Mattress Fun

December 30, 2009 by Adam in Sam

One of the presents I got the kids was an inflatable mattress.  It was spontaneous, something I found on sale at Fred Meyer's.  They'd had a previous one, which they destroyed after some extreme play sessions.  The same might happen with this one, but at least they'll have gotten quite a bit of joy out of it.

Sam also decided to start an exercise routine last night.  He was doing push-ups, jumping jacks, and did the stair-stepper while watching Lost for 20 minutes.  I'm really proud of him.

The Dangers of Cough Syrup

December 25, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam's had a loose tooth for awhile now, and has had a pretty bad cough for a couple days now.  Last I gave him a bunch of cough syrup and sent him off to bed.  A few minutes later, he came down, wiggling his tooth and making odd noises.  For nearly a half an hour he fiddled with the thing, moving it this way and that.  I threatened to send him to bed, but he got it out with powerful sucking and claimed victory.

This morning when Emma woke up, I told her about it.  She seemed more excited about the loose tooth than opening her Christmas stocking.  We wrote a note from the tooth fairy together and I gave him a dollar.  When Sam woke up, his first words were, "Well, at least it's not a quarter."

Into Each Generation, A Hero Is Born

December 15, 2009 by Adam in Sam

I try hard to find ways to connect with Sam.  Emma's pretty easy, giving love and kisses and letting her help in the kitchen.  With Sam, we have episodes of Lost, computer games, and D&D.

Last night I came home from work late, fed the kids, and broke out the previously promised D&D books and paper.  Emma wasn't horribly into it, but Sam was mesmerized.  The village they adopted was suffering through a cold winter and they needed supplies.  They had gone to a nearby town to trade, but found only zombies and a few surviving children that they rescued.  The warehouse was guarded by an automaton, which Sam cleverly lured out to defeat the last of the zombies, using the distraction to haul off the last of the food.

He was so excited that he came up with the idea on his own, and rolled a 20 on a 20 sided die for the last-minute leap out of the way.  He immediately told Emma the whole story, who had wandered off to do art.  After returning to his home village, he liked the part where hope was restored and they were hailed as returning heroes.

One of the things I've found when making computer games is that while I get a lot of "thanks for the fun game" e-mails, the ones from people in dire straights are the most touching.  I'll never forget the woman dying of cancer, and how playing my game with her husband made him laugh out loud for the first time in ages.  With Sam, I like how I can give him that sense of hope and purpose, that his actions can determine the fate of countless souls.  I remember not feeling very in control of my life when my parents divorced, so I like seeing him create these small moments of victory.

Helicopter Madness

November 23, 2009 by Adam in Sam

I got Sam a remote controlled helicopter for his birthday.  I think it was a hit as he played with it all afternoon.  Emma really wanted to learn to fly it, so she got in some flight time after a few lessons from her brother.

Happy Birthday, 1 of 3

November 23, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam celebrated his 11th birthday with his friends from school today.  His choice was to go to Roaring Rapids for pizza, video games, and general mayhem.  Emma had a good time as her friend Natalie was there too.  It's amazing how much fun a six-year-old can have putting quarters into a machine and getting cheap plastic toys coming out.

He'll have another party on Thanksgiving and yet another the day after.

Talented and Gifted?

November 18, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam was talking about school today and mentioned that he thinks the TAG program started for him today.  He was pulled out of math and half of reading, and spent the time doing puzzles and comparisons.  He seemed to think it was fun, and generally easy until they got to comparisons involving toothbrushes and forks.  I'm sure it's somehow stimulating his brain deeply.

I took the kids to the park today to ride bikes

October 31, 2009 by Adam in Sam

I took the kids to the park today to ride bikes. It was pretty muddy and Sam in particular enjoyed riding through huge mud puddles. Emma was the safety officer and repeatedly pulled him off the ground.

When he returned home, he showered, put on clean clothes, and made himself pizza. He reported that it felt like he lived a life of luxury.

Sam declared that he could tell that he was g...

October 12, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam declared that he could tell that he was growing up. Fascinated, I asked him to elaborate. For starters, he wasn't interested in playing pretend any more, which made it harder to have fun. I've also noticed that privacy has become important and baths are a solitary affair. When pressing him further, he just said "everything's changed" and left it at that.

Sam's math teacher has been sending daily upd...

September 29, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam's math teacher has been sending daily updates, which I've been cheerfully reading and following up with Sam in the evening. "Remember to line up the decimals," I told him last night.

There's always a picture that goes with it, and I've seen a bunch of his buddies appear. Today, Sam's picture finally showed up, though I'm not sure it's the most flattering shot.

You can see his latest look, blue jeans and t-shirts. That's all he wears these days.

Sam and I worked on his website today

September 26, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam and I worked on his website today. If you go to samatopia.com, you'll see a new banner and on the Play page, he's uploaded Stick Man Adventures. The latter is all his, with just a bit of advice from me. The banner was more collaborative, as Flash is a tricky language to program in. "I kinda told you what to do," he added just now. He's the vision guy and I'm the lowly programmer.

Sam's school is really embracing the web and ...

September 23, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam's school is really embracing the web and e-mail this year. I've gotten several e-mails from Emma's teacher and daily updates from Mr. Wines, who is Sam's math teacher.

Today the photo was of Sam's good friend John, putting paper mache over a balloon. For those handful of people who are interested in what Sam's doing in math, you can see it here

I got Jamie a Zune to make her gym workouts b...

September 16, 2009 by Adam in Sam

I got Jamie a Zune to make her gym workouts better, and loaded up a bunch of pictures on it. After looking at old pictures of himself, it turns out that Sam decided he looked extra cool with long hair. The only logical conclusion was to grow it out, so I managed to force it into a pony-tail.

I've been really proud of Sam lately. Though life at home has been stressful, his spirits have remained relatively high. We've been talking about him taking on more responsibilities and gaining new freedoms. School has been going really well, and he's doing homework and taking tests like a pro.

He also keeps expressing annoyance with glasses, so I want to get him into contacts when we next see the optometrist.

We got back from OMSI a little while ago

September 06, 2009 by Adam in Sam

We got back from OMSI a little while ago. While we were there, we went up the escalator and it ripped off the tip of his sandal.

Initially I was a little annoyed, thinking he was playing around. Soon it dawned on me that he hadn't done anything wrong and he nearly lost the tip of his toe.

Very scary.

We're hanging out in the hotel room, being re...

August 04, 2009 by Adam in Sam

We're hanging out in the hotel room, being relatively lazy today. We discovered a game called Red Remover and Sam made a level for it.

Generic Heading

August 01, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Here's Sam, talking about our trip:

Sam has really started to get artistic this S...

July 03, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam has really started to get artistic this Summer. A few days ago, he asked me to show him Photoshop. Pretty soon he was whipping up modern art left and right. I found this shot on my camera, so it appears he's trying to document his work. One of his favorite pictures so far is "The Tooth", which I'll try to post.

He also got some acrylics yesterday and started into mixing paints. I think we have an artist in the family.

Sam discovered a strange alien blob

June 17, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam discovered a strange alien blob. This video describes what he did with it.

We got a letter in the mail from Sam's school

May 31, 2009 by Adam in Sam

We got a letter in the mail from Sam's school. Evidently he had test scores in excess of 97% and now they want to conduct tests on him to determine if he should be in the Talented and Gifted program.

If he was either talented or gifted, I could accept it. But both? I'm not sure I can accept such a travesty.

Sam was playing Pandemic 2 last night, enjoyi...

May 06, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam was playing Pandemic 2 last night, enjoying it to the point where he watched a tutorial on how to play better. The basic concept is that you're a disease and your goal is to spread across the world. He was gleeful when he managed to wipe out all humanity in all but a few island nations.

The real irony is that he came down with some sort of cold later that night.

Sam has a portable video player, which is gre...

April 26, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam has a portable video player, which is great, other than running out of batteries quickly when it's used for a few hours. To fix the problem, I ordered a MintyBoost kit, which basically lets you charge it off normal batteries instead of a USB cable to your computer.

Sam had a great time soldiering all the parts together, gleefully exclaiming that we needed to do more things like this.

Unfortunately, something went wrong along the way and it doesn't work. I'll have to double-check the soldering and maybe redo some parts. Currently it looks like the part that wasn't done right was one of the few things that I ended up soldering. Oops.

Sam had a very good day yesterday

March 19, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam had a very good day yesterday. He was feeling a little anxious about his multiplication facts, and was behind on his testing. Yesterday he passed the test for his fours and fives, and started in on his sixes. He also did his homework, chore, played outside, and helped Jamie invent a new type of meal (Sam's Ravioli).

Hopefully today goes as well as yesterday.

Sam's really gotten into DnD lately

February 25, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam's really gotten into DnD lately. As soon as I get home, he'll ask if we can play. Emma's generally game as well, though she has a hard time lasting more than an hour.

He's playing a fairly brash fighter character, who has the bad habit of going off on his own. Emma tends to run back to the mayor of the town to get advice, leaving Sam to press onward. Each time he's done so, he's eventually run into trouble he can't handle. After being set ablaze by fire elementals, he dutifully sang "What's going to work, team work!", with Emma eventually coming to the rescue. Then it was being nearly drowned by a giant snake before Emma jumped on its head. The next day, though, he decided to go it alone again and was torn to shreds by skeletons.

Fortunately death is only a minor setback in the world of fantasy, and after a suitable loss of gold an experience, he was back at it again.

For several years, Sam has had long, blond hair

January 13, 2009 by Adam in Sam

For several years, Sam has had long, blond hair. He was never particularly good about washing and combing it, though, and he started to get annoyed with people calling him a girl. Yesterday, he took matters into his own hands and got his uncle Dave to cut it.

Sam saved up all his Christmas and birthday m...

January 12, 2009 by Adam in Sam

Sam saved up all his Christmas and birthday money for a couple years and finally decided to spend it all. He is now the proud owner of the Lego Mindstorms kit. He spent all day yesterday and much of today constructing various robots to entertain and terrorize our family.