Mess With My Kids And...

Trawl around Facebook for any given length of time and you’ll undoubtedly see a lot of inspirational images with words emblazoned across a magnificent background, denoting how you should live, love, or leave those around you.  You also see ecards about wine and aging, but that’s beside the point.

A lot of times you see quotes about parenting.  You see pictures of parents doing it right, and you see a lot of pictures of parents doing it wrong or worse yet, missing children.  Then you see fifteen comments about how awful people can be, followed by one link to Snopes where you find out it’s all fake.

In any case, I’ve taken a different approach.    As it is, my kid is out of control.  I mean that in a good way.  She’s way too intuitive, but unrefined.   She said yesterday that she didn’t want to start first grade.  She was smart enough.  “You already told me I’m too smart for my own good.”

It’s only going to get worse, people.

Here would be my ecard/memes/etc.

I've Just Got A Lot To Say

Being five is hard.  I don’t really remember much about five.  I remember not crying the first day of kindergarten, securing my dignity for the next 33 years.  I remember taking my Star Wars record to school in the hopes that all the kids could dance to the soothing beats of John Williams.  In actuality, the teacher said, “You can’t dance to this.”  That’s when I put on the Cantina Song, like a boss.   But, I imagine it’s probably hard these days for a five year old to navigate the depths of Kindergarten in 2013, where you have to learn to read and count if you want to go to first grade.  My kid has had her share of trouble, mostly brought on by her personality.

They have a traffic light system for behavior.    If you’re completely awful, you get a red light.  If you do something wrong or get multiple warnings, you get a yellow light.   Walk the line and green is fine.  A blue light is reserved for the best of the ass kissers their school has to offer.  My kid has probably had equal amount of yellows as greens.  Most of the time, I question the validity of the punishment, but with her owning a tablet computer now, we gauge her use of it but what she brings home.  Sometimes, the explanations are a bit shady.

Like the time they were playing charades and she said, “Bum”, prompting her classmate to tell the teacher she said a potty word.  Well, that got her a yellow.  We interrogated her, because we were convinced she had to have said something worse.  Like, where could she have heard such language?  (troll face)  But she swore up and down that she did, in fact, not swear.  My wife eventually said, “Really?  You said bum?  Oh, for God’s sake, the teacher needs to get a life.”   And, of course, the next day, she got another yellow.  Her report stated that she informed her teacher that, “My mommy says you need to get a life.”   Well, apparently, everybody heard this statement at her school.  She was pretty up front with it.  

Then there was the time she was getting a couple of yellows, because she wouldn’t stop acting like an animal.   We had a long talk about “playing the game”.  “Look, I understand you’re five.  You pretend to be animals.  But, while you are in school, they don’t appreciate it.  So, don’t act like an animal at school.”  “OK”, she says.

A few weeks later, after a string of good reports and even a few blue lights, the yellow showed up again.   When we looked at her report, it said, “She was acting like a turkey.”   So, we told her,  “Look, didn’t we have this conversation?  We asked you to not act like an animal.  You promised us you would not do that in school.”  Her response?  “A turkey isn’t an animal.  It’s a bird.”   Now, I didn’t want to get into semantics over animal vs. bird.  So, we just face palmed.

Then, after a three day stretch of a green and two blues, she came home with another yellow.   “What did you do this time?”  She told her mother that she got into trouble for talking.  Her response to why, “I’ve just got a lot to say.”

Indeed, she does.   So, I am exploiting that trait.   She saw me playing a new game called Game Dev Tycoon and I was sucking pretty bad at it.  She offered advice on how to design a bestselling game and soon I was raking in the dough.    Later on that night, I decided to record her for an AngryCast video.

 

Mongo and Bailey Play Game Dev Tycoon
on The Angry Cast

Clever Girl

I’ve been trying to lose weight since Christmas.  28 pounds have come off since December and I notice the difference.  I haven’t done anything except eat better.   It’s not even that I have given up anything, I just don’t eat extra.  I’ve cut back on portions.  However, I may have hit that plateau where I need to step it up since I haven’t lost any weight in the last two weeks.

Naturally, the answer is exercise. 

If we can keep from being in a deep freeze out there, I’d like to get out and walk more.  My daughter always likes to go out and this is a good chance for us both to exercise and get some fresh air.   She’s more committed to the idea than I am, it seems.

Yesterday was a rather gloomy day, threatening with rain in the afternoon.  When I came home from work, she was being a bit rambunctious and wanted to go on our walk.   I was hesitant because the weather was not playing ball.  After insisting we go, I got tired of her getting herself into trouble otherwise and decided to just get outside with her to burn off some energy.

We started up the street and she wanted to go explore the neighborhood.  She doesn’t realize that, for as far away as you get from the house, you have that much ground to cover in getting back.   She wants to tackle the hills.  I want a nice easy walk and eventually work my way up to inclines.

“I want to go down the big hill.”  She says.

I reminded her, “Yeah, but then we have to come back up.” 

“Daddy, I have all this energy to burn off.  If we just go home, I will still have that energy.”

“So?”

“I’ll be bored.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“Daddy, if I’m bored, it will be your problem.”

We went down the big hill.

Now, on our way back to the house, I took it as an opportunity to help her do some reading.  She’s five and has to get this stuff nailed before first grade.  She managed to figure out “OAK” as in street, WATCH CHILDREN, and SPEED LIMIT. 

I saw one for a Fire Department Fish Fry and figured she would be able to decipher FIRE and FISH pretty easily.

She sounded out the F, the I, and the R and eventually came up with FIRE, but FISH was a little harder.

“Ffff – I…”

“Ok, now the next two letters are?”

“S and H”

“And together they make a sound like?”

“…”

“Sh sound.  They make a Sh sound.”

“Sh…  Does this say Shit?”

There endeth the lesson.

Rust Butt

If you were a modern day scientist or astronomer and went back in time to the Renaissance or even ancient Greece, imagine how silly explanations for every day events would sound. After all, Aristotle thought that maggots spontaneously generated from rotting flesh. And even in Gallileo’s time, there was debate on whether sun revolved around the Earth or vice versa.

But, you don’t have to be a scientist or a time traveler to enjoy the hilarity of how simple things are explained by someone not sure of what is actually happening. You just need to have a kid nearby.

I give you, my daughter’s explanation of rust butt. Now, to set this up, I have to explain that last August we went to a local park with a giant metal slide. It’s pretty well known in the area. To ride it, people usually take wax paper or cardboard to keep from cut down on the friction. On her first trip down the slide, my kid lost the wax paper and managed to get the equivalent to an Indian Rug Burn on her ass. She waited seventh months to come up with this theory.

Daugter: “Remember when we went down the giant slide and it rained?”
Me: “Yeah.”

Daughter: “I actually know how that happened.”

Me: “What?”

Daughter: “I know how my butt got all red.”

Me: “OK. How?”

Daughter: “Well, the slide was made of metal and my butt was wet. (from the rain) And water and metal don’t go well together, so my butt was red because it rusted.”

She’ll be up for the Noble prize in physics by third grade, I’m sure of it.

What Happens When You're Not Paying Attention to Kids

Every now and again, my kid gets out all her old toys from when she was two or three and plays with them.  This cause my wife and I grief because the house gets littered with all her stuff which then has to find its way back into her room with enough space left for her to fit at bed time.

Most of the time she sits there playing with a few toys while watching television.  The ability for me to get some time to watch the backlog of my recorded shows is null unless one of those shows has Dora in it.

The rare occasions when she goes to her room to play allow me to watch television but I pay for it when I see the mess she has made in her room.

Today, she proved once again she is smarter than both her parents.   While I wasn't paying attention, she pulled this off all by herself.

Her old baby doll pack and play.

He removed the dangling animal cross bar.

One of her pony tail holders

Instant giraffe headdress

She showed it to me and I did not make the connection.  It never once dawned on me to ask how she managed to make this headband.  Then I actually looked at it when she took it off and put it down.

She took the pony tail holder and looped it around the ends of the cross bar.

She's five.  Now, I am biased when it comes to how smart she is.  I think she's a friggin' genius.  How many five year-olds could come up with this idea and application using two unrelated items?  This is not the first time she's engineered something like this.   When she was four, she assembled her own decorations.

Then again, she uses this thing to pretend to be a giraffe. 

Eh, she's still a genius.

Four Seasons To a Four Year Old

Bailey on Christmas Morning

Twice a week, I pick my daughter up from the petri dish that is Kinder Care.  This is where she got the stomach flu from last week.  Apparently, there were four cases prior to hers and we just found out about them today. 

On our drive home we discuss what she did that day and I ask her, "Were you good, today?"  to which she replies, "Check the sheet, Daddy."  

She's four. 

She then asks if I brought her Bunny Milk, better known as Nestle's Quik.   I tell her that I came straight from work and didn't have time to stop and get some from home.   She gets a little upset and doesn't understand why I don't automatically have some on me when I drive the hour long commute from the other side of Pittsburgh. 

She's four.

She asks all kind of other questions like why it's dark or daylight outside when I pick her up.  Since late November, I've explained that it gets darker at an earlier time during the Fall and Winter, and in the Spring and Summer, it stays daylight longer.  This baffles her. 

She's four.

So, here it is the second month of Winter and it's starting to stay lighter, later, and she asked why.  I told her again about the seasons and then asked her if she knew what the seasons were called.

She said, "Um, Halloween?" 

She's four.

"No,"  I said,  "That's a holiday in a season."  I then called out the seasons and asked if she knew what was the first season of the year was. 

"Winter!"

"Correct!  Now what comes after Winter?"

"Halloween!"   She exclaims.

She's four.

"No.  Honey, look..."  I then began sounding out the first syllable of Spring and she got it.  Then we moved onto Summer and after sounding out the first syllable, she got that right.  Then, she got Fall very quickly and back to Winter.   I then asked her if she knew what came after Winter, again.

"Halloween?"  She asked. 

She's four.

"They just keep repeating.  Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.  Got it?  There's four.  OK, now, which comes after Winter?"

"Daddy, let's just focus on the bunny milk, OK?"
 
She's four...

Class dismissed.

WUMF: December Edition

Another year has ended and once again, I bring you WUMF!

I had planned on having this in on New Year's Eve, but unfortunately forces were working against me.

Guards On Slicers Not Just Suggestions
I said forces were working against me.   My wife got a new Slicer/Chopper for Christmas and decided to bust it out in order to cook up New Year's Eve dinner for midnight.  It's called a Genius chopper and apparently, we were unqualified to operate it. 

My wife said, "Well how do I get the onions to be slivers for the pierogis?"  I said, "Look, it's simple."  I added in the slicer attachment and then proceeded to slice up an onion and then a small chunk of my finger.  "Way to go, dumbass."  It was just a little bit, not even noteworthy.  So, I said, "Well, that's why you use the guard.  You stick it on the onion and slide it back and forth."

As I went into the bathroom to get a bandage for my finger I hear, "OW!" and then some four letter word.  "What happened, genius?"  Turns out, my wife couldn't stand to be showed up by me and took an even bigger chunk out of her right ring finger.  We couldn't get it to stop bleeding.  We tried everything.  At one point, I thought we were going to end up at the ER, which is typical for us around the holidays.  Most people use the holidays to get together with family and enjoy the company and the event.  We use it as an excuse to try and max out our medical deductible. 

Well, my father-in-law came over and was able to properly dress her finger, cause I left with a light bulb looking bandage which quickly soaked up a lot of blood.  After she was settled down, the festivities needed to continue, so, the second string came in to cook the food and get everything ready.  That would be me.  I should have tried harder to get out of work. 

Christmas
My kid's fourth Christmas was apparently her 14th.  This year she sat among the boxes and made two piles of gifts.  I asked her what each pile was.  She said, "One is the presents I wanted and the other is stuff I didn't want."  I asked her which was which.  She said that the one with the toys was the pile she really wanted.  She then proceeded to say, "See, Daddy.  Even when I'm bad I get presents.

Work
As I close in on a full year at my new job, it's hard to realize that it has been a full year.  I left nearly ten years of service, over three weeks of vacation and a lot of friends.  And you know what?  It was the right decision.  Even though there are challenges in my new job, some good, some bad, I know that it was time for me to go.  Not saying why, just that my later mother-in-law would have approved of the change.

WDVE shakeup
WTF?!?  Last year, Randy Baumann suddenly disappeared from the morning show.  He was brought back about a month later.  Now, Jim Krenn, who has been the long time morning show host, has disappeared from the air since December 6th.  No word on why or if he'll be back.  There isn't a contract to be negotiated and even though I only get to listen to about an hour of the show, I've noticed that Krenn hasn't been on between 6 and 7am all year.  The running gag was always that Jim only works two weeks out of the year, so speculation is only set to run wild.  

In the long run money is probably a factor here.  Money and ratings.   Regardless, if he is gone, it's a big change to morning radio for me.  I was a bit uneasy about Randy Baumann taking over for Scott Paulsen 12 years ago but I've adjusted to it.  I don't know if it will be the same here.

Free Time
For Christmas I got Uncharted 3, Dead Island, and Call of Duty MW3.  The only thing I forgot to ask Santa for was free time.  I've been playing Dead Island and it's pretty sweet and sometimes a tad unsettling.  Most of the zombies are Romero speed but the Infected, as they are called are more like Zack Snyder or Danny Boyle speed zombies.   In fact, there are a tons of pop culture nods to all things zombies and other stuff.  One sign painted on a wall says, "Don't Open.  Dead Inside"   At another point, the main character has to go look for a crashed plane from Oceanic Air, a nod to lost.    It's fun and sick and gory and I'm finding it hard to do anything else, like cook New Year's dinner because my wife sliced up her finger.  lol.

Happy New Year!

Graceful

I am in no way a very religious person. We’ll leave it at that. My kid already has a firm grasp on what death means when we lost my mother-in-law. No child should have to experience a loss like that at the age of two. Still, she’s a trooper and managed to come out wiser than her peer group. And while I may not hold the same belief structure as my wife, I am trying to honor her wishes and raise our daughter in alignment with hers. When she gets older, she can eventually make her own decisions based on all the available information about what she chooses to believe.

That all being said, at the dinner table in our home, we do say grace. Usually, my wife or father-in-law will be the one to say it. Although, this past Sunday, my daughter wanted to take a stab at it. Wondering where this was going to go and expecting a train wreck, we entertained her request and prepared for something out of the ordinary. At least, we’d get a laugh out of it.

Here's a dramatic re-enactment.

I shit you not. She went into the full version of the Pledge of Allegiance, word for word, spot on. As she was saying it, my wife and I both slowly looked up and then at each other, smiling from ear to ear.

Apparently, she learned this at preschool. My father-in-law said, “How many four year-olds can do that?” I guess at least one classroom full.

For Thanksgiving, we’re hoping she whips out the “Star Spangled Banner”.
Somewhere, in the aether, there is a shit eating grin and cackles of laughter. It would have made her Grammy’s day.

It's a Beautiful Song

It's a Daddy-Daughter weekend, once a month, when my wife has to work.   Sometimes, we go all over the place.  Sometimes, we just veg out at the house.  It is never a dull moment though.

This past weekend I had a lot to do and had to bring the little one with me.  First, I had a haircut to get and she was an angel, even managing to negotiate her way into a lollipop and a free nail painting, instead of having what she really wanted, a haircut. 

Next, its off to get the oil changed at Walmart, which is always fun, from a sarcastic point of view.   Then, it's to the Buy Backs to see what pre-owned Wii game, I can get for me and my Father-in-law.

And, if she's really a good girl, she'll get a trip to McDonald's to play on the slide.  Of course, right now she's glued to the game screen over behind the giant Big Mac.... she's my daughter.

However, one the way here, she sat in the back of the car, wearing sunglasses and looking cool.  I was flipping through radio stations, avoiding 96.1 as much as possible because I hate Ke-dollar sign-HA, Katy Exploding Boobs Perry and generally other pop bubblegum, played ever hour music.  

As I scanned the dial, I slid, unknowingly into a Celine Dion song on the lite rock station.  I quickly switched it and this little voice shot out of the back, "Hey, put that back on!"

I couldn't believe it.   "You mean this song?" as I put back on Celine's 'Because You Loved Me'.

"Yeah.  I like that song."

"Kiddo, you don't even know that song.  Mommy doesn't like that song.  Daddy doesn't listen to that song.  Why do you want to."

"Because it's a beautiful song."  She said. 

"Fine."

We sat in the parking lot of McDonald's until it was over.   Somewhere, I've wronged my child.   My constant barrage of Rush, Journey, Led Zeppelin, The Refreshments, The Clarks, AC/DC, Warren Zevon, and other classic acts just hasn't sunk in enough.   I weep for the future.  

Actually, I don't.  She's still cooler than me.  Celine and all.

My Kid, the Artist

My daughter loves to draw.  We go to restaurants and out come the Crayons and away go our place mats as she commandeers them for her masterpieces.  She's four, so I give her a lot of leeway.  She's not Monet or Picasso.  She's just a kid with an eye for color and design.

After a long day of work I get a lot of joy from being greeted by her and her latest artwork.   Today was no exception.   Here is her rendition of a brontosaurus.

 

I'll be here all week folks, tip your servers.

Hell, forget the tip, give them the whole thing. 

I'll Never Cook Again

This declaration was made after my daughter’s birthday party this past weekend.

It’s not that I cook, now. I know. And even if I did I could hear the naysayers… saying nay…

- nay saying…

- naying?

- bitching at me and my wife for not cooking four only child’s birthday. Well, nay away. Here’s why it was a blessing to not have to cook.

For the past three years we have been having cookouts for my kid’s birthday. It’s the day after Independence Day which usually means it doubles as the official holiday cookout or gets moved to a nearby weekend to avoid the work week. Usually, we do the usual grilling fare, and I spend four hours grilling up food as well as taking care of things like wayward children, filling up coolers, etc. Normally, my wife and I do not get to enjoy the party.

This year was especially daunting as we tried to offset the scheduling conflicts of family and friends by moving it to the week after the fourth. That gave us extra time to clean, shop, etc. Still, we both looked at each other and wanted to cry.

We’ve been having issues with our pool. It’s one of those Intex brands one that I inherited from my brother. He bought a new pool and I got that one. The pump/filter that comes with it couldn’t cycle a 50 gallon fish tank properly. The pump barely sucks enough water to get a flow going and the paper filter cartridge suffers from poor design issues as it never fits right, leading to the pump not working properly. So, I had been in the market for a better pump since last year.

One of my old teachers from high school happened to have a Hayward DE pump and filter. It was a couple years old and hadn’t been used for a year. I bought it for $200 along with various parts and fittings over Memorial Day. With a vacation at the beginning of June we didn’t get it set up until the middle of the month. Now, I must say that because I’m an idiot and didn’t have a proper cover, the pool remained exposed to the elements all fall and winter resulting in lots of leaves, bugs and dirt residing in it.

Trying to clean a 16 ft. pool with even a more powerful than needed pump/filter is going to be hard. If I would have just resigned myself to draining and refilling the pool, I would have saved myself two weekends of screwing around with trying to keep the pump working.

Needless to say, I finally got it up and running, properly, on the Fourth of July weekend. That left me with a week to get everything else done. That meant yard needed cut, house needed cleaned and food needed to be bought. It was just too much for us to handle.

My wife made the executive decision at the beginning of the month to just get the party catered. Is that lazy of us? I say no. Is that frivolous of us to spend the money? I say no. Here’s why.

In the scheme of things we would have ended up paying the same amount for all of the food and then cooking it ourselves. Because we were cooking it, we would have lost time that we so desperately needed to run around and pick up supplies, the cake, the balloons, and anything else needed. We’d also find ourselves taking longer to eat as you can only prepare so much food ahead of time, leading to later meal times and less time for enjoying the other stuff.

We went with a local place called Skis and Nick’s. I’ve had their food before and it’s pretty good. We ordered one of their predefined menus which included batter dipped chicken, penne noodles and sauce, a potato, a vegetable, a deli tray, a garden salad, a fruit salad, rolls, buns, and relish tray. At $9.25 + tax, per person it might sound like a lot. However, we also got all of the napkins, plates, utensils, condiments and carryout containers to go with it. Not to mention, they included the use of a hot box to keep the hot items hot. Now, all I had to do was go pick it all up, uncover it and serve.

By the way, the food was delicious. We had leftovers which was great because we were dead tired yesterday and didn’t want to have to worry about dinner. And, we got to visit, eat and enjoy the party, for once. Like I said, we’ll never cook again for parties.

Emails Written That Will Never Be Sent

Today marks the one year anniversary of the passing of my mother-in-law. In true of our relationship, I’ll compose an email that will never get sent. We both worked for the same company up until her death and we usually communicated via email throughout the day.

---

Good morning,

Well, the bad news is that you’re still gone. That sucks. There’s been a ton of stuff that you would have gotten a kick out of over the last year. I’ll make sure to send another message with attached pictures. You’ll love them.


April
Yeah, not much to report here. April really sucked. The rest of the year sucked as well, but April was definitely the worst. Nice work with the tree by the way. A week after you go and a damn storm took out Moyer’s shed. What the hell was that all about? Was that a sign that he needed to get that tree out of there or get the shed redone? Well, it’s still there, even though my dad and uncle came over late in the year to help get rid of the tree. Hopefully, we can get it figured out once the year dries up.

Your grave site is very nice. It seems morbid to talk about that but you would have loved it. We will spend a lot of time visiting and taking Bailey to feed the ducks and the fish at the pond. Also, on another morbid note, I took the opportunity to get our own plots. It’s very unsettling to think I now have a final resting place. After all, I figured I would live forever. I mean that quite literally. I’m sure I’m wrong, given all the health issues I will probably face. It’s also unsettling to think that not only does your daughter have one; your granddaughter does, as well. I hope we never have to use any of them.


May
First of all, Mother’s Day really sucked, although, Bailey managed to keep us laughing with her little bits of cuteness. She made sure we sent some balloons to Kevin’s for you.

Moyer’s birthday had a little celebration to it. We did a dual birthday for him and Ronnie. Vail made an impression on Bailey and now she includes him in her prayers.

Oh yeah, and someone took your cell phone number. I know. Pisses me off, too. Because I have those meat hook banana hands I often find myself pushing your speed dial number when I try to call someone and it gives me a moment of sadness.

Well, at least you’d be happy with Moyer for breaking out the Wii. Sucks that it took your death to get us to do that. He and I spend most evenings shooting everything in sight on the games we play. Bailey loves the one we have, House of the Dead 2 and 3. I know it’s probably not good for a three year old to be seeing that but she understands the difference between games and real life and isn’t scared by it. She calls it the ‘booby guy game.’ There is a bit where a few, very large, shirtless zombie men come after you. Yes, the kid is nuts.

June
The trip to beach was bittersweet. You would have loved the house we had and cracked up at the sounds of gunshots that echoed through the neighborhood when we fired up the Wii with Cabela’s 2010 and forgot to check the volume knobs for the surround sound, outside of the house.

You also missed the cavalcade of steaks I cooked up. I know you’ve had this thing about meat, especially beef and I hope that you’ve learned, ironically, how short life is and to not worry about stuff like that. For all the concern over lemons and beef and other things, it was the stupid blood thinner that caused you the biggest problem. Still, the steaks were awesome and I would have made you eat one because we had so damn many of them leftover.

 

You would have also gotten a kick out of crabbing. It was a bit pointless since we didn’t catch enough to eat but still, it was an interesting process. Damn things bit me. As soon as it happened, I could just faintly hear the snort and laugh that would have come out of you.

You also missed another great moment. Jeremy visited and brought along his girlfriend. She’s a keeper. I think you would have agreed. They’ll be with us this year. We took a trip up to the 4x4 section and you would have liked it. You’re probably a little pissed that you can’t go this year and see the house we’re getting. I know you are not a big fan of the pool temp when it’s not heated and it would have been a bit cold. However, we have a plan.

Lastly, you truly missed out on Captain George’s. You would have been knee deep in that flan. Looking forward to going there again, next year. Unfortunately, being in the four wheel drive section will limit us to probably one visit this time.

Oh, and you can blame me for your grave marker. I know, somewhere, your saying, “Asshole”, for my benefit. You’re welcome. Hey, they disregarded my first suggestion which was, “How am I doing?”


July
Like always, you have a way with throwing a party and you are probably upset that you can’t add your personal touch. Bailey had a wonderful birthday and even Fourth of July was fun for the most part. You would have liked the fireworks from our vantage point.


August and September
The only thing of note is seeing what has happened around here… work I mean. Yes, there is a bit of mass exodus. Doesn’t surprise me, considering. I’m still looking and getting tired of doing it. You know of my pursuit to find a better career and all I can say is, maybe you got lucky. I mean the early retirement not the permanent one… I’ve even expanded my search to start up companies. I know how you feel about that idea. Don’t think I haven’t completely thought about what that would mean. It could disintegrate in an instant. Believe me, your voice is in the back of my head harping about benefits and security and everything. Just know that for every start up that folds because they can’t hack it, there is probably another large, well established company that has just outsourced another sector of its workforce to save a buck. I may face the same reality that you did when we got bought. It’s coming. I don’t know when, but it’s a matter of time and you know as well as I do that I’d be on the chopping block. We’d both be, especially since you aren’t here to protect us.

I’m sorry about Woody. Well, at least, he’s with you, now, if you actually did make it somewhere. He was just too sick and it’s not like he was getting any younger. He was 24 years old. Unfortunately, your prediction that your mother and that cat would outlive you came true. She’s fine by the way. Anyway, it was just another stupid moment of 2010 that I wish we could have avoided. Poor little bastard. I was supposed to be there with your daughter for moral support and I was the one who came unglued. Too much death this year.


October
This is when it really sucks. It’s the beginning of the holiday season. I think you would have loved Bailey’s outfit, a little ladybug. She had her first real trick or treating adventure. The men toughed it out here, giving out treats as usual, but we had an added bonus. We used your gift from Christmas to keep us warm. I know it probably makes you go, “What the hell?”, when you realize that you gave us the fire pit 10 months ago and we finally used it, now. We did use it a couple of times over the summer but the real test was using it on Halloween. You would have been in there with a marshmallow, making your own smores. As usual, your little girl did you proud. I know that there is always that moment when she wishes she could ask you for help in cooking or putting together a party. I know we sort of suck at it, but she is her mother’s daughter. Genetics plays a huge roll and she’s taken the mantle very adeptly.

Also, I know you are probably a bit disappointed in us over dinners. Believe me, I show the biggest amount of collateral damage of your death. I’ve gained almost 30 pounds since April. When I saw the pictures of me as Thing 1 from Halloween, I realized how bad looked. I also realized how bad I felt after trying to carry Bailey up the steps after another fat filled dinner out at a restaurant or fast food joint. I’m going to start trying to lose weight. I mean seriously lose some weight.

It sucks because we never eat at your place anymore. Part of it is because it’s still too raw of a wound to poke at. The other is that we just simply don’t cook and we can’t expect Moyer to do it all. He’s still working, ya know. Yet, I think you’d be proud at how we’ve managed to cope and keep going.

November
Happy Birthday. : (

I’ll have you know that I was thoroughly impressed with your daughter’s first attempt at cooking a Thanksgiving Day turkey. Except for the fact that we all had the stomach flu, which happened prior to dinner, it was tasty. I pretty much ate leftover turkey for the next week. Well, that’s what happens when you die. You don’t get to partake in turkey sandwiches. Sucks to be you.


December
Merry Christmas : (

Yes, we threw out your love seat. Willow is breathing a sigh of relief.
That thing was a death trap for the cats and except for losing the extra seating, it opens up the room a bit more for Bailey’s toys.

I managed to convince your daughter to decorate for Christmas, even though she didn’t want to. It was for Bailey’s sake. Of course, that screws me because I have to help do the decorating. Yeah, and by the way, once again, ‘eff you for dying. That leaves a bunch of decorations for your daughter to inherit and believe me, I’m not happy about that. We have enough crap in this house, half of which we don’t use.

On a more positive note, I did get a new job, right before Christmas. Giving my two week notice right before I took the last two weeks of the year off for vacation would have gotten a ‘Good boy’ from you, I’m sure of it. Your old buddy at HQ told me that it was one of your secret wishes for us. It gave me a little sadness that you didn’t get to share in that conversation about getting the job. The fact that you secretly wished that both myself and your other daughter would get a better job, somewhere else, tells me I made the right decision. Of course, I am getting a bit of a raw deal. I have to go 45 days without benefits. Your advice would have been greatly appreciated in this matter.

On an even more positive note, I managed to lose the weight I gained after you died.  I can't promise that I'll keep losing the weight but I'm trying.


January
A new year hopefully brings a better one. What the hell is up with the cold and snow? Figures. I get a new job that takes me out towards the airport and two things happen. Hell freezes over and gas prices skyrocket. I spent the better part of two evenings stuck in traffic, trying to get home. I had to nearly miss your daughter’s birthday dinner because I had to drive all over Hell’s half acre trying to go visit my poor mother, who had a hip replacement up in Passavant UPMC. Priorities are a bitch. It just made better sense since I was already on this end of the world. Everything would have been fine but the doctors took forever to get her into her room. Thanks for being there, by the way. You know what I mean. You also know how I feel about that stuff, but I’m willing to accept that maybe I should at least be appreciative that it could be true.

February
Damn Steelers lost. Oh, by the way, your daughter stole your Polamalu jersey. I got my own, so don’t look at me. Valentine’s Day sucks, well for Moyer anyway. I know it’s not one of your bigger holidays but it’s still another excuse to be in a shitty mood because someone you love isn’t around.

You’re little fuzzy babies are soooo big, now. I know you probably miss them but I’m sure you at least have Woody and Lulu on your lap, somewhere, which makes you smile, or irate depending on how crowded it gets in that recliner you got.


March
Nothing much new, here. Yes, Bailey is coming up with some interesting things to say, all of which are not my fault.  I’m sure it will only get worse.

Your daughters need you more than ever, and by extension so do I.  I won’t give you the gory details but you understand.


April
Finally a break in the weather and the first year without you is finally over. Hopefully, this year will be a little better. There aren’t a lot of perennial events that you haven’t already missed by now, which means the worst part is over. It just really sucks because I think we’re finally starting to accept and move on, which means it will be harder to keep the memory as fresh.

Yes, we have pictures but not a lot of video so that Bailey can hear your voice and see you in motion. Of course she still remembers you and wishes you could be here. We all do. I just find myself unable to place you into a conversation as, ‘I know what she would say if she were here.’

It wasn’t that you were predictable. It was that you left that much of an impression that you were able to be utilized for any scenario. Whenever your daughter asks me for advice, I always say, ‘WWMD’. Of course, she didn’t listen you when you were alive, so I guess I’m doing it for my own benefit.

---

I’ll be sure and keep you update on the rest of year. Take care and keep us safe. And help us put a filter on Bailey. She doesn’t seem to understand that you shouldn’t always speak your mind. I blame you for that. : )

Double, Double, Bailey Is In Trouble

You want to believe your kids. You want to believe that when they say they saw the bogeyman in their closet with blood soaked fangs, a sharpened ridge of spines on their back and a thirst for child flesh. You know, however, that it’s simply a shirt or some other outfit hanging in their closet that takes on the grisly form they described. Yet, you know that they think they saw it and you believe that they believed it.

Confused?

My three year old is finishing up her first full year of Kindercare in a couple of months and it’s been a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because she gets that socialization and structured learning that she’s going to need. It gives my wife and my father-in-law a much needed break from having to watch her while I’m at work. It also gives my wife the chance to go back to work as well. The downside is that you get the four months of chronic ear infections and a membership to the green mustache brigade. You also get the reality check that your kid is a hellion at school as well as at home. Sometimes, we can bribe the kid for good behavior. For this week, we promised that if she was a good girl, we’d go to McDonald’s on Thursday night.

We did this because we had a bit of an issue with the little one drawing on chalkboards with unapproved writing tools. I picked her up on Tuesday and saw a chalkboard in her cubby. I have no idea why it was there, nor do I know why it had appeared to have been scribbled on with a marker. I gathered my kid from the next room and off we went. She immediately apologized to me for something. I asked why she was saying she was sorry. “I didn’t mean to do it. It was an accident. Are you mad at me?” I still have no idea what she had done. It was almost as if she was trying to get me to absolve her of any wrong doing before knowing what she had done. I asked her what happened. She rattled off a story about a chalkboard. I pieced together the fragments and figured out that she drew on the chalkboard with something other than chalk and got in trouble for it. The teachers did not tell me what happened and I didn’t ask. Putting a chalk board in the cubby doesn’t tell me much and there was nothing on her report that indicated there was a problem.

I asked my wife to inquire on Thursday when she dropped her off in the morning. When I talked to my wife that afternoon and remembered about the chalkboard, I asked if she had talked to the teacher but it was already too late to discuss it. I figured I would ask when I picked her up. When I went into her room at the end of the day, I saw the chalkboard in her cubby. It looked like it was still there from the other day. I gathered up all my kid’s things and went to go collect her, outside. I asked about the chalkboard and her teacher said she drew on it with marker before and then did it again, today. Now, I was upset. I had just had this heartfelt apology on Tuesday about the chalkboard with a promise that she’d never do it again and now I find out that she broke that promise.

Once we got in the car, I asked her why she drew on the chalkboard with marker.

She said, “I didn’t do that today.”
I said, “Your teacher told me you did it.”
“But I didn’t do that today.”

At this point, I noticed a difference in her voice. At anytime when she is lying about something she has a certain tone to her voice. This particular instance was different and it sounded totally sincere. But, I didn’t let her know that. I wanted to draw more information out of her and see if she really was telling the truth.

“Honey, why would the teacher lie? She has no reason to lie to me. You run the risk of losing McDonald’s.”
“Daddy, I didn’t do that today.”
“Ok, well, I want to really believe you.”
“I love McDonald’s and I want to go there.”
“I know. It’s just that I need to discuss this with your Mommy and decide if you deserve to go.”
“Daddy, I deserve to go.”
“Why do you deserve to go?”
“Because I want to go and I love McDonald’s.”
“OK, but I still plan on telling Mommy about the chalkboard and we’ll see.”

Pause…

“You know what, Daddy?”
“What?”
“Snitches are witches.”

Chekov's Garage

My wife hates my inability to throw away seemingly useless items. My garage is filled with these things. There’s a 4x8 piece of cardboard that covered our patio table while it was in the box. There are various curtain rods that serve no purpose. From the standpoint of an outside observer, these items are clutter, junk, refuse, or signs that I may be a hoarder. All of these are true but, though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

Now, I am a product of my upbringing. My father is famous for repurposing useless items into ‘wonderful things’. He built an entire charcoal grill out of an old lawnmower, 55 gallon drum, swing set, and countertops. To that point, he also built a forge out of an old charcoal grill and a ShopVac.  I may have mentioned it before.

Additionally, I spent a great deal of my childhood playing old school text adventure games where you would acquire items, that held no obvious value, only to use them later on in a crucial part of a quest. A more up to date example would be the envelope of items that Ben Affleck receives in the movie Paycheck.

Still, regardless of the value of an item, I can eventually find a use for it. It may not be pretty or ideal, but it does the trick. I often find myself wishing I had something that I had already thrown away whenever I’m trying to patch something in the house. “If we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.”

And so the torch gets passed to another generation, as I found my three year old doing some decorating for Easter. She felt the need to hang her own decorations, such as hanging a triangle (musical instrument) on the handles of our hutch and a square of toilet paper (unused, thankfully) on a nail in our living room wall.

But what impressed me most was an empty Rogurt box hanging from another nail. It was slated to be put into the trash, once I actually replaced the full trash bag with an empty one, that is. But, sitting on the counter, she eyed it and saw a purpose for it. Unfortunately, it had no way of being hung on the nail, so she found a way to make it work. She took a Silly Bandz, wrapped it around the cardboard lid flap and then hung the entire box on the nail, using the Silly Bandz to hang it on the nail.

My wife was prepared to throw it away until she noticed how my daughter had managed to hang it. She neither intervened nor helped out daughter figure out how to solve the hanging problem.

Simply left to her own devices, a three year old solved a design problem. She’s either destined to pursue a career in engineering or be a useful hoarder like her father and grandfather.

The House Of Maybe

Whenever I wanted something as a child I would go to my parents and say, “Oh, dearest mother and/or father, if you could find it in your magnanimous heart I entreat you, might I have that toy and/or candy, there, in the aisle betwixt the Chapstick and the National Enquirer?” Well, that’s what my brain said, my mouth sounded more like “GIMMIE! GIMMIE! GIMMIE! PLEASE? OOOH, I’LL NEVER ASK FOR ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!” My parents were calm and collective and immediately returned an answer of “Maybe.”

Maybe? What the hell is this maybe, crap? Can I have it or can’t I? The indecision is killing me. So of course, I would continue to ask if a decision was made. That is a path to rejection. Maybe leads to pestering. Pestering leads to annoyance. Annoyance leads to NO!

I hated that. I hated when I would ask for something and I would get maybe as an answer. Getting “Maybe” as a response was like a the insurance in Blackjack. It’s a sucker bet. Any kid who hears maybe as a decision is morally obligated to continually ask again and again which always leads to the same final answer of “No.” It was almost like baiting a child to piss you off into saying it. There it is, “maybe,” sitting in the middle of a forest with no one around. A child slinks along the treeline, stalking its prey. The “maybe” sits there enticing the child. “No one is around to stop you, go ahead.” The child hesitantly walks up and taps at the word. Jumping back to see if a trap gets sprung. Nothing happens. The child once again, more cautiously sneaks up on the word and taps at it. Jumping back, but not as much. Now, full of confidence, the child brazenly walks up to the word and grabs it, full force, and begins to yank at it. It notices the string but it’s already too late. The trap is sprung and soon the carefully woven net of “No” surrounds the child, capturing it in its grasp with no chance of escape. Another one caught.

Maybe. What the hell?

But now I am a parent and the constant barrage of “Can I have a cookie?” or “Can we race the car?” comes from the mouth of my three year old. We have to restaurants that we frequently patronize and in both there is a small area for games. One has a racing game and the other has a couple of crane games. We used to be able to fool her into believing that the demo of the racing game was her actually playing it but she caught on rather quickly and said, “Daddy, you have to put quarters in there to make it go.” With the crane games, she doesn’t accept the fact that the machines are geared towards not paying out, with the exception of the candy one which allows you to play until you win. So, as we make our way out in the evening for dinner and she says, “Can I race the car” or when we go to the grocery store and pass by the bakery prompting her to ask for a cookie, I have fallen into that same answer strategically employed by my parents. “Maybe,” I say to her. Then the cycle repeats all over again as it did when I was a child.

But, I add a caveat to the answer. “Maybe, but you have to be a good girl and sit quietly and eat your dinner.” And for the most part we manage to get more results out of her than if we were to just say “Maybe” and be done with it. She hasn’t quite caught on to the length of time that should pass yet and when I say, “In a minute” she immediately equates a minute to a few seconds between her asking the first time and the second time. She’s getting better but there are instances where I catch myself saying “maybe” when I really mean no but I don’t want a full blown three alarm meltdown from saying it. Sometimes, she forgets what she asked but she has a pretty good memory and calls me on it. Perhaps she is baiting me into a trap and the hunter is suddenly becoming the hunted.
Maybe.

Best Friends

My daughter has a best friend and she’s only two. I would think that, at such an age, she would not be able to comprehend the idea of friendship. She gets it, though. It’s not the kind of friend you find on Facebook. There was no need to confirm or explain the details. It just automatically happened. One day, she looked up and there he was. She smiled and that was all it took.

She makes time to sit and watch Sprout or just run around and play with her friend. They don’t spend every waking moment together, but they are pretty close. My wife asks her what she thinks of her friend and she simply replies, “My favorite.” They share adventures together and sometimes a cup of “pretend” tea. There has even been a muffin or two served. She even wears an oven mitt when she gets into her play oven to retrieve them. My wife pretends not to notice because she likes to just sit and watch them play, uninterrupted. They even share secrets. She has whispered in her friend’s ear a few times, although she doesn’t understand the concept of volume enough to bring it down to where nobody else can hear it.

I’m sure, one day, like most of our childhood friends, they will grow distant. Eventually, she’ll move on to new friends, but I hope she never forgets her because the first “best friend” is the one by which all others shall be measured against. I remember my first best friend when I was a child. I was probably only two or three at the time but, I still recall the times we spent together. It’s not the same thing, but with friends, it doesn’t matter. Friendship is universal, no matter what the case.

Little One's Best Friend

Intuitive Counter

I am in for so much trouble, I can just tell. I think my wife and I have given our 18 month old daughter way too much freedom. We used to have physical boundaries in the form of plastic storage bins for decorations that kept her from wandering around to the various drawers and cabinets that contain all the fun stuff like knives and pans. It saves me from admitting that we need cabinet door locks and outlet covers. She’s getting to be the right height to open doors. Every week another danger rears its ugly head. I can’t rely on what worked yesterday as a rule of thumb. Usually, unless she knows something opens or has moving parts, she just assumes that it’s part of the background. It’s not until she notices you open something then she realizes she can open it as well.

Since the holidays came around we have taken down the barriers and the child roams free when we watch her. It would have been hard to explain to guests why we had these huge plastic totes barricading our daughter into the living room as if it was the wall between Mexico and the United States. At one point, before Christmas, as we were putting them away, I swore I saw a tiny David Hasselhoff singing on top of the remaining tote. He then picked up tiny fake cheeseburger toy off the floor and proceeded to it eat. But, now she goes into the kitchen begins to open drawers and doors and sees shiny objects inside. We had tried to be very discreet about not letting her see us do that. Somehow, she evolved, adapted, and overcome. Now, we’ve had to up our game. We’ve had to really become parents. We just went from defense to offense.

You see, as a parent I’ve had to learn a lot of things. Two very important traits are discipline and consistency. In other words, you have to be consistent in your disciplining of the child. Actually, I’m being facetious, in a way. In high school I took Sociology and found it to be the hardest yet most rewarding class. We did a whole segment on child development which nearly caused me to fail the class. Each student was given a different developmental period to master for a project and then a cumulative test touched on all stages of childhood development. I couldn’t make heads or tails on any of it. I didn’t understand that a lot happens in those first few years. While it may seem brief, the psychological development of a child surpasses the physical development of a human being over its entire life. There is so much to learn in that short amount of time. The only physical attributes that get honed are balance and dexterity. That’s just practice.

Now, I will say that, regardless of how little I know about child development, this kid is smart. Too smart for her own good. All the books in the world will never nail down a specific time frame for when a child should perform a certain action but I know we are either on target or ahead of schedule. So, it came as no surprise when the little one began to question authority. I think that developed while still in the womb. So, when I say that you need discipline. I mean that you have to be willing to make the child upset when it’s time for bed or bath time. You have to be ready to be the bad guy at a moment’s notice. You cannot make idle threats and not back them up or you’ve given the child carte blanche to ignore your authority. I credit my wife for having a well honed bullshit detector. She gets a lot of practice on me alone. Children are especially good at sniffing out BS like a prized pig can sniff out the best truffles. With my kid, she gets the added benefit of my wife’s DNA. If you tell the child you will send them to bed for acting up, you better have them packing if they do it again.

With consistency, that’s more of a team effort. If my wife forbids an action, I have to forbid it, too. Otherwise, the kid will pit your sympathy against their authority. For example, we give my daughter these little cereal puffs that come in a container. My wife doesn’t allow her to carry around the whole container because she tends to spill them all onto the floor. I like to get out a handful and put them in a little dish for the child to work from as an exercise in fine manipulation. The child sees this as a process improvement in efficiency. Sure, these little fingers can grasp one puff at a time, but if I lick my hand and stick it into the container, I can retrieve several. Less work yields more results. Now, when I refuse to let her do this, she gets completely irate and goes into operation shutdown. She flails about, whines, and does her best performance.

What really amazes me about this miniature human is that she is a very quick study. She knows exactly how to push buttons and when she’s being bad, she turns on the cutesy voice and says, “HI!” Somewhere along the line she said it for the first time and we thought it was adorable. Now, she uses it like it makes us forget she’s being bad. Remember, this child is not even two years old yet. That’s my contribution to the gene pool, I guess. I was very agile, not physically, but mentally.

So, here we are at my In-Laws and my daughter starts heading to the steps. Until this past November, she’s never shown any interest in them. However, now she is quite an accomplished climber and can ascend very well. Coming down is more like repelling and relying on gravity to do most of the work. This particular day was her first attempt and we had been trying to give the kid a chance to correct herself when she’s in the wrong by counting to three. Again, I have no idea when a child understands that counting is bad when coming from a parent and why they stop at three when schools expect you to go beyond your allotted digits before advancing to a higher grade. But, we figured we’d give it a try. If anything else, this kid will have fractions between two and three down pat. It never fails though, we get to three and she just stands there continuing the bad behavior. As she neared the steps, she knew she was in the wrong because she looked at us as she got closer. Two attempts to call her over had failed, so my wife went to the counting. No sooner than she muttered the sustained call of one that lasted more than three seconds, my daughter called back, “Twwwwoooo.”

Everything came to a screeching halt. We both looked at each other in amazement. Our daughter just helped count to two. I didn’t know whether to be extremely proud or smack her for begin insolent. Once again, I don’t know at what age that kids develop a sense of sarcasm. In either case, both my wife and I showed off how disciplined we really were. Neither one of us cracked a smile. Oh, but we laughed later when our daughter wasn’t around. We laughed hard.

I Ought To Be In Pictures

This is a lesson in “Be careful what you wish for.” One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century is undoubtedly the digital camera. For one, the ability to see your picture immediately after you take it eliminates question of whether or not someone blinked. Secondly, the ability to store hundreds of pictures on the camera and then transfer them to an electronic storage device is better than the previous model I utilized which was a shoebox or drawer with hundreds of envelopes filled with random photos. It also makes us a little lazy. Knowing that those pictures are right where you can see them prolongs your ambition to go get them printed. “Well, maybe I’ll just buy a printer and photo paper.” Good Luck, printer ink will cost you a lot of money and so will the photo quality paper. With that in mind, I got my first digital camera for Christmas just before my daughter was born. The prospect of being able to capture hundreds of photos of her every waking moment filled me with a giddiness that could only be rivaled with the thought that I wouldn’t wonder which disposable camera has pictures of her on it and which one has Christmas from three years ago. I still have about five disposable cameras, sitting in a drawer, undeveloped. By now, the film is probably degraded beyond the point of even caring. My daughter arrived and I snapped pictures of everything. I took pictures of her sleeping, her crying, her feet, her nose, her flipping me off…yes, that is correct. After six months, I already had over 500 photos stored on my computer. Unfortunately, I had none in my wallet or in frames on the wall of my home. Suddenly, I felt like the worst parent in the world. People would ask me about my newborn and I had to describe her to them or at least show them a tiny, fuzzy image on my cell phone that was poorly lit. Soon, my wife began complaining that we needed to get actual pictures of her before she graduated college.

This past Christmas she started hinting around that she wanted a printer that could handle digital photos. I remembered the days of trying to get copies of my acting head shot printed out for auditions instead of paying $300 for them to be done by a professional outfit. It would have cost me just as much, if not more to buy the printer, ink cartridges, and paper. But now, they have these little kiosks in stores that will do the work for you. All you need to do is supply the storage device. CD’s, memory cards, and even USB flash drives are accepted in most places and you can manipulate the images right there in the store before buying them. I had a thought. If I could load a bunch of the pictures from my computer onto my 8GB flash drive, I could give my wife a better Christmas present, the actual pictures.

Of course, being the procrastinator I am, I could never find the opportunity to get to a store to do it. I went online and found that I could directly upload the photos from my computer and have them shipped to my house. Now, I realized that I could not get them there before Christmas Day, but the photo albums that my wife would open would be a preview of coming attractions. The quizzical look on her face prompted an explanation and I broke down, telling her that I didn’t buy her a printer, I bought her 228 actual pictures with duplicates. At $0.09 a picture, I couldn’t pass up the chance to have actual photos of my kid from her first six months of life. Eventually, I’ll get around to ordering more but for now, my wife will have her hands full.The Tuesday after Christmas saw the arrival of a pretty good sized box on my front porch. I rushed into the house and tore it open like it was my own Christmas gift and I was, again, seven years old. I began flipping through the pictures and began to wonder. There were no people in any of the shots and I’m not sure, but I didn’t remember going to Disney World in the last 16 months. Soon, I was staring at complete strangers. Who the hell are these people? Where’s my daughter sleeping, crying, and giving me the bird? Where are her feet? I became livid? I called the store and they were of no help. I even went online to the address of the actual service and opened up a live chat session that ended with, “We’ll get back to you.” I checked the box again and there was a packing slip with an email address on it. I figured what the heck, I should at least tell her that I got her photos. Maybe she got mine by accident. The response was positive. She’d ordered pictures at the end of November and had been trying, without luck, to find out what happened since the beginning of December. It just seemed odd that her order waiting almost a month to ship and then went to the wrong person while mine went to her. We both agreed to mail each other our orders with the understanding that our shipping costs would be reimbursed by the vendor. Soon, I had my baby on glossy 4x6’s.

Now, if you think that’s the end of the story, you’re wrong. Two days later, I received an email stating that I would be refunded. There was no mention of the shipping cost through UPS, they opted to refund the entire amount of my order. In essence, I got 456 photos for $8.00. Not too shabby. The next day, I found another box on my front porch. This one came from the photo service. It was another complete order of 456 pictures. I figured that maybe they felt bad and just sent another order and charged me the amount they credited giving me quadruples for the price of doubles. Still, I think I made out ahead of the game. Now, I could give pictures to my family as well as hers and still have pictures for ourselves.

Here it is a brand New Year and in the mailbox yesterday, I found another box. It looked strangely familiar. It was, again, from the photo service and inside was another 456 pictures. I now had 1368 pictures for the price of $8.00 in shipping. So, now when anyone asks if I have any pictures of my daughter I can give them their own personal copy. I can only imagine what the mailman will have for me today.

UPDATE:

As requested...

The Priceless One

I am the master planner. I can plan for any occasion whether it be a holiday, a vacation, or a business trip. I just can't seem to follow through ahead of time and be ready when said event occurs. Take for instance last Fourth of July. My wife was 9 months pregnant and a scheduled caesarean section would bring our daughter into the world on the 5th. I've had 9 months to plan everything in order to be ready for her birth. Get the house ready, get the nursery ready, get me ready for that little one to come into our lives. So, as the master planner that I am, why do you think I was scrubbing walls and cleaning the house on the Fourth of July? Good Question. I don't know the answer. I wish I did. A lot of things got left by the way side after she was born. I never cleaned out the gutters. I didn't get finished ridding the yard of leaves. Hell, Christmas decorations started going up on the first of December and were finally done by Christmas Eve. My wife and I devoted a lot of our time to the baby and let everything else get away from us.

This year I made the decision to be ready if it killed me. We had it all planned out. It's not like it was going to sneak up on us. The 5th of July happens the same time every year. We began planning in April. We knew it was a Saturday. I made arrangements to be off most of that week so that I could finish up last minute details. With a month or so left to go we sprang into action. Each weekend was our optimal time to get things done so we had the little one shipped off to babysitters while we worked. How sad is that? After a year of being parents and we have people baby-sit for us so we can work? We don't even get to enjoy the freedom of not having to be parents for that little bit of time. I made the declaration and probably will not be able to follow through with it but I made it anyway. After this we are taking it easy. Last summer flew by as we were sequestered into the house to take care of a newborn. This year, at least the second half of the summer will be there for us to enjoy. As of the time of this blog post, we have yet to enjoy anything but a baby who can walk and be absolutely adorable. We also just stare at the pile of presents and the disastrous state of the house and wonder if we'll be ready for the holidays. It's a vicious cycle.

Back to strategy. We went to the party planning store and picked out balloons, themed cake plates, themed napkins, and overall color scheme. With three weeks left to go we made a trip to the big store that is the most evil place on Earth and got all our plastic and plates for the rest of the food and finalized our menu. The only thing that was taking forever was my grill since it was loud and clangy and the only time I had to assemble it was when the baby was sleeping and that was not the best time to be making noise. With two weeks left to go we ordered the cake and made arrangements to have tables and chairs. We didn't know the total amount of guests because the RSVP date was the 1st of July. We initially sent invitations for a total of 50 people. Yes, we are nuts. By the end of June we had 10 people for sure. My wife, fearing that we would be stuck with a lot of food told me to just start inviting people. Did I mention we are nuts. As of the 1st, we had 30 people and more to come. With one week to go before the party we began to panic. The last count was 46 people and now we were afraid that we were going to run out of food. Is a full keg too much? Should we get a full and a half just in case? When do we start setting up everything? Will this rain let up? Seriously, it rained everyday that week except for one day which I used to cut the grass.

It appeared that no matter how much we planned ahead of time a lot of things couldn't be done until the last minute. I had no real storage areas for all the tables, so they couldn't be picked up until that Friday and then had to sit in the garage up against the door. That was a real chore. We secured six 8' tables and 31 chairs. I was afraid that the chairs would be wooden and not very comfortable so I made a suggestion to people to bring some of their own. That way, I didn't have to get as many from the church. After all, I was trying to make this as simple as possible in order to maximize my time of assembly. All tables and chairs had to wait until Saturday morning because of the poor weather. Also, I borrowed a tent from my parents which required four people to assemble and they offered to show up early to help.

My father in law was so worried that if we waited until Saturday to pick up the beer that it would be nothing but foam. It needs to sit for 24 hours. I wasn't about to leave it outside in a tub of ice, only to keep icing it down or find it stolen by some lucky passerby. I couldn't keep it in any of my fridges. If I left it in a tub of ice in my garage it would have to still be moved and sloshed around. I opted for taking my chances with the foam. Balloons couldn't be picked up till the day of the party, neither could the cake. I also had to assemble the backyard on the premise that it would stop raining on Friday. Again, every huge task had to be put off until the last minute.

Saturday morning played out like this. Woke up and had breakfast. With my friend in tow, we went to the distributor and grabbed the keg. Came back and unloaded the keg in the backyard, iced down. Went to the party store to get the flowers. Went to the bakery to get the cake. Began setting up tables and chairs. Got the tent set up and began icing down water and pop (soda for you non Mid Atlantians.) By now it was 3:00 PM and time for guests to show up. I quickly changed and greeted people as they came. My wife and her mother readied all the non grilling food while I entertained and pointed people in the directions of food, drink, and card table. At 4:30 PM, I began grilling up hot dogs and kielbasa. We ate, and proceeded to sing and open presents. By 8:00 people had their fill but still held out for a mini fireworks display at dusk. After everyone left around 9:30, the cleanup began. Before my parents left, the tent was disassembled and back in the garage. My wife and her mother cleaned inside, my friend and I worked outside, and my father in law watched the baby. All 6 tables and 31 chairs were back in the garage before 11:00 PM. I had a shower, had a quick snack, and off to bed.

Come Sunday, we still had to return all the chairs and tables, which we did by 2:00 PM. We then took the remainder of the keg to a friend's house and tried to get rid of it to no avail. I came to terms with the fact that I would have to give back half a keg but didn't care. The tables were gone, my house was empty, and life could return to normal.....right? My poor friend who came in from out of town on vacation only to work his ass off for me. He may never come back.

In the end, the party was successful in that it never rained, we had tons of food, and everyone had a good time. My back will differ with this assessment as will my feet. I learned a few things along the way. Yeah, a keg will foam up for a few hours after it is put into place, but a pitcher does nicely to alleviate the problem. Our church is super nice and super accommodating, I'm glad we picked them. Who ever writes the instruction manuals for grills should be shot....no worse, tortured following instructions with as much ambiguity as the manuals they had written. I suck at horseshoes. And who needs a MasterCard commercial.

Half Barrel of beer for party - $82.00
2 layer cake with strawberry filling that serves 50 for party - $50.00
Balloons, decorations, napkins, table linens, and banners for party - $70.00
Six 8' tables and 31 chairs for party - $0.00

Seeing this face as she dives into her smash cake...

Priceless!

But next year, we're going to Chuck E. Cheese. I'm still tired.

MyBabysDay Makes My Baby's Day

They say "Mother" is the word for "God" on the lips of children. Although, sometimes, "Father" can translate to "Hero" in the eyes of a child. That's my job. Hero, protector, provider, example, especially in what not to do. It's hard to know what to do when your little one gets hurt or loses something. The last thing you want is for them to be sad or upset but at the same time you don't want to give them an unrealistic vision of what the world is like. I'm not saying sit a three old down and tell them to start studying for college entrance exams and putting away those pennies from Aunt Margie for retirement. I just mean that a kid needs to have a realistic sense of expectations. I learned this when my 11 month old daughter takes a toy or a piece of food while sitting in a high chair and drops over the side, looking to see if it hit the floor. Usually, I manage to catch it and put it back into her path of grasp. Sometimes it hits the floor and I have to say, "It's gone. It hit the floor and now it's dirty." You have to because sooner or later everything ends up in their mouth. I don't intend to take away the object forever, just until I can clean it. Well, except for food. We'll just get another one. However, not everything can be fixed. Broke is broke in the case of some objects. That's when the look of hurt and confusion really makes me get a knot in my throat. Recently, a knot was induced when one of my daughter's favorite toys was broke. It was nothing spectacular other than a miniature beach ball that was given to us.

It was a Saturday maybe two weeks to a month after she was born. We were on our usual Saturday morning breakfast trip to Bob Evans when a lady approached us. As a parent you tend to be wary of people approaching your child. It's a sad commentary on the times where even when you are with your kids you fear that someone will try something inappropriate or just downright sadistic. I try to be a little more optimistic but have my reflexes at the ready. This particular lady didn't set off any red flags in my mind. She merely commented on how adorable our little girl was, I take full credit on that, and gave us this little piece of schwag. For those of you have never heard of the word schwag, take a look at your pen. If it has a company or brand name on it, it's schwag. That coffee mug with some corporate logo, that's schwag. These promotional items that advertise a brand are like Levi jeans and Beatles albums to the Cold War era Russian people. They are inexpensive, but everyone scrambles to get one in the office when someone has them. This particular piece of promotional goodness had a website logo printed on it. http://www.mybabysday.com/. They are a quaint little business outside of Pittsburgh that developed a software program to help track a baby's daily activities. Anyone wondering why their little one is doing what their doing when they break out of their normal routine can find this software useful.

Often when someone offers you a promotional item it becomes more about the actual item than the advertisement. We forgot all about what was written on the beach ball and just loved the fact that our girl was batting it around the room and actually throwing it back and forth between us. She'd chase it around the floor and it's round and smooth texture would slip from her grasp and she'd laugh as it would scoot away from her. Then she would lower her head and charge off again after the ball. I think it was more of a joy to us to watch her play with it then it was for her. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago, disaster struck. It was during the Pittsburgh Penguins glorious win in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals here in Pittsburgh. We were all sitting on the floor watching the game and playing with the beach ball. It looked as if it needed a little more air so I picked it up and began to inflate it as the Penguins scored. I must have got excited and over inflated the ball because it began to deflate right in front of my daughter's eyes. She looked heart broken as she picked it up and looked at me. I was devastated. Her favorite toy and I had ruined it. She looked at me as if I had told her the truth about Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and then took away her puppy all at once. After she had gone to bed I grabbed the ball and decided that I wasn't going to let her down again......this month. I went to my computer and looked up the website on the ball. I sent a message pleading for help and within a week I had two beach balls in the mail. We'll keep one as a backup, well, because it's now Game 6 and I'm afraid I won't be able to control my excitement as the Penguins continue to hold on in the series.

The other I quickly inflated and walked up into our living room where my daughter was climbing all over her grandfather. She looked at me and saw what I had. She instantly smiled and scrunched up her nose in that all too familiar look that made me smile. She got down on the floor, I tossed the ball onto the carpet, and off she went leaving her Pappy to recover from the attack. She raced around the room batting the ball everywhere. Once again she was the gleefully playful child I always love her to be. This was all thanks to a hopeful plea and a piece of promotional material. So, thank you MyBabysDay. You made me a hero in my daughter's eyes once again. I don't suppose you brand ponies, do you? Her first birthday is coming up in a couple of months.

P.S. Let's go Pens.