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fun in fours

Month: August 2013

Fitting the Pieces

Sunday 04 August 2013

Dear E,

I wish I could tell you that life is like the puzzle you struggled with today, that there are a few missing parts and with a little trial and error, you can figure out where they fit. Life is a puzzle, but it's more like the puzzle "Dalmatains," with a mass of similarly patterened pieces that seem almost impossibly random.

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You'll struggle at times to make the slightest bit of progress, only to find yourself wondering if perhaps you didn't force a piece here or there after all. "Maybe they don't fit quite that snuggly," you'll say to yourself as you plod off to bed one night.

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But rest assured, there is a bigger picture, it is accessible (if not difficult), and it is beautiful.

Your Dad

Leaving

Sunday 04 August 2013

One thing I dislike about the Catholic church: you get a really good priest in your parish, one who gives thought-provoking homilies and is a fantastic confessor, and then the diocese transfers him...

Saturday at the Pool

Saturday 03 August 2013

Our first day at the pool this year as a family, but alas, the Boy, still recovering from some upper respitory infection, cannot get into the water.

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Instead, he stays with Nana and Papa, forever pointing to the pool, forever needing distracting. It's so unfair, so inexplicable: everyone else takes turns in the water, and the poor Boy is stuck.

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For the Girl, it's a continuation from last year: more development, more courage -- diving, diving, forever diving. With a new set of flippers, she's able to get deeper faster.

"But Tata, it hurts my ears to go that deep."

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She also adds a new trick or two, like diving into the water through the ring.

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"Perhaps I could try that," I suggest.

"I've got to get the camera for that," K replies.

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"I didn't think you'd make it," she replies with a smile.

Views from the Pool

Saturday 03 August 2013

Lipnica Sunset

Saturday 03 August 2013

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Theme Changes

Saturday 03 August 2013

Switched to the new Twenty-Thirteen default theme. Not sure I like it, but with the various post-types, it makes me think of content in a new way, as a potential design element, and I like that fresh thinking.

Peep

Saturday 03 August 2013

L’s favorite cartoon of late, Peep and the Big Wide World. I have to say, I enjoy it too: simple animation that focuses on the story, with real-life applications afterward.

Watching Cartoons Together

Friday 02 August 2013

kids

Monopolies

Thursday 01 August 2013

"Daddy, will you play with me?" It's a common refrain from the Girl when we're home alone, just the three of us, and the Boy is down for his nap. And lately, the answer to my question "What would you like to play?" is itself a question: "Can we play a board game?"

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It's an opportunity to see how much the Girl has really matured in the last year. We play Sorry; she loses -- no tears. We play Monopoly Junior; she wins -- no hysterics.

I find my own attitudes towards these games are vastly different, though. Sorry depends a great deal on chance, but there's a bit of strategy involved. You draw a seven and you have to think of how best to split those seven moves between two pawns. You draw a "Sorry!" card and you have to determine which is the best piece of your opponent to replace, and it has to be a balance between what helps you the most and what hurts your opponent the most.

Monolopy Junior, though, is pure chance. Roll the dice; move the piece; buy the property (which in Junior involves merely buying a ticket booth -- looks like a regular Monolopy house -- and putting it on the square) or pay the owner. Mixed among the typical Chance cards are cards that allow a player to get a free ticket booth, which can entitle the player in some instances to confiscate the opponent's existing booth. It's a frustratingly random game, and I often find myself relieved as I start hemorrhaging money and the end approaches.

Yet boring as it is for me, I play with the Girl whenever she asks. As a husband and father, I no longer have a monopoly on my own time or interests.