Bogus Gold

Our kids share our room
Great way to stretch a dollar!
Can I buy some sleep?

Yesterday was an unexpected non-blogging day for me. Sorry to those of you I left hanging in the midst of what seemed like eighty-two individual arguments.

It was one of those days you walk into where things look busy but managable, and then as soon as one thing goes off plan the whole day caves into one big chaotic mess.

On the upside, the boy officially turned six yesterday (he had a party last weekend, but this was the actual birthday). Wow, is he growing up fast. Add to that his youngest sister turning two just a couple of weeks ago, and I realize we'll soon be living in a house without diapers. I don't even remember what that's like.

Anyway, I'll try to get back into the swing of things here as time allows.

Just got back from our first ever “overnight away from all three kids” getaway, in honor of our 14th wedding anniversary. As the wife explained to our oldest who wanted to know why we wanted to do such a thing, “Sometimes mommy and daddy need to have some time to just be Ellen and Doug again.” Well put. It even made sense to our inquisitive five year old.

Everything turned out just fine. We were only gone about 18 hours, but it feels much longer. In the good sense of "feeling longer." The babysitter had some trouble with getting the kids to sleep, and they were up at the crack of dawn of course. But she gets to go back to her child-free apartment and nap this afternoon.

Oh, and the place we stayed and dined at, The Nicollet Island Inn, was every bit as good as we’d hoped. Highly recommended. I’ll have a restaurant review written up later, but I don’t want to ignore the excellent accommodations and service offered by the Inn itself.

Funny how having kids changes your idea of a great gift.

Take our anniversary this year. The wife got an offer from our kids' former excellent babysitter who will be home from college over the weekend to watch them overnight, so we can plan a little one-night getaway.

We're going here.

We've eaten at the restaurant previously, and enjoyed it. It's within easy walking distance to a number of different Nordeast entertainment options. A romantic dinner; evening out without needing to make it home for the kids' tuck-in; a blissful night of uninterrupted slumber; brunch the next morning.

Happy 14th Anniversary (a wee bit early) to us both!

Helpful parenting observation for those considering multiple children spaced relatively close together:

First child:

Child cries out in the night. Seemingly a nightmare. Inconsolable crying persists even with comforting.

Mom: There, there my precious little one! You're safe! I've got you! It's okay!

Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dad (who is mashed in along with mom and the child): Did you hear that? Mama's got you! And daddy's here too! You're okay! We're here!

(repeat for 5 - 90 minutes until child calms back into sleep)



First and Second Child now:

Child (either one) cries out in the night. Seemingly a nightmare. Inconsolable crying persists even with comforting.

Mom: It's okay! Mama's got you! Shhhhhhhhhh!!

Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dad (whispering): I'll go make sure the other one is okay.

Mom: Just be quiet about it! I'm trying to keep this one from waking the other!!



First, Second and Third Child now:

Child (any one - you really don't care anymore) cries out in the night. Seemingly a nightmare. Inconsolable crying persists even with comforting.

Mom: *sigh* I got it.

Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dad (wandering into room, speaking in normal tone of voice): Everything okay?

Mom (speaking in normal, if a tad bored tone of voice): Yeah. Nightmare. Say, I forgot to put away some of the groceries. There were some strawberries that need to go in the fridge.

Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dad (normal tone of voice, as if unable to even hear amazingly loud screams): Kay. Say, did you want to watch that movie we rented tonight?

Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom (equally normal tone of voice, similarly unable to hear amazingly loud screams): Mmmmm... I don't think so. I Tivo'd another show I wanted to watch tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Child: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dad: Kay. I'll go put away the strawberries.


And that's pretty much the way that goes. I'll explain how putting them to bed changes with more kids in a future post.

Allow me to crawl back into my blogging seat after getting over the hump of Influenza type A. And may I say, after my first experience with Tamiflu, thank God for anti-virals. The doctor warned me that they wouldn't make the flu go away, but it should shorten the amount of time I had it. If yesterday (especially last night) is anything to go by, that is a HUGE relief.

I've decided my least favorite flu symptom is the all-over muscle aches. Fever isn't fun. Nausea and loss of appetite, I could certainly do without. The feeling that an NFL lineman is sitting on my chest won't earn any rave reviews. But those overall aches that just do not stop and cover every inch of my body making comfort, let alone sleep, impossible top them all in my opinion.

And the only thing worse than having the flu is having a houseful of flu. The boy came down with it first, and was already on the rebound when I started having symptoms. The wife was next, tested negative for flu, then went back two days later considerably worse and tested positive. It was the following evening that the two younger girls came down with symptoms, and only the morning of their doctor appointment that I did.

The folks at the nearby clinic were pretty accomodating, allowing me and the two girls to all share a single appointment. But oy! We are definitely in the middle of flu season. The office was packed. The wait was long. And all three of us were rapidly getting worse the entire time.

Then came the medication follies. Our local pharmacy was out of the childrens' Tamiflu prescribed for the girls. So, after a looooong negotiation with a pharmacy worker who was obviously very new, I found out how to get the prescription transferred to another pharmacy. After driving across town again - still getting worse - I discovered the other pharmacy could only fill one of the two prescriptions. They were also out, other than the one bottle. Thankfully, the girls were prescribed the same amount of the same stuff, so we could make it work until the resupply arrived the next afternoon.

Yesterday was particularly sucky in that the wife was still really sick yesterday morning, and I was getting worse and worse all day. At some point, the pity-party moved from her to me, and she took over primary care of the kids while I assumed the crash position on the couch.

Anyway, none of us is quite back to normal yet. But we all seem to be over the worst of it and coming back to normal. Moral of the story: Tamiflu good. Aches and Pains bad.

So I threw my back out last night. I know what you're thinking: "Doug, what did you throw out a perfectly good back for?" And given an entire night of agony to think about it, I must reluctantly agree it probably wasn't a terrific idea.

See, Santa Claus comes tonight, and he normally expects the wife and I to give him a little hand setting up all eight-hundred eleventy-two loud, breakable, or multi-piece toys for the little ones Christmas morning. Plus, we have all the non-Santa gifts - the ones from relatives - to open Christmas Eve. Due to the super-inquisitive nature of our children we can’t put those presents under the tree until roughly five seconds before they’re allowed to open them. So there is some present hauling from secret storage to under the tree beforehand. That didn’t seem like a lot of work until last evening when I discovered the amazing amount of effort it took to walk and breathe at the same time.

I’m working on medication to make things a little more bearable. I’ve got these AsperCream patches on both sides of my back at the moment. Can’t tell if they’re doing anything positive, but they do make me smell like a giant walking Vicks, so I have that going for me.

If anyone would like to donate emergency rations of pain-killing extra-strength eggnog, let me know ASAP.

I got to spend extra time with my kids over this holiday weekend. Which was important because the middle child is currently pushing just about every button the wife has. She's three, which gets my vote as the most difficult age anyway. But she's really three these days. And will be lucky to make it to four if she doesn't develop a little restraint soon.

One of her latest obsessions is playing with the laundry detergent (and various other clothes cleaning products). She gets consistently punished every time she's caught, but it doesn't faze her. Oh, she howls like a banshee regardless how mild the form of punishment is. It just has no bearing on her future decision making.

She's also fearless and more agile than our other children, able to climb up to and/or get into things that are supposed to be child-proof. Thankfully, she's also by far our pickiest eater, so she doesn't usually put the various forbidden cleaners, shampoos, cosmetics, etc. into her mouth.

Another recent obsession of hers is to undress/dressup over and over all day. This means that if you have the child dressed for an outing and make the mistake of turning your back, she's already undressed again. Once again, punishment gets nothing through.

All the while the youngest one approaches her terrible-twos, with a big sister who's behavior she's already copying. Going to be a rough winter in my house.

JB Doubtless, a blogger who is suddenly and welcomly posting a lot more than had been his habit for the prior several months wants to know:

The only people that should have their kids in public schools are leftists who actually believe in and agree with the secular humanist agenda. If you aren't one and don't, then you have to ask yourself one question:

Are you an ignoramus or a fool?

He lays out quite a persuasive argument leading up to this, carefully paraphrasing the word "doodyhead" in slightly gentler terms to bolster his own gravitas on more than one occasion.

Problem is, I get a distinct sensation JB is speaking from that incomprably knowledgable state of parenthood known as "currently doesn't have any kids." Unlike other critics, I don't point this out in an effort to undermine his credibility to opine on this topic. Opine away, one and all!

Heck, a lot of what JB says is fine, save for his tendency to generalize in an area he well may assume is far more uniform than it actually is. That's a problem when anyone decides to lecture others about a topic he doesn't know very well himself. It's easier to discern a broad pattern and speak to that as if it's representative of the whole than to speak to particulars. I've been guilty as well in the past.

But when it came to putting my own son into an actual school my wife and I did research. A LOT of research, because he has special educational needs that are neither standard, nor easy to find offered anywhere prior to fourth grade. It turned out "secular humanism," which is indeed a moral position with which I disagree and would not like my children indoctrinated into, comprises a surprisingly small amount of the Fridley Public School kindergarten agenda. What's more, parental involvement, transparency of curriculum, and opportunity for advanced educational programs in Fridley Schools was unequaled when we compared public, parochial, and private school alternatives.

Those who haven't had an actual child you've attempted to match up to actual educational alternatives are a lot more free to wildy generalize and opine. But at some point your rhetoric has to meet reality. You can't effectively speak to that sort of thing in generalizations, or pure theory, or mere anecdotes. You need to have answers that address the specific situation of specific people's specific children.

Anyway, if JB wants to know whether I'm an ignoramus or a fool, I'd have a hard time choosing only one. The experience of parenting alone has cemented both of those as some of my undeniable attributes in a way my childless days couldn't anticipate. But I'll take my insight over JB's on this topic in any case.

I've been running a little science experiment for the past several weeks, investigating how long a goldfish can live in his own filth because I don't feel like cleaning the tank.

Results? Inconclusive. The d*mn fish outlasted my willingness to leave what had become essentially a clear-glass bucket of slime on top of the piano any longer.

I suppose I could have just moved it someplace less visible and let the experiment continue. Unfortunately the kids recently rediscovered that they own a fish, and have been arguing about who loves him (or her) the most, which also had a role in ending the experiment.

Of course, being loved by a competitive 5 year old and 3 year old has considerably shortened the fish's expected lifespan. His (or her) odds were better being neglected in the slime.

This past weekend was the best of times and the worst of times. At least when it comes to my personal life. And what better gauge of real importance is there?

Let's start with the "worst" part. That's how the weekend decided to structure things, so it makes the most sense.

The kids have not been sleeping well lately for various reasons. The most recent bout started Thursday night when our youngest took center stage by throwing a middle of the night fit that didn't end for over two hours. I got about three hours of sleep that night, and had a hugely busy day at work Friday. So I went into the weekend absolutely exhausted.

Saturday, I took the "get up early with the kids" shift, because the wife was just as tired as me. So I sort of floated into the weekend in a mopey-eyed, surley fashion. The kids, under-sleepified as they were also, decided to dedicate Saturday morning to pressing every hot button of dad's they could find.

And this continued into the afternoon, joined by my getting to listen to my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers get walloped by lowly Kansas on the radio. Television mercifully declined to carry the game.

Also, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to go party with the liberals at the Power Liberal house-warming. Instead I got to do some minor plumbing repair, and cleanup of other more minor disasters caused by a three year old daughter on an especially destructive tear.

And, feeling crappy and tired and more than a little infuriated, the "worst" phase of the weekend came to an end. For no apparent reason, the weekend took a definitive turn for the better when I watched my second favorite college football team - the ones with the golden helmets who play in South Bend - continue their amazing turnaround season by thumping a pretty good Tennessee team.

Then I needed to turn my attention to cleaning the kitchen in preparation for my cousin and his new wife coming over for dinner. I flipped on the Discovery channel and got to watch a geeky-good series called "Before the Dinosaurs" while I cleaned. In typical Discovery Channel fashion of late, it recreated ancient life via the miracle of computer animation, combining scientific information with a healthy dose of creative interpretation and narrative. Highly recommended.

As the cleaning ended, and the table was set for our dinner, our guests arrived. We had some wine and hors d'ouerves while letting the kiddies visit with them for about an hour. Somewhat surprisingly, all of the kids decided to be on good behavior. Afterward we tucked the kids into bed, and prepared the main meal.

Over the course of the evening we polished off a few bottles of wine along with our salad, meal, and desert courses. The meal turned out to perfection (compliments to the wife for that - I was only playing wine-steward). By the time our guests left it was almost 1:30am, and I was shocked. One of those evenings where the time flies because you're having a good time. Nice food, nice wine, nice company.

We quickly turned in, and the kids unexpectedly slept through the night allowing us much needed uninterrupted sleep. What's more, the wife had the "get up early with the kids" shift, so I was able to sleep in.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day, with no great plans. I almost didn't watch the Vikings game, because they've been so depressing to see this year. But at the last minute I changed my mind - and got to see a rare convincing win. Even if it was over the lowly Detroit Lions, there are no gimmes for the Vikings this year. I never thought my 1997 Brad Johnson jersey would become fashionable again, but suddenly it is.

Sunday evening, a more subdued set of kids snuggled in with me on the couch to watch an edited for TNT version of the Kevin Bacon classic Tremors. No joking, I love that movie and haven't seen it for a while. To my surprise the kids - the older two anyway - became totally engrossed as well. Too scary for the three year old? No worries she quickly fell asleep and stayed down for the night. And the others went down when it was time without fuss.

After a rough start, the weekend finished very nicely. How'd the rest of you fare?

The babysitter unexpectedly called back, and she's unexpectedly available. That means this evening will include the wife & I enjoying a relaxing meal at Ursula's, rather than shouting at the boy to stop picking on his sister, the middle child to stop screaming and opening everything she's not supposed to, and the youngest to stop whining and having a cold.

Unfortunately, it does mean we need to hurriedly clean up the place so the babysitter is fooled into believing we don't actually live like bears with furniture.

Overall, a good tradeoff.

I’m not normally a baseball guy. But I’ve been following the World Series because the White Sox are in it.

As I’ve mentioned about a dozen times in the past two weeks, my grandfather was a fanatic White Sox fan his whole life. When we were kids he used to tell stories about playing for the White Sox, which, as kids, we totally believed, even though all the adults around us seemed to find the stories terribly amusing. But his devotion to the Sox was no joke. He took my brother and me to White Sox games when we were kids at old Comisky Park (he also choked down the indignity of taking us to Cubs games without complaint, but that’s another story). He had always promised to take my grandmother to the World Series if the White Sox made it.

Grandfather didn’t live long enough to see it, but grandma did. Courtesy of my uncle Patrick, grandma attended last night’s game along with my mom & dad. I watched on the tube marveling at the fact that my 90 year old grandma was sitting outdoors for hours watching a game in weather like that: cold, wind, and rain the entire time.

I was happy to see grandma’s game play out as a true classic. The teams battled back and forth the entire night. The Astros scored first. The Sox answered back to take the lead in the same inning. Later the Astros took a two run lead. A White Sox grand slam pulled them ahead in the seventh. The Astros evened it up in the top of the ninth. And in the bottom of the ninth, a homerun won the game for the White Sox.

What a game! Somewhere my grandfather smiled. And in a cold, wet stadium in Chicago, so did grandma.

I mentioned briefly last night that my grandma is a White Sox fan, and would get to go to the World Series if they made it in. Here's just a quick followup.



Have fun at the World Series grandma.

I'm back from darkest Iowegia. It turned out having internet access at my hotel didn't matter. I had no time to myself regardless. Quite a whirlwind weekend. I don't know why I thought putting my kids in a hotel with a swimming pool was going to give me any time for anything else when we had a spare moment.

The occasion was my grandmother's 90th birthday. She's actually from Ottumwa, rather than Des Moines. But Ottumwa isn't big enough to accommodate the crazy-wild partying of my family when they get together for serious geriatric joviality.

Anyway, we got to see lots of relatives we haven't seen in years. The kids got to meet many of them for the first time. Very worth the effort.

While starting the big birthday dinner we had some of the younger cousins with the sharpest eyes keeping an eye on the television in the bar to keep us updated on the Notre Dame / USC game. I love being from a Catholic family where booze & football are as welcome as mom & apple pie in family gatherings.

On that note, I'll offer the anecdotal oberservation that new coach Charlie Weiss has certainly recaptured Notre Dame's traditional position of reverence within the American Catholic family. Even my cousin who graduated from USC was pulling hard for Notre Dame. Classic though the ending was, a Notre Dame win would have been counted as a gift to Grandma on her 90th in a way ESPN Classic can't quite capture.

Still, turning too the far less important sport of baseball, if the White Sox win tonight (they're currently up 1-0 in the bottom of the third inning) that would be even better. My late grandfather was a lifelong White Sox fan, and his better half remains one today. If the Sox make it to the World Series, my uncle has promised to take her to one of the games. Go Sox!

So the boy and I got to talking about the Great Pyramid of Giza tonight while listening to ragtime music (don't ask for all the steps in between). And when I tried to describe the Great Pyramid to him, with its gigantic blocks and (in ancient times) gleaming marble covering he told me to wait. He had to draw me a picture of a pyramid "everyone knows" so we could compare. A better known pyramid than the Great Pyramid at Giza? Curious what the lad would come up with.

He grabbed his Magna-doodle (a.k.a. Etch-a-Sketch with a pen) and drew... the Food Pyramid.

Should I be pleased? Amused? Chagrined? I can't even tell.

A little while ago I mentioned I was curious about what it might be like to live through a hurricane. Know what? I ain’t that damn curious anymore.

Last night we had a humongous thunderstorm (actually about three storms) roll through the North Metro, with winds ranging from 60-80 mph. My neighborhood played host to wind closer to the 80 mph range. Trees down everywhere. Not just little ones either. Some of these were huge, and healthy.

We were fortunate that we only lost a few big branches. Our backyard elm tree is leaning pretty badly though, so we’ll probably have to take it down. Neighbors all around us weren’t so lucky. Some lost roofs. Many lost huge trees. All of us lost power.

The Bogus domicile has been without power since virtually the same time the storm first hit last evening. I took off to find a place with some Wi-fi where I’m posting this from. Fingers crossed that power will be back tomorrow morning. The power company isn’t promising anything. We've already lost everything in the refrigerator and freezer. We're afraid to open the deep freeze yet.

This morning was filled with the sounds of sirens and chainsaws. With no way to boil water, I went out in search of someplace to buy a hot cup of coffee. The streets around me proved impassable. I’d start down a street in the vague direction of “south” hoping to find someplace with power. But I kept running into trees lying across roads, making me detour again and again. Eventually I gave up and headed home to enjoy instant coffee mixed with hot tap water.

Around noon we stopped hearing sirens, and it was just chainsaws. All day has been chainsaws. The amount of wood lining the street from downed trees now gives the place a Northwoods timber company look and smell. Much discussion among the neighbors about whether the city will pick up all the wood and branches, or whether we’ll all have to pay for special pickup. But our phones don't work either, so we couldn't call to find out.

I snapped a few pictures of the houses immediately around mine. I didn’t have the camera with me when I walked down the street later, but six or seven houses down the damage was quite a bit worse when trees of similar size landed squarely on some houses.

The middle child had her third birthday party today at the place known in Lileksian lore as Chuck E Fargin' Cheeze. It's not just a nice kid friendly spot to host a birthday party. It's a birthday party factory.

We were in the noon batch of party assembly. One of eight other parties hosted in the party room. Each party group had their own space - though most shared a table. It wasn't uncomfortable though. Because these tables were modeled after something out of a Viking longhall (that means they were very, very long).

The thing was carefully coreographed as well. Party shows up at noon. kids play games for ten minutes. Pizza arrives. Kids eat pizza. Kids play games. At 12:45 Chuck E. Fargin' Cheeze himself comes out, all the kids run up to dance with him, and scream and holler and sing. In short order they're all herded back to their chairs to continue to scream and holler and sing for a bit. And at the end of it all, the birthday kids blow out their candles.

Then kids eat cake, and run off to play more games. The adults grab what sustinence they can (incidentally Worst. Pizza. Ever.), and haul tail out of there, because you only have the table until 1:30. Then they need to set up for the 2pm party assembly line.

We had the birthday girl open her presents in the other room. Those interested could stay and watch, while the rest could run around like maniacs spending tokens and collecting tickets to claim (*cough* crap *cough*) prizes.

All and all, not a bad way to handle a party for a three year old girl who had to invite hordes of boy cousins when she wanted a "princess party." She got all her princess things, and they got distracted by all the games, flashing lights, beeps, sirens so they didn't even notice the icky girl-theme.

Now she's sleeping soundly, unaware that when she wakes on the morning of her actual birthday, she'll have a new playhouse waiting for her in the back yard. And of course a new princess tiara (number three of the birthday season) and princess scepter so she can pretend to be Princess Lolly, the greatest acrobat in Candyland.

Going to be a very full weekend for her. And for us as well.

We did the "National Night Out" thing this evening. In our neighborhood that has always meant a quiet backyard gathering with potluck snacks, a big box of Colorado peaches donated by Bob's Produce Ranch, and a visit from the local Fire and/or Police department telling us how great these little neighborhood night-out parties are.

Since our neighborhood is largely composed of retired couples, entertainment is on us, in the form of our three kids running around like maniacs in someone else's backyard for a change.

Interestingly, some new neighbors a couple of houses down now have a boy just a couple of months older than our youngest daughter. And the formerly single woman across the street and one house down from us is now married, pregnant, and due in October. Seems us young'uns are starting to refill the neighborhood with children. And the older neighbors, being empty-nesters and grandparents rather than "you kids get out of my yard" types seem pleased with the development. Apparently this area used to be bustling with kids.

Not to play the codger, but when I was a kid we never had "National Night Out," and we still knew all our neighbors. Now we have it, and we don't really know them as well. Of course we never used to have the Internet and over 200 channels on television so the lure of a couch wasn't quite as strong back then.

Nothing terribly exciting to report here. We dutifully showed up as we always do. We made smalltalk, as we always do. We snacked lightly at the various fruit salads and assorted other snacks, as we always do. And then we bundled up the kids when we could recognize the signs that they were getting tired, but to unfamiliar eyes they still appeared rambunctious and cute. Just one of those things that I'll probably wish I had better memories of one day, but passes without much notice now.

Summer tiiiiiiime, and the livin' is eeeeeeasy...

Feels like one of those classic lazy mid-summer weekends. Hot dry weather, but enough recent rain that everything is green and growing. Green gives this kind of weather a much different feel than the crackly brown our brief drought a few weeks back provided.

Still, I'm not a warm weather guy. I've been enjoying the nice weather chiefly by observing it through the windows of my air-conditioned four season porch. Mornings and evenings feel quite pleasant. But that mid-day heat blast is not designed for pasty-pale white guys bred for cooler climates.

Big news story of the weekend - the Colorado peaches are in at Bob's Produce Ranch! Not big news to you? You get your peaches from Califor-ni-yay, maybe? Trust me, the Colorado peaches are the best I taste all year. They come in sometime in late July, and last until about early September. Then we're into Idaho peach time which, though slightly more flavorful than Idaho potatoes, have never really captured me.

In unrelated news, the wife just took our youngest into the doctor's office. Looks like she might have chicken pox. Joy.