I have not written much in the last two weeks. Strangely, I typically write at work. I write while my probationary officer is writing. As you would expect, it takes a probationary officer longer to write a report since they are new to report writing. During this time I take a few minutes and punch out my thoughts. Today I am back at the extra job, so you are subjected to more of my ramblings. Jen and I have been home with the kids enjoying Christmas vacation. Wednesday was day number 12. It was the first day that had nothing on our schedule. So, Wednesday morning over breakfast we decided to take the kids to the Children's Museum (CM). During previous vacations, this idea has been brought up and quickly shot down. If our kids are on vacation, so are everyone else's. Couple that with a rainy day where outside activities are not an option, and you have the makings for a busy day at the CM. So, we got ready and were off like a herd of turtles.
The drive in was smooth and there was very little traffic on the freeways. That is until we reached the area around the CM. It seems that every other parent in the surrounding area had the same idea. There were cars, pedestrians, and strollers everywhere and they all streaming toward the big yellow building. If I did not know any better, I would have thought they were giving away free H1N1 vaccines or iPods or steak or crack inside the building. I dropped off Jen and the kids and looked for parking. The new parking structure next to the museum appeared to be full. The traffic leading toward it was in gridlock. So, I went in the opposite direction and found a spot on the street. I met the family inside and A led the way into the maelstrom of little people and soccer moms. The first stop was the Tower of Power. This was not here on our last visit a few years ago. The T of P is an approximately 40 foot tall series of discs that are surrounded by a stainless steel mesh. The discs are arranged so that kids can climb up and down the tower inside the mesh. There are at least three different towers. They start in the basement and go to the top of the museum. There is a stairway in the middle that has landings where the kids can either get into or out of the towers. Parents can follow the little ones up and down using the stairs. Parents are also able to climb with their children. The Towers looked strong, but I did not want to put them to the test. A found a way in and started climbing. He did not really like the T of P. He was worried about losing us. I told him that I was following him on the stairs and that reassured him. A2 was too little for the T of P, so she played on the Dance Mania floor. The floor is made up of small squares that light up and the light moves to the music. A2 was still in crowd shock I think because she just stood there and watched the other kids. A found an obstacle course. Jen gave A2 a boost up to the starting platform, and they were off. A did a good job of looking out for his sister and she had a ball following him around and doing the exact same things that he did. They must have done the course 10 times. From there, I led us through a restricted access door into an exhibit area. A2 wandered around and A found a wall that had two baskets of blocks in front of it. The idea was to fill up the wall with the strange shaped blocks. It looked like Tetris in reverse to me. The blocks were even the same shapes. My Dad would have enjoyed that wall. Then we decided it was time for lunch. We wandered our way through the multitudes to the Kid's Cafe. The line for the Cafe was out the door and halfway down the main hallway of the CM. No thank you. We pressed on and eventually made our way outside to the water exhibits. This was the kids favorite part of the CM. A and I were using pipes to direct water and A2 was pouring water, everywhere. A got a little wet while A2's shirt and pants were soaked. Jen was a trooper. She took a few pictures and watched us play. Inside I am sure she was screaming, "It is cold outside, our kids are getting wet, and my husband is playing right along. I hope no one gets sick." We took a few wet "after" pictures and walked to the car. As we were leaving, the line to get into the CM was halfway down the block. Jen who is always prepared, had an extra outfit for A2 since hers was drenched. We changed her and drove to Chuy's for a great lunch.
The kids had a great time at the CM. It is a difficult environment for those that are worried about sickness and germs, like we are. The CM is interactive and our kids are touching the same things that every other kid has touched. YUCK. We used hand sanitizer frequently. I think that our next trip to the CM will be on a sunny day when everyone else's kids are in school right after the entire place has been sanitized. I have no idea how we will arrange that, but it sounds nice.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The family as Elves doing a Hip-Hop dance
Terry did one of these last year. Courtney sent me a link this morning to the site. Jen and the kids make very cute elves, I do not. So, without further ado.... http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/OsSGVkDsgsBDfotY
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Trying to get A2 to eat
Jen and I were spoiled with A. He would eat almost anything we put in front of him. Vegtables, salad, fruit, and whatever else we tried. We did not realize at the time just how lucky we were. Along came A2, and as you know, every child is different. Where A would eat anything, our biggest struggle with A2 is getting her to eat. Anything.
This past weekend, we were at my parent's house. They had family and friends over to watch a Christmas boat parade. The boats are decorated with Christmas lights. The people on the boats throw candy to kids as they pass by. In the middle of dinner, the boats started passing by. The kids ran downstairs and were rewarded with quite a haul of candy. They came back upstairs and divided up the booty.
A2 decided that she wanted an orange tootsie roll pop, TRP for short. She brought it out to the dinner table and asked for it to be opened. A battle of wills ensued. On one side, Jen who wanted A2 to eat her dinner first. On the other side, A2 who wanted the orange TRP and nothing else. After some back and forth between the mom and the three year old, Jen compromised with A2. The deal was 3 bites of hotdog, or no TRP. A2 thought that was absurd. Jen and everyone else at the table tried to reason with her. Everyone tried little games or tricks to get her to eat. Nothing worked. It was a stalemate. A2 did not realize just how stubborn her mother can be. Eventually, and I do mean eventually, A2 got three bites down and earned her TRP. I must give A2 a little credit. She cried a little, but did not throw a fit or tantrum. She knows that gets her no where with us.
The next morning, a Sunday, Jen made our usual Sunday breakfast, a coffee cake. A2 usually eats the coffee cake, or at least some of it. Not on this day. I tried to get her to eat. No luck. A came to the rescue.
Jen got an "Elf (A named him Shorty) on the Shelf" last year. It is a little magic elf that reports back to Santa how the kids are behaving. Jen writes letters to the kids from the elf that describe what the elf observed the day before. The kids find the notes every morning. The letter on this morning told A2 to eat the food that was given to her. This is where A came to the rescue. After A2 told me that she was finished and had not eaten anything, A said, "A2, do you want the kitchen and baby doll from Santa? If so, you better eat your cake." That did the trick, bribery from an imaginary elf through her brother. A2 proceeded to eat her breakfast. We have the elf for 10 more days before he goes back to the North Pole, after that I do not know what we are going to do.
This past weekend, we were at my parent's house. They had family and friends over to watch a Christmas boat parade. The boats are decorated with Christmas lights. The people on the boats throw candy to kids as they pass by. In the middle of dinner, the boats started passing by. The kids ran downstairs and were rewarded with quite a haul of candy. They came back upstairs and divided up the booty.
A2 decided that she wanted an orange tootsie roll pop, TRP for short. She brought it out to the dinner table and asked for it to be opened. A battle of wills ensued. On one side, Jen who wanted A2 to eat her dinner first. On the other side, A2 who wanted the orange TRP and nothing else. After some back and forth between the mom and the three year old, Jen compromised with A2. The deal was 3 bites of hotdog, or no TRP. A2 thought that was absurd. Jen and everyone else at the table tried to reason with her. Everyone tried little games or tricks to get her to eat. Nothing worked. It was a stalemate. A2 did not realize just how stubborn her mother can be. Eventually, and I do mean eventually, A2 got three bites down and earned her TRP. I must give A2 a little credit. She cried a little, but did not throw a fit or tantrum. She knows that gets her no where with us.
The next morning, a Sunday, Jen made our usual Sunday breakfast, a coffee cake. A2 usually eats the coffee cake, or at least some of it. Not on this day. I tried to get her to eat. No luck. A came to the rescue.
Jen got an "Elf (A named him Shorty) on the Shelf" last year. It is a little magic elf that reports back to Santa how the kids are behaving. Jen writes letters to the kids from the elf that describe what the elf observed the day before. The kids find the notes every morning. The letter on this morning told A2 to eat the food that was given to her. This is where A came to the rescue. After A2 told me that she was finished and had not eaten anything, A said, "A2, do you want the kitchen and baby doll from Santa? If so, you better eat your cake." That did the trick, bribery from an imaginary elf through her brother. A2 proceeded to eat her breakfast. We have the elf for 10 more days before he goes back to the North Pole, after that I do not know what we are going to do.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Has not a clue where he is going
Things have been rather uneventful at work lately. A few traffic stops and a few reports, none of them very memorable. JS is on his final day of evaluation. He is doing well and is going to pass. He does a great job with safety, traffic stops, driving, reports, and just about every other aspect of the job. However, he is having difficulty with Key mapping. To put it bluntly, he can't find his behind with both hands. To his credit, he has only lived in Houston since January of this year and he has spent the majority of his training time north of the bayou. The first four days of evaluation, I really did not notice the severity of the issue. I am not sure if all of our calls were on major streets or if I was just a little too helpful. Sometimes it is difficult for me to sit in the passenger seat and let the driver turn the wrong direction. I did start noticing early on that he had some difficulty finding the regular places. What I mean by regular places are those location that we go to every shift. I typically eat at the same restaurant, get a drink at the same convenience store, write reports in the same parking lot, run traffic at the same intersection every single shift. I do not expect the rookie to be able to find those locations without help on the first day. By day two and then day three, they should have some idea. By day five, I should not have to tell you where to turn to find a place that we have been to each of the last 4 days. I noticed on day three that I still had to tell him where to turn to find my convenience store and report writing location. So, today at the beginning of the shift I told him that it was sink or swim time. I was not going to help him find any of our locations. He found the convenience store and we got a drink and then we were dispatched to a loud noise that was about a mile away from the store. He looked at the Key map for 10 minutes and then turned west out of the parking lot. Our destination was to the east. Amazingly enough, I did not correct him. We drove west looking for a street that was behind us. He drove about three miles and decided to stop and look at the map again. We turned around and then slowed at every street so that he could read the street sign. After we made it back to the starting place, I told him to pull into a parking lot. It was teaching time. In the call slip which comes up on the MDT (the computer in our patrol vehicle), three streets are named for every destination. The actual location of the call, and then the two cross streets and their block numbers that the actual location sits in between. JS knew the information was there, but was not sure how to use it. Our call was in the 200 block of a street and the cross streets had the block number of 3700. I asked him what was the block number of our current location, 1000. I then asked what was the block number of our closest cross street. He looked and discovered it was 3800. I asked which direction our current street ran, and he replied correctly, east and west. I told him that the block numbers get smaller as you go east and north in our area, for the most part. With that information, I then asked him if our target street was an east west street or a north south street? He said east west. Correct. I asked which way did we need to go to reach the cross streets? He correctly replied east and we were on our way. Armed with his new found understanding of block numbers in our area and how to use them, JS vastly improved his ability to find location throughout the rest of the shift. I also gave him a few other pointers to help him find his way around the area. It will take him a little time, but at least now he will not drive miles in the wrong direction.
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