Barry’s Daily Web News

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I don’t understand the recent talk about slavery reparations. I seems like nobody has actually thought this through. How do we determine who are the descendents of slaves? Skin color would be a poor choice. Some people of dark skin color were actually slavers, not slaves. We wouldn’t want to reward those people. Some people of dark skin entered this country after slavery was illegal. What about people of light skin color, who are 5th or 6th generation descendents of slaves? Would we have to perform DNA testing to determine who could collect the reward? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Are we really talking about compensating for civil rights violations, not slavery? I thought affirmative action was supposed to remedy that. I suspect the only people truly interested in reparations are lawyers and people looking for political gain.

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Sean’s latest words are “keyboard” and “ice cube”.

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Today was a frustrating day. It looks like I have conjunctivitis, and there’s nothing I can do about it because today is Sunday. With blurry vision, I didn’t feel like doing much at all today.

In the Bedroom

The second, and hopefully the last in a while, of the slow movies was In The Bedroom. In retrospect, this movie wasn’t so bad as I had thought when I was watching it. This was one of those movies that you watch for a while and just try to figure out what it is about. The movie did take some unexpected turns. A significant event happened half way through the movie which turned things around, but the main hint about the plot was that you knew there was another hour to watch in the movie. Maybe If I was in a different mood, I would have enjoyed this more. I give this movie a reluctant B.

Buy it.

The Shipping News

It was slow movies this weekend. Not slow as in the number of movies we watched, but slow to develop plot movies that were hard for me to watch. The first of these movies was The Shipping News. This movie stared Kevin Spacey, and this is about the only time I have been less than impressed with his acting. He played a simpleton who moved to Newfoundland to start a new life. The movie had some interesting moments, but was otherwise just plain boring. I rate this movie a C.

Buy it.

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I guess I was tired yesterday evening when I went to make my entries for the day. I forgot to tell the story about lunch. Lately, I’ve been trying to get Sean to eat different types of food. On this day, I thought I would let him try a grilled cheese sandwich. Despite not having made one in years, I was proud of my effort. The sandwich I had made was delicately crafted, and cooked to a golden brown perfection. I’m sure you can guess what happened — Sean didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I didn’t think it was too much of a loss, as I would eat the sandwich myself. So I fed Sean his normal lunch, plain bread and cheese! He ate this like there was no problem. I was telling Cortney of my tail of woe, and she asked if she could try the grilled cheese sandwich. She said it was good, which it must have been, because I couldn’t even pry the sandwich from her fingers. She had no problem finishing the sandwich herself. At least somebody appreciated my effort.

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We took it easy today. We had some friends over for dinner and a swim afterwards. We had done the major cleaning and yardwork last weekend, so we didn’t have to do much to get ready for this evening. I made my sweet and sour chicken, which seemed to go over ok. Sean loved the extended stay in the pool, and was happy to show off his jumping and swimming skills to more people.

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It hasn’t cooled off much from earlier in the week. The high today was 108 degrees, so we spent a nice relaxing evening in the pool. Sean continued to practice holding himself up by his arms, as well as his jumping in the pool. It also looks like Sean is starting to enjoy his post pool routine. Either Cortney or I take Sean into the shower stall afterwards to wash off the chlorine from the pool. After the shower, Sean gets rubbed all over with lotion. After that, he gets his evening milk. I can see why Sean enjoys this.

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Check out this hilarious web site. Make sure you also read the FAQ and letters page.

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Someone found my web page by performing a search in Google with the terms “CIA” and “Mr Rogers neighborhood”. It turns out I’m the number two result for this search. Check out my entries for June 7th for the reason why.

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I have started to read the potty training books I checked out from the library on Tuesday. It looks like we have our work cut out for ourselves. One of the books was a picture book. I thought I should try to read this to Sean. I took the book, sat down on the couch and called Sean over for me to read it to him. But, Sean didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He ripped the book out of my hands, carried it into the next room and put it into his book basket. He then brought me the book he wanted to read, which was one of his farm animal books. I guess Sean has strong opinions on what books we should read to him.

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I just noticed Sean is doing more climbing, using his arms to pull himself up. I think that is one of the reasons he climbed into his crib yesterday evening. It’s a shame we don’t have anything appropriate for Sean to climb on indoors. I have been working with Sean for the last week or so to be able to hold himself up by his arms. I practice this in the pool, where Sean holds on to my thumbs as long as he can before lets go and falls into the pool. I started this effort after I noticed Sean at the kid’s gym. One of the few things Sean couldn’t do as well as the other kids was to hold himself up using his arms. It looks like my practice is starting to pay off. I just need to find something for Sean to climb and hang.

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I had a good father and son moment with Sean this evening. I was in the kitchen, fixing some pasta for Sean and me to eat. All of a sudden, Sean stopped his running and hopping to back up against a set of drawers in the kitchen. He just stood still, looked at me and smiled. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, then all of sudden, it hit me. I was standing and leaning against the dishwasher, and Sean had the same pose. He was imitating his daddy!

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We had an unusual situation with Sean this evening. We had just put Sean to bed. A few minutes later, I heard Sean stirring, so I yelled to him “go back to bed”. A minute two later, I heard Sean crying. When I went to check on him, he wasn’t in the bed. He was in the crib in the room next door! Apparently, Cortney lowered one side of the crib earlier in the day. Somehow, he was able to climb into the crib, and take his blanket with him. Unfortunately, he stood up when I turned on the light, and when he leaned forward, he somersaulted out of the crib. He wasn’t hurt, but it scared him. Let’s see if he stays in his bed after that incident.

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Sean had fun with the early interventionist this morning. She tried something I wouldn’t have thought of, which was to teach Sean to use scissors to cut paper. He also practiced with his colors.