Tag: parenting

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Dad Blogs DIY Family

No really, I’m gonna replant!

I’ve been going on to people at work–because they’re the only people I talk to other than my in-home family–about my errant landscaper. He’s fairly young and inexperienced, so yes, the term “landscaper” is a bit generous. Let’s call him “my yard guy.” That might more appropriately represent his help to me.

At any rate, he did show up after not showing up the first day and then not showing up until late the second day, oh and then not showing up yesterday despite having told me that even if it rains he has covers he can work under. Riiiiight.

Here’s pretty much all he’s done this week:

See all that blank area in front of the house on both sides of the door? Well, if you look closely, you’ll see stumps from the shrubs that were there previously. He hacked those out with some power hackers that he was very proud of (“These cost $400!”). He said he’d return the next day with a stump grinder, but I’ve not seen him since.

However, I do have my plant material that he’s purchased for me (below). I’d have hoped to have something a bit larger on the Japanese Maple, but they do get pricey. I got a “Waterfall’ variety for in front of the house and a Sango Kaku for the top of the yard and a Seiryu for the far right side.

Can you believe that tiny little pile of rocks cost me $70? I had to go get those myself from Pike Nurseries Stone Center here in town.

So, work is being done, just not too often. The dirt is supposed to be delivered today, but he has to build a small timber retaining wall before he can place all the dirt, so I’m sure I’ll be looking at a big pile o’ dirt for a few days.

But I’m confident it’ll look good when he’s done and if not, well, at least I’ll have all the materials there to fix it myself. 🙂

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States

Random Story Part 1

Recently, my friend had to “let someone go” at the office. She’s a real manager see, not just someone with a manager title like myself who actually only manages him or herself. Anyway, partly because it’s just fun to do, and partly because there are legal reasons for doing so, she went through this ex-employee’s laptop to see what he’d been spending his days doing, because, quite frankly, he’d not been doing much meaningful work.

In addition to opening every piece of e-mail labeled “porn,” he spent a great deal of time searching the Internet for seemingly random things (Yeah, I do that too…does it make me weird?). The top four searches on his Internet history were:

The most obviously funny one here being “cheese” of course. Over the last week, we’ve applied the use of the single word “cheese” to many situations–most notably when we have nothing else to say in response to a question, “I don’t know…um….CHEESE!”

We also took those four search terms and created short situational stories that were just too much fun! Now, I spend all my days either writing about industry terms like, “threat,” “risk,” “mitigation,” and “viruses.” All in all, it’s pretty boring stuff, so anytime I can flex my creative writing muscle and break out of the ho-hum, I like to do so. In that vein, I thought I’d create my own four random words and start writing short tales to go along with them. Most won’t have endings because I simply don’t have that kind of time, but it should be fun.

For this exercise, I’m using the random word generator found here. Today’s four random words are:

  • reckon
  • down
  • avoid
  • caps

Hmm, shouldn’t be too difficult, let’s see…

After enjoying a few wonderful spring-like days, winter came back with a small vengence. I reckon that the elephant ears I’d planted only the day before just barely below the surface should survive, but there are no guarantees. I’d gotten up early to get the baby when his swing stopped swinging and had hoped to avoid having to change him, thus waking him up any further, but a massive poop blowout, smelling remarkebly like formaldehyde, soaked through his onesy and dripped down my arm. There was no getting out of it…I had to change him!

Trying to keep a crying baby quiet while juggling bottles, diapers, wipes and clean outfits isn’t easy. As I pawed through the drawer full of socks and caps, I tried simultaneously propping the bottle up against a stuffed animal to it would stay vertical thus keeping the baby from sucking too much air.

Ok, not much real creativity there since this did, in fact, happen this morning, but it’s fun nonetheless. I like this idea…think I’ll keep it up.

Have a great Easter weekend all!

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Dad Blogs Family

Brownie Points Akimbo!

Being Good Friday and all, I took today off to give my wife a break. My wife, as you may remember, recently gave birth to our second son and she’s been on maternity leave for just over 6 weeks now. Seeing as how she’s been caring for the youngin’ every day for more than a month I felt now would be a good time to bank some brownie points…you know…since it’s spring and I really wanna get out in the yard (and um, maybe buy a riding lawn mower).

All in all it’s been an easy day. We went to Home Depot, we went to the paint store and picked up some samples for our front door. The previous owners painted it black (“you bastards!”). It’s quite the travesty and I just have to paint it.

Anyway, the baby has been asleep for nearly 2.5 hours now and I just know that the second I sit down to blog, he’ll start screaming. So far I’m wrong, but we’ll see.

Back to the brownie points…I figured I’d book these major brownie points taking care of the baby today and all till my wife tells me that she booked me a massage for this afternoon at 5 p.m. Dang! Don’t get me wrong, it’ll be nice, but there goes at least half my points.

So there I am yesterday cooking dinner and the phone rings. I pick it up and the person says, “May I speak to Mr. X or Mrs. X” and I say–grammatically incorrect–“This is he,” and the other person says, “This is Massage Envy just calling to remind you that Mrs. X has an appointment at 3 p.m. and you have one at 5 p.m. Thank you.”

AH HA! So that’s how it played out huh? See, she didn’t tell me she also had an appointment booked. That gives me back at least half the points I had lost. A gift of guilt, while appreciated, doesn’t quite carry the same weight now does it?

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Yearly Pediatrician Check Ups

Not mine thank you…the kids. In a moment of what could only be described as insanity, I volunteered to take both boys (simultaneously) to the Drs. office for their yearly checkup. Ethan was due for his yearly and Aiden for his monthly.

We arrived at the scheduled time of 8:30 as we were supposed to, and were behind probably 4-5 others who were there with their sick kids, ranging in age from infant up to at least 15. This one mother acted as I imagine my adopted mom would have if suddenly faced with actually having to care for a child. She didn’t have a clue. I mean, come on, anyone who goes to the doctor knows the routine right?

…you walk in…you sign in…they give you a chart to fill out and you hand them your insurance card…sometimes you immediately pay your co-pay, and you get the heck outta the way. Not so this mom. She fumbled, she mumbled, she SET HER PURSE ON THE FLOOR TO LOOK FOR HER INSURANCE CARD. And then…and then, when all that was done, she just stood there in front of the sign-in sheet and wouldn’t move. The kicker was that her kid was a teenager and here she is acting like it’s the first time she’s been to the Dr. Lay off the Prozac lady and plug into reality.

Here I am, holding a not-too-light infant and carrier, while trying to herd my older son away from the sick kids and into the “Well children” side of the office.

Luckily, before there was an evisceration, the lady finally moved and things proceeded as normally. We were called back…well, actually my youngest son was called back and then when I explained they both had appointments, well…I think I just completely threw her for a loop. She placed us in a room while they “sort it all out,” with a sickly sweet smile that makes you just want to say, “Don’t bother, I’ll find another Pediatrician.” Which I won’t because it’s way too difficult a proposition.

So finally about 20 minutes later, two ladies come in to tag-team us and they proceed to ask for my oldest son’s cooperation, and in response he stuck his finger up his nose and proceeded to hide behind a chair. Now normally, this is where I’d grab an arm and drag him out kicking and screaming all the while threatening a spanking, but I’m in pubic, so instead I use the old, “You won’t got to the train show today unless you do this” argument. And it works a little; at least enough that they do what they need to do. My youngest son was easy…all they had to do was remove his clothes and he was ready to go.

So, when they left, they told me to take off all my oldest son’s clothes down to his underwear (you mean diaper?) and wait for el doctor. Thirty minutes later, I’m out of soothing bottle for the infant, my oldest son has run through his gamut of toys and I’m getting steamed. I stick my head out the door and start complaining to the first lackey I could find, who actually stood her ground fairly well, until I used the, “I don’t care how many sick kids came in ahead of me, we had an appointment. If you can’t staff enough to meet your obligations, then don’t make any.” There was nothing she could say to that really, so I win!

Finally the doctor came in, one of the few we really like there, and that really saved the day. The kids are healthy, the Dr. used his authority to tell my older son that “Picking your nose is an ugly habit,” and “You should use the potty ALL the time.” We’ll see how well that works.

At any rate, I got out with my sanity (just barely) and major brownie points with my wife, which is really worth gold in these days of precious few moments of “me” time. So, all’s well that ends well, at least until next year.