A story by Corwin: [edited slightly from the original handwritten manuscript by Dad]
There was a T-Rex who loved a volcano. He didn’t know it would explode in 10 seconds. Well it exploded! He got to Mars. T-Rex didn’t like that volcano.
I had been reading elsewhere that kids under 7 or so didn’t understand that TV wasn’t real. The suggested experiment was to ask “if you saw [TV person] eating a big bowl of popcorn on the TV, and the TV was turned upside down, what would happen?”. I tried this on Corwin and he told me that the popcorn would spill out. I was somewhat surprised, as I thought Corwin was aware of TV not being real. I noted this to Mom, at which point Corwin changed his answer to “nothing”, saying “they’re just on TV”.
I think that there is some confusion on the researchers part. In some sense, TV (at least non-animated TV) is “real” in that people actually performed the actions seen. So it may be that young kids don’t understand about video tapes and broadcasting. But Corwin at least understood the more important point that the people he saw were actors pretending to do stuff. By the time he was 4 or 5, I would tease him about doing something we’d just seen on TV. Corwin would just give me the “you’re so wierd, Dad” look and say “that’s TV. It’s not real”.
I don’t think that’s so strange. Certainly Corwin and I had done a lot of “pretend” ourselves, so it’s not a big mental leap to think that the people on TV are doing the same thing. Even in kindergarten Corwin was doing puppet plays and short scenes from plays or other kind of acting activities.
One of the things I like about Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network is their “behind the scenes” segments. It helps get across the concept that it’s all pretend. For Cartoon Network, the segments where they discuss various episodes with the animated characters or discussing casting issues on shows (the “Huckleberry Hound” as the original lead for “Thundarr the Barabarian” is quite amusing) seems to be part of an effort to help keep things in perspective for the kids. So it’s not all gloom on the TV front, although I do consider it a mark of good parenting if Corwin complains that we don’t let him watch enough TV.
I’ve been working on some video stuff these last few days and this entailed digging out lost objects from the depths of my office. Once Mom saw me doing some organizing, she was swept up in the same spirit. One of the the things she found was a Dipsy doll. Corwin never liked it that much but Charles does. He’s even carried it around the house in preference to a car. Of course, what he does more frequently is lay with a car and Dipsy. Charles likes the Teletubbies very much.
Charles seems to want Dad to like Dispy very much also. I was greated when I came home yesterday with an energized Charles who found it very amusing to body slam Dispy in to my legs. Normally, Charles himself does this to show affection, so I take this as Charles’ effort to get Dad to like Dipsy. Charles used to run full tilt in to Dad and Dad likes Charles, so …
Another Saturday morning, another Mom driven adventure. This morning Mom took Corwin off to a tennis clinic. She was also going to make coffee but had cleverly arranged for a coffee crisis - we were completely out of coffee. No beans, no faux-coffee drinks, even our emergency back up fancy coffee reserve was exhausted.
Mom offered to take Charles along to the tennis clinic, but Charles heard that I was going to the store and declared that he preferred to do that (“store!”). I’m pretty sure that he worked out that tennis clinic → no car, store → car. (I’m also confident that he used symbolic logic just like that, rather than holding a mental image of a car and searching for associated phrases).
After our return, Charles declared that he wanted something to eat. It was breakfast bar today and as I gave it to him, I thought back about feeding Corwin when he was young. He hated, more than anything, “broken” food. If I pulled the breakfast bar out wrong and it broke or became cracked, Corwin wouldn’t eat it. Even chips off the edge of a Pop-Tar would render it inedible. Charles, apparently is made of sterner stuff (or is just hungrier).
P.S. Sorry about the slow posting, more problems with the web hosting company.
Just after I got Corwin off to the bus stop this morning, Charles woke up crying. I went up to see what the problem was. Charles informed me that he had made wet on the bed. This despite having changed him in to an overnight diaper right before he went to sleep. Charles was pretty broken up about it as well, although he stopped crying once I went in to deal with it.
He started up again when I told him he needed a bath. But Dad was firm - urine soaked boys need baths. I drew the water and dropped squalling boy in the steaming cauldron. Charles tried to go fetal but unfortunately the tub was already partially filled so that would have meant getting his hair wet. Robbed of his means of expressing his depression, Charles settled in to sulleness. This actually makes it easier to wash him and gets much less water on the floor so it’s not all bad.
I did read Charles a book after he was out and dressed, which perked him up. Now we’re in the basement naming letters from one of his alphabet puzzles, which makes Charles very happy.
P.S. Charles has now moved on to his number puzzle. He really likes the number “10”. He originally made it out of the ‘I’ and ‘O’ from the alphabet but then decided to use actual numbers.
Tonight Corwin and I did something together we’d never done before - we Googled.
Mom was doing some reading with Corwin and they started working on his homework. I found out about this when Corwin came bouncing over and asked “what do hissing cockroaches eat?”. Corwin’s class went on a field trip to a children’s museum and apparently they had the hissing cockroaches there.
Since the information Corwin requested wasn’t at my mental finger tips, Mom said “well, look it up on the Internet”. I decided to turn it in to a rite of passage for Corwin. We went in to his room and I set up my laptop. I fired up the Google home page and made Corwin type in “hissing cockroach”. He clicked “Search” and there we were, plugged in to the Net. Corwin found the actual page more exciting, however. Someday he’ll appreciate what a milestone it was.
I got home a little early today so Mom sent me down to the basement with Charles. Charles was actually using the basement for fun, rather than just playing with cars or the computer.
First Charles got out a push cart shaped like (wait for it …) a car (surprise!) and was scooting around on it. The basement is still mostly clear from the Halloween party so Charles could get some good velocity. After scooting a bit, he came over to the couch and started showing us all of the stuff under the seat in the car. I was actually stunned at the amount of car and block material Charles pulled out. I, of course, had to name every … single … one as Charles put them on the couch next to me.
Sadly, the cart also has buttons that play little sound clips, including one that is the alphabet song. Charles played that and made me lip-synch it as it played. Charles would giggle so much he’d almost fall down. At the end he’d let out a little scream, clap and yell “done!”.
The next round was Charles cruising the basement again, except this time he’d say “bye!” and wave as he headed off for the computer room. Then he’d come back, waving and saying “hi!”. Finally we played “chase” with Charles on the cart and me pushing a different pushcart.
So I guess this all makes buying the house worthwhile.
Yesterday was a good toy day for Charles.
Mom rousted us out to go look at the Christmas tree display in a hotel that was put on as a local charity effort (yes, Christmas trees before Thanksgiving, a bane of our modern society). Corwin and Mom wandered off their separate ways while I tagged along with Charles. Mom popped back after a few minutes to say that I should take Charles over to a sandbox display with lots of trucks in it. Well, that was it for Charles on that floor. He just stood in front of the sandbox display, staring at all of the trucks. Eventually Mom came to drag him away.
In the basement of the hotel were were a number of vendors of various Christmas related things, including kids toys and a craft workshop. Mom wanted to look at something so Corwin was sent off to the craft shop and I took Charles to the toy area, where he discovered some more trucks. He liked them so much that I, the softy that I am, broke down and bought a set for him, although he had to wait until we got home.
However, on the way home Mom decided that she need to drop by Walmart. Corwin had not been a particularly good boy so he was sent to his room while Mom and Charles went off to shop. Mom thought that I had purchased the trucks for Christmas, so she got Charles a three-pack of cars (on sale!). When they got back, Charles remembered the trucks and pestered Mom and I as we unloaded the groceries about them. Quite the haul for Boy Two.
The aftereffects lingered this morning. In the car three pack was a poster of all of the cars that were coming out in 2004. Charles spent a good bit of time this morning staring at the poster. Later, he decided it was more fun to pack up the poster, move it to a new location, and then call Dad over to point out a particularly desirable car. After Dad acknowledged that it was, in fact, a cool car, it was time to pack up the poster in search of another flat surface. Repeat until Charles remembers that there are actual cars in the basement!
Charles has lately become interested in doors. He likes to open and shut them, but particularly he likes to slam them. Last week we played a game (until Mom’s head couldn’t take it anymore) where Charles would open the door of the bedroom and giggle at me until I started toward him, at which point he’d slam the door shut. I then had to say something like “who’s in there?” so he could open the door and start again.
Last night when I went up to check on everyone, every single door upstairs was shut. I thought maybe Mom had locked the kids in their room but it was just Charles. He had taken the time to make the rounds and shut every door.
This morning he was playing with the door between the kitchen and the north hall (which connects the kitchen, basement stairs, my office and the garage). Charles was pleased to discover the presence of a door there so that he could shut it. Unfortunately, the latch was a bit hard for him to operate so he got stuck with a closed door that couldn’t be reset for another closing. I was a bit reluctant to help him out because this door is paned glass and unlikely to respond well to long term slamming. Fortunately, the day was saved by Mom who announced “it’s time to go”. Charles immediately looked at her and said “go? yay!”. Yes, I see a great career for Charles as a professional limosuine passenger.
Mom’s been feeling tired lately, so normally it’s quite the effort to get her out of bed. Because it was the weekend and she didnt’ have to go to work, I got up first and went down to make coffee. I had forgotten that there is one thing that will get Mom up and moving and that’s the Sunday paper. She trudged down in her nightgown to get that and take it back up where a hot, steaming mug of delicious coffee (hand-prepared and delivered by the best husband ever) was waiting for her.
Mom dived in to the paper and I read the comics. Corwin popped up and looked for his favorite section of the newspaper, the Sunday toy ads. It was quite the domestic scene, Mom perusing the sports section, Dad leafing through the comics, Corwin shouting “is this all there is!?!” at the paucity of toy advertisements…
Sorry about the lack of posting, but there hasn’t been much of interest going on this week, or it’s just that I’ve been sick, grumpy and frenetically busy and haven’t noticed. Well, there was one incident involving a sock but Corwin persuaded me to not write it up, even though it was exactly the kind of bowel loosening embarassment I wanted to save up for his teenage years. Even Mom was appalled. I am just too nice.
Charles has gone back to driving on the computer after a few weeks off. I’ve been working on some anger management issues with him. When he first got back to it, he’d forgotten most of the controls and he’d get frustrated at ending up in the wrong menus. He’s starting crying and screaming until Dad came to the rescue. Dad, however, found that trying to recover the game while Charles was rattling the windows suboptimal. The solution was that if Charles was crying loudly, Dad would turn off the game and remove Charles from the room. This was done one morning and the next morning, instead of crying Charles came running in to the kitchen (where I was trying to enjoy some coffee after fighting with the grinder for half an hour) calling “hep me! hep me!”. Charles hasn’t cried about the game since, not even when it crashes and disappears on him. I’m actually proud of his self-restraint.
We’re down to three pregnancies at the office now (from four). Jacob’s mom gave birth to Jacob’s third sibling on Thursday. I expect a drop to two soon, as another of the pregnant women’s first child was due on Wednesday. That will leave Mom as the only pregnant woman in the office (the fourth is the wife of a co-worker, Blaine, who is Corwin’s godfather).
P.S. I asked Corwin if anything interesting had happened to him this week, because I needed to write something up for this weblog. Corwin replied that “you should write that you’re weird”. I replied that everyone knew that and it was too boring.
We went off to the Tiger Scout Den meeting this evening, Corwin and Charles and I. Mom was off somulescing college students with network security marketing slides1. Charles was a good boy, sitting silently the whole time playing with his cars. The den mother’s daughter Chloe (4 years old) attempted to teach him how to talk (which consisted mostly of touching at him, leaning very close and saying “Charles!”. I tried to explain that he was the strong, silent type but this had no effect).
But back to Corwin.
One of the projects was making a gift bag for a Christmas present for Mom and Dad. This was based on a paper lunch sack, construction paper and glue. Corwin worked diligently at his. I was quite surprised to seem him cutting out little Christmas trees from the paper. Admittedly, they were a bit schematic, but he did get a nice triangle shape for the tree, a narrow rectangular truck and a wide base. This was without any patterns at all, just scissors and a 8½×11 sheet of construction paper. He was a bit heavy on the glue but not excessively so.
On the more official side of things, Corwin is starting to remember the motto, salute and sign of the Tiger Scouts. I really need to spend more time with him on the achievements and electives so it’s not a mad rush at the end of the year.
1 Best exchange:
Student: “Where do you get those numbers about how much insecure computers cost the economy?”
Mom: “They’re marketing slides — I have no idea”.
Charles has quite an eye for detail, although I suspect that it’s a general trait of children. This was brought to my attention the other day with the DVR in our satellite system. Some recent firmware upgrade causes it to hibernate after it hasn’t been used for a while. How it detects this, I’m not sure. In any case, when the receiver is powered on the display has a “Press SELECT to start” floating display. As soon as Charles saw this he ran over to the DVR and hit the “SELECT” button. I’m sure he didn’t read it so he must have figured out the problem and solution just by watching us do it a few times. That observational capability is definitely cute and endearing but it does make having bad habits a bit of a strain.
Corwin’s aversion to eating with his brother is becoming a serious problem. This evening Corwin was reduced to tears from the stress of being at the dinner table while Charles was eating. Now, Charles is not the neatest eater in the world, but he is still short of three so I’m willing to cut him some slack. Frankly, it’s not clear that Corwin is actually neater at the table. It does put somewhat of a damper on family meals, as Corwin sits in anguish until Charles is finished. I wonder what Corwin will done once his next sibling is there as well. We can only hope that Corwin has gotten over this by then.
Corwin has been interested in jokes lately. He got started at his school Halloween party where they handed out a couple of things with a joke printed on them. Corwin then retold those jokes for several days until this evening when Mom decided we should go to the bookstore to get Corwin a book of jokes to improve his routine. It seemed like a good idea at the time…
Corwin was very excited about getting the book. He was a bit disappointed when Dad didn’t also want to get a joke book but he got over that. Once we were home, Corwin immediately wanted to start reading the joke book. This kept him quiet for a little while until it was time to share with Mom. Although the jokes were a bit stale, this would have been OK except that Corwin for some reason would read the same one over several times. Mom would try to explain that she’d just heard it 10 seconds previously but Corwin, like any good comic in front of a hostile audience, was undaunted. He’s such a trooper!
We were off to the bookstore this evening with the boys and Jesse. When we got out, it was dark and Corwin noticed the half moon in the sky. Mom commented, “wasn’t that a full moon just a couple of days ago?” And so it had been - the half moon was really a lunar eclipse in progress. We discussed whether it was waxing or waning. I tried to figure it out but I got the rotational orientation wrong and by the time I had it worked out we’d noticed that the lit part was getting smaller.
We got home and continued watching the eclipse. Mom and I went out in back to watch (we have a reasonable view of the stars in the back - it’s next to a field, on the edge of town with no street lights). Corwin took one look, said “cool!” and then went off. We managed to get him back a little bit later when he noticed he could see the Moon out the window. I asked him “would you like a flashlight to light it up and see it better?”. Corwin thought this was a great idea and immediately grabbed a flashlight off the counter and started shining it at the Moon. Luckily it wasn’t my brightest flashlight and didn’t end up ruining the eclipse for everyone.
Charles dragged me outside today, despite the fact that I have a bad cold. I had to bundle up a bit but Charles was undaunted by the cold and his short sleeved shirt. Mom had run off to fetch Jesse, younger sister of Jacob. What Charles wanted to do was resume the life of the sidewalk chalk artist. First he made me draw a picture of a truck, just to get a baseline. Then Charles started drawing.
This time, rather than just putting down marks and asking me what it was, Charles went around pointing at things and then drawing them. He did a couple of bushes (although he called them “trees”), a tree, my shoe and the house. Except for the bush, he named them all without prompting and his drawings where actually semi-distinct. The (real) tree was two long strokes with some short strokes at the top, while the (bush) tree was just some short strokes. He got a nice curve in for the show and a good angle for the roofline of the house. In my completely unbiased opinion I thought it was pretty good for a not yet three boy. Hmmm, maybe I should get some shellac and preserve those for posterity - they’ll be a collector’s item some day!
A few updates around the weblog.
There’s a new picture of Charles in the banner. While cute, it’s not quite as cute as the previous one. Sadly, though, the previous picture was over 10 months old, which is a long time for Charles. The new one was a bit hard to get. You can see a truck in the picture. The other pictures in this series mostly have the truck in front of Charles’ face because, while Charles likes to have his picture taken, obviously Dad would rather have a picture of a truck if that’s available. This picture is from August so it’s a few months old as well.
I need to get a banner picture of Corwin as well, the current one is from April.
Also, because I know you are all desparately eager to read stories of the Boyen over and over, I’ve added Yearly Archives. I had always intended to do that but I kept putting it off because it would be a long time before I had a year’s worth of posts.
If you look over on the right, way down in the side bar, under “ARCHIVES” you’ll see some links under “Years”. Each is a year calendar with the individual days linked to the first post for the day. The month names link to the monthly archives if there are any posts for that month. In addition, for your viewing pleasure, the hover text for each day is the titles for the posts on that day. Just darn spiffy, in my opinion.
I’ve also changed the look of the links in the calendar. Let me know if you think its better or worse. Not that I’m trolling for comments! Even though no one has commented on anything since the first of August!
Charles was sleeping late this morning and I finally had to roust him out of bed. Remembering my new potty strategy, I got his old diaper off and then immediately had him sit on the potty. Nothing was immediately forthcoming but I persuaded Charles to be patient by going off to find a book about trucks. He was content to sit while I read and then, “mirabile dictu”(Latin, ‘wonderful to tell&rsquo), Charles’ bladder gave up and Charles went potty. Not just a few drips but some serious wet making. I told Charles was a good boy he was and how that made Dad very happy. Charles just wanted some more reading out of the book.
When I dropped him off at daycare this morning, I mentioned this to the woman there. She replied that Charles had been actually using the potty there on and off! I was totally deflated. Oh well, at least I had a couple of hours before being brought down to earth.
Charles is slowly becoming more verbal. He spontaneously used a complete sentence on me this morning, “I made wet on the bed”. Despite my resolution to encourage Charles in his use of language, I inexplicably did not react in a completely positive manner to his utterance. Nonetheless, I did manage to teach him “toes” this evening.
Charles has acquired another annoying habit, alluded to earlier, where in he uses his diaper and then demands to use the potty. At least we’ve gotten the correct association between activies and the potty in his head, if only we’d been more careful to get the ordering correct.
I also think that Charles is acquiring some level of bowel control. If Charles has managed to accumulate a lot of urine in his diaper, he’ll demand a new one, then almost immediately (within literally a few minutes) use the new diaper and then, of course, demand to use the potty. When he uses the new diaper, it’s not just a little sprinkly but a very noticeable effort. I suspect that the correct response is to put him on the potty immediately after changing him. I’ll see how that goes over the next few days.
I forgot to write this up earlier because it happened during the interregnum. We went out to the family farm and Corwin “helped” out for a bit on the harvest. He got to take a couple of trips in the combine, hauling in the corn. I had to explain to Corwin what the point of the whole exercise was and that food didn’t magically appear on store shelves.
I was a bit reluctant to put this up because I’ve gone heavy on the pictures this last week but so it goes. But you can see Corwin sitting on the left (view right) side of the cab on the combine. Driving is Corwin’s third cousin. Way in the back just to the right of the combine you can see Charles hiding back at the van next to Mom. Charles, despite his affection for trucks didn’t like the combine at all. He refused to even touch it, much less ride in it. Corwin, however, thought it was great fun. We had been meaning to get him out to see the harvest for a couple years but it’s so hectic for the cousins (Mom’s second cousin, his wife and Corwin’s third cousin) that time slips away quickly so we appreciate the opportunity to reconnect Corwin to the land in a way that doesn’t involve eating dirt.
Mom went out the other night and got a violin for Corwin. He’s been using it (I hestitate to use the word “play” in this context) although I’ve only heard him once. He hasn’t had any lessons yet so we’ll see how he reacts once that starts up. Mom thinks that Corwin is of the opinion that he’ll be competing for a spot on the touring circut in about 3 months. Reality is unlikely to be so accomodating.
Corwin can actually make sound come out of the violin. I’ve heard that that’s actually a bit tricky, although of the many fields in which I have no knowledge music stands out. He doesn’t even try fingerings but who am I to judge a prodigy like Corwin?
Charles may be getting close to starting his potty training. He’s started becoming concerned about having a wet diaper, which prompts me to comment that if he’d use the potty, that wouldn’t be a problem. Charles considered this but was unconvinced.
What Charles has been doing starting on Sunday is asking to use the potty. He, of course, asks after he’s already soiled his diaper, but at least he connects that with the potty. He does acknowledge that he should “make wet in potty”. Beyond that, I’ve been trying to convince Charles that he needs to ask before but he doesn’t really see the point of it. I have been training him to read on the potty. This morning he woke up, complained that he was wet and demanded to use the potty. Charles made sure to pick up two books on the way and once he was enthroned I gave him one to read.
After not using the potty, Charles likes to throw a wad of toilet paper in and flush. That’s part of the process and I suspect that for Charles, it’s the point.
Charles likes trucks. Mom went to Walmart yesterday with Charles and so he came up with a new truck. Charles actually spent the entire night in his own bed but when he woke up he was panicky. I thought it was because he wasn’t used to waking up in his bed but it turned out that he had left his truck in our room. After a frantic search Charles found the new truck and he was OK.
Charles doesn’t talk much to people, but he’s always very polite with trucks. He won’t wave or say goodbye to people but he frequently says “bye bye truck!” when a truck he has seen leaves the area. Not infrequently our entreaties to say “good-bye” result in Charles saying “bye bye” to the departure vehicle. Charles accepts that the vehicle has to get on with its life and leave so he’s not generally very sad about it.
Charles’ view of Corwin’s school mornings is that Corwin gets on the bus - that’s the key feature from his point of view. Of course, Charles still spots trucks while we’re driving and insists on having confirmation that he has, in fact, spotted a truck. Charles has learned to distinguish between trucks and busses, a key skill for a young boy and a small step on the way to actual language.
Corwin is watching Ed, Edd and Eddy. One of the recent bits that went by involved having one of the characters get a TV stuck in his mouth and his friend trying to get a better picture by adjusting his hair. I understood the reference but I wonder what Corwin thought of it as he’s never seen anyone try to improve the TV picture quality by fiddling with an antenna. I’m not sure he’s ever even seen a TV antenna. Even in the previous house, where we did watch some local TV the antenna was in the attic with a coaxial cable down to the media room. Ah, the glories of the past, swallowed up by progress.
Last night was Halloween so the boys and I set out to locate some candy. Mom stayed home to run the party. Mom did get Charles in to his costume (a pumpkin) which was quite a feat. Charles was quite insistent on going out with Big Brother to trick or treat which I found somewhat surprising.
The pickings in the neighborhood weren’t very good. Only about a fourth of the houses were participating. We had to look for both lights and Halloween decorations to find the houses that were accepting. After hitting the two or three houses on our street we caught up with a large crew of neighborhood kids and harvested along with them.
Charles was a good trooper. He walked almost the entire way, which would have been about 5 or 6 blocks, quite a distance for the little guy. I tried to have Charles go up with Corwin to do the “trick or treat” but Corwin insisted on running ahead as fast as he could. This meant that Corwin would be arriving at the next house about the time I was getting Charles moving away from the previous door. Despite repeated promptings, Charles never said a word to anyone except me the entire time.
Near the end, I told Corwin that it was time to head back to the. Corwin didn’t want to because he hadn’t gotten much of a haul. It was not much compared to previous years. Normally Corwin would fill one of those plastic pumpkins but this time he had barely covered the bottom. Charles seemed to just enjoy being out with Big Brother.
Fortunately for Charles, he got quite the haul from daycare. I took in some goodies for the class but apparently several other parents contributed as well. Charles came home with two lunch bags filled primarily with candy. I had tried to avoid bringing in candy because kids get plenty of it already (I brought skeletons straws, eyeball super balls, etc.). The only remaining problem is that Charles always wants exactly the same candy as Corwin and their candy stashes are not identical. This occasionally requires some sleight of hand to make Charles happy.
Despite being tired, Corwin refused to go to bed while the party was still going on so he ended up falling asleep in a chair. I washed his makeup off before sending him up but he slept in the hair gel. After a shower in the morning he was looking mostly human again. I did have to chastise him, though, with regard to the fact that Halloween candy is not a proper choice for a breakfast food.
The last time Corwin tried riding a bike was back in late spring and it didn’t go very well. Without training wheels he would fall over in short order. So we put the bike in the garage and forgot about during the move.
Yesterday day Mom was home with Corwin all day, getting ready for her party. To distract Corwin she got his bike out and helped him get started on it. He did ok, but not particularly well. He would forget to peddle after about half a block, slow down and fall over.
But we remembered the magic cure for any problem our children have - Erica! I had cleverly arranged for Erica to come over in the afternoon yesterday to help Mom out. After an afternoon and early evening with Erica, when we took Corwin out today to ride his bike he just took off on his own, a regular biking fiend. He was able to ride all the way from the far end of our road to our house, about 3 blocks, non-stop. This from the boy who just the day before couldn’t make half a block. That Erica sure is a wonder. Maybe we should have her over more often (although, she did abandon the party with the poopers to go hang out with her friends at the ice skating rink, as if they would be more fun that the Boyen!).