49 posts tagged “family”
The last couple of wee ks here have been something of a whirlwind. Between the huge projects coming up unexpectedly at work and the demise of poor Horace and Aaron's newfound love of not going to sleep, I've been pretty much on edge since getting back from the Fourth. But do you know who is awesome?
Jenna.
It's true, Lefou. She pretty much did all the research on which cars we should buy. All I knew was that it needed "man-sized cupholders for a man-sized thirst". She called up a bunch of banks and shopped around to find the best rates on an auto loan. She set up the car insurance. Shopping for cars is usually a sea of misery and despair, but Jenna totally parted that sea, much like Moses and Doug Henning.
And get this. In the middle of all of this car buying and car selling, the Vibe got that thing again, where it leaks all over the passenger side floor. This time it was worse than ever, so that when I drove up hill, a puddle deep enough to support a Japanese fighting fish would appear in the floor of the back seat. Of course, the fish didn't like it when I went downhill, but the point is that the car was in bad shape. And it's tough to take it in to a repair place over lunch when you work 50 miles from home and you just pooled all of your money together for a new car. So get this: Jenna fixed it. And not like the way I "fixed" the car radio and caused it to short circuit a good chunk of the electrical system. She actually fixed the leak. The floor of the car is now as dry as the expression of a car mechanic who finds out that you don't need to bring the car in after all.
Also, Jenna is awesome for taking Aaron to swimming lessons. They're kind of a trial. While all of the other kids blow bubbles in the water and kick their feet, Aaron mostly screams and tries to spit water at people. The only part he can really get into is getting out of the water, yelling, "I'm an International Superhero!" and jumping into the water (while spitting). Every lesson, they devote three minutes to this activity. Aaron chooses to devote twenty-four, in lieu of learning any kind of strokes. Swimming, clearly, is not his forte. But week after week, Jenna brings Aaron in and patiently explains why it's important to learn to swim while Aaron does his best garden hose impression.
She has also made killer spareribs, proofread a thing I wrote for a thing, and organized our terrifying pile of mail. Each one of these things made my heart sing.
And after this long and difficult week, Jenna picked up Rejuvenating Foot Cream from the local apothecary and gave me a foot rub. Unbelievable. I am the luckiest man in the world.
No wonder Aaron keeps going on and on about how he's an international superhero. He probably thinks it's hereditary.
Like most people, recent economic events have me concerned and recent three-year-olds refusing to go to bed have me cranky. I found myself looking for some solutions and found a pamphlet at my local bank that helped me sleep slightly better at night. It was called "Sleep Slightly Better At Night: Your Guide to Weathering the Economic Downturn and A Rebellious Preschooler." Inside, I found a number of helpful tips and stock photography, and I thought I'd pass some of it on to you:
15 Easy Things To Do To Sleep Slightly Better At Night And Weather the Economics Downturn and a Rebellious Preschooler
- Don't put all your eggs in one basket. What if you dropped that basket? Eggs everywhere, dudes. Instead of investing ten thousand dollars in one bank, invest one dollar in ten thousand banks. Chances are that some of them will be fine, plus you'll probably get a lot of free pens.
- Diversify your mutual funds investments. Then, invest in diverse funds mutually. Next, fund an investigation into devout mutants. Finally, mute infested devourers for fun.
- Create a ritual that your child will grow to expect. First say "night-night." Follow it with "Aaron, it's time for night-nights." Third, remind him that you've "already said night-night, and now it's time for you to go to bed right now." Mention that if he doesn't get into bed right this second, you'll get very angry. Yell "night-night" in a way that sounds forceful and convincing. Threaten to cancel Christmas. If you can get into this routine every night, your child will find it comforting, and know what to expect every night.
- Think about investing in a company you feel good about. Have you considered investing in companies that print brochures? They're really hot right now, let me tell you what. You could probably just leave all your money in the mail box outside the print shop on Third street.
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Read the annual reports carefully for any company that you own stock in. Look for key indicators of success such as increased profits, expansion, and free donuts. If the annual report uses phrases like right-sizing, fire sale, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments or bank-demonium, you may want to sell your shares.
- Engage in activities that will relax your child before bedtime, such as reading excerpts from instruction manuals, annual reports, or your failed novel.
- Not sure whether to invest in the S & P, Dow Jones, or NASDAQ? Here's a quick way to determine which market is best for you. Invest in the S & P if you want your rate of return to be standard or poor. Invest in NASDAQ if you like to drink Nasty Daquiris. Invest in Dow Jones if you'd like to pay a dowry to Indiana Jones. Simple!
- Shop frugally. Instead of buying staples like milk and eggs from a high-end grocery store, pick them up at garage sales. Instead of buying high-end purchases like TVs and stereos from an electronics specialist, buy them from the grocery store. Then, when you're at the electronics specialist, try to buy a garage.
- Turn bed time into a fun time. Don't ask us how. We've never had any success with this one.
- To spend like a rich person, think like a rich person. When you are spending a five dollar bill, insist that it's a fifty. When you drink moonshine, tell people it's the diamond juice. When you eat ramen, announce that it's really the remains of your last chauffeur.
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When hiding money under your mattress, make sure the sleep number is set to 45 or lower.
- If all else fails, you might find some success if you bribe your child to sleep.
- Do not actually pay the bribe.
- If you're tempted to take all the money and just put it on red, that's OK, but dude, do not put it on blue. There is no blue. I can't believe I didn't check that first.
- Have less kids. Look into having a negative kid, to balance out the one who's not sleeping.
1. Happy birthday to Jake and Katie. Also, happy anniversary guys! And happy father's day. Thank you for not cramming all of that stuff into late December instead of mid-June. Now let's stop buying presents for a while, OK?
2. Aaron is sick. When I was growing up, it always seemed like a crime against nature to get sick when the weather was this nice. Aaron missed going to the pool twice today. And it was the first day in something like three weeks where we didn't have a severe thunderstorm looming. However, he did get to go to the toy store instead, so we probably don't have to think of today as the Day That Ruined His Childhood.
3. For the two of you who read this blog for Aaron stories and who haven't heard this one yet: Aaron had a bad dream the other night. I went in there to calm him down and ask what happened.
Aaron: There was a mystery man in here. But now he's gone.
Me: Was he a nice man?
Aaron: No, he was a mystery man.
Me: I think you had a bad dream.
Aaron: But he wasn't you, Daddy.
Me: No?
Aaron: No, he had hair on his head.
4. I turned 31 on Saturday. My parents took me to the zoo.
Technically, my parents and siblings joined me in taking our kids to the zoo, but let's be honest here: it was my birthday. I also celebrated with a cookout at my parents' house. My birthday dinner included cherries, potato salad, those bars that have pretzels and strawberries and cream cheese, ice cream cake, chocolate chip cookies, and two other dinners.
The Wii Fit isn't speaking to me right now.
5. It was fantastic to see Bill and Jess while they were in town. They stopped by our house overnight. Here's what they brought: An extra wheel for playing Mario Kart, Ticket to Ride, Guitar Hero, root beer, rum, and maybe toothbrushes. I don't think I have to tell you what kind of crazy rum-fueled, guitar poundin', transcontinental-railroad-buildin' fun we had.
No wonder Aaron's sick.
I haven't blogged in a while, but I've had a very good reason. I've been playing Mario Kart. And I like it even more than Smash Brothers, partially because people actually play this one online, so I can play against them. I've been neglecting the single-payer game because I get so darned excited whenever I see that one of my friends is online. My lack of blogging caused me to completely skip over Mother's Day, so I'll quickly recap.
For all the moms I know, mother's day is a day of appreciation, but never a day off. Motherhood is the second-hardest job in the world after professional tennis player, and all the moms I know make it look easy. My mom treated us to one of her favorite recipes for breakfast, my mother in law treated us to lunch, and Jenna chased after Aaron when I was too exhausted to keep up with him after dinner. And my sister gave birth to her second kid two weeks ago so she won't get an hour off from being a Mom for a good few months. Nothing is as humbling as being in the sight of a good Mom, so naturally, I felt like a complete jerk all day, but that's the price you have to pay to be around supermoms. Plus, since the other price you have to pay is eating the delicious cookies that supermoms make, it all works out in your favor.
Anyway, Happy belated Mother's Day, moms. Sorry I've been playing so many video games.
1. Last weekend, I took Aaron to the playground and sunburned the top of my head. Yesterday, I took Aaron to the playground and it started to snow. When I left this morning, each tree was frosted with a quarter inch of snow, making my morning commute look like a gleaming journey through the forests of Hoth, or maybe the fortress of solitude and all I could think was, "Not again." It is clear. Someone has broken the weather.
2. Jenna and Aaron and I were talking about boys and girls as one of the many warmup talks I plan to have with him before I explain the birds and the bees. We kept this particular discussion more toward whether or not a given person is a boy or a girl. Aaron had it down cold. He did relatives, friends, even cartoon characters. Jenna asked him if Diego's friend Baby Jaguar was a boy or a girl. He was quite confident that Baby Jaguar was a boy. Jenna asked, "How can you tell?" Aaron replied, "I tell you with my mouth."
3. Congratulations to Katie, Jake, Emily, on their new arrival! Congratulations to Lucas Richard, who is doing quite well! And congratulations to me, for doubling the number of godsons I have!
4. We had a fantastic weekend. We ate at one of those Japanese restaurants where the chef prepares the food at your table, right in front of you while you sip Sake through a bug shaped like Buddha. For the most part, it's a great experience, because it's both a meal and entertainment, and both are good. Last time I ate there, our chef was something of a comedian, and I remember being particularly tickled by his play on the words "butterfly" and "egg drop soup." This time, however, the chef was something of a novice, so rather than dinner and a comedy, it was a little like dinner and a horror show. He kept dropping things and yet he also kept throwing sharp knives into the air. Toward the end, when eggs were dropping out of the sky and shrimp tails were bouncing all over the table/oven, all we could do was grin and nod and pray that we got through the meal with our lives. Good thing it was delicious and that Jaime and Dave have good senses of humor. Then after dinner, we saw Romeo and Juliet, starring my sister in law as Juliet, which was awesome. It has been years since I have actually seen theater performed by actual actors, so it was kind of a shock when they took the stage and didn't start reading from a book of nursery rhymes. It was a superb date night. I can't wait until we get another one in 2010.
5. Happy Birthday, Mom. I still think you're the best Mom ever, and although I'm coming to realize that I will never be able to match your impressive skills in parenting, I am able to take advantage of your also impressive skills in grandparenting. Hope you enjoyed your day!
Take yesterday morning. We went to a piano sale. As we tried to speak seriously with the salesperson in a concentrated effort to convince him that we would ever in a hundred years be able to afford one of his pianos, Aaron pounded merrily on whatever Steinway he could get his hands on. The salespeople gave him a big smile. Then they scowled at us. We pulled him off of his piano and he threw a fit. He got sympathetic looks. We got mutters. We hightailed it out of there. In the time we were there, I'd barely gotten to play a couple of scales on the pianos we were interested in. He played an entire unfinished symphony.
Second example: We went to a puppet show with my parents yesterday. It was a cool use of mixed media, combining blacklight, puppetry, and dancing, but it was all done in platypus gibberish, which is like regular gibberish, except everyone just says, "Rrroooo-aaauuuughh!" over and over and over again for a drawn-out, all-platypus gibberish production of Richard the Third. Aaron fell asleep fifteen minutes of the way into it. The rest of the adults sat through an hour of Rrrroooo-aaauuugghh while Aaron drifted off into peaceful slumber.
Third example: We went for a walk in the park today. Aaron was very excited to go the long way around the trail to get to the playground. After five minutes, he was up on my shoulders, ready to ride the rest of the way. Then he fell asleep.
I think my son is playing us for suckers.
Don't get me wrong: we had a great weekend. It was really nice to see my parents, and we had all kinds of family fun that went beyond pipe-cleaner projects and included seeing the loons on the lake and watching an Earth day parade. But make no doubt about it, Aaron made us work for it, and he got off scott-free. I worry that he may be training to be an organized criminal mastermind, or worse, a middle-manager.
Of course, what really drove it home was church this morning. Aaron and the other kids marched up to the front of the congregation to sing a special song. As the rest of the kids sang, Aaron stood silently, occasionally glancing at his compatriots with a look that said, "What's with the singing, dude." And because these were kids, there were hand motions, which Aaron regarded with little more than amusement. In the meantime, Jenna and I are sitting in the fifth row, hands over our heads, crossing our chests, pointing and waving, and mouthing along the words, all in a vain effor to get him to participate. Finally, as the song neared the end, where the chorus repeated faster and faster, and the hand motions got fast and furious. Aaron got this look of realization on his face, and slowly moved his hands over his head. Everyone there noticed. There was a small smattering of applause before the song ended. He stood there, still not singing, but having mastered this one hand motion and really driving it home, with his biggest, widest smile lighting up the room. The song ended, and he held his pose for a moment longer before deciding he was done with his hand stretching duty and he made his way back to his parents.
Of course, there he had us again. He sat down, ready to listen to the rest of the service, sitting as still and well-behaved as an angel who is attending a church service for some reason. The people around us told him he did a great job, and he smiled politely back at them.
On either side of him, Jenna and I were in tears.
Phrases from the last
1. Screwing the couscous -- Taking extra special care to do something right, only to get the rest of it horribly wrong. Taken from me carefully measuring out the amount of couscous to cook and throwing it in a huge unmeasured vat of water. Man, China really screwed the couscous with the whole Tibet thing.
2. Pickles -- Expletive. Aaron asked for a cookie during dinner and was denied. His response was a tiny, sad, "Aw, pickles!" What's that coming out of her nose? Spaceballs?! Aw, pickles, there goes the planet.
3. A five-pooper -- A big day. Coined after yesterday. The president's summit talks with Vladimir Putin turned out to be a real five-pooper.
4. Flying with the Cannons -- Overindulging on wine from Cannon Falls, MN. From me, after drinking my wine too fast after dinner. Horace gave his front-row tickets away when he discovered that Sybil was already flying with the Cannons.
5. A laundry bisaster -- When a Really Useful Engine gets caught under a mountain of dirty laundry poured on him by a mischievous three-year-old. Also, when I throw into a dryer That Which Must Not Be Dried. I am unable to attend class today because I have been coping with a terrible laundry bisaster.
The longer you left the eggs in, of course, the deeper the color would be, but I could never wait. I would dip it for ten seconds, then pull it out to see how it looked. Then dip it for another ten seconds and check again. When I got a little older, I loved to try dipping just the ends in a second color, so I'd have a three color eggs. I had a lot of brown ones.
The eggs would make their way to the breakfast table on Easter morning, and I would dutifully eat one. We had one of those egg slicers, so I started by eating them that way, but the sight of the greenish circle around each yolk was unappetizing, so eventually I started eating them the way my dad does; by mashing them with a fork and pouring on salt and pepper. To this day I still cannot smash an egg with the fine crumbly consistency that my dad can get. We would not finish the eggs, so they'd make a return appearance at dinner. No one ever ate them at dinner.
On Easter, St. Michael's would decorate the church the same way every year, with pastel streamers dangling down from the ceiling. St. Michael's had a ridiculously high ceiling, so I missed much of the sermon wondering how on earth they got way up there to hang the streamers. Lucky for me, Easter in the Catholic church lasts about five months, so I had many, many sermons to wonder about it. Easter Sunday was always packed, many years, people would have to stand in the aisles, and I would always scan the aisles and silently judge who had the best Easter bonnet.
The music was always nice on Easter, too, especially coming off of the 40 days of silent processionals and recessionals. I don't know if the pianist really played Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring every year before Mass, but she played it often enough that she might as well have. Usually, by the end of Communion, we'd sung the word Alleluia about two hundred times, and then we ended with Jesus Christ is Ris'n Today.
For dinner, my mom made a ham and invited the usual holiday crowd of aunts and uncles and great-aunts and second cousins. And you couldn't have a ham without potatoes and green bean hot dish and yams and those little buns, and it all smelled so good, but I had been loading up on Peeps and chocolate bunnies all day so I always regretted not saving my appetite more for dinner. I still at twice my weight in Easter dinner, but had I not eaten all those Cadbury Cream Eggs, I could have had more.
I have a lot of warm, happy memories of Easter. I hope Aaron had a good time this weekend, and will have his own fond memories.
Hopefully not the memories of explosive diarrhea or of smacking me in the face with a flashlight.
Everyone else lost an hour last weekend. I lost eleven.
It's been very different starting this job than it has been to start others, but some of that is probably because it's so very familiar. Once again, I'm working over an hour from where I'm living, and once again, America is celebrating this new arrangement by jacking up gas prices. I have the same questions I did when I was in Chicago, including "How much more money would I be making if could telecommute?" and "What could I do with the extra 2 1/2 hours I currently spend commuting?" and "What kind of car would I buy if I won the lottery?"
The big change, however, is that when I was in Chicago, I got a week to spend with Aaron before going back to the ol' supercommute. Now, I've had over six months, and I already miss him terribly. I watched the clock change from 9:59 to 10:00 AM yesterday and realized we were missing story time at the library. I wondered if the librarian was surprised that we weren't there, since we've only missed library Tuesdays once in the last four months. We missed toddler day at the museum, too, and I miss the new art projects on the counter. When I'm driving into work and see a train approaching, I can't help but think of Aaron, and his reassurance that the train is being pulled by Thomas, even if the engine isn't blue. When I'm sitting in front of my workstation, the song in my head is invariably from Here Come the 1-2-3s. Jenna sends me e-mail about how he does when she drops him off for day care -- sometimes he's happy, sometimes miserable -- and I can't decide which one makes me miss him more.
I miss Jenna, too. When I was at home, she'd call in a few times a day, and we ate lunch together at least a couple of times a month. We had a lot of fun in the evenings either playing through video games together or playing board games against each other. I was starting to time dinner to be ready right when she got home, and when she walked in the door, Aaron and I would both cheer. That was a lot of fun. Then we would all sit down in the living room, where Aaron would implore us to talk about our day.
Of course, part of it is that I'm in a funny place in my job. My schedule has changed, my days are full, and I'm wearing ties instead of jeans, but I haven't seen a difference in my bank account and probably won't for a couple of weeks. So I occasionally lose perspective a little bit. Especially since I'm at that stage at work where I feel like I'm in a little over my head. Someone asks me to write copy about part #SA-501B, and I just stare blankly. It's like trying to bake a cake with only ingredients you'd find in an office supply store. Logically, I know that it just takes a couple of weeks to learn the products and soon I'll be writing them up like a blog entry about hippos, but until then, whiteout makes pretty poor frosting.
Don't get me wrong, because I'm grateful that I found a job. I needed to get a job. And not just financially, but also because I needed to organize my life again. The last few weeks I just was just out of it, and Aaron and I got easily frustrated with each other, and I knew we both needed some structure. Plus, this is a really great job. For starters, I'm not the only person in the office who knows anything about HTML, as was so often the case in Chicago. In fact, I'm learning that I've got a lot to learn about the software I've been using all of my professional life. I keep thinking that this job will really help me open a lot of doors down the line.
But for now, while my workplace is still strange and new and my commute is long and expensive and my bank account is empty and a little scary, I miss the time I had with my family.
1. It is mid-February, and don't try telling me that it's not, with all your in-like-a-lamb and such. After things started to melt and thaw around here, we got another dusting of snow and then the temperature dropped. Sorry, I fail to see any proof that February ended. Our driveway's developed a nice sheet of ice, which only discourages us from going out or visitors from coming in, which means that we spend more time cooped up in the house, which means it's mid-February. But I'm OK with that.
2. All three of us have now acquired a bad cold. We are going through spicy Kleenex like nobody's business, and every sentence uttered in the house is punctuated by lung-rattling coughs or a long, sad honk on a tissue. It's really just another disease except for one interesting symptom. I have produced some world-record belches with this cold. At all hours of the day and night. At one point, I believe I set off a neighbors car alarm. I'd try to catch this disease more often for the entertainment value, if it weren't from the accompanying chills, stuffy nose, and hacking cough. Instead, I'll just wait it out. But I'm OK with that.
3. Aaron has been cranky lately. On the plus side, that means he's been taking more naps. On the side of minuses, that means he's been deserving more naps. One thing is constant, though. He doesn't like putting on clothes. He hates getting dressed in the morning, or putting on his PJs at night, or even putting on his coat. So we have all the more reason to play in the house. Unfortunately, the things he wants to do in the house are play with water by spraying it all over the house, play with choo-choos and pirates and buses and monkeys and Play-Doh, all of which pretty much cover the floor throughout the upstairs of the house. And then it gets wet when he plays with water. But I'm OK with that.
4. Maybe the reason he doesn't want to ride in the car, is that it still smells like a dead skunk vomited a bunch of cherries in the back seat, despite repeated applications of Febreze. We're either going to need to take the car apart and soak everything in lye or we'll have to donate it to the association of the hard-of-smelling if we can't figure out a solution soon. But I'm OK with that, too.
5. I'm OK with all of this because starting Monday, I have a job. A job! A JOB!!! Even better, I won't be unemployed! Once again, I want to thank everyone who helped me out. Thanks to my siblings for their encouraging words, my friends for keeping my spirits up, Melissa and Ann for writing letters of recommendation, my parents for supporting me from halfway across the country, Jenna's parents for jumping at the chance to take care of Aaron during all of my interviews, and Jenna for steadfastly refusing to let me lose hope, even when I really, really wanted to. I can't wait to get started on Monday, and I'm really excited that I can finally cross the first thing of my list of New Year's resolutions (1. Get life together). Thanks, guys!
