The In-Laws just landed and will be with us for 7 days.

Must remember to breathe...

It's good for the kids...

Breathe...

Inhale... hold it, hold it... cough, cough, cough, slowly exhale.

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I find myself in the unlikeliest of predicaments.

I do not want to tell my friends how great parenting can be, for fear that their experience will not be so swell and make them feel lesser.

I do not want to tell my friends how awful parenting can be, for fear that their trials will not be so great, and I will have poisoned their outlook.

For myself, I can have anything I want...  and I don't care for it anymore.

I am impossible to shop for. 

Presents are hopeless. 

Though I enjoy the people that wish to give me the presents immensely, for the sheer notion that they wanted to try.

Sure, there are some things I will try when curiosity intersects opportunity... but nothing that I want enough to go out and actually get because I am somehow driven to posses them.

I do not have access to every album or music file that I have ever coveted.

However, this leaves open the door to the magic that happens when I chance across a hearing of one of those tunes.

I have not read and do not own every comics collection that could possibly fascinate me for hours/days on end.

I have not watched every movie that would reduce me to guy-grunts.

I have not read every book that would make me put it down at times and sigh, "damn".

And that is fine.

They are still out there.

I leave open the chance for happy surprises and thrilling encounters.

I want to learn more of the unknown. 

I want experiences. 

I think I want the knowledge of things without possessing the things themselves.

I want to lease life, and always trade it in for the newest model.

I adore reading and returning library books for free.

Listening to college radio makes me nostalgically giddy  (really surprised the program accepted that usage; I was all set to change it to "giddy with nostalgia" but I digress - and need another shot of that Very Old Barton 90 proof 6 Year  - which isn't really all that old, but I am round the bend now).

I am delighted by both of my daughters' imagination and emerging sense of humor.

I am high like an idiot when browsing a good selection at a liquor store... and drunk shortly thereafter.

Did you ever hear the one about what a car and an elephant have in common?  The four year old busts out with that on the way home and I can't stop laughing until we're in the garage.  Just wait until she finds Nantucket on the map.

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For my next little guitar noodling self-lesson, "Don't Forget Me" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

The girls love the Youtube video for Anthony and John freaking out and spinning.

I dig the non-speed metal application of hammering-on and pulling-off, fantastically on display throughout and in the outro solo.

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My 4 and 2 year-olds can now navigate youtube to go from video to video... of BUCKETHEAD!

He is their absolute favorite and they run around in a circle screeching, "It's buckethead!  He's silly cuz he has a bucket on his head!  He's playing guitar really fast!" the whole time.

They now want me to wear a bucket on my head while I play.

Sorry to disappoint them, but re-purposed KFC hat or not, I can just not make my fingers move that fast.

I only discovered him for myself recently.

I'd heard, during the wait for Chinese Democracy, that there was a guy who replaced Slash who wore a bucket on his head while he played, and that's as far as I got.

I'm liking the stuff he does on his own, but not so much his G'n'R era stuff and his versions of their old material.

He's technically competent doing Slash's solos, it's just not... you know... he didn't write it.

But doing his own stuff... well... shit.  He may wear a bucket, but he's got some soul; when he's not doing the overly technical speed-shredding.

So I'm glad I found him, and glad that he's out of GnR now, so that I can like him.

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The wife had Intralase Lasik last Friday.
I was freaked out.  Turned out fine.

Youngest daughter winged a ball at wife's face the next day.
I freaked out.  Missed the eyes, turned out fine.  She can read the 20/20 eye chart line.

Eldest daughter fell out of bed Monday night.
Gashed the back of her head on the bottom corner of a dresser.
I freaked out and got a lot of blood all over me while I held her.
After a trip to the ER at Midnight and three staples, turned out fine.

Youngest smacked eldest in the back of the head with a (hard) toy dragon.
I freaked out.  Wound didn't open, no new blood, just a headache for eldest, so, you know, fine.

Eldest wants to go to preschool today as there are only a few sessions left for this school year.
I take her and find out today they're doing an inflatable bouncy-house all day because it's storming outside.
I freaked out.  I'll find out in an hour if anything got bumped loose, but I haven't gotten an emergency call yet.

She has a follow-up doctor appointment today anyway.

Wife has a follow-up eye appointment tomorrow.

Me, I've about exhausted my freak-out for the week.

Plenty of Boulevard Brewery mixed-packs, Bacardi Solara Rum, vodka, and tequila though... so I might make it yet.

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So, the house next door sold, and out moved a family with kids about our kids ages.

In moved renters, with a dog, staked outside 24/7, who barks and growls every time we go outside.

His tie-out extends all the way to the property line, which he snaps taut every time I go outside with our dogs or kids.

We ask the landlord for a fence, to keep our kids from doing something a kid would do like chase a ball downhill, and wind up getting bitten.

We've wanted a fence for a while as the back of the yard ends in a cliff down to a ravine.

So far, the feedback we've got from the property manager is that the landlord's OK with it, as long as we pay for the fence he picks out, and our rent goes up because the property would now been improved with a fence and to cover maintenance for it.

On the other hand, we've got our own renters in the house we left behind in the relocation wanting improvements for their own lease extension/renewal.

I'm not only seeing both sides of the fence, I'm seeing it simultaneously and let me tell you; there isn't any green grass on either side.

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Inspired by the tornadoes sweeping around us last night, I put two shots of vodka into six shots pineapple juice and diced up a quarter of an Granny Smith apple that the daughters hadn't finished eating with their dinner. 

PineappleDapple

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...with cookies that is.

01.25.08 001

My 21 month and almost 4 year old daughters had a blast creating in the kitchen.

We began with vanilla wafer cookies, which we decorated with half cream cheese frosting, and half strawberry frosting, then marshmallow pieces atop.

These we nuked in the microwave for a few seconds until they got slightly gooey and then dashed sprinkles on top while still warm to adhere to the goo.

Decadent.

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Yesterday for lunch, the kids and I shared a Brie cheese wheel, sliced up on crackers, accompanied by apple slices.

Their milk, in crystal goblets.

Very continental.

Today, we had fried chicken.

Their milk cuppies snug in their NASCAR cozies.

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Just after Christmas, when the visiting in-law grandparents were safely stuffed back on an airplane, my 3 3/4 year old decided she wanted to learn to read.

It has been an explosion of knowledge.

I am not keeping track of a word list that she can recognize or spell yet, as I'm not sure day to day how much of it is sticking in long-term memory, but it would be impressive.

Our favored method is to use an email client to compose a message (in super huge font)
one word on one line at a time.

This past week, she expressed an interest (i.e. "NO, I want to do it!") in typing the words herself.

So, she's also learning the letter location of the QWERTY system as well.

She's been copying some of her favorite sections of Doctor Seuss books in this fashion.

Now she's hitting up educational game websites to master their spelling games.

She long ago became bored with the content on noggin.com and nickjr.com having explored every link on their sites.

She is more competent with the use of the mouse and navigating via browser bookmarks than my parents are.

Her latest expansion is math fractions games.

She was on a spelling game when I left the room to go make us nachos.

I came back and bam, she's doing math.

My wife's response, "Are you going to save anything at all for her teachers when she starts school?"

I'd write a child development book on how it all happened, but dude, I don't think it's me.

We haven't pushed either of our kids, but simply provided resources for them when they expressed an interest themselves in exploring a given topic.

Now the 21 month old, I'll just be glad when she's finished potty-training (about 90% there now.)

She's also learning her alphabet, animals and sounds they make with a ringed flipcard set.

She started potty training (felt like early) because she wanted to keep up with big sister.

Now she looks like she wants to do the same thing with playing on the PC and reading her own book words.

It's daunting, this whole parenting young kids thing, but I think I might not have screwed up too bad.

I think they'll both be ready for school on time, likely way ahead of peer grade-level.

I am anticipating feeling incredibly relieved at that hand-off of learning to the teacher and at the same time weirded out, considering that at this pace they should surpass my own knowledge of most topics somewhere around middle-school age.

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