Month: November 2011

Shel Silverstein

/ Shane / Leave a comment

We picked up a used copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein, and Evie and I recently finished reading it.

Although Evie is a little young for it, it went over surprisingly well. There are a few poems that seemed to have captured her imagination, specifically “Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too”, “Hungry Mungry”, and “The Unicorn”, among many others.

Actually, I forgot how much I liked this book until I was re-reading it with her. It really took me back to my childhood, when I read this book innumerable times. I felt like each time I turned the page I thought, “Oh yeah! This one!” It felt pretty special to share those with her. And here it was something I had almost completely forgotten about!

Shel Silverstein has a lot of famous books, but the two best in my opinion are “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and A Light in the Attic”.

I don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody that didn’t like the poetry of Shel Silverstein, and I kind of feel like these books are part of the pop-culture landscape of my childhood, in that pretty much everybody was familiar with them. I hope that my kids enjoy them as much as I did when I was a kid.

Based on Evie’s reaction to “Where the Sidewalk Ends”, it seems likely.

Oatmeal – You’re Doing it Wrong

/ Shane / 5 Comments

At our house, we eat a lot of oatmeal. The kids like it, it’s a quick and easy hot breakfast, and it’s one of the healthiest breakfasts one could eat. A lot of times when we mention oatmeal to people, or if people are over at our house on a Saturday (a designated oatmeal day), they always more or less have the same reaction: “Yuck, really? Oatmeal?” Then we proceed to get out all the toppings and condiments that we put on the oatmeal, and they say, “Oh, well, that’s not really oatmeal then, is it?”

Well, why the heck not?

I remember eating oatmeal at home as a kid. We either put honey in it or cinnamon and sugar. Maybe a little fruit or something. I think that’s how people think of oatmeal; sort of bland with an unappealing texture that gets old pretty fast.

Oatmeal (here: oat,water,salt). Danish: havregrød

But who said it has to be that way? There are an infinite combinations of things you can put in your oatmeal. We usually use some combination of walnuts, pecans, dried cranberries, raisins, honey, maple syrup, applesauce, peanut powder, chia seeds, cinnamon, diced apples, strawberries, and bananas. And you certainly aren’t limited to those things. The nuts give it some texture, and if you use fruit, you usually don’t need a sweetener. It’s not uncommon to have a bowl that’s about half oatmeal and half “other stuff”. But, 1) you’re still eating oatmeal instead of something else, like sugar cereal, and 2) the “other stuff” is generally pretty healthy as well (I’m not going to complain about my kids eating bananas and nuts for breakfast!). And if adding in some applesauce encourages you to eat oatmeal, then it seems like a pretty good deal.

So my contention is, if you’re not eating oatmeal, you’re probably not thinking creatively enough about it!

Magical Daddy

/ Shane / 1 Comment

When I was a kid, I used to *love* magic tricks. I read books about them, I watched tv programs about them, and I bought all types of things at stores, practicing into the wee hours of the morning. I wouldn’t say I ever got good at them, and certainly never really had the patience to truly master sleight of hand, but it was a hobby I enjoyed. Mostly I performed for my family. “Magic shows” were pretty common in our house, usually with me as the head magician, and either my brother or sister (or both) as my helpers.

For some reason I remembered all of this the other day, and managed to find all of my dime store props. It’s been probably 20 years since I looked at that stuff, but I really did goof around with it quite a bit back then, so I manged to get about 5 tricks I could perform without any practice, and I did a show for Evie and Oliver.

Well, right off the bat I learned that it is very easy to trick a 4 year old. Misdirection, the heart of any good trick, is comically simple. None of these tricks would have fooled an adult for even a second, especially with me performing them (so I thought, until I later performed the tricks for Sara and Uncle Ben, several times!). But with Evie? I was a genius. Tell a little story, a couple of flourishes with the wand, and shout “Magic Daddy!” Indeed, magic was performed.

After I finished blowing Evie’s mind, she insisted on doing all the tricks herself. She claimed that she had watched very carefully and knew how to do them all.

That’s when the fun started.

The first trick she really did get (it was that obvious), and the second one was fool proof, so that one worked as well, even though she didn’t understand how or why. The “mind reading” trick she happened to guess right twice in a row, completely convincing her that she had followed all of the steps correctly, and activated the magic. It was actually kind of heart breaking when she grinned at me and proudly proclaimed, “I have daddy’s magic too!”

Unfortunately, the next two tricks were not quite as simple. She couldn’t figure out how to master the shrinking card and the bank that makes coins appear in your pocket. She was so sure that it wasn’t working because she wasn’t saying the right magic word, or she was hitting the magic wand too many times. As if it was scientific somehow. She hit that bank so many times, she practically beat a hole in it, checking her pockets every few seconds to see if the coin had traveled there yet.

It was absolutely hilarious. I literally fell out of my seat I was laughing so hard. I convinced her that I wasn’t laughing at her, but she just couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. She saw what I did, and she did that too, so why didn’t the coin magically appear in her pocket?

Then I would get the coin out and say something like, “Oh, no wonder it’s not working, you didn’t look behind your ear!” She said, “OOOOoooohh!” and after that she kept checking her ears as well as her pockets. Then I would trigger the shrinking card when she wasn’t looking and say, “Why don’t you try it one more time?” Oh man. If her magic show would have went on for all eternity, I never would have gotten bored.

Even though the last two tricks weren’t successful, she came away from the whole thing absolutely convinced that she has magic, if for no other reason than because when she was attempting the “nails through the coin” trick, the coin shifted and one of the nails shot back out. “You see? I actually have MORE magic than you, daddy, because I made the nail go flying!” She told me this repeatedly, probably 3 or 4 times.

I kept telling her it was tricks, not really magic, but she definitely didn’t believe me. Maybe she started to by the end, especially after she cried and forced me to reveal that the coin hadn’t really been behind her ear. On one hand, there’s no reason to ruin her sense of wonder about magic. On the other hand, she was really bummed that I could do magic and she couldn’t. I think she looks up to me plenty; I don’t need her to think I have magic powers as well.

All in all though, I don’t think I’ve ever had such a good time with Evie. (Oliver could care less about the whole thing, and pretty soon was just playing with the doll house.) It was an absolute blast. It’s hard not to enjoy doing magic tricks with such an easy, adoring audience. Thank you paper route money spent 20 years ago!

2,000th Comment!

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Thank you to Alexis, who just provided the 2,000th comment on my blog!

This is very exciting to me, you have no idea. I’ve been watching for a month or so, as all the important dates in my life came and went (the year I was born, the year I graduated high school, etc.). And now we’re up to the 21st century! (Yes, I am aware that technically we need to get to 2001 comments for the 21st century.)

So anyway, thanks to everyone who comments on my blog. I love to hear from you! And special thanks to Alexis, for (unwittingly) being my 2000th. To thank her, how about we all go read her blog? Or better yet, we should all go order something adorable from her Etsy shop. I’m partial to the “Arrgh, Kiss Me Booty” onesie and the “I’d Rather Be Nursing” bib, but perhaps you would prefer a customized Pillow Sham (in other words, I don’t think she forces you to get the one with the picture of Jackson, Elliot, and Ayla on it, even if it is pretty awesome).

Quote Monday is poor (but not how you think)

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Evie: “Why can’t we go [to the museum] today, and then go again when mama can go?”
Me: “Well, we are only allowed to see the exhibit one time.”
Evie: “Well…maybe we could all wear disguises!”

::Oliver takes a bite of sriracha::
::Oliver’s mouth falls open and a moan escapes. The top of his head comes off and steam starts shooting out of his ears. He claws at his tongue, trying to remove it from his mouth.::
Oliver, when he finally recovers:  “More spicy!!”

Sara, to me: “Assuming your inner dialog matches your outer dialog, I would assume there was a lot of dialog.”

Evie: “Mother Earth must be poor.”
Me: “Why do you say that?”
Evie: “Because she has trash all over her.”
Me: “And that makes her poor?”
Evie: “Yup. Poor Mother Earth.”