Eric’s bottom baby teeth came out last summer – both while we were on camping trips. His front teeth have been very loose for quite some time now and it has caused quite a problem. Eric was so concerned about the ‘pain’ of the tooth coming out that he altered what he ate, how he drank and how he brushed his teeth. It got to a critical stage yesterday. The tooth was sideways, the new tooth was ready to come in and he was panicking over the whole affair.

This was not a happy kid.

We debated forcing the issue, but decided not to. Fortunately, sometime around 2am during the night he had a coughing spell and the tooth popped out. The tooth and a special note to the tooth fairy were put under the pillow and she delivered cash. Voila, a gaping hole and a happy kid.

After Fran Skelly’s service and burial there was a luncheon at the VFW.  Jim, Tim and Pat pose below.

We entertained Eric by playing a ‘guess where the penny is’ game. Below Eric looks under Jim’s hand, Kathryn chats in the background.

Eric has abscounded with Blarney the Bear.  Blarney (age 32) now protects Eric at night.

Eric, Kathryn and I colored eggs in preparation for Easter.  Most of them have been eaten already.  I suspect we will be doing another batch.

Friday I went to Barb & Joe’s and helped install Barbara’s USB external drive, update her computer and install virus protection on Joe’s laptop.  I spent Friday night with Mom and returned to HP after breakfast.  We loaded up the extra bed and took it to Billie Jo.  Billie Jo held a birthday party for Dakota.

After the birthday party we went to the Stanley Theater to see “Willie & The Wheel”  with the Helmers.  Sunday K & Eric left for an overnight in Rochester and I went snowshoeing.

Eric turned 8 on 7 January.

This holiday included Legos, Pokemon and Nitendo DS games. Kathryn bought a Star Trek Lego kit that involved an instruction booklet that had 4 phases of 30+ steps each. Eric and I worked on it for several nights in a row to finish the model.

His Nintendo DS requires a lot of concentration.

To celebrate we held his birthday party at Adirondack Lanes Bowling Lanes.

I grew up across from Howe Caverns. My dad used to cut hay from their land. When my ponies escaped we would frequently find them at the Caverns mooching treats and affection from the tourists. One of the reasons I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 18 was due to our proximity to Howe Caverns. With no shoulders along the country roads, my parents were sure if I was riding a bike I would get hit by a tourist. So from age 5 on they entrusted my fate to Nip, my pony. I guess they figured his sense of self preservation would extend to me as well. In 40 years the old farm house and apple orchard is gone, as is the pig house, chicken coops and lower barn where we used to swing on the rope and make tunnels and forts in the hay. The ‘night lot’ where we used to put the cows at night is over grown with saplings, but the upper barn still stands.

When I was in High School I worked as a tour guide at the Caverns, leading groups of 40 people through the cave on 3-4 trips a day. It was a great job for a teenager; it paid well, it taught me some public speaking skills, I got introduced to a wide range of ethnicities that one wouldn’t normally encounter in rural Schoharie County, working with other teenagers provided the potential for lots of pranks and it got me interested in spelunking.

Yesterday, we took Eric and his buddy Trevor to the Caverns.

The tour is a little different than the spiel we used to give. Some of the formations we used to describe are now ignored. There is an emphasis on taking family pictures – like the one above – as a revenue stream. So other parts of the tour are a little faster and the Cave History Spiel is no longer given in the Bronze Room – where it fit so well.

The boys enjoyed the whole trip. The only place they got a little spooked was hearing the running water at the end of the boat ride (start is shown above). They were amazed by the experience of total darkness and really enjoyed walking through the winding way. All in all a good trip.

I got to see Sparky, Rich Nethaway and Bob Holt to chat a bit. It was a nice day.

After much delay I finally got the prizes from the Return to the Outdoors contest: a nice Northface fleece jacket, a Camelbak Hydration Pak, and a pair of Ahnu water shoes.

Once again we cut a tree too large for the house.  It was actually a top from a tree from a Christmas tree farm just down the road.  His trees aren’t trimmed and they are getting away from him.

Later in the weekend Trevor and Eric decorated Christmas cookies.

My neighbor leases out a couple of corn fields in back of our forty acres.  He is building a new house and has a new shale driveway.  I think he didn’t want the tractors and wagons to mess it up when they picked the corn.  So I gave permission to use our lane to access the fields.  I underestimated the number of trips they would be making and the size/weight of the wagons.  They rutted it up pretty good in a couple of places. Friday afternoon I took my tractor and back blade across the road to try to smooth our our lane.  I was able to scrape the bank gravel fill back in to semblance of a road, but there are a couple of ruts where the hay field runs into the woods that are going to need a lot more work.  Next year I will be wiser.

Saturday morning Kathryn went to Old Forge with her gal pals for the weekend.  They went shopping, drank wine and played cards.  Saturday morning Eric and I went to his basketball skills & drills session and then he stayed in the gym to ‘just play’ for another 40 minutes.  Teaching basketball to kindergarten kids is like teaching chickens.  Everyone in awhile someone moves in just the right direction to be encouraging.  He seems to have a good time – but it is play time – not sport that is motivating him.  That’s OK.

After lunch Eric & I took the lawnmower in for servicing and fix an intermittent starting problem – probably a bad coil and we went to see the Madagascar 2 movie (not as good as the 1st one).  On the way home we went to WalMart to buy Pokémon cards.  Eric had a couple dollars burning a hole in his pocket.  He doesn’t understand the whole Pokémon thing, but a couple of his older buddies are into them.  He & I had dinner at Applebee’s and played our version of Pokemon while waiting for the food.

Sunday Eric cleaned Kathryn’s car – vacuumed, washed all the inside plastic and cleaned windows inside & out.  He worked diligently for about 30 minutes – I was impressed.

In the afternoon Eric’s buddy Trevor came over for a little while.  The boys played inside for about 1 hour and then we went outside.  I made ‘bows’ from ash saplings and bailing twine and we cut ‘arrows’ from goldenrod so they could shoot bows and arrows for a while.  I ended up taking Trevor home early as he complained of being cold.  We went inside and had lunch and he still said he was cold, despite wearing a t-shirt and sweat shirt.  I am not good at feeling foreheads to determine temperature.  He said he had a headache, so I called Ellen and told her I was going to bring him home early.  When I dropped Trevor off Ellen said he had an ear ache earlier in the week (like Eric) and maybe was still running a fever. Later Sunday night Ellen called and said they had found a tick on Trevor and to check out Eric (none found).

Kathryn got home around 4pm with some Christmas shopping done.

We got a little snow/sleet last night.