Inter-racialocityishness

One thing that I often forget is the fact that Wifey and I are an inter-racial couple. There are many reasons for this memory lapse, the main reason being that in Columbus, we don’t get stared at like we are circus freak shows on display for our aberrant union. It is rare indeed when we go out for dinner and are the only inter-racial couple/family in whatever restaurant we happen to be going to. The other reasons tend to come from my own whacked out philosophy and weird ideas about humanity, but today I am not going to get into the race politics in the U.S. more than saying, sometimes racial stuff comes up with my family from time to time. Granted, I get to say all this from a really privileged point of view though, being an adult white male in the U.S. between the ages of 25 and 45, and since I am in the power majority of the US (I am “the Man,” so to speak) it is very beneficial for me to say I don’t feel like dealing with the race issue. That way I can hire another white guy and feel okay about it.

Anyway… all that crap being said, this weekend was one of those moments where our inter-racialality was brought into sharp focus. There are places in the world where my family does not feel safe (hello, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, etc…), and there are places where we just don’t feel comfortable. This weekend was one of those discomfort escapades.

Wifey and I went to a wonderful wedding this weekend. It was a nice low-key affair with some great music and sweet and sour meatballs. The event was about 2 hours to the southwest of Columbus. I won’t mention town names because I don’t want to start a blog of name-calling (unless it is about making fun of Alabama that is a different story all together.). After the wedding, Wifey and I decided that we were going to grab a bite to eat. We went to the local mall to find some food. With Wifey’s gall bladder issues and recent tumor discovery we have found that fast food is really difficult for her to stomach, so we eschewed the food court and went to one of the restaurants inside the mall. As we walked though the mall to find our restaurant, I started wondering if Wifey’s tumor was visible. People were just starting at the 2 of us like… like… like they could see Wifey’s more than golf ball sized tumor pulsing with purple light (I am not sure it pulses with purple light, but it makes it scarier in my mind’s eye, so I go with it). Wifey had to stare down a few people on the walk to the restaurant. It is funny, usually when people stare and we confront them with a return stare (Wifey is better at this than me), they usually look away pretty quickly. There is always at least one 65+ year old white guy who will just keep staring, so offended by our union that he cannot look away.

The wait was only 15 to 30 minutes, so we didn’t forego the mall eatery and just head to a Bob Evan’s (which was plan B, ‘cause we are “down on the farm,” yo!). We did decide to wait outside of the restaurant since that is where the empty benches were. It was alarming to see all the people come in and stare at us sharing a bench in the mall, and to realize that we were only 2 hrs away from home. Again, there were many a person caught staring at the spectacle of inter-racialocity. Our inter-racialness probably burned holes in their retinas and corrupted their very souls. I like to think we left that mall with many a person tainted by our un-recommended and looked down upon, yet legal, union.

To recap:
Tomorrow’s 20 Questions Tuesday will be about “letters”
Little Man likes wearing shorts
We found a new restaurant for him on Friday
He likes the steak nachos with black beans and no cheese, guacamole, or sour cream
Come on people! A white man with a biracial/black woman should not be considered so weird!
I have all sorts of rose thorns in my left hand
The right one just has scratches
I have to work out tonight
Yeeee-uck

unexpected

I am going to buck traditional thought and not post about my long weekend trip. I am not going to regale you with anecdotes about bad drivers and overly spicy pizza sauce. I will not blather on incessantly about seeing old friends and the laughter that follows these kinds of re-unions. I will not bore you with tales of angst at being away from Little Man nor with how re-asserting limits on the tyke is a chore in and of itself when Wifey and I returned. Mostly, I will not give you a play by play of how the weekend went. You would all find that as boring as I would whence writing it. That is just how vacations go. They do not translate well into prose for others who didn’t partake of the vacation. So, since most of you were not part of my long weekend, I shall not bore you with details of said weekend.

Instead, I shall bore you with my typical 25 step process for writing a post.

1. I open up my word processing software of necessity
2. I stare at the blank document for a minute
3. Shut down the word processing software because I cannot think of a damn thing to write
4. Call Wifey and see if she has some topics at hand that she can give me
5. Re-open the word processing software
6. Stare at the blank page some more
7. Start writing a post
8. Erase what I wrote
9. Start again
10. Erase again (lather, rinse, repeat…)
11. Figure out some of the recap
12. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead
13. Look over the drivel I just wrote
14. Spell check within the word processing program
15. Be appalled that “blog,” “blogging,” “blogger,” “bloggish,” “blogariffic,” “blogetc…” are not in the word processor’s lexicon
16. Be impressed with myself for coming up with the word “lexicon” in my head (every day occurence)
17 Copy and paste everything into Blogger
18. Format text within Blogger
19. If the post requires pics, find the pics
20. Attach said pics (not attaché pics, because that would be silly)
21. Link where links are necessary
22. Preview
23. Stand back and admire the “work”
24. Publish
25. Look at the blog to see the post in situ

Bored yet?

To recap:
Sadly, the building is not a burnt out husk
So, I have to work today.
Fluffy the headache Marten is back in town! Hey, Fluffy! Nice to see you again! Please go away!
Interesting take on Underdog going on over here
Disturbing take on Underdog here
Little Man’s OT evaluation was this morning
We are a little un-happy with the assessment process
Wifey was, in her words, “Unimpressed”
I am sure many if you (probably 2 of you) are curious about the weekend
Well, it was a really great time
It was odd though, since 4 of the 8 people were unawares of the whole blog
And the 4 who knew about it, didn’t really want to clue the other half in
OOooooooh secrets
Without any childrens around and my lack of sleep, there was a panoply of cursing
“A panoply,” I say, “A PANOPLY!”
I forgot how much I relied on the vile language whilst I was in college
I forgot how much of an artiste I was with the vulgar colloquial aspects of linguistics
I was a master, my brush was a suite of interchangeable base words, and my pièce de résistance was the shocked looks of others
Tomorrow is 20 Questions Tuesday: 33 – Time (part 2)
Quotes from the weekend:
You are all my friends and all, but you are all basically peons
I don’t want to hear your goddamned life story, just order your damn food

Light it up!

I am at work, and did not get to say goodbye or spend time with Little Man this morning like I had planned prior to leaving for a couple of days. I am this close --> <--*to cleansing this place with the purity of fire.


*fyi: that is only 2 characters, so I am really close

To recap:
I will hopefully be leaving for a long weekend with friends in 1.5 hours
I will hopefully not have burned down the office and made this trip an extended stay on the run from the law
I am not good when I am on the lam
Have a great weekend everyone

...old school

Okay, I am beyond my edge of stuff I can deal with in a sane and rational manner.

Lemme lay it out for you… old school*.

--without further ado and in no particular order:

1. Wifey has been ailing since December due to her 32% effective gall bladder
2. Little Man has been sick for 4 weeks
3. The constant war of attrition with Little Man’s asthma
4. One unexpected result from Wifey’s gall bladder exams is the detection of an unidentified mass on her liver**
5. Little Man is still allergic to a bunch of food, and now Kenticky Fried Chicken’s popcorn chicken (which he loves) is made with a milk product
6. Heroes is over until late April
7. Little Man is on an antibiotic that is causing him some diarrhea
8. Our childcare providers are aging and both suffering from auto-immune issues
9. My best friend since Jr High (I though he was weird in middle school… turns out I was right) is currently deployed in a combat zone that is escalating
10. If you didn’t know, diarrhea is not conducive to potty training
11. Did I mention that Wifey has an unidentified “mass” on her liver**?
12. Little Man has been recommended for an Occupational Therapy evaluation
13. I mentioned the unidentified mass on Wifey’s liver**, right?
14. This list has caused me tons of sleep loss
15. Occupational Therapy doesn’t have anything to do with mapping Little Man’s future career path
16. There is a FRIKKIN’ UNIDENTIFIED MASS ON WIFEY’S LIVER**
17. The liver is so important to staying alive, that “live” is contained in its organ name
18. If it was an unidentified mass in her unused-er or uselesser, I would not be nearly so agitated right now
19. There might be some animosity between Little Man and another little boy from his pre-school
20. Little Man, seems to be getting the better of the other kid
21. Good golly goshness! there is an UNIDENTIFIED MASS ON WIFEY’S LIVER**
22. Oh, I already mentioned that, didn’t I?
23. I cannot find a moderately priced place to eat with palatable soup
24. I don’t have enough pants in my wardrobe
25. I am starting to get a bit ill myself
26. and last but not least, WIFEY HAS SOME KIND OF UNIDENTIFIED MASS ON HER LIVER**

Good Lord! Am I tired****


To recap:
I guess there is lots of stuff going on in my life right now
Tomorrow Wifey and I will be traveling to DC to visit some college friends
We have to pack tonight
It isn’t that bad, it is not like I will be sleeping anyway
THERE IS AN UNIDENTIFIED MASS ON WIFEY’S LIVER
*In this instance “old school” is referring to a bulleted*** list.
**Surgeons and doctors have assured us that it is their estimation 99.9% benign and un-identified*****
***in this instance “bulleted” is defined as a “Arabic numerals”
**** not like a bicycle or a car, as in "wheeled" more in the direction of “weary”
***** and 0.1% pissed at being found

Déjà Vu

So I get up from my desk to go to the bathroom, because, well, that is the good kind of co-worker I am. I stopped peeing in the corner of my cube years ago. I now deposit my solids and liquids into appropriate waste receptacles. That’s just how I roll. Sure it took some time to learn these vagaries of human social-societal interaction, but I got the “don’t poop in my corner” memo loud and clear last time. No need to send that one out again… to HR and/or my boss. I learned my lesson, okay? Anyway… as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by… um… myself, on my way to the bathroom (the WC for my UK readers!), I had one of those déjà vu thingies. Yep, I had a déjà vu on my way to the pisser. Lucky me. On the fortunate side, the déjà vu ended once I had passed by 2 co-workers ummm... co-working at a table and did not continue once I made it into the smelly, stinky, odiferous restroom.

Here is the problem with my déjà vus. They never give me useful information. They tend to gravitate toward the mundane. This one was a trip to the pisser. In one I ate some broccoli. I had another déjà vu where I changed lanes on the Interstate. Wooooooo, thanks for the useless information there. The only superpower I have, and it lets me know useless crap. Look, its Vague Mundane Future Man! You, citizen! Are going to eat a sandwich with pickles! And, you, law enforcement officer, are going to step over a puddle.... Lovely power. I soooo would not wear spandex for that. All uselessness aside, I am starting to recognize the déjà vus quicker and actually recall what is going to happen before it actually happens. In these instance when I recognize it as it is happening, I also recognize that there is not a point to trying to alter the potential future.

For example, today’s déjà vu was me walking somewhere and I would pass someone sitting at a desk and then 2 people standing at a table discussing something on my way to somewhere else. I think I had the original “vision” around 10 years ago (meaning I did not know the people in the déjà vu were co-workers). I recognized the déjà vu as I passed the co-worker at his desk and prior to passing the 2 co-workers at the table discussing traffic volumes or some other boring crap. I could have stopped and gone back to my desk, but that would not have necessarily altered any potential future I already had… (that was an odd sentence to write.) Anyway, I would still have had to go to the restroom, so I would have eventually gotten there.

I think I would pay closer attention to changing the outcome of these déjà vus if they revolved around some more important matters. By “more important matters” I don’t necessarily mean world events of life altering events either. In the example above, if I knew the déjà vu ended with me peeing on my shoe, I would have gone back to my desk. Who wants to pee on one’s own shoe?

To recap:
I think I have seen this before
I really should be drunk to write about this in a public forum
If I were drunk I would have gotten all non-linear on your collective asses
Orthoganality doesn’t have to propogate in one vector, baby!
Just be glad I was not drunk
20 Questions Tuesday is tomorrow
We will be discussing Time
Not sure what aspect of time we* shall be discussing
Only time will tell
Get it?
“Only time will tell”?
Cause we’re* talking about time, but we* haven’t narrowed down the multiple aspects of time
At least I am funny in my head
Could be about TIME the magazine
I doubt it, but it could be
*Royal “We”

pitiful... just pitiful

I woke up this morning to a flash of lightning and a peel of thunder. Is it s “peel” of thunder? Hang on a sec… Nope it is “peal.” My bad… Anyway, it seems that spring is attempting to make a play here in Ohio. Sure we still have some mounds of ice from the last winter storm, but it is gray and rainy again, the hallmark of a central Ohio spring. Oddly, it is also the hallmark of a central Ohio fall. Go figure. It is surprising that central Ohio is not known for being more marshy. On a side note, Word wants me to replace “more marshy” with “marshier, “ but you know what? Word ain’t the boss of me! Word! YoYo. I am street like that. No really.

Anyway… I got nothing. One would think that I could muddle through 4 topics a week. Sweet Jebus! I actually only need to come up with three cogent topics since I instituted 20 Questions Tuesdays 31 weeks ago. Is my life that boring? I can only come up with 3 topics. Oh, Good Lord! Yesterday’s topic was just about Little Man ailing. So in actuality, I am only able to come up with 2 topics a week. Heck, this post was just going to be a stream of consciousness post, but I couldn't even do that. Sheesh, that is just pitiful.

To recap:
This is the fourth post I have started today
Sadly, it is the best one
That is why I kept it
I hope DC United and the Houston Dynamo win tonight
That would be great for MLS
Have a great weekend everyone
Maybe next week I will have some topics
Anyone think of any topics?
Anyone…

Go away, and don't come 'round here no more

It was a lark, I tell you, a lark. I never thought that it would end up how it did. It was good clean fun, just plain silliness really. I remember it as if it were yesterday… Okay, it was really only 2 weeks ago, but, wow, what a two weeks.

I had just picked up Little Man from G-ma D and G-pa R. He was getting settled into his car seat and getting ready for the journey home. Part of this ritual (other than me strapping into his five point harness of doom) is for Little Man to choose his music for the trip home. Well, this specific afternoon/early evening he chose the Bear in the Big Blue House CD. Not my favorite choice, but definitely not the worse thing he has made me endure. Anyway, to put Bear in, I had to take out the CD I had guiltily been listening to.

What that?
Oh, this is just the CD I was listening to when I was on my way here.
First Bear, then that.
Let me get this straight, since your use of articles, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs is somewhat suspect. You want to listen to this CD after the theme song from Bear is over.
Uh-huh
Okay…

So, oddly enough, the theme song ends with the line, “So let’s begin.” The irony is not lost on me. No siree, it is not lost on me at all. Anyway… after Bear shuts his proverbial “yap” Little Man pipes up asking for “other CD.” Here we go, the mistake has been made, I slowly put the CD in and traveling as I know it changed forever at that point.

A little backstory: This “other” CD is the greatest hits from a band whose cassette was the first I ever purchased with my own money. This cassette was the cassette I wore out while reading countless comic books. This band is the band I listened to when I was reading my first real books. This band helped me through many a slow chapter of required novels with thick language and slower pacing for my English classes in middle school, junior high, and high school. There is a huge nostalgia reason for me to listen to this CD. Okay, back to the story.

The first drum beats and first notes from the saxophone hit and Little Man get a light in his eye that I have never seen before. The chorus plays, because most of the song is the chorus and he is repeating the lyrics as best he can. He is enthralled. He is absolutely loving this song. It is like coming home for him. He is wrapping himself in this song like it is a warm blanket. The song ends with plaintive lyrical hook that appears though out the song , and all I hear from Little Man is “Again! Again!”

Now whenever he gets in my car, and sometime before we get to my car he is asking for Who Can It Be Now by Men at Work. He is not soo keen on Down Under or It’s a Mistake and rarely listens to Be Good Johnny, but he goes nuts for Who Can it be Now.

To recap:
We painted the bed room this weekend
Now we need to move furniture back in
Next month I am trying out Diesel and Dust or Blue Sky Mining with Little Man
I would love to hear him singing Dreamworld
Then I will buy him a skinny tie and some parachute pants
Not sure what the 20 Questions topic will be for tomorrow yet, I will figure on out though
Before tomorrow
Probably immediately after I post this, um… post
I am real good with words

Dentistry

So, I went to the dentist today. It was time for my 6 month check-up. The appointments only come around twice a year, so I really don’t feel like I can be a “no-show.” I am not sure where my over-inflated sense of responsibility regarding dental professionals’ time arises from, but, clearly, it seems that I have some issues there. Not so with cable guys. I would make them wait for me if it weren’t in their power to leave and say I wasn’t there.

Anyway… I had my semi-annual dental appraisal and cleaning today. Turns out my teeth would be worth more if they were either whiter or were petrified sharks teeth. Anyway… the hygienist (her name I think was “Peppy”) mentioned that I had Tartar on 1or 2 of my teeth, and proceeded to tell me about her vacation last week whilst scraping and poking around in my mouth. It was really pleasant. I was not aware that Peppy’s mother did not like pancakes prior to this trip to the dentist, but as it turns out… Anyway… everything was going along swimmingly. Peppy was done with my cleaning and went to get the sign off by the Dentist.

Get this, my dentist wants me to floss more. What is up with that?!?! I almost politely explained that since I have a dental hygienist clean my teeth every 6 months, I felt that flossing was one of the time consuming things that might be able to be dropped while Little Man’s breathing was for shit. I nearly continued to explain that giving breathing treatments every 4 hours to a 3.6 year old doesn’t really leave that much quality time for me and my teeth. Then I would have continued by mentioning to her that while I was not able to do as much flossing as she would have liked (I think the acceptable amount of flossing for dentists is 2 hours a day of careful and methodical flossing with gilded silk ribbons), I was still able to keep cavities from forming and even not have any gingivitis going on. But before I could launch into my tirade against her dental advice, I remembered that she had tooth drills, and prudently decided to keep my mouth shut.

To recap:
I can’t believe it is only Thursday
It feels like Baldenday to me
You know the day after Emdleday
The 11 th day of the week
You know…
Man, it seems like this has been looooooong week
And it is only Thursday
I could floss every hour on the hour and my dentist would recommend that I floss more
Isn't it their job to clean my teeth anyway?
Road crews don't ask me to fill in potholes for them
I should have eaten a doughnut right before getting my teeth cleaned out if spite
Instead I ate a doughnut right before getting my teeth cleaned out of hunger
I think they should be glad it was not a broccoli filled doughnut
I think I should be happy it was not a broccoli filled doughnut
Instead of being “eaten” it would still be a neglected doughnut on a table that no one would eat
Like a Boston Cream doughnut
Those are horrible
Vanilla Cream FTW! Baby!
I could go on for days about doughnuts
‘Cause I love me some doughnuts
But I won’t
Have a great weekend everyone

Just a recap

Straight to the recap today

To recap:
Penguins make me laugh
But not penguins with forced Jamaican accents
It is because they waddle
Waddle is a fun word to say
Waddle Waddle Waddle Waddle Waddle Waddle Waddle
It is actually kind of fun to type
Yes, I typed it out all 7 times
Waffle is similar, yet not as fun to say
I define “type” in the above sentence as “ctrl + v”
It gets me through the night
To get through the knight, you need a lance
Sure there are other piercing weapons of the Middle Ages, but a lance would do
Or maybe a pike
Yes, a pike Okay, a different pike Not that pike either There’re the pikes I’m talking about
Pointy sticks
Skewers
Skewers Skewers Skewers Skewers Skewers Skewers Skewers
Another fun word
Oddly “sewers” isn’t as fun
Can’t tell if it is the connotation, denotation, or extension
Probably the connotation
We had our first day in 4 weeks of only 2 rescue breathing treatments yesterday
There was much rejoicing
Much rejoicing indeed
Lunch was unsatisfying
I am hungry already, and it has only been 90 minutes since I ate
Looks like there are some chips in my future
Mmmm chips
I couldn’t come up with a topic today
Especially since I already wasted my Vampire Bear post
Little Man had a play date with Benny this weekend
I swear those 2 kids are hopped up on goofballs when they are together
We have to slow Little Man down to make sure that he is able to breath
We are 2 steps closer to complete potty training
If we knew how much further it was to complete potty training that might actually mean something
I have to work out tonight
Have to, for maintenance purposes
I am not looking forward to that
Tomorrow’s 20 Questions Tuesday will be about exercising

My eyes

My sunglasses broke this morning, and I have very photosensitive eyes. Bright sunlight hurts me, much like a vampire. Well not like a vampire hurts me. Vampires hurt me by never acknowledging me in public. I know you can see me Nosferatu, why won’t you wave back?!?! Why?!?!? It’s the garlic, isn’t it? Well, Count, it just so happens that I like white pizzas every now and again. I can’t help it if the base of that is olive oil and garlic. It is not my fault that you are mortally weakened by the pungent bulb. (tee hee, I said, “pungent bulb”) Ahem… where was I. Oh yes, broken sunglasses.

Anyway… this morning after cleaning off and digging out Wifey’s car, I reached into my pocket to get out my sunglasses and heard a small ‘tick.”
No, not that Tick. A small ‘tick’ that could only be due to the rim of my sunglasses snapping and letting the lens fall free into my pocket. I don’t really know when exactly my eyes became the wussiest eyes on the face of the planet, but, in truth, they are. They have been this way at least since college. Yep, since college, I have put on sunglasses the moment I step out of a door into the big wide world. I kind of feel naked without them. Naked and blind. At the same time.

I know that my eyes should be able to handle the big bright world without the aid of dimming spectacles, but for some reason I have lost that ability. I also am aware of my propensity for losing and breaking sunglasses. I lose and/or break sunglasses at an alarming rate. At one point in time I used to purchase more expensive glasses, but due to my amazing ability I found that cheaper glasses made more fiscally responsible sense. Instead of the Sunglass Hut and Oakley’s, now it is Target or a grocery store and no memorable brand name. The sad thing is that the ability of the glasses to filter the UV and shade my delicate lace-like eyes is about the same.

I usually have an extra pair in my car just for this kind of “emergency.” Alas and alack, Little Man appropriated the glasses as a train table decoration about a month ago. Seeing as how I have kept my most recent pair of glasses for 8 whole months, I guess I got cocky and didn’t think I needed the extra. How wrong I was. How how wrong… Now I am snow-blind and fighting off a headache induced by the brightness of the sun and snow.

To recap:
SPOOOOOOOOON! I am not sure if anything momentous will be occurring this weekend
I really feel like I am whining just to be whiny today
That and I am lacking a certain ability to filter UV rays from my delicate delicate eyes
Shading the sun from my eyes with my hands doesn’t work that great
And people think I am saluting them
Mockingly
Actually, people think I do a bunch of stuff mockingly
People are rarely correct
But sometimes they are
This is one of those rare timed that they are correct
I do a bunch of stuff mockingly
Tons really
I miss The Tick Cartoon
I need to get it on DVD
Have a great weekend everyone

Name your price

It seems that bribery works. I am not a big fan of the process for moral reasons, but it seems that it works and therefore is a viable solution to some of our more entrenched Little Man behaviors.

Case in Point, the first: Little Man’s potty training.
So far Little Man has been fine about peeing in the potty. He especially enjoys when Papa and Little Man pee at the same time. Bonding at its finest. The potty training issue that we have been fighting against is pooping on the potty. He has adamantly been against pooping in the potty for the past 6 months. Wifey and I don’t know exactly what that is all about, but we have been wiping poo off his 3.5 year old butt for far too long. Enter the bribery. Turns out that Little Man, who will not listen to reason, he determined on his own, what his price is. He named it and we haggled, and now we pay him to poop on the potty. “His price?” you ask. Well, other than answering, “None of your Damn business,” or “Get yer own kid to bribe,” and also in realizing that I have started this line of thinking, I really should answer with “Special root-beer.” That is right. Little Man will excrete solid waste on a proper toilet receptacle for a shorty (8 oz) A&W Root-beer.

Turns out he would most likely sell us to street thugs for some root-beer from a can. It is good to know he has a price. It is better to know what that price is, so we can top it…

Case in Point, the second: Little Man’s sleeping situation
We are co-sleepers. This was not a decision that we entered into thinking that we wanted to be closer to our little one and help him feel safe and secure in his slumbering. This sleeping arrangement was a decision made purely out of necessity. I shall explain. Back in the wee Little Man days when we were just the typical happy-go-lucky parents of a typical little boy, we were on the path top sleeping freedom. We were reading the No Cry Sleep Solution book and implementing its ideas as we started to move the boy into his own sleeping quarters. We just are not “cry it out” people. Nothing against people who use that solution, it just was not for us. Some people like vanilla ice cream, some French vanilla ice cream, and some people like vanilla bean ice cream. mmmmm ice cream.... where was I? Oh yes, he was at about 6 hours of sleep on his own at night and then the rest of the night in our bed. It was working. His stays in his own bed were lengthening and the time that he was not in our bed allowed for some wonderous slumber.

Then the food allergies really hit. He was scratching himself awake at night due to the rashes and eczema reactions from his food allergies (we think the itchiness was mainly soy and the eczema was the egg). For 3 months we slept, Wifey on one side and me on the other holding his little arms down so he couldn’t scratch himself awake at night. It was horrible… just plain horrible. We finally figured out all that he was allergic to and he was not itchy, but the damage had been done. We left one of the developmental stages where he would easily transition to another bed.

We started the transition process again, but this time it was halted due to his asthma kicking in. When you have to give breathing treatments every 4 hours for nearly a year, you just put the kid in your bed and sleep as best you can, when you can. When we were finally on a pretty good maintenance routine with his asthma and food allergies, he had hit the terrible 2’s and the effin’ 3’s, that was not the time to introduce a new sleep pattern. Now, I recognize that some of these are rationalizations, and some are real reasons, but the end effect is that his bed is currently butted up against ours and we all sleep (to steal a phrase) like a pride of lions.

Which leads me to the next bribery. It seems that Little Man is enamored with a loft style bed… with a slide! There is a light at the end of the family bed tunnel and it is a loft with a slide. He likes the mission style loft in black (Twin Junior Loft with slide in the Mission style in black... Boy's got taste). Not our choice in color, but if it gets him out of our bed it could be pink with yellow polka dots. If Little Man can sleep in his bed on his own for a while (Wifey and I have not discussed the time frame yet) we will order the loft. He is on board with that.

To recap:
Took an hour to dig out and get the car moving today
Yeeee-uck
Happy Valentine’s Day to all who celebrate
Happy Single Awareness Day to those who celebrate
VD and SAD, that is just pitiful
Bribery could definitely pay off
Goodness Gracious! I hope so
Not much more to recap
Not sure what is for dinner tonight

conspiracy of flab

It seems that things are not aligning properly for me to get into a routine for exercise. Between various family illnesses, scheduling conflicts, weather issues, apathy, and a general lack of motivation, the gym just has not been in my weekly routine. Here is how it is supposed to work. Monday and Wednesday evenings, I am supposed to go work out after work. I am supposed to get at least 30 minutes on the elliptical machine and then do some lifting. These in week workouts are supposed to be capped off with my exercising on Saturday morning.

That has not happened since the second week in December. Since that fateful week I have averaged about 2 exercise sessions every 3 weeks. Sure that sounds bad, but what sounds worse is that I have only gone to the gym 6 times in the last 8 weeks. Not really a stellar record for someone who (at least marginally) wants to be remotely healthy.

There have been some legitimate reasons for not exercising. Firstly, the sinus infection is definitely one of them. I have been recovering from the infection for the past week and a half, and suffering from it for 2 weeks before that.

Secondly, Wifey’s gallbladder issue is another reason that the elliptical has not be moving because of me. Sure it is not really my illness to claim, but when one’s partner is in the throws of gall bladder induced pain, one does not foist the kid on her and go lift some weights. I know it hurts to move, babe, and it is hard for you to interact with Little Man, but I just gots to gets my butt in shape. Just suck it up and parent the little bugger on your own for a while. Sheesh! Yeah, I wouldn’t be here today if that was uttered or even thought. (She can tell when I am thinking things…. It is very eerie.)

Thirdly, Little Man’s breathing being compromised does not help. I do not really feel much like an attentive parent if I choose to exercise instead of getting the “we’re-going-to-thehospital-at-any-moment-bag ready. For those who are interested, the bag consists of a portable DVD player, a smorgasbord of DVD’s, Little Man snacks, changes of clothes, etc…

Tonight, I was going to get myself all sweaty and start the process of getting sore, but Wifey and I have committed to make sandwiches for Little Man’s pre-school fund-raiser. No exercising there. This list of reasons doesn’t even touch my general apathy for working out. I hate it. HATE. IT. I really cannot stand it. It truly is my own private hell. I only do it so my health will be better. It is the equivalent of taking really nasty tasting medicine for 45 minutes. I try as hard as I can not to interact with anyone there because I loathe being there so much. There is a good chance that my response to anyone there would be a snarl and possibly a bite.

I hate the in-shape people there because they are in shape and clearly enjoying there exercise routine. I hate the out-of-shape people there because they are in my way. I hate the perky people who work there because they clearly don’t understand how horrid the place they work in is. All in all, exercising is not my favorite thing.

Update on the breathing: Little Man is doing better, but nearly where we would like his breathing to be by the end of a full course of Orapred. Really, he should be doing fine by now, but that just is not the case. He is doing okay. Not doing “great,” just “okay.” Whatever was causing so much breathing issues seems to be on the retreat. It has not left the field of battle, as of yet, but it seems to be withdrawing. Wifey and I definitely think it is due to the anti-biotic, but we would like it to be getting better faster, Damnit!

To recap:
I forgot my lunch today
I am hungry
I will scrounge up something for lunch
A late lunch mind you
But a lunch none-the-less
Wifey is getting a surgical consult on the bladder of gall, at the moment
Tomorrow’s 20 Questions will be about Valentine’s Day
Hopefully I will be in a better mood then

2 things

Firstly, Little Man’s breathing is better. It is not where we want it to be, but it is better. Thanks to all the positive thoughts sent our way.

Secondly, Honestly, I don’t have a “Secondly.” I am pretty drained from the roller coaster event from yesterday. Breathing issues are difficult to deal with, because, well, by our definition life requires respiration of some form. So I leave you with this image instead of some inane ramblings on my part.

Someone once asked me what animal was the scariest. Well, I will tell you again, and this time I will back it up with a terrifying image.

I am afraid of Vampire Bears

To recap:
Each time I look at the post, I cringe
In fear and in shame
Both about equal
I need some sleep
Who isn’t afraid of Vampire Bears?
I mean really?
Some people are afraid of vampires
Some are afeared of bears
Me? I like to consider myself the more sane of those 2 groups for I am afraid of the combination
It is like a fear combo
You know where fries and a drink cost less
But I am not afraid of this Vampire Bear
That would be just plain silly

Honestly, I didn't watch any of the videos because they are blocked where I am

I could be incredibly frightened of that Vampire Bear and just not know it

I find it disturbing that someone blogs/vlogs by the name "Vampire Bear"
I really am just rambling now, aren’t I?
Have a great weekend

Confessions

I have a problem. It is an egregious problem. A problem that left unchecked could lead me and my family to financial ruin. I am not afraid to admit this problem in a public forum. There are no support groups for this problem. I am out on my own with this one, and the only person who can save me from myself is myself. It is a horrible cross to bear! So I will make my statement here for all to see. But I must confess… Here it goes.

(This is kind of like taxi cab confessions without the bad camera angles and, well, interesting confessions.)

I like eating lunch out.

There I said it! I am a lunch-out-a-holic, and I am all out of lunch-out-a-hol! It is out in the open now. Maybe that can start me down the road to healing. Acceptance is the first step right?

It really is a problem. I am going out to lunch about 9 times a week. I know some of you out there are trying to figure out the mental gymnastics associated with eating more lunch than there are lunches to be had, but stop your rationality and come with me here. Anyway… here is the deal. I love me some lunch out. Absolutely love it. There are a couple of good reasons for this as well as a couple really crappy ones.

The Good Reasons:
1. Gets me out of the office. I need to vacate the premises to reconnect with the “I’m not at work” me. It is a physical and mental necessity… plain and simple

2. Promotes coworker bonding. I do not have many opportunities to really bond with co-workers in a non-project oriented manner. It allows me to get to know these people around me on a more personal level since I am not willing to meet with these kooks outside of office hours.

The Bad Reasons:
1. It is a stupid expensive habit. $5 here and $6.40 there adds up after a while. With 9 lunches a week at an average of $6.00 a whack we are looking down the barrel of a $2,808 annual habit.

2. The food is crappy and bad for you. Sweet Sliding Barn Doors! McDonald’s is starting to print the “nutritional” information for their products on their re-vamped packaging. Let’s just say that I was disturbed. Disturbed greatly. I don’t eat at the Golden Arches every day, but the competitors aren’t any healthier. This has got to be hell on my body. I can’t keep shoving this crap in my body and consider myself even remotely healthy.

3. I need to be waaay more thoughtful about getting ready for work if I am to have lunch plans ready the night before.

4. Frozen meals typically suck. They tend to feel too small. Sure their portions are most likely more than a healthy human “needs”, but I want more. I don’t want to be hungry again 3 hours after eating lunch. This doesn’t even get into the lack of flavor typically associated with meals from the freezer. Bland, too small lunches do not a good meal make.

Well, it looks like I need to turn over a new leaf and bring my lunch to work. Wasting almost $3k a year on lunches is a bit much to ask of our funding. I mean, really, I could use the $ 216 a month on hookers and blow. The financial ramifications of my lunch-out-a-holism aside, I think the crap lunches are also contributing to my general sense of malaise and tubby feelings as of late. Maybe if I only go out to lunch twice a week…

To recap:
It is cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra out there
And believe me, that’s cold
I had to jump start my car today
When I went to start my car this morning it was 1° F
That is -17.22 °C
That is 255.9278 K
I had meatballs for lunch today
They were tasty
Paella tomorrow
Hopefully, tonight’s and tomorrow’s meals will supply the rest of the week’s lunchtimes
I was going to tie my problem into the 12 steps associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, but it seems that some of that looks kind of “hooey-ish” to me
A bit too religious for my blood
Honestly, that kind of “higher power” this and “higher power” that would drive me to drink
But it works for some folk
So who am I to judge
Tomorrow’s 20 Questions Tuesday is the 2nd Style Edition

Sleep

I am not sure why but for the past week and a half I have not been able to get to sleep at a reasonable time if I am supposed to work during regular business hours. Last night, even while being exhausted, I stared at the ceiling for at least an hour before I jumped on the PC to play some spider solitaire and online Sudoku. These mental pursuits tend to occupy my mind but do not suck me in and force me to use benchmarks as reasons to stop playing (a la World of Warcraft’s addicting “just one more level/quest/skill level/etc…” mode of play).

The bizarre thing is that my mind is not racing or flitting from subject to subject. I have to actually think up things to occupy my bored and un-sleeping mind. Sadly this usually takes the form of mental time calculations. I look at the clock and figure out how much sleep I would get if I went to sleep riiiiight now! Okay… now! That doesn’t help, but it seems to be where my mind gravitates, and since this noggin doesn’t seem to gravitate unless I ask it to, I usually stay in that space thinking that I will get 4 hours and 37 minutes of sleep if I fall asleep riiiiiiiight now! And really, base 60 math calculations are not really my forte, but it marginally passes the time.

I kind of do the same thing when I am working out on an elliptical machine as well. Except on the elliptical I make myself determine the fraction of time I have been on the damn machine and the fraction of the whole I have left to be on the damn machine. More than once I have thought to myself, "I am 8/15ths done which means that I only have 7/15th left but that means that in 2 minutes I will be at 3/5ths completed and only have 2/5ths to go. Yea! In 4 minutes I will be at…" As one can see, I absolutely hate exercising due to the fraction laden mental gymnastics I do. It is even worse when I up the time on the damnable machine to 45 minutes. Those fractions hurt my head… badly.

Anyway… 2 to 3 AM is when I have been getting to sleep, and I should be getting up by 6 AM. Clearly that has not consistently been the case. I have been able to pull it off occasionally, but this week has not be stellar is the way of getting up.

Oh well. I guess this is a round about way of telling everyone out there that I am rather tired.

To recap:
I need me some sleep
Badly
It is amazing how fast one can re-arrange one’s daily schedule when the alarm is going off
Alarm: I will just skip breakfast
Alarm: I don’t need to shave today
Alarm: I can shower tomorrow
Alarm: There’s some unfolded laundry on the couch, I could just grabs some clothes there
Alarm: I drive pretty fast…
Truth be told the second time the alarm goes off leads to this
Alarm: Wifey: Get out of bed! And stop waking me up!
Me: Sorry… then I turn the alarm off
Wifey is not happy in the morning
She is not a Neanderthal cave bear like a certain room-mate of mine the last year of undergrad But she is grumpy enough
I am not saying she doesn’t have a right to be grumpy either
If I didn’t have to get up and the alarm kept going off I would be grumpy too
Heck, I did have to get up and the alarm kept going off and I was grumpy

Snuffily

So, Thursday Little Man decided it was nigh passed the time when he should get another cold. I has been 3 weeks of new year with barely a sniffle, so I guess he might be right. Don’t get me wrong, since about November Wifey and I have been giving him at least 1 rescue treatment a day, so it hasn’t been all roses, rainbows, and unicorn farts here in SRHville. I said “unicorn farts” not “Unicron farts.” There is a big difference:

Shout out to the Gen X geeks out there! “Holla! Holla!”

Anyway… Thursday Little man gets his first cold of 2007. I happen to get the same cold Friday morning. Friday evening Wifey decides that she is feeling left out and jumps on the cold bandwagon. This weekend was a sniffily, snuffily disgusting weekend of phlegm and inability to breath. Eventhough we had our ER bag packed Saturday night we were able to ride out the multiple breathing treatments necessary to keep the little one alive. The rule is 3 in a 6 hour timeframe and to the ER we go. We were at 3 in a 6.5 hour time frame. So we were 1 episode of ALF away from Orapred.

Hey, Willy!

To recap:
Unicorn farts = potpourri
ahhhh... orange peel and anise
Unicron farts = annihilation
My planet is gone!
It is a simple transposition of letters
Speaking of mis-types…
I accidentally hit the “t” when I type “busy” all the time as well
That makes for some odd emails to co-workers
“You sure look busty today, Bob.”
“Ummm… I don’t understand your email”
“You know, Bob. ‘You have a nice rack,’ or maybe I accidentally hit the‘t’ key. I am not telling you which is the truth though. I like to keep you guessing.”
20 Questions Tuesday tomorrow
Not sure what is for dinner tonight

Deal Breakers

So in our search for a different child care set up for Little Man Wifey and I have run into some deal breakers for childcare.

The first of the deal breakers has been the lack of part time daycare availability in the area. Some places say they do part time (not full week) but they are lying through their plaque ridden teeth. Most places have only a limited amount of part time spaces, and oddly enough, they are all filled up. Most places say that they offer part-time because they feel that you, as the parents, can just decide not to bring your kid in on all 5 workweek days. You pay for 5 days a week, but only have to use the place the days that you want. Well, thanks a bunch guys. Other places set up their daycare like a timeshare. We can only use them as a part-time child care facility if we can find someone who is willing to have their kid take Little Man’s slot on the days that he isn’t there. I like to think of the other kid like those seat fillers at the Golden Globes and the Oscars. So far only one place we have contacted has full on part-time capability, and Wifey has called a shit-ton of the places recently.

The second of the deal breakers is their food allergen policy. I mean seriously. In this day and age with the prevalence of lethal and near lethal reactions to the major 8 food allergens, a daycare should have some kind of food allergen policy in place. Each facility should at least be tree-nut and peanut free. That is a no brainier, but the facilities should also have a policy in place for people with multiple food allergies. I am not saying that all child-care places should be tree-nut, peanut, dairy, egg, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish free, but they should have at least an idea of what they could do to ensure the health and safety of a child who has multiple food allergies. For the record, I do think that most places should also be fish and shellfish free, because, that is just weird to have tilapia and lobster out on the snack table.

The third of the deal breakers is location. The realty maxim of “Location, Location, Location” also matter when dealing with child care. It does no good if the potential childcare is a 40 minute commute from where we live or our relative places of work. Some of the more attractive places are across town from where either of us even remotely roam. One would think that places would abound near us, but they all have issues with the idea of 3 days a week with food allergies.

The fourth of the deal breakers is environment. Well, more to the point, this deal breaker happens to be about carpet and small furry creatures. I am amazed at how many day care facilities have carpet. With the number of spills and messes associated with kids, I would think that a surface that could be hosed down makes the most sense. If we were currently building with Splashy McSpillsalot in our household, Wifey and I would be hard-pressed not to have cement floors in all the rooms with drains on all the floors. Not to mention Little Man’s asthma. Carpet is a bad thing for him. It traps stuff in it that makes him cough. Again, I am not saying that all places need to be carpet free, but our kid’s asthma kind of necessitate it for or decision making purposes. The asthma and his allergy to most things furry also mean there should not be any hamsters, guinea pigs, marmots, ferrets, cats, dogs, rhinos, etc.. as class pets. Not to mention cedar chips don’t really work. They just make the poop and pee smell like it has been in a cedar chest.

The fifth of the deal breakers is murals. Not all murals, mind you, just the murals that depict hippos as kindly, happy go lucky friends to people. Those animals are vicious killers. Most African animal encounter deaths are due to the hippo. They are insanely territorial and murderous slavering beasties. My son, heir to my self imposed moniker, Natural Hippopotamus Enemy, will not… nay… can not abide in an environment that makes hippos seem that friendly, cuddly friends. It would be like having murals of cartoony dictators plastered over the walls for the kids to play with. You know, like murals of a dancing Ivan, the Terribly Fun for Kids, and Ghengis Duck Duck Goose Khan.

The sixth and final deal breaker is their stance on cryptozoological existence. Little Man’s uncle happens to be a half Yeti. Most pre-schools and daycares discourage children from believeing that yetis and bigfoots (bigfeet?) okay… sasquatches, amoks, elves, jabberwockies, satyrs, dryads, nyads, trolls, giants, unicorns, dragons, jack-a-lopes, etc… exist. The odd thing is they are more than willing to propogate the holiday entities charade. Oooh, look it's Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy (wait, the Toothe Fairy isn't associated with a holiday, nevermind). Well if they feel that cryptos don’t exist, they are denying Little Man’s uncle’s existence (well, half his existence anyway) and that is not acceptible.

To recap:
Looks like we have solid child care for the next few weeks at least
Back to the normal schedule
And therefore the normal posting schedule
Not that this schedule ever really changed
Little Man wore his jammies to “work” today
Who wouldn’t want to wear jammies to work
I have one of those headaches today Yep, one of those pine marten trying to escape the confines of my skull headaches
Stupid weather
Our questionnaire for in home/private childcare is going to be rather interesting, isn’t it?

Sorry for the lateness of the post today, Blogger was acting wonky

Clique, clique, clique

This weekend was the Great Train Expo for Central Ohio. Little Man went to the expo twice this weekend. He do loves hims somes trains. For his first foray into the world of train enthusiasts this winter, he attended the show on Saturday with his Mimma. The weather was really nice that day and the expo was attended really heavily. He made it home with some new trains: Lionel Santa Fe War Bonnets to be exact… to go with his other 2 Sante Fe War Bonnet engines he already had. He has a thing for Santa Fe’s. Honestly, it is surprising that he left there with so little. So, Sunday Wifey, Little Man, and I made it through the nasty weather to attend the show for Little Man’s second day in a row. He then got another Santa Fe. The blue this time.

The expo is set up as train “lay-outs” on the left and vendors on the right. Never shall the 2 mix. It turns out that there are quite a few subsets of train enthusiasts. The first group is kids. Theys loves thems somes trains. This group is easily identified due to their lack of age. Little Man falls into this category. The second group is of the collectors/vendors. These are the folk the ones trying to hock their wares. They are the business people who are out there trying to make a buck. The third group is the collector/antiquarian group. Some of these folks have vendor booths set up, but they don’t really want to sell there stuff to people, they want people to recognize their wares’ rarity. These are the people who don’t want to take the toy out of the packaging and play with it because then it will be worth less. The fourth group is made up of the guys who really wish they were train engineers, but due to their inability to climb ladders or stairs, their questionable grooming habits, and lacking social acumen are forced to build their own little dream worlds in their garage/basement/attic whatever. The fifth group are the railfanners. That group are adults who do not play with scale model trains. These people stalk real trains and videotape them for later viewing when they are not watching actual trains. There were not many railfanners at the expo because they were out watching trains.

It turns out that the train enthusiast community is a bit of a closed community. None of the four groups want to mingle together. Well…. That is not quite the case. The vendors really want the kids around. Annnnnd some of the unwashed wannabee engineers REALLY wanted the kids around, but I am not going to get into the creepy vibes I was getting from some of them. That is a topic for a different post… maybe. The collectors did not want the kids around, because they might devalue one of their prized possessions. The collectors don’t get along with the wannabees because the wannabees want to play with the collectors items like they are some mere toys. Okay, the vendors liked everyone now that I think about it, but that is beside the point, the point is that this hobby is one of cliques and divisions.

The divisions even ran between scale models as well. The N-scalers thought the HO people with idiots and too old fashions, while the S-Gaugers looked down on the Z, N, and HO people because their trains were too small and did not have enough detail. The divisions were deeper than that though. The Central Ohio Railroad Enthusiasts did not talk to the Railroad Enthusiasts of Central Ohio, the Model Railway Club of Central Ohio didn’t mingle with either Railroad Enthusiast groups, and everyone equally shunned the Dayton Area Model Railway Club. There were cliques within cliques within cliques. I haven’t even started talking about the fights between the different factions of controller technology. The vehemence and derision displayed by these varying groups rivaled the ill feelings between Newtonian Calculus Supporters and Liebnezian Calculus Supporters in the 1700’s. Talk about 2 groups you didn’t want to have tea with.

Anyway… The show was a success with Little Man but I was appalled by the lack of interaction within the different sects of that community. I hope Little Man does not necessarily want to cultivate this hobby full-time. I don’t think I could handle the cliquishness.

To recap:
Overall it was a good weekend
I am a bit harsh on the wannabees, but they weren’t willing to interact with anyone who was not in their club
Sweet Mulberry Bushes! Guys you have kids between the ages of 2.5 to 10 who are enrapt with your train displays…
Interact with them
Talk to them about your hobby
Shower
Oh yeah, stop leering at my wife!
The Lego train layout was incredible, and the guys running it were very personable
They did not belong there

Schemocityishness

Some of you don’t know this, but some of you clearly do. I will call those that do, oh, shall we say, “parents?” Yes, I will call them “parents.” One cannot force a 3.45 year old to eat quickly. This is an issue when you have to pick him up from pre-school, get him fed, and get him to his afternoon childcare and you need to be back at work because of some crazy deadlines you did necessarily agree to. Little Man will eat his orange rice at his own pace thank you very much. If that pace happens to coincide with the ending of a Blue’s Clues episode, that is mere happenstance. It is not some master scheme devised by a not yet 4 year old Machiavelli to keep you from getting back to work and completing your insane tasks. No sir-ee Bob. Not a scheme at all. Definitely not schemish. Low value on the schemometer. Utterly lacking in schemoscity. Could not be studied by a schemologisty. Well, might be studiable by a schemologist if the schemologist is doing a case study on something anti-schemic. .

Again, some of you don’t know this other truism, but some of you clearly do. Probably the same set of folks. Anyways… sometimes it is easier to cave in than stand up. “Choosing one’s battles” is a label for it, but more than anything it feels like caving. Yes, Wifey, I caved! You weren’t there! You don’t know!!! It was a warzone man! People were leaving left and right of us! We were just sitting in the car... I thought orange rice would assuage the beast in the seat, but it didn’t! It couldn’t. The beast beat me. Beat me, I say! BEAT MEEEEEEEE. To make a long story short, Little Man got a Sprite from McDonald’s on the way home. It was the only way… THE ONLY WAY!

To recap:
I still have a shit ton of stuff to do today
I do not have a shit-ton of time left to do it
World of Warcraft’s Burning Crusade Expansion is really nice
I gotta get in stupid early tomorrow
Wifey has apparently discovered Pandora.com
Thanks a bunch JW!!!
She loves it
I can’t access it from work; therefore, I hate her
Little Man is at a friend’s house today
Let’s hope he naps, and we’re all still friends after they have him alone for 5 hours
Have a great weekend

No Nap Make Papa go *mumble mumble mumble

Grandma D and Grandpa R are great grandparents to the boy. They love the dickens out of him and really shower him with praise and adoration. The problem is that due to their health they are becoming less and less reliable as primary childcare providers. The way Wifey and I figure it, when Little Man was an infant, a baby, and a toddler he helped Grandma D and Grandpa R (both in late 60’s and D who has Lupus while R has some yet to be diagnosed auto-immune issues) by re-invigorating them. When Little Man transitioned from toddler to Little Boy (not that long ago) the re-invigoration seemed to deteriorate into wearing them down. They just cannot keep up with the active 3.45 yr old. So this erosion of their energy coupled with their auto-immune respective deficiencies and their typically worst season (Winter) has made Wifey and I come to the decision of finding another permanent childcare set-up. We don’t know what that situation will eventually look like, but the one we have set-up currently just is not working. So, until we get a more permanent childcare situation determined, I will be home on Wednesdays. This is both good and bad.

The Good:

• I get a day with Little Man in the middle of the week to recharge my “reason for working” batteries.
• I get to lounge around with the boy and stay in my sleeping clothes until well after noon.
• I get to bond with Little Man more
• I saves us from having to ask friends to watch the little bugger in the interim for a full day (we only need them to cover Tuesday and Thursday afternoons)

The Bad:

• It seems his nap is a thing of the past. He is now “just resting” (his words not mine). He is tired and should nap, but has decide that he won’t fall asleep and is therefore “just resting.” Occasionally we can con him into actually falling asleep by getting him to “just rest” his eyelids, because, you know, they are tired and need rest too, but for the most part is seems the nap is a part of history now.
• It seems my nap on Papa Days is now a thing of the past as well. I dig naps, and it just ain’t happening. That makes me sad, a little tired and bit cranky. Much like a toddler without a nap.
• I require **adult conversation (not that kind people, get your collective heads out of the gutter) throughout the day to stay moderately sane
• Little Man is not so good at the adult conversation
  

To recap:
I will have to evaluate whether or not I should change my posting schedule to Monday Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
Any thoughts on that?
This whole childcare conundrum is a rough one
But it is a problem that has to be solved…
And soon
Anyone know of independent childcare providers in the Clintonville area looking for a Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon childcare gig
Oh, yes, for a child with severe food allergies, animal allergies, and some pretty bad asthma?
Anyone?Anyone?
Are those crickets I hear in the background?
Hellooooo?

*translates directly as "Bat-shit crazy"
**okay "Geeky Conversation"