Cloud Eight

Slow Boat to New Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:49:00 +0000

Snippets from recent conversations with 5-year olds.

Conversation No. 1:

FYI, we live in Illinois.

Deanna: "If you could go anywhere in the world for vacation, where would you go."

Cooper: "I would take a plane to Mexico."

Hayden: "It's Mexico; you should take a boat."

Cooper, in his most dismissive, know-it-all 5-year old voice: "I said Mexico, not New Mexico."

Conversation No. 2:

Me: "What do you think potato chips are made out of?"

Hayden: "Rice?"

Me: "Po-tat-o chips"

Hayden: "Potatoes!"

Me: "Good, now what do you think french fries are made out of?"

Cooper: "French people?"

Coop-Dee-Do

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:34:00 +0000

Cooper is "Star of the Week" this week in kindergarten, which entails daily sharing with the class of stuff special to you - showing off your favorite stuffed animal, telling everyone about yourself, display of a you-centric poster full of pictures of yourself and details on things that you are into. You know, sort of like a 3-D Facebook.

At any rate, I was Wednesday's main event. Having been alloted a 15-minute time slot by the teacher, I dropped by promptly at my odd 10:55 a.m. start time. With Cooper seated by my side, I engaged the class in a dramatic reading of "I Stink", a book narrated by a New York City garbage truck. While the kids have always liked this book more than me at home, Cooper's instincts in picking this to bring with us proved to be dead on, as its alphabetical recital of gross out garbage items like dirty diapers, moldy meatballs and puppy poo really got the audience going.

Having sufficiently warmed them up, I then proceeded to give them instruction in juggling. I had brought some juggling beanbags from home and started by showing them one bag (tossed up and down in a single hand), then two, and finally three. I finished with a flourish with some tosses under my leg and behind my back and with Cooper tossing me a ball to start me out. I must say, the audible ooohing and aahhhhing were fairly satisfying, as was a little girl telling Cooper "your Dad is awesome!!" If only the rest of the world were so easily impressed. On the negative side, the teacher was visibly not impressed when I told the kids that really good jugglers could do harder stuff like chainsaws, prompting an admonishment by her that I probably would not have been let in the school if I had brought chain saws. Killjoy. Another kid asked me if I could juggle cookies and take bites while I juggled. That one I promised to develop for next year (you will know I have been training hard if you notice a 20 lb. weight gain by me during the year). All in all, though, quite a fun time. Hope I made Cooper proud!

For a trip into the CloudEight archives to revisit my swing by Owen's class when he was star of the week three years ago, click here.

Music Video No. 1

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:58:00 +0000

This one needs no words. Enjoy. Oh, and maybe fear for the future a bit while you're at it.

A Quiet Return

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:19:00 +0000

3 months and no posts. A sad new record. Can't promise I will do better, but I will at least try.

So what is shakin' on CloudEight you ask? Not much really, at least at the moment. Owen is asleep on a large footstool in his "fort" - Harry Potter-style in the closet under the basement stairs. That kid has slept in pretty much every place a kid could sleep in this house at one time or another, including at least three closets. The twins - who turned five in May - are finally quiet upstairs - their constant patter of fart and poop jokes and stories eventually trailing off into snores. Deanna should be home soon on an 8:40 p.m. train after working late. We have both been under the gun lately and today was her turn to make some serious office progress. One of our newest additions, gerbils Chubs and Junior Gerbil, sounds like he has taken a break from their obsessive hobby of chewing apart their cage and is instead jogging on the exercise wheel. The other one is probably asleep or, of course, chewing. It is pretty quiet at the moment, and quiet is good. I am going to go be quiet too, but it was nice getting back in touch with you, my much appreciated and patient readers. We should keep in better touch, me and you. Talk soon.

Brawl on Boardwalk

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 03:40:00 +0000

We found ourselves at home the other night, done with dinner and with a couple of free hours stretching out ahead of us. What else to do then than to break out Monopoly! Deanna teamed up with Hayden, and I teamed up with Cooper, while Owen flew solo. Owen's dubious 8-year old strategy of not wanting to buy any properties other than Boardwalk and Park Place, and my dubious 45-year old strategy of leveraging everything to buy and build at all costs both backfired, and eventually we were forced to concede to Deanna and Hayden and their imposing collection of fancy houses and luxury hotels. At the conclusion of the spirited game, Cooper was in tears because we lost, bawling loudly and yelling that he should have teamed up with mommy instead. Hayden, in our family tradition of being bad winners, was singing a victory song, doing a victory dance, and generally taunting his brothers. This bought him a kick to the groin from a frustrated Owen, resulting in exponentially more crying and shouting and chaos followed by punishments. Ah, family game night. Next time something a bit less competitive perhaps.

Complete Game

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:56:00 +0000

From the moment the first thud of a ball hitting a catcher's mitt at spring training echoed up from Arizona to, well, right this minute, our house has been pretty much all baseball all the time this summer. A sampling of the many ways it has dominated our lives.

Playing: While the twins were heartbreakingly 12 days too young to play t-ball this year, Owen was able to play in Junior Minors little league, then on the league all-star team, and finally on a travelling all-star team. The season was one of ups and downs - playing well enough to be an all-star was great for him, but the travelling team's 2-10 record against kids from other towns was a real eye-opener for all of our hometown big fish in a small pond. It's tough out there boys! Still, I loved Owen's post-game post-mortems, especially when he would excitedly tell me things like "I threw him a four seam fastball for the strikeout" (the rainbow arc of his four seamer looking oddly similar to all of his "other" pitches). Watching the 8-year olds spitting sunflower seeds in the dugout and speculating to each other whether the opposing team was using a corked bat was priceless, as was watching them grow into better players and an actual team. Overall good experience. Cooper, for his part, was content to practice almost constantly in the backyard for his future chances to play - spending hours, and often heading out by himself in his pajamas - throwing the ball up and hitting it time and again, or practicing pitching endlessly with the pitch back.

Statistics: Cooper is usually the first kid up, at which point he stumbles downstairs, unlocks the front door, grabs the paper from the driveway, comes back in and sprawls across the floor while he proceeds to study the standings and previous days' baseball statistics for the next 15 minutes. The kid literally taught himself to read last year by learning the names of baseball teams (see http://cloudeight.blogspot.com/2010/10/boy-of-summer.html) and is now a great reader of everything. In addition, he now has a grasp of baseball statistics that is amazing to me in a 5 year old still weeks away from kindergarten, studying earned run averages, how many games out various teams are, winning percentages, etc.

Lore: Owen and his friends spent the spring studying baseball history in some book at school and he certainly knows a lot more baseball lore than me already. While as a parent you can bullshit your way through a lot of kid questions, I am unable to bullshit my way through ones like "what made Rogers Hornsby so good?"; a stumper I received the other day. Hell if I know kid, although I assume it wasn't steroids since the guy played in the 20s and 30s. Hmmmmm, perhaps it was the extra s tacked onto Roger. In case you get this question parents, the things you need to know are that he has the second highest lifetime batting average ever (.358, second only to Ty Cobb) and hit over .400 an amazing 3 times.

Trading: Much to my delight, the guys have all been avidly collecting and trading baseball cards since the Spring. This has given me a convenient excuse to do the same in the name of father-son bonding. I am currently the subject of much jealousy after my acquisition of the only Darwin Barney rookie card in the house. Owen has taken his collecting to the extreme - given $15 to spend on a recent vacation, he choose to spend it on a box containing 36 unopened packs of baseball cards ... from 1990. Due to his freakish knowledge of past players, this seemed to give him as much joy as opening packs of 2011 cards, although it all seems a bit surreal. Seriously, how many other dads this summer have heard their 8 year old happily exclaim while opening a pack of cards: "Dad, I got Wade Boggs!!!" Owen and I both tried pieces of 21 year old gum from the 1990 packs by the way - BIG mistake. Deanna, for her part, could not be less enamored of the fact that cards are pretty much everywhere in our house. Despite being largely kept in binders by each kid, you can pretty much find loose cards in every room. Deanna has an old George Brett edition mitt from her youth, and the guys excitedly planned weeks ahead of her birthday to give her a 1990 George Brett baseball card using the mitt as wrapping paper for her birthday. Her excitement was palpable.

Rooting: Cruelly, I have passed on to the boys my love of the Cubs. The Cubs spate of injuries, poor fundamentals, lack of leadership and all around terrible play have left them with a terrible record and 15 1/2 games out of first in a crappy division, leaving us with precious little to root for. Still, the boys have a Cubs fan's optimism even at such young ages and ability to find hope in even the most dire of circumstances. We recently cheered as the Cubs finally put together their first three game winning streak of the season (only four months into the season!) and blasted past the Orioles to have only the third worst record in the league. Look out, Kansas City Royals, were gunning to move past you for fourth worst! Cooper in particular seems to take it all in stride, taking the news of yet another loss with a momentary sadness followed by a smile and a "maybe we'll win tomorrow." Although Hayden is less enthusiastic about baseball in general than the other two, he is a good little rooter as well from time to time. A couple of weeks ago, the whole family ventured to Wrigley family, where we witnessed the home team surge to victory in extra innings.

I have watched more baseball this summer than the previous ten years combined. The boys watch as late as we will let them and then drift off to sleep to the call of the late innings on the radio. And so it goes - the pace of our summer dictated by the unique rhythms of this most-American of games. While much has been written in recent years about the inability of today's quick-cut youth to connect with the slow pace of baseball, two of my three guys have fallen for it head over heels and appear to perhaps have lifetime afflictions. Not a bad sport to fall for, if I do say so myself; not bad at all.

Table Talk

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 05:53:00 +0000

Deanna was out tonight so the boys took the opportunity to lobby me to make my signature Dad meal - grilled cheese, tomato soup and apple-sauce with cinnamon-sugar sprinkled on top. As we neared the end of our sumptuous feast, talk turned to the future. After our recent spring-break trip to Coronado Island near San Diego, Deanna and I had declared to the boys that as soon as they were out of college, we would be moving to Coronado and that given the price of real estate there, we would be unlikely to have room for them. I took this opportunity to back off this declaration a bit - and not just because after putting three kids through college, we are unlikely to be able to afford more than maybe a couple feet of dumpster space on Coronado. I also felt that the kids, being younger, needed the security of knowing we weren't just going to pick up and leave, regardless of what they were up to. Families should stay close to each other, I declared, comfortingly telling them we would be living here except for a couple of months each winter.

They seemed to have already taken this families should stay close to each other point to heart, as all three informed me they would be moving to California with us. Hayden, who has inexplicably become an Oakland A's fan, told me that while he would be living in Coronado with us, he would be spending his vacations in Oakland. That kid is in for a sad shock. Owen, on the other hand, had obviously given the matter some thought, and cited several advantages to California living. While many might cite the weather, Owen is attracted by the fact that if whatever California baseball team he decides to root for starts to tank, he will have plenty of other California teams to choose from. He also likes the fact that California is big enough that he can vacation in different climates without leaving the State - in, say, Oakland for instance. After mulling things over for another minute, though, Owen went back to his long-time plan of building and living in a log cabin in the backyard of his best friend Jack, since Jack has informed him he will not be leaving home after college (heads up Lisette and Brad - not only will you be unable to unload one of your own kids, you will be apparently acquiring one of ours! You may want to talk to me about the aforementioned "Coronado Plan").

I then asked the guys how many kids they were going to have. Cooper - none, because he doesn't like girls, kissing is gross, and because kids would interfere with his plans to play Wii all day. He added that the only girls he really liked were his mom, cousins, and his grandmothers. Sounds like a prime candidate to be living with us for the indefinite future, since I am reasonably sure having a "job" would also interfere with said plan to play Wii all day. Owen - zero or one kids; maybe just a pet. Hayden - 20 kids. He will literally need a bus for those family vacations to Oakland. He subsequently scaled this back to 14 or 15 kids and later, out of earshot of his girl-hating brothers, confided to me the names of some of the young ladies in town he has his eye on to bear his 14 to 20 children. Rather than name names here, I will individually warn you mothers in town whose daughters risk a future of being almost constantly pregnant with nothing to look forward to between pregnancies other than bus trips to Oakland. Well, I will name one name - unfortunately another heads up to Lisette and Brad - he has his eye on your daughter!

Milk-Post

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 04:12:00 +0000

So, let's say you are employed as a marketing consultant by the Midwest Dairy Association. The Association rings you up one day and asks you to come up with an idea to increase the health profile of chocolate milk. Charged with this task, would you, in a million years, come up with the idea to try to position chocolate milk as the new Gatorade? And, assuming you took such an ambitious tack in your assignment, would you decide that the best way to position chocolate milk as the new Gatorade would be to create a fictional race of small green stuffed monsters, called ChocoNoGos, and to spread the word that ChocoNoGos are "a group of creatures that live to sabotage athletic performance by draining athletes of nutrients" and that these creatures "hate physical consistency, excellence and chocolate milk"? No? You wouldn't? Well obviously you are not thinking far enough out of the box to be a highly paid (or perhaps soon to be unemployed) marketing consultant.

From the annals of failed marketing campaigns I bring you "ChocoNoGo."

For those of you who are without the means to clink on the foregoing link to watch this video in all its glory, it features athletes who are flagging in their performance. Why? Well, quite obviously because they are chocolate milk deprived - that devious little devil ChocoNoGo is up to his usual tricks! Now right off you can see that this is a dubious premise. I mean this whole convoluted reverse psychology idea that a lack of chocolate milk is what will prevent athletes from achieving good performance is illogical and vague and simply makes no sense. Did they really think they would be able to convince anyone but the most gullible athletes to reach for the chocolate milk instead of water or gatorade following a workout? Oy. The fact that this video link has only had 200 something views should give you a clue. And what is up with the narrator? What kind of accent is that supposed to be?

Speaking of gullible, however, ChocoNoGo could not be a bigger star among the 5 - 8 year old demographic here at RedPlanet. At the State Fair a couple of years ago, a Midwest Dairy Association representative (or a carnie, I can't remember which) handed the boys a stuffed ChocoNoGo. In the ensuing months, the boys would fight over him all the time for some mysterious reason. When the boys insisted to us that he was actually called ChocoNoGo and Deanna and I did not believe them, we found the video, and this other video, (the English angle the Association decided to pursue in this one is puzzling as well), both of which the boys have delighted in watching numerous times. In fact, I would wager that our house alone accounts for approximately 5% of the total views of these ChocoNoGo videos. Still, it is one thing to race around the house yelling ChocoNoGo at each other, and quite another to actually demand a thermos full of chocolate milk to bring along to your little league game so you can really maximize your athletic performance. The latter demand has yet to happen, by the way, despite the boy's love of ChocoNoGo. Nor has the peak athletic performance happened either though? Hmmm. Worth a try? Could Owen's little league teams 2-9 record in reality be due to a ChocoNoGo infestation???? Drink for thought indeed.

The Month My Warranty Expired

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:38:00 +0000

Last month I turned 45 with a minimal amount of fanfare and not much in the way of trepidation. The only changes I really anticipated were a modest increase in gentle ribbing from Deanna based on her being six years younger, and an inability to any longer claim that I was in my "early 40's." Little did I know that immediately upon turning 45 both my luck and the warranty on my body would run out causing me to essentially become elderly overnight.

My actual birthday passed uneventfully. Only a nasty cough that had settled into my lungs a week or two prior gave any indication of trouble ahead. At the time, I assumed it to be merely a nagging leftover of the most recent rounds of kid-inflicted illnesses in the house.

As our planned Spring Break trip to Anaheim and San Diego approached, I thought periodically of visiting a doctor to look into the cough but figured a little sunshine and time away from work would knock it right out. This proved to be a poor assumption, as it never did get better. Each morning during our 10 day vacation, I would lean over a sink, coughing up bits of my lungs. As we traveled around, my periodic coughing fits spread fear throughout the Southern California natives (I could hear their frightened whispers: "Who let that consumptive into Legoland?? And so pale too. Maybe he's an escapee from a TB ward."). Even now, 5-weeks after its unheralded arrival, the cough remains, although antibiotics currently have it on the ropes at last.

Next, whether it was stuff related to the cough or simply the flight, my head felt full of muck and my left ear never "unpopped" following the flight to California, significantly decreasing hearing already long-impaired by too many rock band rehearsals and concerts in my younger days. This, combined with the kids annoying kid-habit of talking with their heads facing away from you or towards the ground, left me pretty much resorting to asking everyone to repeat anything they said to me during the trip. As the trip went on, my requests were shortened to an old-man like "eh?" each time I realized someone had said something to me.

On the third night of our trip, we were waiting in yet another line at Disney's California Adventure themepark (next door to Disneyland) as darkness fell when sweet 4-year old Cooper looked up at us and asked if we were going to see the fireworks. He was asking, he added, because it was our last night in Disneyland and because "fireworks make my heart happy." Parental hearts sufficiently melted, we bolted across the park, each carrying a 40+ pound kid at what might best be described as a loping, speed-walk, since the fireworks were actually taking place at Disneyland, where we were not. We caught the end of the fireworks, but not without some cost to my lower back - an unpleasant tweak to my lower back and its ruptured disk that periodically acts up. The sore back decided to stick around for the rest of the trip too, thus adding sleeping and walking, along with the previously mentioned breathing and hearing, on the list of activities that carried some level of difficulty and/or unpleasantness in the first month of my 45th year.

The fourth day of the trip, I managed to essentially serrate a fingertip with the five awesome blades of my Gillette Fusion razor. Bled a lot in the bathroom of our fancy hotel. While this injury did not particularly bother me, it did have an unfortunate one-two punch. One, it was positioned so that a band aid would not stay on for any length of time; and two, seeing it seemed to cause an immediate unpleasant reaction in the squeamish. It was indeed fairly unpleasant to look at. The solution, fairly constant application of band aids.

The fifth day was our first at the beautiful beaches of Coronado Island in San Diego. Feeling decent despite the travails of the first half of the trip, I spied a crab in a tidepool and decided to capture it for the kids. No problem, until I prepared, captured crab in hand, to jump off of the slippery slope of a wet rock onto the safety of the beach. What happened next before a crowd of onlookers was several seconds of slipping, attempting to regain my balance, and a nasty feeling that something bad had just happened to my right hamstring before I fell face-down into the tidepool. When I first got up, I had a bloody left knee and was unable to put any weight whatsoever on my right leg. Two of my charming children, despite our best efforts to teach them empathy, immediately asked where the now-escaped crab was. This injury, since diagnosed by my doctor as a partial hamstring tear, left me limping badly the remainder of the trip and with a scary-amount of bruising - so much blood emptying out of the torn muscle inside the leg that the entire back of my right thigh turned solid purple and during the course of the trip actually migrated down into my calf. Pretty freaky amount of bruising for an injury that involved no direct impact on the leg at all. Anyway, after this one, previously mundane tasks like putting on my right shoe or hoisting myself in and out of car seats became exciting but painful adventures.

A couple of days later, I decided to limp up to the hotel's lovely weight room, figuring that although my leg was shot, I could still do some non-leg-related exercises. Shortly after starting, I was leaning on a machine, trying to adjust the amount of weight (upward of course!). I shifted my weight off the part of the machine I had been leaning on and it sprang back to its resting position, causing a metal cross-bar to spring up into my face and cut a nice gash next to my right eye. The gash commenced to bleeding profusely, and continued to do so every time I optimistically removed the band-aid at any point during the next 24 hours. So not only did I quickly develop a black eye, but I had to wear a big band-aid adjacent to my eye for the next couple of days.

Despite all of the above, we really did have a great time. A quick shout out to Deanna for shouldering the parenting load, figuratively and literally, during vacation as I was fairly useless during certain stretches. She was very patient despite not particularly enjoying having an elderly traveling partner.

Anyway, if this was the year 1511, I would be pretty excited to be alive at the ripe old age of 45 with nothing but a bad limp, suspect back, consumption, marginal hearing and eye and finger injuries. But it is not 1511. One or more of you may be inclined to say something optimistic to me, like "those injuries sound unpleasant and it is unfortunate they happened on vacation, but they don't sound permanent so you can probably eke out another few decades before permanently assuming the mantle of old man." To you, I simply respond "eh?" Yep, I should've bought that extended warranty when I had the chance.

French Post

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:50:00 +0000

4-year old Cooper, during our Tilapia dinner the other night: "I want to eat candy for dessert, but I don't want to eat the fish."

Deanna: "Sorry Cooper, the world doesn't work that way."

Cooper: "Maybe yours doesn't, but mine does."

Deanna, in her most world-weary Mom-voice: "I don't know what world you are living in then."

4-year old Hayden: "Yeah, Cooper, where do you live, France???"

I am not shy about my opinion that France makes an awesomely funny punch line to almost any joke, and am glad to see the little guys picking up the concept and running with it. Je suis tellement fière.

Ham Alone

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 04:27:00 +0000

We jokingly told freshly-minted 8-year-old Owen the other day we may leave him behind when the rest of us go out of town for Spring Break. He then surprised us by reeling off a list of the things he would do if left to his own devices for a couple of days. These included sneaking into the cookie and candy jars, watching an R-rated movie, eating popcorn, playing with Star Wars Legos, and having his best friend over to watch YouTube videos featuring Lego figures and bad words. I imagine his failure to mention playing endless hours of Wii was simply an oversight. Not a bad list, and I get that he is 8, but he did not exactly make us feel like we are trudging down a path that leads to leaving him in charge of his younger siblings in a mere handful of years.

Four year old Cooper's take on what he would do if left alone: break some of our house rules. I can live with that to an extent - stand on the couch all you want pal, but no bare butts on the table (sad that we have had to articulate a rule for that one, but we have).

Four year old Hayden's take on what he would do if left alone: he would take some money from my wallet, go to the store, buy some ham, come home and eat it, and then do the dishes. Please note that we are doing nothing currently that prevents Hayden from eating all the ham he wants, or from doing the dishes for that matter, yet he seems to show no inclination to do either on any regular basis. We do discourage pilfering from parental wallets and unaccompanied trips by four year olds to the store however, so maybe the appeal to him of this little scenario lies in those. Strange kid.

At any rate, it is apparent that all of the guys have a ways to go in the personal responsibility department. If anyone does want to make plans to meet us out for a drink or dinner, we are now booking dates for 2031, when we anticipate being able to leave the boys alone and unsupervised.

Boat Boys Booted

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 11:58:00 +0000

Boat Co. Rep. to me at the Chicago Boat, RV and Outdoors Show: “Sir, you really need to be with your children when they’re on the boat.”

RedPlanet: “I’m trying to get them off.”

Boat Co. Rep.: “That is an excellent idea.”

And so it went, as our little boat and RV enthusiasts took the show by storm; excitedly tearing through every boat and RV while largely oblivious to the other thousands of attendees. In the process they thankfully burnt off some pent-up winter energy. I knew it was finally time to go when the boys turned their attention from checking out the features inside each RV (the best - a gas fireplace!) to trying to climb into all of the sleeping areas to "rest."

Owen has his eye on a $339,000 boat for his 8th birthday, by the way, if anyone wants to go in together on it. If you are looking for something a bit more reasonable, an RV will do. The word is that either would make an excellent clubhouse. The expected proliferation of “No Girls Allowed” signs should he obtain said boat or RV has Deanna less than enthusiastic about buying either for him, so I will leave it up to someone else to get it for him. Oh, and don’t forget to get a gift receipt so we can return it if we end up with more than one, although Hayden and Cooper could use the spare as their clubhouse during the periods when Owen gets tired of them and erects some of his "No One Under 7 allowed" signs on his.

Holiday Leftovers

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 04:47:00 +0000

Another Christmas in the books! Some random observations from the season just passed:

On Christmas morning, I realized that we must be at or near the end of Santa's route every year, where he is forced to make due with the dregs and cheap filler from the bottom of the bag. This realization was prompted by Owen's observation, upon emptying his stocking, that this was the first year Santa hadn't brought him hand sanitizer. Who knew the kid was paying such attention to detail!

Speaking of Santa, Owen and his best friend Jack spent much time pre-Christmas in their analytical seven-year old style debating the best approach to their Santa lists - "best" in this case meaning maximizing their ability to get what they wanted. Jack went with an all Legos Star Wars approach, in an effort to make sure he obtained as many sets at once as possible. Owen went with a more varied list and gravely confided in me prior to Christmas that he felt Jack was making a tactical error. Then there was the post-Christmas analysis, with Owen now feeling that Jack's approach had been successful, despite his own happiness at receiving a Legos Star Wars set (he was apparently hoping for three!) and a variety of other things, and Jack telling us that he would include non-Lego Star Wars items if he had it to do over again.

Although I have posted about it in the past, I continue to be amazed and amused at the Catholic pre-school's annual labeling of Joseph as "Jesus' step-father." While technically true, I suppose, it just makes me laugh to see a full page take-home pictorial labeling Mary as Jesus' mother on one side and Joseph as his step-father on the other. It was simply not something that was ever discussed in those terms to my recollection as a kid. Are step-fathers more common now? Were there too many probing questions about the whole God/Joseph father thing? I personally think the whole thing is ripe with "My Two Dads" style situation comedy possibilities.

My favorite Christmas outfit was Hayden's self-selected ensemble of a long sleeve camoflauge shirt with a green sweater vest picturing a reindeer worn over it. The whole hunter/deer irony thing was lost on him however, and he mistakenly thought he was looking pretty good since the greens matched (vaguely). Regretfully, no picture to share of this one.

When we first set up our porcelain nativity scene, we decided to stow Jesus away until he was born on Christmas morning. At a loss as to where to put him, I stuffed him in a drawer of the dining room server. This prompted Hayden to observe that the server was "like Heaven", where Jesus was waiting with God before he was born. Here's hoping that the real Heaven is filled with more than crystal goblets and half-burnt birthday candles.

Best Christmas moment: Cooper's broad smile as he clutched his newly opened Louisville slugger Wii baseball bat accessory to his chest and stated simply "I love my gift." Nice work Grandma Linda!

As for Resolutions, I am pledging, dear readers, to reward your dedication and patience with AT LEAST thirty six blog posts this year. You heard me right, thirty six. And no crap filler either, like this post - we are talking Grade A quality posts. Brace yourselves.

Happy New Year!

New Family Tradition Post-Script

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 06:51:00 +0000

A series of mediocre situation comedy-like coincidences left us with a fully defrosted Turkey over a week before Thanksgiving, which prompted us to cook it up last Saturday for an early Thanksgiving feast. Cooper strolled into the kitchen and saw the uncooked turkey in the roasting pan, turned to me and said "Dad, did you catch that turkey?" Thinking it would be harmless, and to amuse Deanna, I said yes. What I was not prepared for was the ensuing barrage of questions from both twins. In answer to their series of questions as to my detailed method of procuring a turkey in the wild, I went with the previously mentioned knife and net method. They studied the turkey carcass and concluded that a puncture in the skin near the breast must have been where I stabbed it. In answer to their questions about how I attracted a turkey, I said I had done a turkey call. When they wanted to hear it, the best I could come up with on the fly was a lame "Here turkey, turkey, turkey." In answer to their questions as to how I had come out of the forest unscathed by either black bears or wolverines, I made a serious face and told them I was just lucky to get in, get the turkey, and escape before harm could come to me. I even told them about how I had defeathered it by dunking it in boiling water - God knows where I heard that one, but it came in handy.

Since then, of course, in predictable situation comedy-like fashion, my lies have built upon themselves to precarious levels. When we were going around the table saying what each person was thankful for, Cooper chimed in that he was grateful I had killed such a tasty turkey. This prompted a mini-chorus of "Yay Dad!" from the twins. The next day we were walking down a short trail in a forested area that, quite frankly, looked like somewhere a wild turkey might hang out. This prompted the whole family to break into cries of "Here turkey, turkey, turkey" and prompted Cooper to locate a sharp stick for me in the unlikely event that a turkey did actual wander up to us. With Thanksgiving now in the rear view mirror, I am optimistic that I can escape this predicament with a bit more aplomb than the hapless sit-com dads. At least until next fall rolls around and the twins recall my solemn promises that they can come with me on next year's turkey stabbing missions.

A New Family Tradition

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 12:16:00 +0000

Taking the "cut your own Christmas tree" and "pick your own pumpkin" ideas to their logical next level, Cooper suggested the other day that we go out and "kill our own turkey" for Thanksgiving. Not quite sure what to say, Deanna went with an easy out by pointing out to him that we have no gun. Unfazed, and apparently having already contemplated this possibility, Cooper earnestly responded that all we would need would be a net and a knife.

While I appreciate his old school, do-it-yourself Pilgrim attitude, I am not quite sure what he is picturing will happen once the family, armed with our largest kitchen knife and perhaps some of our impressive collection of plastic light sabers, manages to trap a wild turkey in a net somewhere in the woods. What I imagine, however, is each of us standing around in a circle, passing the knife on to the next person and saying "I'm not doing it, you do it" and the whole thing ending with us having a new pet named "Gobbly" living in the backyard.

Boy of Summer

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 12:08:00 +0000

One of the joys of watching kids go from squalling, helpless little balls of need to occasionally squalling, sometimes helpless four-year olds is seeing them develop their own interests and passions. So it was this summer when baseball planted a seed in four-year old Cooper that grew and flourished to the point of insanity. Our story began with a couple swings of the wiffle ball bat in the Spring (ahh, nothing signals Spring like the crisp sound of plastic on plastic, at least for four-year old baseball fans), and continues unabated to today, as the World Series limps towards its end barely ahead of the first snowfall.

Owen was in his third year this year of playing first tee ball and now baseball in our local little league. The twins won't be five until next spring and were therefore still ineligible for tee ball this year. Anyway, Owen was on the local little league Twins this spring (an amusing coincidence to our own twins). As I occasionally began to work with Owen in the backyard, Cooper began to take some turns swinging as well. He was soon hitting my underhand pitching regularly, and by the end of summer he was practically taking my head off with line drives. He was out there playing constantly, and home plate was quickly worn down to a patch of dirt. Some days I would come home to find all twenty or so of our wiffle balls lying in the neighbors yard (despite our suburban location, our neighbors are not particularly welcoming types, and have a giant pet pig that is so large and in charge that the boys won't venture through their gate to collect balls when it is out in the yard).

Anyway, as interest grew, I decided to brush everyone up on their baseball basics and dug up a game I had bought on vacation a couple of years ago where you simulate a baseball game by flipping over cards that say things like strike, ball, foul, single, stolen base, etc. Cooper was soon obsessed with both batting in the yard and, when inside, playing the card game, constantly badgering anyone within earshot to do either. An amusing offshoot of the card game is that because the boys learned baseball rules through the game, they tend to sound like the game cards when playing real baseball in the yard, making pronouncements like "Hit by Pitch, Take Your Base" or "Strike Three, Batter Out."

By July, Cooper had moved beyond playing. Although he can't really read, he quickly mastered being able to recognize the name of each major league team in print. Every morning from mid-summer on, he charged outside for the newspapers as soon as he woke up, flipped them open to the box scores, and pored over them, interrupting whatever else was going on to make exciting announcements like "Dad, the Marlins beat the Astros 4 to 3." This led us to develop a system of categorizing the margins of victory - any game where there was a margin of victory of six or more runs is a "cream" and any victory by ten or more is a "super cream". You can imagine the excitement when the Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals 19-1 on July 26. You have never seen a more impressed group of little boys - a "super, super cream!!!" Also in common usage in our house is the term "versing," as developed by the twins. It is a variation on the term "versus," which, if it isn't actually a word already, really should be. An example of its use is: "Who are the Red Sox versing today?"

By August, he was also poring over the standings in the newspaper, marveling at six game winning streaks and studying how many games such and such team was behind some other team. By the end of the regular season, baseball fever in Cooper had reached its most ridiculous heights. When I arrived home one night after work, Suzy the Nanny was sitting on the couch reading to Cooper and Hayden, pretty much like every other night when I arrive home. This particular night, however, she was wading through a book Cooper had chosen to check out from the library; an exciting tome entitled: "How Baseball Managers Use Math." As Cooper sat in rapt attention (Hayden's attention level looked something well below rapt, and possibly even below bored, although he was being a good sport (pun intended!)), she read "ERA is the average number of runs a pitcher gives up in nine innings. ERA is a decimal number. To calculate ERA, take the number of earned runs given up by the pitcher. Multiply that number by 9. Then, divide that by the number of innings the pitcher pitched." Tough stuff for a 4 year old, yet Cooper kept her moving through the book each day. Some of the exciting chapter names included "The Manager and His Percentages," "Keeping a Close Eye on the Pitch Count" and "Decimals and Decision Making."

On the last Saturday of the regular season, I bought a pair of tickets to the long out-of-contention Cubs and whisked Cooper off to his very first big league game. First of all, when you are a twin, it is pretty cool to go anywhere with a parent by yourself, even to the bank or Home Depot. When I told him we were going, he got a huge smile and said "Just me???" Second of all, IT WAS A MAJOR LEAGUE GAME!!!! We had a fantastic time. We ate a bag of peanuts and tossed the shells under our seats ("These are tasty!" he told me repeatedly), as well as hot dogs, soda and french fries. Cooper bought his mitt and asked me repeatedly whether I was ready to catch a foul ball when one came our way, and then assured me each time that HE was ready. Despite 5 relatively close calls, no dice. A month later, he still likes to remind me of the final score of the game (Cubs 7, Cardinals 3!) and to recall other details.

It has been a blast seeing something take hold of my little guy and stir such passion. Truly one of my favorite parts of this past summer. I sincerely hope he enjoys 96 more years of baseball love and perhaps, someday, gets the joy of seeing the Cubs super-cream somebody in the World Series.

An Apology

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 23:21:00 +0000

Yesterday's post leaned heavily on BlogSpot's new strikethrough feature for any amusement value. After the CloudEight switchboards were flooded with calls, I realized that the strikethrough of various words may not have shown up when email subscribers to CloudEight were reading the post on a PDA, phone or some other means other than a standard computer, leaving readers unamused and befuddled by the apparently nonsensical language. We here at CloudEight regret the confusion and/or non-amusement caused to our loyal readers and will subsequently rely sparingly on the strikethrough feature. Complimentary CloudEight logo mugs are being mailed to the first 100 people who complained. By the way, the exhausted switchboard operators, bitter about the verbal abuse they took all day, busted into the CloudEight wine cellar and drank the $90 wine. They are a passive-aggressive bunch. Cheers!

The Extra-Fine Wine Mystery

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:52:00 +0000

Not that we are exactly hurting for things to do to keep us busy, but Deanna recently googled the various wines in our wine rack, as there were several bottles we knew nothing about - having been brought by one guest or another these past months. We were shocked to discover that one of the bottles retails for $90!!! Hot damn! For those of you who may not have had the pleasure of ~~unscrewing~~ uncorking a bottle with us, a $90 wine is much, much fancier than the usual ~~swill~~ vintages we ~~quaff~~ ~~guzzle~~ ~~chug~~ sip here on CloudEight. So, to whichever of our ~~foolishly~~ exceedingly generous, wealthy and very sophisticated friends (and I of course realize that doesn't really narrow it down at all; wink, wink!) bestowed this gift on us, many thanks - and if you identify yourself we will gladly have you back over to drink it with us (especially if you bring another bottle or two!). Be warned though, persons who falsely claim to have been the donors will be punished severely.

Cute Things Four Year Olds Say, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 03:06:00 +0000

Cute things the twins said tonight:

1. Hayden, showing me three quarters: "It's not change Dad, it's currency. You can buy things with it."

2. Me, to Cooper during the Bears/Packers game: "Gavin's Dad is at the game. He's a Packer's fan."

Cooper: "Why does he like the Packers?"

Me: "Because he is from Wisconsin"

Cooper: "But we like the Bears, right Dad, because we're from America."

Me: "You're right, Cooper."

Summer Wrap-up

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 02:42:00 +0000

There is no surer sign that Fall has arrived than the first Bears victory (insert your very clever and funny joke about Fall starting some years in November HERE). Thanks to keen coaching, raw desire, and the kindness of the officiating crew in enforning their nonsensical NFL rules, Fall has officially arrived on Cloud Eight.

How was summer on Cloud Eight, you ask? Well ... wet. From our rainy garage sale in June to fun with serious basement flooding and its aftermath much of the rest of the summer, water was the word. The wet was not all bad however - from the pool and the great swimming strides made by all three boys, to sprinklers, water balloons, spray-grounds and beaches, there was plenty of wet fun to go around as well.

Post-Flood Garbage Day - Bleh!

Here are some additional pictures, both water-themed and not, of what has been up here these past unblogged months (and yes, most were taken different days, despite Cooper's propensity to wear the same shirt every single day!):

Next Year's Christmas Card??

Beach in Door County

Owen and Cousin Emma - Lake Michigan

More Lake Michigan

Cooper - All-American

Fountains at Cantigny

Door County Fish Boil

Hayden

Flooding can be fun if you are 4 years old - otherwise, it sucks!

Me and Sunny D.

Millenium Park

Kids and Cousins on WWI Tank at Cantigny

Family in Door County

Some well-deserved rest

Summer Dinner Treat - Tacos de Muerte

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:29:00 +0000

The other night saw us, after a swirl of hectic events on a Wednesday evening, finally sitting down to dinner at 9 p.m. The late hour made it seem like we were living in Spain or something, except that instead of being European, we were simply crabby American parents and hungry, over-tired kids. Dinner was simple, hard-shelled beef tacos with fixings; no sides. After assembling my first taco, I spooned a bit of Paul Newman’s salsa onto it and took a bite. Almost immediately, I was pounding the table with a mouth on fire. Four heads turned quizzically towards me: “what the heck has gotten into Dad??” Through the tears in my eyes, I gasped out “This has got some kick.” I checked the label of the salsa – which claimed it was “medium.” Tired wife gently mocked me for overreacting as she finished assembling tacos for the kids. Everyone turned their attention to their own plates and commenced eating – no salsa. Thirty seconds later, chaos reigned. Hayden sat in his seat, unable to do anything other than repeatedly yell that his lips were burning. Cooper, reduced to inconsolable tears, wandered the dining room holding his tongue in his hand, unable to stop either the crying or the tongue-holding long enough to drink some soothing water or milk. Deanna and I were doing our best to lessen the wildfires burning in our own mouths while simultaneously trying to figure out what was going on and to get the kids to drink something. While I tended to the wounded, Deanna returned from the kitchen with the culprit. She had dumped what she thought was a can full of crushed tomatoes into the meat during cooking. It was actually a can of tomatoes that was spiked with jalapenos and habaneros and, frankly, tasted more like a can of jalapenos and habaneros spiked with a bit of tomato. You would think that the picture of a couple of tomatoes resting in a nest of hot peppers on the can, along with the helpful and prominently placed bilingual warnings on the front of the can that said “hot” and “picante” would have been a clue. But like I said, it was late and we were all tired. Once order was restored and I knew what I was dealing with, I actually enjoyed the challenge of powering through the meal, only occasionally being reduced to pounding the table or interrupted by Cooper’s gentle sobs. But those initial minutes when nobody knew why the hell our food was setting fire to our mouths certainly made it one of our more memorable meals.

That Twin Thing

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Sat, 22 May 2010 12:26:00 +0000

Time rolls on here on CloudEight; I blink and it has suddenly been almost two months since I posted. If I had to pick a headline among recent events here, it would be that the twins turned four last week!

As is all too common these days, they woke up bickering on their birthday. In fact, as a special birthday treat for us, they set a new record by bickering even before they were awake. Hayden had one of his recurring dreams where he is not getting his fair share and started yelling in his sleep "Cooper, give back my cereal!" Cooper woke up and starting mumbling "I didn't take your cereal" which only caused asleep/half-asleep Hayden to start yelling more. Oy.

They have been waiting to turn four for months, and Cooper in particular seemed to sense that being four would result in dramatic changes. He asked us repeatedly on his birthday whether he looked taller. He seemed mildly surprised that his pants still fit and reassured Deanna that she did not have to buy him new gym shoes as the old ones continued to appear to be able to contain his four-year-old feet.

While in many ways it has been awfully nice to have three-year olds, there are certain things I will not miss:

It would be nice if they were tall enough to stop hitting their heads on doorknobs. Hayden in particular, seems almost like he has a magnetic plate in his head that draws him to every doorknob he passes. Or he will need a metal plate soon enough if he doesn't stop whacking his melon this year.

It would also be nice if they were tall enough that they were not resting either their penises or balls on the rims of every public toilet and urinal they use. Nothing causes me to lose my appetite faster than watching Cooper shake the last drop of urine off his penis after peeing by whacking it repeatedly against the pee-stained rim of a fast-food restaurant urinal.

I will not miss the most commonly heard phrase in our house being "Can you wipe my butt?" This phrase has already mostly gone by the wayside, but was seriously heard more than any other this past year. It goes without saying that I will not miss the actual wiping of their butts either, except for maybe their excited inquiries as to how many wipes it was taking to actually clean them up each time. I guess it could be said that all the wiping helped them learn to count.

Things I will miss very much:

Naps!!!

Mispronunciations and odd phrasing. They still call going to sleep at night a "dark-out nap." The are crazy about all things Star Wars and like to fight each other with light "savers." At night, we either read from the Harry Potter books (Owen's preference) or from what the twins endearingly refer to as "storybooks with pictures."

Picking them up. I have enjoyed carrying the guys more as requests have become less frequent over time. Nothing like having a little guy snuggled against your shoulder.

That semi-fresh toddler smell. Not as good smelling as babies, but certainly better smelling than a boy.

While they are very different people, and more their own individuals every day, they remain extraordinarily close in that twin way. Cooper was giving Hayden a hard time about a young female acquaintance of theirs the other day, teasing him "You are going to marry her, you loooovvvvvve her." Hayden's reassuring reply: "I love you more Cooper." Ah, twins.

CloudEight Comedy Club

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:18:00 +0000

Deanna bravely takes the stage at CloudEight Comedy Club and finds it as punishing as I do:

"Deanna: Two monkeys named Pete and Repeat are sitting in a tree. Pete falls out. Who's left?
Cooper: There's one left.
Hayden: Yeah, one.
Deanna: No, Pete and Repeat are monkeys sitting in a tree. Pete falls out....
Owen: No, they are in a boat. Pete falls into the water.
Deanna: What would monkeys be doing in a boat? They are in a tree.
Hayden: One guy falls into the water. Splash.
Cooper: One guy falls out of the tree and hurts himself on the ground?
Owen: Mom, they don't even know what repeat means anyway."

Undaunted, she tries again later, but finds literalism a tough hurdle:

"Deanna: Knock, knock.
Owen: Who's there?
Deanna: Turnip.
Owen: Turnip who?
Deanna: Turnip the TV.
Owen: But the TV isn't even on."

Owen isn't the only literalist in the house. One day, Cooper and I are examining a map of Africa:

"Cooper: Dad, what country is that?
RedPlanet: That's Madagascar.
Cooper: Is that where gas cars come from?"

The Cocoon Begins to Fray

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:45:00 +0000

When we first moved into our neighborhood four years ago, Owen was a bit past three years old. Our block at the time was chock full of little boys, including another Owen the same age as ours. Our neighbors were for the most part welcoming sorts and I remember that as the weather warmed, we were invited to an outdoor shindig where we first got to know the families on the block. Owen gamely joined in with the crowd of boys his age and older, his first social foray into our new neighborhood, and one of his first in general outside what until then had been a fairly insular circle of relatives and close friends and his mates from daycare - a protected and idyllic little world. When we were leaving the neighborhood party, one of the older boys shouted "Goodbye Owen." He was talking to the Owen who had always lived on the block but our little guy, thinking he was talking to him and that he had made a new friend, stopped, turned around, walked up to him, and gave him a big goodbye hug. Owen couldn't see but the kid's facial expression was essentially "what the *$&% is this new kid doing." That moment is seared in my memory because I remember thinking how little and innocent and good Owen was and how much I hoped that the kid he was hugging wouldn't say out loud what his facial expression was saying. He didn't, but I knew it wouldn't be long before the world started seeping through the protective emotional cocoon that we are able to construct for our toddlers.

Tonight, as we were all reading books and Deanna was quizzing Owen about his day, he suddenly let forth with weeks of drama between himself and his close friends, as he and another boy jockeyed for the position of "best friend" of a third boy. Owen, usually so quietly popular, happy, and confident, was suddenly wracked with anguish and the sudden feeling that the boy he naively and happily thought was going to be his best friend for life was being stolen from him. His wails of sadness and loss as he told of minor cruelties were truly heartbreaking - a sudden and painful reminder to us as parents that the world is at its core a rough place, and that no matter how much we want to protect our little guys from the crueler lessons of life, life is going to be teaching those lessons whether we want it to or not. The emotional ride-along we are in for as parents is, I suddenly realize, going to be almost as painful as when we went through it all ourselves growing up. Part of life, I know, but couldn't someone of told me about this tough part of the job when we applied?

No Monkeys In Heaven!

noreply@blogger.com (RedPlanet) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:38:00 +0000

The other day found me washing dishes and singing "Monkey Gone to Heaven" by the Pixies. As someone borrowed my CD copy of the Pixies "Dolittle" 15 years ago and never returned it (I'm talking to you Denmarsh!), my singing pretty much consisted of repeating the part of the chorus that goes "This monkeys gone to Heaven" over and over since I can't presently remember any of the other lyrics. Deanna, six years younger than I and thus sometimes alarmingly naive about the treasure trove of music that was the 1980s, first indicated that she had never heard the song. Then, taking my repeated lyric at its literal best, she declared out of the blue "There are no monkeys in heaven."

"What?!?!" I replied. Twelve years of marriage and I am blindsided by this assertion. This led immediately to a theological discussion of what exactly heaven is like, what form everything is in there, and who is eligible to enter. Deanna's vision - no physical form, just some spark of existence being promoted upon death to a nebulous free-floating state. Picture a bunch of Tinkerbell-like lights (souls) flitting around in what looks like outer space. She seemed a little vague about where the line would be drawn when pressed for details on what types of lifeforms are allowed but was clear that monkeys and trees were excluded (she later conceded on the monkeys but held firm on no trees). Worst of all, no one is actually doing anything. Just flits of light flitting. Souls floating in the ether. Boooooorrrring!

My vision is that Heaven looks a bit like Wii Sports Resort. A cool place where you can spend the afternoon bowling with Thomas Jefferson and John Lennon. I picture catching up with my friend Jeni from high school and getting to know my grandfathers whom I never had a chance to know on earth, perhaps over archery or some cocktails (but not both - experience has taught me that archery and cocktails are a poor combination). Is that Charles Lindbergh piloting the Piper Cub that gives scenic "Get to Know Heaven" tours; why yes it is!" Hey Vasco de Gama and Lewis and Clark, catch you guys later for some orienteering! How about some ziplining with Walter Payton and Teddy Roosevelt! I could go on but you get the picture. And in my Heaven, there is surely no shortage of trees or monkeys - in fact, my Heaven is lousy with them, AND they talk.

Deanna and I continued our debate upstairs, where we presented our conflicting views of Heaven to Owen, who not surprisingly found mine to be more appealing. About that time one of the twins wandered in with no clothes on. Deanna instructed him to get his pajamas on and, as an aside, noted that "God does not want to see your naked butt." Both twins then quite confidently asserted that God loved their butts as much as the rest of them, and to prove their point, joyously bent over to raise their naked butts heavenward. And somewhere far above, a foursome made up of God, a monkey, a Peruvian peasant, and Revolutionary War Hero Marquis de Lafayette looked down and chuckled appreciatively before turning their attention back to their golf game.