Archive for the ‘kids’ Category

Some nights are creepier than others

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Like many lampworkers, I find myself working under cover of darkness lately because of the weather. It’s just cooler overall, plus I have the added benefit of going out after the kids are in bed, so there’s no worry of interruptions.

Also, like many, I listen to my ipod while I’m working. So I’m fairly well isolated out in my little shop. Tonight, I left the light in the backyard off so it wouldn’t attract so many bugs to the back door; it’ll turn on when I approach the porch. Unfortunately this means a fairly dark walk to the house, where even with a flashlight it’s dark, and I run the risk of looking like a prowler.

In my own little world, I wandered back from the shop tonight with my flashlight, scanning here and there for skunks and what not. Nothing.

I went inside and closed the place down. It was quiet except for the ceiling fans which I turned off. I found the dining room light on which I thought I had switched off, but it’s possible I didn’t.

I turned off the lights and wandered upstairs and into the bedroom, I could hear the TV on in my room from the stairs. My wife was asleep, but she had turned on an extra fan so she had also turned up the TV. Off went the set, leaving only the slightly at odds sound of two fans buzzing at slightly different pitches, and then I heard a bump. Or did I?

Being the daddy, it’s my job to investigate and to make sure that everything’s ok in the kid’s room, so I go out into the hallway and my youngest comes silently, but determinedly tromping out of his room and into the light of the night light beaming from the bathroom into the hallway, thumb firmly planted in his mouth. He makes a beeline to me, arms opening wide, so I scoop him close, hug him tight and he falls back to sleep on my shoulder.

Carefully tucked into bed, a kiss upon his head, daddy has once again slain whatever demon lurked in the darkness and all was right in his world.

Around here, sometimes we really do have bumps in the night.

Open to ideas

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Hi folks!

I’m using my little soap box today to solicit some ideas.    My 4 year old is in daycare during the day with his younger brother and a bunch of younger kids.   He’s also been acting up.

Our suspicion is that he’s bored.

I can see that, he’s out of his age group, so he pretty much acts like he’s in theirs.

So here’s my plea for ideas….

Does anyone have any ideas for a multi-day project that a 4 year old can work on with minimal supervision?  I don’t know that he’d be much of a gardener, he’s a bit young to muck about with construction tools (though a hammer and nails might be doable).  Welding’s out (though on the list for when he’s older…yee ha!).

I’m in uncharted territory here, but I need to find something to engage him before he drives us nuts.

For those of you who’ve been there…any ideas?

I’m proud of my little monkey

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

This morning, as we hung out on the bed before breakfast, my oldest wrote his name all by himself in one of those lined pads for learning your letters.

The letters were shaky, the N looked more like an M, but full of confidence and pride, my son leaned back and beamed, “Now I can write my name in the concrete!”

About a month ago or so when we got his end of the year status report from pre-school it said that he was still tracing his name, but not yet doing it on his own.

I have to replace some concrete on the corner of the house where I installed a short apron, so I told him, if he can learn to write his name, he can scratch it into the concrete when I’m done.   I barely thought he was listening let alone paying attention, but it stuck with him.

This morning he wrote his own name, and he remembered.

And I am proud of him.

I guess now I have to get cracking on that concrete project.

Welcome to the water park

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

My oldest wound up missing out on a recent trip to Six Flags and it’s water park.  Being the (sometimes irritatingly) smart tyke that he is, he realized if he puts the hose up on his backyard slide, it gets wet and he goes faster.

Well last night he and his little brother had a grand old time on their “water slide”.  It was nice,  but not exactly environmentally friendly as all that water just goes elsewhere.   So since I don’t want to drain the well just for their amusement, I came up with something else.

They have a wading pool, I have a utility pump, voila.   Our very own little water slide.

I think they’ll like it.

Super high tech, I know.

The Aqueous Dispersion Device

Our Aquatic Propulsion Unit

Careful ultramodern infrastructure was key to the project's success

Tempting fate with a good deed

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

There’s a fantastic organization out there called Beads of Courage (BOC).   As a group, they provide beads to children undergoing surgeries (in many cases, MANY surgeries) as a way to help them cope with the process.

Starting with a string of beads spelling out their name, the children then get beads to mark milestones and procedures.  Go for a blood draw, that’s one type of bead, chemo another, x-rays, heart operations, etc, etc, etc…all stuff distracting kids from the business of growing up and being a kid.

In short, BOC is a group of nice folks.

They rely on donations of beads from bead makers all over the country and world that work in glass, polymer clay, wood, felt, metal, you name it, and when they don’t have enough of a certain type of bead, they have to buy and supplement that type with plastic beads.

Recently I learned that the kids that undergo radiation treatments get glow in the dark beads, and that BOC’s been supplementing with plastic beads.

I’ve decided to do something nice, and I’m making an effort to make 60 glow in the dark beads to send off.   This is a lot of beads for me, since by and large…I don’t do beads.  But I have glow glass, I have mandrels, and doing 10 beads a session isn’t a whole lot when they’re on the smaller (not 1/4″ rod) mandrels.

I think I got 11 in the kiln tonight, so I’m ahead on the next session.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

We took the brood to Burger King today for a quick lunch (the youngest likes the stylish head wear) and I have to say, it was a little depressing.  The employees in the back just about equaled if not outnumbered the patrons.  The sad curtains on the wall screamed “Bickfords!”, and just overall it was quiet.

But I got the “exciting”, though descriptionless, themed Whopper they have in conjunction with “Iron Man 2″.  For the most part it was bland with pockets of spice that weren’t distributed well throughout the sandwich.

The really weird thing…we got the kid’s kid’s meals.   You would think that maybe the toy would have something to do with “Iron Man 2″; movie tie in licensing costs big bucks.  You’d be wrong.   Both kids got a “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” toy, one of which broke within the first 45 seconds of play.

Bland burger, bland decor, 2 year old promotional items…frankly I think your advertising targets are the least of your worries.

On the upside, the orders were right, the staff did a good job, and the fries were delicious.

But the toy for the kids.  Seriously?  That’s the movie that finally pushed “Temple of Doom” off the heap as worst Indiana film ever.

Lovin’ vacation week

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Post nap time….

“J, want a breakfast bar?”

<thumb in mouth>mmh.

“Take your thumb out, is that a yes or no?”

<thumb out>mmh.

“How about an apple? Want an apple?

<thumb in mouth>mmh.

“Take your thumb out, is that a yes or no?”

<thumb out>mmh.

“Yes or no, J”

no.

“Ok, then I guess you don’t want a snack”

H: I want an apple!

Awww, ya caught us.

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

I’m out and about, picking up the kids from daycare this afternoon and my cell phone starts playing the dulcet tones of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” theme.   Thinking maybe it was my wife, I pick up and…it’s the school superintendent with one of her broadcast messages.   This was one was legitimate though, letting us know that yesterday someone was arrested at the high school after showing up and having no business there.  The school staff asked why he was there, he couldn’t come up with anything reasonable, left, and the cops picked him up on the way out.   In short, the system worked as it should.   Had she not called, I probably never would have even known about it.

So here’s the weird thing, I get that call.  The gist of the call, linked below, is that ‘we weren’t going to tell you, but since the media found out and decided to send trucks, we thought maybe we should tell you before you see it on the news’.  Even that’s not so terrible until you also factor in that the preschool classes are being moved to the high school next year.  I have to be buzzed into my kid’s current school, evidently there’s no such system in place at the high school.

Like I said, aside from the nutter who was arrested, I don’t think anyone did something wrong, per se.  But if you’re going to use the broadcast system, do it the day of; this was actually a good message for a change, feel free to gloat and assure parents that you have the kid’s backs.

By the way, Massachusetts is a dual consent state for call recording, however the message was left on my voice mail, granting consent by the caller for the recording.  My phone service delivers a copy of the message to my email.

The call: highSchoolArrest_04142010

UPDATE: Funny how she left out the part about him being a sex offender and attempting to sign someone out of the school.  Hmmph.  Missing info here.

Communications Roundup

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

First off, I got a phone call from the Auburn superintendent of schools.   She wanted to make sure I knew she wasn’t trying to be sarcastic in her email.   I assured her I didn’t think she was.  She assured me that they really are trying to reduce the amount of paper communications sent home with the kids.

I still think reducing her communications to junk mail makes it far less likely I’ll see a message that actually matters.  But I’ll guess we’ll have to agree to disagree that she’s a menace.   When they finally set up two distribution lists, ‘public safety notices’ and ‘other’, I’ll rethink that position.

Next up, a follow-up from CVS…

Good Afternoon Mr. Keis,
I am the pharmacy supervisor for the Auburn CVS.  I apologize for the terrible customer service that your family had to endure.  As a result of your communication I have set in place that all pharmacy staff will be retrained in pick up policy and procedures. We did have some staffing changes at this location and I deeply appreciate you bringing this issue to my attention.
Respectfully,
Anthony Szoka

I appreciate the email back.  Honestly, I do.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that I created a typo of my last name when I initially wrote to them;  tired fingers can do that.

CVS part 2

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Here’s the CVS situation from my wife’s POV:

Dear CVS,

I have been using your pharmacy for years, first because a store was within walking distance from my apartment, and then because your pharmacies are linked so I didn’t have to transfer my prescriptions when I moved. It has been convenience of location rather than satisfaction with the customer experience that has kept me as your customer for so many years. In the last several months, I have been frequenting two stores – store #708 at 676 Southbridge Street in Auburn, MA and store #166 at 115 Stafford Street in Worcester, MA. Nearly 75% of the time I leave the pharmacy counter or drive-thru window feeling that CVS has yet again failed to meet my ever-lowering expectations. This evening was the final straw.

My 2-year-old son visited the doctor today, and his prescription for antibiotics was sent electronically to the pharmacy at store #708 at approximately 3:15 PM. I arrived at the pharmacy a few minutes after 5PM and was informed that my son’s prescription hadn’t yet been printed and that it would take about 10 minutes to fill. I elected to wait. I shopped a little, and returned to the waiting area after about 10 minutes, but my order had not yet been filled. I took a seat and waited some more. Other people came and were told to wait as well. Those same people were called in short order and left; I was still waiting.

For an hour and fifteen minutes, I waited. Every time there was a lull in customers, the counter staff would disappear before I could ask about my order. It wasn’t until another customer mentioned how visibly upset I was as she was being rung up that anyone behind the counter made any eye contact with me. They checked their system again and finally, at 6:30 PM, my prescription was ready. When I asked for an explanation as to why I had been made to wait for 90 minutes for something that had been submitted well in advance of my arrival, the answer from Adam, the Shift Supervisor, was that he just didn’t know. I had seen him speaking with someone in charge of filling and checking the prescriptions, so if Adam didn’t know what was going on, it’s pretty clear that neither did the other people who worked there.

I was already extremely unhappy with having to wait 90 minutes for a prescription that I had initially been told would be ready in 10 minutes. The fact that no one seemed to claim any responsibility for allowing the prescription to fall through the cracks is even more insulting and infuriating. I didn’t bother to speak to a manager at the store because a) I had already been there for an hour and half and didn’t want to stay longer, and b) if the Shift Supervisor could do no more than say “I don’t know” and offer an insincere apology, I doubted anyone else in the store could do more. I hope an e-mail to Corporate will at least reach the Regional Manager, or some other competent person in a position to do something other than tell me they’re sorry.

Thank you for your time,
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