Category: Family
Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.
From the mouths of babes
Mom: "What are those bumps on your face?"
Evan, almost 5: "Chicken pox."
Me: "What are chicken pox?"
Evan: "That’s when you bump into something and get bumps all over you."
Me: "How did you learn about chicken pox?"
Evan: "I went to another world."
The tree has fallen, the tree has fallen!
From the mouths of babes
Evan, almost 5: "MMMmmm. Dad what’s this?"
Dad: "Old coffee grounds for the compost pile."
Evan: "I like old. Wait. No, I don’t like old because old people don’t let me do whatever I want."
From the mouths of babes
Me: "This machine measures my blood pressure. See that blue line in my arm. That’s the blood in my arm."
Evan, nearly 5 years old: "Blood? Blood is bad for you! Blood will make you die. I’ve seen it on Noah’s game."
My Future Vlogger
Amy’s Earth Day Lunch
Update: This update for Jim, the no good deed goes unpunished commenter. The students discussed healthy eating for lunch today, not conservation. The landfill packaging may or may not have presented the students an opportunity for discussing organic eating.
The secret is to turn the 2 pieces of bread into a rectangle. My first attempt I put one slice directly on top of the other and that did nothing. You want to overlap them ever so slightly before using the rolling pin. Work the seam really well so that you end up with a good bond between the two slices.
When putting the ingredients on, cheat it toward one of the narrow sides to leave some bare bread at the end for keeping the roll together (bread on bread after rolling). Roll it tight but not so tight as to tear the bread and at the end go back and forth over the final seam with slightly increasing pressure to try to keep the bread together.
I picked up the sushi tray from Kroger’s deli.
The sushi is: white wheat bread, ranch dressing, 2 slices of ham, shredded carrots, 1 slice of swiss cheese, and 2 sweet baby pickles
From the mouths of babes
Amy, seven years old: "Thanks for dinner Daddy. Without you, we’d starve to death!"
Me: "Well, you’re welcome."
Evan, four years old: "You can say, ‘my pleasure.’"
Because mouse guts go with bacon
My morning duty today is to cook bacon and clean mouse guts off a large stick that up until this week I would have called sterile. See, the pet shop didn’t have any small rats. Only very large "small" rats so we decided to buy two large mice instead. Either the snake didn’t see or smell the second rotting mouse or he just wasn’t that hungry. And we forgot to check on it. So a couple of days later, the lump of gooey fur became my problem. I have to go flip the bacon now and find a toothbrush I want to forever sacrifice. Enjoy brunch!
Driving Video
Awesome Weekend
The kids were away so the wife and I played.
Happy Valentine’s Day
Cathy is my favorite.
My Life as a Comedy – Sarah’s Car Accident
Preface
To fully appreciate the events you are about to read, you must understand that Knoxville had a snow and ice storm over the weekend. The forecast was so certain that announcements on Thursday night declared all area schools closed for Friday, except Pellissippi State Community College where my oldest son attends. The snow came Friday afternoon and PTSCC closed early.
We are a seven person household with five children attending five different schools: pre-school, elementary, middle, high, and college. We have one functioning vehicle.
Setting
On Monday, schools delayed opening two hours due to icy roads. Normally, Sarah gets a ride to the high school with a neighbor who teaches at the high school. To protect identities, let’s call her Tonya. For the past decade, I have worked out of my basement, telecommuting to answer my client’s needs around the world. On this particular Monday, I actually had a rare onsite appointment from 8am to 5pm downtown. Before leaving, I asked Sarah, "Do you have a ride?" She replied, "I called last night and Tonya wasn’t there but they said she’d call back if she couldn’t give me a ride. She didn’t call back so I’m good." I left. At 9am, with 30 minutes left before Sarah’s 2 hour delayed pickup, Tonya’s husband called. To protect identities, let’s call him Randy. Randy explained that Tonya went to the high school early. I knew Cathy, my wife, was fighting a migraine and sleeping in so I called Sarah directly. Sarah explained her boy friend, let’s call him Zach, would drive her to school.
Calamity
Cathy calls me a little amped, "Sarah and Tonya have been in an accident! Air bags went off and Sarah won’t call an ambulance because she’s waiting for the police. You’ve got to call Randy and tell him that Tonya’s been in an accident."
Confusion
I stare into my half finished first cup of coffee trying to shake the fog out of my head and process what I’ve just heard, "Tonya. Sarah. Accident. Call Randy." That doesn’t make sense. Other thoughts: "The woman is always right" "Yes dear" "Want a happy life, keep a happy wife!" I call Randy and about the time his very confused question, "Tonya was in an accident?" hit my ear, I realized Cathy didn’t know Zach drove Sarah so I apologized to Randy for the confusion and called Cathy.
Enter Larry, Moe and Curly stage left
If Cathy could be sheepish over the phone, she pulled it off, "Whoops. I just told the elementary school they had a pregnant woman in a car accident in the parking lot and they needed to get her to a doctor." Later that night I apologize to Randy again who chuckles and asks, "Did you know I was in an accident today?" No way! Then he explains, "See, Tonya took my car in today and I drove hers. So when her principal, let’s call him Dr. Barlett, checked on her because he’d heard she’d been in an accident, probably from the elementary school, she just knew someone had seen her car in an accident, assumed it was her, she knew it had to be me, and called to see if I was okay." Cymbal crash.
Of Being Dad – Smack Talk
There’s something wonderfully amusing in listening to the four year old talk smack with the thirteen year old.
And if the crik don’t rise…
Rains have come. The creek out back has enough water in it that we can see the water from the house. I just checked the trench, wanna be French drain, that protects our basement from flood and sure enough, the sides have collapsed. We don’t have water in the basement yet but will if I don’t get out there and dig us out. I need to be programming every second of today but this has to take priority. Back to the Mosquito Coast.
Note: On the above video, after the first twenty seconds or so I figure out how to not have that obnoxious noise.
The creek in this video is at least 5 feet deep.
