the help

as help goes, today i got some pretty good.

as the city will be trolling our streets this week -- assuming the dreaded "frankenstorm" just dumps rain on us -- it will be vacuuming the leaves piled off the street in front of residents' homes. (a handy way to avoid bagging, i learned last year.)

so after a field trip to a putnam county pumpkin farm and a nap, i took it upon myself to move those leaves over our retaining wall onto the shoulder off the road.

the boy, having taken a long nap, was roused to join me in the dusky drizzle. (obviously, this shot is from another time.)

where normally his enthusiasm would fizzle out as the drudgery began settling in, he maintained an enthusiasm equal to the simplicity of the task: pick up and throw leaves.

as the pile got smaller, his intensity increased and he did a pretty fine job tossing them to where they could be sucked up.

the rest of the time, he practiced stomping his new boots in rain as i tried to rake what i could onto that narrow parcel of land.

(i'll try to take a picture of the results tomorrow. it's the cleanest my yard's ever looked in the autumn. and just to keep the gutters cleared of what detritus i could in advance of this anticipated precipitation, i blew the leaves out again yesterday after i was actually able to mow the yard for the last time this year. i don't think i've ever had it cut so low. the deck was low enough that it actually mulched the leaves. it was fantastic.)

anyway, i was glad to have his little hands helping. now if he could only actually listen while he "washes" the dishes instead of playing with the sponges and the water.

 update: here's the shot from sunday morning. not too shabby if i say so myself.

party foul

learned a tough lesson yesterday regarding the boy and kid party food: watch the sugar intake.

his preschool had a halloween bash with activities and food. the attendance times were staggered, i think, based on attention span, which meant the boy's class was probably last, with only half an hour of activity before treats were served.

and what treats. i think things went in increasing order of deliciousness, ie, sugar content: juice, then orange halves converted into fruit cups, then a big, thick chocolate chip cookie, and, finally, a giant cupcake with gobs of icing.

kris didn't seem to concerned, as they were "sometime foods," as the foodies on sesame street like to say.

but we paid the price for the rest of the day. despite her best efforts to burn off some of that excess sugar with a trip to the park before returning home, the boy was wired and had a surfeit of energy to fight off his afternoon nap.

it got pretty ugly. toddler on mommy violence followed by lots of wailing while on room confinement. things did not settle down until bath and bedtime. an early bedtime.

party lesson: watch the sugar. intercept and reduce when possible. wow.

connections

He keeps telling me he's going to put me into a pie in mr. Mcgregor's garden.
— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) October 23, 2012

this was a text from kris this afternoon. it's like the boy's synapses just keep connecting. and his memory astounds both his mama and me.

he's gotten very much into his picture books, including "the tale of peter rabbit," which he has us read before he goes to sleep or, if it tickles his fancy, during the course of some random day.

kris and i try to imbue our readings with life and morality lessons.

no hitting; no kicking; no throwing things around, for example. this, from michael chabon's "the astonishing secret of awesome man."

when we read "peter rabbit," we try to impress upon him how bad things can happen if you don't listen to mommy.

you could end up in a pie, as peter's father did, when he trespassed on mr. mcgregor's property.

after the second or third reading, it's amazing what he recalls. page by page and picture by picture, he knows what's happening.

then he brings it up as part of his fanciful daily conversation. sometimes it takes a moment before you realize that he's referencing what you've read him and your jaw drops a little.

so i'm not quite sure what he meant today, although he did indicate this morning that one does not want to wind up in a pie in mr. mcgregor's garden.

whatever it is, i hope he's just teasing.

update: kris informs me that the boy was piling everything he owned on top of her as she lay on the couch this evening. apparently, this layering was his effort to make her into a pie.

digesting

well, i can honestly say i've never known a football season at west virginia u like the one i've experienced so far.

outrageous, off-the-charts scoring in one ballgame, then a beatdown like i've never seen before. and after both games, the feeling i had was indescribable.

well, not really. the first was such a jolt of joyous, gleeful pleasure that i had nothing to compare it to. it was magic.

the second, however, is a kissing cousin to previous experiences i've had at mountaineer field in that we lost.  it's just that i've never been eyewitness to a loss like the one we had against kansas state's wildcats saturday night.

i'm accustomed to heartbreaking defeats or even shoulder-shrugging acceptance of scoring gaps we just weren't going to close -- games where we were right there in it until the final quarter or last play before things extended beyond our reach.

i stayed until the end of those because i always stayed until the end of our victories. i counted myself among their followers when my team was winning, so i was not going to abandon them when they were losing. (i've joked that it's like making sure they don't die alone.)

saturday's game was different; we never had a chance -- probably from the get-go.

my friend and i arrived a little late, but we hadn't been sitting ten minutes before i sensed that the crowd was not in the game. it was absolutely dead. this was a crowd expecting fireworks -- and it didn't know what to do when nothing happened.

personally, i put some blame on the night kickoff for having legions mellowed out from an afternoon of food and drink and disenchanted after the team's first loss of the season last week.

it was going to take a lot to get them engaged. and when drive after drive ended with no points for us and an accumulation of scores for the visitors, the mountaineer faithful became disbelieving passengers on a flight in a death spiral.

this was different from ballgames where all i'd have to do is walk to my sister's place and pass out for the night. there was going to be about three hours of sitting in traffic then dejectedly speeding down the interstate before i'd reach my bed.

so as the game slipped further and further out of reach, i began making the deal with myself mid-way through the third quarter. when the wildcats passed 50, it was time to go.

we were on our way out at the 2:52 mark with the score 52-14.

old feelings that i'd thought i could finally put to rest just two weeks ago resurfaced. a promising season seemingly being fulfilled in spectacular fashion comes crashing down in a humiliating and public display.

after nearly 30 years of following these guys through near-misses and sweet redemption, you find ways to protect yourself from what we've come to regard as the inevitable disappointment these guys will leave you with.

despite watching eye-popping performances and a swagger i hadn't sensed in years, until i saw a crystal trophy being raised in triumph, i was not going to invest my feelings in this team; not after what decades of painful lessons have taught.

and sure enough, before it was 10 p.m. yesterday, the whole case for guarded optimism and waiting for the other shoe to drop was validated.

this is a team that will break your heart. and year-in, year-out, it keeps coming up with new ways to do it.

doomed

you know why i think my west virginia mountaineers are in for a rude, primetime tv, stadium-clearing awakening?

because i don't think kansas state makes mistakes.

because i think they're going to eat clock and fluster us enough that we don't score the necessary points to win..

because when we have every reason to win, we play as if reasons are all we need to win.

but mostly because matt hayes thinks we'll destroy them. (this is the same dude who gave five reasons wvu would appear in the bcs title game the week we got our bell rung by texas tech.)

call me superstitious. or just your typical, fatalistic mountaineer fan.

my girl

a shameful confession: my baby girl is almost a year old and i don't feel like i've spent enough time with her.

the past ten months have been such a blur that this pretty little thing has arrived at the brink of walking and it seems i'm only now discovering her.

those first days and weeks of holding this tiny person seem to have faded into barely recoverable memory.

the feeding and changing and swaddling -- the tactile things -- seem like history. i can scarce believe she could fit entirely in the crook of my arm.

maybe it was having to balance attention and energy between her and her bewildered, jealous brother.

maybe it was the grind of being a more senior editor on staff now with more responsibility than when our boy was born. i come home from work every night tired and more focused on rest and less on being in the moment of fatherhood -- much less than i was the first time around.

on the other hand, unlike the early days of me and the boy, mama is home 24/7 and we have no need for daycare. those hours between his waking and my dropping him off were our alone time. i don't think i had too much of that with the girl.

these days, with her naps overlapping the boy's new activities, i get to spend time with her when she wakes up until kris and the boy come home. this can be a couple of hours.

so these stolen moments with the little girl have turned into a delightful re-introduction to the other wee person in our home. and just in time, too. her little personality is starting to come through.

judging by the way with which she zeroes in on her brother's toys and voices her disapproval of his efforts to take hers, i can see she's going to be a pistol.

but by the same token, you need only look at the way she looks at her brother and you only see adoration. i'm going to be paying close attention to these two.

'like falling from heaven to earth'

that was dad talking after west virginia u took its first loss of the season.

i think he liked our chances as much as everyone else in the country. oh well.

while i expected some "told you so" backlash from the national publications, they were mostly matter-of-fact and pointed out long-held concerns. (still waiting to hear from matt hayes, though the sporting news itself was at least as understanding as the rest.)

at least i was spared the frustration of watching or even listening to the game being on the road to visit my aunt and cousins who stopped for a visit at flat top.

focusing on family proved to be a lifesaver yet again, as the long drive home was spent trying to be quiet enough to let the kids sleep and being on the lookout for deer.

(i'm not sure i wouldn't have traded it for a wvu win, but having a drive back without much crying from either child was blessing i was most grateful for.)

(on the other hand, maybe it was time for some of the air to be let out of the hype balloon. what better slap upside the head than a loss to get you focused on the second half of the season?)

well, if nothing else, the day was productive in that i did get to visit with relatives i haven't seen in a while.

plus, i got a huge jump on the leaf-raking before they got matted down by rain and their own weight. i even got to blow out the gutters, though probably not the last time this season.

the boy even got into the act, raking as young people do, which is until they get bored, which for him was about a minute. he did seem to enjoy walking through the piles, which kept him out of mommy's hair until they headed out for an early afternoon birthday party.

kris told me his behavior there was exemplary, btw. eating pizza like a frat boy, drinking his beverage out of a big boy cup and using his please's and thank you's.

this did not continue when he met the cousins, though. as soon as stepped in the door, he was the instant focus of attention by a room full of strangers. he literally turned around, opened the door and ran. i didn't catch up to him until he was forced to scamper gingerly on the gravel-strewn road in his bare feet.  i picked him up.

"i want go home," he said, knocking off my glasses for emphasis. "we're not doing that," i said, and carried him screaming into the house.

kris finally traded the baby for him and talked him off the ledge. he spent most of his time in front of the tv, though, and didn't approach or talk to anyone until it was time to leave.

kris despairs of the boy ever being his chatty, funny, smart self in front of my family instead of some brain-damaged tasmanian devil.

10-11-12

i just wanted to have a post for today, so here it is. (by the skin of my teeth and in a major cheat*.)

this is the boy as he waited for mama to take him to pre-school.

it was school picture day and there was some question as to what he'd wear.

"i don't want something too precious," kris said. i agreed.

oddly enough, we both seemed to think a striped shirt was in order.

(i had in mind much thinner stripes, similar to my recollections of school pictures of other kids, but that's probably because it was the 1970s.)

we'd hoped to have the boy get a proper haircut in advance of the shoot, but the barber shop's kid haircut specialist was off wednesday.

eh. he'll be the scruffy, devilishly handsome kid in the composite.

and lest we let this date go without a milestone: his sister, in a major breakthrough, slept through the night. no feeding, no changing. kris was ecstatic. now if we can only get the room exchange completed that we've been planning since last year.

* i posted the pic with a line of text and added more copy later. so sue me.

how do they do this every week and not be dead?

tasty signs of fall

pumpkin lasagne, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

a cool, drizzly curtain seemed to have been drawn over the last warm rays of summer this weekend. it put the missus in mind for some autumnal victuals.

fall means pumpkins to kris and one of her favorite dishes is pumpkin lasagne.

filled with creamy pumpkin, collard greens (in lieu of swiss chard) and mozarella cheese, it's got a savory, satisfying flavor and texture that says lasagne.

then for breakfast this morning, she surprised the boy with banana muffins. he wouldn't eat his until i called it a "cupcake."

they were just sweet enough and a nice sugar/cinnamon topping that made for a crunchy counterpoint to the moist cake.

(she meant to add ground flax seed for a hit of omega-3 nutrition, but she forgot. oh, well. next time.)

finally, at the end of the day, the boy spied popcorn in one of the storybooks he was looking at and asked mama for some.

oddly enough, we had a jar in the house and kris made it old-school style on the stovetop.

she seasoned it with smart balance spread and salt. the boy munched happily on it. (he had watched his first movie in a theater last saturday -- "finding nemo 3-d" -- and sat propped up with a bucket of buttered popcorn on his lap. kris said he love the stuff.)

now she's ready for hot cocoa and giada de laurentis' baked mac and cheese. (not at the same time, i hope.)

(i thought i was going to write a blog post that didn't mention football or the children for a change, but i was wrong.)

deep in the heart of texas

still buzzing after last night's big big 12 conference win over texas.

i suppose i could post a hundred links, but i'll just post to my friends over at the smoking musket for a collection of game accounts and analyses.

seriously, this was the game i'd been anticipating ever since the orange bowl win and the conference schedules came out. this would test our mettle, not just from the players' standpoint, but our coaches, too.

listening on the radio and doing laundry for about four hours, i got to experience real-time jitters, astonishment, despair and a vindicating joy.

and again, the biggest gametime stress-reliever this season proved to have been my boy.

late in the fourth quarter, after a fumble deep in our own territory, the longhorns recovered. i was sure we were dead.

then cries came out from the lad's room -- a nightmare must have had him upset and crying out in his sleep.

it took a few minutes to calm him down -- rubbing his back, stroking his hair and face, replacing his blankets, anything to get him back to sleep.

my mind couldn't be anywhere except in that darkened room, so i focused on easing him back. then by and by, he was quiet enough that i could kiss him good night and close his door.

i returned to the living room expecting to be down by four or at least tied. instead, after a simultaneous check of an online game thread and listening to the play-by-play, lo and behold, our lead was still intact. texas came up empty after a muffed snap and an ensuing field goal attempt.

i was sorry to have missed the action, but a few minutes of distress were alleviated by being a father instead of a football fan. it was kinda validating to see that maintaining priorities paid off in more than one way.

it's cheeseburger and fry day

i hate flash, but at least you can see how he deconstructs his cheeseburger.

i hate flash, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

well, he must be my son.

as the boy and his mom and sister were on their way to join me at the y for an afternoon at the pool, he informs mama that "it's cheeseburger and fry day" and he wants a "burger sandwich" and french fries for supper.

bold request from the lad who had so far turned up his nose at just about every form of red meat offered to him.

(and where the hell did he hear of such a thing, anyway? i don't think elmo, curious george or blues clues is hawking burgers. his getting burned out on wendy's chicken nuggets may have prompted this. who knows?)

so after our dip in the pool, the boy was hungry. as i loaded him into the car, kris and i looked at each other. were we really going to do this?

"order his plain," i said. "he doesn't seem to like condiments." we had no idea if he was going to go through with it, but chose to go without a backup meal.

the boy's first big bite of burger.

the moment of truth arrived when kris walked into the house with a wendy's bag of burgers and fries for her and me -- and a cheeseburger kids meal for the boy.

we divvied up the bags' contents, holding the tempting distraction of his beloved "freh fries" in abeyance, and unwrapped his sandwich.

he began by holding the thing in both hands and nibbled at the top and bottom of the bun, i suppose because even a small burger was too big for him to bite through cleanly.

but as i rooted through a bag, he took the big top bun off and began biting and breaking off mouthfuls of the rest of the burger. and he ate the dang thing like a champ.

a little meat here, a little bun there, some fries from mama to keep him going, and by the end, he ate all his bread and all but about three little bites of burger.

and in the midst of his first burger-fest, he turns to kris and says, "this is delicious. thanks, mommy." a day of miracles and wonders.

now i don't know if this is going to change next week, but it's nice to see he's added a new food to his diet.

wvu videos

i thought there were more of these, but i guess i forgot them. this is from west virginia u after the baylor game.



and this was from espn.


i'd have used fox sports, which actually broadcast the game, but they don't embed. oh, well.

storified post: enjoying it while it lasts

the last time we slept in

ok. because of this post, i'm trying to be in the ballpark of the last time the boy had to wait for mommy or daddy to go into his room to get him up and out of bed.

so it was the beginning of august (that long ago?) that he got his big boy bed.

it wasn't but a few days later that he began waking up pissed off and in such a mood that we'd ask him, "do you want to go back to bed?" before trundling him off for a thrashing, supine time-out.

it was probably two or three weeks ago, then, that i'd hear his little feet hit the floor, followed by his heavy footfalls to his bedroom door, the noisy jiggling of its knob and a steady advance to where i was asleep. (these days, the couch, where i await the baby not sleeping in mommy's bed.)

his present greeting, as he sidles up to me, is "oh, hi, daddy. whatcha do-nin'? i ha' a great sleep." as it is now fall, the sun is not yet up at 6:30 or 7 a.m. (a friend with a nephew a year or so older than the boy warned me of this. "enjoy sleeping in while you can," was the gist of it.)

if i can't get back to sleep after an early morning baby feed where i'm giving mama a hand, then i hear him talk to himself for a few minutes before he gets up.

this used to be our only signal that it was about time to get him out of his crib/bed. i never could get a recording device close enough to his room to capture his early morning babble soliloquies, or likely not now, with his more decipherable story set-ups, usually involving bus stations and a place called "robot city."

when he was in his crib, it usually took a cry of some sort to prod us from our efforts to catch those last winks of sleep. now our alarm clock comes to us.