Off On A Tangent

Vivi and I both won our chess games last night - a very rare occurrence. Mine was particularly sweet since it was against the same opponent I lost to last week, and it was a very decisive victory, resulting in mate on move 20. Vivi played a mother of a very strong 5-year-old chess player - she is trying her best to keep up with him (not succeeding, naturally, those pesky 5-year-olds are tough!).

Meanwhile, Jaime has been in a great mood lately, and is talking up a storm. Every day, he makes Vivi call me at work so he can tell me how his day is going. So far, his days go like this:

Jaime: Dada Dada Dada Dada Dada Dada

Dada: Hi Jaime!

Jaime: Hiya!

Dada: How are you?

Jaime: *Kiss*

Dada: Ah…

Jaime: Itsa Cars!

Dada: Yes, Lot’s of cars!

Jaime: Buh-bye Dada!

Dada: Ciao, Jaime!

Or some variation on the theme of Dada, Hi, Cars, Ciao! He is SUCH a cutie.

So yesterday I decided I should write a blog each day if for no other reason than to document our lives, as I can start to see how even mundane details of our lives might be useful to look back on in the future. Then, when I got home from the chess tournament yesterday, I read my book (Better Than School - an excellent book about one family’s experience with home-schooling), got very tired and went to bed. Oops.

I finished tied for second in the under 1800 section of the annual Rochester Marchand Open Chess Tournament. I wanted to come in first, but I lost to the eventual winner in the 4th round. A tough player who wins by not making any overt mistakes. As per my custom, I over-extended and ended up fighting for a draw while down a pawn in the endgame, but I couldn’t hold it, and lost. In the 5th round, I accidentally threw a rook, but it turned out to be a brilliant sac as I got a devastating attack out of the deal and ended up a piece to a pawn, at which point I just had to weather my opponents attempt to force a pawn queening before getting down to the business of queening my own with the help of my extra piece. I didn’t play too well overall, but well enough to win.

Jaime had a great weekend. My workplace had an Easter Egg hunt on saturday that he went to with Vivi and a friend, Helen. They apparently had a great time and Jaime took to the business of hunting and finding easter eggs to put into his basket like he was born for it. No one could believe he is just shy of 17 months as he is very tall and acts quite a bit older. Mama and Dada are very proud :-) While I had fun at the tournament, it was bittersweet to have to miss Jaime for almost the entire weekend.

I’m looking forward to Rochester’s big chess tournament, the Marchand Open, this weekend. It’ll be on both Saturday and Sunday all day, so I’ll be gone the whole weekend till 6pm sunday. I think I have a real chance to do well in the under 1800 section (and hopefully move my rating above 1800 in the process). I’ve been playing so much on-line chess lately, I’m eager to see if it helps or hurts my over-the-board play.

Jaime is crazy about being outside. We have to suffer through multiple tantrums a day anytime the prospect of going outside goes unfulfilled or when it’s time to go back inside. Yesterday, Vivi spent 3 hours at the park because he screamed every time she suggested it was time to get back in the car. Every time I let the dogs out, he runs for the door, only to suffer crushing disappointment that it’s only for the dogs. We let him play on the deck, but it took him all of 3 minutes to figure out how to open the deck door that leads down the stairs to the dog run, so we have to keep a close eye on him there, which is hard. He likes to close the door and then come get us to open it again, only to immediately close it again.

Meanwhile, here was one of my more fun on-line games:

I lost: