new home.

I'm actually still here. I know, it may seem from this blog as though I'm not, but I am. I've been really busy, and I've not known shat to say here.

Yesterday my wife and I signed the lease on our new townhouse across town. we will no longer be living in public subsidized housing. this is both scary and exhilarating. There are all the usual arrangements to be made. There are a ton of things to be done, in addition to all the usual things.

It will be a new phase in our lives. Oddly, I find there are actually things I will miss about where we live now. One of those will be my frequent drives down Marine Drive, right next to the river(Columbia). Obviously, there will be just as many good things that will be different(or else we wouldn't be doing it.

Onward through the fog.

...and home again...

Family and I just got back from a small vacation to my Folk's place back in Kansas, some 2,000 + miles to the south east of our present home/location here in Portland, Or.

Got to help celebrate my father's 80th birthday. That was great. One of the guests help put things in perspective for him I think, when she said "I wish I was 80 again...that was a while back". Now THERE'S a sentence one doesn't hear often.

We went to the local little river damn. we saw long horn cattle(not the norm in Kansas). We saw buzzards on an armadillo carcass('dillos haven't been in Kansas that many decades - they're extending their territory to the north gradually) Arron thought both were very cool.

I noticed a lot more birds singing in the early mornings in my Dad's back yard than one hears in Portland.

I believe a good time was had by all. It was stormy and then it was hot(to us) in the mid 90s F, with much humidity.

We skipped most of the outings we had hoped to make - Woolaroc museum and etc.(Google it if you want info), the local safari zoo(home of the retriever nurtured white tiger cubs - google book TIGER PUPS).

There were more hoped for, including Aaron's 1st fishing venture - also didn't happen.

That's all just fine. We had a good time hanging out with family in the profusely glorious central air conditioning, something not that common here in the Pacific Northwest - it's just not that necessary here.

Took a couple of short road trips, compliments of my brother and sister in law's generous loan of a snappy little Saturn automobile ... Suddenly I'm hearing in my head ZZ-TOP - "she don't love me, she love my automobile..." big fun.

Went to see my brother's new(to him) house in Topeka. very nice. kind of bungaloish, not far from Washburn University.

Visited Ginny's folks in Blue Springs, MO(Not far southeast of K.C.)

Took a few pictures. may post some later.

I always find the whole experiencing one place, jet ride, then experiencing some other place half way across the country thing to be kind of surreal feeling.

Now we're back home...or was that back home, I get confused.

LOTS of boat work to get done in the next few months, probably more than is actually possible to do. both unnerving and exhilarating in that "good to have work" way.

Have been enjoying reading some fine blog posts from some of you, as well as your tweets. If you haven't, check out HEY LOLA (You'll have to find your own way there, too tired to do the link thing = sorry)

Wanted this to be much more....um, entertaining.....too tired...sorry.

more later,

john ross

This Week.

What a difference a week makes. Aaron has been getting out more. He's found a couple of boys about his age to RIP around on big wheels with. He chased a bee. He caught it. He learned about bees. He's learning to dribble a basket ball - pretty well. We thunder storm yesterday. I'm really busy at work. Stressing on deadlines. I'm going to Dad's next week - very good. Exploring more twitter (when can, It's a lot more diverse than previously realized). Back still hurts, some more - some less. That's about all I know right now.

more kid stuff

Aaron went out to play. He had his favorite CARS ball. He wanted to play with some of the other kids in our apartment area. He was very enthusiastic. They were a little older. They weren't up for him. After telling him to go back to his patio, which he didn't get, they dealt with it by throwing his favorite ball over the fence into the yard of another apartment place. by the time I got home from work, about nine, it was too late to go back for it. The thrower did at least apologize. He said he meant to throw it into the yard next to the yard it went into. There were other kids in that yard, throwing the balls back and worth to our apartment places' kids. Having been alerted to the situation I brought him home a toy golf set he can use outside or inside(so he could use it as soon as I got home). He's not too worried about his other ball now. T-T-T-Tiger Woods ya'll.

Discoveries of the life long variety.

Aaron discovered my razor(disposable -triple blade) on the bathroom counter the other day. He is now sporting a small band aide on his chin which I believe to be quite adequately reminding him of the meaning of "sharp".

Twenty some odd years ago, my landlord & neighbor had mercy on me and helped me teach my daughter to ride a bike. I had been attempting, for some period to teach her, and kinda freaking out on it in typical john-angst fashion. She eventually got it down. She has been just fine.
She teaches at a Montessori now. She is reasonable well adjusted and happy I think.

I have been trying, very sporadically to help my son 5, to learn now. I'm still not very good at it. Somehow, I get too "coach' like. Not in a good way. "Son, if you're not willing to go faster than that, you're never going to get it to balance without the training wheels." He thinks the training wheels are just fine. If you want it to keep moving, ya got keep pedaling". "No, no, NO! you've got to steer son! Keep it on the path!, watch where you're going, not everywhere else!" " Look, I didn't bring you and the bike out here just you could go only as far as the play ground."

I'm not sure why this is. I think part of it is that I see other children, who are not, i imagine, as "young" for their ages as he, happily ripping around on bikes, sans training wheels. He is young and small for his age. Just no getting around it. I know, it's NOT a competition. but still, it IS a milestone, a rite of passage, and one that i want him to successfully pass, perhaps more about me than him.

I have often been accused of being over protective.

I'm not sure if this is part of that or not.

I know eventually, he will learn. I know it will be OK.

My son loves his school

As many of you know, My son Aaron is five. He goes to Early Special Ed at a local grade school half days, a couple of days a week. He is not quite autistic, but has some autistic type tendencies towards obsessive fixations, language, etc.

He loves his school. Since we've changed sitters to one that is not in the school's bus area I've been dropping him off at school on my way to work. Once we get into the building it's hard to hold him back from running to his classroom.

He is always greeted warmly by his teacher(s), and pretty much forgets I exist once he has put his things in his name labeled cubby and settled in to color his name on his name pad at his ever moving place at a table. I think they do this so the kids will learn to recognize and find their own names. I can tell he's happy to be there and enthused to start what ever the day will be.

When he sees other kids from his class on his way to the room he will invariably yell "there's my Friend!", run up to them & try to engage them in a conversation. They almost as invariably shy away from him, turning in towards the parent's legs, saying nothing in response. I've seen this reaction to him at other, outside of school gatherings like the Pumpkin patch train ride we took him on last fall. He doesn't seem to notice the lack of response in kind.

It breaks my heart to see. I wonder how long he can go on not noticing that his "Friends" don't talk to him. I hope and pray that the responses I see are only outside of class, and tell myself that this is a "special ed" class and maybe it says more about them than him. But like I say, I've seen this before outside of school, with kids who are supposedly "normal". Next year he will start Kindergarten, still with special ed help.

I remember my own kindergarten and grade school experience with learning to socialize. When I was in kindergarten I was pretty much golden. Almost all the other kids treated me like a friend. I was engaged three times(though the student teacher did turn me down saying she was just too old for me, I could do better)

Then I went to grade school. Everything turned to crap. The guys liked to beat me up, the girls thought I was creepy.

It got some better, by about the fourth or fifth grade. I had a few freinds, I was considered "smart" by some teachers, some kids. That was mostly not bad. Looking back though, I did retain the Oddness or Different-ness factor that I had come into during first grade, & never did really feel normal again. Eventually, being normal was not even something I aspired to. It just didn't seem relevant. I 've since heard that normal is what you think people are who you don't really know. That's supposed to be a joke, but I think it true to some degree.

Still, I want a better school time childhood for Aaron. I know fitting in is not everything. At the same time, not fitting in is certainly not always a good thing either.

I would guess that this is a pretty normal parental concern - "but, what if he(Norbert) don't like it in Romania, what if the other dragons are mean to 'im?" - Hagrid - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

I hope and pray for my son, for all of our sons & daughters(and our baby dragons).

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to take Aaron's monkey- head foam hat/visor off of him and carry him up to bed.

He's fallen asleep watching Transformers (again).