childhood memories

first trick-or-treat.

found this photo of the boy while clearing off a bookshelf today. it's from halloween 2011, the boy's first night out trick-or-treating.

looking at him all stuffed into that lion costume shows what a baby he still was at almost age 2. he looks like a real little boy now; nothing toddler-like about him.

i felt wistful and sad looking at this picture though, for the obvious reason that time is speeding by as fast as everyone said it would, as i fret that the next time i turn around the boy's going to be 12 and then 17.

but the less obvious reason is that this is around the same time that his terrible twos hit, followed by the threatening threes -- a behavioral span that we just might be seeing the end to.

it makes me sad because for reasons we think might have been more environmental than psychological, he was a bit of a timebomb of tantrums and seemingly uncontrollable violence.

we did not handle it well.

we devised, researched and abandoned countless strategies to offset/placate his temperament only to find ourselves reduced to his level of screaming and physicality to restrain and/or punish him.

i suddenly understood what the term "he got the best of me" meant.

what made me sad looking back was that we were laying into this chubby-cheeked moppet for a) acting like a 2-year-old boy and b) possibly reacting to things in his diet that affected his behavior.

all boy.

kris thinks we have ruined him; looking at him now, i don't think that period is giving him nightmares. and while one of my earliest memories is that of my mom trying to get at me hiding under a table in order to administer punishment, he doesn't seem to bring up much from the past two years as a specific recollection.

i hate to say it, but he was our practice kid. he just happened to be all-boy and as thick-headed as they come.

if he'd have come after his sister, who seems to suffer none of the foibles he exhibited, we'd be just as much at the end of our rope now as we were then -- even more so, because of what would be the stark contrast between the two.

right now, he alternates between being brilliant and loving and short-fused and mean -- which means he's acting like he's 4.

while his mom and i still intend to correct and admonish as much as we love and cherish him at this age, it would probably serve me well to remember he won't always be the way he is now -- in both happy and sad ways.

so i'll take the rottenness of his being a little turd along with the goodness of his possessing a sweet and kind heart still full of childhood innocence.

saturday on probation

haircut with mr. ted. the boy's second solo haircut.

the boy lucked out today, as a screaming fit last night forfeited him an afternoon at the ballpark. but then the game got scuttled by rain and a forecast for snow, so he didn't miss out on much.

as it was, we still had the matter of a scheduled haircut that was to last him until past easter. we then had to walk to and from mr. ted's place in the rain -- and hit every puddle on the way.

defaced work.

we stopped afterward to visit with the displaced ballpark crowd at the big new sports bar downtown, but not before defacing the work of pies and pints' resident sign-maker.

(the boy's hands were wet from the rain and he didn't think anything of running them down the drawing. i think it's innate in children to smear chalk. i had to explain to him that it's not nice to mess up another person's work.)

once at recovery, i had a draft beer, spoke to a few of my colleagues, then blew about six bucks on video games with him and his new buddy, alex.

not quite the privation we'd intended as punishment for him today, but he recognized at some point that this wasn't what he'd been promised if he'd have behaved last night.

to the day

young and foolish. photo by tom hindman. (thanks, tom!)

this was us six years ago. we worked mornings and were out in time to go to the gym, then either go grocery shopping for a nice, home-cooked dinner or have a weeknight out at any of our favorite haunts around town.

fast-forward to this evening, and it's all we can do to keep ourselves fed, let alone bathed and dressed, as we are now of secondary importance to our pint-sized terrorists of love.

still, i wasn't going to let the day go by totally unobserved.

salad, steak and lobster for two from outback takeout.

behold, our romantic evening for two. (the babies were kept busy with an early supper and an hour-long "bob the builder" movie. only interruption was a poopy diaper from the baby girl.) we even had outback's "chocolate thunder" for dessert ... after the kids were asleep because that's the kind of parents we are.

still and all, hectic and exhausting as it may be, i can't imagine life without this woman i married and everything she's given me. that's six, mrs. monkey. i love you more than ever.

spring weekend

clay center river exhibit.

saturday began as a pretty early spring morning. the boy earned back a lost treat by having a good friday, so we took a trip to the clay center, where we enjoyed new exhibits, a yummy hot dog lunch and no potty accidents.

chocoloate mostly stayed off his jacket, i think.

we followed up with a trip to baskin robbins, where daddy enjoyed their new bananas foster ice cream and everyone else had chocolate -- some more than others.

this wound up everywhere. used up a lot of napkins and wipes.

the boy finished his whole cone, whereas the girl did not stop until she was good and ready. (i appreciated that she knew when she was full and didn't force herself to finish the last little bit.)

first sandbox session of the year. no mosquitoes yet.

then they played in the sandbox for the rest of the afternoon. really, not a bad day at all. (of course, he was crazed with sugar/gluten for the next 18 hours or so, but i still say a lot of it is a boy who can't control his impulses yet ... and probably won't for a few more years.)

the girl

a patient reader.

i just like these pictures of the girl from this week. here, she's waiting with me as mommy gets her cast taken off and her foot checked. it wasn't all like this, but she wasn't nearly as antsy as she could have been.

tiny fingers.

and here, as we walked the capitol market, i still enjoy that she holds my finger tight when we walk around. it's not going to be much longer that she'll be wanting to do this on her own.

on a high note

popcorn remains a big draw for the boy's attending ballgames.

yeah, i know my west virginia mountaineers got their heads handed back to them thursday night at the big 12 basketball tournament, but i'd like to remember their last game of the regular season last saturday, when they upset the no. 8 kansas jayhawks.

and it's not because it was a pretty good win; it was because it was a pretty good weekend.

oddly, considering the amount of time we spend with my family relative to my wife's, the boy remains fond of my sisters, especially auntie joy, with the tall house in morgantown.

auntie joy knows a stinker.

given the time it takes to get there in contrast to the length of games, i've decided trips to wvu home games have to be overnighters to make them worth the effort. and he's never been to a basketball game.

the idea was hatched by my buddy, pam, to meet with a few of our high school chums and fellow wvu alums for a visit home from her new digs in michigan.

we kept things pretty loose -- she bought the tickets and we'd all meet up at the coliseum. the end. no special plans for dinner or brunch that would have only added stress to the occasion, just a ballgame.

the boy and i met auntie joy for supper at black bear burritos, where the boy only ate about half his "mexican cheese sandwich" -- aka a quesadilla -- after initially balking, thinking it was covered with glue. (they had applied sour cream in a thin swirl atop the flour tortillas which, yeah, you could say looked like it came from a bottle of elmer's.)

a sorry breakfast of dad's not best-made scrambled eggs followed a semi-fitful night's sleep for the boy punctuated with what i guess were painful leg cramps, so it was not a promising start to the day.

we drove out to the med center prt station, where we thought we'd get free transport to the engineering building. yes, the prt cars were running during spring break, but no, they were not gratis, like they were on football weekends.

but the guy answering the assistance line who conveyed the bad news was kind enough to open the turnstiles to me, the boy and the family that came after us for a free ride out. (thanks, mr. prt operator!)

his response to the prt's herky-jerky motions: whoaa.

so the boy got to take a ride on the university's claim to transportation fame -- and the vehicle that frequently got his daddy to class in his undergrad days. he was pretty jazzed about the facilities and the car ride.

he met with a little boy about his age at the exit and the two chased each other about on the walk down the hill to the coliseum. he already considered the tyke a friend.

i shot a text to pam, who informed me she'd left our tickets at the will call window. the boy was getting hungry after hardly touching his breakfast, so we were eager to get inside and grab what's become his customary wvu game meal: hot dog, popcorn and bottled water.

we met pam, my buddy mark, whom i've known since junior high, his college roommate terry, whom i've known since sophomore year high school, and his wife, pam, whom i've known since first grade. it was quite the little reunion.

mark stands well over 6-foot-tall, if not six and a half, so he makes for an imposing figure. the boy hid behind me during introductions.

keeping this blur of a boy in check was a team effort.

but we quickly grabbed our seats, left our coats and backpack with the crew and went back down to the concession stand for our lunch.

the first half was barely halfway over before the boy announced, "we'd better go home now, daddy."

i was certain he wouldn't make it through the ballgame, but the first half?

with a little cajoling, he managed to stay in his seat while i distracted him with the rudimentary points of the game. and the halftime show was kind of neat with an acrobatic team of flying basketball dunkers.

at the start of the second half, he said he had to go to the potty, so back down we went. actually, i was glad he said something, as an accident was just not going to be any fun.

(he's just started peeing from a standing position, btw, which has made potty breaks in public places so much easier. it was also here that he began singing, "i love to shake, shake, shake it," which was nice to hear coming out of a men's stall.)

head preschool wrangler.

we took the opportunity to walk around the coliseum to relieve some of the tedium of sitting still for so long, which helped while away part of the game for him.

once we returned to our seats, he struck up a friendship with mr. mark, who showed a deft touch and patience with the little guy as he alternately served as thumb-wrestling and tongue-sticker-outer partner.

for the rest of the game, the boy walked the stairs, made friends with a number of kansas fans and screamed his fool head off because the joint started jumping as the upset came closer to reality.

and then it was over. we said our goodbyes outside the exit and made the long, distracted trip back to the prt station. (he must have made a dozen snowballs and poked as many holes in the mud with a stick on the way up.)

we made a side trip to the evansdale library to make change of a dollar to take the prt back. (still only 50 cents, thank heavens.) when asked if there was a change machine, the nice librarian offered to break the dollar for me, even with change from her own purse, which was very kind.

we hoped to visit auntie joy's office, but the paucity of signage made the effort so time-consuming, i told her to go home. (we actually did find the place, but she'd already left. upon meeting us at home, she said after a look around, she herself found the building identification inadequate. so it was nice to know i wasn't crazy.)

she left for saturday mass and the boy and i sat in for supper at pizza al's. after a quick change into overnight pull-ups, and setting aside a fresh cupful of lactose-free milk, we hit the road.

after a while down the interstate, i began to tell him how proud i was of his behavior, to which he responded, "daddy, you have to be quiet now. i'm trying to go to sleep." ok, then. i offered him the cup of milk, which he accepted, and drove down to charleston in silence -- mostly, as he woke up a couple of times crying and disoriented before falling back asleep.

he cried and whimpered for a while after returning home, but after mama calmed him down, he was down for the rest of the night. all-in-all, a good weekend.

and a p.s. from mama:

from 8 march: Next time you're taking (baby). (Boy) is the easy one now. Good god. This girl....
— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) March 16, 2014

meanwhile, in another garage

ten years ago tonight -- maybe even about this time -- kris and i shared our first kiss in the cn papers parking garage. i had no idea it would last this long or work out this well.

happy kissiversary, mrs. monkey.

nostradamus

i predicted his future.

way back on new year's eve 2013, i made a prediction what charleston daily mail photographer tom hindman was going to wear today.

turns out i was right. i'm psychic. or psychotic.

(actually, i was just showing tom that he could adjust the scheduling of his posts so they could appear on a particular date and time, even in the past.)

art appreciation

a few words from mama on the boy's progress with paper and crayon:

He's drawing a train. pic.twitter.com/IHZlEENjUB

— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) February 23, 2014

ok ... so he's focused ... on task ... so far, so good ...

Check it! pic.twitter.com/OMPdBMowaE

— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) February 23, 2014

hey! not bad!

funny thing is, if you notice how he's drawing in the top image, he created a horizontal picture from a vertical perspective. interesting wiring this boy has.

hope it's nothing i should be worried about.

got more than my feet wet

i ignored questions of safety for a warm shower.

today i took my first shower in my own house for the first time since at least 9 january.

to paraphrase an old adage from england's victorian age regarding sex: i closed my eyes and thought of hygiene.

after an initial whiff of licorice, i kept my mouth shut, too.

i didn't idly luxuriate as one would after having gone a long time between good, hot baths. it was in and out; no muss, no fuss.

so far, no adverse effects. no burning skin, no eye irritation. just clean.

it's seeming more and more that it's just a matter of time. hopefully, before the weather get too hot, the levels of 4-methylcycolhexane methanol will drop down to 0 parts per billion.

and, after having read the centers for disease control's report on "cooking" mchm, i'm slowly wrapping my brain around the idea that the chemical, as an alcohol, it just burns off after water gets to boiling.

so ... while i'm still likely not cooking with it any time soon, this stuff is seeming less like a genetic mutator and more like ... facial cleanser, maybe? don't drink it, but it likely won't kill you at reasonable levels.

i'm ... coming to grips with this thing.