We all live in a Pokemon world..

My daughter is no longer into princesses. Our princess movies sit unwatched. Her princess costumes are collecting dust. When asked about Disney World, she says, “Are there Pokemon there? No? Naahhh, I don’t want to go there.”

In fact, all she ever talks about is going to Japan to go to the Pokemon Center Store. I have to say that a trip to Japan sounds intriguing to Ms. Kaz and me. But I could just see us going there, visiting the Pokemon Center Store and then spending the rest of the week dealing with, “I don’t want to go there! That sounds booooring!”

Even the boy now recognizes, and gets excited about Pikachu. He likes to squeeze his first together and grimace and shake his head in faux effort in order to get us to go, “GEODUUUUDE!!”

Anyhow, on a recent trip back from Rochester, my daughter was talking about something, and I told her, “Sweetie, I have no idea what you are talking about.” A few seconds of thought, and she responded, “If you don’t know what I am talking about, it is probably Pokemon.”

Indeed.

Ouch!

So, I’ve been working on this crazy project for, like, 8 months, and been super busy and working late hours. The boy (now 1 1/2) probably thinks of me as “Morning Guy”. Seriously. He sees me at night occasionally, and looks at me like, “Hey, Morning Guy! What’re you doing here?!?”

I missed the family. I got too wrapped up in the work. I hit a point where I was working 90+ hrs a week and skipping meals.

It finally caught up to me the final week of the project. I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and the next thing I knew I was on the bathroom floor, bleeding. The family was away for the weekend, so I called 911 and wound up in the trauma ward with a really banged up head, culminating with two fractures in my skull.

That got me some time with the family!

I think it also put things in perspective and made me realize I need to make time to take care of myself when I’ve got these big projects. I’ll be fine. I just need to deal with these stitches, staples and bruises… as well as a neck brace for a few weeks.

The kids were a little wierded out when they first saw me, but they are back to normal (well, as normal as they can be) now. I can’t rough-house with them yet, but they are being good at being gentle with daddy.

So, to make a short story long, these are the reasons (a) I haven’t been posting and (b) I am now posting. Oh, yeah, and it appears I am going to be fine…

Conversations with…: The 5th Beatle

For whatever reason – whether it is my mediocre guitar playing, my adequate singing, or my average looks, I am not sure – my daughter has occasionally told me I should be in the Beatles. During a similar discussion recently, we had the following exchange:

Me: But who would they kick out of the Beatles to make room for me?
Daughter: Uhm… Ringo!
Me: But I don’t know how to play drums.
Daughter: Uhm… George.
Me: I could probably handle guitar. You couldn’t kick out Paul or John, right?
Daughter: Right!
Me: Why not? What do they contribute to the band?
Daughter: Uhm… handsomeness.
Me: Yes, amongst 4 1/2 year old music historians, John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s greatest contribution to music was their handsomeness.

On the plus side, she thinks I would be the most handsome of the Beatles!

Well, Paul, when you want to get the band back together, you know where to find me…

Language

It is always interesting the watch (listen?) as my daughter’s language skills continue to develop. It really helps you see how the English language can be a little messed up. The one thing my daughter seems to struggle with the most is the past tense.

Early on, she was able to pick up the adding of -ed to verbs to make them the past tense. Which is great 90% of the time. But it also leads to a lot of “I knowed” and “he runned”. One thing I’ve always tried to do is to passively correct her. I will repeat the word back to her the correct way – “Oh, you knew that?” or “He ran where?”, etc.

I don’t know if this is the right way to do it, but I know she isn’t actively trying to do anything wrong, so I feel better “guiding” her to the correct way of saying these thing.

The thing I love most about her growing language skills is the way her mind puts things together. This process makes for some cute results, such as:

• My daughter calls her big toe the “thumb toe”
• We were playing with her dolls the other day, and she made me make the child doll run away. The mother dolls warned that if the child doll ran away, she might “die to death”
• And last night, she told Ms. Kaz that she had an itch, and when Ms. Kaz asked where, she said in her “knee underarm”

There are other examples, but these are a few that stick out in my mind…

We survived another Christmas

We survived!

We survived the 16+ hours in the car (total, not each way).

We survived the usual family dramas which occur.

We survived way too many, and way too large gifts from the families (and I even had a little spot cleared to see out the back window!).

We survived way too much good food and good (very good!) wine.

We even survived my in-laws open floorplan house with no good places to put up gates and a 14 month old who recently learned how much fun climbing and playing with remotes can be.

We even managed to not over-buy gifts for the kids ourselves… and survived. In fact, my daughter, when we were discussing her presents, even said to us, “Wow! I didn’t know I was that good!”

I didn’t either…

Misc. Random Stuff

Thanksgiving is coming, and tomorrow, we’re driving back to the Buffalo area. This is the first time we’ll have gotten to go back since last Christmas. I’ll actually be taking 3 vacation days, in addition to the 2 holidays and 2 weekend days. That’ll bring my grand total of days off this year to 9, which will leave me with 8 to use up in December. Sounds like a recipe to 3 day weekends…

I’m also really digging Paul McCartney’s new stuff (The Fireman, free listens here).

Oh, and we’re going to Disney World in February, partly for my 40th next birthday, but, really, mostly for the kids. Looking for tips for 4 year olds and 1 year olds… and for vegetarian dining.

My daughter has only seen previews for the movie, Bolt, but already is making me play Bolt with her, based on her understanding of the story. “I’d really like a stuffed Bolt,” she told me. “Maybe we can ask Santa. I am not even sure if they make a stuffed Bolt,” I told her, thinking it best to hedge my bets in case Santa doesn’t get it for her. Her response? “Well, then Santa can make it!” Of course. I don’t know how to argue that one.

Have a great Thanksgiving, all!

The Election and My Kids

One more thing on the election…

At first, I was a little disappointed that the historic nature of this year’s election would be lost on my kids, what with them being 4 and 1.

However, the more I thought about it, the happier I was that they would grow up thinking it was perfectly normal that anyone, not just white males, could run for President and that anyone, not just white males, could potentially be elected.

And that’s the kind of world I want my kids to grow up in.

Wow.

I have to say that, in general, I am proud to be an American. I may not always be proud of some of the things my country has done, but I don’t think that makes me any different than most other Americans, or most other people in the world.

Last night was a proud moment.

I know a vast majority or people voted for one candidate or the other because of what they stood for, and what they wanted to do. But I think I would be naive to deny that there was probably some people who refused to vote for one candidate because of the color of his skin. Heck, I would probably be naive to believe that there weren’t some that voted for Obama solely because of the color of his skin.

But I like to believe that most Americans who voted chose based on their belief in who was the better candidate. The fact that Americans were able to look beyond skin color, and not have it affect their opinions is, in my book, something to be proud of.

It is something that would not (and did not) happen 40, 30, even less years ago. And I hope that my kids will grow up in a world where people will look beyond what a person looks like, and focus on who they are.

So, yesterday, Ms. Kaz took our daughter with her to vote, because, being 4, we think it is time to start teaching her about such things. She and Ms. Kaz talked all about what a President is, what voting is, etc. in the car on the way there. Our daughter was all excited. She and Ms. Kaz went and voted (well, Ms. Kaz did, not my daughter) and afterwards, my daughter’s opinion? “That was boring.”

But, I am proud to say (although she is free to have her own opinions) that, in her preschool election, she voted for, “Rock Obama”.

Ms. Kaz said they talked in class a bit about the elections and the candidates. I asked my daughter if she learned about Ralph Nader, and she said, “What’s Ralph Nader?”

In other news, my daughter goes for her Peanut Challenge today. The docs think she might be over her peanut allergy, so they are going to expose her, little by little, to peanuts, stopping if they see signs of a reaction.

With any luck, they will be gone a long time…

Wait, poke a what?

Somehow, my daughter got exposed to Pokemon a few months back. I suspect school.

All our play centers around Pokemon. “You gotta be the bad guy, daddy, and I’m Pikachu!” Okay. Then she lays there and expects me to know what to do. Any play involving Disney movies I can do. I’ve seen them, I know what happens. I can even do a lot of the voices. Pokemon? Not so much.

I try several plot lines and my daughter, Pikachu, just lays there. “You gotta help me out here, sweetie, daddy doesn’t know what to do.”

I’d decide a different tactic to buy time…

A Peanut Battle Update and More

Hey, all – sorry I haven’t been around. Work has been crazy… I’ve gotten a promotion without the promotion, so I am trying to do my old job and my new (really more of a new role than job) while transitioning.

Oh, and learning that raising two kids is a lot of work!

Anyhow, it has been another year already for my daughter, so we hauled her off to get her allergies re-tested, and to get The Boy tested as a precaution because now we have a “history” in our family.

The good news is that, based on the skin test, the allergist felt my daughter may no longer have an issue with peanuts! We were actually a bit worried, because they prick the arm, then leave you alone for 15 minutes. One of my daughter’s tests was really swelling a lot, and Ms. Kaz and I were a bit bummed because we assumed it was the peanut.

Turns out, that’s just the control test. Apparently something everyone reacts to (anyone? maybe just raw histamine??).

That being said, she still needs to go back for a … PEANUT CHALLENGE! (dun dun dun!)

Basically, they will start with a teeny tiny bit of peanut, uh, something. They will then watch. Then they will give a little more. Then watch. Eventually, it progresses to peanut butter on a cracker and beyond (presumably they’ll let her go to eating a whole jar of peanut butter than afternoon if she has no reaction and is so inclined).

So, we are not out of the woods yet, but things are looking a bit brighter!