It’s the thought that counts

I was headed out the door the other night.  Right before I left, I hear A say “Daddy wait, wait!” as she came running down the hall.

“Daddy, I have to give you a hug and kiss before you go!”

Who could resist.  With visions of Norman Rockwell in my mind, I bent down.  She gave me a gentle hug around my neck and planted a butterfly-light kiss on my cheek.

Of course, if it had stopped right there, it probably wouldn’t be making it into a blog post.  At least on this blog.

I then noticed that she was nuzzling up against my arm.  Thinking she was pretending to be a cat, I asked “Oh, look a little kitty.”  To which she replied …

“No dad.  It’s just my nose was a little runny and I needed someplace to wipe it.”

And with that, she twirled and skipped back down the hall.

Why I’ll never swim in Australia

This ran with the headline “10-foot Great White Shark nearly bitten in half by 20-foot ‘monster shark’ near Australian beach.”

What having a blog has done to me

From xkcd.com

Be careful what you wish for, big guy.

Since next week is “try to wring more money out of guilty parents day”, AKA ” picture day” at the kids’ preschool, we figured it was a good time for haircuts.  Since I subscribe to the “longer hair is better” philosophy, A has really never had more than a trim.

But she’s still not thrilled to get that.

As an aside, and if you’ve seen pics of K over the years, you know my ability to convince her to have long hair has waxed and waned over the years. To wit:

When we first met

Her “short” phase

The current “medium” length

J, however, cannot avoid the shears.

For a while, I was cutting his hair, using the buzz-cut technique.  If nothing else, this saved a couple of dollars and kept us from subjecting the Cartoon Cuts folks to his unique brand of terror-crying.

However, this led to the “escaped prisoner” look

But since we now know he’ll be a little more relaxed while getting his hair cut, we now make the pilgrimage to Cartoon Cuts every couple of months.  I’m still not sure he’s very happy about it, since he immediately starts saying “I don’t want to get a haircut” whenever we approach the mall entrance near Cartoon Cuts, even when we’re just heading in to go someplace else.

He’s much more used to the process

Of course, part of me wants to say “Listen.  In about 30 years, you really won’t be complaining about getting a haircut.  You’ll be complaining that you’ll have to pay somebody $15 to cut the three hairs left on top of your head.”

Not really what I had in mind

You may remember a previous post about a pair of K’s “date night shoes.” Well, on a rainy date night last week, this was what K was wearing:

Yeah, nothing say “sexy” like a pair of LL Bean boots

Another reason men shouldn’t have too much free time

Swim, my pretties

So, K and I went out for our anniversary dinner last night.   It’s been a while since we spent 3 hours dipping various foodstuffs into various forms of bubbling liquid, so we decided to hit up The Melting Pot to celebrate 14 years of not driving each other insane wedded bliss.

Is there any problem that cheese can’t solve?

Even raw cauliflower becomes palatable

The shrimp, pasta, filet, teriyaki sirloin, and chicken
main course didn’t suck either.

Yes, pasta.  Did I mention it was lobster pasta?

The dipping sauces were many, plentiful, and tasty.

K seemed to agree.

Last, but definitely not least … dessert.

Chocolate.  Caramel.  Flambee.  Enough said.

Can dipping a brownie in chocolate and caramel make it better?
Yes.  Yes it can.

Yes, that is a Rice Krispie Treat.

I’d vote for the chocolate/caramel-coated cheesecake as my favorite.

Although the straight “plate of chocolate/caramel mix”
was perfectly acceptable in my book.

All in all, a great meal.
And the company wasn’t bad, either.

14 years

There’s a joke I learned from a Mexican pastor while I was on a mission trip in Oaxaca, Mexico.  It goes something like this:

“My wife and I have been married for 14 years.  But it feels like it has been only 5 minutes…

.

.

.

…underwater.”

As of today, K and I have been married for 14 years.

And there’s nobody else I’d rather be underwater with.

Ladies first

J and A love to race.  Or, I guess I should say, both J and A love to win a race.  For some reason, both love to be able to scream “I win!” at the top of their lungs, and both get that pouty-lips-arms-crossed-look if they don’t win.  It’s a tough line to walk with them, since I don’t want everything to be a competition.  But, contrary to some current trends of not keeping score at little league games, or giving the same trophies to everybody at the end of the season, I want them to know that they will win and lose at different points of their lives.

So the other day, they were sliding down the stairs on their backsides (and by “sliding” I mean sitting on one step and slowly pulling forward until they dropped to the next step.  I don’t want you to think they were on sleds or anything.  That will come soon enough).  J got a head start on A, so he was in front.  Before he even got to the bottom of the stairs, he started up with that sing-songy “I’m going to win-in. I’m going to win-in” we all know and love.

But instead of pouting, A simply said:

“J, don’t you know the rule is ‘Ladies First’?  You should let me win.”

She’s 4 and she’s already plying her womanly ways.

Of course, it didn’t work, since J flew down the rest of the stairs.  However, it obviously caught hold in J’s brain.  The next day, the same scenario was being played out.  J was in front heading down the stairs.  But when he reached the landing at the half-way point, he stopped, turned around and said …

“Ladies first.”

He then let A pass right on by and make it down the stairs first.  Could this be the beginning of a change of attitude, not having to win at every possible turn?

Before I could complete this thought in my head, J grabbed A’s shoulder, pulled her back, and ran past her into the family room, screaming “I win-in, I win-in!” the whole way.

And who said chivalry was dead.

Who said anything about a relaxing weekend?

Saturday, 17 Oct. 2009

0700  Kids wake.  Parents do not.
0730  Nana bails parents out by keeping children from killing
      themselves while trying to make breakfast
0745  Parents finally drag themselves out of bed.
0800  K starts gathering the 3426 items needed for swim class
0830  K finishes gathering 3425 items (gives up looking for
      item 3426)
0900  K leaves for church to create flowers for Sunday AM
0920  Put kids and bags carrying 3425 items into truck
0925  Nana finds item 3426 in truck
0930  The kids, Nana, and I leave for swim class
1000  Arrive at swim class
1010  Swim class commences
1040  Swim class ends.
1115  Nana and I finally get kids peeled out of wet clothes.
1116  Item 3427 should have been underwear for J.
1116  J has to go commando.
1140  Arrive at home.
1210  K arrives at home.
1215  K and A quickly shove in some lunch
1221  K and A depart for birthday party at Horse Riding Camp.
1221  Yes, with real horses.
1221  Yes, for a 5 year old's birthday.
1222  I make mental pledge to never spend more than $12.47 on
      kids' birthday parties.
1230  Nana blacks out from exhaustion.  We leave her where
      she falls.
1300  Make lunch.  Leave food next to Nana's head.
1400  "Quiet Time" for J.  Oh how I long for the days when that
      meant they would nap.
1405  I sit down for some football watching.
1534  I wake from my "football watching."
1615  K and A arrive home.
1700  We remember that tonight is baby-sitting co-op
1701  Did I mention that the kids need to be fed and dressed
      for bed before we leave in 30 minutes?
1710  Dinner is shoved down kids' mouths
1720  Kids are shoved into PJs
1730  Kids are shoved into truck
1731  Did I mention it's a 30 minute drive?
1759  Make mental note wondering why we are in a babysitting
      co-op with people who live 30 minutes away.
1803  Drop off kids and run.
1805  Make it restaurant, only to find that it is homecoming,
      so we are surrounded by 324 teenagers who are tottering
      around in heels and ill-fitting short dresses.
1810  Get seated at restaurant.  But only in the figurative
      sense.  Seems the restaurant didn't plan on this many
      kids who want to sit crammed at the same tables, so
      they ran out of chairs.  We stand at our table for a
      minute before chairs become available.
1920  Finish dinner
1930  Do the requisite Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target and Best
      Buy circuit.  Get nothing.
2100  Go back to co-op house and spend rest of the evening
      talking to friends.
2330  Realize that we need to get up early and head home.

Sunday, 18 Oct. 2009

0005  Get home and get kids to bed.
0015  Crash into our own beds.
0016  Asleep.
0700  I am up before kids.  I know, hard to believe.
0730  Leave to pick up brother to head to sing at 8:30 service
0730  Yes, I said singing at 8:30.
0802  Arrive to practice for service.
0829  K, Nana, and the kids arrive at 8:30 service.
0855  Sing at service.
0859  K, kids, and I leave service to work w/ preschool choir
0900  Preschool choir/cat wrangling
0940  Lead preschoolers to regular Sunday School class
0941  Go back and get preschooler left in preschool choir room
0945  Try to purchase nectar of the gods (Cherry Coke Zero),
      only to find the machine sold out.  Of everything.
0947  Finally make it to my 9:30 Sunday School class
1045  Leave class early to go to sing with 11:15 service choir
1046  Run into potential architect for church expansion.  Spend
      the next hour talking to him.  Miss singing in choir.
1115  K and Nana pick up kids and head home.
1146  I head home.
1230  K and A head to A's ballet/tap class.
1300  Sit down with J to watch Redskins attempt to play football
1307  Decide watching "The Penguins of Madagascar" would be
      more entertaining for both of us.
1445  K and A arrive home
1446  The kids, K and I leave for another birthday party, this
      time at one of those inflatable bouncy-house-filled places
      Nana pretends to have malaria in order to get out of going.
1446  OK, she wasn't really sick.  It just sounded funny.
1531  Arrive at bouncy-house filled location.
1531  Yes, it was 45 minutes away.
1531  And the birthday boy's house is 5 minutes from our house.
1531  I guess all the local bouncy-house-filled places were full.
1620  Here's a grand idea.  Let's get kids all wound up with
      bouncing, then feed them cake.
1730  Drag kids out of bouncy-house-filled location.
1731  Kids have sugar crash, go comatose in car.
1810  Arrive home.
1811  Kids get second wind and wake up looking for cake.
1825  Try to feed kids some nutritionally balanced food for
      the first time in 48 hours.
1826  Kids want nothing to do with nutritionally balanced food.
1902  Try to wash dried cake and kid snot off of kids in bath.
1935  Kids protest going to bed.
1936  Kids crash.
1937  K and I want to crash, but have to clean up enough to be
      able to see the floor.
1937  Did I mention K's idea of cleaning is putting away all
      the toys, putting away all the dishes, scrubbing the 
      countertops and kitchen table, vacuuming, and drymopping?
1937  My idea of cleaning is shoving everything to one side.
2005  K and I finish cleaning and collapse in front of TV
2006  K falls asleep.
2130  I wake K up so we can go to bed (ironic, eh?)
2145  K and I head to bed.
2146  K and I fall asleep, dreaming of how relaxing work will
      feel after this weekend.