Charles’ run of not so successful sporting events continued today with the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. This year Charles went with a school bus design, which I mistakenly built by taking two basic blocks and gluing them together. It sounded like a good idea, but the blocks are heavy compared to the maximum allowed weight so I spent a lot of time drilling and carving out wood to get it under the limit. We didn’t add any weights at all, but at least that meant that we could get the weight absolutely maximal. It didn’t end up helping that much, although Charles’ car was in the middle of the pack. I think it might have had a problem because I messed the weighing before putting on the wheels. I ended up having to do yet more carving, which may have misaligned the wheels or got sawdust in the axles. Charles was a bit bummed, because I had him carefully grind and polish the axles.
Charles did like the end result. We found some paint labeled “School Bus Yellow” which we used to paint the car. I would paint one side to show Charles, then he would paint the other sides. I actually made him prime it first, so he would know how that was done. Charles favorite part, though, was using a Dremel because that’s a power tool. He did like the other wood working parts, sawing, sanding, etc., but power tools — that’s the pinnacle.
The event itself was very long. It ws originally planned to start at 12:30 and end at 2:30, but I think we ended up not leaving until just before 5. It was done as a double round robin, so every car raced every other car twice, switching tracks between heats to even things out. Some of the races were very close and I ended up taking pictures to verify winners. You can see Charles’ car winning by a very slim margin. Unfortunately, he also lost several this close.
Alice and Corwin endured. I think Charles and Alice had a lot of fun with two water bottles and Mom, turning her into jet back pack Mom and other things which I couldn’t figure out, but involved bottle popping in and out of Mom and waving about.
Today both boys had soccer games, at the same time naturally. I tried to run back and forth between the games to get pictures, and as a result didn’t really watch the game the way I normally can. On top of that, it was cold. Above freezing, but a good wind that sucked the heat right of you. Even with gloves, my fingers got numb working the camera. Oddly, the number of parents watching seemed much fewer than normal. Hmmm, surely just a coincidence.
Corwin’s team had a good game, winning 5-0. His team played well, but it was more that the other teams wasn’t working well together. The other local team got split up, half on Corwin’s team and half on the team they played today. Corwin’s team still had a core of kids used to each other, but I don’t think the other team had that at all.
Corwin had some good action, although he definitely needs more work on his running. Mom and I need to work on his general stamina.
Charles’ team didn’t do so well. I didn’t catch the final score, but 0-5 wouldn’t surprise me. Charles played well, but his team seems to have fewer players (less substitutions) and to be much younger (I think they have only one 2nd grader). Charles, at least, was quite a bit more aggressive than previously, doing better at mixing it up and going after the ball. He had several good stops, breaking up an attack by kicking the ball back to the other side.
Sorry about the back dating and catching up with the posts, but we’ve been very busy here these last couple of weeks and then, while I was working on the Easter post (which was a tour de force of brilliant, knock you off your seat hilarity with poignant insights), my web browser crashed and destroyed the text. It took me a few days to get the mental energy back to reconstruct the poor shadow that is there now. Even worse, I will be out of town next week, so Mom will have to keep the updates flowing. I’m sure she’s primed with hundreds of little anecdotes to fill the space, held back only by not wanting to show me up too badly while I’m around.
It has been a hard semester on the violin teachers. Both Corwin’s school teacher and the boys’ private teacher have had health issues this winter. Thankfully both of them seem to be on the mend.
Corwin is making the transition from first position to second and third positions. For those of us non-string players, the n-position refers to where you place your hand on the neck to finger the strings. Higher n means hand closer to the body of the violin. Corwin’s teacher had been working hard with him on intonation of the first position scales for the last year before launching off on the higher positions, and I can see (or hear) why. Corwin has been playing slowly through the 2nd and 3rd position scales, and he is able to adjust to get the note in tune (for the most part, when he’s paying attention). According to his teacher, once he gets some other positions under control, he can start playing some “real” music. Should be interesting.
Charles is up to Perpetual Motion, about half way through the first Suzuki book. So far everything has been in the A major scale. The next song is the first one in another scale. It is interesting to see the differences in playing style between Charles and Corwin. Charles is very particular. When the teacher asks him to do something during the week (say work on stop bowing), Charles will do that very diligently. Charles is also very twisty. He will turn his body to try an look at the strings until his left arm is pretty far behind him.
It’s bad enough to be called to the bathroom with the ringing cry of “Daaadddy! Wipe my poo-bits!”. Seeing a naked, unwiped Alice bouncing around is even worse. I try and try to convincer her that she should remain on or at least near the toilet while she’s needing some poo-bits to get wiped, but it is to no avail. But however bad it is, it can get worse if you involve a dog. The other day, Alice is flouncing around in the downstairs bathroom, calling for me to perform one the few duties she likes with Dad more than Mom, and she’s scattering little bits of poop around. Momentarily wearied by the thought of cleaning that up after Alice, I didn’t react quickly enough when Poly came in and cleaned it up for me. Maybe Mom should look in to getting Poly a brand of dog food that Poly prefers to Alice poop. There’s an advertisement concept for you.
Last week I got a stuffed Yuna doll, because she had seen it on my computer and said “I want that!”. Yuna immediately became Alice’s closest companion when she arrived. Alice even took her in for “surprise box”, although as expected no one guessed what was in the box.
Everything was going great until Easter, when as part of her loot, Alice got a stuffed blue turtle. Yuna was banished to Alice’s bed, suitable for being one of the crowd of stuffed beings who live in that netherworld (since Alice refuses to sleep there). Oh, how fast a new court favorite destroys her rivals!
We almost forgot to pick up Corwin after Boy Scouts tonight, but fortunately they were all out watching the skies. They were observing a satellite (I didn’t catch the name, arriving late, and Corwin has no memory of it). Then the Space Shuttle and Space Station Freedom came by. Both were lit up brilliantly, very visible, until they passed in to Earth’s shadow and faded out.
One item that Mom inherited from Aunt Erna was a “Juiceman”, which is a device for making juice out of fruits and vegetables. I think it dates from the 1970s, but Corwin was fascinated with it. He pestered Mom frequently to fire it up and make some juice. Eventually Mom relented and the two of them made some carrot / apple / ginger brew. Mom went a little bit heavy on the ginger, so Corwin wouldn’t actually drink it. Instead Mom foisted it off on me. Still, it destroyed Corwin’s interest in juice making — as far as I know he hasn’t asked about it since.
Today was Easter, as you know. As usual, we bundled up the kids for the easter egg hunt at the church. Corwin didn’t participate because he is now too old. Instead, I handed him off to one of the girls helping out with the admonition “be useful!”. The girl didn’t know Corwin that well and so accepted him as if.
Alice and Charles had fun hunting eggs, each of them getting quite a basket full. Alice had so many that she gave one away to an even smaller child who hadn’t done as well. Charles kept track of his so well that after we had been home a while, he announced that someone had poached two of his eggs.
The children survived the service. At home, Corwin volunteered to hide eggs for a local egg hunt. He did a good job, hiding only one that required moving something to find. He started giving hints when his siblings were stuck, so I taught him the trick of saying “I can see an egg from here” while looking in the wrong direction. We had to lock Poly in the house, as she was much better at finding (and eating) the eggs than Charles and Alice.
Grandma and Grandpa dropped by for the day. Mom, apparently in the belief that their retirement funds had run out and they were living on field gleanings and the occasional road kill squirrel, cooked up a whole mess of food, including an 18 pound ham. Grandma brought some food too, and of course the kids were stuffed on candy, resulting in a larger than normal pile of left overs. We’ll all be hamming it up for quite a while.
A few moments in their Sunday finest
Mom took the kids out shopping yesterday for Easter clothes (Mom, in an obvious display of favoritism, doesn’t make Alice wear hand me down nice clothes from the boys). While they were out, Corwin got a new Wii game, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which he has been playing every permitted minute since then. Super Mario Galaxy — old. Guitar Hero — passé. No, only the very newest games will do for Corwin. He even lets Charles play him a little bit, because a second player can’t really hurt the first player and can be useful. I did make Corwin stop playing for a while so I could shred (being the kind of old fogey who plays a game all the way through before going on to a new one). Corwin became so anxious that he powered off the Wii on me in mid-play. As punishment, I gave up on playing and put in Super Smash Bros. and then let Charles play while Corwin watched. Vlad the Impaler has nothing on me.
Because Mom is gone and scheduling is a little tight, I have had to pick up Alice early from day care for the last couple of days. The first time, I didn’t really need to pick her up early, but because everyone (except Mom!) was home, I thought we’d have some extra quality family time. But no, Alice was having snack and there was cake for later, so the boyen and I had to hang out at the nearby coffee shop for a while until Alice was ready to go.
I had to pick her up early the next day and again, I arrived in the middle of snack. The teachers assured me that they didn’t spend the entire day having snack. Alice wasn’t happy about leaving but we had a schedule so we packed up her animal crackers and headed out. I apologized to the staff for grabbing her out of snack, but her mom … at that point the teacher said “is in California — we’ve heard all about it”. I am sure they had.
We were late for soccer practice this evening because Charles couldn’t find Timmy. I had to search the house until Timmy was once again re-united with Charles.
Anyway, that’s rather thin for a post so here are a couple of pictures of Charles’ school art projects. It’s hard to tell exactly what the overall theme is, but I think there is one, if I could just find the words…
Mom’s back. She got in late tonight. The boyen were crashed, but Alice stayed up because she doesn’t need sleep.
The hair
[Dad spent some time this morning combing Alice’s hair, so that Mom wouldn’t suspect how much neglect Alice has suffered while Mom was greasing up potential clients with her phenomenal social skills. Definitely going to get some clean clothes on them before Mom returns too.]
Dad: We’re going to be combing a while, your hair is a mess.
Alice: OK.
Dad: Have you been practicing knot tying with your hair?
Alice: No!
Dad: Then how did it get to be such a mess?
Alice: It had some toys in it. [pause for alternative reality construction] The other day1, at school, toys got in it and messed it up.
Dad: Oh.
[preparing to depart, Alice is torn by having to choose between a stuffed princess and a stuffed Piglet for a nap companion]
Alice: I could leave Piglet in the van, or the Princess.
Dad: Or Princess and Piglet could go to school and leave Alice in the van.
Alice: No! They can’t move by themselves! They’re toys.
Dad: And Alice isn’t a toy?
Alice: No.
Dad: What about Charles?
Alice: Yes.
Dad: Charles is a toy?
Alice: Yes.
Dad: What about Corwin?
Alice: Him too.
Dad: So Charles and Corwin are just toys Mom and Dad got for you to play with?
Alice: Yes.
She’ll make a fine little sister.
1 This is one of Alice’s favorite circumlocutions. It means either “I don’t remember” or “I just made this up and don’t want to be tied down to a verifiably false time”.
While we were spending much travel time in the van today, Alice asked me if I had ever been a little baby. I admitted that was the case, and Alice started pondering when I had been a little baby, and whether it was before or at the same time as Alice wa a baby. I pointed out that she might consider who took care of her while she was a baby, to which she replied “I was too young to remember who took care of me when I was a baby!”.
Later, as we headed home, Alice launched in to a long improvisational song. I couldn’t be sure of the lyrics, but it was definitely about a dragon rounding up people and eating them, with a verse or two about the dragon turning them in to mush first. That’s our sweet little baby girl, all right.
I told Charles this morning that he had violin lessons in the afternoon and he broke down in tears and denial. I had to call Mom to confirm it for him, but he still remained in denial. He sent himself to his room and cried for 20 minutes or so. He managed to cheer all the way to glum by the time we actually left for lessons. As soon as it was his turn, he cried out in pain and told his violin teacher that his arm hurt, but (brave boy that he is) he could get through and still play his violin.
Charles wasn’t so brave yesterday, as I tried to round up the crew to take Corwin to soccer practice. He had misplaced Timmy, the dolphin, and was in a total frenzy of emotional disturbance until I located Timmy (on the main counter in the kitchen, not exactly hidden). But Timmy found, we could depart the house, although Alice was concerned because she couldn’t make Charles laugh on the way over. I tried explaining that Charles was post Timmy trauma, but Alice pointed out “But Charles has TImmy!”. I suppose those with emotions with as little latency as Alice’s don’t grasp the concept of recovery time.
I think Timmy’s lucky. Charles abandoned him for a couple of days and went back to Sharky because Timmy got some spots, presumably from our emission plagued cat. But that’s forgotten or worn off now.
Timmy and Charles
Mom left for California on a business trip this morning. I think she’ll be back Friday, but I’m not sure. She’ll be stuck in the harsh glare of sunny San Diego while we enjoy the soothing, relaxing soft luminescence and white noise of gentle rain. She’s also all alone, while I am enjoying the company of our lovely and pleasant children. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made.
A few nights ago, I was sitting and reading out on the landing, waiting for Princess Grumpy-Pants to fall asleep so I could transfer her to her own bed. POset crept up behind me on the top of the back of the chair and then sneezed cat snot all over my naked back. It was less than pleasant.
This leads me to a recent evening, when Mom was sitting on the couch and POset climbed up behind her.
Dad: POset’s getting ready to sneeze in your hair.
Mom: [watches The Hogfather movie, pretending Dad isn’t there]
POset: *sneeze*
Mom: Oh, ick!
Dad: Wow, she did sneeze in your hair.
[Dad runs off, gets some tissues, starts cleaning Mom’s hair]
Dad: Ech. You’re sleeping somewhere else tonight. Hey, Alice, can Mom sleep in your bed?
Alice: No!
Poor Charles, I forgot to mention that other trauma he suffered yesterday. It’s the kind of trauma that can scar for life, almost the physical embodiment of Charles’ deepest fears. He missed the school bus. Oh, the horror, the horror…
Charles naturally blamed Mom, instead of his own system crash when he couldn’t find a pair of socks in his drawer. He also spent 10-15 minutes in the bathroom without managing to do his morning toiletries, which was the proximate cause of his failure to make his transportation rendezvous. He spent most of the time before Mom took him off alternately crying and blaming Mom for making him miss the bus through not sufficiently specific to be disproved mechanisms.
Still, Charles was better today about getting ready in the morning.
Mom broke out the back porch grill and cooked up some tandoori chicken. What more significant sign could you want?
We made Corwin go out and chip the ice off the walk over the weekend. We hadn’t shoveled because it had only snow a &frac;12; or so. The driveway cleared itself, but the shaded walk melted just enough to freeze back in to ice. Note that this is after the putative chipping of ice.
Got that cleared right up, didn’t he?
Poor Charles. Mom made him and Corwin take Poly out for a walk. Charles took along his backpack, so that he could get some patrolling in. A couple of adult neighbors wandered by and, trying to be friendly, commented “you must have just out of school, you still have your backpack on”. Charles, being Charles, interpreted this as making fun of him (the concept of a conversational gambit for the purposes of civility not being one with which he is familiar). Charles claimed that this terrible utterance had completely destroyed his joy of patrolling and that he would never do it again.
However, an hour or two after supper he was once again equipped for his protective duty.
P.S. We found out about this because Corwin volunteered the information at dinner. Needless to say, we (parents) had a hard time deciding which event was more shocking.
Soccer season has started, with the first practice tonight. It would have been Monday, but the park district thought the weather was too cold. It may also have been that with all the rain and melting snow, the grass would have been quickly churned in to mud flats.
The big news around here is that we got another guitar controller for Guitar Hero. It arrived Monday, before the kids got home, so Mom and I could play a duet before it was ruined. Jack and Corwin had fun with it as well, although I couldn’t convince them to do a guitar battle. I did mock them because Mom and I got 5-star reviews on the song we played, which the boys then avoided to prevent any increase in the level of mocking.
As a special treat for Charles, I let him put stickers on the new (my!) guitar, except on the fret buttons because those just wear off in a few days of use.
It’s not all been happy, though. I found out the next evening that when I wasn’t immediately available, Mom was fine with helping Corwin in his co-operative career. I guess her addiction over came her spousal loyalty. Or it wasn’t quite the bonding experience for her that I had hoped. So, if any you have room on your couch, let me know…
Charles has a renewed interest in typing on the computer. I set up a text editor for him and let him type in stories. He was concentrating so hard that I could take his picture without objection. He ponders every character. Charles actually edits, as he knows how to move around with the cursor keys and use backspace to delete characters. I can’t show you this work, as he’s not quite done with it yet.
[Watching a TV commercial]
Alice: I want that!
Dad: Then you’d better get a job and earn the money to buy it.
Alice: Christmas money!
Alice is now picking up Corwin’s old habit of taking off only one shoe or sock. I find it a very bizarre habit, which fortunately our favorite child, Charles, did not acquire. Alice is a bit more limited than Corwin because of her preference for tights, which even for her are hard to wear on just one foot. Still, if she does wear socks, she will sometimes keep just one on. A time or two she’s kept both a sock and shoe on one foot, while the other is barefoot. I don’t think Corwin ever ascended to that level of asymmetry.
I tried to rouse Alice this morning, but she was resistant. I outsourced the waking to one of Alice’s princess plush toys, which tried to wake her up with magical kisses. Alice didn’t like this at all, because Dad is not allowed to play at being any of Alice’s princess toys — “Dad, how many times have I told you, you can’t be a princess”. I asked Alice later at breakfast, and it turns out that Mom has general permission to play at being a princess toy.
Mom has been extra busy these last couple of weeks, so I took the opportunity to get ahead of her in Guitar Hero on the Hard level (six songs completed). I showed this to her last night and she was immediately determined to regain her lead and played until she had seven songs complete. Still, I had a higher score on one of them, so her victory is not yet complete. Bawahahaha!
It’s been a while, but Corwin got a couple of sock related whacks. He tried to get out of one by claiming that since the sock was on a footstool instead of on the floor it didn’t count. Mom, thinking of his future marital harmony, overruled him. I asked Corwin if he could think of any habit or change of behavior that might yield superior results in avoiding getting whacked, but he was unable to think of any. What can you do, since it was all obviously just bad luck. Out of his hands, really. Or at least off his feet.
Dad: What I like are little girls who don’t break their daddy’s laptops1.
Alice: AliceG doesn’t break her daddy’s laptop.
Dad: Then I like AliceG.
Alice: She sits on her daddy’s lap and doesn’t knock his computer on the floor.
Dad: Yes, that’s the kind of little girl I like.
Alice: [giggles]
1 Alice’s score: 1 laptop screen and one cover knocked askew but not enough to send off for repair.
Mom: Corwin, you’re getting so tall.
Dad: And big feet, too.
Alice: Poly and I are growing.
Dad: Oh.
Alice: I remember when Poly was this little [holds hand a few inches off the floor]. Big dogs have little baby dogs.
Dad: And big Alices have little baby Alices?
Alice: [incredulously] No!
Dad: Then were do little Alices come from?
Mom: From the store.
Alice: No! There are no Alices at the store.
Mom: That’s because we bought them all.
Alice: No! I was in Mommy’s tummy.
Mom: Yes, I bought you in the store and put you in my tummy.
Alice: No! I was just there when I was a baby!
Mom tortured discussed this with Alice a bit more, from which we gathered that Corwin was in Mommy’s tummy too, but didn’t place with Alice because they were all asleep. Mom had to leave off because Alice was getting very upset about any questions that implied the existence of time before the existence of Alice.
Dad: Alice, are you just the cutest girl ever?
Alice: I ate all of my lunch at school today.
P.S. Alice named her pink dolphin “dolphiny”.
Alice reviews the trip
Everyone made it home OK, and Mom was actually insufficiently surly to be communicative, despite being locked in a car with the spawn for hours and hours and hours…
They ran out of time to make it to the Lego™ store. Things were so desperate that poor Mom had to just wave at the IKEA store as they drove by. That had to hurt, but she bore the pain bravely. Charles was mollified via the purchase of a stuffed Pacific white dolphin which he named “Timmy”. Charles had been agitating for another Sharky, and while he likes Timmy, he’s still thinking that increasing his Sharky collection.
Alice got a fish / cetacean of some sort, its most important property being that it is very pink.
Mom didn’t take many pictures, but here they are.
