It is so nice outside right now. It's not too hot or too humid or too cold. It hasn't rained in a while and the air is just friendly and nice. Mornings are cooler, in the sixties, fifties or even forties, but it warms up to over seventy by mid-day mostly. It's what I like to call indoor-outdoor weather.
I'm taking this time to work on the deck, porch and two patios under them. I've put a treatment on the deck and power-washed it twice to get the grey and stains off the wood. After it dries I'll put on some water sealant.
For the brick patios below, I'm power-washing those and then adding filler sand between the bricks. The neighbor's children, Ryan and Kira, helped me with that tonight and my children had fun shoving sand around into the areas between the bricks. When that's all done, I'll water-seal those areas too.
And during all of this work, moving around furniture, applying product, cleaning, sealing, I'm leaving the doors to the house wide open. We're all running in and out as a family and having a great time. It's a nice time of year weather-wise.
The Big Boy Update: Esterday. My son doesn't pronounce "yesterday" correctly. I told him how it was pronounced tonight and he still got it wrong. Then I said, "you start it with 'yes', can you say 'yes-terday'?" He got it right without hesitating and immediately smiled. Daddy and I cheered for him.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Suckystrips. My neighbor (who is also a doctor) recommended we use steri-strips on my daughter's chin wound. We had been having trouble getting them to adhere and today my husband told her he'd renamed them, "suckystrips" because they won't stay on for longer than an hour. Suddenly she looked ashen and said, "oh no, I forgot to tell you to get Benzoin to adhere them!" So tomorrow, we plan on having steri-strips that actually stick.
Fitness Update: I was going to go to the gym this morning but my neck and back said no. This afternoon it felt better so I got in a six mile run instead. It's nice weather this time of year for a run.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Monday, October 6, 2014
I Am That Mother
When I was nineteen I lived in a townhouse with my best friend. We were still in college, but we were excited to be living on our own. The community of townhouses wasn't in a college area; it was all sorts of ages and families intermixed.
My next-door-neighbor became one of my best friends for many years and I have fond memories of her three children. There was the tall, strange woman down the row that had a construction business with a very deep voice and overall stature of a man. She was the nicest person you'd ever meet, but some people I heard had referred to her as, "Thang" because they didn't know what to make of her. I heard from someone years later that she had had gender reassignment surgery. I don't know if that was true, but I always liked her as a person, regardless.
There was a family that had two small children that played outside all the time. They mostly played in a diaper or underwear. Sometimes they'd run around carrying the cordless phone, leaving it in various places where the parents wouldn't be able to easily find it. I remember at that time my roommate and I said, "when we have kids, we won't let them run around in a diaper."
But as it would turn out, I'm that parent in our neighborhood that lets her kids run around in underpants, a diaper or even nothing. Today I was power-washing the deck and my children were playing in the back yard. They decided to go under the deck to get, "rained on" and then decided being wet wasn't all that fun, so they took all their clothes off, leaving them under the deck to get filthy with the dirty water from above.
I noticed they were out in the yard yelling and screaming happily so I sprayed the water up in the air to land in their general direction. More screams. I aimed the water at the slide and they liked that even better. For the next half-hour there was nudity in the back yard while I made progress on the deck.
When I got done, I brought them sandwiches and underpants to the play structure. I knew our neighbors children were going to come out soon and I felt a modicum of modesty might be in order (not that their mother would mind).
So yes, I'm the nudist or the lazy or even the crazy mom in the neighborhood now. But I'm totally cool with that.
The Big Boy Update: Loud Laughter. In the last week my son has started to laugh out loud and even guffaw at things on the television. He pitched a fit tonight because he wanted Mickey Mouse before bedtime and we told him he was watching Winnie the Pooh so he'd better get over it. Two minutes later and there is crazy, happy laughter coming from him as he looked raptly at the television.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: "Is Cheese a nickname?" We don't even realize we call my daughter "cheese" still until someone points it out. Uncle Jonathan and I were picking the children up at school on Thursday and I asked him, "which one do you want?" He said, "I'll take Cheese." Her teacher overheard and asked me, "Is Cheese a nickname?" I told her, "When her brother was little he couldn't say 'Reese', so he called her 'Cheese'".
Fitness Update: I went to the gym this morning after cantilevering myself out of bed, avoiding a position that caused me a lot of distress in my lower, right back. I went into the gym, warmed up on the elliptical for ten minutes and then went one block over in the car to the Chiropractor's office to be the first patient when they opened up at 6:00AM. I was back not fifteen minutes later and was able to make the last thirty minutes of the workout. It was, however, a fairly feeble workout as I needed to have a lot of substitution exercises. At least I made it.
My next-door-neighbor became one of my best friends for many years and I have fond memories of her three children. There was the tall, strange woman down the row that had a construction business with a very deep voice and overall stature of a man. She was the nicest person you'd ever meet, but some people I heard had referred to her as, "Thang" because they didn't know what to make of her. I heard from someone years later that she had had gender reassignment surgery. I don't know if that was true, but I always liked her as a person, regardless.
There was a family that had two small children that played outside all the time. They mostly played in a diaper or underwear. Sometimes they'd run around carrying the cordless phone, leaving it in various places where the parents wouldn't be able to easily find it. I remember at that time my roommate and I said, "when we have kids, we won't let them run around in a diaper."
But as it would turn out, I'm that parent in our neighborhood that lets her kids run around in underpants, a diaper or even nothing. Today I was power-washing the deck and my children were playing in the back yard. They decided to go under the deck to get, "rained on" and then decided being wet wasn't all that fun, so they took all their clothes off, leaving them under the deck to get filthy with the dirty water from above.
I noticed they were out in the yard yelling and screaming happily so I sprayed the water up in the air to land in their general direction. More screams. I aimed the water at the slide and they liked that even better. For the next half-hour there was nudity in the back yard while I made progress on the deck.
When I got done, I brought them sandwiches and underpants to the play structure. I knew our neighbors children were going to come out soon and I felt a modicum of modesty might be in order (not that their mother would mind).
So yes, I'm the nudist or the lazy or even the crazy mom in the neighborhood now. But I'm totally cool with that.
The Big Boy Update: Loud Laughter. In the last week my son has started to laugh out loud and even guffaw at things on the television. He pitched a fit tonight because he wanted Mickey Mouse before bedtime and we told him he was watching Winnie the Pooh so he'd better get over it. Two minutes later and there is crazy, happy laughter coming from him as he looked raptly at the television.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: "Is Cheese a nickname?" We don't even realize we call my daughter "cheese" still until someone points it out. Uncle Jonathan and I were picking the children up at school on Thursday and I asked him, "which one do you want?" He said, "I'll take Cheese." Her teacher overheard and asked me, "Is Cheese a nickname?" I told her, "When her brother was little he couldn't say 'Reese', so he called her 'Cheese'".
Fitness Update: I went to the gym this morning after cantilevering myself out of bed, avoiding a position that caused me a lot of distress in my lower, right back. I went into the gym, warmed up on the elliptical for ten minutes and then went one block over in the car to the Chiropractor's office to be the first patient when they opened up at 6:00AM. I was back not fifteen minutes later and was able to make the last thirty minutes of the workout. It was, however, a fairly feeble workout as I needed to have a lot of substitution exercises. At least I made it.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Captain's Wafers and Frozen Golf Balls
We played mini-golf today at Myrtle Beach with my in-laws. I won. I won, playing with people who play golf regularly—and who are good at playing golf. They must have all been coming down with something. That, or they were letting me win. Or, and I think this might have been the real culprit, the course was just easy. It certainly had nothing to do with skill, I can tell you that.
We went to lunch and we were opening crackers for my children while we waited for the meal to arrive. My mother-in-law mentioned how they were Lance's Captain's Wafers and that she liked them. I had a sudden flash back of my first introduction to Captain's Wafers and how it also related to golf from when I was a child.
My mother was a math professor at a college when I was young. At some point when I was in elementary school, she moved up into Financial Aid and then later became the Assistant to the President of the college. As the president's assistant, her office was in the President's suite, which was half a floor of the main administration building. That area housed more than just his office, including a large board room for trustee meetings and several other offices for staff.
I spent a lot of time up there on off-hours when my mother was working late or on weekends. I remember playing on the board room tables that were shiny and black. I could slide all over them and climb under them. It was a fun room for a young child. There was also a small kitchenette that was mostly empty of food, but sometimes had things left over from a recent meeting.
One day after school I was waiting for my mother to be finished working and I was hungry. She looked around and found some Lance's Captain's Wafers and told me I could eat as many as I wanted. They didn't look that appealing as little rectangular crackers in two-packs, but when I tasted the first I suddenly changed my mind. They were buttery crackers and they tasted good.
My mother left and in a few minutes I went back into the kitchenette to look for something to drink. I opened the refrigerator and didn't see much so I opened the freezer and was met with a strange sight—a stack of three golf balls directly on top of one another.
I stood there with the door open for a while, just looking at those golf balls and wondering how they were standing on top of one another like that. I also wondered what they were doing in the freezer. It was odd.
My mother came back later and I showed her the golf balls. She laughed and said that Dr. Weems had found out it was possible to stack golf balls if you were very steady-handed and accurate and he'd been working on doing a stack of three. There may have been something about adding a little water to the top of the ball in the hopes they would freeze together, making the bond stronger temporarily, but I don't really remember. She told me it was okay if I wanted to take the stack down, so I did.
Let me tell you, stacking three golf balls is delicate work. I spent lots of time trying to recreate the stack of three, but I never got past two. I think I ate a lot of Captain's Wafers while I worked on the problem. I gave up on the golf balls, but I still love Captain's Wafers to this day.
The Big Boy Update: We played mini-golf today with my in-laws. My son didn't really care about the ball or even the large stick, otherwise known as a club. What he wanted to do was climb on the big rocks (cement boulders), lean over and dip his hands into the unnaturally blue-colored water and play on the railings and ropes. He scored zero for his round, but had lots of fun in the process.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter played mini-golf with us today. She was interested in putting her ball at the start of each hole and trying to hit it. Mostly, she missed. This didn't bother her at all, as she just pick up the ball and took it to the green right by the hole to hit it in. Or, alternately, she would just drop it into the hole itself. Then she would cheer loudly. Her score was riddled with errors and penalty shots she never took, but she had a fantastic time none-the-less
We went to lunch and we were opening crackers for my children while we waited for the meal to arrive. My mother-in-law mentioned how they were Lance's Captain's Wafers and that she liked them. I had a sudden flash back of my first introduction to Captain's Wafers and how it also related to golf from when I was a child.
My mother was a math professor at a college when I was young. At some point when I was in elementary school, she moved up into Financial Aid and then later became the Assistant to the President of the college. As the president's assistant, her office was in the President's suite, which was half a floor of the main administration building. That area housed more than just his office, including a large board room for trustee meetings and several other offices for staff.
I spent a lot of time up there on off-hours when my mother was working late or on weekends. I remember playing on the board room tables that were shiny and black. I could slide all over them and climb under them. It was a fun room for a young child. There was also a small kitchenette that was mostly empty of food, but sometimes had things left over from a recent meeting.
One day after school I was waiting for my mother to be finished working and I was hungry. She looked around and found some Lance's Captain's Wafers and told me I could eat as many as I wanted. They didn't look that appealing as little rectangular crackers in two-packs, but when I tasted the first I suddenly changed my mind. They were buttery crackers and they tasted good.
My mother left and in a few minutes I went back into the kitchenette to look for something to drink. I opened the refrigerator and didn't see much so I opened the freezer and was met with a strange sight—a stack of three golf balls directly on top of one another.
I stood there with the door open for a while, just looking at those golf balls and wondering how they were standing on top of one another like that. I also wondered what they were doing in the freezer. It was odd.
My mother came back later and I showed her the golf balls. She laughed and said that Dr. Weems had found out it was possible to stack golf balls if you were very steady-handed and accurate and he'd been working on doing a stack of three. There may have been something about adding a little water to the top of the ball in the hopes they would freeze together, making the bond stronger temporarily, but I don't really remember. She told me it was okay if I wanted to take the stack down, so I did.
Let me tell you, stacking three golf balls is delicate work. I spent lots of time trying to recreate the stack of three, but I never got past two. I think I ate a lot of Captain's Wafers while I worked on the problem. I gave up on the golf balls, but I still love Captain's Wafers to this day.
The Big Boy Update: We played mini-golf today with my in-laws. My son didn't really care about the ball or even the large stick, otherwise known as a club. What he wanted to do was climb on the big rocks (cement boulders), lean over and dip his hands into the unnaturally blue-colored water and play on the railings and ropes. He scored zero for his round, but had lots of fun in the process.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter played mini-golf with us today. She was interested in putting her ball at the start of each hole and trying to hit it. Mostly, she missed. This didn't bother her at all, as she just pick up the ball and took it to the green right by the hole to hit it in. Or, alternately, she would just drop it into the hole itself. Then she would cheer loudly. Her score was riddled with errors and penalty shots she never took, but she had a fantastic time none-the-less
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Beach in October
We're at Myrtle Beach this weekend with my in-laws. They have a time share here and they've invited us to visit them during their week's stay about this time of year for the past several years, but this is the first year we've been able to join them.
This isn't the time of year I think of as ideal beach visiting time. School has started, the temperature has dropped by ten or more degrees and the water is likely much chillier to swim in. And while that may be true some years (I don't know from experience) it's not so this year. The water is I think the warmest it's been all summer. Both this weekend and last weekend the ocean was very warm.
The temperature hasn't been that hot, but it's been nicely warm and sunny. The pools at the resort here are a nice temperature so we got in and out without noticing it was October and we should be cold.
My children are adjusting to a new situation here at the condo: they are sleeping in the same bed. They've never done this before and they're not one bit upset by it, but it is an adjustment—especially when it comes to calming down and going to sleep. Nana brought her bed rails and that's been helpful. As I write this, my husband is in the room with them, making sure they aren't having fun giggling and kicking each other and going to sleep. He may be in there a while...
We went out for lunch today and decided to try the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. We hoped to get there a bit early to beat the crowds. When we arrived, following directions on the map, we encountered two things: first, there was a huge Mustang car show in the surrounding parking lot and second, the Hard Rock Cafe was for some reason in a pyramid.
I don't know about you, but I have this thing for all things ancient Egyptian. I always assume everyone else does too. So piles of people hot from looking at Mustangs and a pyramid in which you can eat and I figured we'd be in a line for forty-five minutes to get seated. But off season and we walked in to an almost empty restaurant shortly before noon. I'm not sure why the building was a pyramid or why the theme was Egyptian throughout the building with splashes of Rock and Roll memorabilia here and there, but we had a good lunch.
For dinner tonight we went to a "mega buffet". I'm not sure what you'd call one of these places, but that name seems to fit. I've been to buffets in Las Vegas casinos and this one not only rivaled it, it surpassed it. The building was massive, the decorations were nautical in nature and there were an astounding number of miniature ships and boats. We could have stayed there for hours looking at the displays alone. There was a children's play area that I would have gladly paid to have my kids come and spend time in on a rainy day. Getting them to the table was a trick in and of itself. When I asked, I was told the restaurant had seating for 1004 diners at the same time. It was a delicious dinner experience all around.
After dinner we drove to downtown Myrtle Beach so my husband could see some of the more prominent sights as he'd never been here before. As we drove past hotel after hotel on the beach-front road, my husband said, "that one has a sign that says, 'Color Television', do they even make black-and-white televisions any more?" I'm not sure he was as impressed with Myrtle Beach as we'd hoped he'd be after that.
The Big Boy Update: My son started talking about ghosts tonight in the car on the way home from dinner. He told us about how ghosts were bad and that they killed people and they have spooky eyes. When we asked him where he heard this (because, we told him, we didn't think ghosts were bad or did those things), he told us his teacher from last year had told him. We're pretty darned sure Elim didn't tell him frightening things about ghosts. My bet is some of the older children in his class that are four or five-years-old passed on their thoughts on ghosts.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is getting interested in letters. She wants you to draw her name or her brother's name. Today at the beach she spent a long time drawing squiggles and lines in the sand. Some of her squiggles looked like writing while some of her lines were as long as a grocery store aisle, although not nearly so straight.
This isn't the time of year I think of as ideal beach visiting time. School has started, the temperature has dropped by ten or more degrees and the water is likely much chillier to swim in. And while that may be true some years (I don't know from experience) it's not so this year. The water is I think the warmest it's been all summer. Both this weekend and last weekend the ocean was very warm.
The temperature hasn't been that hot, but it's been nicely warm and sunny. The pools at the resort here are a nice temperature so we got in and out without noticing it was October and we should be cold.
My children are adjusting to a new situation here at the condo: they are sleeping in the same bed. They've never done this before and they're not one bit upset by it, but it is an adjustment—especially when it comes to calming down and going to sleep. Nana brought her bed rails and that's been helpful. As I write this, my husband is in the room with them, making sure they aren't having fun giggling and kicking each other and going to sleep. He may be in there a while...
We went out for lunch today and decided to try the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. We hoped to get there a bit early to beat the crowds. When we arrived, following directions on the map, we encountered two things: first, there was a huge Mustang car show in the surrounding parking lot and second, the Hard Rock Cafe was for some reason in a pyramid.
I don't know about you, but I have this thing for all things ancient Egyptian. I always assume everyone else does too. So piles of people hot from looking at Mustangs and a pyramid in which you can eat and I figured we'd be in a line for forty-five minutes to get seated. But off season and we walked in to an almost empty restaurant shortly before noon. I'm not sure why the building was a pyramid or why the theme was Egyptian throughout the building with splashes of Rock and Roll memorabilia here and there, but we had a good lunch.
For dinner tonight we went to a "mega buffet". I'm not sure what you'd call one of these places, but that name seems to fit. I've been to buffets in Las Vegas casinos and this one not only rivaled it, it surpassed it. The building was massive, the decorations were nautical in nature and there were an astounding number of miniature ships and boats. We could have stayed there for hours looking at the displays alone. There was a children's play area that I would have gladly paid to have my kids come and spend time in on a rainy day. Getting them to the table was a trick in and of itself. When I asked, I was told the restaurant had seating for 1004 diners at the same time. It was a delicious dinner experience all around.
After dinner we drove to downtown Myrtle Beach so my husband could see some of the more prominent sights as he'd never been here before. As we drove past hotel after hotel on the beach-front road, my husband said, "that one has a sign that says, 'Color Television', do they even make black-and-white televisions any more?" I'm not sure he was as impressed with Myrtle Beach as we'd hoped he'd be after that.
The Big Boy Update: My son started talking about ghosts tonight in the car on the way home from dinner. He told us about how ghosts were bad and that they killed people and they have spooky eyes. When we asked him where he heard this (because, we told him, we didn't think ghosts were bad or did those things), he told us his teacher from last year had told him. We're pretty darned sure Elim didn't tell him frightening things about ghosts. My bet is some of the older children in his class that are four or five-years-old passed on their thoughts on ghosts.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter is getting interested in letters. She wants you to draw her name or her brother's name. Today at the beach she spent a long time drawing squiggles and lines in the sand. Some of her squiggles looked like writing while some of her lines were as long as a grocery store aisle, although not nearly so straight.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Did I Remember to Bring my Phone?
There are some things in our lives we would be crippled without. For example, without our vehicles, how would we get to all the things we normally do that are further away than walking distance? Without certain things, our lives would have to go through a significant adjustment to a new way of doing things.
The smart phone is one of those things in my life and this morning I had another reminder of that. I got in the car to take my son to school. On the way there I went through the Starbucks drive through to get some coffee. I do this regularly enough that my children know exactly where we are when I pull in—even though they've never had coffee themselves.
As I got in the drive-thru line I suddenly thought, "did I forget my phone?" This might be an unusual question at that point, but I pay for my Starbucks coffee via an app on my phone. As I looked into my purse for the phone I realized I had already interacted with the phone multiple times since I'd gotten in the car but since it was such an assumed constant companion, I hadn't noticed.
When we got in the car and backed out of the driveway I had heard the phone bing the sound that indicated the house alarm system had been successfully armed. When we got to the first stop light my son asked for a song he likes right now and I selected the bluetooth audio option in the car to play music from my phone.
Next, my son said something funny or maybe I had a thought or memory and I wanted to take a note about it so I'd remember to write about it when I sat down tonight to do this blog entry. I pulled out my phone and added an entry to my blog topics list (at a stoplight of course—there are a lot on our ride to school.)
While I had the phone up, I checked my email to see if the solicitation I might be doing later was confirmed. Then I turned into Starbucks, music blaring out of the stereo, playing from my phone via bluetooth. Then I wondered if I had brought my phone with me.
The Big Boy Update: My husband took my daughter to get her stitches removed this morning and I took my son to school. We, for the first time, needed to put a car seat in the Tesla. My son was excited about going for a ride in, "the awesome car" he told me. As we drove out of the neighborhood he agreed, it was a very quiet ride. Then he said, "I usually throw up in this car."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had her stitches out this morning. They used a topical numbing on her chin and she didn't budge for the ninety seconds it took to get the stitches clipped and out. We were proud of her bravery. She's been enjoying drawing scribbles on pieces of paper lately She draws something, hands it to you and tells you it's an <insert word she made up>. On our car ride today she made me the following drawings: Neeker-chopper-bai, Cheops, Chicka chooka tickka tooka, Thithoo and Chingatoo.
The smart phone is one of those things in my life and this morning I had another reminder of that. I got in the car to take my son to school. On the way there I went through the Starbucks drive through to get some coffee. I do this regularly enough that my children know exactly where we are when I pull in—even though they've never had coffee themselves.
As I got in the drive-thru line I suddenly thought, "did I forget my phone?" This might be an unusual question at that point, but I pay for my Starbucks coffee via an app on my phone. As I looked into my purse for the phone I realized I had already interacted with the phone multiple times since I'd gotten in the car but since it was such an assumed constant companion, I hadn't noticed.
When we got in the car and backed out of the driveway I had heard the phone bing the sound that indicated the house alarm system had been successfully armed. When we got to the first stop light my son asked for a song he likes right now and I selected the bluetooth audio option in the car to play music from my phone.
Next, my son said something funny or maybe I had a thought or memory and I wanted to take a note about it so I'd remember to write about it when I sat down tonight to do this blog entry. I pulled out my phone and added an entry to my blog topics list (at a stoplight of course—there are a lot on our ride to school.)
While I had the phone up, I checked my email to see if the solicitation I might be doing later was confirmed. Then I turned into Starbucks, music blaring out of the stereo, playing from my phone via bluetooth. Then I wondered if I had brought my phone with me.
The Big Boy Update: My husband took my daughter to get her stitches removed this morning and I took my son to school. We, for the first time, needed to put a car seat in the Tesla. My son was excited about going for a ride in, "the awesome car" he told me. As we drove out of the neighborhood he agreed, it was a very quiet ride. Then he said, "I usually throw up in this car."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had her stitches out this morning. They used a topical numbing on her chin and she didn't budge for the ninety seconds it took to get the stitches clipped and out. We were proud of her bravery. She's been enjoying drawing scribbles on pieces of paper lately She draws something, hands it to you and tells you it's an <insert word she made up>. On our car ride today she made me the following drawings: Neeker-chopper-bai, Cheops, Chicka chooka tickka tooka, Thithoo and Chingatoo.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Closet Climbing
My husband and I were busily working at our computers this afternoon, trying to get in a little work while the children ran around in the basement playing unsupervised. Usually when this happens, we have to take it in turn to get up, find out what they're doing and redirect them to something safer or a more preferable activity.
They got into the lower cabinet and dumped all the pillows and blankets, climbed in and played some sort of hiding and rescuing game for a bit. Next, we heard them in the bathroom, playing in the walk-in shower with the fun rock pebble floor.
After that I could tell they were in the basement bedroom doing something that was making noise. From the sound, I thought they were in the closet with the metal coat hangers. When I went to investigate, they had taken the hangers all down and were in the process of climbing up the cubbies to get to the very top shelf in the closet.
I was, truthfully, proud of them. Dangerous? Sure, it could be, but the floor is carpeted they've been climbing the various shelves and ledges in our master closet for a while, they just couldn't get to a higher level because there were things on those shelves. The closet in the basement is empty.
They didn't make it to the very top, but when they do, I'm not worried. Our trim carpenter put in some very sturdy materials in our house. If I could fit up there, I'd feel confident it would hold even my weight.
The Big Boy Update: My daughter was kicking the back of the chair on the way to school this morning. It was making a rhythmic "thump thump thump". My son looked over to me said, "Is that deadmau5 music Reese is making?" As I listened to her kicking, I had to agree with him, it did sound a lot like a low bass beat.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter sings this "da da da" type of song a lot. It's mostly syllables of sound that repeat across a measure or two. Her brother started to sing along with her the other day but she interrupted him and said, "No, that's mine and Jacob's song!"
They got into the lower cabinet and dumped all the pillows and blankets, climbed in and played some sort of hiding and rescuing game for a bit. Next, we heard them in the bathroom, playing in the walk-in shower with the fun rock pebble floor.
After that I could tell they were in the basement bedroom doing something that was making noise. From the sound, I thought they were in the closet with the metal coat hangers. When I went to investigate, they had taken the hangers all down and were in the process of climbing up the cubbies to get to the very top shelf in the closet.
I was, truthfully, proud of them. Dangerous? Sure, it could be, but the floor is carpeted they've been climbing the various shelves and ledges in our master closet for a while, they just couldn't get to a higher level because there were things on those shelves. The closet in the basement is empty.
They didn't make it to the very top, but when they do, I'm not worried. Our trim carpenter put in some very sturdy materials in our house. If I could fit up there, I'd feel confident it would hold even my weight.
The Big Boy Update: My daughter was kicking the back of the chair on the way to school this morning. It was making a rhythmic "thump thump thump". My son looked over to me said, "Is that deadmau5 music Reese is making?" As I listened to her kicking, I had to agree with him, it did sound a lot like a low bass beat.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter sings this "da da da" type of song a lot. It's mostly syllables of sound that repeat across a measure or two. Her brother started to sing along with her the other day but she interrupted him and said, "No, that's mine and Jacob's song!"
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Dutch Oven
Have you ever had to pick a password for something and had a hard time coming up with an easily memorable choice? With the prevalence of passwords these days, it's continually challenging to come up with something new, different, secure and yet memorable. But it hasn't always been so.
Many years ago I was playing a video game regularly with some friends. My best work friend and I were avid players when we were done working for the day and on weekends. This particular game (Diablo) worked by having one person create a game and the other person or people joining the game you created. You could password protect the game so that random people didn't just jump in. We decided to use "dutchoven" for our password anytime either one of us created a game.
It worked well. It was the password we always used. It was easily memorable and it made me think of people wearing wooden clogs milling doing things with some large oven structure. I didn't know what a dutch oven was, but I had all sorts of images of something big and impressive.
Then one day, years later after I was done playing that game, I discovered I'd had a dutch oven sitting in my cabinet in the kitchen all that time. It's just a large pot. Talk about ruining my mental image.
I still use "dutchoven" today for various non-critical passwordy things and it never fails to remind me of those video game days years ago.
The Big Boy Update: My son came home today with an Incident Report. Another child was waving a stick around on the playground (which is not allowed) and hit my son in the lip. The incident report is required for any injury to the head. When my husband and I read it it made it laugh because it said, "Treatment: ice pack (reluctantly received)". I can picture him far more interested in getting back to the playground than holding an ice pack to his lip.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was seen by a plastic surgeon today to confirm we're doing the proper things for her chin to recover with minimal scaring. The surgeon was a delight and she liked him a lot. She may well like him less when he removes her stitches on Friday morning. He said she's doing very well and gave us some pointers on what to do to facilitate her healing.
Fitness Update: We went in to the gym early this morning because my neighbor had an early meeting. My alarm went off at 4:45. Uncle Jonathan made it to my house at 4:55 from the next town over to go to the gym. He is harder core than I am, no question about it.
Many years ago I was playing a video game regularly with some friends. My best work friend and I were avid players when we were done working for the day and on weekends. This particular game (Diablo) worked by having one person create a game and the other person or people joining the game you created. You could password protect the game so that random people didn't just jump in. We decided to use "dutchoven" for our password anytime either one of us created a game.
It worked well. It was the password we always used. It was easily memorable and it made me think of people wearing wooden clogs milling doing things with some large oven structure. I didn't know what a dutch oven was, but I had all sorts of images of something big and impressive.
Then one day, years later after I was done playing that game, I discovered I'd had a dutch oven sitting in my cabinet in the kitchen all that time. It's just a large pot. Talk about ruining my mental image.
I still use "dutchoven" today for various non-critical passwordy things and it never fails to remind me of those video game days years ago.
The Big Boy Update: My son came home today with an Incident Report. Another child was waving a stick around on the playground (which is not allowed) and hit my son in the lip. The incident report is required for any injury to the head. When my husband and I read it it made it laugh because it said, "Treatment: ice pack (reluctantly received)". I can picture him far more interested in getting back to the playground than holding an ice pack to his lip.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was seen by a plastic surgeon today to confirm we're doing the proper things for her chin to recover with minimal scaring. The surgeon was a delight and she liked him a lot. She may well like him less when he removes her stitches on Friday morning. He said she's doing very well and gave us some pointers on what to do to facilitate her healing.
Fitness Update: We went in to the gym early this morning because my neighbor had an early meeting. My alarm went off at 4:45. Uncle Jonathan made it to my house at 4:55 from the next town over to go to the gym. He is harder core than I am, no question about it.
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