Random thoughts

1) It is called "under armor" for a reason: it is intended that you wear those two-sizes-too-small spandex shorts UNDER another piece of clothing.

2) I drove from Wenatchee to Boise yesterday and was passed by fewer than five cars on the entire drive.

3) My wife has a fabulous group of friends. We saw them over the weekend and I was struck by the greatness of the friendships.

4) Joy and I have been married 8yrs in July.

5) We bought the boys a nintendo 64. This is our first video game system, although the boys have already played video games at daycare and they sometimes play on the PC. We got two consoles, four controllers, and 15 games for $50. Pretty schweet deal, methinks. I'm on a mission to find a couple of old N64 games: Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers. These are both 4-player games we can all do together. We had the boys "earn" the system by eating complete dinner for ten straight days with no whining or complaining. They did it, and it was glorious. We let them each "unlock" a new game last night to reinforce their behavior during the trip. They really were excellent and I was proud of them. [For Tami: In parenting, many will dispute using incentives to bring about desirable behavior. They will call this "bribery," or say things like, "that's something they're EXPECTED to do anyways, so why should we reward it?" My response: a bribe is only a bribe when it is payment for an illegal behavior. For example, if I pay a police man not to arrest me I am attempting to commit bribery. This is a specific part of the criteria for bribery- that the behavior being reinforced is illegal. It is NOT bribery unless you are having your kids do illegal things. And regarding expectations; it is very good parenting to use rewards and incentives to shape and reinforce a child's behavior. As parents, one of our top responsibilities is to prepare our children for life! I submit that these types of "quid pro quo" interactions are a vital part of life. For instance, I don't go to work for free! I expect a pay-out. Now, have my kids adopted my value-set and made a personal commitment to behave a certain way at the dinner table? No. They probably did it to get the reward. But that isn't the point, because all behavior change starts the same way- with someone taking a risk. They tried a new behavior, and (because we made sure of this) the new behavior met their needs better than the old behavior. This is how learning occurs.]