Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Catching Up
I should be even more embarrassed than I am. I could have sworn it was only a few days since my last posting, and instead its almost two weeks.
Pierce made me very proud the other day –he showed a real depth of maturity not just for his age, but I think for anyone. The background: Pierce and I have been working on a trainscape that slides under his bed. Made of a flat piece of insulating foam, we’ve spray painted it to look like grass and dirt and mounted his train track to it. The trainscape also has trees, buildings, signals, signage and a tunnel. Pierce, Anna and I worked on it together and we’re all pretty proud of it.
Pierce is very eager to show it to anyone one who comes by. The other day one of the neighbor kids came by to play and Pierce brought him upstairs to see it. The kid is about Pierce’s age and is very nice, so he wasn’t going out of his way to be mean. But the trainscape didn’t live up to the expectations Pierce created. His comment on seeing it was, “that’s not so great.”
As you can imagine, I wasn’t too crazy about the comment, but I didn’t say anything. But this is where Pierce really shined. Without getting upset or raising his voice, he replied, “Don’t make fun of it. My Dad made it for me and I helped.” And that was the end of the discussion. I can think of a lot of adults who wouldn’t have handled the situation as well.
We’re getting close to the end of swim lessons for the summer. Pierce is now able to swim across the pool using the crawl. His breaks for breathing tend to run a little long, but he’s made incredible progress. I think Anna will miss the lessons the most. She’s made such incredible progress this summer. Nora and I are going to make a real effort to get the family to the pool often for the remaining summer.
T-ball is also winding down. We have two sessions left. Pierce’s throwing is getting pretty good. When he looks where he’s throwing he’s pretty accurate. Both Pierce and Anna like to bat the most. For whatever reason, Anna always tries to bat left-handed. She doesn’t do anything else left-handed, so we think she’s just a little confused. Both kids are fielding a little better, but are hamstrung by the fact that neither pays attention to what’s going on. I think Nora and I have lost track of the number of times a ball has rolled right past their feet.
Pierce is starting to get more interested in getting his hands on the ball. Last night (Tuesday), he got a little upset that he hadn’t been able to field any of the hits. During a short water-break during practiced he and I talked about watching the ball get hit and running to where he thinks its going to go before he sees the other kids start to run for the ball. The next play he did much better. So we’re making progress.
Anna’s been struggling with bed wetting. We’ve eliminated the drink of water before bedtime, and Nora and I even wake her to go to the bathroom before we go to bed. But we’re still ending up with a lot of wet sheets. Anna’s very apologetic and is trying so hard to avoid having accidents (she never has them during the day). When she has a dry night she’s very proud of herself, and when the bed’s wet she determinedly announces that she’ll do better the next night.
The weather’s starting to turn very hot here. Tuesday we hit 98 with a heat index of 104. So a lot of our outdoor activities are getting curtailed. None of us can get excited about shooting hoops or eating outside in that kind of heat. But our garden loves all the sun. I’m bringing in 2-3 ripe tomatoes every couple of days and the bean and cucumber plans are growing like crazy. I need to pick our lettuce before it withers, so we should have some nice salads this weekend.
-Eric (Dad)
Pierce made me very proud the other day –he showed a real depth of maturity not just for his age, but I think for anyone. The background: Pierce and I have been working on a trainscape that slides under his bed. Made of a flat piece of insulating foam, we’ve spray painted it to look like grass and dirt and mounted his train track to it. The trainscape also has trees, buildings, signals, signage and a tunnel. Pierce, Anna and I worked on it together and we’re all pretty proud of it.
Pierce is very eager to show it to anyone one who comes by. The other day one of the neighbor kids came by to play and Pierce brought him upstairs to see it. The kid is about Pierce’s age and is very nice, so he wasn’t going out of his way to be mean. But the trainscape didn’t live up to the expectations Pierce created. His comment on seeing it was, “that’s not so great.”
As you can imagine, I wasn’t too crazy about the comment, but I didn’t say anything. But this is where Pierce really shined. Without getting upset or raising his voice, he replied, “Don’t make fun of it. My Dad made it for me and I helped.” And that was the end of the discussion. I can think of a lot of adults who wouldn’t have handled the situation as well.
We’re getting close to the end of swim lessons for the summer. Pierce is now able to swim across the pool using the crawl. His breaks for breathing tend to run a little long, but he’s made incredible progress. I think Anna will miss the lessons the most. She’s made such incredible progress this summer. Nora and I are going to make a real effort to get the family to the pool often for the remaining summer.
T-ball is also winding down. We have two sessions left. Pierce’s throwing is getting pretty good. When he looks where he’s throwing he’s pretty accurate. Both Pierce and Anna like to bat the most. For whatever reason, Anna always tries to bat left-handed. She doesn’t do anything else left-handed, so we think she’s just a little confused. Both kids are fielding a little better, but are hamstrung by the fact that neither pays attention to what’s going on. I think Nora and I have lost track of the number of times a ball has rolled right past their feet.
Pierce is starting to get more interested in getting his hands on the ball. Last night (Tuesday), he got a little upset that he hadn’t been able to field any of the hits. During a short water-break during practiced he and I talked about watching the ball get hit and running to where he thinks its going to go before he sees the other kids start to run for the ball. The next play he did much better. So we’re making progress.
Anna’s been struggling with bed wetting. We’ve eliminated the drink of water before bedtime, and Nora and I even wake her to go to the bathroom before we go to bed. But we’re still ending up with a lot of wet sheets. Anna’s very apologetic and is trying so hard to avoid having accidents (she never has them during the day). When she has a dry night she’s very proud of herself, and when the bed’s wet she determinedly announces that she’ll do better the next night.
The weather’s starting to turn very hot here. Tuesday we hit 98 with a heat index of 104. So a lot of our outdoor activities are getting curtailed. None of us can get excited about shooting hoops or eating outside in that kind of heat. But our garden loves all the sun. I’m bringing in 2-3 ripe tomatoes every couple of days and the bean and cucumber plans are growing like crazy. I need to pick our lettuce before it withers, so we should have some nice salads this weekend.
-Eric (Dad)
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