Author: Shane

Quote Monday keeps an eye out for danger

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Sara: “Did you understand what your swimming instructor was telling you?”
Ollie: “Not really.”
Sara: “She said that you’re doing everything right, you just need to do it faster.”
Ollie: “But why? There’s not any pirates around…”

Sara: “I’m sure a homeless man lives in our guest bedroom. That’s why I don’t go downstairs.”

I so wish that quote was out of context, but no, that one is straight up.

Ollie: “I feel more like a human being with a part in my hair.”

Evie: “I met a burr plant, and we had a long conversation.”

Ready for Kindergarten, at least from a sneakiness perspective

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Ollie is having trouble letting go of summer. Every day we tell him to wear pants or a long sleeved shirt, and he resists. “It’s too hot!” he says. “No it’s not, it’s 60 degrees outside right now!” we say (to deaf ears). He swears he will die of heat stroke if we make him wear long sleeves, and he swears he’s never cold.

Now that Oliver is in kindergarten, we have been trying to give him a little more autonomy. Or maybe I should say, trying to force him to take a little more autonomy, because he in no way is asking for it! He would rather do pretty much anything else. Every morning when he wakes up it takes 5 or 6 reminders before he actually gets dressed.

So when he does get dressed by himself, it is a bit of a surprise. On this particular morning, he did just that, telling us not to come into his room and then suddenly coming out fully dressed. “Okay,” I thought, “if he wants to ‘surprise’ us, fine. Whatever it takes for him to get dressed.” We noticed that he was wearing a short sleeve shirt under his long sleeve shirt, but this is not exactly an unusual fashion choice for Ollie. As long as he is presentable enough to leave the house, I couldn’t care less (see also, persistently wearing his shoes on the wrong feet every day for the last 3 years).

Until I got this message from Sara:

“i am sure that he got dressed quickly in his room this morning, wearing the long sleeve shirt like i asked, because he planned to take it off and switch to the short sleeve shirt as soon as he got to school!  it’s in all the pictures!  what a stinker!  maybe he is more ready for kindergarten than i give him credit for!”

Unfortunately for Ollie, this is 2015, and teachers like to send pictures throughout the day. Sure enough, as soon as he was out from under our watchful eye, he switched to the short sleeves, and he had planned it all along, which is why he was acting weird and secretive when we saw the undershirt.

This does strike me as a particularly “kindergarten” thing to do. Sometimes he seems so young, but then he reminds me he’s not anymore. What’s next, sneaking out of the house at night?

Fast forward to this morning. I had forgotten all about the incident above, and I was double checking his tooth brushing skills when I noticed something blue poking up from his waistband…sure enough, he had a short sleeve shirt tucked down the front of his pants!!

I stressed to him that he should not try to hide things from us, and that if he wanted to take a short sleeve shirt in case he got hot, he should put it in his backpack, not down the front of his pants. In fact, he should probably not put anything down the front of his pants.

Sometimes I think the only reason we have any control whatsoever as parents is that kids are so terrible at fooling us…

Applesauce, 2015 – Part 2

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This year we decided to make raspberry applesauce, just for a change of pace. It turned out surprisingly well!

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(Even Nala was helping)

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Applesauce, 2015 – Part 1

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And we even made it out before the storm rolled in…

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My New Obsession: Regina Spektor

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I was vaguely aware of Regina Spektor. I enjoyed her song Fidelity (If you’ve ever heard a Regina Spektor song, you’ve probably heard Fidelity), but I was mostly familiar with the song she did with Ben Folds, You Don’t Know Me. So I would say that I had vaguely positive feelings towards Regina Spektor.

My obsession began with You’ve Got Time, the theme song to the wildly popular show Orange is the New Black. I never even watched the show, but Sara did, and I *could not* get that song out of my head. Love it. I listened to it over and over again (ask either of the kids and they’ll sing it to you; they learned all the words via osmosis). I listened to it on repeat, hummed it in the shower, learned to play it on guitar.

Fidelity is a really good song that I like a lot, and You’ve Got Time, natch, but there are even better ones out there.

My current favorite is “Samson”, a beautiful love song referencing, of all things, the story of Samson and Delilah (you know, that old love story? Real sweet, those two.)

Another one of my favorites is “Laughing With”:

Okay, another, nother favorite is On the Radio. Wait, no, or The Call. Or maybe Us. Or maybe all of them?

The weird thing is that I like every one of her songs. All of them. Spotify has like 5 or 6 albums, and I haven’t heard a song I didn’t like yet. Every band has a stinker, right? I mean, you can’t like EVERY song someone writes.

Well, maybe I can. At least for today, that’s Regina Spektor for me.