Charles has been working on some other changes in his life. For unknown reasons he has decided that he wants to switch from violin to cello. I wonder if he’s big enough to actually play a cello, but he seems determined. At least for part of a week. We’ll see what he thinks after a few weeks.
After watching Alice’s big show Charles decided that the acrobatic performances were cool and that he’d like to sign up for that. Alice immediately decided that she need to do acrobatics as well. So Mom signed them both up. Charles had his first lesson today, which seems to have gone well. Charles did get new clothes, suitable for acrobatics class which he liked. Alice just got some new tights, and her first class is on Monday, but still she seems OK with it.
Charles decided that it wasn’t fair that Timmy never got to play on a Nintendo hand held gaming system, so he built one.
I especially like the holder for a stylus on the back. I first saw this while Charles and Timmy were sitting on a chair, Timmy gaming away, clicking on the buttons and working the stylus. Timmy was far too much in to a gaming trance to respond, but Charles assured me that Timmy was very much enjoying his DS experience.
For no apparent reason, Corwin has decided to try being on swim team again this summer. Open practices are this week, where a kid can practice with the team without signing up. He seems to be enjoying and will likely go ahead and join. He’ll be on a different team than before, one with several of his friends / associates on it (such as Mara, Keith, and Colin). He’ll end up missing quite a bit of practice, though, with his other activities. We’ll see how it works out. But at least we’ll have something to do on Saturdays.
Charles wen to the orthodontist today to get the bad news that his mouth is too small, so he’s going to need braces. He currently has a big gap between his upper front teeth, but those are baby teeth. His adult teeth will have problems and may be being held back by the lack of room. The orthodontist was hopefully that we can put braces on him early and stretch out his palate to make room so he doesn’t have to wear braces as much later on. I have problems in my lower jaw the same way and had to wear braces for a number of years, so it’s probably my fault. Or, really, Mom, who should have married better. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Alice: Mommy! … Mommy! … Mommy, can you find me ?
Mom: No I can’t. Let’s get out of the curtains, please, Alice.
We had a slow morning with lots of coffee, until the afternoon when we went out to the family farm for a gathering commemorate Aunt Erna. She had been cremated so we scattered some of her ashes on a grove near the house where her mother’s (Mom’s paternal grandmother) ashes had also been scattered. The two of them planted many of the trees there.
After that, it was time to eat and hang out with friends and family.
We brought some beating sticks for the boys to play with. They had some fun with them, although they wouldn’t take on the fathers. In the end the most fun was dipping them in the horse watering pool. This was intensely fun for all the kids, especially after they discovered that swinging a wet stick would fling water. Alice, though, liked pulling the wet covering tights off the stick and using it as a washcloth to clean the van.
Corwin had his first intimate experience with gravel, falling hard on his knew on the gravel driveway and getting some serious gouges1. Grandma was able to provide first aid, as Dad thought “tough it out” sufficed as adequate medical care. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t get a good picture of it.
Charles had a couple of melt downs that led to hiding in the van, mainly involving getting whacked a bit too hard with beating stick, but I managed to get him back out and interacting. Alice had a major screaming meltdown because she didn’t get to be second in the line for going down a slide. But later the dolls came out and all was OK.
Later the boyen got to go up on the roof of one of the barns which they thought was very cool. No one ended up falling off which was good.
Wall of Pink Cuteness
1 To match the big elbow scrape you can see in this picture.
Mom’s cousins have arrived. They (and a boyfriend) are all staying at our house, so we’re full up. Mom grilled on the grill and we were going to eat outside on Mom’s new porch furniture but it got cold so we ate in the sunroom. Afterwards we introduced the cousins to Guitar Hero, which they had not played before. After a rocky start, they started getting better and succeeding at songs. I taught them the refrain that must be said before starting, “just one more song”. Eventually even new addicts eventually tire, though, and in the end we all went to bed / couch.
[Dinner conversation]
Mom: I will be in a cleaning frenzy tomorrow.
Charles: Why?
Mom: People are coming to visit. My cousins — three cousins. And a boyfriend.
Charles: I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.
The things you learn at dinner!
To celebrate his birthday properly, there was a string recital, of which Corwin was naturally the star. You can see him here absorbing the accolades of the crowd.
Corwin is 11 years old today. Everyone give him a big birthday smooch like Mom, or a big birthday boot in the booty like Dad.
Corwin cleaned up on the loot this year, although he didn’t have all that much to open today since we are moving toward fewer but larger presents and those have come in over the last weeks or so (cell phone, bike) and it was useful to get them operational on arrival.
One of our family bonding experiences was Mom letting Charles help out in painting an outdoor chair from Mom’s paternal grandmother with protective silver paint. Charles liked this, but near the end he managed to get a big splot of paint on his hand. He tried washing it off, but it was oil based so that didn’t work. He was very upset about it, claiming it was still sticky but I couldn’t detect that. I told him to just wait a few days and it would all come off, but that was unsatisfactory. My view was “bummer!” but Mom, the soft touch that she is, used caustic and poisonous chemicals to remove the paint from his hand. When he has mutant children later on, we’ll know who to blame.
Alice made up a new game this weekend, called “Whack My Booty”. The way it works is, Alice gets on the swing and swings while chanting “whack my booty!”. Charles then takes a beating stick and tries to whack her booty. I want to be clear that Alice invented this game, and asks Charles to play. Alice giggles and squeals the whole time. She finds it an intensely fun game.
Dad: I’m going to tickle you until you pop!
Alice: I don’t pop.
Dad: Then I can tickle you forever!
Alice: Noooo!
Dad: Well, what about for an hour?
Alice: OK.
Today’s big news is that Mom got Corwin a cell phone. She’s been thinking about it for a while, and she recently checked how much it would cost. It turned out that by switching plans, we could get a phone for Corwin without any change to our monthly bill or paying for a phone. I expect it to be lost or broken within a month, but on the other hand Corwin still has his Nintendo DS. We let Corwin pick out a phone. I recommended he just pick the best looking one, since the feature differences weren’t going to matter.
As I write this, Corwin and Mom are getting his phone set up. Mom wanted him to put her in his contact list, Corwin’s response was “can I go to Games?”. Yeah, I should have foreseen that.
While General Charles consults his briefing, Sargeant Alice keeps watch for enemy troops
The boys violin recital went well. It was rather short with each student playing just one piece. Still, Alice fell asleep halfway through. Since I don’t have much to write, I’ll just put in some pictures.
Charles and I were teasing Alice while she was playing in a box. She didn’t like that and came out one of the essential princess comments “that’s not funny!”.
Alice: Daddy! Did you take a picture of Charles?
Dad: Yes.
Alice: Let me see!
[Alice studies the picture]
Alice: It’s not very good.
Ah, the Big Week of Dance is finally over. There was a dress rehearsal on Tuesday, which was fun because it was also the last violin lesson of the season. I had Alice there by 5:15. Mom came and replaced me later and the two of them were there until almost 10. Mom also had to learn how to do a ballet bun1 and put make up on Alice (which at least Alice seemed not to mind). On Thursday and today there were 3 hour performances, a mixture of short routines and longer ones, up to a 30 minute mini-ballet.
On Thursday, Mom and I were there, Mom to keep an eye on Alice, me because all children are required to have a parent “volunteer” to help out. I was an usher2 from 4 until 9:30, which synergized nicely with the aftermath of my stunning sports victory. Since Mom and I had to both be there and a certain parent didn’t call for a sitter early enough, we ended up leaving Corwin and Charles home alone for a while. Corwin was less than enthused about watching Charles, but we arranged for Jack and his mom to drop by later in the evening so they were safe by the time night fell.
Friday was family night and Grandma came down to watch the show (plus a violin recital tomorrow). Mom got Alice there a bit later than the previous evening, since she didn’t need to be ready until 10 or 20 minutes after the show started.
I thought the show was good, if a bit long. I don’t think that Charles and Corwin enjoyed it all that much, especially after Charles curled up in his chair with TImmy and tried to go to sleep. Alice was only in one segment, but some kids were in 4 or 5, each one requiring a different costume. That’s a lot of work for the costume changes plus paying for the costumes, which are only used once and not really suitable for normal wearing.
Alice seemed the most up of everyone involved — when we got home she was ready to party on while the rest of us just wanted to collapse. She actually waited through the show better than the boys, despite having seen it the day before. So I expect we’ll be dancing for a while yet.
1 Lots and lots of hair spray and hair pins. Also, mascara on a 4 year old is a smear waiting to happen.
2 I was stationed at the door right next to the woman’s bathroom, so I got to make “no, I am not a pervert, I was told to be here” eyes at women and little girls with full bladders all evening.
Recently when Jack was over, he and Corwin found a discarded paintball. They decided that it would be cool to smack it with a hammer. So they got a rubber mallet Mom had been using (not on me!), put the paintball on a flat surface at roughly waist height, and prepared to strike. I was tempted to make a comment at that point, but decided that pedagogy required me to let the two of them explore the world of cause and effect in a self directed fashion. It was almost too much when, after arguing about who would get the joy of swing, they decided to hold the hammer together and strike jointly. But, dedicated as I am to education for our youth, I continued to remain silent.
Their blow was true and, as any one older than 10 would expect, the paint blasted out of the paintball in a nice circle that intersected the boys’ pants. Only through my super human control did I not fall over laughing at the combination of anguish and surprise in their post strike exclamations. Jack ended up getting sent back in to the house to change pants when his mom came by to pick him up to avoid paintball paint leaking on to the car seats. It’s that kind of reenforcement that truly causes learning to occur.
Today was the last game of the soccer season, although not an official game. Instead it was parents and siblings vs. the team. Previously in these games, the parent try to hold back so that the kids aren’t totally humiliated. Today, though, we played all out against the little buggers to eek out a 8-5 victory. I think the big difference is that the kids played as a team, where as before they’ve had a strong tendency to just swarm the ball and play hot shots, which is just not enough to make progress against adults, even ones as unskillful and out of shape as we.
Their skill is better as well. I didn’t get scored on as a goalie, but while defending I got owned twice. Once was Andrew. He had the ball and I got in front of him to block the goal, but not too close so that he could easily go around me. He was able to kick the ball over my head and in to the goal (we had a younger brother playing goalie, so once past me it was over). After that I went with rushing the kicker just to keep them off balance. The other time was when I was pacing PatrickM crossing in front of the goal. He managed to reach out and hook around with his foot to get the ball past me and in to the goal.
The best part was a goal scored by the coach. He kicked from outside the goalie box and actually bounced it off the goalie’s head in for the score. That was harsh, but hilarious.
At the end of the game, things kept running on a bit after the official end. I said “hey, it’s sudden death!”. Josh thought this was an excellent idea, because the kids were behind 7-5. About ten seconds after he endorsed my comment, a parent scored. Josh then tried to rescind his assent, but it didn’t matter then.
I was laying on the couch the other day when Alice came over and started jumping on me. And by “jumping” I mean leaping as high as she can and coming down knees first.
Dad: Oof! So who’s more fun to jump on, Dad or Corwin?
Alice: Corwin!
Dad: Corwin? Really?
Alice: Yes.
Dad: Why?
Alice: Because we need to toughen him up!
Alice takes this very seriously. I was beating on Corwin with a beating stick for being uncooperative with Mom. Alice saw this and immediately got her beating stick and started in on Corwin. I figured, hey, it saves me some work, so it’s all good.
Dad: Alice, why are you beating on Corwin?
Alice: I like it!
Dad: Did Mommy make Corwin just so you could beat and jump on him?
Alice: [gleefully, while taking another whack at Corwin] Yes!
I now don’t dare even joke about beating Corwin for some infraction or Alice will show up, beating stick in hand, demanding to help out.
Mom told me that she had a nice Mother’s Day, despite the weather (unseasonably cold around 50°F with high winds and lots of rain) and having to be with her family. The kids went off to Sunday school, then we all went to church where the other children sang a nice song about mothers while our children looked concerned and bored at the same time. I think Corwin’s mouth might have moved once, but I can’t be sure.
Charles seemed to be the most in to the spirit of the day. He got Alice to help him make cards for Mom yesterday, and he made a lovely flower for Mom, which kind of stole the thunder of the flowers I got for her.
We tried to go out for pancakes after church, but it was not only Mother’s Day but graduation day for the university so the pancake place was packed beyond sanity (and we only have one pancake place left in town). We eventually found a place that wasn’t packed to the gills, so at least Mom didn’t have to cook. Then we picked up some invitation cards for Corwin’s upcoming birthday. Mom wanted to go on to a plant store, but it was so cold and so rainy that Mom decided to just go on home, where Corwin and I built her a nice fire in the fireplace.
Charles woke up first this morning, and was ready to go (fresh clothes, morning toiletries complete).before anyone else was moving. He decided to share his awakeness and came in to help Mom and Dad achieve full wakefulness. Mom wisely fled to the bathroom leaving me with Charles.
Dad: Hmmm, I’m hungry because I haven’t had breakfast yet. Maybe I’ll have a big bite of Charles this morning. What do you think?
Charles: [ponders a moment] No,
Dad: How about a big bite of Timmy?
Charles: [instantly] No!
Dad: What about Mom?
Charles: OK.
Metal Footing
Today was the last official game for Corwin this season. The game went well, completing an undefeated season (one tie). The final score was 5-0 and the other team was lucky that it wasn’t more lopsided. There were at least three kicks that weren’t scores only by very small margins. Although the other team came back for a bit in the third quartelmost the r, Corwin’s team dominated the field for almost the entire game. There was some excellent passing and most of the scores were team efforts. Much fancy footwork was on display, although a few times the boys seemed more concerned with being fancy than scoring, letting the other team overwhelm instead of taking a shot or passing. Well, they were crushing the other side so it wasn’t a problem.
My favorite bit was the coach’s elder son getting smacked by the soccer ball on a regular basis through the game. In the head, in the leg, the back, the front, whack whack whack every few minutes. It started early on when he get smacked right in the side of the face. He then kicked it and smacked an opposing player in the head. The ball went out and was thrown back in and another one of Corwin’s teammates got hit, then the elder son again, then another opposing player, all in less than a minute in one spot on the field. That set the tone for the rest of the game.
Corwin wasn’t up to his usual effort, being slower and running little even for him. When the ball did come his way, he managed a number of very nice kicks, long and accurate, but I can’t but help but think that he’d be able to do that more often if he ran over to where the ball was going, rather than hoping his opponents would be accomodating.
The Timmy and Cowie show, featuring Baby Cowie, and special guest villian Sharky
Alice’s new favorite word is “booty”, meaning her posterior. She particularly likes to shake her booty, first by announcing it and then shaking it. I don’t know where she picked that up, but it took her only minutes to infect Charles. I took the only possible path in response — I stopped calling her “girly pop” and started calling her “girly shaker pop”.
Today was the big school field trip to the Field Museum in Chicago. The trip has been mired in difficulties from early on, with at least one class initially banned from attending due too many of its students misbehaving. That got rescinded at the last minute, although the school principal ended up going along and taking charge of the miscreants. Quite a lot of parents went along and those kids were able to select a couple of friends to group up with the kid and parent. Because Corwin and most of Corwin’s crew had parents along, Corwin had to select from the further reaches of his classmates and the result of this is that one girl in the class, Emma, ended up getting selected by a number of boys in the Gang Of Four. Corwin won, although it ended up that all of the boys (Josh, Jack, Keith, Colin, Amin) and Emma went around as a group with parents in tow.
Mom’s primary comment upon return was hanging with the Corwin Crew was like walking a pack of big friendly dogs. There were very amused and bedazzled by any mention of reproduction and the word ‘booby’.
Eventually it was time to come home. Mom stayed in Chicago for some business meetings, so I picked up Alice and Charles then went to the school to wait for Corwin. I parked on the west side and the returning buses dropped the kids off on the north side. I saw Corwin arrive and waited for him to come over to the van, parked in roughly the same location we park for every school function. Corwin didn’t find us — he kind of dispiritedly wandered along the cars on the north side and gave up. That half the kids were walking over to the west side, which was packed end to end with cars, didn’t seem to provide any hint to Corwin that his parents might be over there too. Eventually I had to send Charles over to inform Corwin about our location. I suppose we’re very lucky he didn’t get lost in the city or museum.
Boom!
We found out on Monday that Corwin had a soccer game on Tuesday. Apparently the Powers That Be scheduled it at the last minute, picking a bad day instead of one of the practice days, and at the park on the (literally) other corner of town. Originally I thought Corwin would just have to miss it, due to his overscheduling, but the Boy Scouts even fell through and was converted to a normal meeting starting 30 minutes later, leaving just enough time to make the game. Corwin still ended up doing activities from 3:30 to 8:30 in one continuous whirl.
When our team showed up for the game, despite the scheduling, the other team managed to come up with only three players and no coach. Our coaches were a bit miffed at this turn of events. But we were there, the weather was nice, so the boys had a scrimmage game against themselves, with the three nominally opposing players on one of the scrimmage teams.
It was a good game, although the defense was brittle. I think the final score was something like 7-5, which is rather high for a soccer game. Most of the scores weren’t coordinated affairs, but solo fast attacks which broke past the last defender and pitted the attacker against an unsupported goalie, which is a bad spot to be in at this level of play. This may have been because all of the fast players were offense on the two sides, so the defense was frequently the goalie and one defender who hung out near the midfield mark. Once the attacker was past that, it clear sailing for a shot at the goal.
Corwin played well for most of the game, although he was noticeably slowing down by the end. He had a number of good returns from his solo midfield defender position, but had problems when a fast attacker would get past him. Corwin did have a great save during one attack, when the attacker fancy footworked his way past the goalie and was driving for a completely unopposed shot when Corwin did a slide kick just in front of the goal which went out of bounds, stopping the score and letting more defense move in.
Then it was a race across town to Boy Scouts where, as part of their physical activity, they were playing … soccer.
Charles and Alice had a lot of fun with chalk yesterday. Alice drew long lines and other abstract art, while Charles set up various road signs for bicycle traffic. There was an “ENTER” at a curb, with a “DETOUR” sign at the next sidewalk intersection. The front of the garage was labeled “GO IN AND GET OFF”, presumably instructions for putting away a bicycle.
I should have thought to mention to Charles that I need “No Alice Beyond This Point” signs. We let Charles ride around the neighborhood, because it’s low traffic and people go (mostly) slowly, plus Charles understands about not getting run over. Alice, does not. For that reason we like to keep her within visual range, even though Alice will cheerfully bike (or drive in her Barbie car) off in the wilds, as long as one of her two favorite brothers is along.
Still, Charles does like his bicycle and rides it most days. He has even cried when the scheduling was such that he couldn’t get out before dark, just like he cries on the days he doesn’t get to play Wii.
Charles always wears a helmet and a backpack for safety
Tomorrow we have two scheduled events for Corwin, two for Charles, and one for Alice. In order to preemptively counteract that marital stress, here are some pictures of Mom’s flowering plants.
Bursting to bloom
Even the tree is blooming
With very pretty flowers
Because there wasn’t very much happening on Saturday Mom took Charles out to get some new shoes. He got some lace up sneakers for sports and slip ons for normal wear. the latter being exactly the same style as Corwin. Corwin, needless to say (but I will anyway because I need to fill space) did not think that this emulation was a good idea.
Anyway, I don’t have a picture of Charles’ new shoes, but while they were out Alice got some new Hello Kitty socks which she has much enjoyed wearing.
Tent cleaning time
Corwin left on Friday evening for a weekend camping expedition with his Boy Scout troop. Originally he hadn’t been enthused about it, but somehow on Tuesday he got all worked up (I suspect some sort of nanotech mind control substance in the snacks at the meeting) and decided he was would go. I had found out that the event was planned just the previous day only by accident in talking to one of the soccer moms. It meant missing a soccer game, but Corwin decided that the camping was the less frequent event so he should do that.
Mom and I let him pack mostly by himself, except for the constant harping of “Corwin, you need to pack for your camp out, for which you leave in X minutes!”. As a result, he forgot many things, such as a pad for under his sleeping bag, a towel, and any sort of long sleeve shirt or coat, when the weather turned to 60°F with high winds. I got a call on Saturday from the scout master telling me this, but I figured it would be a good learning experience, as Corwin was claiming to be comfortable in his tripled up T-shirts. I told this to the scout master, along with that improving his sense of responsibility and planning was one of the reasons I liked him being in Boy Scouts. I found out in a later debrief after he was home that he had been in the range from “somewhat cold” to “really cold”. The scout master said he’d be having a talk with the scouts about how Boy Scouts are “prepared”.
Despite this planning failure, Corwin said he had a good time, going down a big slide (on which he banged up his shin with a really impressive bruise), walking over a rope bridge and climbing a rope wall. The last bit was made more cool by the fact that some other scout fell off hard enough to be knocked unconscious, requiring lots of rescue vehicles (2 ambulances and 2 fire trucks, according to Corwin, although I can’t imagine how the firetrucks expected to help). And as a reward, Corwin got to take home a tent to dry and clean1. In fact, Corwin was so dirty that he volunteered to take a shower2. That’s the scouting life!
1 Charles helped Corwin a bit with the tent.
2 On the other hand, that may have been a ploy to delay putting away his camp equipment and cleaning the tent.
Alice’s big ballet debut is coming up, and it’s quite the production. Today was class picture day, which required Alice to be dressed in her full show outfit. The impression I have is that the actual event will be so frantic that taking pictures at that time would be adding an earthquake to the Titanic so they do it a 1½ weeks early.
Mom had a lot of fun with this, because among other things it requires a very specific bun style hair do, for which Mom had to print instructions and then use copious amounts of bobby pins and hair spray (bangs, it seems, are verbotten). Alice also had her first exposure to make up, including lipstick and mascara (which Mom thought was not the best idea for 4 year olds who rub their eyes Alice thought it was fun, expect for the lipstick being, well, sticky. It seems that eye brow liner will be deployed for the actual event because of the stage lights (stage lights! Corwin’s school play doesn’t even do that). Mom can’t wait.
With Corwin out of town, Mom arranged for having many people over. First up were Aunt Evelyn and Cousin Lynn, who were in town for a visitation. We hadn’t seen them for a while so it was nice Of course, Aunt Evelyn is a woman of the most discerning taste, as clearly indicated by the fact that she reads this kidlog on a regular basis. Mom made a big dinner because we also had Charles’ friend Josie over for dinner and a show.
After a nice dinner, Mom hustled Aunt Evelyn and Lynn out because Mom, Charles, and Josie were off to attend a chamber music event with the boys violin teacher which was in our neighborhood. Charles went because it was his instructor, but Josie apparently just enjoys chamber music. Corwin had originally been scheduled for the event but with his absence Mom had to locate a back up boy.
The concert kept them all out late, so that when Mom got home and realized that Corwin had also been scheduled to be an acolyte tomorrow morning at 8AM, she had some frantic calling to do. That proved fruitless so Mom trusted to God to deliver her from this time of trial and just hoped some other child would be there who could substitute.
Charles face blocks a penalty kick
Corwin is off on a Boy Scout adventure so he missed his game today. Charles had a game, his last one of the season. They won, 3-1, which made Charles happy (although not as happy as snack).
Charles started out as goalie. He did a good job and had some great stops, including the penalty kick in the picture, but he eventually was overwhelmed. He recovered well and played well for a while before being shifted to defender. Our team then scored two quick goals, one from almost midfield. There was a long lull and then late in the third quarter Charles’ team had one last goal. Although his team had better dominance, there was a long period in the third and fourth quarters where the other team put a lot of pressure on the goal and at least a couple of time it was only luck that prevented a goal. One of the non-Charles goalies at least twice stopped a shot but lost the ball and had to look around for it before he picked it up. One little kick and it would have been in.
The overall play seemed better, there was actually some passing (just a bit) and kids positioning themselves instead of just chasing the ball. Charles did well as defender, kicking the ball back when it came in and breaking up attacks. Even when the older kid got by him, Charles would play tenacious defense, keeping on the attacker so he didn’t have time to set up a good shot at the goal, which I think prevented a score or two.
In trying to get pictures of everyone, I noticed how much a couple of kid can dominate the play. Since the field is so small a fast kid can play offense and still run back to steal the ball from his not qiute as aggressive teammates. This was to Charles’ team advantage as they had both of their older and stronger players on the field. Having two meant that one was always on the field, preventing periods when the other team was able to score easily. The other team still had a reasonable defense and stopped a good number of attacks. A good end to a good season. Now I just have to plow through the more than 1,000 pictures I took.
Grandma sent Mom a card for Mom’s birthday. It folds out in to three sections and the middle one is mostly open with a swinging basket of flowers. Alice has had much fun with this. Even Charles has had some fun with it. Clearly, the lesson is that a good card beats a present.
