We’ve Moved!
Yeah. Click the picture to be whisked away to the new site. Wheee!
Progress is being made on the new blog. Sorry for the cosmic silence lately, and I appreciate the people who’ve been checking in. (according to my stats, there are a few of you intrepid folk).
I’m excited to get started on the new site in earnest, but would rather not until it’s ready.
Update to the girls: they’re alive and fine. We spent a lovely, moisture-laden weekend in Duluth. 2 trips on the pontoon, 2 times Abby fell asleep on me. Lily would have none of that; she was busy manning the bow, looking out for icebergs, or sitting on Grandpa’s lap steering. Naps are not her style.
Thanks everyone who reads this. More soon, I swear on my laptop.
dg
I wasn’t going to write tonight…it’s almost 1am. But I didn’t want to forget:
a) we had a really good day after work, and
b) a big part of that was a nice walk around the block, for which both girls got dressed up in princess dresses and fairy wings, and Lily brought her little princess umbrella, but she got tired of carrying it almost right away, so guess who gets to carry it…yup…me, and I closed it, but she told me, “No, Daddy, it has to be open, because it’s raining on the castle,” even though the world was crystalline sun and pleasantness, so I walked the whole way around the block like this while they walked slowly, poking and prodding at the world, and on no fewer than 4 instances I heard people passing by in their cars laughing at me while I twirled a princess umbrella, I heard them clearly, their windows down on account of the weather, but it was a good laugh, a springtime laugh bereft of any malice or sneering, and it is that sort of thing – plus a dazzling bouquet of bright yellow dandelions that I was enthusiastically urged to put behind my ear – that makes a day like this a day like this.
The morons and I had a nice, busy morning. Busy = they needed me constantly. These things…
- Daddy, I need a pony
- Daddy, take my pony out
- Can I have my blanket and seahorse and pillow from upstairs?
- Daddy, I’m poopy
- Let’s dress up!
- I want a peanut butter and jelly
- Daddy, I drank some of your coffee
…took place within a 3 minute span. After the 72nd minute, I was ready for a break.
“Who wants to watch a bit of tv? Maybe some cartoons?”
Neither of them reacted in the slightest. So I put Dinosaur Train on. Nothing. They kept on playing and needing me. After a few minutes, I gave up and turned on Sunday Morning, who was doing an interview with Henry Kissinger.
The girls were hooked, instantly. They couldn’t take their eyes off the tv. Maybe it was the grainy almost-color footage from the Tet Offensive that kept them interested. Whatever the reason…I’ll be showing more Secretaries of State now.
—-
Tantrum dance party happened tonight. Notable events included us running into Ruben and his family. It’s always nice to run into another neighbor/blogger/fan of good music.
Girls, tented.
Had to give Lily a timeout tonight. She bawled, bawled, bawled while I carried her upstairs, her little body spasms of sadness (funny how timeouts can ellicit either sadness or anger). Halfway upstairs, between sobs…
“But Daaaaaadddy!!! I looooooove you!!!!!!”
Parenting- still finding new and hilarious ways of making me feel like a total jerkwad.
The Fire Fairy Cometh.
Sneaky Pete and the Textiles, one night only, rhythm and blues revue...
I am back in shame and defeat, here to write a weekly recap then scurrying away to take more time off, because I’m a selfish, selfish bastard. All my great intentions for reworking the blog dissolved into the effervescent effluvium of my daily failings. So I want a bit more time to do that, if you please.
But enough about what I’m terrible at. Here’s the latest:
1. Our Twin Town Adult Jam band, Sneaky Pete and the Textiles, went on as planned and played a little 6 song set, some of which actually came close to resembling the songs they were based upon. It was a dumptruck-load-full of fun, and was deemed a success, in that nobody suffered a heart attack or a migraine afterwards. We did pretty well, honestly; not our best, but pretty good. I was nervous. I messed up a ton of shit, but it’s okay, cause it’s not like you can tell when the drummer screws up or anything.
2. The girls are streaming ceaselessly cute little 3 year old quotes. It’s like Bill Cosby is hovering in a helicopter over our house, raining “cute” down on us from above. I’m so used to the girls spewing out some twitter/facebook-ready gold, I’m actually surprised when it doesn’t happen. For example: a few days ago Lily was balancing on the end rail of her bed, when she slipped awkwardly and kinda landed right on her crotch. She slid off the bed in pain, but not enough pain to really cry, face just screwed up a bit, her hands clutching her vagina. ‘Oooh, this is going to be GREAT!’, I thought. A few seconds passed, and she finally just shrugged her shoulders barely, said, “I think I hit my hand,” and went back to playing. I was crushed.
3. Tonight we have been paid a visit. A very special visit. By the Fire Fairy. Most people aren’t aware of who the Fire Fairy is and what she does, so allow me to explain. She is a theoretical construct who magically comes to parents who are too chicken-shit to just say no to their kids when it comes to pacifiers; her job is to bestow upon those parents the ability to throw 6 pacifiers into the kitchen trash and replace them with a 5 foot tall princess tent, a tent so large it is creating a physical difficulty for one parent to watch “Team America: World Police” while he blogs. The Fire Fairy is indeed a mystical being.
All the little piggies, ready to get tossed and, by way of the city of minneapolis, incinerated.
…epilogue: Lily started wailing around 1am. “Daaaaaddddddyyyy!” (my jury is still out as to whether I do or do not like when I am singled out in this sort of situation. I wonder what makes them cry for one of us but not the other. It seems totally random. Even better, it doesn’t make two licks o’ difference who goes in. She could cry for me for 10 minutes, and if Jen goes in, she’s just fine with that)
So I go in. She had a bad dream, she was visibly upset, I felt powerless to help, aside from the normal snuggling. Lily watched me reach into the corner of the bed for something, and she instinctively reached out and weasled her little fingers into my hand.
She thought I had grabbed her fire, and she was trying to get it from me. Awwww. Gonna be a shitty few nights, I think.
—-
So while it may be spotty posting for a bit, I have a couple book reviews in the works, so expect those shortly. Happy times.
Comments, answered!
Keely – We (our old high school friends, for those outside the circle of trust) lived and breathed each other’s lives for 6 of the most formative years of our existence. I still want to pass a note to everyone in World History class whenever Jen and I make out. It makes catching up a breeze, doesn’t it?
Wade – It DID feel a lot like a victory, the more I thought of it. No time out, AND she had a great time at dinner telling stories. I rock.
Steve – You fly a big computer, c’mon. I keep sitting my kids in front of my 737 courseware, and they KEEP FAILING the self-assessments. So, you win on that. And we have ping pong at work, so I still get my fix. Don’t practice my profiles while I play, anymore, though. (gear up, speed mode, max thrust, bug v2, heading select and half bank on….I STILL REMEMBER A V1 CUT!)
Lori – Agreed…the two’s = easy, the three’2 = hell on earth. Okay, that’s going a bit far…challenging, how about that? And yes, your husband is full of surprisingly delightful book recommendations with nasty words in the title.
Ruben – your version of scorekeeping did indeed make me nauseous. Maybe you could ratchet up the confrontation level a bit? Jen and I sometimes steal chores from each other, just to try and get more points. If she’s not careful when doing the dishes, I’ll box her out from the sink (high school basketball skills finally coming in handy) and take the credit for it.
—-
One more night until Thursday, and Thursday night is when Sneaky Pete and the Textiles, featuring myself on drums, is playing their first/last/only set at Whiskey Junction. Come check us out if you have no bleeding in your ears but would like to start some. We’ll be on around 9:30ish. I’m starting to be a little nervous for this.
—-
Finally, I’m going to take a bit of time off. Probably about a week. I’m getting burned out a little bit, so there is that, BUT….(and this is the exciting part)…there is some work being done on redesigning the blog. In a good way. Huzzah. So, stop checking here for a bit, come back, oh, next Friday, and we’ll be back, and the shnazzy-factor will be ratcheted up a bit. Have a lovely week, peeps.
-d
“Daddy, I have to move my body.”
– Lily, during car ride when we were listening to some exciting music
—-
You may or not recall or have read about it either here or on the major news networks, but I had my bag stolen off the MSP airport ramp a couple weeks ago. Bummer. Having stuff stolen is lame and feels icky and intrusive. Even weirder, though? Flipping through the photos you took that day and realizing you caught the guy IN THE VERY ACT OF STEALING YOUR BAG!
(you will have to click on this to full size, then look in the bottom right. You can clearly see a guy with a blue latex glove reaching down for my bag, the brown thing in the photo.)
(this, believe it or not, narrows the culprit down to an aircraft groomer. nobody else uses latex gloves; plus, I think he brought down all the trash behind him)
I feel so violated.
—-
I don’t have a review of this book. But I would very much like to. Credit to my boss Andy for telling me such a book existed.
I think I won
- The unmistakably luxurious life of a 3 year old slacker.
Moments after this photo…:
Me: “Lily, time for dinner.”
Lily: “No, Dad, I don’t want dinner. I want to stay on my computer.”
Me: “Lily, I’m serious, come to the table.”
Lily: “I’m not hungry.”
Me: “Then come to the table and regale us with a spellbinding narrative of your daily tribulations.”
Lily: “…”
I sit down next to her.
Lily: “Daaaaaaa—aaaaaahhhhd, I’m not hungry.”
I give her a concise and amazingly patient treatise on the importance family dinner plays on the integrity of the fabric of humanity.
Lily: “But I want to play with my computer.”
I shelf the treatise and tell her she can either come join us for dinner or serve the duration of it in a timeout.
Lily: “Oooohhkaay!!”
She runs to her seat, happily.
Someone (smarter than me), please for the love of god tell me if this is a victory or not.
—-
The other night, I was giving Abby a bath. It was just me, so I’m chasing Lily around the house while keeping an ear out to make sure the blondie is okay. Suddenly, it’s eerily quiet for a few seconds. I poke my head towards the stairs and yell up.
Me: “Abby, are you alive?”
Abby: “Uhh……[splash]………….uh….NO!”
funny kid.
—-
Dangers of Writing!::
Here’s a sign that the Gods of Writing may not be shining down upon you: you’re struggling for a lot of words, then just one specific word, then you snap your eyes shut in frustration and give up and admit you need help. You go to Google. You try to search for ‘thesaurus’, but it takes you almost 2 minutes to come up with the word ‘thesaurus’. (maybe they should make another word for thesaurus, for those of us suffering from severe brain shortages)
Dave’s Tip (that’s relevant to the problem above)!::
“Just give it up and go watch old episodes of ‘M*A*S*H’ until you fall asleep.”
The Wonder Years
You may be wondering what it feels like when your kid is upset and crying because her mom just left the room, and you assure her, “But Daddy’s right here!” and she says, “No, I want MOMMY!”
You may even wonder what it would be like if you were to then go down the floor, right on the kid’s level, on your tummy, and brush the hair tenderly from her face and say – in a calm and soothing voice while she stiffles back the tears – “But little buddy, Daddy’s here and Daddy loves you very much.”
And you mean it very much.
And since you’ve wondered this much, you may as well wonder what it would be like when she hits you in the face, smacks you hard and it hurts your nose because she really connected on the glasses you’re wearing.
You get that face. The hurt face, the sad face.
She looks at you. She gets it. She understands.
She balls up her hand…
…and she punches you in the face
…and she reminds you, shriekingly, that she wants Mommy.
You wonder what it feels like?
You really, really don’t.
—-
We like to do this game in the kitchen, called Funny Walks, where we take turns walking back and forth across the (whorehouse red) linoleum, doing funny walks. The girls made it up.
365 Days of Twins 