*stretttttcccccch*

I’m liking this Stuff you don’t want to MISC series - now that I’m in my 2nd year of doing it.  It’s like I’m a veteran!

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2nd Amendment - A Win or a Squeak-By?

I don’t know what’s scarier - the thought of the government changing so quickly so as to take away my right to keep and bear arms within my lifetime, or the fact that the recent Supreme Court ruling squeaked by with just a 5-4 ruling.  And this is AFTER Bush’s appointments. (I got reminded of the 5-4 surprise from Such Is Life)

Having it be a 5-4 decision makes the choice for our next President of the United States even more important.

One dissenter, Justice Stephen Breyer, has words that, to me, are absolutely chilling.

In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.

If there’s anywhere where loaded handguns are needed by citizens for self defense, it’s in crime-ridden urban areas.  No?

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Gratitude Campaign

Saw this over at Tug’s and wanted to share.  Thank a soldier.

There have been a couple of times where I’ve bought a meal for a soldier in an airport and at a restaurant.  The first time I did it they thanked me and I thought - I need to do this anonymously.  So the next time, I just told my waiter to put their bill on my tab and to just tell them a thankful patriot is in the restaurant.  I didn’t want the credit - I wanted them to know the public is behind them.

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Jaden’s lost tooth

Jaden lost his first tooth this week, and then he actually LOST his first tooth.  He was brushing his teeth and then he comes running up saying “my mouth is bleeding!” and we look and um, yup, “Jaden. did ya notice you’re missing a tooth right up front?”  “oh yeah! my loose tooth!”.  [Slight confused look].  “Where did it go,” we asked.  “I don’t know!” he exclaimed.

So we go look in the bathroom and figure he either swallowed it while brushing his teeth (slim chance) or it went down the drain (high possibility).

We have a little “lost tooth” pillow for the Tooth Fairy to more easily identify any teeth that are intentionally for sale.  We don’t want her (assumed to be a “her”) rifling through all our belongings and thinking she can leave a quarter for just any old thing she wants to around the house.

In lieu of the tooth, we wrote a note:

Dear Tooth Fairy — Jaden lost his tooth this morning while brushing his teeth.  It slipped down the bathroom sink.  He has requested that you please search for his tooth tonight after leaving a quarter for him.  Thank you for your assistance. — Love, Jaden

 

Jaden ended up getting a whole dollar (inflation?) and when he asked why it was a dollar, we brainstormed with him on possible reasons.  The one we ended up as the most likely explanation was that a dollar bill is a lot lighter than a quarter, and she wanted to reward him for brushing his teeth.

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Best of LOLcats 

 

 

 

 

 

You might not know it, but I’m a pretty big Michael Jackson fan, as I’ve publically and shamefully confessed before.  In one of his biggest hits, he sings about how some kid is not his even though the mom says he’s the dad. 

I don’t think I have this problem.  And I have “proof”:

Yeah, I’m thinking the resemblance is there.

We just need to get the guy to learn how to grow a beard.  I guess now I know why they call it a “proof”.

I will now bring out my crystal ball and predict that someone with an affinity for pig rabbit combinations will say something about Hawaiian Shirts and likely lobby their senator to introduce a bill to ban them from all people with the middle name of Wayne.

Oh, and speaking of bragging about my kids, look at the Thank You letter Jaden wrote for his awesome Kindergarten teacher.

(click to enlarge)

Jaden turned 6 today, and we had EXTREME FUN at “Extreme Fun“, one of those places where kids jump in the inflatable moonwalks, run to their heart’s content, and have tons of fun.  Tons of EXTREME fun.

But I have an issue with one of their rules:

Look, this is a kids place.  Kids getting to jump on huge inflatable zipcode-sized bouncy things.  They’re gonna push.  And I think it’s ok to push.  What, everyone’s so fragile that they can’t push a little in the big soft inflatable lumps of air? 

First, Jaden had t-ball practice, so there was an hour or more of runing, fielding, hitting, running, catching, more running, and I love that he’s got this outlet for physical exercise.   

This is what we have left of the cake…

And this is what’s left of Jaden after the busy day:

I’m through, being cool…. at least, I’m through with strep.  But I still have this nasty tickle-based cough that prevents me from rocking out on SingStar 80’s or SingStar Amped as much as I deserve to.  I am pleased to report, however, that my Guitar Hero awesomeness is unimpacted by my throat malaise.

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Find the Star

Speaking of “stars,” I found a pretty cool little online game/puzzle thingy.  It’s in Chi-japanese or whatever, but still you get the hang of it pretty quick.  I’ve only spent 5 minutes on it so far, and that was back on Friday, but as soon as I get a free moment I’m going back.

The goal is to find the star in each of a lot of little flash games.  The trick is - you have to figure out what the trick is.  YOU have to figure out what you’re supposed to do to get the star.  It tells you NOTHING about how to play.  I think that’s the cool part.

The ones with the little star in the upper left hand corner are the ones I’ve completed.

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Lateral Thinking Puzzles

One of my favorite things to do with friends (and especially with my 13yr old daughter and her friends / cousins) is to do Lateral Thinking Puzzles.  You need to get people who aren’t impatient or will ruin the time.

Here’s how it goes:

• One person knows the answer.  (If more people know the answer, they voluntarily sit out.)
• The puzzle is read aloud by the person who knows the answer.  The puzzle describes a situation but is cryptic, and the other people are supposed to figure out what the situation is.
• The people can only ask yes/no questions.  The answerer can only answer with one of three answers: Yes, No or Irrelevant.

Some of the puzzles are like riddles, and others are just descriptions of an event.  They key here is to learn how to ask questions that narrow down the possibilities, and to question everything and make no assumptions.

If you google for Lateral Thinking Puzzles you can get a few good ones.  For some reason, most of them are a little morbid.  Here are some of my favorites

• A man leaves home, makes three left turns and encounters two men wearing masks.
• Anthony and Cleopatra are found dead on the floor with broken glass everywhere.
• A man is found naked and dead in the desert, with a piece of straw on the ground nearby.
• A man and woman are found dead in a cabin on the side of a snowy mountain. 

This kind of thing sure beats watching a bad movie.

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Jaden on Guitar Hero

I haven’t dumped the pictures from Christy’s cell phone in a Looooooong while, so I did that over the weekend (while trying to get p2k commander to work and other tools for syncing off of a Motorola RAZR) and found this picture from i-dont-know-how-long-ago. 

This was probably 6 months ago.  He’s a lot more into Singstar now, and you can hear him belt out “We’re not gonna take it” or “Hold me now” and it’s completely awesome.  He also does “Rio” pretty well.

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Best of LOLcats

You *know* that the day after Halloween, everybody and their brother is going to post cute kid pictures.  That is, they’ll do this after they awake from their candy-induced comas.

This year, Jaden was Superman, replete with totally ripped abs.

*sniff* yeaup, AHEM, he, um, gets those from my side of the family…

Jaden started off on his trick-or-treating trip pretty excited and wanted to get a jump on everyone else

You might not be able to tell from the photo, but he’s running at a speed of 75 miles per hour.  The car next to him is easily going 60, and as you can tell, Jaden is passing with ease.  It’s a good thing I have an amazing shutter speed on my digital camera!   

Soon after his super-fast jaunt, he quickly was sidetracked by a single focused thought in his super brain …

MUST HAVE RAYGUN

After he did some trick or treating, he tired of it quickly.  He kept saying that he just wanted to go to the park.  I’m thinking “WHAT?!?!?!”  Son, you have an extremely limited number of opportunities for free candy in this life.  And you get less and less as you get on in years.  You’re going to pass that up?  For some stupid swing in a stupid park?

And then he did

Ah, the bliss of childhood enjoyment.

There was one stop we made where the adult giving out candy asked the kids their names and when they responded with their names, he yelled back “DON’T GIVE OUT YOUR NAME!”.  I thought it was a good lesson.

So the 4 of us went to the side and decided on what name they’d give if someone asked their name.  Jaden would say “Superman”, and the others had good names like “kid,”, “pipsqueak,” and “princess.”  So we went back to the same house and he asked again “what’s your name” and Jaden said, proudly, “SUPERMAN!”  I was proud too.

Should you choose to accept it, your mission today is to make a face at someone and have them make one back at you.

Jaden started it.

That’s what he’d like teh internetz to do for him today.

What’s your best “making a face” face?

Here’s mine:

Only 10 days until Guitar Hero III for the Wii comes out.  Isn’t this the coolest guitar controller ever?  Notice the little embedded wii remote.

The Nintendo Wii is so awesome - we bowl, play tennis or cow racing a few times each week and never get tired of it.  We recently started playing Zelda but I’ve not invested enough time to actually understand the game, so Jaden ends up just walking around, playing some grass-weed instrument and calling down an eagle to do his bidding.  If only animals reacted to my will based on botanically-inspired aural stimuli all the time, ya know? 

I think I’m most looking forward to the new set list.  The other features are — *shrug*.  Using a wireless controller?  Nahh, not important.  New graphics?  Meh.  Improved sound?  It’s ok as it is.  Playing against Slash in a guitar-off?  I’ll pass on paying extra $$ for that.  But PLAYING NEW SONGS??!?!  SIGN ME UP!  (actually, I’m probably most grateful for not having to purchase a Playstation 3).

For the most recent release of the Guitar Hero series, I preordered the 80’s version and got a free Guitar Hero t-shirt.  This time, they’re offering a gig bag, key chain, and designer guitar strap.  Meh.  We get great use out of the shirt - in fact, my 8th-grader is wearing it at school today.  THAT ALONE will make only the truly worthy approach her and bother her at school.  All the losers will see the shirt and think “that is one person I don’t want to mess with.  She could shred me with out relying on Star Power!  I’d better go do some practicing on slow mode before taking up her valuable time.  That 5-star beaut goes all the way to 11 on a scale from 1-10 in talent volume.”

Who out there is going to go Guitar Hero III?  Anyone?

I’m a number of weeks behind some people on the Internet who have been doing weekly summaries and actually started numbering them, but still, for me anything as a habit is a good thing.   Plus, 17 is my favorite number!

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Mom said so

This was forwarded to me recently; a very good 3 minutes worth.  Who hasn’t heard these things growing up?  (forwarded to me by a friend’s dad).  Anita Renfro seems quite funny

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Day Out With Thomas

Jaden and I had the best day ever yesterday down at the Austin Convention Center for the “Day Out With Thomas” fair/expo.  You may or may not have heard of “Thomas the Tank Engine” but kids love him.  So he came to town - and is full-sized, life-sized Thomas in all his glory, so that the kids could take a 25-minute train ride around downtown Austin.  It’s all done by Austin Steam Train, who I’ve blogged about before.

 

I mean, what could be better for a kid than to see and meet one of his all-time favorite TV characters?

There was non-stop fun for playing with trains, riding down big inflatable slides, watching a Magic Show or two, watching Thomas videos, listening to Thomas stories, playing with Legos in the form of Thomas, and … well, too much to recount here.  We got there around 1pm and stayed until 5:30 and he still didn’t want to leave.

They were sold out of tickets for the day so we’re going back today to see if we can get one.

We even got some time with Sir Toppum Hatt

I tried to match his pose

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Best of LOLcats

These are still the best.

 

Ok.

[takes breath]

Again, I say - OK.

Jaden woke up in the night Monday night with his ear hurting. We did what we could at the time - soothing him, calming him, administering some acetominophen, love and comfort, and eventually he could sleep again. Then when he woke up he said he was fine, but then shortly after that his other ear hurt.

More acetominophen, then made a doctor appointment. Jaden verified several times that he wasn’t going there to get shots. What a trooper.

Doctor verifies yes, TWO ear infections - one of each type, he says. One that’s just an inflamed eardrum and the other with red spots. GREAT.

Jaden’s really not been sick for his first 5 years, so I’m happy for his strong resiliance.  He’s just not a sick kid.  He was basically sick big-time once - when he got strep at two weeks old (hospital and everything).  But since then, it’s been smooth sailing.

However, his strong resiliance doesn’t do well when it comes to TAKING HIS MEDICINE.  We’re talking two full TSP’s of Amoxicillin, twice a day.  And this kid is big - 50″ tall and 80 lbs.

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Things we’ve tried:

Cheer

Hey Jaden, it’s time to take your medicine (happy voice). Oh hey, it’s really alright - I think it tastes kind of orangey. (insert trying-to-be-helpful-older-sister saying “Oh man, I wish *I* got to take medicine”)

Logic

Jaden, do you want your ears to hurt again? Well, the medicine helps make your ears better so they don’t hurt any more. Didn’t it hurt a LOT before? That hurt will come back if you don’t take all of your medicine.

Threats

Jaden, if you don’t take your medicine (insert whatever threat you feel is correct and not too harsh - I don’t want any CPS visits this week, thankyouverymuch).

Bribes

Jaden, would you like to go to Toys R Us?  Ok, we can go right this minute! I have some free time *starts getting ready*  Oh, let’s take your medicine real quick, because you can’t go to Toys R Us if you’re sick.  You take your medicine and we can go.  No?  You don’t want to go anymore?

Choice

Hey Jaden, we both know you need to take this medicine so your ears don’t hurt. So you can choose how you take it — you can drink it from this little cup right here, at your own pace. Or you can use this cute little straw I made for you, or I can shoot it in your mouth with the eyedropper and it can be like a game. Which would you like?

Force

Jaden, so help me, you’re GONNA TAKE THIS MEDICINE. *struggle*

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We haven’t tried flavoring yet - I think we’ll take him to the store today and let him pick out the flavors he wants.  There’s also a Home Flavoring Kit with a bunch of different flavors that it might be worth trying out.

*MY* instinct is to just use force after a couple reasonable attempts at reason.  I mean, I’m the dad, right?  I feel I need to “win” and maintain control, so that he, as a 5-yr old, never feels that he can do just whatever he feels like, especially things that can harm him.  How hard would he be to control when he’s 10?  or 15?  Besides, he must have the medinice - not much choice there unless I want to risk his hearing.  So, is his self-esteem more important than his health?  I really am trying to balance a little.

What do you recommend?

Is it Kindergarden or kindergarten?  Pretty sure it’s with a “t”…

Mommy and I brought Jaden to his first day.  He woke up excited, got dressed excited, drove there with us excited, ate breakfast excited, and actually got into his classroom excited.  I hope that lasts him through the year.  As a dutiful doting parent, I’m posting some first day pictures here so you can share some of his day. 

Although this first pic doesn’t refect his excitment, he really was excited, I swear… 

 

His big sister Caitlin helped show him around, take him to breakfast and be his “guide”.  Here he’s seeing that one of his classmates also wants to find the classroom.  Either that, or he’s already checking her out.  “How YOU Doin’?”

 

 Yay!  we find his classroom!  Some other parent in the doorway is giving an air high five to her invisible friend.

And we even find his desk.  There’s another “Jaden” in the class who spells his name “Jayden”, so ours is lucky enough to get one of those “last name identifiers”.  His teacher is incredible.  She had a scavenger hunt during open house, made Jaden a quite creative gift baggie, called us over the weekend to see if we needed anything, and is just as sweet as can be.

 And of course Jaden goes straight for the little clubhouse in the back with the other boys and he says “I love this classroom!”.

We also brought Caitlin to school but said she’d shoot us if we went in with her to her classroom.  She’s in 8th grade now.  (sniff).