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.
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. |
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Six-year-old plays piano.
Thanks to Debby for the pointer.
This is a NewMexiKen perennial and today is the day.
Dear Abby,
I recently read your column advising grandparents on “tough love” for grandparents to give misbehaving grandchildren, whose own parents let them run wild. I have followed your advice, and enclosed a picture demonstrating my technique when my grandson just won’t behave while I’m babysitting for his parents. They have told me not to spank him, so I just take him for a ride, and he usually calms down afterward.
Sign me,
Tough Love Grandpa
Somebody’s warped, but these are funny.
Aidan celebrated his fourth birthday yesterday, opening gifts even as he moaned that he didn’t want to be four. He wanted to stay three. (We all know how you feel, kid.)
As usual, there was older brother Mack surveying the take. Mack, who’ll be 7 in December, claims full custody of all his own toys and gifts, of course, and enforces his ownership with brute force.
But, being the older brother, Mack also claims half-custody of all of Aidan’s gifts.
It’s mine! That’s Mack’s hand on the left and Aidan’s hands on the right. Look at the strength they’re each using to control the package!
Almost as much ice cream as boy.
Jill reports: “Now Aidan is spending the day trying to keep Reid [the youngest brother] from taking any percentage.”
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.
Emily and Jill, official daughters of NewMexiKen, are coaching a soccer team for three-to-five year-olds. (There are two Sweeties® on the team.)
Emily is the head coach, and so spends the game on the field prompting the kids — our goal is that end, don’t pick up the ball, that kind of thing.
Jill is the assistant coach, so her job is to coordinate on the sidelines making certain there are four players on the field at any given time and that everyone of the eight kids on the team gets to play. When Jill noted how difficult that was, and how she worried about whether every kid got enough playing time, Byron, her husband, reacted like most men would. He said she just needed a plan for substituting, “Write it down, put down the times, and then just stick right to the plan.”
But Jill wonders how one plans for some of the substitutions that became necessary during yesterday’s second half. One child came out twice because she was scared of the wind. Another was sent out of the game because she said the other team “stinks,” and a third was expelled for throwing punches. One child was happy to enter the game whenever asked, but then refused to move so much as a foot from her chosen spot, regardless of whether the ball was within fifty feet of her. And then there’s Aidan, who with a few minutes left in the game simply walked off the field, sat down, and removed his shoes. He was done.
Don’t tell Byron, but the Sweeties for Truth appeared here three years ago today.
In a comment, Cat’s Mom, Tanya says:
New MexiKen- I would like to propose a topic for you to opine upon. I have struggled for the last 5 plus years to determine what makes a good parent and what traits, actions and habits are common among good parents. My definition of a good parent at this point is one who raises happy, healthy, well-adjusted, well-informed people who go on to contribute to society in a positive manner, preferably after completing undergraduate and graduate degrees. Knowing your particular track record in this record, which I consider outstanding, I am looking for insight from you and your Internet brethren (or sisters) on this topic. With all of the noise and distractions that the world has to offer, how do you raise children who are safe, sane, happy and ready to face what is out there?
Wow. There are probably more strongly held opinions on this than there are about religion. Indeed, while I entitled this post “Parenting 101,” I think Tanya is asking for a syllabus for the advanced course.
NewMexiKen isn’t certain that I have anything worthwhile to say — but, of course, that never stops me. I will need to give it some thought first, however.
How about contributions from the readers — even if you are not a parent, you were once a child.
How do you raise children who are safe, sane, happy and ready to face what is out there?
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’s 3-year-old daughter has a good career plan.
“He also told us about the green-yellow-red behavior system and said that he won’t get any reds but we should expect a few yellows.”
That’s Mack’s mom reporting on Mack’s first day of kindergarten last year. Mack later said that it’s not that he might purposefully break a rule, it’s that you don’t always know the rules. Indeed. It’s difficult to go through kindergarten, or any other part of life, without a few yellows.
Photos of celebrities when they were kids. Can you select the right one (from three)? NMK got 26 of 36.
… later this year while their parents are out of town. Maybe we could build one of these.
It’ll be cold then; we may have to build it inside.
Link via Awful Announcing.
God only knows what they’ll do to show their contempt for our values.
The most recent list of recalls centers on the magnet worries and includes an expansion of a recall first announced in November. The 7.3 million Polly Pocket play sets have small magnets inside the dolls and accessories that can come loose.
…The recalls also include a die-cast toy car based on “Sarge” from the movie “Cars,” because the surface paint could contain lead levels in excess of federal standards. The 2-1/2-by-1-inch car looks like a military jeep.
Also recalled were 345,000 Batman and “One Piece” action figures, 683,000 Barbie and Tanner play sets and 1 million Doggie Day Care play sets.
| Mack, the oldest of The Sweeties®, feeds a minnow to the rays Wednesday at the Downtown Aquarium in Denver. Click image for larger version. |  |
Interestingly, the Denver Downtown Aquarium is a wholly owned operation of Landry’s Restaurants.
Thank the Bible it’s Friday. I mean, years, seasons, lunar months, the day are all the result of creation, but the seven day week is a biblical invention, no? 1
You might get a laugh or two from the History Of The Internet.
Interesting. god v. satan (one image).
“So you think you know the McDonald’s menu like the back of your hand? Think again. From McDonald’s international, here are some menu items you have probably never tried before.” McDonald’s Strange Menu Around the World.
The kid looks to be about 8. Kleiner Kerl spiel Gitarre (Led Zeppelin).
And last (yeah!), a silly little quiz from Car Talk.
1 No one seems to know where, when or why the 7-day week originated. Most theorize it represents the seven visible (to the human eye) objects in the sky that aren’t stars (the sun, the moon and five classical planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). The seven-day week seems to have originated in more than one culture.
From one year ago — Someone else’s Sweeties.
A good story from dooce yesterday. She concludes:
“Sometimes parenthood is like being 13 all over again, when you’re really into setting things on fire or wanting to find out how big of a mess a watermelon would make if you dropped it off the roof.”
Uh-huh.
Thanks to Jill for the pointer.
Emily and Jill, official daughters of NewMexiKen, won’t be commenting today. They may be sipping some tropical drinks and enjoying the view, however.
Their Sweeties are at home.
What’s in a name?
Stress.
Sociologists and name researchers say they are seeing unprecedented levels of angst among parents trying to choose names for their children. As family names and old religious standbys continue to lose favor, parents are spending more time and money on the issue and are increasingly turning to strangers for help.
Some parents are checking Social Security data to make sure their choices aren’t too trendy, while others are fussing over every consonant like corporate branding experts. They’re also pulling ideas from books, Web sites and software programs, and in some cases, hiring professional baby-name consultants who use mathematical formulas.
Denise McCombie, 37, a California mother of two who’s expecting a daughter this fall, spent $475 to have a numerologist test her favorite name, Leah Marie, to see if it had positive associations. (It did.) This March, one nervous mom-to-be from Illinois listed her 16 favorite names on a tournament bracket and asked friends, family and people she met at baby showers to fill it out. The winner: Anna Irene.
Holy crap; get a grip people.
Read more, if you can deal with it, at The Wall Street Journal.
They got the shocking news Sarah was pregnant around noon that day. They were excited, thinking Sarah was maybe a couple of months along. But by that afternoon, they were checking into the hospital, and their surprise full-term baby was delivered by Caesarean section at 9:22 p.m.
Link via Out in Left Field via Wash Park Prophet.
NewMexiKen liked this item from Out in Left Field, too: “It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Starts Spittin’ Chiclets.”
And even better: Scary, Scarier, Scariest.
AwfulAnnoucing has posted YouTube videos of a vintage Cosby routine. Here’s the background and the link:
Ever since my wife and I spent a whole Saturday learning to breathe properly and relax through contractions, I have been meaning to pick up Bill Cosby’s comedy album “Himself”, which includes the classic “Natural Child Birth” routine. I bought it the other day and enjoyed it so much that finding the clips on YouTube and posting them here became an absolute necessity.
There’s a cricket inside my house — how do they get in? One of us is going to have to move out soon.
Summer is here — 94°F. today. Low humidity though; still only 15% at 9PM. Beautiful this evening.
Casa NewMexiKen has some lovely new solar lanterns in the front courtyard. I know some wiseacre will come along and tell me it takes more resources to produce an NiMh battery than if I just wired the lamps, but I like that they sit there all day soaking up the energy to provide a small, pretty light all night. (The area where I live has no street lights and people are discouraged from leaving porch lights on unless actually in use. We get to see the stars that way.)
My kids have about two-dozen first cousins, mostly on their mother’s side. When all four generations get together at a family reunion, as they did this weekend, it can get confusing for the little guys. Three-year-old Aidan I’m told spent much of the weekend calling his Uncle Ken “Uncle Jason” (and Uncle Jason wasn’t even able to be there). Finally this morning, Aidan thought he’d figured it out. “I know it’s Uncle Ken,” he told his mom. “Which room is Uncle Jason’s room so I can tell him I know he’s Uncle Ken?”
