Reality Me

Category: Noah

  • Math is hard

    One of the things The They don’t tell you is that as a parent you get to repeat school. You repeat it once for every child you have. I find it interesting to watch little minds grow. Concepts that are reflexive to us are foreign to them.

    Today I wrote the number 1943 and asked Noah watch place each number occupied. 3, ones. 4, tens. 9, hundreds. 1, thousands. Then I added 1943.5 and asked about the 5. "That’s the oneths. No. Tenths." Good. So I added a 2 making the number 1943.52 and asked about the 5. "That’s the hundredths. The 2 is in the tenths." Hmmm. I add 7 making the number 1943.527 and asked about the 5. "The 5 is in the thousandths."

    I started over putting only the 3 and he correctly identified it as the ones place. When I added the 4 for 43, the 3 remarkably remained in the ones place. Using this knowledge and some diagrams I think Noah finally got it. He correctly identified the 1/10s, the 1/100s places and so forth. Still, I think some reinforcement is in order.

    I enjoy being a dad. I enjoy helping minds grow.

  • From the mouths of babes

    Dad, point out some studs in the house: "Noah, what are these for?"
    Noah: "To keep the craddle from turning over."
    Dad: "It’s a crib not a craddle."
    Noah: "To keep the craddle from turning over."
    Dad: "It’s a crib not a craddle."
    Noah: "To keep the craddle from turning over."

    You know, kicking expensive phonographs always helped in these circumstances…

  • I love my kids. The toddler blows bubbles!

    Evan at 14 months knows to pickup a bubble wand, pucker his lips, and blow!

    Amy astounds me with her sentences and vocabulary.

    Noah is taking an interest in juggling and technology! Way to kiss up to dad, son!

    Sarah confidentally jaunts off to Palm Beach and handles herself appropriately. I am so proud of her accomplishments.

    Tommy has matured into a "normal" teenager. I hesitate to label him Asperger anymore.

  • Here’s a challenge for you

    Explain "modesty" to a 10 year old boy.

    Update: World Central’s Student Dictionary did the best job in the time I alloted to find it.

    This doesn’t help explain modesty.

  • Under the gun at Noah’s expense

    Obligation is keeping me from preparing for Noah’s party as I would like. I know he is going to have a blast even if the only thing we were to do was have his friends over. Naturally we are doing more than that but weather is threatening to interfere with our plans. I want to do so much better for him.

  • From the mouths of babes

    Yesterday the neighbor caught me in the driveway as I started to take Noah to karate.

    Neighbor: "Doug is Noah home? Beth (a first grader) is over an hour late."
    Dad: "Noah is in the car."
    Neighbor: "Noah, did Lisa (Beth’s mother) pickup Beth?"
    Noah, 10 years: "No."
    Dad: "Did Beth ride the bus home with you?"
    Noah: "Yes."
    Dad: "Did she walk home with you?"
    Noah: "Yes."
    Dad: "Do you know where she is?"
    Noah: "No, her mom took her somewhere."

  • From the mouths of babes

    Noah, 10 years old: "I found a way to make the sugar stick to my toast. Since I don’t like butter, I use peanut butter."

    Now, he is actually using cinnamon sugar but has used plain sugar before. Noah used to eat mac and cheese. Used to eat grilled cheese. Now has nothing to do with cheese in any form. Noah used to eat peanut butter and jelly; now jelly is off limits. Noah used to eat green beans; now gags. Noah will eat apple sauce, and apples but all other fruits and vegetables are off limits.

    I thought your range of foods increased as you got older.

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – Finished

    Home

    All scouts are back with their parents. Everyone had a blast! Our scouts were exceptionally behaved the entire trip (with minor age appropriate exceptions). This trip should leave the children with good memories for a long time to come.

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – Car survives

    Too hot. Pushing through.

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – Should have added water to the radiator

    Engine running hot

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – Time to leave

    Homebound from zoo. What a fun trip!

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – More please more!

    Extending trip 30 minutes.

    After making sure all children were matched with their ride or parent, about 10 scouts took an extra 30 minutes in the Zoo to run some energy out at Kids Cove which gave me my first opportunity to really check it out. Wonderfully done! Of course, I liked the aviary the best. The kids loved the padded play ground, climbing, tunnels, and sand.

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – Courtship of Otis and Ursula

    Bears giving good show. Otis chasing Ursula.

    Apparently one male bear was inspired by the wedding.

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – Rise and shine

    Rather calm night. I personally woke every two hours. Looks like it rained during the night but no rain now.

    7am was to be our wake up call. Everyone started to stir moments beforehand. Of course, the zoo walkie talkie blaring, "this is your wake-up call" could have influence that.

  • Bedtime with the Beasts – Bedding Down

    Sleep comes.

    The time on this post doesn’t make sense. Oh! The daylight savings problem on WordPress time stamps still exists. Wow. My time stamps are 2 hours off. That means we settled in not at 10:10pm but at 12:10am.

    The night hike was very interesting. We saw white tigers, snow leopards, heard birds, the whelp of a wild Tommy as his foot slipped off the sidewalk and he fell like a muppet but without injury, heard lions roar, and tigers howl. At the end of our hike, we changed clothes and laid out our sleeping bags, then were treated to some biofacts of ivory, rhino horns, snake skins, teeth, etc, most of which are illegal to possess unless you are a zoo. It did not take long for everyone to find sleep.