Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Why we need a dog
After dinner tonight, Aiden crawled onto my lap and asked me to read him a book called "Puppy Parade" It's one of those obnoxious, foam-covered books that you get for $0.85 out of the discount bin at a dollar store because no one wants to pay the full dollar. The book is full of mesmerizing facts like "Some puppies are soft and fluffy" or "this puppy has a favorite chair", and even takes it to the next level by rhyming. I'm considering getting the other three books in the series: "Farm Friends", "Funny Bunnies", and "Kitty, Kitty". Sure to be winners.
Getting to the meat of the story, the last sentence of "Puppy Parade" reads, "And every puppy that you see says, 'Won't you come and play with me?" [yes, the book has differing font sizes]
After closing the book, Aiden looked up at me and asked "Daddy, can I go play with those puppies?" Now, Aiden has a pretty good imagination so this request didn't see too odd to me. As a matter of fact, earlier today, Aiden and his pet baby Jaguar were rescued by Diego after being dragged into a web by two large spiders. After that little bit of imaginary play, his asking to play with the two dogs from the book seemed fairly basic. Here's how the rest of the conversation went.
Me: "Sure buddy. You can go play with those dogs."
Aiden: "Can you help me?"
Me: "Um...sure."
Aiden: "Put the book on the ground."
Me: "...ok" [I put book on ground]
Aiden: "I gotta jump in the book to play with the dogs"
Me: "Oh. Ok."
Aiden: [Ensuring the book is open to the page with the two dogs, he proceeds to jump into the air, and directly onto the book]
Now here's where things took an unexpected turn.
Aiden: [standing on top of the book] "It didn't work daddy!"
Now this caught me slightly off guard as I now realized that he wasn't pretending but ACTUALLY trying to jump into the book. At this point, Kate walked by.
Aiden: "Witch"
Kate: "Excuse me?"
Aiden: "Witch Mommy, can you help me jump in the book so I can play with the dogs"
Kate: "Um...sure Aiden. Ok, jump."
Aiden: [Jumps a second time onto the book] "It's still not working!"
Kate and I start to laugh, but not hard enough to discourage him from continuing the game. This is getting amusing. Aiden stands on top of the book for a while, obviously pondering something. It finally clicks because he exclaims, "I know!" He then thrusts his hand into his Spider Man underwear (the only article of clothing he happens to be wearing at the time, not quite sure why) fishes around, pulls out an object unseen by Kate or me and holds it high in the air.
Aiden: "USE MY WAND!"
We pretty much lost it at this point. Even Kai laughed, but that was probably coincidence :) It was at this point that we realized he was reenacting a particular episode of Dora the Explorer where she jumps into a storybook to rescue the beautiful snow princess from the hands of an evil witch who hates the snow and all snow creatures. I'm guessing the geniuses at Nickelodeon intended this particular episode to subconsciously indoctrinate children to the dangers of global warming. However, the only thing it taught my kid is that he can jump into books in order to get puppies.
So, I say all of that to say this: we need to buy our kid a freakin' dog.
Getting to the meat of the story, the last sentence of "Puppy Parade" reads, "And every puppy that you see says, 'Won't you come and play with me?" [yes, the book has differing font sizes]
After closing the book, Aiden looked up at me and asked "Daddy, can I go play with those puppies?" Now, Aiden has a pretty good imagination so this request didn't see too odd to me. As a matter of fact, earlier today, Aiden and his pet baby Jaguar were rescued by Diego after being dragged into a web by two large spiders. After that little bit of imaginary play, his asking to play with the two dogs from the book seemed fairly basic. Here's how the rest of the conversation went.
Me: "Sure buddy. You can go play with those dogs."
Aiden: "Can you help me?"
Me: "Um...sure."
Aiden: "Put the book on the ground."
Me: "...ok" [I put book on ground]
Aiden: "I gotta jump in the book to play with the dogs"
Me: "Oh. Ok."
Aiden: [Ensuring the book is open to the page with the two dogs, he proceeds to jump into the air, and directly onto the book]
Now here's where things took an unexpected turn.
Aiden: [standing on top of the book] "It didn't work daddy!"
Now this caught me slightly off guard as I now realized that he wasn't pretending but ACTUALLY trying to jump into the book. At this point, Kate walked by.
Aiden: "Witch"
Kate: "Excuse me?"
Aiden: "Witch Mommy, can you help me jump in the book so I can play with the dogs"
Kate: "Um...sure Aiden. Ok, jump."
Aiden: [Jumps a second time onto the book] "It's still not working!"
Kate and I start to laugh, but not hard enough to discourage him from continuing the game. This is getting amusing. Aiden stands on top of the book for a while, obviously pondering something. It finally clicks because he exclaims, "I know!" He then thrusts his hand into his Spider Man underwear (the only article of clothing he happens to be wearing at the time, not quite sure why) fishes around, pulls out an object unseen by Kate or me and holds it high in the air.
Aiden: "USE MY WAND!"
We pretty much lost it at this point. Even Kai laughed, but that was probably coincidence :) It was at this point that we realized he was reenacting a particular episode of Dora the Explorer where she jumps into a storybook to rescue the beautiful snow princess from the hands of an evil witch who hates the snow and all snow creatures. I'm guessing the geniuses at Nickelodeon intended this particular episode to subconsciously indoctrinate children to the dangers of global warming. However, the only thing it taught my kid is that he can jump into books in order to get puppies.
So, I say all of that to say this: we need to buy our kid a freakin' dog.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Thank you Playskool!
So this little activity kept Aiden preoccupied, on and off, for about 30 minutes today. Aiden get's full credit for both the concept development and flawless execution. Playskool gets credit for the Helmet Heroes Racecar Driver set, the Honeybee Hop and the two-hour nap Aiden took after this.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Happy Christmas Eve Eve!
I have a half-day of work left between me and a ...
[counting on fingers....moving to toes]
...11-day weekend. Yesssssssssss. The cool part is that NONE of those days count against my vacation time. Why? Because between military family days, weekends and two awesome co-workers volunteering to cover all of the "minimum manning" days, there are no days left to have to take vacation!
"Ba-da-da-da-daaa...I'm lovin' it."
Now, you might be thinking "Gosh, I wish I had a super long weekend too." Well, my friend, you are in luck. You too can enjoy these long weekends! "How" you ask? The answer lies in one click.
:)
[counting on fingers....moving to toes]
...11-day weekend. Yesssssssssss. The cool part is that NONE of those days count against my vacation time. Why? Because between military family days, weekends and two awesome co-workers volunteering to cover all of the "minimum manning" days, there are no days left to have to take vacation!
"Ba-da-da-da-daaa...I'm lovin' it."
Now, you might be thinking "Gosh, I wish I had a super long weekend too." Well, my friend, you are in luck. You too can enjoy these long weekends! "How" you ask? The answer lies in one click.
:)
Monday, December 22, 2008
The many names of Kailum
His name is Kailum (pronounced KAY-lum). The name means "peaceful" and he is the most peaceful, happy baby you will ever meet. However, we rarely call him Kailum. For some reason, this kid has multiple nicknames that are all variations of two: Kai and Nugget.
Now "Kai" is pretty obvious. It just his name shortened and pronounced with a long "I" instead of a long "A". "Nugget" came about because Kate called him this once and it just stuck. Both are perfectly suitable nicknames (because he's pretty tasty too) but things have gotten a little out of hand. Here are some of the more common names you will hear us call Mr. Kailum on a normal day:
- Kai
- Kai Kai
- "KALUM, KILUM, KOLUM, KULUM, KELUM" (a play on the vowel sounds compliments of his Uncle Bob)
- Nugget
- Nugs
- Nuggy
- Nuggy Wuggy
- Nuggy Wuggy Woo Woo Woo (my wife has issues)
- Nuggles
- Nuglet
- Nooget
- Mr. Nugglesworth
And my personal fave...
- Michael "Nug"las
We love you Kailum. We promise to stop when you turn 18.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Aiden's First Christmas Performance
So we showed up to church this morning (only our second visit to this particular church) and proceeded to the nursery/toddler's area to drop our the kiddos. Kate took care of Nugget (aka Kai) and I walked Aiden to his room. Now before we even got to church, we knew this Sunday had the potential for problems. Aiden had finally decided that he would give in to our repeated attempts at potty training, so all of last week we have been working with him. Today, we decided that it would be a good test if we allowed him to go to church wearing "big boy undies".
As I entered the toddler's room to drop off Aiden, I hung up his bag, he ran off to play with some trucks in the corner and I walked over to the teachers to explain our potty training situation. I was slightly stressed that they wouldn't be too keen on "helping the new kid go pee" but they were cool about it so my stress subsided. It subsided just long enough for me to get my hand on the exit door knob before it sky-rocketed.
"We have our children's Christmas program this morning, so we'll be bringing the kids into the main service to sing a little bit later."
Mild shock set in, and my response sounded something like this: "Oh wow.....good luck!" Then I left the room. Looking back, I guess I could have asked some questions about the program, told Aiden to behave, or even asked the teachers if they wanted me to keep Aiden until after the program, but I didn't. I just left.
I met Kate on her way out of the nursery and told her the news. She slipped slightly, but I'll blame the partially frozen handicap ramp we happened to be traversing at the time. We found a seat in the main auditorium, and immediately started to discuss how things were about to go down.
Kate: Oh my gosh, I hope he doesn't flip out on stage!
Me: He's going to do that "flop-onto-his-back" thing he does when he meets new people.
Kate: Either that or he'll give them the, "NO! DON'T TELL ME..." fit.
Me: Oh my gosh, he's going to be the kid with the big PEE STAIN!
Kate: Ooooh! If I knew this was going to happen, I would have put a Pull-up on him!
Me: Kate...there is a drum set on stage.
Kate: You need to be ready to go up there and get him.
Now, all this probably wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't only the SECOND TIME we had ever been to this church. I was positive we were about to become a story about "that family that only came twice and their kid flipped out and peed himself on stage during the children's Christmas program."
In the next twenty minutes, which seemed like two hours, our hearts must have beat a combined 4,000 times. The congregational singing finally ended, and we all took our seats and watched as the children started to file in. A stream of Christmas dresses, khakis and GAP Kids button-up shirts instantly made me wish we hadn't let Aiden pick out his outfit, the centerpiece of which was a bright blue race-car shirt. O...M...G.
The first group of well-dressed children ended up being the older kid's class. They sang the first three songs, which were all quite cute. At the third song's conclusion, a second, shorter group of kids started to file in. They were all wearing foam crowns and holding onto a rope anchored at each end by a teacher. They were just as dressed-up as the first group, with one exception. Bringing up the rear was Aiden. My heart-dropped as I assumed he had been placed closest to the teacher due to backstage shinanigans, but he was holding onto the rope, walking slowly and with his head full of amazing curls, definitely rockin' the crown harder than the other kids. (Full disclosure: author is child's biased father) A second glance revealed that his pants were still dry and the race-car shirt was not as bright of a blue as I thought. So far, so good. Somewhere towards the front of the conga line, a couple kids started to cry. Kate and I smiled at each other victoriously. Our kid was not the first to melt-down.
As they filed onto the stage to their places in front of the older kids, Aiden's behavior didn't stick out at all. He was doing great. As the first music for the first song ("we fall down, we lay our crowns, at the feeeeeeet of Jesus") started, Aiden's head jerked towards the speakers, then towards the mass of kids standing behind him. He looked slightly bewildered as everyone started singing, and his response was to turn back towards the front and exclaim "Teacher, they're singing!" Chuckles broke out from various places in the auditorium, but they were "aw cute" chuckles so it was cool. When they got to a certain point in the song, the younger kids started to take off their crowns and put them in a manger at the front of the stage. When it was Aiden's turn, he took it off and just dropped it in front of him. More chuckles, still cool though.
They sang one more song, and apart from an instance where Aiden tried to show the teacher something on his hand, and a near "flop-onto-his-back" episode when he spotted Kate and me in the audience, everything went great. He stopped by our pew for a hug on his way back to the toddler room, and that was that. Crisis averted! Our heart rates settled back down to normal about halfway through the message, and we realized we were stupid for panicking. We have a pretty great kid.
And that's the story! Since we weren't expecting any kind of performance, we didn't get pictures or a video, so hopefully this painted a good enough picture of Aiden's first, impromptu, Christmas performance.
Peace! (on Earth, goodwill to men.)
As I entered the toddler's room to drop off Aiden, I hung up his bag, he ran off to play with some trucks in the corner and I walked over to the teachers to explain our potty training situation. I was slightly stressed that they wouldn't be too keen on "helping the new kid go pee" but they were cool about it so my stress subsided. It subsided just long enough for me to get my hand on the exit door knob before it sky-rocketed.
"We have our children's Christmas program this morning, so we'll be bringing the kids into the main service to sing a little bit later."
Mild shock set in, and my response sounded something like this: "Oh wow.....good luck!" Then I left the room. Looking back, I guess I could have asked some questions about the program, told Aiden to behave, or even asked the teachers if they wanted me to keep Aiden until after the program, but I didn't. I just left.
I met Kate on her way out of the nursery and told her the news. She slipped slightly, but I'll blame the partially frozen handicap ramp we happened to be traversing at the time. We found a seat in the main auditorium, and immediately started to discuss how things were about to go down.
Kate: Oh my gosh, I hope he doesn't flip out on stage!
Me: He's going to do that "flop-onto-his-back" thing he does when he meets new people.
Kate: Either that or he'll give them the, "NO! DON'T TELL ME..." fit.
Me: Oh my gosh, he's going to be the kid with the big PEE STAIN!
Kate: Ooooh! If I knew this was going to happen, I would have put a Pull-up on him!
Me: Kate...there is a drum set on stage.
Kate: You need to be ready to go up there and get him.
Now, all this probably wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't only the SECOND TIME we had ever been to this church. I was positive we were about to become a story about "that family that only came twice and their kid flipped out and peed himself on stage during the children's Christmas program."
In the next twenty minutes, which seemed like two hours, our hearts must have beat a combined 4,000 times. The congregational singing finally ended, and we all took our seats and watched as the children started to file in. A stream of Christmas dresses, khakis and GAP Kids button-up shirts instantly made me wish we hadn't let Aiden pick out his outfit, the centerpiece of which was a bright blue race-car shirt. O...M...G.
The first group of well-dressed children ended up being the older kid's class. They sang the first three songs, which were all quite cute. At the third song's conclusion, a second, shorter group of kids started to file in. They were all wearing foam crowns and holding onto a rope anchored at each end by a teacher. They were just as dressed-up as the first group, with one exception. Bringing up the rear was Aiden. My heart-dropped as I assumed he had been placed closest to the teacher due to backstage shinanigans, but he was holding onto the rope, walking slowly and with his head full of amazing curls, definitely rockin' the crown harder than the other kids. (Full disclosure: author is child's biased father) A second glance revealed that his pants were still dry and the race-car shirt was not as bright of a blue as I thought. So far, so good. Somewhere towards the front of the conga line, a couple kids started to cry. Kate and I smiled at each other victoriously. Our kid was not the first to melt-down.
As they filed onto the stage to their places in front of the older kids, Aiden's behavior didn't stick out at all. He was doing great. As the first music for the first song ("we fall down, we lay our crowns, at the feeeeeeet of Jesus") started, Aiden's head jerked towards the speakers, then towards the mass of kids standing behind him. He looked slightly bewildered as everyone started singing, and his response was to turn back towards the front and exclaim "Teacher, they're singing!" Chuckles broke out from various places in the auditorium, but they were "aw cute" chuckles so it was cool. When they got to a certain point in the song, the younger kids started to take off their crowns and put them in a manger at the front of the stage. When it was Aiden's turn, he took it off and just dropped it in front of him. More chuckles, still cool though.
They sang one more song, and apart from an instance where Aiden tried to show the teacher something on his hand, and a near "flop-onto-his-back" episode when he spotted Kate and me in the audience, everything went great. He stopped by our pew for a hug on his way back to the toddler room, and that was that. Crisis averted! Our heart rates settled back down to normal about halfway through the message, and we realized we were stupid for panicking. We have a pretty great kid.
And that's the story! Since we weren't expecting any kind of performance, we didn't get pictures or a video, so hopefully this painted a good enough picture of Aiden's first, impromptu, Christmas performance.
Peace! (on Earth, goodwill to men.)
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Brief Hiatus
Ok so it wasn't so brief. I can't believe it's been over a year since I last blogged about something. It's not that I haven't had anything going on, I guess I just took a bigger bite of social media than I could chew. Here's my current list:
Facebook (look me up)
Flickr
Twitter
Myspace (don't bother looking me up because I rarely use it anymore)
I'm definitely not going back to myspace, but I'll do better in keeping the rest updated.
Anyways, here's a brief rundown of what's been going on since September 07:
1. Had a second kid (well my wife did. I made contributions). He's super cute and you can see pictures on the Flickr site I linked to above.
2. Moved to New Jersey. Weather is a lot different here than it is in Georgia, but we love the area, and it's nice being so close to Philly, NYC, DC and some great friends.
3. Got a new job. I finished my three-year tour as chief of media relation at Air Force Reserve Command, and now I work as the chief of public affairs at the 621st Contingency Response Wing, McGuire AFB.
Those are the three big things that have happened, so I'll leave it at that for now and not try to cram a year's worth of info into one blog post. Besides, The Polar Express is holding one son's attention, but the other one is not as amused.
Peace out!
P.S. I'll start blogging about smaller stuff more often and in separate posts, but in the mean time, here's something small. I'll have the honor of pinning on Captain next June. Gotta love pay raises!
Facebook (look me up)
Flickr
Myspace (don't bother looking me up because I rarely use it anymore)
I'm definitely not going back to myspace, but I'll do better in keeping the rest updated.
Anyways, here's a brief rundown of what's been going on since September 07:
1. Had a second kid (well my wife did. I made contributions). He's super cute and you can see pictures on the Flickr site I linked to above.
2. Moved to New Jersey. Weather is a lot different here than it is in Georgia, but we love the area, and it's nice being so close to Philly, NYC, DC and some great friends.
3. Got a new job. I finished my three-year tour as chief of media relation at Air Force Reserve Command, and now I work as the chief of public affairs at the 621st Contingency Response Wing, McGuire AFB.
Those are the three big things that have happened, so I'll leave it at that for now and not try to cram a year's worth of info into one blog post. Besides, The Polar Express is holding one son's attention, but the other one is not as amused.
Peace out!
P.S. I'll start blogging about smaller stuff more often and in separate posts, but in the mean time, here's something small. I'll have the honor of pinning on Captain next June. Gotta love pay raises!
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