The Runnin' Utes, June 2

Sorina

Oh, to be 2 again--to be so happy and content with life. She wakes up in the morning and says, “BOO” (her favorite game is Peek-ABoo or Chase-Me). Her Dad had the biggest laugh the other day, because Sorina awoke before he left home. One minute she was sleeping, and then she just opened her eyes and said, “boo” without any warning. He thought that was one of the cutest things he had seen. Sorina is happiest when she can be outside holding hauling around (torturing) her Sophie (cat), or sneaking out of the house with food to feed Lady (dog), or swinging. It all only gets better if water in somehow involved. Sorina is also the child who picks out her silverware and then asks for “something to eat” – the silverware being more important than what she’s eating. But you had better give her something she can eat with that piece of silverware. For a long time she would only listen on the phone (and would only talk on toy phones), but she finally will talk to her Dad on the phone and not just listen. Of course, Shawn only understands “hi, daddy” and agrees with the rest of whatever she says.

Toren

Kindergarten has been hard this year – with illness. Toren has caught just about every illness that they serve at the elementary. The boys are on year-around school and it never fails that Toren gets sick the first week he goes back on track. Toren is so happy to have warm weather, as water is his favorite hobby. He enjoyed finishing off the soccer season, and had fun scoring some goals. He is having a great time in t-ball and loves to go to his games twice a week. His team is the Boston Red Sox and everyone comments on his baseball cap that he

proudly wears. Toren is the only child in the family who loves to wear caps; maybe he should get some tips from Uncle Todd. Toren and Dane are also beginning to have fun with the minimarshmallow guns they made this week. Toren also still likes to ride his bike, and has to constantly be reminded to stay close to home (he likes to wander the neighborhood to see if some friend or another can play) and to wear a helmet when he rides.

Dane

Dane participated in the fist overnight campout as a Webelo with his Dad’s Scouts at the Trapper Trails Council Duty to God Encampment. He said he had a great time. He was little miffed at the older boys because they got ahead of their leaders (Dad and Brother Ward) and then missed seeing them, so the oldest boy said they should head back to camp. Dane said they needed to stay where they were, when lost or separated. The older boys though said they were the leaders and that he needed to listen to them, so they went back to camp.

Meanwhile their Scout leaders were looking all over the arena for them. The Scoutmaster (Shawn) kept thinking, “this is not like Dane to not try and stand out or find us to find.” Finally Shawn felt he had exhausted the search and should perhaps look back towards camp. Sure enough, he found the boys and lectured them about staying where they were, when lost or separated. Frustratedly Dane said, “That is what I said, but they wouldn’t let me stay and you told us we had to stay together.” Shawn was impressed with his good sense of what to do. The buddy system, though, was somewhat trying for Dane also; he sometimes wanted to do something that he could not convince the others to do. But Shawn continually stressed the importance of the rule, and he complied. Dane is also doing great in his baseball, hitting a double a few weeks ago, the team still lost, but it was a really good game. He also hit a single tonight, and then scored a run. His team is the Seattle Mariners.

Brigitta

I (yes they’re making me write this myself) haven’t really done anything exciting this month! I’ve babysat some of the cutest kids ever. I have also finished soccer-- we didn’t get trophies this year we got bands and hackysacks. I’ve also written 2 stories that are pretty cool. I have also been trying to pass up my dad’s scores on Amped (a snowboarding game on X-Box). Oh yeah, I made it into honors science for 8 th grade. Well I’m done! See ya!

Shawn and Kimberly

Well, we are coming up on 15 years of marriage in a week or so. Wow, where did all the time go? We (yes Kimberly and I have to write this ourselves) haven’t really done anything exciting this month! Ooh, wow, that was kind of like, totally deja vu. Actually we have seen more soccer and baseball games than even some of the most avid fans, and all without putting a red cent into an overpaid, worldly athlete’s pocket. 

Shawn is glad to be done coaching the soccer season, with nearly a balanced win-loss record (which is somewhat stressful for him as a coach). He has to keep reminding himself that despite the concerns of parents, his goal is to teach the players to love sports and to have fun (whether they win or lose) so that they will want to have a lifetime love of and participation in

sports (even if it isn’t soccer).

Kimberly is having fun with strep, to which she succumbed on Monday. She is currently reading a book, to distract her mind from how sore her throat is (and probably so she does not have to talk). Kimberly is enjoying being a Cub Scout leader, and also brought Cubs up to the Duty to God encampment for the Saturday activities. It seemed all the boys were mesmerized by an ingenious launcher that would launch (using a valve and compressed air) the paper rockets that the boys would make in a few minutes with a regular sheet of paper, a glue-stick, some tissue and tape. The rockets would sometimes fly over a hundred feet into the air.

We are also kept busy trying to help train Lady for her obedience class (and so we can walk her without her trying to bolt towards and bark at every dog that she sees or hears). Lady, from what we are gathering, is about three-quarters Australian Shepherd, and one-quarter Great Pyrenees, both of which are sheep-herding breeds. She likes to do things, and we will have to work to find more for her to do. She currently likes to try to control people, to get them to do what she wants (such as to scratch her head and back, or rub her tummy). Lady is smarter than I am, because she can usually get us to do that. I have been trying to get Kimberly to scratch my back for years, with little success – something about dead skin cells and all. I thought about telling her that if she

didn’t scratch my back the dust mites might go hungry, but decided that may not help the situation.

I told a few of you that my office had training on how to deal with angry individuals, and they taught us to use the catch phrase “That sounds frustrating”. Some of you mentioned that you had seen or heard of similar training in other areas (such as the juvenile courts). I have actually heard a couple of people before say they were flusterated, but that is a different story. In my systems area (that I manage) it has become somewhat of a joke. In fact (on my own time, although I really did not spend long on it) I once drafted the following explanation, which I shared with my area, based on the fact that some individuals seem to constantly be “frustrated”, and that they may think some people intentionally try to frustrate them. I told a few of you about it last Saturday, so I thought I might pass it on (if there is room). An obscure yet ubiquitous property of existence regards a design constraint of the universe which affects a particular subset of sentient beings with a perpetual sentiment of frustration. The gravity of the situation, though, is that one may point out that some particular manifestation of the sentiment exists in a particular situation, but the benefit of doing so would likely be nullified if one further indicated to any degree of succinctness that the individual might continuously or even continually be affected by this sentiment. One must also recognize that another subset may be falsely implicated as participating in perpetuating  events that contribute to such a sentiment, where the accuser does not correctly attribute the causality to the constancy and consistency of the design constraint. Even though participation in perpetuation of the sentiment may appear voluntary, and may even appear to contribute to the overall hedonism of certain others, such affectivity is simply a token manifestation of the universal property, and any attributions of willful participation lack veracity. Interestingly, the resulting inability to convict magnifies the sentiment, and provides no source for resolution other than the nonsuccinct acknowledgement "that sounds frustrating".