Future Poltergeist

Relia has updated her Christmas list. She had us add a metal detector. I'm not really sure what the Kardashian marriage says about gay marriage. However. Given the opportunity to vote to eliminate celebrity marriage, I'd lean towards voting Yes. I have never met a more aggressive backseat driver than my four year old daughter. Today's depressing statistic: of the 15 cameo actors in the Muppet Movie, only six are still alive. Relia: Ladies and Gentlemen! Don't look at the floor or the walls or anywhere else but me! Is every four year old a natural born circus barker?       Relia is wanting to play hippopotamus family. I told Sarah that she makes a very attractive hippo. 'Jack and Jill' looks like the worst movie in the history of film. Maybe the worst thing in the history of entertainment. 18 month olds have a tremendous sense of whether their sister got more than they did. This week's rejected names for boys: Babar Planet (Relia...

It's almost hard to believe after the cold and snowy March that we had, but it is indeed April and there is baseball being played again.  I caught some of yesterdays White Sox game and, to my surprise, Relia watched some of it with me.  I tried explaining what makes an out and I think she got some of it.  We even talked a bit about the strike zone.  But those things take time. Around the eighth inning I had to leave for work.  Relia surprised me again by insisting that the channel not be changed.  (My understanding is that she took off to play once I left.)  Sweetie, we'll do it again.  Many times.

20 years late but I'm off to visit a college campus. In my defense, I still dress like I did when I was 18. Parenting protip: when changing a dirty diaper, don't stop to scratch your nose. Trust me on this one. With enormous effort I got Relia to her swim lesson. We woke up a cranky Felix. We braved terrible cold temps. We worked our way through bad traffic. We even found a spot in the terribly over-filled parking lot at the Y. All this with just enough time to get inside to change her and get in the pool. Only . . . when I went to get her out of the van I discovered that we had left the bag with the swimsuit at home. Ugh. Spending a good chunk of the morning trying to remember some French Christmas carols from high school. Took me nearly a half hour to get to 'Noel Nouvelet'. Love this wet cool morning. I'll take four more months of this for winter, please. We need an 'It Gets Better' video for fathers with four year old 'pri...

Going out to light the adult fireworks. Happy new year everyone! Oh, ABC. You'll never top 'Bosom Buddies'. Why are you even trying? Relia staged a coup at 5a this morning. I've had better starts to the year. Don't care how cliche it is, I'm very much enjoying playing with Felix and his new football. I'm now kind of hoping for a Saints/Bengals Super Bowl. The 'Who Dat/Who Dey' combo would be unbeatable. Oh great, now we can't use the name Blue Ivy if it's a girl :( It's January 8th and I just got in from writing on the sidewalk with chalk. Huh. The cats don't like it when I sing along loudly with The Stray Cats. You'd think that they'd empathize or something. Felix is insisting on wearing Relia's red sparkly shoes. He's the most adorable one year old drag queen you've ever seen! It turns out it is shockingly easy to convince your pregnant wife to pick up some cookies while she is at Target...

While driving home from preschool: Me: So tell me what you learned about today. Relia: Oh, just some more letters. Me: Which ones. Relia: (pause) If I tell you, you won't believe me. Felix stood up while eating breakfast, pointed at his bottom and proudly said 'poopy!'. It would be nice if he acted as his own warning system... Saw this on twitter: "groundhog day is just a fake holiday made up by the groundhog companies to sell more groundhog." Went to Target to get supplies this morning. The guy behind me was wearing a Packers hat. While I was moving bags into the cart he moved forward and was blocking the card reader. When he realized his mistake he started to move back. I mustered all the mock sympathy I could and said, "That's ok. I know today is verrry confusing for Packer fans." Being at home with a toddler in the 'I do it!' phase is liking working with the most eager and incompetent employee ever.  --- Make t...

The kids are in bed. I'm opening up the Plutarch and having a beer. Oh, I almost forgot, Happy Platypus day, everyone! Melt you snow, melt! Rejected boy names from this week: Numa Cespedes Jack Sparrow Spanish Inquisition (no would expect it) Fred The morning after the NCAA Tournament brackets are released; this is when I miss working in an office. Felix just clearly said 'not fair'. I'm sure we won't hear that very often.   Relia is working hard to convince us that she doesn't have room for one more bit of dinner, but plenty of room for pie. Ah, toddler logic . . . Got a call from a drunk southern guy who wanted to rent an apartment. Yeah, I couldn't help him. I bribed Relia into picking some basketball teams. I, um, might have a problem. Seen on Twitter: 'People are losing the spirit of Ides of March. Not just about stabbing. It's about coming together to stab in groups.' Felix just brought me the changing pad ...

Relia has declared that we should have mini donuts every day. When you're four years old and a bit tired, every TV show is the Hypnotoad. Today I learned that twenty(!) years of neglect have not helped my meager algebra skills at all. (I aced the reading comprehension part though.) There may be no more rewarding part of being a father than when I've made a meal for the kids and they actually eat it quickly and happily. And . . . it's the due date. Now we can have this baby anytime in the next two weeks. Holy crap, I just realized that for the first time in my life I'm older than anyone on the White Sox roster this year. Nothing yet. If we go much further we'll schedule a long plane flight and an inception. (I may have misunderstood that last part.) At the dinner table: Relia: Fe Fi Fo Fum, I am a giant yum! Felix: Fe Fi Fo Fum, I'm a giant too! I guess we're giants now.             New addition: got a new ipod! Announcing the...

Getting a bit dressed up to see Relia's new school tonight (Kindergarten Round-Up). Relia saw me and said, "why are you trying to look handsome?". Felix is absolutely amazed by the sight of our neighbor cutting the lawn. His surprise says nothing good about my lawn care habits. We've all got our derby hats on. Do you have yours? I have never cheered harder for a sit-com couple than I do for Amy Farah-Fowler and Sheldon Cooper. While in the car . . . Relia: Leo, you've won a prize. You get a free breastfeeding! I'm sure that the eligibility requirements were very limited.       Every time I watch an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine, I think 'maybe it's not a good idea to let these trains make their own decisions'. We hit snack time this morning and I asked Felix if he was ready for a snack. He said yes, and then proceeded to pull two pieces of bread out from under the blanket on the couch. These were quickly shoved in...

My wife knows *two* different aardvark songs. What kind of world is this? When my kids are playing phone and I say 'who you gonna call?', they never understand that I'm making a joke. Relia: What is a 'ninjo'? Me: Do you mean a 'ninja'? Relia: Yeah. Me: They are a kind of fighter. They're very sneaky. Relia: They sneak up on people . . . and say BOO! (giggles to herself) And then they kill them. The phrase 'full body sneeze' takes on whole different meaning to a seven week old. I'm showing Felix 'Finding Nemo'. I think it's his first viewing. He just told me 'I don't wanna be inside a whale. I'm too big!'. I just had a traveler help me out with the very tricky airport codes for Oakland and Seattle. Um, thanks dude. Relia told me that if I want to lose weight, there are shows on 'after I go to bed' that can help with that. About 20% of my dad duties can best be described as 'jun...

[More Olympics material, including a long series of 'rejected' Olympic events that I made up.  I think I'll gather those together in a separate post, found here .] The total amount of fireworks being exploded in my neighborhood is kind of breathtaking. Lord help me, Relia has discovered She-Ra. Ok, fine, I'm kind of getting into the Tour de France. I'll admit it. What I wouldn't give for one cool overcast day. Cailou is what Charlie Brown would have been like if Charles Schultz had been both a) Canadian and b) addicted to prozac. When we got in the car, Relia asked to listen to 'Babooshka' by Kate Bush. I'm counting this as a parenting win. As we were leaving the grocery store, Felix shouted to me, "Daddy! Daddy! You forgot to get me a soft voice." Waiting for the kids to go to bed so I can watch the opening ceremonies. (We'll let them watch the DVR version in the morning.) The torch lighting was seriously cool. ...

[Quite a bit of this is Olympics related.] Leo loves it when they swim. He shakes and kicks and giggles. Felix was handing out little trucks to Relia and I. We simply took them and held them. After a minute Relia asked him 'why are we holding trucks?'. He looked at us and simply said, 'I don't know'. He could not be more my son. I humbly submit that the 'unofficial' sports of the 1900 Olympic games in Paris were nothing short of awesome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Summer_Olympics#Unofficial_sports Suggested Olympic events (that I wish I'd thought of two weeks ago): 4 X 400 meter speed dating If I was in a bar brawl with some Olympic athletes, I'd want to be there with some water polo players. Finally watching the Olympic opening ceremonies with Relia. I just explained who James Bond is by saying "he's kind of like a human Perry the Platypus". She got that right away. Found Relia and Felix on the por...

Relia is having her bath and playing (her words) Hunt for Red October. She's never seen the movie or read the book. Also, she is only five. Relia: I'm sorry, we have to sink it. I hope that she convinces the Soviets!   Also, because everyone on Facebook should know this, I woke up last night after dreaming that I was chased around an old and cluttered house by a lone Dalek. I'm not sure if I'm betraying my younger self or not, but I am *so* glad that school is back in session today. Felix saw an old car today, one with fins on it. He called out "a shark car!". I looove that. Y'know what? I was ready for some football. Relia and Felix like to watch various 'bossy' TV shows. The ones where the TV tells them to say something or do something. As far as I can tell, my kids have literally never followed those instructions. It's like they're being trained on how not to listen... I do not own a single hat that doesn...

This post about how modern mid-century houses are deathtraps for children , gives me a little pause.  But then I think, if any of them survived, they'd only be stronger, right?

The kids have driven me to such lengths this morning that my grammar is not so well anymore; Just watched 'Rear Window' with Leo. He prefers sports but sometimes I can convince him to watch the classics. Heading to Austin, taking Relia to the Halloween Warm Up tonight. I'm guessing we'll be thinking more about 'warm' than 'Halloween' by the end... Back from Austin. Relia had a great time (so did I). I got to help lead tours, i.e. hold a lantern and that was her favorite part. We'll definitely go again next year. Conferences for Relia are scheduled for next week. Sarah has told me NOT to wear a shirt that says 'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach'. This morning, each of my very special children, each in their own way, is driving me insane. Relia keeps saying 'buenos dias' to Leo and seems genuinely upset that he isn't answering. I keep telling her that he doesn't speak Spanish but that doe...

As part of my continuing effort to get Relia interested in sports, I offered her a bet on the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  We each picked the winners for the first round, 32 games, and whoever picked the most correctly, gets to pick where we have lunch.  Then we roped the FP Gal into it, too.  The standings after one day: FP Gal 11-5 Relia 12-4 Peder 13-3 Still anyone's game. (We invited DF to play, but he declined.  That's ok, I'll get him with the football picks one of these years.)

Felix suggested a new slogan for candy corn: You Bite it With Your Tongue. I put Leo in a Viking outfit today so that he wouldn't be able to throw anything. Keep in mind, if it wasn't for Article II of the Constitution, we could all be voting for Alex Trabek today :( Loooong night with Leo last night. He kept waking up screaming. I never should have had that long chat with him about the national debt yesterday. Watched part of a documentary about the Titanic with Felix. The entire time he was betting on the ship being ok.   I love that Netflix lists 'Macbeth' as a crime drama. Watching some college football with Relia. I asked her if she knew what a university is and she said (and I quote): "It's a community that comes together to turn teenagers into grown-ups." Snow this morning. I showed it to Felix through the window, wondering what he'd say about it. He's only two and last winter was blessedly warm. I asked him what t...

I'd forgotten how stressful a free crawling baby can be. Felix is wearing an orange apron. He looks so cute that I'm thinking of getting him an application at Home Depot. Watching 'Dumbo' on Netflix. The kids totally do not get that the 'pink elephants on parade' are a consequence of drinking. Wonder if the kids in '41 did? There are times when I'd like to sock Michael Buble right in the kisser. We put up a barrier of laundry baskets to keep Leo from crawling out of the living room. Felix is now worried that Santa won't be able to get through. I woke up and the voice of Harvey Firestein has come to live in me. Felix just told me that I'm the 'best'. All you other dads can stop trying so hard. The awards have been given out. Waking up for presents is about 20 times better with small children. Merry Christmas, everyone! Relia went out of her way to be nice to Felix at lunch. She said "Maybe if I'm extra good, Santa ...