Tag: holidays (Page 15 of 19)

Is There A Patron Saint For Blogging?

October 30, 2009 / DB

The end of October. That means one thing for school-age children: dressing up as their favorite saint for All Saints Day celebration. Well, thats what M. and C. did this week, since they attend a Catholic school.

C.’s program was Thursday. She went as Saint Catherine, who helped sick people. We dressed her in a rather minimalist costume consisting of the teacher-suggested pillow case smock and a veil. To help the sick people, she took her Fisher Price doctor bag.

If you drew a continuum that went from absolute minimalist to completely over-the-top, there was consistent representation along that line for costumes. Some kids clearly have parents that are far more artistic and have more time than S. and I. There were plenty who came in the pillow case smock with adornments.

C.’s best friend refused to dress up. Not sure if it was because it was also her birthday, and she didn’t want to take attention away from herself, if she’s already rebelling against the church, or she was just being difficult. But her mom said she refused to put her costume on that morning.

But the best outfit, by far, was a pre-K boy who came as Jesus. He had a big, wooly wig and a matching beard. To be honest, he looked more Arab than the classic western representation of Jesus. Not sure if his parents were trying to make a point or what.

Anyway, the kids all parade into the church and, one-by-one, walk up to the altar and speak into a microphone, stating their saint and what they did. As you would expect, most kids were barely audible. C. performed completely as expected: she stared at her shoes and didn’t say a word. She’s kind of in a shy phase around strangers now. When the priest asked her what was in her bag, she happily opened it and showed him all her doctor tools, but still didn’t say a word.

The highlight of C.’s day was during the priest’s brief talk about what saints are and why they’re important. He asked if the kids knew where saints lived, and lifted a hand above his head as a hint. C., being a literalist, looked up at the ceiling and began scanning each corner of the church, thinking there were saints flying around in the support beams. Which, I suppose, they are.

M.’s program was today. For the second-straight year she went as Mary, because I think all Catholic girls want to be Mary once they learn about her. And they realize you get to take a doll to school when you’re Mary. There were at least ten Marys both days. Sts. Luke, Nicholas, and Francis were especially popular with the boys.

The kindergardeners were a little more verbal, and I could clearly understand what M. was saying even from the back of the church. She was so proud of herself afterwards that she wouldn’t even look at me as they processed out of the church. At least I think she did that out of pride.

L. just got to watch this year, and the twos class doesn’t participate, but I’m pretty sure I know what she’s going to be in two years: one of M.’s classmates was Saint Lea. No Mary for her!

Happy Halloween and All Saints Day. Check back over the weekend for photos of the girls in their Halloween costumes.

❖

Delayed Weekend Wrap Up

May 27, 2009 / DB

Busy weekend, busy week, busy month.

So for starters, I hope all youse guyses had fine Memorial Day weekends. Ours wrapped around the end of a period where S. worked 11 of 14 days, so we were all a little fried and are enjoying the fact she has this entire week off.

Friday was the final day of preschool and the tradition at ours is for the kids to have a bike parade before they share a lunch with their families and teachers. Younger siblings were invited, so C. brought her trike and joined in on the fun. Watching kids in the age range two to five on bikes is pretty funny. The five year olds were all flying around. The four year olds were kind of showing off and excited to be riding their bikes. The three year olds were as likely to be riding big wheels or scooters as bikes, and were focused on doing a good job. And the two year olds* were typical two year olds: just kind of zooming around, happy to be part of it but also kind of oblivious to everything.

(Although C. is now three, I’m treating her as a two-year-old for this story. She just rode around the parade route, smiling and having fun, but in no way interacting with others the way M. was.)

After lunch we said goodbye to M.’s teachers. She really liked both of her teachers a lot, but she bonded especially closely with one of them. The teacher told me it was hard to say goodbye to M., which was sweet and nice to hear.* I think M. is going to miss her, too, but she’s so goofy she didn’t get emotional.

(The day before was a very difficult day in this house. It was one of my five worst parenting days ever. I had to bite my tongue not to make a smart ass remark like, “If you like her so much, want to keep her for the summer?” or something along those lines.)

And thus summer vacation started for the B. girls. It kind of snuck up on us, but the sudden warm and muggy weather sure made it feel like summer time.

Sunday we explained to the girls that there was a big race downtown that we would listen to on the radio, and then watch on TV that night.* M. was obsessed. She asked at least 1000 questions about the race. We went to my in-laws’ for a late afternoon cookout, and M. threw a fit on the way home when we told her we weren’t going to the race track.

“BUT I WANT TO GO TO THE RACE TRACK TONIGHT!”

Tantrums are great.

(The Indy 500 is still not shown live in Indiana.)

The replay started right around bedtime, so I promised to tape it and said we could watch it in the morning. She could not wait to watch it once we ate breakfast. She ended up watching about an hour. We told her that Helio won, so she always wanted to know which car was his. She also loved Alex Lloyd’s car, since it was pink. We showed her the front page of the paper, which had a full-page shot of Helio celebrating his win. She promptly found her scissors, cut it out, and taped it to the wall in her room. So I guess she’s a race fan now. Weirdly she showed no interest in Danica, Sarah, or Milka, the three women who raced. C. was interested, too, but not to the same level that M. was.

I figured out something important about C. over the weekend. I’ve been struggling with how to describe her running style, because it is quite unique. I finally got it when she ran through the kitchen Monday. She entered the room at full speed, took two more steps, hopped straight up in the air, ran a couple more steps, did a half spin, hopped again, then ran out of the room. Clearly she was, in a previous life, and antelope or some other swift animal that is often chased by predators and must take evasive measures. I think I need to set up a series of cameras through the house so I can get some of her moves on video. It’s ridiculous how many moves she makes to get from point A to point B that take her in a different direction from her destination.

L. loves watching all her sisters’ crazy antics. She watches and laughs and cheers them on. I thought she was going to crawl over the weekend, but she only managed to get stuck in reverse, rocking for a few moments and then losing ground. One day, as I was putting away laundry and she was approaching naptime, she pissed herself off. I heard her start screaming an angry little scream and looked down to see that she had just moved backwards a half foot or so. She’s clearly getting sick of not being able to move forward on her own. She can now chase her sisters in the driveway when she is in her walker and they’re on their bikes. It’s pretty funny to watch her go after them and hear all three screaming happy little screams.

It was warm enough over the weekend that we filled the baby pool up twice. Thursday I thought to do it fairly early so the water was nice and warm when we put the girls in after lunch. L. loved it, sitting in it and chewing on the toys that would conveniently float over to her. We’ll have to try to get her in a real pool soon.

Oh, and the Royals are sucking just in time for my KC trip.

Holiday Wrap Up

December 28, 2008 / DB

Christmas seemed to fly by faster than ever this year. Some of that probably had to do with M. being sick around the big day. She had a stomach bug beginning on the afternoon of the 23rd all the way through to Christmas Eve morning. We spent a big chunk of that night running into her room and holding a bowl in front of her face. She was miserable, but sweet at the same time. Each time she would finish and crumple back into her sheets, she would say, weakly, “I love you mom and dad.” As if it’s not hard enough watching your kid puke over and over, they say something like that which breaks your heart.

She spent all of Christmas Eve on the couch, but made a miraculous recovery that night when people came over for dinner.* And she was her same old self most of the day on Christmas. On the 26th, however, she again spent almost the entire day laying on the couch. She’s been kind of off-and-on since then, although she hasn’t thrown up anymore.

We did inform the family that she was sick and gave them the option of either not coming or relocating Christmas Eve dinner. We’re hoping we don’t start hearing about people getting sick this week, although so far so good.

C. conveniently crashed on the couch about 3:00 Christmas Eve afternoon, so with both girls asleep, I got to skip the 4:00 Christmas Eve Mass we had planned on attending. I had mixed feelings about that. As you know, I’m not the biggest fan of church. But I do always enjoy Christmas Eve services.

The girls put together a nifty note for Santa on Christmas Eve. That afternoon, M. had the realization that she had never sat on Santa’s lap at the mall this year. I reminded her that she did send a letter to Santa and that we would leave him a note with his cookies. That seemed to assuage her fears that he might skip her. She also insisted we remove the child lock from the fireplace doors so he could get in. Smart girl. We left three cookies – one from each sister – milk and carrots for his reindeer.

Christmas morning was good. The girls were very excited and got some good presents. We’re sticking with the three gifts per girl because Jesus got three gifts concept, but the girls did add to their total thanks to the grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They were very proud to show off their new toys to the family members that came over for dessert on Christmas afternoon.

L. gave us one of the best gifts ever for Christmas: she went six hours without needing us on the night of the 23rd. Of course, we were up with M. constantly that night, but we hope it’s a sign of more nights like that from L.. On the other hand, we were up a combined 15 times on Christmas night. Not sure what was going on with the big sisters, but they were both having bad dreams and crying all night, and L. went back to needing three bottles.

We took our tree and most of our decorations down Sunday, which is about the earliest I’ve ever done so. A combination of a very dry tree and S. working the day shift this week made that the day that made the most sense to take things down. Kind of a bummer, since I like stretching things out until right around New Year’s Day. When the tree comes down, the room suddenly feels empty and cold, where it felt cramped the first couple days the tree was up. It’s not just that the holidays are a wonderful time full of family and coming together and good food and great movies and music. It’s the reminder that fall just ended and spring is a long way away. Man, I hate the midwest this time of year!

All-in-all a good Christmas here in the B house. We enjoyed our visitors and seeing family members we don’t see very often. We made lots of yummy cookies and enjoyed the other tasty desserts people brought to us. It was a lot of fun watching the two big sisters this year. They were both completely into all the shows and lights displays and songs. The one bonus of M. being sick on the 24th was she got to watch all the old school Rankin and Bass holiday specials on ABC Family. It was also fun to discover, together, The Polar Express. Neither S. nor I had ever seen it before. I recorded it right after Thanksgiving and forced the girls to watch it one night. Ten minutes in, M. wanted me to turn it off. By the end, she was asking to watch it again. We watched it all the way through one more time in December, and caught parts of it here-and-there. I think it will be added to the B Holiday DVD collection next year. A wonderful film.

I hope all of you had fantastic holidays and are continuing to enjoy your time with family and friends through the week.

Good Tidings

December 22, 2008 / DB

Busy times here in La Casa de B. First, all five residents are saddled with colds. At least one person in the house has had at least the sniffles, if not a full blown cold, since September. This is getting seriously old, and we still have two-plus months of winter left.

Family members start trickling into town tomorrow. This year we’re having slightly less complete representation than in the past. Three of the in-laws won’t make it home this year. We wrapped up the Christmas cookies tonight. Got a decent start on the house cleaning today. We’re just about done planning our menus for the week. As we did last year, we’re hosting two get-togethers. Wednesday night, after we attend Mass, we’ll host the big family dinner. Then on Thursday, after opening presents then heading to the in-laws for breakfast, we’ll have a bigger family gathering for dessert.

That’s a long-winded way of saying this may be it until next week here on Ye Olde Blog. But, before I go, I’ll share some kid stories.

First, C.’s been all kinds of fun lately, She’s in the wonderful two-year-old phase of being utterly charming one minute and a complete head case the next. We still have issues at the breakfast table, with her crying about anything and everything. If you check our picture site</a>, you’ll see a pic of her pouting at the breakfast table. That came on a morning when I told her I wasn’t going to give her any breakfast until she stopped crying. She chose to pout, with her head down, for nearly 10 minutes.

Even better is the pic of her passed out under the kitchen table. One day when S. was at work, C. didn’t want to eat when everyone else did. So, when she finally decided to eat around 1:30, she was extra grumpy. I warmed up some leftover pizza for her, cut it into bite sized pieces, and put parmesan cheese on it. Apparently I missed a piece of pizza with the parm, and she started throwing a fit. This was a problem, because I had used the last of our parmesan on her plate. I tried to explain this, but she wasn’t hearing it. I was holding the baby at the time, so after a couple minutes, I grabbed C. in my free arm, took her out to the dining room, and left her there. I told her she could come back when she was done crying. She carried on for about ten minutes then came sniffling back into the kitchen. She sat down and asked me to cut her pieces smaller. OK. I cut them down, but skipped one that was already quite small. As soon as I turned my back, she started throwing a fit again, this time about me not cutting that piece. After about five minutes, I took her back out to the dining room, took L. into another room, and did my best to ignore the tantrum. She was kicking the floor, kicking chairs, throwing some toys that were within reach. It was a text-book tantrum. Eventually, she went back into the kitchen, laid under her chair, and continued to scream. I grabbed a bottle, took L. into our family room, and sat down hoping S. would be home soon. Around 2:15, C. finally started to wind down a little. A few minutes later, she was quiet. I peeked in and she was passed out under her chair. Good times. She napped there for a good 20 minutes.

The girls had their school Christmas program last Wednesday. C.’s class went first, singing a song about ringing bells so the children know that it’s Christmas time. We could barely see her, but thanks to the magic of digital recording equipment and a tiny window through the crowd, we were able to record her performance and watch it when we got home. She just stood there, looking around, ringing her bells, not singing a word. Of course, ever since, she’s been singing the song at the top of her lungs all over the house. The two-year-olds marched out and left the rest of the school to do their thing. Meg’s class sang a couple songs, and then did one with the entire school (three year olds up to kindergarten). We had a good view of her and she was trying hard, but like a couple of her friends, spent a good portion of the evening yawning. Some pics of the night are up at our site as well.

The girls are getting into the Christmas songs around the house. We listen to the Music Choice Traditional Christmas Music channel quite a bit, so they’re picking up on the standards. We made paper rings for the girls to count down the days to Christmas two weeks ago. M. announces several times a day how many more days it will be until Santa comes. She also checks several times a day to make sure we’ll be putting out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer on Christmas Eve. She’s a smart kid. When we’ve seen Santa in malls or on TV, she’s asked me if that’s the real Santa or just a helper Santa.

We did not take the girls to see Santa this year. We thought about it, and debated which of our local malls would be the best place to do it, but ended up going with the Wait One More Year option, thinking C. would freak out. I think that was a wise choice. Last week I had the girls at the mall and when we walked by Santa, C. was hiding behind me rather than even look at him.

It’s interesting to see how the two girls approach the holiday differently. M. is focused on Santa and C. is focused on Jesus, or specifically the Baby Jesus. Any time we see a nativity scene, C. starts shouting about the Baby Jesus. We watched Elf last night and when Baby Buddy crawls into Santa’s bag, she was yelling, “Dat Baby Jesus!” M. did ask me what the difference between Santa and God was, though. I think the whole “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake” thing got her thinking about that.

Thursday morning should be interesting.

Which reminds me, I hope all of you – my friends, family, regular readers, and random surfers – have wonderful holiday weeks. As time allows, I’ll do a post-Christmas summation of how things went down here.

A Very Birdy Weekend

November 30, 2008 / DB

I hope all y’alls had wonderful Thanksgiving weekends. Ours was good, if busy. I worked Wednesday night, we went to the in-law’s for a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner, and then S. went back to work Thursday night. The night was ok. The older sisters were beat from their busy day, so did well at bedtime. L. did pretty well, also, although she decided she couldn’t sleep more than 2.5 hours at a time. I think I got about four hours of sleep during the night, then another hour or so in the morning on the couch. The big sisters completely destroyed the house in the hour L. and I were snoozing in the living room. S. was fried when she got home, I was fried, the girls were wound up, and the results were predictable. Not one of our finest parenting days ever.

We did rally enough to get out and buy a Christmas tree Friday. Since S. was working the day shift both weekend days and the weather was supposed to turn nasty after the weekend, we figured that was the day to do it. About all we got done after that, though, was getting the tree inside and in the stand. We were too tired and the girls were too crazy for us to think about getting it trimmed and the other decorations out.

The two weekend days went pretty well. S. had fairly easy days and was home midday both times. We did try to bite off more than we could chew Saturday, though. I got the girls out of the house for about half an hour, taking them to the bookstore so they could play. When I got home I found one sister-in-law here to help take some pictures of the girls. Another sister-in-law was heading over for a visit with the girls. There was a tree to be trimmed. We were having our mini-Thanksgiving dinner that night. Oh, and there was a football game that I had some interest in.* Things got hectic for a few hours, and dinner took about an hour longer to make than I had planned, but everything turned out ok. Dinner was tasty, we got some good pics of the girls, had a good visit with the out-of-town s-i-l, the tree looks good**, and we won the freaking game.***

More about that game later.
** We always go the real tree route. Am I the only one who obsesses about whether it is straight or not? I’m not sure it’s possible to have a perfectly vertical tree, but I check it about once an hour to make sure it isn’t leaning one more degree than it was an hour earlier.

** A lot more about that game later.

When the girls woke up Sunday morning, there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. I saw a whole new level of wound up as M. and C. pressed their noses against the window and watched the fat flakes come down. C. is super excited to get out and make snow angels. Since S. was heading to work and I didn’t think L. needed to spend time outside, we put those off for another day (perhaps Monday from the sounds of the forecast).

All-in-all, a good if busy weekend. And for my long time readers, yes, I was able to pop in my DVD of the Cheers Thanksgiving Orphans episode on Thursday night and enjoy my annual viewing of my favorite Thanksgiving treat.

I hope you all had safe and happy holidays, too.

Now, it’s time to break out the Christmas music and movies and get into the spirit of the season.

Halloween 2008

November 2, 2008 / DB

Another successful Halloween for the B. girls. M. went as a ballerina, while C. recycled M.’s pink octopus costume from two years ago. We planned on taking L. in a pumpkin hat and onesie, but she demanded a bottle just as we were heading out so she stayed home.

M. was really into it. She’d march right up, say “Trick or treat!” and select her candy, chatting people up along the way. C. was into everything but the social aspect. She’d mumble “Trick or treat” and then dive right in, raking candy into her bag without looking at or talking to anyone. Then she’d quickly exit before she got roped into a conversation.

As in years past, M. was also into handing out the candy. We were running a little late, so were still shoveling dinner in when the first kids hit our house. Each time the doorbell rang, both M. and C. climbed out of their chairs and raced to the door with me. M. held one of the bowls most of the night. I was impressed that she hung in there when some of the bigger kids were shoving each other to get at the bowl.

Best costume I saw all night? No brainer. The last kid who came to our door just after 8:00 was sporting a Mario Chalmers jersey. I asked if he was interested in having his entire college tuition funded by a stranger but he just took the candy.*

I didn’t really make that offer. I thought it, though.
Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of our neighbors who turned six. It was at the Bounce Zone, which, if you’ve not been there, rents out rooms full of giant inflated bounce pits, slides, etc. The neighbor is a boy, so most of the other partygoers were boys. We got there a little late and everyone was really wound up already. C. wanted nothing to do with the room, so she hung out in the lobby with L. and the other parents. I worked steadily to get M. to do something. She climbed up a tall slide, maybe 10 feet or so high, and then screamed that she wanted to get down. I told her the only way down was to come down the slide. She bought it, slid down, and wasn’t thrilled with the experience. Finally, after the birthday boy’s three-year-old sister hooked up with M., she got more interested and involved. By the time she really got into it, of course, it was time to evacuate for the cake and presents room. Oh well, next time she’ll do better.

By the way, the presents portion of the day was strangely famiL.r. The kid got at least seven Star Wars toys. It felt more like 1978 than 2008. I know there’s the new Star Wars cartoon but still, that’s crazy. His dad told me that they have the Star Wars Wii game, and after the kids are in bed, he and his brother play and beat the crap out of each other.

Holiday Perfection

September 1, 2008 / DB

Admit it, you were glued to VH1 Classic’s 80 Hours of the ’80s this weekend (That is if you have VH1 Classic). Lord knows I was. I thought about e-mailing each of you individually to make sure you knew it was on.

In between shows for the kids and doing things outside, I tried to check in on the A-Z run-through of some of the decade’s best videos all weekend. Most nights, while I was reading, I used it as my background music instead of my usual iTunes library. Good stuff.

Five years ago was the great Labor Day flood of 2003, in which we got like 800 inches of rain in about 12 hours (or eight inches, whatever). S. worked a 24 hour shift that weekend. I remember watching a lot of I Love the 80s that weekend. Had it been 80 Hours of the ’80s back then, I might have watched 24 straight hours!

Had that been the case, you would have expected about 5000 words out of me. So it makes sense that I scribbled down a few notes this weekend.
Worst video of the weekend? The Jackson’s “Torture.” Neither Jermaine or Michael bothered to show up. One of the other Jackson brothers had a single dance move he repeated over-and-over. And then there was some strange witch, demon, spider, skeleton thing going on. Apparently there wasn’t a lot of collaboration on the actual album. I know I have a few readers who saw the first show of the Victory Tour at Arrowhead in KC.

Also shitty was the video for REO Speedwagon’s “Keep On Lovin’ You.” Just go watch. It’s a short song. As if the beginning and end aren’t bad enough, note the 10″ TV they “invested” in for the vid.

Long time readers will recall that I loved that song back in the day. I never really noticed until this weekend, though, how they totally copped out. There’s no second verse! Some songs truncate the second verse, cutting it to only two lines. But REO went straight to the guitar solo then back into the chorus. I wonder if Kevin Cronin tried and tried to put something decent together for the second verse, kept getting crap, but realizing he had pure FM radio gold in the first verse and chorus, decided to cut to the chase. It hit #1 for a week and kept me up for hours one night in 1981 to try to record it, so I guess it worked.

Continuing the shitty theme, pretty much all hip-hop videos. Most of them had the feel of, “Well, the label says we have to put a video together, so let’s call up all our boys, get some ladies to come on down, and we’ll figure something out. Oh, and our budget is $500.” I still love the music, but it was hard to justify how excited I was when Yo! MTV Raps started.

Another bad one was a Black Sabbath video from the Dio years. Filmed before a live audience, there is all kinds of bad camera work and audio through the entire piece. But, at the end, the music abruptly fades out, there’s a split second of silence, then the fake crowd noise fades in. Did they even try?

Eurythmics songs have aged very well. Annie Lennox is awesome.

On the positive side, I’ve decided Jane’s Addiction is one of the most underrated bands ever. I had no idea that Nothing’s Shocking came out in 1988. That’s a year before Nirvana’s Bleach came out. (And then Ritual De Lo Habitual came out a year before Nevermind.) I always thought <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgF7yxIjY8E”>”Mountain Song”</a> was brilliant, but knowing it came out when hair metal still ruled makes it even more amazing. And “Jane Says” was from ’88, too. Those guys were geniuses and deserve more credit for changing music. Nothing’s Shocking is the perfect mix of showing us exactly where rock music was in 1988 and where it was going from there. Weird that the video for “Jane Says” was actually from the mid-90s reunion.

And could Mark Goodman have taken his sunglasses off for his little between songs moments?

I hope they do this again over Thanksgiving are around the end of the year.

Sleepless In Carmel

January 1, 2008 / DB

There’s a slight dusting of snow tonight, leaving the remaining holiday lights in the neighborhood to look particularly dazzling. It feels like the week before Christmas instead of the first week of the new year.

So, hey, happy New Year to everyone. I hope you all made it through the holiday unscathed. Our girls apparently resolved to not sleep in 2008, because we had much screaming last night until we gave up at 3AM and I ended up in the basement with C. and S. snuggled up with M. in our bed. It’s an ominous start to the year when I have a 19 month old’s feet pressing into my head at 4:30 AM.

Speaking of the holidays, M. quickly picked up on one of my favorite Christmas songs, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” last month. By the middle of December, she was singing along to the chorus each time we heard it. I tried to get it on video today, but she was in a very wankish mood and refused to cooperate. But trust me, it was cute up until then.

C. added a few new vocabulary words over the holidays. She loves Christmas trees, and yells “TREE!” and points each time she sees one. “Santy” is one of her favorite people ever. And she’s crazy for candy canes. One of the neighbors has candy cane decorations in their yard and she was super excited to see them still out this morning. “Candycane! Dah! Candycane!” (Dah meaning dad.)

She has another hilarious verbal routine. She likes to inform us when she’s dirtied her diaper. “Ah pooped!” (Ah meaning I.) She does get a little overzealous, though, and often says that when she’s just gassy. It’s even better when, after saying, “Ah pooped!” she adds, “Ah happy.” Who isn’t? It’s hard not to laugh.

She was very cute when she fell asleep in her high chair at lunch today. I could see it creeping up on her, as her chewing slowed, her eyelids grew heavy, and she stared off into space. M. caught her and said something to make her laugh, and she leaned her head off to the side, as if she was playing peek-a-boo with me. She smiled, closed her eyes, and fell asleep with the smile stuck on her face. I didn’t take a picture out of fear of waking her up.

I do have a hilarious photo of her I will share soon. She got somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

Oh, and thanks to the cranky, sleep-deprived girls, I think I saw a total of an hour of football today. Nothing is sacred anymore.

Give Me A Call -or- My Wife Rocks

December 31, 2007 / DB

There are many things I admire and love about my wife.

She’s compassionate and kind in every aspect of her life.

She knew what she wanted to do early in life, went for it, and not only reached her goals, but has excelled at every step along the way.

She has more patience with children than I do.

Wait, she has more patience when it comes to everything than I do.

And she gives out the best Christmas presents.

Yes, after a week (and an off-blog discussion about what on earth it could be) I am unveiling the what was under the tree for me this year. (For some reason the pics I took with my webcam won’t import, so you’re stuck with a stock photo.)

Yes, I received an iPhone from my lovely wife. Completely unexpected. She’s well aware of how deeply I’ve been sucked into the Cult of Mac, but rather than reinforce it, Christmas seemed like the perfect time for her to avoid the Apple Store and keep me from sinking deeper into my illness. But apparently I was good this year and she dropped the ultimate Apple anvil on my head. If that makes any sense.

I had played around with the iPhones many times at the store, but after actually owning one for a week, I can confirm they are pretty freaking cool. I was always very resistant to the idea of combining a music player with a phone/PDA/small computer. Given the size of iPods and cell phones these days, it didn’t bother me to carry one of each at all times. Plus, I’m a dad and a journalist; my wardrobe is heavy on the cargo pants/shorts, so I’m never lacking for pockets to stow items away.

I know there are concerns about what is missing on the iPhone, but as a first-time user of a smartphone, they don’t affect me. The simple fact that I can access the Internet using Apple’s Safari browser, just like on a Mac, instead of some watered-down browser made for a phone is the biggest selling feature to me. And with the release of the software development kit to programmers coming soon, there will no doubt be all kinds of fun additions to it this spring.

I need to revise my list, because in 2007, I received the greatest Christmas gift ever.

Whew

December 26, 2007 / DB

We made it. The bulk of the Christmas rush is over. I realized something this week. When you’re a kid, Christmas is like rolling a boulder up a mountain: it seems like it’s going to take forever to get to the big day. As an adult, though, it can be a bit like being in an avalanche: things start spinning out of control and you feel like everything is zipping by you at 1000 MPH.

Don’t get me wrong, we had a great Christmas, but man did the last four days fly by. As we were putting the girls to bed last night, I thought, “Wow, Christmas is already over.”

Santa was very good to the B. family. The girls got matching dolls (they got the kind that cry, get rosy cheeks until you give them medicine, and then start laughing after you get them back to normal); and a retro kitchen set that includes a refrigerator, sink, and oven. Those were the big Santa gifts and they were very excited to get them. Their Mimi got them a very cool electronic keyboard since they both seem to enjoy making their own music. They’ve been banging away on the keys non-stop, and thankfully it came with a volume button.

M. was definitely more into things this year, getting so excited that she “helped” other people unwrap their gifts and a few times said, “I want to open more presents!” C. obviously had less an idea of what was going on, but seemed pretty pleased with the entire process.

Oh, and the Mrs. may have produced the greatest Christmas gift I’ve ever received. I’m still a bit in shock over it (no, it was not a positive pregnancy test) and not ready to share yet.

The real bonus of the whole holiday was C. deciding not to sleep on Christmas Eve. I was up with her for two hours, she finally went down for awhile, and then S. had to take her in the basement for the rest of the night because she wouldn’t sleep unless one of us was holding her. So we were both fried most of Christmas Day.
Christmas with the family was very good. We had seven of the nine kids in S.’s family here this year. The entire family will be reconvening in five weeks in Denver for sister-in-law #3’s (or is she #4?) wedding, so some of the trips home were shorter than in the past.

I’m sure there’s more but for now that will cover it.