Parenting

So, I want to make just a quick post about active and passive parenting. I've been thinking about this a lot because I take are of Ethan at the beginning and end of the day. And of course on the weekends.

But, in the mornings I find that I'm just coming out and letting Ethan watch TV while I lay on the couch for just a little longer. I've tried to tell myself that I'm not going to do this but when I'm in the moment, in the actual morning, I don't remember those promises.

In the evenings, I do better. We have been making trips to the park lately because the sun is out longer now (thanks DST) and the weather is warmer. I feel better about doing that because it means that I'm engaging with Ethan. But even then, like on our 2 hour trips, I brought a book so that I could just let him run his energy out. I didn't have a chance to sit down and read it all that much but the intention was there.

Active parenting -- The time spent with kids playing, running, reading, doing things.
Passive parenting -- The time your kid spends interacting with things that are not you.

I shouldn't come down so hard on passive parenting. It can be very useful when things like dishes, cleaning, vacuuming need to get done. Or just when then parent needs a little sanity. But it's an easy parenting style to fall into as the default.

Ethan is getting better about playing with himself without just watching TV. He likes to read books, run around the house, and play with trains.

Some of the things that I need to do more actively are read, sing, run, and build things with him. I'll have to keep working on those.

More catching up

So, Mia finished her play last weekend. It was kind of crazy because their Friday show got canceled because of snow, but then re-scheduled for Sunday. Mia had to work a full shift on Monday and was hoping for a day off on Sunday to rest.
David, Chris and family came out to the Saturday afternoon show of the play. And Linda came out for the evening performance. They all enjoyed it very much. The performance really was moving, they did very well with the singing and sets and everything.

So, during the rest of the week we tried to recover from last weekend.

Also, I received a present from my parents this week. It's for my birthday... just some random birthday, no major milestones that would make me feel old. However, to ease me into my next year closer to death, I'll have a boatload of music. An 80GB iPod with video capabilities. I don't even know what I'm going to do to fill it all up. I'll have to start hitting up my friends for music.

On Friday, Mia was feeling pretty sick so I took the day off so she could sleep before going to work. Ethan has been a crazy man lately. Very active, very very active. So, rather than letting him run around the house and wake Mia up, we headed out to the park. We were there for 2 hours. And he still fought me when I took him home. And then, after the nap we went to the park for 2 hours again. I'm going to make a separate post about active parenting, because on Saturday we went to the park for 2 hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon (it was getting a little cold) and for about an hour on Sunday morning (though I hadn't been planning on it). Did I mention that Ethan's active?

Today, I'm watching the new Discovery Channel's premiere of Planet Earth with their new hi-def filming techniques that let's them film from further away and thus get more natural footage. It's very cool.

And that's my update.

The rest of my rant

I'll finish my rant about the snow now. I don't like it in the east for a couple of reasons.
1. Snow storms are the primary distribution channel. We don't get many flurries or just 'snow'. We get mini-blizzards that drop 10 inches (or much, much more) at a time. This means that I typically have to shovel the driveway when I get home from work just so I can park (yes, it always seems to snow while I'm at work) and then I have to shovel again later that night so that it doesn't pile up too high. This includes the pile that the snowplows have pushed across our driveway.
2. Which brings me to number two. The snow out here is wet. And when the snowplows push it around, it gets more water in it. Trying to shovel the snow out of the driveway is about 10x heavier than the rest of the snow... unless it's iced over.
3. Any snow you leave for the next day gets iced over. It turns into a solid sheet that you can't get rid of until the weather is warm enough to start melting it. And... whatever you do, don't let your car sit overnight with snow on it.

Updates

Just some random stuff here but before I forget it all I want to jot it down.

Ethan and I went to the park twice today for 2 hour stretches. I love that the weather has warmed up.

Karen had her baby. A boy. More details later.

My parents Twitter. They are so cutting edge... or will be once they update it ;)

Fast Post

I hate the snow.

More later.

Fort Couch

The corner of our living room is a great playspace. Recently, I've been making that area into a fort by tossing a blanket over the couch. Ethan likes having his own little place. And he's so cute when he goes in there.

Ethan Cam

Ethan always wants to hold the camera. Whether it's the still camera or the video camera, he likes to feel like he's in charge of it. So, today I decided to pass it over to him and see what we got.

I'm proud to present Ethan's directorial debut short film.

Pick me up

So, yesterday, when I was having my stressful week, I cracked open the RSS reader and scanned through Logic + Emotion. I enjoy reading this one because I think it's insightful and because he posts cool graphics.

If your interested in marketing, you should check it out.

Temptation

Ethan beguiled me and we did stay up late.

I knew that I should have put him to bed at 7pm but he pulled one of his tricks. He ran back to the table and started eating dinner again.
This made bedtime take a little longer but we survived.

Earlier today, Ethan was doing other cute stuff. Like when I came home he had colored a picture of me (with Mia's help).

He had been talking all day about playing trains with me and had the tracks all set up.

I just love him so much.

Stress

This has been a very stressful week for me. At work I had to finish setting up 2 newsletters and mail them out. It takes a lot of work because I have to set up each of the segmented mailings by hand. We have 8 segments. This is my own fault, I pushed for doing this segmentation but it's still stressful.

I also came into work and discovered some problems. First, we changed some mail settings and had a large number of failures from the newsletter. Second, the scripts tracking our Web site weren't working so we have no data for the month of February.

At home, I also had to finish editing and setting up an issue of WFM, write my editorial, and release two previews for Avlis2.

Last night, I nearly fell asleep at 6:00 while sitting on the couch with Ethan. I'm glad that I made it through everything, hopefully the weekend will be more relaxing.