Another vacation day...

I'm sure that I should have spent the day getting ready for the next round of family but I'd have enough of being trapped here all day with the kids. So I packed them up early and went to the zoo. It was a beautiful day and the bickering was minimized by outdoor activity. I love the zoo for many reasons.

I finally got to see the new Asian Small Clawed Otter exhibit. It's been open since September. I just haven't been in a few months. It actually took us three passes past the exhibit before I saw otters frolicking, but it was worth the effort.

Its hard for the Dallas Zoo to compete with the Fort Worth Zoo (one of the top five in the Nation). The Dallas Zoo has changed its focus from trying to raise money to build huge exhibits like the Chimpanzee Forest, the tiger exhibit and the Gorrilla exhibit to opening a bunch of little exhibits that are very affordable like tamarinds, otters, saddlebilled storks and Bug University. They are hoping that the variety will be a big enough draw to keep people coming back.

Sunil and I... On our own

Sheela spent the night with Ronnie Sue. Sunil and I slept late, painted a shirt, went to the grocery store and ate frosted sugar cookies for a snack. It's not even 10:00 AM yet. Now we are off to make musical instruments at the Allen Public Library.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Santa Claus brought me Diane Gabaldon's new book, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. She is one of the three authors that I actually care enough about to anticipate their new book releases. I've been waiting for this book for about a year. The book actually came out back in October but as it's still in hardback and essentially a 1000 pages long I couldn't justify it as an impulse buy at the grocery store. I'm only a third of the way through it but I'm off from work for the next seven days. It shouldn't be a problem to finish this one. The problem comes in when I feel compelled to reread the previous five-1000 page novels.... I may be late getting back to work. Oh well, it will be a New Year with a new crop of vacation days, I'll work it out. I also get like this when Tom Clancy comes out with a new book and everytime J.K. Rowlings releases another of the Harry Potter books.

LimeWire

Dad showed me a program for downloading mp3s that I'm really enjoying. It's called LimeWire. So far I'm still using the free version but the Pro version is less than $20. I may choose to upgrade. I've downloaded roughly 25 songs since yesterday morning. I have pretty well exhausted my repertoire of song titles. I've never paid much attention to who sings what. I either like it when I hear it or I don't but I've never been one for buying and playing albums, tapes or CDs. I guess I'll have to start paying attention.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope that your holiday was as relaxing and enjoyable as ours. The kids slept agreeably late. The gift giving, receiving and opening was enough to feel blessed but not so much as to be overwhelming.

Dad finished protecting and leveling the mantle. It was reattached above the fireplace in time for me to hang the stockings (again). This time not a single item slid off and the color is perfect with the wood floor.

We spent the better part of the day preparing, cooking and eating a three course fondue feast. We started with a Swiss/mozzarella cheese fondue with French bread, apples and bagel bites for dipping. Then we took a little break. We moved on to both beef broth and hot oil fondues with beef, pork, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes and potatoes. Then we took another longer break before moving in to a very basic chocolate fondue with pears, apples, marshmallows and pound cake. We skipped dinner (but I did have a piece of pumpkin pie much later in the evening).

Christmas Eve

Eileen, Sheela and Ronnie are baking pumpkin pies. Sunil and Sid have been getting groceries to support our fondue feast. Dad and I have been taking it easy watching Speed TV and doing Suduko.

Pre-holiday work

Due to illnesses and co-workers vacation schedules I had to come in to work today. My vacation doesn't really start until Tuesday night. But so far I'm the only one in my department here today. There is a chance that one or two people might show but I don't expect them. Manufacturing is already gone for the week (they get Fridays off) and our documentation center is closed for a few days. There isn't much that I can really accomplish here today. So it's all about staying awake until lunch, eating with friends and then leaving early. Only three more hours until lunch.....

Sunil and Opa

Sunil got to spend time with Oma on Monday night while Opa and I took Sheela to Soccer. Sunil got to spend time last night with Opa while I relaxed in the other room and Oma cooked a delicious dinner. We left Sheela at Kids Club extra long so that she could finish watching the movie "The Polar Express". She actually got to see it twice yesterday once with her class and once at Kids Club. Sheela does get Oma and Opa all to herself today. She is off of school already but we sent Sunil to school again today. He will start his Winter Break tomorrow.

Micky-D's goes upscale

Believe it or not this is one of our local area McDonalds. Sunil and I stopped in for a bite on Sunday after Sheela's soccer game. The entire restaurant is decorated in hunter green (marble, paisley and plaid) and cherry wood. The lights are wall sconces and chandeliers. It was very elegant and more than a little bit strange.

The 'rents have arrived

I managed to get the house mostly spiffed up yesterday morning (well at least the first floor). Sid had already cleaned the game room and the bedrooms were looking relatively orderly, but I abandoned a bunch of junk in the upstairs hall in my hurry to clear the stairs.

Sunil received a clean bill of health from the doctor. He asked us to keep the nebulizer for another few days just in case but we aren't planning on any more treatments.

I arrived at the airport in plenty of time to pick up Dad and Eileen. I didn't have the actual flight number and it was a little bit tricky to find the right baggage claim. It all worked out in the end and we settled back in for a an afternoon of easy chatting. Then Dad and I took Sheela (and Claire) down to soccer practice. It was about 35 degrees and they practiced for nearly two hours. Dad and I went back home for homemade beef stew while they practiced. Coach Tim brought Sheela and Claire back.

Home Invasion - Round Two - Preparation?

OOOppppsss! We never actually cleaned up for Dad and Eileen's visit today. Their plane arrives in six hours and I still have to go to the grocery store, take Sunil to the doctor, take the computer in to get it fixed (more later on that), clean up some cat puke, sweep, mop, vacuum and dust. At least the bathrooms are already clean. Oh, and I stained the mantle last night in the entry way. Of course the stain leaked through the newspapers and there are red oak stains on the white tile. The mantle looks great, but we can't put it up until we add a few layers of protective coating.

Three-in-one tree

Our new tree is a beautiful three-in-one prelit tree. The three-in-one gets its name from it's ability to have either all white lights, all colored lights, or of course both white and colored lights. It's a great concept (not as great as having the lights permanently on the tree). Luckily for me I like ALL the lights to be on. The reason that I'm lucky is that the remote control included with the tree that controls the light settings was not correct. We had to send it back and have it replaced. The replacement just arrived and it is the same one that we were sending back. So our tree is really more of a one-in-one. She may get it right this next time or we may just always have to leave on all the lights.

A Christmas Carl.......

That was the name of Sunil's Holiday Play. It was very cute. The two-year olds sang a song (all wearing cute little red winter jammies). Then the three-year olds came up and sang four songs. The boys were dressed as Santa and the girls wore red velvet dresses with white fur trim and fur trimmed red boots. Next the four and five-year olds came up and sang as the chorus (all dressed as elves) during the play. The afterschoolers played the parts of Christmas Carl (the grumpiest elf ever), the ghost of Christmas Past, the ghost of Christmas Present, the ghost of Christmas Future and a host of other elves. It was much more elaborate than I had expected. The chorus sang at least six songs.

Here is a picture of a small portion of the elves. Sunil is in the middle of the bottom row.

Super Blue (98)

We were intending to watch Sheela's team play today but as it happens Sheela's name was added to the team's winter roster a few weeks back even before we'd started to attend the practices. At the last minute she found out that she could play. I didn't manage to get a picture of her in her new uniform yet (but there are three more games this session and she'll keep the same uniform for the Spring.) Her new number is 30, her old number was 3(so is Sunil's).

As an unrelated side note, all of the 5, 6, and 7 year-old girls' teams seem to have pink as their dominate color. We've crossed a line somewhere now they all seem to have royal blue. This was third game where Blue played Blue.

Churrascaria

Today my boss has arranged to take the department out for lunch. Instead of staying local we will venture outside of McKinney in search of a more elegant locale. Actually there are tons of really good restaurants here in McKinney now, probably 5x as many as there were five years ago when the office moved up here. But today we are heading back down toward Dallas to the dining mecca that is Addison, Texas. We are going to a churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse) called Texas de Brazil. The servers dress in traditional gaucho (Brazilian cowboys) garb and bring the grilled meats around on skewers that resemble swords. The menu has only one real option, meat with salad bar. There are however dozens of different meats, each brought around continuously by the servers (rather like going for dim sum) and the salad bar is huge. This could take us a few hours.... I love my job.

Norbert is alive and well.

He lives with my friend Nancy and her other cat Sabrina. Sabrina and Norbert almost even like each other now.

Nebulizer

Here is a not-so-flattering picture of Sunil taking his breathing treatment. He was still pretty miserable last night, and even part of this morning. After his four hour nap however he perked right up and has been raring to go since 2:00PM. He will be back at school on Wednesday.

Strep Throat

Sunil has strep throat. He didn't start to complain about his throat hurting until this morning... though he did complain of pain in his back, his sides and his hips at varoius times. At least his fever seems to have broken. He has been given a prescription for antibiotics for the strep and a nebulizer to improve his breathing. He needs to check back in with the doctor in a week.

Ice Skating Party and More

Sheela's official birthday party was yesterday afternoon. Here is a picture of here skating with Tannah. We ended up with nine kids and nearly that many adults (most of whom were too chicken to skate - or who knew how badly cheap skates hurt). After ice skating we went to Sbarro for pizza and cake.

She received a lot of very nice gifts (including CDs and books -- yay!) but the biggest hit of all was seamonkeys. They have evolved beyond the little throw away brine shrimp of my childhood. Evolved is not really the word.... they have been genetically improved to be larger stronger and more exciting. But even better is the extra time and attention put in to their marketing campaign. Now available is a stunning array of seamonkey accessories including the aqualeash, a race track and a portable playpen for taking them for walks.

Sunil was unable to attend as he is still feeling puny. He is off to the doctor this morning. More on that later.

We managed to get the Christmas Tree set up and decorated. We bought a new tree this year, the lights are permanently attached to the tree. At first we gave Mom a hard time for not setting the tree up correctly. The remote control is supposed to turn off and on the white and colored lights independently -- instead it turns the lights on the bottom half of the tree off and does nothing to the top half. In the end we apologized, the remote control included in the package is the wrong one. We expect the replacement today.

Two years ago Mom made us a beautiful tree skirt. It has two cute little kids building a snowman, a bakery, a church, etc and a million pine trees each capped with sparkling snow. I don't have a picture of it at hand (but there will be one on her blog soon). The school house in the village scene was named DeGroot. That was the name of the school where Sheela, Sunil and Blake all went. This year Sheela asked Grammylyn to add another school to represent Anderson Elementary. So last night Mom added a whole extra building. I am pretty impressed!

Fever

Sunil is home for his third day in a row today. Wednesday he had a low grade fever which left him tired and cuddly. We spent a very enjoyable day reading, snuggling and napping. Thursday his fever was close to 104 until the Tylenol kicked in. When the fever drops he forgets he is sick and wants to run and play. This was made even more noticable as Sheela was home too. She wasn't sick but the schools were closed due to ice storms late Wednesday. The day was just not as relaxing with both of them bouncing off the walls and bouncing off of each other. Here is a picture of the kids showing off the artwork that they left outside a few days ago. It is covered with a solid sheet of ice.
Iwas supposed to have today (Friday) off from work but I escaped the house and went to back to work. Sunil I left at home with Mom and John. Luckily he seems to be back in the low grade fever mode and Sheela went back to school.

Happy Birthday Sheela!!!

My little girl is eight years old today! I can hardly believe it. We woke her up early with breakfast in bed today (a family tradition). She isn't home from school yet, but we have a small cake (and a dozen cupcakes) plus a big pile of gifts. The pile is big.... the gifts aren't really all that large or all that numerous. I just packed 'em in big gift bags.

In contrast to what I hope has been a really great day for her, Sunil woke up with a fever this morning and he and I spent the day laying around attempting to sleep. He was mellow enough for long enough to listen to me read a whole Junie B. Jones book to him. That's the first time he's been able to sit through a whole one at one sitting. I also managed to finish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (again).

Let December Begin

December and May are always the two busiest months of the year. We've kicked off this December with a visit from the folks. Mom and John arrived on Thursday. We started off their visit with Sheela's Soccer team's end-of-season party at Double Dave's. This kept the kids out late, but was fun. The girls got trophies and large, pink, plastic fish (made out of an old 2-liter drink bottle). The fish were a gift from the coach to the girls.

Friday I took the day off to play with Mom and John. We actually changed out sink faucets and did some minor home repairs. The new faucets are really pretty. The old, yucky ones were originally gold but the gold had worn away. The new ones are chrome with gold accents.

We picked the kids up early and took the train downtown. Sid met us after work and we walked to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. For entertainment, the building next door had a minor fire in the elevator shaft scare. Five or six firetrucks and rescue vehicles responded to the scene. We were surrounded by flashing lights and sirens, but as the fire was already out, the response crew was very relaxed and friendly. Mom took some pictures of the kids and the crews.

Sid and I went out to a movie (Aeon Flux - skip it if you have the chance to see it) while Mom and John took the kids all over downtown to see the lights and decorations.

Saturday morning Jazmine and Farhana joined us at the hotel for breakfast and then we walked down for the parade. Here is Garfield dressed up as Santa Claus.

The weather was beautiful this year! It was nearly 80 degrees by the time the parade was over. We celebrated with a walk to the Farmer's Market for lunch and fresh produce. We couldn't get much as we had to cart it back on the train but we bought: Fuji apples, a pineapple and asparagus.

We took naps in the afternoon and then did some more home repairs. Sid and Sheela went out on a double date with Rick and Ericka. This year they weren't able to get tickets to the Daddy-Daughter Dance so they went to dinner and a movie instead.

Sunday morning Sheela, Sunil and I drove to The Colony (that's a town) to watch her new academy soccer team play a game. The girls lost but it was a good game and the indoor field was very nice. Sheela went home with her friend Analeise. The rest of us napped. Sheela came home and took a six hour nap. Normally we spend the Sunday after the parade decorating the house for Christmas. This year we've ordered a new tree which hasn't come yet. We delayed all of the decorating until it arrives.

Monday I packed the kids off to school and vegged at home. I finished doing some laundry and read another book. The kids came home early to bake a chocolate pie with Grammylyn. The crust was made from scratch and was delicious. The filling was made from instant Jello Pudding and would have been great except I added peppermint extract. Apparently the dregs of the extract bottle are quite concentrated. The whole pie tasted like chocolate toothpaste. Then Sheela and I went to soccer practice. The practices are outdoor even though the current season is indoor. It was about 30 degrees and miserable for those of us watching. I managed to get two of the Moms to at least walk with me to keep warm.

I'm back at work today trying to catch up. Mom and John are off to visit other friends for a few days. We have two nights with no commitments before we start it all again.

Sometimes I just need a little perspective.....

Last night while attempting to drift gently off to asleep I was beset by a coughing fit. I coughed long enough and hard enough to make myself throw up...repeatedly. Not my best night. I finally settled back down and tried to sleep... of course by then I was no longer in a gentle drifting off mode. So I went back to reading for awhile. I settled in again and just when I could feel myself sliding under Sunil started to cough. By this time, I fell like the whole world is set against me. I'm sick. I'm exhausted. All I want is a little bit of sleep. Is that so much to ask? Sunil coughs harder.... and harder..... and crying..... and coughing... and crying some more. This is ridiculous.

I get out of bed to go give him some cough medicine. I don't want him throwing up, that would really ruin MY night. He takes the medicine but is coughing too hard to tell me what is wrong. I go get him some more water to see if that will help settle him down. When I come back up he is completely hysterical.

A little bit of background here, Sunil sucks his thumbs at night while he is sleeping. Normally this is okay but weith the cooler weather comes drier air and the thumb sucking leads to painfully chapped thumbs and open wounds. Earlier we noticed that his thumbs were looking bad and needed a night to heal. We covered his hands with socks (held on with tape) to keep them out of his mouth. We've done this maybe five times over the last year, it doesn't seem to interfer with his ability to sleep and it makes a big difference in how his thumbs look the next day.

Back to my hystericaly crying/coughing boy. With his hands wrapped up he couldn't get his covers unwrapped from around himself and he didn't feel like could climb out of his loft and all he really wanted was to go to the bathroom. The poor kid coughed himself in to wetting the bed years after he doesn't do that anymore. Suddenly, a little bit of throwing up in the bathroom didn't seem so bad.

Family Invasion - Round One - Preparation

Mom and John are coming for their annual December visit tomorrow. This will be the 8th year in a row that we've been able to celebrate Sheela's birthday with them. They take us downtown for the night. We all go to dinner, then they take the kids back to the hotel while Sid and I go out. The next morning we get up early and grab breakfast in the Hotel and then walk down the street to watch the Neiman-Marcus/Adolphus Children's Parade. After the parade we will come back to the hotel for lunch and then head home after the crowds are gone. And this is just the beginning of a wonderful week of visiting.

Before this however comes the making of the house presentable routine. We were actually in pretty good shape this year as we'd just completed a rather thorough cleaning. However the family room was still torn up from the baseboard work, the stairs were covered in two weeks worth of things waiting to go upstairs, the game room was buried in clean, folded laundry that was never put away, the paperwork pile is out of control and the computers are only half reassembled. The majority of these chores were to have been completed last weekend at our leisure but I had a cold and slept through the weekend. Monday night Sid watched football and I finished another book (Bone Finder by Sarah Andrews). Last night we finally dove in. We accomplished a bunch but there is even more left to do and only one night to do it. Oh, and I started another book (Earth Colors also by Sarah Andrews). No pressure.

Half birthdays

Happy Half-birthday to Sunil! He is 4.5 today. The only celebration that really comes along with this is the marking of his height for posterity. He's grown roughly an inch since May.

Precious Elf Child

Sunil's school will be having their annual Holiday program on Dec 15th. I can't wait! This is Sunil's first time to do a performance of this kind. He gets to dress up in the "precious elf child" costume and sing a few songs with his classmates. Unfortunately the date that they've chosen is half way between Mom's visit and Dad's visit so both will miss out. I'm sure that there will be video later.

UIL - University Interscholastic League

Last month Sheela tried out for the UIL creative writing competition. She was not selected to represent her school but she did have a great time working on it. My favorite part was reading the stories she worked onat home for practice. I would draw four simple, unrelated pictures, then she would choose one of them to incorporate into her story. I think she was allowed 15 minutes to write the actual story.

Last night she brought home a permission slip to try out for another UIL competition. She didn't even know what the competition would be but it said UIL and she wanted in. It will be story telling this time. At this age they read each child a book and then they go in and retell the story to the judges one at a time. Sounds like fun to me. I can't wait for the practice sessions.

The darkside

I've pulled Sheela over to the darkside. She now spends most of her free time curled up in the glider in my room reading. I've moved from reading in the glider to reading on my bed to make room for her. We tried it the other way but then she fall would fall asleep in my bed and I would have to haul her out. I enjoy having someone to read with, it makes me feel less antisocial. At the same time though I know that reading gets in the way of almost every normal activity. There are mornings were I have to fight the impulse to call in sick so I can stay home and finish a book... or get a head start on the next one. There have been many nights where I left a mess in the kitchen while I run upstairs to change. Instead I pick up a book and never come back down. Bills don't get paid, children don't get feed, laundry doesn't get put away, phone calls don't get made. This isn't really the life I want for her, but I want to enjoy it for just a little while.

Playground

Here are some pictures of the cousins at the playground in Longview. I think I like this playground even better than the one up at Celebration Park by us. Maybe its the wood, maybe its the castles. By the way, that is Seema posing on the swing and Nita climbing the stairs.

Oh No! It's a Chevy.

Sid bought a car this weekend. It was time. The Explorer racked up nearly a 150,000 miles and was close to becoming a liability. The Trailblazer is a 2005 and has only 16,000 miles on it.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving

We've had a busy few days. Tuesday night Jasmine spent the night and Globix Trading through together an impromptu Holiday Party (we all went out for Greek food). Wednesday I took a day off from work and took the kids ice skating. It was Sunil's first time on the ice. He is such a good sport. He did great. He never quite got the hang of skating alone but he did well with the wall or holding my hand.

Wednesday night we went up to visit Cindy and Mack. We haven't seen much of them lately. It was good to catch up. We also watched War of the Worlds, which was a massive waste of time.

Thursday morning we drove over to Longview, TX to visit Sid's sister, Sushama, and her family. They've been in the new house for six months and this is the first time we've been here. We need to do better about coming to visit. They are only two hours away and we have great time. We are still in Longview today (Friday) but we will drive home this evening. I have some pictures of the kids that I'll post when we get back home.

Right now we are off to a car dealership, Sid has his eye on a car there that he is trying to talk me into... It would work better if he was talking me in to a new car for me, but he really does need a new car more than I do.

The Five Whys

First we had All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten which helped explain how to get along with others. Now we have the principle of the Five Whys which explains how to find out what really went wrong on the production floor. You don't ask why the error happened, accept the answer, fix the problem and move on. You ask why, then you ask why again, and again, and again and again. The problem needs to be addressed at least five layers deep. Kids have know how to employ this technique since the beginning of the spoken word.

"Why can't I have candy for dinner?"
"It's not healthy"
"Why isn't it healthy today, I had some last night?"
"Last night you had a small piece after dinner."
"Why does it matter if I have it first or last?"
"It lacks the nutritional content of meat and vegetables. You need to eat those first so that you aren't too full to eat them later."
"Why do I need nutritional content?"
"You need the vitamins and minerals to grow strong and healthy"
"Why can't I have a vitamin pill with my chocolate?"
"You are right, eat the chocolate, take the vitamin and bring some for me too." okay, this isn't quite the same thing as getting to the root of the problem but it does illustrate the benefits of a persistent nature.

By the way if you haven't read Robert Fulghum's books you should.

And even more team pictures

More team pictures

Can you tell that these were taken 10 minutes after sunrise? The Panthers ended their season 9-2-1.

End of season party - Hot Wheels

The boys had their party last night (even though we still have one game left to play). We celebrated with all-you-can-eat pizza at a place called Double Dave's. We followed that up with a brief award ceremony. Each boy earned a trophy, we gave "coach" caps and whistles to the coaches, and I was given a beautiful picture frame and bath oils. Then we had cake and let the boys run amuck. It was quick, it was easy and the boys were proud.

Bye-bye Bello

It's been a fun couple of months and I'm going to miss Bello more than I will the kittens but I'm pleased to say that Bello has found a new home. She went to live with my friend Patti. I hope that this will work out well for both of them.

Power tools

Sid and the kids spent some time this past weekend trimming out the family room (old garage). We still don't have it entirely done but now that the weather is cold we are getting there.

Working with clay

I have a friend who is an artist that works with clay. On a whim she gave Sheela a pack (well two packs now) of clay that can be set by baking to make all sorts of neat stuff. Sheela finally got to work with it last night. She covered a basic ball point pen in yellow decorated with red, blue and purple dots.

Unguarded fruit

While I was out having a nice lunch today, my cube neighbor Leo defaced (or faced) my unguarded clementine.

Surgery today

Bello was packed off to the vet this morning. She received a full round of shots, as I type she is being spayed, she also has an ear infection. She will come home tonight and spend a few days recovering. Hopefully during those few days the weather will warm up a little bit and she wont mind going back out. I forced her to go out for a few minutes this morning and she wasn't too happy about it. The wind chill was in the upper 20s.

A Gala Affair - 2005

Aren't we cute?

Music Award

Sheela received the second grade girl's music award for the grading period. She isn't sure what the overall criteria is for winning the award but she is pleased and proud just the same. So are we.

Bye-bye Adventure

The last of the kittens went to her permanent home last night. A guy from work and his family stopped over last night and took Adventure home with them. Which leads us to the big questions.... why is bello still locked in the bedroom? It was a nice comfy 70+ degrees this morning. The temperature now is 50-ish. We have a freeze warning for tonight. When Texas weather changes it does it all at once. I couldn't convince the kids that she needed to go back out yet.

Holiday Party Success...

I'm pretty pleased with the way the Holiday party turned out. The food was every bit as good as I'd hoped, the band was great (if a little bit too loud during dinner), the magician was a big hit and everybody that knew it was Sid's wine was impressed. There were 250 people there which was just what we planned onWe made it almost all the way through the evening before anyone displayed their undergarments, but I turned my back on my friend for one second and when I looked back she was taking off her blouse (the women were all on stage dancing at this point). At least she was in the back row. I made her pull it back on before she got her arms all the way out. I don't know how many people noticed.

We across the street to another bar after the party to play tabletop shuffle board with a couple of the other die hard party goers. All of whom I'm glad to say had rooms for the night.

Second Grading Period Ends

Sheela brought home another straight A report card. She is pretty proud of herself...we are pretty proud of her too!! The thing that I am like best about her school work is that we've been shown how to not make it OUR problem to see that she gets it done and gets it done right. We check it after she goes to bed just to see what she is doing, but we don't offer advice or corrections unless she asks, and we try not to ask her if its finished. She taeks care of it all herself. She almost always does it at her afterschool club but sometimes she brings it home. She controls her time and her schedule. She takes care of asking the teacher if she doesn't understand one of the problems.

Earlier this year one of our friends was explaining that she (the mother) and the daughter spend time every night doing the homework together and it took two hours on the last night before its due. This year, at Sheela's school, all homework is due on Friday. Phyllis was spending 3-4 hours a week helping her daughter with her homeowrk. Her function was to sit at the table and constantly remind her daughter to focus. That would make me nuts.... and it meeans that her daughter doesn't have to focus because Mom is handling that.

A night out... or two

Farhana has taken the kids for the whole weekend so Sid took me out for dinner last night. We went to Kobe Steaks, which is a Benihana type place. The food was excellent, the drinks were tasty and we made a few new friends (a middle school teacher and two school councillors). After dinner we walked over to Pete's Deuling Piano Bar. We stayed there a couple of hours. It reminded me alot of the piano bar at Pat O'Brien's. A good time was had by all. We didn't get to be until 2Am and I woke up at 7AM. A few more hours of sleep would do me good, but it is not to be.

We are trying to get some work done on the house this morning, then catch Sunil's soccer game. From there we are driving over to Los Collinas to check in to the Omni Mandalay. We are staying the night over there for my company Holiday party. I'm on the planning committee for the party so it's wont be all fun and games for me but we should have a pretty good time.

Tomorrow when we pick up the kids we are going to do some work on Farhana's house in exchange for burgers and margaritas. It's a win-win deal.

Bye-bye Zachary

Another kitten has moved out. Zachary, the little blonde boy, has gone to live with my friend Eileen. The remaining crew is getting smaller and smaller. We have only Bello and Adventure left. Adventure is a smaller version of herblonde brother (and Sheela's favorite). There are still four people that tell me that they want her but I wont belive them until they actually show up and take her home.

Party Plans

Sheela has choosen to have a birthday party at one of the local ice rinks. Since I'm paying for it I got to choose which one. The cost isn't too bad and the rink is beautiful (its inside of one of the REALLY swanky shopping malls) and it will be decorated for Christmas. As it is older it is not really designed for parties so it will be pretty low key. I'm okay with that and Sheela will be too. The big draw back is that we will actually have to go to a shopping mall during the month of December.

The good old days are back

Trevor Stokol's blog of his travels has been offline for a few weeks. I don't know how long its been back, I was checking it one more time before casting it off from my list of favorite places. I'd followed him through Hong kong, India, Pakistan, South Africa, The United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and on in to Laos when the site went down. I read an entry or two (or three) a day and I still had four months of his life left to follow. I'm glad it's back.

Bye-bye Barbie...........

No we did not name a defenseless kitten Barbie. Our previous computer (purchased custom built off the internet from a quasi-reputable dealer) came with a silver Barbie keyboard. The Barbie name had been scratched off but the big green daisy was still there. The dealer swore it was a mix up in the "stock room". It was actually a pretty good keyboard but our sleek, new HP keyboard is much less embarrassing.

Parent Teacher Conference

We met with Sunil's teacher this morning. Her name is Ms. Tehmina. He is doing really well in everything except penmanship. We need to have him practice his writing a lot more (or let him use his scissors more often). He can read all of his simple short vowel words and most of his simple long vowel words but she wont start him on books until after the holidays. It is a waste of time to start and stop repeatedly.

He has spent a lot of time working on geography and can name all of the continents, most of the oceans and quite a few countries. States are giving him some difficulty, but like most people born in Texas he tends to think that it is larger and more important than it really is.

He also knows the days of the week and the months of the year.

Bye-bye Belle....

One more kitten left for its new home. We are down to one cat and two kittens -- plus of course, the cat that is staying. I'm hoping that Bello goes next. She is so sweet but she's in heat again and none of us are enjoying her confinement. I'd let her out but if she shows up pregnant at her next home I know they will give her back.

Melt that plastic....

A rather large chunk of our day was spent buying things. We managed the quarter round to finish out the edging in the family room (though we will need to special order the t-molding in order to get it dark enough), three new sink faucets (one for the downstairs bathroom and two for the masterbath -- they were all on sale), new tennis shoes and new hiking boots for Sid (today is his birthday so we passed them off as gifts), a pair of dancing shoes for me (our corporate holiday party is Saturday -- I'm wearing and old dress but I needed shoes) finally we moved on to the biggie, a new computer (the power supply on our former computer has finally given out). I'm about ready to commit to a new comforter for our bed too. The old one we've had longer than we've had Sheela. As soon as I get the new comforter I'm going to need to paint the bedroom (its the beginning of an ugly cycle).

Bye-bye Monster

The first of the kittens has moved to his new home. Monster (the solid black kitty) went to live with my friend Nancy and her other cat, Sabrina. We wish them all the best.

A new process book

The Quality director bought me a new book: Process Mapping, Process Improvement and Process Management: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Work and Information Flow by Dan Madison. Now I have an excuse to actually read at work. I haven't done that in awhile. It's not quite as engrossing as reading fiction and not quite as much fun as attending a class where I get to interact with other people and discuss new ideas, but it's better than requesting yet another document change that will only get repealed in a few days, because someone wasn't diligent in checking their facts. It's been a big week for undoing the work I did last week.

On a work related note, we were audited by the FDA this week and it went very well. No observed deficiencies (it's very rare that they don't document anything.) I didn't have anything to do with this audit but I'm proud of the team that did (and they did feed me breakfast every morning).

First Aid and CPR Training

Sid and I rounded out our annual training requirement with CPR/First Aid/SIDS/Shaken Baby syndrome. The group that performs these training classes focuses on the Daycare market (daycare employees are required to have bi-annual certifications that are kept current). So we went to a local school and joined their session. It was quick, convenient and affordable.

I'm trying to arrange a similar training session at work but I need CPR/First Aid/AED (defirillator) and Bloodbourne Pathogens. The price according to the American Red Cross (for 14 employees) is $1400, the price from LifeQuest is $330. The American red Cross class also takes 10.5 hours as opposed to 3.5 hours for LifeQuest. The difference in lost time to the company for the additional seven hours of training is another $4900. Now I have to decide if it's worth it to the company to pay the extra $5970 to not have it say anything about serving the daycare industry on the cover of the handouts.

Halloween has come and gone

The kids had a great time and collected an obscene amount of candy.

Our traditional work celebration was toned down considerably. This was a good thing. It was to the point that the larger departments (40+ people) would put on skits lasting up to an hour. They also spent three days decorating and two days cleaning up. Its hard to remain productive in that kind of chaos. This year there were no departmental skits, no group costume awards, no required costumes at all. My department traditionally has not dressed up in costumes at all (and this year was no exception) we do however spend more time on the potluck lunch than the norm. Once again we put together a wonderful spread and ate until we were sick (that's what we were going for...)

Flickr Photos from Big Bend

I managed to upload the remainder of the pictures from our Big Bend trip to Flickr. Take a look if you get a chance. I don't know how you search to find my pictures once you get there and searching for Big Bend will get many more choices than you'll want to search. I'll give it some thought.

Outdoor Time

Sheela and Aneleise took Bello and the kittens out for some fresh air yesterday. The kittens enjoyed it much more this time. They are all very curious and agile. It's a lot harder to keep track of them all now that they are brave enough to run under the fence and coordinated enough to climb up on top of the piles of junk in the corners.

Correction

Owens Spring Creek Farm is no longer free inspite of the claim on their website. The cost was $6/each but as it is nearly Halloween we got to take advantage of the free hayride and the free hotdog for that price. We could have purchased some very nice pumpkins at only $10/each too (that is more than a 50% savings). Luckily, Sheela went to a pumpkin patch on Staurday with Zachary and his family. That pumpkin patch is already clearing out their leftovers at the low, low price of $10/wheelbarrowfull. They gave us plenty of pumpkins. We did get them carved this afternoon.

Catching up

My Pampered Chef order arrived Friday night... well, six of the seven cartons arrived. It took only an a hour and a half to inventory it and divide it up. Now I have to cart it to work and pass it out.

Sheela had picture retakes for the soccer team Saturday morning at 7:30am. That's about five minutes after the sunrise and it was cold! I think that the pictures will be fine but of course one of the girls overslept and didn't make it. Over all the team did not play its best but Sheela had a great game in the goal. Still they lost this one by two.

Sunil's pictures weren't until the afternoon and not only did everyone show up, half the team was actually early. The boys game was the most even game that they've had. Which is to say that they had as much trouble as we did keeping four players on the field. The boys tend to wander off. The biggest bursts of speed from both teams come as soon as the ball goes out of bounds. They race to see who can pick it up first and then get in to fights over who gets to take the ball back to the ref. We actually had to pull Sunil out of the game twice for touching the other team. He is in this phase where he feels like he has to be touching somebody at all times. As a parent its pretty annoying, I'm sure it is to the other team too. We are still working on how to put a stop to this.

Saturday night we went to a casual dinner at a friends house that expanded to be five couples twelve kids (in costumes) and a full on party spread. I ate a ton and we stayed until after midnight. Most of the kids had gone to sleep long since but ours held out to the end. We got them to bed at 1:00AM but we also got to set the clocks back so the sleeping in didn't interfere with our day too much.

It's not even 10:00AM yet and we are getting ready to go to Owens Spring Creek Farm. Yesterday Sunil asked why he's never been to a working farm to see the animals. Because your mother didn't realize we'd been so negligent. The farm is the headquarters for Owens Country Sausage, its only 15 minutes away, its open every day, its free and we used to drive by it at least twice a day. I didn't realize that Sunil had never been.

Sunil also wants to go to the Zoo today. I'd love to do that too. They opened the new Asian Small Clawed Otter exhibit a few months back but we haven't gone there to see it. But it's not going to happen today. We were also supposed to be trimming out the family room today, but Sid has to go pull down a fence and switch out a stove. One of the tenants called to say that her stove was leaking gas. Yikes.

Mavericks vs. Pistons

I went to the a Mavericks pre-season game last night with Brenda, her daughter Allie and Allie's boyfriend Eric. It was good to get out with Brenda again. She is really nice but between our two kids and their four kids we don't make it out very often. It was a good game --no matter which team you were cheering for. Detroit was ahead most of the game but Dallas won in the end.

Wonton Wrappers

We ended up with quite a few wonton wrappers after the Pampered Chef party a week ago. The kids have been asking to use them up so last night we made baked potstickers for dinner. The filling was canned chicken, grated carrots, mayo, garlic, gingerroot, onion, soy sauce and egg white. The dipping sauce was warmed plum sauce with rice vinegar, soy sauce and diced jalapenos. Best of all the kids did almost all of the filling and the wrapping. The potstickers were quite yummy and the kids ate them with enthusiasm. We may do some tonight stuffed with crabmeat.

Happy Birthday Gramma N.

Today is Gramma Neilans' birthday. It's not often that I remember to call her but I did remember today. She went to lunch with Aunt Carol and had a nice quiet day.

We are Love and Logic parents.....

Sid and I finished our 14 hour training course yesterday. I think I'm going to miss it. They will offer it again in January (but I don't know if they will let us get credit for it again so soon). I would take it again in a heart beat. There is only so much that you can get out of one lesson and remember long enough to practice and internalize. The next time you get something different.

The three things I'm trying to take away from this whole class and work in to my normal life are: 1) don't tell your kids what to do. Give them choices (that you can live with) and let them suffer the consequences if they make a bad decision.

2) Never nag, especially not over homework. Nagging them about their homework denies them the opportunity to screw it up and learn a valuable (low cost) lesson. The school already provides the negative consequences. Done properly this is a win-win for the parent. Instead of asking after the work that still has to be done ask the child to show you what they did well and verbalize why it was so successful. This trains them to see their accomplishments and not their failures. Done wrong they can train the child hide their performance and their school work from you. Should the child suffer a bad grade from their failure to make a wise choice remember the phrase "Oh, honey, that's so sad. Try not to worry about it. They teach this grade at school every year. We will still love you no matter how many times you get to repeat it."

3) Chores (now called contributions) are the easiest route for children to learn many wonderful lessons including that everyone needs to contribute, there is not always a financial reward, its nice to help others, trade can benefit everyone, perserverance, and success is its own reward.

Miscellaneous

Sometime during the course of the weekend my fundraiser flower order was delivered to our front porch. I bought two flats of violas, one yellow and one purple. Of course Saturday we were too busy with soccer to plant, and Sunday we were at Farhana's. Last night was the first chance I've had to get them in the ground. Unfortunately, Sunday it was in the low 40s and raining, Sunday night it dropped to the mid-30s. The violas look a quite a bit worse for the delay in planting but we put them in anyway. The kids did most of them. It may not be one of our best years for flowers. But we gave it a try.

We also planned to carve the pumpkins last night. One of them has already rotted on the front porch (I only bought them a week ago). So that didn't work out quite the way I planned.

The best though is of course the status of the great kitten give away. The neighbors told my friend Brenda that they definitely wanted one of the kittens. So I went by to confirm which kitten and to set up a time frame. The husband of the pair was the only one home and he'd never heard word one about the kttens. He will confer with the wife and check back -- but I've written them off. One of the other definites apparently hasn't asked his parents yet either. I'm guessing that that will fall through. The friend that wants the mother wont even come over to meet her until the kittens are all gone (so that her daughter doesn't fall in love with a kitten instead of the cat). That leaves only one kitten earmarked, and they want us to hold her for another couple of weeks beacuse of their travel schedule. At least they still want her but we need to get that room set back up as a bedroom. Even if the foster agency keeps calling with inappropriate placements (eventually they will get the right one), we have company coming and nowhere to put them. Plus Sid and Sheela keep getting more and more attached. Though I do think Sid is hamming it up just a little for my benefit.

The Phantom strikes.... again

The other morning Sheela came out of the house to find the phantom on our front porch with her name on it. Of course it comes with a bag of candy and instructions on passing it on to three friends without letting them know who left it there. So we pass it along to three friends... one of course has already brought it back again. Now we need to find three more friends... I'm tempted to have her give one to Sunil, but then I have to help him find three friends and that is a lot more difficult.

Soccer Saturday....

Instead of trying to squeeze in two soccer games and a music class all in a Saturday morning this weekend we managed to make it take all day. Sheela had an early game, 9:00 AM, against two of her former teammates. It was a rout, again. The Panthers are having a really good season. Music class fell in the middle of the day and Sunil's game wasn't until 5:45PM. So they played with the setting sun in their eyes and a definite chill in the air. They actually won the game in what was the most even match they've played to date.

After the game we hustled the kids off to Farhana's house to spend the night and Sid and I went out to dinner. We slept late on Sunday and then spent the day with Farhana and Jazmine catching up on some of her home repair projects in exchange for a pitcher of margaritas and an indoor cookout (the temperature dropped to the low 40s and it started to rain). it was a good weekend all the way around.

Halloween precursor

Friday night Rick, Patricia and Ericka came over for dinner. Ericka picked out her Halloween costume that night too and so we got to see it fresh from the store. As long as she was showing off hers, Sheela and Sunil felt the need to show off theirs. The picture is rather poor but Sheela is a cheetah, Sunil is wearing last year's tiger costume and Ericka is a gothic girl (or so the package said). Sunil will really be wearing his Spiderman costume but that picture was even worse.

Jacket Weather

Wow! It's in the low 50s here this morning. It will, of course, still get up in to the upper 70s this afternoon, we may even break 80. But we wont have upper 90s like we did for the golf tournament. What really matters is that we actually got to put on jackets this morning. I'm very excited. This is the best weather that Texas has to offer and it doesn't last long.

Back in Bombay.....

Dr. Sharma called me last night. He's talked to Sid a few times but this was the first time that I've gotten to talk to them. They have finished their first month of travelling and are settling in for 3-4 weeks in Mumbai with his sister, Sushila. I hope to manage to manage some emails and such while they are in a settled location.

16th Semi-annual IS Golf Classic

Here I am with James, Donna and Leo. We played in the IS golf tournament this afternoon. It wasn't a particularly good round for any of us. Even playing best-ball on nine holes we came in +5. I did have two decent drives and two decent putts. I missed winning the longest drive (for a woman) by less than two feet. We had an excellent time and I spent time with people I don't usually get to see, so over all the day was a success.

I really do work here.....

After taking a whole week off to go to Big Bend, I returned to the office in time to leave early sick one day, arrive late after a dentist appointment one day, leave early for a Parent/Teacher conference one day and then travel for two days. This week I should have gone home sick on Monday (I was more or less a zombie and accomplished very little), Tuesday I spent four hours at a vendor visit on the other side of town, today we are leaving early for the semi-annual IS golf tournament, tomorrow I have a two hour training class at lunch. Friday will be my first FULL day at work in nearly three weeks. I had three projects that I wanted to have wrapped up back in September that are still outstanding and I'm starting to get panicky. I don't like to get this far behind.

School Fundraisers.......

I recall three times during my student days when I engaged in fundraising activities: girl scout cookie sales, 5th grade camp (wrapping paper/greeting card sales), and a Civitans Club car wash. For the first two I went door to door and gave a little sales spiel in hopes of generating a sale. For the car wash I stood on a street corner waving rags and holding a sign.

So far this year Sheela has had two fundraisers and Sunil one. The first one for Sheela was wrapping paper, magazines and silver jewelry, the second is discount cards for area restaurants and Sunil's is Christmas themed gifts. In all three cases the kids are only allowed to sell to people that they know personally. It is no longer safe to go door to door. The kids only know other kids that go to the same schools and are selling the same stuff. Therefore it falls to the parents to take the catalogs to work to sell. Sid doesn't have an office so it comes to me. That's okay, I've been supporting all of my friend's kid's fundraisers for years. We have girl scout cookie sales (at least three girls each year), wrapping paper (at least five kids each year), Christmas themed gifts (at least five kids), passbook coupon books (at least one), pizza kits (at least two kids), boy scout popcorn sales (at least one kid), greeting cards (at least two), candy bar sales (two kids), discount cards (two-five kids), cookie dough/pies/cheesecakes (at least three kids), candles (five kids), pansies sales (one kids but he keeps coming back), Jump Rope For Heart (straight donation), Rudolph Run for Cancer (straight dontation), Breast Cancer Walks, Home Run Derbys, Bowling for Dollars...... it just never stops. Except for the boy scouts and the girl scouts the kids aren't allowed to sell the stuff. It has become a full time side line at work. We have set up a table in the women's bathroom to hold the catalogs (that's the best place to sell cookies, pies and cheesecake), other tables are set up in the breakroom and strategic hallways around the office spaces, we have banners hung up over desks........ after awhile is doesn't matter how good the cause it's just too much.

The single tooth is gone.....

Sheela pulled her one remaining tooth last night. Okay, there may be some other teeth in her mouth but the don't usually show. She now has three out in a row on th etop.