Asymptomatic

Saturday was a pretty nice day over the weekend, and rather than fall into the same TV-watching rut we seem to have been in since Christmas, Berta and I took the kids out to play at the Oasis Family Fun Center. I had taken the kids there once before myself, with Dan and his two kids. Abby and Riley had a pretty good time, and there was no reason to expect that they wouldn't on this occasion, too.

The Oasis is a warehouse-style building that is somewhat off the beaten path. Inside, they've got miniature golf, redemption games, and - the reason why we went - a giant playground. It's one of those playgrounds like they have at Chuck E Cheese's, with the tubes that the kids climb in, but it's enormous.

The playground has 4 big-kid slides and one for toddlers. A nice thing about this playground is that it has a toddler area. Too often, they want to go play with their older siblings and they just aren't big enough. And yet, we ended up letting Riley crawl around in there, too. more

Berta and I are dismayed at the types of food that Abby will eat. This article will likely prove itself as historically useful for when Abby is older.

These days, Abby's favorite food is the griled cheese sandwich. We try very hard to convince her to eat other things, but she isn't very interested in that. Whenever we go out to eat, it must be someplace that serves grilled cheese or we risk the tantrum that accompanies the lack of adequate food choices.

Abby will often eat macaroni and cheese, but not the kind that comes from a can. She will not eat mac and cheese from Wawa, which means it probably comes from a can or is prepared in a similar fashion. She will not eat mac and cheese that contains tomatos (Sound weird? Dice a small tomato and try it!), but she will cover her mac and cheese in seasonings if given the opportunity, and then not it it because it is too spicy.

Abby does not eat spicy foods. Spicy foods often have some extra sugar or salt - not any particularly spicy spices - or are carbonated. Soda is not a drink that Abby enjoys, and she often questions my worth as a human for drinking such a vile concoction. more

At breakfast this morning Abby was goofing around, as usual. She takes her dear old time eating her cereal, then she runs around the kitchen table doinking Riley on the head in his highchair as she passes by, and usually ends up making Mom and Dad late for work.

This usually happens in spite of anything we say to quell the behavior, and if you were a fly on the wall of our kitchen weekday mornings, you'd hear a repeated two-tone cacophony of "Abby, are you done breakfast? Then go use the potty."

This morning, I employed a different tactic as Abby slid herself about linoleum on her full-body footy PJs.

"You know that Santa keeps a list of good and bad kids, right?" more

It might not seem like it, with the amount of time I spend doing work and computer stuff these days, but for what time I do get to spend with the kids I try to make it quality.

Last Saturday, Abby and I say to watch some TV. I forget even what it was. Probably something she's not supposed to watch. We've probably been doing way to much of that. In fact, we were watching The Sixth Sense on network TV the other night, and it was about to get to a gory part so we paused it (Yay, PVR!) and sent her to bed. We actually could have let her watch it since, being on network TV, they cut out all the gory stuff. But I digress.

Before we sat down to watch TV, I asked her "What's happening?" And she didn't know how to respond. So I started the training, and that's when it seems that a new family in-joke began. more

Ah, it's been too long since I've posted pictures of the kids. Last week on the one day that it wasn't miserably hot and humid, Berta and I took Abby and Riley to the carnival that comes around in the summer.

I wasn't feeling in top shape, so mostly Berta and Abby got on the rides. I think they had a good time, especially on the Tilt-a-Whirl. more