It’s been another year of change for the Rotton household.  In July, Sasha celebrated her first birthday. She’s now walking and babbling off in a language that only she understands. However, she can say things like “Mama,” “Dada,” and “hot dog” (which actually means Mickey Mouse, long story).

Sammy has gone from being a toddler to a full-fledged little kid.  He often demonstrates that he’s too smart for our own good: he can do simple arithmetic, reads voraciously, and has just started taking ice skating lessons with Mom.

Mark continues to work for the Discovery Channel, but Tracy has moved on to working for a federal government contractor.  She will be working with the Administration for Children and Families (part of HHS) to reengineer their website.

We’re also in the hunt for a new house, staying in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Hope the new year finds you happy and healthy. All the best for a very merry Christmas and a bright and prosperous new year!

Mark, Tracy, Sammy & Sasha

But of course, the problems were highly publicized, as noted in this Washington Post article.  In fact, my experiences were even quoted in the article.  One of my twittering buddies works for the Washington Post and asked me to email my thoughts on the process.  Here is the whole email:

Honestly, I was a bit dubious when I first heard about the White House's plans for offering the Easter Egg Roll tickets online. It seemed an admirable, thoroughly 21st century idea, however being a web development professional myself I simply knew that whatever website was used for the ticket distribution would be absolutely slammed with traffic to the point of not working. And for much of the morning, when I was receiving "Network Timeout" errors, I was being proved right.

There was also the vagueness of the information provided in the White House's news bulletin: what time did ticket sales start? At midnight or sometime in the morning? The bulletin didn't say. It also didn't say if the tickets were being offered on a first-come, first-served basis or via a lottery system as was being reported in the Chicago Tribune. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-easter-eggmar24,0,364891.story) Even as I type this at 1 P.M. on Thursday, it's not immediately clear when today the tickets are being offered. I keep getting redirected to a static web page that reads:

Tickets for the 2009 White House Egg Roll are no longer available at this time. Tickets will be available at various times throughout the day. If you are unable to order tickets at this time, please check back later.

Lastly, while the notion that an online distribution system would make it easier on parents across the country trying to get tickets, I wonder about the feasibility of families from areas outside the D.C. region being able to get to the nation's capital on short notice, especially in the current economy. I always saw the Easter Egg Roll as one of the perks of living in this area, like being able to enjoy the free museums and zoo any time we want to. While the Easter Egg Roll is a great public event in the most public house in the country, I'm not sure that opening it up to everyone in the country is necessarily practical.

All things considered, I don’t think I would have ever gotten the tickets if I had to camp out at the White House in the wee hours of the morning. The online distribution is more my style, when it worked.

(Everybody’s in pajamas because the show was held on “wear pajamas to school” day. Go figure.)

I had a great Christmas. Grandmommy and Uncle Boo were here. Santa Claus gave me lots of good toys because I was a very good boy this year. Here are some of the things he gave me:

• A big dump truck
• A little dump truck
• A medium steam roller
• A wooden train whistle
• Diesel

My grandmommies gave me some cool toys too:

• A doctor’s kit
• A wooden clock toy
• A Thomas floor puzzle

And Uncle Boo gave me a suitcase for my Thomas trains.

Sammy with his favorite Christmas present, the big dump truck from Santa Claus.

#1: Clean Up My House

This is a little more than just scrubbing the bathroom (and honestly, I don’t even do that; I have a housekeeper who does a much better job than I can do). I mean going through every nook, every cranny, and every pile of crap in my house and getting it all under control. Scanning in the kids’ art projects and sending the originals off to the grandmothers. Getting rid of the mementos I haven’t looked out (or taken out of boxes) in 4 years. Get my house into some sort of organized shape so that it doesn’t look like a FEMA zone all the time.

A one off on this theme is to redo the basement into a kids playroom so that we can get most of the toys out of the living room (where we’re always tripping on them) and into a dedicated space that the kids can call their own. This includes laying down new flooring since the cats have ruined the carpet there.

Another related part of this is to redo the floor in the kitchen. The original vinyl tiling that’s there has been peeling up since pretty much we bought the house and if we ever want to sell the place ourselves, that needs to be fixed up.

It’s a big project, bigger than it sounds, and maybe I should call it more “organize my life”, but if I can tackle the clutter that I live in, it will be that much of an improvement in my life.

#2: Don’t Buy Any More Books Until I’ve Read the Ones I Have

I should probably add to that “ask for books as gifts”. I have a pile of books I’d love to read, but I simply don’t have the time. Why compound the problem with more books? In fact, I haven’t read a single book I received as a gift for Christmas 2007! So I really don’t need any more. I don’t need to buy them, and I don’t need to ask for them. I need to read what I’ve got.

And the same goes for audiobooks. I recently bought one that I’ve only listened to the first 3 chapters of. I can’t listen to them in the car because no one else in my family wants to listen to them (and they’re almost always in the car with me, especially during the daily commute). I find it hard to listen at work because I can’t concentrate on the text and what I’m working on at the same time. So again, no time.

Basically, both of these resolutions come down to setting priorities. I’m going to find the time to clean my house and read my books. I have no idea how I’m going to accomplish this and still get any sleep, but I have 365 days to figure that out.

So, we go to the mall last night to pick up a few things, and don’t get home until 9:30. Then it’s the nightly fun of putting the kids to bed.  Hooray!

So what do I do afterwards? Why, finish putting Christmas lights on the cherry tree out front, of course!

I only did this last night because it was 60 bloody degrees outside, and a cold front was going to be moving in overnight. So it was either do it late at night in the drizzling rain, or some other night this week in the cold. I chose late but warm.

They’re on a timer, so hopefully they’ll be lit when we get home tonight. Sammy should like that. He gets really excited seeing any house with Christmas lights and will point out each and every one!

(I’ll try and get a better picture up this weekend.)

However, I will relate the story of Sammy vs. Santa Claus. For weeks I’ve been telling Sammy that we need to go see Santa Claus so that he can tell him what he wants for Christmas. We even wrote a letter Sammy could give him detailing his preferences. And finally the day came, Sunday, when we were off to Lakeforest Mall with, I believe, one of the best Santa layouts in Suburban Maryland.

Sammy was reasonably good in the long line, as was Sasha who didn’t get fussy until we were approaching. A little nosh (yes, while standing in line) seemed to appease her. As for Sammy, I let him play with my iPhone for a little while, which backfired when it was our turn and I had to yank it out of his hand when he refused to give it back to me.

Sasha, who has been plagued with both separation anxiety and stranger anxiety lately, was a perfect angel. She gave Santa her biggest toothless smile and did everything she was supposed to do. Then there was Sammy.

I tried placing Sammy on Santa’s lap. His response was to start crying and then hop off. I gave Sammy the letter he had written, which he then threw at Santa and tried to run off.  Finally, after coaxing from the photographer and from me, he stood sort of next to Santa clutching a tiny basketball squeaky toy, and then finally sat on my knee as I kneeled down next to Santa.

At one point, he gave the photographer one of his “I’m in pain!” smiles. I tried to tell her that that was his smile and that she should get the shot off quickly, but I don’t think she quite believed me.

We managed to get off a few passable pictures which we got in prints and on a USB key (a cool l feature that I think is a smart way to go), we were done, much to Sammy’s relief.

Sasha doesn't look that happy, but Sammy cooperated for this picture.

It’s been an exciting year for the Rottons.
On July 11, at 2:43 in the morning, we
welcomed Alexandra Elaine Rotton into the
family.  She weighed in at 8 lb 8 oz and is a
healthy and active bundle of energy.  We
call her “Sasha” (it’s the Russian equivalent
of “Alex”).

Sammy is now a very precocious three year
old.  He recently switched to a new
preschool located in the same building in
which Tracy works.  With Sasha there too,
the whole family gets to be together every
day.

Mark and Tracy are still working for Discovery Communications.  We invite everyone to enjoy the fine programming on the Discovery Channel’s family of networks. You can keep up with all our happenings on our newly relaunched blog: http://family.rotton.com/

You can also follow us on Twitter! Mark is @atarinut, Tracy is @taupecat and Sammy is @sammyrotton. (Sasha will get her account when she learns to talk. :-) )

To reach us in more traditional ways, call or email us:

301-460-6466
us@rotton.com