2 and a half

Friends, Jennifer and Marley

John Duke — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:46:00 -0700

Audrey and I were watching a re-run of Friends and she said, "Dad! That girls looks like the girl from Mm... Ma... Ma... No, Guess!"

Daddy: "You mean it looks like Mommy?"

Audrey: "No! Mmmma... "Mmmmar...."

Daddy: "I don't get it it? Who does she look like?"

Audrey: " Marley and Me! That girl is from Marley and Me!"

Daddy: "You mean that girl there - Jennifer Anniston?"

Audrey: "Yeah! You know her? In real life?"

Bath time

John Duke — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:00 -0700

Audrey and Grace take baths every two nights or so. It's probably one of the best bonding times they have.

Tonight Grace thought it would be funny to take a cup and pour water on Audrey's head. Over and over. And Audrey, the sport that she is, didn't mind much. In fact she started pouring water on her own head and face. So it became a big water-pouring session.

Then Audrey decided she'd pour a cup of water on Grace's head. Tears. Not a two-way-street yet, since Grace is only 1. But Audrey didn't push it - she went back to letting Grace soak her with soapy bath water.

What happened when I tried to pour water on Audrey's head to wash her hair? Tears. "Dad, my face is getting wet!" "DAD!! My neck hurts!" "DAD!!!!! Is the shampoo out yet?" You'd think I was an abusive hair-washer. But I'm not. It's just the nature of things. Which means Audrey is a good sister and a normal child.

Ouch

John Duke — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:00:00 -0700

That's Grace's favorite word. Bump her the wrong way, or pick her up too quickly, or even look at her the wrong way, and she'll look most offended and say, "Ooouuuch!" And her brow will be furrowed like you've never seen. You actually feel guilty.

Cinderella doll

John Duke — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:07:27 -0700

Audrey: "Dad! I can't find my Cinderella doll!"

Daddy: "Ok. Where did you last have it?"

Audrey: "On the kitchen table. Can you check there?"

Daddy: "I don't see it. And it's not on the counter either."

Audrey: "Oh. Well, check in the corner behind my pink chair by the window where I put my other doll."

At that point, is there any question that she knew where Cinderella was all along?

The Dream Catcher

John Duke — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:02:14 -0700

Audrey announced to me yesterday morning that she continues to have bad dreams about the evil queens in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty (she calls them evil stepmothers but I think that's in Cinderella, right?) and doesn't understand why the Dream Catcher can't catch those darned dreams and do away with them.

Who is the Dream Catcher? I had to ask as well. Turns out I was the one who hung the Dream Catcher from the mobile above her bed - he's a small figurine. Duh, dad.

He's supposed to pull the bad dreams out of the ether and let the good dreams percolate about for re-use. Although that's not how Audrey put it. He has a diamond, apparently, which takes the bad dreams, and a circle, which permits the good dreams. And he just hangs out up there doing his thing while she sleeps.

Anyway, these dreams about evil queens and what not have caused her to want to sleep in our bed a bit more lately, so naturally I took advantage of the opportunity to say, "Audrey, if you're not in your own bed, how in dreamland is the Dream Catcher going to catch your bad dreams? Certainly he's not going to be able to do so if you're all the way down the hall in our room!"

She did think on that for a moment, but then slept in our bed again last night. Maybe it's time to stop watching Disney movies for awhile. And if Disney movies are causing this, what are other movies going to do? We might need more dream catchers.

A pot, a lid and a sippy cup of water

John Duke — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:26:01 -0700

Audrey just got out of bed to come downstairs to get a pot and a lid and a sippy cup of water. She's worried she might get sick, and the whole idea originated, I think, from when my wife was sick with the flu this past winter. Audrey, of course, is not sick - she is imagining she might get sick. And even if she got sick, a pot with a lid on it isn't going to do her much good. But at least she has taste - she picked All-Clad. And at least she has her sippy cup - that means Daddy won't have to head downstairs in the middle of the night when she comes in to say she's thirsty.

What, dad?

John Duke — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:58:48 -0700

Lately Audrey has taken to asking me, "What, dad?" when I say something to her. And then I'll repeat what I said and she'll still often respond, "What did you say?"

The way she says the latter almost makes it sound like she heard something scandalous come out of my mouth.

So then I repeat what I said again, slowly and more loudly, often feeling like she *must* have heard me. Is she just messing with me?

Some part of me thinks she is - you know, to test me a bit. We've all responded with, "What?" to someone, after hearing them well enough, although I'm not sure why.

But I also know she's only 3 and that I may use words she's less familiar with or speak too quickly or too softly or mumble. And this morning when she finally understood what I said she thought about it and then said, "I love you, dad!"

Messing with me or not, that's worth the back-and-forth.

Evacuated in Hawaii

John Duke — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:44:49 -0700

It isn't every day that one goes to Hawaii and faces a tsunami threat. But that's what happened to us on February 27 when, for the first time in 16 years, authorities issued a state-wide evacuation of all coastal areas after the massive earthquake that hit Chile.

The evening before, the "warning" was just a "watch." I figured it would remain that way, at least for us, considering we were on a part of the big island that faces west, which is away from the direction the waves would come from. But the next morning sirens blared and a security guard knocked on our hotel door, telling us to board buses and head for higher ground.

The guard told us to leave everything but personal valuables behind but I couldn't help but envisage a hotel room half full of water with our battered belongings strewn about when we returned. Despite that I only took my wallet, keys, some books and our video camera and stashed my work laptop and some other items in the room's safe. If my work laptop got ruined, so what.

My wife and mother-in-law grabbed some things too but most of what we took along was to keep Audrey and Grace protected from the sun, fed and entertained. We were shooting in the dark though because we had no idea where we'd end up. The image circling about in my head was of a make-shift shelter in a deserted parking lot surrounded by fields of lava rock, with us trying to keep two little girls from baking in the sun. Staff would come by and ration us food and we'd wait and wait until finally the threat subsided, exhausted and unsure whether our hotel would still be standing when we returned.

But that image was completely wrong - almost as wrong as the tsunami researchers were about their predictions of widespread disaster. We were re-located to a sister hotel 10 minutes inland that had inviting pools and water slides, an outdoor restaurant-bar and plenty of shade and seating. Granted it was crowded with more than 1,000 other evacuees and we were fed hamburgers and hot dogs for breakfast, but it wasn't a bad place to be evacuated to.

By 2:30pm the tsunami threat had been dismissed - the interesting part was, when we returned to our coastal resort, no employees showed up to serve the returning guests. Apparently "tsunami warning" = "vacation" for the locals. It was all my wife and I could do to find two bowls of macaroni and cheese to feed Audrey and Grace - fortunately we encountered the food manager on our quest and she obliged. It was the only complimentary gesture on our entire trip.

I don't want to make light of the fact that there was a very real tsunami warning and I'm glad we took precautions. And Hawaiian authorities reacted in a very organized manner.

Now that I've made that disclosure, I think the lessons are - don't worry about tsunamis when you visit Hawaii because they are rare. And if you're in Hawaii and a tsunami threat occurs, bring your swimsuit and ID because you'll likely be evacuated to a place with a pool and a bar.

I wish I may, I wish I might

John Duke — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:18:10 -0700

Audrey is staying with Grammy tonight. We talked to her on the phone and she wanted to communicate this wish to Grace:

I wish I may

I wish I might

I wish I...[inaudible]

That Grace has sweet dreams tonight

Love, Audrey.

What a loving big sister. We'll miss her this evening.

3 hugs and 3 kisses

John Duke — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:09:46 -0700

Sometimes, on my to work, I take Audrey to school. It's fun because she sits proudly in her booster seat (no car seat in Daddy's car!) and likes to show me that she can operate her seat belt and get in and out of the car herself.

On the way I like to ask her what she expects to do at school that day because getting information out of her later can be tough unless she's in the right mood. But generally her retort is, "Why do you keep asking me that, Dad? I'm haven't gone to school yet." Can't argue with that.

In the school parking lot teaching staff wait to escort the kids inside. But Audrey always prefers that Daddy walks her in instead. I suspect that each time we do this I'm disrupting the orderly flow of the drop-off process but no one seems to mind as far as I can tell.

Audrey is outgoing but generally requires some warm up time before she is comfortable. As a result she'll cling to my leg or act shy when we approach her classroom, reluctant to engage with others. Her teacher usually has an exercise set up for the kids to as they enter the classroom which I suspect is to get their little brains going but also to ease their transition from home to school. It seems to work.

Audrey likes to add one extra step though and it has become a bit of a tradition. She gets 3 hugs and 3 kisses from Daddy before I leave and that seems to really put her at ease. Sometimes she requests a 4th which is perfectly fine by me because the hugs and kisses are harder and harder to come by nowadays.

If you're a parent it's good to come up with small rituals like this for the transitions that take place during the day - it helps make those transitions easier and more fun.

Audrey's addiction

John Duke — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:05:03 -0700

We have restricted Audrey's pacie usage to night time only, although she tries her hardest to feed her addiction during the day.

Daddy: "Audrey, put your pacie away, you don't need it."

Audrey: "But I DO need it. I can't breathe without it."

Daddy: "You can't breathe? I'm sure that's not the case. In fact you can probably breathe better without it."

Audrey: "But I NEED it!"

Daddy: "Put your pacie away right now or you won't have it tonight."

Audrey: "Okay... But can I have just one more suck?"

Daddy: "Um, sure."

Comedy relief

John Duke — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:50:57 -0700

This is not real. But it could be. So be a good parent and then hope you're lucky.

---

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to "Dad." With the worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad,

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with you and mom.

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice. But I knew you would not approve of her because of her piercings, tattoos, tight clothes and the fact that she is quite a bit older than me. But it's not only the passion... She's pregnant.

I know that's big news but Stacy says we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and also trading it with people who live nearby for even stronger, more eye opening drugs. In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She's such a good person and deserves it.

Don't worry Dad. I'm 15 and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I'm sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know our kids.

Love, Your Son

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the report card that's in my center desk drawer. I love you. Call me when it's safe to come home.

Happy Valentine's Day

John Duke — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:22:21 -0700

Happy Valentine's to my wife and to my two little girls.

Hope it's full of love.

When it gets quiet

John Duke — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:47:50 -0700

When it gets quiet, something is up.

Take Audrey and her friend Alexa. They have more fun together than Audrey does with most of her other friends and, as a result, tend to make lots of noise. You know - running around chasing each other, climbing on furniture, yelling and screaming - the sort of thing that toddlers do together.

But while we were eating dinner at Alexa's parent's house this evening suddenly the background noise stopped. Sure - Grace was on the floor playing with blocks and making a small racket but the noise upstairs stopped. In the midst of our conversation during dinner I noticed it, but, seeing as how we were talking and all, I figured it wasn't worth interrupting anyone.

When Audrey came down the stairs her mouth was full of something; when I asked her what it was she opened her mouth and could barely keep the mushed-up mass of brown, melted chocolate from spilling out of her mouth. "I'm eating choclllllit," stammered Audrey.

As if I didn't know.

She and Alexa had been upstairs getting into Alexa's candy stash. By her own account, Audrey had one hard candy and shared three Hershey's Kisses with Alexa. But my wife told me later that Alexa's mom said at least 10 chocolates were missing from the bag which means Audrey very well could have had 5 or so, and perhaps a lot more if Alexa wasn't matching her 1 for 1.

That's on top of a generous dessert of brownies and ice cream.

Surprisingly neither one was overly hyper but perhaps it's because they spent all their energy playing together.

Noise good, quiet bad.

Jewelry

John Duke — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:37:40 -0700

If you have little girls, keep your jewelry locked up. Here's why.

Now that she is tall enough to reach it, Audrey loves to mess around in Mommy's jewelry drawer and doesn't distinguish between things that cost say, $10, and things that cost, um, quite a bit more. Like Suzanne's wedding band for example. It disappeared the other day and Suzanne asked me to stay on the lookout. Normally I'd say "no problem" but not when it comes to the wedding band. I'd find it then and there.

We both knew Audrey had been into the jewelry drawer earlier. She had just woken from a nap and I asked her, "Have you seen Mommy's ring?" She looked at me sleepily and then said with nonchalance, "Yes, I was playing with it."

I looked over at Suzanne and I think we were were both nervous about what she might say next. "Can you tell Daddy where it is?" I asked, smiling. "Sure," she said, beginning to walk down the hall to show me. "I put it in my laundry underneath all the dirty clothes." Generally one would pause here to wonder why on earth THAT particular location would occur to her as a place to stash a ring. But I was just glad she remembered where it was.

But when we got to the laundry basket it was empty - no clothes and no ring. "Well, I KNOW I put it in here..." said Audrey. I looked around on the floor but saw nothing. Then Suzanne recalled, "I just did all her laundry! Let me go check the washer and dryer." I still had hope but was thinking that finding the ring in a pile of clothes would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Not to mention the danger of all the drains and pipes and other nooks and crannies of a typical laundry room.

Moments later Suzanne walked back in smiling. "Here it is!" she announced as she showed the ring to us. "It was in the bottom of the washer."

We smiled at Audrey because she had really helped us find it. I mean, who would have thought to look in the washer?? That ring could have been in there for days or even weeks.

Clearly we need to do something asap about safeguarding Suzanne's jewelry, but at least we had found it, and at least it was sparkly and clean.

30 degree burns

John Duke — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:03:17 -0700

Audrey's got this thing lately with bandages and Band-Aids - every time she bumps or scratches or otherwise hurts herself (and this happens to toddlers alot) she needs to put one on her owie. Her latest trick was to use a whole bunch of Band-Aids to create a cast on her wrist since two of her friends at school have recently had casts. (I remember when it was cool to have a cast in school too.) She used the whole box for that so last night, when she wanted to put a bandage on her finger, there were none left. Naturally this made her mad so we improvised by using some Kleenex and medical tape. We even applied some Neosporin first to add some more seriousness to it all.

In this particular case it was more serious than in most - she had been helping in the kitchen and momentarily touched a hot pan, so she does have a very small blister on her finger. We were chatting last night about it and I asked her if she knew about when Mommy burned her hand.

"Oh YES," she said. "Grammy told me."

"What did she tell you?" I asked.

"WELL," she said, and then smacked her lips to prepare for her explanation. "When Mommy was little she was helping Grammy in the kitchen and she put her hand on the glass window of the oven. And it was really hot so it got stuck on there and Grammy had to yank her off. And THEN she had to have surgery."

"Ouch!" I said. Audrey had told the story correctly. As a parent I can't even imagine what that must have been like.

"Yeah," she muttered. "She got 30 degree burns."

Boats and livestock

John Duke — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:23:50 -0700

Ideas for things to do with kids on a weekend:

1. Regional Boat Show

2. National Western Stock Show

At the boat show it was just me and Audrey. Though it was in the Convention Center in January you might as well have been at the beach. There were enough Hawaiian shirts, flip flops, umbrellas, palm trees and drink stands, not to mention all the boats, to make it feel that way. And we got to learn cool stuff like the following:

I colored that one for Gracie. Audrey did one too, and we have the pictures on 2 t-shirts. Good thing too - that bit of knowledge will probably save us next time we go boating.

In all seriousness, there was so much stuff for kids to do at the boat show that I'm sure Audrey had more fun than I did. Just climbing into, around and upon a bunch of boats would have done it but they had so much more.

And then today was the National Western Stock Show. I haven't been to something like that in a long time. It was me, Suzanne, Audrey and Grace and was hectic but fun. By hectic I mean too crowded to walk by yourself through a crowd, let alone with a stroller. There was a moment when I was pushing the girls in ours (and it's a "double-wide," as one cowboy called it at the show) through a crowd and there were literally so many people trying to go every which way that I just stopped and figured I'd be stuck there forever. It was gridlock.

By fun I mean that there is an entire complex - far too big to really get all the way through in one visit - with everything from face painting and games to a petting zoo to a climbing wall to every kind of retail you can imagine. Naturally Audrey wanted her face painted twice - once on each cheek - and I have to say the artists there did the best face painting I've ever seen. We were told they fly in from Texas each year to do the show and by the looks of the line all afternoon, they make a killing.

Then of course there was the main event - the rodeo - which Suzanne and I looked forward to but we figured the girls would last about 5 minutes. Thank goodness we were wrong - I'd say they made it for an hour and a half before Grace really broke down and we were forced to leave.

Although at the beginning, during the opening to the show, I thought we might have to leave too. I caught on video the final moments of the kick-off and I think it nearly scared Grace straight through the roof. She was terrified, and Audrey wasn't too happy either. Not to mention the heart attack I almost had.

The video is sideways because I'm not smart enough to use my new phone correctly but you'll know what I mean when you get to 0:22. Keep in mind you're watching it on video - if you were live multiply the sound by 100.

Making art with baby shoes

John Duke — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0700

As I organized our mud room the other day I started arranging Grace's shoes, most of which are hand-me-downs from Audrey. I started shooting some pictures and ended up with these:

Shoes of the round table

Shoes at attention

Shoe social

Snow Flakes

John Duke — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0700

Audrey took a liking to Frosted Flakes because we happened to have a box in the pantry that we brought back as part of the left-over food from a ski trip. Normally we only buy Cheerios, Granola and Oatmeal but, seeing as how it is sometimes difficult to get Audrey to eat, we gave her some Frosted Flakes. She gobbled them down, just as I do - they taste really good. But then she started asking for more and the next day more again, and called them "Snow Flakes." Not wanting this to keep recurring I said to Suzanne, "Why don't we buy some Corn Flakes? She'll never know the difference." I was right - the Corn Flakes do the trick and they have no sugar. She really enjoyed her Snow Flakes yesterday because, well, "They're Gr-r-reat!"

The toilet

John Duke — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:23:34 -0700

Grace likes to stick her hand in the toilet. In the spirit of being open-minded about it, I suppose it could look like a fun place to play assuming you have no concept of what lurks in there.

Sometimes she'll play with the plunger or the toilet scrubber and walk around the house, waving it around like a scepter or something. Naturally we are grossed out by this behavior and concerned about Grace's well being, so we try to keep the bathroom doors closed as a result. This strategy will work at least until she is tall enough to open them and by then hopefully she'll have moved on to some other hazardous endeavor.