Too tired. Too stressed. Here’s hoping the postman comes with good news tomorrow.
Amy’s Christmas Present
Amy wants a puppy for Christmas but we already have two large German Shepherds so I’m getting her this instead:
Picture borrowed from Picture is Unrelated without permission.
Aw nuts!
Last night we trade some food with hydrogenated oils for organic food at Earth Fare. N.B. there’s a coupon on their website somewhere that lets you bring any 1 food item from each of 5 categories even if it is almost empty and trade it for healthy food. While there I bought some almonds because I thought they’d be a healthy fidget food for programming. You know, takes time to crack open, gives you energy, improves memory, occupies your hands while you think through a solution to a problem, etc. So this morning I sit down to program and cannot crack open the nuts. What kind of household doesn’t have a nutcracker at Christmas time?!
From the mouths of babes
Evan has been reluctant to give up his pacifier, bop, at night. Last night he slept without it! Today he is a little crabby and just walked through the house with it so I bargained it away from him.
Dad: "Evan. I want you to say oral fixation.
Evan, 4.5 years old: "Oral fixation."
Dad: "Good. Now I want you to go tell Mom, ‘I have an oral fixation.’"
Evan, yelling through the house: "Mom! Dad has an oral fixation!"
How ’bout them knockers?
We had the pleasure of actually getting out of the house recently and participating in, gasp, an adult party! No this wasn’t an Eyes Wide Shut thing. It just wasn’t at Chuckie Cheese and no one had to be reminded to go to the bathroom. This was the party with some very fascinating people. At one point, one of the guests had a moment of recognition and recalled working with Cathy.
What he said: "The last time I saw you, you were breastfeeding your youngest daughter." (read more)
What I heard: "I’ve seen your wife’s boobs! NiiiiIIICce!"
Science!
As I held infant Amy, rocking her to sleep, I’d talk to her and tell her how much I looked forward to having conversations together. You know the joke: We spend the first part of their lives teaching them how to talk and the rest of their lives trying to get them to shut up. As I held infant Evan, rocking him to sleep, I’d have the same discussion. Eventually they did learn to talk and we’ve had some fascinating conversations.
Today Amy, 7 years old, asked, "What is radioactivity? Is it bad?" So I proceeded to talk to Amy about radio waves, the visual spectrum, light, ear drums, we drew an atom, and a water molecule. She listened and questioned and conjectured. That was fun!
Parenting Tip #423: Use a tape recorder to record a minute of your infant’s sounds every week. Their noises change from week to week and you will enjoy listening to the tape when they are older. Also, they love to hear their own noises so that tape in a Playskool tape player (vintage? Okay.. get a digital recorder) is good for about 20 minutes of babysitting or so I am told. This was some advice from a friend that I failed to follow with some regrets.
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Free milk!
This family used to drink roughly 3.78 liters of milk a day. We are down to about 7.56 liters every 3 days. I used to buy our milk at Weigel’s because of those wonderful square milk jugs. Wonderful is a bit double-edged. The milk was impossible to pour unless you bought a special spout and for a time the spouts were unavailable because the factory that produced them burned down. The spout also did not seal the milk leaving it exposed to air in the refrigerator which apparently just doesn’t matter. The good of the square milk jugs was primarily the fact they recycled. You’d return one jug for a discount on your next milk purchase. That program ended and Weigel’s Farms started using the same yellow plastic disposable jugs that the rest of the world uses. To retain customers, they issued loyalty cards so that after every 17th milk purchase, you receive one free and each 17 milk purchases gets an entry into a drawing for a year’s supply of milk…er, 52 milks…a year! bah. Frankly, this card kept me as a Weigel’s milk customer. For that matter, most of my Weigel’s shopping can be directly attributed to that card.
They’ve done away with the punch card and now use a magnetic swipe card. I no longer can glance down and see how close I am to a free milk although it is printed on the receipt. Today I walked in to buy 2 gallons of milk and receipted both free! It was a very odd feeling to walk out of the store having paid nothing. Thank you Weigel’s!
I juggled last night
I enjoy entertaining with juggling. I also enjoy teaching juggling. Last night I had the pleasure of doing both for a small group of wonderful people, about 15 or 20. The audience makes the show as much as the performer. A tough crowd can be an awkward show. This audience was very receptive as such the show sped by. I normally watch the clock to time the show just right. This time I failed to look at the time. I had a good time that at the end of the show, I became concerned I’d spent to little time performing (which wasn’t the case). I finished by teaching two children to juggle. The joy and happiness from the eight year old girl at learning to juggle is beyond description. Her smile and hug brought this season’s spirit to my heart.
Evil Child
It’s as if Evan can detect that I’m nearing my breaking point so he’s going to extra effort to try to push me over the edge.
From the mouths of babes
Dad: "Have a good day!"
Noah, walking to the door: "Will do."
Dad, noting that Noah is wearing a thin long sleeve shirt and no jacket: "Stay warm."
Noah: "I hope so."
Dad: "You do understand that staying warm has less to do with hope and more to do with attiring yourself appropriately in layers, right?"
Noah, continuing to walk to the bus stop: "Yup."
This feels familiar almost like an 8th grade winter ritual.
If you’re gonna to be dumb, you gotta be tough. [Source]
Dear Dharma and Evan…
Dharma, I know you are a dog and I recognize that your brain may have a short circuit or two so let spell this out for you. Pooping in the walking path is not allowed! You are very funny and obviously have figured my gait out perfectly because your landmines are batting 1000. See if your doggie mind can read my human mind because the mental image I have right now is of a cold, outdoor kennel. Molly knows where to poop in this yard. Follow her!
Evan, I know you are four years old…four and a half to be fair…and the antique, crank out windows in this house have a particularly rewarding feeling to their almost steampunk mechanical opening action. However, when the temperatures at night are dropping to -1.6°C*, sleeping with the window open is inadvisable and does not lend to a friendly electric bill. If this behavior continues, I will have to increase your rent to offset the cost of heating this house. Oh, and you may catch a cold.
*Temperature conversion provided by Onlineconversion.com.
Of Grasshoppers
Student: If I think of all the tasks I must do, I cannot move.
Master: Instead of thinking of all, do one task.
Tis the season…for stress
I understand why Santa Claus’ hair is ghost white. And that belly is obviously from stress eating. The stress of providing for my own family in December is ridiculous. I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to provide for the whole world! I think on December 26th I’m going to break down and turn it a bowl full of jelly.
