Tate the Tank

Tate is the driving force behind the interest in the military, battles, Army guys, etc. He is REALLY interested in the Civil War, but - frankly - the attraction is mostly the artillery. It's a boy thing.

This is my Army, which is very strong, and indeed has a Delta Force. A Delta Force is a bunch of special troops that do special missions. My Delta Force does exactly that, and I am the gray soldier with the machine gun, squatting, in the picture to the right. My men have camped in an abandoned building, but luckily they managed to bring their flag and some sand-bags, too. I have one bazooka guy, three bombarders, three grenade throwers, a bunch of rifle guys, and five machine gun guys, not counting me.

Oregon... 2002

Since the weather is still rather yucky here, (in the 50's and raining, last time I checked), we are really looking forward to summer! We have several fun activities planned, but the boys are especially looking forward to going to the Oregon coast with Grandpa and Grandma, Aunt Tami, Uncle Dave, and maybe Ann Marie? (If she's not worried the boys will clobber her, after the Mother's Day Incident!)

Tami dug up these pics of the last big family trip to Oregon in 2002. I thought I'd post a few OLD pics, because look how cute these boys are! (And how much they've grown!) Tate was sharing a treasure with Grandpa.

Wyatt enjoyed the beach, as much as the rest of us, but he REALLY loved swinging around in the stunted pine trees next to the rental house. He had just turned six, that summer, and had an endless supply of energy. Still does. You could light Seattle if you could harness that kid. The trees were perfect... sturdy and not very tall. I think that's where we came up with the rule that you could climb on any branch that was bigger around than your arm. So far so good.


Tate was three and a half, and had just gotten his brand new "Hearry Maids". He wasn't exactly used to them yet, and only wore them part of the day, but the effect was quite dramatic! He could hear the ocean! He could hear a whisper! Wow! Tate spent a great deal of time driving his truck around in the sand, making roads and - his specialty - sound effects.


Gunnar was just a little pickle, at (barely) one year old. He walked like a drunken sailor on dry land, so getting around in the sand was challenging. But he didn't care. He was just happy to have the people he loves all in one place, and would sit contentedly on the beach, occupying himself by sucking the salt off the rocks.

One down, two to go

We had Tate's end-of-season soccer party tonight. After practice, Coach Dan gave the kids each a pep talk and an award with a ribbon, (and we parents gave the coaches gift certificates), and then spent a half hour or so playing the traditional kids vs. parents game.

I have no pride... they creamed us, 5 to 1. And not like when they were littler, and we diddled around, being careful not to kick the ball too hard and hurt them, and letting them "steal" it from us.... No, the third graders ran circles around us. And then had the nerve to roll their eyes and say, "It gets easier every year"!

Tate's Lego letter

Yes, I confess that my boys are a bit obsessed with their Legos. Tate even took it upon himself to write a letter to the head of the Lego company himself, with a suggestion he had. He may be HoH, but his expressive language is pretty darn good!

Can you believe they turned him down?! Not even a coupon or a certificate for a mini-kit! I was really proud of him, so have printed his letter, (all in his own words) below:


Dear Mr. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen,

I’ve always loved Star Wars Legos the best. Some of my other favorites are Mars Mission, and the Castle Legos. They are cool too! All the Legos you’ve made are perfect!

But yet, the Lego Star Wars clone collection is not complete. Because I have seen red, yellow, green, and white clones, and even clones that look like they’ve been kissed (on the helmet and chest). There is only one clone needed for the collection to be complete: the Blue Clone! The perfect scene, in Episode 3, the chapter named “Time to Leave” is the scene where the hot-rod-speeder-guy goes down to the Jedi Temple and meets up with four or five blue clones, and is about to be shot or arrested when a kid-Jedi comes and stops the blue clones from killing or arresting the hot-rod-speeder-guy! (But the kid-Jedi dies in the battle.)

The reason I’m sending you this note is because the scene that I am telling you about is only one to two minutes long, and I don’t blame you for missing it, since you have about sixteen other kinds of Legos you’re working on. I’m suspecting if you make this kit, it would be $15 to $20. $15 would probably be great, since I’m suspecting it would come with the hot-rod-guy’s speeder, which was red, and the hot-rod-guy, and the little kid-Jedi and four or five blue clones, with Commander Appo. I learned long ago that Commander Appo is the leader of the blue clones. I think the kit would be complete if you gave them the specialized kind of blaster. And don’t forget to give the little kid-Jedi little legs (like little Annakin has) and a blue light-saber, and to give the hot-rod-speeder-guy a cool pistol. I think that the hot-rod-speeder guy should be wearing gray clothes, like he does in the scene. The kid-Jedi is wearing a gray shirt and tan pants. The blue clones have a little blue on their helmets, and a bunch of blue on their bodies, and usually have white legs. Be sure to watch the scene yourself, just in case I’m getting some of this wrong. I do not mind if this is one of the next kits you build, but I still do really hope you make it sometime in the next few months.

My brothers and I like playing Legos. We usually play two to three hours of Legos a day. Since we like Legos so much, we are building our own creations.

Sincerely,


Tate, age 9

1000 Words?

I have to confess that I am hopelessly behind at putting our family photo albums together... years behind. The upside of this is that when I run across photos like this one, it's like seeing it for the first time! Or it might be the first time...

My parents are removing lots of photo files from their computer and put everything of my kids on disks (since I have no idea what I already have, or don't have!) This photo, I believe, is from three years ago, when Tate was a kinder.

Tate LOVES soccer. It may have something to do with the fact that his hearing issues just don't matter. Yeah, we have to tell the 'ref' that he may not hear the whistle, and he can't often hear the coach calling from the sidelines... but how many of those kids listen anyway?!

I have no idea what just happened in this picture! There's a lot of motion from left to right, but what is the connection between the mischievous look on Tate's face and the expression of the boy in the blue?! (I think if you click on it, it will get bigger.)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'd like to hear this story!

Tate's sweat lodge

It really breaks my heart seeing my boys be sick. And they all are or have been sick the last two weeks. I tell them I wish I had a Magic Mommy Wand that will make everything better.

Seems like it's harder on Tate. When you start out HoH (Hard of Hearing), any congestion makes it dramatically worse. He's had, apparently, a really bad cold with a fever. He just coughs and coughs and coughs. And he sleeps so soundly (is this a deaf thing? or just a Tate thing?) that he will cough until he gags.

I thought moist air might help, but the boys' bedroom is so big, that the vaporizer doesn't have much effect. Sunday night I got him up twice and sat in the bathroom with him, running the shower hot for a few minutes. That would buy us about four hours of sleep. Then I was up with Gunnar (102F and throwing up).

Monday night - with a deep desire for sleep - I got more resourceful and we created Tate's 'sweat lodge'. Yep, the tent is IN the boys' bedroom. He's sleeping on a gym mat, with the vaporizer zipped up in the tent with him. Seemed to work pretty well, so we're trying it again tonight.

Pray for the boys to be well! They all really want to play soccer on Saturday AND we have tickets to Cirque D Soleil (sp?). It would be nice if we're all well enough to go.

Tate, Godzilla, and Hedorah

The green guy is Godzilla! The black guy is Hedorah – the Smog Monster. Hedorah is shooting a ray, from the top corner of its eye, at Godzilla. But of course, since Godzilla has such armored skin, the ray has not much effect.

Now, for more information that is not happening, Godzilla can breathe an atomic ray. Hedorah can spray gas that can originally kill people, but can only make Godzilla dizzy. Also, Hedorah has two other modes: tadpole mode, and standing mode. When Hedorah is in standing mode, he can also shoot these glop-like bomb-like missiles that start to smoke on Godzilla, that must be hot. In tadpole-mode, Hedorah can swim around sinking ships. And Hedorah is made originally of garbage which makes it so invincible. Another reason Hedorah is so invincible, if Godzilla were to punch it or bite it or get it with his tail or his spikes, they would stick into Hedorah with no harm! If Godzilla sticks his hand in (into Hedorah) all that happens is that glop comes out. Another way to say "Hedorah" is to say "Head-ra".

Back to Godzilla, he has spikes, a big tail, two legs, and two arms and hands with four fingers. Godzilla also has a roar that doesn’t sound like a roar. It sounds like a screechy roar that I cannot describe. Godzilla is originally charcoal gray, but in some of his movies he is kind of green – very very dark green.

Hedorah looks like a piece of glop too. It has gloppy legs, but you can hardly tell that they’re not one piece! And long strands and pieces of him just hang off of him everywhere, which is why he looks like a piece of garbage. Hedorah will only stop rampaging to breathe smoke. Hedorah likes breathing smoke because it must give him power.

U9 Tate

Tate has been playing soccer, indoor and outdoor, non-stop since August and it really shows! He's always loved playing 'last man back', with two of his buddies, but now he's branching out, and asking to play mid- and even forward. He gained a lot of confidence and his ball handling has improved too.

Tate has also gotten better at changing direction. Used to be that once he took off running for the ball, he was kind of like a cannon ball that had been launched, and woe to anyone or anything in his path. (Anyone meeting Tate head-on is still likely to end up on the ground, as you can see in the first picture.) He's not a rough (mean) player at all, the boy just has a lot of momentum!

Tate's playing a smarter game, as well as showing more ability to maneuver around players. Mostly, the key word for Tate is determination. I've seen him surrounded by three players from the other team, and he'll come out with the ball, moving toward the goal. I don't have a picture of it, but in his last game he scored the only goal! Way to go Tater-bug!

Muffins or ?

Just in case you’ve been losing sleep, wondering how really cool families like ours come by their own unique family “vocabulary”, here’s how it happens:

I was in the kitchen one day, trying out a new recipe for something I thought my boys might like – Brown Sugar Muffins. You have to understand that there are kids out there who are just wonderful about eating all kinds of things. Then there are kids who are deeply suspicious of any unfamiliar food… those would be my kids.

So the boys were playing happily upstairs and the warm, sweet smell of something good baking in the oven filled the air. But this brief moment of domestic tranquility was interrupted. Tate stomped into the kitchen, obviously upset about something, took one quick look at the nice, little, round brown muffins I was taking out of the tins to cool, and said, “You aren’t makin’ me eat those Poo Poo Balls!” and stomped back out.



Well, ironically, turns out all the boys love the muffins… Tate, most of all. But now, whenever we’re going to bring them anywhere to share with friends, we have to go through this little vocabulary exercise:

“If anyone asks you, these are MUFFINS! BROWN SUGAR MUFFINS! I am not raising DUNG BEETLES!”

Because, of course, Tate’s name stuck.

Dark Vader

So Tate's new HA is working just great. He loves it. So much so that he has convinced me I was wrong to encourage him to wear the old one to soccer. (He will consent to wear the old one to soccer if it's really raining.)

I was worried about the ball hitting him on the head and breaking the HA. Yeah, it can be fixed, but then he would be 'down-graded' to the old one for weeks, not just the duration of the game. (Oh, of course I care about his head! But it's a lot tougher than the HA!)

So he seems to be hearing much better. But over the years he has had his own unique vocabulary, related to his hearing loss. Some things he has self-corrected because now that he reads so well he knows what they are. He doesn't say "reNember" any more, or "hebby equibment". But he still has a few quirks we just let go.

Like "Dark Vader" (which seems reasonably appropriate), or "the Debt Star" (sounds like a place that most Americans should be banished!) Then there's his latest interest - "Gobzilla", and one of his enemies "The Smoog Monster".

Sometimes he's just so close, but not quite right. Like asking me to give him an "interview" of a story. Hmmmm, that would be an overview.

I love my Tater-bug.