Jefflog

Yesterday, Maggie had her 100th day of school for this school year, something the kids are all aware of since they have been counting the days at the beginning of class each day. For a homework assignment, the kids were asked to count out 100 of something at home and bring it to class that day. The assignment had suggested raisins or Cheerios, but I had a better idea. I dusted off my old collection of Mardi Gras beads and we set out to see if I had at least 100 of them.

Sure enough I did, all unique. Six years of living in New Orleans will provide that for you. Maggie counted them out, creating 10 rows of 10 strands each. We had fun looking at all of the beads as well as my collection of Mardi Gras coins.

Last week, my little girl turned three. The so-called “terrible twos” have passed, and quite frankly I don’t see where that moniker comes from because she has been largely wonderful for the past year. I suspect that I will learn about that phrase when Oliver hits that age next year.

She also attended preschool for the first time last week. We have her enrolled in a school for gifted students, as her testing has her placed above the 99th percentile in ability. It’s questionable whether sending her to a gifted school at such a young age will make any difference, especially when tuition runs about $6000 for attending three mornings a week, but at the very least it means she’ll have teachers who know how to deal with her.

The preschool is nearly a half-hour commute away. Hong drops her off on the way to work in the morning but it’s my responsibility to pick her up. Driving for three hours a week also has me questioning whether it’s worth it at her young age. The coming months and years should prove me right or wrong.

Indianapolis tops ‘Forbes’ list of most affordable housing markets.

We’ve calculated that, in the six years we’ve owned our home here, the value on our home has only gone up by a total of 15-20%. In some markets, that’s the appreciation they’ve seen every year.

It also makes us “stuck” in Indianapolis in a way. While I’d love to move the family out to Seattle, an equivalent home out there would cost four times as much or else be located so far away in the exurbs that you really aren’t living in Seattle.
So, we’ve decided to stick our stakes in the ground a bit longer and move into a new house in the area. We started construction about six weeks ago, and the home should be finished in December.

The main impetus for moving was to move closer to Hong’s office and Maggie’s new school, which she starts attending in two weeks. We only ended up shaving a few minutes off of the commute in each direction, but that can add up over time.

Can you believe my little girl is going to be attending school?? I’m so excited for her! She’s going to soak it up.

I’ve got an aching back today, but for a different reason than in my last post. A blizzard yesterday brought in 12 inches of snow. I shoveled half off last night, the other half this afternoon.

I’ve also been playing the part of house-dad the last two days on account of our nanny not being able to get here because of the snow. These days, it’s not so bad watching them. Sure, there are trying moments, when both kids need you in opposite directions, but typically Maggie is able to keep herself occupied, and even Oliver can be left alone for a while sometimes if you give him two things to bang together. I can sometimes steal the occasional escape necessary for checking a web page or two, although not enough to complete this entry. (As of this writing, both kids are currently under Hong’s watch.)

After all of that, Hong and I went out for a nice, romantic Valentine’s Day dinner, just the two of us. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. With small kids, there’s no such thing! We were able to steal away to Steak and Shake one evening while my parents were here two weeks ago and we considered that to be our Valentine’s Day dinner.

Jonah & Lisa, and Julia & Brian: I hope you made the most of this Valentine’s Day, because it after today it will only be a fond memory. Mu-hahaha!

It’s been a while since I posted an update on my progeny, so let me do so now.

Maggie was tested for admission into a gifted school’s preschool program. Admission hasn’t been guaranteed to her yet, but she managed to test above the 99th percentile, so there’s little doubt in my mind she’ll get in. She’s an extraordinary young girl.

Oliver is also in the 99th percentile, but only in terms of his weight. He weighed over 21 pounds at his 6 month checkup, although now that he’s almost 8 months old he’s no doubt heavier. He can also be very clingy at times; I usually have to make my coffee and lunch while holding him with one arm. Should I really need to do this with a 21lb+ child?

In addition, Oliver is walking around a lot, although he needs to hold onto two adult fingers to do so. This involves a lot of hunching over and walking like a Neanderthal. He’s not yet crawling although he appears to be ready nearly any day now. He gets on all fours but doesn’t go anywhere.

Needless to say, my back hurts nearly every morning.

In years past, Christmas hasn’t been a large holiday for us. It’s partially because of me, who has grown tired of the crass commercialism of the holiday and the perfunctory gift giving associated with it. Don’t get me wrong; I love giving gifts, but only when I see something that I think the givee would really enjoy, not because I’m obligated to buy something for that person. (If you really want to be a Scrooge, read Is Santa a deadweight loss?, which explains that gift-giving is bad for the economy at large.)

This year, that’s all changed now that Maggie is two years old. Hong and I are very excited for Christmas morning, not for what we’re going to get but to see Maggie’s reaction. Meanwhile, Maggie is aware of the upcoming holiday, but I don’t think she fully knows what’s going to happen yet. We’re trying to hype it up, but our efforts are only paying off moderately so far. I fully expect she’ll be a lot more excited next year.

We’ve managed to play the “be nice or Santa won’t come” card with her a few times. Well, only once, really. She’s such a sweet little girl that threats aren’t necessary most of the time. We’ll also try to play the “go to bed early on Christmas Eve or Santa won’t come” card. We’ll be tracking Santa’s progress through Google Earth that evening.

Shortly after Maggie was born, my friend Alexis wrote to me to “be prepared for Fun!”. I think my fun is about to become a lot more fun.

I’ve put up a new movie I’m pretty proud of. It’s a 17-minute collection of photos and video clips from Maggie’s first two years, sync’ed to the song “When the Water Breaks” by Liquid Tension Experiment. I had to reduce the quality somewhat to get it down to 21MB, and I used Quicktime and the H.264 codec. This means that if you’ve not on a relatively speedy computer, your playback might be stuttery. The Quicktime Player will play it, but so will VLC if you have that installed. If you have 17 minutes to spare, check it out on the movie page or download it directly.

Note to family members: a better quality version of this will be on the next family DVD.

Considering how much Hong and I like books, it’s not surprising that we’ve imbued a similar love of books into Maggie. She’s got a collection of books downstairs that are mostly picture books and of the “look and find” variety. She likes to peruse through these books and talk out loud when she sees things she identifies, or wants us to sit with her and explain what the pictures are.

She’s also got a stack of books she keeps on her bed. One time we tried to take the books away, but she got so upset we decided to leave them there. In the evening, we already read between one and three books in bed before she goes to sleep. For her afternoon naptime, she likes to be left alone so she can read the books on her own. While she doesn’t know how to read yet, she’s memorized the words to most of her shorter books, and we can hear her behind the door flipping pages and reciting the words.

Posted six new movies on the movie page today. It’s been almost four months since I last had the chance to update it.

Up until Sunday night, Oliver had maintained a schedule of waking up every three to four hours during the night. When you consider that it takes up to an hour to nurse him, change his diaper, then rock him back to sleep, that often didn’t leave much room for our sleep (mostly Hong, but also myself as the official night-time diaper-changer and rocker.)

On Sunday night, we made a few changes to his sleep arrangements, such as putting him in another room, removing the “white noise” that we had been trying with initial success, and making more effort to let him sleep during the morning and keep him up longer during the afternoon and evening. Voila, he went for six hours between feedings. Hallelujah! Trying the same schedule last night gave us a five-hour stretch. Four hours of sleep never felt so good.

To add to the pleasantry, Maggie has been sleeping a bit longer after being on a low-sleep schedule for the past few weeks. We had been putting her to bed at 10pm and she’d still wake up at 6:30am or 7:00am at the latest, but last night she slept from 9:30pm-7:30pm. That made our night of sleep even better.