9:32 a.m. - February 24, 2006
Crawling, Check Boxes, and Pics
Well, it�s been a busy and eventful week at la casa de Smed.
(Isn�t it always??)
But aside from a part-time summer job interview, the Olympics, assembling scads of tunes for new mixes, playing IM basketball, wasting hours on the computer doing this, than, and o�ter t�ings, it still was a big week here.
For one, Kristin got her first tooth. Finally! After almost five months of this finally, one of those suckers popped through her bottom gums.
And now, she�s miserable again. She has a cold and her gums hurt. Awwwwww.
But it was another big week for Kristin. After fits and starts and almosts, she crawled for the first time.
Over the past week, she had perfect the roll across the floor to get where I need to go maneuver, and a while had tried to crawl towards toys and blankets.
However, she was stymied in crawling because she couldn�t get one of her legs to cooperate.
But this week, there was success! Yeah!
And there was much rejoicing!
Along with the abstract fear that Liz and I have about a baby crawling in a house with six fireplaces (three that work) and two impossibly steep staircases.
Do you think there could be some steep things in the house?
Yeah, I thought so. I was going to take pics of the two staircases last night, but I got distracted. Ah, well.
Around lunchtime, Liz and I have another parent-teacher conference at Katie�s Montessori school.
It has been told to us that Katie has �excellent verbal skills� and �expresses herself quite often.� She is also �very active.� She knows most of her letter songs and is right at the cusp of reading.
While I am sure that if she was the hellion-beast from hell (department of redundancy department) we would have had a sit down with the teacher, I still wonder about it.
For one, she still has Rafael�s sunglasses in her backpack. Now, she SAYS Rafael gave them to her, but is that really the case?
For two, at home her mouth has a tendency to get into trouble. Since when did four year olds talk about bodily functions? Oh, that�s probably because I don�t remember talking about them when I was four.
For three, she has a habit of already bossing her sister around, taking toys away and giving her toys that she says Kristin wants to play with, instead of the toy Kristin had in her hand. One day, Kristin is just going to bonk her with a toy. But, of course, Kristin gets back at her because she has a tendency to grab onto things, and often that includes Katie�s hair. Oops.
We were chosen by the US Government to fill out a Commerce Survey by the census department. This is a survey that asks all kinds of questions about everyone in the household, from where they work to how much school they have had to, I don�t know, if they prefer Corn Flakes, Post Toasties, or the store brand.
Of course, they asked a question about the race of everyone in the household.
When we got Kristin�s Social Security Card (and Katie�s too, for that matter), there was a check box for race. It was mandatory, and it did not allow for a write in.
Liz says that means that the Social Security Department must assume that Caucasians and African Americans never have sex with each other.
So she was wondering what kind of check boxes this form would have.
Well, it had several boxes listed for race. If you were a Native American or Native Alaskan, it asked what tribe or group. It really delineated between the different Asian peoples, and had boxes for others and a write in section.
But no �mixed race� and Liz was mad.
Until she found out that one could check multiple boxes.
So she happily checked �Caucasian� and �African American� for the girls. I said that she should have delineated further, amongst the various European peoples. I could check �European Mutt� and she could have checked �Pasty White Scotch Irish�.
Ouch, she still packs a wallop!
(Note, a couple of the above paragraphs could be true, or they could be artistic license. You decide!)
But I was glad that they allowed us to actually tell them the truth about our girls. Wouldn�t you? I mean, look at them!
See?
BTW - There's a battle at the home front. Kristin's eyes - blue or hazel??
