Ahhh, Opening Day for Little League. Both the lass and the boy will likely have double-headers today. They don’t play against other towns so there are not a lot of teams in their respective leagues. That just means lots of reps I suppose. I’m not sure what to expect for the boy’s coach pitch games- we’ll be pushing the envelope there. But I’ve having done T-ball already, we know what to expect for the lass’s games.
Looks to be a long day.
We visited a science center recently and one of the interactive exhibits had one of the old tavern puzzles. The Old Shackles variety to be specific. Both of the kids were instantly smitten with them and that’s when the Wife informed them that we had a whole bunch of them at home.
I’d totally forgotten about them until she had mentioned it. We not only had the same one as at the science center, but a number of others. I recall first coming across them in high school. They were fun to work out even if they were all twists on the same basic principles. The lone exception was the Patience Puzzle– a very appropriately named challenge. It literally took years of on and off work on it before I finally solved it.
Anyway, I pulled all of them out for the kids and they had a blast with them for about 5 minutes. When they realized that they couldn’t figure them out, the puzzles lost their luster. The boy, particularly, got very frustrated with my old version of Old Shackles. He had been able to solve the one at the science center, but couldn’t solve mine. Naturally, something had to be wrong with mine.
It’s a familiar pattern with him now. Any kind of new challenge turns into a tremendous exercise in frustration. He thinks he should be a master of whatever he chooses to do and when reality bites, well, he doesn’t like it.
As for me, I’ve managed to solve them all again, including the Patience Puzzle. If that means that I’ve learned patience, then there’s still hope for the boy.
When the lass heard the magic word yesterday, she started to get choked up and wanted to know if the cat would be alright. She was close to tears and we told her that the cat would be fine because he was already inside. This revelation settled her down some, but concern was still visible on her little face. She gets that way nowadays when thunderstorms are in the air.
The boy, for his part, claims to not be afraid of thunderstorms. I’ll believe it when I see it. He claimed the same thing last year, but still came downstairs at night if he awoke because of a thunderstorm.
What makes the situation interesting is that it wasn’t always this way. The boy has always been afraid of thunderstorms. Not so the lass, whom started manifesting the phenomena a couple of years ago. I find it interesting because I think the lass has actually made herself afraid of thunderstorms.
With opening day coming up this weekend, the lass finally had her first t-ball practice today. Having watched her brother go through t-ball last year, and then persevering through his coach pitch practice this year, she was very excited to finally have “her turn.” How long the loving feeling will last is anyone’s guess.
The situation actually brings to mind one particular parental trap we’ve found ourselves in with the boy and the lass. The boy is, effectively, 2 years older than her. So in absolute terms, the lass has started her extra-curricular stuff a year sooner than the boy did. For instance, last year the boy was in t-ball as a kindergartner. The lass, by contrast, is starting out while in pre-K. While we would prefer to let her wait another year, practically speaking it’s not happening- she’s been tailing the boy for the entirety of her short life and she’s not interested in being left behind any further than absolutely necessary. Her patience stretches about as far as a dry-rotted rubber band.
Swinging back to t-ball, she’s not the only girl on the team. All three of them seemed to know one another, so she’s got that going for her. She was excited to see some of her class mates on the team as well. She even knew how to run the bases and did so with great gusto (hey, with the 5 year-old crew, nothing can be taken for granted).
The only thing she doesn’t like is her team’s name- “The Bees.” She preferred her brother’s team name from last year, “The Raptors.” I tried to point out that this will be her team and she should be excited that she doesn’t have to follow in her brother’s foot steps. She gets to have her own path; her own teammates; her own coaches(excepting myself). But she wasn’t having any of it.
Hopefully, she’ll be able to comes to turn with that heavy burden.
Took the kids to see Rio today. It’s a nice little movie, easily suitable for ages 5 and up. The lass loved it; the boy not so much. He liked the humor portion, but the relationship stuff bored him. I guess that makes him a typical 7 year old boy. The lass liked it so much she wanted to get the video already.
The gist of the movie is Rio is the last male “blue macaw” and he is taken from his cozy little existence in Minnesota to Rio to meet Jewel, the last female “blue macaw” in the hopes of fixing their species predicament. The problems arise in the form of a culture clash since Rio has never really known life without a caring human, while Jewel has never known captivity. Right about the time the two of them agree to disagree, some smugglers chain them together. From there on, it’s a typical love bird story.
The plot is spiced up with some help from a Tucan, some other plucky little birds, a Salsa loving bulldog and a rather nasty Cockatoo. Oh, and monkeys. A bunch of monkeys. And I’m not referring to the humans in the story.
While the relationship humor is somewhat over the kids’ heads, the physical humor certainly wasn’t, judging by the frequent laughter coming from them. There’s just enough there for adults and the story is well executed enough to make it an enojoyable 90 minutes. The 3-D aspect of the movie isn’t really important, though it does provide for some remarkable flying sequences. Of course, for just shy of $50 to see the movie, I’d say it’s perfectly understandable to wait for it to come out on DVD or BR.
One thing I noted very quickly about kids is that they constantly test you. Not in the sense of “Here’s a pop-quiz, you’ve got 10-minutes to finish it” but in the sense of constantly probing for the boundaries of the rules that are laid out. If you tell them ‘Thou shalt not hit’ they will pontificate for a few minutes and then seek to clarify. What if I tap the other person? What if I’m just running around flailing my arms and I don’t really mean to but I accidentally knock my sister unconscious? What about …? If a parent isn’t careful, a child can tie them up in knots and render a fairly straight forward rule meaningless.
As I’ve said before, kids aren’t stupid.
This is how the day ended yesterday:
The boy and his friend taped this up to the boy’s bedroom door. I’m have to confess, I’m confused as to what should concern me more, the level of spelling or that I’m apparently viewed as a girl. Sigh. At least I get some kind of exemptions status, for whatever that’s worth.
The lass isn’t one to take such matters lying down. After this sign was crafted, she came down the stairs and asked my how to spell “No boys allowed. Only Dads.” At least I was a boy again- and still retained my exemption status.
These amusing hijinks followed pretty much an entire day of the three of them getting along. They started the day off with the Wii. But I limited their time on it and they came to regret starting the day off on the Wii because I didn’t allow them to play it anymore after they were done. It wasn’t a great day, weather-wise, but it wasn’t raining and there was no reason they couldn’t go outside.
By the end of the day they’d played a couple of games of checkers, hide-and-seek, tag, a brief round of trying to get behind me so they could slap my rear (they didn’t- even when they tried the obvious head fake that the game was “over” while quickly walking around me for another shot), played in the sandbox and some kind of game where the object was to get the kid on the floor to roll over onto their bellies from their back. So it ended up being a pretty full day for them. Along the way the lass helped me prepare some dinner. That gave the boys a chance to hang together without the “third wheel.”
But the highlight of the day was definitely the sign. Good to know that the eternal struggle between boyz and girlz will continued to be waged by the next generation.
The kids have been enjoying a favorite from my younger days, Ultraman. I’m fairly certain part of their enojyment is knowing that Dad used to watch it. But, for whatever reason, it’s certainly captured their attention. They’ve now watched half of the episodes from the DVD.
I have to say, watching it now, it’s beyond cheesy. The “special effects” consist of people in rubber costumes, scale models of cities, and models of ships. That’s to say nothing of the general plotline- that apparently Japan has tons of ugly monsters hanging around just waiting to wreak havoc. While the US would deploy Jerry Bruckheimer, Japan deploys the Science Patrol to save the day. At least they have Ultraman.
The kids have had a smallish sandbox for several years now. It’s a Step2 product with a lid and has served it’s purpose well. They’ve played with it consistently over the years, but they’re just too big for it anymore.
So when I floated the idea of having them help make a new bigger sandbox, they jumped at the opportunity. Not having taken part in such a large project as this, they had some trouble understanding how, exactly, one set about making a sandbox. The understood the sand part, it was the box part that had them befuddled. If it wasn’t a big plastic container, then how the hell did it work?
When we setup a jungle-gym a few years back, we setup a nice little area to put it in which was framed with landscape timbers. I explained that we’d just use a corner of this area to make a box to but the sand in. They still weren’t convinced. So I told them to wait an watch.
We came home with 2 landscape timbers and 8 bags of sand. The boy was very confused because you can’t make a “box” with only 2 sides. So I set about placing one of the timbers in the corner of the play area and then it finally clicked.
From there, they helped move the mulch out of that area; lay weed-cloth down and pin it with sand; and then helped backfill the mulch against the new timbers. They even single handedly moved all the sand from the old sandbox into the new sandbox. Cleverly, they shoveled portions of it into the lid and then dumped it into its new home. For their finale, they teamed up to pick up and dump the remaining sand in the old sandbox into the lid, then picked up the lid and dumped the final load. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out how they could have improved their efficiency.
Even after all the sand was in place, the coup-de-grace materialized when I reinstalled the slide from their play gym. For now, it ended right in the new sandbox. They were more excited about landing in the sand from the slide than anything else.
They move their sand toys over into the new sand box and then proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon playing in it.
I love it when a plan comes together.
Well, for the kids anyway. It seems like only a few weeks ago they were having Winter vacation. Now they get another week off. Well, what the hell. After all the school days they missed due to weather, why not a few more. They’ll be in class until the end of June anyway.
The Wife takes off for a few days for work, so I’ll spend the first part of the week keeping them occupied. What that means I’m not exactly sure yet. We haven’t been to the park yet, so that’s a likely candidate. We may make a trip to the zoo later this week as well. With the warmer temps, we’ll definitely be getting them outside.
Without school this week, the two of them will be pushing for later bed times. That won’t happen though. They’re grumpy enough in the morning after a normal night’s sleep. I’m sure reduced sleep would do wonders for that.
Went to pick-up the boy from school yesterday. As is the norm for most schools now, I imagine, I had to wait in line while the teachers shuffled the kids to predetermined spots on the sidewalk. You patiently wait in line for the kids in front to load up until it’s your turn. Fun stuff.
The lass was with me and her booster seat is on the passenger’s side. So when it was time for the boy to jump in, he did so through the front-side passenger door. However, where in the past he just kept on going right to his spot in the back, this time he just sat with a smile on his face. He didn’t outright ask, and he didn’t have to because the expression on his face communicated perfectly what he was after.
There is no minimum age limit for riding in the passenger seat here. We’ve double checked it. I’m fairly sure some of the states around us are different. Since I recalled riding shotgun many time I was the boy’s current age, I really couldn’t come up with an objection.
So then we had a mini fiasco as a couple of things hit at once: the lass objecting to her brother sitting up front and we were now holding up the line. The boy still had his backpack on and wasn’t buckled in. I brushed off the lass by telling her she still had to sit in the booster seat because she was too young. But I’m sure she’s counting the days.
So now the question will be when he can ride shotgun. In another year, they’ll be fighting over who sits in the front seat. The race for the car will be vicious I suspect. I’m sure his friends will notice that he’s riding up front and they’ll start pestering their parents.
I imagine I’ll be blackballed by the end of the month at the latest.
The boy had his first baseball practice last night. In the rain no less. And he was all enthusiasm about going. Will wonders never cease?
We went figuring that the practice would be an abbreviated one, but lo-and-behold several other teammates showed up as well in the rain. So what started out as just a couple of kids getting a chance to get a little pitch-and-catch done and go over some of the games’ rules turned into a full practice session with batting and a drill for practicing throwing to first base.
The kids all did well. None of them cared about the rain, cold or wet. Surprising all of us who helped with the coaching. Just when you think you know your kid, they go and do something like that.
The other thing I’ll note is the noticeable level of comfort the parents have with one another and the other kids. A year ago, we all barely knew each other and we were all hesitant to correct someone else’s child when they were slacking off or something. I’ve noticed it in Scouts, and it’s clearly continuing right into baseball, now that we’ve all realized that we’re all basically on the same page regarding behavior, attitudes, courtesy and so forth, it isn’t unusual for any given child to get a quick correction from someone who isn’t their parent. To the kid’s credit, they tent to listen as well. Perhaps getting noticed by a stranger has some kind of “focusing” effect or something. Regardless, it’s nice to have the help.
Today is the Wife’s and my 9th wedding anniversary. So, I went and purchased her a nice flower arrangement. I even had the florist add some irises (the Wife’s favorite) and quickly penned a simple little diddy:
Roses are red, Violets are blue, This arrangement has irises, And now you do to.
Very romantic.
I left the arrangement on the counter for her to discover when she came down the stairs.
As circumstances would dictate, the lass arrived home just before the Wife made it downstairs. Fortunately, the Wife noticed the flowers first. But quickly chirping on her heels was the lass with all sorts of questions like:
“Are those flowers for me?”
and
“Where are my flowers?”
and
“Did Dad get me any flowers?”
and
“When can I get some flowers like that?”
The Wife dutifully answered her questions. I, for my part, kept my mouth shut because I recognized what had just transpired. The lass had just jumped feet first into the indoctrination of “flowers for a girl.” The cycle has now been perpetuated.
You boys out there have been warned.
“Dad, does anything really happen if you don’t respect the pouch?”
That was the question at 7AM this morning. I don’t answer such earth-shatteringly important question directly. I always try to make them work for it:
“I don’t know, guess you’ll just have to try it. Do we have any ‘pouches’?”
In fact, we did. And she went and grabbed one to have with her breakfast. She then started getting all scientific:
“Mom, I’m going to do an experiment to see if anything happens if you don’t respect the pouch.” I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to work up the nerve to do it or what. Either way, she seemed genuinely intrigued by this little endeavor she had set herself on.
Unfortunately, she didn’t finish the drink before it was time to go to school, so her experiment had to wait. But she remembered when she got home from school (I, for my part, had forgotten) and finished the drink with her lunch. Then she announced “OK, I’m going outside to do my experiment. Do you guys want to watch me?”
We walked over to the door, but made sure it was closed. Hey- you never know. She puffed up the bag and then set it down on the deck. Then, she gave it a good look and finally picked her foot up and stomped down on the pouch…
Then she just stood there for a moment, looked left, looked right, shrugged and then came in the house to announce the results. “Nothing happens if you don’t respect the pouch.”
One mystery solved.
Yesterday, while taking the boy and some of his friends to a birthday party they were talking about the gifts they (AHEM!) had gotten for the birthday boy. I’d never heard of one of the toys before (the name eludes me now) so I asked them what it was. After a couple of brief descriptions from his friends, the boy chimed in:
“I don’t really know what it is, but I think I’ve seen it before.”
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Today at dinner, the lass abruptly gets up from the table, walks out of the dining room and goes in the opposite direction from the bathroom. We were all a bit startled by the abruptness of her departure, but we made no comments.
As she returned to the dining room, the lass declared:
“You don’t have to tell anybody if you’re just getting up to blow your nose.”
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
I happen to have a tin of peppermint Altoids in the car. The Wife gave them to me a while ago because she had something else in her purse. They’re handy to have for whatever reason the ol’ breath might be something less than fresh: garlic, soda, Gatorade, chili, whatever. They are indeed “curiously strong.”
After spending the afternoon raking and fertilizing the yard (which is remarkably snow free considering how much snow had been there), I had to take the lass up to her dance class. So, when I got in the car I popped a couple of Altoids in my mouth. I didn’t think anything of it whilst I did it; but, the lass was watching and decided to set herself in motion.
“What are those Dad? Those things you’re putting in your mouth?” She tries to be as specific as possible because if she isn’t, there’s no telling what I’ll interpret “those” to be. Could be a tree on the side of the road or the clouds in the sky. By specifying “putting in your mouth” she’s hemmed me in pretty good.
She’s learning.
“They’re mints” I answered, still oblivious to the trap she was laying for me.
“Why are you having ‘mints’ Dad?” she asked.
“Well, I just wanted to freshen my breath up a bit. After the Gatorade it felt kind of blech” I replied. As I made the statement I kind of shook my head and scrunched my face up. She giggled.
Then she sprang it.
“Dad, my breath is kind of blech. Can I have one of those that you’re having?”
Hook.
Line.
Sinker.
What else could I do? I handed her the tin so she could have her mint.
The boy and I had a Cub Scout den meeting tonight. It was a fun meeting since one of the parents is a science teacher at a local private school and she offered to help the kids earn the Science Belt Loop. The highlight for the kids was definitely the final experiment- the Mentos in a Coke bottle experiment. The kids were screaming for more before it was all done.
Upon returning home, the Wife filled us in on her and the lass’ evening together: dolls, projects and the like. Amongst the dolls played with was the lass’ Russian dolls.
While playing with the dolls, the lass made an amusing observation:
“Mommy, they’re Russian dolls, but they’re not really in a rush, right?”
She’s got a bright future with puns.
The boy is off to get his braces at the moment. He’d been OK with the idea until he mentioned it to some of his friends yesterday at school. Apparently, a bunch of 6-year olds were amazed he was getting braces at such a young age. Or something like that. Anyway, after that encounter he wasn’t so keen on the idea.
But he trooped off this morning without much in the way of complaint. I decided to give him a heads up that his friends may laugh at him when they see him with the braces on the first time. He still doesn’t like being laughed at, so I just wanted to prepare him and reiterate taht the best thing he can do is laugh along with them. I don’t anticipate any problems. Though I’m sure he’ll be a bit depressed about the whole thing.
This’ll be one of those character building experiences, I reckon.
UPDATE:
He’s doing well after the first few hours. The ortho was impressed enough with him that he told the Wife he wished all his child patients managed as he did. So +1 for the boy.
The boy seems to have fully recovered from whatever little bug caught hold of him Monday. He’ll be returning to school today.
The item worth noting in all of this is yesterday, the lass brought home the school work he had missed over the past couple of days. He was feeling better all day yesterday and, unprompted by the Wife or myself, he sat down and worked on his school work.
The relevant background with this is the last time this same situation occurred, the Wife and I had to tag team him and actively work him to do his school work. He complained about it the entire time. He even tried to do it so poorly that the Wife and I would just give up on it, forcing us into the old “It’s not worth it” box.
Not so yesterday. The only questions he asked were for clarification on some of the instructions. His only frustration came when he’d made a mistake on one of his sheets and had some trouble tracking down where it occurred. After he found it, he completed that sheet without further problem.
It’s always nice to know that, occasionally, effort is rewarded.
The concept of fairness is pretty easily explained, and impossible to implement. I have the kids to thank for this insight, because the time honored “That’s not fair!” line is used so frequently when they don’t get what they want.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that parents reinforce the concept of fairness all the time. When the boy and the lass have a heated argument about what show to watch, we try to resolve the dispute with reasoning like “Well, you watched your show already, so it’s your brother’s turn…” Or when they both want to play with a toy, we resolve the situation by declaring that each of them shall get X number of minutes of play time with the toy.
Initially, fairness was an easy concept to enforce because the kids hadn’t developed enough of their own identity to start trying to determine for themselves what’s fair. Once that threshold is crossed; however, all manner of headaches ensue.