Thankful for Nintendo

     Over the past decade, I have done customer service for some morally questionable businesses. When I started with those comapanies, I had no previous knowledge of their products. Once I learned about them I was not very enthusiastic about them. But when talking to customers, I had to be stand behind the product and make it sound sincere. Now, however, I work for Nintendo. For the first time in my life, I get paid to support products that I am familiar with, that I enjoy, and that are not sold as cleverly concealed ways of ripping customers off. For the first time in my life, I work for a company that I like. When a customer asks if I like a certain Nintendo product, I can honestly say that I do. Thanks to Nintendo, I am no longer a professional liar. Each of these factors have so far made Nintendo a wonderful place to work. It is amazing to me just how much happer I am in this job.

     I am so thankful for my new job, and for the happiness that it brings me. I am thankful for my kids who motivate me to go to work each day to make sure their needs are met. I am especially thankful for my wife who stood by and supported me through our financial hard times while I searched for a new job. I love her and am so appreciative of everything she does for our family.

Taden has "A PROBLEM"

Over the past few months we have been working hard to try to teach Taden's older brothers their letters. We have been using flash cards, books, and TV programs such as Super Why to help them learn to read in preparation for the 2010-2011 school year.

Taden has always been an observant boy, and is very eager to learn new and exciting things. He has been saying some words since he was about 5 months old, singing since he was about 12 months old, and practically skipped the crawling phase and went straight to running at just 8 months.

In teaching Danic and Malachi their letters, we noticed that Taden was repeating the letters that we would teach to them. We bought him a set of letter blocks and I decided to sit down with him to see which ones he could name correctly. Imagine my surprise when my 19-month-old son selected 8 blocks from the pile and was able to name them correctly! As he named them, I placed the blocks back in the bin. He named off the letters A-P-R-O-B-L-E-M. It didn't take me long to realize that Taden had "A PROBLEM." That was on August 27th. Today is the 3rd of September and he has already added the letters C-D-I-G-H-X-Y-Z, for a total of 16 letters that he can correctly name! There are only 10 letters left, but I believe that he will also master those letters very soon.

As far as problems go, I would have to say that this is one that I can definitely handle. Taden is a very bright boy and while he is still working on speaking actual words, he is making excellent progress on learning the alphabet.