So; the title can be taken in two different lights. I’ll go with the lighter-light and say that “SCORE… Indoor Sports” is the name of the organization that I’ve signed my kids up with in order to expose them to the wonderful world of fútbol. Alexander really likes American Football, but I’m really trying hard to keep him away from that sport.  Till this very day I’m being plagued with a football-injury to my neck. Plus, I’m Jamaican, what other sports, besides Cricket, should the kids play!?

American Football

For Alex his love of American Football started with Madden NFL 2005 on the original Xbox system.  I think he really likes the gear (helmet, shoulder pads, etc). For a four-year-old he’s a pretty sore loser so we didn’t play a lot of exhibition games. For some reason Alex liked Madden NFL 2002 and we’d constantly (siliently) fight over 2002 vs. 2005. Finally; he saw it my way and chose 2005.  That game would eventually be trumped by an unlikely candidate – Sega’s NFL 2K2. It was clearly not up to Madden’s quality, but Alex loved the sound effects. All the grunting and the ease-of-play easily won his heart.  He would run around the house diving on the floor making noises he heard from 2K2.

Alex would constantly talk about football. Any other parent would say that he was destined to play. My wife and I thought otherwise and desperately tried to steer him far from it.

SCORE

Score is an indoor gym, located in Fairburn, Georgia. For me it’s literally two minutes down the street. I was introduced to this organization through a co-worker. We played flag-football, and boy did we suck! Besides the losing streak, it was very good exercise for me. Later on we found out that they do a lot of activities and fútbol was one of them. Their program is called SoccerTots. Right now Alex and Leeanne are doing simple things. Leeanne is learning to follow instructions and Alex is learning to not beat up on his teammates when he gets frustrated or angry. It’s a fair exchange.

So; for now I’m the one taking the kids to their Saturday sessions. I’m not as hot as Soccer Mom, but I’m the next best thing!

Capturing the Moments

When they first started I thought my dad would get a kick out of seeing the kids play. So; I made an effort to get some video and photos. It worked out pretty nice because I just got my hands on my new Motorola Droid.

The above YouTube video is from “My Family” playlist. I was able to record off my Droid and then upload it directly to YouTube. You gotta love technology.

What a day! Today we had a small birthday party for Alexander, our 4-year-old son. His birthday was during the week, so we threw something together and invited some friends over. It was a good event, but very tiring. At the end of it, my wife and I were on our last leg.  Alex is really maturing and I’ve been enjoying him more for the past two weeks or so. He still has a temper, but when he’s not in “Hulk-smash” mode, he’s a great kid! My wife works really hard with him on rationalizing things so that forces me to do the same – it’s hard work thinking things out!

Right now, he’s into Star Wars (clone wars era) and Spiderman. So; we got him those kind of toys. I have some pictures posted on Flickr, but I have more to upload. Happy Birthday, son!

There are a lot of things happening in my life, but it’s not time to broadcast them yet. The kids are fine (all 3 of them) and me and the wife are happy. My full-time job at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is becoming more stable since I made a very hard decision about my freelance work with Digital · Alias. One can surely guess what I mean based on that sentence, but since everything isn’t final – I’ll keep it vague.

In the world of Linux, I’m getting very tired of Firefox not working out the way I’d like it to. It’s always ran very slow on my desktop (Fedora x86_64). I’ve switched to Epiphany (a GNOME project) and boy does that web browser need some work. Good thing is, it’s fast, bad thing is it’s very immature and I miss ALL the convenient features Firefox has. I’ll stick with it because I need speed more than convenience.

Social Life

I’m on Facebook a lot more now-a-days, but playing their casual games, such as: Mafia Wars, YoVille, and Metropolis. Funny; I realize that these games are a complete waste of time and they are ONLY fun in the beginning when you are trying to balance out everything.  I also see that everyone needs something to fun to do, even if it doesn’t progress your life in any manner.  When you play Xbox or PS3 – those games really don’t add to your life.  The same can be said about these casual online games.

Google Calendar

I’m using Google Calendar a lot more these days.  I’ve got everything from birthdays, tv shows, podcasts and FLOSS events.  Web 2.0 Expo is taking place.  I can see that it’s in San Francisco, but I surely can’t go.  I have a Weekly Joomla conference call with a local group titled, The Atlanta Joomla Open Source Meetup.  And so much more…

Micro-blogging

I have been micro-blogging like mad lately.  Unfortunately; I’ve been interacting on Twitter more than the Laconica instances.  I’ve noticed that there are a lot more mobile and desktop apps for Twitter.  As soon as I pickup on Python, I’m going to make more apps for Laconica.  That’s the social media I’d like to use the most, it’s FLOSS at its best – it’s just under marketed.

Pet Projects

As soon as I can free up so time, I plan on finally taking up some opensource projects.  I am going to start out by learning Python and doing some offline applications.  When I’m comfortable enough, I might then join a GNOME project or be more active with the Fedora Websites group.

I wanted to make it known to the world, that I have officially given in to the “World of Responsibility” and no longer into the World of Warcraft.   Yes, sad to say – my three young kids (ages 3, 2, and newborn), wife, full-time job, and Internet consulting business has caught up with me – backing me into a corner and yelling into my face saying, “WE TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER VIDEO GAMES AND YOU WILL NO LONGER RUN YOURSELF INTO THE GROUND TO PLAY!”  This is the milestone in my life when I have completely converted from a hardcore video game player to a casual gamer (aka Old Man).

The only games I play now are Xbox (original) games with my son, on the weekends, and stupid Facebook applications.  I still have WoW installed, but it’s realmlist has been changed to a private server.  So whenever I do have some free time (like never) I can jump on with no commitment to a guild or to my wallet and kill about an hour or so.  IM me if you want to know which private server I’m on.

The only technological thing left in my life is Linux… oh sweet Linux.  I’ve been running Fedora for almost a full year now and it’s been a glorious-open-source-tech ride.  There are games there, like Urban Terror (it’s an FPS), and a lot of other casual games like: Chess, BlackJack, Mines, Tali, etc.

What’s Your Story?

I know I’m not the only guy to go through this transition in his life.  Share your story with me, post a comment and let me know how hard it’s been for you to finally, or forcefully, to be removed from the realm of gaming!  And now the only game you play, is The Game of Life.

How do I start this off?  My son and I are having a Star Wars weekend.  He’s grown very fond of Star Wars: Battlefront II for the Xbox and at the age of three I’m watching anything Star Wars related.  He seems to like it, especially the clone army and/or Stormtroopers.  So; Friday night I watched Star Wars: Clone Wars the movie.  I bought it from Columbia House.  Saturday morning, after breakfast he watched SW:CW too.  Then we all watched some cartoons and Seaseme Street, then it was on to Battlefront II.

Besides that, my wife purchased the two pack DVD set of Star Wars — episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 from Walmart online.  We also got Alex a Clone Trooper outfit (helmet and blaster rifle).  It’s a Star Wars weekend, no doubt!

Our daughter, Leeanne Victoria Ferguson is 1 1/2 years old in this video. She’ll be 2 in another 2 months and she is reading “I Like to Share!”  I don’t mean to pimp these videos, but she is a product of the “Your Baby Can Read” video series.  They are excellent for the kids; bad, redundant, mind-numbing for fathers!  If you can stand the routine of playing it ALL the time, you will get very positive results from your kids.  Oh and don’t just leave it to the videos, you should engage them to read and visit the library, etc.  Seriously; all that stuff works.

“How can this be done!?” one may ask! Well; this is not our idea, but my wife did take a principle and build on it.  The book my wife got (when Alex was potty training; about a y) was called “Potty Train in Three Days!“.  My wife noticed that most folks buy pull-ups and other diaper-like underwear and try and potty train their kids within a month or so and end up going much much longer.  This method is intense and stressful, but it’ll get the job done.

• Buy padded underwear, not pull-ups or anything that more resembles a diaper.  The child needs to feel themselves getting wet.
• Buy very simple potty products. The more gadgets their toilet has the more they’ll play with it and not really use it.
• Make plans to NOT go anywhere for at least a week. This process will require that you monitor the baby strictly for three days, but it could possibly leak over into five or seven days.  Depending on the child or the training.
• Be very patient and find ways to keep your sanity for the first three days. It can and it will be very nerve-wraking to monitor your baby and letting them have accidents.

Day 1

This is where it all starts.  You’re a little nervous yet excited about the promise of NOT having to purchase diapers anymore.  This day is important because you’re building the foundation for the rest of the potty training.  You’ll have to have a lot of self determination to stick to the schedule and tasks at hand.  So; be consistent, if nothing else.

• Take your child to the toilet every 1/2 hour. They do not have to potty, but you’re getting them used to the routine of taking off their underwear and sitting on the toilet.
  • Say something like, “It’s potty time!” when you take them.
• Make sure they spend a good amount of time sitting on the toilet. Ask them, “Do you need to pee.  Pee in the potty.”  Or something like that.  Engage them while they’re sitting there.
• Teach them how to remove and put on their underwear.
• When they do potty in the toilet, encourage them. Give them positive feedback so they’ll feel good about doing it. “Yah! way to go son!  You pee pee in the potty!”
• Take your child with you to the toilet when YOU have to potty. This will give them some hands-on, or a real-life examples.  If you’re training a younger child, and they copy everything the older child does, make sure they observe the older child using the potty.
• Gauge when you can let them be more independent with the potty request. It’s ok for them to wet themselves.  Just let them know that peeing in their underwear is not correct and peeing in the toilet is correct.  Show them their wet underwear and say “No”, then point to the toilet and say, “Yes.”  Something to that effect.
• For naps and bed time:
  • Take them to the potty one last time before taking a nap.
  • My wife told me that kids don’t wet themselves when their in a deep sleep.  So; if your baby is a light sleeper, expect accidents here and their.
  • When they wake up, immediately take them to the toilet.
• If you have to spank them, take them to the toilet. Depending on how they react or how intensely you spank them; immediately take them to the toilet.  It’s almost guaranteed they’ll wet themselves.
• Rinse & repeat all day. In between taking them to the potty, find a way to entertain yourself.

Day 2

• Take your child to the toilet every hour. Again they do not have to potty, just get them used to the routine.
• Ask them, from time to time, if they need to use the potty. “Honey, do you need to go potty?”  This will get their minds working and forming a connection between feeling they have to potty and actually telling someone they have to potty.

Day 3

• Repeat tasks from Day 1 and Day 2.
• We were lucky and our kids started indicating, to us, that they needed to use the potty.  It wasn’t consistent yet, but it’s better than nothing.

Days 4-7

• The remaining days are for you to refine your methods with your child.
• When you see that you’re child will tell you they have to potty, consistently, you can then try and go out and about with their new-bound skills.  Bring extra clothes and wipes, but you WON’T need to pack any more diapers!

This weekend was like no other…  my wife had some photography editing to do so I watched the kids.  It was only two days, but it felt like 4 years!  Looking back at it now, it really wasn’t THAT terrible.  I’ve learned that if I don’t get my anger under control these kids will send me to an early grave.  My issue is that I KNOW they know they know what their doing.  And for some reason, in some cases, I have to sit there and take it.  My attitude is, “Not on my watch, you don’t!”  But in the end, it’s doing me no good by not letting them get away with some things. OMG!  I’m really gonna have to start getting used to watching the kids longer than 2-3 hours.

Well; if I really think about it.  It’s really my 3-year-old son testing me all the time that gets to me.  He whines and cries and doesn’t listen (as often as I’d like) and then he ignores me when I’m talking to him.  At that point I just lose it and want to do some damage to him.  But, as a father, I’m not supposed to have those kind of feelings… or feel some kind of remorse for thinking like that.  To be honest I don’t.  If you cross me, I’m gonna want to cross you!  Even though I feel a certain way, I’m responsible enough NOT to act on it.  Again; this too will pass as soon as I spend more time with my kids, learning who they are – blah blah blah.

Oh glorious day; the day when a father can pass down one of his traditions to his son.  In this case, it would be watching (and liking) some of my old cartoon shows – such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Not the new ones, this is the old ones from my era as a kid.  My brother and I would watch this show all the time, draw pictures, record it on VHS and watch the episodes over and over and over again.

Recently Mario bought the first couple seasons from Columbia House.  I happened to be at his house watching the kids I put it on to see if he’d take to it.  And boy did he ever.  He barely moved – every time it the ending credits came on he’d say, “I need more turtles.”  I assured him the next episode would come.  At the end of the night, we were ready to leave and I told him we’re going.  He pissed and moaned about “his turtles”.  I told him no, but I thought it’d be OK with Mario if I borrowed it.  Alex looked at the DVD artwork all the way home.

Today’s Outing

On another note we finally went to the pool today and it was very nice.  The pool has alot of 2-3 feet playing area so Alex had more room to roam around.  It was nice, but I still had to watch him so he wouldn’t drown himself.  I forgot who got him a Lightening McQueen floater, but we put some air into it (from my lungs) and it was also cool having a floating device that fully kept Alex on top of the water without my intervention.

Later on we went bicycle riding in the complex and that was pretty OK too.  Alex is learning to ride the full kiddy bike my parents bought him.  He’s more used to the peddling on his tricycle than the regular pedals on a bike – but he is making great progress.  The only issue is when he’s finished with the bike – I have to be the one to carry it – and it’s remarkably heavy, for a kid’s bike.

Both kids are asleep and I don’t know what to do right now (wierd).  I’m tired of the computer and we don’t have many DVDs.  I guess I’ll have to watch Back to the Future, again!

Anyway; HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jenelle!