Alice and Maggie know Charles is the go-to guy for cars
Charles is continuing to enjoy the pool and swimming. We can let him play by himself now, as long as we’re watching (that is, we don’t have to be right there in the water for him to clutch). I think the big difference is that Charles isn’t afraid of the water like he used to be. Once he’s past that point he can make progress by himself.
This week he has been having double lessons (because Corwin is at violin camp), which is 30 minutes of lesson. That’s a long time for a boy his age, but Erica reports that he usually makes it almost to the end before becoming uncooperative. Hopefully Charles will be swimming for real by the end of the summer, which would be nice.
We’ve been having problems keeping scotch tape in stock, because of the way Charles uses it. I mentioned this to Charles and he immediately sprung in to action. He taped up the tape dispenser so that tape wouldn’t move and therefore we wouldn’t run out of tape.
The other day Alice was eating and I got out some yogurt for myself. Alice thought this looked tastier than what Mom was providing so I filled a small dish with some of it and handed that over. Mom thinks that Alice was a little too enthusiastic about the yogurt because Alice ended up choking a bit until she spewed all over herself and Mom. After some cleaning, Alice was back downstairs and still hot for the yogurt, which she started eating by herself. When she was done, I cleaned up her, the chair, the floor and the table. Then I took the dish back to the sink. As I left, Alice signaled frantically for me to take the spoon as well. Rather imperious for a baby who a few minutes earlier had been yogurt covered.
This is a hawk that showed up at one of the baseball games. It was being harrassed by a flock of small birds, which is not something I’ve seen before. I have seen one or a few birds going after a hawk but never an entire flock like this.
Erica reports that when Alice gets really cranky at Charles’ swim lessons, she refuses to be held, runs around the kiddy pool once or twice, crying, then either demands to be picked up again or collapses and falls asleep. She’s started doing that with me as well. A few baseball games ago she got in one of her moods, forcibly disengaged from Dad and then ran randomly about in great distress until she suddenly demanded to be picked up. 20 seconds later she was asleep. Of course, one doesn’t look like the best parent when standing about while Alice is flailing about like an abandoned child, screaming with tears streaming from her eyes. Alice achieved a chewing the carpet level of rage at the last baseball game, primarily because I wouldn’t let her play with someone else’s water bottles (that doesn’t tend to turn out well) nor would I let her rummage around in my camera bag for goodies. At least in the case only people near by could disapprove of my parenting skills instead of everyone in walking distance.
I popped out for lunch because I had to run get more milk for Alice. I brought back a sandwich and some chips. As I finished my sandwich and prepared to enjoy my chips, Charles wandered in to my office looking for a screwdriver train driver1. He saw the chips and immediately declared that he needed them, because “you need have food on a train”. Charles grabbed the chips and took off. I followed him out to discover that he had set up a train in the media room using the smaller furnitute and was forcing Erica to drive it while he lounged in the comfy seats eating chips.
1 Corrected based on Erica’s comment.
Charles helps his sister with some resistance training
Corwin had his last baseball game of the season. It was the first game of the single elimination tournament and Corwin’s team lost, so they’re done. They were hitting well but just not making the plays on defense. The most heart breaking was when they had held the other team to no runs with two outs, bases loaded. The next kid up hit a home run on errors, as did the next kid as well, ending the inning from the five run rule. The last inning was actualy one of the better ones, they retired the opposing team after only two or three runs.
Corwin did better than usual at fielding but not at hitting. Corwin only got on base 1 out of 3 at bats (double, thrown out at first, strike out). The kids were kind of bummed afterwards, but they seem to recover quickly.
Corwin was bored near the end of the game (as they had enough players he had to sit out for an inning) and asked to take some pictures. His biggest problem is that he’s not quite strong enough to hold the camera steady and aim it. It’ll be interesting to see how his pictures turn out.
This morning Alice managed to continually get milk everywhere using her sippy cup. At one point she made it literally spray milk out and leave it in such a state that as I tried to clean up the original mess, it continued to emit milk in various directions. I checked the stopper but it was in properly. I have no idea how Alice did it, but I suspect she put a curse on the sippy cup. Or perhaps, instead of being to make objects slip in to an alternate dimension as Charles could do, Alice can move milk through solid objects with just the force of her will.
Mom’s been working on the kids to clean up the basement. I managed to brow beat Corwin in to doing part of it Friday while Mom was out with Charles and Alice. Today, Mom tried to get Charles to do so cleaning, possibly because most of the mess is Charles related. Charles was not up for any cleaning. His first excuse was that he was “too tired”. After that excuse didn’t work and Mom kept pestering him, he pulled out his trump card — he made a sign. He got Corwin’s music stand and a big piece of paper, drew on it a bit and then put it up in the basement, announcing “this sign say do not clean the basement”. He became very insistent that not only should he not clean up, but no one should do so. After all, he (and other children) want to play with the toys and it’s inconvenient to have to pull them off shelves. When this approach didn’t work, Charles labeled the middle section the “baby area” and re-interpreted his sign to mean “don’t clean the baby area” because, you know, babies want to play with the toys and they can’t get them off the shelves. When Alice wandered over to play in the baby area, Charles refused to let her because “the baby area is closed for not cleaning”.
Mom took us out to the local town fair this evening (the same event where Alice got her hat last year). It was hot and muggy and Corwin didn’t want to go. Off we went regardless. As we were walking from the car to the event it started raining. Of course, even though last month and this month have been extremely dry. It came down heavy for a bit while we tried to get dinner and hide from the rain under trees. Luckily it started tapering off about the time the trees started to leak through.
Despite Mom dragging Corwin around the arts and crafts sections, Corwin did enjoy getting a couple of semi-permanent tatoos and taking in a couple of the inflatable rides set up at the kid end of the park. Charles got a tatoo as well, although he watched a clown do magic instead of hitting the rides. Charles tried to do a ride afterwards, but it scared him and he wouldn’t do it so we sent Corwin instead. Of course, as soon as Corwin finished it Charles was all hot to go. Sadly, it was time to leave and Charles cried all the way back to the car. Mom took us out for ice cream, though, so it was OK.
Today wasn’t a very good swim day for Corwin.
When we arrived at the swim meet, Corwin informed me that he had left his goggles at home, so I had to drive back to get them. I couldn’t find the pair he wanted and his normal pair had just failed (broken strap) so he had to wear some big red ones with googly eyes on them (as shown in the picture).
Corwin was also involved in a race mixup that I never did figure out. Somehow he didn’t go up with his group and so he missed his race. This was apparently the fault of of the organizers, so they decided to run him with the next event and get a time. That event was the 9-10 girls free style. However, when Corwin stood up to go, the announcer told him “no boys in this event” so Corwin didn’t go, even though he should have. After that, they tried to run him in the 10-12 boys free style but apparently no one told Corwin about this, so they started that race without him as well. They noticed this and stopped the race in the middle to restart. But Corwin still didn’t know he was supposed to go so he missed the race again (why they would actually stop a race yet not send some one over to tell Corwin to swim escapes me, but there it is). After all this the organizers finally gave up and Corwin didn’t swim that race. He was in tears about the whole thing although it appears (as unlikely as that seems) not at all his fault.
On top of all that, his team lost for the first time in 24 years to the hosting team. I’m not sure why. Corwin, at least, is swimming much better than he did last year. I think that they just don’t have as many kids, especially among the older boys and youngest swimmers. Mom thinks it is because a new aquatic center was put in a year or two ago at the local middle school which would draw heavily from the same popuation as the swim team, not to mention being a lot less expensive and more convenient for kids who already go to that middle school.
At least, as mentioned, Corwin himself is swimming better. I think he finished second in one race just by a hair and he’s staying in the pack in most races (except backstroke). Maybe next year, once Charles is on the team, it will turn around…
Mom was feeling tired tonight but we were out of milk so I was sent out with the boyen to forage for cow juice, that being the one essential we can’t get by without. As I am preparing to leave, Mom tells me to stick to mission and not go out and party until after I have returned with the milk. We head out, do the shopping and start back.
Charles: Where we going?
Dad: Home.
Charles: Why?
Dad: Where else would we go?
Charles: [with sadness and longing] I want to go to a party.
I think Alice is starting to pick up some words.
As noted, she has some use of the word “no”. She’s been getting somewhat better at using it. She also says “mih” for “milk” on a recurring basis. Erica and I also think she’s saying “cone” for “Corwin” (just drop the “rwi” sound from “Corwin” for a good approximation of what Alice sounds like). No consistent “mama” or “dada” yet. Interesting that she’s getting a more difficult sibling name before either of those. Alice also babbles a lot in that serious but incomprehensible way babies do.
After hearing Charles screaming this morning at the presence of bubbles in his bath, I was reminded of something the staff at Alice’s previous daycare told us. We had been discussing the differences among the children and the the subject of some standard activities in the toddler room came up. One was interacting with heavy foam. Charles, when confronted with the foam as a toddler, avoided it and when forced to touch it cried and demanded that his finger be immediately washed off. Alice, on the other hand, had to be restrained from a full body interaction with the foam.
Erica: Charles swam today with his face in the water all by himself.
Dad: Excellent. He’s making real progress.
Charles: I can swim.
Dad: That’s good, Charles.
Charles: I can swim when I four.
Dad: You can swim when you’re four?
Charles: Yes. I not swim when I three.
Dad: Oh.
Charles: But I not three now. I four. Every day.
Charles does seem to be making good progress on being able to swim. We’re thinking about putting him on swim team next year. For his age, as long as he can make it to the other end of the pool he should qualify. Charles is definitely excited now about being on swim team, but next summer is a long time off. We’ll see how it goes.
Corwin has been playing his Harry Potter game again after a long hiatus. Previously Corwin required a lot of help to get through the game, sometimes because the game was difficult but other times because it was too scary. This time, however, he’s returned as a seasoned warrior and has played it all the way through by himself. All those nights we dropped him off in the woods with nothing but a loin cloth and a stick have really paid off.
It’s a big photo essay today, as we explore Charles’ construction capabilities.
First up is a couch based construction.
This is a truck. As turns out, it’s a swim team truck that goes to swim meets, which are either a long way away or in Chicago. The cup on the side is a critical component. Charles knocked it off as he was getting in the truck in response to a request for a photo and I had to wait for him to carefully replace it, including rotating it so that the handle was in the correct position. In the back you can see the “fuel box” that helps the truck go. This in itself was a large Duplo construct which lasted for several days before it was Aliced. I have a video of Charles explaining the truck and its features, which is unfortunately too large to upload as it runs for about a minute and a half now available.
The next construction is a combination car pile and parking lot.
In addition to the two big piles of cars, there’s a well built parking lot with parked cars at the top and the line of small plastic sample cups on top and right as well. Charles’ explanation for the arrangement involved a journey to the various places on the map, including a stop in Canada for cheese.
This construct is more of a performance effort.
I’ve highlighted in green the threads of tape going from the rocking chair to various locations as otherwise they’re difficult to see. Charles didn’t have an explanation for this one which is why I think it was about the taping more than the result.
Getting back to the couch theme, we have
This was a variant of Charles’ office, except this time it was a teacher’s desk at school. I was particularly impressed by Charles’ web of scotch tape on the right. It’s not actually on the couch but free standing in front of it. At various times Charles would insist that I needed to go to school (“every day!”) and therefore should sit in the chair facing the couch to be lectured at by Charles on important subjects. Charles would sit behind the red block with ready access to his pad of paper and empowering Duplo construct.
Finally we have some work by Charles with standard Legos.
He built this house, along with a vehicle that gradually morphed from an airplane loading ramp to a large bus, getting bigger and more elaborate with each change. The construction of these artifacts was a very emotional experience for Charles, who frequently collapsed in tears when the pieces wouldn’t behave as he wanted. As the building is hollow, the roof in particular was the source of much anguish. Yet he persevered to realize his vision.
This is only a sampling of the various efforts by Charles, but should provide a reasonably good feel for the kind of work that he does. Please enter any bids for future works in the comments.
Most babies have two styles of crawling: hands and knees or hands and feet. Alice, being the inventive and creative child she is, has a third crawling style, which makes her look like a lame little baby. It is basically crawling on hands, one knee and one foot. It’s hard to describe better than that, so here’s a video. Note that she still manages to fall over at the end.
Today was swim picture day, so I had to get all the kids up, dressed and over to the swimming pool by 8 AM (Mom was off to tennis). I got a few good pictures, although I need to be much more careful about framing and making sure faces are visible.
All of the children were requested to bring chocolate in one form or another and it seemed that most of them did. I left after getting my pictures because I was mostly in the way and there was nothing for Charles and Alice to do. I sent Erica off to pick Corwin up later and she reported that he ate so much chocolate that he didn’t want anymore for the rest of the day. That must have been a lot of chocolate.
There’s nothing like the joy of going in to Charles’ room in the morning, waking him up, watching as he opens those big blue eyes of his, recognizes his Dad and asks his first question of the day: “When Erica going to be here?”.
This evening’s screaming match between Alice and Charles was over a pile of dirt. About a week ago, Charles pulled some wet dirt out of Mom’s “some day it will be beautiful landscaping” worksite, which looks like this currently:
minus the two boys, of course. Charles had piled the dirt on the sidewalk. When I told him that I’d prefer the dirt in the worksite, he claimed that he was “building a new sidewalk”. Later, he tried to build a new sidewalk on the front porch but that was finally beyond Dad’s tolerance for mysterious Charles construction projects.
Anyway, the dirt had dried out and Alice wanted to destroy it (because that’s what she does). Charles was driven to tears by the Alice-saurus rampage but of course stopping Alice from playing with that dirt (despite the mounds three feet away) drove Alice to tears. When Alice finally gave up on destroying Charles’ dirt pile, she fled for the comfort of the house, giving up the great outdoors (at least for the next hour or so).
On Saturday we went to the park in the afternoon for a local free concert (Mom saw the sign on the way to baseball practice). I don’t think Charles nor Corwin got much out of it, except a small cup of free ice cream, but Alice was definitely grooving to the music for a while.
After the boyen got bored with the concert, we popped over to the wooden play structures. Charles had forced Mom to buy him a small aquarium fish net which found gainful employment as a sand toy at the park. Corwin demonstrated that he finally able to work a swing by himself. It’s the first time Mom or I had seen him do it.
As we headed home, the boyen took off ahead of us, winding their way through the tall grass by themselves. Fortunately the path doesn’t branch and there’s no road to cross, so I wasn’t too worried.
When we got home it was time for baths (and later for removing ticks). Charles wanted to play with his aquariam net in the bath, offering as justification the fact that the net was designed to be used in the water. Charles emphasized this point very strongly until I was persuaded to permit it in the bath tub. He took it to the swimming pool the next day as well, so I think we got our money’s worth out of it.
Corwin, on the other hand, has taken to showers once again. Perhaps it’s a summer thing, as he spent all winter and spring having a strong preference for the bath tub.
I got up early to get the the kids moving on their morning activities and to make coffee for Mom. Once everyone was ready we went to church for the culmination of vacation Bible School. Charles and Corwin just sang, but Corwin was much less fidgety than previously and Charles was well behaved as well (although he didn’t sing or do the synchronized body motions). After that was the annual church picnic. After that we went home for a while before Mom went off for tennis, dragging poor Corwin along. I stayed home to keep an eye on Alice and Charles.
Mom dropped by the store after tennis to pick up some essentials and bring me home some goodies for Father’s Day post. Charles overheard her give them to me and decided to participate. He got a leaf off one of Mom’s ornamental grasses and showed it to me, explaining that it was a leaf and would grow inwater. He then put it in a zip-loc bag filled with water and gave that to me as a present, singing “Happy Daddy Day”. I asked him if, for this special, day, he could be a Daddy’s Charles Boy. “No” he replied, giggling.
Corwin’s response was to wait all of five minutes before asking me for one of the goodies Mom got me. I explained that it wouldn’t be much of a Father’s Day gift if everyone else had some. Corwin countered that there were three of them so I’d still get one even if Charles wanted one.
After that we went to the swimming pool to stop Corwin from whining. I watched Alice while Mom worked with Charles in the middle sized pool. It was somewhat cool and Charles got chilled from swimming. I wrapped him up tightly in a towel and called him “burrito boy”. I layed him out on one of the deck chairs because the sun was shining brightly and I figured it would warm him up faster.
Dad: You’re roasting up nicely. You’ll make a good Father’s Day treat.
Charles: No!
Dad: Why not?
Charles: I not roasting!
Dad: You’re not?
Charles: No, I a chicken! [singing] I am chicken! I am chicken!
Eventually we made it back home to have dinner, although Alice nearly drove Mom crazy with her need to get in and out of the pool while I was helping Charles warm up.
The big excitement this evening was Mom discovering Charles’ first tick. She some how noticed it hanging out behind his ear, under the flap. Tick removal being a job for a man, Mom handed Charles off to me with instructions to remove the tick without her having to observe the procedure. She also told me to not waste time with a picture so I don’t have one for you.
Charles was not the least bothered by this, even though he knew he had an insect clinging to him. He was upbeat and cooperative the entire time.
I wanted to have Charles lay down on a couch while I worked on him, but I had to wander most of the house to find one that wasn’t already in heavy use by temporary storage for laundry folding or a mysterious Charles construction. Luckily the basement couch could be cleared in a minute or two, giving me a work area.
I set Charles down and tried using the match technique. This was ineffective even after two applications so I got a pair of tweezers and grabbed the tick carefully and slowly pulled it out. That seemed to work well (a later Internet search indicates that this is in fact the preferred method). I showed it to Charles afterwards and his only reaction was to ask if it was a spider while he held up a book about spiders (which, I must admit, had a picture on the cover that looked a lot like a tick). We immediately checked the other children but didn’t find anything. I suspect that Charles picked it up on the way home from the park today, as it didn’t look very full.
Another day, another milestone in a boy’s life.
After Charles got home from vacation Bible School the other day, he was still wearing his name tag (I presume because he really likes wearing a name tag). It read “Charles” so I decided to enhance it to say “Daddy’s Charles Boy”, as it really should have read in the first place. I trapped Charles on the couch and commenced my editing. Charles didn’t like that at all. As soon as I was done he demanded that I change it to “Erica’s Charles Boy” which, being the always excessively considerate father that I am, I did. You can see the result at the left. The writing is a little shaky because Charles was wriggling the entire time I was editing, even while I was changing “Daddy” to “Erica”.
I gave a print of this picture to Erica, to use as a character reference (“see, children like me so much that they will abandon their own parents to be in my favor”). Inexplicably, Erica left the photo behind when she escaped for the weekend. I found it and showed it to Charles, who liked it. I asked him what his name card said and he replied “Erica loves Charles”.
Corwin had a good swim meet today. He did four races, three individual (butterfly, backstroke, freestyle) and a relay (freestyle). His freestyle was 50 meters, which is the longest he’s raced. He managed to make the kick turn without drowning or running in to something. He was in the middle of the pack, not with the front runners but not with the trailers either. I think he could be competitive if we could get him to practice seriously.
This picture is from the back length of his 50 meter swim. He went all the way without stopping or touching bottom. He didn’t hit the sides or the lane guides in any of his races, which is a big improvement from last year. He just needs some conditioning and diving practice.
Alice is much fonder of furry and stuffed animals than the boys ever were. She’s become quite fond of Po, even taking her to dinner on occasion:
Alice is offering me the food because she had just tried to feed it to Po, but Po didn’t seem to be hungry. Charles has also become a bit more fond of stuff animals himself, but I think it’s just a reaction to Alice liking them, so they can fight over brown rabbits of various sorts.
At a baseball game a few days ago, there was a large retriever in the stands. Alice was persuaded to pet the dog, which she was very reluctant to do. However, once she tried it she was hooked and spent much of her time at the game afterwards interacting with the dog.
Alice frequently likes to pick up items and bring them to people and at the game she was picking up small rocks and bringing them to me (along with the coache’s 20 month old daughter Maggie). After discovering the joys of doggies, however, Alice tried to feed the small rocks to the retriever, who was remarkably gracious about it.
At the most recent baseball game, Jack’s parents and their dog Rufus were there. Rufus is a smaller dog than the retriever, not much bigger than Alice. Rufus is also an excitable dog who is normally starved for attention. But my sweet little Alice managed to wear out his tolerance for human interaction through shear persistence with maybe a few instances of stepping on Rufus. I had to haul her away so she could break down in racking sobs for 15 minutes because I wouldn’t let her play with one of the aluminum baseball bats.
P.S. Poor Jack had his water sampled by Rufus and Alice while he was busy playing. There’s a one-two combo you don’t want to follow.
Jack’s Mom, Charles, Alice, Rufus and Maggie
The kids had another blow out game, losing 33-3. Corwin scored two of the runs and Jack the other one, when he hit a home run and brought Corwin in. I don’t think it was the hitting that was the real problem. Most of the other’s teams hits were on fielding errors rather than particularly good hits. I saw lots of hits go through three different players on its way to the outfield. In observing, I think it’s the reluctance of the kids to move that’s hurting them. One kid missed a nice, easy to catch fly ball because it didn’t land close enough. He desperately stretched out his glove, but didn’t move his feet at all.
Despite that, Corwin got on base 2 out of 3 at bats and made a couple of good catches and a good play. So if he’d just move he could do much better. Ah well, people still root for the Chicago Cubs, right?
On a happier note, here’s Corwin engaging in a pre-game tête-à-tête with Romena. For the people with fast internet connections, here’s a panorama of a game.
[Charles refuses to let Alice play with one of his toys]
Dad: Charles, you need to learn to share.
Charels: But not with my toys! [giggles]
Charles continues to labor in his office. Today he was so busy that he took lunch in his office, which fortunately has a table and chair for that. It’s also a big office, with plants in it, as Charles explained to me today as I tried to discuss lunch arrangements with him. Charles quite likes both of these office features.
But what’s an office without official papers / money? Charles had taken to removing my mail off my desk and using it as props. I told him that he really shouldn’t be doing that and to try and make up for it, I got him a sheet of some 3-up certificate paper I had (which looks sort of like this). Presenting it to Charles caused him to break down in tears because it didn’t have writing on it. Suggesting that Charles make some writing on it didn’t improve his mood (although he did end up doing that later). I tried to write a shopping list for Mom on one but that brought another storm of tears because I used the wrong type of pen.
So I told Charles that I’d work on something for him and retreated to my photo editing studio and made this for him:
It looks better printed on the certificate paper, although Charles claimed all of the plain paper ones I’d printed to get the spacing right for the certificate paper.
Charles came in part way through and helped me with the editing. Originally I had used Erica’s picture in the middle, along with a sample of Charles’ simple but beautiful script. Charles objected very strongly to Erica’s picture, insisting that I use one of him. He helped me pick out his preferred picture. The script sample was removed as well and the denomination was changed to “4” instead of “1”. Charles likes four dollar bills much more than one dollar bills. I think it’s because he decided the first dollar I gave him was a four dollar bill. He was very happy with the final result, although wasn’t as happy that I’d spent the evening working on it.
Erica tells me that today, at swim lesson, Charles swam by himself for the first time, albeit with a kickboard. The key thing is that Charles was willing to be out in the water by himself without trying to clutch for dear life on the nearest taller person.
The swimming instructor also had Charles jump off in to the pool by himself without being caught which is another milestone. She did make sure to tell Charles to not do it if no adult was watching, which is thoughtful but unlikely to be effective.
Yesterday Corwin was invited to an outing to keep Jack company. The core group was a gang of 5th grade girls with a periphery of younger siblings. Jack was along as one of the younger siblings and figured he’d get Corwin to show up so Jack wouldn’t be the only boy.
Corwin couldn’t attend at the beginning, as he had swim lessons, but we were promised a phone call before they went over to the pond, sometime after 12:30. Around 1:30, Corwin having become increasingly depressed, we popped over to the pond but on one was there. We returned to the house and began making plans for other activities until, around 1:45 we got the call. It was on. I had Corwin spring in to action and head off while I followed a bit later. He was, however, a bit too efficient and managed to arrive there before the rest of the party. He then retreated back to the entrance we normally use. When I arrived, Corwin was hanging out looking sad. I suggested that perhaps he’d been early and the others had since arrived. He didn’t believe it because he’d been watching the entrance. I pointed out that since they were coming from Mara’s house, they’d use a different way in which was much shorter. Corwin didn’t beleive there were other ways in but when we walked back to the pond there they were. Corwin was not suitably impressed with my comprehensive knowledge of pond and neighborhood geography.
It was quite the gang, numbering 14 kids. In addition to Corwin and Jack, Luke and Hans (two young boys from down the street) were there, but the rest were girls. Still, Corwin was willing to get in to the girl-cootie infested water. I was also impressed by the non-daintiness of the girls, who were willing to dig and fling mud as eagerly as the boys. They even all lined up for a watermelon seed spitting contest, as you can see in the picture. Not to mention Corwin getting blown away in the “who can get the sandiest” contest:
Afterwards they went off to play kick ball for a while, until it was time for supper. Overall I think Corwin had an agreeable summer’s day.
[Time for bed. As Charles settles in for a story from Mom, he picks up a piece of paper laying nearby. Charles examines it carefully.]
Charles: I like this list.
Mom: [Not getting in to the spirit of the thing] It’s just a pre-trip list.
Charles: [Continuing to stare intently at the paper] It a nice list.
Dad: Did Mommy do a good job on it?
Charles: Yes. It very nice.
Here’s a cute video of Alice getting ready for soccer. She doesn’t just run in to the ball, she clearly is intentionally kicking it in a particular direction. And she’s definitely proud of her efforts at the end.
Corwin had another not so good baseball game, although it wasn’t as bad as the last one. The team started out well, with 4 runs in the first inning. However, I think they only scored one more run the rest of the game, while the other team had at least 3 5-run innings. Overall, the fielding just wasn’t working. Balls would go through three different kids on the way to the outfield. At one point the pitcher caught a low grounder and we thought “easy out!”. However, the pitcher turned and looked at the first baseman for a while, not throwing, while the batter made it to first. At least Corwin’s errors weren’t that egregious and he did get a triple on his first at bat (but a strike out and a throw out at first the next two at bats).
I’ve been trying to get Corwin to do a bit better at catching, but look at this shot of him practicing before the game. He is willing to do a lot of contortion to avoid actually having to move. I suppose that’s part of what “hustle” is about. It’s not completely hopeless, Corwin does sometimes make very nice catches with good form. I just need to convince him to do that more often.
Charles is still wearing long sleeve shirts and long pants. He tells me that he doesn’t want to wear short sleeves shirts or shorts because he gets cold. This from the boy who screams in agony if the water from the faucet is more than tepid. How he could get cold in 90+° weather even if he was naked is beyond me, but despite sweltering in the heat on a regular basis, he hasn’t changed. I have to admit that I haven’t heard him complain about the heat yet, which has prevented me from an “ah-ha! now you see!” moment. Sneaky little kid.
Charles has become interested in names and the spelling of them. Mostly he wants them to write on index cards for his office, which has been relocated to the sun room. He has most of the names he has collected taped up on the sliding doors there.
One of the names got away, though. A friend of mine from work (Joel) and his wife (Leyla) came over last week to have me do some passport / visa photos. As payment, I made them interact with Alice and Charles while I did my super complex photo editing and printing. Alice was almost asleep so she was (for once) easy to deal with. Charles required a bit more interaction. At one point I picked up a picture he had drawn of cars (it’s a step forward that his pictures are now of things). Sadly I held it wrong side up and was correctly rather forcefully by Charles. Charles, in what I mistakenly took as one of his non sequitors, immediately turned to Leyla and asked her about her name. He made her spell it for him and as she did so, he wrote it on the car picture. After he was done, he gave the picture to Leyla and told her it was for her because it had her name on it. Leyla was very impressed to get a sort-of autographed piece of Charles’ art.
But, back on track, in addition to sticking all the name cards on the door, Charles wedges one of the gymnastic blocks Alice received on her birthday between the doors. This gives the front an office clerk ambience. If Charles decides that you can come in to the office, he rotates the block like a gate (stepping over it is very bad form).
Charles uses a lot of popsicle sticks in his work, although I’m not completely clear on what their purpose is. He’s taken to taping them together at right angles, presumably in imitation of a compass. Or maybe a little desk sign. Or garden tools. Whatever the use, Charles works very diligently on them to make sure they are manufactured to his precise specifications.
It’s important to check to see if the office is open, as sometimes it gets closed even while Charles is there (apparently there’s a lot of work that needs to be done without the interuption of others).
Dad: How’s the office?
Charles: Office is closed.
Dad: But you’re here.
Charles: I need do work.
Dad: Will the office be open again?
Charles: Office is open every day. But not now. It closed. Come back when it open.
Alice is a sweet freak. It took the boys a while to acquire their insatiable need for sugar. A taste for chocolate, in particular, was a long time coming.
Not Alice.
By the time Alice was a year old she was hooked on chocolate. As soon as we tried cereal on her, she started picking out the marshmallow bits and leaving the rest. She loves ice cream, because it’s sweet and messy. Hard to beat that combination.
Erica came back today, so the kids were happy. Both Charles and Corwin asked where Erica was over the weekend. Charles in particular was unclear on why Erica can’t be here every single day. Despite this, Charles convinced Erica to bring water balloons tomorrow. I made sure to tell him that Erica wouldn’t consider it a proper outing unless he managed to hit her with a couple of them.
Erica already had some fun with Charles. Charles is able to take off his clothes, but not put them on. As a result, he frequently gets himself naked, picks out a set of news clothes and then drops them in front of an adult with the implied command “dress me!”. Erica got to experience this last week one morning at the bottom of the stairs, which is probably not quite what she was expecting when she heard Charles coming down.
Erica also got to experience just how strong Alice is. Alice apparently got upset while Erica was trying to put her in the car seat. Alice arched her back and legs so strongly that Erica couldn’t force Alice down in to the seat. Eventually Erica tricked her, which made Alice even more upset but hey, what could Alice do? She was strapped in.
I’m sure that Erica has other cute stories of the kids, which she’s promised to contribute to the kid log.
In addition to the water play area, Mom also got some hair accessories for Alice on her shopping trip. When Mom returned and announced that she had bought cute barrets for Alice’s hair, Charles immediately popped up with “where mine?”. We tried to put some in Charles’ hair but he had decided it was OK if Alice got some and he didn’t.
Here you can see Alice’s first pony tails, a dual design no doubt inspired by Layla’s. Alice worried at them a bit when Mom first put them on, but she eventually gave up trying to remove them. What really worries me is the interaction of Mom and Erica’s hair styling impulses.
Today was a day for water play, even though it was a bit cooler than it has been during the week.
During one of Alice’s jaunts outside, I remembered how much fun she had with Charles’ wheelbarrow and water. I decided she needed a bit bigger and more stable container so I got one of the large plastic storage boxes intended for toy storage in the basement, about 24” × 36” × 18” high. It was a hit. Alice rapidly got her clothes soaked, at which point I stripped her down to her diaper. Charles thought that was an excellent idea so he stripped down to his underwear and then got in the box. Alice, of course, immediately wanted in the box as well. Alice really liked getting in and out of the box, but it was too high for her to do that easily (or without making Dad freak out). When Mom went out on a milk run, I had her get a wider but shallower box. This was even more popular than the first one, as it had more room for Charles and Alice while Alice could get in and out and in and out and in and out to her heart’s content.
Later on, Mom decided she wanted to use the jacuzzi, which turned in to a major logistical effort as all of the children wanted in as well, even Charles (marking his first time in the hot tub). We got them all washed and as we headed down for the hot tub Mom informed me that she needed to take a shower too, so I had jacuzzi duty with the kids. It didn’t go disastrously and eventually Mom showed up, just before Corwin and Charles got tired of it. She was left with Alice but made the tactical error of sitting near the non-wall edge. This meant that Alice wanted to get in and out of the water, which wore Mom out in short order. But being the exceptionally loving, generous and giving husband that I am, I took Alice away so that Mom could luxuriate, which she enjoyed even without being able to view my rippling muscles.
Corwin had his first swim meet of the season today. He did OK. I’m not sure he was any faster than last year but he did have better form. He was using his arms on almost every stroke instead of just some of them. He finished competitively in his first two individual races but he was way behind in his third race, the first leg of a free style relay. The coach commented on Corwin using his arms and going straighter. Corwin didn’t run in to the sides at all in any of the races, which is indeed a big improvement for him.
His team won the meet handily. For some reason Corwin takes his personal results much less seriously than in other sports so he had a good day.
Corwin gets a good start on his backstroke race
Mom came home yesterday. She didn’t bring presents so Corwin didn’t pester me about when she’d get back.
Corwin didn’t have a good baseball game last night. His team lost 22-1, scoring their one run late in the bottom of the last inning. Corwin got one hit in two at bats, flying out the second time. The first time he got all the way to third with the bases loaded before a batter hit a low grounder down the third base line so that the fielder simply had to wait for Corwin to come by for the tag. Corwin was in near tears from this but was repeating to himself “I need to calm down…I need to calm down…”. The team just wasn’t fielding well, everyone missing what should have been easy catches along with late, bad throws to bases, sometimes even bases with no play at them (e.g. first after the runner was already there). At least they’ve won a few games during the season.
A few days again I had a busy morning and I ended up not spending a lot of time with the kids before Erica arrived. About the time she was getting ready to head out for swim practice, I popped up to help out with Charles. As I got to the top of the stairs, Alice saw me, got a big smile on her face and left Erica to come give me a hug. I said “ha, Alice needs her Daddy time!”. Apparently Alice needed about ten seconds of Daddy time, after which she wandered off to be with Erica again.
We’ve been letting Erica drive the van, because I’m home with it during the day and it’s a lot more convenient that buying extra child seats or shuttling them between cars. I think Erica likes driving the van as well - certainly the air conditioning in it works a lot better than in her car. How do I know that? Well, on Thursday I had to take Secant in the vet at roughly the same time as swim practice. I couldn’t take the blue car because Mom had it at the airport (Mom almost blurted that out on the phone when I told her this story). So Erica and I decided that I would have to take her car (her dad suggested that I just buy another van). That’s bad enough, but as I head out the door to drive off, Erica calls out to me “and don’t wreck it!”.
Just before Mom left she tried to get Corwin to practice his violin. However, Corwin had managed to misplace his music book and after an hour of searching Mom gave up and decided to lower the boom on him. She almost canceled his Cub Scout outing but instead he was tasked to clean up the basement.
Corwin spent a good part of Sunday afternoon moping about in the basement, trying to give the appearance of cleaning. On Monday I agreed to let him split the task in to sections, with the provision that he got no TV, no computer, no fun activities until the section of the day was done. In return, I decided to require a very thorough job, every last item off the floor and put away plus sweeping.
Corwin got the office clean after working on it, desultorily, most of Monday. This made dealing with his repeated demands of playing mini-golf easy. When Tuesday dawned, Corwin was faced with the prospect of not going over to Jack’s for a sleepover. Demonstrating how incentives work, he got the next section done before it was time for swim practice (and it was probably the worst section to clean).
Sadly, during the next cleaning Corwin found his music, so I let him escape from his punishment detail. During the debriefing, I attempted to point out the benefits of virtue, that getting the cleaning done early on Tuesday meant he was able to go Jack’s and play mini golf, plus cleaning helped him find his music book. This seemed to not be making an impression so I pointed out that Erica had paid attention to that kind of lesson when she was young and as a result she was now perfect. Corwin immediately replied “No one’s perfect!”, so at least he was listening.
Charles had a bath last night and as usual, Alice came to watch and then try to get in the tub too. They were interacting well — OK, better than average with just a little fighting over toys. At one point, however, Charles get a tupper ware bowl full of water and dumped it over Alice’s head as I do to him when I rinse the shampoo out of his hair. Alice didn’t mind much at first but she wasn’t happy when her shirt soaked through. I was unable to impress on Charles that it had been a bad idea, who giggled most of the time I was castigating him.
Corwin went off for a sleepover at Jack’s house last night. This afternoon he’s going over to visit Jacob. I mentioned this before lunch, which made Charles concerned.
Charles: Where Corwin going?
Dad: He’s going to visit Jacob.
Charles: He coming back?
Dad: Yes, I think that’s likely.
Charles: I miss Corwin.
Dad: Did you miss him last night when he was at Jack’s?
Charles: Yes.
I have to wonder how Charles would have reacted if I’d answered “No”.
P.S. Bonus feature: a gratuitous picture of Charles enjoying water and his wheel barrow.
Charles and Alice were fighting the other morning over a small, stuffed rabbit. It all started when Charles hid under the basinet in Alice’s room as I was working on Alice’s morning toiletries. I announced that “No more Charles!”. Charles giggled at this for a while under the basinet covers and then emerged, picked up the rabbit and announced that he was “Mr. Rabbit” now, who had come to live with us. Alice of course decided that she had to have the rabbit and managed to get it while Charles was washing. Much sadness ensued over the rest of the morning with respect to possession of the rabbit, but by this morning it’s been forgotten and abandoned.
While I was trying to get Charles dressed this morning, he referred to Alice as “her”, as in “I going to give her big hug!”. So it’s not just the cat that gets the correct pronoun.
Yesterday Alice went outside to wander about aimlessly. Charles saw this and announced that he would set up a water play area for Alice. He set up his wheel barrow on the porch and then filled it with water, which is something that Alice always enjoys. Charles had a little bit of fun with it too.
Charles was sad because he didn’t get to go home with Erica when she left. Alice just cried. This morning I got the first plaintive whine from Corwin of “when will Erica get here?”.
Charles and Corwin had swim lessons today. This is Charles’ first real swim lesson, i.e. one that he takes by himself and not with a parent. I went along with Erica because it was his first day. That turned out to be one of the few correct decisions I made today.
Corwin had his time first which went fine because Corwin can swim and the instructor is also his swim coach. Meanwhile Charles splashed around in the baby pool being excessively happy. When it was time for him to get in the training pool he refused. I had to drag him over and we all pleaded with him to try swimming. He went in for a moment but then fled. I browbeat him back in to the water and then had Corwin come over to help. This seemed to help Charles cope, after which the instructor managed to gradually get Charles to participating in a manner other than clutching at her as hard as he could. I, of course, being completely out of it, had forgotten to have him wear his float suit, which compounded the problem.
At first the instructor just dragged him back and forth across the pool. Then she tried to get him to kick his legs. That didn’t work, until she said “kick your legs hard enough to get your dad wet!”. That worked. Charles actually giggled a bit as he paddled along.
Eventually she got him to push off for a couple of strokes from her to Corwin. It wasn’t really swiming, more of an underwater leap, but I was impressed that she got him to let go. She even got him to lay back in the water for a moment, something he’s always hated. Corwin was a help there as well, doing a back float for Charles to demonstrate that it was possible without drowning.
Overall I think it went better than expected. I’ll be sending Erica out without me tomorrow, as I think that like many things the second time is far easier than the first. Corwin will still be there to help as well and I’ll remember the float suit. So I have hopes that things won’t end up completely underwater.
Charles makes the big leap from instructor to Corwin
Today was Erica’s first day. She showed up early because I had to take Secant in to the vet. I also made her stay late to have ice cream with us, but she was still speaking to me when she left it looks like she’ll be back tomorrow.
Mom’s off on another exciting travel adventure, starting tomorrow morning. This time she’s staying in the continental USA to help boost the national economy. As a result, you’ll be getting a lot more pictures and much less text this week.
In related news, Erica starts tomorrow. I guess Mom’s getting out of town so she won’t have to watch Erica suffer system shock.
Corwin and I got up at 6 AM so we could make it out to the local scout camp ground in time for the day’s activities. We could have camped out the night before but I decided to take the boyen to a different Scouting event, an open house at the university run fire fighting training institute. It was OK. We got a tour of the facilities, got to see some fire engines close up (which was a big thrill for Charles), and got an hour long electrical safety demonstration. The last was tolerably entertaining and probably did the boyen some good. Just as we left we got to see some firemen in training practice putting out a propane fire.
So, I’m trying to get stuff ready about 6:30 when I go out to check on Corwin, who’s fallen asleep on the couch. Due to that and my inability to ever have everything together for any trip, we didn’t leave until 7:15. As it turns out, that was OK because we got there about 8:00 and things didn’t really start until 8:30.
Corwin had a good time, doing things like archery, shooting BB guns, handicrafts, an obstacle course and fishing. Dad managed to keep up Corwin, although Corwin’s early afternoon sag helped out.
We had to leave early (and skip camping tonight) because of a neighborhood picnic. But you’ll have to wait till tomorrow for a report on that.
P.S. The problem now is that Corwin’s old enough that he does real activities, leaving me so tired out by a long day’s activities that I can’t get them written up in a timely fashion. Sigh.
Mom and I both ended up at Corwin’s baseball game last night because Mom had to take Secant in for treatment. It was lightly drizzling, so we thought they might cancel the game but the team is made of sterner stuff.
Corwin had a good game and his team won. He was three for three at bat, getting a single, triple and double with at least 3 or 4 RBIs. His fielding was not the best, as he let several hits go right past him. It wasn’t a good fielding night for anyone and the game score was high (I’m not sure what the final score was, but at least a couple of innings were called by the 5-run rule). Jack had the one good play for the team, a double play where he caught a fly and then got a tag back on the runner who had been on first. This ended the game, stopping the other team from a rally that likely would have gotten them the win as Corwin’s team was only one run ahead with the other team batting in the bottom of the inning with a single out.
Corwin blows out the candles on his birthday cake while Kyle, Jacob, Alice and Jack look on. Charles is working the lights.
Today is Charles’ last day in daycare until next fall. It’s Alice’s final day at her current daycare, as she will be in the same place as Charles next fall. Assuming, of course, that Erica doesn’t lose it and drop her off in a ditch somewhere. Nah, Erica would never do that — she’d surely at least get some cash for Alice.
Charles has been particularly reluctant to go in to daycare this last week, primarily because he wants to stay home with Erica instead. Not that he has expressed a desire to stay home with his parents.
Charles picks up on the oddest things. One of my habits is to write little notes to myself on index cards while working because my short term memory for anything other than mathematically related items is quite poor (like, I’ll remember the price for most of the things bought on a shopping run but not remember what those things were). Apparently in honor of this, Charles has started writing to-do lists for himself. These items he needs to do seem to consist mainly of the process of preparing to write more to-do lists (like “get more paper” or “find tape”) although occasionally there is some other filler kind of task. I tried to ask Charles for more detail on his list but he didn’t have time to answer. “I have work to do” he replied, waving his script filled index card at me.
To keep up with the work load, Charles’ previous workspace has proven inadequate. His first upgrade was to acquire a clip board, which you can seem him using assiduously in the picture here.
The next step up was to find one of our tray tables and set that up as his desk in the media room (although it’s a wonderfully portable office). Sometimes he’ll put a dishtowel on it for some inscrutable reason. Corwin, as you’d expect, greatly appreciates Charles’ desk being between the couch and the TV, especially as Corwin was sick yesterday and spent the day watching the same episodes of his favorite shows over and over…
The low desk is problem with Alice, though, who is fascinated by anything Charles is playing with. Charles’ work day is regularly punctuated with emotional breakdowns as one thing or another gets Aliced.
The work list
Mom replaced Charles’ decaying shoes over the weekend and in a fit of madness let Charles get shoes with laces instead of velcro. Or, as Charles calls them, “tie shoes”. Mom claims that Charles was fanatically insistent on that particular pair but I mean really — just how obsessed could a four year old be over something so trivial?
Charles, of course, has no idea how to tie a shoe nor does he appear to have any desire to acquire such a skill. However, he is willing to offer criticisms on any perceived shortcomings in Dad’s shoe tieing technique. He’s frequently helpful that way.
Last Thursday Corwin’s team had a very close game against one of the best teams in the league. After the first inning things were looking really bleak, the other team gave up the field after making their max 5 runs (peanut league rule). But Corwin’s team batlled back and only lost by 3 runs. Corwin helped get things started. He came up to bat after two quick outs, and he really whacked it. Thanks in part to a fielding error, he made it to third base. The next person knocked him home. One of the innings Corwin’s team actaully reach 5 run max (a first for the season). They had 10 field put outs, and Corwin’s friend Jack got the season’s first double play.
Last night’s game wasn’t as up. I think everyone partied too hard over Memorial Day weekend. Things just weren’t falling their way. Corwin had a couple good catches in the field, but he was having problems hitting. One bright spot was Jack hitting a home run with 2 people on base.
