My So Called Life

A very special day

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Being spontaneous is not something Sara and I are very good at. So I was very proud of us for seeing an opportunity and seizing the moment last weekend.

My extended family has an enormous rummage sale every year and we had some stuff in it. Now technically, if you want to have stuff in the sale, you should help out with the sale. However, for out of towners, I think they make an exception. Nevertheless, we had originally planned on being there for the sale, if at all possible. Plus, it made a good excuse to introduce Oliver to a few people.

Plans changed, however, and we scheduled my dad and step-mom to come down that weekend, so we put all those plans out of our heads. So when my parents ended up going home on Saturday to get their dog out of the kennel, we didn’t think of it right away. After thinking about it for a while though, we said, “You know what? We could go there tomorrow.”

Thus began our “very special day” in Evie’s parlance. For her, the fact that we got her up before the butterfly lights were even on to get her in the car was enough to make it a very special day. She kept saying every few hours, “Today is a very special day!”

So we packed an amazing amount of stuff for just a one day trip (a baby adds a lot of stuff, on top of what you need for a toddler) and took off. Evie had a pretty good time. She said her favorite part of the day was coloring with the sidewalk chalk (although I still think all the adults had more fun). She did about half a block worth of pictures, including a crocodile, an ant holding her baby, a mother giraffe, bubbles, and a mommy and baby spider, as well as a really good rainbow.

On the way home both of the kids were sleeping, and I said to Sara, “I’m really glad we decided to do that!” Later I said to her, “If I ever make a statement like that again, remind me to wait until we are actually home and done with the trip.”

So what happened in between? Well, we had some bad traffic, so we decided to stop and get something to eat, because it was going to be bed time by the time we got home. When we stopped, we experienced our first full scale meltdown of both kids at the same time. Ouch. Quite embarrassing, and we were forced to run out of there with our meal half eaten. I like to think of us as a sort of roving birth control for the teenagers sitting in the next booth.

Afterwards, everybody was in a bad mood, and it was pretty rough. When we finally got all of the stuff in the house and the kids in bed, we just collapsed into sleep, without even putting most of the stuff away. It was sort of spectacular how fast everything took a turn for the worst! But as Sara said, we sort of set them up to fail, since it was a long day and everyone was tired.

So anyway, long story short, it was sort of a mixed bag. Certainly we learned a bit about handling two kids out in public, and we’ll do things a little different next time. Evie has already asked several times if today was a very special day, or how long until the next very special day. So I think we will work on including more special days in the future.

I have a dream (it involves pirates)

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Since high school I have had a vision of the ultimate pirate performance piece / urban prank. Imagine, if you will:

You’re sitting at a stop light, minding your own business. Suddenly a pickup truck pulls up next to you at the light. In the back of the pickup truck is an entire crew of pirates, minding their own business, acting for all the world like they belong there. You get a chuckle out of seeing an unexpected crew of pirates, maybe people start pointing.

Then it turns ugly.

A second pirate crew pulls up in a different pickup truck, flying a different pirate flag. Soon, a fight breaks out, complete with swashbuckling, boarding planks, and choreographed sword duels. Eventually everything is settled and the two trucks drive away as if this were the most normal thing in the world.

The closest I ever came to this was dressing up as a pirate and driving around with another pirate and a Jolly Roger in the back window. No sword fights though. No swashbuckling.

So, I think it’s time for the real deal. Who’s with me?

Bad Dad

/ Shane / 2 Comments

The monitor volume button must have gotten bumped last night, so this morning the volume was completely off. Therefore, I missed my usual wakeup call at 6:42 when Evie starts hollering that the butterfly lights are on. I was snoozing blissfully until 7:30. I woke up and blinked sleepily at the clock. “Why is it 7:30?” I asked Sara. Puzzled, I picked up the monitor and discovered the sound was off. When I turned the volume up, I heard Evie mournfully sobing, “Please come soon, it’s been a long time!”

Oh man. I tell you, I felt about as bad as I have ever felt. This poor girl had been calling for me for about 45 minutes and I wasn’t coming. The butterfly lights had already been on and then turned off by the time I got down there. I don’t think I’ve ever not come before, so she was probably very worried and confused. I asked her several times why she didn’t come upstairs and wake me up (she has done this on other occasions), but she said she was afraid to come out of her room. Double guilt trip! Nothing gets to me more than when Evie says she’s afraid of the hallway or the monsters in the laundry room, etc.

I tried to make up for it with extra hugs and stuff, but tonight when I was putting her to bed, she said, “Don’t forget to come when the butterfly lights are on!” making me feel awful all over again. She also kept repeating, “I didn’t forget to call you when the lights are on, I won’t wait until they are off.” She’s obviously very worried that I will forget again tomorrow.

It’s funny how such a small thing can make you feel so bad!

What’s on your butt?

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Sometimes, you are just bone tired. Any parent can relate to this. However, your energy-factory toddler just can’t imagine being anything but hopped up. So as soon as I saw the title of this article, I was hooked.

Fun Toddler Games That Let You Relax; How to entertain your child while lying down.

Now that’s my kind of article! Unfortunately for our children, Sara and I are sort of low-energy parents. So most of these games came as no surprise to us. For the most part, we have our own variations on these games. However, game #5 stuck out. That was certainly one that I had never thought of before:

Game #5: What’s on Your Butt?

Position: Lying down with your eyes closed.

What your child will love about it: Butts.

What you will love about it: The roar of laughter that accompanies anything having to do with butts.

I recommend playing this one in your child’s room or wherever she keeps her toys. The participating parent lies face down on the bed and closes his eyes while the child finds an interesting object to place on the parent’s butt. Keeping his eyes closed, the parent guesses what’s on his butt. Your child will enjoy giving you endless clues in between peals of laughter from seeing Elmo or Barbie or her toothbrush riding your backside. This activity may last for a very long time as children rarely tire of seeing their parents with stuff on their ass.

Source: “What’s on your butt?” was invented by my genius husband on one of those mornings when we were cheerfully awakened by our sleepless child at 5 a.m.

That is pure genius.

Any other parents have games like this that can contribute to my laziness? (Yes, we’ve already covered timing her as she runs up and down the hallway)

Well look at that!

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Nature can be beautiful sometimes after all!

I just got done saying that any new nature we discovered was all horrible, when an astute reader (and, only slightly less important, my wife) sent me this link which introduced me to the beautiful pink katydid:

Turns out those little guys don’t last very long…pink isn’t quite as camouflaging as green. But, I’m sure that the last thing a bird thinks before gobbling it up is, “Hmm, that is quite beautiful.”

So color me wrong, there is at least one non-horrible thing out there in nature. (Not horrible for me, that is, but kind of horrible for the poor, pink, and easily eaten katydid…)