Family News - May 2000

May 21, 2000 -- Wow! May is going by faster than I thought. Last weekend, Matthew took me out to dinner for Mother's Day (with a little help from his father, of course!) We went to Applebee's Restaurant and had a wonderful time. Then we wandered around in the stores for a while, just window shopping. All in all, it was a nice, quiet Mother's Day. Which is great because birthday month is coming up! June is a busy month for us. It starts off with my granddaughter, Cheyenne's birthday on the 2nd, followed by my son, Mark's birthday on the 6th, and two birthdays on the 13th, Warren's and my granddaughter Brittany's. On top of all the birthdays, I'm going to be doing some traveling too. I'm going to two conferences, one in Orlando at the beginning of the month and one in New York City at the end. Unfortunately, Warren and Matt will be stuck at home both times.

Yesterday (May 20th) Matt surprised me. We were watching "Lady and the Tramp" and when the words "Disney Home Video" came on the screen, he said, "Disney Home Video." I asked Warren if he'd been reading it to him and he says he hasn't. I know I haven't been reading it to him either, so I don't know where he gets it from. They don't say the words, they only show them. Of course, they may say it out loud on  one of the other videos he has, but I don't remember any of them doing that. Of course, this doesn't mean that he's reading. It might just be another example of his excellent pattern matching abilities. He can recognize all of his video tapes from the working on the tape but we think this is more a matter of him recognizing the design than the actual words. Even though there's no picture on the video-tape itself, the words are usually presented in a distinctive typeface and I think this is what he's recognizing. Still a pretty good feat for a three year-old kid! I'm pretty sure this is what's happening because, although he recognizes the Fox logo (as it appears on Fox TV) he doesn't recognize the word "fox" when it's written out in regular type. As I say, that's still pretty good because he's been able to do that since he was two.

Today we went to the Children's Museum in Seattle. Matt had a great time playing and running around as usual and I got some pretty good pictures with our new digital camera. You can probably expect to see lots of new pictures on a regular basis now. (That is, if you want to look at them, nobody's forcing you...)

May 4, 2000 -- Before you know it, summer will be here. I'm really looking forward to it this year. Believe me, I won't be missing that 100 degree weather we had in New York last summer. I'm looking forward to a slightly cooler season. It's hard to believe we've been on this coast for almost nine months! Won't be long before it's a year. Warren, Matthew and I have settled in and are having a wonderful time. There's so much to do in this area that we won't be getting bored for years.

Matthew got his first taste of a roller coaster last weekend when we went to the Enchanted Village which also has a water park, called "Wild Waves." It was a small roller coaster, but he absolutely loved it. We plan on going back as soon as the weather gets a little warmer so we can try some of the water rides.

The place is only opened on weekends right now, but it's a short trip from out house and we had a wonderful time. Matthew didn't want to even think about going home. Stay tuned too, because we took a whole roll of film and should have the pictures tomorrow. Since we got a photo disk with the pictures, we won't even have to wait for me to have time to scan them. I can add them right to the photo album.

Last month, the big news was about Warren. He's done a couple more sets and has gotten even better audience response. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I feel of his accomplishment. Talking to a bunch of people via a web page is reasonably easy. It also has the added benefit that people are there because they want to read what you have to say. Getting up in front of a bunch of strangers isn't easy. Believe me, I know. Trying to get up in front of a bunch of strangers and be funny has to be harder still.