wombat and the hurricane

Romney's Milestone

2012-10-08T15:00:00.000-06:00

At Romney's last soccer game he achieved greatness and hit a personal milestone.

This is Rom's first year in soccer and he has been very eager to score a goal. The good news is he finally did it! He scored two goals! The bad news? One of them was for the other team.

My new favorite part of Saturday mornings.....if only it were not every Saturday.

You may now call me......

2012-07-31T21:23:00.002-06:00

So last night something happened. Something Big. Last night I went to my last class! So, despite that I "walked" for graduation a few months ago - Rom referred to this as "fake graduation" - yesterday I walked out of class and officially graduated. I would prefer from now on that you all refer to me as Master.

Of course, someone once told me that an MBA is someone that knows a little about a lot of things so I'm not really sure what I'm the master of....but either way Master Jackson has a nice ring to it.

Want to know something else really cool? In about three weeks my mom will graduate with her Masters degree also. Don't worry mom - I'll call you master too. Can I just call you MM for Master Mom?

Want to know something lame? I wrote a most of a blog about a month ago about one of Marie's amazing accomplishments that is really equal to my graduation. I promise to finish it and post it soon.

fun fun fun.....

2012-07-30T20:54:00.001-06:00

Day 1 - Saturday
Beach fun. Lainey said she wanted to break the world record for number of times getting thrown off of the dock. Later she changed her mind. Here was a little toss before a mountain bike ride. She got over it quickly.

Boat ride to see a moose across the bay

Why is Rom always laying down?

Day 2
no pictures. Turns out Rom is always laying down because he has a strep throat and a fever of 105. Oops. Drive to Idaho Falls and get some antibiotics and hope we don't all get sick.

Day 3
Marie's Birthday! Yeah! Party!

ROOT BEER FLOATS! Marie's favorite. Looks like L likes them too.

Rom feels good enough to chase people down with his water sprayer thing.

Most of the time.....

Day 4

Cousin Matching Jammie Day...you know - in honor of the pioneers

Still recovering....sometimes. Temp hits 105 again but then never comes back.

if he is just going to lay there we might as well bury him....

Feeling Brave.....

Day 5
more and more cousin fun (3rd cousins technically. Who plays with their third cousins?)

First official mountain bike ride for the Hurricane. (slightly overshadowed by huckleberries and toads)

Day 6
Baby lunch

My girls...

Really feeling better

Style points

Day 7
More fun

More fun

More Fun

Day 8
Still fun...

Waterski!

Happy? Me? yeah

Marie gets brave

Day 9
New cousins come to take our place.....

bye bye cabin. we miss you already.

Happy Father's Day

2012-06-17T19:08:00.002-06:00

At church today I got an awesome cookie because I'm such a good dad. Joanie was hanging on to it for me because she is so helpful. I was happy to let her play with it because she seemed to enjoy the sound of the plastic bag and was having a good time shaking it around. I didn't realize she had more nefarious intentions. Next time I saw her she looked like this. If only you could see all the places I found chocolate. I still can't figure out how she ate the whole cookie so fast. This is really what father's day is all about.....

Calvin

2012-06-13T23:04:00.000-06:00

(if you want the short version of this blog - skip to the bottom. Whatever you do don't miss that video. It will change your life.)

For years I loved reading the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Who doesn't really? The comic was funny because it mimicked the real live of the average 6 year old boy. Well my friends, I now live with a six year old boy and I can easily see where the inspiration for the comic came from. What you are about to see is not a pre-scripted simulation. This is all real, spontaneous creation of our six year old also known as the Wombat.

Fist there was the night I came home to find the babysitter feeling satisfied at a job well done. She, in fact, had done a great job and we would love her to babysit anytime. She told me they had a great night with the kids and they had done face painting. YES! You gotta love a babysitter that plays with the kids. No problem, I thought. She did warn me that Romney didn't want to take off his face paint. Again - no problem. When I went down for the night to check on him before I went to bed I expected to see a spider on his cheek or maybe a snake or lightning bolt. Instead, I found this kid looking like the old WWF Ultimate Warrior....or maybe a little like Stupendous Man!

The other day I found this in our family room. "DO NOT TOUCH PLEASE!" The writing immediately reminded me of Calvin. I couldn't find a picture but I'm sure there is a comic somewhere with Calvin trying to keep Suzie out of the G.R.O.S.S club with a sign that looks something like this...

This was Romney's latest costume. He LOVES creating stuff with tin foil. We go through a lot.

He also loves this hat. He wanted to wear "his cowboy hat" to the natural history museum with his white button up shirt and slacks because he wanted to "look nice." He cried when we wouldn't let him wear his OTHER had that is even bigger than this one to a rodeo recently. We were concerned no one would be able to sit next to him.

It is great when he gets the camera all to himself....

And nobody has moves like my six year old.

The little things

2012-06-09T08:48:00.000-06:00

In our family we feel like we should celebrate small milestones. For example....Joanie is over a year old now and her life has been hardly recorded at all. The first year primarily consisted of sleeping, eating, laughing, and crying. She was/is the sweetest of babies. At some point around the 9/10/11 month mark she developed a loud screech that basically stated...I WANT. Guess what? SHE GOT. I don't know what it is about the girls in our family but they come with STRONG opinions.

Here are a few milestones we celebrated recently in Joanie's life...
FIRST BIRTHDAY!

FIRST BED HEAD! Lets be honest...some us in the family struggle to grow hair on our heads.

FIRST SUSHI NIGHT WITH PICKLED GINGER! Hmmm...many significant milestones in our family involve food. (I couldn't figure out how to get the video to download. Too bad for you. She loved the ginger and kept asking for more...but she always made this face between each bite.)

FIRST MEXI-NIGHT WITH SPICY SALSA! I told you we liked food.

FIRST SLOT CANYON! Dangerous? Depends on who you ask.

FIRST PRACTICING....

FIRST MISCHIEF (this is clearly her favorite drawer. Her 459th mischief was when she turned off the computer while I was writing this post...TWICE....A little passive aggressive if you ask me.)

And while there is no picture to mark the occasion, yesterday our little J Bird, Bright Eyes, JJ, Baby J, Joanie Baby....took her first consecutive steps. We couldn't be more proud.

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled

2012-05-31T22:20:00.001-06:00

Okay peoples. (by peoples I mean - Hi Mom!) I'm just going to pretend like I haven't been neglecting my blog for the last two years and pretend like I've kept a careful record all this time. In fact I have. I mentioned Joanie was born and since my blog has really been about the funny things that happen in my life it is safe to assume that NOTHING funny has happened in the last two years. Nothing whatsoever. My MBA program is SOOOOO close to being done and some things are about to change around here and now....abracadabra.....I blog again. So there you go.

I have a funny to story to tell you about my brilliant daughter...aka The Hurricane...but first I have a confession. I am...right now...at this moment...downloading an album illegally. I really didn't want to but I was left with NO options! I've wasted so much time tonight trying to buy the album legitimately that I finally gave up. The album is one of my new favorites. The artist is Passenger and he has a new album and I want it. I went to his Facebook page and tried to buy it from his store but they will only ship to the U.K. So I found it on iTunes, only it is not available in the US iTunes store. I found it in the Australian iTunes store but since I don't live in Australia, iTunes won't sell it to me. Later, I also found it on the German/European iTunes page but I don't live there either. Frustrating! What is a guy to do? I could listen to it on Spotify, but it isn't there either and they continually confuse the indie folk Passenger from the UK with the hard rocking metal band Passenger from Sweden. They are not the same. Going without the new album was not an option so I just started googling it and unfortunately I could only find illicit ways to acquire the album so here I am with credit card in hand and nothing but a free illegal download that is probably going to give my computer an STD or something. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

So anyway - the reason we are here......I was in charge of dinner the other night and that meant what is usually means, which is a 5 buck Hot and Ready pizza and, if we are lucky, maybe some crazy bread. We eat at Little Caesars all the time (by all the time I mean most Mondays when Marie has to work late) because you just can't beat a meal for 5 bucks that you don't have to make or clean up. A few weeks before this wonderful meal I had attended a parent/teacher/kid (because we go to a hippie school so the kids come to the conference too as full participants) and Lainey's teacher heaped on the praise. She went on and on about how awesome Lainey is and how she is one of her favorite students and she wasn't kidding. (IF ONLY WE COULD GET HER TO BEHAVE THE SAME WAY AT HOME!) Lainey was doing so great and is doing so well that she was given the blessed opportunity to do an extra research project WHAT? Yeah, you are so good that you can do extra. I knew right away that this sounded like more work for me (okay, for Marie) rather than for Lainey but she was excited. Lainey is great. She is a wonderful, smart, bright girl. I'm not one of those parents who thinks that their kid is smarter than everyone else - really. She is awesome but I don't care if she is top of her class. Too much pressure. That is why we chose the hippie school over the ELP school. Those people were crazy. (Sorry those people.) The point is, Laine chose Italy for her research project. So we were driving home from Little Caesars with our meal in a box and Romney started practicing his reading and read the box with the name Little Caesars. Thinking that I'd be a good educational dad, I said to Lainey - "Do you know why it is Little Caesar? Do you know who the name refers to?" At this point, Laine says, "Well, is it Caesar Augustus or or Julius Caesar?" My response was.."uh...well, um. uh."

Smart kids can be such a pain.

Download complete.....

Spring Camping, Part I

2012-05-01T21:46:00.003-06:00

Hooray for Spring and the camping that comes with it! We dragged the Kingfish down south with us as our guide to some pretty epic slot canyons. We left snow in the homeland only to meet 11 degree lows at night, but the kids were troopers and we all lived to see another day in the canyon.

there is still snow but it won't last

2011-04-11T22:46:00.003-06:00

Anybody need a bargain priced, not-too-far-but-far-enough vacation? The answer for me is always yes, and on the hunch that some of you might feel the same, we've got a good suggestion...
We own a vacation-rental condo up on Jordanelle Reservoir, in the very near vicinity of Park City, and also very close to Heber. It's our off season (hence, not steadily rented), so for anyone who is interested, we're offering it up for $50/night, as long as you agree to clean it when you're done, and leave it lookin' good for the next people. If you'd rather not clean it, we have a great lady who will clean it for you for $80.
It was mostly decorated by my sister in law Jane, so you know it's pretty classy. There is a hot tub not far and the condo sleeps up to 8 people between a king sized bed, a bunk bed with trundle, and a hideaway bed.

First come, first served. If you know us, email us if you're interested. If you are here by chance and you don't know us, leave us a comment with your email and we'll email you!

Here's the link with photos of the place and more info: http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p165719

Holy moly meet little Joanie

2011-03-31T22:40:00.000-06:00

We added a new little one to our little family today! Joanie Grace Jackson was born today at 4:12 PM. (sounds like the beginning of an obituary but I couldn't think of how else to start it.) So she surprised us by being a little bigger than expected. Wombat and the Hurricane both weighed in at 6.14 and 6.7 respectively and but little sister was 8.14. We have already moved her up a weight class for her future wrestling classes.

Marie and Joanie are both feeling great and doing well. Joanie has so far shown her disposition to be calm. She has hardly made a peep, she eats her dinner without complaining, and seems so far to be the infant version of Mary Poppins. Practically perfect in every way.

Baby's got back

2011-01-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and family and blog stalkers,

Immediate tangent before I start the post - I'm thinking of getting more blog stalkers and making money from them through my blogging. I hear people do it all the time. I also hear those people don't have real jobs and only have cats instead of children but I still think it is possible for me, even though I hate cats. If you want to help me prove it is possible, please send me money. That will show those people who say it not possible.

Anyway - we are kind of back on topic now. Money. Your money, really, because that is the point of this post. I'm writing to invite you to part with some of your money for a good cause. (maybe a better cause than sending it to me but not 100% sure of that.)

My mom has organized a 5k fun run/walk in March and I'm trying to help recruit support. My mom is an endoscopy nurse and very involved in colon cancer screenings. Do you know what an endoscopy nurse is? I didn't until my mom became one. Lets put it this way, imagine you need a scope to enter your body through an existing opening. An endoscopy nurse is the one that sticks that scope into that existing opening. Nuff said?

So back to the run, sort of. Endoscopy nurses are a strange breed with an odd sense of humor so you never know what you will find on a run like this. Already I think it is a bit strange. The run is called the Buns Up 5k Run. Buns up? I know. I don't really know what to think of that either. Here are some of my concerns about a race called buns up.....

1. I'm afraid that the swag bag that normally has things like hammer gel and coupons for REI will have stuff in it like that drink that gives you diarrhea before you have your colonoscopy. If there are coupons, what will they be for? I don't even want to speculate to be honest. More realistic (and things that encoscopy nurses will think are funny or cute) are little Christmas tree ornaments or stuffed toys that look like Eneman...... I will just let that sink in for a minute......you read that right. There is a character named Eneman. (follow him on facebook here.) He is a young and budding superhero. He looks like a home use enema, only more colorful. One of the first signs that I knew my mom had really succumbed to the world of endoscopy nurses was when I found a small enema man ornament on our Christmas tree. I asked her to take it down and she said she thought it was cute. Several weeks later she was cruising around in crocs decorated with Eneman. Maybe they will throw in a copy of the Fleet calendar. (WOW) Scary. And weird.

2. Registration waiver. I have already signed up but I think I should have read this more carefully. Do I have to run bum exposed? That would be in the waiver right? I'm going to get a t-shirt and not a hospital gown, right? oh man I hope so.

3. After race perks. A lot of big races out there have nice things at the end. You might be able to get a quick massage or maybe a back adjustment from a local chiropractor. I'm worried about what could be at the end of this race. Under a tent, behind the curtain, what could they offer? Hip coffee colonics maybe? I hear they are all the rage.

Okay - so all (or most) joking aside. This is a great event to support a great cause. The proceeds from the event will go towards a program to pay for colonoscopies in order to help with the early detection of cancer for those that may not be able to afford the procedure. The race will be held up at the Olympus Hills mall, over to Millcreek, and back. The real goal is to get sponsors but you can't get sponsors without runners!

I've signed up. I hope you will sign up. Come run with me. (Unless I'm at the hospital because we are having a baby sometime really close to this date.)

Really. It will be a fun - SCOPE FREE - day. Here are links for more information and to register...

Buns Up Colon Cancer 5K run

Date & Time: Saturday, March 26, 2011 9:00AM

Location: Olympus Hills Shopping Center

Cost: Entry Fee $25, after March 19th, $30.

http://www.active.com/running/slc-ut/buns-up-colon-cancer-5k-run-2011

http://www.mwsgna.com/?page_id=10

http://www.sports-am.com/events/index1523.htm

don't speak

2011-01-18T22:47:00.001-07:00

Dear Walgreen's Management, Trainers, and Staff.

I have had a concern for many many many months now that I'm finally able to address in this letter to you. Now that we know we are having another wonderful little girl (in three months!) and now that my wife is large enough that everyone else knows it as well I would like to make some very direct and specific suggestions for future training meetings with your store employees.

I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not but your store touts itself as a pharmacy and a lot of really personal things happen at a pharmacy. I am willing to guess that most people don't like to talk about any of these things. Just to give you an idea of what I mean, no one is hoping or expecting you to ask them why they are buying hemorrhoid cream. That would be awkward, don't you think? It wouldn't really be appropriate to say something like, "hmm, Prozac, huh? You been feelin' depressed?" There are a whole variety of items that you sell in your stores that require no comment whatsoever. (It could be argued that store clerks should really not comment on anything but sometimes I expect they just can't help but comment on anything that says "as seen on TV" on it and I really can't blame them for that.)

Just to be 100% certain we are communicating properly, here are just a few suggestions of things they should not comment on:

(these are children. don't ask me about it)

condoms
pregnancy tests
tampons
adult diapers
Enema kits
Anything fungus related
and finally the one most relevant to me and my life experience (that I will admit)......Ovulation kits.

You see, we have been hoping to have a baby for a few years now and despite understanding the process quite well, had previously been unsuccessful. In order to aid us in this process we needed a few ovulation kits. I know you don't need to understand all the background here but please understand that while there are many things in this world that could be considered "turn offs," peeing on stick every day is one of them. The only thing that could make that experience any worse is to have to talk to the cashier at our local store about the ovulation kit every time you buy one. Because we have been trying for some time now, we have had to purchase quite a few of these kits and so far we have found no room for comments like, "you are going to have another one, huh?" or "I see you have two, how many more are you hoping for?" or "what are you going to do tonight?" (PS- answer is pee on a stick and then be angry about it, thank you very much.)

I would suggest that in the future you could possibly train your clerks that the polite thing to do is NOT make small talk. I know they are bored and need someone to talk to and the items being purchased could make good conversation pieces if they are snuggies or light sabers or cadbury chocolate but when the items consist of pretty much anything used in the bathroom please refrain from talking at all. Actually, if you could train them to avoid eye contact in these situations that would be even better.

Sincerely etc. etc.

uh...well...I don't know how to say this

2011-01-10T22:43:00.000-07:00

So I had one of those experiences today that makes me glad I don't really blog that much anymore because then I can record it for posterity and no one will ask me about it at church.

Right now I should be doing homework. School starts up again tomorrow and I'm really really really resisting it. I think maybe next semester I'm going to transfer to red box university or something. I'll bet I'll ace all of my classes then. This week I start managerial economics. I don't think they have that at the red box yet.

Anyway, something embarrassing happened today. Something I don't really understand, to be honest. I just don't understand how it could have happened. I also don't really know which words would be appropriate to use. The story requires delicate, embarrassing words. The kind of words that I think are usually only used when my wife goes to book club. I do have a standing invitation to book club because of my tendency to say inappropriate things so I'll just have to trust that the words will come to me.

My story starts about mid-afternoon today when my all fruit and spinach smoothie had sufficiently worked its way through my body and began to seek escape. It was also that time of afternoon when it seems to happen to everyone else also. Every stall on my floor was full. Next floor down was also full. Finally, I found one open stall in the basement and was able to "take care of business" as we say here in the Jackson household. (sometime you should ask the wombat to sing you "takin' care of business" by BTO. It is pretty awesome. He changes some of the words but it is great.)

So anyway, everything went just fine and I went back upstairs and got back to work. After a phone call and a few emails I needed to go talk to someone else so I stood up and walked out into the hall. As I walked I caught a quick glance of something white beneath my feet. Pretty quickly my brain processed this as toilet paper stuck to my shoe. "Embarrassing," I thought. I stopped and reached down to grab it only to realize it was no longer there but had come off just behind me. I bent down to get it only to realize that it was not, in fact, toilet paper. Nope, definitely not toliet paper.

It was my underwear.

Confused, I quickly snatched up my underwear and put it my pocket and quickly started walking back down the hall unsure if anyone in the cubicle jungle around me had noticed this quick event. I didn't look back to find out either. I didn't want to know. I was on my way to talk to someone so I just kept going. On the way there I couldn't help but wonder how my underwear could have suddenly fallen out of my pant leg. I started going through the last 30 minutes in my head trying to figure out if there is anyway my underwear could have fallen off when I went to the bathroom. I thought through it and was quite confident that I had not undressed in the bathroom in any way to make this possible and yet........

Next I put my hands in my pockets to see if I could feel my underwear in there anywhere. I couldn't be sure. I was starting to feel very concerned. Finally I made it to the bathroom, went into a gratefully available stall and confirmed for sure that I WAS in fact wearing underwear. What a relief! But if I was wearing underwear, then where did these come from? I checked the size and they looked like mine. Finally I decided to smell them and they even smelled clean (gratefully).

I'm pretty sure I must have had some crazy static cling going on in these pants but here is the really crazy thing.....today was something like the fourth day in a row I've worn these pants. I know this isn't the sort of thing I should be admitting at this point of an embarrassing post but it is true. I don't really believe that pants get dirty so I re-wear them a lot. Just a few days ago, I was wearing these pants in front of a large group of people from around the country giving a presentation. Can you imagine if my underwear had fallen out then? And how really could I have not felt it in there after putting these pants on and off for days?

Laine the Hurricane got the game Clue for Christmas so we have been playing it A LOT. It is pretty fun actually and there are some changes to the old school game. There are these cards called "intrigue" cards that you can play. If you don't want to show someone a card you can play an intrigue card that says "the rumor remains unanswered." So that is how this story must end. Great intrigue, and an unanswered rumor of the underwear.

Success and Failure (mostly failure)

2010-10-23T16:50:00.012-06:00

I had one of those moments recently when I finally really felt like I was a successful parent. Romney turned 5 this month and Marie asked him one day what he wanted to do for his birthday. His answer? "Mom, I want to go backpacking! The kind where we sleep in a tent. And...rock climbing."

YES! Success! Maybe you don't define the success of your parenting the same why I do but whether you call it brainwashing, proper training, getting your kids to like cool things, or just plain old getting your kids to like what YOU like so you can bring them with you - to me this really felt like a true, tangible, measurable evidence of our superior parenting skills.

However, as those of you with more experience know, it was all a set up for finding out that we are not that great after all.

You see, we have this problem in our basement with a certain smell. This certain smell, well, it smells a lot like pee. We can't (our couldn't) find the source. We knew the area of the basement and we know that we have son with less than perfect bladder control but all the usual sources of such smells (you know - the bed, a pair of underwear stashed behind his dresser etc) were all coming up empty. Until today. Today I was helping Romney clean his room when I was moved by my worst fears to ask my little guy a point blank question.

"Rom, have you ever gone to the bathroom in your bedroom?"

silence

"Rom, I need to know. Have you ever gone to the bathroom in your bedroom?"

severe lack of eye contact and...silence

"okay Rom, I'm not going to get angry but I need to know the truth. Have you ever gone pee in your room?"

"Yes."

"In this corner?"

"Yes."

"Why?" (trying to sound like a thoughtful, understating dad instead of what I really am which is a super grossed out and seriously weirded out dad)

"Well, sometimes I really have to go and I don't think I can make it upstairs."

"So you go in the corner of your room?????"

Later I got it out of him that he had done it at least "a few" times. At this point when he realized I wasn't going to yell at him he talking about it didn't seem to phase him. ("oh yeah, a few times at least. Check out my Iron Man, Dad!")

(can you believe such a cute kid PEES IN THE CORNER OF HIS ROOM? ahhhhh)

Oh well. Back to failure parent status. It's okay, I really feel more comfortable this way. It was a lot of pressure for those few days when I was a successful parent. I'm glad to have that behind me.

(ps - dad, can I borrower your carpet shampooer thing?)

long long time ago

2010-10-01T21:20:00.005-06:00

I know many of you think we quit blogging. We haven't. It just that Marie and I have been really really busy.

cheezits

2010-06-13T13:59:00.003-06:00

so I was sitting by Romney in church today, and he was animatedly telling me all about spiderman, complete with loud noises. apparently he was loud enough that he could be heard from the stand, but I didn't know that until later. But he was loud enough and the rest of the church was quiet enough, that it was clear we needed to calm things down a little. So I leaned over and said, "Romney, we need to be reverent. All the people are being really reverent right now because they're thinking about Jesus."

"I DON'T WANT CHEEZ-ITS! I DON'T LIKE CHEEZ-ITS!"

not exactly reverence material.

"um, Jesus, Rom. Jesus. People are thinking about Jesus."

Rom also recently got stuck in this box.....

911

2010-06-08T16:18:00.001-06:00

Romney - Mom - who's number is 911?

Marie - It is for emergencies, like if there is a fire or if someone is really hurt or maybe if you need a policeman.

Romney - yeah, OR mom, like if you jump out of an airplane and you forget your parachute. Could you call 911 then?

Marie- uh, well, I don't know.

Romney - no mom, I mean like if you jump out of a plane and you forget your parachute but you have your phone.

Marie - sure Rom, good thinking.

Keep it loose, keep it right

2010-06-06T14:04:00.009-06:00

Okay, so really there is no way to catch up on two months worth of posts. I'm upset with myself already for not writing anything for so long. Two great camping trips, 10 years of marriage marked by an epic snowstorm and unbelievable powdery spring skiing, the Moab 50 mile relay, Romney starring in the Spanish school play as Mogli - (mini side post - best line from the play. "You must be a girl. Lets go." It was very teen girl squadish.)

So anyway - just too much to catch up on. In my defense I worked evenings most of the month of May so I just never quite had time for posting, or exercising, or going to Lagoon or anything and the one time Marie decided to post she was only a few lines in before I picked a fight with her over something dumb like what setting should be used on the toaster and that post never saw the light of day.

One momentous occasion did occur this week that has brought me back to the blog. It was not only a marker for Lainey in her child development but for Marie and I as parents. Lainey's first tooth FINALLY fell out. Lainey is one of only two kids in her class at school that had not lost a tooth. We are a household of late bloomers in these sorts of things and Lainey was feeling very discouraged that she had not yet lost a tooth. She has invented (or desperately hoped in the past) that some of her other teeth were loose but they never actually were. Once this tooth was confirmed a true loose tooth (what seems like 6 months ago but was probably only a month or two ago) she has asked every single day when it was going to fall out. As any good father would I certainly offered to get out my pliers and pull it, tie a string to doorknob and slam it, and any other ways I could think of to get the tooth out but Lainey does not have a very high pain tolerance and ultimately her fear of pain trumped her desire for the tooth to come out.

Someone with credibility (i.e. - not her parents) finally told her to just use a dry paper towel and just pull on it. She did and sure enough a few minutes later the tooth was out!

The tooth fairy also made his first visit and Lainey came out with a whole dollar. Now that we have realized the potential cash flow that could be created by the shedding of teeth I have offered to pull the rest of her teeth (and it is possible I have also threatened to do it in her sleep) but so far she has been uninterested in this flawless get rich quick scheme. I have not given up however because I think I could go out to dinner at least a couple of times from the tooth removal proceeds.

The best part of all is we have been asked to make filmstrip for a 2nd grade health class on oral health. We are doing just the tooth fairy part. Here are the frames we have so far. I'll post the final version when complete or you can email me if you would like the "live action" flip-book version emailed to you.

the wombat skis

2010-04-13T20:36:00.003-06:00

first. I do not consider myself bound by the earlier pronouncement that all blog titles will now also be song titles. but maybe this one should be a song title.all of these late season storms have given us a few more chances to get the kids up skiing a little bit more. Lainey thinks she is done for the season, so she decided to have a playdate instead, giving me and Jim the chance to spend some time alone with Rom on the mountain. so fun! (read: so much more fun than skiing with steady tantrums on the sidelines because another child that may or may not belong to us is not getting enough undivided attention.)

he preferred skiing straight onto the rope tow to waiting in line for the lift, so after one run down the "big" mountain, we opted for lots of little runs. he was determined to ride the tow by himself, and after a few rides of being dragged up the mountain or just falling off, he got the hang of it.

(in case you're wondering what I'm doing at the very end of this movie, I am cringing, totally sure he's going to plow straight through the blue fence things.)

Ship of Fools

2010-04-05T15:15:00.007-06:00

Laine the Hurricane really has not gotten much action on the blog lately which is mostly because she doesn't misbehave near as much anymore and she is smart enough to clean up and never say anything when she misses the toilet.

The Hurricane is, however, very excited about days like April Fool's Day. Honestly, I don't know why. I pretty much dropped out of elementary school thanks to St. Patrick's Day, April Fool's Day, and Opposite Day. If I met one more 3rd grader that hid a green sticker on the bottom of their socks so they could then give 10 pinches to the person who pinched them illegally, well then, then I would have probably gotten in my first fist fight. I hated those days in elementary school. Lainey on the other hand can barely sleep because she is so excited about what trickery might possibly befall her on April Fool's Day.

She had a few plans of her own this year. Her first plan was that she was going to put syrup on Romney's tooth brush and then somehow get him to brush his teeth in the morning. (I'm not sure why she felt capable of getting him to do this because I usually have to make him believe that his teeth are about to fall out until he cries and then he finally will brush his teeth.) So anyway - Laine put her plan in motion the next morning and after getting syrup pretty much EVERYWHERE in the bathroom ("Lainey! How did syrup get on top of the mirror?") she did get Romney to brush his teeth. He, of course, thought it was awesome and would like to brush his teeth with syrup every morning now. Before she went to bed, Lainey also cut out little scraps of paper to put over Romney's glasses so he wouldn't be able to see when we woke up in the morning.

Marie and I knew Lainey was desperate for us to do something to her and luckily we remembered just before we were going to bed. We decided the best trick would be something that would also benefit us so we went into her room and moved her dresser right in front of the doorway (don't worry - her door was open) [previous don't worry line added by editor to avoid visit from DCFS] so she wouldn't be able to get out of her room in the morning. We didn't want Romney to feel left out so we just stole all of his drawers and hid them, and then, since his room is at the bottom of the stairs we put all of our bean bags, exercise balls, and a laundry basket on the stairs so he wouldn't be able to get up either. (We then said a prayer that neither kid would have to go to the bathroom in the night.) Finally we changed all the clocks in the house so they said different times.

The first thing we heard in the morning was Lainey yelling from her room. "OH COME ON! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" (it was awesome!) Finally she figured out a way to climb over it and came into our room. Shortly there after we heard Romney yelling, "HELP!" We got them both up and then noticed the clock in the kitchen said it was after 9:00 so we realized we must be really late for school and I told Lainey we had to leave for school immediately! (there were a lot of exclamation points that morning.) Lainey was wearing these goofy pajamas for a 2 year old but she is so skinny they fit her like capris and so she thinks they are cool. We threw on her snow boots, grabbed a coat to put over her p.j.s and ran out to the car. Lainey wasn't sure what to make of all this. "Dad, are we really going to school? Dad, are you really taking me to school in my pajamas?" I think she was skeptical until we got to the end of our street and turned towards school. Then I turned into 7-11 and told her, "April Fools!" Seriously, you would have thought it was her birthday she was so happy. We bought some milk and a 12 dollar mini box of lucky charms and headed home.

When we got home we found Marie fully in the April Fool's spirit typing an email to her book club that they were all going to have to read Eclipse for April. It was pretty funny, especially because so many believed her and spent most of the day expressing their disappointment to their spouses and co-workers. (Favorite quote, "I really just expected more from Marie.") Marie was squirming uncomfortably all day. ("What if someone buys the book today? Everyone is going to know for sure that I'm kidding.") In the end she finally decided it was worth it.

It is not often that Marie and I feel like we live up to our kids' expectations. Most days are occupied by our children trying to help us understand the diverse ways that we are horrible, mean parents. Usually we are complete disappointments but this was one morning when we thought it might be possible that our kids were not completely depressed to have such loser, mean parents. Isn't it strange that we have to play big jokes and do mean things for them to think we are nice? Kids really should come with more instructions.

Life in Technicolor

2010-03-29T18:46:00.001-06:00

Text message of the week from my sister-in-law…. (who knows, this possibly could be a new feature)

“Not to alarm you but Rom spent most of the morning with a permanent marker. I might owe you a new pair of shoes and some toys and a section of your floor.”

Terrible twos were a crock

Tricky threes were as easy as a cartwheel but

Romney is going to be lucky to survive the throw-you-out-the-window fours.

Living in the twilight

2010-03-28T20:08:00.000-06:00

Marie is making me go downstairs right now to watch New Moon.

I'd rather watch this movie....

I don't know why

2010-03-26T14:26:00.000-06:00

Romney has hit that inquisitive phase in life where the only things that come out of his mouth are the following......
1. No
2. Why?

He is a double question-asker, and sometimes his questions are hard. Here is a sample format to understand what I mean. It goes like this...
"Why does blah blah blah blah? Why daddy why?"
"Why does something something something? Why does it dad? Why?"

Every time. Here are a few questions from this week.

Why do we try and not crash our car?
What happens if our car is on fire?
What would we do if the tires of our car were on fire?
Why don’t we have a fire proof car?
Do we die if we catch on fire?
What would we do if our hands were on fire?
Would we die if we had balls of fire in our hands?
Why are there leaves on trees?
How do the trees grow the leaves?
Why are leaves green?
Why is Lainey older than me?
When I’m 8 will Lainey still be older than me?
Why does Jesus want Lainey to be older than me?
When I’m 8 will I still be older than Will?
Why do you know how to drive a car?
Why do we have to be safe inside a car?
How do you get strong?
How do boats get on fire?
How does fire come down from the sky?
How do you know how to drive a car?
Why does snow melt when it touches the ground?

BUT...
Those questions are nothing compared to these.....
How does the baby get inside the mommy’s tummy?
But HOW does it get inside the mommy's tummy?
Where does the baby come out?
Why does the baby come out of the mom’s vagina?

We have a TON of pregnant people in our neighborhood right now and clearly this has sparked some interest for Romney. One night just as I was arriving at a church meeting I got a text from Marie that said. "You just dodged a serious bullet. As soon as you left the kids hit me on the birds and the bees questions."

Turns out Romney was the instigator but Lainey was a very attentive listener. Marie and I had discussed that at some point when our kids were ready they would ask these questions. We also decided that when they did ask it would be MUCH easier to give them the nitty gritty right then. (That means we'd tell them the truth. Straight up.) They would likely be young enough to process what they could and disregard the rest. We imagined this would be much less embarrassing to have the conversation when they're young than when they're a little older, so after Rom asked the question it took Marie a minute but then she just laid it all out there. She used very correct words and described exactly how it all goes down. This was just fine for Rom and he was glad to know.
Lainey on the other hand said something like...
L - "Wait a second. Did YOU do that?"
M - "You mean to get you two kids? Yes, we did that." (she wasn't willing to commit to more than that in this particular context.)
L - "Mom, that is just freaky."

Lainey hasn't been too interested in talking about it since. Unfortunately Rom has been very interested in talking about it. He has told me at least three times exactly how babies are made and we learned a few weeks ago that during his weekly primary lesson the topic happen to be families. Romney promptly raised his hand and said, "I know how families are made!" He then explained it to the class in graphic detail. The just to be sure he explained it again because his classmates looked confused. Then, just for good measure, he explained it one more time just to be 100% sure everyone else knew that he knew where families come from. One teacher I think handled it pretty well. I think the other one may still be in shock. If any of you out there have a hard time talking to your kids about these sort of things just let us know. Some of you may even have older kids that refuse to talk to you about this sort of things. I once refused to go on a trip with my dad just because I was afraid he would try and talk to me about this. If you happen to have any of these problems, let us know. We would be happy to send Romney over and take care of it for you.

Food and Creative Love

2010-03-25T22:17:00.002-06:00

Favorite quote of the day:

"NO! I don't LIKE that food. I want REAL food! No vegetables and no fruit. REAL food!"

(PS - I decided from now on all post titles are going to also be song titles or closely related to a song title. Just consider it like a little game we can play where I write a title and you try and guess who it is. I know my mom is really the only one that reads this so the game will only be fun for me but oh well.)

Hurtin' for more yurtin' (aka - Yurt me baby one more time)

2010-03-05T21:48:00.015-07:00

I hate it when time gets away from me on a good post. It is so much harder to remember all the funny things that happen if I don't write them down right away.

So we headed back to the mountains a few weeks go for another yurt trip. It was great. The ski in was absolutely the longest 2 miles of my life. 2 miles just isn't that far. I can jog that in 20 minutes. Put me on XC skis and strap to a sled and suddenly it takes 6 to 8 hours. Okay - not that long, but it felt that long. My sled/pulk also totally stunk and that did not help. Sticky snow combined with a lousy sled led to a little harder work then I would have hoped for.

Before I give any details of the trip I'm wondering if you have ever been in a situation where someone has asked you to take a picture for them? I've been in that situation too. I hope you try and do a nice job when someone asks you for this simple favor. I'm no great photographer but I have two simple rules I try and follow when taking a picture for someone. First, make sure they are in the picture. Second, let them know that I'm going to take the picture. Seems pretty simple, don't you think?

NOTE TO GUY IN THE TRAIL HEAD PARKING LOT:

You are not a good photographer. Not really at all. I know we took a few minutes out of your day and gave you two different cameras and asked you to operate them. I know this may have been a lot to ask but you seemed genuinely interested and helpful at the time. The truth is, I was surprised when you gave my camera back. I assumed you must have decided to only take a picture with one of the cameras but no, you did take one with my camera. Even though you can't see some people and even though no one is looking at you and even though this picture is really terrible, I just wanted to say thanks. So thanks parking lot cross country dude. Really appreciate your help. If in the future however, someone asks you for photographic help just explain that you are sick or allergic to cameras or are legally blind or something. Lets be honest, this is not really better than no picture at all. Thanks again for your time but feel free to give an excuse next time. (see not so awesome picture below)Okay, back on topic. I'm a little obsessive sometimes and I was packed completely two days before we left so I could just put it in the car and go. The only problem was, two days before we left I wasn't thinking of my coat. The coat that is nice and water repellent and keeps me dry. It is a good coat. It did not come on the trip with us. I'm not sure why, but somewhere in my mind it must not have been needed. But really, who hasn't been planning to go into snowy mountains to camp at 9,000 feet and left their coat at home? Happens to everyone, I'm sure.
.
We were with a fun family full of energetic boys, and since it was during the Olympics we decided to see if we could create a few of our own Olympic events at the yurt.

First we made our own luge track. It was an awesome and crazy luge track. It was awesome at first anyway. After a while it developed a mind of its own at the bottom and the track shifted in the direction of some trees. This picture is just before our second confirmation that something had gone terribly wrong with the trajectory at the bottom. I know its should have only taken ONE time running into a tree to stop and do something else but sometimes we don't learn that quickly. I really wish I had been video tapping so you could see Lainey go flying off the sled superman style, hit the tree and then totally face plant in the snow. Like the commercials say....priceless.

Our second event (and in my opinion clearly our best event) was the FLYING SNOW ANGEL! We have started a petition to the IOC to have this included in the 2018 Olympics. We'll post a link for you to sign later. Here is how a flying snow angel works. First, you pick a site where your intuition tells you there are probably not jagged rocks under the snow. Then you find a small child and you throw them into the air as high as you can. The child's job is to spread eagle backwards into the snow and make a snow angel. Extra points are given if the child completely disappears under the snow. Style points can also be awarded for amount of snow caked onto a face or accidentally doing a backwards dive. Here are a few examples of what was clearly, for me, the best part of the whole trip.

This is Lainey's first attempt. I think it is possible that she couldn't breathe under there based on how she came up coughing and wheezing. It is possible she was a little shocked by her face completely covered in snow. Maybe a little scared? Not that she would ever admit it.

This is Lainey's second try two minutes later after BEGGING to do it again. This time she was PUMPED! (posted just to prove that I'm not a terrible father and even though she ended the last one crying she was really having fun.)

In flying snow angels, the weight of the child is not uniform or regulated (say like in the shot put.) Here is a heavier version.

The final event was a little tackle football in the snow.
Part of any good sporting event is, of course, the refreshments so we had to wrap it all up with some snow cones!