Boys (not mine)

So this is a post that I didn't think I would have to write for, well, a really long time. Mainly because I figured my little girls are, little. My oldest is only 8 years old, and yet it has started.

There is a disease out there, a disease of the brain which makes it completely shut down for several years except for the most vital of functions, such as breathing and talking on the phone. There is no immediate cure, simply having to wait it out until it runs it's course. This viral infection, I'm afraid, is boys. Not my son, I'm talking about boys who are around the same age as the females in my family.

I've worked very hard to inoculate my girls against it, talking about how dumb most boys are and how they're not worth the time. I let them know that boys fart ALL the time and that it's worse than girl farts, and even shown by example. So far it has worked, but I see an infection brewing in my oldest.

This first episode is not her fault, it's the boy's (it always is, unless we're talking about Lukas and then it's the girl's fault). I had no idea what was happening until my wife pointed out the little culprit (who will remain un-named until I feel the need to expose him). He just happens to be the brother of one of Lukas's little friends, and makes a point of walking his brother over here every time it's time for their playdate. Its by no means necessary, because his older sister is already walking him over, so he is just along for the ride. It wasn't always like this, usually the older sister would just walk the friend over, but now without fail, the brother is always there, and every time, I see his hopeful face at the front door drop when I answer, instead of Nikki, whereas when Nikki answers, its accompanied by "Hi Nikki! How are ya? Nice day we're having? Gosh you look pretty! Wanna go to the prom with me when we're in High School?" Ya know, stuff like that.

This was as far as it went, until the other day, when I was not here, and the boy brought over his little sibling to make an unscheduled play date (which I'm Ok with btw, it's what comes next that has me concerned). He did his usual thing and asked for Nikki, and then somehow managed to get invited in for a play date of his own... with my daughter.

He's good.

Should I be worried?

Not yet I don't think, and I wasn't until yesterday.

We were going to the jump-zone and Nikki was allowed to bring a friend along (don't worry, boy was not invited). The day was fun, no broken bones, everyone happy, and no fits, and then as we were driving home, I catch 2 simple words of the conversation my child is having with her friend, amidst the sports talk radio that I am listening to. I pause for a minute and think if I heard the words correctly and in the right context, but it's there, and there is no mistaking it. The words "Boy" and "Cute" in the same sentence. I gradually turn down the radio to listen more intently, but these girls are smart, and are wary of my dadly ways, and all conversation stops. So I try and make light of it,

"What are you girls talking about?" That's me being light.

"Nothing dad, just plain old girl stuff."

Her friend, "And certainly nothing about boys."

Crap, confirmation, she's no longer a little girl anymore and is growing up, something all fathers strive to prevent from the day that his little girl takes her first breath. Maybe it's just a little bit of jealousy, but for the next few years I was hoping that I would be the only man in her life, except Lukas of course.

On the other hand I see I have now located a source of future information. Nikki needs to stay friends with this one through high school, because she is what we call the spiller of all secrets, and does so in such a complete unknowing sort of way that she still believes she has kept the secret.

Or I could just talk to my daughter about it. I feel Nikki and I have a great relationship, mainly because she is a lot like me, and that is also what scares me about this next part of her life, because I know what I was like.

Swim the fish.

So my kids have been begging me for a while to get a pet. I don't know why because all my kids are deathly afraid of anything that has a pulse and fur. For all you people who know Nikki, she is the one who started this crazy phase of screaming and panicking whenever she hears the bark of a dog, no matter how far away it is. But a few months ago she made some great strides and befriended my brother's dog August, who is also a service animal. We told her all about him and how he is special trained to look after my niece's diabetes. This seemed to be a good reason to befriend the dog, and she realized that not all dogs are evil and going to bite you.

What's crazy is a few years ago, my parents had a dog named Buster, and Nikki LOVED him. Like literally LOVED that dog. She was only 2 when he died of cancer, but she would lay on him, ride him, pull his tail, and he would basically sit there and endure her. He was a mix between a Black Lab and a Great Dane, so he was HUGE. But he also had a scooby doo face, and the most gentle disposition. After a while he would just get up and move away from her when she was annoying him.

Flash to today. Nikki is terrified, and that terrified reaction has been passed on to the other kids, unless Nikki isn't there, and then Lukas loves dogs, especially Huskies (I don't know where he got that one from). Mollie still acts like she's scared, but I think she's just playing the part of the scared little girl. She runs and grabs her blanket before running away from the dog, so that she has her comfort item while she snuggles with daddy.

Anyway, back to our pet. Yes, we got one, and it's probably the easiest pet you can get (at least that is what Pet Smart says, and yes, I asked). When we went there, Lukas was looking at Turtles, and Snakes (you're welcome Kara), Guinea pigs, but there weren't any dogs there. He also said he didn't want a cat (which I wasn't going to get him any of the above, we were getting a fish, and that's it). But we got to the pet store and looked over all the stuff, and finally got a salesperson to help us out. She seemed to be very passionate about fish, and especially Betta's because she told us everything we need to know and more... in one breath. Which I kind of like. If you can describe all their wants and needs in one breath, then that's a good pet.

The fish itself was around $5, the tank, about $8, food, $5, gravel $3, leafy thing for it to sleep on $3, little log thing that Lukas insisted we buy, $4.  Not buying a dog. Priceless. As we were checking out, I had no idea that there was a guarantee on the fish. Seriously, if your fish kicks the bucket within 14 days of bringing it home, then you just bring that sucker back and they will get you a new one, AND you get to keep the dead fish! Sounds good. The checkout lady said that was in the event that we wanted to have a funeral or something.  So, don't flush those fish right away.

So we got in the car, and there's London and Lukas in the back seat, and Lukas is holding the fish. He didn't want to name it until we got out of the pet store, and as soon as we got outside, the naming began.

Lukas- "Hmmm, how about Fishy?"

Me-"That's kind of a weird name for a fish."

"yeah, how about Fisher?"

yes let's name him after the murderer of fish shall we.

"Bob? no not Bob, I know how about Swim?"

"Eh, alright, you sure?"

"Yes, Swim is a great name. Dad, what do we do when he dies?"

crap, just barely got his fish and he's already thinking up a contingency plan. I thought I had to do that. I mean, I've watched Full House, I know what you do with a dead fish. That's what that 14 day policy is for right?

"Well, everything dies eventually, what will we do?"

"Get another fish."

Good plan.

"Dad, what will happen when his body and his spirit separate?"

This is getting pretty deep, well, go for the truth.

"That would mean he's dead."

"Ok, does he have a brain?"

and it went on and on.  So we finally make it back home, and the lady at the fish store, in her one breath soliloquy on "How to care for a Betta?" mentioned that all you need to use is Spring water for them. Like bottled water. Or water with no chlorine. They had this lovely bottle at the pet shop titled "Betta Water" that was about a liter, and cost somewhere around $8. Basically just arrowhead with a  picture of a fish on it. Seriously, I should do this if pet people will buy this crap.

We set up the tank, put in the gravel, the log, the plant, and now all we need is water. Water..... hmmm, where can we get water. I usually throw out several half dunken water bottles every day, and about ten ever time I clean out the cars. So I task Lukas with finding the above mentioned water bottles. Within 30 seconds he's located the fist, then I find the second, then a big find, Kara's water bottle from he gym last night. This filled up the tank about 1 inch above the gravel line. WE NEED WATER! We're off looking again, and Lukas points to the squirt bottle we use to spray down the kids hair. It's got about a liter in it. Close enough. (this whole time, that 14 day policy is running through my mind). By now we have the fish tank half full of water. In goes the fish. I now have a happy little boy, with a fish named swim, and I still don't have a dog. Life is good.

We need new phones

You know that moment, when you know you need to buy something, but you really don't want to, either because you really like the old one, or the new one is just too darn expensive, or both? Yeah that's happening right now. It's happened before with several other things, like this backpack I had on my mission. It was awesome, had lots of patches on it that made me look like a world traveller, lots of pockets, and it was held together by duct tape. No really it was. The duct tape wasn't the first solution, it was actually fix #3, and it lasted the longest. The strap on it started to fray and so a member in the ward I was serving in volunteered to fix it, by sewing it. She did a great job, and it looked nice, and it worked... for about a month. Then I tried glue, and that... well let's just not talk about that one. Finally I ended up with the duct tape and made it work, for over 8 years. Duct tape is awesome, you should buy it, and duct tape should pay me for endorsing them. I also used it as a bandage one time in high school. And it worked.

Well, my phone, and Kara's, are by no means as reliable as that old back pack. If you could compare phones to shoes, ours would be the no-name brand shoes that you find on the clearance rack at Wal-Mart, that no one likes, but you buy because it was such a good deal, even if they are a size too large.
You see, we made the big jump to "smart phones" a few years ago, and Kara still has her same phone, and it was a basic model at that. We both had the same phone but mine died a little earlier than hers, like year earlier. It started to only allow me to make emergency phone calls. After I paid the bill, the problem still persisted, and after having the 911 dispatcher patch us through to Dominoes to order pizza a few times, I figured it was time to get a new phone. So last father's day Kara and the kids bought me a Nokia Lumia Windows phone. Everything was great about this phone, that is until I updated the software. The "Upgrade" was supposedly to a more efficient, higher functioning operating system that was very intuitive, and as advertised "Like having your own personal assistant." Well, my personal assistant apparently falls asleep, can't take a memo, forgets all my contacts, and hacks into my Facebook all the time. She's fired.

I like to run. Ok, let me re-phrase that, I like the feeling I get after I run, and sometimes during running when I am in shape. The past few months I can't even seem to get out of bed early enough except for the occasional bi-monthly jaunt. The reason. My phone (well that's my excuse to my running buddy, sorry Schuyler). Well that and London. You see, I set my alarm for some stupid time in the morning that is usually too early for anyone to actually function, let alone want to do anything at a fast pace. This apparently is also true for my phone. I set an alarm. One simple alarm. In computer terms I think it's 10 lines of code. My phone decides it is too hard to do it, freezes up, and then I wake up when my wife's phone goes off, which is too late to go running ( to be perfectly honest, I like this a little bit too much, but seeing as how my belly button is now visible as a circular disk when I wear t-shirts, it's time to fix it).

Kara's phone on the other hand, works... kind of. A few months ago, all normal functioning sounds have been replaced by little 8 bit original nintendo sounds, strike that, Atari. It sounds like a dial-up modem. It has begun the whole emergency calls only thing, and here's a good one, randomly calling people. So if Kara decides to reach out and contact you in the next little while, and all you hear are the keys in your purse, just remember, she still loves you, but did not mean to call you. Sorry everyone with a name that starts with A. Also butt dials have reached an all time high, due to the fact that her phone will randomly unlock, and dial either the most recent, or the one at the top of the contacts list. Luckily, my name is Andrew with a capitol A. Made her change it from hot buns a little while ago, maybe it's time we switched back.

So tonight we just might be heading over to the Wal-Mart to pick out some other awesome low quality phones to which we will pay way too much money that is last years model. Maybe we'll buy an Android with a higher operating system than Android 1.o Sugar Cube.

My new years resolutionary tactics!

It's a brand new year, and a brand new set of resolutions that I plan on not keeping. So there, I said it, it's not happening. Well, maybe I will try and get my finances in order, maybe I will actually break 3 hours in my 5k, etc. So instead of resolutions, I am putting together a wish list of things I would like to happen.

1. Mollie will stop screaming out random stuff in the middle of the night.

I used to be a light sleeper, now I would say I am just a light waker, meaning I am always just on the brink of not being awake. The above headline does nothing to help this. Each night Mollie has very vivid dreams and typically yells at the people in the (usually us) to do something. Between that and her inability to go to the bathroom without someone else in there to keep her company, I typically sleep in twenty minute intervals, and in the parking lot waiting to pick up the kids from pre-school.

2. My kids will suddenly not cost ANYTHING!

When Kara and I were first married our largest bill was our rent, which was $450 a month. We had that, and a car payment, plus food. Now that we have kids, that has been multiplied, many times over.  In order to keep the kids in dance, pre-school, and waffles it ends up taking up a pretty penny. I'm not doing this for sympathy so please don't go out and set up a fund for us at Zion's Bank, or do, I won't complain. We make enough money and now that Kara is finally done with school (well, really close) we are going to be better. Let's just say that the little tax exemption we get for having kids is a small drop in the bucket compared to the kids GoGurt bill.

3. I will poop out all my fat!

It's a little far fetched, but hey, wouldn't you want that?

4. I will have that Barbie dream house thing where it cleans itself.

This is a wish for both Kara and I. Mollie watches this show called Barbie life in the dream house and  to clean the house all they have to do is push a button and the whole floor flips over to reveal an identical side that is also clean. Yes, I would like that.

5. None of my kids will get sick, ever.

I have to admit, we have it pretty good in this department. There are no life threatening illnesses or deformities plaguing our children. But when kids get sick it is really not fun. Kara and I have worked out a pretty good system when the kids are sick. She goes out and buys every type of medicine she can find to calm the worrier in her, and I sit with said sick child and watch football. Yes I run the risk of catching whatever illness the child has, but when you compare how many times I get sick compared to Kara, it's the best bet. 

Our old system did not work very well due to lack of communication and how we were raised when we were sick. Let's take vomiting for example. When I was a kid, we were given a bowl as an extra precaution if we couldn't get to the bathroom in time. Kara was given a bag. We combined the two.

What we didn't talk about before-hand was how we were going to handle a child who was in the midst of vomiting with neither bowl, bag nor bathroom handy. 

My method- run with the child as fast as possible to nearest bathroom, bag or bowl whilst child throws up on floor on the way.

Kara's method- Turn said child in direction of husband so as to maximize coverage of vomit on husband. After belly has been emptied of all possible fluid, put child in bath. 

Don't have sick kids, just don't.

6. I will have limitless amounts of energy to call upon

I feel guilty when my kids ask me day in and day out to play and I simply cannot make out what they are saying because I am swaying back and forth due to lack of sleep (see wish number 1). I think if each parent had this, all parenting problems would be solved. When I have enough sleep I can pretty much conquer anything, even a sick child pointed in my general direction. But when I am tired I sometimes don't want to play barbies, or Lego Indiana Jones, or even put on pants. Can someone please invent something that is not addictive and that doesn't give you cancer that can fix this problem?

Mollie V London

For those of you who I haven't seen since February, London is my newest daughter. Yes we had the baby, yes I know it happened back in April, and yes she is adorable. I know I'm a horrible father for not blogging about her earlier, but I can live with that. I'm OK, are you? Good, now that we are in this happy place let's talk about this little bundle of joy before she is no longer with us. No, she's not sick or dying, just in danger, and that danger is called Mollie.
You see some people would think that there would be some sibling rivalry or jealousy or something like that.

Mollie just loves London WAYYYYY too much.

For one thing, she always wants to touch her face, which I can understand because when I really like someone I really like to get a tactile experience of their cheekbones. It's good bonding time as well. I can't tell you how many of my friends I have now were won over with a nice massage of the mandible.

One of these days Mollie will learn that people in general don't like to have their faces touched.... by anyone.  I let Kara touch my face, the doctor, and the occasional kid who thinks I'm Santa and want's to pull my beard (when I have one), but other than that, really no one.

I went up to Mollie and did the exact same thing she was doing to London and said "Do you like that? How does that feel?"

Her response, "It feels good!" I must explain that I was also shaking her cheeks back and forth with my fingers. She loved it.

Another fear London now has, is Gummie Bears. Thanks to Mollie. One day Mollie decided to feed her several gummie bears, and me being the ever attentive father missed most of it, until the last one had been shoved down London's throat. Luckily grandma saw it and raced in just as Mollie was saying "She likes it!"

I jumped in and said "Mollie, we NEVER, EVER give London food!"

Her response, "You're welcome!" and she skips off. I guess she thought that I meant that we never feed London so she needs to.

So in addition to the above death threats that London receives every time Mollie enters the room, she has also been sat on, licked, kicked, cheeks squished (all four) nose plugged, blanket covered and in general PTSD. London will be smiling at me, and then Mollie will jump in and say "Hey London" and she will visibly jump at the sight or sound of her.

She loves Nikki, loves Lukas, allows grandmas to hold her for two minutes of non cry time a week, but lives in constant fear of Mollie. I hope they both survive.

Lasers from Heaven!

We gave the Nikki "The Talk." And when I say "The talk" it's exactly what you think. Since Kara has been pregnant she has asked a lot of questions, like, how big is the baby, how does the baby grow, where does the baby come out, and all that stuff, whereas I have been asking questions like "How am I going to take care of this one, and how am I going to keep Mollie from smothering it, and where is my Hair Gel?"  The last question is answered by looking in Mollie's toy kitchen. She seems to think it looks like food and puts it in her refrigerator every day. She also takes my glasses.

Anyway, the big question finally came up "Mom, how did the baby get in there? And how are they made?" Also the big one "Why does it take a mommy and a daddy to have a baby?"

Luckily I didn't have to handle this one on my own... well I pretty much didn't have to do anything even though I was "prepared". Kara did most of the talking, probably because she is smarter about this stuff. I remember just before we got married she answered some questions that I had had for quite some time.  It turns out Kara was just as terrified as I was about this whole situation and had absolutely no idea how to go about it.

So we got a book. Well actually we got three books, one on Amazon which helped us introduce the subject and kind of take away the awkwardness of the subject "How to talk to your child about Sex." and then we got two books by Brad Wilcox on the subject, one for little kids set up like a story book (I liked that one) and the other one for more pre-teen kids (talks about maturation and stuff like that). We opted for the story book, and it really was a good way to introduce it. The first book was great too, it just didn't give us any ideas on how to present the whole miracle of making a baby. It did however talk a lot about how AWESOME it is, and how we should not make it seem taboo, but be respectful of it.

So we got Nikki all excited to learn about it telling her that we are going to talk about it on Saturday night after the kids go to bed, and that it was really awesome. She kept asking for hints about it, and she even gave me her theories, such as "I think that a laser beam shoots down from heaven and goes into the mommy's stomach, but it can't go out her back, and then the baby gets transported there."

Sounds Legit.

We were worried it would totally gross her out. Stories heard from around the family include Nikki's cousin Jacob just shaking his head and saying "You mean you guys have done that 3 times?" (there are three kids in his family).  Then there is also Kara's brother quoted saying "Mom, there has to be another way, you and Dad would never do that, would you?" At least seven times! My family sitting all the boys down in a family home evening and my little brother asking VERY specific questions and all the older siblings simply asking to be excused. And of course there was the night before the wedding night talk. That's for a later blog post. Like 15 years from now, or maybe never.

She was a little embarrassed. Each time we brought up something she would quickly chime in "yeah yeah I know" with the undertone of "lets speed this along please." I would like to say that I did a good job at explaining the whole thing, but in reality Kara did the majority of the talking, and I chimed in once in a while. I think I actually learned some new things as well.

We didn't cover everything, mainly because we didn't want to overwhelm her, but we covered the basics. We didn't cover any bit of puberty and all those fun changes to look forward to, but the very next day, she asked about it. So we are going to talk about that again on Saturday. I think this might be a weekly thing for us now. Some people work out regularly, we tend to talk about the birds and the bees on a weekly basis.

One last note. It was nice talking to her about it, before she had really heard anything, because there was no real embarrassment, just a great conversation. I heard that the older kids get, embarrassment and mortification increase exponentially. So we are going to get it out of the way early and let her have the freedom to ask questions and know that she will get a real answer, and hopefully it's a good alternative to lasers from heaven.

Mollie has a man cold (and a little rant)

I don't really like the term "Man Cold" because it's very off the mark.  It's a term that someone made up that means when men get a cold we all act like babies again and that when women have colds they just work through it. I'm calling B.S. There are plenty of times when I have gone to work with a cold, headache, back pain, shin splints, etc. Whenever I actually have a cold where it's bad enough that I have to stay home from something (very rare) it's pretty bad, like I'm nauseous, ready to throw up and can't walk straight. So in these extreme cases, yes I am going to need a little attending to, like possibly someone to make the kids lunches. Most of all I just want to lay in bed and sleep when this happens. What sucks about being a stay at home parent though, is you never get a sick day. You just plow through it and hope you don't pass out during the day (or sometimes I think it might be nice).

Anyway, Mollie today has had a bad cold. Sniffling, coughing etc. You know how I can tell, because she is asking me every 20 seconds for another tissue. Which brings me to my next point. It's 11 am and I have been working on the dishes since 9 am and just barely got them done. We didn't have a lot to do... we had Pizza last night.  This was dishes from breakfast and a little bit from yesterday, but because I kept getting interrupted every 20 seconds (literally) I would wash half a dish... wipe a nose. Finish the last dish...wipe a nose. This went on for some time. In the meantime when Mollie wasn't having me collect her mucus in disposable cotton, Lukas was asking me every 30 seconds how to do something in his video game Lego Batman.

You know those times when people who "work" wonder what SAH's (Stay At Home's) do all day and they think it would be nice to have that life. Catch up on Days of Our Lives, eat bon bons, take long naps, play bridge and catch up on the latest Oprah Winfrey book club book?

Well, to put that rumor to rest, that is exactly what I do. With all my spare time I also put together homeschool lessons three three years out, create and photograph all my beautiful homemaking ideas and post them on pinterest (yes I AM THAT EVIL PERSON and I want you all to feel like less of a person because you can't make Despicable Me minion cupcakes for your son's Birthday Event/Party that takes more planning than a wedding). I also work out everyday but I do it with my kids because only bad parents leave their kids at the Gym daycare, do crafts and learning activities with my children,  they NEVER spend more than 30 minutes watching television/playing minion rush/or nintendo, and my house has this great feature where it never gets dirty or untidy. All this because I have magic Yoga Pants that let me do anything.

Oh, and all the laundry is done too. My secret! I just buy new clothes and throw the dirty clothes away! You should all strive to be like me, but not too hard because you know you'll never achieve it. It's because I live in an alternative reality where my days actually have 36 hours in them and my children sleep or are in school for 30 of them. It's so GREAT to be ME!!!!