Little-Nerdling.net

You learn a lot about kids when you have two younger brothers. One is 16 and one is 11 and they are both in very different stages. I will say they both hate homework but the youngest gripes constantly about it and calls himself stupid when he can’t do something. That’s more based on extremely low self esteem than laziness though. I do notice that with the generation gap can be seen with the technological jumps that occur in such short time spans. They have satellite network access , gaming channels, interactive social networking sites, so many different forms of entertainment and connection. Back when I was a kid mp3 players and cell phones weren’t mainstream in the least bit and neither was gaming 24/7. We did good old fashioned fun like swing and go play hide and seek or ride bikes. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t guilty of falling into the technology swirl though. I just hope when I have kids I can have a healthy balance maintained for them.

Our satellite has been temporarily disconnected due to financial trouble. It will be back on Thursday or Monday, I’m not quite sure what mom said. The only problem I have with this is the lack of us having an antennae on hand for the local channels. The only show I watch on a regular basis is a soap opera actually and missing a day could have devastating effects. I might not know what happened to Jared or Rex. What a travesty! I’m just kidding of course. I decided to take a look online and I managed to find each days episode uploaded by 9pm and it’s all cut and in decent quality too so mom and I have been doing that the past few nights so we don’t miss out. We usually DVR the episodes anyways. It’s a good thing we have the availability of things like satellite internet services here or we wouldn’t be able to have the luxury. My aunt’s area still only has dial up available. I think I’d be going through massive withdrawals. Needless to say when she visits she maximizes and takes full advantage of the fact that we have high speed. (We only got it about a year and a half ago actually).

I’ve been playing a lot of phase 10 lately. It’s a fun game that can have up to 6 people involved. I think it costs about $7 and can provide HOURS of fun. You basically have to get phases each hand. There are 10 in the game and if you don’t get your phase during that round you stay behind and others move on. The phases can be anything like a run of 7, 8, 9, or sets like a set of 5 and a set of 2 or even 2 sets of 4. You lie your phase down and can play extra cards on them if you draw one and can also play on other peoples’ phases to get down to 0 cards in your hand. We always have lots of fun playing it. I told Randy he owes me a game when he comes out because we played quite a few times when he was out.

At the prison you can buy regular playing cards from the machine or borrow theirs but no games like phase 10. I wonder if I brought some in if they’d let me use them. Probably not though. The visiting room could benefit a lot from more variation like more toys for the kids area, different card games, more variety in the vending machines, and even better things for the babies. They don’t even having changing tables in the bathrooms. That’s quite disturbing because women can’t bring anything but 3 diapers and a bottle in with them. Baby bedding, clothing, etc… is not allowed so if accidents happen the 6 hour visit could be quite uncomfortable I’d imagine. I won’t even continue on with the irritation about visiting room conditions though.

My younger brother came home from a track meet/field day they had at school and he’s as red as a lobster right now on all exposed parts of his skin. I think the school should have provided sunscreen and made sure everyone was lathered up before they participated in the activities. Granted these kids are in middle school but how many 6th graders actually think about stuff like that? I know I really didn’t and still don’t a lot of times. The risks are a little too high to simply ignore it in my mind though. It gets me even worse when babies are sunburnt though, like when we went to court and Carrie had Dillion’s face sunburnt from being outside. Babies have super sensitive skin and burn a lot easier, common sense people! She could’ve protected him with a cover they have on bassinets. It’s not hard to move one outside. Many other options include the option to put sunscreen on him or even a baseball cap to protect and shield his face. *sigh* I worry about his well being a lot because the actions she’s exhibited show that she’s a very immature and selfish parent.

I’ve heard a lot lately about the stimulus payments and everyone is getting them here or there. Ours is actually being mailed out on the 13th of the month so we’ll probably get it on the 16th mom is guessing. It’s pretty much spent before we even get it. Mom is paying a few bills with the $1200 and maybe going to buy a pool if we can ever come to an agreement about what size and type we want as a family. My brothers are usually “I want this or that” and I’m just sitting in the shadows right now watching it all pass. I work so I get what I work for and my younger brothers still have that innocence and don’t have the full understanding about the value of a dollar. My other cousin is having a baby as well so maybe a few baby gifts will be purchased as well. We’ll see. Like the other cousins, we don’t always see them as often as we probably should.