So, here we go. Seems like as good a place to start as any. The doors are actually mounted on their hinges here. More on that in a bit. Not much else to comment on the doors, the panels are book matched and the eyebrow is pretty clear here. I wasn’t able to get a single piece of wood wide enough to serve as the panel, so I had to do a glue up.
It was a nice day today weather-wise, so it wasn’t surprising when the lass arrived home, around noon, that she asked to go in the pool. The water is still cold, my guess is it’s in the low 60’s. But that doesn’t stop them from wanting to get in it. Seeing as today was the first day since the past weekend where swimming was plausible, there was no real reason to tell her “No.”
But she had to have lunch first. She wanted a sandwich and chips. So I put that together for her. While I was doing so, she sprinted upstairs to put on her swim suit in anticipation of getting in the pool.
NOT so fast, she was told.
She had to wait 20 minutes for her food to settle.
This little parental stall tactic has to have been around since the cavemen: “Mmmm, Grog say no go in water until Sun passes tree to allow for good digestion.” This also provided the appropriate conditions for the cave-kid nagging: their kids pestered them into oblivion with “Has the Sun passed the tree yet?” or “The Sun has passed the tree from over here Dad!” Followed by the caveman losing his squash “Now wait until it passes NEXT tree!”
Thankfully (for all of us), it ended there.
Personally, it was an hour for me when I was growing up. For the Wife, it was 30 minutes.
It’s 20 for the kids. Why?
Why not. When dealing in the ridiculous, there are no rules.
Somewhere along the way, in the boy’s developing sense of how the Universe is supposed to spin, he got it in his head that “older” equals “better.” Now, the Grandparents out there might largely agree with that assessment, but the boy has been ruthlessly applying this reasoning when comparing himself and his sister.
He hates losing to her because “he’s older and should win because older people are supposed to win.” And he hates her knowing things that he doesn’t because “when you’re older, you’re supposed to know more stuff than younger people.” He also hates the idea that she’s learning to read because she’s been getting better at it faster than he did. Never mind the fact that he’s still a better reader right now because of practice.
I’m aware that part of his reasoning surely comes from his comparing himself to the Wife and I. The most obvious difference, besides the physical ones anyway, is we are much older than him. But his generalization of the concept to the extreme he’s taking it is just… odd. It’s not something the Wife and I have ever tried to emphasize.
I suppose that’s not entirely true. When it has come up, it’s usually been in the form of trying to explain to him why he needs to be careful when rough-and-tumbling with his sister, or when he expects her to be capable of something simply because he is. But that’s a long way from telling him that his poop doesn’t stink because he was born 18 months earlier than his sister. And trust me, it stinks (and still clogs toilets).
I suppose it could be as simple as he hasn’t learned that there aren’t many “rules” in life that aren’t broken at one point or another. Big people are clumsy and dumb, except when they’re not. Little people are annoying, except when they’re not. Older people are better at everything that younger people, except when they’re not. The point being, of course, that they aren’t really rules to begin with. Rather, they’re erroneous conclusions based on small sampling size (except for small people being annoying, that one’s true). Try explaining that to an 8 year-old.
Maybe when he gets a little older, he’ll understand that.
I’ve just completed assembly of the doors for the armoire, which means I’m getting real close to finishing it. My main task now is to create the molding and the top, apply the finish, mount the doors, and I’m done. Real light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel territory here.
The doors went together almost better than I’d hoped. In fact, in addition to the dovetailing, door assembly is another area where I’ve improved tremendously on this project. Actually, mortise and tenon joinery in general is what I’ve improved on. I’ve learned how to effectively wield a shoulder plane to trim the tenons to nicely fit a mortise. Now more racked doors or floating-panel assemblies. It’s kind of nice to have achieved a level proficiency and skill with this stuff. All it takes is time and lots of crooked doors.
One nice I did different with these doors was to put an “eyebrow” on the panel. When I initially decided to go this route, I thought of a couple of possibilities for how to go about making the rails and panels. In the end, I went with the simplest, I think method: cutting a large radius across the top of the panel and a matching arc from the top rail. I still had to be careful when cutting the panel to length, and width because the arc made thing a little tricky (where do I measure the length? the middle? the ends? Plus, it has to fit into a groove in the rails and stiles.)
Doing this made the assembly of the door a bit different than normal panel door assembly. Instead of gluing and assembling a stile and both rails, then sliding the panel home and finally adding the second stile, the assembly started with a stile and the top rail with the eyebrow cut in it. After those pieces were mated, the panel was inserted followed by adding the bottom rail to the assembly. Then, I completed assembly by adding the other stile. I had to do this because with the arc from the eyebrow, there was no way I could assemble both rails and then slide the panel into place.
I’ll try to get some picture of up in the next day or so to show off the work that’s been accomplished. But in all, I’m pleased with the product and I’m looking forward to seeing the finished piece come together.
The kids were in the pool for a bit today. But it was still cold and they could only be in for about 20 minutes, which is 20 more minutes than any adult would have ventured. The lass brought out her boogie board for the occasion and both of them used there goggles. When they got out, they left everything in the pool.
That set of circumstances led to an amusing moment later when it started to rain. The boy came running outside shortly after it started screaming “I’ve got to get my goggles out of the rain!”
I almost choked on my drink.
The boy may be well on his way to having his father’s feet. The Wife discovered that she can basically fit her feet in his new flip flops. He’s now in a size 6.
Still a ways to go before he catches me though.
The most annoying trait the kids have adopted of late is they ask questions. Not different questions, but the same question. Over and over and over. Typically, it’s a request of some sort. “Can I have candy?” isn’t uncommon. “What can I have with lunch?” “Can I stay up later?” “Can we have waffles?”
I wish I could say it’s entirely unprovoked, but I cannot. Mainly, the sin the Wife and I commit is to not immediately respond. And by immediately, I mean with a microsecond of the question having been thought by the kids.
Alright, I exaggerate. But not by much.
The thing about most of these questions is the kids already know the answer. “No, you can’t have candy.” “Have an apple or strawberries.” “No, bedtime is bedtime.” “Maybe.”
But we don’t get a chance to offer an answer. Instead, they ask again because some internal timer goes off, meaning we didn’t hear them. The Wife and I get snippy at times with this and will intentionally try to ignore them. That when it devolves into a scene from a sitcom with the kid standing next the to their parent roboticly repeating themselves until they get a response.
My usual, exasperated response is to say “If you ask me that again, you’ll go to bed early.” Of course, being problem solvers they simply route around that obstacle and ask for the same information in a slightly different way. It’s like Chinese water torture.
Unfortunately, the situation is in something of a stalemate. They don’t seem to be taking the hint to think before they ask, and we aren’t interested in responding any quicker to their queries. The proverbial unstoppable force and immovable object.
I guess we’re hoping they’ll grow out of it. Soon.
Real soon.
For all you Game of Thrones fans out there, SI has an amusing interview with author George R. R. Martin. First up, he’s a Jets fan. Who knew? Poor guy.
More amusingly, because of his football loyalties, he thinks the Patriots are the Lannisters of the NFL. (For you non GoT fans, that’s not a good thing.) He also thinks the Giants are the Starks, which is good and bad. Good because the Starks are the good guys. Bad because the Starks mostly end up dead.
Lastly, he thinks he’ll finish the next book before the Jets win a Super Bowl. No word on whether he’ll finish the series before then as well.
(via Deadspin)