My So Called Life

Baby-baconfest

/ Shane / 1 Comment

As the time came around for this year’s baconfest, we were really struggling to find a weekend to make it work. As much fun as eating a metric ton of bacon is, it actually does take a lot of preparation work: designing the shirts, buying the bacon, doing all the cooking, etc. With a newborn, the whole thing seemed like too much.

On the other hand, I WILL NOT LET THE TRADITION DIE, even if it kills me (and, since we’re talking about eating pounds and pounds of bacon, let’s be clear: it will kill me).

So we did a baby baconfest. Baconfest lite. No taste test, no orgy of bacon recipes, just one meal (prepared by Nate and Amanda), a little bacon with breakfast, and (naturally) some bacon soda.

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“Y’all get yer fixins!”

Alex says, “What the crap is this nonsense? Is this seriously the family I was born into??”

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Some of us didn’t think it was all that bad (Sara said it tasted like grape soda). I mean, I wouldn’t want to drink a whole bottle of the stuff, but, you know. I took more than one drink (for science!)

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On the other hand, most people’s reaction to the smoky flavor of the bacon soda can best be summed up as:

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I was also the proud recipient of an “I Heart Bacon” wall calendar, which is now at work.

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Sorry I don’t have more posts this year, but the best I could handle was to keep the chain of baconfests unbroken (six down, one hundred more to go).

(Not for nothing, I did wear my “high five if you like bacon” shirt from last year and did get two high fives from strangers!)

Kid’s Rights

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I had a fairly ominous quote from quote from Ms. Evelyn the other day:

Evie: “Mama I was reading a book about children’s rights…”
Sara: “Oh boy.”
Evie. “It was very interesting.”

Probably the last we’d ever hear of that, right? I mean, that’s never going to come up again.

WRONG.

So the other day we were making chocolate covered strawberries, which Evelyn was *very* excited about. However, she was also sick, sneezing and coughing all over the place.

“Sweetheart, I can’t let you make chocolate covered strawberries while you’re getting germs all over everything,” said Sara. Hoo boy, was that the wrong thing to say! Evelyn was in a fine state.

“I know about children’s rights!” she said.
“What about children’s rights?” said Sara, while we tried not to laugh. “What does ‘children’s rights’ mean?”
“It means children have a right to do what they want!” said Evelyn. “And I’ve been learning about slavery…”

I may have snorted out loud at that point, thinking she was going to equate “not being allowed to make chocolate covered strawberries” to “slavery”, but she pulled up at the last minute.

“…and if people could get rid a thing like slavery, which is a really big thing, then I should be allowed to do strawberries, which is a little thing!”

In fact, I wholeheartedly agree with her that not being allowed to dip strawberries is relatively minor compared to slavery, although I’m not sure I buy the argument that children should be allowed to do “anything that’s not as bad as slavery”.

Unfortunately, though, this airtight argument did not help her case and we ultimately denied her request, no doubt violating her “children’s rights” in the process. I really need to get a copy of this book now, to find out what other atrocities I’ve committed. One time we made her try a bite of her supper before getting up from the table.

Look for me on trial in The Hague.

He likes me! He really likes me!

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I have recently come to the conclusion that Alex actually likes me! Maybe even more than he likes Sara. Not to say he isn’t quite fond of Sara, because he is, but his smiles when he sees me just about break his face in half.

I certainly haven’t done anything in particular to cause this, it just sort of happened. I mean, I carry him around and change his diaper sometimes, but he’s never heard my heartbeat from the inside, or had me get up to snuggle him every 40 minutes for 100 consecutive nights, or received life-giving nutrients from my body, you know?

As a dad, I understand that being second fiddle is just sort of the way of the universe, and I don’t take offense. In fact, I have a sign from 5 year old Evelyn hanging up at work that says, “Dad. Sorry, I love you last. Mom first, Nala, Ollie, then you Daddy.”

Keeps me humble. (I should point out that Nala is the cat.)

I’m sure these days I’ve even slipped a spot, since Evelyn would put Alex first on the list (and she’s not even the one who cries at night because he’s not going to college unless he can “come home every day and see Alex”), but in any case I’m just going to soak up those tasty, tasty baby smiles while they are freely offered.

He is, after all, going to be a teenager some day.

Ollie and the waterslide, part 2

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Hoo boy, I have been working on this post for forever and a day. How long you ask? Well, let’s just say I had this in my notes:

On our way up, we passed a sign that said, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!” and showed a picture of cows dressed as leprechauns standing next to a rainbow which ended in a pot of cheese curds.

Me: “That is the most Wisconsin sign I have ever seen.”

I tried to get a picture while I was driving, but it didn’t turn out.

So, we made a return visit to Timber Ridge, an indoor waterpark in Wisconsin (you can read about our previous trip here).

If anything, we had an even better time that last year. This year the kids were a little bit older, and we were able to give them more of a free reign to run around and do whatever they wanted.

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As I said last time, one night is about the max amount of time we would want to spend there. You can go to the water park before you check in, and you can stay after you check out, so one night translates into two very full days. This time we also took advantage of some of the other activities offered by the hotel, such as cookie decorating and watching the most god awful movie.

Last year we restricted ourselves to the “green slide”, since you could ride a double raft with a grown up, but this year Ollie wanted to do the “yellow slide”, solo.

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Even though he knows how to swim, I decided to go down first so I could wait for him at the bottom. However, as I was on my way down I thought, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

The slide is completely dark, super fast, and relatively terrifying. I thought, “This is WAY too scary for Oliver!” I figured when I got him at the bottom, he would be a quivering, sobbing mess.

Silly me! He loved it!

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After Ollie’s rave reviews, Evelyn was brave enough to try it, and then the two of them went down it over and over and over again. Oliver, in particular, couldn’t get enough of it.

The only time he almost backed out is when we were getting ready to go down the second time, and one of the kids noticed that I had blood streaming down my leg from where I had gotten a friction burn from the slide (I’m telling you, it was a fast slide!). “I don’t want to get bloody!” said Ollie, backing up, but we were already at the top so I convinced him to at least go down that one last time, and then he had such a good time he didn’t want to stop.

“Do you do something to go faster?” asked Sara.
“Uh…I don’t know,” I said. “I try to keep aerodynamic I guess. Why?”
“Because, when you come out of the slide, you make a huge wave. There was a new lifeguard who didn’t exactly look thrilled to be there, and your wave completely dunked her.”

I did notice that when I came up from under the water, I was usually nose-to-nose with a terrified looking lifeguard, trying to block me from smashing into the wall, but I just said, “sorry” and didn’t think anything of it.

Evie still prefered the green slide, but Ollie refused to go on it by himself after a little incident. I was watching the end of the slide when Ollie came shooting out without his raft. The lifeguard said, “Where’s your raft?” and Ollie said, “I don’t know”, like, “how should I know?”

Probably like 3 minutes later his raft came shooting out by itself. Ollie had fallen off about 3 feet from the entry of the slide (the lifeguard up top had seen him fall off) and spent the rest of the ride trying to “slow down so [he] could catch [his] raft”. He definitely felt like he was going to get in trouble, and he didn’t want to risk it after that (I’m still not sure how he managed to fall off).

Alex spent most of the day just sitting poolside and observing, though he did find time to get into the water a little bit (which he loves!)

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At the end of the day, we were all wiped out, even Alex. I will count that as a successful trip!

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Hamilton

/ Shane / 3 Comments

So, if you’ve been following me on Facebook or Twitter, you know that I have recently discovered the musical Hamilton.

Now, a lot of people I know are already obsessed with Hamilton, and I have watched for months as they go on and on and on about it. I do not know of a single person who has listened to the soundtrack that did not immediately become a Hamil-zombie.

I love musicals as much as the next man. I take that back, I love musicals WAAAAAAY more than the next man. I love musicals with the passion of a thousand suns. And I was really overdue for a new one that would take my breath away (the last one must have been when we saw Wicked in NYC, which would have been in 2005).

Anyway, that is to say that of course I expected to like Hamilton when I got around to listening to it. So the other day I queued up the soundtrack on Spotify…

HAMIL-ZOMBIED.

I mean, literally from the very first song. It is just that good. It is better than any musical I have ever heard. It is better than ANYTHING I have ever heard. It is probably the crowning achievement of human beings as a species.

It’s a compelling story, and suddenly I’m feeling real emotion about people who haven’t been alive for almost 260 years. Important people, who shaped our country, and it’s all being RAPPED at me, with current culture references, but also sung by amazingly talented people.

I feel a little stupid making such a fuss over it, especially since I’ve watched everybody do that already. I really didn’t want to be “that guy”. But seriously, I simply cannot help it. Every five minutes I’m like, “This reminds me of something that happened to Alexander Hamilton…” or “I think Aaron Burr said it best when he said…” If I have a stretch of 5 minutes, I think “Why aren’t I listening to Hamilton right now?” If I have a job to do, like washing dishes, I think, “I’ll wait until Sara’s done with the iPad so I can listen to Hamilton.”

Hamil-zombied.

(Hey, did I mention Hamilton won a Pulitzer?)

So I was worried I would be annoying all the Hamilton fans by squeeing about it on social media, but it seems to have had quite the opposite effect: everyone seems to be enjoying it. I guess nothing makes an addict happier than dragging someone down to their level…as demonstrated by their feeding me buzzfeed lists and websites such as this one which allows you to click on any part of the lyrics for a full breakdown of the historical significance, references, connections to other songs…yeah, there goes the rest of the day.

And, in fact, while I was assuming that I was the last person on earth to listen to this, it’s a good reminder that we all surround ourselves in a little bubble, because several people have told me they hadn’t heard of it until I started talking about it.

So there’s still time to find and infect victims! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

 

At the best of times, I am an obsessive song-listener. Sara can back me up on that. When I find a song that I like I listen to it over, and over, and over until I have it completely memorized. Except in this case I love ALL of the songs, so that’s a 2 hour and 22 minute loop (but who’s counting?)

Now, the good news is, I had the foresight to pre-emptively name my son Alexander. (Side note: is this going to be a super popular name now?) “Alexander Halbach” does not have the same cadence as “Alexander Hamilton”, but here is an incomplete list of substitutes I have sung in the past week:

  • Alexander Halbach-ton
  • Alexander Snugglepuss
  • Alexander Smoochington
  • Alexander Fancypants

Alexander Fancypants
My name is Alexander Fancypants
And there’s a million things I haven’t done
But just you wait, just you wait…

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it has been several minutes since I’ve had my fix…