Monday, August 29, 2005

"How did you escape Chattablogs?"

Mrscrumley asked in a comment on a previous post, "How did you escape Chattablogs?"

I'm not sure if that's a loaded question or not... If it is, I'll play naive and simply explain that anyone can join Blogger for free at any time. They have a nice selection of templates for those of us without enough time to design our own, it is run by a cutting edge company (Google) that is always releasing cool new things (like Google Desktop which give PC users a taste of what it would be like to have an operating system like Mac OSX Tiger with Spotlight. )

Plus, around the time I got my Blogger blog, Chattablogs was experiencing some problems with downtime. I have, however been thinking about switching back if things continue to go as smoothly as they have lately. After all, Chattablogs was started and is maintained by one of my very own co-workers at Coptix.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Beautiful Marlow

Marlow
I took this one just the other day when I got home from work. Marlow was sitting on the steps watching her brothers play baseball.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Cousin Jack has arrived

Michelle and Erik had their baby. His name is Jack. No pictures yet. They're catching up on the two nights of sleep they missed during Michelle's lonnnnnnnng labor. I'm sure there will be updates soon on Michelle's blog.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Playing House

Every once in a while, I'm surprised by things my 4- and 5-year-old sons lack experience in. Like playing house. I know most kids do it, but I'm pretty sure it's not something we as parents are supposed to teach them how to do... They just do it. But Ezra and Asa don't play "house." They play "guys," and they play baseball, and they like to work for money, but they never play house.


These pictures were taken a year ago.



Yesterday, their friends Oak (5) and Meadow (4) were over to play. Meadow--the only girl of the bunch--usually doesn't get to play what she wants to play. But yesterday, she was promised that everyone would play what she wanted to play. When it came time for her promise to be fulfilled, Ezra and Oak were in the middle of a game of checkers, while Asa impatiently stood by waiting for his turn.

Amy announced that Meadow was in charge for a while, and Meadow declared they would all play house. Ezra and Asa looked at her incredulously. Aren't we--in a sense--playing house by merely being here and playing games together? I don't know exactly what words were exchanged, because I wasn't there. I'm sure they weren't that intellectual about it, but the resolution they came up with reveals they were on that track...

Meadow explained that, No, they had to pretend they were moms and dads and stuff like that.

So Ezra said, "OK. I'm the dad and I have to go to work... My job is playing checkers with my son... Oak is my son."

This did not satisfy Meadow or Asa who was still being left out. He wanted to play baseball. So Amy saved the day by recommending that they are a family and Meadow is the mom and they are going out for a picnic and the guys are going to play baseball while the mom sits on a blanket with the baby and watches...

And they were all happy playing house.


Asa and Meadow right around the time Marlow was born.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Kid for sale

Ezra and Asa love playing together, yet sometimes I wonder why. It seems they are constantly fighting over who has what toy or whose turn it is... Yesterday, as I was walking past their room, Asa came out to see if I could intervene in their latest dispute. He wanted a turn playing with an action figure that Ezra was playing with. (Ezra was willing to share, but not until he was sick of playing with the figure. We're still working on that whole concept of surrendering your own desires...)

They are used to me telling them to share or else they won't get to play at all, so I decided to try a new tactic. I said, "If you guys can't play together without fighting, we'll just have to sell one of you." They both grinned and looked at me waiting for a smile to indicate I was just kidding... but I didn't flinch. My face remained stern.

So Ezra asked, "Why do sometimes people sell their kids?"

"Because they realize they fight too much and the only way to stop the fighting is to sell one of them."

They smiled, again searching my face for a hint that I was merely joking, but finding none, their smiles faded and I could hear the gears whirling in Ezra's head as he tried to make sense of this new revelation. A few moments passed, and he pointed to his brother and said "Sell Asa," which made me laugh... which made them laugh... and breathe a sigh of relief.

They went back to their playing, totally forgetting about the argument they had been in the middle of.

As I told Amy about this conversation, I realized how encouraging it was... Ezra was actually weighing his options: to stay with the parents he has or get to start over with some new parents... And he chose us!

---

And a few pictures from our outing downtown last night...


Marlow is walking! She's up to about 8 or 10 steps at a time now.



A natural smile from Asa is hard to capture on camera. Ezra took this one and about a dozen more like it.



Ezra takes a rest from running around chasing his brother and his Uncle Jonathan.