In between

Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, reports on Aidan (he’ll be five one month from today):

Byron’s office had his summer picnic today at a waterpark.
 
Aidan was somewhat discouraged because most of the slides and water activities were set up for people 48 inches or taller, and he isn’t quite there.  After we stood in line for a ropes course only to find he couldn’t reach the rope, I suggested we walk over and join [his brother] Reid in the “little kids” area.
 
We walked over to that section; Aidan took one look and said, “Oh I can’t go in there, Mommy.  I would feel foolish.”

By the way, Aidan and Reid’s older brother Mack competed in his second full triathlon Sunday and placed fourth. Anyone who finishes a triathlon gets my applause, especially a 7-year-old. And the distances were longer this week than previously, so a real achievement. Awesome little guy!

Little Farm on the Suburb

Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, reports:

Mack and Aidan went to Fair Camp this week (at the county fair). Part of the week is creating a potato scene and entering it for judging in the fair. At Mack’s urging, his group did an Olympics swimming theme and dressed the potatoes in little caps and swim suits. They won third place and all the team members got ribbons. So now Mack and Aidan have 4-H county fair ribbons. I think they should tell people it is for raising hogs.

Triathlon report

Jill reports on 7-year-old Mack’s first official attempt at a triathlon.

Mack did great.  I am so proud of him.  He swam well and passed seven kids before he even got out of the pool.  He also ran so hard and passed several kids.  His bike was his weakest link, which is understandable.
 
He did not medal.  We don’t know his place or time because they only announced the top three.  But when they post the times I’ll let you know how he did.  He was aiming for something in the 13-14 minute range.
 
He has another one next Sunday and then we’re going to reevaluate whether he wants to continue with these.

New Grandma

Debby, NewMexiKen’s official youngest sister, became a grandma for the first time early Saturday evening when her son Josh and his wife Beth gave birth to nine-pound, eight-ounce Kyle. All are well.

How sweet are The Sweeties?

Five of The Sweeties attended the Washington Nationals game last night — and three were tossed balls from the field after the between innings warmups. That’s some mighty cute kid appeal!

Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen reports that, “The balls are cool. They have a special logo … that says inaugural season of the Nationals ballpark.”

Oh, and Emily, official younger daughter of NewMexiKen, caught one of the T-shirts shot into the crowd. (She’s pretty cute too!)

The triathlete

Jill brings us up to date on 7-year-old Mack’s training for a (kids) triathalon August 9th:

Mack did a good job at his swim meet. He got new personal bests in both of his events, smashing his backstroke time by almost ten seconds. . . .

Following the meet we came straight home and he rode his 1.3-mile bike loop around the neighborhood. He smashed that time by four and a half minutes. The training continues…

The kid who was still learning to ride early in the week is now doing 1.3-mile loops.

Powers

Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, filed this report on Aidan, who will be five in September:

This morning, Aidan came into my bed at about 6:00am and woke me up by saying, “Aidan, reporting for duty.” Snuggle duty.

We took coloring books to the pool, to watch Mack’s swim team practice, and didn’t wear our bathing suits because it was so cold today. Since we didn’t get suited up, we forgot a hat for Aidan. He was so concerned, and although we sat in the shade at the pool, whenever he got up to go to the bathroom or go say hello to someone he held a coloring book across his face as a sun shield.

A few days ago our electricity went out in a storm. We played and watched the storm for about half an hour and then Aidan announced he was going to watch TV. I laughed, “Aidan, the TV won’t work. It uses power.” He replied, “The TV has powers?!”

Yes, magical, magical powers.

Aidan a couple of days after he walked into a moving aluminum baseball bat May 24th. He does all his own stunts.

Ah-Dee’s Belly

Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, reports on Aidan, who’ll be five in September. Ah-Dee’s been having some reflux issues.

Aidan had an upper GI this morning, which is a test to try to identify certain problems in the stomach and diaphragm. He had to drink a bunch of barium (which the tech flavored with Hershey’s syrup for him, but which still was pretty gross), then stand and lie in a variety of positions on an x-ray table, sipping the barium the whole time, as they photographed him.

He did a very good job. The doctor told me that he didn’t see any obvious ulcers or tumors, which is good news. Apparently, ulcers in four years olds are more common than you’d think.

After that we went across the street and he had four vials of blood drawn. That was far more traumatic for Aidan, but we had a lab technician there who was quick, no nonsense, and got the stick the first time despite Aidan thrashing as hard as he could, screaming, and having difficult veins because he’d fasted 12 hours for the upper GI. I could have kissed her. (This is the same lab where I brought Reid when he was nine months old, and took my time explaining to the tech that he had difficult veins, and that we’d had many problems in the past, and we’d had to go into his head, and it took many tries, yadda yadda, and she nodded at me, turned around, and had the needle in his vein in about three seconds. I am never going anywhere else.)

Next we have to collect some stool and turn that in. That we get to collect at home, Yay. Apparently, we use saran wrap.

Anyway, maybe something will turn up in these tests to explain his stomach, and maybe it won’t. We have to wait until mid-August to see a pediatric gastroenterologist, believe it or not. But we got a new Zantac prescription, so at least we can make him feel better while we wait to see if they can diagnose him.

I had promised him that if he did a good job at the upper GI, we could go to Safeway and get him a doughnut and a soda. As he’s in the middle of the test, I hear his little voice from the machine, “Mommy, remember, after this I get a doughnut, soda, and candy.” I replied, “I don’t remember saying anything about candy!” The doctor and the tech laughed and the doctor said, “He’s kind of running the show right now, mom.”

Later the tech told me to make sure Aidan got a lot to drink today, “…and things without caffeine.” Feeling like Champion White Trash Mom, I replied, “So, no Mountain Dew, then?” Aidan piped up, “No, I want diet Coke.” And we left, to the sound of dueling banjos in the distance.

Thoroughbred

Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, sent this along today:

“Here’s Mack starting his kick for home, leaving the other kids in the dust…a 3:57 half mile…in 90-degree heat…after getting up at 6:15 and swimming at a swim meet.”

He’s 7. Amazing how much energy he can get from a diet consisting pretty much of peanut butter and jelly and chicken nuggets.

Click image for larger version.

Mack Truck

The oldest of The Sweeties, Mack, not only plays soccer, football and swims for the club team, he runs the mile. He is seven.

His mother reports:

Mack did so great at his race yesterday.  …  He came in second in his age group with a time of 8:09.  The kid who came in first in his age division is the kid that went by Mack when he stopped at the wrong ending line (the kid finished in 8:06).  Which kills me, but doesn’t seem to matter to Mack.  The kid is a second grader, so Mack finished first in first graders and younger.
. . .
 
He came in 19th in the race, of 163 people 18 and under.
 
It would have been nice if he won, because the girl he luuuuurves won the girls 7 and under.  That could have been the spark that brought them together.  Now she will feel superior to him (although he did beat her by more than a minute.)  Actually, I think she already feels superior to him.  After all, he is a boy and she is a girl.

Ah!

Debby, official younger sister of NewMexiKen, sent me a present that arrived today. It’s a Grandpa’s Sweeties calendar — and not at all late because it runs from March 2008 through February 2009.

The calendar has, as you might imagine, delightful photos of The Sweeties each month, plus notations for holidays, family birthdays and anniversaries, events, etc.

And most importantly of all, April 20 is dutifully annotated as the birthday of Ron Howard’s Brother.

I think I’m gonna cry.

Thank you Debby.

Today is also the birthday

… of a very special person, Mack the oldest of The Sweeties. Mack is 7.

Mack by the way isn’t his name. It’s his nickname (from birth) and comes from his middle name — Mackenzie, a family name on his dad’s side. Mackenzie is a Scottish name, from the Gaelic Maccoinneach, meaning son of the fair or comely. (And also meaning son of Kenneth. )

At his early age Mack has already played soccer, baseball and flag football and is a fine swimmer. He plans to attend the University of Michigan, so it’s very important whom they hire this year as football coach. With a little longevity the new Michigan coach could be Mack’s coach in just 11½ years.

That’s Mack last week at California Adventure. He’s the one in the middle.

Pair of fours

NewMexiKen’s six card Sweetie straight — one-two-three-four-five-six — is broken today as Sofie turns four.

Among Grandpa’s all-time favorite music videos are Sofie’s version of “Chingle Bells,” her fantastic (and athletic!) choreography to “Suddenly I See,” and — best-of-all — her own composition, “Fall” — “Some leaves are orange, some leaves are lellow.” As always, click image for larger version.

Six-five-four-three-two-one

There are two Sweetie birthdays in October, one today and one coming up Saturday.

For six days until Saturday, though, The Sweeties are 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1.

Kiley was the Sweetie who turned five today. It’s always subject to change with children that age, but last I knew Kiley’s favorite thing was the Disney princesses. Grandpa thinks Kiley is more of a princess than any of those storybook fictions. This photo of Kiley was taken at her cousin’s recent birthday party — that’s him looking over her shoulder. Looks to me like Kiley was thinking ahead to her own cake today. Click photo for larger version.

Four

Today is Aidan’s birthday — he’s four. Aidan is third in the succession of Sweeties — though sometimes Aidan isn’t quite so sweet.

Grandpa loves him all the more.

Click image for larger, close-up version.

Sweeties for Truth

Don’t tell Byron, but the Sweeties for Truth appeared here three years ago today.

Brotherly Love

Some of The Sweeties™ had a particularly busy weekend. Six-year-old Mack played his last flag football game of the season — looks like a little offensive and defensive holding going on there boys. Meanwhile one-year-old Reid has the ball.

Then, Saturday evening and Sunday, brothers Mack, Aidan and Reid visited the City of Brotherly Love where they were recruited into the Continental Army (note that the boys already have their tats). Later three-year-old Aidan replaced Alexander Hamilton on the $10 — with a much friendlier look than the first Secretary of the Treasury.

Click any of the images for a larger version.

Here’s some of the details as reported by Jill, mother of the brothers, and official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen:

We got to our seats [at Citizens Bank Park] just as Barry Bonds came up to bat in the first inning. I’d been worrying, ever since I made these plans, that he would take the night off when we came all that way to see him. So I was immensely relieved that he played, and that it didn’t rain. (The other game we considered was Sunday afternoon, and he sat that game out, so…whew.) It was a fun game, the Phillies won, and we saw Bonds hit a massive double, a single, and score. Just as fun, we saw him strike out with a runner in scoring position in the ninth, and drop a routine fly ball. The crowd went crazy heckling him, and Mack of course was immediately into that.

Mack was enraptured by the game and made close friends with the strangers sitting next to him. Aidan was more interested in lemonade, pretzels, and eating ice cream from a tiny helmet. …

On Saturday we toured the historic area for about six hours. The kids weren’t too impressed by the Liberty Bell. But they liked Independence Hall. Mack tried to answer all of the tour guide’s questions, and Aidan just wanted to know if Lincoln ever came here. Once he found out that Lincoln did in fact make a historic visit, he was happy.

We walked through some of the other historic streets and buildings, and then the boys were recruited into the Continental Army for about half an hour. They got pretty good with their muskets, but Mack got a bit nervous when the Captain marched them off and told them to wave goodbye to their parents, because they wouldn’t be back for at least six months.

Eat your heart out American Idol

Jill reports:

Aidan “graduated” from his first year of preschool; the three-year-olds classes did a show based on various nursery rhymes. Aidan rocked the part of “one of the kings” in the “Humpty Dumpty” vignette. One kid dressed all in white came out and fell onto the stage. All of the kings came and reached down to touch him and pantomime trying to “put him back together again.” Then all the kings stopped. Well, all but one, who continued grappling with the Humpty until the teacher had to forcibly remove him. I later said to Aidan, “You were just sure you could fix him, weren’t you?” He replied, “Everyone else stopped so soon!”

Then the three classes stood in positions around the stage to sing a lengthy A-B-C song. 44 kids stood still, hands at sides, and sang. One kid, stage left, danced around, doing high kicks, clapping his hands, and wildly boogieing down the entire song.

(We have the kid who just gots to boogie, and that is who he is, and that is what we’re going to let him be.)

Then in the afternoon it was time for the special production of E-I-E-I-Oops!, presented by the after-school drama class. Mack did a great job as The Farmer in the Dell, enunciated his lines beautifully, and even managed to say the words “this bovine disaster” so they could be understood.

Total minutes of actual performance, both plays combined: about 27 minutes.

Total after-play cookies consumed by the three kids [including 14-month-old Reid]: about 27 cookies.

The Magic Kingdom

Three-year-old Sofie is back from her first visit to Disneyland and six spins on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party ride (which we always call the Tea Cups) and back-to-back trips through It’s a Small World.

Home last night for dinner she said, “Disneyland is the happiest place on earth.”

The other three-year-old Sweetie was more relaxed about the whole thing when he last visited Walt Disney World. After running from attraction to attraction he was ready to call it a day. Asked by his brother and dad that evening if he wanted to go with them to play video games, Aidan responded with, “No, I’m good.”

Because if we don’t …

Veronica, official daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, reports on some three-year-old wisdom.

I was making coffee early this morning, and Sofie was quietly playing with some toys in the next room. All of a sudden, I hear her laugh really hard. I go over there but it’s totally unclear what is so funny. So I say, “Sofie, what are you laughing at?” And Sofie says, “Nothing mama. Sometimes you just have to laugh.”

Valuable photo

That’s Mack, official oldest grandson of NewMexiKen, heading for daylight on his first ever carry — 40 yards before being tripped up.

This photo will be worth a lot of money when he’s in the NFL in about 16 years.

For the record, Mack scored three goals Saturday in futbol. This is him Sunday playing American flag football. He’s six.

[Note: Other kids faces purposefully obscured to protect their privacy.]

Meanwhile, Kiley, official oldest granddaughter of NewMexiKen, scored four goals in her team’s soccer game Saturday. Even though they play without a goalkeeper at age 4, that’s impressive. And a lot better than this.

Speaking of sugar

The NewMexiKen family tradition is that on the first birthday, the birthday cake is put within easy reach of the celebrant, who can dig in. Indeed, he or she is encouraged to dig in — and all are disappointed if he or she hesitates. Word is that Reid was not totally into it, but he seems to have done OK. As usual, click for larger version.

Hand me downs

I don’t know what’s in those birthday packages but I hope one of them has jammies. It seems that Reid, celebrating his first birthday, is wearing pajamas his oldest brother wore about five years ago. Click either photo for a slightly larger version.

Cute jammies nonetheless.

Update: Lest I be misunderstood, Grandpa was teasing. I love these particular jammies and had to search to find the photo of Mack I remembered with him in them. I’m hoping to get photos of middle brother Aidan in them, too. And cousin Alex.

March 23rd is the birthday

… of Reidie, the youngest of The Sweeties. He’s one year old today.

There’s a little girl in there somewhere

Sweetie Kiley takes a fall.

But recovered quickly.

Auntie Jill photos

Travel Day

Greetings from the Albuquerque Sunport where NewMexiKen is preparing to depart for Sweetieland.

“NewMexiKen, you’ve just won the Super Bowl (World Series, whatever), what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to Sweetieland!”

Big star

 
 
 
 
Using the very same microphone that first recorded Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and B.B. King, Sweetie Mack auditions at Sun in Memphis.
 
 
 
 

Hey Coach Beamer, it’s never too early to recruit

Two of The Sweeties work out on the turf at Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium.

Can’t leave out the sixth Sweetie just because she lives in the other direction

9½ weeks

Bound to make a big splash

More birthday cake, please

Able, or at least willing, to leap off of tall buildings

Sorry ladies, he’s only five

Who is that masked man?

Newest Sweetie Reid, like his brothers, has positive blood. His mother, Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, has her father’s negative blood. Not good. The mother’s blood forms anti-bodies to fight the invasion of the baby’s positive blood. Some of those anti-bodies enter the baby’s bloodstream and attack the baby.

Fortunately, Reid has as little of that as could be hoped. Even so, in the days following his birth last Thursday, he was a little jaundiced and had to go “under the lights” as you see here. His brothers were told he was getting infused with super powers.

Baby and mother are doing fine. In fact, baby and mother attended older brother Mack’s soccer practice Monday evening, just four days after the birth by C-section. Now that’s a Soccer Mom!

Newest Sweetie

Grandpa has a brand new Sweetie today — Reid Fisher, third son of Jill and Byron. Reid and Fisher are both fifth generation family names.

The little guy was two weeks early, but weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces, and is 19 inches long. He and his mother are both doing fine.

Photo taken about three hours after Reid’s birth.

Each of the six of Grandpa’s Sweeties have, oddly enough, been born on days of the month that are prime numbers: 7, 13, 13, 19, 23 and 31. Thought you’d want to know.

Dudes

NewMexiKen doesn’t usually include the Sweeties in the main blog, but what the hey, it’s my blog and I’ll blog them if I want to.

Taking a grandpa leave-of-absence

NewMexiKen is busy visiting some of The Sweeties. I’m telling them they should move to New Mexico because we not only have Santa Claus, we also have Santa Fe!

(And, when you think about it, Santa Fe is a fantasy a lot like Santa Claus, only in earth tones.)

Blogging will ebb and flow as computer time not devoted to Dragon Tales permits.

Lions and tigers and bears

Veronica, official daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, wonders what Sofie’s dad has done to their child (who turns two this week):

For many reasons, Sofie is lucky to have Ken as her daddy. He is, simply put, a perfect dad who spends every minute that he’s not at work doing something for or with Sofie. However, I can’t help thinking that somehow, somewhere he’s failed.

Here’s why: Today, Sofie and I were playing with finger puppets. The theme of our puppet show was zoo animals. I held up the lion puppet, and Sofie roared. I held up the bear puppet, and Sofie growled. I held up the elephant puppet, and Sofie made a trumpet-like sound. I held up the tiger puppet, and Sofie said “Wack it, Tiger. Ball in the hole!”

Aidan, the third of the five Sweeties

	… is two today.
	Here’s the story of his arrival.