collections

Ry is clever about the things he's interested in. I appreciate how he organizes. When it's legos or bakugans, he will find, on his own, an empty bin so he can put them all together and then he'll find a special place to put the bin. He constantly goes through his stuff, stacking the cards together or placing the lego creations in a row to gaze upon and consider. Baseball is the big thing now. For a week, he had his uniform all laid out for his first game. Then when we bought new cleats, he folded everything and put it all in the shoe box. Two days ago, he found a pail and he filled it with all the baseballs we have so he could take it wherever he went. When he's not using them, the pail goes in the same spot in the garage, next to where the bats and other sports gear are stored. (He's the only one who gets that the bags and bins in that corner of the garage are just for sports gear.) Last night he found an unused backpack and put his batting helmet, fielder's glove, batting gloves, and a ball inside and put his TBall bat in the water bottle holder on the side. At yesterday's game, he got a pack of baseball trading cards and now he's absolutely fascinated by them. He likes to figure out what team the player is on, his position, and, of course, what he's wearing. I said we'd get more cards. He's a character.

Speaking of characters, Jackson had a good year in cub scouts and is already up to speed in the minor machine pitch II league. His head is in the game and he's excited. I always say Jack enjoys the social aspect of sports, but when he's playing he's energetic and competitive. Tonight's his last religion class at the Catholic church, and cub scouts will also wind down for the summer. I just fixed some applications and mail for my internet domain and, of course, Jackson is the first to start exploring it. I'm glad. I suspect he will be publishing some great internet stuff soon. He and Ariel have been videochatting, and now he's got me on Skype. Cyndi looks to him for all her computer programming needs. YouTube is replacing tv. Besides Phineas & Ferb episodes, the boys watch homemade videos of domino setups being toppled, often very elaborate, often made by a child, often revealing pictures, often set up like a Rube Goldberg machine. Other popular videos feature Lego Star Wars figures with the child's dialogue acting out scenes. In fact, Jackson has made some videos like these already, on the handy Flip camera, along with some interviews he's recorded.

Chris is visiting Ariel. I talked briefly with her. She was working hard as usual. Chris was going to a climbing gym and then they were going to meet in Manhattan via subway for dinner and then a talk & social gathering with folks from Science Friday. That just sounded cool, I thought. Ariel is quite excited that Terra is expecting.

Cyndi and I were just talking about the baseball season. It ends by Memorial Day. Then it looks like it'll be swim team for the summer, soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter. A second soccer season begins in the early spring, and then baseball again. This year I'm not coaching in any official capacity, but I've been out there for Ry's TBall, prepping the field, getting the batters on deck, coaching first, coaching in the field. Pretty basic stuff. Fun to watch. Ry's got an arm, by the way.

Got to go pick up Jack.