Backseat Drivers

/ Shane / Leave a comment

For some reason, Evie and Ollie have taken it upon themselves to become the new “driving monitors” for everything I do when we’re in the car. It is not uncommon to hear, “Daddy, are you going the right way?” or “Daddy, aren’t you supposed to turn there?” or “Daddy, why are you turning here?” as if they had any idea where we were going.

In fact, it seems to be stoplights in particular that get heavily monitored. The very millisecond the light turns, Oliver starts yelling, “It’s green! It’s green!” And then Evie immediately wants to know, “Why aren’t you going daddy?” “Because,” I usually tell her, “if I start going now I’m going to smash into the back of the car in front of me.”

The speed limit is often a topic of discussion as well, despite the fact that neither of them has any idea what the speed limit is, or what the speedometer says. “Dada, we’re going too fast!” shouts Ollie, or Evie questions, “Why are you driving so slow?” My favorite is when Evie casually (and passive aggressively) asks, “Are we on the highway daddy?”

Oliver seems particular concerned that I’m going to jam on the gas the second I’m in the car. He’s constantly admonishing me, “Don’t drive, dada! Don’t drive with the doors open!” or “Don’t drive without Mama!” if she’s not in the car yet. It’s like he’s absolutely certain that he’s the only thing keeping me from taking off with Sara hanging out the door only holding on by his still-unfastened seat belt. As if I’ve ever started going before everybody was ready. Usually, the car’s not even on yet.

However, the one cool thing is when we’re sitting next to a semi which starts driving. “We’re going backwards! We’re going backwards!” squeals Oliver. Oh man, I remember how much I used to love that when I was a kid!

Quote Monday tells a tear-jerker

/ Shane / Leave a comment

::a wave swept Ollie off his feet and I pulled him out, spluttering::
Ollie: “Ollie floated away!”

::eating ice cream::
Me: “Ollie, how you doing?”
Ollie: “Chocolate.”

Evie: “Oh, I thought you’d be wearing black.”

Sara, Queen of the Goths

::Getting ready to tell a bedtime story::
Evie: “This eye has really been hurting, so don’t make me cry.”

I appreciate the acknowledgement of my superior story telling skills, but I wasn’t planning on a tear-jerker.

The Great Computer Upgrade Debacle

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Alright, you’ll have to excuse me for today’s post, but I need to complain.

For about 5 months or so, my computer has been complaining to me that it cannot install Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Internet Explorer 9. These are two huge updates that are very important, but in particular Sara has some major, major problems with Internet Explorer 8, so I would love to get the new version for her. However, my computer cannot install these updates, no matter what I do.

It’s embarrassing. I make my living on computers. I have a Master’s Degree in Software Engineering. I pull the strings and the computer dances. And yet, I just can’t do it.

Every month or so, I would roll up my sleeves and say, “That’s it, this is not going to beat me. I am going to do whatever it takes to solve this problem.” After a day or two, I go down in flames and give up again. Rise, wait a month, repeat.

I have googled, I have downloaded, I have installed for hours and hours at a time. There is a specific “System Readiness” program that I run every time I see the version change. We’re on something like version 22 now. It doesn’t fix my problem. From all my googling, I know that this is a common problem that many people have. Why can’t Microsoft fix my problem??

So the other day, I rolled up my sleeves and said, “That’s it, this is not going to beat me. I am going to do whatever it takes to solve this problem.” I got down and dirty. I was looking through Microsoft support posts, I was looking in obscure log files, I was installing, downloading, uninstalling, and rebooting for hours on end.

I seemed to make some progress. If I am understanding properly, the root of the problem came down to this:

Failed to parse package manifest: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3\Windows\Servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-Client-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~nl-NL~6.1.7600.16385.mum

Now, as you can clearly see, that means I didn’t have the Dutch language pack installed (obviously). Why would I need the Dutch language pack installed? Your guess is as good as mine. Nonetheless, I found some illicit tool to install the Dutch language pack and cleared that error. Lookin’ good, but no installation.

That’s okay. The instructions told me to expect that. Now I simply have to try to install, check the logs for errors, and clean those errors up one at a time. You simply scroll through for obscure log syntax, see which Knowledge Base article had a problem, then uninstall that update and restart. What could be simpler? The people in the forums had to do this once or twice, and eventually they were able to install.

I did it for four hours. FOUR HOURS, and I didn’t get to the bottom of it. Eventually I had to go to sleep, so I had to give up. Maybe I could devote another day or two to trying to solve the problem. But wait: while I was sleeping, Windows RE-INSTALLED all of the “important updates” I uninstalled trying to get this to work. As far as I can tell, all of my work was undone by my super-helpful Windows 7 installation. Thanks Microsoft!

If I can’t figure out this problem, who is going to be able to solve it? Do you think Average Joe Windows User is going to dig through logs and install Dutch language packs? Is he going to spend 20 hours trying to solve this?

No, he’s not.

But I am, because if I allow a computer to beat me, then my whole life is a lie. Besides, I think if I just solve this *one last problem*, it’s all going to go smoothly…

It’s hard to be the oldest child

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Poor Evie.

I’ve just been noticing lately that we’re awfully hard on the poor girl. Basically, when it’s Evie’s fault, it’s Evie’s fault, but when it’s not Evie’s fault, it’s still Evie’s fault. We yell at her for hitting her brother, and then we yell at her for not getting out of Ollie’s way when he’s trying to hit her. We yell at her for taking toys from him, but then we yell at her for not finding a way to share when he takes something from her. She tries to help by comforting Ollie when he’s crying, and we yell at her to give him some space. We tell her to wait her turn, not interrupt, and to let Ollie answer his own questions, while simultaneously ignoring him when he does the same, justifying that he gets so few chances to speak. She tries to help, or just gets excited, and we yell at her for bringing things up, such as asking Ollie if he should get pee pee chocolate when we’re trying to end the practice.

I try so hard not to do it, but it’s like I just can’t help it. There are times when you have a strategy as a parent, and a 5 year old just messes that up. Being as she’s older, we do expect her to be the responsible party between the two of them. However, it’s hard on a 5 year old who is constantly being asked to take the high road. Her life sure would be easier without a younger sibling.

However, all this childhood angst we’re creating might not be the worst thing in the world.

I have long been fascinated by the whole “birth order” thing, wherein children have certain personality traits based on the order they were born. To give a few examples, first children tend to do better in school, because they tend to be permanently seeking the approval of adults, and also because they had a little “boost” as a young child being alone around adults, while youngest children tend to be less responsible and have a career in something more exotic but less secure, like being an artist. Youngest children have the security that comes from having a whole group of people taking care of everything before they get there.

Now I don’t believe birth order is the end all be all, but I do anecdotally see evidence of this all over the place. No predictor of personality (or behavior in general) seems to be very accurate, but birth order seems to be the most consistent predictor across cultures, geographic locations, socio-economic standards, etc.

And let’s face it, oldest children are the best! (Says an oldest child who is married to another oldest child)

I can’t help but think that all of this pressure the oldest sibling happens to take is one of the reasons they tend to be more responsible for things. Because we *make* them responsible for things. Overtly, we ask Evie to help her brother, but inadvertently we force her to take responsibility for both her actions and his actions. As parents, we lean on her more, and Ollie gets to skate under the radar a little bit. It’s no wonder then, that after a lifetime of that you just get used to the mantle of responsibility.

All that being said, I do continually feel bad when I realize we aren’t exactly being fair to her. Not only do I not want to be too hard on a 5 year old, I also want my 2 year old to turn into a responsible adult as well, not some free spirit, no-responsibility, must-have-my-way man-baby. I know that’s one extreme, and there’s no real danger of that happening to Ollie, but if it is true that older children consistently score better on tests or are more responsible, then isn’t it our duty to sort of spread that out a little bit?

Should I be concerned?

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Based on Sara’s giddy attitude for the last two days and the fact that she asked me if she “looked alright” before leaving tonight, I’m fairly certain she’s cheating on me with the Chicago Yarn Crawl.

And judging by the credit card statement, they had a pretty good time!