Month: July 2008

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Over the river and through the woods…

ethan river 2 W ell, we’re off this afternoon. I’m taking my readers’ advice and snatching MLI outta daycare and hitting the road this afternoon. I’ve decided that I’m doing it, in part, to thumb my nose at the Saudi’s and the Democrats.

To the Saudi’s because, by golly, if they can put a daggum indoor ski resort in the middle of the friggin’ desert, then I can darn sure spend $50 going to see my mom (and play in the river!). This isn’t a joke. My old boss went there and brought back pictures.

And I thumb my nose at the Democrats because, despite their best efforts, I still drive a pickup truck that gets terrible gas mileage.  BUT, until they make a pickup truck with a full-size bed, that can pull a couple of jet skis outta the water (I don’t have one, but I’d like to), and gets more than 25 mpg, I’m keeping what I’ve got! It’s paid off and it runs great! Can’t beat that!

I’ve contemplated running my “ROLL TIDE” flags on the outside of my windows as I drive through T-town, but I figure that’s asking for trouble that I really just don’t need, so I’m going to sneak in quietly, running my radar detector the whole way.

For the unitiated, Tennessee is a HUGE Alabama football rivalry ever since their coach ratted out one of our players for allegedly taking bribes, which as it turns out, we didn’t even keep the player. For all of that, Alabama football got several years of academic scholarship penalties that killed our chances at winning any kind of championships for several years. So yeah, we pretty much hate Tennessee, and I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.

With luck, I’ll get some good pictures to share with you all next week. So until then, you all have a wonderful, safe weekend!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Oh, obviously! The moment I sat down I thought I was looking into a mirror.

two strikes I swanny; if my boys weren’t born three years apart, I’d swear they were twins. When one is happy, the other is happy; when one is sad the other is sad.

And when one is bad, well…let’s just say that MLE now has “Two Strikes” on the old biting policy chart.

Yesterday, both of the boys had a little trouble at daycare. MLI’s class gives out stickers for being good, and one little incident can keep a child from getting a sticker. Depending on which story you listen to from MLI (the one he gave CareerMom, or the one he gave me), the infraction went something like this:

“We came in from playing outside and we were waiting in line for water, and I hit Carter and then I went and sat down.”

Now, if this doesn’t quite make sense, realize it’s coming from a four year old whose recollection leaves a lot to be desired, and who probably figures he’s about to get in trouble despite what daddy just told him about being honest. We had our own little “sticker contest” going at home where if he got five stickers, he could go see Wall-E with CareerMom. He had already gotten the requisite stickers, but knowing he fudged up yesterday, when CareerMom picked him up and found out he didn’t get a sticker, he psyched himself out of movie excitement with, “It was probably going to be boring anyway.”

Since he’d already gotten five stickers, I told CareerMom that he’d already earned it despite what he’d done that day, so he went to the movie with CareerMom last night anyway, and turns out he was right. They didn’t even finish the movie.

On to MLE! All’s I know is that he and another little boy were fighting over a push-toy, and recognizing that he might be about to lose the fight, MLE decided to fight dirty and reached over and bit the other boy. Which, as it turns out, worked…up until the point where the teachers came and put him in timeout with a “stern” admonishment.

Let me just point out here that a stern admonishment is about as effective with MLE as well, timeout. Which, shockingly, for a 16 month old, MLE is very good at. He’s apparently had lots of practice in timeout. We put him in timeout this weekend for something and he actually sat there until we told him to get up.

To say were were in “shock and awe” would be an understatement. And as CareerMom has said on many occasions, “It’s a good thing he’s so cute, because he’s going to be quite the troublemaker!”

Isn’t that way of it? How many hotties do you see going to jail? Male or female?

I’m just sayin’.

So anyway, we have one more strike before the mandatory parental meeting, and then if he continues to bite, it’s expulsion. CareerMom swears she’ll pull MLI AND MLE if it comes to that; although she’s not figured out what we’ll do with them then.

Hey, don’t look at me! I may work from home a lot, but that’s only because nobody else is there!

Any suggestions as to how we can curb this biting thing? Barring that…anyone know where we can find a really good (cheap) nanny?

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Dad Blogs Family

Well, there is the water, and caves and horses to ride…

Roadtrip I ‘m in a bit of a quandry. Help me out here.

My mom (one of them anyway) lives in Tennessee, in a tiny little town called Walland. It’s just on the other side of the mountains from Pigeon Forge and Dollywood and all of that tourist greatness.

She also lives right on Little River. In fact, I can wade right into the river from her back yard.

All of this adds up to a whole lotta reasons why I should go see her…more often. Except that it’s a 3.5 hour drive from Roswell and the drive isn’t especially kid-friendly. We’ve only been up there once this year, and that was in the spring, so we’re really due to go back up.

CareerMom is in New York this week on Thursday and coming back Friday afternoon and we’ve discussed my taking MLI and heading up to see my mom, leaving CareerMom and MLE at home. What really shouldn’t be that tough of a decision, is laden with choices:

Pros:

  • Getting a break from the constant attention needs of MLE (who is a HUGE daddy’s boy!)
  • Getting to spend some quality time with MLI playing in the river and drinking too much soda pop (what an “old” phrase) on the road trip
  • Seeing my mom
  • CareerMom suspects she left her glasses there last time and without them at night after she takes her contacts off, she can’t see much of anything. I could verify whether or not this is true and potentiall retrieve said glasses, thus potentially saving CareerMom loads on a new pair!

Cons:

  • The price of gas
  • The 7 hours of drive-time
  • My mom really wanting to see MLE since he’s “the baby” and arguably, quite the draw from a personality standpoint

Frankly, the price of gas isn’t THAT big a deal, but I felt I should throw it in regardless. And admittedly, a huge thing for me is that I feel guilty leaving CareerMom at home to deal with MLE by herself all weekend. At least when I’m home too, we can switch off for a few moments of sanity.

Whaddya think? Suck it up and take a road trip, or stay home and keep CareerMom sane?

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Adventures in Swimming (with kids)

lifeguard “But I don’t wanna go,” he says with his fingers in his mouth and his little lips quivering.

“Honey,” I say, “Mommy and Daddy have already paid for your swimming lessons, and you’re going to learn how to swim. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” he says, with his eyes looking towards the floor and with a posture that tells me he’s only doing it because he knows that the next thing I’m going to say will be something he REALLY will not want to hear, such as, “If you don’t get in the water this very instant and start swimming, when we get home, you’re going to your room until I say you can come out!”

MLI has swimming classes every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. at our health club. To work our schedules around his swimming and CareerMom’s desire to go to an aerobics class at 8:30, I went earlier, then after my workout, I took him out to the pool for his 30-minute swim session.

Last week, due to the holiday, he didn’t have his regular teacher. Instead, he had some young stud-wannabe kid, who was nice and who did a fine job. I figured we’d have the same guy today so we walked over to him and he said, “Oh, Anna actually will be his regular teacher. She’s over there.”

He pointed…I stared.

Anna.

A more appropriate description for her might be, “Future Baywatch Star” if Baywatch were still on television.

Anyway, after daddy composed himself, we walked over to Anna and introduced ourselves and after a bit more blubbering, I finally threatened convinced MLI to get in the water where he had 30 glorious minutes with Anna…while I tried (hard) not to look like I was trying not to look.

And don’t think little boys are dumb either. MLI clung to her (and not in a “I’m scared” kinda way) like he clings to a slice of pepperoni pizza. And for the record, he did NOT cling to the boy teacher in the same fashion.

So, next week, when CareerMom asks if I can again accompany MLI to swim lessons, I’ll cheerfully accept. And I think I’ll have to make Saturday, Chest and Biceps day…cuz…those body parts really need the work.

(Hey, I’m married, not dead!)