Computer Time

We've had a little disagreement with Isaac on how much time he can spend on the computer. As soon as we walked inside Grandma's house yesterday he went over to the computer to play "the nice shooting game." I convinced him to come over and eat (or at least drink) with us, and he kept telling me he wanted to be excused to go play on the computer. After dinner, he (prompted by me) opened a meeting in which all the adults submitted a vote on how much time he spent on the computer. After he had all voted (Isaac voted for 62 minutes) we gave him the option of choosing the mean, median, or mode. He chose the mode--perhaps because it sounds like the most?--which was 30 minutes. I didn't vote, but I used the Mom Card to outlaw computer time on Sundays. Isaac was happy to be the center of attention and to hear everyone in the room say that they wanted to play with him when he comes over, rather than have him on the computer all day. Happily for me, everyone in the room gave appropriate time allotments and was willing to participate in our discussion. :) Now I don't need to worry about Isaac having too much computer time at Grandma's house: He helped to make the rule.

Pictures!

I went into the backyard tonight and saw this! The boys were just swinging and giggling together. It was lovely. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jeremiah had a spontaneous photo shoot tonight. He was so happy to be swinging gently back and forth, back and forth. Content. He's never liked to swing, so these are his first "swinging pictures." His occupational therapist at school has worked with him on swinging this year, and now he loves loves loves to swing. (He didn't want to come inside, just "sit" on the swing, very sweetly.)







Danielle likes to "take pictures." This is her being sad that it's against the rules. Also, this is why we don't frequently post pictures of Danielle (unless she's eating, restrained in her high chair and distracted).
This is actually Danielle waking up Isaac to get him ready for church. I tried to get pictures, but none of them turned out. Just imagine. She was a very good Sunday morning monster.

Isaac has aspirations to be a photographer. All credit for the following go to him.

A picture when she thinks she's going to get the camera...
...and a mostly happy one that I took of the two of us right after.
(Restrained...and getting ready for a walk.)

Notice the brotherly love. The sisterly lean. The thinner rims on the glasses.

Our kids are growing. They are sweet and good, sometimes attempt politeness, sometimes share of their own free will. We love them. And we're so glad that it's spring and we can play outside and go on walks again!

Irrational panic leads to misallocation of resources: an example

Slate.com has an interesting article about the what really causes most cancers in the United States. I'm guessing that many of the things you've heard of that cause cancer wouldn't make a list of quantitatively significant causes.

The article has a thesis for why this happens, and it talks about the consequences. In general irrational fear of small probability events leads to a mis allocation of resources to prevent these small probability events.

This is a theme I've noticed a lot in modern society; we get all worked up over something and then we expend lots of costly effort doing our best to prevent a rare occurrence, while meanwhile the more likely but less dramatic cause gets short shrift. What's worse, typically the cost is paid in dollars and freedom.

The Book of Mormon describes a secret combination (think conspiracy theory) that would exist in the latter days (today) Ether 8:22-25:

22 And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground for vengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not.
23 Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning. (emphasis added)

I can't help but wonder, if we're constantly panicking about borderline irrelevant things, that maybe there's some kind of more nefarious purpose at work. There are lots of irrelevant things to panic about, who gets to decide what is deemed panic worthy? It's hard for me to believe that there's some shadow organization pulling the strings on each and every alarmist story, but perhaps fostering conditions such that this kind of behavior is encouraged could be easily and subtlety done.

In any case I'm glad someone pointed out that eating a folic-acid free muffin while chatting on a hands-free so your cellphone can be 5 feet from you while sunbathing is just a little silly.

Feed the Head

Okay. I know it sounds a bit creepy. But, really... It's not! A little strange, maybe, but fun. Give it a whirl! Feedthehead.net
(John found it first, not me!)

Addition

I'm working with Isaac on adding. We went on two walks today and tried to find 5 robins and 3 dogs. We found 9 robins and 2 dogs on the first walk, the last dog on the second walk, and then Isaac said, "We're on level two now! Now we need to find 6 robins and 5 dogs. If we find a cat we win!" When we were looking for 5 robins and had found one, Isaac said we had to find four more. (Et cetera.) We had a lot of fun walking around the block with Danielle.

Isaac (and Horse, his invisible horse) were eating carrots and milk in the kitchen (because that's obviously what horses like best), and Isaac was explaining to Horse about how he "went on a walk at Grandma's house and fell down on the street and got an ow on his leg and that the bad alligator scratched his leg and that too much and a lot make too much and too much and too much and too much and too much." (I suppose that would make 4 * "too much" = "a lot.")

Who's Who?

Blonde hair, brown eyes, about 40 pounds and a little over three feet tall with glasses...A perfect description of Jeremiah!




And now, a good description of Isaac, too!




He likes the black plastic frames more than the nice metal ones that hopefully won't look quite as nerdy in pictures. :) He's been good at keeping his glasses on today; he told Grandpa, "My eyes don't work so good, so I need to wear glasses and now they're perfect!"

The boys are very sweet rambunctious loving brothers.









Now we just need to come up with a simple descriptor to throw out when people say, "I just can't tell your boys apart"...

Boys just wanna have FUN

I'm keeping the boys home from school today because they are coughing and Isaac says his throat is scratchy so he "can only breathe like chugga chugga chugga chooooo." So, of course, they're playing horses outside. Isaac's been trying to train Jeremiah to be a horse, or to be his own horse and rider, rather than being Isaac's horse. It's mostly working. The past few days they've been playing together more than egging each other on, and it's been great. I think being able to play outside has a lot to do with that. Playing tag inside gets a lot of tears, but playing tag outside gets a lot of laughing. They've both figured out that if one is crying, the other had better start too, or else will get into trouble. So Jeremiah starts crying because Isaac "helped him fall over somehow" and after a few seconds, Isaac starts crying and comes up with "I have an ow on my hand!" Funny boys.