Family Update, Week of 4-18-05

Okay, okay, here’s the latest on the homefront:

Annie

Annie has gotten into the “Mean Sister” thing, and by Mean Sister I mean Pushing Abby Off Any Toy That Looks Good and Stealing Toys That Abby Plays With. This is, of course, minutia, but kids are nothing if not minutia. Hell, most of the fun of parenting is watching the little discoveries, listening for their speech and language improvements, and waiting for each milestone.

However, as I’ve mentioned before, it is far less entertaining to watch these milestones the second time around. Of course it was great seeing Abby walk for the first time, a moment I won’t be forgetting, but there wasn’t that explosion of happiness and personal accomplishment that came with Annie’s achievement. Like me and Ericka as parents got our Kick Ass Award for Annie, but for Abby it was more of a slap on the back. “Keep up the good work” doesn’t quite measure up to “You are King of the World!” in terms of feeling, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Abby

Abby is, as I’ve noted, dealing with the fact that Annie tries to steal anything she is remotely interested in. Of course we as parents try to keep an eye on what they’re doing and right the appropriate wrongs, but sometimes things do slip through. It’s then that the Parent Persona kicks in, the voice deepens a bit, gains that air of Authority, and bellows out across the apartment.

Speaking of, another interesting aspect to Abby at this point is discipline. It’s hard to define the line where time outs or Stern Talks are necessary, but I think we’ve reached that point. Abby understands a lot of what we tell her, even if she can’t yet form the sounds with her voicebox to reciprocate our communication. If I tell her to stop or stay away from something she does so, and by that rationale has opened herself up to the same restrictions that any other toddler in the Erwin household is restricted to. We’ll see how she adjusts over the next few months.

Ericka (her blog)

Ericka remains the most rock-solid member of the family, and yes she continues to bake amazing dessert creations at hair-raising speed (lovin the adjectives today, I tell ya). Hell, at this point she has memorized the recipe for cheesecake (yes, she recited it for me) and is very eager to get started on her Official Baking Classes next week. I hope she learns a bunch and perhaps get some work out of it, as I know Baking For Profit is something she really wants to accomplish without the crutch of a Regular Job.

As for me? Well, due to the Grand Prix thing I spoke of yesterday, there may be no Friday post, but I’m sure I’ll say something before I leave that morning. I also booked hotel stuff for BlogNashville today, and that’s a good thing. I can’t wait to see some famous or at least well-read bloggers (aren’t those terms one and the same?). They’ll probably laugh and run from the East TN geek, but you just never know, do you?

They don’t think that I listen
But I know who they are

Tags: Family, Story, Erwin, Annie, Abby, Ericka