Tuesday is beach day

I don't have a ton of memories of days at the beach from my childhood. My first memory of going to the beach involves jellyfish and a search for meat tenderizer. That memory blends with one of getting burnt terribly while in Puerto Rico when I was 5 and being covered in Olive Oil. As an adult I found the beach to be kind of boring...it's hard for me to read in the sun and no one ever wants go go in the water with me. it's also dirty. I don't tend to like lotions on my hands or sand on everything and never learned to appreciate the sublime pleasure of the sticky saltiness of ocean residue.

But having kids kind of changed that for me. I took the kids to the beach last Tuesday and we had a blast. We found crab parts and sea shells, ate BBQ chips, played in the water and tried to dig a hole so big the whole family could fall in it. We built and decorated sand castles with the shells we found, but the real fun was being the army that crushed them.

It is my goal for the summer to get to the beach once a week, though this week it's raining all week.

Missing Fenway

Fenway joined our house last summer. He was a golden retriever-yellow lab mix and was a great dog. he was born with a heart murmur that may or may not have been correctable with surgery, but open heart surgery on a dog, that may not work seemed like something that he would have declined. (well maybe not, he did a lot of other things that you might have thought were undesirable too, but he's a dog).

Anyhow he played too hard one day earlier this month and had a heart attack and died. I thought I'd share some pictures of him here.

Highest Summit in Connecticut

Liam has been asking me to take him mountain climbing and so i obliged. errrr...i took him up Bear Mountain in Salisbury, CT. For those who know, it is not the highest point in CT, just the highest summit in the state. (for a complete summary of the issue visit CT Museum Quest.)

this 6.7 mile hike is one that i have taken innumerable times since being a boy scout. It rates as being a strenuous to moderately strenuous hike, but i figured that Liam could do it pretty easily. He ran a 5K over the summer so this would be walking twice as far, but in a greater period of time.

on the morning of the walk, we got up, had breakfast and packed snacks for the hike. mom even made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (Liam later commented while eating his sandwich: "is there anything that peanut butter doesn't make better?" truer words were never spoken and it reminded me of an old nike ad.)

we started walking and were making descent time, but taking more breaks than i might have taken had i been by myself. at one point there was an opportunity to turn the walk into a loop or a straight up and down walk. i gave Liam the choice telling him that the loop was longer, thinking that he'd opt for the shorter trip, but i was mistaken. we took the loop (the Paradise trail for those "in the loop"). it is a great walk, with a steep final approach to the summit. Liam called it real rock climbing and he wasn't too far off.

at the summit we ate our sandwiches and drank some water. we sat on the monumet and took pictures. then hiked down. I should say here that I had an Anatomy and Physiology lab that night and was running late. the trail was about 2 hours away from school and i was getting pretty stinky from hiking. that said, i wanted to get off the mountain as soon as possible. we hiked and liam got tired. the last hour of the hike was hard on him he lacked the real profanity, but his attitude was "F-you and F this F-ing hike." I wanted to tell him that his mom has said that to me many times on hikes, but i didn't want to fuel his fire.

in the end, we got back to the car and i showed him how taking off his boots and socks feels so much better and i raced him home to put on deodorant and a clean t-shirt and race to lab. i got to lab an hour late and people were actually almost done when i arrived.

a walk that takes me 3 hours by myself took us 6, but it was a great 6 hours and i hope that Liam remembers it that way too.

the long and winding errand

how do kids fill up your day so quikly. not in the fulfillment or spiritual way...that one's easy. i mean in the herding cats kind of way.

yesterday i had to run an errand that would have taken me all of 20 minutes to put on my shoes go to the store get what i need and return.

took 2 hours.

find shoes that match. (wait where are your socks)
get the shoes on.
repeat for brother.
why did you take off your shoes? oh, i was taking too long.
put shoes back on again.
i just changed your diaper! what have you been eating?
change diaper.
wash hands.
why did you take off your shoes? oh, i was taking too long.
put shoes back on again.
get in car
go back into house for the right CD (why don't my kids love the Red Hot Chili Peppers like i do?)
drive to store
touch every thing...twice
argue about buying M&M's
corral back to car.
get seat belts on.
return home.
three trips to get everything in the house.
realize i forgot something at the store

forget it...i'm not doing that again today.

also...does anyone have a good recipe for turtle soup? that franklin's got it coming to him.

thank you--it's been great

i would like to thank all of you who i have gotten to know and who have been so supportive of me during my tenure here. i have truly enjoyed all of the various roles that i have played. they include: dad, daddy, pop, hey you and even occasionally stupid butt head. it is time however for me to relinquish these positions as i have been given a new title, new position and role. some of you may notice that there is some overlap in duties between my previous role and my current one, but management has made the decision, one with which i agree, that my previous responsibilities will be be cut back, in order to allow me to focus on this one important area. I am now a professional and full time "butt wiper." my duties will include the wiping of rear ends after going potty, the changing of diapers, regardless of their contents and the occasional cleaning of dog poop from under the dining room table (the dog feels his malodorous gifts will add to the festive feel of any dinner party or as the table is more commonly used, inspire a truer version of events when they are being documented in a scrap book). i will no longer be cooking as certain health code prohibit some one with my title and duties from entering a kitchen.

once again, thank you all and i hope to see you soon.

i can be reached in the bathroom, nursery or under the dining room table.

Inaugural Lunch

After listening to the the Obama Inauguration on the radio, the boys and I went to Plan B Tavern for lunch with my father-in-law.  we had chocolate milk, sweet potato and green bean fries and beers.  Of course burgers were had as well.

No one at this party had the seizure salad. (sorry Teddy).

snowshoeing

It's been a while since i've been out on snowshoes, both because of life and cruddy snow.  But many of my favorite winter memories involve walking through the woods in the snow.  Today, Liam strapped on his first (his mom's really) pair of snowshoes and we took a two mile walk through Stratton Brook State Park.  We both had a blast.

Walking with kids is really fun, because they slow you down.  I find that the leisurely pace dictated by kids allows me to notice things i would otherwise pass without noticing.  The kids  notice things too.  Birds in bushes, oddly colored rocks, salamanders, etc.

The barrage of questions, though at times difficult to manage also directs me to think about things that i haven't thought of in some time. Why do leaves change color, what kind of clouds are those, where do bunnies sleep in the winter?

This was not the 10 miles though the Green Mountains, or through a blizzard, but it was a great time.

I'm in Love

I was walking through the mall yesterday and say the coolest thing ever.  It's a salt pig.  You keep your cooking salt in it and then take some out when you need it. What could be cooler?  Yes, a time traveling DeLorean would be cooler, but we'll have to wait for 1985 for that.

Sledding

Sledding has become the preferred family activity here this winter.  Liam is finally old enough that he goes up and down the hill with limited help.  Drew likes to watch and to go down in some one's lap.  we all like to get outside and do fun stuff.  Since the closing of the Canton Golf Course, I've been having a hard time really getting into it, but the boy's enthusiasm for it is contagious.

As a side note he is wearing his winter sports helmet, which he loves and makes everyone feel better about his hitting jumps head first (unfortunately there is little video of this currently, but imagine a rag doll being tossed in the air and you get the idea).

Sleep Deprived Parenting

It comes as no real surprise to any adult that parenting has profound effects on one's sleep.  newborn babies put parents on a sleep cycle that allows for one consecutive restful hour for every six that is taken up getting things done---namely seeking that next one hour window.  As a parent i have learned a great number of things about my abilities to function on limited sleep and i thought that i might share them.

• children's programming is on 24/7 with the right cable package.
• 2 day old coffee is better than no coffee, despite my college days protestations
• sleeping with you clothes on makes not showering seem like a good option. shoes make getting up easier and quicker, especially when a school bus is involved, but they tangle the sheets.
• if you nap next to your toddler's crib, be sure that all hard toys have been removed, as waking to a wiggles guitar hitting your head is far uglier an alarm than any buzzer invented.
• Preparation-H does work on the bags under your eyes. (dedicate a tube--mixed use is gross)
• if your kid is sleeping in the car it's OK for you to sleep in the car too, just be sure to park it first.

The most important lesson is that my kid's enthusiasm for life is far more invigorating than a 5 Hour Energy shot chased wit a Red Bull.

"Dad it snowed, let's go sledding"

"It's 6 am"

"It's light out."

"Should we have breakfast first?"

"Yeah."

"OK, wake up mom and tell her you need breakfast." (Mom let's me sleep in more than she ought to.)

This isn't Facebook, right?

it seems like a second wave of facebook is crashed over me. 

"are you on facebook?"

"uh--no, why?"

"i am."

"oh." 

I twitter. i've always figured that if you want to know a brief impersonal (sometimes over-personal) statements, you could follow me on twitter, but that seems to not satisfy. 

I'm hoping to make this a longer form conversation, in one direction, about me and my doings; school, family, work, etc.

I hope that it satisfies, both you and me.

cheers!