Taking Cameron to the dentist

We see a wonderful pediatric dentist. Today, Cameron gets to go in to get his braces adjusted. I have to admit, I do forget to turn the little crank in his mouth as often as I should, but he has been very patient with the whole "phase one" process. He has the top brackets off (now held in place by a retainer behind them) and we're just waiting on the the bottom ones to align better. He's really come a long way from the top teeth having no room to come in and the bottom teeth coming in in rows like shark teeth! This boy is going to have the best smile ever. Now if I can only get him to brush and floss better...

Playing games and wasting time

Anyone that knows me knows that I love to play The Sims games. Lately, I've been playing a lot of The Sims 3. I'm really enjoying the seamless neighborhood setup. It makes their little lives feel so much more "normal." I've started a "Legacy" game, where you make a Sim, buy a huge empty lot and try to build wealth (and a house!) over 10 generations. You start with the clothes on your back, the empty lot and $1300. So far, my little dude has a little shack and a vegetable garden to show for his time. He does have a love interest so he may manage to produce generation #2, even if they aren't exactly wealthy yet.

I also have a game running that started out as my actual family (mom, dad, brother and me) and, so far, I've grown up from a toddler to young adulthood, established myself in a good job, gotten married and had two kids. It will be fun to see this family go through a few generations after I'm gone, but I think I'll be slowing down time a lot. It's creepy to think of letting a representation of yourself die!

This silly little game takes up far less time than The Sims 2 did because you don't have to babysit the little guys quite so much. Still, I spend a good deal of time micromanaging them because it's just plain fun. For example, one of the families has produced an evil genius son. He's just a baby, but I can't to see what kind of interesting life I can create for him. ;)

Social Networking Overload!

There are so many ways to keep in touch these days. In addition to the standard home phone, we now have cell phones that we use for talking and texting with friends and family. Home computers have given us countless additional ways to stay in touch. We now have email, instant messaging, social networking sites, blogs and micro blogs, photo and video sharing sites and probably much more that I'm forgetting to mention. As if that weren't enough, much of these methods of staying connected are available on cell phones. It has made the world a very small place, which is wonderful, but being connected to EVERYONE, ALL THE TIME can become overwhelming.

I found that keeping up with so many things at once took up too much time, so I'm undergoing a bit of intarwebs detox. Twitter and Facebook are the main offenders, so they are the first ones to go. If you are friends with me through Facebook, you already have access to all my contact information. If you want to know what's going on in my life, this is going to be the place to look. It will be updated often. I mean, who says you can't use your actual blog for micro blogging? LOL