October 31st, 2007 at 2:01 pm
(Damien, Mel, New, Olya, Sergey, work)
Last weekend was very busy for Olya.
Saturday:
We all went to swim class and the kids were at their most whiny every. Ack.
After that we packed up the kids and dropped Olya off at work, while me and the boys helped put storm windows on my mom’s house, because we can’t convincer her to buy the kind she could do herself. I tried to convince her again, this year but no such luck. But I did tell her I would wait for Dan to show up before we did the storm screen swap again. After that Mom the kids and I headed off to visit Grandma who is recovering from a stroke. Olya stayed at work working. When we got to Grandma she only had 30 minutes or so before she had to leave for a dinner date. For an old Gal my Grandma sure gets around. She kicked us out and I dropped Mom off at home, and picked up Olya. We had dinner together (as much as you can with two little boys) then Olya headed back to work, arriving home around Midnight.
Sunday:
Olya headed to work bright and early, but I sent her to the store for milk, eggs and bread first (call me taskmaster if you will). I was going to drag the kids to church but felt bad, so I wimped out, I did manage to make crepes which were much loved by everyone. Olya came back for lunch, but had to go back to work. Godfather Mel arrived to help me watch the kids for a few hours. Mel took Damien to the park while I got some one on one time with Sergey. Sergey fell asleep soon after Damien left; I guess I am not as fun as Damien. Shortly after I had Sergey in his crib Mel returned with a sleeping Damien. Apparently he had fallen asleep in the child swing at the play ground, that’s a first. I made a bread pudding for dinner yummy, but it wasn’t ready until 10 PM so the kids had to make due with waffles, but I got to try some.
Olya came home for dinner again but had to head back to work again, still more to do, I think Olya finnally got back around 2 AM Monday morning.
5 Comments
October 31st, 2007 at 11:14 am
(Humor, New)
Bed sheets
An extremely modest man was in the hospital for a series of tests, the last of which had left his bodily systems extremely upset.
Upon making several false alarm trips to the bathroom, he decided the latest episode was another and stayed put. He suddenly filled his bed with diarrhea and was embarrassed beyond his ability to remain rational.
In a complete loss of composure he jumped out of bed, gathered up the bed sheets, and threw them out the hospital window.
A drunk was walking by the hospital when the sheets landed on him. He started yelling, cursing, and swinging his arms violently trying to get the unknown things off, and ended up with the soiled sheets in a tangled pile at his feet.
As the drunk stood there, unsteady on his feet, staring down at the sheets, a hospital security guard, (barely containing his (laughter), and who had watched the whole incident, walked up and asked, “What the heck is going on here?”
The drunk, still staring down replied: “I think I just beat the shit out of a ghost.”
Happy Halloween
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October 30th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
(Damien, Duct Tape, Sergey)
Friday Evening:We dress up the kids as a Devil and a Bunny and go to the highly exclusive WLS Trick-or-Treat in the halls.
Both kids were initially freaked out by all the people, but soon got used to the idea people acting insane in all directions. Initially Damien did NOT want to hold the treat bucket, but once he realized it’s magical power to cause big people to fill it with candy, he decided it was best if he held it, because who knows what Mommy or Daddy would do when unsupervised.
Pirate Cove: Damien was more interested in collecting the decorations than getting candy. He scored several {paper} gold medallions, and a green skeleton {which has become his favorite toy}.
Peter Pan: Both Damien and Sergey enjoyed playing with the mermaid, though not in the way she intended, {and certainly not in the way your sick and twisted mind is imagining (pervert)} they did score some play-doh, which they can eat later and grind into the carpet when we are not looking. Also fun was Damien talking to the lost boys in the forest. At first they stayed in character and just oinked at him {they had all been turned into pigs} but after Damien’s persistent “hello, hello, hi, hello”, they started talking to him.
Seven Days of Creation: Yes from the bible, hey kudos to these guy for trying something different. This was probably the most interesting of all the floors, and easily the most memorable. Darkness, Light, Water, Heavens, Plants, Animals, and Rest. I regret not taking more pictures of the different areas. The boys really enjoyed the feeding of the animals, as well as climbing the mountain of beanbags that symbolized rest. Sergey got stuck in the beanbags a bit, and as Damien and Olya headed out, Sergey ran back to feed more animals. Then he found the 8th day, the day of Duct Tape.Â
After that we headed home to enjoy a nice evening stroll with the family. Â The boys soon fell asleep during the walk, and we were able to put them to bed when we got home.
3 Comments
October 26th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
(Damien, daycare, New)
Well we had the meeting with Damien’s teachers and another lady from daycare, this morning. They assured us that it was really more of a touch base about Damien than to go over his problems.
They have noticed that Damien does not always make a choice when given two options but simply repeats the last option he heard. Damien does do this a lot but not all the time. One of the reasons is that he may be ambivolent to the options presented so he just pick the last one he heard, because what he wants is not available, this would fit nicely into Damien’s anal retentive mentality.
Example:
Me: Damien do you want to watch Elmo or Cars?
Damien: Cars.
Me: Do you want to watch Cars or Robots?
Damien: Robots.
Me: Do you want to watch Robots or Elmo?
Damien: Elmo.
(Looks like he doesn’t undertand the question.)
(Once we get to the living room in front of the TV things change.)
Damien: Lilo and Stitch, I … Want … Lilo and Stitch … please.
(Maybe the options wern’t different enough to matter to Damien.)
Either way this is something we all agreed to work on with Damien, I suggested making the options different, perhaps even adding one you know he doesn’t like.
Bad: What color crayon do you want green or orange?
Good: Do you want to play with the fire house or the orange monkey?
(The orange monkey has fallen out of favor, and Damien’s current favorite is the fire house.)
I’ll try to post more on this latter.
1 Comment
October 24th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
(Damien, daycare, New)
Well he is only two so how much slacking can he really do.
Over the last few months we have been given many bits of conflicting advice on what to do with Damien. One minute he is fine the next minute he is autistic. He is really good with identifying letters and numbers, and following complex directions (find your sandels and meet me by the red couch). On the other hand he still puts things in his mouth (possibly chewing the enamle of one tooth, too many roofing nails), will often only repeat the last thing you say out of context (if I tell him “say goodbye Damien”, Damien will say “Goodbye Damien” it could be worse, he could have said “Say goodbye Damien”), and does not seem to comprehend choosing between brown shoes and blue shoes.
A few months ago I talked to a child socialworker, who recommended that we wait until Damien is 3 because he seemed fine to her, and many children regress at his age especailly when a second langauage is involved, or a younger sibling (Damien has both, and he is male which apparently matters in these things). So we have been reading to him and singing to him and playing with him.
I blame myself really I guess I am not a good dad or just a dumb dad who doesn’t know how to raise his own children. But it would really help if there were consistant answers to my questions.
Anyway daycare would like to talk to us about his development, so we have a meeting planned for Friday. This is the same daycare that said he was fine a few months ago when Olya and I expressed concerns obout his developement, so what do they really know.
We say: There might be a problem.
They say: He’s fine.
A few months pass
They say: There might be a problem.
We say: That’s what we said months ago. Grrrrr.
Whate ever they say, I’ll gladly listen to the experts and hear what they have to say, all I want is for Damien to be happy and healthy.
5 Comments
October 24th, 2007 at 10:10 am
(New)
Sorry for the Global Warming Spam, I didn’t realize it would send the post out to everyone.
Bill
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October 24th, 2007 at 10:07 am
(Global Warming)
Steffen estimates sea levels could rise three feet over the next century, a stark prediction that could wreak havoc around the world if it comes to pass. Greenland holds enough ice to cause sea levels to rise 23 feet if the entire ice sheet melted, a development few scientists expect to happen anytime soon. But global sea levels have been rising at the rate of three millimeters per year since 1993.
we’ve had a temperature increase during the winter months of 4.5 degrees centigrade, 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very large, the largest temperature increase on earth,” he said.
The rising temperatures feed what scientists call a “positive feedback loop.” As the air warms, it melts ice on the sea and snow on land. This exposes more water and land to the sun. Those surfaces in turn absorb more of the sun’s heat, leading to more snow melt and ice melt.Â
This is not the first time temperatures have risen on the world’s largest island.
Dr. Jay Zwally, a climate scientist with NASA, said he thinks the latest trend is different.
But he warned that even if we are able to reduce the world’s carbon output from cars and power plants, it will take a long time for Earth’s climate to stop warming and seas to stop rising.
From:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/23/greenland.melting/index.html
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October 23rd, 2007 at 3:36 pm
(Damien, New)
Damien can count from 1 to 20 in English and Russian (if he feels like it).
Sometimes he just starts counting not at 1 but at some random number, I suppose he likes some numbers better than others, or maybe he was thinking about that number, or it came up in conversation with Sergey. Either way he will just start counting 7, 8, 9, maybe he will go to ten maybe not.
Last weekend he and I had the following conversation while I was loading him into the stroller for a walk.
Me: “Are you guys ready to go for a walk?” (Sergey was already loaded in the back seat)
Damien: “Walk, yes please.”
Me: “Ok guys well get going soon.”
Damien: “Four, five, zero, eighcht.”
Me: “Four, five, six, seven, eight” I correct.
Damien: Pointing at the car, “four, five, zero.”
Me: “It’s four, five, six. Zero is at the beginning or the end, always.”
Damien: Keeps pointing at the car for some reason. “No, four, five, zero.”
 Me: I notice that Damien is not pointing at the car, but specifically at the license plate, which reads “4 5 0 H * *”. “Your right it is four, five, zero, good job.”
3 Comments
October 23rd, 2007 at 2:29 pm
(New, Update)
 Update: Oct 24
Julie and Oliver actually stayed in their house past the evacuation notice. They set their alarm to wake them up every hour so they could monitor the situation.
Their house did not burn down Yay! The government has labled their area safe to return to. They did say that if they had kids they would have evacuated.
————————————————————–Â
My wife’s cousin Julie and her husband Oliver had to evacuate their house because of the Witch Creek fire.
The last we heard from them is that they were watching TV in their livingroom waiting for the call to evacuate.
Hopefully they are OK, and their house will be spared.
Map of fire.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=114250687465160386813.00043d08ac31fe3357571
From CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/23/wildfire.ca/index.html
1 Comment
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:55 pm
(Damien, Dan, New, Sergey, Swimming)
Well work was terribally busy the last two weeks, lots of working through lunches and such.
I’ll just try to blog some thing quick every day rather than try to get a good story going.
 Most of my stories start off as short info blurbs anway and balloon into stories. Not that any of them are any good so if I write another bad on no big deal.
 Last weekend by brother Dan (not to be confused with my other brothers) came to Milwaukee for a visit. The big bummer is that he had so little time to spend with us.
Dan went to swim class with me an the boys taking Olya’s place, on the down side he does not look as good as Olya in a swimsuit, on the plus side I could see his nipples, and I am here to tell you they were perky.
Normally Damien is the complainer, and Sergey is the swim champ, so I let Dan help Sergey, however, it appears that Dan is no substitute for Olya where Sergey is conserned, so we switched kids. All in all it was a great bonding experiance for Dan and the boys.
Damien is still asking for “Uncle Dan” every other day.
 Auto Spam may be broken 
3 Comments