(Ok... this is a rerun, but it fits with the season...)
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
We all were hiding, scared as a mouse
My son and daughter were barricaded behind the couch
As down the stairs, stomped Mommy, the grouch
My son's eyes were bright with fear
My daughter, the youngest, huddled near
We heard the dishes break in the kitchen
And the eerie noise of muttered bitchin
We shared a look and gathered our courage more
We knew the stakes, and had survived this before
The straws were drawn, I got the short hand
To get the Midol, across no man's land
My son heaved a sigh of relief, another Christmas he'd see
And in his best Tiny Tim voice, said, “Father, it twas nice knowing thee.”
My daughter, eyes wide as a saucer
Silently asked, if this too would happen to her
Apparently she saw the worst in my eyes
For without hesitation, she got up and switched sides
“Daddy's in the living room.”
She declared, sealing my doom
So, with my army cut in half
I feared I wouldn't be having the last laugh.
A poke on my arm, “I ate the last cashew.”
My son's lip quivered as he said “and I told her it was you.”
My frown must have deepened, my face a bright red
With a tear and cry, into the enemy's arms he fled.
Gathering my nerves, over the back, I looked, of our now flimsy settee
Both my children, the fruit of my loins, were standing there, pointing at me!
“I'm bloated and retaining water”, came the battle cry
“No dear, you're not and in those jeans, your butt looks fine,” I said, practicing my lie.
I ducked the frying pan, the pitcher and glass of ice water
Imagine my surprise when both my children re-armed her
Now, you may be thinking, there's another Christmas gone bad
But there's a silver lining to my Christmas ballad
When the dishes were gone and the blender retrieved from the roof
(When she's mad, she's got an arm like Babe Ruth)
We all gathered round the Christmas tree to sing
And roast marshmallows, which I remembered to bring.
As the snow blew in through the broken windows
We opened presents, wrapped with papers and bows
My wife sedated with IVs of Midol and chocolate
It was a Christmas, we would not soon forget
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Parade
“Is this a frick street too, Daddy?” my son asked as I turned the wrong way on the one-way street.
He was very proud of his new word. The morning had started with me asking my wife, at 10:20, “Are you taking him to the parade?”
He'd just started cub scouts and the troop was marching in the holiday parade. He was supposed to be at the staging area at 10:30. Naturally, I assumed she was taking him since I'd carried both of our little sumo wrestlers on my shoulders the prior night. We'd gone to Pittsburgh's light up celebration. Both kids lost steam and we only had the one stroller. So they took turns on my shoulders. (Unfortunately, my wife nixed the logical idea of me sitting in the stroller with them on my shoulders and her pushing.) By the time we got the car, I was a good two inches shorter than when I'd started the morning.
Her answer that she thought I was taking him was a little unexpected. So we rushed and made it out the door and headed to the holiday parade. We were meeting the rest of the pack at the YMCA. My wife gave me detailed directions on how to get there.
For someone that told our son, as we were walking back to the car after the parade, “I used to march in three parades every Memorial Day.” (I'm sure it was through three feet of snow, uphill both ways and in no shoes from her world-weary tone), you'd think her directions would not include using the parade route to get to the staging area.
I even called her on the cell phone and asked how the den leader suggested getting there. “Trust me, turn right on Main Street. The Y is at the top of the hill. You can't miss it.”
My trust level dropped dramatically as the police officer kept waving me to go straight at Main Street. Obviously, he hadn't marched in three parades every Memorial Day and didn't understand I was getting directions from an expert.
“What time is the next parade, Daddy?” My son asked from the back seat.
“There's only one parade today, Buddy. It starts at noon.”
“But, Daddy, will there be one next November?”
“Yes, there's one every year. Why?”
“I guess I'll march in that one.” (My son's confidence in my navigation skills filled me with warmth.)
All I had to do was figure out how to make it a half mile to the right and we were set. Fifteen minutes later, I knew we were getting closer. (We'd driven close to four miles, we had to be closer.)
That's when “frick” was introduced into my son's vocabulary. We did a quick u turn to get going in the correct direction and backtracked.
“I bet you think this is a frick road too, don't you, Daddy?”
“Yes, Buddy,” I lied. It was actually one consonant shorter and different vowel road because we heading away from the route. But it did get us to the other end of the parade route. This police officer had obviously marched in three parades every Memorial Day. He pointed down the street, behind the barricade. There was my destination. I couldn't drive down there, but could drop my son off here while I parked...
After hiking through a few counties to the get to the staging area, we met the rest of the pack. As soon as we got there, my son conserved his energy by racing off with the rest of the scouts in a game of cops and robbers. After forty-five minutes of restful scampering and playing, they were ready to march.
I moved down along the parade route. This being his first parade, I was looking forward to seeing him march by with the rest of his troop. The homecoming queens from the different counties drove by, followed by the marching bands, the politicians and volunteer fire departments. I was impressed at how well they they kept the formation.
Then a parent in our group announced they were coming. Sure enough, the Webelos came by with the flags, marching in step. All the scouts had bags of candy they “tossed” to the bystanders. Our place along the route was maybe 20 feet down from the official starts. I know because the candy throwing from the politicians started right before us. Our cub scouts were marching in perfect rhythm. The only problem was each had their own rhythm...
By the time he got to our group, my son's bag was empty. (I later found his complex calculations of distributing candy was one handful thrown out, one went in his pocket...)
At the end of the parade, where all the scouts were collected by proud parents, I realized that geometrically, parades are linear. And linearly, my car was not only at the wrong end, but so far past the wrong end, it probably started another parade. And we had to walk back. Frick.
He was very proud of his new word. The morning had started with me asking my wife, at 10:20, “Are you taking him to the parade?”
He'd just started cub scouts and the troop was marching in the holiday parade. He was supposed to be at the staging area at 10:30. Naturally, I assumed she was taking him since I'd carried both of our little sumo wrestlers on my shoulders the prior night. We'd gone to Pittsburgh's light up celebration. Both kids lost steam and we only had the one stroller. So they took turns on my shoulders. (Unfortunately, my wife nixed the logical idea of me sitting in the stroller with them on my shoulders and her pushing.) By the time we got the car, I was a good two inches shorter than when I'd started the morning.
Her answer that she thought I was taking him was a little unexpected. So we rushed and made it out the door and headed to the holiday parade. We were meeting the rest of the pack at the YMCA. My wife gave me detailed directions on how to get there.
For someone that told our son, as we were walking back to the car after the parade, “I used to march in three parades every Memorial Day.” (I'm sure it was through three feet of snow, uphill both ways and in no shoes from her world-weary tone), you'd think her directions would not include using the parade route to get to the staging area.
I even called her on the cell phone and asked how the den leader suggested getting there. “Trust me, turn right on Main Street. The Y is at the top of the hill. You can't miss it.”
My trust level dropped dramatically as the police officer kept waving me to go straight at Main Street. Obviously, he hadn't marched in three parades every Memorial Day and didn't understand I was getting directions from an expert.
“What time is the next parade, Daddy?” My son asked from the back seat.
“There's only one parade today, Buddy. It starts at noon.”
“But, Daddy, will there be one next November?”
“Yes, there's one every year. Why?”
“I guess I'll march in that one.” (My son's confidence in my navigation skills filled me with warmth.)
All I had to do was figure out how to make it a half mile to the right and we were set. Fifteen minutes later, I knew we were getting closer. (We'd driven close to four miles, we had to be closer.)
That's when “frick” was introduced into my son's vocabulary. We did a quick u turn to get going in the correct direction and backtracked.
“I bet you think this is a frick road too, don't you, Daddy?”
“Yes, Buddy,” I lied. It was actually one consonant shorter and different vowel road because we heading away from the route. But it did get us to the other end of the parade route. This police officer had obviously marched in three parades every Memorial Day. He pointed down the street, behind the barricade. There was my destination. I couldn't drive down there, but could drop my son off here while I parked...
After hiking through a few counties to the get to the staging area, we met the rest of the pack. As soon as we got there, my son conserved his energy by racing off with the rest of the scouts in a game of cops and robbers. After forty-five minutes of restful scampering and playing, they were ready to march.
I moved down along the parade route. This being his first parade, I was looking forward to seeing him march by with the rest of his troop. The homecoming queens from the different counties drove by, followed by the marching bands, the politicians and volunteer fire departments. I was impressed at how well they they kept the formation.
Then a parent in our group announced they were coming. Sure enough, the Webelos came by with the flags, marching in step. All the scouts had bags of candy they “tossed” to the bystanders. Our place along the route was maybe 20 feet down from the official starts. I know because the candy throwing from the politicians started right before us. Our cub scouts were marching in perfect rhythm. The only problem was each had their own rhythm...
By the time he got to our group, my son's bag was empty. (I later found his complex calculations of distributing candy was one handful thrown out, one went in his pocket...)
At the end of the parade, where all the scouts were collected by proud parents, I realized that geometrically, parades are linear. And linearly, my car was not only at the wrong end, but so far past the wrong end, it probably started another parade. And we had to walk back. Frick.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Princess
I know what you're wondering; what does a chic four-year old wear for a night out trick or treating?
A princess dress with a hoop skirt and two pairs of sweat pants. Granted, the two pairs of sweat pants do not technically fall within the accepted Princess Biona, wardrobe. (After the Fire truck incident of last year, switching the B for an F was a relief. (To relive that Halloween, check out the Fire Truck article.)) My daughter did her best to explain to the evil non-step mother that "Princess don't wear pants." While the argument was cogent and accurate and convinced me, it had no effect on my wife.
You may be thinking this was a one time blatant disregard of logic. But my daughter has a history of Halloween persecution and disappointment. Even though she was healthy and active when she was born, my wife, and the entire medical establishment conspired to ruin her first Halloween. They hid behind the feeble excuse that she was only a day old. Luckily, her brother had her best interests in mind. He made a point to tell each house we visited, "I'm trick or treating for my sister too." He wisely left off, "give me more candy."
So, her first Halloween was ruined. Her next chance came, strangely enough, a year after she was born. This year, there was no logical reason for her mother to ruin another Day of Candy. Her brother was going as Spiderman and she picked Clifford. Well, her mother picked Clifford, mainly because it was the costume her brother wore the year before. It was at least three sizes too big and allowed a snowsuit, boots, hat and mittens to fit under the costume.
Aside from having her costume perverted into a round cherry instead of a popular product line, you might be wondering how her mother ruined this Halloween? The Clifford costume was a hand-me-down. While it didn't ruin her Halloween right then, I'm sure when she's old enough to read this, it will retroactively. I know this because of tennis shoes. This summer, she'd grown out of her sneakers, so I grabbed an old pair of her brother's and told her they might fit. "No! Too big!" she jerked her feet away and wouldn't let me see if they fit. Instead of forcing the issue, I tried another pair of his old shoes that were the exact same size and this time, announced that they were brand new, never been worn... EVER. This pair fit perfectly. I barely stopped her brother when he started to say, "Hey, those are my old-"
If you're counting, that's two Halloweens ruined. Last year, her brother was sick so she had to go up to complete stranger's houses with just her mother. Everyone knows that the last thing a three-year wants is her mother ringing doorbells for trick or treat. She also only got half the candy that was due her. She and her brother switch candy cause each has different allergies. It works out so they each get a full compliment a sugar.
So we came to this Halloween. It started off rough with the extra sweat pants under the princess dress. I noticed that is had a definite negative impact on her twirling. But she and her brother (dressed as Bumblebee, not the insect as my parents thought, but the Transformer) bravely faced the elements. As we walked up the long driveway, I checked to make sure they were both ready.
"What do you say when you knock on the door?"
"Trick or treat!" my son yelled out.
I looked at my daughter, "What do you say?"
"tk r trt," she whispered.
When it comes to strangers, my daughter has a tendency to cling to the back of my leg so tight I think she is trying to pull herself through the material. I was positive I was going to get the pleasure of walking up to each door and holding out her treat bag while she hid behind me.
For the first two houses, that's what happened. Her brother raced ahead, knocked and the candy was being handed out by the time we got to the door. A quiet "thank you" came from behind my leg and we went off to the next house.
By the fifth house, she was right beside her brother, her basket out, a millisecond behind in "Trick or treat!" Since her brother was running ahead, then back to the group of adults following at a slower pace then ahead and back, he wore down and soon his sister was reaching the doors first.
She'd studied how her brother did it and was an instant pro. She couldn't hold her basket and reach the doorbell. So, she'd carefully place it on the doorstep, stand on her tip toes and ring the doorbell. Then she'd pick up her basket, hold it old and yell, "Trick or treat!'
The problem was, not every house had someone stationed at the door to open it immediately. After her proclamation of "Trick or treat!" she'd look up expectantly and usually see a closed door. That's when she repeated putting her basket down, ringing the doorbell, pick up her basket and "Trick or treat." After the fourth ring, she'd look at me and heave a disgusted sigh at how slow some people were.
We made it through half of the neighborhood before they decided they'd had enough. (We even found the house that was handing out treats for the adults. Reeses's cups and beer actually aren't as bad as you'd think. I know which house we're starting with next year.) So, my daughter perched on my shoulders, her hoop skirt threatening to block my vision every few steps, we all returned from a successful trick or treat expedition.
My princess ended the trip asleep on my shoulders. Next trick or treat, I'll remember to take the sucker away before she falls asleep. That patch of hair should grow back in a few months. In the meantime, it's winter so a hat won't look out of place...
A princess dress with a hoop skirt and two pairs of sweat pants. Granted, the two pairs of sweat pants do not technically fall within the accepted Princess Biona, wardrobe. (After the Fire truck incident of last year, switching the B for an F was a relief. (To relive that Halloween, check out the Fire Truck article.)) My daughter did her best to explain to the evil non-step mother that "Princess don't wear pants." While the argument was cogent and accurate and convinced me, it had no effect on my wife.
You may be thinking this was a one time blatant disregard of logic. But my daughter has a history of Halloween persecution and disappointment. Even though she was healthy and active when she was born, my wife, and the entire medical establishment conspired to ruin her first Halloween. They hid behind the feeble excuse that she was only a day old. Luckily, her brother had her best interests in mind. He made a point to tell each house we visited, "I'm trick or treating for my sister too." He wisely left off, "give me more candy."
So, her first Halloween was ruined. Her next chance came, strangely enough, a year after she was born. This year, there was no logical reason for her mother to ruin another Day of Candy. Her brother was going as Spiderman and she picked Clifford. Well, her mother picked Clifford, mainly because it was the costume her brother wore the year before. It was at least three sizes too big and allowed a snowsuit, boots, hat and mittens to fit under the costume.
Aside from having her costume perverted into a round cherry instead of a popular product line, you might be wondering how her mother ruined this Halloween? The Clifford costume was a hand-me-down. While it didn't ruin her Halloween right then, I'm sure when she's old enough to read this, it will retroactively. I know this because of tennis shoes. This summer, she'd grown out of her sneakers, so I grabbed an old pair of her brother's and told her they might fit. "No! Too big!" she jerked her feet away and wouldn't let me see if they fit. Instead of forcing the issue, I tried another pair of his old shoes that were the exact same size and this time, announced that they were brand new, never been worn... EVER. This pair fit perfectly. I barely stopped her brother when he started to say, "Hey, those are my old-"
If you're counting, that's two Halloweens ruined. Last year, her brother was sick so she had to go up to complete stranger's houses with just her mother. Everyone knows that the last thing a three-year wants is her mother ringing doorbells for trick or treat. She also only got half the candy that was due her. She and her brother switch candy cause each has different allergies. It works out so they each get a full compliment a sugar.
So we came to this Halloween. It started off rough with the extra sweat pants under the princess dress. I noticed that is had a definite negative impact on her twirling. But she and her brother (dressed as Bumblebee, not the insect as my parents thought, but the Transformer) bravely faced the elements. As we walked up the long driveway, I checked to make sure they were both ready.
"What do you say when you knock on the door?"
"Trick or treat!" my son yelled out.
I looked at my daughter, "What do you say?"
"tk r trt," she whispered.
When it comes to strangers, my daughter has a tendency to cling to the back of my leg so tight I think she is trying to pull herself through the material. I was positive I was going to get the pleasure of walking up to each door and holding out her treat bag while she hid behind me.
For the first two houses, that's what happened. Her brother raced ahead, knocked and the candy was being handed out by the time we got to the door. A quiet "thank you" came from behind my leg and we went off to the next house.
By the fifth house, she was right beside her brother, her basket out, a millisecond behind in "Trick or treat!" Since her brother was running ahead, then back to the group of adults following at a slower pace then ahead and back, he wore down and soon his sister was reaching the doors first.
She'd studied how her brother did it and was an instant pro. She couldn't hold her basket and reach the doorbell. So, she'd carefully place it on the doorstep, stand on her tip toes and ring the doorbell. Then she'd pick up her basket, hold it old and yell, "Trick or treat!'
The problem was, not every house had someone stationed at the door to open it immediately. After her proclamation of "Trick or treat!" she'd look up expectantly and usually see a closed door. That's when she repeated putting her basket down, ringing the doorbell, pick up her basket and "Trick or treat." After the fourth ring, she'd look at me and heave a disgusted sigh at how slow some people were.
We made it through half of the neighborhood before they decided they'd had enough. (We even found the house that was handing out treats for the adults. Reeses's cups and beer actually aren't as bad as you'd think. I know which house we're starting with next year.) So, my daughter perched on my shoulders, her hoop skirt threatening to block my vision every few steps, we all returned from a successful trick or treat expedition.
My princess ended the trip asleep on my shoulders. Next trick or treat, I'll remember to take the sucker away before she falls asleep. That patch of hair should grow back in a few months. In the meantime, it's winter so a hat won't look out of place...
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Almost There
6:15 p.m.
We were close to three weeks into our road trip. (You travel with two kids that can barely wait to get to the cabin so they can get out their sleeping bags and blow up beds and tell me each hour doesn't feel like at least a day.) We all needed a break and there was a Waffle House coming up. In hindsight, loading them up on syrup at that time of night might not have been the wisest option.
We pulled into the parking lot and I freed my daughter from the 3000 point safety harness. For the record, I did notice that she was soaked. I thought it was from the effort of getting out of the Government Regulated Safety Seat. Besides, the bottle of water I'd given her earlier hadn't been that full. We almost made it into the restaurant, but her mother discovered the soaked clothes and decided there would be a Change.
That was when we ran into the packing issue. The Change had not been packed in the essentials bag. They were in the depths of the roof bag. And the roof bag was held down by straps that I had serious doubts I'd be able to loosen. With the grumpy whining motivating me, I managed to loosen the straps. Since I'd packed the roof bag, I had a pretty good idea where my daughter's clothes were and dug out a shirt and pair of shorts. I displayed my find proudly, sure the whining would stop. But, I was told they didn't match in a very grumpy voice.
I appealed to my daughter, and even though I got her seal of approval, my wife still wasn't happy. I was banished to child watching while my wife found a matching set of clothes. (In hindsight, I can see the importance of my daughter wearing clothes that match. We were in a small town, that we would never be in again, she was about to eat dinner (read pretty much any article in my blog and you'll figure out that food and my daughter means a mess), we were going to spend the next couple of hours in the car and would arrive at the campground well after dark and put the kids right to bed. Being seen in a mismatched shirt would undoubtedly traumatize her for life.)
After dinner, we hit the road again for the final leg of the trek. I was allowed back behind the wheel. I honestly don't know what time we got the cabin. I just remember that it was raining. And it was dark. And everyone was tired. We had a small cabin that first night and would move to a “family” cabin the next day. Since we were just going to sleep, I figured the small room would be fine.
That was before I carried the roof bag through the primeval rain forest that separated the parting lot from the cabin. Both kids immediately dug in looking for their sleeping bags and blow up mattresses. I didn't quite catch the fact that my wife had bought a different mattress for each child. All I looked at was the first box to make sure it had a pump.
Immediately after opening the first one, I made a note to verify that the pumps always have a plug. The one she'd bought used batteries. Even though I already knew the answer, I asked anyway, “Honey, do we have AA batteries?”
While she cursed and looked through her bag, I opened the other mattress, glad that it was a different type. Maybe it had a plug? The night was not a total loss yet. (Both kids had already spread their sleeping bags on the floor and were jumping up and down on the bed, positive that they were not tired.) I was right. This one didn't require batteries! That's because it didn't have a pump at all. You actually had to blow it up. It must have been the last one manufactured in the work and my wife bought it.
I tried telling the kids how soft and comfortable the floor looked in the vain hope they'd say, “Why father, there's no need for you to venture out into the rainy and dark night. We would be happy to camp out on the floor.”
Instead, I walked to the main lodge. Surely, they'd have the batteries and we'd back on track to a peaceful evening. I was right. They did have them. About two days ago they had them. The nearest store was a half-hour drive away and I had three tired and cranky people waiting back at the cabin.
Ok... I did consider going to get the batteries, and taking the scenic route. In case you are wondering, it is possible to blow up an air mattress. It took two aneurisms, a mild heart attack and I'm pretty sure my left eye was bleeding by the time I was done.
With the mattress blown up, the kids each on their half and fighting sleep, I told them a story. (The bag with their books was still in the back of the Prius and even though the rain had slowed, I was too lightheaded to risk the walk to the car.) I don't remember the moral of the story, but they were both silent and wide-eyed when I was done.
11:15 PM.
We'd arrived, everyone survived the trip. The veins in my temples weren't throbbing as much. Vacation officially starts tomorrow-- Hold on... “I don't want to hear any more complaining. It's time for you to sleep.. You've been whining all day. And kids, stop teasing your mother!”
We were close to three weeks into our road trip. (You travel with two kids that can barely wait to get to the cabin so they can get out their sleeping bags and blow up beds and tell me each hour doesn't feel like at least a day.) We all needed a break and there was a Waffle House coming up. In hindsight, loading them up on syrup at that time of night might not have been the wisest option.
We pulled into the parking lot and I freed my daughter from the 3000 point safety harness. For the record, I did notice that she was soaked. I thought it was from the effort of getting out of the Government Regulated Safety Seat. Besides, the bottle of water I'd given her earlier hadn't been that full. We almost made it into the restaurant, but her mother discovered the soaked clothes and decided there would be a Change.
That was when we ran into the packing issue. The Change had not been packed in the essentials bag. They were in the depths of the roof bag. And the roof bag was held down by straps that I had serious doubts I'd be able to loosen. With the grumpy whining motivating me, I managed to loosen the straps. Since I'd packed the roof bag, I had a pretty good idea where my daughter's clothes were and dug out a shirt and pair of shorts. I displayed my find proudly, sure the whining would stop. But, I was told they didn't match in a very grumpy voice.
I appealed to my daughter, and even though I got her seal of approval, my wife still wasn't happy. I was banished to child watching while my wife found a matching set of clothes. (In hindsight, I can see the importance of my daughter wearing clothes that match. We were in a small town, that we would never be in again, she was about to eat dinner (read pretty much any article in my blog and you'll figure out that food and my daughter means a mess), we were going to spend the next couple of hours in the car and would arrive at the campground well after dark and put the kids right to bed. Being seen in a mismatched shirt would undoubtedly traumatize her for life.)
After dinner, we hit the road again for the final leg of the trek. I was allowed back behind the wheel. I honestly don't know what time we got the cabin. I just remember that it was raining. And it was dark. And everyone was tired. We had a small cabin that first night and would move to a “family” cabin the next day. Since we were just going to sleep, I figured the small room would be fine.
That was before I carried the roof bag through the primeval rain forest that separated the parting lot from the cabin. Both kids immediately dug in looking for their sleeping bags and blow up mattresses. I didn't quite catch the fact that my wife had bought a different mattress for each child. All I looked at was the first box to make sure it had a pump.
Immediately after opening the first one, I made a note to verify that the pumps always have a plug. The one she'd bought used batteries. Even though I already knew the answer, I asked anyway, “Honey, do we have AA batteries?”
While she cursed and looked through her bag, I opened the other mattress, glad that it was a different type. Maybe it had a plug? The night was not a total loss yet. (Both kids had already spread their sleeping bags on the floor and were jumping up and down on the bed, positive that they were not tired.) I was right. This one didn't require batteries! That's because it didn't have a pump at all. You actually had to blow it up. It must have been the last one manufactured in the work and my wife bought it.
I tried telling the kids how soft and comfortable the floor looked in the vain hope they'd say, “Why father, there's no need for you to venture out into the rainy and dark night. We would be happy to camp out on the floor.”
Instead, I walked to the main lodge. Surely, they'd have the batteries and we'd back on track to a peaceful evening. I was right. They did have them. About two days ago they had them. The nearest store was a half-hour drive away and I had three tired and cranky people waiting back at the cabin.
Ok... I did consider going to get the batteries, and taking the scenic route. In case you are wondering, it is possible to blow up an air mattress. It took two aneurisms, a mild heart attack and I'm pretty sure my left eye was bleeding by the time I was done.
With the mattress blown up, the kids each on their half and fighting sleep, I told them a story. (The bag with their books was still in the back of the Prius and even though the rain had slowed, I was too lightheaded to risk the walk to the car.) I don't remember the moral of the story, but they were both silent and wide-eyed when I was done.
11:15 PM.
We'd arrived, everyone survived the trip. The veins in my temples weren't throbbing as much. Vacation officially starts tomorrow-- Hold on... “I don't want to hear any more complaining. It's time for you to sleep.. You've been whining all day. And kids, stop teasing your mother!”
Friday, July 10, 2009
On The Road
11:15 a.m.
We had one pit stop to make before we started the trip. The two dogs had to be dropped off at the kennel. Oh, and a quick stop for my wife to pick up her allergy prescription. (I don't know how she measured time, but with two kids that had put themselves in their seats and buckled them and two dogs that thought my Prius was the perfect setting for running around, it had better use nano-seconds.) On the way to the store, the whining started. We'd actually made it further than I expected. But my wife reminded everyone that this was going to be a long trip and we all needed to behave. She also told me to set a good example, so I did my best to keep the whining to a minimum.
As we pulled into the shopping center to pick up the prescription, my daughter complained from the back seat, “I can't reach Honey to pet her.”
Since we rescued Honey and Stripe, we're not sure how old she is. The people at the rescue place said she was between 10 and 12 years old. That'd put her between 70 and 84 in human years. She is also the “baby” according to my daughter. Believe it or not, I was actually ready for this. (My wife's grandmother moved in with my wife's mother and father a few years ago because she “needed” to be taken care of. I have seen this exact same scenario played out many times since she moved in. My wife's mother has specific ideas and plans, none of which seems to phase my wife's grandmother in the least.) Rather than waste my breath telling the 82 year-old mother to move closer to my daughter, I told my daughter to concentrate really hard and make her arms grow.
For a moment there was utter silence from the back seat. Then I heard a grunt. A moment later there was another louder grunt. I did a quick turn and saw my 3 year-old daughter in her car seat. Her face was turning a bright shade of red, her little hands were white-knuckled fists, her eyes closed tight in a body-metamorphosing grimace.
“Are your arms longer?”
“Not yet,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Keep trying.”
I think she grunted an ok, but her focus didn't waver at all. (I'm sure my wife's grandmother has figured this tactic out, but in case she hasn't, I'll pass it on to her. That is sure to get me and my wife in the will.)
Once the dogs were dropped off, we hit the open road. 408 miles till our destination. 20 miles into the trip, “Are we there yet?” came from the back seat.
“Yeah, are we dere yet?” his sister piped in. (Apparently, the arm growing was a success or no longer needed since the dogs were at the kennel. I'll be sure to tell my wife's grandmother that for utmost effectiveness, you have to keep the object of desire within sight. Otherwise they get easily distracted and you have to start all over.)
“No, we have a long drive before we get there. Why don't you guys close your eyes and sleep?”
“We're not tired.” They both answered before I even finished my suggestion.
“I'm hungry.” I don't know which one said this. By the time trip was over, all talking was classified as white noise.
“We'll stop for lunch at the next exit,” my wife suggested. I can only assume it was in the deluded hope that full bellies would put them to sleep.
As promised, we stopped and I took my son in for a potty break while my wife unchained our daughter. (She'd recently learned how to undo her 3000 point safety harness. This is pretty impressive since I still need the directions to make all the required hookups.) I came out of the bathroom to a disgusted look on my wife's face.
“Your daughter left her shoes.” My daughter was perched in her arms, an innocent look on her face.
“Why didn't you make her put them on before you got her out of the car?”
“At home.” The innocent smile on my daughter's face got wider.
“She doesn't have to wear them while we're driving. Just when we get out.” (This all made perfect sense to me. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to my wife's brain. She's usually not this slow.)
“YOUR daughter (now I knew I was in trouble) LEFT them at home. I PUT them on her and she TOOK them off before she got in the car to DRIVE.”
My laughing probably didn't help my wife's mood, but with my daughter's sincere nodding, I couldn't help it. We'd both been so intent of packing the car, and with the kids buckled in, we'd overlooked one small detail; my daughter is a demon spawn.
Luckily, there was a mall close by. My wife and daughter went shoe shopping (their vacation got an early start.) After lunch, shoe shopping and repacking, we were back on the road heading west.
When I pulled into the rest area to get rid of a few cups of coffee I got The Look. “Why are we stopping? We're never going to get there?”
1:15 p.m.
54 miles into the trip, my daughter's arms are longer, the dogs are kenneled, the kids are fed, my daughter is wearing purple shoes and my bladder is empty and I'm sentenced to the passenger seat while my wife takes over “competently” driving. At least I can take a nap...
We had one pit stop to make before we started the trip. The two dogs had to be dropped off at the kennel. Oh, and a quick stop for my wife to pick up her allergy prescription. (I don't know how she measured time, but with two kids that had put themselves in their seats and buckled them and two dogs that thought my Prius was the perfect setting for running around, it had better use nano-seconds.) On the way to the store, the whining started. We'd actually made it further than I expected. But my wife reminded everyone that this was going to be a long trip and we all needed to behave. She also told me to set a good example, so I did my best to keep the whining to a minimum.
As we pulled into the shopping center to pick up the prescription, my daughter complained from the back seat, “I can't reach Honey to pet her.”
Since we rescued Honey and Stripe, we're not sure how old she is. The people at the rescue place said she was between 10 and 12 years old. That'd put her between 70 and 84 in human years. She is also the “baby” according to my daughter. Believe it or not, I was actually ready for this. (My wife's grandmother moved in with my wife's mother and father a few years ago because she “needed” to be taken care of. I have seen this exact same scenario played out many times since she moved in. My wife's mother has specific ideas and plans, none of which seems to phase my wife's grandmother in the least.) Rather than waste my breath telling the 82 year-old mother to move closer to my daughter, I told my daughter to concentrate really hard and make her arms grow.
For a moment there was utter silence from the back seat. Then I heard a grunt. A moment later there was another louder grunt. I did a quick turn and saw my 3 year-old daughter in her car seat. Her face was turning a bright shade of red, her little hands were white-knuckled fists, her eyes closed tight in a body-metamorphosing grimace.
“Are your arms longer?”
“Not yet,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Keep trying.”
I think she grunted an ok, but her focus didn't waver at all. (I'm sure my wife's grandmother has figured this tactic out, but in case she hasn't, I'll pass it on to her. That is sure to get me and my wife in the will.)
Once the dogs were dropped off, we hit the open road. 408 miles till our destination. 20 miles into the trip, “Are we there yet?” came from the back seat.
“Yeah, are we dere yet?” his sister piped in. (Apparently, the arm growing was a success or no longer needed since the dogs were at the kennel. I'll be sure to tell my wife's grandmother that for utmost effectiveness, you have to keep the object of desire within sight. Otherwise they get easily distracted and you have to start all over.)
“No, we have a long drive before we get there. Why don't you guys close your eyes and sleep?”
“We're not tired.” They both answered before I even finished my suggestion.
“I'm hungry.” I don't know which one said this. By the time trip was over, all talking was classified as white noise.
“We'll stop for lunch at the next exit,” my wife suggested. I can only assume it was in the deluded hope that full bellies would put them to sleep.
As promised, we stopped and I took my son in for a potty break while my wife unchained our daughter. (She'd recently learned how to undo her 3000 point safety harness. This is pretty impressive since I still need the directions to make all the required hookups.) I came out of the bathroom to a disgusted look on my wife's face.
“Your daughter left her shoes.” My daughter was perched in her arms, an innocent look on her face.
“Why didn't you make her put them on before you got her out of the car?”
“At home.” The innocent smile on my daughter's face got wider.
“She doesn't have to wear them while we're driving. Just when we get out.” (This all made perfect sense to me. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to my wife's brain. She's usually not this slow.)
“YOUR daughter (now I knew I was in trouble) LEFT them at home. I PUT them on her and she TOOK them off before she got in the car to DRIVE.”
My laughing probably didn't help my wife's mood, but with my daughter's sincere nodding, I couldn't help it. We'd both been so intent of packing the car, and with the kids buckled in, we'd overlooked one small detail; my daughter is a demon spawn.
Luckily, there was a mall close by. My wife and daughter went shoe shopping (their vacation got an early start.) After lunch, shoe shopping and repacking, we were back on the road heading west.
When I pulled into the rest area to get rid of a few cups of coffee I got The Look. “Why are we stopping? We're never going to get there?”
1:15 p.m.
54 miles into the trip, my daughter's arms are longer, the dogs are kenneled, the kids are fed, my daughter is wearing purple shoes and my bladder is empty and I'm sentenced to the passenger seat while my wife takes over “competently” driving. At least I can take a nap...
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Vacation
9:00 a.m.
I knew the kids were ready for the vacation when they were both sitting in their car seats and had buckled themselves in. The only problem was I was still packing the car for the trip. For the past week, they'd been smuggling toys into the car each morning on the way to school. “Daddy, are we going on vacation today?” one of them would ask.
“No, that's next week.”
“Well... can we put these toys in so we don't forget them?”
By the day we actually left, there was just enough room for them to squeeze in and buckle their seat belts.
Being a ecologically aware family, and with the price of gas starting to climb again, we were taking the Prius on this trip to Indiana. The directions said seven hours for the trip. That was the Iron Bladder rating. The Parents With Two Kids in a Cramped Car rating should have been listed as an easy ten hours.
The Prius, while great on gas mileage, surprisingly is not one of the more spacious cars there is. Back when gas prices were double what they are now, we decided to use it rather than the minivan for the long trips. We got a roof top bag made of the space-age silver material that had the same effect on my Prius as plaid shorts, black socks and sandals do on men at the beach.
My wife and I have a system for packing. She sets aside the things we will need to survive the trip, everything else is fair game. So when I packed the bag for the top of the car, I packed the bag. Since a roof rack would eat up precious gas mileage, I used the straps that NASA uses to secure the Space Shuttle prior to launch. (These are rated for everything from shuttle securing to rooftop car bags, but surprisingly they are not designed for hammocks. See the previous article for proof.) (I'm one of those people you see at Lowes that uses at least as much twine as the weight of the load. To this date, I have never had anything fly off the top of my car. (There was the time two summers ago the we almost lost a load of lumber out of the back of my wife's minivan. But iot wasn't on top of the minivan and was more a result of poor planning. I thought my friend would be more than enough of a counter-balance. In my defense, the plan was working perfectly until we hit the bump. If he hadn't started yelling and scrambling off, it would have been a moot point. Luckily, slamming the brakes on resettled all the lumber.)) So, when I used the ratchets to tighten down those two straps, they were tight. A tornado would hot have moved that bag off the roof of my car.
So, with the roof bag on and full of my stuff, the kids clothes, sleeping bags, blow up mattresses and anything else that didn't crack, crumble or scream as I stuffed it in, we were almost ready. We only needed to pack the trip essentials, (Games for the kids. My wife spoils them. The only game I would pack is “Look out the Window or Sleep.” But she has coloring books and crayons, magnets, stuffed animals and books. If I hadn't put my foot down, we would have somehow fit a ping pong table in. My logic that they couldn't play while belted in finally won over.) my wife's clothes and the cooler with food.
Three trips later, I had all of her stuff. It was too late to put a towing hitch on my car, (besides, I think the extra weight of the hitch would have me pulling wheelies all the time.) so it was time for hard decisions. My first thought was to take out the kid seats (and the kids), there was plenty of room in the back seat for all her stuff. But I was reminded that this was a family vacation and apparently the kids are a key part of the whole “family” thing.
In the end, we trimmed my wife's essentials down to one suitcase. The back of the Prius was loaded up, all the available space filled in. We just needed to load the two dogs and drop them off at the kennel and we'd be on our way. The only problem was, the last trip we'd taken and brought a dog was when we had our miniature schnauzer. Honey was twice his size, but thought she was half his size. Stripe didn't really care.
After one last check and locking the doors, we were ready to leave. I looked at my family in the car. Faces shining with eagerness. I opened the driver's door to get in. Honey was wedged in front of the seat, ready to hit the gas for me. My wife was trying to pull her back to the passenger side. Stripe was sprawled across both kids in the back seat. My daughter was pushing him toward my son. My son was pushing him toward my daughter. Stripe didn't seem to notice.
11:00 a.m.
Only 10 more hours till we hit the cabin...
I knew the kids were ready for the vacation when they were both sitting in their car seats and had buckled themselves in. The only problem was I was still packing the car for the trip. For the past week, they'd been smuggling toys into the car each morning on the way to school. “Daddy, are we going on vacation today?” one of them would ask.
“No, that's next week.”
“Well... can we put these toys in so we don't forget them?”
By the day we actually left, there was just enough room for them to squeeze in and buckle their seat belts.
Being a ecologically aware family, and with the price of gas starting to climb again, we were taking the Prius on this trip to Indiana. The directions said seven hours for the trip. That was the Iron Bladder rating. The Parents With Two Kids in a Cramped Car rating should have been listed as an easy ten hours.
The Prius, while great on gas mileage, surprisingly is not one of the more spacious cars there is. Back when gas prices were double what they are now, we decided to use it rather than the minivan for the long trips. We got a roof top bag made of the space-age silver material that had the same effect on my Prius as plaid shorts, black socks and sandals do on men at the beach.
My wife and I have a system for packing. She sets aside the things we will need to survive the trip, everything else is fair game. So when I packed the bag for the top of the car, I packed the bag. Since a roof rack would eat up precious gas mileage, I used the straps that NASA uses to secure the Space Shuttle prior to launch. (These are rated for everything from shuttle securing to rooftop car bags, but surprisingly they are not designed for hammocks. See the previous article for proof.) (I'm one of those people you see at Lowes that uses at least as much twine as the weight of the load. To this date, I have never had anything fly off the top of my car. (There was the time two summers ago the we almost lost a load of lumber out of the back of my wife's minivan. But iot wasn't on top of the minivan and was more a result of poor planning. I thought my friend would be more than enough of a counter-balance. In my defense, the plan was working perfectly until we hit the bump. If he hadn't started yelling and scrambling off, it would have been a moot point. Luckily, slamming the brakes on resettled all the lumber.)) So, when I used the ratchets to tighten down those two straps, they were tight. A tornado would hot have moved that bag off the roof of my car.
So, with the roof bag on and full of my stuff, the kids clothes, sleeping bags, blow up mattresses and anything else that didn't crack, crumble or scream as I stuffed it in, we were almost ready. We only needed to pack the trip essentials, (Games for the kids. My wife spoils them. The only game I would pack is “Look out the Window or Sleep.” But she has coloring books and crayons, magnets, stuffed animals and books. If I hadn't put my foot down, we would have somehow fit a ping pong table in. My logic that they couldn't play while belted in finally won over.) my wife's clothes and the cooler with food.
Three trips later, I had all of her stuff. It was too late to put a towing hitch on my car, (besides, I think the extra weight of the hitch would have me pulling wheelies all the time.) so it was time for hard decisions. My first thought was to take out the kid seats (and the kids), there was plenty of room in the back seat for all her stuff. But I was reminded that this was a family vacation and apparently the kids are a key part of the whole “family” thing.
In the end, we trimmed my wife's essentials down to one suitcase. The back of the Prius was loaded up, all the available space filled in. We just needed to load the two dogs and drop them off at the kennel and we'd be on our way. The only problem was, the last trip we'd taken and brought a dog was when we had our miniature schnauzer. Honey was twice his size, but thought she was half his size. Stripe didn't really care.
After one last check and locking the doors, we were ready to leave. I looked at my family in the car. Faces shining with eagerness. I opened the driver's door to get in. Honey was wedged in front of the seat, ready to hit the gas for me. My wife was trying to pull her back to the passenger side. Stripe was sprawled across both kids in the back seat. My daughter was pushing him toward my son. My son was pushing him toward my daughter. Stripe didn't seem to notice.
11:00 a.m.
Only 10 more hours till we hit the cabin...
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Parachuting
“Daddy, it's a great day to practice parachuting.”
You'd be surprised how such an innocent phrase can destroy a relaxing afternoon. I was sitting on our porch, enjoying the breeze and sun. Ever since I'd built the deck a couple of summers ago, my wife and I have enjoyed coffee in the morning or just taking a break to listen to the birds and the leaves rustle in the wind.
That's what I was doing this afternoon when my son and daughter came trooping out of the house with Wal-mart plastic bags on their shoulders. Now, I know they'd been planning somthing because both were far too happy. Usually when I catch them actively working together, they'll sheepishly admit to whatever bone breaking activity they've decided.
My son's proud declaration, without any prompting from me, left little doubt that we had a trip to the emergency room scheduled soon. Knowing him, and my daughter, it wouldn't be him with the cast(s) on tomorrow.
“Yes! We going parachuting!” His sister chimed in, clearly cutting off any objections I might raise, further proving that this was a grassroots uprising. She even added a little sass to those tiny hips as she sashayed after her brother. “Dear!” I called as I watched them clomp down the steps from the deck.
Last year, I'd finished chopping up the tree that had fallen across the yard, so they couldn't climb up on that to jump off. (Although there had been some really great places to climb, the tree had fallen directly across my hammock. It'd torn the straps loose and left the hammock itself relatively undamaged. Once I'd cut and split the tree past the hammock, my son and I dug it out from under the sawdust and branches. At first glance, it looked doubtful. But we stretched the hammock out, untangled the tangles and saw that it was savable. We just needed new straps to tie it to the tree. (The tree that fell took an evergreen tree, my hammock and at least of hundred feet of smaller trees and bushes, but didn't even graze the two trees holding the hammock, a sure sign that the hammock gods were watching over me.) But, being the careful planner that I am ( Stop snickering, that is just rude) I didn't automatically grab the duct tape. (All right, I did. But I stopped before I'd used the whole roll to secure the hammock. My daughter was standing there, hope and pride radiating from her blue eyes. She wanted her turn to rock with me in the hammock. I'll trust my life to duct tape anytime, but not hers.) I found the heavy duty straps that, according to the directions, were capable of securing the space shuttle. Several wraps around each tree and in the hooks on the hammock and we were back in business. I carefully slid in while my kids watched, each holding their breath for the swing test. The backwards somersault I did when the strap gave loose didn't knock the air out of my lungs. It was the sudden stop as I hit the wood pile that did that. My daughter rushed to make sure I was all right. I could just make out my son's giggling as she made sure I was alive. (He has a lot of ground to make up to get back in the will.))
“Your children are going to kill themselves!” I called from my seat on the deck.
“So?”
“Shouldn't one of us stop them?”
“I'm cooking dinner.” In the game of life, apparently “cooking dinner” trumps “sitting on the porch relaxing”.
My kids came trooping back across the porch, the parachutes still on their shoulders. But this time, they each had a stuffed animal outfitted with a parachute. Neither of them met my gaze as they walked by, but I could feel the panic radiating from the stuffed animals.
There was a fairly good chance that the stuffed animals would test the parachutes first... I relaxed for a few more minutes.
“Hey! I have an idea,” levitated me from the chair as my daughter disappeared around the corner. Her “ideas” while usually mechanically sound rarely take into full account the limitations of the human body.
“Daddy, we're just playing.” My son managed to sound persecuted as I ran up.
I could have used logic and explained that their body mass was more than the plastic of the wal-mart bags could slow, especially over a short distance. But that would have gotten me a blank stare until the short distance, then his sister would have figured out a way to get up on the roof just to prove me wrong.
Instead I fell back on parental rules. “No playing on the stairs, the deck, the roof, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter...(By the time I'd finished all the items they could climb on, by any stretch of the imagination, they'd both lost interest in the game and wandered off to find something else to do.) (that is one good thing about children. You learn to think again. Don't run with scissors makes sense to adults, but to a kid, it is full of loopholes. Don't run, don't walk really quickly, don't skip, don't jump, don't race, don't jump off the couch onto all the cushions, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals with scissors. Because I said so!)
You'd be surprised how such an innocent phrase can destroy a relaxing afternoon. I was sitting on our porch, enjoying the breeze and sun. Ever since I'd built the deck a couple of summers ago, my wife and I have enjoyed coffee in the morning or just taking a break to listen to the birds and the leaves rustle in the wind.
That's what I was doing this afternoon when my son and daughter came trooping out of the house with Wal-mart plastic bags on their shoulders. Now, I know they'd been planning somthing because both were far too happy. Usually when I catch them actively working together, they'll sheepishly admit to whatever bone breaking activity they've decided.
My son's proud declaration, without any prompting from me, left little doubt that we had a trip to the emergency room scheduled soon. Knowing him, and my daughter, it wouldn't be him with the cast(s) on tomorrow.
“Yes! We going parachuting!” His sister chimed in, clearly cutting off any objections I might raise, further proving that this was a grassroots uprising. She even added a little sass to those tiny hips as she sashayed after her brother. “Dear!” I called as I watched them clomp down the steps from the deck.
Last year, I'd finished chopping up the tree that had fallen across the yard, so they couldn't climb up on that to jump off. (Although there had been some really great places to climb, the tree had fallen directly across my hammock. It'd torn the straps loose and left the hammock itself relatively undamaged. Once I'd cut and split the tree past the hammock, my son and I dug it out from under the sawdust and branches. At first glance, it looked doubtful. But we stretched the hammock out, untangled the tangles and saw that it was savable. We just needed new straps to tie it to the tree. (The tree that fell took an evergreen tree, my hammock and at least of hundred feet of smaller trees and bushes, but didn't even graze the two trees holding the hammock, a sure sign that the hammock gods were watching over me.) But, being the careful planner that I am ( Stop snickering, that is just rude) I didn't automatically grab the duct tape. (All right, I did. But I stopped before I'd used the whole roll to secure the hammock. My daughter was standing there, hope and pride radiating from her blue eyes. She wanted her turn to rock with me in the hammock. I'll trust my life to duct tape anytime, but not hers.) I found the heavy duty straps that, according to the directions, were capable of securing the space shuttle. Several wraps around each tree and in the hooks on the hammock and we were back in business. I carefully slid in while my kids watched, each holding their breath for the swing test. The backwards somersault I did when the strap gave loose didn't knock the air out of my lungs. It was the sudden stop as I hit the wood pile that did that. My daughter rushed to make sure I was all right. I could just make out my son's giggling as she made sure I was alive. (He has a lot of ground to make up to get back in the will.))
“Your children are going to kill themselves!” I called from my seat on the deck.
“So?”
“Shouldn't one of us stop them?”
“I'm cooking dinner.” In the game of life, apparently “cooking dinner” trumps “sitting on the porch relaxing”.
My kids came trooping back across the porch, the parachutes still on their shoulders. But this time, they each had a stuffed animal outfitted with a parachute. Neither of them met my gaze as they walked by, but I could feel the panic radiating from the stuffed animals.
There was a fairly good chance that the stuffed animals would test the parachutes first... I relaxed for a few more minutes.
“Hey! I have an idea,” levitated me from the chair as my daughter disappeared around the corner. Her “ideas” while usually mechanically sound rarely take into full account the limitations of the human body.
“Daddy, we're just playing.” My son managed to sound persecuted as I ran up.
I could have used logic and explained that their body mass was more than the plastic of the wal-mart bags could slow, especially over a short distance. But that would have gotten me a blank stare until the short distance, then his sister would have figured out a way to get up on the roof just to prove me wrong.
Instead I fell back on parental rules. “No playing on the stairs, the deck, the roof, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter...(By the time I'd finished all the items they could climb on, by any stretch of the imagination, they'd both lost interest in the game and wandered off to find something else to do.) (that is one good thing about children. You learn to think again. Don't run with scissors makes sense to adults, but to a kid, it is full of loopholes. Don't run, don't walk really quickly, don't skip, don't jump, don't race, don't jump off the couch onto all the cushions, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals with scissors. Because I said so!)
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Gourmetness
I learned last week, that as a father, I was sorely lacking. My wife informed me that every Friday, my daughter has a picnic at preschool and is supposed to have a sandwich for lunch. Apparently, she’d been severely stigmatized by having to make do with cans of ravioli.
Her eyes lit up when I asked her if she’d like a bologna sandwich. “Yes!” was accompanied by a little happy dance. For those of you that have been following our antics, you will know that a plain sandwich would never do for my daughter. So, we went over the list of additives and she gave me her order.
That evening, when I made the lunches, my daughter got a bologna sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise, just like mine. As we were leaving for school, I told her about her sandwich. (I have to admit, I was proud that I’d finally stepped up and met my parental responsibilities. In all honesty, I thought it was cool to make the same lunch for as I made for myself.) Each item in her lunch brought a happy nod. Fig newtons, crackers, peaches and a bologna sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise.
Both my wife and my daughter immediately pipped in, “No, not mustard!” The look of horror on both their faces was a shock. This was the little girl that dunked strawberries in mustard and came back for more! Besides, that's what she asked for.
I know for a fact that my wife is her mother because they both put their hands on their hips and, in unison explained that it was supposed to be ketchup and mayonnaise. Armed with a correctly made sandwich, my daughter went off to school much happier and ready to finally take her place among the sandwichers of the world.
Now that I finally knew how to feed my daughter, I was ready for the weekend lunch and knew that my inability to to properly make a sandwich wouldn't leave my children starved. My son, the picky eater, made due with a boring peanut butter sandwich. My daughter and I settled down to our gourmet sandwiches. (Granted, I'd ruined mine by selecting mustard instead of ketchup.) (You may be wondering where my wife was during this historic lunch setting. Being a blatant coward, she tends to keep a safe distance when my daughter and I explore the more creative side of fine dinning.)
Now, there may be doubters that think mayonnaise and ketchup, or even mustard and strawberries do not make a gourmet. And you'd be correct, but they are encouraging signs and she is still pushing her frontiers. My daughter confirmed her gourmetness by peeling the bread off her sandwich and using the tortilla chips to scoop up the ketchup and mayonnaise. (I think she has a future being a judge on the Iron Chef. No matter what they have to use, she'll be more than happy to try it. Only problem is, she'll give everyone high scores.)
During one of our normal night's out (My wife was working late and so I “cooked” by taking them out.) I was tired and both of the little monsters behaved through the whole dinner. There wasn't any blood and, for the most part, neither one terrorized the other. It was when my son asked, “Daddy, can we have dessert?” that I realized it was all a shameless plot and my hopes that they'd turned into civilized beings evaporated.
“What do you want?”
“Cheesecake!”
Now, cheesecake is not technically a dessert, it's more a state of being, so I couldn't say no. We ordered two slices and each promised I could have a taste of theirs. When the waitress came back with one slice, I knew my evening of peace was gone. The other piece had been dropped and this was the last piece of cheesecake.
Quick thinking and diplomatic skills were called for as both kids realized they were going to have to share! An order of ice cream was placed and I guarded the cheesecake while the waitress raced away.
(I've been told that sometimes the blog rambles, is disjointed or plain doesn't make any sense until the end. I have no problem blaming that on the little studied Parental Senility. I think this condition deserves a government grant and a team of scientist. Luckily, finding participants will be easy. Just look for a car with at least one child seat. If you're concerned that, once again, I've gone off on another train of thought, don't worry. I'm about to pull it back... I think.)
Both settled into the ice cream and cheesecake, and I even got a bite or two. My daughter's true gourmetness was confirmed after she finished her vanilla ice cream. Without any self-consciousness, she took a bite of garlic bread. While her eyes did water a little, it was, apparently, the perfect compliment to ice cream and cheesecake.
Her eyes lit up when I asked her if she’d like a bologna sandwich. “Yes!” was accompanied by a little happy dance. For those of you that have been following our antics, you will know that a plain sandwich would never do for my daughter. So, we went over the list of additives and she gave me her order.
That evening, when I made the lunches, my daughter got a bologna sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise, just like mine. As we were leaving for school, I told her about her sandwich. (I have to admit, I was proud that I’d finally stepped up and met my parental responsibilities. In all honesty, I thought it was cool to make the same lunch for as I made for myself.) Each item in her lunch brought a happy nod. Fig newtons, crackers, peaches and a bologna sandwich with mustard and mayonnaise.
Both my wife and my daughter immediately pipped in, “No, not mustard!” The look of horror on both their faces was a shock. This was the little girl that dunked strawberries in mustard and came back for more! Besides, that's what she asked for.
I know for a fact that my wife is her mother because they both put their hands on their hips and, in unison explained that it was supposed to be ketchup and mayonnaise. Armed with a correctly made sandwich, my daughter went off to school much happier and ready to finally take her place among the sandwichers of the world.
Now that I finally knew how to feed my daughter, I was ready for the weekend lunch and knew that my inability to to properly make a sandwich wouldn't leave my children starved. My son, the picky eater, made due with a boring peanut butter sandwich. My daughter and I settled down to our gourmet sandwiches. (Granted, I'd ruined mine by selecting mustard instead of ketchup.) (You may be wondering where my wife was during this historic lunch setting. Being a blatant coward, she tends to keep a safe distance when my daughter and I explore the more creative side of fine dinning.)
Now, there may be doubters that think mayonnaise and ketchup, or even mustard and strawberries do not make a gourmet. And you'd be correct, but they are encouraging signs and she is still pushing her frontiers. My daughter confirmed her gourmetness by peeling the bread off her sandwich and using the tortilla chips to scoop up the ketchup and mayonnaise. (I think she has a future being a judge on the Iron Chef. No matter what they have to use, she'll be more than happy to try it. Only problem is, she'll give everyone high scores.)
During one of our normal night's out (My wife was working late and so I “cooked” by taking them out.) I was tired and both of the little monsters behaved through the whole dinner. There wasn't any blood and, for the most part, neither one terrorized the other. It was when my son asked, “Daddy, can we have dessert?” that I realized it was all a shameless plot and my hopes that they'd turned into civilized beings evaporated.
“What do you want?”
“Cheesecake!”
Now, cheesecake is not technically a dessert, it's more a state of being, so I couldn't say no. We ordered two slices and each promised I could have a taste of theirs. When the waitress came back with one slice, I knew my evening of peace was gone. The other piece had been dropped and this was the last piece of cheesecake.
Quick thinking and diplomatic skills were called for as both kids realized they were going to have to share! An order of ice cream was placed and I guarded the cheesecake while the waitress raced away.
(I've been told that sometimes the blog rambles, is disjointed or plain doesn't make any sense until the end. I have no problem blaming that on the little studied Parental Senility. I think this condition deserves a government grant and a team of scientist. Luckily, finding participants will be easy. Just look for a car with at least one child seat. If you're concerned that, once again, I've gone off on another train of thought, don't worry. I'm about to pull it back... I think.)
Both settled into the ice cream and cheesecake, and I even got a bite or two. My daughter's true gourmetness was confirmed after she finished her vanilla ice cream. Without any self-consciousness, she took a bite of garlic bread. While her eyes did water a little, it was, apparently, the perfect compliment to ice cream and cheesecake.
Graduations
It's the time of year when flowers are in bloom, the weather's warming up and children are belting out songs without a care in the world. This is the third year we've been blessed with off-tune singing. One of the nice things about having our daughter go to the same preschool as our son is that we don't need to spend as much energy translating.
See, three years ago, after we moved from Virginia, we found a great pre-school and daycare for our children. At three and a half, our son was the perfect age for his first graduation. There were four songs his class sang. The first day they practiced the songs, my parental knowledge was seriously threatened. We were driving home and I heard his soft humming from the back seat.
“Daddy, what's the second line of the Turtle song?”
Now, I grew up knowing the twinkle twinkle song. The ABCs were another song I had a solid hold on. But, I can't say I'd ever heard the turtle song. I remembered there was a cartoon he watched, Franklin. “Do you mean the Franklin song?”
“No, the Timmy the Turtle song.”
“How's it go?” I figured if I stalled long enough, we'd be home or something along the way would catch his attention.
“I had a little turtle. His name was Tiny Tim.” He was remarkably close to being on pitch and there was a hint of melody. “I can't remember the rest of it.” There was the unspoken hint that, as his father, the one person he depended on, his role model and absolute hero, I had better step up with the second line.
When he was a baby, we spent many nights signing. He knew all the words to Cat's in the Cradle and Puff the Magic Dragon (Yes, I know the real meaning of the song, but at 3 a.m., it's an easy song to remember and sing.) “Where did you learn the song?”
“At school. What's the next line?”
“What's the song for?” Yes, I was stalling, but the speed limit through the neighborhood is 25 miles an hour and as the president of the civic association, speeding through the winding streets would not send a good example. I just needed a few more minutes and we'd be safely home.
“I can't tell you, it's a secret.”
Bingo! We spent the rest of the drive home talking about secrets, I even tried to see if his mommy had any, but he wasn't selling her out, even for a popsicle,
This year, it was my daughter's turn. One day we were driving home and from the back seat came, “I 'ad a wittle turtle, it name was Tim.” My son and I both jumped in on the second verse (Anyone with kids knows how those songs worm their way into your subconscious. Just walk though any mall and start humming “I love you, you love me...” and all the parent's will go glassy-eyed and join in on the Barney Song chorus.)
As the weeks went by this year, I realized they had a different person doing the program. My daughter added ballet to her routine. I know my son didn't have a ballet section when he graduated. And the thought of the teachers guiding eight 3 and 4 year-olds through Swan Lake guaranteed I'd have a front-row seat.
Every night, sometimes during the afternoon and even once or twice before I had my morning coffee, my daughter would announce, “Oh no! I forgot practice my ballet! Where my radio?” And she'd desperately search. As soon as she found something that could possibly be considered a radio (Believe it or not, apparently a rock on the ground has high innate musicalness.) she'd push a “button” and start her practice.
The last time I saw ballet was the movie with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines. That was pure amateurism next to my daughter's fusion of break-dancing, wall-shaking foot-stomping and a hint of the Charleston. We learned right away to wait for the “Tadaaaaaa” before we clapped. A premature clap earned you a cross, hands-on-the-hips, “I not done yet!”
So, after many months of being serenaded while we ate dinner and post-dinner floor shows, it was time for her first graduation ever. She'd watched her brother graduate from preschool and kindergarten. She'd watched his Christmas and Thanksgiving shows. Every time, she'd been in the audience, quiet and the not-center-of-attention. It was her turn!
My wife and I picked them up after school and went out to for a special pre-show dinner. I checked on our future star, “Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“I'll be in the front row,” I promised her. (I was having a hard time with my baby growing up. Today, her first musical program, tomorrow she could be on Broadway, and not returning my calls.)
She went back with the rest of her class as soon as we got the school. Our proud family found seats in the front row, as we promised, and waited in anticipation. Would this be The Breakout Performance? How would the other parents feel when they saw the pure, raw talent? How does a three year-old do autographs when she can't write her name?
A hush fell over the room as the teachers led the kids out. Our daughter peaked around the doorway, saw all the people and raced straight to her mother's lap. At least she had a good view of the rest of the program.
See, three years ago, after we moved from Virginia, we found a great pre-school and daycare for our children. At three and a half, our son was the perfect age for his first graduation. There were four songs his class sang. The first day they practiced the songs, my parental knowledge was seriously threatened. We were driving home and I heard his soft humming from the back seat.
“Daddy, what's the second line of the Turtle song?”
Now, I grew up knowing the twinkle twinkle song. The ABCs were another song I had a solid hold on. But, I can't say I'd ever heard the turtle song. I remembered there was a cartoon he watched, Franklin. “Do you mean the Franklin song?”
“No, the Timmy the Turtle song.”
“How's it go?” I figured if I stalled long enough, we'd be home or something along the way would catch his attention.
“I had a little turtle. His name was Tiny Tim.” He was remarkably close to being on pitch and there was a hint of melody. “I can't remember the rest of it.” There was the unspoken hint that, as his father, the one person he depended on, his role model and absolute hero, I had better step up with the second line.
When he was a baby, we spent many nights signing. He knew all the words to Cat's in the Cradle and Puff the Magic Dragon (Yes, I know the real meaning of the song, but at 3 a.m., it's an easy song to remember and sing.) “Where did you learn the song?”
“At school. What's the next line?”
“What's the song for?” Yes, I was stalling, but the speed limit through the neighborhood is 25 miles an hour and as the president of the civic association, speeding through the winding streets would not send a good example. I just needed a few more minutes and we'd be safely home.
“I can't tell you, it's a secret.”
Bingo! We spent the rest of the drive home talking about secrets, I even tried to see if his mommy had any, but he wasn't selling her out, even for a popsicle,
This year, it was my daughter's turn. One day we were driving home and from the back seat came, “I 'ad a wittle turtle, it name was Tim.” My son and I both jumped in on the second verse (Anyone with kids knows how those songs worm their way into your subconscious. Just walk though any mall and start humming “I love you, you love me...” and all the parent's will go glassy-eyed and join in on the Barney Song chorus.)
As the weeks went by this year, I realized they had a different person doing the program. My daughter added ballet to her routine. I know my son didn't have a ballet section when he graduated. And the thought of the teachers guiding eight 3 and 4 year-olds through Swan Lake guaranteed I'd have a front-row seat.
Every night, sometimes during the afternoon and even once or twice before I had my morning coffee, my daughter would announce, “Oh no! I forgot practice my ballet! Where my radio?” And she'd desperately search. As soon as she found something that could possibly be considered a radio (Believe it or not, apparently a rock on the ground has high innate musicalness.) she'd push a “button” and start her practice.
The last time I saw ballet was the movie with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines. That was pure amateurism next to my daughter's fusion of break-dancing, wall-shaking foot-stomping and a hint of the Charleston. We learned right away to wait for the “Tadaaaaaa” before we clapped. A premature clap earned you a cross, hands-on-the-hips, “I not done yet!”
So, after many months of being serenaded while we ate dinner and post-dinner floor shows, it was time for her first graduation ever. She'd watched her brother graduate from preschool and kindergarten. She'd watched his Christmas and Thanksgiving shows. Every time, she'd been in the audience, quiet and the not-center-of-attention. It was her turn!
My wife and I picked them up after school and went out to for a special pre-show dinner. I checked on our future star, “Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“I'll be in the front row,” I promised her. (I was having a hard time with my baby growing up. Today, her first musical program, tomorrow she could be on Broadway, and not returning my calls.)
She went back with the rest of her class as soon as we got the school. Our proud family found seats in the front row, as we promised, and waited in anticipation. Would this be The Breakout Performance? How would the other parents feel when they saw the pure, raw talent? How does a three year-old do autographs when she can't write her name?
A hush fell over the room as the teachers led the kids out. Our daughter peaked around the doorway, saw all the people and raced straight to her mother's lap. At least she had a good view of the rest of the program.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
A New Freezer
It’s amazing what you can learn from a new appliance. Now that both my wife and I working full time, she came up with the idea of pre-cooking dinners. Her plan was simple, she’d make the week’s dinners ahead of time, then freeze them. The problem is that a day’s worth of dinner let alone a week’s worth would not fit in our freeze. (I didn’t mention the other problem, if it takes thirty-minutes to make the meal, then 5 minutes to freeze it, we’re not saving a whole lot of time when it takes an hour to melt the frozen block of ice. But, in mom-time, it seems to work out.)
So, we bought a freezer that fit perfectly in the guest room, right next to the wardrobe. My wife, ever impractical, began filling it with non-essentials like meat, frozen vegetables and that ilk. I, being the only responsible adult in our household, immediately put the ice cream maker bowl in the freezer. This was one of those new-fangled ones, you just pour the mix in and turn the motor on. The bowl is filled with frozen stuff (twenty years ago, I might have opened it up to see if it was just water or something else. Now I’m happy to accept it as a miracle of modern technology) and there’s no need for the crushed ice, salt or turn crank and broken wrists.
But the new technology isn’t what I learned about. I learned that everyone in my immediately family is, I believe the technical term is, whacko. I discovered this the other night while I was making the ice cream. Of course, I’d long ago lost the recipe book that came with the ice cream maker. There was a simple recipe that only took a few minutes. Instead, I decided to use the one I found online. It included real vanilla beans and cooking. After the second try (for the record, I did read all the steps in the recipe, I just didn’t think the order was that important) I noticed my son run through the kitchen.
Now, he and his sister often run through the kitchen. Usually I’m chasing them and they are screeching. But that’s not what as unique. What was unique this time was his clothing and lack of clothing. He was still wearing his shirt and underwear, but was missing his pants. I bring this up now because, at that moment, I didn’t notice his lack of pants. The reason I missed that was he was wearing a snow-boot and a sandal.
At dinner, I was too stunned at that moment to say anything, I asked him about his choice of footwear. He told me he wanted to match his sister.
“She was wearing your other boot and sandal?” At least that made sense. The fact that they had come up with this idea together sent a shiver of fear through me.
“Noooo, daddy,” my daughter chided me. “I wore my sandal.”
“And your brother’s boot?”
She nodded and gave me her he’s-so-cute-when-he-asks-dumb-questions look.
Now, I’ve known about the healing properties of magnets and felt their effect first hand. Several years ago, my wife’s mother got me a knee brace with magnets and suggested I try it. (After four knee operations, I figured it was worth a try. Every time I go to the doctor I end up getting cut open, so I’ve sworn off doctors. I can honestly say that the magnets had an affect. It took two weeks before I could walk without a limp.)
The other night, I was getting the kids’ lunches ready. (In order to make the mornings a little more tolerable, I get their clothes out and the lunches ready the night before. That gives me ten more minutes to drink coffee before dropping them off at school.) I went to our new freezer to get their juice boxes and was rather surprised to find we had bought a dual-use freezer. What is a dual-use freezer? I’m not sure, but I do know that you should only put food-type products in the freezer. (Ok, I did put a hard drive in the freezer, but that was only after the computer it was in fell off a shelf and knocked something loose. I was hoping that when it froze, everything would expand/contract enough to get one more use out of it and copy the data off.) At first, I was sure there was a good reason my wife had put her suit jacket in the freezer. After all, it was right next to the wardrobe, maybe she go confused.
Then I remembered the kids in their sandals and my son’s boots and the magnets in the knee brace. I’m calling to have them pickup the freezer tomorrow, hopefully sanity will return too.
So, we bought a freezer that fit perfectly in the guest room, right next to the wardrobe. My wife, ever impractical, began filling it with non-essentials like meat, frozen vegetables and that ilk. I, being the only responsible adult in our household, immediately put the ice cream maker bowl in the freezer. This was one of those new-fangled ones, you just pour the mix in and turn the motor on. The bowl is filled with frozen stuff (twenty years ago, I might have opened it up to see if it was just water or something else. Now I’m happy to accept it as a miracle of modern technology) and there’s no need for the crushed ice, salt or turn crank and broken wrists.
But the new technology isn’t what I learned about. I learned that everyone in my immediately family is, I believe the technical term is, whacko. I discovered this the other night while I was making the ice cream. Of course, I’d long ago lost the recipe book that came with the ice cream maker. There was a simple recipe that only took a few minutes. Instead, I decided to use the one I found online. It included real vanilla beans and cooking. After the second try (for the record, I did read all the steps in the recipe, I just didn’t think the order was that important) I noticed my son run through the kitchen.
Now, he and his sister often run through the kitchen. Usually I’m chasing them and they are screeching. But that’s not what as unique. What was unique this time was his clothing and lack of clothing. He was still wearing his shirt and underwear, but was missing his pants. I bring this up now because, at that moment, I didn’t notice his lack of pants. The reason I missed that was he was wearing a snow-boot and a sandal.
At dinner, I was too stunned at that moment to say anything, I asked him about his choice of footwear. He told me he wanted to match his sister.
“She was wearing your other boot and sandal?” At least that made sense. The fact that they had come up with this idea together sent a shiver of fear through me.
“Noooo, daddy,” my daughter chided me. “I wore my sandal.”
“And your brother’s boot?”
She nodded and gave me her he’s-so-cute-when-he-asks-dumb-questions look.
Now, I’ve known about the healing properties of magnets and felt their effect first hand. Several years ago, my wife’s mother got me a knee brace with magnets and suggested I try it. (After four knee operations, I figured it was worth a try. Every time I go to the doctor I end up getting cut open, so I’ve sworn off doctors. I can honestly say that the magnets had an affect. It took two weeks before I could walk without a limp.)
The other night, I was getting the kids’ lunches ready. (In order to make the mornings a little more tolerable, I get their clothes out and the lunches ready the night before. That gives me ten more minutes to drink coffee before dropping them off at school.) I went to our new freezer to get their juice boxes and was rather surprised to find we had bought a dual-use freezer. What is a dual-use freezer? I’m not sure, but I do know that you should only put food-type products in the freezer. (Ok, I did put a hard drive in the freezer, but that was only after the computer it was in fell off a shelf and knocked something loose. I was hoping that when it froze, everything would expand/contract enough to get one more use out of it and copy the data off.) At first, I was sure there was a good reason my wife had put her suit jacket in the freezer. After all, it was right next to the wardrobe, maybe she go confused.
Then I remembered the kids in their sandals and my son’s boots and the magnets in the knee brace. I’m calling to have them pickup the freezer tomorrow, hopefully sanity will return too.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
One Size Might Fit All
I think I’m on to something here. It’s a simple way to save the car industry, so bear with me…
I was driving home from work on Good Friday and the traffic came to a sudden stop. I managed to stop in time, the guy behind me didn’t. It wasn’t a serious accident. We both drove away. But now I have to find time to take my car to the body shop to get fixed. (I thought, for a brief second, that as soon as my motorcycle is fixed, I could drop off my car at the repair shop. Some of you might be jumping up and down, “But how will you take those two little monsters to school every morning?” I thought of that too. My son would fit behind me and there’s room on the gas tank for my daughter. They even have straps and stuff I could use to secure them. My daughter thought this was a fantastic idea. My son, apparently wise beyond his years, didn’t bother to hide his disgust at my suggestion.)
So, how did I get from endangering my kids’ lives (ok, I never really seriously considered it, but it was so much fun torturing both sets of grandparents. Even though they won’t say it, I know there’s always that thought, in the back of their minds, that I am just irresponsible enough to try it.) to another groundbreaking discovery? (Check out my article on Terrible Threes being genetically triggered.) Immediately after the accident, I didn’t really look at the damage to my car. I was more concerned with; a. Could I drive home? 2. Was my neck normally this stiff? and iii. Where did my cell phone go?
When I got home, I had my first good look at my poor car. The back left corner was no longer a corner, by the accepted definition. I started paying attention to the dents and dings on other cars. Then I relooked at my wife’s minivan. Could it be that I owed her an apology and she was, in truth, a visionary? True, the driver’s side of her minivan was relatively free of any dents.
So, what is my plan to save the auto industry? I think we should follow my wife’s example. When we bought the minivan, we were living in Washington, DC. Our daughter was on the way, so we were in major money-saving mode. There was no way a car was going to be able to handle our trips to Ohio to see the grandparents and, at that time, SUVs and minivans were at the very very very top edge of our budget. So, we bought the one minivan that we could afford, and to my surprise, my wife didn’t complain that it was too big or too wide.
I’ll give those of you that know her a few minutes to regain consciousness…. The reason she didn’t complain is, much like the women that struck out west to tame those savage lands during the pioneering days, my wife is part of a new breed. Just like those men and women made do with that they had, so does this new breed. Just look at the other cars as you drive.
Rather than spend the extra money for the smaller and thinner vehicles, especially when they might not come as small as wanted, these people are doing it themselves. I can see that clearly now. For years, my wife has suffered with too-wide cars. That is why she runs over curbs. She’s been telling Detroit to make the cars thinner (but since Akron makes the tires, I don’t think they’ll be too happy when this idea makes it mainstream. From my wife alone, they will be loosing thousands of dollars in income.) The dents in the bumper are her trying to make her minivan shorter. The huge dent on the passenger side, right where my son sits, I’m hoping is another effort at making the van fit into smaller parking spaces...
So, how can this save Detroit and the auto industry? Lack of customization. Think how much cheaper it will be to produce one size of square car and let the buyers customize the width, length, and (I’m sure my wife will soon figure out a way to do this) the height! The only problem is that I was really happy with the length of my Prius, but in that split second, I didn’t have a chance to tell this to the guy that was trying to make his car shorter.
I was driving home from work on Good Friday and the traffic came to a sudden stop. I managed to stop in time, the guy behind me didn’t. It wasn’t a serious accident. We both drove away. But now I have to find time to take my car to the body shop to get fixed. (I thought, for a brief second, that as soon as my motorcycle is fixed, I could drop off my car at the repair shop. Some of you might be jumping up and down, “But how will you take those two little monsters to school every morning?” I thought of that too. My son would fit behind me and there’s room on the gas tank for my daughter. They even have straps and stuff I could use to secure them. My daughter thought this was a fantastic idea. My son, apparently wise beyond his years, didn’t bother to hide his disgust at my suggestion.)
So, how did I get from endangering my kids’ lives (ok, I never really seriously considered it, but it was so much fun torturing both sets of grandparents. Even though they won’t say it, I know there’s always that thought, in the back of their minds, that I am just irresponsible enough to try it.) to another groundbreaking discovery? (Check out my article on Terrible Threes being genetically triggered.) Immediately after the accident, I didn’t really look at the damage to my car. I was more concerned with; a. Could I drive home? 2. Was my neck normally this stiff? and iii. Where did my cell phone go?
When I got home, I had my first good look at my poor car. The back left corner was no longer a corner, by the accepted definition. I started paying attention to the dents and dings on other cars. Then I relooked at my wife’s minivan. Could it be that I owed her an apology and she was, in truth, a visionary? True, the driver’s side of her minivan was relatively free of any dents.
So, what is my plan to save the auto industry? I think we should follow my wife’s example. When we bought the minivan, we were living in Washington, DC. Our daughter was on the way, so we were in major money-saving mode. There was no way a car was going to be able to handle our trips to Ohio to see the grandparents and, at that time, SUVs and minivans were at the very very very top edge of our budget. So, we bought the one minivan that we could afford, and to my surprise, my wife didn’t complain that it was too big or too wide.
I’ll give those of you that know her a few minutes to regain consciousness…. The reason she didn’t complain is, much like the women that struck out west to tame those savage lands during the pioneering days, my wife is part of a new breed. Just like those men and women made do with that they had, so does this new breed. Just look at the other cars as you drive.
Rather than spend the extra money for the smaller and thinner vehicles, especially when they might not come as small as wanted, these people are doing it themselves. I can see that clearly now. For years, my wife has suffered with too-wide cars. That is why she runs over curbs. She’s been telling Detroit to make the cars thinner (but since Akron makes the tires, I don’t think they’ll be too happy when this idea makes it mainstream. From my wife alone, they will be loosing thousands of dollars in income.) The dents in the bumper are her trying to make her minivan shorter. The huge dent on the passenger side, right where my son sits, I’m hoping is another effort at making the van fit into smaller parking spaces...
So, how can this save Detroit and the auto industry? Lack of customization. Think how much cheaper it will be to produce one size of square car and let the buyers customize the width, length, and (I’m sure my wife will soon figure out a way to do this) the height! The only problem is that I was really happy with the length of my Prius, but in that split second, I didn’t have a chance to tell this to the guy that was trying to make his car shorter.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Sarcasm
“No, daddy was bored and decided to fall down the stairs to see if it was fun. It wasn’t.”
That’s what my son told my daughter the other night as we went upstairs for bedtime. The statement was prompted by my daughter trying to grab the cane that was steadying me as I limped upstairs. She was grabbing it because it was her horsey that she rode around the house when she and my son played cowboys.
I was limping because I’d spent the day curled into a ball of whimpering snot-filled miserabilty. (Yeah, go ahead and look that word up. I have a critique partner for my fiction that is constantly telling me, “Jack, you can’t just make up words and ignore the rules of grammar!” I tell her it is creative license and sets the mood. She usually has some sarcastic comment about it pulled her out of the story. Being a mature writer, completely open to all constructive criticism, I usually respond, “That’s cause your stupid.”) I’d stayed home with the plan of either sleeping until I felt better or they buried me. (It has been suggested that I might be a little melodramatic when it comes to being sick, mornings, work, growing older or pain. To those suggestions, see my usual response.)
Eventually I woke to my stomach growling. I remembered the age-old phrase, “Feed a cold, starve a fever. (That may be backwards, but I was hungry and it gave me the motivation to crawl out of bed.) Between bed and food was a flight of stairs. I remember most of the steps. I even remember seeing the floor. What I don’t remember is levitating several dozen feet into the air. I know it was at least that high cause I have no problem remembering the landing.
My first thought was, Well… there goes the hip. (At my age, hips, gray hair and soft foods gain importance.) I had visions of my wife arriving home with the kids to find me broken and maimed at the bottom of the steps. Fortunately, nothing was broken and with a few groans I made it to the kitchen and made my lunch, chips and salsa.
So, why did my son tell my daughter that I was bored and decided to fall down the stairs? (You gotta admit, that was a pretty good hook.) Well, that morning I’d promised him that we could build when he got home. For the past year he’s been into the Transformers. Of course we bought him the required toys. (However, I did not have the required doctorate in Advanced Particle Engineering and only thing I could figure out how to transform it into was a truck. Since it came as a truck, it was rather anti-climatic.) My son, being patient and understanding, took matters into his own hands. While I was grumbling and cursing, he came back with his own version. He’d used his Legos to make his own version of a Bumble Bee. (That’s an Autobot. They are the good guys. By now I know all the Autobots and Decepticons and each one’s abilities.) We looked online and went though all the different ones. He’d spend a few minutes studying the picture, then come back with his version. He now has his own shrine. A corner of his room is carefully organized with blocks (that he stole from his sister) and each transformer is placed on its own block.
That was our plan for when he got home from school. We were going to build Transformers. “Daddy, don’t you want to build with me?” (He learned the whole guilt thing from his mother. I’d say his mother’s mother, but we might need her to baby sit again.)
“Of course, buddy, just give me a few minutes to get down to the floor.”
“Daddy fell down the steps and hurt himself today,” my wife added helpfully.
I didn’t want to burden my family with pain and agony from my fall or worry him, so I had barely mentioned it passing to my wife when she got home. (broken hips, no more stairs, delirium and agony.) My son looked at me with grave concern. I nodded. “Yes, I fell down the stairs and hurt my hip and elbow.” I even showed him the beginning bruise on my elbow.
He thought before he asked, “Why did you fall down the stairs?”
“I was bored and thought it would be fun. It wasn’t.” For a six year-old, that was a perfectly sensible explanation and we went back to building and crashing his Transformers.
I’m just waiting for the next time one of the grandparents falls. “My daddy could have told you it wasn’t fun. You should have asked him.” The problem is, he’s figured out how to perfectly mimic my deadpan-tone, but doesn’t know to wink as he says it. At least he’ll be able to outrun them if they land on their hip.
That’s what my son told my daughter the other night as we went upstairs for bedtime. The statement was prompted by my daughter trying to grab the cane that was steadying me as I limped upstairs. She was grabbing it because it was her horsey that she rode around the house when she and my son played cowboys.
I was limping because I’d spent the day curled into a ball of whimpering snot-filled miserabilty. (Yeah, go ahead and look that word up. I have a critique partner for my fiction that is constantly telling me, “Jack, you can’t just make up words and ignore the rules of grammar!” I tell her it is creative license and sets the mood. She usually has some sarcastic comment about it pulled her out of the story. Being a mature writer, completely open to all constructive criticism, I usually respond, “That’s cause your stupid.”) I’d stayed home with the plan of either sleeping until I felt better or they buried me. (It has been suggested that I might be a little melodramatic when it comes to being sick, mornings, work, growing older or pain. To those suggestions, see my usual response.)
Eventually I woke to my stomach growling. I remembered the age-old phrase, “Feed a cold, starve a fever. (That may be backwards, but I was hungry and it gave me the motivation to crawl out of bed.) Between bed and food was a flight of stairs. I remember most of the steps. I even remember seeing the floor. What I don’t remember is levitating several dozen feet into the air. I know it was at least that high cause I have no problem remembering the landing.
My first thought was, Well… there goes the hip. (At my age, hips, gray hair and soft foods gain importance.) I had visions of my wife arriving home with the kids to find me broken and maimed at the bottom of the steps. Fortunately, nothing was broken and with a few groans I made it to the kitchen and made my lunch, chips and salsa.
So, why did my son tell my daughter that I was bored and decided to fall down the stairs? (You gotta admit, that was a pretty good hook.) Well, that morning I’d promised him that we could build when he got home. For the past year he’s been into the Transformers. Of course we bought him the required toys. (However, I did not have the required doctorate in Advanced Particle Engineering and only thing I could figure out how to transform it into was a truck. Since it came as a truck, it was rather anti-climatic.) My son, being patient and understanding, took matters into his own hands. While I was grumbling and cursing, he came back with his own version. He’d used his Legos to make his own version of a Bumble Bee. (That’s an Autobot. They are the good guys. By now I know all the Autobots and Decepticons and each one’s abilities.) We looked online and went though all the different ones. He’d spend a few minutes studying the picture, then come back with his version. He now has his own shrine. A corner of his room is carefully organized with blocks (that he stole from his sister) and each transformer is placed on its own block.
That was our plan for when he got home from school. We were going to build Transformers. “Daddy, don’t you want to build with me?” (He learned the whole guilt thing from his mother. I’d say his mother’s mother, but we might need her to baby sit again.)
“Of course, buddy, just give me a few minutes to get down to the floor.”
“Daddy fell down the steps and hurt himself today,” my wife added helpfully.
I didn’t want to burden my family with pain and agony from my fall or worry him, so I had barely mentioned it passing to my wife when she got home. (broken hips, no more stairs, delirium and agony.) My son looked at me with grave concern. I nodded. “Yes, I fell down the stairs and hurt my hip and elbow.” I even showed him the beginning bruise on my elbow.
He thought before he asked, “Why did you fall down the stairs?”
“I was bored and thought it would be fun. It wasn’t.” For a six year-old, that was a perfectly sensible explanation and we went back to building and crashing his Transformers.
I’m just waiting for the next time one of the grandparents falls. “My daddy could have told you it wasn’t fun. You should have asked him.” The problem is, he’s figured out how to perfectly mimic my deadpan-tone, but doesn’t know to wink as he says it. At least he’ll be able to outrun them if they land on their hip.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Paintball
“So, daddy, do you think you maybe shouldn’t have gone to play with those kids?” My son asked, in a tone I’m sure his mother had been teaching him the previous five hours. The subject was raised by the state of my pants and my limp as we walked across the parking lot from the ice cream shop.
It had started very innocently four weeks ago. One of the kids (anyone closer to my son’s age than mine I guess is categorized as a kid now. I’m not sure when that happened. When your own son thinks a twenty-one year-old is a kid compared to you, it’s probably best not to think too hard about it. Instead, I added a few more pictures to the photo album I will show his first girlfriend.) invited me to play paintball. He and his friends were going for his twenty-first birthday.
Now, you might be thinking someone of my advanced age would be too old to play paintball. If so, you don’t need to tell me. My wife did, her mother did and so did several friends. I think I even got some spam about being too old, but I don’t read so well without my bifocals now. Another point that was raised is the well-publicized fact that it hurts when those little balls hit you.
When you’ve been hit in the crotch by a thirty-five pound missile yelling, “Daddy!” when she sees you, a paint ball doesn’t seem so intimidating. Add in two consecutive kids with springs in their legs and impeccable timing. You’d think I’d catch on the first time my son bounced straight up into my chin; or my nose, or my mouth, or my eye.
So, even with all the well-intentioned bashing of my failing health do to my age, I thought it’d be fun and asked my wife if I could go out and play with the other kids. With permission in hand, I RSVPed.
Being the senior citizen among this group, and twice the age of the guest of honor, I’ve started to feel my age. Maybe my step has a little less pep now than it did ten years ago. But damn it, I am not old. (It’s true, if you repeat a lie enough times you start to believe it.)
I put my orthopedic shoes on, trimmed my beard so the gray wasn’t as noticeable and got dressed for a fun afternoon of paintball last Sunday. I left the house with my travel mug of coffee. (I know it wasn’t that long ago that I had the conversation with my wife. “Why do your parents and my dad always have to have coffee when they go anywhere. If it’s midnight, we have to wait for them to find their travel mug, (always look in the car first) fill it, then creep out to the car." They never drank it, but they had to have it.)
Before I go any further, I should say there was one person that was supportive of my endeavor. My wife’s brother remarked that I should do well, since paintball requires cunning. I’m sure he didn’t mean that since I was old, it was a good thing I still had some of my senses left and would hopefully use them instead of trying to keep up with the kids.
There’s a paintball place right next to our house. It’s a huge building and there’s a field (notice the word field. Meaning, flat, open space, often with the complete absence of hills of any kind) right next to it. This is what I expected. I didn’t expect the overgrown trail that led into the Western Pennsylvania Jungle.
We were armed and given a bag of paint balls. After I picked up the ones I dropped, (Ok, you try and pour a stream of marbles into a small hole when your fingers are cold) I got loaded up and we were off. The course was, for lack of a better word, vertical. I’m pretty sure I saw mountain goats laughing at us as our team followed the path to our fort.
The objective was simple. Find the other team’s fort, capture their flag and bring it back to our fort. Whoever accomplished this; won. Then I realized what I’d gotten myself into. Someone actually asked, “Who wants to charge the other fort?”
Believe it or not, several people volunteered. I wasn’t one of them. I was looking for a comfortable place to sit, where I could watch and shoot the other team. The ideal place would have a table and a cup of coffee.
Our team won the first game. Our chargers had them pinned down and no one made it to our fort. After waiting for several minutes, I went to check it out. Apparently, a limp and muttered swearing at each rock you stumble over is the perfect camouflage for humans. I made it to a place right above their fort without anyone seeing me. From there, I was able to pick off the last of their defenders.
We played for five hours. I ended up covered in mud. I still have the bruise on my thigh and bubble on my knee from where I was hit. I’m sure I have several other bruises, but hopefully the overall pain will keep them masked until they heal.
On the way home, I lifted my travel mug, full of luke-warm coffee in a toast--I’d kept up with the kids. Next time, I’ll suggest we play on a Saturday, so I have a full day to recover. As I drove home, wincing at each bump, I drank my coffee. I may be old, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to not drink the coffee. Hopefully I’ll remember where my mug is tomorrow…
It had started very innocently four weeks ago. One of the kids (anyone closer to my son’s age than mine I guess is categorized as a kid now. I’m not sure when that happened. When your own son thinks a twenty-one year-old is a kid compared to you, it’s probably best not to think too hard about it. Instead, I added a few more pictures to the photo album I will show his first girlfriend.) invited me to play paintball. He and his friends were going for his twenty-first birthday.
Now, you might be thinking someone of my advanced age would be too old to play paintball. If so, you don’t need to tell me. My wife did, her mother did and so did several friends. I think I even got some spam about being too old, but I don’t read so well without my bifocals now. Another point that was raised is the well-publicized fact that it hurts when those little balls hit you.
When you’ve been hit in the crotch by a thirty-five pound missile yelling, “Daddy!” when she sees you, a paint ball doesn’t seem so intimidating. Add in two consecutive kids with springs in their legs and impeccable timing. You’d think I’d catch on the first time my son bounced straight up into my chin; or my nose, or my mouth, or my eye.
So, even with all the well-intentioned bashing of my failing health do to my age, I thought it’d be fun and asked my wife if I could go out and play with the other kids. With permission in hand, I RSVPed.
Being the senior citizen among this group, and twice the age of the guest of honor, I’ve started to feel my age. Maybe my step has a little less pep now than it did ten years ago. But damn it, I am not old. (It’s true, if you repeat a lie enough times you start to believe it.)
I put my orthopedic shoes on, trimmed my beard so the gray wasn’t as noticeable and got dressed for a fun afternoon of paintball last Sunday. I left the house with my travel mug of coffee. (I know it wasn’t that long ago that I had the conversation with my wife. “Why do your parents and my dad always have to have coffee when they go anywhere. If it’s midnight, we have to wait for them to find their travel mug, (always look in the car first) fill it, then creep out to the car." They never drank it, but they had to have it.)
Before I go any further, I should say there was one person that was supportive of my endeavor. My wife’s brother remarked that I should do well, since paintball requires cunning. I’m sure he didn’t mean that since I was old, it was a good thing I still had some of my senses left and would hopefully use them instead of trying to keep up with the kids.
There’s a paintball place right next to our house. It’s a huge building and there’s a field (notice the word field. Meaning, flat, open space, often with the complete absence of hills of any kind) right next to it. This is what I expected. I didn’t expect the overgrown trail that led into the Western Pennsylvania Jungle.
We were armed and given a bag of paint balls. After I picked up the ones I dropped, (Ok, you try and pour a stream of marbles into a small hole when your fingers are cold) I got loaded up and we were off. The course was, for lack of a better word, vertical. I’m pretty sure I saw mountain goats laughing at us as our team followed the path to our fort.
The objective was simple. Find the other team’s fort, capture their flag and bring it back to our fort. Whoever accomplished this; won. Then I realized what I’d gotten myself into. Someone actually asked, “Who wants to charge the other fort?”
Believe it or not, several people volunteered. I wasn’t one of them. I was looking for a comfortable place to sit, where I could watch and shoot the other team. The ideal place would have a table and a cup of coffee.
Our team won the first game. Our chargers had them pinned down and no one made it to our fort. After waiting for several minutes, I went to check it out. Apparently, a limp and muttered swearing at each rock you stumble over is the perfect camouflage for humans. I made it to a place right above their fort without anyone seeing me. From there, I was able to pick off the last of their defenders.
We played for five hours. I ended up covered in mud. I still have the bruise on my thigh and bubble on my knee from where I was hit. I’m sure I have several other bruises, but hopefully the overall pain will keep them masked until they heal.
On the way home, I lifted my travel mug, full of luke-warm coffee in a toast--I’d kept up with the kids. Next time, I’ll suggest we play on a Saturday, so I have a full day to recover. As I drove home, wincing at each bump, I drank my coffee. I may be old, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to not drink the coffee. Hopefully I’ll remember where my mug is tomorrow…
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Rules
“No, daddy. You can’t jump my letter L because you don’t have the blue crayon. Whoever has the blue crayon is king. I told you that.”
Believe it or not, this made sense to me. We were at TGI Fridays for dinner because neither my wife nor I wanted to cook I’d just finished working 35 hours over the weekend (Yes, that will definitely make it in here, once I recover from the gray hair and stop whimpering every time I think about it.) So here’s the picture, if you recognize yourself as one of the players, you have my sympathy and complete understanding.
Two forty-year olds, (yes, my wife is 40, not 39, not 39 twice, but a solid four zero. If you see her on the street, feel free to say how’s 40? She likes the attention.) a six-year old boy and a three-year old girl. I think it was the middle of the week, but honestly it’s all a blur now. Per the new phrase in our house, my wife and I were dragging. Our two kids on the other hand had plenty of energy.
So, we tag teamed. That’s how I got to be playing checkers with the world’s most honest player. I say that because he will not break any rules in a game, nor is anyone else allowed to break them either. The problem is, when we play, he makes up the rules as he goes and by some mysterious quirk of fate, the rules he makes up always fall in his favor.
Last summer, we played football in the park next to us. There was a large depression in the ground. Since water gathers there, this is the most obvious place for him to constantly fall down. That lead to the rule that if I threw the ball and he caught it, but fell into the depression, he got a point. If he missed, but the ball landed there, I got a point. Seeing as he was only a little over three and a half feet high, it was easy to score points. So, my little congressman added a rider and apparently I didn’t get a vote. If the football went into the depression, but bounced out three times in a row, I lost all but two points.
Since the depression wasn’t a full-blown sinkhole yet, (Yes, I know this was the first thing the mothers and grandmothers thought. The fathers and grandfathers, more than likely thought, hey there’s still water in it, so it can’t be that dangerous yet.) throwing the ball just right so it wouldn’t bounce out added a new level to the game. It also gave me the chance to lose all my points when he got frustrated. There were other rules that he added opportunistically. I wasn’t allowed to go under the playground equipment to catch him (This rule I was in favor of. A five year-old can fit in some pretty tight places a 40 plus (unlike my wife, I’m keeping my real age a secret) father with bad knees has no business going.). The seesaw was safe and I had to go to the swings if he got there.
Which brings us back to tag teaming at TGI Fridays. The kid’s placemat at restaurants is usually good for ten minutes of distraction. There’s the coloring and games. He also picks out what he wants to eat and circles it so when they come to take the order he can recite what he’s picked. The waitress came and I was still trying to figure out which way to turn the menu so it was right side up. (Remember, 35 hours working over the weekend, and it wasn’t fun work)
My wife ordered and gave the order for our daughter. There was a pause and I said, “Do you want mac and cheese, bud?” That’s a pretty safe order for him and I couldn’t focus enough to see what he’d circled.
“Daddy, I already ordered.”
You know, hearing your we’ve-gone-over-this-one-thousand-times-but-I’ll-go-over-it-one-more-time, forced patience tone of voice coming from a six year-old is an eye-opener. I looked at the waitress and she nodded that he had. It was going to be a long dinner.
Now, even though my wife and I work in the same room now, we really don’t get a chance to talk that much. So, we were trying to catch up on each other’s weeks, and still pay attention to the two little monsters. Once the coloring was done, my son wanted to play another game.
There was a word search shaped, I think, like a pirate ship. Now, if you are thinking, the word search is a great idea, it would keep him occupied and teach him how to spell, you are wrong. Remember, he loves to play games, and that means taking turns. So, after he found a word, then I have to find one. And the whole not focusing thing was going to make that hard. So, I had a brainstorm. He colored in the vowels, and I colored in the consonants. If one of us colored too far, we had to recite the alphabet. (I admit I was trying, but had to recite it a few more times than he did.)
At this point, he had the orange crayon and I had the blue crayon. After a few minutes, when almost all the vowels were colored in, he said it was time to switch crayons. I didn’t catch on to the fact that this also included he was now coloring in the consonants and I was on the vowels. I was informed of this rule change and had to recite the alphabet once again.
When there weren’t any more vowels, he announced we were going to play checkers. Believe it or not, you can actually play checkers with just about anything, including a word search that is shaped like a pirate ship. Apparently there are hidden powers associated with blue. He could jump me twice, his letter Ls couldn’t be jumped and he could jump across the blank spaces to other parts of the ship. Being orange, I was limited to only jumping once, not allowed to jump the letter L and definitely no double jumps. Because, “Blue is king and you’re not blue, daddy.”
After playing word search checkers with a six-year that constantly changes and adds rules, I’m starting to understand the stock market a lot more.
Believe it or not, this made sense to me. We were at TGI Fridays for dinner because neither my wife nor I wanted to cook I’d just finished working 35 hours over the weekend (Yes, that will definitely make it in here, once I recover from the gray hair and stop whimpering every time I think about it.) So here’s the picture, if you recognize yourself as one of the players, you have my sympathy and complete understanding.
Two forty-year olds, (yes, my wife is 40, not 39, not 39 twice, but a solid four zero. If you see her on the street, feel free to say how’s 40? She likes the attention.) a six-year old boy and a three-year old girl. I think it was the middle of the week, but honestly it’s all a blur now. Per the new phrase in our house, my wife and I were dragging. Our two kids on the other hand had plenty of energy.
So, we tag teamed. That’s how I got to be playing checkers with the world’s most honest player. I say that because he will not break any rules in a game, nor is anyone else allowed to break them either. The problem is, when we play, he makes up the rules as he goes and by some mysterious quirk of fate, the rules he makes up always fall in his favor.
Last summer, we played football in the park next to us. There was a large depression in the ground. Since water gathers there, this is the most obvious place for him to constantly fall down. That lead to the rule that if I threw the ball and he caught it, but fell into the depression, he got a point. If he missed, but the ball landed there, I got a point. Seeing as he was only a little over three and a half feet high, it was easy to score points. So, my little congressman added a rider and apparently I didn’t get a vote. If the football went into the depression, but bounced out three times in a row, I lost all but two points.
Since the depression wasn’t a full-blown sinkhole yet, (Yes, I know this was the first thing the mothers and grandmothers thought. The fathers and grandfathers, more than likely thought, hey there’s still water in it, so it can’t be that dangerous yet.) throwing the ball just right so it wouldn’t bounce out added a new level to the game. It also gave me the chance to lose all my points when he got frustrated. There were other rules that he added opportunistically. I wasn’t allowed to go under the playground equipment to catch him (This rule I was in favor of. A five year-old can fit in some pretty tight places a 40 plus (unlike my wife, I’m keeping my real age a secret) father with bad knees has no business going.). The seesaw was safe and I had to go to the swings if he got there.
Which brings us back to tag teaming at TGI Fridays. The kid’s placemat at restaurants is usually good for ten minutes of distraction. There’s the coloring and games. He also picks out what he wants to eat and circles it so when they come to take the order he can recite what he’s picked. The waitress came and I was still trying to figure out which way to turn the menu so it was right side up. (Remember, 35 hours working over the weekend, and it wasn’t fun work)
My wife ordered and gave the order for our daughter. There was a pause and I said, “Do you want mac and cheese, bud?” That’s a pretty safe order for him and I couldn’t focus enough to see what he’d circled.
“Daddy, I already ordered.”
You know, hearing your we’ve-gone-over-this-one-thousand-times-but-I’ll-go-over-it-one-more-time, forced patience tone of voice coming from a six year-old is an eye-opener. I looked at the waitress and she nodded that he had. It was going to be a long dinner.
Now, even though my wife and I work in the same room now, we really don’t get a chance to talk that much. So, we were trying to catch up on each other’s weeks, and still pay attention to the two little monsters. Once the coloring was done, my son wanted to play another game.
There was a word search shaped, I think, like a pirate ship. Now, if you are thinking, the word search is a great idea, it would keep him occupied and teach him how to spell, you are wrong. Remember, he loves to play games, and that means taking turns. So, after he found a word, then I have to find one. And the whole not focusing thing was going to make that hard. So, I had a brainstorm. He colored in the vowels, and I colored in the consonants. If one of us colored too far, we had to recite the alphabet. (I admit I was trying, but had to recite it a few more times than he did.)
At this point, he had the orange crayon and I had the blue crayon. After a few minutes, when almost all the vowels were colored in, he said it was time to switch crayons. I didn’t catch on to the fact that this also included he was now coloring in the consonants and I was on the vowels. I was informed of this rule change and had to recite the alphabet once again.
When there weren’t any more vowels, he announced we were going to play checkers. Believe it or not, you can actually play checkers with just about anything, including a word search that is shaped like a pirate ship. Apparently there are hidden powers associated with blue. He could jump me twice, his letter Ls couldn’t be jumped and he could jump across the blank spaces to other parts of the ship. Being orange, I was limited to only jumping once, not allowed to jump the letter L and definitely no double jumps. Because, “Blue is king and you’re not blue, daddy.”
After playing word search checkers with a six-year that constantly changes and adds rules, I’m starting to understand the stock market a lot more.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The $%$#$*&$ Threes
I’d heard about the Terrible Twos and survived both kids going through them. (And in case you wondering, the kids survived too.) Our son skipped that stage and lulled us into a false sense of confidence. I’ve come up with a groundbreaking thesis that the Terrible Twos is not based on age, but is genetically triggered. I’m sure that once this gets out, I’ll have several government grants to study it further. Until then, I’ll continue my practice of not letting facts and details influence my opinion.
You may be wondering why I say the Terrible Twos is genetically triggered. Look at how many families have more than one child. In our case, my wife and I had that fateful discussion one day. We saw how well behaved our son was. After the horror stories we’d heard and read about (Look at how many books Mr. Spock has written. If there wasn’t something terribly wrong with children as a species, I don’t think he would have sold nearly as many books, even with the help of Star Trek fame.) we understood that our genes (at least mine) needed to be passed along even more. He was well past his two-year mark and he wasn’t having the hourly temper tantrums. I hadn’t noticed his head spinning around at odd hours or him speaking in demonic voices. Yes, he was The Ideal Child, the one that mankind had been waiting for.
So, my wife said those fateful words one day…”Let’s have another.” Being a male, I naturally agreed.
Now that I look back, I don’t have any definite proof, but I’m positive that at the moment of conception, my son entered the Terrible Twos. Our innocent angel became the little monster I’d read about. This proves my point. If he’d entered the Terrible Twos when he turned two, like everyone warned us about, we would never have considered another ticking time bomb.
Now, you may be wondering how I survived my wife being pregnant and my son feeling his oats. Well, I’m sure you’d get the same answer from the people that run the lunatic asylum. Once you are used to dealing with one whacko, adding another isn’t too bad. Luckily for our sanity, shortly after our daughter was born, we decided to sell our house in Virginia and move to Pennsylvania.
The whole process, deciding to move, getting the house in order, packing, moving and unpacking took a little over six months. This is important because it was right after my son turned three. So while, again, we’d had the warning about the stages following the Terrible Twos, he had so many things going on that he never really settled into a “stage” after two.
This is important because this past weekend, my daughter came down with, this is in no way an exaggeration, The Plague from Hell. In three years, she’d never had a problem taking any kind of medicine. (For that matter, food and drink is her favorite past time. This is the same girl that brazenly dips fresh strawberries in mustard and honestly declares the combination is delicious. My son, on the other hand, makes a picky eater look like a glutton.) I was not concerned when it came time for bed. We had cough medicine for her and I knew she’d take it and sleep through the night. So, while my wife fretted and fussed, I was my normal calm and collected self.
I got her in her PJs and ready for bed while my wife hovered, sure that her daughter was in mortal danger and of coughing up a lung. Once she was ready for bed, I carefully measure out the proper dose of cough syrup. My daughter looked up at me with watery eyes, the bags making them soulful. “Do you want some medicine?” I asked
She gave a weak nod, probably using the last reserves of her energy. (She learned how to milk being sick from me.) I handed her the little container and told her to shoot it. I even had a cup of apple juice ready to wash the taste out of her mouth.
Now, this is nothing new. Whenever she takes medicine, I tell her to shoot it, she downs it in one swallow and we’re done. Why would this night be any different? Because she’s my daughter, that’s why.
She drank the cough syrup and then promptly spit it and dinner up. At least the cold hadn’t affected her appetite earlier…
What does this have to do with her being three? I spent the weekend up every couple of hours as she woke up coughing and crying. She was a pathetic sight, laying in her bed, her stuffed animals, dolls, books and whatever else a little girl needs, surrounding her, while she sniffled and cried. I tried more cough medicine, but the answer was always the same, “Too yucky.”
How did we survive? Purple. Some genius made a purple cough syrup and she reluctantly agreed that her favorite color would not let her down. Sunday night, she slept through the night without waking up. Unfortunately, I now had her cold…
You may be wondering why I say the Terrible Twos is genetically triggered. Look at how many families have more than one child. In our case, my wife and I had that fateful discussion one day. We saw how well behaved our son was. After the horror stories we’d heard and read about (Look at how many books Mr. Spock has written. If there wasn’t something terribly wrong with children as a species, I don’t think he would have sold nearly as many books, even with the help of Star Trek fame.) we understood that our genes (at least mine) needed to be passed along even more. He was well past his two-year mark and he wasn’t having the hourly temper tantrums. I hadn’t noticed his head spinning around at odd hours or him speaking in demonic voices. Yes, he was The Ideal Child, the one that mankind had been waiting for.
So, my wife said those fateful words one day…”Let’s have another.” Being a male, I naturally agreed.
Now that I look back, I don’t have any definite proof, but I’m positive that at the moment of conception, my son entered the Terrible Twos. Our innocent angel became the little monster I’d read about. This proves my point. If he’d entered the Terrible Twos when he turned two, like everyone warned us about, we would never have considered another ticking time bomb.
Now, you may be wondering how I survived my wife being pregnant and my son feeling his oats. Well, I’m sure you’d get the same answer from the people that run the lunatic asylum. Once you are used to dealing with one whacko, adding another isn’t too bad. Luckily for our sanity, shortly after our daughter was born, we decided to sell our house in Virginia and move to Pennsylvania.
The whole process, deciding to move, getting the house in order, packing, moving and unpacking took a little over six months. This is important because it was right after my son turned three. So while, again, we’d had the warning about the stages following the Terrible Twos, he had so many things going on that he never really settled into a “stage” after two.
This is important because this past weekend, my daughter came down with, this is in no way an exaggeration, The Plague from Hell. In three years, she’d never had a problem taking any kind of medicine. (For that matter, food and drink is her favorite past time. This is the same girl that brazenly dips fresh strawberries in mustard and honestly declares the combination is delicious. My son, on the other hand, makes a picky eater look like a glutton.) I was not concerned when it came time for bed. We had cough medicine for her and I knew she’d take it and sleep through the night. So, while my wife fretted and fussed, I was my normal calm and collected self.
I got her in her PJs and ready for bed while my wife hovered, sure that her daughter was in mortal danger and of coughing up a lung. Once she was ready for bed, I carefully measure out the proper dose of cough syrup. My daughter looked up at me with watery eyes, the bags making them soulful. “Do you want some medicine?” I asked
She gave a weak nod, probably using the last reserves of her energy. (She learned how to milk being sick from me.) I handed her the little container and told her to shoot it. I even had a cup of apple juice ready to wash the taste out of her mouth.
Now, this is nothing new. Whenever she takes medicine, I tell her to shoot it, she downs it in one swallow and we’re done. Why would this night be any different? Because she’s my daughter, that’s why.
She drank the cough syrup and then promptly spit it and dinner up. At least the cold hadn’t affected her appetite earlier…
What does this have to do with her being three? I spent the weekend up every couple of hours as she woke up coughing and crying. She was a pathetic sight, laying in her bed, her stuffed animals, dolls, books and whatever else a little girl needs, surrounding her, while she sniffled and cried. I tried more cough medicine, but the answer was always the same, “Too yucky.”
How did we survive? Purple. Some genius made a purple cough syrup and she reluctantly agreed that her favorite color would not let her down. Sunday night, she slept through the night without waking up. Unfortunately, I now had her cold…
Friday, February 20, 2009
After Work
I’ve realized that the past couple of articles have dealt almost completely with how much I hate mornings. (Ok, I didn’t actually realize that. A couple of people pointed it out, including my mother-in-law, who according to my wife, said, “I hope he doesn’t expect any sympathy.” And this came after my nice comments. I’m not bitter and haven’t planned any revenge… yet.) While it’s true that mornings, especially the 6 a.m. part of them, are classified as a dirty word in our house now, I don’t hate everything about them.
This past week I re-realized why my wife and I are working. While our normal schedule is I get our two little spawns up, dressed, fed (and sometimes redressed) and off to school and my wife picks them up in the evening, this week she had to work late a couple of nights, so I picked them up after work too.
On Wednesday, I got to their daycare and signed them out before going in. My daughter saw me from across the room. “Daddy!” she cried and ran to me, her arms open wide.
Those of you with small children have experienced what I‘m talking about. It’s that moment when you know you are the center of their world. They rely on you for everything and trust you implicitly. The pure joy at seeing you at the end of the day, suddenly everything is right in their tiny world…
My daughter had gone through several growth spurts in the past few months and at three and a half, her forehead reaches just above my belly button. This is important, because while most parents are smiling as they remember/relive/hope for what I described in the previous paragraph, they don’t know my daughter.
She raced across the room, her eyes bright with joy and relief at being rescued. Just before she reached me, she ducked her head, turning into a 35-pound missile aimed at my crotch. While the fathers are wincing in shared pain, let me explain.
My daughter and I have developed many routines and games over the past year. She stands in the middle of the room, her tiny arms crossed and a toxic frown on her face and states, “I mad you!” I’ll mimic her and echo, “I’m mad at you!” We’ll go back and forth until one of us starts laughing. Another is she’ll flop over and whisper, “I broke.” I get out my imaginary tools and make noises while I fix her. Then I flop over and say, “I broke.” She’ll get out her tools and fix me.
Ever since she was big enough to walk, she’d run to me when I pick her up from daycare. When she gets to me I make a loud “OOMPH!” sound and flip her upside down. Then I ask her where her head is. She’ll laugh and in her most Daddy-you-are-a-moron-but-I-still-love-you-and-hope-I-didn’t-get-too-many-of-your-genes voice say, “I down here.” After a few flips, she started ducking her head at the last instant. When she was only up to my mid thigh, that placed her head about level with my kneecap. For the sake of self-preservation, I learned to react quickly and kept both knees relatively unbroken.
Over the past couple of months, I guess my wife had been picking the kids up after school. The last time I rescued their teachers, I know the top of my daughter’s head was barely to my hip. So, when she ducked for the flip, I was in no danger of having my voice raised by several octaves. (Believe me, men pay attention to this sort of thing.) Between traveling for work, getting ready for the new job to start and the holidays, my daughter must have had several growth spurts.
This week, when she turned into the voice-raising missile, I had just spent over an hour driving from a long day of work. To say I was mentally and physically worn out would be an understatement. And after playing the same game for months, my daughter had no reason to expect today to be any different when she saw me walk in.
It’s true that if you practice enough, your muscles will react without conscious thought. I caught her at the last second and flipped her upside down. She giggled and answered “I down here!” when I asked why she was wearing her pants on her head.
You may be wondering what this has to do with re-realizing why my wife and I are working. It’s pretty simple. Every time I hear her giggle at my silliness or my son race down stairs in the morning because my wife didn’t give him a morning kiss (she never forgets, but he sleeps like a log. There have been times I’ve gotten home at midnight from traveling. I woke him up, told him I was home, kissed and hugged him. The next morning I was accused of breaking my promise to let him know when I got home.) I am amazed at how well adjusted they are considering their parents. And how lucky we are.
This past week I re-realized why my wife and I are working. While our normal schedule is I get our two little spawns up, dressed, fed (and sometimes redressed) and off to school and my wife picks them up in the evening, this week she had to work late a couple of nights, so I picked them up after work too.
On Wednesday, I got to their daycare and signed them out before going in. My daughter saw me from across the room. “Daddy!” she cried and ran to me, her arms open wide.
Those of you with small children have experienced what I‘m talking about. It’s that moment when you know you are the center of their world. They rely on you for everything and trust you implicitly. The pure joy at seeing you at the end of the day, suddenly everything is right in their tiny world…
My daughter had gone through several growth spurts in the past few months and at three and a half, her forehead reaches just above my belly button. This is important, because while most parents are smiling as they remember/relive/hope for what I described in the previous paragraph, they don’t know my daughter.
She raced across the room, her eyes bright with joy and relief at being rescued. Just before she reached me, she ducked her head, turning into a 35-pound missile aimed at my crotch. While the fathers are wincing in shared pain, let me explain.
My daughter and I have developed many routines and games over the past year. She stands in the middle of the room, her tiny arms crossed and a toxic frown on her face and states, “I mad you!” I’ll mimic her and echo, “I’m mad at you!” We’ll go back and forth until one of us starts laughing. Another is she’ll flop over and whisper, “I broke.” I get out my imaginary tools and make noises while I fix her. Then I flop over and say, “I broke.” She’ll get out her tools and fix me.
Ever since she was big enough to walk, she’d run to me when I pick her up from daycare. When she gets to me I make a loud “OOMPH!” sound and flip her upside down. Then I ask her where her head is. She’ll laugh and in her most Daddy-you-are-a-moron-but-I-still-love-you-and-hope-I-didn’t-get-too-many-of-your-genes voice say, “I down here.” After a few flips, she started ducking her head at the last instant. When she was only up to my mid thigh, that placed her head about level with my kneecap. For the sake of self-preservation, I learned to react quickly and kept both knees relatively unbroken.
Over the past couple of months, I guess my wife had been picking the kids up after school. The last time I rescued their teachers, I know the top of my daughter’s head was barely to my hip. So, when she ducked for the flip, I was in no danger of having my voice raised by several octaves. (Believe me, men pay attention to this sort of thing.) Between traveling for work, getting ready for the new job to start and the holidays, my daughter must have had several growth spurts.
This week, when she turned into the voice-raising missile, I had just spent over an hour driving from a long day of work. To say I was mentally and physically worn out would be an understatement. And after playing the same game for months, my daughter had no reason to expect today to be any different when she saw me walk in.
It’s true that if you practice enough, your muscles will react without conscious thought. I caught her at the last second and flipped her upside down. She giggled and answered “I down here!” when I asked why she was wearing her pants on her head.
You may be wondering what this has to do with re-realizing why my wife and I are working. It’s pretty simple. Every time I hear her giggle at my silliness or my son race down stairs in the morning because my wife didn’t give him a morning kiss (she never forgets, but he sleeps like a log. There have been times I’ve gotten home at midnight from traveling. I woke him up, told him I was home, kissed and hugged him. The next morning I was accused of breaking my promise to let him know when I got home.) I am amazed at how well adjusted they are considering their parents. And how lucky we are.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Salt-Covered Windshields
Well, we’ve survived two weeks of the new work schedule, so I thought I’d give an update to those comparing the changes to my family and the First Family. (Both families started new jobs about the same time, we both got new dogs and both have two kids that are going through this also.)
I don’t know about President Obama, but this week, I found that I could lie to my kids and not feel guilty. This happened on Thursday. I had to be at work by 9 a.m. to conduct a training class with people from the U.S. and London. The class had been planned for over a week, so I’d gone over pretty much every scenario and figured I could manage getting the kids up, fed, dressed and to school and still make it in on time. (For those detailed oriented people, with my daughter, the order is very important. If she eats before she is dressed, she needs at least another shirt, sometimes pants and socks have to be changed too.) (This is the same girl that thinks strawberries and yellow mustard is a “delicious” combination. She also turns from a platinum blonde to a redhead when she eats spaghetti.)
I took a few minutes Wednesday night with my son, explaining that we had to leave early in the morning and if he could help me, he’d earn more points. (I know, that’s bribery, but keep in mind the starting theme of this article. Just think of it as me starting him out early on a career as a politician.) Well, Thursday morning came and I still maintain that there is nothing positive about 6 a.m. We’ve gotten our routine down and we were all ready and in the car by 6:45, an hour ahead of our normal schedule. My son was doing his best for extra points.
When we got in the car, it was still dark. My daughter’s little voice whispered, “I scared.”
My son, still in his helpful mode, (I can see why lobbyist like their jobs.) explained, “She’s scared cause it’s dark.”
“It’s not that dark,” I grumbled and tried to back up the driveway. Mother Nature had decided to put my planning skills to the test and graced us with another night of snowfall. I found myself silently joining their morning chant of “Let’s crash, let’s crash, let’s crash.” (See the previous article on my children’s sadistic desire to see my car wrapped around a tree.) Unfortunately, we made it up the driveway without hitting a single tree. Halfway to preschool, my daughter broke the silence with, “I not scared anymore, daddy. It bright out.”
She was right, somewhere, the sun was rising. For the past two weeks, I’ve been getting up before the sun has risen, but sometime during getting my monsters fed and dressed, the sun had risen. This morning, it greeted us as we drove.
“Don’t you like the sun rise, daddy?” My son’s voice was far too bright and cheerful for this early. I considered explaining that daddy does not like anything until after three cups of coffee, but he was keeping his sister happy and I didn’t want to risk that. (I still had to get them out of the car, into preschool, their stuff put away and hands washed before I could make my escape.)
The Lie: “Yes, I love the sun rise. It makes me very happy.”
That led to a discussion on where the sun was. I had no idea. The sky was overcast and I was running low on clear windshield. The snow from last night had melted while the car warmed up so all the salt residue was cleaned off when we started. However, at 0 degrees, the windshield washer fluid was frozen.
While this sounds dangerous, I’ve got the routine down. After dropping the kids off, I get back on the main roads and the passing trucks kick up enough spray to keep the windshield somewhat clean. By the time I get into Pittsburgh, everything has unfrozen and I can clean the windshield.
It was just after the sunrise comment when my wife called. She’d left for work an hour earlier. Surely, she was calling to tell me traffic was fine and to take my time. Instead, she was in a backup and wanted directions on a different way into the city. After dropping the kids off, I checked and still had two hours to drive the 40 miles to work. After Washington, DC traffic, there was no way I couldn’t handle this.
Unless the backup that my wife had been in was an accident that had traffic snarled for ten miles. 20 degrees, that’s when the windshield washer pump unfreezes. I sat in the crawling traffic watching the temperature, the other cars and the time. You’ve heard of rose-colored glasses? I have a salt-covered windshield. Behind that layer of near impenetrable grime, everything slows down. I realized it didn’t matter if I was a few minutes late. You can’t control traffic any more than you can control when the temperature will get above 20.
I don’t know about President Obama, but this week, I found that I could lie to my kids and not feel guilty. This happened on Thursday. I had to be at work by 9 a.m. to conduct a training class with people from the U.S. and London. The class had been planned for over a week, so I’d gone over pretty much every scenario and figured I could manage getting the kids up, fed, dressed and to school and still make it in on time. (For those detailed oriented people, with my daughter, the order is very important. If she eats before she is dressed, she needs at least another shirt, sometimes pants and socks have to be changed too.) (This is the same girl that thinks strawberries and yellow mustard is a “delicious” combination. She also turns from a platinum blonde to a redhead when she eats spaghetti.)
I took a few minutes Wednesday night with my son, explaining that we had to leave early in the morning and if he could help me, he’d earn more points. (I know, that’s bribery, but keep in mind the starting theme of this article. Just think of it as me starting him out early on a career as a politician.) Well, Thursday morning came and I still maintain that there is nothing positive about 6 a.m. We’ve gotten our routine down and we were all ready and in the car by 6:45, an hour ahead of our normal schedule. My son was doing his best for extra points.
When we got in the car, it was still dark. My daughter’s little voice whispered, “I scared.”
My son, still in his helpful mode, (I can see why lobbyist like their jobs.) explained, “She’s scared cause it’s dark.”
“It’s not that dark,” I grumbled and tried to back up the driveway. Mother Nature had decided to put my planning skills to the test and graced us with another night of snowfall. I found myself silently joining their morning chant of “Let’s crash, let’s crash, let’s crash.” (See the previous article on my children’s sadistic desire to see my car wrapped around a tree.) Unfortunately, we made it up the driveway without hitting a single tree. Halfway to preschool, my daughter broke the silence with, “I not scared anymore, daddy. It bright out.”
She was right, somewhere, the sun was rising. For the past two weeks, I’ve been getting up before the sun has risen, but sometime during getting my monsters fed and dressed, the sun had risen. This morning, it greeted us as we drove.
“Don’t you like the sun rise, daddy?” My son’s voice was far too bright and cheerful for this early. I considered explaining that daddy does not like anything until after three cups of coffee, but he was keeping his sister happy and I didn’t want to risk that. (I still had to get them out of the car, into preschool, their stuff put away and hands washed before I could make my escape.)
The Lie: “Yes, I love the sun rise. It makes me very happy.”
That led to a discussion on where the sun was. I had no idea. The sky was overcast and I was running low on clear windshield. The snow from last night had melted while the car warmed up so all the salt residue was cleaned off when we started. However, at 0 degrees, the windshield washer fluid was frozen.
While this sounds dangerous, I’ve got the routine down. After dropping the kids off, I get back on the main roads and the passing trucks kick up enough spray to keep the windshield somewhat clean. By the time I get into Pittsburgh, everything has unfrozen and I can clean the windshield.
It was just after the sunrise comment when my wife called. She’d left for work an hour earlier. Surely, she was calling to tell me traffic was fine and to take my time. Instead, she was in a backup and wanted directions on a different way into the city. After dropping the kids off, I checked and still had two hours to drive the 40 miles to work. After Washington, DC traffic, there was no way I couldn’t handle this.
Unless the backup that my wife had been in was an accident that had traffic snarled for ten miles. 20 degrees, that’s when the windshield washer pump unfreezes. I sat in the crawling traffic watching the temperature, the other cars and the time. You’ve heard of rose-colored glasses? I have a salt-covered windshield. Behind that layer of near impenetrable grime, everything slows down. I realized it didn’t matter if I was a few minutes late. You can’t control traffic any more than you can control when the temperature will get above 20.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Work
I found something this past week that I haven’t seen for many years. Apparently, 6 a.m. really does exist. I learned this during the past week when I started a new job.
Before all the professionals that read my blog get up in arms, let me give a little back-story. There was a time, many years ago, when I was working as a server administrator that I often got to work well before the sun rose. It was almost relaxing fixing the problems that had arisen during the night with no one around to demand attention or ask annoying questions.
Then we had children. My wife and I came up with a unique schedule that worked quite well for us. I’d take the night shift (When I got home from work until 2 a.m.) and she took from 2 a.m. on. There have been many times over the years that I’ve gone to work bleary-eyed and short on sleep. In my defense, I do my best work when I am light-headed. I think it has something to do with no sleep not inhibiting the creative process. (There have been times when this has also interfered with my self-editing. See the article below.)
But this time it’s different. My wife started a new job also. We not only have to figure out our schedule, but also make sure our kids see us and get to school on time. This past week, my mother-in-law came in to help us and was an amazing help. She made sure we didn’t have to worry about the kids getting where they needed while my wife and I adapted to the new schedule. (For the record, I can say nice things about my wife’s mother.) (Just don’t expect another nice comment for several months.)
So, this past week, I was rudely reacquainted with 6 a.m. I can honestly report that it is dark, cold and early. I looked, I really did, but in all candor, I couldn’t find anything positive about this time. Especially since we’d switched the schedules. My wife is leaving before the little monsters are up, stranding me alone to get them fed, dressed and ready for school.
I also found out how sadistic my children are. (Proving that they really are my wife’s children.) We made this change and it seemed like about 47 feet of snow fell over a two-week period. We’d known about my wife’s job and had made sure she had good snow tires on her minivan. Since most of my driving had been to Washington, DC and back, it hadn’t been a priority to get snow tires on my car. My new job caught us by surprise so there hasn’t been enough time to go and get tires that can actually handle western Pennsylvania weather.
Each morning, during the past week, has started with my son asking, “Do I have school today?” (It doesn’t help that apparently when the weather is going to be below a certain temperature, the schools here tell the students when there will be a two-hour delay. And my son listens when he hears that.) Problem is, if there’s a two hour delay, he still has to go to preschool where the bus picks him up. By the time they are dressed, and the car is warmed up and the snow has been cleared off, he has his sister wound up too so neither want to go to school.
I can’t blame them. After this past week, staying in a warm bed and sleeping does have a great appeal. Apparently, I wasn’t listening to what I said that first morning as I looked at the snow covering my car and the driveway. I may have muttered something about not going anywhere if I slid off the driveway.
So, each morning starts with the cheer of, “Let’s crash, daddy!” If they’ve had enough time to wake up, they’ll even give suggestion to help the odds of crashing. “Go faster.” “Hit the gas.” “Lookout for that tree.” and "Drive like mommy." As I back up the driveway, trying to stay in the tracks my wife made earlier, (This is harder than it sounds since the minivan is wider than my Prius, so we usually end up siding back and forth.) my daughter shows her confidence in me by covering her eyes and screaming. (I have to admit, there are times when I follow her example and we hit a perfect harmony)
So, how are we adapting to the new schedule? I’ve found that making their lunches, getting the coffee ready for the morning and putting their clothes out the night before saves me about 10 minutes. I tried to put them in their school clothes one night to save even more time. I could tell by the look my wife gave me that this was too much. (Next time, I’ll wait until she’s asleep before I try that.) 6 a.m. gives me time to have a slice of coffee, (This early, it has to be strong.) get dressed and ready. I think in three to four years, we’ll have adapted to the new schedule just fine.
Before all the professionals that read my blog get up in arms, let me give a little back-story. There was a time, many years ago, when I was working as a server administrator that I often got to work well before the sun rose. It was almost relaxing fixing the problems that had arisen during the night with no one around to demand attention or ask annoying questions.
Then we had children. My wife and I came up with a unique schedule that worked quite well for us. I’d take the night shift (When I got home from work until 2 a.m.) and she took from 2 a.m. on. There have been many times over the years that I’ve gone to work bleary-eyed and short on sleep. In my defense, I do my best work when I am light-headed. I think it has something to do with no sleep not inhibiting the creative process. (There have been times when this has also interfered with my self-editing. See the article below.)
But this time it’s different. My wife started a new job also. We not only have to figure out our schedule, but also make sure our kids see us and get to school on time. This past week, my mother-in-law came in to help us and was an amazing help. She made sure we didn’t have to worry about the kids getting where they needed while my wife and I adapted to the new schedule. (For the record, I can say nice things about my wife’s mother.) (Just don’t expect another nice comment for several months.)
So, this past week, I was rudely reacquainted with 6 a.m. I can honestly report that it is dark, cold and early. I looked, I really did, but in all candor, I couldn’t find anything positive about this time. Especially since we’d switched the schedules. My wife is leaving before the little monsters are up, stranding me alone to get them fed, dressed and ready for school.
I also found out how sadistic my children are. (Proving that they really are my wife’s children.) We made this change and it seemed like about 47 feet of snow fell over a two-week period. We’d known about my wife’s job and had made sure she had good snow tires on her minivan. Since most of my driving had been to Washington, DC and back, it hadn’t been a priority to get snow tires on my car. My new job caught us by surprise so there hasn’t been enough time to go and get tires that can actually handle western Pennsylvania weather.
Each morning, during the past week, has started with my son asking, “Do I have school today?” (It doesn’t help that apparently when the weather is going to be below a certain temperature, the schools here tell the students when there will be a two-hour delay. And my son listens when he hears that.) Problem is, if there’s a two hour delay, he still has to go to preschool where the bus picks him up. By the time they are dressed, and the car is warmed up and the snow has been cleared off, he has his sister wound up too so neither want to go to school.
I can’t blame them. After this past week, staying in a warm bed and sleeping does have a great appeal. Apparently, I wasn’t listening to what I said that first morning as I looked at the snow covering my car and the driveway. I may have muttered something about not going anywhere if I slid off the driveway.
So, each morning starts with the cheer of, “Let’s crash, daddy!” If they’ve had enough time to wake up, they’ll even give suggestion to help the odds of crashing. “Go faster.” “Hit the gas.” “Lookout for that tree.” and "Drive like mommy." As I back up the driveway, trying to stay in the tracks my wife made earlier, (This is harder than it sounds since the minivan is wider than my Prius, so we usually end up siding back and forth.) my daughter shows her confidence in me by covering her eyes and screaming. (I have to admit, there are times when I follow her example and we hit a perfect harmony)
So, how are we adapting to the new schedule? I’ve found that making their lunches, getting the coffee ready for the morning and putting their clothes out the night before saves me about 10 minutes. I tried to put them in their school clothes one night to save even more time. I could tell by the look my wife gave me that this was too much. (Next time, I’ll wait until she’s asleep before I try that.) 6 a.m. gives me time to have a slice of coffee, (This early, it has to be strong.) get dressed and ready. I think in three to four years, we’ll have adapted to the new schedule just fine.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
New Arrivals
This weekend, we started a major house cleaning. No, my wife’s mother was not coming over for a visit (well, yes she was, but that’s a story for a whole other article). No, this cleaning was for two new members of our family. I don’t know if my memory has faded over the past three years, but I am almost positive that we did not clean up and straighten this much when our daughter was born.
You might be thinking that in our senile old age, we’d gone and done the unthinkable and my wife was expecting twins. No, from her reactions and cleaning frenzy, this was much worse. I knew she was serious when I was banished to my basement to… organize. Everything had to be off the floor and put away. No big deal. Then she said that includes almost three years of old manuscripts, computer parts and… (wait for it…) all the paperback books had to be on the shelves. The upside of this is I found my weight bench.
When we told our family and friends of our plan, the reactions were varied. “Wow,” was the most sedate. “Are you crazy? That’s asinine!” was probably the most common (I’m paraphrasing since this is a family targeted blog.). We were cleaning and picking up to make sure the house (ok, mainly the kids’ toys) was ready for two dogs.
When our thirteen-year old miniature schnauzer died before Thanksgiving, my wife began the search for a new pet. My son took Pepper’s death hard, but we’d been preparing him for it and he knew his dog went to a better place. A few weeks later, he began talking about another dog. He even had the name picked out… Pepper II. The one after that would be Pepper III. (He got up to Pepper XIII)
We always planned to replace Pepper. Our kids loved him and enjoyed playing with him. He was my daughter’s shadow. (Especially after she’d eaten. When she switched to solid foods and began feeding herself, he gained enough weight to develop a waddle.) With the changes coming in the new year, we knew they were going to need playmates to keep up with them.
So, my wife went through the local rescue shelters. She found a fluffy white breed, called a bichon, and fell in love with it. I had two criteria and this breed met both. It had to fit through our dog door and I didn’t have to shave it. White was an added bonus. I’d be able to easily see it in the middle of the night right after I tripped over it.
Then she stumbled across two dogs that had been rescued. Stripe and his mother Honey. They’d both been rescued and were looking for a home. Hey were both house trained and used to children.
How did we go from one dog to two? (We heard that question from everyone. Why two?) Just after Christmas, we found out that we’d both be starting new jobs (This will be a whole other article.) and the dog would be home alone during the day. So two dogs made sense to us so they wouldn’t be lonely. Stripe and Honey were perfect for this. They’d been together for two years and Honey didn’t walk around babbling and drooling. (I’m hoping my wife will pick up some tips from Honey on how to stay sane with young children.)
When my son saw their pictures on the web page, they immediately had a home. We called and arranged the pick up. We managed to get my son to take off his coat and come back in the house since we couldn’t pick them up until the following day.
It’s been a week and both Stripe and Honey are acclimating well to their new home. There was a little confusion the first night. My daughter wanted Honey to sleep with her and my son wanted Stripe to sleep with him. With all of her stuffed animals and dolls, there’s barely enough room in her bed for my daughter, let alone a dog. Of course the dogs had their own agenda and spent most of the night exploring inside and outside.
My careful planning with the bichon was out the window, however. Honey is a German Shepard and Stripe is a Labrador/Shepard mix. Even though they are “medium” size dogs and the dog door is for medium dogs, Honey barely fit through. Each time she went out during that first night, I had to make sure she could get back in. I got a new dog door first thing in the morning and by mid-afternoon, had finished my third trip to Lowes and had it installed.
Stripe got his name from the line of white fur on his chest and stomach. Every other part of him is coal black. I mention this because we did have one escape. Stripe stayed close to the house and raced around exploring. It would have been much less nerve-wracking if he’d made his escape during the daylight. But he did it in the evening. It was just like a horror movie. I’d see a blur streak past out of the corner of my eye. When I looked, there was nothing but blackness. My two kids standing on the porch screaming did an adequate job of filling in for the mutilated teenage girls.
You might be thinking that in our senile old age, we’d gone and done the unthinkable and my wife was expecting twins. No, from her reactions and cleaning frenzy, this was much worse. I knew she was serious when I was banished to my basement to… organize. Everything had to be off the floor and put away. No big deal. Then she said that includes almost three years of old manuscripts, computer parts and… (wait for it…) all the paperback books had to be on the shelves. The upside of this is I found my weight bench.
When we told our family and friends of our plan, the reactions were varied. “Wow,” was the most sedate. “Are you crazy? That’s asinine!” was probably the most common (I’m paraphrasing since this is a family targeted blog.). We were cleaning and picking up to make sure the house (ok, mainly the kids’ toys) was ready for two dogs.
When our thirteen-year old miniature schnauzer died before Thanksgiving, my wife began the search for a new pet. My son took Pepper’s death hard, but we’d been preparing him for it and he knew his dog went to a better place. A few weeks later, he began talking about another dog. He even had the name picked out… Pepper II. The one after that would be Pepper III. (He got up to Pepper XIII)
We always planned to replace Pepper. Our kids loved him and enjoyed playing with him. He was my daughter’s shadow. (Especially after she’d eaten. When she switched to solid foods and began feeding herself, he gained enough weight to develop a waddle.) With the changes coming in the new year, we knew they were going to need playmates to keep up with them.
So, my wife went through the local rescue shelters. She found a fluffy white breed, called a bichon, and fell in love with it. I had two criteria and this breed met both. It had to fit through our dog door and I didn’t have to shave it. White was an added bonus. I’d be able to easily see it in the middle of the night right after I tripped over it.
Then she stumbled across two dogs that had been rescued. Stripe and his mother Honey. They’d both been rescued and were looking for a home. Hey were both house trained and used to children.
How did we go from one dog to two? (We heard that question from everyone. Why two?) Just after Christmas, we found out that we’d both be starting new jobs (This will be a whole other article.) and the dog would be home alone during the day. So two dogs made sense to us so they wouldn’t be lonely. Stripe and Honey were perfect for this. They’d been together for two years and Honey didn’t walk around babbling and drooling. (I’m hoping my wife will pick up some tips from Honey on how to stay sane with young children.)
When my son saw their pictures on the web page, they immediately had a home. We called and arranged the pick up. We managed to get my son to take off his coat and come back in the house since we couldn’t pick them up until the following day.
It’s been a week and both Stripe and Honey are acclimating well to their new home. There was a little confusion the first night. My daughter wanted Honey to sleep with her and my son wanted Stripe to sleep with him. With all of her stuffed animals and dolls, there’s barely enough room in her bed for my daughter, let alone a dog. Of course the dogs had their own agenda and spent most of the night exploring inside and outside.
My careful planning with the bichon was out the window, however. Honey is a German Shepard and Stripe is a Labrador/Shepard mix. Even though they are “medium” size dogs and the dog door is for medium dogs, Honey barely fit through. Each time she went out during that first night, I had to make sure she could get back in. I got a new dog door first thing in the morning and by mid-afternoon, had finished my third trip to Lowes and had it installed.
Stripe got his name from the line of white fur on his chest and stomach. Every other part of him is coal black. I mention this because we did have one escape. Stripe stayed close to the house and raced around exploring. It would have been much less nerve-wracking if he’d made his escape during the daylight. But he did it in the evening. It was just like a horror movie. I’d see a blur streak past out of the corner of my eye. When I looked, there was nothing but blackness. My two kids standing on the porch screaming did an adequate job of filling in for the mutilated teenage girls.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Fire Truck
“Fire truck! Daddy, I see a fire truck!” This is what my daughter cried out on Halloween this year as we sat on the side of the road. We were taking a break from collecting loot and candy. No, there wasn’t a fire. The local volunteer fire department drives through our neighborhood (and others) every Halloween and Christmas. My son loves fire trucks and has spent hours and hours educating his sister on the subtleties of the different kinds. She knows a fire truck when she sees one and made sure everyone within earshot knew it was coming.
When my son started speaking, he had a problem with the letter L. Pillow was pronounced “Piwwow.” We weren’t concerned. (There were many times in college when I had a hard time pronouncing almost all the letters. This only tended to happen on the weekends, so I wasn’t that worried about it.) But we did work with him. We made a list of words that started and had the letter L in them. We’d carefully pronounce them. He could hear the difference, but couldn’t quite get his mouth around that one letter. When he learned his letters and started reading, he saw what the letter L looked like. That helped. Now, when we wrote the words with the L’s in them, he saw where it was in the word. Pillow went from “Piwwow” to “Pillllow.” (He was dedicated and persistent)
Now, since my son had the problems with the letter L and the TH, you might think I’d expect the same from my daughter when she started talking. But, she’s lead me down that same path many times. My son was a picky eater; my daughter ate anything that she could catch. My son was a loud sleeper; my daughter never made a peep. My son is surprisingly (considering his mother) agile and coordinated; I don’t think there’s an obstacle my daughter hasn’t first tried to go through.
So, while my wife did her thing, (reading, researching, talking to other parents and generally learning all the options) I knew my daughter would pretty much wake up one day and be completely fluent in English and probably a few other languages. This time, she was not going to fool me.
My son was on the job. Many were the times we’d be driving and I’d hear, “Now, say one.” A moment later, a little voice would chirp, “One.” They worked up to ten in no time. So, with her brother taking care of her vocabulary and counting, I knew my daughter was in good hands. In no time at all, she had one to five down. She even knew those numbers backwards. I found that one out, and also learned that with a five-year old and two and half-year old, you need to pay attention, the hard way. I made the mistake of lying on the floor one fall day to watch a football game. I was aware of the counting down, and didn’t pay it much attention until she landed on my back after what felt like a perfect double flip from the sofa. The giggling from the two of them almost drown out my cry of agony. Now, my back spasms whenever I hear either of them counting backwards from five.
What does this have to do with, “Fire truck! Daddy, I see a fire truck!”? Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know if my son decided that my daughter didn’t really need to have TR in her list of mastered sounds, or if she decided to once again do the exact opposite of what I’d expected. While she’d mastered the important words, like “please” “more” “no” and “I don’t want to take a nap right now because I am not tired and I really know that you want me to take a nap so you can take one too.”, she couldn’t make the TR sound.
You’d be surprised how many words don’t have TR in them. This would probably explain why I didn’t know this until Halloween night. So, while we were sitting in a neighbor’s yard, my kids both dressed as Spiderman (she found her brother’s old Spiderman costume and claimed it as hers. Clifford and Elmo were both discarded as she proclaimed she was going to be Spiderman, like her brother!). Our neighbors walked by and we’d exchange hellos, the kids talking about which houses had the best candy.
When the fire truck, lights flashing, started down the road. My daughter stood and pointed and for the first time, I found out that she couldn’t pronounce TR. When a three-year old can’t say TR, you might be wondering just what does she use to replace those two letters? Well, my daughter proudly proclaimed that a “Fire f__k” was coming down the street. Somehow, I don’t think the people at Marvel Comics would have approved of her Spiderman impersonation.
When my son started speaking, he had a problem with the letter L. Pillow was pronounced “Piwwow.” We weren’t concerned. (There were many times in college when I had a hard time pronouncing almost all the letters. This only tended to happen on the weekends, so I wasn’t that worried about it.) But we did work with him. We made a list of words that started and had the letter L in them. We’d carefully pronounce them. He could hear the difference, but couldn’t quite get his mouth around that one letter. When he learned his letters and started reading, he saw what the letter L looked like. That helped. Now, when we wrote the words with the L’s in them, he saw where it was in the word. Pillow went from “Piwwow” to “Pillllow.” (He was dedicated and persistent)
Now, since my son had the problems with the letter L and the TH, you might think I’d expect the same from my daughter when she started talking. But, she’s lead me down that same path many times. My son was a picky eater; my daughter ate anything that she could catch. My son was a loud sleeper; my daughter never made a peep. My son is surprisingly (considering his mother) agile and coordinated; I don’t think there’s an obstacle my daughter hasn’t first tried to go through.
So, while my wife did her thing, (reading, researching, talking to other parents and generally learning all the options) I knew my daughter would pretty much wake up one day and be completely fluent in English and probably a few other languages. This time, she was not going to fool me.
My son was on the job. Many were the times we’d be driving and I’d hear, “Now, say one.” A moment later, a little voice would chirp, “One.” They worked up to ten in no time. So, with her brother taking care of her vocabulary and counting, I knew my daughter was in good hands. In no time at all, she had one to five down. She even knew those numbers backwards. I found that one out, and also learned that with a five-year old and two and half-year old, you need to pay attention, the hard way. I made the mistake of lying on the floor one fall day to watch a football game. I was aware of the counting down, and didn’t pay it much attention until she landed on my back after what felt like a perfect double flip from the sofa. The giggling from the two of them almost drown out my cry of agony. Now, my back spasms whenever I hear either of them counting backwards from five.
What does this have to do with, “Fire truck! Daddy, I see a fire truck!”? Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know if my son decided that my daughter didn’t really need to have TR in her list of mastered sounds, or if she decided to once again do the exact opposite of what I’d expected. While she’d mastered the important words, like “please” “more” “no” and “I don’t want to take a nap right now because I am not tired and I really know that you want me to take a nap so you can take one too.”, she couldn’t make the TR sound.
You’d be surprised how many words don’t have TR in them. This would probably explain why I didn’t know this until Halloween night. So, while we were sitting in a neighbor’s yard, my kids both dressed as Spiderman (she found her brother’s old Spiderman costume and claimed it as hers. Clifford and Elmo were both discarded as she proclaimed she was going to be Spiderman, like her brother!). Our neighbors walked by and we’d exchange hellos, the kids talking about which houses had the best candy.
When the fire truck, lights flashing, started down the road. My daughter stood and pointed and for the first time, I found out that she couldn’t pronounce TR. When a three-year old can’t say TR, you might be wondering just what does she use to replace those two letters? Well, my daughter proudly proclaimed that a “Fire f__k” was coming down the street. Somehow, I don’t think the people at Marvel Comics would have approved of her Spiderman impersonation.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Imagination
Lately, my daughter has developed a terrible affliction. She’ll be walking across the room and suddenly stop and look at me. “I stuck,” she’ll declare. Both hands will reach out for me, a desperate look in her eyes. “Pull me,” she’ll plead when I take her hands. Somehow, her foot will become unstuck. (I don’t know why, but it is always her left foot. I know it’s serious because she does this even when it’s not time for bed or some odious chore.) She’ll look back and in her best three-year old disgusted voice say, “There mud there.”
I find this interesting for several reasons. A: I’m pretty sure we don’t have patches of mud throughout the house. Second: I know I didn’t have that active an imagination when I was her age. Up until five, I lived in the inner city of Akron. My fondest memory is the neighborhood bully, on his tricycle, chasing me to kindergarten. I’m not sure, but everyone calling him Pukie might have led to his anger issues. On those lazy summer afternoons when we played with our friends, the game of choice was “whip your mamma.” (The “it” person had a stick or branch. If you were on the ground, you were fair game. That’s how I learned to climb trees. Face it, when a five-year old, tricycle-riding bully terrorizes the neighborhood, chances are, a tea party is not going to be the game of choice.)
But now, my kids amaze me with their creativity. I’m pretty sure the creativity doesn’t come from just the six-year old. Any unclaimed chair, box, crate or container is destined to become part of their newest train. (I think the last one started in the dining room, went through the living room and stretched to our family room. The length is important because, this time, they managed to block the front door, the stairs to the second floor, three doorways and a bathroom.)
The length also allowed them to seat almost all of my daughter’s dolls and stuffed animals. I know this because when it was bedtime, my daughter’s bed was empty. Usually I can barely see her peeking out from under the dolls and stuffed animals. (Yes, both grandmothers miss my subtle hints. “It’s a good thing we already have every stuffed animal ever made. I wouldn’t want either kid to feel underprivileged.” For some reason, they always come home with more fluffy lumps of animal-like dolls.)
Back to the bedtime. There’s PJ (her first doll that is still almost bigger than her), Baby (I don’t know why she picked that name either.), Pink Pony (the newest member of the collection, this time from my wife.) (She doesn’t listen to me either.) and Purple Monkey (Ok, this one is actually pretty cool. It has long arms with Velcro on the hands.). These were her usual companions when it came time for bed. This night, when she was sick, she looked up at me, her friends adding support and whispered, “Kayla. I need Kayla.”
She and her brother had raided every single doll and animal from both their rooms. I was vaguely aware that there was a doll called Kayla. (I think that is one of the babies at her preschool.) But, I’d given it my fatherly attention and had absolutely no idea which one it was. But, from the look in her eyes, I knew she and, more importantly, I would get no sleep until Kayla had been found.
So, it was back downstairs to the train. I grabbed two dolls that looked familiar, reasoning that if I recognized them, that meant she’d carried them around enough for me to notice and there was a good chance one was Kayla. “That not Kayla.” I was told as I put the first down. Well, it was a fifty/fifty shot. I honestly didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get it right the first time. “That not Kayla!” she announced at the second. I kept the mumbling under my breath and censored (see the article on self-editing) and headed back to the train. This time, I brought up as many dolls as I could carry.
Each shake of her head sent my hopes plummeting further. I was getting tired of going up and down the stairs. However, when her eyes lit up and she reached with a shout of, “Kayla!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Tank you, daddy, for saving Kayla.” She smiled and snuggled up with her dolls and animals. I dumped the remaining armload of unnamed dolls on the foot of her bed and beat a hasty retreat.
With the rampant imagination, you’d think I’d be right at home. But… I’m not allowed to play. Thinking I’d turn the tables and get her to pull me along, one day I stopped and told her I was stuck. I got a very stern look and, “Daddy, there no mud there.” She didn’t even look back as she wandered off to torment her brother. (The tormenting she gets from me. The driving me crazy she gets from her mother.)
I find this interesting for several reasons. A: I’m pretty sure we don’t have patches of mud throughout the house. Second: I know I didn’t have that active an imagination when I was her age. Up until five, I lived in the inner city of Akron. My fondest memory is the neighborhood bully, on his tricycle, chasing me to kindergarten. I’m not sure, but everyone calling him Pukie might have led to his anger issues. On those lazy summer afternoons when we played with our friends, the game of choice was “whip your mamma.” (The “it” person had a stick or branch. If you were on the ground, you were fair game. That’s how I learned to climb trees. Face it, when a five-year old, tricycle-riding bully terrorizes the neighborhood, chances are, a tea party is not going to be the game of choice.)
But now, my kids amaze me with their creativity. I’m pretty sure the creativity doesn’t come from just the six-year old. Any unclaimed chair, box, crate or container is destined to become part of their newest train. (I think the last one started in the dining room, went through the living room and stretched to our family room. The length is important because, this time, they managed to block the front door, the stairs to the second floor, three doorways and a bathroom.)
The length also allowed them to seat almost all of my daughter’s dolls and stuffed animals. I know this because when it was bedtime, my daughter’s bed was empty. Usually I can barely see her peeking out from under the dolls and stuffed animals. (Yes, both grandmothers miss my subtle hints. “It’s a good thing we already have every stuffed animal ever made. I wouldn’t want either kid to feel underprivileged.” For some reason, they always come home with more fluffy lumps of animal-like dolls.)
Back to the bedtime. There’s PJ (her first doll that is still almost bigger than her), Baby (I don’t know why she picked that name either.), Pink Pony (the newest member of the collection, this time from my wife.) (She doesn’t listen to me either.) and Purple Monkey (Ok, this one is actually pretty cool. It has long arms with Velcro on the hands.). These were her usual companions when it came time for bed. This night, when she was sick, she looked up at me, her friends adding support and whispered, “Kayla. I need Kayla.”
She and her brother had raided every single doll and animal from both their rooms. I was vaguely aware that there was a doll called Kayla. (I think that is one of the babies at her preschool.) But, I’d given it my fatherly attention and had absolutely no idea which one it was. But, from the look in her eyes, I knew she and, more importantly, I would get no sleep until Kayla had been found.
So, it was back downstairs to the train. I grabbed two dolls that looked familiar, reasoning that if I recognized them, that meant she’d carried them around enough for me to notice and there was a good chance one was Kayla. “That not Kayla.” I was told as I put the first down. Well, it was a fifty/fifty shot. I honestly didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get it right the first time. “That not Kayla!” she announced at the second. I kept the mumbling under my breath and censored (see the article on self-editing) and headed back to the train. This time, I brought up as many dolls as I could carry.
Each shake of her head sent my hopes plummeting further. I was getting tired of going up and down the stairs. However, when her eyes lit up and she reached with a shout of, “Kayla!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Tank you, daddy, for saving Kayla.” She smiled and snuggled up with her dolls and animals. I dumped the remaining armload of unnamed dolls on the foot of her bed and beat a hasty retreat.
With the rampant imagination, you’d think I’d be right at home. But… I’m not allowed to play. Thinking I’d turn the tables and get her to pull me along, one day I stopped and told her I was stuck. I got a very stern look and, “Daddy, there no mud there.” She didn’t even look back as she wandered off to torment her brother. (The tormenting she gets from me. The driving me crazy she gets from her mother.)
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