Recently in parenting Category

Yahoo! News reports....

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. - A 16-year-old Arkansas boy is suing his mother, accusing her of slandering him on his Facebook page.
Denise New of Arkadelphia is charged with harassment and her son -- whose name has not been released -- is asking that his mother be prohibited from contacting him.
Authorities say the boy lives with his grandmother, who has custodial rights.
Denise New says she believes she has the legal right to monitor her son's activities online and that plans to fight the charges.
Prosecutor Todd Turner declined to comment, citing the boy's age.

I don't really see how that story should have made it onto the AP wire. Granted, it mentions Facebook, but there's not really any substance to the story - like what she said - and with him being a minor, there's not a lot that they can even report.

What a waste. The fact that I'm sharing it with you? Probably wasteful too... :)

While I don't see the "problem" of her being able to see his Facebook page, if she doesn't have custody, I don't think it's her job (anymore) to try to run his life - that appears to be his grandmothers job now.

CNN reports....

"There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)" scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.
Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.

Glad to see that they're addressing the REALLY big issue of desk graffiti....

When did we become a society that can't just sit down with a kid and find out why they did something, explain why it's wrong and just move on with our lives??

Due to various people complaining about the version of the video I posted on my family website, I'm trying it again here: "3gp" cell phone video type format:

Flash Video encoded:

With Christmas just days away, you have to consider what you'll do carefully - with just two days for shipping, and more and more packages going through the systems, you're cutting it rather close. Amazon.com is offering free two-day shipping on some items, so plan things right and you could get it there in time. Otherwise, if you know it's in stock at a local store - many websites now offer the chance to check inventory status online - you might be able to get it in hand, provided you can put up with the crush of people.

Amazon.com and iTunes Music Store gift cards are an excellent option - you can either have them emailed to the recipient, or you can print out a custom gift card and give it in person. Win win!

If you have a Lego fan on your list, Lego Shop at Home offers a great variety of sets, right from the source. If you have a custom builder on the list, a gift card and point them in the direction of the individual bricks store, and they'll be all set.

Another option, if you're looking to spend a little more, is the Amazon Kindle. They've lowered the price, and changed out the wireless provider, meaning that you can use it internationally now. Combine those two, and you've got a great price on a very mobile device. Books are available online, and there are millions of titles available - either from Amazon, or from third party sources, including free books. With magazine and newspaper subscriptions also available - cheaper than the printed versions - it's easy to stay up to date while on the go.

Some other items of note:
Star Trek (Single-Disc Edition)
Star Wars Trilogy
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
The Shawshank Redemption (Single Disc Edition)
The Dark Knight (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)
Stargate SG-1: The Complete Series Collection
X-Men Trilogy (X-Men/ X2 - X-Men United/ X-Men - The Last Stand)
The Hangover (Unrated Two-Disc Special Edition)
Inglourious Basterds (Single-Disc Edition)
District 9 (Single-Disc Edition)
Gran Torino (Widescreen Edition)
Kung Fu - The Complete Series Collection
Friends - The Complete Series Collection
The West Wing - The Complete Series Collection
Gilligan's Island - The Complete Series Collection
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Complete Series
Family Guy - The Total World Domination Collection (Stewie Head Packaging) - (Amazon.com Exclusive)
Absolutely Fabulous: Absolutely Everything
When Harry Met Sally... (Collector's Edition)

Tonight I had the pleasure of setting up an iomega Home Media NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. Aside from an issue with the firmware (more on that in a second), setup was a breeze, and configuration was super easy - easier than I was afraid it would be. The best part? The Mac software for it is first rate, and the configuration is all web based, and completely platform neutral - something I'm not used to seeing when I buy "network" device that's allegedly cross-platform.

Just curious to see if this increases the responses on my poll.....

Every year for April Fools day, ThinkGeek comes up with some outlandish product "offerings." This year, it included the sleeping bag seen here: a Tauntaun Sleeping Bag. Among the features....

• Classic Star Wars sleeping bag simulates the warmth of a Tauntaun carcass
  
• Built-in embroidered Tauntaun head pillow
  
• Glowing Lightsaber zipper pull
  
• Great for playing pretend "Save Luke from the Wampa" games
  
• Teach your children about the best Star Wars movie ever
  
• Fully Licensed Lucasfilm™ Collectable
  
• Fits children (and small adults)
  

My favorite part: the pattern on the inside, which looks like Tauntaun entrails (just like in the movie!).

Anyway, it turns out that enough people tried to buy it and complained when they found out it was just an April Fools joke that ThinkGeek has added this message to the page:

ATTN Tauntaun Fanatics! Due to an overwhelming tsunami of requests from YOU THE PEOPLE, we have decided to TRY and bring this to life. We have no clue if the suits at Lucasfilms will grant little ThinkGeek a license, nor do we know how much it would ultimately retail for. But if you are interested in ever owning one of these, click the link below and we'll try!

The link, if you want to know if they manage to make and start selling them, is this one. Click it! You know you want to! I've already signed up and hope that the price is right for me to get one for each of the boys - I know they'll love them!

This page secretly redirects to my About page. If you're seeing this, something went wrong and I should probably give the server a kick.....

I used to have an "About Me" page, but with the change to my new site, I've decided to change things up a little and make it a blog entry. The nice thing is that I've got the power of Apache behind me, letting me use a .htaccess file to redirect traffic from the old file to the new one - all dynamic like and such. It's super cool, really. The best part is, you don't even care. Fun.

Father of 4 (as of this writing, 11 years, 8 years and 7 years and 3 years), and married to the love of my life. Computer geek by nature and by trade. I spend too much time in front of displays: tv, monitor, laptop. I enjoy all kinds of stuff, but lately I've been spending too much time with twitter and Facebook.

I am very happily employed. Up until 07/05/02, I was semi-happily employed by the same company that laid me off on 10/5/01. I spent a year being Mr. Mom and trying to do freelance work and such. Then I worked for a computer store/VAR (Value-Added Reseller) in the New Haven area. They were an Apple Authorized resellers/service center, which made me happy - I got to play with newer computers, fix stuff, and just generally do what I like to do. Hardware stuff - fixing computers and such - but I also do software support. I now work full time for a local University that I graduated from (sorry to not actually say it, but you can't be too careful these days....). I have a regular schedule, I get to wander around campus to fix things, and I work with people that I like and respect. Oh, and I don't hate it - in fact, I finally enjoy my work again. Most of the time.

What else do I do? User interface/design/backend stuff for web sites. Tech stuff. Internet stuff (webhosting/config/etc). You could say I'm a jack of all trades.... Email me for my resume for more info. And if you wanna hire me, that'd be cool too.

I used to have a table here with silly stats about myself here, but.... it was a table. That's so 1995. Ugh. I kept my Blogger code: B9 d++ t+ k++ s+ u++ f i+ o+ x-- e+ l+ c. That should keep the geek cred, right?

Here is my social networks "business card"....

It's taking a bit longer than I thought it would to put together my thoughts on our recent vacation to Disney World. What's most surprising - but shouldn't be - is that it took so long for the vacation to happen, then it was over before I felt it should begin. Coming back to work, in fact, sucked. But I'm sure you knew that.

So, I've uploaded some photos from our trip. The whole album - all million or so photos - are available at the gallery, but only if you have the username and password. If you'd like it, let me know.

Unlike my children, I have no problems with bugs - if they're outside, I'm in their space, if they're inside, their in mine. In the first case, I swat to get away, in the second I seek and destroy.

Spiders, on the other hand, are another issue. When I can, I escort them out of the house, and if they're outside then I leave them be. Except for El Tigre.

I had seen this abnormally large spider around the back yard for a few days in various spots - by the swings, by the small kids toy shed, and then most recently - and in his current spot - by the back porch light. His position was actually pretty good - not in my way, and since I knew he was there, I could try to not disturb him. And that was fine.

Until I realized he was right underneath the porch light. The night I noticed him, I decided to throw him a bone in the form of leaving the porch light on longer than normal. Like for six hours. The moths loved it, but not as much as El Tigre - he had quite a feast that night. As you can see from the photo there, he's in the middle of working on a little snack.

I took this photo about two weeks ago, and since then his web has been destroyed and then recreated more than a couple of times - mostly due to varying bits of rainfall.

When my sons Cub Scout Den came for our first meeting, I made a point of bringing them outside to check him out - they all got a kick out of him. Abby doesn't like him too much, but Ethan likes to take a stool to the back door and try to look out and see what he's doing - I think he considers El Tigre to be like the puppy that we refuse to buy him...

Andy Ihnatko recently posted a photo on flickr of his attempts to test several HD formatted digital camcorders. The photo itself is interesting in that he's got three of these things to play with - that's pretty cool.

What I'm curious about is: are they worth the money? And the effort? We have a newish mini-DV type camcorder that works pretty well. I plug a firewire cable in and can edit things in iMovie and turn the tapes into movies to share with the family - and that's fun and everything, but I basically have to watch the footage before I can do anything with it. I usually use this time to review what I want to keep and get rid of, so it's useful, but as anyone who's done any editing of home movies, or any kind of editing of movies, knows, you usually have a lot more footage than you need.

What it comes down to is... do these cameras speed up the editing process at all? Does it make importing faster? Is there a conversion process to deal with to get the footage into iMovie?

One of the reasons I loathe making the family movies is all the time it takes to import the footage - and as you might imagine, with 4 kids, there's a lot of footage. Since the newer camcorder we have can only fit about an hour on a tape (and we've only tried it a few times so far, just making sure it works ok), that means I'll have a lot of work ahead of me, and a lot of footage to log - and quite a bit of tape swapping to do. Again, it is usually worth the trouble and effort in the end, but it's a lot of work to do - so is there a way to avoid some of it?

I need some real world feedback - which camera's are worth it? Which ones are dogs? And which ones work with the Mac OS X (which seems like a silly question these days, with Apples ever increasing market share....

Over the weekend, we went to go see the Bridgeport Bluefish take on the Long Island Ducks - and no, I'm not making the names up - honest. We got there early to meet up with the rest of our group - some other folks from my sons Cub Scout Pack - and so were in our seats and feeding children by the 6:05 game start (I got to mouth the National Anthem while waiting for a salad and some pretzels, I think). Thanks to our Pack leader, we got upgraded to seats that were just about on the field - and since we were behind home plate, it couldn't get much better than that.

A good tip for those going to a local, or "farm team" type game - go to your local AAA office for tickets or other specials. Our team offers Bluefish Bucks. AAA sells them at 0.85¢ for each $1 in Bluefish Bucks - so for the $85 I spent on Bucks, we got $100 worth of stuff at the game - well worth the extra effort to get the Bucks, especially since spending $100 at the park on food and "stuff" is insanely easy.

Anyway, late in the 6th inning Ethan was being a bit... cranky. I decided to take him and walk around a bit, figuring that if he fell asleep while we were doing that (carrying him is a good way to make that happen, and the hooded sweatshirt he had on wouldn't hurt), it wasn't the worst thing in the world. I had just gotten up to the walk way between the field seats and the cheap seats when I heard a ball being hit, followed by the crowd making the noise usually associated with a foul-tip that's going into the stands. Seeing as how they'd knocked a few others in the same area, I started looking to see where everyone else was looking, then looking in that direction - to find the ball coming down about 20 feet in front of me. It bounced once, then bounced again a few feet in front of me, and then it was in my outstretched hand - I hadn't really thought about it, just grabbed for the ball. It wasn't until I felt someone behind me that I started to think about the fact that I was carrying Ethan at the time - had that been a MLB game, we might have been crushed in the frenzy to get the ball. That was close.

I walked up some more steps to get to the top of the park, acknowledging all the "Good catch" comments, not really thinking about what I had done - I'm not a huge sports person, so it was more than a little surreal - when Cap'n Long Island (one of the mascots) approached me to sign the ball. He then asked me to stay put, and took the ball over to BB, the 7 foot tall bluefish, to get his signature. Ethan was a little put out by the ball disappearing at first, but when I explained what was happening, and then when we had the ball back and he could see it, he was ok with it - and a little excited about it, too.

After walking around with Ethan for a bit, I returned, to find that Noah and his friend were both excited to see (aka touch) the ball. Ethan kept asking to hold it, but he also kept trying to throw it, so that didn't last very long - clearly he had the wrong idea and was trying to help the umpire out with his dwindling supply of balls.

The 9th inning gave us more excitement, but that was in the game itself: the Ducks managed to catch up the 5 runs they needed to tie the game, and then they managed to deny the Bluefish any runs in the bottom of the 9th. We ended up leaving at 10:15 or so, before the 10th inning started. We had wanted to stay for the fireworks, but with two kids asleep, two more on their way, and Jen scheduled to be at work at 7:00 the next morning, it wasn't likely we'd be able to stay for that long - mirroring every other attempt we've made to catch a game that has fireworks after it. The closest that we've come is seeing the Connecticut Cutters fireworks from the parking lot after the game, and that was mostly obscured by trees.

Sunday we went to some kid's pirate themed birthday party. That some kid would, of course, be Logan, my "God-child." I won't get into the reason for the quotes there, so let's just leave that alone for the time being. Ethan, having known about the Pirate theme for days, brought his own hat to fit in - and ended up being the only appropriately attired guest in attendance. Who knew?

After dinner we went to the SBC Restaurant in Branford. We've always had a good time there, and this proved to be no exception: they had hired a magician to go from table to table, keeping the kids happy. This guy did a good job with some little tricks to keep the kids happy, then made a turtle, a sword and a mermaid out of balloons before moving on to another family. It's safe to say that it was the first balloon mermaid he had ever made - and quite possibly his last....

Barenaked Ladies have a new album out: "Snacktime." As the name implies, it's geared toward kids, and from what I've heard of it, they do a good job pulling that off. I've seen a couple of their videos - which are animated in a sort of wacky, zany style - and have no trouble imaging my kids loving the songs and their videos. If you have iTunes, you can click on the "iTunes" button and go to the page in the iTMS for the album.

Noah and I took a trip down to Bridgeport to watch the Sound Tigers take a 4-2 lead over the Philadelphia Phantoms. We went as part of our Tiger Scout program - we had to go to a sporting event as a group for one of our goals. One of the fathers in our group works for a company that co-sponsors the team, so he managed to score tickets for all of us - free.

We had a very nice view of the ice - about five rows back from the boards, and right by the visitors "dugout" (or whatever it's called - I'm clearly not a follower of hockey). Most of the action at the boards was right in front of us - violent as it can be, it's nice to be able to see what's going on.

So, lately Ethan has this habit of staying up late. Really late. Like 11:00 one night. So tonight, when I finally convinced him to try to turn in, he decided to fall asleep on me. I'm not a fan of it, but if it helps the boy, what can I do, right? So he was talking to me while I did some work, and cuddling, until finally, he stopped talking. It took a minute to really "take" (he has played possum before, only to all but jump on me when I tried to put him in his own bed.

In case you're wondering, the photo is a la my laptop, and the "flash"/glow you see is the display - when the photo is taken via the "Photo Booth" software, it flashes the screen when it takes a photo. I don't know if that's part of the countdown it gives or if it's intentional for a flash, but it's there. Anyway, there the fat guy is, sleeping.

Daylight savings sucks. First of all, why start it on Saturday night/Sunday morning? It takes a week or so to get used to it - just start it on Friday night/Saturday morning so we have a fighting chance come Monday. Seriously.

I realize that the concept of DST is quite useful - we get up earlier, so there is a bigger "useful" part of the day. Really - it's pretty clear to me. (The US Navy has a write up of some of the details here) But we are no longer an agrarian society. Well, we still farm, but it's a smaller percentage of the population that does it. Not that I mind getting up at "0 dark thirty" to get ready for my day - I'm used to that from the fall and winter months. And while having the daylight on the front end of the day is useful, I was just getting used to the idea of the sun still being up on my ride home.

There is some argument among scholars, economists, and who knows who else that the change to and from DST costs the economy money (Google search on "daylight savings time money"). I would argue that it does, but only in lost productivity - and that's mostly because of the fact that the change happens on Sunday, not Saturday. It may not seem like much, but I think that the extra day would be very useful.

My experience is always the same: I wake up one hour late on Monday morning. This year the problem was compounded by not feeling well (chest cold that makes me sound like I should be looking out for the Grim Reaper) and being up late the night before. If Jen hadn't come home early today, there's a good chance I would have been asleep until about 9:00 - possibly later. Since I was supposed to have the kids at school at 8:00, that would have been a bit of a problem. In the end, they got where they needed to be and I did what I needed to, but it seems to me that there's a solution to this problem:

Don't use Daylight Savings Time.

Emma's secret super power: The ability to be exactly where I'm trying to be. She is most effective at this when we're both in the kitchen. If I'm emptying the dishwasher or cleaning up, she's in front of the cabinet I'm trying to get into. If I'm trying to cook something, she's in front of the fridge, stove or cabinet I'm trying to use.

It's rather uncanny, really.

Abby's secret super power: the ability to stand exactly one inch further away from you at any given time. If you're trying to do her hair, she's one inch too far away. Help her with her dress? Ditto. No matter when you do, no matter how you're trying to help her, she's exactly one inch too far away.

Ethan's secret super power: the ability to always, no matter where you, the tv, or he are located, is always directly between you and the tv. If you move, you have about 5 seconds before he shifts to be in a better position to block whatever you're trying to watch. He makes a much better door than a window.

Santa brought Noah a Wii. He's logged more hours on that bad boy than he has in school so far. Boxing day (12/26) he put over 12 hours on it. He's cut back since then, but I think he's addicted to it. And keep in mind, he only plays one game: Lego Star Wars.

We had a family "bowling" night the other day - after dinner, we all went downstairs and Jen, Emma, Noah and I played a full set of frames. Noah, with his "spastic child" technique, came in first, followed by me, Jen and then Emma. I'm not sure, but I think I've finally gotten Jen at least partially "into" the Wii - she seemed to have a lot more fun doing that than she did trying to do the "Big Brain Academy" game we played. That was probably not the best first game for her - in addition to the puzzles, she was trying to figure out how to use the controls. Not easy.

In other Christmas related news, Santa brought the kids, among other things: Nintendo DS, two American Girl dolls, a tricycle, and lots of other bibs and bobs. Jen got some nice jewelry and a new set of cookware (thanks Aunt Bean!) and I got some nice new shoes and the Simpsons movie. I think everyone had a good time all around.

===
The above was written on or about Jan. 2, when I had meant to post it. Clearly things got busy - when are they not? Since then some things have changed, but some haven't - Noah logged over 9 hours on the Wii during yesterdays "snow day". The boy was, of course, upset when told to turn it off and spend some time reading.

My children - and you know I really do love them - are insane. Honestly, truly insane. I mean, honestly - how else can you explain the "game" they like to play: hitting each other and then being all apologetic from across the room.

Oh wait, Douglas Adams already did:

Brockian Ultra-Cricket:

described as "a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away"

Of particular interest is rule #5:
The players should now lay about themselves for all they are worth with whatever they find on hand. Whenever a player scores a 'hit' on another player, he should immediately run away and apologize from a safe distance.

Apologies should be concise, sincere and, for maximum clarity and points, delivered through a megaphone.

This morning, when :abby: smacked Noah and then shouted "I'm sorry!" from across the room, it suddenly came to me: it's GOT to be Brockian Ultra-Cricket. Apparently all the times that I read the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in high-school have somehow subliminally seeped into the kids brains. I wonder if they know what 6 x 9 really is......

Last night Ethan was cranking, so i picked him up and brought him to the kitchen - as he had been mumbling something about the kitchen.

We stepped into the kitchen and i said:
You have entered the kitchen. Cabinets abound. There is a sink and several counters. Exits are south, north and west.

He pointed at the fridge, so i turned, and said...

You are facing the fridge. Other objects available are a stove, sink and microwave. Cabinets still abound, and there are more counters. Exits are north, south and west.

He looked at me.

I said "Time passes....."

He looked at me again.

I did a little face sucker action and said "You have been eaten by a grue"

He didn't care what his final score was (5 points), but I think he might want to play again tomorrow.....

NIKE MISSLE BASE KC-SILO 60 - (eBay item 300156975741 end time Oct-31-07 05:23:14 PDT)

Sure, it's 60 acres. And sure, the Missle silos are filled with water. But there's an 800 sq. ft. fortified bunker you can live in. I'm thinking....
* 1 silo filled with water for free diving
* 1 silo with cargo netting for climbing
* 1 silo turned into a rock wall/climbing area
* paint ball in some of the land
* "agri-tainment" in other bits
* there's still room for the old homestead....

Of course, as Rudi pointed out, it's still in Kansas. Not that I have anything against Kansas - I just don't know if now is the best time to uproot the whole family and move.....

This might be boring, tedious, or both. If you don't have Cablevision for your internet/tv, or if you don't live in an area where they are located, or you just don't care, then move along. The rest of you can read more by clicking the link....

42%

Mingle² - Free Online Dating

I think I scored so "poorly" because I decided should Zombies attack, I'd try to save Jen and the kids. Obviously when I say "save," I'm referring to non-zombie attacked people - if they're bitten/infected/touched (a new variant of zombie, apparently) then I'm not going to be in denial and hope they can be saved. Zombie lore says that once they're infected, they're done for. Sad but true!

So, as I'm sure most of you know by now, :noah: is a rather active lad. Most recently - last night - he was swinging on the swings at a friends house and jumped. He landed, but it wasn't pretty - and a bone was broken in the process, of course. I got a call from our friend when I was on my way home, and things didn't sound too bad, but I could hear Noah in the background, and somehow I just knew that it was going to end with a trip to the "ED" (emergency department - apparently the local hospital doesn't call it an ER anymore).

I got to our friends house, assessed the young man quickly, and got in touch with the pediatrician. A trip to their office was called for, so after going there, I had marching orders and paper work for a trip to the pediatric ED, but the paper work was a magic pass to go right to X-Ray - the pediatrician was fairly sure that it was fractured and would need to be set, and doing this would shorten the whole process quite a bit. I shudder to think how long it might have taken otherwise.

The security guard didn't care about the pass and insisted we go to triage to sign in. I did so, and was showing the sign in person my "magic pass" when a man came in carrying his child, asking where he should take her because she just ate rat poison.... I never found out what happened, but I hope things went well for him as we were taken by a nurse to go to radiology. But not the radiology by the ED - nope, we had to get lost in the bowels of the hospital and go to another, out-patient radiology. Or something. I'm still not sure.

After that, we were taken back to the ED and placed in a closet, er, room. Very small room. There was a nurse, the PA, and an assistant from child development or something - she was there to hook Noah up with games and things to do to pass the time. I think that video games might have been an option, but considering his one-handedness, that would have been not such a good idea. Noah settled for an electronic "20 Questions" game, a book, and a Godzilla checkers game. Jen took over on 20Q while Noah proceeded to play chess, er checkers with me. He kept calling it chess all night long.

Upon examining the x-rays, the PA decided that we should go get some more photos taken. Noah broke his radius, which is the bigger of the two arms in the forearm. Because it's bigger, when it's broken, the ulna is also commonly broken. Not so in Noah's case. We went back to x-ray because they were worried that the shock had broken the ulna elsewhere in the arm, or done something to his elbow. He wasn't complaining, but....

Shortly after we finished that fun, we were moved to the orthopedic treatment room - that's where all the supplies they would be needing were anyway. A little more time passes and they check the x-rays, then the PA comes back, along with a new nurse and the ortho resident.

Based on the break, they need to reduce it to cast it. To reduce it will be very painful, so they dose Noah up on ketamine and some other fun drugs, then wait. Jen and I are given the choice of staying and watching or leaving - not much of a choice, really. I am told by the PA that it's more common for Dad to have issues than mom, and that I should just look away if it gets too bad for me - as if.

Watching them do the reduction was weird in several ways - first, there's the fact that they're doing things to your son. Then you have the fact that you know they know what they're doing, but it doesn't really seem like it at the time. Then there's the fact that they're doing things with an arm that probably shouldn't be bending like that, thank you very much.

After some wrestling with his bones and muscles, they felt like they had the bone in the right place and set it. Jen and I got to sit around and wait for Noah to come out from under or for x-ray to be ready, whichever came first - they wanted to make sure that the bone was set properly before letting us leave. Notice I said properly - not correctly. Well, I guess there's not much difference in the words - whatever. The point is that the bones need to be fairly well aligned, but not perfect, especially in a child - Noah's bones will be able to adjust themselves and fix themselves fairly well after this. If it was an adult - Jen or myself - then we'd need surgery and pins and all kinds of other fun stuff.

After the x-ray confirmed things were ok, we went back to the ortho treatment room and waited for Noah to regain consciousness. It took a while, and included some double-vision (which was a problem for the boy, since he was trying to watch tv at the time), but he finally managed to find his way to the land of the fully awake.

Around this time it was 11:00 or so, and we finally had discharge orders and a copy of a prescription for some pain killers for Noah (but nothing for mom and dad, thanks). Jen drove her car home, I took Noah home, and after trying - unsuccessfully - to get the other sleeping kids from our friend (where everything started) Jen and I went to sleep, with Noah camped out in Ethan's bed for the night.

So, Ethan managed to fall asleep in his own bed last night - with minimal help. NICE! He came into bed with us for a bit this morning, but then discovered that Jen was in the shower, so he went back to his room for some reason..... Jen got out of the shower, I got in, and Ethan settled in for a good snuggle with Jen. When I got out of the shower - keeping in mind that it's only 6:00 - he was asleep again. Fast forward 90 minutes, and I'm trying to get the kids together to bring to our friend Laura's house for the day. Ethan's still asleep. I took a couple of photos of the boy - 'cause he's just too cute - and then started getting him changed, figuring that he'd wake up. Amazingly, he just did it in his sleep - including the "hips up" phase for getting his shorts on. It wasn't until I sat him up to get his jammy top off that he finally woke up!

Clearly, it's been a while since I posted. In the post move ruckus, I was dealing with the normal change stuff, but when I planned the move, I seem to have forgotten just how extensive my old website was. All kinds of crazy stuff that I don't recall creating/linking to - but it's there, so I must have done it. Apparently.

Anyway, when I'm not checking out the missing file error log, then I've been tweaking things. Oh, and working on the continued success of raising the kids and all that other fun/crazy stuff. Which reminds me: parentingchronicles.com seems to be offline, largely in part due to the way that the site is configured. Sorry, can't change it now, but that will be fixed shortly (I hope).

What's new.... Well, the kids are almost done with school for the year. We had the kindergarten picnic earlier this week - it went well, I thought - and we also bought a new camera: The Canon PowerShot A560. It's a super-fancy 7.1MP digital camera with 4x optical zoom and some other fancy stuff - like the new Automatic Face Finder thingee, which is all the rage with the cool kids of late. If your camera doesn't have that, then you're camera is old and weak. Really. You should just give up and go home ;).

Anyway, like I said it's a great camera. The LCD is 2.5", which is pretty big - much bigger than we're used to. It makes it easy to see what you're getting a photo of, and makes it really easy to make sure you got the right shot. The only bad photos I've taken so far have been the ones with bad poses - or the usual eyes closed thing - I don't think there's a feature that can fix that, but I keep looking....

We've only taken a few photos with it so far, but as I said, they've been mostly good ones. :noah: has a T-Ball game today, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some good photos during the game. If not (it will be me and three kids), then I'm hoping to be able to post some of the photos from Kindergarten picnic the other day.

We've also got some exciting stuff going on in the schooling front. Miss Abigail (Miss B or just plain :abby: ) is making the exciting from pre-school to Kindergarten. We don't know who her teacher will be next year (although we're liking Ms. Griffin after all of Noah's success this year) we're sure she'll do fine.

Noah is moving up to the multi-age program. I think I've covered this before, but it's two classrooms that are both 1st and 2nd graders. It's a co-operative learning environment. I don't know much about the theories behind it, I just know that the school has had a lot of success with the program, they're proud of it, and :emma: had a good time with it when she was in the program. If our luck holds, Abby will be in the program in two years, which would mean that she and Noah will be together in some of their classes. Hopefully they'll do a little better dealing with each other than they do now - but since that's in two years, I'm hopeful that things will be ok.

:ethan: is progressing nicely. We're not doing anything formal with him, but he's a bit of a sponge when it comes to learning things. He's working on colors, knows a shape or two, and is just a great, funny little monkey. He's got more than a few words under his belt, and he's starting to put toddler sentences together, which makes everyones lives easier ("I want cookie" is much more likely to get a cookie and no tears than "That!" and a lot of pointing in a general direction). Plus, who doesn't love hearing "Daddy!" shouted when he spots me coming home and then a big hug from a little monkey? The other kids are all "Oh, hey, your home - can I have a snack?" or something.

Well, I think that's enough updating for now. Emma's got a party to go to, I have to get ready and then get the other three ready for the T-Ball game, and then there's supposed to be some time for some lawn mowing later today, I hope. Well, maybe. Photos and updates, and will hopefully resume on a more frequent basis starting later today - depending on how T-Ball goes, I should think.

So, it's been almost three weeks since the last post. Wow. Time sure flies when you're having fun.

Well, not exactly. More like been super busy. At work I had to help make sure all the labs were up to date before we started the semester - since the last post was on 1/18, that only left a few days. It wasn't hard, especially with the very helpful student workers, but that's on top of the normal workload - so the extra work isn't cool. Regardless, we got through it, and I think we did a good job in the process.

Personally, we've had to deal with a stomach bug (which I detailed a little earlier in the month) as well as just the normal fun and games involved with running a family.

Today, however, was the icing on the cake. While a friend and I were at Target, I walked into a display. In retrospect, it might have been sticking out into the aisle a little bit, but I might also have walked off the aisle - we were almost at the end, so I might have just been trying to get ahead of myself. Regardless, I bashed my shin - no big deal, except for the pain. Or so I thought.

I've now got a HUGE swollen cut. I've got anti-bacterial junk and a band-aid on it, sitting underneath a big ol' ice pack - I just hope it doesn't hurt like heck in the morning.

In less painful news, although :ethan: is still spending more time in our bed than we would like, he's developed a fun new habit: giving everyone goodnight kisses. He's very irritated if someone tries to go to bed without getting a kiss from him, and he really seems to enjoy the process. First he goes into :noah:'s room, where he can just lean over and get a kiss. For :emma:'s room he needs a boost to get up to her for her kiss. Up in :abby: and his room, he climbs up the step and then onto her bed to give her a hug and a kiss. Since she will, more often than not, already be asleep at that time, he usually gives her a kiss, looks over at me and says "Ssssshhh!" and then kisses her again before climbing into his bed.

He doesn't stay there, of course, but I think he's starting to get our bedtime routine, and Jen and I hope that he will soon try sleeping in his own bed for more than a nap here or there, or when we stick him in his bed.

rotovirus - Google Search

When you live with four kids, and three of them go to public schools, occasionally they bring something home that you don't want: a virus.

We currently have a some form of the rotovirus working it's way around the family - it started with :ethan:, went to :abby:, and might be working on :noah: right now. Both :jen: and I are so far unaffected, but that will only last so long.

I'm glad that we had a nice weekend - the warm weather meant I could open the windows and try to air the house out a bit. We've washed just about every towel in the house now, and are working our way through all the bedsheets - and it's not because they've got the virus in them, in case you're thinking it. It's all related to the virus. I think the local water company will be quite pleased with our next payment to them....

More details as events emerge - literally ;).

IOL: Sleepy Britney leaves New Year's Eve party

Britney Spears finally appears to be acting like a new mother – by falling asleep on a New Year’s Eve night out.

It seems pretty lame on the face of it, but think about it - she's finally getting worn out with all the panty-less partying, and apparently the strain of raising her two children without their father is taking it's toll. I have to wonder, however, just how much help K-Fed was when they were still together. But that's just me ;)