When Alice gets really made, she stomps her feet rapidly, giving a literally meaning to “hopping mad”. I don’t remember the boys doing that much, they were much more of the dramatic flinging one’s self to the floor style. This not infrequently lead to head trauma, with big bruises right in the middle of their foreheads (at least until they figured out to slow down right before impact).
Alice used to like us to clean her nose, but now she’s regressed to the stage of “if you’re going to steal my precious bodily emissions, I’ll just smear them all over my face instead”. At least she doesn’t interfere too much with her soiled diapers.
Today’s milestones:
I mentioned these to Mom but she was like “oh yeah, I’ve seen that”. If that’s true, why didn’t I already read about it here?
Corwin was practicing violin and Mom was trying to get him to play the song at a normal speed so she could tell if he was playing it right, rather than Corwin’s preferred method of playing as fast as Corwinly possible. Corwin’s complaint is that if he plays it too slow, he forgets where he is. Apparently Corwin’s memory is too short term to last for an entire two minute piece.
The other day Alice and Charles were outside playing with a stomp rocket the other day (video). The rockets of course would go off in to the distance when Charles did it (Alice had a lot of difficulty, being the petite flower that she is). The boys have always had problems with finding things (like sippy cups) but Alice seems to be much better. She would toddle off to get the rockets back while Charles just whined “I not know where it is!”.
Alice also does footwear better. It’s always a challenge with either boy to get them shod and it’s hopeless to try to get them to find their shoes. Alice, on the other hand, will locate her sandals and bring them back when I tell one of the boys to get shod. Now and then she’ll even get Charles’ shoes for him. Perhaps it’s just an artifact of Alice not being quite as oblivious to external reality.
We went for a (probably our last) swim outing yesterday. Corwin played with some other boys for a while but ended up alone again, so I went over to play with him for a bit. We ended playing tag with a waterball. While we were doing this, a couple of other groups of kids where in the same area of the pool and I used them for cover against Corwin. After a couple of misses, Corwin decided to try the bold move and make an under water attack. His underwater technique, however, was not up to the plan and he managed to surface right in the middle of a large group of girls, apparently with some unappreciated physical interaction, leaving Corwin to slink off, muttering about trying to retrieve his waterball. Mom thought it was quite amusing and pestered him about it later but he wouldn’t talk about it. I think that counts as a point for Dad.
Corwin starts 3rd grade tomorrow. I’ve been over all happy with Corwin’s work at school, but maybe I should start worrying.
Dad: Corwin, you go back to school tomorrow.
Corwin: Auuggh!
Mom: Don’t you like to go to school?
Corwin: Yeah, everything but the learning.
It’s possible he was being sarcastic, something he might have picked up from Mom.
But maybe I should worry about the teacher. She’s going to have the soccer team core group (Corwin, Jack, Keith, Josh) in one class room, with no Megan to mellow them out.
Mom took us out to a book fair and an antique tractor show today. Mom wanted to go to the book fair and Charles said he wanted to go to the tractor show. He pestered us about it all morning, checking over and over again “we go to tractors today?”.
Once we got there, however, all Charles wanted to do was ride on the shuttles, which were wagons with chairs pulled by tractors. We did manage to get him down to the steam tractors, but then one blew its whistle and Charles completely freaked out and wanted to get as far away as possible. Later Charles fell victim to our modern consumer culture when we hit the vendor area. Charles wanted some of the toys on display but they were all vintage / collectible (like toy tractors for $130). Charles had a meltdown during which he kept repeating “I want to get something”. Not any particular thing, but just buying something in general. Some chocolate ice cream fixed him up after thirst made him willing to walk over to the food vendors.
Corwin was reasonably well behaved. My favorite bit was when we were waiting for the shuttle back to flee the Evil, Menacing Steam Tractors, I spotted a hail bale and announced that I was going to sit on it. Corwin said “I’ll beat you there and take the seat”. I replied that I had a simple way to get him off and take it back, but Corwin hmmphed at the very thought. Well, as soon as I was there and ready to sit down, I whipped out my camera and pointed it at Corwin. He popped off the bale like he was spring loaded. Like I keep telling the boy, “age and treachery beats youth and skill every time”.
The spawn were so exhausted that all of them fell asleep on the way home.
I also invented a new meaning for an old phrase for Corwin, “penalty shot”. That means he has misbehaved and as punishment, I get to take a picture of him. Here’s today’s penalty shot:
Corwin on the cob
When we were trying to find some other children for play dates with Charles, he told us that one child was his “best friend”. Mom then asked him about another child and Charles said “that’s my favorite friend”. But neither can replace Charles’ truest companions, trains, as you can see from this picture of him looking longingly at some in Indianapolis.
Alice is adjusting to her new daycare, if a bit roughly. She’s not been very happy at the drop offs, although that seems to be more of a function of being tired than anything else, as she’s much better after a nap (yesterday she skipped lunch because she slept for almost 2½ hours).
Alice got very brown over the summer, although she still has some upper body tan lines (not enough walking around in just a diaper, apparently).
Alice isn’t as much of a jumper as her brothers were. Corwin and Charles both had little to no fear of jumping down the stairs to be caught by a parent. In fact they wouldn’t even bother to check if the parent was aware of the impending jump, or wait until the parent was particularly close. Alice, in contrast, while liking to jump a bit down the stairs to a parent, is unwilling to jump more than a few inches and always makes sure that the parent is ready.
Alice also has a good understanding of what it means to have her picture taken. If she hears a camera or sees a flash, she immediately looks around for the camera so she can check out the LCD for the just taken image. She’ll even back up and pose (sort of) if I ask as long as I let her come up and see the picture afterwards. She likes to point at various bits of the picture and babble about them. She’ll even sit in my lap and make comments while I go through the raw images to select the good ones, unlike the rest of my family.
Alice can go down the big slide by herself now, from the ground up to the top and back down. She doesn’t slide freely but stops herself two or three times on the descent to keep her speed under control.
Mom had me comb Alice’s hair this morning because it was a fright. After I got it in to a not completely disheveled state, I put the comb down. Alice then started whining, grabbed the comb and started trying to comb her own hair. So I took the comb back and worked on her hair some more. Now, neither of the boys ever wanted more combing of their hair. At best, they suffered silently when being combed, although we manage their hair primarily by keeping it short enough that combing is a minor issue.
Summer is officially winding down. Last evening, we opened up all the doors and windows even with the air conditioning on because it was cooler outside than inside. Within half an hour the air conditioners had shut off because the house had cooled down enough.
Corwin had his first soccer practice for the fall season today. Most of his age group is back on his team again (5 of 6 boys, 2 of 3 girls). At least two of the girls from the previous year (who are 4th graders now) are back, Mara and Maggie. The only disappointment is that Megan isn’t on the team. But otherwise it looks like it will be a good season.
P.S. While Corwin practiced his soccer, I practiced with my camera. The big lens does make it very hard to take vertical shots, which may be a problem. I let Charles take some pictures as well, which he really liked. It was definitely less nerve wracking with the camera on a tripod.
During the summer Charles enjoyed putting on shows up in Alice’s room. He seems to have modeled them after Shanna’s Show, which is a series of short videos (~5 minutes) where Shanna models some type of career and the audience has to guess what the job is. Charles liked Alice’s room because Alice’s closet has a pair of curtains instead of a door, making it look a lot like the “set” on Shanna’s Show. At one point he had even moved the little stools Mimi had made for the children in to a row as seats for the audience. Sadly, I never got to see one myself, although Erica had the pleasure multiple times.
In addition to the rubber band chains, Erica also seems to have taught Charles the phrase “kick your butt”. He, Corwin and Erica were having quite the wild time of flinging that at each other while attacking with various inflatable weapons the other day. At least the Hello Kitty didn’t rub off on him.
Charles likes to wear a flotation device in the water now, which is basically a hollow red football on his back with a strap around his waist. Charles likes the oldest and hardest to put on one at the pool because it’s red. Before he had his swimming lessons we could never persuade him to wear anything like that but now he loves it. At least it gets him in the water.
Charles has switched over from long sleeves and pants to short sleeves and shorts, just in time for the fading of summer.
Charles put signs on his bedroom door and closet door. He told me they said “DANGER!”. I asked him what was dangerous that needed signs and he (in his strained patience voice) told me that it meant dangerous for people, therefore people shouldn’t go in there.
Charles lost one of the tires off his new truck. I looked for it but couldn’t find it, after which Charles said to me in his most plaintive voice “why don’t you look in my ear?”, where (as far as Charles knows) I frequently find things that he’s lost. I made vague excuses and later saw him probing around in there with his fingers, to see if he could find it himself. Luckily I managed to locate the tire this morning and lo! it turned out to be in Charles’ ear after all.
Today was the first day back at daycare for Alice and Charles. Alice is starting at a new daycare, the same one as Charles (both kids in the same location! Yay!).
We went to an open house there on Friday, to meet Alice’s staff and give Charles a warm up for the transition (Charles reacts to change much, much better if he has some warning). You can see him here with Miss Darcy. He warmed back up to her enough to actually speak while we where there, telling her about his trip to Indianapolis.
This morning Mom dropped them off and said both did fine. Alice found a toy right after they got there and Mom was banished from her thoughts. Charles was OK with staying as well. Now we’re just stuck with Corwin home for a week.
In her toy buying spree Mom bought Alice a coffee maker set, presumably because of her coffee habit. You can see her mixing up a nice cup here (and Charles playing with his new, massive car carrier). Charles and Alice like each other’s toys, which is both endearing and hair loss inducing.
A bit later after this, Charles and Corwin were playing with their toys. Alice picked up one of the coffee cups and wandered about near them, observing their behavior. It was like Mom in miniature.
Corwin is heading over to Jacob’s house tonight for a birthday sleep over, so Mom took the crew out to get a present for Jacob. However, it was like Christmas when they got back, with toys for everyone and, oh yeah, one for Jacob too. She’s such a soft touch — I’m glad I’m not like that1.
1 Unless it’s for something that glows. I mean, it’s terribly important for a child’s intellectual stimulation to have plenty of light emitting devices. And things that bounce, for physical development and eye-hand coordination. And cool stuff, for social acceptance. Plus sports equipment, because it’s all so competitive these days. So, I just grit my teeth and fork out. After all, it’s for the children.
This is Noa, the 13 month old daughter of Jim and Dafna, two college friends who flew in from California to visit us Thursday evening. She is enjoying our slide, although she needs a bit of help from her dad.
I think that Noa and family might have visited family too, but I’m sure that was just a bonus from seeing us.
Dad attempts to get the boys to go out to the pool or the pond and fails
Mom: [to Corwin] Let’s go to the art fair, then.
Corwin: Never!
Mom: Charles, do you want to go to the art fair?
Charles: I don’t know.
Dad: At least he’s leaving it open.
Mom heads upstairs to do Mom stuff
Charles: Why we not going to art fair?
Dad: Do you want to go?
Charles: Yes. I like art fairs.
So Mom, Charles and Alice headed off to the art fair while Dad and Corwin vegetated. Charles enjoyed a number of inflatable play grounds and he made a guitar out of a shoebox, cardboard tube, and rubber bands. He and Alice both greatly enjoyed the guitar this evening.
Erica endures one last humiliation before she escapes from durance vile
This is Charles.
Charles is desperately thirsty. He is also very sad because he can not find his sippy cup full of milk.
Can you find the sippy cup for Charles?
Corwin has been making Erica play his gameboy quite a bit these last few days. They’re stuck somewhere in Super Mario 3. I offered to let Erica take the gameboy home but she said “that would be a bad idea”. I’m not so sure. A spaced out, red-eyed zombie Erica could be kind of fun for a day. Still, it was funny to hear Erica and Corwin scheming to keep control of the gameboy with comments of the form “just one more time — I’m sure I can get it this time”.
While Alice was at Grandma’s a few weeks ago, she had problems signaling that she was thirsty and needed some milk now. Since Grandma doesn’t have the handy, Alice reachable shelf of sippy cups, Alice couldn’t grab a couple as she does here. Instead she would go over to one of Grandma’s couch and start looking under it, because that’s what we do here to find Alice’s sippy cup for a refill.
P.S. With Alice, we have to be particularly aggressive about gathering up old, discard sippy cups because there doesn’t seem to be any age at which milk gets too old for Alice to try to drink it.
The first night (Friday), Mom wanted to go out to a nearby shopping mall. We thought it would be easy to get to but we made the wrong turn and had some fun traveling the backroads of northern Indianapolis. Eventually we found it and went to park. That’s when Charles got upset, because he saw a parking garage and insisted that we park on the top level. Instead we parked across the street at an adjoining strip mall (because there were a couple of stores there Mom wanted to see). There was also a bookstore, which was a mixed blessing. Both boys wanted books plus other toys but I restricted them to one book each. Charles wanted a book with a camera because he wanted to take pictures, but I pointed out that he’d already lost my other camera. It’s still missing, by the way, and Mom won’t let me get a replacement. Charles was so unhappy he had a meltdown in the store, but eventually I managed to get him down to just sobbing.
After that, we went back to the mall and parked as directed by Charles, on the top level of the parking garage. This picture is of him after the ascent, at the very top. He was happy (for once) to have his picture taking after such an arduous achievement.
We ended up wandering about inside for a while, although it was uncrowded for a Friday night. The evening wasn’t a complete disaster for the boys because there was a toy store in the mall, at which they got another toy each to go with the books, plus another toy for when we got home. Mom bought some curtain rods because that’s the kind of thing you get when your on vacation. I, however, being made of sterner stuff didn’t indulge myself as I deserve in an upscale pen store (oooh, there were some beauties there…).
Later, back at the hotel, the boys went to the arcade. Corwin got some geegaws from the tickets off the games but Charles didn’t get any and this made him sad. His major whine: “But I only got three toys today!”. Somehow this didn’t trigger his parents’ sympathy circuts.
Alice is put away for the night
Corwin’s big adventure during the trip was his attempt at rock climbing. It was free but there were a limited number of slots so we were lucky to get one. I had to belay the line, so this picture is taken by Mom. While Corwin and I were getting set up, I put my camera down next to my station, got set on the rope and then checked for the camera to see if I’d be able to use while Corwin climbed. The camera was gone! I immediately started looking for it in a panic until a staffer pointed out “that woman” had taken it. I looked and sure enough, she had it in her guilty little hands. It was my own wife stealing my camera! Just when you think you know a person…
Corwin made a good effort, but he couldn’t make it up to the top. I was a bit bummed because he did manage to get with in a step of getting his hand on top, but he told us later that he was too tired and scared to go on. I’m not sure why he was scared, as he “fell” off a couple of times, which just resulted in him swinging around on the rope (my primary worry is that he’d find that more fun than actual climbing). The only reason I was manning the rope was to pull up slack, the rope retainer itself kept the rope from slipping. At least he gave it a try.
A couple days later, after we got back, I mentioned this to Erica. She replied that she’d seen rock climbers at Devil’s Tower. Corwin was a bit dubious, but instead of letting Erica try to explain, I fired up the Internet and found some of pictures of it. Corwin thought it was “craaaaazzzzy”.
During our trip we spent a lot of time at the water park (panorama) attached to the hotel. Our room turned out to be the closest room to the upper deck in the park so we never had a long walk to get there. Corwin enjoyed the three water slides although he liked the tube slide the best. Charles didn’t want to play in the water Friday but he adjusted by Saturday and on Sunday said that he didn’t want to leave. Alice also took a bit to warm up to the water and spent almost all her time directly attached to a parent. She got a little more adventurous on the last day.
The main attraction for smaller children (although Corwin spent a lot of time there as well) was a pirate ship with all sorts of water emitting units.
Most of the water jets could be adjusted (within limits) by various controls. The kids really liked that.
The big feature of the set up was a giant bucket of water on top. It would fill slowly and every 10 minutes or so would tip over, delivering a deafening blast of water to the assembled crowd.
The water would hit a roof first (or it would likely have knocked people over) and then spray on to a crowd that would assemble for the tipping. A very clever bell was attached to warn people when the bucket was ready to tip. It had a tube from near the top over to a water wheel with little metal balls. When the bucket was almost full, water would flow through the tube, rotate the wheel and causing the balls to strike the bell (video).
Mom thought that I should hang out with Corwin so he didn’t get lonely going around by himself, but I found that almost impossible as Corwin would simply disappear the moment I had to watch Charles or Alice. I took it as a signal that Corwin didn’t find going solo to be much of an issue. Besides, I had to take off my glasses to ride the slides and then how could I scope the babes? I did manage to get in a few rides with Corwin.
Mom was also left out, as she wanted to ride the tubes on the simulated river that flowed around the inside of the park but neither Corwin nor Charles would go with her and Alice freaked out.
Overall the water park was a big hit with the kids. It didn’t hurt that on the upper deck was an arcade of various electronic games, where Corwin and Charles spent a lot of time and money. Alice liked it and she didn’t even need a token to enjoy many of the games.
[Mom and Dad start taking apart one of Charles’ scotch tape constructions]
Charles: Why you do that?
Mom: We need to clean up because some friends are coming over later.
Charles: But I need that to do my job.
Mom: You can work on that later.
Charles: I need to build machine.
[Later, Charles visits Dad in Dad’s office]
Charles: I working on my job but I almost done.
Dad: Almost done?
Charles: Yes. You want to come see? I working on my job. I very busy. You have to work on your job because that how you make. But it almost done now.
[Dad and Charles get up to go see]
Charles: It almost done. Don’t touch nothing!
It turns out that Charles had constructed an automatic door closing system for the hallway door out of his rubber band strings. He’d had to loop it around a few times to get enough tension to work.
On Saturday night, Alice had her first head trauma (a bit of a tradition among the kids) while we were in the hotel. She was toddling about and then fell, smacking her forehead in to a chair leg. It left a major bump, as you can (sort of) see in the picture. It ended up not being much of a bruise at all, more of just a faint discoloration. I tried to comfort Alice after the accident, but she wanted down within a few seconds and went toddling, barely keeping her balance, over to Mom for some real comforting. Alice was fine the next day and didn’t even seem particularly sore. Just made of stronger stuff than the boys it seems.
Our big adventure over the weekend was going to the Children’s Museum. It opens at 10 AM and so we got there at 9:50, which was just right for parking and getting tickets before heading inside. We stayed there until 4:30 (it closes at 5) and still had to force the children to leave. Mom considered that a mark of success. Corwin liked Science Works. This had lots of gadgets and thinks like the kinetic works, (video) which required children to help out by moving billiard balls around (Corwin spent quite a lot of time doing that). The kids enjoyed the water area as well.
Corwin also liked Dinosphere.
It had a dome that simulated a sky and ran through a simulated day, along with lots of dinosaur skeletons. There was even a dig site in the back that Corwin worked at for a bit.
Unfortunately for Corwin, it was a bit too realistic and they gave him just a hard rubber disc to use to dig in the petrified sand (presumably so that the first wave of kids didn’t dig up everything, and rationalized as the tools real paleontologists use near bones). Still, he did persist at it for a bit.
Charles and Alice strongly disliked the Dinosphere because of the dinosaur sounds being played under the dome. They much preferred the Playscape. I think Charles would have spent all day there if he could have. He set up his own construction area
while Alice stalked the wagon of another family, repeated trying to get in it or haul it around.
Charles did spend some time at Science Works because it had an area with a concrete floor, lots of mulch and toy earth moving equipment.
What Alice liked most was the wagon mentioned above, pushing our stroller around,
and walking around and up and down stairs.
In the middle of Science Works was a vivarium simulating a small pond / wetland. Built in to the sides were some little tunnels to simulate animal burrows. Mom and I tried to get Alice to go in the fox one, but she wouldn’t. However, right after I tried and failed two other small children zipped in. Alice followed immediately, as you can see.
At the end of the day we stopped in the kids’ very favorite spot, the gift shop. We managed to escape with buying only one toy each for Corwin and Charles while preventing Alice from destroying any significant amount of merchandise (although she did get away from us a couple of times — she’s a fast little bugger when there are things about to pull off shelves).
We made it back mid afternoon today. I didn’t get as many good photographs as I would have liked but I think it was an good vacation anyway. I’ve got lots of things to write up this week but I haven’t had the energy today. Here’s a panorama of the water park. The pool that Alice and Charles spent their time is in the lower right, you can just see the far edge of it in the picture. I’m standing on the upper deck, which is the equivalent of the third floor. There’s one more pool that the kids didn’t really go in at the lower left, you can just see steps down in to it, plus another jacuzzi under the deck.
The gang watches the kinetic works — a rare photo of all three together
UPDATE: We spent some time after getting home cleaning the boys, who had managed to go uncleaned since we had left. When I tried to get Charles to take get clean, he objected in his strenuously passive way. The cutest bit was when he was laying on the stairs, claim to be too infirm to climb them. He’d climb a few steps on his stomach, then make pathetic little clutching motions with his hands on the next stair up, just like a scene from a cartoon as character desperately grabs for a handhold while sliding off a cliff. After failing to get purchase, Charles would slide back down the stairs he’d just climbed. Eventually, through random chance I suppose, he got up to the top of the stairs and then fled in to the parents bed to sulk. He remained there for a while until I got tired of waiting and called down “OK, Corwin, you get up here and take a shower”. Charles immediately lept out of bed and declared “but I taking a shower!”. Zoom, we got him naked, wet and washed. Charles then spent a good 15-20 minutes standing in the shower until I finally kicked him out. He was shivering with cold because I had kept the water temperature down, it being a hot day and because I asked Charles a couple of times “is the water the right temperature? do you want it warmer?” to which he had replied “it just right”. Nor, apparently, did it occur to him that if he was cold, he should ask for warmer water or out of the shower. I’m always amazed by what Charles considers changeable vs. fixed.
It’s late so I only have time for a quick note.
We had a lazy morning and then went to Childrens Museum from 10 (opening time) till 4:30 (closing time: s). Next was the water park for an hour or so followed by dinner. Over to the game arcade for an hour or so then back to the water park. That closes at llpm. Corwin closed them out.As I write this, however, Corwin is over in his bed reading instead of sleeping. Maybe we should cut him back to 6 cans or so of Mountain Dew per day.
Alice gets mad when she pokes a water droplet nest and they swarm her
We’re off to a weekend adventure in Indianapolis. We’re staying at a hotel with a water park because Corwin has been whining all spring and summer about doing that. We’ll also be hitting the city zoo and the Children’s Museum. And while we’re there, spending some time at an up-scale shopping mall that just happens to be right down the road from the hotel. My personal goal is to have everyone whine “not another picture!” the instant I give them the photographer’s stare.
UPDATE: You can read about our adventures here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Corwin is back from Grandma’s house. He came back with many new toys. He claims to have had a good time but refuses to go in to any details. I think he’s just concerned that if we find out Grandma just left him to forage for himself with a Toys ‘R Us gift card and a pile of DQ Sundae tokens we might not let him go up the next time.
The other day, after Alice had been helping Mom water, she decided to play “diving board”. She watches people dive at the pool and apparently thought she’d try it herself. Luckily she used a rain gutter as her diving platform, which has a roughly 1.5 inch drop. Here’s a video clip of her “diving”. Note the grunt from the impact and the dribbles of blue chalk from an earlier snack. In the background you can hear Charles saying “Look, the party’s set up now” as he finishes his work on one of his party constructs.
Erica, that foul temptress, has lured Charles in to acquiring a terrible habit. She showed him how to hook rubber bands up in to long rubber band strings. Charles took to this with his standard monomaniacal zeal and now we have the ever growing rubber band strings around the house. He has one that has to be literally twenty feet long. I hold it up as high as I can and it goes to the floor on both sides with length to spare. Charles ran it from the sliding glass doors in the media room over to tall cabinet on the far wall in the kitchen and then back and forth a couple of times between that and the drawers on outside of the kitchen counter. And that’s just one of his strings, he’s got several others of various shorter lengths. Unfortunately we have a lot of rubber bands (I got them for the rubber band guns).
In other news, Chloe was over for another visit. Erica kept them around the house this time, which worked out well. Chloe did spend a good amount of time interacting with Charles and Charles claimed to have enjoyed it. Sadly, we couldn’t find the tea set as I think Charles and Chloe would have had a lot of fun with that. Instead, they spent a lot of time talking on the telephone about getting ready for a party (a recurring theme of Charles’).
My favorite Chloe moments:
Not so many Charles moments, who was mostly swept along by the Chloe stream of exuberance.
Corwin was pestering me the other day about helping him build his first model rocket. I countered with the suggestion that he start learning how to sling code, just like his dear old dad.
Dad: So when do you want to start learning how to program computers?
Corwin: Never!
Dad: But what will you do for a job?
Corwin: I don’t know. Build stuff, maybe. Or be a parent.
At least he’s not planning on being a sports star.
So now when Alice is thirsty, she goes and gets two sippy cups, presumably because one just doesn’t convey the proper sense of urgency.
P.S. Alice likes water:
Although I got some good video of Alice I keep missing good Charles clips. Yesterday I spent some time with him outside and he was just full of interesting stories. In this picture you can see him fiddling around with rocks and dirt on the sidewalk. This time he was “feeding his plants”. Charles claimed to have two plants, one of which ate dirt and the other which ate rocks. But only nice rocks, mind you. I think Charles was sorting out the nice ones for his plant when I got this picture. Charles spent quite a bit of time explaining how it was important to provide dirt and rocks to his plants so they would grow.
A bit later I was helping Mom destroy living things that she found inconvenient, mainly vines of some sort on some bushes. Mom got one off and then I worked back along one to spot the root (which looks a lot like a bush stem so it’s not obvious which one to cut). The vine I got turned out to be much larger than Mom’s so I held them up for Charles and announced that, since my vine was bigger, I had won. Charles was mightly impressed. He went on for a good five minutes about it to Mom and I, just to make sure that Mom knew I had won. I’d also won the “stick pulling contest”1 so Charles went discussed how I had won two things that day. But, he was careful to point out, that didn’t mean I was going to win tomorrow. It’s good that Charles keeps me grounded on stuff like, otherwise I might acquire an oversized ego. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?
1 The stick pulling contest worked like this: Charles would hold up a long stick made of segments from Corwin’s floating disk soccer game’s net. I would pull on one end until the segments separated and then Charles would announce the winner.
Alice likes to play in the water, although I’m not sure she enjoys playing the water. Here’s a video clip of Alice helping Mom water the plants. Alice is driven the play in water but doesn’t like the results. She did this over and over again (you can see that she’s already soaked from previous encounters before I took the video).
We sent Corwin off to Grandma’s for a few days. Charles was sad that he didn’t get to go but one demon child at a time is about Grandma’s limit. Corwin took his newly recovered game boy and some DVDs to try out in Grandma’s van (which has a DVD player that’s never been used). Hopefully Corwin won’t tire out Grandma so much that we can’t send Charles up for a visit as well.
I took Corwin out to practice baseball with some of this team, who have been getting together Saturday mornings to hit the ball around. Afterwards, inspired no doubt by this, Mom took us all out for some mini-golf.
Alice liked it a lot, except when we had to pick her up off the green so other people could play. She carried a putter around for most of the time and frequently had one in each hand. Charles started off well but by hole 10 or so he was using his hands and by hole 17 he had moved on mentally to other activities. Corwin had a good time, getting two holes in one and beating Mom and me (I was going to send him off to bed for the rest of the day as a result but after beating him at a game in the clubhouse I let him off).
I also got some athletic shoes for the first time in a few years. Corwin is now keeping me active enough that my normal shoes aren’t sufficient. Gad, laces again, at my age! Oh, the sacrifices we make for the children.
P.S. I think Alice used a few new words today, including “daddy”, “yes” and “strawberry” (Alice quite likes strawberries). Alice tried using a normal cup with water in it but managed only to soak herself. She did well at the basics of putting, though.
Today I found Corwin’s gameboy. It had been missing since early July. Corwin wanted to take it to a swim meet to use between events but he couldn’t find it. Mom found it while we were gone but then it promptly disappeared again a couple of days later. Corwin, however, managed to survive all those weeks without it. He tried looking for it but when Corwin looks for something, if it doesn’t leap out at him and shout he’s never going to locate it. It turns out it was in a bag in the back of the van the whole time. I only spotted it by accident but I figured it had been long enough. Based on his reaction, I suspect it’ll be gone again in a week.
P.S. Charles misplaced the tiny camera that I let the boys use and it’s been gone for three weeks now. I noticed it missing the day after they’d used it but by then Charles had completely forgotten any details. I’ve been looking for it on and off since then but no luck. Sigh.
Here are some mecha constructs by Corwin and Erica, made out of pixelblocks. We got these about a year and a half ago, Christmas 2003 I think. The boys displayed no interest in them so we put them on the shelf in the child office and forgot about them. I think Erica found them this week and convinced Corwin to play with them. Erica’s brother is apparently insanely jealous that Corwin has a big set of them. Despite Erica’s efforts to spare her brother’s feelings, somehow, bizarrely, this fact slipped out during a conversation with him. I’m sure Erica feels terrible about it now but somethings you just have to let go.
P.S. I suggested the Erica invite her brother over during the day to help with the children so he could play with the pixelblocks. Erica said the problem was that this would involve her spending time with her brother. Besides, she noted, he babysat for the boys four years ago and still hasn’t fully recovered.
I now frequently have to stake the remote control away from Corwin because he is an inveterate channel flipper. He picked up the habit from Mom (who is no slouch herself on the buttons) but he’s much worse. The insessant changes drive me crazy. Luckily I don’t have time to watch much TV anymore so it’s endurable, although Corwin considers it a punishment if I make him watch a single show straight through to the end. The one bright spot is that Corwin’s most active flipping is to get around commercials. Corwin also avoids any scenes with active affection or strong emotional content. If I have taken away the remote, he will bury his head in pillows or blankets or, if the scene is truly emotive, leave the room.
The other day Mom had left early and I had woken up by Alice in a rather disheveled state. I figured I could sneak in a quick shower while Alice played on our bed. I was still sleepy and therefore hadn’t reckoned with Alice’s love of things in the bathroom. I ended up having to leave the shower door open so she could see me and the falling water while I showered. I left her watching the water while I got dressed. When I finished I tried to take her away but she wanted more. So I stripped off her diaper and let her in. She wandered on in and stood halfway in the stream with that puzzled look she gets when she desperately wants to do something that she doesn’t enjoy. Mom arrived home after Alice had been in for ten minutes or so and told me right then “you’ve made a terrible mistake”. Happily for me, it turns out that Mom’s paying for it, as Alice now wants to get in the shower with her. On the other hand, Alice likes the showers at the swimming pool more now. Mom took Alice and Charles over a couple of days ago and said that she could have just left the two of them in the shower the whole time.
Yes, Charles has also taken to showers, although he apparently got hooked at the swimming pool and transferred that to home. On the other hand, it could stem from the time he had to shower in our shower when Chloe was visiting because Chloe was in the downstairs shower and Alice was in the kids’s tub. In anycase, Charles now refuses baths and insists on taking a shower in Mommy and Daddy’s shower. He not only likes the shower but he’s very fond of the glass door as well, mentioning that very specifically. Mom took the sliding panels off the kids’ tub a long time ago because they got in the way while cleansing the kids. Perhaps it’s time to put them back.
P.S. Corwin’s in the shower phase of his bathing cycle as well so it’s quite the line in the master bathroom.
Charles apparently observes the real world, despite appearances. Here you can see his ticket counter set up. He has his big pile of money for making change. Taped to the front of the booth are sign up lists, which he made me sign in order to get back to my office. You can see the pen on top of the leftmost column. When customers aren’t lining up for tickets, Charles doesn’t goof off. You can see him hard at work on something, his face furrowed with intense concentration.
This set up lasted a couple of days. Luckily I managed to persuade Charles that I only needed to sign in once a day. I feel a little guilty about that because Charles goes to a lot of work to set up his shops and gets very few customers. He’ll spend literally hours over the course of two or three days waiting patiently for someone to show up. A few days ago he broke down crying because he’d set up shop in the kids’ office in the basement and “no one buy anything for a long time!”. Erica and I made some purchases at that point but Charles has far more endurance for the game than either of us. Still, he waits there, patiently, a mix of hope and sadness on his face.
While Mom and I were on vacation, she made us go shopping in the overpriced tourist trap shops on the main drag. One of the stores was a high end camping gear / clothing shop. I liked one shirt in there but it was pricey and I had even less real need for it than most of my toys. I felt badly for not buying it, however. It’s only now that I realize that it’s probably because the proprietor had the exact same look on his face as Charles does when there are no buying customers to be found. Charles is a bit easier on the wallet, though.
I think the boyen are coming to terms with the fact that Erica isn’t running the house anymore. Not gracefully, with grudging acceptance, but still they are adapting to the new order of things. Until tomorrow, with the Return of Erica.
I noticed when I returned that Alice is starting to walk down stairs instead of sliding on her tummy. She’s a bit tipsy at it so the descent to the basement (with its hard linoleum over concrete) is a bit of a worry but hey — head trauma doesn’t seem to have slowed Charles down any. Except maybe the language thing. And potty training. And social skills. But otherwise no effect!
