The Last Letter is ‘Z’

I’ve said it before in a recent post, and I’ll say it again, as many times as it hits me: time flies and there isn’t enough of it in a single day.

G-Monkey and SoozDog making the V-Day cupcakes last week.

Tonight I was reading to G-Monkey before bed time, one of the books that we read was Dr. Suess’s A B C and as we got to Z, it’s pretty darn big on the final page, so I traced it, making a “shoo-shoo-shoo” sound a few times.  I guess it was kinda like Zorro, but I’m not going to explain Zorro just yet. G-Monkey did the same tracing with her finger saying “Z, shoo-shoo-shoo”.  I love these moments.  I played with her and T-Rex all day, reaffirming my status in the family as FunDaddy, keeping both the little ones occupied this evening while Mommy made Trader’s Joe’s products into Turkey Taco fixings.

T-Rex is coming for you ... and your camera.

T-Rex is going on 9 months soon and she is getting pretty good with the standing.  She almost, almost did something that could technically be called a step, but maybe it’s reaching a bit to do so.  She was standing holding herself up with the coffee table and she turned and leaned a bit toward the couch, let herself go from the table and reached over and started holding herself up with the couch cushion.  Okay, so none of the descriptive action there involved a step, but BigDaddy was impressed.  She’s going to be running around the house with G-Monkey in no time.  T-Rex is a speedcrawler too.  I found her at Pup’s bowl this morning, with dog food in mouth of course.  I guess both of my girls have to eat some dog food at some point.

Speaking of which …

Pup is doing much much much better.  Sadly, our plans yesterday and the rain today precluded me from taking her for her normal weekend park activities. The rain stopped the family from our bike excursion too, so I’m sure she understands. Or not.  She’s currently, and very audibly I might add, snoring on her bed in the living room.  I’m going to try and get a run in in the morning, and if I do and it’s not raining she will come along too.  The hair in her shaved area on her side is starting to some back, so it looks like a brash cut more than the clean shave it had been looking like.  I called it “hair,” and it is, but when I’m writing about a dog am I required to refer to her hair as “fur”?  No, that can’t be.  I have a friend who doesn’t like the all of the “dog hair” (and, really, there isn’t much at all) that he finds in my car, and that sounds right.  He’s never complaining about the “dog fur.”  Though that wouldn’t sound bad either.

Thomas and Friends is anti-diesel fuel?

I haven’t watched much of Thomas and Friends at all, but G-Monkey is getting into it, and loves the small set that she has.  We were watching an hour long episode this weekend, or feature length film more accurately, and one thing that I took away was a somewhat anti diesel message.  They presented the diesels as scarier, dirtier,  and more unfriendly than the steam engines.  They puff massive amounts of “black sooty smoke”, which I found hilarious, since the “steamies” must burn massive amounts of coal to get the steam on which they run.  There was actually a comparison between the diesels and the steam engines, comparing their output, “just steam” to “black sooty smoke”.  I think that the “steamies” were actually frowning in response to the diesel smoke. Oh brother …

As an adult, this omission of the coal smoke mention was hard to miss.  The cartoon did mention that the “steamies” burn coal, but not that they produce any thing from the burning of that coal.  I guess it’s the new clean-coal tech that powers Thomas and his fellow “steamies”.

Yes, I guess I’m already that parent that’s going to correct the messages delivered through the cartoons.  I also see a severe drop off in the amount of Thomas they’ll be watching.

Don’t you hate that?

It’s been so long since I posted that I forgot my password to log in and post. Typical.

We’re building a patio this weekend, so today 18,000 lbs of gravel aggregate were dumped on my drive way. 18,000 lbs. That’s 8,165 KG. If you can’t grasp that number, just let me instill upon you that it is a lot of rock.

T-rex laughed for the first time on Sunday. I was clapping and she thought that that was hilarious. It was a very cute thing to see. She is now three months old. It’s crazy how fast this summer has gone. G-Monkey has been going around the house saying “I Maa” (I’m Mad). She is quite the little fireball.

Ronny is tired and is going to bed. I need to move some more rock in the morning.

G-Monkey Pooped!

I wasn’t there to witness it, but G-Monkey pooped in her potty this morning, like a big girl. She told my mom she had to, then went in and did it! Such a big girl.

America! F— Yeah!

Happy birthday America!!  You are 233 today!

Aww yeah, if you don’t have a strong aversion to way over the top satire, then I heartily recommend Team America: World Police.  “America! F— Yeah! (click if you’re over 18 only please :-) )

Well, at home I’ll be setting up Monkey’s kiddie pool and getting the new grill (a 22.5″ Weber Charcoal) ready for brined pork tenderloin, poblano peppers, and corn on the cob.

Happy Independence Day!

G-Monkey Officially Learned How to Steer Today

We have a trike with a long handle on it that allows the parent to comfortably push, thanks to some dear suburban Chicagoan friends of ours.

So, this evening as I was pushing Monkey on the trike she was getting very vocally concerned (i.e whining) about the direction in which we were heading (she was also extremely tired and hungry).  In what seemed like no time at all, I showed her one turn of the handle bars, and said “Turn it”.  So as we were scooting around the driveway every time she voiced some frustration or concern about her course, I would say “Ok, Ok, turn it” and she would.

I was beaming.

Being a Dad.

This article has a few links in it that I want to check out:

Jeremy Adam Smith on daddy day care.

Here are the links:

Daddy-Dialectic
DadLabs.com

Think that SoozDog would let me be a stay at home dad when she’s ready to go back to work?

t-rex’s First time out of the East Bay

We went to Palo Alto so SoozDog could get some nice paper for T-Rex’s announcement. We had coffee from Peet’s (not the best Peet’s Experience I’e ever had) and we had dinner at Hobee’s (not the best dining experience either – but good for families with their kids I guess since every table at the time had one or two toddler with them).

tired … and loving it.

I  am amazed at how quickly I can fall asleep on the couch after a morning of farmer’s market, picking up tickets, lunch in the park, and playing on the slides and swings.  The little ones are asleep, and I sit down to read, but I can’t keep my eyes open for the life of me. I was out within 1o minutes if my butt hitting the seat.

I’m up now.

And I’m researching how to lay concrete pavers for the back patio.  Being a home owner means acquiring skills for which you thought you would probably not ever have any use. It’s going to be a big project, but it’s needed for the kids and the dog and the family as a whole to have a comfortable place to play and settle in the backyard.

As you may have noticed, there is a new look and feel to the blog too.  I installed WordPress blogging software, finally, and have stepped into modern times with my blogging. I’m even, semi-reluctantly, using the word ‘blog‘. I insisted on doing my blogging manually in HTML, but life is more hectic now and I just don’t have time for that, as evidenced in this being my first post in 16 months.

So, welcome back. Again. See you around here more often this time.