Break on through

Jim Morrison as a 5-year-old.

Water Park Adventure

OK, so this isn't the most exciting clip of all time. I included it for two reasons: 1. To show my kids snuggling after a hard days' excitement at the water park; and 2. To show proof that I let my kids watch "The Year Without a Santa Claus" on TV. Those of you who know me, know of my aversion to Santa Claus. But I couldn't let my kids grow up without knowing about Heat Miser. Now that would be cruel.

We had a great time at the water park (The Great Wolf in Williamsburg, VA). Even the 5 hour car ride wasn't so bad. (Not that I'm ready to do it again, but having the portable DVD player really saved the day.) The water park itself was awesome. It was indoors, for starters. And there were lots of great rides that both kids could go on. And considering that we were there for pretty much two full days doing almost nothing but the water park, we didn't get bored once. The kids both loved it. There were only two down sides. First was the fact that we didn't sleep very well, being cooped up in the same room. Second was when Sadie vomited in the hot tub. Soen and I (conveniently) weren't around for that. We were too busy going down the same slide over and over again. Oddly enough, when Soen and I went looking for Wife and Sadie and I happened to notice that the hot tub was closed and my first thought was, "I wonder if Sadie was responsible." I guess I have a sixth sense when it comes to my kids' bodily functions and closed pools. I wonder if there's a way to make money off of that?

So-Doh No Mo'

People often ask me how well they kids play together. This is pretty typical. The other cool thing about this video is Sadie calling Soen "Soen" as opposed to "So-Doh," which was her name for him for the past year or so. It was usually a pretty funny comedy routine. She'd call him So-Doh and I'd say, "Hey Sadie, can you say 'So?' " and she'd say "So." Then I'd say, "Can you say, 'En?' " and she'd say "En."
"Right! So... En"
"So... En"
"Right! Soen!"
"So-Doh!"
But about two weeks ago she made the switch. I guess the joke got old.

P.S. That's "The Cat Came Back" my son is humming, which is a popular tune in our house. Right up there with "Little Bunny Frou Frou." Nothing but the classics, for my kids.

Poor Sadie

Her parents won't let her rest until she performs on cue.

Bathtime!

Not much to report; just found this pic and thought I'd post it. You gotta throw the grandparents a bone every now and again.

The Butterfly Whisperer

Soen the Lepidopterist.
Sorry for the fuzzy photo. This is what you get from a beat up cell phone. I took this photo from a recent trip to the science museum in Raleigh. We spent literally an hour in this one room that featured living butterflies. He was so psyched that he could have these huge butterflies hang out on him he didn't want to do anything else. It was very cute. He'd get one of these big Owl butterflies to sit on his finger and he'd walk around the room showing off his friend to all the newcomers. We originally went to this museum to see their dinosaur exhibit but nothing could top the butterflies. He told me he wants to be a butterfly scientist, which displaces Spanish Moss scientist as his new future occupation.

All quiet in the living room

Sadie, Soen, and Exhibit A.

It never ceases to amaze me. The thing that really makes your parenting alarm go off is when your children suddenly get quiet. Your brain gets used to a certain level of ambient noise when your children are playing. Laughter, screams, crashing, giggling, crying... that's all good. It's the sudden silences that makes me worry. Such was the case this morning when wife and I were getting ready for the day and we realized that we were the only ones making any noise. "Go check on the children on your way to work," said wife. So, I embarked on my daily commute across the house wondering what I would find as I passed through the living room.

It wasn't as bad as I expected. Sadie was busy crushing goldfish crackers on the rug, one at a time, carefully studying he mess she was making. But what made me want to write a blog entry about it was my son's reaction. He was sitting there watching her intently, like she was a fascinating TV program. When I walked in he turned and said, "Sadie did it."

Rocco Mamba!

Our senior analysts were the first to call the race.
Regardless of your political affiliation, I think you'll agree Barack Obama is pretty fun to say.

Sock trouble

Feeling like their father might disown them, the children go into cute mode.

Perhaps the last thing you want to hear from your naked, un-potty-trained daughter as she runs out of the room is "Uh oh." Still holding the diaper I was trying to put on her when she ran away, I went to see what I was going to have to clean up.

On the plus side, it wasn't what I expected. Instead, for some strange reason, Sadie had tossed one of her socks into a urine-filled toilet. And of course the timing of this move couldn't have been worse, as I was trying to hustle the children out the door to go to school.

Coincidentally, I had dealt with another sock emergency just minutes earlier when Soen, who after running around in the dew-soaked backyard in his socks, wondered, as he was putting on his sneakers, why they "felt funny."

Someone recently told me it was harder to raise smart children than dumb ones. I now find myself questioning the wisdom of that statement.

Gotta keep the grandparents happy...

Bedtime for bozos

It's amazing how much fun kids can have in bed, especially when it's king-size. First we have Soen practicing his art of levitation. Although it's hard to see, in this second photo, Sadie actually caught a little air in her attempt. In the third photo, the kids are being kittens and are sleeping together in a nest I made for them. I wanted to catch them on the video camera because they were both meowing and it was rather cute, but of course the damned battery was dead. Anyway, the last photo is Sadie's new big-girl bed. Very exciting. One thing we've discovered about her, however: She sleepwalks. Two nights (or maybe three) in a row now she's wandered in to our bedroom in the middle of the night, only to walk right out again. And both times wife, after putting her back into her bed, reported that she really wasn't awake. At first we thought we were going to be lucky with her staying in bed, because she did so the first two nights. But then I think she realized that there was no barrier to prevent her from getting up. I never said she was brilliant. Just cute.

Tech Savvy

Sadie earning her keep.

The other night we were getting ready to eat dinner when suddenly I realized I didn't know where Sadie was. Then I heard music. Remembering I left my computer on with all my work crap still on the screen, I hightailed it to my office and saw this. Not only was she banging away at my computer but she had managed to turn on my iPod. She was rocking out, happy as could be.

It took me several minutes to undo whatever it was that she did to my computer. But at least I got a couple pics out of it.

Our first tropical storm

Sadie to Hanna: "I've had worse storms in my diaper."

Just in case anyone was worried, the storm passed by without incident. Frankly, we slept through the whole thing.

Truth, Justice, and America of the Flag

Soen calls our flag America of the Flag. At first I thought it was cute. Now, I think speaks of a deeper truth about the two Americas. There's America. And then there's America of the Flag.

Anyway, these pictures have nothing to do with that. These pics prove that you don't have to waste your money on an expensive toy, when a $6 Superman costume provides hours of fun. (Actually, I think they prove that we paid too much for the costume, since all he really likes is the cape.)

Boatload of videos

Several times over the past few weeks when the kids would be doing something cute, I'd reach for the video camera only to remember that I had videos on there that I didn't want to tape over, knowing full well that by the time I fast forwarded over the precious moments, the kids would cease to be cute and would probably start whining because their father was trying to get them to do what they had been doing only moments ago. So, these are a bunch of videos I've had sitting here since June and I'm posting them to A) provide fodder for the grandparents and B) free up my tape to capture said precious moments.

Highs and Lows

I broke out the "Moonlighting" filter for this one.


Weird day, yesterday. Wife had to work in the morning so I took the kids to my favorite place, Fit4Fun, which is basically a big room with lots of toys for the kids and chairs for the parents. Perfect for a slow morning. And the kids had a blast and played together like adorable angels, as you can see here. Soen drove Sadie all over the place. Every once in a while he'd get out to go to work and she'd follow him. Then they'd get back in and he'd help her get settled and close the gate behind her and they were off again. Cute, right?

Then after their nap they turned into these two monsters who didn't stop whining or crying or fighting all afternoon. Wife and I were counting down the minutes until bedtime.

For me, though, the most memorable part of the day was at dinner when Soen (naked, of course) wiped his butt with his napkin and then put it on the table. And he looked at me like I was crazy because I was having trouble finding the right words to express my confusion and displeasure. Go figure.

Some cool photos

Kindergarten

My smart-aleck kid.

Soen started kindergarten yesterday. We were a little worried that it would be a tough transition for him. Not only is it a new school, but none of his friends from his pre-school were going to be there. And so of course, when he got there, he basically told his mother to scram.

In short, he loves it. He told Wife that he wants to go there every day. And he said it just like he said "Daddy I'm starting to WIIIIIIIN!!!" in the air hockey video below.

Here he is showing off his new Speed Racer lunch box. We thought we were being cool, but of course every kid showed up with their brand new lunch box, too. Luckily only one other kid had a Speed Racer one.

It's funny how excited kids get about some things. Like this lunch box, for example. The dude wouldn't let it out of his grasp. He took it to the pool and wanted a snack--not because he was hungry, but because he wanted to use the hidden compartment in the bottom. I can't say I blame him. It's pretty cool. I still remember my Evel Knievel and Space 1999 lunch boxes. And they didn't even have a secret compartment.

Slip and Slide!

Remember this crazy thing? The Wham-O Corporation finally figured out that people were killing themselves on this thing, and they added cushions. Now it's just pure fun. These were taken during my cousins' visit. I managed to get a good photo of Soen and his cousin Ava, but not Sadie or Ava's sister Michaela.

By the way, in case you're curious about the whole second cousin and first cousin once removed thing--and who isn't?--Wikipedia has a nice page about it.

Poor kitty cats

A brief moment when Jackie is not being mauled by Sadie.

Our cats live outside, full-time. This was a decision we made when we moved down here as we were tired of having cat hair everywhere. This has made the cats especially love-starved, which has made them put up with behavior they normally wouldn't. Take Jackie, for instance. He used to be rather aloof. Now he'll sit there as Sadie destroys him with love. He, unfortunately, is Sadie's favorite. When she sees him, she starts yelling "Meow meow!" although it always comes out as "MAO MAO!" As you can see here, however, he doesn't seem any worse for the wear.

Gromit has had the most astonishing transformation. She used to be... well, a total bitch. Now, she's just an occasional one. She's so incredibly starved for love, she'll endure several minutes of petting before suddenly freaking out and scratching the nearest hand, which is usually Soen's. For some reason Soen has taken a liking to her, although he told me yesterday, "I used to like her all the time. Now I just like her sometimes." That's about right.

Our third cat, Dublin, hasn't changed much. He still--sensibly--doesn't like kids. He'll being sitting there, lying in the sun, and as soon as he hears Sadie he tears off into the garage, with Sadie running and yelling "MAO MAO!" after him.

This photo seems a little more illustrative of their relationship.

Awesome, man!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. We've been busy since we got back from vacation. I have vacation footage but i have a bit of a back log of older videos, this being one of them. Makes me very happy that he's enjoying air hockey so much.

So, two highlights from our vacation. The first one took place in the car, with Soen, my Dad, and my sister's family, on our way home from miniature golf. We passed a high school race track and my Dad said we had to have a big race between Soen and his eight-year old cousin (and idol) Kevin, to which Soen replied, "I hope I win!"

The second is yet another example of why my sister is a wondermom. We were at the beach and she was handing out sandwiches. She handed one to Kevin who looked at it and said, "Aw mom, it has mustard." Now if it had been the same situation between Soen and me, I would have asked him to deal with it or tried to wipe the mustard off, and either way it would have been a disaster of whining and tears. Instead Joann--without pausing or even looking up at him--said, "It tastes good at the beach, Kev," and continued her task at hand. Kevin looked at his sandwich, shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded to eat.

Awesome, man.

Sadie's time to shine

Sadie working the Shirley Temple angle.

So, I know my daughter is cute and all, but every time we go out in public, people stop in their tracks and gawk at her. Wife once told me she could barely get through Target without being stopped in every aisle. I think people with puppies have the same experience. They have to stop every five minutes to let people ooh and ahh and pet their dog. (Yes, I'm comparing my daughter to a puppy. No, no one pets her.)

My favorite is when people ask us where her curly hair comes from. Honestly, I think we get that three times a day. Obviously, it's certainly the first thing people notice when they see our kids. Especially her. And then of course when they look at us it does seem like a natural question to ask. My standard response is that our mailman had curly hair. Some times they laugh but I like it better when they don't.

P.S. That beeping you hear is our coffeemaker. Could it be any more annoying? We figured out how to turn it off once but have since forgotten.

Day of fun

Believe it or not, there are two crabs in his hand.

Soen's school was closed today so I took the day off for a Father-Son day of crazy fun. First stop was the beach, where Soen found two tiny crabs. We spent two and a half hours at the beach, which is a long time for him, but we just chilled. Usually I'm running him ragged, trying to get him to do all sorts of things he doesn't want to do. Today, I just let him take the lead, with much better results. We built and destroyed a lot of sand castles. But mostly he played with these two crabs. He also showed off the crabs to almost every passerby. "I found two crabs!" (The crabs were still alive by the time we left, which I count as a minor victory.)

Then we went to the pier you can see here in the background to play some video games and have some ice cream. The video game he wanted to play was one of those first-person shooters. Then he played his first game of pinball. He liked the shooter game better, which is understandable.

Then we went to a new sushi place, which turned out to be the best spot in town. On the way home I told Soen he was going to take a nap. He assured me he wasn't tired but of course his eyes were half closed as he said this. However, he did rally when we got home and he watched The Black Cauldron. This wasn't a nap, but he did rest for an hour and a half. Then, while we were getting ready for the pool, I found a harmonica I had forgotten about and I gave it to him. He played with it for a few minutes and then said, "Hey Daddy, you play the guitar and I'll play this." I almost wept. So we jammed for a few minutes. He took charge of the session and made sure to tell me when I was screwing up, which was fairly often.

Then it was on to the pool for two hours. His new favorite thing is snorkeling, which makes it much easier for him to swim. With a snorkel on, he can swim the entire length of the pool with no problem. But best of all, we discovered that playing with one of those torpedo things is waaay more fun when you have snorkels on that without. So he had a torpedo catch for a good twenty minutes. After that, we went to pick up Sadie from daycare and then we met Wife at home. But... the festivities weren't over yet. We all packed up a dinner and went biking over to the park for a picnic. We even made it back without any meltdowns. Crazy, I know.

The funniest part of the whole day, however, was at the beach when I called Wife to tell her how much fun we were having. Soen got on the phone and said: "Mommy, I found two crabs! I found two crabs!.... Yeah, I found two crabs. I found two crabs. Mmmhmm. Two crabs, Mommy. I found two crabs!"

Soen Rocks

Not much to add to this.

Singing frog

Wife had been wondering about these weird noises that Sadie was making. She said she sounded like Regan from the Exorcist. One time she made the sound in front of both of us and I laughed and told her she was just imitating Animal from this great Muppet clip of Beaker singing "Feelings." When I filmed this, she had been sitting in front of the computer singing along with Beaker and imitating Animal yelling "Quiet!" So, I grab the camera to catch it, and predictably, all she cares about is the camera. In this video, when you hear me griping about how she only ever wants to see the camera, what you can't see is that I then turn the view finder around so Sadie can see herself. The look on her face is priceless. She does finally give us a half-hearted "quiet" but she's totally phoning in the performance.

By the way, you can watch that Beaker clip here. Aside from the fact that this is clearly the best version of Feelings (his lyrics are way better than the original), I love the way Beaker "watches" the band before he sings. But the best moment is right after the sax solo. When it cuts back to Beaker, it's like he was watching the saxophonist. I just love the little touches like that. Almost makes you forget there's just a bunch of dudes under a table.

Wheels!

The other day I picked up a skateboard at Wal-Mart for $9. When I told my mom that Soen was skateboarding, she asked me if he was wearing a helmet. I said no because Soen was only going about five feet an hour. I don't think she believed me, so I'm posting this video to show the kind of daredevil stunts my son and daughter do on the skateboard. (Anyone want to lay odds on whether she still thinks he should be wearing one?)

Since then, however, I've purchased a push scooter for him, which he's much better at (and does wear a helmet for). The funny story about the push scooter is that I had mentioned to wife a few weeks ago that I thought it would be cool to get him one of those since he could ride it better than his skateboard or bike. She said, "How about we wait until his birthday," which totally seemed like a great plan until I decided I couldn't wait until October.

Soen loves the fact that I got put in time out for buying him his new scooter (which is a big hit, by the way). And I wonder why my kids don't listen to me.

Punchy

SWF, enjoys food, costumes, fisticuffs.

File this under "Things you never think of before you have two kids." Soen has been having a hard time distinguishing between "she" and "her." He says "her" for everything, as in "Her is going outside." 90% of the time the "her" in question is his sister and I just correct him. But lately it's gotten more complicated because he's usually telling us that Sadie is doing something we wouldn't approve of. And then I'm stuck with trying to decide whether to correct his grammar or address the problem first. If I correct Sadie's behavior, it's then hard to get back to the grammatical error in question, especially since Soen usually wants to talk about the finer points of Sadie's indiscretion. This often leads to rather bizarre conversations like this exchange...
Soen: Her hit me.
Me: SHE hit me.

This of course brings me to the real subject of this post: Sadie's new violent streak.

While I wouldn't go as far as to say "we're concerned," it has become a bit of a problem lately. Sadie now resorts to punching whenever she gets mad. She punches Soen, us, inanimate objects, or even--if nothing else is available--herself. It's gotten to the point when all it takes to get socked from our daughter is a simple "no." As in, "No, Sadie, you can't play with knives." WHAM! Right in the kisser. (Well, more accurately, it's more like a light slap on your knee.)

While--on paper--it may be funny to see such a cute little girl punch anyone who crosses her, we certainly don't take it lightly, and she gets disciplined and put into time out. (Usually, we get punched a few times as we're carrying her over to the T.O. chair.) I think she gets frustrated since she doesn't have much of a vocabulary to express her rage at the injustice of it all. (Then again, who does?)

Meanwhile we are struggling to reign her in, which is why the next time Soen said "Her hit me," I replied with the much more sensible: "Maybe you shouldn't put your face within her reach."

So uncool.

Soen and Sadie, sweating to the oldies.


My friend Nicole and I were talking about how our kids are growing up and how bittersweet an experience it is. I was telling her one of the things I'll miss most about this age is that Soen doesn't care about being cool. He's still at that age where he likes to be goofy and do things he likes to do, even if other people don't. For example, the other day he and I were at the playground and there were a bunch of older kids there. They all knew each other and were not at all interested in playing with him. Rather than be upset that no one wanted to play with him, he decided to pretend to be a baby squirrel fox (or some other imaginary creature) and he crawled around the jungle gym on all fours, yipping at the big kids as they tried their best not to trample him. He was quite content acting like a baby animal, pretending to build a nest and sleep on the ground. Of course, if one of those big kids had made fun of him he would have come running to me in tears. But luckily they couldn't have cared less about him. In a year (or less) he'll be too embarrassed to do anything like that. That's one of the things about this age that I want to bottle up. The whining and not listening... well, not so much.

Not much to report

Just some photos to keep the grandparents happy.

Paging Dr. Freud...

Sadie bogarting her Nook Nook Bear.

Quick aside about this photo: This bear that Sadie is holding is her most prized possession. She not only sleeps with it (in fact she won't sleep without it--we keep several on hand in case we misplace one) but her favorite thing in the world is to sniff it. It's like she's getting her fix on. Every night we put her in bed, hand her a binky and her nook nook. She puts the binky in her mouth and then sticks the nook nook in between her binky and her nose and inhales deeply. You know that you're "in" with Sadie if she shares her nook nook with you.

Anyway, my entry has nothing to with Sadie and her nook nook. Tonight I was playing soccer with Soen out back and I kept kicking the ball into wife's garden. Every time I did, Soen informed me that Mommy was going to be mad at me. Once, he kicked it into the garden and I said now Mommy was going to be mad at him, to which he said, "No way because Mommy's in love with me." He kicked the ball to me. "I think she's in love with me, too." I kicked it back. He laughed like this was the most ridiculous thing he ever heard. "No Daddy. She's not going to marry you, she's going to marry me." He then kicked the ball past me, which caused the automated soccer goal behind me to click on and say "Goal!" which, in turn, caused my son to say, "I win!"

Star Wars!

Rare moment when both kids are being good.

I don't know what it is about Star Wars but it has a magical power over kids. Soen and I have a little routine every night at bedtime. Once our kung fu fighting is over and his teeth are brushed, etc., I read him a book (usually some Peanuts cartoons) and then tell him a story while we listen to some music. (His new favorite song is "Have Love Will Travel" by the Sonics.) Anyway, I usually struggle for story ideas. Sometimes I tell fairy tales and sometimes I make up stories. The other night I was at a loss for a story but somehow Star Wars popped into my head. Usually he listens to my stories politely but for Star Wars he immediately latched on to it and wanted to know more. Maybe it's the names (Chewbacca is truly a great name) or the awesome combination of robots AND aliens. I don't know. But he knew right away that this was no dumb story that daddy was making up to teach him a lesson about why it's a bad idea to lie about whether he ate his broccoli.

The next day I found some Star Wars clips on YouTube, which only fueled the fire to see the actual movies, so I ordered the first one from Netflix and it arrived today.

Meanwhile, today was also the day my parents left, after having been here for a month. It was a great visit and the kids were thrilled beyond belief to have all the attention and all the spoiling that goes along with it. Of course we've found that every time a grandparent comes for a visit, there is a certain amount of deprogramming we have to do to get our good kids back. Maybe it's all the attention or the spoiling or the drugs, but over the course of this past month the kids (Soen especially) slowly devolved into these back-talking, non-listening, whining little creatures that only resemble our children thanks to their curly hair. Of course we're not blaming my parents (or wife's parents, since it happens when they come, too). After all, grandparents are supposed to spoil their grandkids. That's the rule. (And frankly, they didn't do too much spoiling anyway.) No, I prefer to place the blame solely on the children.

Today, when I was picking Soen up from his friend's house, I told him it was time to go home. He politely replied, "I don't want to," and then ran across the yard after his friend. Fearing this was going to lead to a minor war, the next time he ran by I mentioned that Star Wars had come. That stopped him in his tracks. "KATELYN I'M GONNA SEE STAR WARS!" When I explained that he could only watch it if he was an extra good boy, man did he shape up. It was like a movie. He ran to the car, buckled himself in, helped me gas up the car on the way home (even cleaned the windshield!), said please and thank you (and "yes ma'am") to everything, cleaned up his room (!), and ate his entire dinner all without one complaint. He even understood that he wouldn't be able to watch the whole movie tonight and didn't give me any lip when it was time to turn it off.

We left off right before Han Solo make his entrance. So far his favorite moment is when R2D2 gets shot by the Jawas and falls over. We had to re-enact that scene a few times tonight. Of course, he got a little whiny when it was finally bedtime and even came downstairs after he had been put to bed to tell me that his butt itched him. But all in all, I think Star Wars may make this the shortest deprogramming session yet.

Tune in tomorrow to see how this theory gets shot to hell.

Frick and Frack

I won't say who's Frack.

This is Soen and his friend Katelyn (see last post). I just wish I had a picture from the other day when wife was picking him up at her house and he was dolled up in a yellow dress. Apparently he was too embarrassed to come downstairs and show off how pretty he looked.

This pic was taken a while ago, before the sleepover. We were having dinner with Katelyn's parents and so when we picked Katelyn and Soen up from school we just brought them both home so they could play a while. Anyway, we walk in the door and Soen immediately wants to show Katelyn his room. So they go running off upstairs while I deal with Sadie who was probably bitching for food. After a few minutes Sadie and I go upstairs to see what the kids are up to and I see them flinging their clothes off. So I say, "Oh whoa whoa! What's going on here?" Not that I'm worried, obviously, that anything lewd is happening. I'm just concerned because Katelyn's parents are coming over in a few minutes and this isn't quite the impression I was hoping to make. So they tell me they're getting dressed up in the outfits you see here. "OK," I say, "Just keep your underwear on."

First sleepover

Soen and Sadie share a dance and more.

Soen had his first official sleepover on Friday night. Soen carpools with a girl in his class named Katelyn and on Friday night we went out to dinner with her parents and had a great time. Anyway, the plan was for Katelyn to spend the night. When we got home (after 10) our babysitter told us they were still awake, which wasn't all that surprising. So, I went upstairs to see what was up. Well, all the lights were on and it was basically a free-for all. i hustled the kids into their beds and turned off the light. Katelyn informed me that she needed a light to sleep. I told her I had a better plan. I went out into the guest room and turned on that light, which is the light we usually leave on for Soen. And I went back into Soen's room to show her how great my plan was. She said, "Mr McCormick that plan doesn't work for me." Oh really? "Yeah I can't see anything." So I asked her how many fingers I was holding up. "Four," she said, correctly. I said, See? You can see just fine. To which she replied, "Wait! Let me do that again."

Anyway, they didn't get to sleep until after 11. At one point I was yelling upstairs "Kids! No more talking, I mean it!" And Katelyn didn't even pause before saying, "Hey Soen..." So I yelled again and she did a wonderful impression of someone who couldn't hear me. Finally I went upstairs and laid down the law, and brought out my ultimate weapon: "Kids! If I hear one more voice you guys loose your TV and treats all day tomorrow." Works every time. Of course Soen is still off his schedule from that night and it will be a few more days before he's finally recovered.

Oh, one last humorous moment: right when we were about to leave to go out for dinner and Katelyn's parents were saying goodbye. They had been a little concerned she would be missing them. But as they were giving her a goodbye kiss, Katelyn said, "Hey mom, don't come to pick me up too early tomorrow so I can play all morning."To which her mom said, "Oh don't worry."

Anyway, not only did we have fun, but I think we really connected with yet another couple. So we're finally building a group of friends. Only took a year.

I love my gay son!

Sadie rides the high country.

So my son seems to have a fondness for the jewelry. I noticed this a month ago when all the kids got prince and princess bags of goodies from someone's birthday party. He got the princess bag and he was as pleased as punch. "Look daddy, a necklace!" Of course, I thought it was hilarious to watch him get all excited about the necklace and bracelet and ring and tiara--especially the tiara. "Look daddy, I look like a princess!" "A pretty princess?" I asked him? "Yeah! LOOK DADDY A MAGIC WAND!" "Woo-hoo!"

Now my parents are down here for the month of March and my Mom has been into making jewlery lately. Soen immediately took to it, making a necklace for Mommy and a bracelet for himself. They're both very nice, actually. Who knows, maybe he's got talent. He certainly can't catch a football worth a damn.

The video was taken a month ago when Sadie was first discovering the joys of riding her brother's horse. Now she's an old pro (although she still can't get up or down on her own.)

Shirley Temple

Another in a series of futile attempts to catch my kids doing something cute. Normally Sadie does this cool Shirley Temple thing where she'll trade dance steps with you. But every time she sees the camera she just wants to play with it. What is she, a year old or something? Check out the attractive clothes she's wearing. I guess that's what happens when you let her pick out her clothes.

Ah, sarcasm

The three kids enjoy a milkshake.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky defined sarcasm as "the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded." Well, never was this more true than the other day, when Soen was eating an ice cream cone and Michaela was trying to get him to go into the bathroom so he could take a much needed shower. After several minutes of her asking (and then telling) him to bust a move, she finally told him to get to the bathroom RIGHT NOW MISTER, to which he responded by holding up his ice cream cone and yelling , "You think I'm finished?? Well I'm NOT!" It was like he was momentarily possessed by a 15-year-old girl. Michaela did a rather good job of properly scolding him and getting him into the shower before cracking up. She then came over to tell me the story by starting with, "Honey I think we need to ease up on the sarcasm..."

Sadie's tricks

In typical fashion, one of the kids (Sadie) did something cute and, by the time we found the camera, refused to do it again. But in the process of trying to get her to do it again, she did just about every other trick she knows.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to report that I think we actually have friends! It's still a little early to be sure, of course. But the signs are looking good. How did we meet them, you ask? All it took was for Michaela to crash into their car. One minute they were exchanging insurance information, next thing you know, they invited us to their Xmas party. So, our insurance premiums will probably go up, but by golly it'll be worth it.

Oh, I almost forgot. In this video, Sadie is wearing a shirt that Dee and Sasha bought for Soen when they were in Argentina. It's my favorite shirt. It has a picture of a chicken and below that it says Mr. Cock.

Traitor!

Soen talking to his dealer.

We've been having some behavioral problems with the boy lately. Bad attitude. Lying to us. Getting into trouble at school. It was like he was turning into this little hoodlum right in front of our eyes. Then all of a sudden this weekend he started being our cute little boy again. That is until he and I were watching my Cowboys lose to the Giants and he asked me which guy I liked. I said I liked the guy in the white shirt. I expected him to say, "Me too," but he said, "I like the blue guy." The blue guy, I asked? "Yeah, because he looks like a Power Ranger." Well, at least he had a good reason.

Playground Adventures

Soen holding Sadie on the recliner swing.


Owing to weather that is nice enough to beckon us outside but isn't yet warm enough for the beach, we've been spending a lot of time at the playground recently. Here are some of the highlights.

1. Due to Sadie's tough-gal persona and her complete lack of fear, she wants to do everything her brother does, including going down even the highest, spiraling slides on her own. The first time we let her do this we were a little apprehensive, since she is just 16 months old. But she is quite capable. She's more physically advanced than Soen was at this age. In fact, she's more capable than other 16-month-olds. It's fun to see the looks on other parents' faces as she goes flying down these slides. They go launching themselves to save her, but she laughs her way down the slide and gets off just fine. Then the parents ask us, "How old is she?"

2. Trying to lose Gromit. So Gromit (our most annoying cat) has taken to climbing into the car every time we get in. One day as I was taking the kids to one park, she climbed in as was fighting me on trying to get her out of the car. Fine, I thought. I'll bring you to the park with us. Well, this was fun for a while. She got out of the car, promptly took a dump in the woods, and followed us over to the playground. Then just before we were ready to leave, she was gone. We looked for her for a few minutes but she was no where to be found. So we left her. Luckily, I escaped the dog house by finding her later in the day on my third search and rescue attempt. Frankly, she barely seemed to recognize me. Dumb cat. And to think I was actually starting to miss her.

3. Soen as bad influence. We were playing at this one jungle gym and this little 2-year-old boy came over to play with us, accompanied by his parents and grandparents. Well, this little boy naturally wanted to do everything Soen was doing. His grandmother even said how nice it was for him to follow Soen around, and how cute my kids were. Then Soen started in with his "poopy butt" running commentary, and his new favorite expression: "What the?" So the boy's mom would ask Soen a question he didn't know, like "How old is your sister?" and he would respond with, "What the?" Most parents might have been embarrassed by this sort of thing, but I just thought it was funny. Frankly, every time he says "what the?" it cracks me up. I try not to laugh, but what are you gonna do?

2008

So, 2008. Unbelievable. We celebrated with a lovely solstice (stockings and presents included). New Year's Eve consisted of a hot meal (sometimes a luxury since we're both working full time now!), memory game with Soen (umm, he always wins.) and the movie Waitress (see it). We had a great visit with my parents--Kit and Bonnie really helped up out with child care as well as some much needed family love. Kit humored us and played Acquire (a completely out of control capitalistic board game that Scott is surprisingly adept at) one night--which is the reason for this post.

I don't think I'd played this particular game in over 5 years. The last time was likely up at Tom's mom's Poconos house with the entire "family". This spurred many memories, great..happy..fabulous...sarcastic memories of one Mr. Mike Young. How he was such a stickler for rules when it came to board games. How he would always use a particular rule in Acquire to win. How no one could get Mike and Tom out of the kitchen...and let's face it who would want to??? It made me (and Scott..since I kept saying, "Remember when Mike would do this..." and "God, if he wasn't so awesome I would have resented his perfect pecan pie"). It was soooo nice to remember those days.

That's all. Those memories were a good, good present.

Smooches. Michaela