So, I am in the middle of my 80 or so hour week, and it is getting difficult to think straight. I think the kids may have already gone off to college.
When I do happen to be home on the weekends, or before the kids go to sleep, the boy gets all smiley and wriggly, and looks at me as if to say, “Hey, Morning Guy! What’re you do here?!??”
Is it Monday yet?
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Posted by Kaz
I recorded Cinderella III off the Disney Channel a little while back because my daughter is a Cinderella nut and I actually heard this wasn’t half bad.
My daughter has, in the past, always asked us to skip the commercials (that goodness for DVRs)*, but I started to notice that she asked us less and less frequently to “skip the commercials”. She had discovered that the commercials during this movie were for some, in her eyes, really cool stuff.
Great.
One day, as Ms. Kaz was fixing the baby a bottle in the kitchen and my daughter was watching Cinderella III, my daughter came in and told her that she wanted a Hannah Montana beach house toy.**
“You don’t even know who Hannah Montana is!” Ms. Kaz told her.
My daughter’s answer? “Sure I do! She rocks the beach!”
* What a world our kids live in. My daughter even asks us during live shows to “skip the commercials.”
** Also available – a doll of her best friend, Miley. There’s just something weird about that.
2 Comments | Family, media, toys | Permalink
Posted by Kaz
My daughter has really been into drawing and painting lately. And she’s gotten pretty good at making things look a bit like the thing she is trying to draw.
The other day, Ms. Kaz and she were making cards for Easter for everyone. Today, she showed me how she made one, and made this most awesome drawing. It was so awesome, in fact, I had to change the blog’s header (look up!).
The card is actually for one of our cats, but that’s okay, because it means I get to keep it around the house.
When she showed it to me, she told me, “this fish is mad because it has to live in dirty water…”
I am glad to see she’s learning about her environment. Now we just need to get her to draw some angry birds and perhaps a whole line of angry animals. She might even be able to pay her way through college!
She also drew a most awesome “buggy guy” and a parrot, which I will have to upload some time.
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Posted by Kaz
Ms. Kaz and I often joked about how nice it will be when, on weekends, our daughter (and now The Boy, too) could get up, go downstairs, grab a box of cereal, turn on the TV and let us sleep in.
As I mentioned earlier, my daughter has begun getting out of bed, opening her door and leaving her room on her own in the mornings. This is something she had never done in 3 1/2 years. I used to brag about the fact that she would not get out of bed until we came and got her.
When she did it the first time, I once again joked that we just need to show her where the cereal is and how to use the remote and we’d be all set.
This morning, I heard the doorknob turn, followed by the pitter patter of feet. I looked at my alarm clock — 4 am. “Mommy…”
Ugh. “Go back to bed,” I told her.
“I wanna sleep with you guys…”
Hell, no.
Thankfully, Ms. Kaz, who has been an Angel with the kids waking up at odd hours lately ((while I barely am able to wake up thanks for the melatonin which is the only thing keeping me asleep at night), took her back to her room and got her to sleep.
Maybe this getting out of bed on her own thing really isn’t so great.
1 Comment | being a dad, Family, Ms. Kaz, sleep | Permalink
Posted by Kaz
I’ve been working a lot of crazy hours at work, so I’ve been missing some quality time with the kids. Since I knew I’d be working late the other night, I decided to take my daughter to school in the morning. Well, that, and I wanted to be there when she showed off the Fox In Sox shirt I made her for her Big Girl School’s Dr. Seuss days.
I dropped her off, got her settled, said goodbye. On the way out, I heard her teacher remark about how cool her shirt was (front and back!). “Wow! Your mommy did a great job!”
Of course. It is always the mommy’s who do the creative stuff with the kids. It wasn’t that Ms. Kaz couldn’t do just as good a job with the shirt. It was just, well, it involved scanning and cropping and Photoshopping and printing and, well, I just get into that kind of stuff, so I just sort of took control of the process.
But I still felt a bit dejected as I closed the door.
My daughter, however, came to my defense… just as I was shutting the door, I heard her say, “My daddy did it!”
That was a good start to the day.
3 Comments | being a dad, clothing, Family, Ms. Kaz | Permalink
Posted by Kaz
My daughter hates Goofy.
She has a set of bath toys consisting of Goofy, Donald, Mickey and Minnie. Every night, as she sits on the potty, she has to have Mickey and Minnie, and Ms. Kaz or I have to have Goofy and Donald.
And every night, Mickey, Minnie and Donald refuse to play with Goofy. Man, they are really mean to him.
Some might say the situation calls for some of that fancy, big city, book learnin’ psychology. Maybe they are right, but I’d be sad if my daughter was Goofy (getting left out and picked on by the other kids). I’m even more afraid that my daughter might turn out to be Mickey, Minnie of Donald.
So, for now, I just ignore the situation, figuring she’s only 3 1/2… she isn’t into any of that psychology stuff. She’s just playing.
I’ve decided, instead, to try and correct the situation.
Last night, Goofy tried to buy his way into The In Crowd. He brought cookies and jelly beans and potato chips. And while Mickey and the gang ate most of what Goofy brought themselves, they did leave a tiny bit for him. It was their version of “sharing”.
Tonight, I made up a little sign that said “We [heart] Goofy” and had the three of them hold it up for Goofy. Apparently, they do love Goofy now, but they’d only let him into their Book Club if he brought jelly beans.
I think they’ll come to love Goofy in time…
4 Comments | Family, play | Permalink
Posted by Kaz
Couple of quick things…
The boy is getting good at rolling onto his belly. Unfortunately, the time he is best at it is 4am. Also unfortunate, he does not know how to roll back onto his back at 4am. Also unfortunately, this frustrates him very much… at 4am.
As for Dr. Seuss days at Big Girl School, we went with the very excellent suggestion of using iron-on inkjet transfer paper and blank t-shirts. The results were better than expected. We went with Cindy Lou Who for one, and Fox In Sox (with a Tweedle-Beetle on the back) for the other. The process is not perfect, but was perfect for what we needed in a short time frame.
2 Comments | clothing, new baby, quickies, sleep | Permalink
Posted by Kaz
Speaking of growing up, the boy, just a day shy (thanks to leap year) of being 5 months has his first tooth poking through the gums.
He’s a little slower than his sister in that regard, but, for what I understand, still ahead of the curve on toothiness.
Apparently, early toothiness (yeah, I like that word – reminds me of Stephen Colbert) runs in Ms. Kaz’s family.
It was nap time. Or, as well call it now, Rest Time, as there is often no nap involved.
“Okay, sweetie, time to go up!”
“I can go up by myself this time, daddy,” my 3 1/2 year old daughter told me.
“Okay,” I said, following her up the stairs, glad to not have to carry her.
“No, daddy, I don’t need you,” she said, stopping me on the stairs, “You go down and come up and help me with my stool, then go right back down.”
I blinked. “You’re going to put yourself to bed?” I asked.
“Uh-huh.”
I went downstairs to Ms. Kaz… Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | being a dad, conversations, Family, Ms. Kaz, sleep | Permalink
Posted by Kaz
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I Hate Snaps 