schmits.org

Welcome to schmits.org: , , , and virtual front porch. This web site is just that; a place to visit for family, friends, and anyone, who are too far away, to stop by in person. Pull up a chair and stay a while....

Bad Words

Dylan seems to have a fascination with the Indiana Jones movies. I think that it has been fueled by reading about the Indiana Jones LEGO sets and the light-up spoons that we got in the boxes Frosted Mini-Wheats. Yesterday, this fascination led us into a discussion about ratings of movies. This was fueled by my comment to Dylan that he wouldn't be able to see the movie for a few years, and his retort that "Daddy saw the Indiana Jones movie when he was a little boy."

So, I described who could see "G", "PG", "PG-13", and "R" movies. At some point in my lengthy explanation, I mentioned that a reason that some movies are "PG" is that they have bad words. At this, Dylan piped up with "The Surf's Up movie had a bad word in it;" Dylan saw this movie on a school field trip this past week.

"Oh?," I inquired.

"Yes. They said 'Shut Up' instead of 'Be Quiet.'

I did my best to have a look of surprise and disapproval on my face while holding back my laughter. I was pleased with the innocence we have still been able to maintain with Dylan, who is only 4 1/2 years old. I am certain that he will soon learn many more and worse "bad words." In the meantime, I am content with him thinking that "Shut Up" is as bad as it gets.

Dylan's New Glasses

This morning, Dylan and I went to pick up his first pair of glasses on the way to his soccer class. When the optician, Mr Wally, asked if Dylan was excited to get his glasses, Dylan said "yes." Dylan said he could see about the same with and without them. I think that we still need to take him to a familiar environment and show him something that he couldn't see clearly before. Dylan was excited to go to soccer and see if his friend Michael would recognize him with glasses.

While I don't have a written prescription for Dylan, the form that was with his glasses indicated that he is 1.5 diopters in his right eye and 1.0 in his left.

No More Office

I had an interesting conversation with Dylan tonight. It started with him asking why people at work were going to be tossing things. I tried to explain that toss meant to throw them away. Dylan doesn't like to throw anything away, so that was a rough start to the conversation. Here's how the rest of the conversation went:

We're going to be moving out of our offices at work, Dylan.

Well, what will you have?

I'll just have a desk.

Why, Mommy? Why won't you still have an office?

Because it will save the company money.

But it might not, Mommy.

You're right, Dylan.

He's about as skeptical as I and most of my colleagues at work are. Guess he's not going to be management material. We'll see when we're in our "open office environment" whether our current building remains occupied or whether it ever gets shut down. We'll also have to see whether the great improvements in productivity associated with staring at your co-workers all day are ever realized. By the end of June, we are supposed to be moved in to our new work environment.

Oh. By the way, our flexible working options are going to be reduced in January. No every-other-Friday off, and no working from home unless the cable guy is going to be there.

Four Eyes

Dylan had his first eye doctor visit today. And we ordered his first pair of glasses today. The eye doctor said that his vision is about 20/60, at a correction of about 1.5 diopters in each eye. To put this in perspective, at the age of 4, he wouldn't be able to pass the vision test required to get a driver's license. When the eye doctor broke the news to Dylan, the doctor blamed Dylan's poor genetics, which is right on target. Dylan's glasses should arrive in 7-10 days, so I'll try to share a picture of him at that time.

Bye Bye Weekend Naps

We may have seen the last of weekend naps for Dylan. Last Sunday was the first day that Dylan successfully had no nap. He'd had a few days without a nap previously, but they all ended with either Dylan asleep at 6 p.m. on the way home from school or a very-difficult-to-deal-with Dylan by bedtime. On Monday, school was closed, and Dylan and Andrea were home with Geoff. It too was a no-nap day for Dylan. In spite of swimming class to tire him out today, Dylan resisted a nap. Tonight, I didn't think of the missed nap until about 7:40 p.m. as I was reading Andrea her stories before bed, and I could hear what sounded like a melt-down in the hallway.

Good news, bad news. The bad news is that I don't have that down-time to be productive and recharge in the middle of the day anymore. We are trying to convince Dylan that he needs to play quietly and independently while Andrea is napping, but he still needs help periodically. The good news is that Dylan falls asleep while reading stories at night again. So, there's no struggle and both kids were asleep a few minutes after 8:00 p.m. That means that I actually have a few hours of quiet down-time at the end of the day.

Dylan continued to take a nap at school this week, which is good for him. He slept for a solid two hours there still. So, while he isn't quite ready to give up naps totally, he may do so 2 out of 7 days. It will be interesting to see what happens when grandparents come to visit...

Nail Polish

It all started on Wednesday at the Scholastic book fair at Dylan's school. He saw a book that was stereo-typically for girls and he pointed that out to Samuel's dad, "this book is for girrrlllls." Then, Dylan something attached to the book piqued Dylan's curiosity.

What's that?, he asked me.

That's nail polish.

What's it for?

Painting fingernails.

I want some.

Okay. I'll buy you some. Not that book, but I'll buy you some nail polish.

I want green nail polish.

I'll see what I can find at the store.

And, so at Target today, I picked up some nail polish that seemed to be for kids rather than adults. That also involved a brief conversation with a woman who had her two daughters with her looking at the same products:

If I want to buy nail polish for a four-year old, am I looking at the right stuff?

Yes. A four-year old girl would be thrilled with that nail polish. If you're looking for make-up sets, they might carry some of those in the toy section with the dress-up clothes.

Thanks.

So, I was prepared for when Dylan asks about nail polish again. If ever. And good thing, too. Within less than an hour, in the car ride home today, Dylan asked whether I had nail polish for him to paint his finger nails. Why, of course I do, Dylan! And after dinner, we painted his finger nails. All except the thumb that he still sucks. I have bad memories of having bad tasting nail polish on my thumb that I sucked as a child. Andrea had two finger nails painted too, since it looked like fun. Dylan was first disappointed that he didn't have green nail polish. But, I managed to convince him that there was green glitter in one of the containers. There were three containers of nail polish, all somewhat sparkly, but without much real color -- one was clear (with green, blue, and yellow glitter among other colors), one with a pink tint, and one with a purple tint.

I forgot to buy nail polish remover, so let's hope that Dylan doesn't need to have it off immediately.

Broken Heart at Four?

Dylan celebrated his fourth birthday last weekend. His birthday was on Friday. He had cupcakes at school. Actually, he ended up having cupcakes at school twice, although he only ate one. The first was with his class after lunch. The second was as initially planned at snack time. Then, we celebrated at home with his traditional Mmmmmmint Chip ice cream cake from "the ice cream store". If you haven't ever tried their ice cream, sign up for their birthday club and you can get a coupon for a free ice cream on your birthday. Saturday, we had a party with many of his friends. Another cake, more presents, and much chaos in our house. Sunday, we had a mini-party with some friends who got confused and had the date wrong. Fortunately, we discovered this when we saw them at church, rather than when they rang our doorbell. Dylan had a blast turning four.

Okay, so maybe it's me with the broken heart at four. Dylan's latest best girl friend is moving. Yesterday was her last day at Dylan's school. Gabrielle is moving to Minneapolis. The upside is that she won't get to drag him into trouble with her. The downside is that he is losing a great friend. She's the one who he has told us that he is "going to live with when I grow up."

I'm still holding out hope for Ellie, Dylan's first love. She was at Dylan's birthday party and wanted to sit next to him during both pizza and cake. We have many pictures of the two of them together over the years. Dylan also agreed to marry Aina "tomorrow" just this week at school. So, I don't think that he'll take too long to recover from the departure of Gabrielle.

Just for the record, I'm not ready for Dylan to start dating in earnest. Perhaps by the time he's twenty-four. Or thirty-four. Or maybe forty-four.

Speaking of numbers, Dylan had his four-year-old well check this week. And he got the shots that he'll need for kindergarten; that isn't until fall 2009. Dylan weighs 40 lbs and is 41 1/2" (3' 5 1/2") tall, which puts him at about the 75th percentile for both. The nurse actually calculated his BMI, which was okay. Dylan had his blood pressure taken again on this visit. Overall, a clean bill of health.

Bad Guys

To the best of my recollection, my conversation with Dylan last night:

"Daddy, are bad guys just people?"

"Yes, Dylan. Just people that do bad things."

"Are they outside our window?"

"No, not outside our window. They're farther away."

"Like, Washington D.C.?"

"Ummm, yes, like Washington D.C."

Strange, But True

I have some quick anecdotes to share related to Dylan.

The first is actually something that Geoff noticed a couple of weeks ago. Dylan will remove one, and only one, sock during dinner each night. It will be on his foot at the start of dinner and on the floor at the end of dinner. It does not appear that there is any pattern to which sock it is. Sometimes it is the right and sometimes it is the left. But, it is very consistent that a sock is removed during dinner. Strange, but true.

I think that we may have the only three year old who shouted "Math!" with glee not once, but twice, on Christmas morning. The first instance was while looking at what was in his stocking. Courtesy of Grandma was a set of cards related to money. Dylan saw the cards and said "math!" in a very cheerful voice. I am pretty sure that the second instance was when Dylan opened his present from Uncle Grant, which was a wallet with play money. Once again, the very gleeful "math!" was voiced by Dylan. Ms. Rachelle should be proud.

Okay, so maybe those two stories aren't too surprising when you look at Dylan's parents. Here's another one for you. Dylan was singing a little song the other day as he sat with me at the computer. It was one he made up himself. It went something like this: "Google, google, google... Google, google, google..." and I think that there were head motions to go with it. When I subsequently asked Dylan what google was for, he replied without hesitation, "googling."

Baby Face

This weekend, Dylan asked to play with Photo Booth on the new iMac. He sat in Carolyn's lap while doing so. After a couple of pictures, they started playing with some of the Photo Booth effects. Soon there after, we were all laughing hysterically; Carolyn literally in tears. I threw together this video to share the pictures with all of you.