So, I started this post five times,
and made no progress with the earlier attempts.
I've got a good feeling about this one, in that Jedi good feeling about this one way.
My youngest, almost five months, is the bane of my blogging attempts.
Of well, any of my hobbies actually.
Even my nutritional intake.
To grab a bite of lunch, usually around 3PM requires placing her somewhere secure that is mostly out of earshot for the 5 minutes it takes to nuke and consume a prepared soup, nachos, or a frozen leanpocket-type pastry.
I can still hear her anyway.
Gives me heartburn.
The poor, poor person that falls for that one eventually is going to have more on their hands than their heart bargains for.
Her one or two daily naps are blessed relief.
These, in the main, she does not coordinate with her older sister's napping schedule.
Her soiled diddies however, she does synchronize.
I've got to get the older one potty-trained to decrease that particular workload.
She has the control. In fact she waits me out while I have her placed on the appropriate seat...
until I give in and dethrone her, then she releases while I'm putting her diaper back on.
My hands have learned to work quick in these vulnerable positions.
Cuing from her sister, the youngest one has become adept at taking cheap shots as well.
I've been pee'd on three times and poo'd on twice in the last month.
Sure, some call it a living, but I'm not in the German scheisse-film actors guild, so I can't receive payment.
See, the strategy of the youngest is to use a different matter-state of projectile than her older sister.
You block it straight up the middle, it blitzes from the edges.
I've made adjustments to change her diddies from the shotgun position now.
In other miscreant parenting news, when I find my 2.5 year old doing something mildly inappropriate, I attempt to find a creative way for her to expand her skill set, by doing whatever she's doing even more inappropriately.
Two recent examples:
The rocking cow (yes, she has a cow, not a horse, you conformists).
She sometimes uses it as a platform to lauch a jump off of instead of sitting on it and well, rocking.
Instead of scolding her and telling her to sit in the saddle and rock like the manufacturer expects her to, I show her that if she moves the cow closer to the arm of the couch, she can run up to the cow, bounce off of its saddle, tuck into a roll on the arm of the couch and do a flip onto the seat cushions.
Crayons.
She sometimes grabs a hairbrush that my wife has left on the kitchen table and pushes the crayons through the hole in the shaft of the grip that is exactly the circumference of a crayon.
Instead of telling her to leave her mother's hairbrush alone and to color with the crayons on paper, I show her how to load a crayon partway through the hole in the brush, position a box across the table, then smartly slap the crayon through the hole, firing it at the box, scoring a point for each crayon that strikes its target.
We review the colors of each crayon immediately before the missile is sent down range.
"We're a happy family, we're a happy family, we're a happy family, meet mom and daddy..." - Ramones
What song or lyrics are stuck in your head at the moment? What album is it from?
Submitted by Lox Ly.
"Turn the Page" , the Metallica version from "Garage Inc." is in my head, but originally recorded by Bob Seger.
A question of concealed identity.
Who am I?When asked how things have been going with me,
my usual answer involves my kids, home projects, the dogs, or my wife's career.
That wasn't the question.
And I know this.
My own identity seems masked of late by my responsibilities. They take priority over me.
By staying at home my career achievements are now filtered vicariously through my wife.
Raising children is a noble enterprise. I understand its importance.
It's just not where I'm used to channeling my self-esteem from.
It's a different animal from my previous goals and accomplishments.
My self-image is unfocused. I've been buried in the shell of my various roles.
Is there a reason for this?
I don't know.
Is the shell for protection?
I don't know.
Am I retreating inward from something, or protecting the outside from what's inside?
I don't know.
Can I reconcile the dichotomy of who I am with that of my current role?
I don't know.
Is who I am who I want to be?
I don't know.
When will raising kids my way, incorporating me into them, come into conflict with mainstream childrearing?
Probably around 2nd grade, maybe 3rd for my eldest.
Most importantly, who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?
Daddy, definitely Daddy.
What is your browser's default home page set to?
Submitted by Kelev T. Cat.
http://leftfromseattle.wordpress.com/
Don't know who this guy is, but he's a genius.
Applied genius no less. Check out the artwork and photos.
The tales of an american boi living in Japan teaching English.
Who's your favorite movie villain?
Doctor Frankenfurter portrayed by Tim Curry in the Rocky Horror Picture Show
My 2 1/2 year old is a genius with jigsaw puzzles.
She's also relentless and methodical when it comes to the process of sorting out where everything goes.
I'm very aware of the world's structured rules in 2 year old developmental stage.
Everything has its place, and if its not where it belongs, than this is a crisis.
So in a way, her putting puzzles together makes sense, its something that has to be done.
When the puzzle is broken down into pieces, it is definitely something that needs to be remedied.
She's just so serious when it comes to memorizing where the pieces go. The first few times she works on a new puzzle, she'll put the same piece in and out several times, contemplating how it relates to its neighbors, cuing in on something, I don't know what. Then after she's done this to all the pieces several times, and assembled the entire puzzle, painstakingly slowly, she rips it all apart into a pile.But now that she has the thing organized in her brain, she grabs the pieces quick as lightning and assembles the entire thing in mere moments.
Then she breaks it down and begins again, usually placing the pieces together in the same order, over and over.
She does this for hours until its time for nap.
When she wakes the first thing she wants to do is go back to the puzzle, I think she may have been dreaming about the puzzle the whole time she napped.
It's all, well, very puzzling to me.
...put a cork on it, and cellar it for 20 years, I would.
Homemade biscuits and honey for breakfast. The eldest daughter in wonder that Winnie the Pooh's favorite concoction really existed and was plated in front of her. Face a mess, but eyes aglow.
An hour drive down to the old-money houses along the lake.
I enjoy our car on the freeway. VW Passat 3.6 - 280 horses.
Snacks and conversation with former coworkers and current friends.
Rain canceled our outdoor plans at the park and splash-pad.
The kids played nicely indoors. Much 2 year old girl giggling. Much Sea Dog Blueberry Wheat Beer.
The rain faded on the hour drive home.
I indulged the car again, and every single one of those horses.
Both daughters sleeping in the back, heads slouched to opposing sides.
Rummaging through the leftovers we brought home, the peanutbutter-chocolate brownies met their end.
Going to the gym to not feel too guilty about the brownies.
Found a parking spot just outside the door.
Place was nearly empty. Mine all mine.
The elliptical, the bike, the resistance, and the free weights, then the lap pool and the jacuzzi.
Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.
Coming home and putting the girls to bed, then settling in to a 4400 marathon with the wife on the couch.
The neutered groove is at peace.
What movie would you really recommend renting or seeing this weekend?
Layer Cake
or
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.
The pace is quick, the wit is fast, the humour is dry and British.
Well, butter my popcorn!
While the youngest daughter slept mid-morning, the eldest and I pulled on our gloves (or at least I did), rolled out the orange wheel barrow (that was mostly me as well), grabbed a weed-digger tool (sharp, so that was exclusively me) and set upon the lawn.
We roamed the lawn, we hunters two.
She spotted for me with cries of "bad flowers", "big bad flowers", and "really big bad flowers".
I moved in for the swift stabbing stroke and the popping lift, removing the limp carcass to the yard-waste bag in the wheel barrow.
Then her attention began to wander, not away from the weeds but more inclusive of other things to point out to me.
An airplane. A big truck. A garbage truck. A bird in a tree. A squirrel on a power line. The sound of a lawn mower. The sound of an edger. The sound of a barking dog. A red car. Our house.
Then, she stumped me with "number 5".
I looked around, not thinking that there was a number 5 in the yard or in the sky or passing down our street.
I kept looking as my daughter is rarely mistaken in seeing something.
Then I saw it on the house. 5 is part of the house number displayed.
We continued for over an hour, she stayed close to me and called out things to my attention.
Then, she looked over the yard, this way and that, announcing, "Poking weeds all done."
A sore back shouldn't feel this good.
I think about myself these days.
Did it just today.
Matter of fact I did it yesterday too.
Likely it will occur tomorrow as well.
I didn't invent navel-gazing, nor is it a new discipline for me.
It's the focus of the exercise that has changed for me.
It's changed from just figuring out what happened and why.
Now I look for nuggets.
Not in the navel, you're too literal, rather in the realizations or self-interpretations of self-evident introspections.
I search out things that I would like to teach my children. Lessons to pass on to them.
I know they won't listen, at least not between the ages of 12-25, (younger than that they won't process the information and older than that and they'll have learned from their own hard knocks.)
Which is why I strive to contemplate experiencial learning opportunities, available to them between 12-18.
First step, identifiy what it is that they should learn.
Secondly, plan an activity where they can experience an event that will demonstrate what they should learn.
Third, fabricate a pretext for them to be involved in the activity which will enable them to come to the realization themselves, through their own experience rather than a parental "when I was a kid" lecture.
Except for jogging.
That I will tell them straight up not to do.
If they don't listen to me and they do it anyway, well, its their knees and they'll learn for themselves like I am.
Running on wet leaves, the asphalt slopes
Exhilirating, knowing the peril
I continue, splash, clop, clop
This step, the next?
When will foot slip?
I continue, clop, splash, clop
Forward on hands, or backward on ass?
Just a slight skid, over before noticed
I continue, clop, clop, splash
Footfall jolts, the knee too stiff
No spring, no bounce, solid impact absorbed
Outside knee tenses, just a tinge and a pop
I continue, clop, limp, clop
Exhilirating knowing the peril
This step, the next?
When will knee give?
I continue, limp, clop, limp
Forward on hands, or backward on ass?
Clockwork hot needles press.
I continue, clop, limp, clop
Now the last sprint home
Numb ease of relief
Limp, limp, whimper, limp
Exhilirating is the peril
