Riley's been concerned lately with our too-easy dismissal of his creative works from school. Every day, he comes home with one or two, sometimes more, creations that he has constructed in kindergarten. Granted, they're not all masterpieces - some are just assignments that are colored in with blanks filled out using the right letters of numbers. Others, though, are nice works of art for a 6-year-old. A recent project that included a double rainbow, a unicorn, a castle, and a dragon is certainly the stuff of keepsake.

But how much of this should we keep? I think this is a similar question to the one skippy presents about keepsake books. I'm not sure that Riley's formative scribblings are going to be something he's going to want to show to his kids, but is still begs the question, how do we decide which of the things are going to turn out to be important to him when he grows up?

I have a folder of my own junk (and here I use the word "junk" with meaning) from school. I'm not sure any of it means anything to me, apart from a vague recollection of having produced it. Seeing that I haven't seen it in a while, I could possibly go forever without ever wanting to. Recently I was thinking about some notes from a discrete math class in college, but the thought was fleeting, and the information I sought from my notes was easily recovered from the internet.

I think the solution we've arrived at for Riley's complaints - which stem from the fact that there is simply so much material to review that we don't know what to do with it or how to store it and simply end up recycling most of it without oo much thought - is twofold. First, we're obtaining a box for Riley to keep his special papers in. The key point here is that he gets to select which things he thinks are important. And as he grows, I'm sure that will change, and we'll swap out a bunch of stuff. Second, I'm working on a web site where he can easily take photos of his schoolwork with an iPod and upload it to the site. This way, he can take pictures of everything he brings home, so there's nothing missed. And hopefully, eventually, the habit will extend beyond his schoolwork into extraordinary things we do now and then.

It'll be interesting to see what he thinks is important enough to save, and I'm glad that he'll have a way to keep things that he might like to have when he's older.

A quick update on the weekend's shenanigans -- Berta and Abby went camping with the Girl Scouts over Friday night, so Riley and I had a boy's night out.

I picked up Riley from school early, and we headed to the movie theater to see Up. It was good. The movie is about a guy named Carl who meets a girl, falls in love and makes a promise, and the promise becomes an adventure; one that drags along an unsuspecting Wilderness Explorer named Russel. It's a good movie, in the traditional Pixar style. Much better than Wall-E. The beginning of the movie is very sad.

After the movie, Riley and I looked for a new watch for him at Target. He picked out a Batman watch. I picked out a watch with flames for him. His watch had Batman and a plastic band. The one I picked had a date window and a fabric band with velcro. Yesterday, he wore his pick. Today he wore my pick. I should ask him which he likes better.

Friday evening, we played Rock Band and watched some TV. He's actually getting pretty good at playing the Rock Band drums. Sure, he fails all the time and needs rescuing, but we made it completely through every song that I was able to play, unlike some other people. *cough* Berta *cough*

Saturday, he got me up early to tell me about the bottle of water that Phobos had spilled on his bedroom floor. After we got that all cleaned up, we ate breakfast (Riley had orange jello) and went outside. I drew on the driveway in chalk, while Riley and Tegan played on bikes.

Then Riley suggested that we go have lunch with my dad. So I called, but he was at the bay. So Riley and I drove to the bay and visited my dad on his boat. We had lunch in the little restaurant nearby, and went out on the pier to look for Chessie, the sea monster that lives in the Chesapeake Bay. We didn't see it.

I was thinking about heading back home to meet up with the girls, unsure if they had a ride back to the house from meeting the scouts, when my dad's friends came by. We took their boat out for a short ride. Their boat was pretty big -- two bedrooms below deck, each with their own bathroom. It was fun to tool around in the bay.

Riley fell asleep on the ride back. We picked up some meatball sandwiches, and met the girls at home. They got home shortly after us, since Berta had taken Abby out to Marsh Creek after they got back from camping. Apparently, there were many people setting up at the park for a "Star Night", with all sorts of telescopes. That seemed like fun, but I was too tired for all that.

Instead, Riley and I (mostly Riley) stayed up late and watched the third Harry Potter movie before we went to bed.

Today, we took it easy. We had lunch at the Pepper Mill (after driving around for an hour looking for it), and then stopped at Mom's to check on her cat, Vickie, who was alone while Mom is on vacation. We sat with her for a while, and then she started hissing at us, so we left.

After that, the kids played with the neighbors, Berta cleaned the house some more, and I wrote some code and email and stuff. Including this. And now it's June.

This week should be an interesting week. I'm going to try really hard to grab one of those Palm Pre phones on Saturday. Hopefully, they're not going to be as hard to get as they suggest. Also, Friday is the day I usually celebrate my birthday, and even though I don't think we'll be doing the same big BBQ as last year, I still want to do something. I've been thinking a lot about crabs. Yummy.

Riley turned four back in November. Shortly after that, he had his annual checkup at the doctor, and it was my task to take him over and have him looked over. We'd been prepping him for a week or two; talking about vaccinations, watching the relevant kids TV on the topic, reading the books on how your body works. He was both interested in and at ease with the idea, even though he thought he might be scared.

Finally the day arrived to visit the doctor. Riley and I both remained positive throughout the process. The doctor was friendly. She talked about the vaccinations that he was due for, and everyone was ok with that. She asked about some optional ones, since we were there and they were recommended. She asked about our recent trip out of the country and explained that Riley should have a TB shot, too. Riley was calm, only slightly apprehensive, and was happy to agree to getting the shots and being healthy.

The doctor left after she finished her inspection, we thought to get the injection that we had both been anticipating. It turns out what happened was much worse.

After a few anxious moments, a woman we'd never seen before came rushing in, hurriedly. She had some assistant with her. She quickly instructed Riley to lay on the papered bed in the office, which he did, not even reluctantly. She told me that I would need to reassure him, which I expected, and hold him down, which I did not expect at all.

Suddenly, she started uncapping a series of tubes and injecting them into both of his legs. After the first, I had to hold Riley down to the table to keep him from screaming. This woman, whoever she was, was not gentle, was not reassuring, and was not Riley's doctor. Her assistant held his feet, while she kept sticking him with needles, 8 in all.

Afterward, Riley was a quivering mess. She packed her things and left with her assistant. I had to coax Riley out from under the bed where he had crawled when we could finally let him go. His little wavering voice screaming hatred in the most vile words he could think of -- he didn't even have the vocabulary to add the appropriate venom to his expression of violation.

It seems almost unreasonable of me at this point to document my mental state. My poor little boy, abused by some unknown nurse. Led by me and his mom to believe that this was all for his own good; that it would keep him healthy So trusting was he, he allowed us to get him to a place where he could be held down and injected. And I helped. I helped more than just holding him down because he trusted me, and I convinced him to trust the doctor.

Perhaps this was for his own good. Really, after my own experiences with doctors and dentists, I don't know how I can even say that. I should have known better.

So what brought this story back to mind? We found a tick on Riley last night.

The protocol for tick removal is tweezers. I don't know if you've ever removed a tick with tweezers but it's not a fun business, especially when the tick has a good hold. There's a lot of room for error, and of course, with a kid shocked by being convinced to trust you and then suddenly almost pulling his arm off with the tick, that error is bound to occur.

Anyway, I got most of the tick, but there was still part left. And after fighting with him to get him to let us get that last part out, and repeated pleas not to "hurt my poor little arm", I just couldn't do it. I couldn't just hold him down and get it. Not this time.

But I still know. I know am a parent who can hold his kid down if I think it's for his own good. And I know that it hurts me, too.

Abby and Riley were trying to do handstands on the gymnastics mat in the family room. I guess maybe Riley got tired or forgot what to do at a later point, and had an amusing little faceplant.

Video was taken with the Flip, uploaded to Flickr, and inserted into the post with Habari's new Flickr video support.

Abby: You count and I'll hide, ok? Go!

Riley: 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. Here I come!

Abby: NO! Count to ten, ok? Go ahead.

Riley: 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 10! Here I come!

What makes this more funny is that Riley, although only 3, will routinely count to 20 without much thought, but I guess he doesn't see the point in giving Abby time to hide.

I just wish they'd stop taking all of the cushions off all of the couches in the house. Aye de mi.