I Wanna Be a Rock Star

When I help Abby get ready for bed, I try to remind her that she's smart, beautiful, and a princess. It's important to me that she knows a man (Me) loves her always, hopefully keeping her from looking for another man's love until she's 35.

Last night, while helping her to bed, I told her that she's my princess. She then shook her head at me, and told me that she's not a princess anymore, she's a 'rock star'. I tried to tell her that she could be both a princess and a rock star, but she wouldn't have anything to do with it. She insisted I call her a rock star from now on. I consented by calling her "my favorite, beautiful princess rock star".

What happened to my little girl? Rock Star? I'm scared.

Barf-o-rama

A few days back, I went to sleep not feeling well. I have a history of a weak stomach and having barf-mares (vomiting while asleep) so I kept a large bowl close by. Sure enough, within a couple hours of sleeping I was needing "the bowl". The strange part was that I didn't feel great afterwords like I usually do. I would go on to need "the bowl" about once an hour for the next 4-5 hours. It was as sick as I've been in many years.

The next few days were full of feeling achy, but surviving. I made every effort to wash my hands frequently, wash the kids' hands frequently and NO KISSING! (That was hard for Monica to do, it's difficult for her to keep her hands off me). Three days later I was running some shopping errands with Abby and Monica called me from home saying that Caleb was asking for "the bowl" since he wasn't feeling well. I had Abby at Costco and we bought a berry smoothy, when I handed it to her, she smiled, said thank you, and then set it down without drinking any.....uh oh....I knew something was wrong.

We stopped by the in-laws on the way home and while standing in the entry way of their home, Abby had a small case of the barfs. On the way home, Monica called back to tell me about Caleb filling up "the bowl". They had gotten sick at nearly the same time despite not being near each other.

Amazing that I (with a little help from Monica) have created these clones. With my DNA and a similar virus, all our bodies reacted exactly the same! Needless to say, we spent the rest of the night until 4 AM or so running from the kids rooms' to the bathrooms to empty and clean bowls. Good times.

Picture of "the bowl" and our home version of a barf bag.

Mamma's Takin' Over.

My wife, Monica, and I have a fanstastic relationship for many reasons, one of which is we have created roles that work well for us. For example, she makes the banana bread while I make the storage shops. A bunch of other examples have come to me now that I think about it: I make money, she spends it. I clean the vacuum, she dirties the vacuum. She diciplines the kids, I beat them. I haul the wood inside, she makes the fire each morning. I could go on, but it'll just mean more time on the couch.

One other role is when things break, I get to fix them. As I may have explained before, I'm no handy man, but with a few tools and Google, I'm learning to figure things out before calling in a repair man and forking over some $dough$. It's not a role that I'm really fond of and Monica knows it. So to my surprise when the washing machine went belly up, Monica took over. She pulled off panels, unplugged hoses, searched the Internet, she even figured out some diagnostic test. She was able to point to the problem, though did need some help in removing the last part, the clogged filter.
It made me proud to see my woman being so proactive and attacking a problem.

The problem was after washing a floor rug, the rug was obliterated and the fibers had clogged up the filter making the washer unable to drain water.

Way to go Mon!!

Santa Can be Mean

We visited Medford and my family for Christmas this year. We had a great time seeing Grandpa, Grandma, Uncles, Aunts, cousins, and friends. The bad weather gave us a challenge on the trip down, but the monster Tahoe with it's snow tires pulled through again. While most of Oregon was closing down due to the snowy conditions, our only problem was having enough room to pass the slow moving traffic.

Christmas eve was full of the usual traditions with the kids excitement for Santa's arrival growing every minute. As good American parents we continued to threaten our kids that Santa will bring coal if they weren't good all the way up through Christmas eve. We used the ole' 'naughty or nice' trick since Thanksgiving, but I sensed our kids not buying it probably half way through December.

Christmas morning started with Caleb yelling at everyone to wake up and that he was going into the living room. After slowing him down for a second as the rest of us wiped off our eye boogers, he again tried to leave the room by opening the bedroom door. To his surprise he say two small bags of "coal" at the door's threshold. He quickly grabbed the coal-looking substance and smile big as he turned to me and exclaimed, "look Dad, Santa brought us chocolate!".

I gave Caleb a strange look and told that it looked more like coal. He looked down at his new found objects and then turned to Monica, "Is this chocolate Mom?" Monica shook her head without trying to smile and played along. "The tag says 'Santa's Coal'".

Caleb took a slow look at the coal, clinched it in his right hand and then threw it down with all his strength. He ran towards the bathroom while yelling, "I HATE SANTA!!!"

Mon and I didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or cry over ruining our son's Christmas. We quickly went into crisis-management by explaining that it was all a joke by Daddy.

On our rush to see the toys that the real Santa had brought, Mon noticed Abby, who was lost in all the commotion had big tears swelling under her eyes and asked Abby not to cry. Abby calmly responded, "I'm not crying, my eyes just itch".

The crisis was averted as soon as the kids saw all their toys, but it was a little tense for awhile. If someone was grading my parenting skills as a Dad with that practical joke, I'd probably get an 'F'. But it was sure funny. We'll ALL laugh at it in about 10 years. Right???