theyus's Xanga

Why is this?

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 02:50:06 GMT

I have a bunch of things queued up in my head to blog about ... but I thought I'd blog about this one while it's still fresh in my memory.

I'm not sure how to describe the phenomenon I experienced, so I'll just describe the situation and let you draw your own conclusions. My (almost 5-year-old) daughter Charissa woke up crying tonight because the skin on her arms (where she'd recently received three inoculations in preparation for Kindergarten) was itchy and bothering her. When I heard her, I ran upstairs and opened the door to her room. She was standing there with a book in one hand and a plush toy flower in the other, crying. I picked her up and took her to my room (so she wouldn't disturb Justin, still asleep in the top bunk), put some anti-itch medicine on her, comforted her, and put her back to bed.

It occurred to me that seeing her holding her book and toy and crying elicited a much stronger emotional response from me than if she'd just been standing there empty-handed and crying. I'm not sure why.

It reminded me of a time when Justin was a baby. He was sitting in his Super Saucer, crying ... I think it was because his teeth were coming in ... and while he was crying, he played with one of the toys on his Super Saucer (I forget which one ... I think the one where you can slide rings from one end of a curved bar to another). Again, this moved me much more than if he'd just been sitting there crying.

Why? Is it because the child seems to be trying to comfort himself/herself, doing something to show that s/he wants to move on beyond the crying (or whatever's causing it) rather than just focusing on crying? I'm not sure.

What do you think?

"Snow" Day

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 03:24:15 GMT

Enjoy your day off, everyone!

I want a snow day, too.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 11:44:52 GMT

Josh 2 was found dead today at 7:45am. His age is unknown. He had just moved to a new home from Petco on Tuesday, August 22. Things were looking up for Josh 2. He was to start a new life in a new tank with Charissa, another Danio fish. Although Charissa is known to be a tough fish that does not allow anyone to bully her, no foul play is suspected. He went missing one day after moving into his new home. The owner of the home, Cathy, wondered why only one fish came to eat during feeding time, but after conducting a thorough search, she could not find him. She called in the expert, Jack, to conduct another search, but he concluded Josh 2 was not in the fish tank and nowhere near the fish tank. The missing fish remained a mystery until today when he was found dead at the bottom of the tank. Shock of his new water environment may explain his untimely death.

The family has been plagued by tragedy lately. Josh 2 was to replace Josh 1 who died suddenly when he splashed out of a bowl of water and a book was accidentally thrown on top of him (which ironically was an "Under the Sea" book).

The family asks for privacy as they grieve another fish death and find a replacement. The family children, Justin and Charissa, still do not know about the situation.

Guilty confession (by Cathy)

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 01:07:11 GMT

I have to get this off my chest -- Justin's fish, "Josh", died -- not of natural causes. I killed it -- accidentally. I had noticed that Justin's fish was eating all the food during feeding time and bullying Charissa's smaller fish, "Charissa". So I put Josh in a separate bowl and fed Charissa. Charissa was able to eat in peace without Josh nipping at her fins. About an hour later, I went into the room, dropped a pile of books on the floor and noticed that Josh was no longer in the bowl. I called out, "Jack, come quick, I can't find Justin's fish!" We looked all around, but it wasn't until I picked up a book that Jack noticed Josh squished against the back of it. Jack said, "He's dead. Wait! He's still moving!" I responded, "Quick! Put him in water!" But it was too late. The weight of the book had finished him off.

I couldn't even clean up the mess. What was I going to tell Justin? The other day, I told Justin that his fish was greedy and he told me, "Don't say that! We're connected. That's like saying I'm greedy too!" I know Justin would cry if I told him the truth about his fish. I can't bring myself to tell him what happened so it's decided. I will do what I never thought I would do. I'm going to the pet store tonight and buying him a new fish. Hopefully he won't notice. I'll tell him the truth when he's older, but right now, I can't bear to tell him.

May Josh rest in peace.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 03:59:48 GMT

My five-year-old son likes to watch a TV show called Code: Lyoko. I've never seen it, but my wife tells me it's kind of like a cartoon version of The Matrix. She downloaded both an MP3 of and the lyrics to the Code: Lyoko theme song, which is pretty catchy and reminds us of 80s euro-pop.

My son loves the song; he plays it incessantly on our computer and likes to sing along. He was so excited about the song that one day he decided to bring the lyrics to Kindergarten to share. He actually asked the teacher to let him sing it to the class (pretty gutsy, if you ask me).

Well, the teacher reviewed the lyrics and told him that she needed to get approval from the principal because of some of the words in the song (I'm not sure which ones -- the words "evil" and "corrupts" are as close to objectionable as I can see). So my son decided to take the song home.

Poor little guy! Causing controversy in school at such an early age!

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 03:06:20 GMT

It's starting ...

My wife informed me that our five-year-old son is starting to pay attention to what he wears. Today, when he was getting dressed to go to a friend's house, he said, "I'm going to wear a cool shirt! And cool underwear!" (My wife almost pointed out that no one would actually see his cool underwear, but decided not to, since wearing cool underwear probably makes him feel cool.)

She also mentioned that our three-year-old daughter has started asking for things she sees in TV commercials. Good thing our daughter's memory regarding such things is pretty short.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 02:16:16 GMT

A recent boating incident resulted in the following report on CNN:

The Ethan Allen was near its 50-person capacity when it overturned, but that limit was based on a decades-old standard that assumes an average weight of 140 pounds for everyone on board.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists the mean weight for American men age 20-74 as 190 pounds; 163 pounds for women.

Whoa, Nellie! The average American woman weighs more than me??? And I used to think that a certain YG member was huge when he hit 200 pounds (athletic bulk, not fat), but it turns out he was only 10 pounds above average.

My wife wisely pointed out that averages can get skewed by outliers -- and in the case of body weight, there are limits to how light a person can get, but heaviness seems to have quite a high upper boundary (we actually watched a Discovery Health program last week titled "The Half-Ton Man").

I did some Web searching and also discovered that the average height for American men is 5' 9 1/2", and for American women, 5' 4". So I'm pretty close to average height, but how come I hardly ever see any men shorter than me at work? It's so rare that when I do encounter someone shorter I definitely notice it, even if we're having a serious business conversation ("Heh ... he's shorter than me ...").

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Sun, 03 Jul 2005 22:10:03 GMT

For some reason, I take pride in being able to cover a bowl of leftovers with Saran wrap (that's Saran, not Glad) so taut that you don't even know it's there. It takes a little extra time, but ahh -- the sense of accomplishment.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:45:17 GMT

This is really just a placeholder. A fear of commitment has kept me from jumping into blogging wholeheartedly, but I figured I should grab the username "theyus" in case I change my mind later.