February 3 – When reading Dr. Seuss books, Daniel gets distracted by any drawings of machines. He has to check them for validity.

February 4 – Do you remember the vintage commercial of the gorillas going “ape” on some Samsonite luggage? That was the scene just now with Daniel and a Ziploc full of banana bread batter. To Ziploc’s credit, the press-and-seal opening held tight, but unfortunately one of the plastic side panels couldn’t take the stress and burst. I guess Ziploc doesn’t do stress testing with gorillas – or five-year-old boys.

February 5 – “Before I was born, did you know I would be so cute?”

February 7 – My son is making animated .gif’s in GIMP. I’ve never made one and wouldn’t know how. Glad he figured it out. I used to think of myself as computer savvy…

February 9 – Daniel’s latest book.

http://blogs.thetucker.com/daniel/files/My-Big-Big-Party.pdf

February 12 – Papa and Daniel were playing in our corridor kitchen. Daniel was trying to get past Papa (the big bad wolf) to “take bananas to Grandma. She’s all out of bananas.” After several attempts using strategy and force, he resorts to guilt and persuasion: “You don’t Grandma to be without bananas, do you?”

February 13 – Daniel is conceptually designing a web site. He told me he’d been searching possible names on GoDaddy and had found a domain name that was available. I haven’t even finished my coffee. I’m sitting here musing how things would have been different if Steve Jobs’ parents had limited his “screen time”.

February 14 – Daniel said this light fixture arrangement at Whole Foods looks like Mickey Mouse.

February 14 – I was making shadow puppets on Daniel’s wall. I’d made a bunny and duck and he asked for an alligator. He asked the alligator if he’d like something to eat. I said that duck I saw earlier looked delicious. He offered me “three old ducks that will die soon anyway”.

February 16 – “How do you spell ‘meanwhile’?” Yes, what every 5yo wants to know.

February 17 – “Something popped up on Movie Studio and said there were two new versions. One cost a LOT of money and the other still cost a lot of money. Maybe when I’m old and do more stuff I’ll get that. When I’m old and have a lot of money.”

February 18 – We were watching the Horton Hears a Who movie and about halfway through it Daniel turns it off and said he wanted to read the book. When we finished the book he said, “The book is much better than the movie.”

February 20 – “Cat”

February 24 – I had my laugh of the day. Daniel, looking at Johnny Depp on the cover of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD: “Why is Willy Wanka a girl?”

February 26 – “I talk a lot don’t I. That just means I’m happy.”

February 28 – We are dealing with an oven error code this morning. Daniel says: “We have two problems. We have the thing that says ‘F2’ and we have you.” Yes, that just about sums it up.

February 28 – It’s good to know I always have at least one person on my side. I turned the stove eye too high and made a skillet smoke. After opening windows I started dealing with the skillet in the sink. Daniel asked how that had happened. I told him I’d turned the eye too high. He said, “Let’s just blame the skillet.” He looked down on the skillet in the sink and said, “Don’t you ever do that again.”

January 2 – Sometimes I get a bit concerned that if Daniel is this clever at five, what in the world am I in for in a few years. He wrote “CARD” on the folder I gave him for his report card. Then he considered that he will get more report cards in the future so added “(S)”.

January 2 – First tooth is out. I’m amazed it hung on this long.

January 5 – Daniel writing a game: “I’m not done with it. I’ll try to make it look more promising.”

January 5 – Daniel had me call him on the intercom so that he could pretend to be the Walgreens computerized answering system, complete with hold music. But the best part was when the “computer” asked if I wanted a new description or wanted to fill an old description.

January 10 – One of my blog readers was not able to print a pattern. It had Gene and me stumped. Our five-year-old son overheard a bit of the conversation and solved it in seconds. I have a feeling there is much more of this to come.

January 11 – Me to Daniel who was studying his face intensely in the mirror: “Anything in particular you are studying?” “I’m looking for wrinkles.” I know he’s an old soul, but really?

January 19 – “I feel like I’m a hundred, or maybe ten.”

January 19 – Daniel: “I think it’s kind of strange that you’re older than Pa, but he knows more about programming than you do.” Me: “That’s OK. Ask him if he knows how to knit.”

January 24 – Daniel is glad his school offers creative writing in kindergarten, with flexibility of medium used. He has created his own product – Netflix Connect – that is a box somewhat like a Roku but also includes a DVD player. He’s now creating a multimedia ad campaign for it.

January 25 – He calls it “Barn on Wheels”

January 26 – E-mails and stories my kid writes amuse me. He uses lots of punctuation such as quotes, parentheses, and colons, and always correctly, but there isn’t a period or comma to be found.

January 28 – Money counting practice while playing a fun game – Money Up.

January 28 – Daniel made a dictionary, which I guess is a sort of picture dictionary. It’s funny to see what made the cut.

January 30 – We read a book about turtles and he had to write his own book about turtles in WordPad. We listened to some Beethoven and he had to compose some of his own music with music composition software.

The day after Christmas, Poppy took Daniel to get some professional pictures taken.

December 3 – First thing this morning Daniel discovered a large gift under the tree and immediately had to sit on it. We’ve always told him he’s part cat.

December 3 – I admit I just don’t understand most modern art. So I’m not surprised that I don’t understand Daniel’s grand creation of the day. It does make me think of some of the works I’ve seen in art galleries. Can’t say that I can tell the difference.

December 10 – Homeschool science: growing germs in gelatin. Yummy.

December 12 – “I like to cook first thing in the morning. It seems like a good way to start the day and makes the rest of my day better.”

December 16 – Daniel took this picture of himself for some story he is writing. I can’t wait to read this one.

December 17 – This is extreme focus. Yesterday I had to get a few things at Walgreens. Daniel went along for the ride with his face glued to his Kindle. He didn’t stop looking at his Kindle in the car, walking to the store, getting into the cart (he likes to sit in the big part), or during the shopping portion. I had set a few items on the handle of the cart, but when I needed to get 16 cans of cat food, balancing on the handle was not an option. I careful slid four stacks of four cans each into the cart beside Daniel. Several minutes later he picks up one of the cans: “Mama, how did these get here? Did you know these were in here?”

December 18 – Daniel just wrote a book named The Missing Piece that suspiciously has similar elements to a Shel Silverstein book by that name. There is more after the end.

http://blogs.thetucker.com/daniel/files/the-missing-piece.pdf

December 20 – The latest story from the silly boy –
http://blogs.thetucker.com/daniel/files/Story.pdf

December 21 – Oh, how far we have come. Last night Papa asked Daniel if he wanted to add anything to his bedtime prayer. He said he wanted to thank God that school was fun.

December 22 – Daniel has so many hobbies. Today he was sewing with my sewing machine.

December 25 – Daniel with his new PlayStationPortable. You can see his new Yamaha YPG-235 behind him and the box for his new Point-of-sale printer (what every five-year-old wants) beside him. He’s had a very good Christmas.

December 28 – Getting a Mammy hug.

November 2 – What your kid does when you ask him to is one thing, but what he just does on his own is another thing altogether. Daniel saw that the hall bathroom was out of TP and there was also none in the cabinet. He not only got a replacement roll from the main bath closet, but got two more and put them in the hall bath cabinet.

November 7 – I heard the garbage truck, looked outside and realized our trash can wasn’t on the curb. We’d already missed last week because of storms all day, so couldn’t afford to miss another week. I ran out the door and around back to get the can. The garbage men were kind to wait until I got my can to the curb. Then I ran it back down behind the house again. This wouldn’t have been that interesting had it not been for Daniel who watched the whole scene from the front door and met me with clapping and jumping saying, “You did it, Mama! You did it!” I feel like a won an Olympic event.

November 7 – Goofing off before his haircut

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

November 7 – Chi Chi to Daniel as she cuts his hair: “Are you married yet?” Daniel: “Definitely not!” Chi chi: “Do you want to marry someday?” Daniel: “Not until I’m 11 or maybe 12.”

November 9 – This morning my son wanted me to help warm his feet. Me: “Are Mamas good for warming feet?” Daniel: “They are good for lots of stuff.” Me: “Like what?” Daniel: “Well, they’re good for lovin’.”

November 10 – Christmas pictures

November 10 – Some things are still interesting four years later…

November 12 – “I used to hate school but I don’t now. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it. Maybe in 100 days I’ll even love it.”

November 12 – Developmental Optometrist asked how Daniel was with reading now. I was explaining that the issue now is not his ability but finding something he was interested in. Daniel interjects: “I don’t like to read, but I can do it if I need to.”

November 12 – My vision therapy graduate

Daniel with Kasey, his vision therapist. He is going to miss seeing Kasey every week.

November 13 – Today, for the first time that I’ve heard, Daniel completed a statement with “…now that I’m five-and-a-half.” I love the half ages.

November 15 – “Five is my favorite number, because I’m five, but also I just like to say it. It’s kind of smooth.”

November 18 – Lady in the waiting room at the doctor: “You seem very smart to be five.” Daniel: “I was very smart when I was younger, too.”

November 18 – Today at lunch Daniel quizzed me ad nauseam about computer viruses, malware and operating systems. About thirty minutes into the interview he said, “Mama, you actually know a lot about this.”

November 18 – Some play time after Mama’s morning appointments

November 19 – At the fountain after the field trip at the museum

November 20 – My sweet boy patiently watching the car fiasco.

November 26 – Daniel and Poppy had been talking about “the old days” so he wanted a story from me. I told him about TV’s without cable or remotes or TiVo . “But how did you watch it?” “You just had to watch whatever was on a few channels.” “But you had to have an operating system like TiVo or something.”

November 27 – I’m watching a documentary about African animals with my shamelessly carnivorous son, who is viewing it as a menu. I’m thinking the antelope are so beautiful and graceful and he comes out with, “Did you know you can eat those?”

November 30 – Daniel has spent the last three days creating video games. Me: “Do you think you’d want to make video games for a living? You could go to work and write video games.” Daniel: “No, I can just do that here. “

October 1 – We stopped at the library on the way home from vision therapy to get some videos for school. The one Daniel latched onto quickly – the one on microscopic organisms, one of his favorite topics.

October 2 – Homeschool score: “Mama, this is fun!”

October 3 – Daniel made the copies I needed from a book and did an excellent job. While he was working on it he said, “This is like my job. This is just like this is my job.” Making copies was my first job, but I was considerably older than five. My doctor just didn’t respond after two attempts asking for a physical therapist, so I took matters into my own hands. I got appropriate books from the library and put together my own program. Daniel made the copies for me and then secretly made this title page.

October 3 – Daniel would spend entire days editing videos if left to his own devices. Other than taking the still photograph featured (after nearly a minute of black screen) this is all Daniel’s design and implementation.

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

October 5 – Big tree

October 7 – Another video my funny boy made. His original song “Too Late It’s Raining”.

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

October 7 – You can’t get more homeschool than identifying and learning about the beetle you find in your house.

October 10 – Hmmm. Will my kitchen survive the paper mache project?

October 11 – “I love you a hundred times more than I love skin.” If you knew how much he loves chicken skin, you’d know this is a huge compliment.

October 11 – At Whole Foods

October 15 – Daniel’s vision therapist complemented him for having an extra good attitude today. She also said he read third grade stories.

October 15 – I’m currently really grateful for double lock zip lock bags. Daniel was making a honey spicy mustard sauce in a gallon zip lock bag and thought he’d play zip lock refrigerator magnet bowling from across the kitchen. Zip Lock could use this as a commercial for the effectiveness of their double seal bags against the forces of five-year-old boys.

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

October 16 – Some people have no idea how to deal with bright children. Today I witnessed the strangest thing. A lady could have just answered my son’s question, but instead she tried to snow him for at least two minutes. It was so obvious that he wasn’t buying the dodge and it would have been so much quicker for her to just answer his question.

October 16 – at the toy store

October 17 – My physical therapist to Daniel: “What do you like to do in school?” Daniel: “I like to cook with Mama and program with Pa.” PT: “What do you like to cook with Mama?” Daniel: “Oh, anything that takes a long time.”

October 21 – I don’t think most five-year-olds have the same kinds of problems mine has. This morning he was trying to log into MS Messenger and it just wouldn’t let him do it and was insisting he use Skype. He uses both but has been trying to hold on to MSM. I told him I thought this really was the end of MSM. He burst into tears and said that MSM was his favorite way to transmit executable files and listed the methods that don’t allow you transmit executable files. I told him the trick of changing the extension before transmitting the file and then just changing it back to .exe after it is received. He gave me a thumbs up from the midst of his tears and a minute later he was just as chipper as ever.

October 22 – Daniel’s vision therapist said he got the highest score she’d ever seen on one of the computer based vision exercises. She thinks he should be able to graduate in three weeks.

October 23 – Daniel: “I hate vision therapy!” Me: “I know, but soon you won’t have to do it anymore. Daniel, bursting into tears: “But I hate change even more!”

October 27 – Daniel often helps me with cooking. He will work on one task and I will work on a few others. Today after a couple of tasks he announces “I think I’ve done enough. I think you need to do some of this now.”

October 29 – Newtons second law of motion doesn’t take into account the extra force necessary to move a five year old.

September 2 – Daniel will hardly let me take a picture of him, but he is always taking pictures of himself.

September 4 – My big laugh of the day – Daniel is wandering around tugging at his shorts because they don’t feel right. He has one of the shorts legs pulled up around his waist, one leg is through a shorts leg and the other through the shorts waist. I saved him the humiliation of taking a picture.

September 4 – Perfect weather

September 5 – Nature walk for the school boy.

September 7 – A little bike time before it gets hot

September 8 – Daniel explained “the type of music Pa likes”: “Pa likes this soft kind of music. It’s not the type of music I like. I like music you can dance to.”

September 8 – Watching the dancing at the Greek Festival

September 10 – The speakers in my car only work intermittently. I told Daniel it might be a short in the wiring. Later he asked his pa to tell him more about Mama’s short. After a bit of confusion, Pa finally understood what he was asking about. Daniel says, “Did you think I was talking about how she is small?”

September 12 – Dancing to Go Diego Go theme

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

September 12 – Doesn’t get squirtier than this.

September 13 – Me and my buddy.

September 16 – Daniel has managed to be the class clown in a class of one.

September 17 – Daniel: “Stinky!!!” Me: “You sound like your Pa. He says the same thing.” Daniel: “What is that?” Me: “Kimchi.” Daniel: “I thought it was trash.”

September 20 – Daniel and I are watching one of the few actual history shows on the History Channel. It’s about how the reports of trailblazers caused excitement for westward expansion in the East. Daniel thought that was so strange since they couldn’t take any video to show them.

September 20 – Daniel was looking at the list of printer choices and asked, “Which one is Nurse Kellye?” It just suddenly dawned on me that it will be years before he will ever watch a M*A*S*H episode, but because of our house naming convention for our computers and peripherals, he knows all the characters’ names.

September 21 – Playing Kindle games on the couch.

September 22 – Daniel: “I want to be like you when I grow up.” Me: “What about me makes you want to be like me?” Daniel: “Because you know a lot of stuff.”

September 24 – Daniel, who is suffering from allergy induced sinus congestion: “Do I not feel good today?” Me: “I don’t think you do.” Daniel: “I don’t feel good and I don’t sound good either.”

September 24 – “Why do you think it’s so dark in Fresh Market? I think they don’t want to pay for the electricity.”

September 26 – On school days I constantly hear “I want to do what I want to do.” Today, on a sick day off from school I’m hearing “What can I do?”

September 29 – Daniel will usually not read when asked, but he will read for hours if it is for the purpose of training his computer to have better voice recognition.

September 29 – Daniel is singing a dance version of ‘My Bonnie’.

September 30 – Everyone expects their child will take an active role in their healthcare at some point, just not when the child is five. Today at my doctor appointment the nurse took my blood pressure and didn’t say anything. Daniel: “So, what was it?” She tells him. Daniel: “Is that good?”

August 3 – Daniel the Magician

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

August 5 – This is how you work on a stinky computer, homeschool and enjoy nature all at once. Boom. Nerds rule.

August 6 – Can’t decide whether to be a news anchor or a radio personality…

August 7 – Daniel about the Science Channel show How It’s Made: “Do you know where How It’s Made goes in your brain? Well, you have a short term memory and a long term memory. How It’s Made goes in short term memory, because I can’t remember it.”

August 18 – Pa: “If you need something, yell this way so I’ll know it’s you.” Daniel: “Maybe you should just recognize my voice because Ma’s voice is more girlier.”

August 26 – He may have a future in comics.

August 27 – Daniel reading a random sentence: “its – shouldn’t that have an apostrophe?”

August 30 – Schooling on the couch with the quilt.

July 1 – Say cheese!

July 2 – I find the funniest sound files. Some are too good not to share.

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

July 3 – At Publix, me: “Did you say hi to Mr Ellis?” Daniel: “I told him you were meeting me at the vending machine, or he would think I drived here by myself.”

July 5 – What a funny face.

July 5 – A major case of the frizzies

July 9 – Me: “I spy with my little eye something that is cute.” Daniel: “Is it me?” Me: “Yes.” Daniel: “You’ve got to make it harder than that.”

July 9 – “My thoughts are doing like this.” Finger going round and round. “One thought comes and then another one, and then it’s a different thing. And I don’t even know what. And then it makes me think about something else, and then I’m thinking about, well, I don’t know.”

July 9 – Making faces before vision therapy.

July 9 – My sweet little darling just handed this to me.

July 10 – “How’d that tumor get there? Did you smell something bad or eat something bad?”

July 11 – “You’re the best. You’re just like a heart cake.”

July 12 – Daniel: “What shows did you watch on PBS when you were little?” Me: “They had some of the same shows you watch. I watched Electric Company, but it was different people.” Daniel: “Did it have Francine?” Me: “No, she hadn’t been born yet.”

July 12 – at Costco

July 13 – Poppy took these today at Adventure Science Center.

July 15 – New booster seat and new kindle game

July 16 – “How do you know all these things? You must have been spying on me.”

July 17 – Now Daniel is using an old Dell laptop with Win 98 on it to create directories and files on a 3.5″ floppy disc. Not sure these skills will get him far in life, but he is racking up the geek points.

July 19 – eating chicken wings

July 20 – How to make cheese

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

July 20 – at the park

July 22 – Squirty boy + scanner =

July 24 – Daniel being protective of a knee boo boo: “Don’t touch my knee.” Papa: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Daniel: “You didn’t. I was just warning you.”

July 25 – cousins

July 26 – A little duet

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

July 27 – “Are people not as cute as me? Do they know that?”

June 1 – Daniel about the Franklin Farmers Market: “We came all the way out here and didn’t even have an adventure.”

June 3 – The directory is like a mini playground.

June 3 – at the park

>> Watch in high quality at YouTube

June 4 – at the park

June 5 – Leaky washer. Lee Co coming today. Daniel: “I will watch what he does and tell him if he’s doing it wrong.”

June 5 – Daniel the charmer strikes again. We were picking out frames for his new glasses and the lady put some frames on him and asked what he thought of them. “Maybe on somebody else.”

June 5 – I learned where I am on the food chain. I brought a big plate of chicken to Daniel and told him I made enough for us to share. “I will eat what I want and what I don’t eat you can have.”

June 7 – He’s not thrilled about his new glasses.

June 8 – Daniel to Papa: “Did you know Mama can do two things at one time?”

June 8 – Further proof that Daniel inherited my mixed metaphor gene: “I’m as ticklish as Christmas.”

June 9 – He’s not fighting the glasses like he was, but he still fights having his picture taken.

June 10 – Daniel is typing messages in a game he is writing and tells me the messages for me to spell for him to type. As he types he repeats the letters I give him. I said “exclamation point” and he said “capital one”. Look at your keyboard.

June 13 – Me: “You have no idea how cute you are.” Daniel: “I do have an idea.”

June 13 – Daniel is playing in front of the deck door since our power is out for some reason.

June 14 – Amazing weather. Super Squirty is trimming the holly bush with his scissors.

June 16 – As a parent you have a special pride when your child surpasses your abilities. I thought I was the master of the mixed metaphor, but Daniel has me beat, hands down. He told his pa he was “slow as pie.”

June 17 – Poppy took this at the Adventure Science Center. Whenever Daniel refers to the Adventure Science Center he uses the full name, Adventure Science Center, which makes all of his stories about the Adventure Science Center very, very long.

June 18 – Daniel has no qualms about eating meat. Watching Cat in the Hat he says, “Do you know what my favorite animal is?” I’m expecting a zoo animal or a pet. “Chicken because I like to eat it.”

June 20 – Daniel watching Andy Griffith: “Is Barney always incorrect?”

June 22 – Poppy said Daniel was singing “go granny go granny go granny go” today. I take full responsibility for that.

June 22 – Poppy took these at Adventure Science Center.

June 23 – “So what do you do on Independence Day? Does that mean I get to do anything I want?”

June 24 – Daniel is writing programs in Visual Studio. He made check box that said “Click if Poppy’s coming today” which produced the pop up “I’m excited” and a check box that said “Click if Poppy’s not coming today” which produced the pop up “I’m sad”.

June 26 – at the toy store

June 28 – “Do one-year-olds just like to do boring stuff, like opening drawers and closing them?”

June 30 – “If you go down in the Earth, there is grass, then dirt, then rocks, then hot rocks, then more rocks, then dirt, then grass again, because eventually you’ll come out the other side.”