Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Weekend Recap
We had a fairly low-key weekend. On Saturday our friends the Deavers had a birthday party for their two boys. The party was held at a local gym, so there was a good hour of letting the kids bounce on trampolines, slide down zip lines, jump into pits full of foam, and generally run amok. Needless to say, we all had a blast. Nora and I have been contemplating enrolling Pierce and Anna in a gymnastics class and I think this experience clinched the deal.
Sunday we had a trip to the library. Pierce and Anna are always welcome to select books and videos they’d like to take home (supplemented by what Nora and I think they might like). Pierce found a video called “Brum”. It’s a British children’s show about a vintage miniature car (referred to on the cover of the video as a “super hero”). The car is animatronic and zips around in little 10-minute adventures. The target audience is 2-6 year olds and Pierce and Anna have fallen in love with it. Pierce claims that he now likes Brum more than Herbie (the Love Bug). I can’t believe it. Unfortunately, unlike Herbie, Brum is painful to watch for anyone over the age of 6.
Nora brought Pierce and Anna out to watch me play tennis on Monday night. For the first 30 minutes the kids were very interested. Nora explained the “rules” and they both were a great cheering squad. As they were leaving Pierce yelled down that he really liked my “style”. I hope they’ll come out again –I really enjoyed having them there. Anna expressed an interest in taking tennis lessons and I think Pierce is interested too.
-Eric (Dad)
Sunday we had a trip to the library. Pierce and Anna are always welcome to select books and videos they’d like to take home (supplemented by what Nora and I think they might like). Pierce found a video called “Brum”. It’s a British children’s show about a vintage miniature car (referred to on the cover of the video as a “super hero”). The car is animatronic and zips around in little 10-minute adventures. The target audience is 2-6 year olds and Pierce and Anna have fallen in love with it. Pierce claims that he now likes Brum more than Herbie (the Love Bug). I can’t believe it. Unfortunately, unlike Herbie, Brum is painful to watch for anyone over the age of 6.
Nora brought Pierce and Anna out to watch me play tennis on Monday night. For the first 30 minutes the kids were very interested. Nora explained the “rules” and they both were a great cheering squad. As they were leaving Pierce yelled down that he really liked my “style”. I hope they’ll come out again –I really enjoyed having them there. Anna expressed an interest in taking tennis lessons and I think Pierce is interested too.
-Eric (Dad)
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Catching Up
Wow, its really been 14 days since I posted an entry. Shame on me.
Anna News:
Anna’s making huge gains on two fronts: She’s pretty much got the potty training nailed. She’s in underwear everyday and pull-ups at night and we’ve had very few accidents. She’s more frequently communicating when she needs to go to the bathroom and we have almost no “false positives”. She’s extremely proud of herself, its pretty cute.
She's also, finally, going to bed with a minimum fuss. After we're done telling stories she rolls over on her side, pulls the covers up to her chin, and says goodnight. And that's it! No more playing, talking, roaming the house, waking Pierce... I'm so proud.
She’s making an attempt at dressing herself –with varying rates of success. The other morning she put both feet through the same leg hole of her underwear and managed to put them over her hips to her waist. I didn’t even think that was possible. She looked like she was wearing a Winnie the Pooh belt.
Anna’s hair is getting very long and full. It’s still very wavy but not as curly as it used to be, the hair weighs too much. Needless to say, she’s gorgeous. Her interest in all things Cinderella has continued to intensify. One of her holiday gifts was a DVD with songs and dancing from the movie. It comes with a “dance mat” and wand and has been running on our TV almost daily.
Anna is extremely articulate and her shyness around strangers has pretty much evaporated. This has led to some pretty funny situations in public places. No stranger sitting in a booth next to us at a restaurant escapes without some type of conversation with her.
Pierce News:
We’ve started to read chapter books to Pierce at bedtime (far fewer pictures, with text separated into chapters every 3-4 pages). They’re a big hit and we’re all enjoying the process. One of my favorite things is to wake up in the morning to find Pierce in Anna’s room/bed reading to her.
School continues to go well for Pierce. He’s a very proficient reader and his lessons now revolve around non-phonetic words. He’s also started on basic math and can count to 100. Of course, cars and trains continue to dominate his interests. About a month ago he declared he wants to be a car designer when he grows up, and he hasn’t veered from that statement yet. It will be interesting to see how this develops… I wonder if I can get a kid’s version of CAD (Computer Aided Design engineering software) so he can start working on cars now. We have an appointment with the local elementary school’s principal in a couple of weeks to determine what course Pierce will take when he starts kindergarten next year (we want to make sure he is able to build on the skills he’s learned at preschool).
Nora:
The wife is doing great. She still till loves her job and the extra time she’s able to spend with Pierce and Anna by working part time. I think she’s still recovering from the holiday season, so she hasn’t embarked on any major projects lately –I’m sure that will change soon. She’s become quite the wonder cook, so dinners are varied and interesting –course only she and I eat them, Pierce and Anna’s tastes are more focused on dinosaur chicken and hot dogs.
Josie (the dog):
Pant, pant, wag, wag.
Me:
Work continues to have me pretty absorbed. I’ve been back to Springfield, IL several times since my last entry and just got back Tuesday evening from my latest round. We should have the work we’re doing for them buttoned by the end of February. I’ve continued to work on the arcade machine since I got it up and running again. In a “test” environment I now have all the laser disk arcade games from the 80s running (think Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace). Man, I love those games. Pierce and Anna saw them for the first time last night and they were instant fans. I think the jury’s still out on Nora’s interest. Of course I’m staying up too late playing these things (hee hee).
I think my next project will be a hand-built DVD shelf. Our current storage/shelves are filled to overflowing. I saw some great ideas on the web that I want to try. Hopefully it will just be an afternoon project, nothing to the scope of the arcade machine.
Last thought:
Nora had a girls' night out last night, so I got concentrated Pierce and Anna time. Have you ever played Pictionary with a 3 and 5 year old? It’s a hoot. Everything Pierce drew was either a car, truck, or bus. I have no idea what my daughter was drawing ;)
-Eric (Dad)
Anna News:
Anna’s making huge gains on two fronts: She’s pretty much got the potty training nailed. She’s in underwear everyday and pull-ups at night and we’ve had very few accidents. She’s more frequently communicating when she needs to go to the bathroom and we have almost no “false positives”. She’s extremely proud of herself, its pretty cute.
She's also, finally, going to bed with a minimum fuss. After we're done telling stories she rolls over on her side, pulls the covers up to her chin, and says goodnight. And that's it! No more playing, talking, roaming the house, waking Pierce... I'm so proud.
She’s making an attempt at dressing herself –with varying rates of success. The other morning she put both feet through the same leg hole of her underwear and managed to put them over her hips to her waist. I didn’t even think that was possible. She looked like she was wearing a Winnie the Pooh belt.
Anna’s hair is getting very long and full. It’s still very wavy but not as curly as it used to be, the hair weighs too much. Needless to say, she’s gorgeous. Her interest in all things Cinderella has continued to intensify. One of her holiday gifts was a DVD with songs and dancing from the movie. It comes with a “dance mat” and wand and has been running on our TV almost daily.
Anna is extremely articulate and her shyness around strangers has pretty much evaporated. This has led to some pretty funny situations in public places. No stranger sitting in a booth next to us at a restaurant escapes without some type of conversation with her.
Pierce News:
We’ve started to read chapter books to Pierce at bedtime (far fewer pictures, with text separated into chapters every 3-4 pages). They’re a big hit and we’re all enjoying the process. One of my favorite things is to wake up in the morning to find Pierce in Anna’s room/bed reading to her.
School continues to go well for Pierce. He’s a very proficient reader and his lessons now revolve around non-phonetic words. He’s also started on basic math and can count to 100. Of course, cars and trains continue to dominate his interests. About a month ago he declared he wants to be a car designer when he grows up, and he hasn’t veered from that statement yet. It will be interesting to see how this develops… I wonder if I can get a kid’s version of CAD (Computer Aided Design engineering software) so he can start working on cars now. We have an appointment with the local elementary school’s principal in a couple of weeks to determine what course Pierce will take when he starts kindergarten next year (we want to make sure he is able to build on the skills he’s learned at preschool).
Nora:
The wife is doing great. She still till loves her job and the extra time she’s able to spend with Pierce and Anna by working part time. I think she’s still recovering from the holiday season, so she hasn’t embarked on any major projects lately –I’m sure that will change soon. She’s become quite the wonder cook, so dinners are varied and interesting –course only she and I eat them, Pierce and Anna’s tastes are more focused on dinosaur chicken and hot dogs.
Josie (the dog):
Pant, pant, wag, wag.
Me:
Work continues to have me pretty absorbed. I’ve been back to Springfield, IL several times since my last entry and just got back Tuesday evening from my latest round. We should have the work we’re doing for them buttoned by the end of February. I’ve continued to work on the arcade machine since I got it up and running again. In a “test” environment I now have all the laser disk arcade games from the 80s running (think Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace). Man, I love those games. Pierce and Anna saw them for the first time last night and they were instant fans. I think the jury’s still out on Nora’s interest. Of course I’m staying up too late playing these things (hee hee).
I think my next project will be a hand-built DVD shelf. Our current storage/shelves are filled to overflowing. I saw some great ideas on the web that I want to try. Hopefully it will just be an afternoon project, nothing to the scope of the arcade machine.
Last thought:
Nora had a girls' night out last night, so I got concentrated Pierce and Anna time. Have you ever played Pictionary with a 3 and 5 year old? It’s a hoot. Everything Pierce drew was either a car, truck, or bus. I have no idea what my daughter was drawing ;)
-Eric (Dad)
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Odds and Ends
Nora and I are so pleased with Pierce's school (and Pierce of course). The other day he was explaining the difference between igneous and sedimentary rock to Anna. He's bringing books home from school almost daily and reading to us at night. His reading is taking on a very smooth, fluid quality. He rarely trips over words. Some of the books he's reading us say they're for grades 1-4. Cool.
Pierce's electric train he got for Hannuka a year ago has become a popular toy (again). Pierce raced to the door when I got home and asked if we could set it up. Pierce and Anna played with it together for the better part on an hour (I got some nice video of them playing).
Anna cracks me up. She told me the story of the Three Little Pigs yesterday. At one point she says, "...and the wolf is very FRUSTRATED that he can't catch the pigs". Anna got a wealth of dolls and figurines over the holidays. Her favorite activity is taking their shoes off and putting them back on. She grabs a number of the characters and creates entire stories with them.
I finally finished my work on our arcade machine. The trackball is installed and working like a charm. I upgraded the software emulator for playing the games and there's been a big improvement in load time. Yea for small victories.
-Eric (Dad)
Pierce's electric train he got for Hannuka a year ago has become a popular toy (again). Pierce raced to the door when I got home and asked if we could set it up. Pierce and Anna played with it together for the better part on an hour (I got some nice video of them playing).
Anna cracks me up. She told me the story of the Three Little Pigs yesterday. At one point she says, "...and the wolf is very FRUSTRATED that he can't catch the pigs". Anna got a wealth of dolls and figurines over the holidays. Her favorite activity is taking their shoes off and putting them back on. She grabs a number of the characters and creates entire stories with them.
I finally finished my work on our arcade machine. The trackball is installed and working like a charm. I upgraded the software emulator for playing the games and there's been a big improvement in load time. Yea for small victories.
-Eric (Dad)
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Odds and Ends
I played an new game with Pierce and Anna the other night, The Three Little Pigs. Pierce, Anna and Nora each went into their respective rooms (houses) and I came to each room as the Big Bad Wolf. There was lots of huffing and puffing and chasing kids from room to room. They loved it. The best part was when Anna asked to be the Big Bad Wolf and, midway through the story, forgot who she was and ran away from me (slammed a door right in my face).
Last night we all went to the gym. When we picked Pierce and Anna up from the Kid's Center Pierce told us another kid had hit him in the head with a toy and made him cry. He had a pretty good goose egg to show for it (Pierce is very proud of his goose egg). He and I had a discussion about what he should do if something like that happens again: Tell them you don't like what they're doing and to stop, get an adult to help you. Of course, in my mind I wanted to tell him to punch the kid in the nose and then break him in two.
-Eric (Dad)
Last night we all went to the gym. When we picked Pierce and Anna up from the Kid's Center Pierce told us another kid had hit him in the head with a toy and made him cry. He had a pretty good goose egg to show for it (Pierce is very proud of his goose egg). He and I had a discussion about what he should do if something like that happens again: Tell them you don't like what they're doing and to stop, get an adult to help you. Of course, in my mind I wanted to tell him to punch the kid in the nose and then break him in two.
-Eric (Dad)
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Happy New Year
Welcome all to a new year at the Lindenberg Blog!
I hope you and your loved ones had a great holiday season and a safe and fun New Years.
We just got back from visiting with family in Va. Beach. My 9-year old nephew flew up to be with us for part of the week and he and Pierce and Anna got along splendidly. As a group we went to several museums and hit the park near my Mom’s house often.
Pierce got a kid’s digital camera as a gift –it takes real pictures. He’s taken a couple of “doozies”; I’ll try and post a few to the web soon. Unfortunately, the entire visit wasn’t rosy (all though it did have a happy ending). My brother and his wife are expecting twins in a couple of months and ran into some medical complications that had everyone concerned. Everyone’s ok and the babies are fine (now), but we didn’t get to see them much once the fireworks started. To make matters worse, their son got hit with the flu at the same time. He’s over the worst of it, but now his Dad is suffering through it.
The trip back was relatively uneventful. Our flights in both Norfolk and Atlanta were delayed. So we spent most of the day in airports waiting for our planes. But we had plenty of food, a portable DVD player, and lots of movies to keep everyone occupied. With the limited TV diet Pierce and Anna get, I think they thought they’d gone to heaven.
Right before we left for Va. Beach I cleaned our fish tank (a semi-annual event). Of course, we were out of solution for removing chlorine from tap water, so refilling the tank caused our last remaining fish to die (yeah, I murdered it). For the moment we have a clean, fishless tank.
Lastly, we booked our beach house for next spring. It’s a true palace, and larger than any house we’ve previously rented (click here to take a look at it). We’re already excited about it and it gives us something to look forward too through the cold winter months.
Pierce and Anna are swimming in new toys; I think we’re going to have to buy a bigger house. There are still toys in their packaging that we couldn’t get to before we went out of town. We have extremely generous friends and relatives. And... our TV died while we were out of town. I'm in mourning.
-Eric (Dad)
I hope you and your loved ones had a great holiday season and a safe and fun New Years.
We just got back from visiting with family in Va. Beach. My 9-year old nephew flew up to be with us for part of the week and he and Pierce and Anna got along splendidly. As a group we went to several museums and hit the park near my Mom’s house often.
Pierce got a kid’s digital camera as a gift –it takes real pictures. He’s taken a couple of “doozies”; I’ll try and post a few to the web soon. Unfortunately, the entire visit wasn’t rosy (all though it did have a happy ending). My brother and his wife are expecting twins in a couple of months and ran into some medical complications that had everyone concerned. Everyone’s ok and the babies are fine (now), but we didn’t get to see them much once the fireworks started. To make matters worse, their son got hit with the flu at the same time. He’s over the worst of it, but now his Dad is suffering through it.
The trip back was relatively uneventful. Our flights in both Norfolk and Atlanta were delayed. So we spent most of the day in airports waiting for our planes. But we had plenty of food, a portable DVD player, and lots of movies to keep everyone occupied. With the limited TV diet Pierce and Anna get, I think they thought they’d gone to heaven.
Right before we left for Va. Beach I cleaned our fish tank (a semi-annual event). Of course, we were out of solution for removing chlorine from tap water, so refilling the tank caused our last remaining fish to die (yeah, I murdered it). For the moment we have a clean, fishless tank.
Lastly, we booked our beach house for next spring. It’s a true palace, and larger than any house we’ve previously rented (click here to take a look at it). We’re already excited about it and it gives us something to look forward too through the cold winter months.
Pierce and Anna are swimming in new toys; I think we’re going to have to buy a bigger house. There are still toys in their packaging that we couldn’t get to before we went out of town. We have extremely generous friends and relatives. And... our TV died while we were out of town. I'm in mourning.
-Eric (Dad)
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