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 8/24/2007 Well, it seems like summer has come and almost already gone. In my back yard I notice the change of seasons by the movement of the shadow of our house. In the winter the shadow almost completely blocks the sun from the yard while in the middle of summer there is no shadow at all. As the seasons change the shadow crosses more and more of the yard day after day and one by one my bonsai benches fall into more and more shade.Dory and Bryce and I were in Pinecrest again for the 4th of July, but other than that we have been home most of the summer. Bryce had his second cochlear implant surgery at the end of July and is scheduled to be actvated with his second processor on the 30th of this month. It's interesting to watch his language develop, he seems to pick up new words all the time, either through the signs that we use or spoken. I am fascinated to watch him play with his hands first making a ball shape, then an O shape with one hand then two O's together to make a pair of eyeglasses which is the sign for owl. It seems in some way that he doesn't really need the sign language, but Dory and I feel that using it allows us to communicate when his implants are off and to reinforce concepts visually. The summer, with a contrasting lack of scheduled activities for Bryce and I, has been somewhat more challenging for me because I have to think up things to keep Bryce busy. This isn't really difficult, but it requires me to at least haul him into the car and over to the playground daily. During the school year we were busy enough and he had enough regular access to a playground that I didn't feel bad if he didn't go outside of school. Bryce has a tendancy lately to become somewhat bored in the house, which makes him cranky. We went through a time where I was allowing him to watch television for a couple hours each afternoon, but I felt that it wasn't good for him to be watching it then when we almost always have it on later in the evening. Needless to say, he has been displeased that he is no longer allowed to watch TV except when we are watching. His latest trick though is to not want to go to bed. It started only a couple of weeks ago, prior to which he would go to bed pretty easily at 8:30pm. Now he wants to stay up until 10pm and even so ends up screaming for 15 minutes every night before he finally falls asleep. Dory and I have been at a loss for how to deal with this so we started just putting him to bed the same way we had been before, the only difference being that he cries for 15 minutes each night. I had hypothesized that he was afraid of the dark since he doesn't cry when I put him down for his nap, but leaving the light on dimly didn't seem to solve the problem. I've been keeping up on my bonsai activities; bought a few trees, sold some others and have been working as much as possible between taking care of Bryce and doing photo research. 5/11/2007 3/27/2007 1/5/2007 11/23/2006 10/1/2006 9/1/2006 7/20/2006 5/30/2006 5/20/2006 4/25/2006 3/22/2006 2/22/2006 1/25/2006 12/20/2005 11/17/2005 10/27/2005 10/8/2005 9/11/2005 8/26/2005 8/9/2005 8/1/2005 7/20/2005 7/5/2005 6/17/2005 5/27/2005 5/1/2005 4/15/2005 4/5/2005 3/24/2005 3/13/2005 2/5/2005 12/28/2004 11/29/2004 11/3/2004 10/2/2004 9/10/2004 8/23/2004 8/8/2004 7/21/2004 7/2/2004 6/8/2004 5/4/2004 4/20/2004 3/28/2004 3/10/2004 2/10/2004 1/15/2004 To reach entries prior to January 2004 click on one of the older entries on this list and scroll down to the bottom of that entry. e-mail Eric |