13 posts tagged “girls”
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.
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.
...with cookies that is.
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.
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.
Today was soundtracked for me by Mark Lanegan's "Whiskey for the Holy Ghost".
The wife gets back in from a D.C. business trip in a few hours.
One hour after that, the sitter will be here and we'll be off to a wine group Meetup.
In addition to vino, the wife had a recommendation for Peachy Canyon Paso robles Zinfadel which we'll look for, I'll be taking a tray of feta/beef rolls.
Since I'm all about the easy groove, I picked up a tube of pre-made croissant dough, a package of feta, and a small pouch of dried beef thinly sliced.
Roll out the dough triangles in pairs so that they form rectangles (one triangle inverted to the other).
Fill the long axis center line with crumbled feta, followed by bits of crumbled dried beef.
Roll up the dough into a long cigar shape.
A quick trip in the oven at 350 F for 12-20 minutes (depending on the instructions for your particular brand of refrigerated tube o' croissants) and Bob's your uncle. (no, really, he is.)
Then cut the rolls into app-size length bites (1/4" to 1/2") and pin them with a toothpick to aid the structural integrity (and to make them look like cute li'l bone fide apps.)
"We got apps!"
-Beautiful Girls
Dropped eldest off at preschool this morning.
Headed off to the Y with youngest.
It's one exit down the freeway.
While turning from the surface street onto the on-ramp, I was met with a vehicle reversing up the on-ramp toward me.
Guy had mistaken the clearly marked freeway on-ramp with the driveway to a business park, I guess.
He backed up all the way out of the on-ramp, backed through the surface street (against flow of traffic) and then turned into his desired destination.
Seriously people... it's called, "Yeah, I screwed up, lemme get off at the next exit and circle around to come back."
After the Y, youngest and I stopped off at the insurance agent office to get our policies transfered in from out of state.
Begin with two toddlers, ages 17 months and 3 1/2 years.
Add two hours at a playground with slides and bouncy bridges.
Finish with basic PB&J sandwich for each, with the added twist of having graham cracker in the middle with the filling.
Result: Well satisfied kids.
Tis far better to have a known a breeze that passed, than never to have felt the wind at all.
Yes, I stole the spirit of that from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam:27, 1850
When real life picks up I find I don't mind missing PC time at all.
Days or weeks go by without checking email.
Blog entries from others stack up that seem like they should be gotten to.
Meanwhile, mine are the anti-matter of the blogosphere.
I know things happened on those days, but nobody can see it.
Just gaping holes of nothing in the record.
Joined the YMCA these past couple of weeks and picked up the old routine without a beat missing.
Summer finally turned off and with it the humidity and the air conditioning.
The girls are active all their waking hours.
Eldest is a big girl now, with a backpack, lunch box, and school projects to be brought home for the front of the fridge.
Then a breeze picks up making it absolutely perfect out of doors.
I pick up a Shiner Bock from the fridge (Spoetzl Brewery, Shiner, Texas), the bucket of sidewalk chalk for the girls and make for the patio and my soft padded chair in the shade.
Begin the countdown until the wife comes home from work.
The 16 month old has abandoned her morning nap two days in a row.
I've dreaded this.
However, the girls schedule will align more conveniently with the local YMCA child-center hours.
Blast them for being closed half the afternoon.
No, not the whiskey.
A real live one.
It ran through the backyard, circled around, peeped in the back sliding glass door, startled the hell out of two boxers and one stay-at-home dad who was cooking tater-tots at the time, and then sped away to do whatever the hell it is that wild turkeys do.
Yes, that bumps the mosquitoes off the top of the list of largest wildlife I've seen in Tennessee so far.
Now, back to my taters and tots.
Gabba, gabba, hey! as the Ramones would say.
