Category: Family

These kinds of observations can easily be interpreted as “throwing him under the bus”; but I make it only as an observation of where the boy is at from a developmental standpoint at 6. My best guess is he isn’t too different from other six years olds, although his responses have to be more to the extreme side of things. Which makes it fun.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago he played his grandfather in a game of checkers. He barely finished the game because about halfway through he determined that he was going to lose. The other day he played the Wife in a game of Battleship which was never completed because he decided he had no chance to win. Last night, I played him in a game of checkers as well as mancala and had to force him to finish the games. To his credit, he chose to play a second game of checkers and the Wife sat down to try and help him. But as soon as I captured the first piece he started whining. The Wife ended up finishing the game.

He took his loss in mancala particularly hard. Running away crying afterwards. Not just sniffling, but big heaving sobs with copious amounts of wailing. Like I said, good times.

At this point, we try not to make any bigger a deal out of it. He does that well enough himself. The Wife and I are both counting on the fact that he’ll mature a little and start trying to make the most of losing. I’ve noted before I was a notoriously bad loser (yes, “Blades of Steel”, dented walls, I remember, ya happy?) when I was younger. Hopefully, I can use my own experience to guide him through it.

I’ve also noted that the lass seems to take after him; although it’s difficult to say for sure whether she’s just following his (bad) example, or if she has the same problem. I’m leaning towards a mixture of the two, but my growing sense if that she’s basically the same as her brother.

Like I said, no real point or insights here. He clearly hates losing, as does his sister, and hasn’t gotten any better at handling it. Maybe when he’s 7…

This weekend will mark the 4th weekend of hockey practice for the boy. The lass will enter into a 4th weekend of learn-to-skate. But she isn’t suiting up with pads and a stick… yet.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to write something up about the hockey experience. The problem is- I can’t really think of anything interesting to say about it.

It makes for long weekends where it seems like I’m living at the rink. The Saturday session is an hour long and the Sunday session is 10 minutes longer. The practices have drawn rave reviews from all the parents watching. The coaches setup 6 stations where they drill the kids through different skill sets from stick handling to skating skills to teamwork(passing and improvised games). The kids all come off the ice with smiles on their faces and it sure looks like every one of them has improved from the 1st week.

Certainly the boy has. His skating in particular. He’s still a little wobbly when skating at speed. But he’s learning the cross-over step when turning, can skate backwards a little, and is even working on stopping. Considering where he was last year skill wise, it’s not even a comparison.

Having played football, I can say that hockey players have it all over football players when it comes to padding and getting dressed. There’s pretty much no chance the average 6 year old can put on his/her own hockey gear. First there’s the knee/shin pads; then the hockey pants; then the velcro shorts that have a cup and hold up the socks; next there’s the skates which take about 5 minutes to get on because they have to be laced up tight; then there’s the elbow pads; next comes the shoulder pads and a jersey; then a neck guard; and finally (I think) a helmet. Oops. Forgot the gloves and optional mouthpiece. Contrast that with knee and thigh pads, cleats, shoulder pads, helmet and mouth piece in football. Not even close. Frankly, the need for all that protective gear makes one wonder why you’d encourage a youngster to play hockey at all!

But other than the amount of gear and the impressive organization behind the practices; there isn’t much else to report. There haven’t been any games yet- mainly little scrimmages where the coaches evaluate. There are no goalies at the boy’s current level of play either (wonder what it’s like to get them suited up?)

So, with that, hockey is on the board. We’ll see what this weekend brings.

The lass fell asleep on the way to her dance class today. Even with one so young, that makes for “tread carefully” territory. So after I parked the car, I got out and went to her door and gently started to wake her up.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long to rouse her. I had her take a sip of water, then we started to walk towards her school.

After hopping out of the car, she said “I was just resting my head there Dad, that’s all.”

Well, based on the feedback from the kids’ teachers, we don’t have to account for 4 in our retirement planning.

Yet.

Here’s the latest literary work from the boy. It’s not obvious, but the dark squiggle line was what he had to work with to come up with a picture. Then he had to write a description of his picture.

I’m sure Stephen King started out like this…

“I CAN’T DO IT!” she screamed at me.

I didn’t respond to this outburst. Just like I didn’t respond to any of the previous ones. The lass was sitting at the breakfast bar waiting for her grilled cheese sandwich and in the interim, had asked for orange juice to drink.

The bottle of orange juice was a half-gallon sized bottle. One of those fluted plastic ones. It was about two-thirds full. I figured she was more than capable of pouring the drink herself. I had given her a glass cup, with a heavy bottom figuring she’d need to rest the bottle on the lip of the glass in order to pour it. I can’t say I anticipated the hysterics though.

The life of a parent.

“Dad, I can’t pour this. I’LL SPILL IT!”

Ahhhh, here was the crux of the matter. Fear of consequences. It must be terrible to have the “Towel of Damocles” hanging around.

She was very near tears at this point. So I looked her in the eye and calmly said “You can pour it yourself.”

“No I can’t.” She was calmer now though.

“Yes, you can.” The ridiculousness of standing there and arguing with a child over her ability to pour a drink wasn’t lost on me. I actually considered going all Yoda on her: Do or do not- there is no try. I had to resist the urge to burst into laughter.

It was a tenuous situation all around.

Finally, she grabbed the bottle- one hand on the neck, the other supporting from the bottom. She tilted it down and rested the bottle on the glass and poured herself some OJ. She finished it up and then set the bottle down. No spillage.

Finished, she looked over at me and smiled from ear to ear but, remarkably for her, didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

Well, the Winter season has unofficially arrived. No school for the lass and a 90 minute delay for the boy. Despite there being no snow on any of the roads around here. I just don’t get it.

Theas are crasae hens they ticld eachutor and they hid the haye so the cow codint eat and they ate the carits froum the buneas an jumpt in the mud a rod on the pigs bac and ate the hay the cow ast if they ud have it dac the hun gav it dak.

I’m pretty sure there’s a runon in there…

Is this cute? or an early sign that he won’t be an editor?

Oh, the paper this came back on had a ‘star’ on it. Presumably, that means he did a good job.

The Wife and my (collaborated- it was too much for one mind) translation after the jump.

This morning while putting away the dishes I made an observation to the Wife that some of the cups seem to disappear for a time, making the cabinet easy to restock, and then suddenly reappear making the cabinet overflow with cups. For her part, she basically responded “That’s nice” and then went upstairs back to work.

I was initially upset that she didn’t acknowledge obscurity of my observation- that I could be so perceptive to have noticed such a thing. It then hit me- I’m making meta-observations about dish usage patterns; followed quickly by “Sane people don’t do that.”

I blame the kids.

While Halloween is great fun for everyone, the obvious downside is the loads of candy sitting up on a shelf somewhere. It becomes obvious quickly that the kids aren’t going to just forget about the sugary stash. But, as it turns out, there’s a way to use the candy to a good end.

I realized this yesterday when the boy did a number of … unusual things. First, he folded up some clothes at his Scout meeting. Unprompted no less. Also, he did something very mature- he tried to make a friend of his feel better about the project they worked on at their meeting. When we got into the car, I asked him what was up with all of that? He said, through a big grin “I’m trying to earn some candy.”

After we got home, he had one more surprise for us. He went upstairs and brought down their (this kids’) laundry. The Wife and I were both shocked.

So, today, he got what he wanted. We’ll have to see what kind of legs this routine has.

All things considered, this year’s Halloween was a lot of fun.

It started out Saturday night with the Haunted Woods. It was supposed to be a haunted hayride sort of thing. It turned out to be half-hayride and half-hike, but that’s OK. Both kids got there and were pretty arrogant about the lack of “scariness” and how they weren’t really scared. By the time it was all done, both kids were pretty quiet. No tears or screams, but I think it was a little more than their bravado allowed for. The fact that the lass didn’t utter a peep for the better part of an hour spoke volumes.

Last night we got together with friends for trick-or-treating. By the time it was all said and done, we had about 20 kids getting towed around town on a tractor-pulled haywagon. They’d get carted to a spot and then they’d dash from one door to the next scoring candy. It started while it was still light out and ended in the dark. It got cold too, but I don’t think anyone really cared all that much. Except for the lass, who wrestled with her Rapunzel dress trying to keep up with the other kids. By the end, she’d had enough of getting up and down from the wagon. The boy was at the front of the pack with his buddies most of the night.

When we finally got home, they slept like babies. So did the Wife and I.

Well, the boy’s big week has continued. After winning “scariest” costume at his dojo’s Halloween party this past weekend, his instructor promoted him into the children’s level class. That means he get a solid colored belt.

Technically, he skipped a number of intermediate belts, but because of his size of coordination the instructor felt he would benefit from an early promotion into the new class. They’ll be longer and a little more demanding in general.

So congrats to the boy. Keep up the good work.

Been meaning to comment on this, but it’s kept slipping my mind. Three stories that were well worth the time it took to tell them: Mr. Popper’s Penguins, How to Train Your Dragon, and James and the Giant Peach.

The kids thoroughly enjoyed all three stories. For that matter, they’re enjoyable stories for any age I’d wager. The kid’s kept after me to finish both of the books. Of the two, James and the Giant Peach really captured their imaginations. We even let them watch a Disney-fied movie version of the story we found on Netflix.

HTTYD continued the recent history of excellent animated stories that are entertaining for kids and adults alike. From my quick reading of the book it’s based on, they took a lot of liberties with the movie. But they made it work.

The boy and the Wife were out selling popcorn for Scouts today, so the lass and I had lunch together. I gave her a ham sandwich. She wanted a banana and some of her candy from the Halloween party last night. I told her she could have some when she finished her ham sandwich and the banana she requested.

For the record, the sandwich was only a half. And I could tell after the first bite that she really didn’t want to eat it.

I finished my own lunch and then went downstairs to check my email. She came down after a couple minutes with a banana. She couldn’t peel it. I asked her if she’d finished her sandwich and she said she had.

I can’t really say why, but I suspected differently. So when I went upstairs with her, I went trash diving. Sure enough, there, buried in a box and wrapped in a wad of paper towels, was her unfinished sandwich.

She didn’t get her candy. But I could swear, after I was done calling out her lie, that the only thing she was really sorry about was that she’d been caught.

Our first Halloween party is history now. The boy’s martial arts school threw one and it was a lot of fun. They had a lot of good activities and dancing. The Wife said no one knew how to do the “Electric Slide.” I told I wasn’t going to be any help.

The highlight of the night for the boy was his winning the “scariest costume” part of the competition. From the get go this year, he wanted a scary costume. No more super hero getups. He couldn’t have been happier when they picked him and his “swamp thing”-ish getup as the scariest costume there.

Getting the lass to her dance class has become a trial. Each week I try to get her going a little earlier because of the foot dragging. But the boy’s arrival time on the bus coincides too closely with departure time for her, so she gains the upper hand regardless how early I get her prepped.

All of this is just … weird because, once she finally gets to class, she really enjoys it. Of course, she doesn’t want me to think that.

The Lass: “Dad, I didn’t have fun in my class.”

Me: “But you were jumping and twirling and smiling the whole time.”

The Lass: “That’s not because I was having fun.”

Me: “You were definitely having fun.”

The Lass: “Was nnnoooootttttt”

Me: “You are so OBSTINATE.”

Her reply (naturally): “Am not.”

With regards to kids now-a-days, I have one particularly bad habit: I don’t buckle my seatbelt immediately upon my rear hitting the car seat.

I suspect I’m not alone. I also suspect I’m not alone in getting the following question fairly regularly:

“Dad, why don’t you buckle your seatbelt?”

Now, to be fair to me, the question isn’t entirely fair. I almost always buckle up by the time the car is on the road. I just don’t do it right away. But the kids don’t always notice that. What they do notice is that Dad didn’t buckle in at the same time they did.

The lass put the question a little more directly to me today:

Lass: “Dad, when can I buckle in like you do?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Lass: “You don’t always put on your seat belt when you get in the car.”

These little exchanges always remind of the one overt piece of advice my father gave me when our first was born He said “Remember, kids do as you do, not as you say.” In fact, I’d say that particular chestnut has been reinforced to me more than anything else where kids are concerned.

Got back from my workout at the Y and I’m still wiped out. Probably not the best situation considering I’m solo with the kids again. I’ll have to exert more effort to extend my patience.

I’ve noticed that the workouts have been taking more of a toll lately. Wonder what that’s about.