Category: The Kids

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Another Novel Nightmare Treatment

Parents of small children are no strangers to the effects of nightmares. We in the Wilcox family are no strangers to unorthodox approaches to treating them. (For example, see this post, which describes how letting David watch Jurassic Park at age 3 cured his dinosaur-laden nightmares.)

NaNi had bad dreams or night terrors of some sort last night. She started crying around 1:00, and wouldn’t wake up enough to stop, in addition to putting a stranglehold on Nichelle.

We’ve been through this before. It never ends well, because Naomi ends up restless or crying in our bed for a number of hours, and none of us gets the sleep we need.

Remarkably, probably because I’d left work a little earlier and taken a long nap before dinner last night, I was more clearheaded than usual, and came up with a plan that would give us all enough sleep, if a bit strangely distributed.

I said to NaNi, “Want to play some World of WarCraft?” She agreed, so we marched off to the family room, and within a few minutes of her sitting on my lap while I played, she had woken up enough to shake off the fear, and demand that she play using her character, so I ran the mouse while she ran the keyboard, which worked very well.

I’m not used to playing a lower-level character (my Gnome is now at level 38), so at first I kept getting us into situations that led to a rapid death. At one point we were outnumbered, and nearly dead, so we ran from the bandits we were fighting—not something that always works. When the last one stopped following us, I had her turn around and I ran the “/taunt” emote, which does a chicken imitation with arms flapping and clucking sounds.

Nichelle, rather than having to try to tend to NaNi, got her own much-needed sleep.

After about 40 minutes, I let NaNi continue playing—she definitely wasn’t ready to go back to bed—and I retired on the couch. I woke up at 4:45 a.m., to find she’d stopped playing, apparently also after spending some time coloring, and crawled onto the couch with me to go to sleep. So I got up and went back to bed, leaving NaNi sleeping peacefully.

Nichelle got enough sleep to pull off our morning preparations on time; she let me sleep a little bit extra to catch up enough for me to take the kids to school and drive to work, and rather than listen to NaNi cry while trying to comfort her, we had some great father-daughter time killing Defias bandits around Goldshire.

I suppose one would have to describe that as a win-win-win.

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3-Year-Old Geek Goddess Sees Future in Competitive Halo

Just a week ago, I’d written about how the Xbox controller, with its two thumbsticks, numerous buttons, and two triggers, was overwhelming for NaNi, who is now 3.25 years of age, even though she’d had no trouble mastering a computer mouse by age 2.5, just like her brothers.

Last night David, Isaac, Naomi and I were playing Halo 2. Despite the fact that Halo was the first video game name NaNi ever learned, she normally will ask to play, then get frustrated and leave after a minute or two, because she’ll have her character looking at the sky or the ground, and not be able to get oriented correctly.

Well, that all changed officially as of yesterday. She’d been playing David’s birthday gift, “Superman Returns,” on the Xbox. Being able to fly around Metropolis gave her the space and freedom of movement to really figure out how to work the thumbsticks. I also discovered she knows the four “lettered” buttons by name, and is learning what each does in the games she plays.

So, last night we were armed with rocket launchers, and I was tracking Isaac, when NaNi blew me away! A moment later she took out Isaac. The icing on the cake was her “vengeful” exclamation to Isaac afterward: “Isaac, don’t say my Barbie toothpaste is stupid! That’s not nice!”

Then she did her victory dance (her own adaptation of the “gnome” dance from Blizzard’s World of WarCraft). It was sweet!

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The Future of Computer Interfaces

(Thanks to Kevin Ilsen for pointing me to the video.)

This is absolutely amazing. With a few simple gestures, this is way beyond the “ancient” computer interfaces we use today, and is nearly exactly like what was seen in Minority Report, which is an excellent film despite Tom Cruz’s presence.

I was thinking about this recently. We complain about the mouse, but the mouse is incredibly intutive to use. All our children were computer-mouse-capable by age 2.5. Watching Naomi is interesting, though. She can use the computer mouse without difficulty. She’s learned to do pretty well with the keyboard, also, good enough to play World of WarCraft.

The Xbox controller, however, still befuddles her. She’ll try to play Halo 2, but end up with her character stuck up against a wall. We discovered yesterday, however, that she did much better with the “Superman: Returns” game, which offers more freedom of movement, and didn’t require her to stay alive by fighting.

Back to computer interfaces. One of the things that hasn’t “arrived” yet, despite the fact that our current computers are more-than-capable, is voice activated software. It just hasn’t caught on, which surprises me. Is is simply too complicated for most users? Is it merely too annoying for most offices?

Thoughts?

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Message from John

[Editor’s note: John e-mailed this to me yesterday. There’s much to respond to, but I don’t have sufficient time, and probably won’t for a couple of days. However, I promised to put it up today, so here it is.]

Dear all blog members

I am sorry for consistently lying on here about my life and all of my problems. The truth is ive been lying bout alot of things and I want to get everything straight. First off I would like to apologize to you about lying about my parents. I have said in the past that they had been controlling my life. But the truth was that I was controlling my own life and wanted to do everything myself and I made bad decisions. And the outcome of that I have lost the two people in my life that took me in and cared for me. And that shouldnt have been so. I should have made the right decisions and not blame them for all of my bad ones. Second off I would like to apologize for lying to everybody about my enrollment in the GED course. I was never enrolled into one. I only told all of you that and my parents that so that they would not think I would be a failure. But I would just like to aplogize for everything ive done. I am trying to turn my life around and my heart towards God again. So if you could please give me another chance and find it in your heart to forgive me I would really like to appreciate it.

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Merry Christmas!

Lots of Christmas news today, but I’ll save it for later. Here are a couple of photos, one an outtake from our family photo shoot, another showing how Geek boy Isaac dresses for school this season.

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My Insane Wife

So, what were Nichelle and I doing (at her insistence) last night, outside in the freezing cold, at midnight?

Hanging Christmas lights, of course. Doesn’t everyone do them at midnight?

I must reiterate, though, it is great to have her feeling so well again!

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Educational Update

Isaac and David both earned highest honors for their first quarter. That means they get a $1/week raise in their allowances, which will now compensate for the $1/week they contribute toward our World of WarCraft subscription. David has become very proficient in handwriting, which is always difficult for a lefty; there’s a huge improvement over last year. Congratulations to them both, the weasels!

Last night I took the second of two “midterms”—our single major exams—for my Boston University graduate courses. I got a stinking “B” on my first exam, in “Object-Oriented Analysis and Design.” I think I did better on the Software Engineering exam yesterday.

Both classes have projects due within a couple of weeks. The Software Engineering course is a group project with three of my co-workers, and we’re building, using Ruby on Rails, a Web-based calendar that is idea for families and small organizations. This is a program I’ve always wanted to put together, and it will be fun finishing it up. So far we’ve learned that Rails is amazing in putting together the data connectivity and display pieces virtually automatically.

In OOAD, I am having a blast designing a simulator of a Star Trek transporter, including replicating the Enterpise D transporter control panel. For this I’m uisng Adobe’s Flex Builder 2, at the suggestion of co-worker RaviShekhar Gopalan, to create my application programmatically for Flash. Although far from finished (I should be “mostly done” by Monday), I’ve published my incomplete-but-working project to http://transporter.wilcoxfamily.net/ . There are some fun hidden features (and I’ll be adding several more), although the simulation/demonstration code isn’t in there yet. I fell victim a bit to a common programmer’s overconfidence: “If I know one object-oriented language, then I can learn another one in minutes!” I’ve figured out just about everything I need to do in Flex (I have one more technical problem to solve, and it’s a small one), but I’m my no means a master yet. You can also take a peek at the PowerPoint presentation I gave to the class for that project. (Can you spot the big omission from my Domain Diagram? It’s a real forehead-slapper!)

(It’s been determined that I will get real credit for the courses I am taking, but that I cannot get my Certificate in Software Engineering, because I don’t have a baccalaureate. I will investigate, after the next two courses are done in the spring, what it would take to convert these credits into undergraduate credits and fill in the missing pieces to get a B.S. in computer science.)

John (we still hear from him occasionally) has been telling people for a while that he is enrolled in a GED review course at Massasoit, but if he is, he’s taking on days it isn’t offered, at times of the day it isn’t offered, with an instructor who isn’t teaching it, using a textbook that isn’t part of the course, and getting a ride from people who claim they aren’t giving him a ride to the class.

And NaNi continues to learn letter recognition and writing from Nichelle, although the impending holidays have cut down on the teaching schedule a bit. Naomi can spot capital As anywhere, and writes them perfectly, except for tending to draw them upside-down.

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With a Thankful Heart ….

Around the table we took turns telling what we were thankful for. It came to David’s turn and he had a long list, starting with his salvation—what a blessing that was. (Doug prompted him by announcing, “Our kids are all ingrates; they have nothing for which they are thankful.”) Then, to top it all off, he broke into songs of praise and worship, and got us all singing.

…being thankful for what we have. Can we list all the blessings God gives to us, really? What a loving, gracious, forgiving, and merciful Lord we serve. One of my major praises is for the return of excellent health! It’s been since July, and so far there is no sign of the symptoms returning. Will they symptoms return? Not sure, but typically by this time of year, I’d be having many symptoms, and so far only a couple of minor ones had happened and then they were gone, and that was at least two months ago.

A trip to Cindy’s for Thanksgiving is always wonderful! Our plan was to head to Cindy’s house after church Wednesday night. It’s a two and a half hour trip, and after service we had hoped to arrive by 11 p.m. I got the suitcases packed, and Doug loaded up the van all before church. (Victory! We’ve never actually accomplished this.) Service typically lets out at 8:15, and we wanted to head back to the house for one final sweep of things and also pick up dinner on the way. Service let out at 9:05 due to the fact that each person has the opportunity to share something that they have been thankful for throughout the past year.

I was downstairs working with our King’s Kids program and Doug was in the service. Things took a little longer, giving hugs and quick praises of thanks for how God has been working once service was over. I believe we all made it in the car at about 9:20. So, you see what happened. So we got in the van, headed home, had the kids do potty runs, etc., and were back in about 5 minutes. (Another victory!)

The plan was to go to the McDonald’s just over the highway. So we took off, and the time was now 9:45. Unfortunately, the McDonald’s was closed! Grrrrrr… We headed back to the BK on Main Street, and ordered meals. We went through drive-thru and pull over once we get our food to pray and dish out the meal so we can get on our way. As the kids were handed their food, Isaac proclaimed in disgust that they got his order wrong—again. They also messed up David’s order. Back through the line we went. I should add, because our order was so long we had to pull to the side and wait for them to finish making it which took several minutes. Anyway, we got the order together and were on our way, finally. Quite a way to start off our mini-vacation!

Our drive was uneventful, except for the 18 wheeler that was having a bit of a problem staying in his lane. He nearly pushed a car off the road, thankfully we got past him (two lanes over), and it was smooth sailing from there. We arrived at Cindy’s just after midnight. The kids slept just about the whole way there and Doug did, too off and on.

Cindy did an awesome job with the meal and the many pies once again. My contribution was a side dish, assistance in the kitchen, and a couple of Hershey Pies.

Around the table we took turns telling what we were thankful for. It came to David’s turn and he had a long list, starting with his salvation—what a blessing that was. (Doug prompted him by announcing, “Our kids are all ingrates; they have nothing for which they are thankful.”) Then, to top it all off, he broke into songs of praise and worship, and got us all singing. Naomi was thankful for her friend Mikayla and her house. We were all thankful for the mutual support we have in the family, especially given the very difficult issues various of us have been through. We talked about why we love to get together, and concluded that our relationships with Christ made a big difference in our family dynamics—you won’t find us saying, “Ugh, holiday time again, we have to put up with the relatives!” Such a sweet time.

Typically after the meal, Cindy and I go for a nice and sometimes long walk, but due to the rain we didn’t go. We all did the next day and it was awesome! We went up to the Littleville Dam and hiked around that a ways about four miles. We also stopped at a large rock bluff to do some climbing. Naomi walked some, but was pretty much carried by Doug, Jenn and myself. Jenn, on our way back was still holding Naomi, who decided her being carried was too much and decided to take a nap.

We all had such a great time together and look forward to our next gathering at Christmas.

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Naomi-isms

Doug and I bought Naomi the Laurie Berkner Band DVD for her birthday, and one of the songs on it is, “Moon, moon, moon.” Part of the song says that the moon takes care of her. So I asked her, “Who takes care of you?” her response: “God does; I only said the moon does because it’s in the song.”

Last week Doug brought home from work gummy eyeballs, and the kids were playing with them. Isaac was playing with his eye and Naomi’s, and placed them on the back of his head, and talked about having Mom-vision. She placed the eyes at the back of her head, and then said, “Look, I’m Isaac. I know everything. Blah, blah, blah, blah.” It was hysterical.

This morning, Naomi was sitting on the floor looking at an e-Toys catalog, and was pointing out things and saying what she wants to have. She then sighed and said, “Humph, that’s $40.”

Added November 11, 2006

This morning, while Nichelle was at the Ladies’ Tea (part of our annual missions conference at church), I was trying to get Naomi to drink milk instead of water or juice. She didn’t want it, and I explained to her that milk contained calcium and other vitamins and minerals that were important for building strong bones, like in her arms.

A while later she came up to me with a sippy cup filled with water, and said, “Dad, watch this.” She drank from the cup, and said, “See? This doesn’t go into my arms, it goes into my chest.”

Added November 21, 2006

Well, this morning as I was leaving for work, Naomi said to me, “Goodbye, Dad, don’t be a slacker … or a weasel … or a goober … like Uncle Phil!

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Adrenaline

[Editor’s note: This is David’s first-ever BLOG post. Yes, I will get even. For the record, David is 7 years old, just started second grade, and it was a wiffle-ball bat.]

A few weeks ago I beet up my dad with a basballbat and then I threw the basballbat at the flor and my dad started to run away then he went into the bathroom. then he started to run away from me agen