Daddy Is Tired

It’s now officially been a year that we’ve been without a dog.  Losing Mena was such a terrible thing, and to lose Gideon only two weeks later was devastating.

I can’t pretend that he was the perfect family dog…he had sore hips and didn’t like when the kids got near them.  He liked to wrestle – roughly.  But we’d gotten him before we had kids.  Before we knew some of the habits we should break from a dog.  So I ended up with the perfect dog not for a family with kids…but for me.

He and I really understood each other, and it’s contemplating how wonderful he was that makes me REALLY wonder about what people call the soul.  He had such a strong personality, and was so smart, that I wonder where that came from.  We understood each other perfectly.  When I was in a bad mood, he’d sense it from across the house and put his chin (or butt) on me.  When I was sad he’d come cuddle me.  And of course he’d always want to play in the yard.  I miss throwing his toys and watching him catch them mid-air.  I miss going on walks, watching how wiggly he got when I got the leash out.  I miss coming home from work to have lunch with him.  I miss just hearing his nails click on the floor.

You may not have been the ideal family dog, Gideon, but you were perfect for me.  You were my little guy, and you always will be.  I love you.

My Little Guy

While I was wiping my daughter’s butt – yeah, like many parents most of my stories involve bodily functions – my daughter started talking about how she didn’t want to flush peaches down the toilet.  Then she informed me that pee and poop were okay to flush, but she didn’t want to eat them.

THANK GOODNESS!

Then she went on to say that farts were okay to flush too, but we couldn’t eat them.  And then out popped:

“What if someone put their mouth right on someone’s butt and waited?  And then what if the other person stopped holding it and farted in their mouth and then the other person started barfing all over?”

I swear – I SWEAR – that I haven’t shown her the video I know 75% of you are thinking about right now.  But with stories like that, is it any wonder she doesn’t want to go to sleep?

I was cleaning out some of the kids’ artwork and ran across something Ellie had written.  Based on the carbon dating, that pile was from around 4 months ago.  Yeah, I really need to get better at keeping up with their artwork.  Anyway, here it is (translation follows):

What I Like
Ellie
Matthew
Mommy
Daddy
Computers for Daddy
Tasty Food
Having Fun
Ellie

That’s right.  “Computers for Daddy” make Ellie happy.  I knew there was a reason we kept her around!

With all the nieces and nephews around on our family vacation, “Uncle Mike” (that’s his real name, but it looks neater in quotes) decided it would be a good idea to take the kids on a snipe hunt.  For those of you that don’t know, it’s a term for a wild goose chase.  You convince the “suckers,” which in this case were 8 or 9 little kids, that there is an animal called a snipe.  It’s very hard to find, but oh so worth it.

“Uncle Mike” took a small group of the kids out early in the day looking for it, and although the kids didn’t find one they were REALLY excited about it.   So much so, that when they got back someone googled a snipe.  And guess what?

It’s a real damn bird, people!

A Snipe - Who Knew?

According to wikipedia (yeah, I should probably find a real reference for this), they’re so hard to hunt that they are the inspiration for the word “sniper.”  That just got them even more fired up about it, so when it got dark they all went out – and this time Ellie and Matthew (accompanied by Sharon) tagged along.  Everyone grabbed sticks, “just in case.”  Off they went, sneaking through the woods looking for a snipe.  God, I wish I’d taken a picture!

When they got back, we got the kids ready for a bath.  Matthew was VERY excited, and after he got naked for the bath he was reenacting the hunt.  He was more animated than I’ve ever seen him, gesturing wildly while he told us how exciting it was.  No, they didn’t find one, but he said they came close.  They did see a snake and a bug, though.  Oh, and they heard a lot of barking spiders, too.

Gross, “Uncle Mike.”

[Note: "Uncle Mike" isn't me - really!  I'd proudly claim the barking spiders as my own.]

The first full day we were in Pacific Grove, the whole family went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It was a typical day at a museum:

• 10:30 – Arrive at museum, go in.
• 10:35 – Ellie starts begging for snacks.
• 10:40 – Ellie starts begging to go home.
• 10:41 – I get mad, hilarity ensues.

On our way to inquire about penalties for ditching the kids, we stopped at the play area – not the splash one, but the one with a slide and rocking toys.  Oh, it was worth the price of admission to see the kids play on things that we can use for free ANYWHERE ELSE.  Ellie also got to put on a fish suit that’s seen more little kids than Michael Jackson’s bedroom.

What, too soon?

But we weren’t at the aquarium to have fun, so we dragged them outside to see “Watt a Waste!”  It sounds good, right?  “Mad scientist Dr. Malgasto thrives wherever energy is being wasted in people’s homes. Join us in this musical play to discover how we can all stop his dastardly deeds!”  OK, no, but we didn’t read the description until later.

Besides Dr. Malgasto, there was a woman dressed up in what appeared to be Sharon’s pajamas and a talking penguin who hung out in the woman’s bedroom.  The woman might have been a kid, or she might have just been slow, but she didn’t seem to always see the penguin.  She also had control over the thermostat and various appliances.  After she cranked everything up, Dr. Malgasto used jumper cables to bring out freaky energy dragons.  The penguin told the girl to turn things off and live right and use reusable bags and buy hybrid cars and vote Democratic.  Or something like that.

The whole thing was what an acid trip must be like, and I still have flashbacks.  But I did learn one thing – if there’s a talking penguin in your room, you’d better listen to it.  Even better, it entranced the kids, and they didn’t even ask any questions later.  Which is more than I can say for the time that Sharon put them in front of Tom and Jerry, thinking it was a good show for a 2 and 4 year old since “it was a cartoon.”

Months later and I’m still asked on a weekly basis why Tom wanted Jerry to get stuck in the trumpet!

(clicky click to biggerfy the pics)

The following conversation took place in the car today on the way back from preschool.  Yes, it’s about the usual topic.  Sorry.

E: “Eew, it smells like farts in here.  I know it was you.”

“Ha ha!”

E: “Why are you laughing?

“Because it’s funny to hear you say ‘I know it was you.’”

Ellie: “You’d better write that down then.  On the computer.”

“OK then.”

So sometimes I have to take advantage of the fact that I’m in charge of the food around here.  Most of the time we eat really healthy food, but on Friday I couldn’t stand it. Ellie had the day off school (Matthew’s already done with his), we were going crazy, and I wanted chocolate.

A while ago Roni at Green Lite Bites tweeted about changing this recipe to chocolate, and it had been simmering in the back of my brain long enough.  Using the excuse that the kids need to get more vegetables, I decided to make it – calling them Father’s Day cupcakes, of course.  As a side note, do you know how difficult it is to find canned pumpkin (without the pie spices premixed in) around here in June?  Three stores hard!

Last night was family dinner night.  Well, okay, we try to make every night family dinner night – but Sharon gets home so late on weeknights that they’re always “most of the family” dinner nights.  Saturdays don’t really count since we either go out or bring food in.  Sundays are the real, old-fashioned, homemade family dinner night.

And as usual, when we get all of us together, Ellie’s comments begin early.  This time it was right after I brought dinner to the table.

“Eww…something stinks!  I don’t think it’s the dinner, though.  It’s just a weird smell from the meatballs!”

Umm, good.  I’m glad it’s not dinner then.

“This water is yummy, Dad!” (that was actually Matthew)

Thanks, Matthew. At this point I got a pen and paper because I knew I was going to want to save these gems.

“Hey Dad, what are you writing?”

I’m just writing funny things you say.

“HEY!  I want you to write down ‘etherd’ because it’s one of the funny things we say!”

Um, yeah.  That’s a pretty funny word alright. “Etherd” is kind of like a nice version of the f-word – it’s their universal adjective AND noun, and I have no idea where it came from.  But if you don’t know what to say, say “etherd.”  Anyhow, we made it the rest of the way through dinner without too many more comments.  Then came the topper – usually it’s Ellie who says this, but this time it was Matthew.  We were sitting around just finishing up, and out comes:

“I’m ALMOST going to get sick.”

Okay, you guys can be excused.

Yesterday was Matthew’s preschool “graduation.”  Actually, it wasn’t even really a preschool graduation, it was his coop preschool graduation, so it’s more like a pre-preschool graduation.  Thank goodness he’s shown himself to be truly academically strong – now he gets to go to “real” preschool in the fall.  *sheesh*

I have been really proud of him the whole year, of course.  One of the reasons was that he was one of the few kids who was really calm about everything.  He made it through the entire year with model behavior (they even mentioned his good behavior in his little summary book), but today during the “graduation ceremony” he had a major meltdown.  Apparently it’s terribly unfair to have to put down your bonky-sticks to go to the morning meeting.  He was crying pretty badly, but I thought I had him calmed down to where he could sit still.  A minute later I heard his breathing get funny – you know the “I’m about to start crying uncontrollably” quick breathing?

All hell broke loose.

I picked him up to take him out of the classroom so we wouldn’t bother everyone else more than we already had and he somehow simultaneously went completely limp AND flailed his arms and legs around.  And of course the screeching “I DON’T WANT TO GO! I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE THE [UNINTELLIGIBLE]! NO! NO! NOOOOOO!  I’LL BE QUIET!!!!”

Fortunately, he calmed down enough to go back in.  We got his little summary folder, a lollypop (because what’s better for a 2 year old than a 9:30am lollypop?), and a baby tree (I’m not sure what that was about).  I can only be glad they didn’t hand out diplomas, because that’s just silly.  They did hand out popsicles later, though, and of course he ended up with red popsicle juice all over his favorite tan shorts.  *sigh*

It isn’t easy being a pre-preschool graduate…