everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Category: Home

  • Tyler on Disneyland

    We’re at Disneyland for a few days to escape the dust in the kitchen and take advantage of a Friday and Monday holiday that the Alameda School District has scheduled. The sky’s threatened rain all day (with a brief downpour while we were eating lunch and I was sampling a fine Patron tequilla) but each time we were out under the skies, all four of us would puff our cheeks and blow air to keep the clouds at bay and, I have to say, it worked!

    After a day of rides, Tyler, in the elevator of the hotel said in a tired voice, "I feel like I watched too much television." I think he nailed it. Overstimulation.

    Pictures will follow (including a hilarious one of Tyler mouthing out, in a full exagerated Franco accent, "Crème Brulee!") will follow when I get home and can pull the photos off the digital lightbox.

  • Julia blowing bubbles

    Bubbles by Dav

    Now that we’re out of a kitchen, we mooch dinner whenever we can. This weekend we decended upon Mie & Dav’s place. Mie gave the kids a bubble set and Dav took this really great photo.

  • Star Horse

    Tyler’s getting into the Star War movie series. Julia, who’s had enough of Luke Sykywalker and the gang and tells Tyler she’s sick & tired of his "star horse" movies. Izumi and I almost lost our morning coffee.

  • Tyler hacks the pebble system

    Tyler’s onto us. Izumi set up a little system with the kids to reward them for good behavior. The way it worked is that we had a jar of glass beads. Whenever they did something that we wanted to encourage, like make their bed without our asking them, clean up their room, or otherwise help out around the house, we’d reward them a pebble or two. Wnen we started, we made a little ceremony of it each night and would hand them the pebbles explaining what each one was for and clearly linking the deed to the payout which they would keep in their own little plastic cup. At the end of the week, we would exchange a pebble for 10 cents and they could then use the money to buy something for themselves.

    Over time, there was less and less to reward them because they were regularly making their beds and clearning the table. Sometimes we would take pebbles away if they did something bad but usually nothing especially good happend so days went by without any pebbles.

    This morning, Tyler told me he’s figured out a way to get the pebble supply flowing again. He spelled it out to me in plain logic as a grifter would explain his latest scam.

    If I’m good all the time, you don’t really notice when I’m good. If I make my bed everyday, you stop giving me pebbles for making my bed. What I should do is stop making my bed for a few days, then make my bed again. Then you notice and you’ll give me pebbles!

    Nuts.

  • Izumi’s Excellent Day

    Izumi just told me three stories that were just too funny not to share:

    The Afghans in the Locker Room

    We’ve been going to this gym on the other end of the island and Zoomer’s told me a few times about these two rather Rubenesque women in the sauna that always seem to be drying their laundry or something. She could never figure it out and didn’t even recognize the language they were speaking – they always sounded angry and one of them would give her dirty stairs. Today she was at the gym and again, they were in the sauna, taking up most of the space with all their clothes again.

    But today, one of them reached out to Izumi. She smiled and tried, in broken and rough sounding English, to communicate. She explained that she was from Afghanistan where, at 14 she married and proceeded to give birth to six children. "Boom, Boom, Boom" she said slapping her palms demonstratively. Pounding her chest she proclaimed, "Now, am 55 – it’s over! No more children! Zvittt!" she said while demonstrating that she got her tubes tied to shut down the factory.

    Tyler and the Autistics

    Tyler seems to gravitate towards autistic kids. He’s compelled by how much they can teach him. This year there is one child who is just mildly autistic and Tyler has been hanging out with him learning all sorts of things. Today, Tyler came up to Izumi and was kind of in awe of this kid. "J. knows so much! He knows about the weather and stuff, he’s going to be a scientist for sure!" Neither Izumi nor I knew that J. was autistic so Izumi shared this compliment with J.’s mother who was so happy to hear that a classmate of her child could see past his handicap and find what’s special in her child. Funny thing is, it seems like all the mothers know that J. was autistic and I guess the kids clued in on it too and kind of gave J. a wide bearth. Tyler was just fascinated and would hang out with him and J.’s mother really was touched. It’s nice to know that your kid doesn’t even have a negative bone in his body and can seek out the good and special in someone and hold it up and celebrate it.

    Julia 4 a Day

    Yesterday was Julia’s 4th birthday. It was really special for her as I think she actually soaked in the significance of it and basked in the little extra things that were showered on her all day. She came home from school proudly wearing a paper crown her pre-school teacher had made for her – she was on Cloud Nine and went to bed happy. When she woke up this morning, longing for happiness of the day before, she asked when she could be four again. When Izumi told her that she’s going to be four for the next 12 months and flipped though the calendar to show her how long that is, Julia’s eyes popped open, "Wow! I get to be four for the whole year!"

  • Hana-kuso

    Sometimes are kids come blurt out the strangest things. Just tonight, out of the blue, Julia let us know that, "When I’m picking my nose. . .  I’m looking for diamonds."

    Izumi and I looked each other just to make sure we heard the same thing then, busted out laughing.

  • Fore!

    I’m not much of a golfer. I never did understand the attraction of hitting a little white ball around and then, as is usually my case, looking for it in the bushes. I never gave the sport a chance when I was young and had a chance to get into it. I guess patience comes with age and I’m now beginning to appreciate what people see in the sport. The singular focus, you and the terrain, and the satisfaction when you do make good contact, that ping of the club against that little white ball.

    There’s a public golf course about a half mile from our house and on Saturday my neighbor was taking his boys over to whack a bucket of balls at the range. Tyler and I tagged along (99 balls cost you $8) and Izumi let me borrow her clubs (she’s got a cute, pink driver that’s
    real fun to use). It was Tyler’s first time at a range and he did pretty well. He did lament that there were, “no windmills” like the mini-golf place down on the Santa Cruz boardwalk but, nonetheless, he enjoyed himself.

    I also go a few good shots out there and, after hearing a round of 18 holes is only $25 for Alameda residents, think I may try to get myself out there one of these days. They give free lessons to kids on the weekends and it looked like Tyler had a thing for this club and ball thing so maybe we’ll get him out there as well!

  • Monterey First Night

    Monterey First Night

    We just got back from a few days down in Monterey where we greeted the New Year with the rest of the town at their annual First Night Festival. We thought the kids get tired out by their usual 8pm bedtime but they were so excited to be spending the night in a hotel room that we headed back out where Tyler & Julia danced to zydeco until midnight.

    More photos here on Flickr.

  • 2005 in Review

    I sort of let the holidays wash over me without taking the time to do much more than the bare minimum. I guess it’s age but it seemed like the Halloween > Thanksgiving > Christmas medley roared through before I could soak it in. I believe that is what happens as you get older – the notion of 12 months making up a year and the need to mark the passing of each one seems more and more arbitrary, unnecessary, and a bit artificial. Anyway, that’s my lame excuse for only now getting around to sending you my annual update.

    This has been a year of putting down roots. It was our first full year in the San Francisco Bay Area so we spent most weekends exploring our new home. A couple of highlights:

    January

    Six Apart, the startup I worked at with my sister Mie, moves to the city and I start to commute to the city, usually by bus but when the weather was nice, by ferry which was spectacular. Tyler learns to ride his bicycle without training wheels and we join the Yarrington’s for a snowboarding trip up at Tahoe.

    February

    A quick trip out to Hawaii to relax a bit with Izumi’s parents. Sun, Sand, Surf, and garlic shrimp on the North Shore. I take a Howard Rheingold book and get hooked on SMS and the fact that I can text a friend in Scotland while waiting in line to get on a submarine in Waikiki.

    March

    We visit the Russian River for the annual Barrel Tasting festival. We taste some wonderful Champagnes and Pinots and later commune with the Redwoods and Izumi finds a giant four leaf clover. Tyler takes up t-ball and akido. We start reading the Harry Potter books together. Julia learns the theme song to the movie. My Japanese Grandfather passes away peacefully while taking a bath.

    April

    Izumi passes her written test for a California license on the third and final try. I try my hand at professional blogging and conceive, install, design, and write for dymag-usa.com, a site to promote the motorcycle wheels made by Izumi’s father’s company.

    May

    Intrigued by Daddy’s interpretation of Professor Dumbledore, Tyler takes up reading and uses a bookmark to mark his place in Green Eggs & Ham which we nibble over the course of a week. One last trip up to Tahoe where, amazingly, we ski in t-shirts.

    June

    Izumi and the kids head off to Japan for two months so that Tyler & Julia can get a taste of Japanese school. Julia’s happy to follow in Tyler’s footsteps and attend the “little t school” where Tyler went last year. Daddy catches up on some live music and sees Les Claypool, Oliver Mtukudzi, and the Devo cover band Mongoloid all one month.

    July

    Daddy, hating spending time in a big empty house by himself, finds things to do on the weekends. He goes sailing on the bay and lets his sister drag him out to a rave and ends up having a good time.

    August

    The family is rejoined in Japan where I spend a short week hitting old haunts but not able to meet everyone I would have liked. Julia’s talking up a storm in both English and Japanese and is becoming her own person. She masters the art of the batting eyelashes.

    September

    After getting my picture in the paper as a business blogging expert, I decide it’s time to push on and leave Six Apart for Yahoo. To celebrate, I buy an iPod Nano and listen to podcasts during my daily drive down to Silicon Valley. I visit my relatives out in Tennessee but decide not to try the wakeboard this time.

    October

    Mie and Dav get married, my parents visit San Francisco, and we buy a Tivo. For Halloween Julia is a generic Princess in Pink and Tyler is a Ghost Buster. We hand out $60 in candy in less than two hours and Tyler loses his first tooth and I get my first traffic ticket.

    November

    We visit the Mystery Spot in the Santa Cruz mountains and Izumi gets sick. We join a local health club situated in an old naval aircraft hanger. Tyler and Julia take up soccer lessons.

    December

    Julia gets four Barbie for Christmas and Tyler now favors his new Bionicles and Transformers over Thomas the Tank Engine. Packing our bags for a long weekend down in Monterey, I’m reminded that this is where we spent our New Year’s last year. It looks like First Night on Alvarado Street is getting to be a Kennedy family tradition. As we head into our second year on the West Coast, we look at doing more of the stuff we liked and less of the stuff we didn’t. I do believe taking stock of the year is a useful exercise and I thank you for indulging me.