Jackie Chan

After watching some Jackie Chan clips on YouTube, Soen wanted to have a kung fu fight with me. But first he wanted to show off his new moves, seen here. Sound effects provided by Grandma Bonnie.

The coolest move isn't on here. That's where he jumps up and kicks me with both of his feet. Everytime he does it he says, "Did you see that Daddy? That was AWESOME! Let's go show Mommy and Grandma Bonnie!"

third blog in one day

Just going through various video clips I've taken over the past month or so. This one is a little long but I like how much is going on here. There's Sadie eating ice cream while Soen and Mommy talk. In the beginning he's talking about the "barn house," which is what he calls our old Philly house. Not sure why. I like the weird music that comes in halfway through the clip, which is usually followed by wife saying, "love the music, husband." (Note to all my colleagues: See? I even inflict "Difficult Listening Hour" on my family!)

The second half of the clip is a good example of Sadie imitating Soen. She's in the imitation phase now. Earlier today she saw me practicing my golf swing and started doing it herself. I tried to catch it on film but of course she just wanted to grab the camera. That's the trouble with filming Sadie when she's not eating.

Oh, the bib Sadie is wearing says "SOEN, Santa's Little Helper."

Solstice!

In case anyone is wondering what Solstice looks like at our house. Pretty much looks like Christmas. Stockings, presents, tired parents. You can't see it, but there's even a tree. The night before, I told Soen if he got up before the sunrise he wouldn't get his presents. Well, sure enough, he stayed in bed until Mommy went up and got him. Grandma Bonnie tried coaxing him out of bed, but he wasn't budging until one of us got him. This was from Saturday morning. I apologize to family members who were hoping to see the kids open your presents, but the battery died one minute into filming. (Of course.) So, this is all there is.

just plain cute

I know it looks like I asked them to do this, but this was an actual spontaneous cute moment that I happened to catch on film. I think they did the loop twice before I got the camera out and taping.

Drama Queen

Not the bippie butt dance.
I tried to capture the dance I described in the previous entry but of course, as soon as the camera was rolling it became show-off time. As much of a mess this video is, I like it as it pretty much captures what life is like in our house.

In other news, Soen went to the doctor yesterday and got four shots. When he was younger he didn't know what was coming, and so the shots weren't quite so awful. Now, however, he knows what's coming, so he gets all worked up ahead of time. This is understandable, of course, but we were a little apprehensive about the visit. But Wife prepared him and he took it like a champ. He still cried, of course. Actually, he did the silent scream. Afterwards he told Mommy that he didn't mean to cry. He only cried because it hurt.

That story stands in stark contrast to his behavior regarding the boo-boo he recently got on his knee. He got it running down the block and falling, while on a walk with wife and Sadie. He screamed bloody murder until one of the neighbors ran and got him a band-aid. Then he limped home like he had a thigh full of shrapnel. This was Sunday. He's still limping. Not only that but he walks around holding his pants away from his knee. All day long. We're not talking about a serious wound. It's a scraped knee. But for every activity he has to take into account how this will affect his boo-boo. He's on his sixth or seventh band-aid. He keeps saying it's getting better, but refuses to stop babying it.

The other day I called him a drama queen. He said, "You're a drama queen." While I disagreed with his premise, I did think it was a good counter-attack.

Potty mouth

Reason number 85 why you don't need toys for your kids.

Not sure exactly when or why it started, but a few weeks ago Soen started peppering his speech with scatological words. Now we're lucky to get a word that's not "poop," "stinky butt," "fart," or some (rather creative) combination. And usually when he starts talking like this, he'll point to his butt, which of course, since he's naked, is exposed for all the world to see. He especially loves to do a little dance where he shakes his money-maker, points to it, and goes off into a rap about stinky poops and the like. This of course draws ire from his parents, and of therefore if all the more attractive to do. It's like he's addicted to saying this stuff. And of course it's hard not to laugh when he's singing the Land of the Lost theme song and substituting every other word with "poopy."

Speaking of rap, I was flipping through the radio with him in the car the other day and happened on a hip-hop station. Normally he doesn't pay too much attention to the radio, but he immediately wanted to hear more of this particular song and he started asking me questions about it. So, it turns out my son likes Eminem. Eager to pursue this line of music I played him some Beastie Boys and Public Enemy--momentarily forgetting that they use words a little more crass than "poopy." Nope. Not interested. I keep trying to get him interested in music more, but he just tunes out. Every once in a while, though something will strike his fancy and I add it to my Soen play list, which is as follows:
-Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash
-Little Honda by the Beach Boys
-Bonanza Ska by Carlos Malcolm and his Afro-Jamaican Rhythms
-Ana Ng by They Might Be Giants
-Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by William Shatner*
-Blues X Man by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
-Lose Yourself by Eminem
-and of course, Deck the Halls

* I once tried playing him the Beatles' version of Lucy but he wasn't interested. At first I was taken aback by the very thought that MY son would prefer William Shatner to the Beatles, but still, I had to admire the force of his conviction. Now I've come around to his way of thinking. The Shatner version is way more interesting. Having said that, I'll be interested to see if that comment draws as much mockery as my Santa posting did.

Santa vs. Daddy

Sorry it's been a while since I last wrote. Been meaning to but just haven't gotten around to it. Anyway, I'm back.

So, this week Soen's school is putting on a holiday show, which of course means a Christmas show. I was dimly aware that this was coming up but imagine my surprise when Soen came home one day singing "Deck the Halls." I almost fell over. I always knew this day was coming but it came faster than I expected.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, I've been on an anti-Santa (anti-Christmas) tear since the day we found out Michaela was pregnant with Soen. I won't go into all the reasons for it, but let's just say that wife and I have decided to celebrate Solstice instead. Aside from that decision, though, we haven't really figured out how to pull this off. We have been celebrating Solstice, I guess, although it has always been conveniently celebrated on Christmas day, since that's the day we have off from work. But as far as having a family tradition... well we haven't really figured anything out yet. Nor have we really put much thought into it, which is a shame, since this year Soen has become very aware of the Christmas tradition--especially where it concerns Santa Claus. His knowledge about Santa is quite stunning since he's never heard a peep about him from us.

(Having said that, my parents took Soen to see Santa when Soen was like a year old. I was a little annoyed about it at the time, but I figured he'd never remember. Then two days ago he recounted the visit in exquisite detail. It's probably the only memory he has from that time. How wonderful.)

Anyway, we've never said anything to him about Santa, but when I was taking him bowling this past Saturday, he saw a Santa figure and proceeded to tell me all about him. I gather he picked it up at school. He knows every detail. And as he was telling me all this I felt like a deer caught in headlights. All I could muster was, "Oh yeah...? Really...? Is that right...? Naughty and nice?" Then he said, "I like Santa. Do you like Santa, Daddy?" I would have rather he asked me where babies came from. So I lied and said I thought he was all right. Only two days before that Soen was telling us about Santa and, to nip the whole thing in the bud, I said, "Yeah, but he's not real, buddy." As soon as I said it, though I felt like I had made a big mistake. Like he was going to run to his schoolmates and tell them the awful truth and that I would be forever known as the asshole who blew Christmas for everyone. Well I didn't have to worry about that. Soen corrected me: "Yes he is, Daddy." End of story.

So, I'm not sure how we're going to handle this. As far as Soen is concerned, Christmas is coming and so is Santa. He even asked if we could put some lights on out outside trees and bushes. One of the reasons I wanted to avoid Santa was because I didn't want to lie to him. But it seems that that has been taken out of my hands.

Ever since I mentioned that I wasn't going to do the whole Santa thing, all of my friends and family scoffed at me. So, I can only imagine that any of you who are reading this are feeling a certain amount of schadenfreude at my predicament. I will keep you all informed how this all goes down, as I can only imagine it will make for some hilarious reading. I know that I'm not going to be a jerk about it, but at the same time I don't want to encourage it. I gotta talk to some Jews to see how they deal with this. After all, we're not going to celebrate Christmas, nor are we going to be putting out cookies for Santa.

At least not this week.

(Oh, this video: Soen has been very into superheroes lately. Wife being the genius she is cashed in on the post-Halloween sales and bought the boy a Spider-man costume, which has reduced his naked time almost by half. Maybe I should tell him Spider-man will come flying in on Solstice Day with a web-full of presents. Hmmm...)

The sound of one hand clapping

When Soen was a year old dinnertime was very stressful. Because he couldn't speak to tell us what he wanted, he would just scream. Wife finally had had enough, so she taught him the sign for "more." Suddenly the screaming stopped. The signing had another benefit, too. It seemed to connect the "language gets me things" synapse in his brain and he started talking more. Within a month, his vocabulary went from five words to 30. Sounds like an ad for teaching your kids how to sign, doesn't it? If this were a movie, the screen would fade and then the words "Three years later" would appear...

Sadie just turn a year old and is suddenly screaming a lot more around dinnertime. Well, with her, any time anyone is eating anything, she starts screaming, but we were able to detect the subtleties within her screams and we could sense that she was frustrated at not being able to express herself. So, we started with the sign language lessons and now she can sign for "more." This was a very happy day for us and we waited with bated breath for the screaming to stop. And we continue to wait.

Both kids developped their own version of the "more" sign. Soen would point his index finger at the palm of his other hand. Sadie will sometimes do that, but more often she opens and closes one hand. On some days this reminds me of Bart Simpson's response to the old Zen koan about the sound of one hand clapping. On most days, however, I am reminded of a snotty Frenchman snapping his fingers and saying, "Garcon!" Except her version of "Garcon" is "aaaaaaaaagh!!!"

The other day she was standing next to me with a cup in one hand and a safety fork in the other, screaming for more of my cereal. Being an ass, I said, "Sadie... do you want more?" Appropriately, she shot me the glare of death, slammed the fork down on the table, started one-hand-clapping in my face, and screamed.

Still no verbal communication beyond the screams, but there is progress. Today she started saying "muh muh muh" and pointing to some crackers. This is what Soen used to say. And frankly, it couldn't come at a better time because she's been doing the silent scream for even the littlest offenses. You know the silent scream: The kid is so upset about something they can't catch their breath enough to scream. It's the worst because you know it's coming and the longer the pause, the louder it's going to be. The other day I swear it was a good ten second between the first little scream and the storm surge. And that was for telling her she couldn't have my coffee.

Anyway, when Sadie isn't eating (or screaming for more food), she throws herself on pillows. I caught the tail end of it, here. What I love about this video is how she look like an old man with a cup of coffee in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

Halloween

Some pics from our first Halloween in Dixie. Fun was had by all. In this picture on the right, Soen is demonstrating how a dragon sleeps in a nest of pine needles. Sadie lasted about an hour.

I had forgotten about children's boundless love of candy. Ever since we went trick or treating, my son has asked at least once a day to see his loot. He then dumps it out on our kitchen table and examines every piece, asking what each one is and then reporting what we say to the other parent. "Daddy! This one tastes like banana!" He is allowed one piece a day and man if he doesn't look forward to that piece all day long. "Daddy! This lollipop has rainbows!" It's hard to believe that in a week or so, he'll have forgotten all about his candy. Last year we wound up throwing out 90% of his goodies.

Evil!

Soen saying, "Mu-hu-hu-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha (cough cough cough)"

Soen has a new found love of superheroes. Not sure how this came about, but he loves Batman, Superman, and the Flash. Especially the Flash. His favorite is to run around the house (naked) and slam into me and knock me over, much to the delight of Sadie.

Anyway, wife found the Justice League on the Cartoon Network and we've been recording it for him. I started watching today and was surprised at how hilarious it is. At one point Lex Luther is leaving the men's room and one of his supervillain buddies says, "Aren't you going to wash your hands?" To which Lex replies, "No, because I'm evil." Well, that made me laugh out loud, so Soen decided that was pretty funny, too. So all night he would ask me to ask him if he was going to wash his hands so he could say, "No tubby I evil!" And then laugh menacingly.

Ed note: For some reason, the boy has been pronouncing "because" as "tubby" pretty much since he started speaking. We've been trying to correct him but then he just says, "No, because tubby I evil!" Eh, he'll figure it out one day. Until then it makes for almost-interesting fodder for the blog.

Goal!

Aunt Carol came down for a couple of days and we all had a rather nice time together. Being Aunt Carol, she had to spoil the kids rotten with scads of gifts, one of which you can see here in this video clip. Being Soen, his favorite gift was the soccer goal, since you A) get to kick things and B) it makes a fun sound when you do. Being me, I couldn't resist telling him that after he kicked a goal, he had to run around with his hands in the air, yelling "Yay," which he did with great enthusiasm, if not great technique. I thought it was hysterical, so I ran for the video camera and tried to get him to do it again.

I don't know why I ever think I'm going to capture something on the video camera, since the kids always stop doing whatever it was that sent me for the camera by the time I actually get it. This time was no exception, since Soen had lost the aforementioned enthusiasm for running around like a World Cup winner. However, this "outtakes" video is in some ways better. My favorite is when he misses from three feet away.

Oh, the P.S. to this is two days later he is still playing with this and still running around like an airplane after kicking a goal. (If I could only get it on film!)

Monsters

Soen looked at me rather seriously tonight as we were watching Schoolhouse Rock on YouTube. "Um... Daddy? Do vampires have bippies?" I told them they do. He nodded and went back to watching "My Hero Zero."

He's been on this monster kick lately. I gather his pre-school has been talking about Halloween. At first he was a little scared of vampires, but now he likes them. His favorite thing is to pretend to be a zombie and chase me around the house. Here, he is showing me how the dreaded Kitty Cat Monster walks. This monster, Soen told me, eats houses and fruit. I told him to put on some underwear so I could get it on film. Luckily, the flashlight scares the Kitty Cat Monster away.

Sadie turns one!

Sadie's birthday is today and to celebrate we went to the beach. I keep thinking we're taking our last trip to the beach but the weather continues to be nice. This morning it was close to 80 and so was the ocean. It's OK to hate us a little.

Sadie is walking about half the time now and I imagine that will be full-time in time for Halloween. This video was taken the other day after she opened her birthday present from my parents.

I was going to post a video of Soen singing the theme song from the Land of the Lost but unfortunately he was naked for that, so I thought it might be inappropriate. We need to get more clothes on him if only so we can show his videos online. That's his second favorite song. His favorite is the outro to the Land of the Lost, which he sings quite well. I'll catch him on film soon enough.

My son, the diva.

OK, it's not the Carter Family, but I'm sure they had to start somewhere, right? Watch at the end for Sadie's new (non-food-related) trick.

Soen scolded me in the pool the other day: "Don't mess up my hair, because then people won't see my curls." Great.

Meat!

Rare photo of Sadie not eating.

Can you guess which one of these is Sadie's new favorite food?

Eggs
Meatloaf
Buffalo
Sausage
Filet Mignon

Answer: All of the above. Wife bought me some ground buffalo meat the other day, which I grilled as burgers. Sadie, with a tray full of food in front of her, saw me eating a burger and started yelling at me, as is her custom whenever someone is eating anything she doesn't have. So I gave her a piece. She ate it and started yelling for more. Pretty soon I couldn't keep up with her. Next thing I know I can't put enough buffalo in front of her to keep up with her. This basic story gets repeated on a daily basis, just with different ingredients.

What cracks me up about it is that there's no smiling in appreciation of the food. She just consumes it and yells for more. I think her first words are going to be, "Yo! Keep it coming!"

Thank God for Britney

Soen makes his move.

So, as wife mentioned, lots of fun was had at the wedding. We weren't sure how long the kids were going to last since Soen hadn't had a nap in three days and he was cranky going into the church. This was his first time in a church. In case I was wondering how he was feeling about the whole experience he let me and everyone unlucky enough to be sitting near us know by rolling around in the pew and saying, "I don't like this! I don't like this!"

Anyway, he was still being cranky at the reception and I feared it was going to be a short night, when 12-year-old Britney caught his eye. She was very sweet and played with him during much of the reception, which gave him his second and third wind and got us through the night. The highlight of the evening for me was when Soen asked me if Britney could go night-nights with him.

Why I love my kids

So, after a lovely visit to Philly during which my kids were alternately sugar addled, sleep deprived, overstimulated maniacs AND complete and utter syrupy sweet angels, we returned home to NC. Scott's cousin Lauren got married and managed to squeeze a few dances in with her new hubby while spending a good part of the evening whirling an ecstatic Soen around the dance floor. Cute, yes. But travelling with children does NOT inspire undying maternal love. What does? Well, today I was serving the kids noodles and sauce while daddy was off golfing. Expecting the worse, I girded myself with a glass o wine and 6 wet paper towels. What I got was my kids trying to wink at each other across the table. That's right. I've been winking at Sadie, and she tries to imitate me--does a pretty good job too--just 2 eyes instead of one. Well, Soen thought this was HI-larious and joined in. The two of them were in absolute hysterics and we had the world's funnest "most awesome" dinner. And THAT is why I love my kids.
P.s. My husband just got all surly and said to make sure ya'll knew it was me writing--as if you couldn't tell from my run on sentences and imperfect grammar. Um, George Clooney? Looking for a wife/accountant??

Wife

I was looking for a good photo of the wife but I didn't have one handy, so I grabbed the next best thing.

We're heading up to Philly this weekend for my cousin Lauren's wedding and we were hoping to meet up with our friends Sasha and Dee at some point. I was discussing our plans with Sasha when I realized I really had no idea what our plans were, other than getting on an airplane on Thursday and going to a wedding on Saturday (I think). This is in spite of the numerous lengthy emails from my mother laying out the complete details of our itinerary. This is nothing new. I really have no idea what's going on at any given point in my life. I basically just go where wife tells me to go and so far it's worked out pretty well.

But my discussion with Sasha reminded me of the other day when we were buying our new car (minivan). Wife found a good deal on a car loan and she told me the bank would be calling to verify that it was in fact me who was taking out the loan. So the bank called me and they had to ask me a few questions to verify that it was me. I got my name, birthday, and social security number right, but then she started in with who our mortgage was with. I had no idea, which was rather embarrassing. Then: With what bank did we take out a car loan in 2000? Again no idea (although that did turn out to be a trick question.) She asked me a few more questions that I was completely unable to answer and I started to laugh and I said, "I'll have to call you back when my wife gets home so she can tell me all the things I'm supposed to know that prove to you that I'm me."

Back to the wedding trip: Wife was having a conversation with my mom and she asked her about some detail or other and my mom says, "Well, I sent Scott an email about it," to which my wife says, "Why do you bother?" I just hope George Clooney gets married soon, so I don't have to worry about him stealing my wife and leaving me completely unable to pay the bills. I should probably go buy some flowers or something. But first I have to ask Wife where the flower store is.

Foul Beast

Our filmmakers caught Sadie in her one cute moment of the weekend.

So, like clockwork, two days after starting day care, Sadie caught a bug of some kind. First it was her runny nose. Then... well before this weekend, if I had used the term "shit storm," in this blog, it would have been as a metaphor for an extended tantrum. But now I use it as a literal description of what hit our household this weekend.

On Saturday, wife was at work and I was feeling brave enough to take the kids to the aquarium. Long story short, we never got out of the door. I put Sadie in her neglect-o-saucer so I could get myself and the boy dressed. Then I went to get her dressed. I'll skip all the disgusting details, but let's just say that the neglect-o-saucer and my T-shirt are now in the trash. By the time I got her and her changing table clean I was too exhausted and disgusted to even think about taking her outside, lest someone think she belonged to me. Good thing, too because that wasn't her only "fexplosion." In fact, at one point today I changed her only to have her poop again the moment I got her dressed.

And then there's the river of snot, which wouldn't be so bad if she didn't scream bloody murder and punch me in the face anytime I tried to wipe her nose.

So it was nice to catch her on video when she wasn't being a vile creature and actually being cute. Here she is pushing yet another piece of furniture that's not her new walker, which you see at the end of the clip.

Sadie starts school

Sadie started day care today. We were a little anxious about her first day, because it's rough on kids to be left at a strange place. Sadie, however, forgot Mommy was there the second she saw all the other babies. She had a great day all day, and when I picked her up tonight she was about as happy as I've seen her. Gosh, I hope her nanny doesn't read this.

In other news, I just learned that I can upload videos to this thing. This was filmed a few weeks ago and has nothing to do with anything.

Camping!

Soen failing to understand the spookiness of flashlight face.

I'd been wanting to take Soen camping for about three years. Not sure why I all of a sudden decided to do it this weekend, but it had nothing to do with ditching Mommy, who has a sinus infection, and the teething baby who woke up several times last night. Actually, I did offer to not go, but wife, not knowing that Sadie would pull an all-nighter, told us to get lost.

Anyway, we wound up "camping" in a trailer park, which was a great way to ease the boy into the experience. After we set up our tent we decided to hit the pool. On our way to the pool I realized we had suddenly stumblrd upon "the south." This campground is literally 15 minutes from our house, just off a main beach road that we drive on all the time. But this place was nothing like our North Carolina. It was the North Carolina all my coworkers were teasing me about when I told them I was moving down here. It wasn't quite Deliverence country--after all everyone we met was incredibly friendly. But it was quite a shock. Their accents were quite thick. We were swimming in the pewel. One kid swam up to me and asked me if I could read because he couldn't. He was 15. But once I got over that, like I said, everyone was very friendly. One 10 year old I was talking to wanted to go in the pool with us. He said, "I'm gonna go tell my mama I met a nice man named Scott and that he'll watch me in the pool." Soen had a blast playing with all the kids.

Rather than trying to cook dinner over a campfire, we did the traditional dinner at a chinese restaurant and picked up some marshmallows, which Soen had been looking forward to for days. Back at the campsite we built a fire, roasted two marshmallows, and sat there watching the fire for all of ten minues when Soen was ready to go to bed. It was very cute. Earlier, when we were setting up the tent, Soen was all excited about it. "Daddy! We're going to go in the tent and talk and then sleep and it will be awesome!" So we get settled in the tent--"settled" means he got naked--when he realized he had to poop. So... back on with the clothes and that's when we heard a sound in the woods. Soen asked me what it was. I said I figured it was a cat since we had seen a bunch of them earlier. But when we got outside and shone our flashlight in the direction of the sound, it was a raccoon. This was the highlight of the trip. Actually, the highlight wasn't so much seeing the raccoon as it was that I had been wrong about what the animal was. As he retold the episode to me and everyone we met again and again, the story changed to how I was wrong about it being a cat and he was right about it being a fox. "Raccoon, Soen." "It wasn't a raccoon. It was a raccoon, Daddy?"

Once we got back in the tent he was wired, wanting to jump up and shine the flashlight on every noise we heard. But aside from being excited and talking for at least an hour, he was the perfect little camper. He finally fell asleep around midnight and slept straght through til 6:30. I, unfortunately wokeup at some point and couldn't get back to sleep for about two hours.

The next morning we went to a diner, then to a playground, and then to the beach. Everytime we got back into the car, Soen wanted to hold onto his bag of marshmallows. Today, after his nap, I roasted him another one (using the toaster oven), and you can see the aftermath of that. All told, camping was a big hit and he can't wait for Sadie to get older so we can all go together and he can see another raccoon.

Conquering fear

I successfully fought the urge to say "Be careful" long enough to take this photo.

Just got back from vacation. I'll share stories about that later, but I thought I'd talk about this photo, which was taken Saturday night, after we got back from our trip. One of the things I've notice about children--or at least Soen--is that they won't do anything until they're damn ready to. I don't know how many times I've tried to get Soen to try something new and had him flatly refuse it, only to try it later on his own terms and find the new experience thrilling. And saying, "See? I told you it would be cool. I've been trying to tell you how cool this is for months now. For the love of god will you ever listen to me?" doesn't really help the cause.

But when he's ready, he's ready and he'll launch himself at it all the way. The past few weeks have been especially adventurous for him. He started swimming without his life preserver (or "boat coat") and then he put his head underwater for the first time. Then he started swimming underwater--first holding his nose, then not--and then jumping into the deep end and swimming to me (at my prompting, not on his own, so relax yourselves). During vacation he actually let me carry him into the ocean, past the crashing waves, out to where he could float (with his boat coat) and rolling in the waves. This was something I'd tried to get him to do literally for months now. All of this and more in just two weeks.

The flip side of this is me having to conquer my own fears of having a suddenly fearless son, who likes to try new things. I find myself saying "be careful" so often I sound like Rain Man. Check out Exhibit A, this photo, taken as my son decided that he could climb to the very top of our community jungle gym. It's hard to tell from the photo, but he's standing on this ledge at the top of a round pole about eight feet off the ground. The ledge was clearly designed by someone who wanted kids to have just enough room to stand on but not enough room for their parents to like it. I was watching Soen climb this thing while I was on the phone with my dad, which was good because it gave me a break from saying "be careful." But soon, Soen was going higher than I was comfortable with, so I told my father as calmly as I could that I had to go "pay attention to Soen." What I wanted to say was, "My son is about to plummet to his death. Do you know of any good excuses I can use to explain this to my wife?"

Anyway, I was rather proud of myself for not only resisting the urge to say "be careful" but for encouraging him to pose for this photo. (He's showing off his muscles.) Luckily, his desire to see the photo I took got him down faster than if I had asked him to. So now I know what to do next time he's off doing something scary: Whip out the camera.

Latest and Greatest

Miss Priss is currently teething and Master Soen had a 20 minute crying session at bedtime, so..like any good Mommy I sat down with the pictures and a glass of wine to remind myself why I love the little monsters. Enjoy.

Sadie's favorite game

When in doubt, give her a bag of poker chips.

Sadie loves taking things out of other things. When wife puts her purse on the floor, Sadie's there three seconds later, emptying it of its contents. It's kind of like when we used to have indoor cats... you put a plate of food down, turn your back for an instant (like if you have to sneeze), and when you turn back to your food it's disappearing down Gromit's gullet.

Luckily, after having learned from my son, I now know to use Sadie's desires to my advantage. So, if the nanny has to leave early and I still have half an hour of work to do (not that that's ever happened), I simply throw a bag of poker chips on the floor. Sadie comes trucking over, takes them out one by one, and moves on to the next thing to destroy, which is uslly my computer. So I jump up, refill the poker bag, and... just like hitting a reset button, Sadie returns to empty it.

Yes, I give my daughter a plastic bag to play with, filled with small, choke-able items.
Oh, like you're perfect.

New Camera

The new camera may be so good you can see the beads of sweat rolling off the children's cheeks. It's hot here in NC. Thank goodness for the beach...and the pool...and air conditioning.

Um... honey?

I think we'd better call the Exorcist.

Sneaker

Devious? Moi?

The other night, while wife was at the movies, I was going through the ususal bedtime routine with the boy: "Remember, no getting out of bed like you did last night, ok?" "OK Daddy." No sooner was I down the stairs then I heard him jump out of bed and the THUNK THUNK THUNK of his feet as he ran to the stairs to come get me. "Daddy, I scared."

This was a familiar ploy of his. When we first moved here we were a little concerned that he would be frightened due to his new surroundings, so the very first night, I turned out the light and sat in his bed with him and pointed to all the shadows that could be scary and showed him what was causing them. Well, this seemed to put the wrong idea into his head, because it soon became his excuse for getting out of bed. (He had never complained about being scared before.) We'd put him to bed and after five minutes we'd see him downstairs. When he realized he was caught, he say he was scared even though he clearly wasn't. We'd go back up to bed, I'd ask him what he was scared of and he'd point to all the shadows. Sometimes he'd get up two or three times in one night with a different excuse. ("I need a toy." "I thirsty." "The Democrats are hopeless.") This went on and on for months in spite of many attempts to stop him. And he was pushing his bedtime back from the usual 7:30 to as late as 10:00 and then he'd be grumpy the next day because he would still get up at 6am, no matter how late he stayed up the night before.

One night, when our friends Andre, Marianne, and their kids came to stay with us, Soen convinced Adler to sneak with him downstairs and they hung out in the laundry room, giggling, for probably half an hour before we found them. Another night, as wife and I were going to bed we found Soen fast asleep on the laundry room floor. Who knows how long he had been there.

Finally, Michaela had had enough and she said, "If you get out of bed even one time tonight, you lose all TV, all treats, and we're taking away every single one of your dinosaurs." He got the message. All was fine for a month or two until he started up again this past week.

Meanwhile, we had decided to try to attack the waking up at he crack of dawn problem by teaching him to tell time. We have a clock that has animals on it instead of numbers. So, we told him, "No getting out of bed until this little hand is pointing to the Seal (7:00). That took a little figuring out, of course, since the Seal is rather large, comprising at least an hour-long window. So he first came down at 6:30, confident he had followed our instructions.

Anyway, after this most recent outbreak of getting out of bed--one night getting out of bed three times after promising me up and down that he wasn't ever going to do it again, and making me realize that he has no idea what the word "promise" actually means--we brought down the hammer again: Stay in bed or else no TV, no treats, and we throw away all his dinos. After pleading with us, "No, Daddy! No! I want my dinos!" (God, we're so mean) we reached an understanding.

Last night he didn't get out of bed once. And this morning, he came downstairs at 7:30, clutching his huge wall clock, to prove to us that he had waited for the little hand to get to the Seal. Victory you are MINE!

Wanted for Assault, Battery, Screeching

Bonus points if you know whose mug shot I took this from.

Height: 29"
Weight: 21.8 lbs
Distinguishing features: Glare of death.

She really is as tough as this photo suggests.

Meanwhile my son was carrying around a stuffed bunny and kitty cat, which he referred to as his babies. When I asked him if they were boys or girls he told me, "Daddy be quiet! They're sleeping."

Frek

Wife's idea of play time.

As I was driving Soen to the beach the other day he asked me about this one scene in Shrek the Third (or as he calls it, "Frek"). It's a total throwaway scene where Frek is dreaming. But... let me back up three weeks or so when we saw it.

Every time I take Soen to the movies, he does the same thing. He's all excited in the car, all excited when we buy the ticket and go inside. Still excited as he sees the huge posters in the entranceway. But when we hand our tickets to the usher and head down the hall towards the theater, he starts getting scared. "Daddy, I don't want to see a movie." I try calming him down... "I want to go home!" I try some more... "No! I want my Mommy!" Eventually, we reach a compromise where we go inside the theater and stand near the door and inch our way towards the seating area while the previews run. By the time the movie starts, he's forgotten all about his fears and we can go sit down. Literally every time.

Anyway, we saw Frek a few weeks ago and as we were leaving the theater he asked, "Daddy, remember when Frek opened the door? What did he see outside?" I had no idea what he was talking about. "I don't remember, buddy." "No, Daddy, remember, he opened the door and saw... it wasn't a donkey? What was it?" "I don't remember, Soen. I'm sorry." "No, Daddy! Remember... was it a rabbit?" "Yeah, that must have been it." "No, Daddy, it wasn't a rabbit. What was it?" And on and on for the entire car ride home. Throwing out random animals didn't help either: "An elephant?" "No, daddy!" "A republican?" "No, Daddy!" The next morning: "Daddy remember in Frek...?" And the next day. And the next. And even now, three weeks later.

Eventually, I realized it was this dream sequence when Frek is scared about his impending fatherhood. He's imagining babies everywhere, and he opens the door and sees his friend the donkey, but when the donkey turns around, he has a Frek baby face. Understandably, the boy was confused. It's funny how this very quick and insignificant (insignificant to the plot, anyway) image stuck with him more than the rest of the movie. (Reminds me of this one minor scene in the Twilight Zone movie where this girl had no mouth. Freaked me out for days.)

Imagine the focus group. "Williams! Get rid of any scenes where Frek--I mean Shrek--opens any doors. It's freaking kids out." "No doors, got it!"

Why I heart Spongebob

Wax on.

Soen's new favorite expression is "Oh, barnacles!" This, from Spongebob, replaces, and is used in the same way as, "D'oh!" I always loved when he would say "d'oh!" but "barnacles" is way funnier because it takes more effort to say and is clearly not just an automatic exclamation.

Spongebob (a karate nut) is also responsible for Soen's new found love for martial arts. The other day we were watching dinosaur videos on YouTube and he said, "Daddy, I wanna watch Jackie Chan!" I nearly wept with joy.

Wife, surprisingly, was less enthused: "Do you really think it's a good thing to teach our three-year-old son the five fingers of death?" I now know that was a rhetorical question, but at the time I said, "Hey, he even does the sound effects! Hello?"

Travel travails, part deux

Sadie to USAir: "Eat my diaper!"

On Monday my father-in-law was flying back home to Providence from here -- on USAir, through Philly. He gets to the airport and they tell him his connection from philly is cancelled. No reason--not weather or anything justifiable--just cancelled. And he can't fly out until tomorrow. Luckily for him, he didn't have anywhere to be and was able to stay with us another night. We made sure to route him through any other airport than Philly.

This reminded me of one thing I left out in my last rant: Right after they gave my seat away, they proceded to cancel all the rest of the day's flights to my airport--all SIX of them. No reason given.

Anyway, I'm not turning this into an anti-USAir blog, but I did want to mention that from now on we are driving an hour and a half to Raleigh just to avoid having to fly with them.

In other news: We spent the 4th at the beach and the pool and Soen, who had always been afraid to jump in the water or play in the waves, suddenly had a breakthrough and did both. In fact he went from not jumping in the pool to doing all sorts of hilarious, death-defying, heart-attack-inducing-for-his-mother stunts in the space of about ten minutes. My favorite is this ballet move where he twirls around and spins his way to the edge, and the does the sideways leap into the pool, yelling "tannendall!" I tried to tell him it was "cannonball" but he informed me that I was mistaken.

for want of wine the flight was lost

Soen with anole--nothing to do with my story.

(This is a long story but I feel like I need to get it off my chest while it's fresh.) This week I went back to the office in Jersey for a day and a half of meetings. On my way out the door to get my return flight, I bumped into Morris (Chairman of the company) and thanked him for some delicious wine he gave us when I first moved down to NC, which I said (without exaggeration) was the best wine I'd ever had. Being Morris, he said, "let me give you another one." How could I resist? After all, this wine costs $140 and was my all-time favorite. In fact he gave me two bottles--that one and another type he wanted me to try. I thanked him profusely and ran out to the car so I wouldn't be more late for my flight.

I arrived at Terminal F, which is usually deserted, and saw a packed house. No problem, I had forty minutes before my flight and I didn't have to check my bag, so I got my boarding pass and dashed off to security. One of the TSA dudes said, "Oh no. Whose bag is this?" And he proceded to explain that I couldn't take these two bottles of wine on the plane--after all I might use them as a weapon. I said, "If you had any idea how expensive these bottles of wine were, you'd know there was no way I was going to do that." At least he laughed. I glanced at the clock and knew I could never wait in that line and make my flight, so I was just about to make this guy's day and give him my favorite wine of all-time, when he said, "Look, just go over there, cut right to the front of the line, get a baggage ticket and come right back here and you'll be fine." (Foreshadowing alert.)

After 10 minutes, I got my ticket and handed the bag to a security guy. Being in a rush, I didn't think to take my computer out of the bag with the two loose bottles of very expensive wine. I dashed back to security, and went to my gate, which was (of course) F36. Meanwhile, I heard no announcements, and the big board just said my flight was "on time" and not "boarding." I get to ny gate and the door is closed and no USAir attendants are anywhere to be seen, so I figure all is good. I still have eight minutes before departure. I sit down for a breather when I see them open the door and call out someone's name. They let out a "yes!" and head for the jetway. Uh-oh. I go over to talk to someone, although there's no one there, and a fellow passenger informs me that they stopped taking passengers with boarding passes for this flight ten minutes ago and now they're just letting stand-bys on. Then I see the plane pull away. Thyere are five of us--with boarding passes--who need to find another flight. I turn around at the "special services" line and see there are thirty angry people in front of me, all of whom seem to be chanting, "...and I'm never flying USAir again!" There are two people working a counter that normally seats eight.

Due to the storms the day before, dozens and dozens of flights had been cancelled, and so USAir was placing as many stand-bys on flights as possible. But one passenger told me three crew members wound up taking our spots. Nice, huh? One woman told me she spent the night in the airport. "Sucks to be her," I thought not realizing it would soon be me, too. After two hours of standing on this line (literally), and after the USAir rep says, "You had a boarding pass--I don't undertstand why they didn't put you on this flight," I get put on standby to Charlotte at 5:55 with a standby connection to home at 9:40. I just had to go to A24 (of course).

Travelling tip #1: If you're going to be stuck in PHL for a long time, proceed immediately to Terminal A--the International terminal, where all the great restaurants and bars are--and where the staff is much more friendly. There I watched them hold a flight to Zurich ten minutes past its departure time so that all the passengers with boarding passes could be taken care of before taking stand-bys. That's when I decided to go for a drink.

My flight not only didn't leave at 5:55, but it didn't leave at 7, 7:40, or even 8. Meanwhile, I had a nice dinner, met a Sweedish dude who told me he travels 200 times a year (ouch), and bought a copy of The Tipping Point, which I would almost finish before I finally got home. I also met a guy from my neck of the woods, Johnny, who also had a boarding pass for the flight we were displaced from, so we commiserated over a couple of beers.

Finally the plane left the gate a little after 8 and we taxied for what seemed like forever. Then the announcement came: All traffic has stopped and we're shutting down the engines. The stewardesses started handing out water. So much for making my 9:40 connection. An hour later we took off and an hour and nine minutes after that we arrived at Charlotte, where I would wait in yet another line, during which the woman behind me said, "excuse me sir, but you have a cockroach on your back." I got a ticket for a 7:45am flight. Well, not a ticket exactly. When the woman printed it out, her colleague said, "You did it wrong" and she said, "oh, well that's all right" and handed me this piece of paper that looked almost, but not quite like a ticket. I said, "No, that's not all right. I want a ticket." She said it was fine, but took it, crossed out something and wrote "e-ticket" on there, which now REALLY didn't seem right to me. "You sure this is right?" They both assured me several times that it was. I walked away unconvinced. Just then all the bars and restaurants closed. Suddenly I was starving.

Johnny and I walked around to find food and/or a place to sleep for the night. We met a Marine who was late getting back to basic training and he said, "I just hope they beat me for my punishment, rather than a lengthy court-martial." I asked him how he could get introuble for something that was not his fault andhe said that basically, everything is your fault if your not where you're supposed to be. He saw Johnny and I look at each other and said, "At least I love my profession."

Johnny finally decided to go to the other side of security to get some food from an all-night Starbucks and I decided to bed down in the business center, where I scored a nice comfy chair. It was cold but I felt like I could at least get a few hours of sleep here. Then came the announcement: Everyone out. You'll have to spend the night in the ticketing and baggage claim area. Why? No one was very forthcoming in their answers, but I was told to hop to, mister.

I emerged from security and the ticketing and baggage area looked like something out of the Stand. There were bodies strewn over every square inch of the place. I found a coner right near another security entrance and settled in. A guy who turned out to be a minister handed me a blanket, which was nice of him.

Traveling tip #2: The Tipping Point is an excellent read, but at a mere 320 pages, it makes for a lousy pillow. At around 3am I wished I had taken my copy of the 564-page Satanic Verses from my bag.

At 4:30 security started opening up again. At this point the minister wanted to know all of our thoughts on the afterlife. Luckily some kid behind me got into a lenghty conversation with the guy so I wouldn't have to. I went back to my comfy chair in the business center and fell asleep for half an hour. The next few hours were uneventful, I mostly wandered around as a zombie. I made my way to the gate and showed a very grumpy USAir attendant my "ticket" and asked her directly if this was going to be OK to get me on the flight. She said yes, but I was still skeptical. Sure enough, when it came time to board, another USAir rep looked at my "ticket" and said, "this isn't right." I was about ready to explode. There was no way they were going to keep me off this damned flight. Luckily, this woman didn't have enough energy to put up a stink, she just said, "Oh heck with it. Go ahead." But even as I was sitting on the (very small) plane and watching more and more people straggle their way towards us, I kept thinking they were going to tell me to get off. That USAir rep even came out and with every step I was preparing my speech about all the travails I'd been through and if she thought she was going to... turns out I was fine.

I finally arrived at my home airport, went over to baggage, and was entirely unsurprised to learn that my bag wasn't there yet. As I was filling out a claim--and meanwhile all I'm thinking is that the wine bottles broke, spilling wine over my computer and ruining my bag and everyone else's (not to mention destroying a bottle of my all-time favorite wine )--when it occurs to me that my car keys are in my bag.

Never fear, Johnny offers to drive me home. So we get out to his truck and... his battery is dead. I'm not making this up. So, I run around the parking lot and flag someone down to jump his car, and he drives me home. Several hours later, my wife drops me off at the airport to check on my bags and retrieve my car. Much to my surprise, not only was my bag there, but the wine was... intact! I get home and showed the wife my wine and she says, "That's not the same wine we had before." It had better be good, damnit.

Happy Father's Day

Sugar! Glorious SUGAR!

The kids and I had a great day on Saturday. While wife was at work, the kids and I played at the pool for an hour and a half. Sadie splashed around happily and Soen dunked me over and over. In the afternoon, Soen and I went to see Shrek the Third, ate some sushi, and ran around at the park. During the movie he told me he loved me and leaned his head on my shoulder. Then came Sunday.

All was going well until Mommy went to the gym, at which point both kids decided to start screaming. It had nothing to do with Mommy leaving, but everything to do with Soen not napping and Sadie being in her "I have no way to communicate my complex feelings other than to scream" stage. I'd play with her, she'd scream. I'd put her in her neglect-a-saucer, she'd scream. I'd take her out, she'd scream. Not angry screams, just screams for screams sake. And all the while I was under the delusion that I could keep them from screaming long enough to watch the US Open. At one point I had her in her jumper and was feeding her some peas (which she loves). She'd take a bite. Scream. Take another bite. Scream. I couldn't tell if she wanted more, wanted me to stop, or wanted me to stab myself in the eye with her pea covered baby spoon. I chose the fourth option: Let's go swimming!

So, I ran around getting everything together (towels, food, juice boxes, toys, sunscreen, cyanide tablet(s), etc.) and all the while Sadie screamed her head off while Soen was bouncing her up and down in spite of my saying, "Stop that. Stop that. Stop that! Stop that! Hey I can actually slam my head all the way through the wall. Howbout that." I couldn't punish him by telling him he couldn't go to the pool, because that would have just been punishing me.

Meanwhile, wife has been out of the house for all of 15 minutes.

So... off to the pool we go. Everything was going fine until I brought Sadie into the water. At which point she screamed. I held her close... scream. I put her in her floaty crabby thingy... scream. I'd bounce her up and down.. scream. So, I took her out of the water and buckled her into the stroller, getting ready to leave before we ruined Father's Day for all the happy families all around us, when... she stopped screaming! In fact, she was actually smiling! And that's when Soen, who all this while had been floating around in the water in his boat coat and calling to me to help with with whatever the hell he wanted help with and would have to wait... had his boogie board taken away from him and started to cry. Since Sadie wasn't crying, I ran over to him, picked him up out of the water (with one hand!), kicked the kid with his boogie board in the throat (if only) and got Soen calmed down. Amazing! Sadie was now totally immersed in chewing on the baby spoon and was paying no attention to me, so I jumped into the water to cool down and play with the boy. Still no screams! In fact, everything was perfect for three glorious minutes until Mommy showed up. And Sadie started to scream.

But, wife made a delicious dinner, Soen and she made me some incredible cupcakes, I did get to watch rest of the Open, and all in all had a great Fathers' Day. Thank God it's Monday.

Happy Foot/Angry Foot

Can you guess Sadie's mood? If you guessed "happy, with a touch of ennui," you're right!

One nice thing about Sadie is she tells you how she's feeling. Yes, there's the screaming (screams of anger, screams of joy) but any novice babysitter could pick up on that. No, at a very early age, Sadie developped a subtle way of letting us know her mood just by using her right foot.

Seen here, Sadie is extending her foot up and out, letting us know she's happy with her current situation (eating). If she were to slam that same foot down on her changing table, we would know she's angry. The more she does either movement, the happier/angrier she is. Kind of like how you can tell the temperature by how often a cricket chirps.

The other foot? I prefer to think of that as the "foot of wisdom."

I'm back

Sadie enjoying a mint julep.

Lord knows she needed one. Sorry I've not written in a while, but with all the craziness around here, the last thing I wanted to do was write another blog entry.

On top of starting steroids, Sadie also had a bad stomach virus, which made her (and us) incredibly miserable for days on end. Now, she is not only over the bug, but she's finally adjusted to the incedible amount of steroids coursing through her little body. This was the first smile we saw from her after a week. Tomorrow we start weening her off the 'roids and hopefully we'll return to our regularly scheduled life.

Roid Rage

So, daddy's away in Jersey "working" and mommy is left alone with the steroid addled, teething, ulcerated-butt, stomach bug having insane excuse for a baby. Thankfully Soen has been extra cute and prevented me from dropping them both at the mall with instructions to look for new parents.

P.S. I did wait until almost 6 (PM) to uncork the wine.

That look

Marianne caught on film the look that our nanny lovingly calls, "Sadie's glare of death."

Here's the usual setup for the glare. Sadie will be playing just fine with Katherine and then she'll see me creep out of my office (trying to hide from her as I go get a drink) and she'll start crying unconsolably. Then I pick her up, she stops crying, and gives Katherine this look. Wait, I found another one...

Push pop!

This photo, taken by Marianne, shows Adler being exposed to all sorts of synthetic ingredients for the first time, care of that SpongeBob push-pop he's wielding. I can still hear Marianne saying to Adler as he's running out the door, trying to tear off the cap to this amazing new treat: "Adler, I have organic pears if you want them..."

Meet the Nielsens!

I don't have a photo of the four of us. Luckily I spent a lot of time using Mac Paint as a kid.

If you've ever wondered what kind of chumps the Nielsen TV ratings company hires to report their TV viewing... well, it's chumps like us. We have been dutifully writing down every single show we watch since Thursday; and will continue to do so for an entire week. In exchange we get $30 (which they sent to us in chold hard cash, interestingly enough) and the knowledge that we're doing our part to keep Spongebob and the Daily Show on the air. So, if you're favorite show isn't one of those two programs (or General Hosiptal. Wife has a thing for Sonny)... we're sorry.

Writing this entry reminded me of a speech Kurt Vonnegut made at Ohio State University recently. The students asked him for some advice and he said, "Don't use semicolons."

Next week: Soen's first school play! (Leontes in The Winter's Tale.)

P.S. My computer crashed two times right as I was about to finish this would-be short blog entry. And, because I hadn't saved my draft either time, I was forced to write it all over again. Three times. [excuse me while i save this draft.] It's odd retelling the same joke three times in a row. Especially when it's kind of lame, like the Shakespeare joke. And even more so when it was that stupid joke that caused me to crash both times. This will shed a little light on how I write these things, in case anyone cares. As I was writing about Soen's play, I thought it might be amusing to say he was going to be playing a dramatic Shakespearean role, since he's actually going to be a frog that sings "The Ants Go Marching One By One." But... what's the funniest role? [saving draft.] Because I'm an idiot and can't just let a dumb joke be a dumb joke, I had to go and look up Shakespeare's plays and then determine which was the "funniest." (Because I couldn't just use Hamlet or Lear like any other person.) No... I had to choose one that was kind of obscure but still recognizable as a Shakespearean drama--one that would require an actor to have just the right amount of gravitas that is just out of the reach of a three year old. And for some reason, as I was toggling between windows, my computer ecountered a fatal error and closed down. This was proably my computer's way of telling me that not only was this joke not funny (in the least), but I was spending way too much time on it. Again, any other person would have bailed on the stupid joke in the first place, but after all this trouble, I was not only going to write it; I was going to write it to death. (Two semicolons in one blog! Take that Vonnegut!)

P.P.S. And for the record, before any of you mention it, I do know that Leontes in the Winter's Tale is clearly not the funniest role for a three year old. That would of course be Titus Andronicus, which is funny for three reasons: 1. It's just a funny name, 2. It's only two words, and 3. It's like Shakespeare's worst play, therefore making it the last play any pre-school worth its salt would choose to perform. (Duh!)

Our first date

Who wouldn't want to be friends with us?

The other day we all went to the farmer's market in downtown Wilmington. (It's rather nice, I have to say. Lots of fresh produce.) After we had had our fill, we sat down in front of a cafe where we bought Soen an ice cream. Being an outgoing kid who was quickly getting hopped up on sugar, he started making goofy faces at this couple sitting behind us. And the played along. We started talking to them and they said two things that caught our attention: 1. They just moved here from New York, and 2. They were pregnant. All of a sudden it dawned on us: We could be friends with these people! As we were leaving Michaela said we should get their number, and we both joked about how it was like asking someone out for a date. When we got home she said, "So... how long do we wait to call them?"

This past Saturday we had them over for dinner and had a rather nice time, although afterwards I wondered if we seemed desperate. We did talk their ears off until about 10 when he yawned(probably not a good sign). We said goodbye, closed the door, and Michaela said, "I wonder if they'll call us back?" Yesterday I went to get some coffee at the place where he works and I thought, how embarrassed will I be if I run in to him? He'll probably think I'm stalking him. Thankfully, I escaped unseen. (As far as I know.) Who knew making friends was so stressful?

Tonight we went out for sushi and this kid was walking out of the restaurant past our table. Soen said, "Hi. My name is Soen." And this kid smiled and said, "My name is Ian." And I thought, Man, they make it look so easy.

By the way, Sadie started crawling yesterday. God help us.

Blackmail Dept.

The other night Michaela was explaining the differences between boys and girls to Soen who said, "I wanna be a girl, Mommy." "Well, Soen," she said, "You're a boy. Boys and girls have different parts." "No, Mommy, I wanna be a girl so I can nurse babies." "But you don't have boobies. You need boobies to nurse babies." "No, mommy, I eat up all my food so I can grow big boobies and nurse babies." Ever since Sadie showed up, Soen's been into mothering his toys. He has this stuffed kitten that he calls his baby. He even pretended to nurse it once.

I'm trying to see if we can't parlay this phase into getting him to change Sadie's diapers. After all, shouldn't we be encouraging our children to follow their dreams?

Awww...

Sadie looking cute in a frilly dress and hat that only took 1.7 man-hours to put on.

See how well she sits up now?

'Sup, G?

Soen flashes his gang sign.

Wife's away for another training session. Luckily for me, my parents are in town, and Soen is very happy to have his "Papa" and "DeeDee" here.

Most memorable quote from last night: We were having dinner and Soen (naked) was standing on his chair, talking very excitedly about bugs or something and jumping up and down, which prompted my mom to say, "Soen don't put your penis in your dinner."

I'm just glad he didn't say, "Mommy and Daddy let me."

Gromit

Hello?

Not much to report. I just thought this was funny. Actually, she's been much better lately. She no longer meows at my window all day.

Just part of the day.

Bugs!

Soen displays his new pet cockroach, Eddie (R.I.P.).

This was a cockroach Soen found on our porch. It endured the love of my son for a good twenty minutes. Then we "let it go heal." Before moving here, I had imagined we'd be overrun by bugs. This was the South, after all, and I had heard stories. So, not being a bug fan, I mentally prepared myself for the onslaught. So far, though, (forgetting the termites) we've only found one cockroach in the house, and he was in my son's shoe. Of course, my son discovered that only after he put the shoe on and then I had to calm my wife down from calling the exterminators. (Me, of all people saying "don't call the expterminators!") The most annoying bugs we've come across are the no see-ums. They're like gnats except they also bite. ("Teeth with wings" is how one golfer described them to me.) Thankfully we seem to be moving past their peak season as I haven't been bitten in almost two weeks. Hopefully, this will be my last report on bugs. Mostly I just had this cool photo and wanted to write about it.

P.S. "Eddie" was a name I suggested to Soen because I'd thought it'd be funny for the blog. He said, "No, I call him cockroach." Later, though, he came around to Eddie, realizing the humor value, I'm sure.

The note from school

Oh Soen. Look how disappointed your sister is.

Soen came home with his first note from school. It said he doesn't listen to his teachers. Imagine our surprise. To think he made it a whole month! So we had a talkin' with him. Told him if he misbehaves again... NO TV! Today he was an angel.

One thing I like about his school: His teachers have them say "Yes ma'am" when they're being addressed. Although Soen says "Yes man," but that's close enough in my book. I've always liked how southerners say "ma'am" and "sir," so we're trying to encourage that behaviour.

Cheerios

Although she admired the texture and bouquet, she ultimately decided Cheerios were simply too gauche.

So my wife was just perusing the blog and she said, "Boy, there sure are a lot of pictures of Soen. Why don't you ever write about your daughter?" To which I replied, "Well Soen's the one who does all the interesting stuff." This, I now know--along with "You're having more ice cream?"-- is one of those things you don't say to your wife.

And contrary to my assertion that Sadie "does the same crap everyday," my daughter decided to try Cheerios for the first time. We'd tried to get her to try them before but for some reason, Cheerios always proved to be the one thing she wouldn't put in her mouth. Today, however, she decided to try them; and as is evinced by this action photo taken shortly thereafter... she was not that impressed. So much for trying new things.

In tomorrow's blog: Soen's gets into trouble at school!

Cool Dept.

Guess what Soen got in the mail from his Aunt Carol?

He couldn't wait to try them out in the bath tub. He was happy, although Mommy wasn't too thrilled about him holding his head underwater. I, however, was taken by the pleasing lack of noise. Thanks Aunt Carol!

Colletors alert! This is a rare photo of Soen wearing clothes. Est. value: $950.

Cute Warning

Spiderman senses danger!

I don't want this to be a cute forum but I thought this was funny enough to warrant telling.

So, my son and I have this daily wrestling routine, where we play different roles. Usually he is a dinosaur or Spiderman and I'm either a robot (if he wants to wrestle me) or a mommy dinosaur (if he wants to be snuggled like a baby).

Yesterday, he was Spiderman and I was a robot and we wrestled until he got tired of beating me up. Then he decided that he was still Spiderman but now I was Batman, which basically meant we would stand up, yell at an invisible bad guy, and then fall backwards on the bed as though we got knocked over.

Lately, he's started to be more generous with telling us he loves us. Well, towards Michaela, anyway. When I say, "What about me?" he tells me, "No, Daddy, you love Sadie."

So, there we were playing as Batman and Spiderman for a few minutes and all of a sudden he turns to me and says, "I love you, Batman." And, although I couldn't help but think of the Ambiguously Gay Duo on Saturday Night Live, I figured I'd take what I can get. "Right back at ya, Spiderman." And then we fought some more until he banged his nose on my head and cried.

Naked boy

You leave the boy alone with the relatives for one minute...

So, wife's Aunt Janet and Uncle Matt came for a very pleasant visit with their two kids (Victoria and Jackson) and their chiuaua, Lola. Soen was in seventh heaven and he followed Jackson (who's 8) around and around and around until poor Jackson (who's 8) had had enough. Luckily, Lola was available to amuse the boy. This photo was taken during Soen's third bath of the day. Which brings me to the tale of my son, the naked boy.

Anyone watch Arrested Development? (If not, rent it today!) Anyway, there's this character who calls him self a never-nude, because he never wants to be naked. Well, my son doesn't have that problem. In fact, we can't keep clothes on him. This doesn't really bother us so much until we have people come to the house. Not family, because family is family. But people like my homophobic termite guy, who refers to Soen as "the streaker." Or the pizza delivery guy. Or the cable guy. Or the nanny. Frankly it doesn't really bother me, but it's always this awkward moment and it's kind of funny to see how various people react. Because Soen's only three, people usually laugh. But sometimes, like with the pizza guy, they look away and you can tell they're just counting the seconds until they can run away.

I can't imagine what my neighbors think, because he runs around our back yard, naked, all day long, chasing after bugs and geckos. Sometime, he runs around our front yard naked. One of the first nights we were here, he was so excited about the house and his enormous room, he ran--naked--out of our garage, and around and around our driveway, squealing with delight. It was about the cutest thing I'd ever seen. And then I looked around to see if anyone was watching.

Totally unrelated: I found out those geckos aren't really geckos. They're Carolina Anoles. So, no deal on my car insurance, but they do change colors (dark brown to bright green), just like a chameleon.