The Lindenbergs

It’s hard to believe, but our big Birthday month is behind us. Pierce and Anna had their official birthday party last Saturday. Course; before we could get to that, we had to make it through both a basketball practice and soccer game for Pierce (those little legs of his were pretty tired).

The party was held at Build-a-Bear at the mall. Pierce and Anna both got to invite three friends. Both kids are getting to be of the age where the parents are dropping of their kids for the party then picking them up afterwards. It still feels very weird to me. Each kid had an “allowance” to spend. They could pick the critter of their choice from about 25 options including bears, puppies, ghosts, penguins and more. Depending on what they picked, they might have money left for a “voice” to be put in, or clothing. Pierce picked a puppy (he named it Lucky) and Anna picked a ghost (“Pic Pic”). The staff was very nice and everyone spent a lot of time hugging their creations.

We walked across the food court to have a custom made cookie cake and to open gifts. Nora’s parents were there to help and managed to coral a table large enough for our little party. The mall was amazingly busy for 3:00 pm on a Saturday afternoon. I know most malls are suffering from lack of traffic, but you wouldn’t know it from this mall.

Sunday was Anna’s last day of soccer and I think we all breathed a huge sigh of relief. After some initial reluctance, she started off pretty well with the substitute coach. They played a number of skills games that involved the kids running and the coach chasing. The wheels fell of this approach when Anna got scared. She spent most of the rest of practice sitting on the sideline talking about how tired her legs were. She did participate in the intra-team scrimmage for a few minutes, but kept bowing back out. Within the last few minutes Anna got the ball and started driving it down field, right up until tripped over the ball. Yup, back to the sidelines again.

The day before Pierce and Anna’s actual birthday, I spent the day at Pierce’s school as part of the Watch DOGS program. It’s a volunteer program for “father figures”, where you spend a day at the school helping out. You assist in several glasses/grades, walk the grounds and halls as an extra set of eyes, and help keep the lunch room monitored. Of course Pierce was thrilled to have me there, and the first class I assisted in was his. I also got to spend some time with 3rd, 4th and 6th graders. I helped out in a computer class, an art class, learned about ancient Egypt and helped a special needs 6th grader take a quiz. It was a very memorable (and enjoyable) experience. The two most important things I learned during my day were:

1. How incredibly hard our teachers work, and
2. I do not like standing on my feet for 6 hours straight.

Pierce and Anna had their annual checkups yesterday (Thursday), Pierce got his first flu shot (not happy), and Anna got 3 immunizations and a flu shot (2 in each shoulder, very unhappy). We took them out to Dairy Queen for dinner and dessert as a reward for being so brave. Both kids are healthy. Pierce is in the 65% for height and 75% for weight. Anna is 75% for height and 85% for weight. Both passed their eye exam and Pierce did fine on his hearing test. Apparently, Anna’s not hearing lower frequencies well. The doctor’s not too concerned; we’ll test again next year. Anna may just not be paying attention very well during the test.

Halloween was fun. Pierce was a vampire and Anna was Wonder Woman. Both kids got to wear their costumes to school. Nora and I helped out with a party at Anna’s school and it was a blast seeing all those little kids in costume. I ran the bean bag toss game and, of course, got very silly. It started with me moving the bucket so that every toss fell in, to ultimately me putting the bucket on my head and racing around the room trying to catch the bean bags. We had fun. Nora was running a craft and ended up a little frustrated. The class was supposed to be decorating a foam picture frame, but many of the smaller kids were not up to the task of gluing, so Nora was a little overpowered.

In preparation for Halloween, I created a video to be projected in our garage that made it look like the Lindenberg family was doing interesting and impossible things (you can view it below).



Nora and I tried to convince Anna to wear tights and/or a shirt under her skimpy costume, but she wasn’t having any of it. This year Nora stayed home to pass out treats, while I took the kids out for Trick or Treating. We figured after 2 or 4 houses, Anna would determine she was cold and ask us to put some more clothes on her. Nope. Again, we forgot how stubborn she is. She trick or treated for well over an hour with claims that her cape kept her warm. Pierce had enough after we did one street, but Anna was gung ho for more. Ultimately, with the temperature dropping, I told her we’d have to stop if she wouldn’t put on warmer clothes. She decided to stop instead. Several times when we passed our house while we were getting candy, there would be 10 to 20 people standing in the driveway watching the show. The day after Halloween, kids and parents at school were complimenting Nora and Pierce on how much they liked it. Very gratifying.

Hard to believe we’re already in November. I suspect I’ll be deep-frying Turkey for Thanksgiving before I know it.

-Eric (Dad)

# posted by Eric : 7:58 AM