CogAT Results

The cognitive abilities test results are in.... drum roll please.... Sheela scored better than 99% of her classmates nationwide. I always knew that my child was brilliant (just like all good parents).

Later this week she will be taking the TPRI reading and comprehension test again. Its given three times a year. In the Fall she was pegged at a sixth grade reading level. I don't think that will change much.

Beer Bands available in more than one style.....

All beers are created equal, or so it seems when you're trying to find yours at a party. So just stretch BEER BANDS around your bottle or can and separate yourself from the pack! These stretchy, reusable, durable bands are packed twelve per pack perfect for pool parties or just lounging around the rumpus room. With four varieties to choose from and twelve sayings each, choose the one that says it best for YOU.

Bombed Etc - bombed, ripped, blitzed, tanked, loaded, wasted, polluted, pickled, wrecked, trashed, sauced, hammered

Designated Driver - driver, driver, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk

Personalities - anti-social, bed wetter, control freak, desperate, egomaniac, high maintenance, sex addict, slut, snob, tease, total bitch, wimp

Mine - mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine

Tulane University

Tulane is opening its doors today for the Spring semester. They had to pare down quite a bit but the core is still there. I wish them well.

Car Accidents

Last night another one of my friends was broadsided and flipped. The car is a total loss but she is fine. It was good that she was alone in the car a passenger would not have fared so well. I'm averaging about one friend a year. All of them have been fine (or are again now). That's a pretty good testament to engineering... oh and they were almost all hit by someone running a red light... which is a testament to stupidity and lack of attention.

On a related subject a truck ran a red light last night, hit the DART light rail forcing it off the track and injuring 15-20 people. Most of the injuries were minor. The accident was cleaned up and the track approved for use before the rush hour push this morning. This is not really a testament to much of anything it just caught me attention because we have so few light rail incidents that they rarely make the news. Different from streetcar accidents in New Orleans which were so common that they never made the news.

After Holidaze Bash

Saturday was Beckie and Lee's annual after-the-holidays holiday party. We were able to see many friends that we have been missing and had a great time. The "regift" gift exchange was a little more tame than in years gone by, but the hideous "fry-daddy" potato peeler was back for its seventh consecuetive year. It was the very last gift opened -- we thought the curse had been broken only to be surprised at the very end. We got rather lucky this year. Sid opened a package of chocolates combined with a talking flyswatter. The lure of the chocolate was enough to get someone to steal the whole set. He ended up with a six pack of Shiner Bock Beer and a set of 12 "beer bands". The bands resemble the "Livestrong" bracelets but are sized to fit a beer can or bottle and come in 12 not very attractive colors. Each one is emblazoned with a synonym for drunk: blitzed, bombed, smashed, hammered, etc. I ended up with a set of five makeup bags in a silver and black paisley print.

Breathing Treatments

Sunil went to the doctor after our sleepless Friday night. He started to wheeze around dawn. He took a breathing treatment at the doctor's office and we brought the nebulizer home again. We will keep it at least a month this time. The breathing trouble is what was causing the coughing (which in turn causes both the sore throat and the throwing up). I gave him one more treatment between music class and soccer practice. It perks him right up and gets him back to his normal playful self. He also has a five day course of steroids to help relax his airways. Its rare for kids to develop asthma after they turn four but he's not much past that milestone and its not impossible. We will see where it goes from here.

Bad start to a busy weekend.....

Once again I've over scheduled. After work on Friday I picked up both kids switched cars and took the Taurus in to drop it off at the shop. Sid worked late and then swung by to pick us up. We went to Red Lobster for dinner. Sid and I both had inferior steaks and excellent lobster dinners. Sheela and Sunil ordered chicken. Sheela ate hers. Sunil just looked at his.

By the time we left there Sunil was complaining of a stomach ache and a sore throat. Everyone's allergies are raging. In addition to our normal winter allergens we have all the smoke and debris in the air from the grass fires (and an increasing number of structure fires). By the time we got home he was coughing to hard to fall asleep. Medication helped a little bit (after he threw up) but by midnight he was back up to throw up (on Sid) in the guest room. He took a bath and went back to sleep. Its almost 6:00AM now. He's been back up since 2:00AM. Sid hasn't slept at all.

We are supposed to go to Kindermusik this morning. Sid has some landlord type duties to deal with today so I get both kids all day. Right after music class we go to Sheela's soccer practice where I've agreed to watch Travis. Then Claire and Travis are supposed to come back to our house for the afternoon. (Both of their parents got called in to work). Once we get them moved back out we are due at Beckie and Lee's annual After Holidaze Party. This is one of the few events where we get to see a large number of our friends and their kids all at the same time. We usually stay quite late and let the kids run amok.

Sunday Sheela has a soccer game after which we are due to spend the afternoon watching football with some other friends at their house. I haven't even worked in time for me to buy and install the closet organizer for the Sharmas... and they come home in just a week.

Somewhere along the line I need to find a time for Sunil, Sid and I to take a nap (or two or three). Or we may have to forgo some of my plans.

Multicultural Day

Today Anderson Elementary School is celebrating Multicultural Day. Typically the parents of the children in the classes come in and talk a little bit about their cultural heritage. Neither Sid or I are able to attend today and the Sharmas aren't back from India yet. Instead Sheela is taking a picture of her from her bharatnatyum recital a few years back. She is also takin gin a punjabi dress and all of her dance jewlery and bells to share with the class. In keeping with the theme she asked me to decorate her hands and feet again as we did for the recital. her is a picture of our "handi"work. This isn't the actual picture she is taking but it is the one I keep on my desk at work.

Annual review

I love review time. There are never really any surprises because my boss is very good at keeping me in the loop on stuff. I like filling out my self-evaluation. When else can you get away with describing yourself as "god-like"? Okay, I don't usually go that far but I've always enjoyed taking the time to figure out what I think that I do well and then getting the chance to harp on it. I enjoy the little pat's on the head for doing something well. The raise doesn't hurt but the positive feedback is what really keeps me motivated. This year the "pat" was that people made a specific point of telling my boss that they always wanted to work with me on projects. I just eat that up.

Number 6

I finally managed to get a picture of Sheela in her new uniform. The Winter season has only two more games to go. Then she has two weekend tournaments before starting the Spring season.

From Suduko to Kakuro

As Grammylyn has gotten nearly the entire family addicted to doing Suduko my Suduko book is frequently unavailable to me (Sunil will work the simpler puzzles but needs quite a bit of hand holding -- he can walk away from an unfinshed board with no qualms). So I succumbed to an impulse buy of a Kakuro book at the store. I'm moving Sheela over slowly to this new addiction in order to free up my Suduko book. With Kakuro you aren't working with a full 9x9 grid, but you are still restricted to using each digit only once in any given row or column. This time though the sum of the digits used must equal the numeric clue.

Drought

We ended 2005 more than a foot behind on our rainfall. Large portions of TX keep going up in flames. The freeways keep getting shut down due to grass fires along the edges (stupid smokers). The grass didn't just turn brown this winter -- it broke off right at the ground. Yesterday it felt like rain clouds building in the afternoon. We didn't get any actual precipitation but we woke up to a beautiful, cool fog. Here is a picture taken from the window of the car on my way to work. Hidden behind the fog are row upon row of closely packed homes.

Another sunny Saturday

We are definitely back into our normal groove. Sheela and I took Sunil to his Kindermusik class while Sid was off playing landlord. Then Sunil and I took Sheela to her soccer practice. As it's Saturday the practice was right around the corner next to the fabulous playground. I expected to spend the two hours chasing Sunil and the other younger siblings around the towers. However, as a special treat (for me) Sunil was whisked away with another parent to play at their house. All I had to do was drive Claire home and exchange her for Sunil after practice. I spent nearly the whole two hours walking around the perimeter of the park (down by the ponds and through the trees). I watched part of a cricket match and a very nifty dragon kite flying overhead. I watched a few model rocket launches and spent some time chatting with the other parents. All in all a good use of a beautiful afternoon. By the time we got back home Sushama and her girls had arrived. I took them all to our park to play just to get a few more hours in outside. I'll have to remember this day when we hit the Summer heat. Today Texas doesn't seem so bad.

The damage was minor....

but the scare was memorable. Sheela took a tumble off of Sunil's loft bed last night. Even though she swears that she wasn't leaning over the edge, I know differently. The only way to fall is to lean. She was blowing bubbles down on to Sunil. She thinks that she did a flip but she landed shoulder first so I don't think so. I'm sure it really hurt and I know that it scared her (me too). The screaming pretty well scared Sunil as well but it was mostly to call me to come up from downstairs. Its not broken, its not sprained, it didn't swell and its hardly bruised -- but she can still feel it.

Keeper Practice

Last night was the first time Sheela attended Super Blue's weekly Keeper practice. There were six girls there. It ranges from 2-12 any given week. There was one girl her age but she didn't know her and four girls older. It lasted about an hour and a half.

What a difference an hour makes.

Both the kids went to a friend's house for an hour last night. During that hour Sid and I cleaned, and cleaned and cleaned. The living room and dining room look wonderful! We can hardly walk up or down the stairs but that will be tonight's project. The kitchen is mostly cleared of clutter again but we didn't actually clean it yet. The kids helped me take down all of the Christmas stuff on Monday. Sid and Sheela wrestled it all up in to the attic yesterday. We got to put all of the furniture back and sweep and mop underneath all of the couches, tables and chairs. We are almost ready for the next round of family.

Back to the grind

Actually, I'm quite pleased to be back at work. I get a little bit antsy when I spend too many days in a row with the children if there isn't a specific activity taking up the bulk of our time. I didn't want to plan an actual event everyday during the break. I figure the kids need some unstructured time to let them direct themselves. Unfortunately, their usual direction either involves tormenting each other or tormenting me. It may not have been really that bad, but I'm still glad to be back at work.

The Off-season

Sheela's soccer off-season is getting to be pretty busy. It started out as two practices a week, then it was two practices and one game, they picked up a Saturday practice since some of the players weren't able to make it all the way to the practice field in the evenings. Now they are adding an extra practice for the keepers. We are now looking at five days of soccer each week.

Tox Box

Sheela tells me its a toy box but I know the difference between "X' and "y". She decorated a Tox Box. If you look closely you can see her legs tucked in to both of the boxes. She's reading "Black Beauty" (a Christmas gift).

So far in the book a pack of hunting dogs savaged a rabbit, one of the hunters fell off of his horse, broke his neck and died plus the horse broke his leg and had to be shot. Sheela seems to be enjoying it though its hard for me to remember why it is so good.

Happy New Year one and all!!

We spent a quiet night at home last night (after eating ourselves practically comatose at our favorite Seafood Buffet). Sheela stayed up until midnight with us, but we failed to see the ball drop. We missed it by a few seconds, twice, once for New York and once for us. There is always next year.