Category: Doug

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Nichelle’s Notes from May

Naomi will be 7 mos. old on 5/13…the time goes so fast. She is now mobile. At 5 mos. she started to creep, but realized rolling where she wanted to go was much faster until a week and a half ago. One day last month she was on my bed w/ me playing with some toys and a doll that was mine when I was either 4 or 5. Things were great until David came in with his sword and shield and she left the doll and played with the shield. LOL. So now on occasion she'll have a sword in hand, or mouth (check out the picture—it’s quite cute).

Isaac and David play w/ her and she grabs their hair. Now mind you, they do scream or say “ouch,” but they keep giving their hair back to her to pull, it's pretty funny. John too, does the hair thing, but doesn't scream, which is good.

Nearly 6 mos. of residency here in Nashua, amazing. We love it here! As Doug is home so much earlier now, a huge blessing. We do miss our friends in Ma., we'll be down again, really, but many times over we see why God brought us here—Particularly for the 24-hour Wal*Mart in Amherst (just outside of Nashua) or the one in Hudson (a few minutes away) that’s open to midnight everyday ;-)!! :: drool, drool :: Alright, maybe not just for those, but it's a perk. I will have to admit shopping after midnight can get a bit wacky, as my sister-in-law, Joyce, came to see. We said, we'd never do that again.

Two weeks ago now, I joined the choir and work in the nursery once a month. Doug has been going out on visitation weekly now and John too has gone a couple of times. As for other ministries we're still praying for God's leading on that. It's wonderful seeing the kids excited about Sunday school and junior church and also their classes on Wednesday night. One of David's friends in his class is named David and was born two days before him. They'll be in K5 together in September.

Isaac turned 9 a couple of weeks ago,and we had a party for him at the house. He had a great time w/ his new friends and even Nda came up for the event. Nda has been up here a few times and we've so enjoyed his visits and the visits of our other friends and family as well. Hope we'll see more of you, too.

A couple of months ago, I started watching a little girl named Mikayla (4 days/wk). She's a sweetie. She and David get along very well. Mikayla will be starting K4 in September.

For the month of July our church offers a day camp for grades 1 to 10. I'm really looking forward to that. The program sounds awesome!

Today (5/6), I was asked to watch a little boy of about 15 mos. old named Ethan. I'll only be doing this two days a week-which is great. I start tomorrow.

Wow, it's already the 31 of May … Yesterday my cap on the radiator went once I arrived at church for choir practice. The car is now in the shop. We were planning to visit Cindy, but obviously that had to change. It's alright for it gives us an extra day to get things cleaned out downstairs.

Naomi had a full bath in the tub today…which she loved. She's been creeping for several weeks now,and two days ago started pulling her legs under her to get ready to crawl. Naomi also was able to pull herself up on the stairs in the family room.

John wanted to visit his friends in Mass. and Doug took him and the kids to Lowell and road the train w/ him part way (to North Station) and then sent him on the way. John made it to Brockton, with only a minor problem due to someone giving him the wrong information about what track the Middleboro/Lakeville train was on. Well, he made it back to Lowell Sunday afternoon so we could leave for Cindy's after church. With that trip being cancelled due to the car problem, John hopped back on the train to head to his friend Ryan's party. Can't believe his 16th birthday is a few weeks away…need to get planning. Actually, he needs to get planning!

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Naomi and Her Dad

Ah, Naomi and her Dad…it’s taken her no time at all to be up on her Dad’s shoulders just like her brothers. It’s very sweet. Actually, she’s rough-housing already.

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The King Returned—at Midnight

Last night I went beyond mere fandom, and decided that I would head out to our nearby 24-hour Wal*Mart superstore around midnight to pick up the long-awaited Return of the King DVD. As a bonus, Wal*Mart was giving away a small photoframe magnet for those who picked up the DVD between midnight and 6:00 this morning. Both are pictured above.

While I wouldn’t travel very far to do this, and definitely wouldn’t camp out awaiting such a release, there was a certain thrill to owning the DVD almost before anyone else in my area, especially at only $14-something.

We still await word on what will be in the extended edition, due out in the “Holiday Season” of 2004. I keep checking The Digital Bits Web site, and the official Lord of the Rings Web site, but no news has been released yet.

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My First Spam in Hebrew!

I’m so glad that the Internet allows such rapid intercontinental communication. Imagine a world where one’s inbox would not be regularly populated by the decades-old and now primarily e-mail based Nigerian Money Scam, and the like. Horrible!

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Why God Gives Children Mothers

[doug]I don’t think I’m a bad parent, but recent experience has shown me that, without mothers, most children would never live to see their third birthday. Let me explain a couple of incidents that happened with NaNi this week:

Incident 1: I took all the kids, including Naomi (NaNi), Mother’s Day shopping at Wal*Mart Saturday night. The trip actually went pretty well, and the boys’ behavior was not-as-bad-as-usual-while-shopping. On the way out to the car, we started down a small incline, and NaNi’s car seat (with her inside), flipped off of the shopping cart, and she landed face-down (but without a scratch, because she was securely fastened in a 5-point safety harness) on the mulch in an island we were adjacent to.

In the moment afterward, the entire cart flipped over, dumping David, who was riding it, and our merchandise to the ground. No one was harmed, although NaNi cried for about 60 seconds.

Now, I was certain that I had attached NaNi’s seat to the shopping cart—but Nichelle (a Mom), wouldn’t have stopped there: She would have attached the seat, listened for the click of the latch attaching, tried to pull the seat off to verify it was secured, asked 3 people to try the same, and probably avoided the slightest incline when navigating back to the car.

Incident 2: Last night, I was watching the kids while Nichelle went to ladies’ Bible study and then grocery shopping. When Nichelle got home, NaNi spit up, and Nichelle asked me, “How is it that NaNi was eating brown paper?” (Oddly enough, I didn’t get “The Look,” which husbands and children everywhere fear.) Somehow the little weaselette had torn a 1-inch long piece of cardboard off a big box David was playing with, and swallowed it. She did this while being watched by me, and in the presence of both David and Isaac!

You may now go about the process of organizing the lynch mob …

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88 Miles Per Hour!

My yaar Mark Sohmer sent me this link. The link went down for a while, but is now back up. I’ve been trying to convince Kevin “Doc Brown” Ilsen to buy this, since he is one of the few people I know who can afford it, and knowing someone who owns one of these is probably the closest I’m ever going to get to owning one, but I don’t think he’s very willing enough to waste money on such an effort.

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Geeks Rule!

[isaac]Isaac, now almost 9 years old, has taken up the motto, “Geeks rule!” How it happened was like this: One night at supper John called Isaac a geek, which gave me the opportunity to explain that, in our family, geek is a compliment.

[john]I went on to point out to John that most of what he enjoys in life he owes to geekdom:

  • The computer you like to use: Invented by geeks.
  • The games you like to play? Written by geeks.
  • The chat software you can’t live without? Also written by geeks.
  • The switching system that lets you talk to your friends on the telephone? Developed by geeks.
  • The standard of living we enjoy? Paid for by my own geekdom.

Isaac quickly caught on to the fact that geeks are doing the cool things in the world, and is now proud to be called one. He told me that he now prefers to say negative, instead of no, because it’s more precise.

Geeks rule!

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Nada

Nada is now what happens when we turn the key on our 1994 Buick Century Wagon. It’s got about 160,000 miles on it, and has served us extremely reliably, and we aren’t quite ready to say goodbye to it. AAA is coming by later to deliver the car to our new mechanic.

At work on Friday just before leaving a great thing happened! I was modifying our demo application, and we needed to pass a parameter for a specific localization file to the right module. I coded it, cycled the server, and it worked, all in less than 5 minutes. Struts has not always been so easy, but it’s getting easier.

Naomi turned 5 months old this weekend. She is babbling more, and able to roll over now, and wants to get her hands into everything from what we’re eating for dinner to the computer keyboard. With 3 brothers, I predict her first words will be, “Mom, he’s bothering me.”

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This ’n That

Just a few quick bullet items:

  • President Bush had some great lines in his speech last night. Here are my two favorites:
  • “The other party’s nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions. They’re for tax cuts and against them. They’re for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They’re for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They’re in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”
  • “They now agree that the world is better off with Saddam out of power. They just didn't support removing Saddam from power. Maybe they were hoping he would lose the next Iraqi election.”
  • Last night I took Isaac and David sledding at Roby Park in Nashua. David has become quite the daredevil, which was surprising, because the last time we went sledding, he pretty much didn’t like the big slopes at all. (In fact, he used to beg to go to a nearby school for sledding that was about as thrilling as watching golf.) The slope at the park was mostly ice, so we got some great speed, and proved without a doubt that the best way to sled is to use David or Isaac’s smaller sled in front of mine, allowing me to hold onto the back of theirs and providing excellent steering.
  • Earth to the Palestinians: Want to get anything you want? Stop blowing up innocent people. One isn’t exactly going to garner sympathy by creating busload after busload of noncombatants killed by suicide bombers.
  • My team leader, Brian Cortez, gave us a milk crate full of model rockets and accessories. We will be repairing some of his old models (an X-16 looks particularly cool), and hope to have him present for its re-launch after so many years.
  • At work, I’ve been learning and working with the Jakarta Struts framework, which has been both challenging and fun. The only gripe is the number of “silent failures” that occur (a code-500 server-side error with absolutely nothing in a log file is not exactly easy to diagnose and debug).
  • The new commute is awesome. It takes me only about 45 minutes to take the kids to school and then get to the office in the morning, and I can get home in as little as 20 minutes. Even with slightly longer work hours due to the new project, family time has improved dramatically.
  • The new house, with the entire first-floor in an open layout, is also very good for family interaction and activities. I also have to thank Nichelle for her graciousness in allowing the Lego collection to stay out for days at a time.
  • Speaking of Lego, the new family room has enough room to spread out and build, and we are developing the habit of spending Saturday mornings building with Lego. It’s been great, although I’m still missing one box of miscellaneous Lego that got shuffled in the move.
  • Speaking of Lego, I have to commend them on their customer service. I e-mailed them a suggestion on improving the Lunar Lander set, by using gold visors for the astronauts (instead of the clear ones provided), and they sent me six of the gold visors for free.
  • Moving out of state costs money! (God has provided all that we need, but we have spent quite a bit on car registrations, new licenses, new insurance, new cell phone services, etc.) It seems one has to spend money to save money. (Our car insurance will drop about $125 to $150 per month. Our new cell phone plan will save us up to $100 per month. Gasoline savings will amount to about $100 per month. School tuition is cheaper. Now, if I could just get out of donating 5% of my income to the State of Massachusetts … but the law on that isn’t likely to change!
     
  • The Route 3 widening is a few months behind the schedule that had been listed on their FAQ until a few weeks ago. They are now promising a “substantial completion” by May of 2004, instead of February. Still, that is not very far off.