided that Alice should go along as well (Corwin was off at soccer camp). That went better than expected — Alice and Charles whined about going home around 10:30, but by the time I had gotten to the state where we could leave, they had changed their minds.

Alice spent most of her time waiting in line for the (one) bounce house. She was a very good little queuer, keeping her place and not complaining. Charles did the BB guns a few times and then the sling shot. Charles was really eager to do archery, but that had a very long line². Eventually, though, it was time for what Charles and Alice had really been waiting for, pizza!

P.S. Charles got through the entire week, 5 days outside in the sun, with no sunburn. A bit red at times, but no actual burns. Of course, he wore long pants the entire time. He was not, however, the only person with long pants on.

¹ A thing I found odd, since Charles is so fond of T-ball. I pointed this out and Charles claimed th two games were completely different because there was no T-ball stand in kick ball. OK …

² Not so much because it was more popular, but because there was tall grass right behind the targets so retrieving the arrows as time consuming.

We survived our night hosting the soccer boys. They gorged on pizza and soda. I tried feeding them some fruit and veggies for lunch today with mixed success. There will definitely be some dietary adjustments needed this weekend.

In between gaming (on the PC and the wii), there were some water balloon fights, sword fights, glow stick tag, and movie watching. I also got the hear the complete text to several YouTube videos and some of Wierd Al’s grosser songs.

They got to bed at a somewhat reasonable time, but two of the boys (Josh and Keith) were up when I got up at 5:30 and trying to play on the PC. I sent them back to bed with the ruling of no electronics before 7am.

This morning had excitement with Jake’s nose spontaneously bleeding. This of course happened as I was trying to get Alan and Charles ready for cub scout camp and Alice ready to be dropped off by Alan. After three attempts that only stopped the bleeding for 10 or 15 minutes, I looked it up on the Internet, and that did the trick. Make the person apply pressure to the bridge of their nose for at least 5 minutes and have them lean slightly forward. Also, make sure they don’t sneeze or blow their nose for a couple hours.

I dropped them off at soccer camp this afternoon, and the next host parent (victim) will pick them up. We get Corwin back Friday.

Alice got to pay with the boys too — here Josh threatens Keith with Alice cooties

Charles had another T-ball game today. I am amazed at how patient Charles is when playing, which is not his normal attitude. He managed to spend his time in the field paying attention (mostly) without wandering off or playing with dirt, despite the fact that nothing was hit to him all game.

He batted well, and as you can see managed to run between bases. I think he’s been taught one bad habit, which is that runners should advance exactly one base on a hit. That’s the normal style in T-ball, but I think it’s more custom than rule.

Charles’ friend Josie was on the other team and the two of them had a nice chat while Josie was on second base.

Poly waits patiently to clean up any excess cat food

Although Alice favors her Mom, she still (just like her Mom) pretends to like me now and then. She has at least learned that agreeing that her Dad is the Meanest Dad in the World just provides an excuse for him.

Anyway, a couple of weeks back Alice managed to get some nasty splinters in her foot again. Mom worked on the splinters for a bit, trying to make progress against a screaming and spasming Alice. She got one but left the other one while we tried soaking Alice in a bath to see if that might get it to pop out like last time. That was unsuccessful, so I was sent in to avoid any further damage to Mom’s reputation. Alice was very upset about having additional sharp objects stuck in to her foot, but I pointed out that the alternative was to have her foot hurt forever and make it so she couldn’t dance. I think the bath helped a lot, as with just a little bit of digging I managed to hook the splinter and get it out. I told Alice she was done being attacked by the Evil Daddy and she said “No, you are the nicest Daddy in the world”. Maybe I should arrange for more splinters.

Last week, after Corwin’s graduation, we went over to Jack’s house, a very somber affair because not only had Corwin and Jack graduated to middle school, but Anwen was moving on to high school. Gah!

Anyway, it was fun. I mostly just sat because, frankly, that’s what I do best, while the boys ran around and around the house. At one point they were a bit mean to Alice, so I decided let her have some revenge and tricked Charles in to coming over where I let Alice make a smoochie on him. Jack’s dad thought Charles’ reaction was hilarious, so he tricked Jack the same way. Jack went completely wild when exposed to Alice cooties¹. Meanwhile, Alice is complaining because she didn’t get the smooch quite right. A bit tense, but still the kind of thing that can bring a smile to my face when writing about it a few days later. It’ll also be a great story to recount when Jack and Alice are dating in college. Or maybe Josh — Alice was calmed down by Josh’s mom pinning him and letting Alice do a well aimed smooch.

¹ Corwin, for once having learned from experience, was too paranoid to be caught so easily.

“Sharky” got renamed this weekend to “Luke”. Apparently such direct naming is now a baby thing, or perhaps Sharky was just jealous of Timmy and his human like name. Charles wasn’t very clear on his motivation for this change. I wonder if he’ll remember in a week, though.

I scouted out a paintball field yesterday. I wanted to check out another one today. Corwin couldn’t go yesterday because he was over at Colin’s house. Today he was available so the two of us headed out with a load of gear in case of game. I had called ahead and the owner indicated a low probability for other players, but when we arrived there were two adults with four boys about Corwin’s age. One guy was a hard core player and the other looked like the dad of one of the boys, and the other guys knew the dad and the boys.

We ended up taking a while to get ready to play, because I am badly out of practice and shape, but eventually we got in 3 or 4 games for Corwin’s first paintball experience. He stayed bunkered up almost all the time, but he layed down some fire and actually got the good player out (hit him on the hopper). That guy had a tricked out marker that put out about 12-15 balls per second, which was a bit annoying, but Corwin still had a good time. When they left, the guy left Corwin his extra paintballs, and I let Corwin take out my marker and just walk around the field shooting. He got bored, but not until he shot about 400 or so paintballs and made his CO₂ cylinder frost over.

I had called Jack’s dad last night about coming along, but they had a previous engagement. That was probably for the best, given all the things I forgot in getting ready for the expedition. Hopefully I’ll do better next time.

Presumably as part of his interest in the cello Charles decided to build a stringed instrument in his workshop today. He got the base structure done all by himself but didn’t have much luck in getting rubber bands on as his strings. To entice me in to helping him, he managed to actually speak “Daddy, can you help me?” in a mumbling voice. That turned in to a project that took a big chunk of the rest of the day, but after a couple of dead ends we hit on a structure that mostly works, which you can see here with Timmy.

In hindsight, I probably should have just found rubber bands long enough to wrap around the entire length. Instead I bought a set of drill bits for my dremel and let Charles drill some holes with a power tool. I thought I could stretch the rubber bands through and tie them off on dowel chunks but that just didn’t work. We discovered that we could jam one of Charles’ small dowels in the holes and then tie the strings to that. The tieing is a bit tricky, but doable, and the posts look kind of cool. Charles seems to be happy with the result, and Alice likes it too.

After Abby’s dad picked her up, I asked Alice whether she’d enjoyed being with Abby. Alice denied everything, including that she’d ever met a girl named Abby. After some interrogation I got her to admit that she’d played with some girl earlier in the day, but even though Alice didn’t know her name, she she it wasn’t “Abby”. However, her story fell apart when I found this chalkd drawing on the sidewalk next to the house [cur dramatic music]

Busted!

Alice starts drawing, with her Not crazy, bugs! shirt

The complete set

Charles has been on a bit of a fairness kick lately. He frequently argues that something isn’t fair. Mom tells me that he’s complained that Alice has a bigger room (not true, although the boys do have to share). At dinner, it was that Mom and I have a nicer bathroom. I countered that since we paid for the house, we got to have the nicer bathroom. Mom noted that if Charles studied and worked hard, he could get himself a nice bathroom when he bought his own house. Charles wanted to know if he could have the nicest bathroom in the whole world. Kind of odd, but at least we now have a clear motivator for Charles to keep him on track.

Alice’s swing pose