Good morning Veitnam!
I hope everyone had as good a New Year as we did. While what Karen and I did won't end up on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (as we're neither) we really enjoyed our evening. I concocted a pitcher of margaritas using, as always, the fine fine Cabo Wabo tequila and we sat down and watched Sex and The City the movie. Then we had really hot... tea.
I know, I know, shut up loser and tell us about the kids...
Mr. Camden is progressing in leaps and bounds. His vocabulary continues to improve and he's developing a much more robust correlation between the words he is speaking and discrete things in the material world. Example: He can articulate which symbol he wants to hear when the Speak and Spell is activated (remember Speak and Spell? Big dial with arm in the middle activated by pulling a lever which subsequently makes a sound or spells the word that the arm was pointing at.) He's also putting words together a la "Good cookie" and his alphabet is coming along nicely. Physically he's becoming much more adventurous and confident. He's standing by himself for brief seconds and he clearly understands walking and can walk when supported and encouraged from behind. Whereas I thought he would step 1 stand and then step 2 walk I now believe he will start doing both activities independently at or near the same time. I feel confident we'll have our second walker by spring. All in all he continues to amaze us with his progress. Two other nice pieces of trivia: Teething is effectively complete and, oh yeah, he can say the words "love" and "mama" now. Never have there been two words that belonged closer together.
David is now for sale on eBay. I'm just kidding. It's not really a sale it's an auction. David continues to grow physically, intellectually and emotionally. In the not too distant past David struggled with impulse control to the point where it was problematic. Not a crisis, not a tragedy, but definitely a challenge for David and one more challenge for Mom and Dad (Mom and Dad listed in descending order of who was challenged more). Then Karen started investigating dietary modifications as a possible means to correcting the undesired behaviors. In a word, wow. With a little patience, a clear mission to help our son help himself and a HUGE implementation effort on the part of my wife, we (she) has eliminated dairy from David's diet along with a modest number of some other things and the change has been significant. He's now more like Bugs Bunny than Tasmanian Devil. Said differently, his inventory of challenges is much closer in scope now to that of any other typical four year old. This experience has been like a boat ride and we feel like we're on to smoother waters for the time being. We know there will be rough waters ahead in the future, but each challenge we navigate successfully feels like we're putting tools in our parenting tool belt on our journey to be the Norm & Norma Abrams (sp?) of parenting.
Karen never ceases to amaze me. My criteria for a successful day with the kids is not losing my mind and making sure the kids can't find the number for child protective services. But Karen, she thrives. She turns the challenges of feeding, teaching, scheduling, loving, disciplining, therapies, transporting and nurturing into a craft. I can tell you the other luxuries we have in this house pale in comparison to the luxury of having my wife here providing for our kids and taking care of this household and everybody in it. My wife is a blessing in so many ways and she is the source of so much of the love that fills this house that I don't know if she'll ever know how much we all appreciate her. I know today I'll find some small way to express that.
So what is Jim up to? We'll start with Facebook as it's proven to be a quality time waster. I've been on Facebook (FB) for a little over two months now and it is absolutely great for getting in touch with people from yesterday and yesteryear. I've had a lot of fun, some good cordial discussions, and one nominal disappointment. Here's the rub: I'm now back in touch with about 120 friends and there's simply not time to have quality conversation with so many folks. And while that expectation may be wrong it is the essence of the dichotomy of FB. Interestingly enough, this website is the remedy. I can communicate en masse to everyone that truly cares enough to drop in and see what is up with those wacky Preises in non-historic Cary, NC.
My cycling has been going VERY well. I have not missed a regular ride until this week and that was due to a catastrophic mechanical failure of my rear wheel. New wheels have been ordered and I expect them in on Wednesday. I also had a professional fitting done this week and the number of changes we made were significant... saddle rise, saddle height, saddle pitch, cleat positioning on all three axises (sp?), stem heigh, stem length. The net result will likely be a 5% increase in power delivered to the pedals over time. I'm hoping to gradually move up from back of the A group this season. Now onto what in the hell was I thinking... I have registered for and expect to complete the Assault on Mount Mitchell on May the 18th. My projected finish time is 7 hours with a realistic tolerance of + 1.5 hours and minus 20 minutes.
That's all for now. Keep checking back for updates!!!
