Ollie Update

Happy Birthday Ollie

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Well, Ollie turns six today, which seems pretty crazy. Can you believe he’s going to start 1st grade next year?

What to say about Ollie? He sure loves being goofy and making people laugh.

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He is just a ball of creativity: he spends hours every day drawing pictures or constructing things out of cardboard and tape or anything else he can find in the house. Every day when I come home from work he has some new project to show me (the other day he made an “outfit” entirely out of plastic bags).

He will strike up a conversation with absolutely ANYBODY, so I don’t think there is a single person at his school who doesn’t know him. Seriously, it’s just kind of routine now that every adult says hello to him as we walk through the halls.

He loves looking “cool”, especially with his hat, sunglasses, and a jacket. He’s got this jean jacket that he inherited from Evelyn (who never liked it) and he thinks it makes him look like Michael Jackson. Believe me, he will show you his dance moves (Beat It is his favorite song).

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Despite him being such a big kid (did I mention he can read now??), deep down he is still the same cuddly, sensitive little boy he has always been, and I hope I can protect that part of him from the world so that he never changes.

Happy birthday, buddy!

The last picture it will ever take

/ Shane / Leave a comment

There are few things Ollie enjoys more than taking pictures and videos. We have (had) an old camera and we just let Ollie run wild with it. He never really wants to see the pictures he takes, he just enjoys taking them.

Well, no more. This is the last picture the camera will ever take:

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See, Ollie decided that it would be really cool to take some underwater pictures.

“Ollie! You can’t put anything that uses electricity under the water!” said Sara, to which Ollie incredulously replied, “The camera uses electricity??” It turns out, in Ollie’s mind electricity is not equal to batteries. After seeing his confusion, Sara proceeded to list all sorts of things that should not go under water. Each one was a surprise. Like, he understood in the abstract that electronics should not go in the water, but in the specific he was baffled.

We tried drying the camera out in a bowl of rice, but unfortunately there was no coming back from it. I did manage to rescue the SD card and get the pictures off (you should have seen that coming, since you’re seeing the picture above). I was kind of hoping for something cool from the underwater pictures, to make it all worthwhile, but unfortunately that was the best of the 3 or 4 he managed to snap before the camera gave up the ghost (and yes, we asked, this was not a picture of the toilet!)

::time goes by::
Sara: “Oh, don’t put the iPad under water either.”
Ollie: “THE IPAD USES ELECTRICITY TOO??”

*So glad* she thought to go back and clarify that one.

Big Bro / Lil Bro

/ Shane / Leave a comment

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Doctor of Philosophy

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evelyn’s class has been experimenting with having a university student come in periodically and discuss philosophy with them. This is not just idle chatter; they get into some really deep issues:

We will examine such topics as: What is wisdom? Where do we come from? Why do people suffer? Is it always wrong to tell a lie? What rights do animals have? What does it mean to be human? What is real? Will there ever be world peace?

Evelyn is just the perfect age and temperament for this and she has taken to it like a fish to water. Naturally, the first thing she wants to do is test her newfound philosophical skills on her brother.

The number of times we have had a discussion in the house like:

Evie: “Oliver, are you alive?”
Ollie: “Yes.”
Evie: “But how do you know?”
Ollie: “Because I’m breathing.”
Evie: “But how do you know you’re breathing?”
Ollie: “Evelynnnnn!”
Evie: “Well, how do you know you’re breathing?”
Ollie: “Because my chest is going up and down.”
Evie: “But how do you KNOW your chest is going up and down?”

It goes around and around like this for some time until Ollie is in tears. At one point we had to forbid her discussing philosophy with Ollie because he was waking up in the night terrified with existential dread. It was too much for a 5 year old to handle: What is the meaning of life? Is anything even real? HOW DO WE EVEN KNOW IF WE’RE ALIVE AND NOT JUST A FIGMENT OF EVELYN’S DREAMS???

You can imagine.

Sometimes I think, “What must it be like to be her brother?” but then I think about similar things I did to my younger siblings, and I think it was probably pretty similar. They can chime in, but I’m pretty sure I probably did this kind of thing to them too.

Anyway, I think Ollie’s finally gotten over it (or at least it has gotten so commonplace as to be boring), because this morning at breakfast I heard this conversation:

Evie: “Oliver, is that your real name?”
Ollie, wearily: “Yes Evie, a mad scientist didn’t poke my brain.”

Ollie’s Darth Vader Drawing: A Critical Perspective

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Ollie drew this picture of Darth Vader the other day, and I have to share it with you:

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So, here we have Darth Vader, beset on all sides by light sabers (the red and blue things coming in from the sides; “light savers” as Ollie calls them). Kiiind of a lot of light sabers for the historical period in which Darth Vader would have been wearing his mask, but I’ll allow it. Things look grim for our hero.

You can see the red ball down in the right corner is actually a blaster bolt coming from Han Solo’s gun. I appreciate this detail, because it does feel like Han is one of the few “main” characters who 1) is involved in a lot of combat, and 2) is not a jedi. I like it.

Even better is that one of the light sabers is being blocked by a lightning bolt out of what is depicted as a clear blue sky; an obvious reference to the powers of the dark side.

Unfortunately, Darth is clearly holding Kylo Ren’s light saber, which is historically inaccurate, and completely unforgivable.

F double minus.