My Life

May 20, 2013

Wil C. Fry — Tue, 21 May 2013 04:59:08 +0000

Flickr did their biggest change ever this evening. There’s a little more about that on my other blog. I’m seriously considering ending my eight-year relationship with Flickr. If only there were another decent place to share photos (and remember, I said “decent”, so no one suggest Facebook).

Rebecca worked on learning my limits again today. She practiced fibbing, changing her mind back and forth, disobeying, and going #2 without a toilet nearby. The changing her mind thing was actually the most irritating…

“I want to go outside” seems like a simple enough request, right? But it means dear old Daddy has to click ‘save’ on whatever he’s doing, find the remote and turn off whatever Rebecca’s watching, make sure nothing else inside needs attention (like the dishwasher or laundry machine), see if the daughter has to use the potty, get two pair of shoes on two pair of feet, grab keys (I never even step outside without keys anymore), etc. It’s a process. And then: “I don’t want to go outside”. “But we’re already outside. Now you play. Here’s a tricycle”. Sad face. Tiny tears. “I want to go inside. I need pee-pee.” Sigh. You’re all parents; you know the drill.

Evening: MF wanted pizza for supper, so we called Pizza Hut. Their prices have shot up 20%. It turns out that the decent prices we had been getting were only introductory because the store was new. I called Papa Johns and realized that their prices had only been low because we’d always used coupons in the past. Decided we didn’t want Little Caesars, and drove to a Chinese buffet instead.

Afterward, RLF played with her across-the-street friend for half an hour or so. By the time we went home for a bath, she’d kept herself dry for nearly two hours.

WEATHER: 74-92°F, partly cloudy, 72% humidity… our fourth day in a row surpassing 90.

May 19, 2013

Wil C. Fry — Mon, 20 May 2013 02:21:30 +0000

WEATHER: 72-93°F, mostly cloudy

RLF requested the playground today, after a few weeks of not going, so I said okay. She wouldn’t walk there; only rode in the stroller. And only played there for about five minutes before she was ready to come home. (This is why we’d quit going in the first place.)

She did well with potty-training today, but still having trouble w/#2 (know she’s not supposed to go anywhere else, but refused to go in the potty). She begged for a diaper today, and I wouldn’t give it to her. (Mean Daddy, I know.)

She built well with MegaBloks today, but would quit every time I got the camera.

Today, the Canon 60D’s batteries said they were dead: 0% for one battery and 3% for the other. I’ve had the camera for more than a year and have only charged the batteries about six times. I guess they last so long that I forget to check them.

RLF likes to play trains. She has Thomas, Percy and Salty (from “Thomas the Tank Engine”) and will make them have conversations with each other. She uses a higher-than-normal voice when voicing for the toys. It’s cute, but she won’t do it when I want a video of it. That’s why I have a blog in addition to a camera.

She’s been experimenting with fibbing the past couple of weeks. “Is the ice cream yummy?” “No.”

She seemed very concerned when I picked up Mommy to carry her to the kitchen for supper. “Mommy too big!” Rebecca cried out. Her face was the most genuinely concerned that I’d ever seen. It made me laugh so much that I had to set down Mommy. (Impressed myself. I’m 184 lbs. and MF is now something like 174 lbs. I actually didn’t think I could pick her up.)

Supper was a chore; RLF acted like she’d forgotten how to eat.

Forgot To Mention: May

Wil C. Fry — Sun, 19 May 2013 12:44:57 +0000

➤ A couple of nights ago, Rebecca woke up crying about 2 a.m. My wife heard it, rushed in. RLF said she needed to go to the bathroom. MF took her; RLF did. Then RLF went back to sleep. (I didn’t wake up. Noises will prevent me from falling asleep, but very little will wake me once I’m down.) Still not sure if she woke because of a nightmare or because she wanted to use the bathroom. The next two nights, she slept through but woke with a somewhat wet diaper.

➤ May 18, evening: said she wanted to do “dim nat tiss” and started jumping on the bed and tumbling. “Gymnastics?” “Yeah! Hap me, Daddy.” So I helped her tumble a bit, and tossed her in the air a few times. I think she learned the word from a Dora commercial that features some U.S. gymnasts.

➤ Mommy taught her “Ring around the rosie”, which RLF loves. She’ll take your hands and spin until it’s time to fall down.

➤ If she feels you’re not paying enough attention to her, RLF will bring things that she believes you’ll like. “Want to play ball, Daddy?” “Read this book?” (a book she usually doesn’t ask for — she can tell that we prefer books that are different from the ones she prefers).

➤ She’s now tall enough to see her face in the entryway mirrors, when standing on tip-toes. When Mommy fixes her hair, RLF will trot to the entryway to check it. One day, I saw she’d scooted her Dora desk over there so she could stand on it to see more of herself in the mirror.

➤ She’s very mess-conscious. If her fingers get sticky while eating, she’ll stop eating until she gets a napkin or washcloth to clean herself. If she drops a bit of food on the table or floor, that becomes her main concern until it’s cleaned. (These she learned directly from us; we were far from lenient early on about little messes. I remember clearly wiping each little drop and picking up each little scrap when she first learned to eat, and I remember her watching those actions carefully.)

May 18, 2013: More Hotter

Wil C. Fry — Sun, 19 May 2013 01:09:47 +0000

After a cooler than average spring, yesterday was the hottest day of the year (high: 92°F) until today’s record high of 96°F.

Had a pretty good day with Rebecca (scroll down for photos).

I used the gas mower on the back yard during RLF’s nap. I hadn’t used the gas mower since October or so… Had just been using the human-powered reel mower. But I didn’t want the gas mower to completely die.

May 17, 2013

Wil C. Fry — Sat, 18 May 2013 01:18:24 +0000

Rebecca did well with potty again today — still working on #2.

After an early, short, and surprising nap (she put herself down at 11:50 for just an hour), much of the afternoon was full of fussing and craziness.

I got a new debit card today, to replace the old one that was cracking and only worked at half the stores in town. Naturally, the new one wouldn’t activate over the phone or online, so I had to drive to the bank to activate it.

Put the stuff back on the office closet shelves now that the paint is dry.

WEATHER: 74-92°F (now it’s starting to feel normal around here)

May 16, 2013: First Time Somewhere Else

Wil C. Fry — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:59:43 +0000

Today, Rebecca — for the first time — went to the bathroom somewhere besides our house.

Rebecca awoke with a dry diaper for at least the third time this week, and stayed dry all day. In the morning, MF went to a doctor’s appointment for Benjamin; everything was fine.

In the afternoon, we left the house for our longest excursion yet without a diaper on Rebecca. First, we dropped off some things (mostly books) at Goodwill, and then went to Harker Heights to visit their public library. About five minutes before arriving there, Rebecca said she had to go. I asked if she could hold it for a few minutes. “Yeah. I hold it.” I pulled up to the front door and MF took RLF inside while I parked. She’d brought the insert seat for the big toilet. Rebecca went! — first time in a public restroom.

Then we got our library cards (it’s not affiliated with the Killeen library system, though I think both systems could benefit from a partnership), and found a few books. I didn’t get anything since I’m still reading the last book from Killeen’s library.

We shopped at Target for a few items (no diapers this time!) and then came home without incident.

Pork chops, mashed potatoes and stuffing for supper (the child just ate yogurt, which she calls “yodo”).

After supper, we played out front for an hour or so. Rebecca got to see both neighboring babies (7 months old to our south and 11 months old to our north). The 11-month-old is walking, just barely. She was very excited, toddling all the way from her house to ours (about 20 feet down the sidewalk). Rebecca was nice to both babies, and even danced a minute with the older one. She played catch with the neighbor Dad for about five minutes — he did all the catching and she did all the throwing. Two of her throws hit the 11-month-old, once in the head and once in the bottom. Fortunately, they were playing catch with a soft rubber frog named “Ribbit”, so the baby didn’t even notice. It was a fun time of conversation and kids getting to know each other.

Since my wife and I plan to live in this house until the mortgage is paid in full, and since both our immediate neighbors have similar plans, we foresee knowing them for at least several years. All of us have already talked about Rebecca and these two younger kids playing together, riding the bus together, etc., in the future. Rebecca will only be one school year ahead of the 11-month-old, because of when their birthdays fall on the calendar, and the 7-month-old will be another school year behind them. (The girl across the street, same age as Rebecca, will be moving away this summer.)

(And right now, our hazy long-term plan is to find or build our next home in this same area. When this one gets close to being paid off, we’ll start the search for our “forever home”. This all of course depends on too many factors that we can’t control right now — housing market in this area, whether the population boom here continues or tapers off, what the military/government is like in 10-15 years, etc.)

Rebecca can now recite most of the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song, and can name most of the trains by sight.

Also today, I took pictures of the office closet shelves:

What they previously looked like:

WEATHER: pre-dawn rain of 0.6 inches; temps: 67-88°F; partly cloudy

May 15, 2015

Wil C. Fry — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:30:08 +0000

MF took RF to the library in the morning; she stayed dry the whole trip. Tried “Story Time”, wasn’t used to it. “I just want library book,” she explained. (By the way, I’m going to cease spelling her sentences completely phonetically and just use words. Assume that not all the words are pronounced completely correctly.)

RLF spent most of the rest of the day watching Thomas the Tank Engine on TV and playing with her Thomas toys. She has three train engines now: Thomas, Percy, and Salty. I built a garage for them, into which she also placed her Lamborghini, a frog named “Ribbit”, and a couple of dump trucks.

I put stuff back on the closet shelves now that the paint is dry:

In the evening, she played across the street, told us when she had to go to the bathroom, ran across the street with me back to our house, did her business, and then returned to her friends, shouting: “I go pee pee!”

I mowed, as we expected thunderstorms tonight.

Yesterday, I paid our electric bill, our fifth with the new company. The price per kilowatt-hour has risen, but still isn’t as high as the last company was right before we switched. The overall bill was the fifth-lowest (cost) since moving into the house, but our second-lowest usage (620 kWh), tied with October 2010, our first full bill for the house. Mostly, that was due to the weather. It’s been really mild lately, after a warmer than usual winter. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the summer will be mild too. It’s about time we had a mild summer.

This chart includes the most recent bill and the preceding 24 months:

WEATHER: 68-85°F, 0.15″ rain pre-dawn, then misty morning

Addendum, May 16:

Filled the Sedona with gas in the evening; RLF came with me. It took 18.865 gallons at $3.359 per gallon for $63.37. The tank lasted 322.6 miles, which comes out to 17.1 miles per gallon, almost all of it “city driving” (in town). That’s actually comparable to my Sable LX.

May 14: Ikea & 34 Weeks

Wil C. Fry — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:59:25 +0000

A few days ago, we passed what I’ve jokingly called “the Rebecca threshold” with our Benjamin pregnancy. She was born about 7 weeks before her due date. As of May 10, we passed that point in the current pregnancy. My wife’s at 34 weeks as of today, and about nine pounds lighter than she was the day Rebecca was born, but gaining an average of two pounds per week over the last six weeks.

(Three more images after the jump)

Today, we drove to Ikea with the intent of buying a baby changing table. It’s not an essential piece of furniture, but my wife said she quickly tired of bending into Rebecca’s crib to change her. Even the bassinet insert for the Pack N’ Play was too low. (I always changed her on the floor or bed so I didn’t have to bend as much.) I convinced my wife that IF we bought a changing table, it would be something we could repurpose later; otherwise it wouldn’t be worth the expense.

We found the Sundvik changing table at Ikea for $60. It looks like a set of three wide tray shelves — nearly black structure with white shelves. If it survives the rigors of diaper changing, it can easily become a shelf unit in the office or garage.

Rebecca helped us test the shelf strength, and measure it:

She also helped me build it. She put all the dowels, screws, and other attachment pieces in her Thomas the Tank Engine bucket and would hand me the pieces as I asked for them. “I need one wooden dowel”, I would say. She would mutter “One woodoo dowuh” as she sifted through the items in her bucket, and then hand the correct piece to me 85% of the time. And so on. It was fun.

Here’s where it stands for now, against our master bedroom’s east wall, between the bathroom and closet:

The crib will be (is planned to be) to the left of the master bathroom door; the changing table may move over there too if there’s enough space.

(Benjamin will sleep in our room for the first few months at least, maybe much longer — until he and Rebecca are both ready to share a room. When they’re too old to share a room any longer, the plan is to give Rebecca a choice of keeping her room or moving into what is now my office. Which means the office will move into the master bedroom or living room… But’s that’s several years away and there’s no point in counting those chickens just yet.)

As for the Ikea trip itself (45 minutes each way), Rebecca wore panties on the way there and kept them dry. But she wouldn’t use the adult-sized toilet in the bathroom there. “I want to go home. Need to go pee-pee.” So she wore a diaper the rest of our stay and on the ride home. Twice during our shopping trip she changed her mind and said she would use the big toilet, but recanted as soon as she got in the bathroom each time. That’s okay; it’ll take some getting used to.

The rest of the day, we used no diapers. In the past few days, we’ve already saved something like $6 in diapers; maybe more, and only spent a few cents in extra toilet flushes. The hope is that some of our current package of diapers will still be available when Benjamin needs size 4.

In the afternoon, I put the final coats of paint on the office closet shelves. We’ve kept several fans running in the paint-drying areas, since the weather hasn’t been hot enough to run the air conditioner very much and the air is humid inside and out of the house.

WEATHER: 64-87°F, sunny

May 13, 2013

Wil C. Fry — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:59:08 +0000

Rebecca woke up with a wet diaper this morning, but still used the potty. We didn’t use another diaper all day!

The generic diapers we buy are about 17 cents apiece, and I calculate that the Diaper Genie refills cost about 3 cents per diaper, so each diaper has cost us about $0.20. On a day when we don’t use any diapers at all, we’re saving somewhere between $1 and $2 (per day!)

MF took RLF grocery shopping to H-E-B in the morning, and the girl held it for the entire trip, knowing she wasn’t wearing a diaper.

We still have a few hurdles to cross before RLF matches our definition of “potty trained”. Some people say their kid is potty trained if they are going in the potty on a regular basis, but the kid still wears a diaper at night, wears a diaper on long car trips, doesn’t use a “big-person toilet”, etc. MF was taken aback when a coworker said their child had been “potty trained” at 12 months. But a deeper inquiry revealed that the person just had a really loose definition of the term. Her 12-month-old didn’t have the ability to wipe himself, pull his pant back up, etc.

But we’re at a place where we can be comfortable for a while and work in increments from here. The main issue for me was how much we were spending in diapers. The main issue for MF is that her child is behind other children — but I think I’ve convinced her that a lot of people who say their children are potty trained are exaggerating a bit, or using different definitions.

I finished painting the master closet shelves, and started on the office closet shelves. The white gloss paint really looks good on the wood shelves and matches the closet interiors very closely (so I’m not worried about going over the lines). After touching up the office shelves tomorrow, I should be done painting for a while.

57-88°F, mostly sunny

May 12, 2013: Dry All Day

Wil C. Fry — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:59:29 +0000

Rebecca woke with a dry diaper this morning and kept her panties dry all day, using her potty correctly all day. We spent the day shifting from (1) us asking if she needed to go to (2) her telling us when she needed to go. And, after three days of holding it, she went #2 in the big person toilet.

(And I promise that I’ll shift to subjects other than bodily functions as soon as this learning experience fades from our priority.)

[4 images after the jump]

Walmart trip in the morning. RLF picked out a Mother’s Day card for MF, without hesitation and without considering any other cards. It was a Barbie-themed card with a mother-daughter “day out” coupon inside. I’ve learned that Rebecca is much like her mother regarding the ability to instinctively choose a product without consideration — and be right about it. As a person who enjoys the consideration process, it can be disconcerting for me, but I’ve learned to trust my wife’s instincts — and Rebecca’s too.

We also bought some grapes, which RLF immediately claimed as her own:

She is now strong enough to lift the big laundry basket, carry it around the house, and get underneath:

She also puts her favorite dolls and stuffed animals into the laundry basket and gives the rides around the house (and occasionally asks me to give her a ride in it, which I do).

In the afternoon, we played with the foam alphabet pads — they’ve been up in the closet for a while but I had to take them down to paint a couple of my shelves. She asked me to build a box big enough for her to get inside, and then played in there for 20 minutes:

Also today, I added two coats of paint to another shelf in our master bedroom closet, using a tiny roller (I’d used a brush for the other shelves, which was taking forever and very hard on my arms/shoulders since the shelves are above me). The roller worked like a charm, cutting lots of time out of my work.

In the evening, I bought a little sponge brush for the corners and edges. And I also finally bought one of these:

It’s a pouring spout and a sealable lid for 1-gallon paint cans. I’ve seen them for years, but only now decided to try one — after days of opening and closing the same paint can, and dipping my brush/roller into the can itself.

After tomorrow, I should be done with the master closet’s shelves and will move to the final shelves that need white paint: the ones I added to the office closet. Fortunately, those are easily removable. I’m guessing it will be much easier to paint them in the garage without the confines of the closet creating silly nooks and crannies — which have really slowed me down with the other shelves.

I’ve learned my lesson for future shelves: paint them before installing them.

WEATHER: 61-81°F, mostly sunny