Daley Ponderings

Since I'm on a roll of typing out the insulation we've used, I figured I might as well post about our heating systems too.

We have five different heating sources for our home, and someday we'll get a sixth...

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Someone just asked for advice on Facebook, and I figured I should save it here so I don't need to type it again when someone asks later.

 

We've had just about every kind of insulation in our house. So, more than you asked for, but hopefully useful. Also, if you don't know about it, you should go to nhsaves.com and have Eversource pay for 50% of your costs - a great program, we paid $3500 and save ~$1000 a year in fuel, plus the house feels warmer. Air sealing is the most important (one reason spray foams are better; the R value of cellulose and fiberglass goes to something around 1 or 2 if there is air movement)

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Jon has implemented a system for me where I can send an email to post on the blog. I will be back-dating posts so they flow with the timeline of our lives. It will take a while, but I will eat it in small bites!

In honor of the end of World War I one hundred years ago today, I post a picture of Joy hugging the tree that was planted in memory of her great-great-granduncle Harry Faulk.

See my mom's Armistice Day post for a few more details of my family's involvment in the war.

There are, of course, many examples of why Jon is a great Dad, but this is a particular one I'd like to record.

One evening, Jon and I were resting together in our bed.  Suddenly, from the other room, we heard a panicked cry, "Someone help me!!  AAA-AAA-AA-AAAAA!!"  Jon jumped up and ran to the rescue.  Jeremiah was clinging to the top molding of a doorway.  He had climbed up the doorway to the top and then his feet slipped and he couldn't get his foot-grip back again.

But it didn't end there.  Unlike many parents, Jon did not reprimand Jeremiah.  Instead, he helped him "get back on the horse."  Jon showed him how low his feet actually had been and reminded him how he often jumps from that high in other places.  So after a few tries, Jeremiah discovered that Daddy was right, and now he happily climbs up doorways without fear and sometimes even jumps down from the top on purpose!

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.

4/1 - JPD, "'I'm goin' back to my work, after watchin' Jonathan do that awesome trick,' said Popcorn Man."

4/1 - Nathaniel started saying "yes" clearly - so cute!!

4/3 - NPD do turtle puzzle, self w/ encouragement

Noah and Faith's first cruise with Grandma and Dad-o is in here, but will
get a separate post.

4/17 - Nathaniel started saying the /n/ sound instead of /d/, as in Noah, not Doah.

4/20 - Nathaniel "nair" = in there

4/22 - Nathaniel, "doo, one, see-woh, zjump!" (two, one, zero, jump)

4/22 - Joy watched me do the door lock code at the fire station. She then
commented, "I know the code! It's [lists digits], sharp!"

4/24 - Nathaniel said, "love you!" for the first time.

4/27 - Nathaniel got his first two year molar, lower left.

4/28 - Nathaniel slept eight hours straight!

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.

2/1 - Jonathan, "Even Einstein didn't have a triple-digit IQ." Noah, "Isn't that the guy with screws in his ears?" Jonathan, "No, that's Frankenstein."

Noah is losing teeth all the time, I have trouble keeping track of them all.

Dropping elbow on frozen shredded cheese. [This is a karate move, and it really works to break up the frozen chunks.]

2/7 - Faith started to whistle!

2/12 - Nathaniel: "Say-too" = thank you

2/16 - Nathaniel, "Way-ma" = Grandma

2/16 - How old are you, Nathaniel? [holding up one index finger on each hand] "Doo!"

2/18 - JPD doing joyful noise "p-p-p, t-t-t" with Nathaniel

2/25 - Joy, "It's a happy day every day at Grandma's house!"

3/2 - 10:30pm - Noah stands up out of bed, looks around confusedly, "I forgot how to do it."
Me, "Do what?"
Noah, "Go to the moon."

3/5 - Jeremiah knows almost the whole alphabet.

3/5 - Jeremiah, to Nathaniel, "Good morning, sweet boy!"

3/7 - Joy lost her second tooth. Lower right 1st incisor.

3/26 - JPD write first name all by self

3/27 - JPD, "Mommy, that says 'NO'".
"How do you know?"
"I seed the 'O', and I seed the 'N', so I knew it said 'NO'."
[flips switch]
"And this says 'YES'."

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.

1/4 - The whole family plays Cousin Memory. Nathaniel repeats incessantly, "I turn! I turn!"

January - Nathaniel knows where all the dishes go. He loves helping to unload the dishwasher and he is good at sorting silverware.

1/9 - Nathaniel, "Self!" (as in, "I want to do it myself!")

1/10 - Jeremiah saw a picture of a galaxy on the computer and exclaimed, "Look! The Milk Bottle Way!"

1/13 - Noah, while washing dishes, about the dish soap, "Mom, I think this is running out. It DEFINITELY didn't last Seven Generations."

1/15 - Jeremiah, "i'm not a little boy! I'm a big boy! But my SIZE is little."

1/18 - Nathaniel now jumps with both feet.

1/22 - Joy read hymn 366 (I Live) with only minimal help and is so proud and happy, she found it again in the hymnal at home and she is singing it
over and over again.

January - Nathaniel, learning to say people's names. "Doah" = Noah; "Djon" = Jonathan; "Sase" = Faith; 1/26 - "Sho-shuh" = Joseph; 1/27 - "Miah" = Jeremiah; 1/28 - "Joy", with the j sounding like the j in Dijon.

1/27 - Nathaniel pinworms. Only treated him.

Discussion of "thet" vs. "that" [added 6/6/2020: This is an intermittent discussion that is ongoing. Apparently, I say it sloppily, so that's how Jonathan learned, and now several others say it that way also.]

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.

11/10 - Nathaniel was a messenger to me from Joy: "mum" [come], held my hand to bring me to her.

11/22 - Jeremiah singing while playing, "I love you God, 'cause you make me happy..."

12/4 - Joy pinworms

~12/10 - Joy can whistle!

12/10 - Nathaniel, at the firefighter kids' Christmas party, "More cheese ball!"

12/11 - Nathaniel put on both his mittens by himself.

12/13 - Nathaniel's first haircut. He stood still the whole time - the easiest first haircut I've ever done!

12/14 - Noah, about BIG Numbers, "It's so boring, but it's so NOT boring."

12/20 - Joy lost her first tooth! Lower left. Popped out when she was trying to unscrew the toothpaste cap with her teeth...

12/20 - A spoonerism from a tired Mommy tongue, but Noah liked it and wanted me to write it down, "definary dictionation"

12/27 - We had been getting lots of packages in anticipation of Christmas. The doorbell rings. Nathaniel exclaims, "Box!"

12/31 - Jeremiah, "Raindolph is not real, but Santa is real." He knows this because he actually sat on Santa's lap at the fire station.

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.

9/3 - Referring to two years ago, Jeremiah said, "The other day of the
oott-her day (stretched out, and louder) we tipped over in the big boat."
He wanted to know if the motor boat was going to tip over or not. So he
was glad to hear that this boat wouldn't.

9/11 - Jonathan put an ant in a spider web.

9/11 - Jeremiah said, "I not like you, but you still my buddy."

10/2 - Me: "Steroids are drugs that make your muscles stronger." Noah,
striking muscle-man pose, "Like cheese!!"

10/4 - Joy dictated a story and Noah typed it up. Self-initiated

10/6 - Jeremiah, in reply to my request that he not scream, "I wasn't
screaming, I was shrieking."

10/8 - Jonathan, making cookies when he has a cold, "My olfactory organ is
severly disfunctioning. I can't smell the vanilla."


10/11 - Noah sees this giant two-window spread of freaky clown skeleton
skull in neighbor's window. Jeremiah goes over to look and says, "Hee
hee, he is a funny clown! [pause] Oh, he has angry eyes."

I suggested he tell the clown to take a deep breath and not be angry
anymore. So Jeremiah decided to write him a letter! [Added 6/6/2020: He
didn't actually bring the letter over to the neighbor. But that clown was
a trial until at least a week or two after Halloween when they finally
took it down. It scared Joy especially, and Jeremiah had a
scared/fascinated attraction to it. Glad they never put it up again!]

Ocotber: NPD, "I see" (usually when trying to see the kindle)

NPD gives kisses to help people feel better.

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.

8/9 - JPD, "The last name of my yellow shirt is 'Egg'." (Full name is 'Scrambled Egg')

8/10 - JPD, "Joy is my buddy." (Joy gone with Grammy.)

8/12 - Talking with a townsperson. He said, "I met a family that was very
strange. Similar to yours..."

8/13 - both upper canines definitely in [Jeremiah, Nathaniel? Why didn't I
write who this was for?!]

8/14 - NPD "buh" buckle

8/25 - JPD, "I have a necklace made out of moon lace."

Other august words for Nathaniel: "mine"; "men" = pen; "boo" = screw

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.

6/29/16 - Noah's party, kids building brick fort, all the kids at the party working together. Yellow jackets

end of June, Nathaniel stepping up stairs, holding rail or wall

7/7-7/10 - Balloon Festival, hosting Richard, Jeff, Becky. Rain, parking

7/7 - Jeremiah calls grizzly bears, "jiggly bears"

7/16 - Jeremiah, "If Nathaniel is gonna die, you call NINE ONE ONE!!! before he dies."

7/19 - Joy, "72 hours! That's tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

7/24 - Jeremiah, when he saw Faith and Joy putting on shoes for church, "*I* want special shoes!"

Or: How This Mom Started Playing Minecraft

They say that a good way to show love is to take an interset in what the other person is interested in, even if you wouldn't care about it on your own.

I'm a busy mom and wife of an entrepreneur, right?  I don't have time for video games.  I have a house to clean, school to teach, dinners to make, diapers to change, invoices to prepare, bills to pay, laundry to wash ...  blah, blah, blah.

But one day, my little Joy asked me to try Minecraft.  All my kids love it.  They play nearly every day, they collaborate, they watch each other, they coach and help each other.  I have already put in the effort to be interested in their creations.  But there is only so far you can go with intelligent questions without jumping in yourself.

I started in creative and peaceful.  Joy and Faith taught me some things, and my generated world was interesting to explore.

Then Jonathan asked me to try survival and coached me through the steps. (Though I still insisted on peaceful at first.)

It has been fun to play around and discover things, build a house to my own liking, raise a rainbow flock of sheep, etc.

My questions now come from experience.  Jonathan remarked, "It's so fun that you are actually interested in Minecraft now!"  How to connect to your pre-teen?  Maybe try Minecraft.

On vacation, I let them and myself do extra.  We discovered the collaboration of multiplayer over wifi.  We can be a team.  I also see the different personalities of my children coming out.  Each one approaches the game differently.  Jonathan works for speed and efficiency, mining carefully in the right places.  Noah thinks mining is mind-numbingly boring and avoids it when he can, preferring to get his treasure by killing monsters.  Faith is matter-of-fact, cautious and deliberate.  Joy makes beautiful, patterned structures.  Jeremiah likes digging and building, digging and building, digging and building (and he is getting more deliberate, too.)

I also discovered the phenomenon that some other part of my brain works on real-life problems while I play.  In a conversation with my sister, she remarked that I had been doing a lot of thinking.  I replied that I thought I was just doing a lot of Minecraft.  But she's convinced they're related.  And that gives me a deeper appreciation for Jon's game playing as well.

In Minecraft, my kids are the teachers (even my five-year-old: "Mom... your inventory is full, that's why you can't pick that up.")  I am the one learning, making novice mistakes, disregarding wise advice to my peril, and taking advice to my advantage.  This is fun for them and it's fun for me.  I'm glad I decided to take the plunge.

And now excuse me.  I have to go shear a yellow sheep.

I am posting my backlog of pocket notes. Sometimes details are sparse.


more (sign too) = "moh", also means "I want that"
Mom
ow
bang/bonk
yum
signs please
uh-oh
ball
door
oh
hot
come = "mum", usually repeated, with hand signal
whoa
no
hand
plug
broke(n) = "boke"
milk, with sign, sounds like Mom
out
up
down
bowl
get it / get that, as one word
I don't know, as one word, "eye-oh"
hi
hello
prune
outside/inside - "yie"
water - "wa"

Happy birthday, Noah!  Welcome to the double digits.  Ten was one of my favorite ages.  I am sorry that I can't give you my Be 10 Again! tshirt, but you are just too big!  But no matter how big you get, you'll always be my baby.  I love you!

Noah is an artist:

Noah is goofy:

Noah is a good brother:

Noah likes biking:

Noah loves to read and be read to and he loves to snuggle.  May he have many more decades to enjoy!