Kids: October 2008 Archives

Today was a big day of trick or treating. Will got early release from elementary school today (it was also the last day of the first marking period), and they had a fall festival (including halloween costume dress up) at the three boys’ daycare. I spent some time in Sean’s and Daniel’s class, where they ate a lot and were a general mess. Unfortunately, by the time I made it to Will’s class, he was done.

Then came time for trick or treating in the neighborhood. Sean and Daniel (if you cannot guess from the pictures above) went as football players, while Will got to dress up as a fireman. (Just like his dad did when he was seven — that picture will have to wait for another day.) The temperature was perfect — no need for jackets, just a long sleeve shirt underneath any of the kids’ outfits.

All 5 of us went out (the bowl of candy went on the stoop for kids to help themselves — of course, it was all gone when we got back). Sean and Daniel pretty much rode in the wagon the whole time and were very good about sitting back and enjoying things. Will actually made the trips to the various houses to get his sack filled up. There’s more than enough candy to go around.

I told you I was falling behind on a bunch of postings of pictures and videos. I just have to make a little time each day to pull things together. Today’s posting is a follow-up to the Fall Festival notes I had from two Saturdays ago. I decided to just put it together in a video package, rather than separating the pictures out into a flowing display below the video portion. I think it works alright and isn’t too long.

The moon bounces were obviously the most fun for Will. As I said before, Sean and Daniel weren’t quite as interested. There were other items around the festival that we got to do, but in many ways, it was just cold enough out to not make it too fun. (By comparison, I think it was sunny and in the 70s last year.)

I finally got the video uploaded this morning, so here we go…

OK, these aren’t what I had originally intended to pull together, but I discovered some video that Kellie had taken last Wednesday when scanning through Picasa. And while I was previewing the video, I discovered that Picasa version 3 now has the ability to mash together video clips with simple transitions and other features and then automatically upload the resulting composite video directly to YouTube. So what you see below is an attempt to make this happen.

I will say this — the upload feature in Picasa is extremely slow. I could have uploaded it much faster directly through the YouTube site.

The pictures are just a couple of shots of some cool cats, trying out their new sunglasses. They’re definitely too cool for me.

Man, I’m behind on getting pictures together on several recent events. However, I will pass on this — Daniel is now capable of going down one step without holding on. I caught him this morning taking a single step down from our eating area to the family room. He did very well with it, under control and no lurch or awkward move to keep balance at the bottom. Very smooth.

Unfortunately, I had no idea this was going to happen, so there was no video. And I never did catch him trying to do it again. Oh well — maybe next time.

Will did some more biking today. He was moving so fast at times that I had to run to keep up with him. He still has the training wheels, but he definitely understands how to brake now, even on downhills (no more putting the feet down).

And Sean has a new game he introduced me to today. I like to sing to them (on occasion), particularly something like a march (John Phillips Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever is a good one). Tonight, he started pointing at me and saying “Stop.” I figured out what he was saying, so I’d stop whatever note I was on (good experience from having been in band before). Then he’d give the sign language for “More,” expecting me to continue singing (which I would). He (and Daniel) though this was funny. But I’d always try to start with the next note from when I stopped. It’s actually kind of fun (in a crazy kind of way).

Or perhaps I’m just too tired.

OK, so it’s almost a month later. So sue us! In reality, they couldn’t fit us in in September, and once the October books opened up, many of those time slots for annual checkups quickly filled up. But here we are, and Will continues to blow through the physical barriers:

Height & Weight (5 years): 45.25”, 42 pounds

Height & Weight (6 years): 49.5” (+4.25”), 57 pounds (+15 pounds)

Yes, that’s a huge jump. But I think it also reflects about 14 months of growth, as his 5-year checkup was done in August (for a kindergarten physical) and this most recent one is in October. But from a percentile stand point (on the graph), he’s gone from under 95% at age 5 to well over 95% at age 6 on height; the weight is now up to 95% at age 6 (not sure where the weight was at age 5, but much lower).

As for Daniel and his ear infection, he still had a midgrade fever today, so we had to keep him home today. With Will’s checkup today, that meant a lot of juggling of schedules (including both Kellie and I being out of the office at the same time for a short period). He seems to be doing better this evening (temps been down all day), but we’ll see how things are in the morning.

Changing gears off the family, this one made me go - What??? Sometimes, I wonder why people go through with these things. Are they really that self-important? There is a Nebraska state senator who is trying to sue God in court. It got thrown out of court for the most mundane of reasons.

…the kids start getting sick. Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be? So Daniel is the first of the kids to get sick. He has an ear infection (with a fever initially), so he’s been home the past two days. Kellie and I have been splitting time with covering him.

We were able to get a last minute checkup with the ENT today to check on the status of his ear tubes and ear drums, as we knew that both tubes were out. The testing showed that both ear drums are fully healed now, which of course makes his current ear infection a bit more challenging (i.e., no easy drainage). The guidance is to monitor how many more infections he gets (if at all — knock knock) to figure out if more tubes need to go in.

So, what does Daniel do to keep himself occupied? There’s a little TV, some resting and eating, a lot of reading and playing with Matchbox cars. Oh, and there’s this (to the right): reading Sports Illustrated, for the football. (That’s what he’s really interested in reading — seriously.) And no, I haven’t shown him the swimsuit issue yet.

Today isn’t a big day in history. There’s just this bit about some guy named Chris finding an island he called San Salvador. And 96 years ago, Rice University held its opening ceremonies to launch a new institution of higher learning in the then hinterlands of Houston.

I guess someone else got to do the heavy lifting. I, at least, am the beneficiary of these two events. Everyone got to relax today — Kellie headed back to the Folk Festival to see Dale Watson again — and now I just need to figure out how the Skins lost to the Rams today.

Lunch gave us an opportunity to take a few shots of the kids. Not sure why the focus was slightly off on these photos, but I tried to touch them up a little. Sean’s hair gel is courtesy of fish sticks (in case you’re looking for something with exceptional hold).

We caught Sean in all of his glory . Will is also in the video, but this is really about Sean showing off what he can do on the swing set. This was actually the first time he has ever tried hanging from the trapeze bars. And later, after the video was done, Sean actually climbed up the ladder on the big slide without any help. He just figured it out for himself, now that he knew where the steps were.

That’s Sean — Mr. Dangerous.

And if you’re wondering where Daniel is, he’s still taking his nap. The Richmond Folk Festival apparently was a bit much for him.

We did get out to the Richmond Folk Festival, and I’ll be honest — we had a great time. The weather was perfect (mid-70s, a light breeze, mostly sunny). Will still talks about how much fun he had, so I think we’ll want to go back next year.

We actually parked by 11:30am and found a spot just a couple blocks from the festival area (down on Brown’s Island and the Tredegar museum area). We were there before any of the acts started at noon, and we also beat the crowds. Things were definitely getting more crowded by the time we left at 2pm. (The kids needed to get some rest.)

But in the time that we were there, we were able to catch parts of 3 shows, all of which were excellent:

• San Jose Taiko (Japanese ritual drumming)
• Dale Watson (honky tonk country)
• Líadan (Irish)

As we wandered around between stages, we overheard a couple of other acts — a bluegrass and a Persian percussion act stand out. There were many more performances which we didn’t get to stick around to see that I would have enjoyed, but we have kids now. I think Kellie really wants to go back to see Dale Watson tomorrow afternoon. We’ll see — though he did mention that he comes through Richmond a couple times a year. He was very good.

Here are some quick pix and video from the three performances that we did catch. (My apologies on the quality, as everything was taken with a small digital camera at a distance at max optical zoom.) Maybe you can join us for the festival next year.

OK, I still don’t have the State Fair slides done. (Gotta work with Kellie on figuring out what the pictures represent in some cases.) Busy day of a long run, a run to drop off recycling, shopping, and yardwork. But I did catch a quick video on the cellphone this evening before Sean’s and Daniel’s bath time. I thought you might enjoy it. (Converting it from the 3GPPS format is a bear. I finally found a decent converter.) The video is actually at double-speed, as the cellphone only takes 15 frames per second, but most videos are 30 frames per second. The boys do not run around like they are part of the Incredibles family.

And congrats to Emily for breaking 1:45 in a half-marathon today. She’s 4 weeks out from the NYC Marathon — looks like she’s rounding into form nicely.

You know, I should think before I post. (Or not post late at night.) The big news with Sean and Daniel is that they are learning their colors. It’s still hard to tell if they’re just guessing right or actually recognize them most of the time. I’d say they are right about 75% of the time, whether they’re being shown an object for the first time or if they are seeing the object again. (That’s why I’m not sure it’s memorization, as they’ll see the same object again but will sometimes say a different color.) Still, it’s kind of cool to see them trying to process colors. And they do usually understand if we ask them, “What color is this?”

Now, for something completely different (to waste time over the weekend) — a World War I flying ace game, where you shoot things down and drop bombs. It’s actually kind of cool, and reminds me of a game like it I used to play a long time ago. But I cannot remember what that game was called. (Maybe someone else remembers.) This is definitely a souped up version.

(I should have enough time tomorrow to get the State Fair pictures and video finished.)