Our dear Olivia has moved away. Her parents were just staying temporarily with Olivia’s grandparents, who live in our neightborhood. We knew they were planning on moving but we thought they were going to stick out the school year. However, Charles came home one day and mentioned that Olivia was gone, from the neighborhood and his class. One fewer human-normal role model for Charles. Zina told us that Olivia had had a crush on Charles. We can only hope that it doesn’t require a crush for girls to be willing to interact with Charles.
Alice’s ballet recital is fast approaching. I was forced privileged to go to the lesson where the costumes were handed out for the first time. The girls were all very excited and when they realized the costumes had sparkly things attached well — it was almost too much for them. It does point out why perhaps the classes are predominantly or only girls, though. I am hard pressed to imagine Charles or Corwin getting excited at all about new clothes, unless they had laser blasters or rocket assisted artillery built in.
Charles invented a new nickname for Big D (note - ‘Big D’ is his name, not nickname) —
“Pie Extractor Annual”
We did three soccer games today. Charles and Corwin had morning games and then Corwin had a second game in the early afternoon. We also had to go to a wedding in the late afternoon, but that’s another post.
I went to Charles’ game and Corwin’s second game. Mom caught Corwin’s early game and her report was that Corwin’s team dominated and Corwin played well.
Charles’ game was not so good. There was a good turnout but it didn’t really help on the field as they lost 0-3. At least the scores aren’t pathetic, but still I think the team has scored exactly one goal so far this season. That’s not so good.
Charles had an OK game. He was goalie for the first half and was scored on twice. I thought he should have been able to stop them. Charles, however, was very upset and broke down in tears. The referee called the quarter and the coach and I tried to calm Charles down but eventually just had to leave him to recover on his own. He did noticeably better the second quarter and wasn’t scored on again. He was offense in the third quarter and had some good attacks. He played defense last quarter and did well at that.
I don’t think the team is that untalented compared to the other teams, but there’s a definite lack of team work and aggression. Charles had some good attack runs but he would end up going in solo which he’s not quite good enough The team seemed to think the opponent’s goal box was off limits and wouldn’t go in unless they had the ball. Charles did better at that but it wasn’t enough. Even worse, at one point Charles was tripped and got a free kick from just to the side of the goal box. He had a good kick but he was the only person from his team on that side of the field. Even with all the time to set up the kick, no one, not even the other offense, came across the midfield line. Sigh.
Still, I need to work on Charles to not crowd teammates with the ball (it doesn’t help to hover 2 feet behind the player with the ball). Maybe, with some work and luck, they’ll score again this season.
Corwin’s second game was against a girl team from a local town. They had coordinated outfits so there was a bit of concern but the boys managed to keep the upper hand. It was fairly close, though — the girls gave them a lot of trouble before succumbing 3-1. The team definitely seemed more in the game than last weekend.
Corwin played OK, I think he might have been a bit tired after the first game. He made some good stops but had trouble with some of the girls blowing past him. Unusually, 2 of the boy goals were on basically solo drives downfield. Unfortunately for the girls several of the boys were simply faster than any of their players But the girls played hard until the end. Afterwards they stood in a double row with arms raised and touching to make a little girl arcade they let Corwin’s team run through to celebrate the win.
My favorite moment was during an attack by one of the boys. He let the ball get too far ahead and one of the girl defenders kicked at it but missed completely. The other defender let out a “oh cr*p!” but managed to run over and kick it out of bounds before the boy could follow up. The girls seemed a lot more chatty with game talk while playing than the boys.
The boy goalies were playing very aggressively. At least once the boy goalie collided with and ended up rolling on the ground with one of the girl attackers. This almost came back to haunt them — fairly early in the game the goalie came out to stop a girl attack from the right and she blasted it by him. Only luck stopped it from rolling in for a score because there was literally no one in front of the goal to stop.
The girl goalie had a leg on her. At least twice the boys just let their goalie stop the ball, it landed so far back. Although it was a very windy day, this was cross wind so that wasn’t helping her.
Dad: Alice, stop hitting your brother.
Alice: But he keeps shooting me!
Dad: Just ignore him.
Alice: [plaintively] I can’t!
Dad: Why don’t you pretend that instead of a real gun, Charles just has a badminton racket.
[Charles and Alice laugh, but soon enough are back at it. Alice gets the badminton racket but Dad takes it away before she can hit Charles with it. Charles, ever inventive, figures out how to continue his simulated assault.].
Alice: [piteously] Now he’s got hands!
Our coffee maker (truly the essential kitchen equipment) has been failing for a while. Recently the carafe took to leaking coffee (such a waste!) and when Mom got to the point that she kept a kitchen towel on the counter next to it to soak up the spillage she decided it was time to act.
The coffee maker was a cheap version that’s lasted close to a decade, which meant we had gotten our money’s worth out of it so, and replacing the carafe was like to cost as much as a new maker, so Mom broke open the family wealth and ordered a new coffee maker.
No plebian item this time — Mom ordered the Capresso MT500 which is super fancy because it has an alphanumeric designator right in the name!. It arrived yesterday and Mom had a pleasant later afternoon setting it up. She brewed up a pot of coffee immediately and it was best darn coffee I have tasted in my entire life. I’m not just writing that because Mom reads this kidlog on occasion.
Actually, it is noticeably better than the previous version and Mom says that it has a special mode for small pots in which it does something special with the water. I’m just not enough of a hardware obsessed geek to remember, though. Those technophiles live in a world of their own.
This evening we touched on the subject of starting a grill. I mentioned the effort to have the fastest lighting grill in the world.
Charles: How fast did they do it?
Dad: Under two seconds.
Corwin: How?
Dad: [to Mom] Should I tell them or do you think it would just encourage undesirable behavior [meaningful glance at Charles].
Mom: The latter.
Corwin: Please?
Mom: No.
Corwin: Charles, big blue eyes, go!
Charles: [with big eyes but no other facial adjustment] Please, Mom?
Mom: Charles that just makes you look a bit psychotic.
Alice: Mom, please will you let Charles get two guinea pigs?
Charles had a concert with the Bowdacious group last week, or the week before. It’s all a blur. Mom had to take him because I had to go someplace else. Mom says it went well but that’s about all I know.
Corwin had some other musical event semi-recently, because I found this picture on my camera. I think it was a school function and I had to take Charles somewhere. Maybe Mom remembers, but I have a picture so it must be posted.
Alice has had a growth on the back of her hand for a few weeks now. It ended up being quite good sized (roughly shelled peanut sized, which is large for a delicate Alice hand). We figured it was a wart and tried using salicylic acid wart remover pads but those just kind of messed up the top without really seeming to make much progress. It also didn’t much look like a wart as I remembered them from my childhood. Finally we gave up and took Alice in to see the doctor. The GP said “gosh, I have no idea what that is!” and set up an appointment with a dermatologist. That resulted in the conclusion that yes, indeed, it is a wart, but an unusually growing one which kind of burst up out the skin rather than sitting on top. I suggested to Alice that we use my childhood method of wart removal, yanking on it with pliers until it came off at the roots. I had to admit, when pressed, that yes, it hurt like the dickens. Alice lost interest at that point.
Fortunately the dermatologist gave us super wart acid to try, so powerful that we can only put it on at night and have to cover with duct tape (literally, that’s what the dermatologist said). Alice liked this a lot better because, due to the beating stick production line, I had duct tape in a variety of attractive colors. Alice chose purple.
Under the little clicky thing immediately below is a picture of the wart. Mom can’t believe I took it, much less kept it. Won’t she be surprised when she sees it here! Any way, you’ve been warned.
After church today, one of the other mothers related the following story to me. I was reader today. As I was up reading the prayers, she said that Corwin put his arm around Charles. She was thinking, that is so cute, when Corwin gave Charles a big pinch. Charles retaliated by poking Corwin. Evidently this attack and counter continued until I was done with the prayers and heading back to the pew. Then they were suddenly angelic.
Gotta love that brotherly love.
Corwin and Charles’ soccer games this week were too close in time at different parks for me to see both of them. Mom and Alice watched Charles while I went off to the distant park with Corwin.
Mom tells me that Charles game did not go so well. It was dominated (as games that age frequently are) by one particularly good kid on the other team. He was a big aggressive and the referee didn’t reign him in very well. Charles and another goalie got kicked while grabbing the ball, in one case the kid literally kicked the ball out of the goalies hands and not only wasn’t there penalty but the goal was counted. I don’t think better refereeing would have changed the outcome but it would have meant a bit less damage and stress for the kids on the receiving end. Charles had a good game, playing a lot of goalie and making lots of saved, one quarter basically spent taking shots over and over from the good kid.
Corwin’s game didn’t go particularly well either, although they managed to pull it together enough at the end to get a tie at 2-2. To me the kids just didn’t seem very on. The defense was a bit weak. Corwin had a number of good saves and clears but he just wasn’t hustling in to positions enough to make more of them. The offense wasn’t getting the deep penetration they needed to score. There would rarely be more than one kid in the opponents outer goal box during attacks and at this level of play, one kid going in is not a recipe for good scoring. The other team, however, was playing well and frequently had 2 or 3 kids in the box on their attacks. In the end the coach sent in some kids who normally play up to drive in a score to keep it from being a loss.
Poor Jake was the goalie for both opponent scores. Both were very nice scores, one right over his outstretched hands, just at jumping fingertip level, the kind of shot that just can’t be stopped. The other score was from the attack pressure. Jake stopped the initial shot but it bounced off him and rolled along in front of the goal. The other team had a player in the box who then just popped it in, which of course is the reason you try to put players in the box. Corwin’s team had one good score, the same sort of just over the fingertips shot against their goalie, and another which seemed more a bit of luck but sometimes that happens too.
As part of the Lego Stars Wars revival Charles has become enamored of one particular character, the “Rebel Friend”. He sings a little song about him, a complex little air that goes “I’m a Rebel Friend. I’m a Rebel Friend”. That kind of thing just never gets old, no matter how many thousands of repetitions Charles
Lego Star Wars has made a big comeback in the house. The boys started playing it again a few weeks back and have been having a blast. Apparently they discovered the existence of power ups that multiply the amount of Lego studs that are found. Even more motivatingly, one of their friends had achieved the maximum multiplier (3,840). It could not be allowed to stand that someone had a higher multiplier!
It takes a lot to save up for the first one but it’s a cascading effect so that next one is easier. Eventually they were racking up hundreds of millions in single missions and quickly hit the absolute limit of 4 billion. Now that they could afford every extra, they found renewed interest in finding all of the hidden items. Still, I suspect even the massive rewards will eventually pall.
Today was Easter once again. It seems like it was just last week that I was taking Easter pictures and here it is again.
The kids got big baskets of candy. Mom found a one pound chocolate bunny for Corwin. Charles and Alice got stuffed rabbits. I think Charles would have preferred a pound of chocolate bunny.
We went to the church for services and so Charles and Alice could particpate in the easter egg hunt. They had a good time at it, Alice especially. Although she might have had more fun waiting.
There were a number of other little girls waiting and Alice fell in with them. Beyond just hanging out, gigglng, and asking when the hunt was starting, they spent a lot of time being butterflies fluttering around the symbolic giant egg.
Alice may have acquired a new friend, Ann. Ann is very close to Alice in age. They met in Sunday school and after bonding as butterflies, Alice announced that Ann should come over for a play date.
Charles’ game this week was at 9 AM again. The turnout was a little thinner — the other team only had four players show at the start and neither team had a coach. To avoid not playing at all, we loaned Charles to the other team, which in hindsight was a mistake. Charles dominated the play for the other side, even scoring a goal. He was switched to defense for the second quarter which basically stopped his real team’s offense.
After the half, a couple of other players for the opponents arrived and Charles was traded back, but it was too late by then because the new players were the good players for the team, were fresh, and Charles was now tired. In fact, his whole team was tired. There was contention for who got to sit out, which seemed a bit backwards. Normally it’s two of the weaker kids who want out, but this time it was them and two of the better kids. Still, Charles’ team held them to just one more goal. I also thought they were doing better on offense, despite not scoring, with fewer single player attacks which just get overwhelmed by the defense.
Corwin had a shorter game because Mom thought the game was at 11:30 but it was really at 10:15. I just happened to notice that the team playing on a field looked a lot like Corwin’s team as I was leaving with Charles. I zipped on home, got Corwin, and returned during the half time break so it wasn’t a total loss.
Although I only saw the second half, it seemed a better game with both sides playing well. Corwin’s team definitely had it more together than the previous week. Corwin was about the same — he played defense for his half with Jake as goalie. He played excellent defense when he was in position but he just needs more hustle to get in to position more often. Corwin got a good number of return kicks and did well on positioning when the attacker broke past him (splitting with teammates to cover the goal and non-goal sides). He does need to be a little less confident of his ball handling against multiple opponents and try clearing to the side instead of trying to break around the attackers a bit more frequently.
One of the players took a ball in the face so hard that her glasses were smashed. She kept playing but you could it had a negative effect on her game. Nevertheless, the team was able to hold on for a 3-2 victory.
Alice’s classmates and teacher in her ballet class finally noticed that Alice has very well developed leg muscles. Mom tells me the lot of them were just amazed at the definition in her legs.
Coincidentally, Alice is participating in a research project associated with her daycare. She was interviewed a few months ago about something and they just recently interviewed her again on the same subject but this time she was hooked up to an EEG to track her active little brain which apparently behaved itself for once. As a reward Alice got a stuffed brain cell from the same place that supplied SUM Cowie.
That wasn’t actually relevant, just kind of cool, but as part of the same project (I think) Alice was given a pedometer to wear for three days to see how active she is. The recording sheet had as an example number 2301. Alice’s numbers were 10,489, 10,045, and 12,918. Clearly this explains the highly toned legs.
Corwin has been expressing more interest in cooking over the last few months. Mom has been encouraging this. He can already cook better than I can. His main skills have been ramen and macaroni and cheese. Corwin is now working on mastering the skillet. His first solo effort in this style was grilled cheese sandwiches, which ended up a bit charcoalized but Corwin ate them, so that was OK. He’s gotten better and started working with eggs. His first effort ended with them a bit under done but — and here’s the point of Mom’s encouragement — Mom just said “cook them more thoroughly next time”. It also makes Corwin’s whining about snack easier to take. “Fix it yourself!”, the rallying cry of every parent.
The only problem Corwin is having with increasing his skills is his inability to find things. I had washed the skillet and put it in the dish rack. This was sufficient to make it effectively invisible to Corwin. He spent literally close to 10 minutes looking all around the kitchen and failing to find it. I eventually helped him find it by standing near the kitchen and laughing openly at his futile search efforts. This was my subtle way of indicating that it was in an obvious location, rather than explicitly hidden. This was enough to cause him to eventually locate the object of his desire.
What Mom found the first time she tried grilling this season
Mmmmm, mouse nest flavored hamburgers!
I know I have been very much lacking in promptness in keeping up here, but we’re very busy but not in the good way that generates good writing material. So I will just catch up with a few of the things that have happened that I didn’t get around to noting —
Today was opening day for the spring soccer season.
Charles had the first game, at 9 AM. It was a bit cold and Charles, naturally, had not brought a coat of any sort. I was layered so I pulled off my sweater for Charles but he said he would rather freeze than wear it. Despite that I made him wear it.
The game did not go so well, Charles’ team lost 1-2. Charles had a good game, very solid on defense and reasonably aggressive on offense. He came close to scoring once but luck was not with him. One of the problems is that several of his teammates have very little endurance and are flagging or literally falling on the ground by late game. Only 7 payers showed up, but the other team let us play 6 on 6 so that we could have one substitute.
Corwin’s game was later. They ended up losing 1-4. The other team was playing better than last season, in my opinion, and Corwin’s team wasn’t playing as well. A big part of that is that they ended up with so many kids that they split in to two teams and Corwin’s squad hasn’t really come together as a unit because of all the new players and the missing regulars.
Corwin managed to get some good stops on defense. He also played goalie for the second half and unfortunately was scored on three times. Two of those and one on another goalie were good shots. One on Corwin and the other goalie were over their heads, in fact over their outstretched hands even though both are a good height for their age. I only had a blurry picture but I could see poor Corwin, jumping as much as he is able, hands stretched up high with the ball just glancing off his fingers. Corwin had a number of excellent stops while he was goalie, frequently risking his beautiful face jumping on the ball in the middle of a scrum. He did well by reacting to incoming balls by putting his hands out to block rather than ducking and covering.
There was some whining afterwards, the kids being unused to losing, but hopefully it will motivate them to work together a bit better next week.
We went out recently to shop for more clothes for Corwin, who insists on growing. Oddly, despite his claimed distaste for clothes shopping, he spends a lot of time at it, particularly in the changing room. I was sent off to watch him while Mom kept the rest of the kids shoppping for other things. Eventually she dropped by to check on us and commented on Corwin’s ability to spends tens of minutes trying on 2 pairs of shorts and a shirt. I could not help gloating that I, thinking ahead, had brought a book.
Yes, I had checked to make sure Corwin didn’t have a book as he headed off to the changing room.
Alice has gone in to a tape phase over the last months. This is one of the things she does, writing a phrase or description on some tape and putting it on the wall. I have tried to convince her to ony put the on paper or her brothers, yet the walls are still labeled.
As part of her general upgrading of our family environment, Mom removed the shelves from the downstairs bathroom and put in a cabinet. This makes the contents accessible to the children but not to Polynomial, the latter being the primary reason we kept the shelves for so long. It means that, for instance, I will not have to fetch toilet paper from the shelves for children while they are using the facilities, which in my view completely justifies the effort and expense.
Alice is the most enthused about the cabinet and immediately populated it with various toys and other objects of interest to Alice. I suppose it’s in the family tradition to treat a bathroom as a personal retreat from the hectic pace of family life.
