Paul muses on recent developments and life in general...

April 14th, 2002

Excitement with Climbing!

Well, things have gotten exciting around here. You see, our athlete and grand explorer, Mr. Riley James Kwinn, has dicovered the joys of climbing. It's something every kid has got to learn about at some point, I guess, and likewise something every parent has got to gain a few gray hairs over. Last week, Beckett told me that she turned around at some point and found Riley sitting, pleased as could be, on the couch. Likewise he had learned to climb onto our coffee table. That table is fairly short (maybe 18 inches tall), but ends up being a greater danger than the couch, both because of its wooden composition and the fact that it's got enough surface area that he wants to run around and play up there. Beckett very wisely spent most of that first day teaching him how to climb down, and applauding each time he did so safely. We've instituted a "no toys on the coffee table (or in his hands while he's up there)" rule, since they tend to distract him from important things like how close he's getting to the edge. He's had a couple of tumbles while climbing up/down, and I saved him once when he accidentally stepped off the edge. He's also got several bruises on his shins from the climbing. But he's so proud to stand up there and announce himself to the universe.

Today, the climbing took another step (as it were) and we awakened this morning to the thud of Riley hitting the floor beside his bed. Eek. (Alan, you were so right.) That's a lot bigger fall than the coffee table. He wasn't much hurt, or even that scared (cried for a minute or two). I immediately adjusted his mattress to its lowest setting (which I should have done weeks ago), but of course we're not sure what to do about sleeping arrangements at this point. We believe it's safe to put him in the bassinet for the time being (it has taller and hard-to-climb cloth mesh sides [and is closer to the floor, just in case]), but the real solution is going to have to be putting his mattress on the floor. That will require a gate to keep him from getting out of his bedroom (which we have), and require the painting of the bedroom to be finished (Beck has even bigger painting incentive now).

And Beck tells me that he fell off of the coffee table today, too. So it looks like we're going to make table-climbing a no-no.

In other news, since my last entry Casey has taken fully to walking. He doesn't run as much as his brother does yet, but it's now his preferred mode of transportation.

And then there was Beckett's second Mother's Day, two days ago. It was nice: she got to sleep in, then we went to lunch at Baker's Square, and an hour or so of the kids swinging, sliding, and running around like maniacs at the park. And we gave Mom a nightlight that slowly changes colors. She liked that. In the evening, given her choice, Beck decided she wanted to spend some time painting the boys' room. Maybe she foresaw Riley's bed escape.

Work is going well. My new company (Shaba Games) is flying me (and everyone else in the small company) to the computer games business' big annual show: The Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3). This will be my first time
attending, and I'm excited about that. It's next week, Wed-Fri.

And I'll be back from that just in time for BayCon. Puzzlebox will be performing a concert there on Sunday (our first since FilkContinental, in September [and first with all three of us since last year's BayCon]). I'm so looking forward to that!

And feel free to remind me to write up a con report for FKO. Yep, I really ought to.

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

First Steps and Scary Dinosaurs

Well, Casey has taken his first steps. On Saturday, I sat on the floor, stood him at arm's length from me, and encouraged him to walk toward me before I let go of him. He seemed excited by the idea, so kept standing on his own and took two steps, diving into my arms on the second one (still counts!). He's repeated the trick several times since then for his mother and I both. He also seems just slightly more inclined to stand on his own, if necessary, now. So I think he will be walking alongside his brother at some point.

I haven't been to work the last two days. (Yeah, taking sick days when I've only been working there a week, but what can I do?) Riley's got a cold. He's been very congested and wakes up several times a night. Beckett might be able to handle that (with a stand-in or two per night from me), except that at the same time she's had a cold and her worst headache in a long time; she was completely incapacitated Sunday night. I definitely hope to be back to work tomorrow. I even more definitely hope everyone will be all healed up before Friday, so that Beckett & my weekend at the Ritz-Carlton won't be impacted. Who am I kidding? We need that weekend so badly that we'd probably go even if we were missing limbs. "Say, do I get a discount on the room rate if I won't be using the full length of the bed?"

This morning, there was an interesting little incident. We have a plush pink dinosaur, maybe a foot long. When you squeeze and release him, he makes a howling noise. I was holding Riley, and I heard the dino howl from the corner where Casey was playing. Then came Casey's "something's really wrong" cry. (Yes, I know I wrote before about the kids crying out of all proportion to what was happening to them. And they can certainly scream very loudly based on nothing more than outrage at not getting what they want. But there's still a _timbre_ to a cry, which every parent learns to recognize, that identifies it as something of real concern.) I thought he must have smashed his fingers or hit his head or something. So I went over there, and apparently the howling pink brontosaurus had scared the crap out of him. He looked back and forth between me and it, as though to say "Save me!". I picked him up and sat on the couch with both boys on my lap. Casey kept craning his neck, trying to see if the scary dinosaur was still there. When I put him down a few minutes later, he crawled a few feet over, peeked around the toy bin, saw the dino, and started crying to me again. "OK," says I, "Introductions are in order." So I brought the dino out to the middle of the floor, where both boys could see him with me, and I smiled and made the dino howl. Now Riley started to cry and move away from it, too. OK, just not ready for the scary pink dinosaur. So now it sits out of their reach and sight, waiting for another, bolder day in the boys' lives.

3/6/2002

Happy 1st Birthday! Etc!

Wow, a lot has happened here in the Kwinn/Gladney household. Working from the furthest-back big event:

Shortly after Casey's health mishaps in the previous Puzzling, the twins both caught a stomach virus. That was no fun. They were running from both ends (apologies to non-parents and other squeamish readers). We'd think they were doing better, try feeding them something, then they'd vomit. And they were (understandably) grumpy the whole time. We took them to the doctor and found out that they (especially Casey) had gotten somewhat dehydrated. The prescription was slow, forced (if necessary) re-hydration with Pedialite. Then, as they were on the mend, Beck caught the disease (no vomiting, but a good week of nausea and aches). Once again, though, we all got through it.

Casey and Riley are officially one-year-olds. Their birthday was Tuesday, February 12th. Their grandpa (my dad) was up here for the occasion, and they had a home-made cake and presents from several people. A grand time was had. Well, I'm not sure the boys understood much of what went on, but they have played with their new toys, and they had fun with grandpa.

The boys have kind of settled into a pattern with people they see less regularly (like my family): when they're first introduced, they're quiet and suspicious-looking. If the person gets close to them too soon, picks them up, etc, they'll probably cry. But if the person just hangs around in their vicinity for a while, and slowly works up the interaction level (starting with smiling/talking from a distance), then within a few hours they'll be considered "OK".

And then there was last Thursday (Feb 28th), a day of amazing import to our household, for two reasons. The first item is one that I'd guess most of this readership already knows about. In the morning, I was sleeping in, and Beck's friend Diane kept calling us, saying that she wanted to get us in on a conference call with her and Alisa. ?! Alisa? Does Diane even know Alisa? Well, Beck couldn't stand the suspense anymore after about the third call, and got me up (at 10:30) to see what they had to say. It turns out that Diane had come to the conclusion that Beck and I had been through too much stress in the past 4 months since I was laid off, and dammit, she was going to do something about it. What she did was get ahold of Alisa (still not sure why she chose Alisa, but considering how good my music partner is at organizing things, she couldn't have made a better choice), and the two of them cooked up a massive conspiracy. Apparently Beckett had once remarked to Diane on the elegance of the Ritz Carlton, in Half Moon Bay. So Di and Alisa them contacted almost everyone we know (using a mass-mailed letter that I'd sent out about the twins for the address list). They apparently got about 50 people willing to contribute to the cause of sending us to the Ritz Carlton for a very snazzy weekend, with Diane and her S.O. Dean taking care of the twins for the duration. Woooooo!! Yep, we can _really_ use this! Thanks, everybody!

Oh, and the second big piece of news from Thursday? Well, I got a job offer. :{)} Wahoo!! Income to keep the boys in food, clothes, and toys, at last! I'll be working at Shaba Games, starting on Monday. I'll be working on extreme sports games for various home video game consoles. They're in Sausalito, which is a fair distance away, unfortunately. It was hour drive, when I've gone there during non-rush hours to interview. I'm guessing it'll take an hour and a half to drive there for work (plus an hour and a half home, of course). Three hours a day on the road is not good, but I really need the job. They are apparently considering relocating to San Francisco, which would cut down the commute some, and allow me to take mass transit (BART). I'll hope for that. They would also be open to a little telecommuting (maybe a day a week), which would be a big help. It seems like an excellent place to work, though; good people. It'll be my first time working for a small (30-40 people) company.

But don't worry: despite being employed, we still need that weekend. Desperately. Thank you again. We have such wonderful friends.

2/4/2002

Poor Casey

Last week was a tough one on our dear Casey. He ran a low-grade fever over the weekend, so we took him to the doctor on Monday (a week ago). The doctor checked for ear infection (didn’t find one), and said it was probably some virus, which he seemed to be recovering from. By Tuesday, the fever was gone, but he started developing a rash on his chest and back. Then on Thursday, he was standing, holding onto the coffee table, and fell, banging his face on the edge of the table on the way down. I went to pick him up, and found blood oozing out of his eye. I can tell you with great surety that that is a sight no parent wants to see! I cleaned him up a little, and found that he had a laceration on his eyelid. It was wide enough (half an inch) and open enough that I figured we should have a doctor look at it. Our pediatric office fit us in right away. No stitches (doctor said the same wound on the cheek would have gotten stitches, but wounds on the eyelid tended to stay closed). He also diagnosed the rash as Roseola (“baby measels”; the fever had been part of the same thing, apparently). Beckett was at a doctor’s appointment of her own, so I decided not to tell her about the mishap until we got through at the pediatrician. Let her know that “He’s fine”, at the same time she hears about the mishap.

Busy week for poor Casey. He's doing fine, though. The rash has cleared up, and I keep telling him how he can make up all sorts of stories about that eyelid scar later in his life to impress girls.

1/17/2002

Party for Jamie and Didit

My brother Jamie got married last month. He and Didit did it (heehee) in Las Vegas, by themselves. But the family was just determined to somehow mark the occasion. So, mainly through the organizational efforts of my sister Ann, the happy couple had a reception party this past Saturday (Jan 12th) in Los Angeles (where most of my family lives). It was a lot of fun.

Beck, the twins, and I drove down to be part of the festivities. My participation in the preparations started when Jamie showed up at my mom's (where we were staying) on the morning of the party, and gave me the large, white, bell-shaped piñata. Why? Well, he told me, there's a Philippine tradition (Didit is from The Philippines) where the bride and groom pull a cord attached to a paper mache bell, releasing a rain of coins and a pair of live doves. "Live doves?" says I. "We're picking them up this afternoon," says he, "and since you're an engineer, can you figure out a way to hook up a cord to it and have the coins and birds pop out when we pull it?" Um, OK. It was an interesting challenge.

Beck and I spent the afternoon getting the kids as ready as possible for an evening of partying down with a big bunch of adults, so we couldn't go early to help set things up like the rest of the family did. But I think we made up for it, between the songs I sang for the couple at Ann's request ("By My Side" and Cindy McQuillan's "I Would Walk with You") and the fact that our very popular babies served as quite the go-betweens between the bride's and groom's families. All the ladies wanted to dance with Casey and Riley. There was great food, there were toasts (led off by my brother Mark), there was dancing. Jamie wore a tux, and Didit wore a spectacular dress. It was a lot of fun.

And yep, the coins and doves did come out when the cord was pulled. Yay!

One other significant piece of news: today, Riley took his first unsupported steps. Just a few, but he's on his way. My prediction has been that Riley would be walking and Casey talking before their first birthday. Looks like I was at least half right, and there's 3 and a half weeks yet to go.

1/5/2002

A New Year

Happy New Year, everybody! Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted, hasn't it? My FilkContinental report has been up for months, now. And Debbie Ohi (my on-line journal hero) came to visit with us for most of a week after that.

I'm afraid that I am unemployed. I have been since October 12th, in fact, one week after I got back from FilkContinental. The 3DO Company had their second round of lay-offs for the year (the first was on our twins' birthday, February 12th). And the end of the year is just a tough time to be looking for work. We're getting by OK so far, though. I'm hopeful that companies will be more interested in staffing up in the new year.

The twins have changed a lot since the last time I wrote, too. When I got back from Germany in early October, Riley had two surprises for me: his first tooth and the ability to get to a sitting position on his own. Since then, the boys have 5 teeth each, can pull themselves up to standing using a piece of furniture (or conveniently-placed adult), and both are crawling around like crazy. And that's just what they're driving their parents, too, with their new-found ability and desire to get into everything. But it's still awfully cool to see how interested they are in everything: little stuff that we jaded adults don't even notice are fascinating to them. Just standing staring out the window at the yard, for instance, or the mindless joy of simply banging things together (at considerable length).

Christmas was great. Plenty of noisy new toys. One that I picked out for them myself was "Giggly Wiggly": It's a green plastic ball that makes sounds like some sort of bizarre alien duck when it gets rolled along the floor. My favorite Christmas moment features this strange little toy: after listening to its blats and squeals for a while, Riley sat next to it, bending down and trying to talk into the holes in it. It appears he thought it was alive, and was eager to communicate. :{)}

But what caused me to put in a Puzzling now? Well, yesterday had several cool moments with the boys. We took the two of them to the park for a picnic (only the second time they've been there). They saw a bunch of ducks up very close, begging us for tidbits. They took a couple, too, straight from Riley's hand, when he wasn't paying attention. Then we gave them a ride on the swings (they thought it was OK, but not great) and a short section of a slide (this was much more fun, they said). In the evening, I did something I haven't done in quite a while: I brought out my guitar and played for the boys. Yeah, I know, it's shameful for a filker not to be constantly exposing his children to live music. Mea culpa. And the way they reacted should help me to be better about it in the future. They were just fascinated. For the 20 minutes or so that I was sitting there on the couch with the guitar, they stood and stared and touched it and manipulated the strings every which way. I didn't actually play anything, because they wanted to have their little hands on the strings the whole time. :{)} Musicians in the bud, I hope.

And then there was last night: the first time in months when they both got through the night without a bottle. In earlier Puzzlings I talked about Casey being the problem boy. But in the last couple of months, Casey's slept through, occasionally waking up, but getting back to sleep by himself. Riley's been the problem, apparently having forgotten how to go back to sleep without help. But he did it! We're hopeful that more sleep-sated times are very close ahead for us. :{)} :) Happy, happy parents.

So it was a good day, parent-wise.

Although today I found a flea while I was changing Riley. Stupid ducks.

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