We sent all the kids out for candy this evening. Corwin went over to Josh’s house to do some older kid candy gathering, while I was sent out with Alice and Charles. We had a hard time with those two and their costumes.
Alice finally settled on being a bat, after being Sleeping Beauty for the church event and Snow White for school. It would so gauche to wear the same costume every time! We were going to dress up Charles as a fire elemental because we found a red suit from another costume and we decided we could get some red / orange hair spray. However that evening Charles decided that he didn’t want to do that, but Mom was determined to get him out of the house so she forced him in to a ghost costume. This proved problematic later on.
We headed out and ran in to Zina and Claire and decided to hang out with them. This was mostly OK except all the girls kept stepping on Charles’ dangling ghost sheet, whether on purpose or not wasn’t clear. Eventually I just tied it around him toga style. Both children almost filled their pumpkins so it was a good night.
Alice and Corwin have been getting a good head start on candy gathering this season. Alice had the Trunk or Treat plus a school party, while Corwin got his loot at the Boy Scout Halloween party. Poor Charles blew off his scouting party because he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t get much from his school party, as far as I can tell. Charles wasn’t even enthusiastic about going out tomorrow for trick or treat, until Mom worked on him for a while.
I found this note in the house the other day —
Dear Charles;
You are invited to war! Girls vs. boys. We would like to finish what we started. Even though your [sic] usually mean, we think your [sic] a good opponent. Please go to Alice’s house at 1:45. Bring weapons. We wish you the worst of luck.
— Zina
— Claire
— 
livia
P.S. You are fighting Zina,
Claire, Olivia, Alice and
Rebecca
Olivia’s signature I found amusing, given the nature of the note.
Alice reads a book to the guinea pig. She played checkers with the guinea pig later one which led to Alice calling out to me as I walked by “Squeaky won!”. Excellent, my daughter can be beaten in checkers by a guinea pig.
Corwin had fun at the Boy Scout Halloween party tonight. For Charles we just turned in the popcorn order sheet which wasn’t quite as much fun. Poor Charles is the only one who hasn’t already gotten a mass of candy this week.
Corwin’s home work adventure was forgetting about an assignment which we didn’t realize until his grade was dropped. Corwin thought he had done it but didn’t remember what it was or where the work might be, so we sent him in to talk to the teacher to do it over. That effort didn’t seem to bother Corwin, but having to actually speak to his teacher — that was almost too much for him to bear. We had to cut off his electronics for a day to get him to do it.
Charles has been doing OK, although he’s taken to adding editorial comments to his math homework. On one, the questions involve buying a pizza for $1.68. Charles notes “I would just pay $2.00”. I am not sure if this represents a tip, that Charles thinks $2 is less than $1.68, or he would rather pay more to avoid making change. On another sheet he writes
20 cents is 2 dies. 25 cents is one quarter. $3.00 is three one dollar bills. now whoever didn’t know needs to watch Dora the Explorer.
Alice had a number work sheet with sets of items she was to count. One was blank so she could write “zero” but she just couldn’t accept nothingness so she drew in a dancer.
Let’s finish with a Charles story —
Wahoo! Bob says as he celebrates with his friends. Now I can’t waste my time on chasing enemy females. Bob and his four friends Beep, Boop, BIll, Bobybill with water guns so they’re ready to squirt enemy females. So they did. Bob went looking for enemy females and friendly males. He came with 10 girls behind him. Bob and his friend went in to the house that’s locked up. Beep sighed with relief and said … We’re safe! Now we can party! right when he said that his old enemy comes back. Wahoo! I’d rather have her as a enemy then [sic] those creepy girls. All of them were happy. For now but next time he won’t.
So the reason why she came back is she wanted she too fight us not those wolves? bill asked I guess so Bobybill answered. The true end I’m honest.
It was a busy weekend. Charles and I have been out hitting doorsteps desperately trying to sell Cub Scout popcorn (guess what, Grandma, you bought big!). Corwin worked on the lawn and carved our Halloween pumpkin. Alice and I went to the church “Trunk or Treat” while Mom took the boys off to a distant town for a string band performance, but not before Mom cleaned out the gutters (a few leaves in them here and there).
Corwin’s pumpkin
Alice in her Alice costume
Corwin had a double header soccer scheduled today but due to the rain of the last couple of days they were canceled to protect the fields. Our coach offered to play them over at our local fields but was turned down. As far as I know those were the last two games so I think the season is over.
However, the coach managed to get Mara’s girls’ soccer team to show up for a game (presumably because they had their regular games canceled also and so were ready to play). The weather was somewhat cold, cloudy, and windy, but otherwise fine. It did keep the sibling spectators down to low levels — it was just Corwin and I at the game.
It was a good game, even though Corwin’s team won 4-0 with a couple of late scores when the girls were getting tired. The girls did a good job of making attacks on the goal but the boys’ defense was hot and would break up the plays very effectively so the girls only had a few actual direct shots at the goal, definitely due more to good defense than ineffective offense.
The girls midfield did well too. There were a number of rallies between the midfields with each side booting the ball to the other side, where it would be immediately returned. Corwin helped out with that, having a good number of clears and returns. He won most of his encounters, although Mara owned him a couple of times. One time Corwin used his mad knee skillz to bounce a thrown in right back to the girl who threw it in. She didn’t even have to a take a step. I only regret that I didn’t get a picture of the look on her face.
One thing I didn’t realize until part way through is that the boys now have the advantage of age as well. Corwin’s team is now 7-8 grade while the girls are grades 5-8. I mentioned this to Corwin and told him his team was cheating. Corwin was OK with that. The boys were down most of their primary offense, due to illness, conflicts and injuries but they did have enough for a few substitutes.
And speaking of 5th graders, Zina was on the girls’ team too, although she had a bit of trouble keeping up sometimes (I have picture series of Zina running full out and falling behind other players who are jogging). Also, Jake was there and he had a very good day, scoring the first goal and having a couple of good shots.
The swarming lady bugs are back. We had swarms of them in the house this week, all over the ceilings, especially in the front entrance and my office. They’ve thinned out somewhat today. They either left or, judging from the large black spot at the bottom, died in the upstairs hallway ceiling lamp. I would guess there’s a cup or two of dead bugs in there.Sounds like a great way to bulk out some meatloaf!
By Charles —
On top of a 
lived ten children one 
and one 
. One 
bought ten bazookas. The ten children de[s]troyed their mom and dad. Each bought a battle ship and a crew from the U.S. Navy. They blew up japan and germany. THE END.
P.S. I asked Charles if this meant I should be worried and he replied (as he does to almost all questions these days) with “maybe…”. I asked why I shouldn’t strike first in that case to which he did not have a good reply. His teacher marked this story as “very original” instead of sending Charles to therapy, so it’s not all bad.
Everyone’s sick. Mom caught something while away and the rest of us got hit from local sources. Corwin and Charles spent Saturday almost entirely on the couch and now Alice is starting to feel feverish. Should be a fun week.
Some things that occupy our days …
Alice’s new best friend at school has a Nintendo DS. Alice has only a gameboy so she came home very sad and demanded that we get her a DS. She can’t read which makes the games somewhat difficult (she can only get through the very first section of any of her games) but stil, the other girl has a DS so she needs one too.
Alice got her first homework this week. She was very excited about it until she had to actually do it. Not so much fun then. I made Corwin cry with his math homework which makes me wonder about his paternity and plans to teach him abstract algebra this year.
We got Wii Sport Resort and we have all (except Mom) enjoyed it. One of the games is “Island Fly Over” where you have to find 80 points of interest in five minute chunks of flying. Charles got stuck at 78 so I decided to try my luck and got to 79. Charles made me take him around to find that one more and while we were doing that he suggested a place to look and there was the last one, so I let Charles get it first. Corwin went and finished it up the first chance he got after that. Even Alice likes to do some flying. So we have that as a bond (except for Mom).
If you are wearing a sweater with big and loose arms, do not encourage a guinea pig to explore it. The guinea pig will find a very comfy, warm, refuge from the world. Much nicer than where ever she was before you showed her the sleeve.
Both Corwin and Alice had games today. Corwin’s was kind of a pick up game, while Alice’s was the big season final with all the teams participating.
It was a miserable day, cold and drizzling with very soggy fields. Corwin’s game was first and I watched the first half. It went well, although scoreless. The midfields were having a good day so the ball switched sides very frequently. I thought Corwin’s team had the upper hand but not by all that much. Corwin managed some very nice kick backs with good placement but the other team’s defense was just as on the ball so it didn’t help that much. Both teams managed several good attacks on the goal, one of the opponent ones bouncing off the vertical support but not quite connecting for the score.
At half I hustled over to deal with Alice’s game. Alice has been very grumpy the last week, especially since Mom left. She didn’t want to play until I said “let’s just go home” at which point she said “fine, I’ll play”. I can’t say she enjoyed it much, as I had forgotten to bring her shirt or gloves both of which made her unhappy. For some reason she couldn’t put her hands in her pockets to warm them up, I never did figure out the issue. Her feet got soaked and cold but she didn’t believe me that running around after the ball would help with that. She ran out crying at one point because someone had knocked her down (this on the cascading failure team — I saw crashes of up to five kids at a time during the games).
While this was going on, Corwin found me and announced that he was sick and couldn’t finish the game, so I sent him off to wait in the van. I have no idea how his game ended. Charles, meanwhile, had been abandoned to play in the mud in the freezing cold (nothing stops Charles from playing in the mud when he’s supposed to be watching his sibling play soccer). Fortunately Josie was there for some activity and Charles hooked up with him to play inside a warm gymnasium. I ended up searching for him in the cold drizzle for a while but it was probably good for me.
P.S. No pictures, it’s hard enough in the evening or under clouds that evening and clouds was just hopeless.
Alice like baby wipes. I sometimes forget this and let her have access to a box of them. She will start cleaning things. The problem is she doesn’t stop. Well, not until the box is empty. This can leave a large amount of used wipe debris. The other day I made this mistake again and found Alice wiping down the guinea pigs. I appreciate the thought of cleanliness but it’s probably best to let the guinea pigs take care of that themselves.
I have been wanting to post this since the summer but hadn’t managed to get around to it. This is from the Sweet Corn Festival — it’s the World’s Easiest Corn Maze. Alice and Charles were too scared to try it though.
Mom has left us this week to go off to a conference. Since it normally takes two of us to keep the kids going in the evenings with their schedule we will be making some hard choices about what they get to do this week.
Mom left yesterday and the kids were very low key about it, barely noticing. Alice lasted until it was near bed time at which point she started asking “when is Mommy going to be home?”. She was not happy to be informed it wouldn’t be for several days. “How long is that?” she asked.
Winter is approaching. I first noticed this a couple of weeks back when Corwin started using the butt warmers in the van again (although, I have to admit, I caught him using it a couple of times when the air conditioning was running).
We also restocked our woodpile, this time going with a local supplier rather than the wandering wood seller we have purchased from in past years. The wood is not as well seasoned (still a bit dasmp) but it’s about ⅓ the price so I think we’re ahead on that.
Still not quite cold enough to convince Alice to not go barefoot without parental prompting.
Today was Charles’ last soccer game. It was a beautiful day for a soccer game, especially after it rained for literally the entire previous day.
The game started off well with one of the players scoring early in the first quarter on a pro forma kick which somehow rolled through the defense and in to the goal. For most of the rest of the game I would say the opponents had better field control, spending a lot more time on Charles’ side of the field. Charles’ team’s offense had its moments but didn’t really push all that hard. The defense tended to huddle back around the goal so that any break by the opponents would get from midfield to the keeper box without opposition. Despite this Charles team held them off until the final two minutes, while scoring again for a final of 2-1. Charles tells me this team had previously been undefeated, which is nice because it means all the teams had to lose at least once during the season (which is good for them!).
The second score was a good score. One of the kids made a good drive down field and took a shot, but it bounced off the support. Another child had actually run down with him for support and so was in a position to kick back the bounce for the score.
Charles played the entire game because they only had one substitute (the opponents had 5, which I expected to make more of a difference late in the game that it apparently did). Mostly he played defense with a quarter or so of offense. He did well, frequently booting a ball back or breaking up a play. Offensively he did well, almost scoring twice on good drives down field, although his support wasn’t all it could have been. Charles was persistent at times but sometimes he would just stop if he lost control of the ball rather than trying to pressure. Still he played a good game.
The entire team was doing well, it was probably it was their best game. In particular the two weakest players had very good days, putting in more good play in one game than the rest of the season. Several of the middle players had particularly good days as well resulting in a strong team for the day and and very good game with lots of good offense and defense.
We have been suffering since the Sunday before last because our dishwasher failed. The seal on the door failed and running it causes water to pour out all over the kitchen floor. We thought about having it fixed but it’s old with other problems and frankly I have never gotten along with it. So I pushed for just getting a nice new one and Mom fell for was convinced by my irrefutable arguments.
Mom wouldn’t just go out and buy one, she conducted a massive online research project to find the optimal choice. She located a good model but it was only 20% off and there was allegedly a sale last Sunday which would be even more off. Of course, after waiting and pouncing at just the right time we discovered that the base price had been adjusted in such a way that it ended up about the same price, just a week of hand washing dishes later. Even better, the sale wasn’t all day, just in the evening so Mom had trooped the whole family out to shop and still had to go back later to actually complete the sale.
But the new dishwasher has arrived and hopefully will be installed so that I can fire up the big stack of dishes preserved in anticipation of this consummation.
The primary school ice cream social was last week and we had a chance to talk with Alice’s teacher, who also had Charles for kindergarten. She claimed that Alice was doing well and not being too much trouble, although a bit more talkative than Charles. The teacher seemed happy to have Alice in class, although it’s a full class of 23 students, 14 of them little girls, which makes it nice for Alice at least.
I also found out that Alice coordinates her after school gang activity with Zina and Claire via notes passed on the bus. How this works with an illiterate Alice I am not so clear on but they seem to hook up well enough. Alice walked all the way from our house to Zina’s the other day, although Mom thinks it better if I tag along. I had planned to that time but the moment I said it was OK Alice was off and racing, barefoot, and I couldn’t get away until she was already out of sight. But she managed it, our little adventure girl.
Alice: I saw lots of lady bugs today.
Dad: How many did you eat?
Alice: You can’t eat lady bugs! They’re from nature.
Dad: Not at all?
Alice: Only if someone is starving and lost in the woods, then they have to eat deer.
Dad: What about rabbits?
Alice: You can’t eat cute little fluffy rabbits!
Dad: Raccoons?
Alice: You can’t eat cute little baby raccoons! You can only eat Daddy raccoons.
Dad: Oh. I see.
Alice: Because they have more meat on them.
Alice had a game this evening over at a local park rather than her normal practice location. It was shady and in the evening so the pictures were a bit harder than usual, although I think I am overcoming a focus issue with my 70-200 2.8 lens.
Oh, the game! Nobody cares about poor old Dad’s problems …
It was a decent game. Alice’s team was about the same, although one of the girls was much more in the game than is her usual wont, with lots of good drives up the outside (not a whole lot of passing at this level). Alice was mostly out of it for the first half but after some encouragement started to participate although a large patch of mud on the field would frequently captivate her.
There was some shoving, but not a huge amount. One of Alice’s teammates is a fairly heavy kid, especially for kindergarten, and apparently has a much higher capacity for momentum than braking which frequently leads to him plowing over anyone who gets the ball from him during a drive. I thought he might just be trying his hand at being an enforcer against opponents but he plowed several of his teammates as well, it’s just that they don’t get in front of him to get the ball as often. He also, during the last game and this game, threw himself to the ground in between the ball and the goal to stop an attack so he’s got some team spirit.
Another child decided the kicking other players would be fun. Another girl and Alice responded in kind. What could go wrong? The result was in both girls getting kicked too hard and leaving the game in tears. Alice told me “I don’t like soccer anymore!”. After letting her stew for a minute, I pointed out that snacks where only for kids who played in the game. It took another 5 seconds or so for Alice to “girl up” and get back in the game.
There were a good number of cascading failures during the game as well. These, unlike the previous time, involved both teams. One kid would go down, take out a teammate or two (because they like to bunch up) and frequently spill over and take out an opponent or two. Like little flailing dominoes.
On the positive side, Alice played keeper for a chunk of the game without getting scored on. She stopped several good kicks by squatting down and and actually catching the ball on purpose. Alice did some decent kicking when she wasn’t playing goalie with a couple of drives but she still needs some prodding to mix it up in the scrum.
Poor Corwin was run ragged today. Sunday school, church, helping make pies for a bake sale, the pet blessing, and then Bowdacious string band practice. Charles had his first communion. Not much else to write, but here’s the kids at the pet blessing.
Charles had a game today against the team they have played before. They didn’t do as well as last time, losing 0-3. The other team seemed to be playing a bit better than last time and Charles’ team not as together. Charles was definitely slow to get in the game. He didn’t really warm up until the second half. He didn’t really charge the ball or follow up as much as he could.
But the second half was better for Charles. He managed a couple of good runs at the opposing goal and a number of good blocks and clears. His best play was when the opposing player broke past the goalie and took a shot. It was cruising in for the score when Charles managed to put on a burst of speed and clear it before the score and take it most of the way down the field.
Overall the team did well but the offense was not clicking. While there were a number of good attacks the other team clearly did a better job of taking shots and the final score reflected that. The final score was disappointing, though — the keeper caught the shot then walked out to boot it and basically just dropped in right in front of an opponent who immediately kicked it in, the keeper being so far out of position.
Charles is also fighting a big scrape on his knee. He bunged it up at school and it’s been bothering him. He fell on it at Monday practice so for Wednesday I taped up it up to try and make it less susceptible. Mom fixed him up for the game which seemed to help.
Corwin’s game was another repeat but with a better final score of 1-0.
The game was well played on both sides. The defenses in particular were strong. The coach told me later that the other team took only one shot at Corwin’s goal the entire first half, getting stopped by the midfield every other time. Corwin’s team had several shots at the goal but they were either stopped or too harried by the defense to score. The best one was a long shot from outside right which hit the top cross beam square on and bounced off.
Both offenses picked up (or the defenses got tired) with significantly more goal shots. Late in the third quarter the same kid who bounced one off the cross beam made another outside right shot when the goalie was out of position and while not the best shot, it rolled in for the score. One of the other players actually followed it in to the goal just in case the goalie made it back to block it.
Corwin had a number of good kicks and clears, being part of the midfield defense that kept the other team from direct attacks. He seemed to be doing better about compensating for his not top-of-the-line foot speed in reading the plays and helping with offside traps, which nailed the other team multiple times.
Mom was out at the super market and decided to get something nice for Polynomial. She bought a large bone with some meat scraps clinging to it. Poly, however, didn’t show much interest in it when Mom brought it home. I suggested that she should toss it on the compost pile to get Poly enthused. Mom didn’t take my advice, and instead just left the bone around in case Poly changed her mind. Alice managed to stub her toe on it hard enough to bleed but still Poly wasn’t interested.
Now, however, that it’s aged about a week, Poly likes it. She’s been doing some heavy chewing on it which just shows that taste is a matter of taste.
