Now That School Has Started

Time just keeps happening. Sometimes it seems to moving pretty slowly, then other times it races ahead with reckless abandon. The one constant with the passage of time is that it just keeps passing.

So it is with Elles starting school.

It's been something we've been thinking about for years. If you read my last post, you know just how much I have been thinking about it.

Over the last few months, we had been looking out more for supplies, clothes, etc. in preparation for the start of school. The actual preparation, rather than just the amorphous blob of thought and preparation that comes before the real part. Even then, it all seems strangely unreal and immaterial to me until it's actually happening.

Well, I'm not sure exactly how this happened, but suddenly, school has been going on now for a couple of weeks. We are at the tail end of September now. Just where does the time go?

Anyway, things have been getting pretty interesting around here recently. Elles loves school. Every day she says that it was "awesome!," even though she can't ever seem to remember any of the details. "My memory isn't so good these days," she says. I know the feeling.

There has been an interesting adjustment in the family dynamic; Cam has been forced to be more of a big brother to Con. Good stuff. They've been playing together more, and have just overall been very good kiddos. They're going through a good phase right now.

The biggest problem we've been facing recently is that right when Elles comes home, the boys have just gotten up from a nap. She is totally worn out from school and just wants to veg out. The boys, on the other hand, are totally wired. They just want to get out and run. And they are super excited to see their sister. Still trying to figure out how to make that particular situation work, because right now, it all just clashes together wrong. Everyone makes everyone else grumpy. It will be an adjustment, but I'm sure we will figure it out.

I have been trying to let Elles play alone in her room or watch a show, but the boys want to play with her, not outside without her. Not even over in the other room without her. And if she's watching something, they want to watch something with her. But not really. They end up climbing all over her and each other, and just generally go just a little bit crazy.
Any suggestions or tips are welcome.

To School

Can it be called back to school if you haven't been there yet? What do we call it? For lack of a better name, I am just going with "To School." Of course, I'm sure you probably noticed that from the title. Whatever.

Anyway, things are getting a little bit crazy around here, since our oldest is going to be starting kindergarten in just a few weeks. We checked out a few schools, various programs within the schools, etc., and I'm pretty sure that just about any choice is a good one. The schools around here are great. The thing is, all of that isn't what really concerns me. So what exactly is it, you may be asking, that concerns me? The other kids. And my kid, in relation to those other kids. Stuff like that.

Will she make friends? Will those friends be a good influence? What kinds of habits and behaviors will she pick up from classmates? Will she be happy with the other kids? How will all of this effect her relationship with her little brothers? Will she be so overstimulated after school that she wants nothing to do with her brothers? Will the fact that I am the primary caregiver make any of the other parents hesitant to let their kids be friends with her? That last one might sound a bit crazy, but when she was part of a playgroup last year, although no one ever said it outright, I really felt like being the only dad in a group of moms made some of the other parents somewhat uneasy with us. Of course, part of this could just be that I'm awkward as hell, and it takes people a while to figure out when I'm kidding. Really though, I swear, that's totally part of my charm.

I realize that I'm being just a little bit crazy about all of this, and I'm sure that everything is going to be great. She's a good kid, ya know. Still, all of this has been going through my head pretty a lot recently, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. I've heard some pretty awful things come

Easiest Summer Outdoor Activity

Step one: Get a Hose Nozzle Gun.
Step two: Attach to hose.
Step three: Spray kids.

This is more fun than it has the right to be.

We've been having a bit of a heat wave in the NW recently, so we've been trying to find activities to cool off. The kids like running through the sprinkler, which is great fun, but they get themselves really, really, ridiculously wet. And dirty. While this is okay when it is getting close to bedtime, it complicates things a bit if you're just trying to do something quick and fun, particularly in the middle of the day. You know, when it's the hottest? I'm sure a lot of you might be saying to yourselves, "why don't you just throw them into some swim trunks and let them go nuts? Sometimes, that is awesome, but there are still times when I really just want going out and cooling off to be a quick activity (10-15 mins), without anyone getting so wet that they need to change their clothes at all.

The best thing about hose nozzle guns?
You get to control how wet the kids get. You can set it to a mist, or a stream. You can make it rain, have the kids jump over the stream of water, duck under the stream, or whatever else you can think of.
Anyway, it's great.
I am a fan.

Playgrounds are Scary

When I was a kid, I thought playgrounds were awesome. On just about any given day, if we went to a playground, that was the highlight of my day. I can tell from their reactions that the kiddos feel exactly the same way. As great as it is to see the kiddos having a fun, the moment I stepped onto a playground for the first time as a parent,  I was terrified. Playgrounds are scary. For parents, that is, not for the kiddos. And therein lies the problem. By all rights, the little guys should be afraid of playgrounds, or at least some of the attractions at the playground. 

Why is it that every playground needs to have a 6 foot drop without a rail? Seriously, when is that ever a good idea? The worst thing is that, for some unknown reason, those spots are the ones that 2-3 year-olds are most interested in. Hey look, there's an awesome slide, or we could go play on the swings, but no, they want to run up to the dropoff with careless abandon. I swear, I see some playgrounds and I just wonder to myself the whole time how many kids get injured there every week.

Am I just a paranoid parent? I don't think so. I hope not. At least, I always thought that I would be a pretty laid back dad, and in a lot of ways I am. But seriously, playgrounds freak me the hell out.

Headbutts for the Kids

Get it? Get it? Yeah so the post has nothing to do with goats,
but the image just tied in too perfectly to my title to not use it.

I felt like a very bad person today. I didn't mean to be a bad person, but it just works out that way sometimes, you know?

I took the kids out to the grocery store and was surprised to see how many people were there. I had planned to let Cam walk along with me, perhaps even push a small cart or carry a small basket -- he loves that. Unfortunately, there were so many people out and about that I could't have both he and his sister walking along beside me, especially not with carts or baskets. When I told Cam that he was going to have to stay in the double stroller with his brother, he was understandably upset it.

The first thing I always do when the kids get upset in public is to remove them from the situation. Get the kids away from everyone so that their yelling doesn't bother everyone else, and get them away from whatever stimulus is upsetting them. Always a good move. In this case, I took the kids back outside the store so we could have a talk. Anyway, we this thing with Cam sometimes where we have him blow on our noses, and then jerk back, as if he had nearly just blown us over. I did it once, and it worked out fairly well, but he was still having a hard time calming himself down. It usually takes a few times. I went in for the second time and, unbeknownst to me, Elles crept in behind me to see what I was doing. When Cam blew on my nose, I jerked back as per the usual, but not as per the usual, jerking back resulted in me headbutting Ellie in the face. Pretty hard. Not cool.

She played it off like everything was okay for a minute, but as often happens with her, she realized after 5 seconds that it actually really hurt. I don't know if she just has some sort of delay between her nerve endings and the part of her brain that processes pain or what, but it always takes longer with her than I expect. So there we were, the four of us right outside of the store, Cam screaming about the injustice of not getting to push a cart, and Elles screaming about the injustice/pain of getting headbutted in the face by her dad. I did not feel like a good person. I'm not sure that anything makes me feel like a bad person so much as accidentally hurting one of the kids. Or my wife (rolling over in bed can be dangerous). Or the dog, who's paws are surprisingly easy to accidentally step on. Actually, that last one might be the worst. The yelp she gives when I step on her paw is really heart-breakingly sad.

I need to stop being so clumsy.

Experiments in Dadification: Speed Cleaning

I do not like to clean.
Cleaning is the bane of my existence.

Fortunately, I don't mean that in the Batman sense, in which case I would be saying that cleaning is a super strong villain determined to crush me.
While cleaning may feel like soul-crushing, back-breaking work, it has never actually broken my back.
Which Bane has.
To Batman.
This is common knowledge, so hopefully that doesn't spoil anything from the movie for those who weren't already in the know. They probably won't do that part in the movie anyway.

See here.
Seriously though, does anyone know what's up
with the dinosaur in the background? 

So yeah, like I was saying, I don't like cleaning. The kids seem to think that cleaning is fun, but only the kind where you're spraying water and wiping it up. Not the kind where you pick up stuff and put it away in an orderly fashion. They hate that.

It can be hard to get the kids to actually pick up their stuff, and harder still to get them to do it without whining and moaning and just generally being unpleasant. This problem is made worse by the fact that my kids are extremely adept at making messes. It is my firmly held belief that the trashed hotel room scene from The Hangover (see also: that Geico commercial with Richard Simmons) is not actually the result of a night of drunken debauchery, but rather, what happened when they let a handful of toddlers play in there for like 10 minutes.

In an attempt to make the kids clean up more of their messes and to keep it from being unpleasant for any longer than it needs to be, I have started to do what I call Speed Cleaning with the kids.
It works like this:

I tell the kids that we need to clean up as much as we can and that we only have two minutes to do it. That is the most important part right there. Even if the place isn't clean when time runs out, we stop. That just means we will need to do another two minutes a little while later. Usually, I end up letting it slide on a bit longer than two minutes, but the important thing here is that they know that they only have a short time to get it all done. They feel rushed to do it, so they actually start actively working on it. Also, they see an end in sight, so even if it is unpleasant they know it won't last long. Honestly, it's much easier to do something that sucks if you know it won't last long.

We've been doing this fairly regularly for the last week or so, and it's been going well. I'm sure plenty of you do this already, but for those that haven't tried it, why not give it a shot? I am a fan.

It's hardtotypeon a broken keyboard

I am not going to edit this post.

There will be grammatical errors, missing letters, and general weirdness.

This post was made written half on my phone, and half on my broken keyboard. 

Neither option is ideal. Or even good.

At least the spacebar probably works properlyon that keyboard.

So a little while back, Cam got his hands on my computer. Being three and not having any idea what one actually does with a computer, he slammed his hands down on the keyboard and pulled down. In just a split second, he had pulled off and damaged several keys and the mechanisms that make them work properly. I realize that replacement keyboards are fairly cheap and easy to replace, but I have yet to do so. Some keys get stuck for a moment, and some don't register at all unless you press hard and long a few times (haha - apparently, I can't say hard and long together without chuckling to myself). Or two laptops in the house are completely falling apart. They've been broken, torn apart, and reassembled multiple times, and there is little more than necessity and wishful thinking holding them together at this point. Anyway, as a result of all of this, I haven't been posting much recently. Sorry.

Today I an trying something a but different and blogging from my phone. Weird. I'm just waiting to read through this later on and find that autocorrect made me say something totally weird or creepy. You know, like change the word keyboard to balls or something like that. you all injure you've been there (perfect example. I wrote that yesterday, and I don't even remember what that was supposed to be. It makes for a great illustration of my point, so I'm leaving it).

What I am tryingto get at is that 

A) It is lame that I haven't been posting

B) I have my reasons for said lameness

C) I will try to be less lame

D) It's not going to be pretty

I'm Still bad at photography

I think this is going to be a regular thing. Traditionally, if I take a bad picture, I delete it (usually after chuckling to myself for a moment). This tends to leave me with a very small photo collection. A few weeks ago, I decided to buck tradition and instead of doing the obvious, I might as well put those pictures out there for everyone to enjoy. Or not enjoy. You know, because they aren't good pictures. 

The pictures make this one longer than most, so you can click to see my poor photography after the jump

Toilets Are Fun

This might make me a bad person.
Or a bad parent.
Perhaps both.

So here's what happened:
upon finishing changing Cam's clothes, I was startled to find that baby boy wasn't in the living room anymore. The moment I looked down the hall and saw the bathroom door open, I was pretty sure that I knew what to expect.

This:

Yup, there he is, playing in the toilet. Sadly, I don't think that this picture does the mountain of unrolled toilet paper on the ground justice.

So here's the part that makes me a bad person/parent:
When I saw this scene playing out before me, I stopped a moment and laughed... Then I took out my phone and started taking pictures... Then I took a few more, until I had gotten just the right picture.

But just check out how happy he looks

So seriously, aren't good people supposed to see this sort of thing and instantly put a stop to it? I just kept thinking about how great this was going to look in a slideshow at his wedding reception someday. 

Whatever, don't judge me. 

I can do that myself. 

And I judge that I am probably a bad person.
It's alright, I've come to terms with it.

Regardless, I think that it's important to be able to squeeze what humor and enjoyment you can out of these situations. Sometimes, that's just what it takes to carry you through until tomorrow. In my case, this kind of made my day. I will probably chuckle to myself every time I see this picture for the rest of my life. Of course, it might not seem so funny when he gets conjunctivitis or E Coli or whatever, but I'm sticking to my guns on this one. Worth it.

Hide and Seek, Minus the Clothes

Note: The title is not intended to be read as a suggestion for adventurous post-bedtime activities, but instead as a reference to the below photograph. Still, make of it what you will. I'm not here to judge.

The Photograph in Question:

That's Cam.
Naked.
Under the bed.
Don't ask me why, I have no idea.

I gave the kids a bath today, and as I was getting Con dressed, I could hear Cam laughing behind me. When I finished up with baby boy, I turned around and saw a foot sticking out from under the bed. I reached for him, at which point he retreated further under the bed and started laughing harder.

Like him, I could see the humor in this.
Unlike him, however, I could not see the appeal.

You see, it was a good 20+ minutes of this before he actually came out. While I can see actually doing something like this for 2-3 minutes, tops, he was still just as thrilled about it at the end of the 20+ minutes, when I finally got him to come out. Even then, he only came out because we were about to go somewhere fun, and before we could leave he had to be both:

a) out from under the bed
and
b) dressed

I'm pretty sure that I would have become unbearably bored and uncomfortably cramped if I had stayed under there for anywhere near that long. Isn't he supposed to be the one with the short attention span? I'm confused. Anyway, I say it at least once a day and today is no exception; Cam is the silliest boy. I am not going to qualify that statement by saying that he is the silliest boy that I know, or anything along those lines, as that might imply that there was actually some boy out there that I didn't know that might, in fact, be a sillier boy. Perhaps I should just say that Cam is the silliest and leave it at that.

The rest of the pictures I ended up with of him were somewhat less internet friendly.
I'll just say that despite  my best efforts, they turned out somewhat tainted.

I am a big fan of naptime. Seriously, I love naptime. We're simpatico, naptime and I.
I'm not the best multitasker out there, so naptime for the kids tends to be try-to-get-as-much-stuff-done-as-I-can-before-the-kids-wake-up time for Dad. If I don't get enough done during naptime, the day feels wasted to me.

Right around the time she turned three, Ellie decided she wasn't taking naps anymore. That was a very sad day in our household. As were all of the subsequent evenings in our home for months after that. You see, even though we couldn't get her to take a nap anymore, her body still needed it. She was sooooooo grumpy most evenings, due to the sudden nap deficiency, but there was just no swaying her on the topic.

Aside from the resultant increase in overall grumpiness levels, the other consequence of the cessation of napation was a crippling blow to parental naptime productivity. I mention this because, despite my best efforts to convince him otherwise, Cam (now almost 3) is getting to that same point now. He is at the same age Ellie was when she stopped, and he has been resisting naptime more and more with each passing day. While he has been doing pretty well when awake during the would be naptime, the real problem comes a few hours later; Sometime after 4:00 he starts to get really grumpy, and those last few hours of wakefulness are just a blur of unpleasantness. Anyway, I want to find a way to stop the tide of inevitability on this one, but I'm afraid that this is really just a losing battle.

The bright side, I think that having both he and Ellie awake during naptime is easier than it was when Ellie starting skipping naps, since they can keep each other occupied somewhat.

Naptime, thank you for all that you've done for us. We love you, and even though you'll be gone, you'll still be with us in our hearts (cue montage of naptime, set to Boys II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye").

Siri Con Carnage

Alright, so these are clearly not iPhone 4's or 4S's (3G and 3GS), but the title sounded better that way, so I used it.

Since the day his teeth came in, Con has been an enemy to cell phones (and hands, forearms, etc) everywhere. He attacked Megh's phone two months ago, but had only developed the jaw strength to slightly damage a phone. Those were the days...

Not too bad. The teeth marks are almost cute...

My how things have changed. The little guy still has a taste for cell phones on par with Michelangelo's taste for peanut butter and anchovy pizza, but his jaw's a bit stronger than it used to be. His potential for cell phone destruction has increased accordingly. So yeah, for all of the more math-minded of you out there,
Teething Children + Phones = Not Good.
Fortunately, Megh's and I were planning on upgrading to our next phones within the next two weeks anyway. To the phone's credit, it still totally works.
Anyone want a damaged iPhone?

Not cute. Not cute at all.

Nope.

And no.

Multitasking and Mischief

Elles was at a sleepover with her cousin last night, so it was just me n' the boys for a while there. While that's usually a great opportunity for the boys and I to dude-it-up for a little while, I had a lot of things that I needed to take care of. This is a recurring theme for me. Truth be told, the ever waging battle between getting things done and taking care of the kids has been THE recurring theme for as long as I've been staying with the kids.

Case in point: last night.

As I was preparing dinner for the boys, I could see more or less where they were in the play room, but with sections of wall/etc in the way, I couldn't tell exactly what they were doing. Nonetheless, I could still hear them, so between hearing them and catching glimpses of them every 30 seconds or so, I felt that I had things under control while I cooked. After all, the boys sounded like they were having fun.

Then I came out with dinner.

Cam had gotten hold of a crayon and proceeded to paint the town. And by paint, I mean color. And by town, I mean house. The rest of that is pretty much right. I suppose the reason it sounded like the kids were having fun is because they were, in fact, having a blast doing their best impression of Harold (of "and the Purple Crayon" fame).

That's the one

Fortunately, it wasn't too hard to wash the crayon off of everything (try Goo Gone), but I am hoping that we don't have a repeat performance anytime soon. Looking back on the incident, I can see how this probably wouldn't have happened on any other night, because I would have heard Elles chiding him or telling me about it, but still, I need to get better at this whole multitasking thing.

Sickness, Spatulas, and Yogi Bear

Last night, as I stood up to go see what the Mrs. was up to in the other room, I was alarmed to find that I felt dizzy, cold, and that my head hurt. I had sneezed several times earlier, so I wasn't shocked that I was feeling sick now, per say; What surprised me was that I hadn't noticed any of that until I stood up. In the time it took to stand up, I went from feeling more or less alright to completely lousy. I should note that, even with the below par ankle, it does not take me long to stand up. This isn't some bizarre 20 minute standing up ritual that I was doing, just regular-type standing up. So yeah, I was alarmed to find that, during this brief passage of time, my health changed so rapidly. 

Anyway, fast forward to today, and even a giant spatula couldn't have pried me up from my bed. Bed spatulas should be a thing. At the very least, the bed itself could tilt over to the side to spill you out. I don't know, that's just one way it could work -- I just came up with the idea right now, so the details are somewhat nebulous. Really, that's all beside the point though. What I'm trying to say is that I've felt drained, sleepy, dizzy, and just overall unpleasant today. 

Is narcolepsy contagious? It looks like they've got a full on outbreak.
Alternative caption: "Is there a carbon monoxide leak in this house?"
- Micheal Bluth

Kids Say Funny Things Sometimes

Elles - "Now we'll count and you hide."
Dad - "I can't really hide so well with my ankle being hurt."
Elles - "Well, maybe you could stand really still, and you will look like a statue."
Dad - "I'm not sure that would work."
Elles - "You could lay down and stay still on the carpet and you would just look like part of the carpet..."

Not surprisingly, it did not take them long to find me.

As I thought about it, becoming a convincing statue
would have required a lot more dedication than I could muster.
Also, that would have totally freaked out the kids.

The other day, she was busy making a nest outside with rocks and grass, just in case there were little people living under the house and they needed a place to stay (remember, we watched Arrietty recently). That was adorable.
Dad- "Wow, Elles. That nest is really cool. That's great."
Elles- "I can't really make them a nice kitchen though."

If you've seen the movie, that last comment was not only kind of funny, but pretty awwww-enducing. Not to be confused with awe-inducing, which is totally a different thing. I meant awww as in the sound you make when something is cute. There is also a facial expression associated with the sound. Clasping your hands together over your heart is optional. I usually exercise that option. What can I say? I'm a sucker for cute. Of course, I'm also a sucker for a good metal tune, so it balances out. In my mind it does, anyway.

New Avatar - The Legend of Korra Clip

I'm always trying to find quality entertainment for the kids. There is a lot of really dumbed down, obnoxious, or just really low quality stuff out there, and I would rather they watch something legitimately good, that makes them think. When I find such rarities, I feel like I should spread the word.

Anyway, one of the shows my kids and I can agree on is Nickelodeon's Avatar - The Last Airbender. Not the movie, which was inexplicably awful (especially considering how great the source material is), but the series.

For those who haven't watched it, the show is several notches above most of what passes for children's entertainment. There's a great story, some surprisingly grown up messages about responsibility and the consequences of your actions, and it was also just a lot of fun to watch.

Anyway, Nickelodeon is getting ready to debut the follow up series, The Legend of Korra, which is supposed to take place about 70 years after the original series, and follows the adventures of the next Avatar, Korra.

We got a new look at the series today, in the form of a short clip of Korra as a little girl (the rest of the series looks like it will be taking place at least 10 years later). I couldn't get the clip to embed well, but you can watch it here.

You can view a regular trailer for the series here.

Back Home

With Elles feeling better, we were able to bring her back home Friday evening. Despite just having left the place, there is a part of me that wants to take the family back to that hospital, just to play in the family leisure areas and what not. I am still kind of in shock at how nice it was. Niceness aside, it probably isn't the best idea to bring the whole family out to the hospital to play, so I think we will hold off on that for a while.

So anyway, after the craziness that was last week, everything has settled back down, and now it's Monday, which means that it's time to get back to the regular routine. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Example: right now, it's 4:35. How did it get to be that late? I have no idea. I guess the day has passed pretty quickly, which is good, but I've only finished a fraction of the things on my to-do list, and I don't really feel like I was better than average in any particular area. Oh well, the day isn't over yet. And then there's still tomorrow...

This Hospital is Super Nice

Seriously, this hospital is nicer than most nice hotels. It's kind of ridiculous. In a good way. I used to sell medical equipment and supplies, and looking around the rooms, I can't help but picture the price tags on everything in the room. It suffices to say that had this place been an account of mine, I would be a very happy (and wealthy) man.

You should see the pool here.

Sick Kids = Unfair

As unfair as life is on a regular basis, there are a few unfairness-laden situations that you deal with on a regular basis.

First and foremost, it is not fair for kids to get sick. The discrepancy in energy between children and their parents is the second thing that comes to mind. While we will talk about the specifics of the energy discrepancy another time (most notably, how unfair it is that children, who are fragile and not wise enough to know how badly they can [and often do] hurt themselves, have enough energy to power a small city, while their parents, who are supposed to be keeping them from getting hurt, among the thousands of other things they have to do that are just part of being an adult, hardly have the energy necessary to get up to stay awake), Ellie is sick right now, so I would like to take a moment to talk about the whole kids being sick thing.

Probably won't be seen in this house for a few weeks

I Am Not Good at Photography

Seriously -- I am not a good photographer. Of course, if you've read any of my other posts with pictures, you totally already know that. 

While the results are not always good (read: pretty much never good), they are, at least, fairly entertaining from time to time.

Anyway, I'm not feeling particularly wordy today, so here's a picture of baby boy looking stoned. 

You're welcome.

"Life is full of highs,
with someone to stir and someone to fry."
Not Pictured: Stir-Fry

One day, he just might take issue with me posting this picture of him (which is really just the result of bad timing, I swear), and when that day comes, I will take it down, no questions asked. Until then, enjoy it. I do.

Secret Of Survival - Music

Recent text message I sent to my wife:
"So I'm pretty sure that I have a mental disorder that I just made up."

When she asked about it, rightly puzzled by the statement, I told her that I that I think I suffer from a music deficiency. Not like an aversion to, or inability for music, but that my body lacks something naturally to help it function that I get from listening to music. Kind of like how Seasonal Affect Disorder (or SAD, which is the best and most appropriate acronym ever) involves feeling off without exposure to sunlight, I feel a bit off without the presence of music. I like to call it Musical Affect Disorder (or MAD).

Fun With an Egg Package - Goggles

It was a slow morning around these parts. I wasn't feeling great. Honestly, I probably could have slept for another three hours, had that been a viable option. 

So yeah, the kids were extra energetic and I was the opposite of that. Not the best combination.

I went into the kitchen to see if anything looked like it could be interesting for the kids when I spotted an empty egg package sitting out. Ding! Jackpot! I could totally do something fun with this...

Egg not included

And then I stood there, just staring at the thing for three or four minutes, trying to think of what we could possibly do with it.

Blank.

Egg cartons should totally be fun though, right?

The Secret World of Arrietty

It's no big secret that I am a fan of Studio Ghibli. For those who are still unfamiliar with Studio Ghibli, I would say that they are more or less the Japanese equivalent to Pixar. The movies are still hand drawn 2D, but their quality and popularity is on par. Their films are even distributed in the US by Disney, and while not all of them are bordering on perfect, several of them are. Not only that, but even the lesser Studio Ghibli movies still have some of the most vivid imagery that you will every see. Okay, so I could go on about Studio Ghibli for much longer than anyone would care to listen, so for now, we'll just leave it at that.

Last weekend was one of those times where the stars line up just right, and the universe just works like you hope it will. In this case, Studio Ghibli's new movie, The Secret World of Arrietty arrived in theaters the same week as my birthday. Naturally, we took the kids to go see it. The movie is based on the classic book The Borrowers, about tiny people living underneath the floorboards (the old cartoon show, The Littles, was loosely based on the borrowers as well).

I'm Confused.

Suddenly, I find myself wanting to check the labels on football pads, athletic cups, and chainmail shark suits, among other things. You know, just to make sure.

Okay, so honestly, I never thought that Cam's Tonka Hard Hat would be appropriate for use on a construction site, but this made me laugh.

Valentines Day

Valentines Day?
...more like Velveeta's Day.

Get it?
...because it's cheesy. See what I did there?
Yeah, I'm funny.

So in any case, Valentines Day kind of makes me laugh. The cards, the candies, etcetera, they all have the corniest Valentines Day messages on them. In fact, many of these messages are pretty much cornier than anything else that has ever been made commercially available.

Yeah, even this.

Tiny Food is Novel and Cheeseburgers are Delicious

As anyone who read my previous post about the eating habits of my daughter should already know, she can be pretty difficult at the dinner table. The Dinner Wars, as I like to call them, are (one of) the bane(s) of my existence.

So it is with great shock and excitement that I can announce that this is what she ate for dinner last night: 

Okay, so the real thing didn't have anything on it
but cheese, and she only ate half of it,
but that's kind of beside the point

Boots is the Worst

As I mentioned the other day, I am not a fan of Boots the Monkey. In all seriousness, I think he must be one of the worst ideas for a character, pretty much ever. The voice is bad enough, but that's not the real problem here.

Why is Boots such a lame character?
The answer is in the question.

"Totally pulling them off..."
-Ted.
Also, Boots.
Sadly, both were wrong.

Easy Activities - Maptime

It's a map, it's a map, it's a map, it's a map, it's a map. It's a map!

Dora, I hate you. Not as much as I hate Boots and Map, mind you, but it's still hatred and I will not hesitate to label it as such. I will get into that more on another day, but for now, suffice it to say that I can't even think of a map without that song popping into my head. 

It goes without saying then, that this activity resulted in that song looping through my head, ad nauseum.

No cartography lessons, thank you very much

Dude, Cam - Is That A Snake In Your Pants...

... or are you just excited for lunch?

Yup. Snake.

Kids Are Like Amplifiers

From time to time, childless and less-child friends ask me what it's like to be a parent (or to have three kids). I respond with some answer about how it's a combination of stress, frustration, and transcendentally happy moments.

I think I have a new answer:

"Kids are like amplifiers."

Yeah, but my kid goes to 11.

Easy Indoor Activities: Fun with Boxes

With Christmas not too far back in the rear-view mirror, we still have a lot of boxes that we haven't gotten around to letting go of yet. With that in mind, I decided to pull out some of those boxes to figure out what kind of fun things we could do with them.

"But Dad, playing with boxes is totally square"

after the jump: what we did with them

Things My 5 Year Old Will Put in Her Mouth vs. Things My 5 Year Old Will Not Put in Her Mouth

Things My 5 Year Old Will Put in Her Mouth: 

Yum.

The glass, not the food. The
moment I look the other way, bam. Tongue. Glass.

See also: our sliding-glass door.

more failure to understand my daughter after the jump

Boys' Day In

This morning, Ellie had a play date with some of the other little girls her age. That left me at home with just the boys. Whenever the opportunity arises, I like to do total guy stuff. If they were older, I'm sure we would have rented all of the super hero movies that we've missed out on over the last year or two. Really, anything with explosions would have been great. The Mrs. isn't always as excited to watch those movies as I am, so I've got a lot of catching up to do. But alas, the boys are still just 1 and 2 1/2, so all of that would be too intense. So no superhero movies for Dad.

So what did we end up doing, you ask?

The Greatest Thing: 'Jams

It gets cold in the NorthWest. Not nearly as cold as some other places, mind you, but cold nonetheless. This, in and of itself, isn't too big of a problem.

We have wood floors. Wooden floors get cold. Also not a huge problem.

My kids refuse to wear any nice, foot-warming articles of clothing that we put them in for longer than a few minutes at a time. The kiddos are also not good about staying under their covers when they sleep. These issues, when combined with the aforementioned temperature and flooring situation, start to create something of a problem for us.

The solution?

Pajamas.

More particularly, the good pajamas. Fuzzy Footy Zippy Jammies, as I like to call them. 

Not accurately represented in picture: Snuggliness.

Easy Activities: Fun With Lap Trays

So yesterday, I introduced the concept of F2E (fun to effort ratio), and I realized a few things:

1. I didn't really explain what constitutes effort in my post.
2. You all probably understood it anyway, so I don't even really have a good reason to explain it further. Regardless, I feel strangely compelled to, and I know that it will just stay on my mind until I do. I think that's how crazy works, so I understand that I am treading on dangerous ground here.
3. After making such a big deal out of F2E, I might have sounded somewhat lazy.
4. In order to properly explain this, I am going to sound somewhat more lazy. And then I won't. This will all make sense in a moment...

Alright -- for me, effort is a matter of how much preparation, physical exertion, mental acuity, and clean up, is required to do the activity. Of these things, physical exertion and clean up are my major concerns. And there it is. I just said, more or less, that I didn't want to move around from the couch very much and I don't want to have to clean. That doesn't paint me in a very good light.

saving face and finally getting to the point after the jump

Easy Activities: Paper Airplanes

This morning, I was dragging pretty hard. I just couldn't muster the energy to be particularly fun or creative. I needed to find something that we I could do that would give us a high Fun-To-Effort ratio score (referred to hereafter as the F2E Score, or just F2E).

Then it hit me: Paper Airplanes! I gave the kiddos some paper and crayons and told them to go hog-wild. When they were finished coloring, I turned their plain old stationary (haha) artwork into aviationary artwork (that's totally a real word, as far as I'm concerned). Not too time or labor intensive, but fun. F2E ftw.

Mine had one of those old warplane style mouths on it. I am more excited about that than I should be.

Videographic evidence after the jump

S.O.S. (Secret of Survival) - Sing

One day, someone is going to ask one of my children what their dad was like when they were kids, and I'm pretty sure that I know what their answer will be. "I remember he used to sing a lot," they'll say, "like, really a lot. And loud... Like he was trying to practice or something." 

Yeller was a good growler, but his clean vocals were a little ruff...

The kids are used to it since it's all they've ever really known, so they don't get nearly as weirded out as they probably should when I suddenly start singing at full volume for no apparent reason. Yup, I love to sing... 'Cuz I'm crazy like that, yo... Don't judge me... Yeah, so I suppose that the kids are just enabling me. Here's hoping that it lasts for a few more years...

Hitting People is Lame: The Song

Just to be sure that the lesson from the last post stuck, I pulled out the guitar and made up a song on the spot about how hitting people is lame. I call it "Hitting People is Lame." Yup. As you can see, I have a knack for catchy titles.

Watch the video after the jump

Experiments in Dadification

Just because you can make brown Jello doesn't mean that you should.

Be yourself. Or myself. Depends on who we are talking about, really. Which right now, is me. So... myself it is. 


You get the idea.

I realized recently how much I feel like a tool every time I try to lecture the kids. I switch into lecture mode, and all of a sudden, it's as if I've stepped back, switched into autopilot, and now I am just watching the whole thing unfold in front of me from the 3rd person. 

I don't sound like myself at all, and they don't seem to get the message, or even to really listen.

My experiment of the day: acting like myself when reprimanding the kids.