Yeah, it really is about the kids.

I've been away from this for too long and tonight Daniel inspired me to take up the keyboard again. We were reading in bed, the boys and I, and halfway through one of the books Daniel interrupts — as he is in the habit of doing these days — by telling me exactly what was on his mind at that very moment. Daniel : Dad?  When I grow up I'm going to save the world from bad people who are trying to take over it.  By drawing with markers! I smiled and I told him I had to stop and write that down right away before I forgot it and he jumped  on that idea too: Yeah! You can send it to Mom! I guess he knew he had a winning idea right there.  

I have nothing for this except a screenshot from my phone.

Christine got home today with the boys and told me that James had an accident with his new prosthetic arm at school today but that he seemed okay.  He did, indeed, seem okay and since there was no incident report from the school I figured it could wait. So at dinner I asked him about it and the exchange went something like this: Me :  Do you want to tell me what happened at school today with your new arm?  James :  Yeah!  I was on the monkey bars and it slipped off and I fell and hit my knee and then it whacked me on the back.  Me :  Oh, but are you okay?  James :  Yeah.  And Lizzie caught my arm when it fell!  Me : Okay, that was good.  So what happened before it came off?  Were you climbing  or were you hanging .  James :  I wasn't climbing .  Me :  Okay, so,  you remember, Sam told us that it'll hold on while you climb but if you just kinda hang there like a monkey, it'll probably fall off eventually, right?  James :  I wasn't hanging!  I was swingi

Just got the boys in bed and I need to share this before I get into something else and I forget. Daniel has been sleeping in our bed all week while I was in Germany for work.  Christine let him sleep in our bed with me last night too.  Partly because he really wanted to and partly because, I assume, she didn't want to sleep with me knowing that since I'd been up for nearly 24 hours I was bound to be snoring so loud she wouldn't get any sleep anyway. Tonight was supposed to be back to normal.  Foolishly I thought I could make that happen.  When  it came for bed-time, though, James went to Daniel's room (the blue one, since room ownership changes around here) and Daniel snuggled under the sheets in our bed.  James was very,  very upset about this because he didn't want to sleep alone.  I offered to let him sleep in our bed with Daniel, but he was insistent that he wanted to sleep in the blue room with Daniel.  So I offered to negotiate for him. I went back into

The last few days Daniel has started up with a new phrase.  He used to respond "Nothing" whether you were asking him what he was doing or requesting he do something that he didn't want to do.  It was his go-to for an evasive denial response. Now, though, he's tending toward "Just ignore me".  So, like, "What are you doing with the scissors, buddy?", "Just ignore me, please." or "What are you looking for in the fridge, Daniel?", "Just ignore me!" or even:  "Daniel, can you come hang up your coat,  please?"  "Just ignore me, Daddy." Well, last night at the dinner table Daniel left before saying he was done and this exchange happened: Me :  Daniel?  If you're done, can you come back and say you're done before you leave, please?  Daniel :  Just ignore me, Daddy!  Me :  Daniel, buddy, you're saying that a lot now.  Where is it coming from?  James :  His lungs? Of course we knew I

I've been collecting very simple computer projects to do with James.  I don't want him to "follow in my footsteps" or anything, but I want to make sure both boys grow up knowing how computers work and how you can make them do what you want.  The first one of these that I would consider actually successful was our Arduino-based aquarium temperature monitor.  I've never gotten around to stepping it up to making it wifi connected, even though I have a wifi shield that I know works well, mostly because it's working well enough already and the wifi connectivity is less visually exciting than the monitor changing LED colours based on the tank temperature, so I can see James losing interest in the project partway through. Yesterday's project, though was amazingly successful.  A while back I picked up an AIY Voice Kit .  I broke my own rule for these projects, though, and did literally  no preparation before we started,  all I read was to make sure I wasn't