the traditional end of the year post

life ledger since 2008. not sure what volume this is.

been pretty steady on my annual new year's resolutions list -- only been making good on one lately. you can guess which.

but my paper journal opens in 2008 and i don't think i'm halfway through it, given i only really log stuff too sensitive to make public, which, as you can see, isn't much.

but the resolutions are the same as last year:

• pray -- meditate when possible
• get fit -- eat better and start exercising regularly again
• get finances in order -- for retirement and college
• throw shit away -- give yourself room to breathe in this cozy house

my only big plan, aside from focusing on the kids and being the best i can be for the missus, is getting the roof and gutters done next year.

and, as ever, thanks and praise to God, from whom all our countless blessings flow. may we be with you as you are with us. amen and amen.

holiday blues

charleston city lights

bums me out every year once the city starts taking down its holiday decorations.

they're simple, really -- wreathes of artificial holly festooned  with a bow and encircled with a string of lights. 

watching them spring up right around thanksgiving always picks me up and fills me with a child-like sense of anticipation. 

seeing them through the run-up to christmas are reminders sure as advent candles that something good is coming. 

having them lit even after the big day makes me hopeful because new years is coming and the holiday vibe can linger on. 

but the city may have already stopped lighting the wreathes, which means the holidays are already over. 

(it doesn't help that i've been preoccupied the whole time with some major work projects that already had me at a slight remove from the whole season anyway. well, that, and the emotionally draining vagaries of being a parent to a preschooler and a toddler -- but that also comes with its own reward.)

i love the high of christmastide and always feel abandoned and bereft when it subsides. 

i think it's the suddenness of the end that makes me sad. 

the holidays arrive like a slowly rising tide, but then get shut off like a faucet when they're over. 

i wish their departure were as leisurely as their arrival, so we could be weaned gradually into the cold gray months with the memory of their warmth still intact. 

test

i predict tom hindman will wear a red jacket on wednesday 5 march 2014.

get out of jail free card

Christmas 2013, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

got a great deal on a kitchenaid mixer for kris.

she was pissed for about three minutes.

then she was happy.

the big day

thomas the tank engine blue mountain mine train set.

well, it finally arrived, and not a moment too soon.

the boy was about to go blind christmas eve from trying to keep it together for one day -- because for the previous, oh, seven or so, he had been a holy terror. really bad timing on his part.

but it seemed to be the consensus that despite our prescribed punishment of a month without toys for extreme violence, we could not take christmas away from a child.

after a week where fevers, stomach bugs and his sister's birthday were ladled atop a general mandate "to be good for goodness sake," the boy might have been suffering from what my mom said was maybe regulatory overload. that's a lot of pressure for a 3-year-old, she said.

so we made clear to him that he had one last chance to get on the "nice" list after a bad start to christmas eve.

as i walked away from the over-hyped bundle of ailments and three-ness, having given him a final, plaintive directive, i told kris, "the only positive lesson to be drawn from this is that forgiveness can still be found in one's final moments" -- and, as far as the boy' chance at redemptive behavior was concerned, christmas eve was his.

and i don't know if it was his knowing the stakes involved or a second straight day without gluten, but he held his temper in check, voiced his distress and disagreements in a civil tone and laid it on thick with niceness to his mother and sister for the day.

so we were primed for him to have a good christmas morning, even after a rough night of sleep -- muscle aches (?) and a wet bed.

strangely for us, not only did he not arise before the sun, as had become a distressing development lately, but he actually didn't get out of bed until two hours after the cut-off time for sending him back to bed. (i.e., he slept until past 8 a.m., which was a christmas miracle.)

the number of gifts were few -- unlike last year -- but they were things he really wanted: a buzz lightyear doll and an octonauts octopod. (he also got a sheriff woody doll and a thomas the tank engine train set.)

baby and woody.

bummer was, baby did not seem to appreciate the analogue gifts -- a fisher-price family house and doc mcstuffins doll -- in the way kris hoped. the girl really had her eyes on the buzz lightyear and the octopod. so there was that.

breakfast with his new buddy, buzz.

after mommy and daddy spent the day noshing on spinach bacon quiche, a salmon cheese ball and mimosas before sangria and supper (a nice, long, alcohol-infused day), the boy, who had alternated sharing grudgingly and graciously his toys with his sister, said to me: "daddy, this is my greatest christmas day ever. thank you."

and he repeated it to his mom. again, we are fully prepared for the backslide -- to the point of devising changes in strategy and tactics -- but hearing spontaneous and seemingly genuine gratitude from the little monkey was gift enough for me today.

God bless us every one.

the boy

the boy at the mall. overall, an agreeable little boy.

kris had a rare few hours away from the children this morning. alas, rather than enjoying it with friends or reading a book in a coffee shop, she was at a walmart grocery and christmas shopping. (for there being only 10 days until christmas, she was surprised at how un-crazy it was.)

so i had the kids. i spent the first two hours in and out of of sleep on the couch working out the remains of last night's sleeping pills. i opened my eyes only long enough to start new videos.

the next two were spent on a cup of tea, sneaking peeks at the paper, folding laundry and attempting damage control on a boy whose sleep was punctuated on the hour with screaming fits from what i guess were fever dreams. he was not well-rested.

after an ill-conceived idea to have him help clean up his toys in advance of his mother coming home and the two making brownies, i put him, bawling, into time-out.

after a moment later where i snatched a sleeve of bubble-like wrap from him for stomping on it, i realized i was being cranky and unreasonable.

the boy was sick and he was sleep-deprived. all things considered, he was handling himself rather well, playing by himself and with his sister.

boy draws a person. mostly on purpose.

i decided to lay off.

the day before, i took him to the library and the mall while we waited on a new set of tires for the car. he was exceedingly polite and well-mannered with a little boy he met at the library who was the son of a friend.

i forget the things he is capable of and his genuine sweetness and oddball humor and creativity. i told a friend the other day and kris today that i think i expect too much out of a three-year-old.

i look at him and his handsome head and his bony little frame and i realize i'm blessed to have a healthy, happy and smart little boy. i should be more grateful.

thank you, Lord. and please continue to bless him, his sister and his mama and papa.

advent

charleston christmas parade. saturday 7 december 2013.
hoppy's christmas train.

up in the middle of the night for the first time in about a month on the second night of not taking sleeping pills to ensure i stay knocked out.

huffing and chuffing, as the "thomas the tank engine" narrator would say, through the holiday season working on a major project for the paper that is probably costing me sleep.

just sort of a status update:

the babies are becoming children. and not bad ones at that, though kris might say otherwise at times.

the boy, oddly enough, is improving at taking punishment -- sitting in place for time-outs, understanding that backtalk leads to a vinegar spritz -- in a way that kris and i should not have expected him to a year ago.

the girl is ahead of schedule on her terrible twos, as the boy was, so we're going to have some fun.

sign that it was time to go back to the hotel. thanksgiving 2013.

this week, kris began weaning her off the bedtime binky while simultaneously cutting off the boy's sippy cup of milk that he'd take to bed with him.

both were highly pissed off and loudly and demonstrably made known their displeasure for the disruption of their routines on sunday night -- both changes at the same time! -- but kris rode them out.

it's quieter tonight, but it's still early in the effort.

meantime, the kids are really getting into their holidays this year.

the boy some time this summer discovered the department store toy section as a destination stop where he didn't used to in previous shopping trips with daddy.

the baby is still happy to come along for the ride with him as cohort in whatever big brother is doing -- and nemesis if it happens to involve singular property that both want to use. (not so good at sharing at 23 months.)

she is beginning to dig carbohydrates and sugar to the exclusion of protein, which is disappointing, but cute as she really digs hot cocoa now.

that they're beginning to form a bond makes kris and me happy -- and also kind of makes us want to have another kid to share the love. (we're really fighting that one.)

pic.twitter.com/p46Pkv33Ii
— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) December 5, 2013

they're both growing adept at playing together and the boy, especially, is getting better at occupying himself alone. (a lot less "daddy, will you play with me?" i just now realize. gonna miss hearing that, i think.)

anyway, it's getting late. here's the boy picking what he wants from the target toy circular a few weeks ago:

indulgences

me and the boy. iowa state at wvu. 30 november 2013.

after a two-hour drive to watch two hours of football with my 3-year-old boy following a 14 1/2 hour drive to west palm beach to spend 31 hours with my family for thanksgiving, i must reiterate and re-emphasize that i have the most indulgent wife in the world.

as we headed home from my folks today, i asked if she thought i was crazy before we were married when i'd make this long trip for such a short visit. 

she replied, "yes."

but you thought i'd grow out of it after we got married, i proposed.

she again replied, "yes."

that she comes with me as i help drive my parents and now drags our small neophyte road warrior children along for the marathon road trip is a testament to her love for - and patience with - me.

i really married well. 

bumma

so the boy is swiping through my phone's photo gallery and sees this pic and asks where this is. i try to vague up my response, as i went to morgantown without him and he wasn't being punished. i brace myself for his next question.

then he sees this:

at this point, he asks, "where's the picture of you and me?" yeah ...

i think i explained that the ballgame was at night and he was asleep. in the state he was in, i thought he'd flip out, but he was understanding, albeit a little disappointed and maybe slightly hurt. he didn't make a big deal of it.

as i told my facebook buddies, he'll have plenty of opportunities later to learn heartbreak at the hands of the mountaineers.

hot chocolate day

Hot chocolate day, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

first snow of the season and the kids got to play outside in maybe half an inch of snow.

the boy was mostly good all day, after what's felt like a week of off-the-rails crazy -- lack of impulse control, lack of focus, random aggression to his baby sister, backtalk, and on and on.

(not sure if today was the anomaly or the behavior of the past few days. judging by his post-cocoa/pre-bedtime antics, it may well be the former. he's been howling all night so far.)

anyway -- my post for 11/12/13.

i'll take it

didn't watch or listen to one down of this ball game. i checked once at halftime while watching "toy story 2" with the kids -- we were down 17-10, which, as it wasn't a blowout score, was good enough for me -- and again after putting the kids to bed after "toy story 3." was surprised as hell that we won. in overtime, no less, and after squandering a double digit lead. again.

four games

west virginia head coach dana holgorsen reacts during a 35-12 loss
to kansas state.

y'know what's sad after being up since 2:52 am?

it's not being excited about your football team. (ok, pathetic and sad.)

with a winning season in doubt and the prospects of not winning another game not beyond the realm of possibility for my west virginia mountaineers, it's sad that the best i can surf for by way of positive team news when i can't fall back asleep is a photo gallery of the best and worst college football uniforms of the year.

i mean, i could always read stuff until i fell asleep, but i have to want to read it first. and i've already had my fill of talk of a lost season and a rebuilding year. 

(add to that the potential loss of our hotshot athletic director and things aren't looking too rosy for mountaineer nation right now.)

i suppose not being jacked up about the football team right now and staying up late to read all i can about a national or conference title race helps get me to bed earlier, but i do miss not being "in the game," as it were. 

we've got four games to play against teams in various states of disarray, so it's possible to pull out some wins. and if we do, the prospect of bowl talk could be enticing. 

but injuries and youth don't bode well even if the best comes to pass. just a set-up for another fall another time.

the perennial hopes for a better time next season are always there -- the opiate for true believers -- except it's in another year and all that entails.

dreams of gridiron glory aside, though, what i really desire at the moment is to be able to go back to sleep.

end of the month

i closed the door on a pissed-off child after i put him to bed and couldn't promise him he'd be group leader for his pre-school class tomorrow nor that he could have the red tricycle all to himself once he got there. 

up to that point, aside from his all-around unfocused spastic-ness, he'd actually managed to "read" his last story book to himself and hop into bed on his own. 

(he's been known to just get up after his first book and trundle off when he's super tired.)

but i will have to say he's managed to improve on two things this month that we'd despaired of even hoping for over the summer: potty training and his temper. 

while we still have to remind him to go after a long time, even with accidents, he's managed to not totally relieve himself in his drawers. he usually has more for the potty than he had in his underpants; and he's often more or less remorseful for his lapses. 

now, temper, on the other hand, he's only now just scratching the surface. after all, he's lost two football games and trick-or-treat from hitting and kicking tantrums that maddeningly undo an entire day's good behavior in mere minutes, if not seconds. 

but i saw last week where immediately after an outburst where he swung at his mommy, he pulled back his hand as if wanting to pause and rewind his action. 

and even tonight, he stopped himself in mid-outburst from lashing out at us, choosing instead to strike the couch before simmering down.

no great shakes, i know, but a hopeful sign that he's cognizant his actions have repercussions. 

this, i can say from my own experience, is going to be a challenge he will have to face for a long time, as my own threshold for frustration can be fairly low even now.

the term we've introduced the past week or two is "choose." he can choose to throw a fit and be nasty and mean -- or he can choose to do as he is told and be even-tempered and civil. 

dunno if he'll be able to get it under control faster than his daddy ever did -- or hopes -- but for his sake, i hope he does.

at some point, maybe over the weekend, i decided the boy's brain right now is like a ferrari -- quick and nimble and powerful -- but at the moment, he can only stretch out one foot to reach the pedals. (and of course, it's going to be on the accelerator.) he's going to need to grow a little more to be able to see, steer and apply the brakes.

meantime, i guess, we're going to have to help teach him how to keep his car on the road without running over anybody.

fall

pumpkin patch, putnam county.

couldn't have asked for a prettier day to spend with the family. if the good Lord is willing, i suspect the gritt's fun farm will be an autumnal rite for years to come.

the fam.

go here for skads more pics. and you can watch just part of what i hope was a tiring day of activity for the boy below:



(plus, the fatigue brought on by a tiring day provided perfect cover from having to keep tabs on my west virginia mountaineers as another winnable game not so much slipped away from as snowballed on us. this reminds me of those "dues paying years" from back in 1987 and 1992 when we couldn't get it together or catch a break enough to win what were close games. those were followed by breakout seasons the next year.)

lost

georgia state vs wvu

three weeks ago, the boy missed out on watching a west virginia home game with daddy because of bad behavior. (my mountaineers won that game in an upset.)

the boy began this week with a clean slate, but three days of atrocious behavior -- biting, hitting, screaming, backtalk -- led to the loss of not only the game, but a visit to a local pumpkin patch with friends and his school halloween party.

i was supposed to attend today's game again solo, but there was a chance of seeing former work friends and attending my first j-school alumni homecoming tailgate. plus, there was the chance to be that 12th man to cheer our boys to another upset.

last night didn't go very well for the boy as he woke up a few times wanting one thing or another and trying to get up before the sun.

i knew as i prepared to leave that the day was going to be hard for the wife, who hadn't slept well as a result of his shenanigans. so i stayed.

turned out the boy was mostly good as gold after a heart-to-heart with mama -- during which she told him he should try being nice versus screaming and violence and see where that choice lands him -- before screwing up late in the day with a 10-second fit over sharing toys and losing tv and ice cream. he recovered nicely afterward.


turns out, on a chilly, gray day, we lost in one of my least favorite ways, the unsustainable lead that slips away.

would have been a long drive home, i suspect, but what if my handclaps and cheers would have lent that tiny bit of spirit that the team needed to pull it out?

well, i was home. and while i didn't get to do any extra yard work, i did get a load of laundry done, so the day wasn't a total loss. cold comfort, right?

without getting a vibe from the crowd, i've got a feeling this was the backbreaker for our season. we have no quarterbacks and our o-line is too inexperienced.

we beat this team and we're pumped for the rest of the year, 9-3, injuries, youth and lack of depth be damned.

now? while 6-6 is doable, i'm betting our spirits are crushed. 5-7 or worse.

thought from south carolina

south carolina rest area

we were at a rest area off i-26 on our way home from charley south when the boy and i emerged from the men's room.

he was slightly disoriented as to which way to turn as there were double glass doors on either side of the building. 

an older lady came out of the women' room and saw the boy heading toward the truckers' parking lot as i called him to the right direction. 

"must think he's a truck driver," i smiled at the woman. 

she laughed as the boy turned my way. "oh, let him dream," she said. and i laughed. 

she continued as we exited, "let him think he can be anything he wants to be while he still can, before he finds out dreams don't always come true."

i agreed with her, but my heart broke a little, both for her and the boy.

also south carolina rest area

right now, the boy lives in a world where everything is possible. if it doesn't happen today, then maybe there'll be a chance tomorrow.

in his mind, all doors are open and he's free to enter every one. no one has yet told him "no."

i hope he never hears it. 

i hope and pray that while he and his sister come to recognize the limits of their reach, i also hope that they will never feel as though the realm of possibility has borders that will close them in. 

i want my children to always have dreams. and i want them to have hope and faith to carry them in their pursuit. 

dance party

dancing fool, 21 september ice cube party

watched "wall-e" with the children last night and had to capture this bit of our children's childhood.

there was a scene during which a movie musical appeared onscreen, which prompted the boy to hop up off the couch and dance around, mimicking the characters.

there was a guileless, un-self-conscious joy in his performance.

and it wasn't even a performance, per se, say, for the benefit of an audience.

it was an expression, a reflection of the thing that made him happy.

and dancing makes him -- and his sister -- happy.

i'm trying to remember this unguarded spontaneity before he becomes aware of peer judgement and criticism and appearing foolish.

ice cube party, 21 september

earlier this year, in an effort to occupy and entertain the kids, kris invented something the boy calls the "ice cube party."

kris freezes water in popsicle molds with the little sticks and keeps it handy as a cool treat for the children for whenever.

on special days, i.e., boring days, kris will break out the ice popsicles, turn off all the lights and play music on the radio. then she and the kids dance in the dark with their cool ice on a stick.

it's a great time -- and an easy way to occupy them for a half-hour or so.

the kids derive great joy from dancing. i hope this will be something they never grow out of.

vacation of firsts

yuengling draft at poe's tavern, sullivan's island, s.c.

just got back from what i could call our old stomping grounds except for we didn't stomp on them very long. and by that, i mean, charleston, s.c., where kris and i lived for about a year.

we took a long weekend to witness the wedding of our friends carrie and andrew. (carrie also lived there while we were there; left the post & courier about a week after we did.)

this was our first trip as a family on our own -- no grandparents, no aunts or uncles -- just us. it was pretty intense.

the trip down was a hoot; the baby was up before dawn, which actually served us well, because it got our day started.

everything that we thought would take a few minutes actually took a few hours -- putting a few last-minute items into our bags, going out for a quickie breakfast, picking up maps, gassing up car. we hoped we'd leave by 8; we didn't get on the road until about 11.

traveling without benefit of a dvd player wasn't as awful as i'd thought. (sad, isn't it? how did people ever travel without moving lights on a screen?)

the kids played with crayons and markers and paper. they had books and, thanks to wendy's for a late lunch, "shrek" action figures. and they screamed and kicked and pouted to fill in the gaps.

boy pitched a pretty good whining fit before nodding off on way home.

(that said, they also looked out the windows and took a couple of naps.)

but i also literally stopped the car on the side of the road -- a first, and dangerously stupid on my part -- to attend to the boy who was throwing a screaming and kicking fit.

it was mostly a long, angry stare and forceful words in tense, terse tones. went a long way in calming his ass down, i think.

(previous to this, the boy also took his first roadside leak. took an exit outside of princeton thinking there'd be a gas station and, finding none, mama had the boy drop trou and pee into the grass of the on-ramp. he didn't do too badly, but dribbled into his pants. there was a rest area about two miles down the road.)

and his potty control was fairly good overall. occasional leaks, including one of the second flavor, but i'd grade him out at a solid b to b-plus, considering all the excitement of travel and a party.

we arrived in charley south around 9 and even at night she was a beautiful city. all the ramp work on the arthur ravenel bridge crossing the cooper river that was still underway when we left almost 10 years ago was complete and made for easy travel.

(did i mention i used the google maps app on my iphone? it was like having turn-by-turn gps. nice to have when going to new -- or in this case, re-routed -- places.)

we took a room with two double beds. each parent got a kid. the girl fell out of bed the first two nights. the boy kept waking up, asking for milk.

baby at gray's island play area at the
south carolina aquarium.

neither child ate particularly well, but at least the boy got a few bites of protein in him; the girl i'm pretty sure subsisted on a milk diet. one morning she did eat half a hard boiled egg. (the sleep inn offered free breakfast, which was a great budget stretcher.)

day one we spent at the south carolina aquarium, where the boy and the girl mostly just ran around but also took the time to ogle fish and assorted wildlife. the boy was pretty pooped by early evening. we ordered andolini's pizza take-out and all of us were in bed before the sun went down. (kudos again to the sleep inn for daylight-blocking curtains.)

we spent the morning of day two at sullivan's island, where it was at the low end of hot and none of us had beachwear. the children played in a long tidal pool as much as their clothes and parents allowed and dug around in the sand. we actually got the nerve up to walk to poe's tavern for an early lunch, where the boy ate a few bites of his mini burger and lots of french fries.

we attended carrie and andrew's wedding that evening and mama had to take the girl out of the sanctuary because she kept talking during the vows. i should have taken the baby so mommy could have watched the ceremony.

the children ran amok during the reception. not sure if i did the right thing in trying to keep the boy from crashing into the other guests, but i took it upon myself to be policeman while allowing kris to socialize with old friends.

i think it worked out, mostly, save for my abrupt departure in a moment of pique when the boy refused to listen to his mom's orders to pipe down during the testimonials. "we're going," i said, without giving kris any more detail, and i headed out the door.

kris revealed later that after all that chasing with our friend george's boy, henry, and carrie's girl, julia, and the ensuing gyrations after the opening of the dance floor, the boy actually told his mama, "i want to go home; i'm tired." i love that he knows when it's time to leave.

mass times on iphone. Christ our king
was lined up out the door for 9:30 mass.

sunday, we packed quickly and headed to Christ our king parish down the road from the hotel. it was one of about six churches we attended when we lived there. (we found that the later we woke up, the farther we had to drive to find a late mass.) after mass, we hit the highway, promising to make this place our vacation town.

we learned a couple of things. first: free breakfast is a great convenience, but good coffee trumped all. twice, kris had to go to starbucks, reasoning that free coffee was no good if it was no good.

second: if an attractive children's toy is part of the kids meal at a fast food joint, buy the kids meal. the toy makes a good distractor in children's mini-dramas performed in a car seat.

(and a corollary to the second: always buy two kids meals. kris describing the girl's face falling when there was no toy for her to play with made me feel like the worst father in the world.)

all told, going there and back, what was usually about an 8-hour trip took about 10. but driving during the day, it paid to have numerous mental health breaks to allow the kids to stretch out, potty, explore and run around. their spirits were usually much improved even if for a little while afterward.

as for me and mama? the trip was no doubt stressful and exasperating, but also joyful and rewarding. actually looking forward to our next solo journey.

bumma

i love winning streaks. and i fear them. because they end. 

my west virginia mountaineers got their heads handed back to them by the tackily costumed maryland terrapins to end a seven-game wvu winning streak and, as a 37-0 drubbing, our first whitewash since 2001.

luckily, i spent today away from the tv and kept track of the game via smartphone app as the boy and i spent an afternoon at the clay center. went a long way to dull the pain of a loss and the frustration of offensive ineptitude.

as seasonal bellwethers go, we got ours rung. this does not bode well for the mountaineers. 

the only positive i can gather from this is that next year all the rookies will be veterans. i can only hope they improve as the year goes on and that they learn something every game.

busy

the month is almost out and i'm tired.

between projects and duties at work and offspring that are becoming more their own persons seemingly by the hour, i end the day by lying down, reading my iphone, then going to sleep.

the pictures from my life, they keep happening. it's just that the words aren't keeping up.

the boy? the quintessential two steps forward, one step back of advancement from toddlerhood to little boyhood.

he began the first week of preschool like gangbusters, with boffo reviews from his teachers as to what a delight he is to have and how engaged he is with his classmates.

week two arrives and he's just "good." the next time, it's "a rough day." and today was "okay."

he started the day after "rough day" by hitting mommy with his sippy cup when she wouldn't let him watch tv first thing in the morning. nearly lost his toy privileges before ten. lots of backtalk and aggression.

took a lot of heart-to-heart talking to get him to understand that actions have consequences. tantrums, backtalk and meanness lead to no screentime, no plush toy friends and no toys.

we're hoping that he'll come to eventually be sincere in the use of "i'm sorry," "i didn't mean to" and "it was an accident" and mean to be remorseful and careful.

the potty training, though, is going swimmingly. big boy underwear all day save for naps and car trips where he might sleep.

and the girl? just wow. leaps and bounds. she sings and dances and picks up on everything everyone in the family does, good and bad.

she's good at tantrums. but she's also good at sharing.

kris said the other day, she noticed the boy had finished his bowl of pretzels. she went over and poured the contents of her bowl into his.

this, however, was not her intention, so she emptied his bowl back into hers. she looked flummoxed.

kris stepped in and showed her how to pull a handful of pretzels out of her bowl and place them into her brother's. this satisfied her, as she then returned to her place on the couch.

it's a good start.

she's also started announcing "pee-pee, pee-pee," because she wants to go to the potty. the few times we've actually obliged, she's actually gone.

of course, she's also just played with the toilet paper and wanted to wash her hands. (or play with the water, more like it.)

(this little achievement, btw, may have precipitated the astonishingly bad run of behavior on the boy's part in the middle of the week. suddenly his "thing" for which he was garnering regular praise was being matched by his baby sister. he may not have liked that.)

i know i'm forgetting other little milestones along the way, but i'm tired.

(update 8 october: oh, yeah, the baby learned how to unbuckle the chest restraint on her car seat. the boy watched her do it and told mama. kris said the look on his face was one of real concern, that the baby knew how to do something he couldn't. we've since adjusted the restraints so as to prevent further jailbreaks.)

and i'm watching my little babies and doing my best to watch them and memorize them being this small, with all the exhausting, exasperating, joyous and heart-warming moments they bring us each hour and each day.

ow

well, a day after lugging this 30-plus-pound bundle of love and energy plus his gear on a warm, muggy late-summer afternoon for two miles, i'm sore and still tired.

bad combo of my age and lack of fitness and his packing on the pounds between last year and this. was sweating like the proverbial pig and needed a long recovery time after reaching the stadium and, later, my sister's after the return trip.

and today was lots of napping and feeling sore in my legs and back. i wonder how the bad-ass, in-shape me would have handled it ten years ago. 

i gotta get back in shape before he -- and his sister -- really start wearing my ass out. or killing me, whatever.

foobaw

spent an overnight trip with the boy at my sister's to watch the west virginia-william & mary tilt.

as with the beach trip, his behavior was exemplary. unlike the beach trip, however, his excitement was tempered enough for him to recognize bodily cues that led him to go to the potty on his own - number 1 *and* 2. he even asked to go at two restaurants and at the ball game. 

wvu won the game, btw, in unconvincing fashion. but it was less that they fell ass-backward into the victory as it was that they finished strong enough to pull out the win. 

lets just hope it was rust that needed scraped off and not some performance drop-off reflecting a coach in over his head. 

summer recap

well, the month's almost out and i've got three posts. 

probably because it's been pretty busy. (though i could probably say that for the summer as a whole.)

as i'll likely not have the chance to recap in detail, i'll have to just hit the highlights:

• it wasn't even summer yet when our publisher announced her semi-retirement, which put into play a series of management shifts that put me into an actual office for the first time since i was a grad student.

• all the while, my sibs and i were busting grapes to put together a golden anniversary soiree that included a photographer, videographer, slide show, documentary and folk dancing. did i mention this was supposed to be simple? somehow we got drawn into an anniversary party arms race and it made things a lot more stressful than we planned for. 

• that said, the evening was full of serendipity and love. folks went above and beyond what was necessary to make it a memorable and enjoyable event. and seeing friends and relatives i hadn't seen in decades was a true blessing. 

• spent most of the summer finding replacements for me, another copy editor, and our web editor. not one, not two, but three applicants that we made offers to turned us down. talk about wastes of time. (we're only just now close to filling spots we first advertised in may.)

• after an uneven summer behavior-wise, the boy pulled his shit together long enough to have an astonishingly uneventful trip to the beach with the full complement of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents bearing witness. 

seriously, he slept well, ate well, was polite, non-confrontational, non-crazy, and fairly obedient. he put to lie any concerns we ever made known to my sibs and parents about his behavior. we really thought we'd turned a corner. 

(while we would learn later we hadn't, i was so grateful to see the change that i was reciting the divine praises daily for the duration of our trip.)

• the girl. holy crap, the girl. she's turning into a person. we're going to have our hands full. 

• dad finally got his other knee replaced. he sailed through surgery fine. the boy and i met him at the nursing home where he went to rehab for a week.

his convalescing at home in the presence of wifi allowed us to facetime him on our iphones. this seems to have gone a long way to getting recognition of him and mom by our kids who don't get to see them nearly as frequently as they do kris' folks.  i hope this helps with the girl, especially. it took a long time for her to warm up with my family at the beach. 

which takes us to the start of football season. i think that recounting deserves a post of its own. 

so i say farewell to the summer of 2013. it's been a memorable, exhausting and wonderful blast.

thanks be to God. amen and amen. 

off track

it's been one of those weeks in toddler-land.

just last week, it seems we'd rounded a corner and that the boy was becoming ... a boy.

the kind that uses the bathroom without prodding and eats at the table and knows how to amuse himself quietly.

lately, though, he's regressed. markedly.

he'd rather hide and dump in his pants. (and even stand and puddle in his room and onto his train set.)

he won't sit still for meals or even at the table. and when he does, we're the ones who wind up shoveling food into his mouth.

he's been a jumping bean of twittering video dialogue, ping ponging from wall to wall. he seems intent on drawing and keeping your attention by acting like a blithering, overgrown baby. 

i don't understand what's happening -- if he's going through another system upgrade or succumbing to another round of food allergies. 

it's disheartening to go through weeks of breakthrough behavior, only to have our relief and expectations dashed by setbacks like these. 

tradition

my sister, joy, has been celebrating her birthday at the nakato japanese steakhouse for almost 40 years.

i think she was younger than her eldest niece when this "tradition" began, as it usually coincided with dad's annual beach workshop held by wake forest's bowman gray school of medicine.

while the exotic nature of the japanese style of dinner prepared in the round has been dulled somewhat both by ersatz franchises that now reach into the mountain state and the loss of the mysterious, refined atmosphere to commercial volume at the myrtle beach locale, the food remains a treat and the show still amazes the younger members of the party.

of course, the amazing part for kris and me was our boy's behavior on this visit.

the last time he was here, he was barely mobile and i had to entertain him by walking him around the restaurant to play in the decorative indoor rock gardens.

this time, he mostly sat in place and took in the cooking theatre, and, after some initial hesitation, tasted and enjoyed the ginger soup and wolfed down most of his mama's calamari dinner. he even got to practice using chopsticks -- a big draw for him.



his sister, on the other hand, was more than a handful, growing bored with straw and the ice water, then the chopsticks, then the sitting. it became her turn for the big walk around the restaurant.

daddy wound up having to gobble down his steak and shrimp supper, then, after copious photo ops as the wait staff worked to get us out for the next party, i had to take the girl with me to the bar as i more or less chugged the glass of sapporo that i didn't have time to consume leisurely with my meal. yeah, i was that dad.

still, cupcakes followed at the condo, along with yummy key lime birthday cake for my sis. the boy ate the icinged halves of two cupcakes; his sister at the chocolate truffle filled halves of his leftovers. (she finally learned to like sweets on this trip, as she also became a fan of chocolate chip cookies.)

all in all, a good night for the fam.

boy, sleeping

he's getting the hang of not being in his own bed at night.

i think it started a few weeks ago on a visit to his gaga and papaw's house. he'd managed to make it through the nights without waking up screaming and thrashing.

previous to that, whether it was at mom and dad's place on the lake or their house or at a hotel for thanksgiving, you could count on a fit in the middle of the night.

until the precedent at kris' house, we sort of dreaded similar outbursts at the beach.

well, sunday, monday and tuesday, he not only slept through the night, with but a few incidences of talking in his sleep or asking for milk, he actually slept in.

i think the days full of physical activity and staying up later with his cousins played a part, too.

funny thing was he was ready to lay down well before his cousins ever went down for bed. kris would walk him to our room, change him into his pajamas and set him up in bed with disney jr on the tube until he fell asleep. no fighting whatsoever.

just part of the vacation miracle. and for that, we thank you, Lord.

after potty

forgot to mention that after a week or so of consistently using the phrase "i have to go to the potty," he asked what these things were at the park. when i told him, of course, he had to go.

every effort i made to make it a short trip only made the trip last longer, so after he made no. 1 -- no. 1! really? all that drama for no. 1? -- and i was putting his shorts back on, he asked on that hot, muggy morning, "can we stay here all day?"

later in the week, while visiting a public pool near his grandparents in parkersburg, he also asked to go. this time, he insisted on standing and using the low, wheelchair accessible urninal, which he gripped with both hands. there was a lot of hand washing afterward.

the porta-john and the public urinal were the two potty experiences i was not looking forward to. at least i can say i got them out of the way. now all that's left is the filthy gas station restroom to complete the potty training nightmare trifecta.

good week

this was a good week for the boy. his pre-school teachers have said so. they even went so far as to say his last day was "excellent" in the way he listened and did as he was told and controlled his temper and frustrations.

the boy's been attending pre-school "camp" through the summer, which means going every other week for five days, versus the twice a week we had him enrolled with for school.

some time, during the first week, he had misbehaved so badly that, per our instructions, his teachers called us to take him home early. he did not return that week. nor did he make the next session two weeks later.

kris and i focused mightily on a few words of advice an expert told us in terms of ignoring his tantrums, but mostly we watched his diet.

having cut out the gluten, we zeroed in on food dyes -- and i know i sound like the kind of hippie earth people/overprotective parents i have been mocking for years -- and cut them out as best we could.

at some point, maybe even the day after we had to take the boy home from camp, we realized that a butter substitute we've been using employs a "natural food coloring" called annato that apparently wreaks even more havok with a child's behavior than any chemical dye could.

and the boy licks butter off his bread like it was his job.

so we cut that stuff out, too.

finally, after further observations, we returned to blood sugar and protein. we just began making sure he had something in his belly soon after he woke up and made sure it -- or something soon after -- was loaded with protein. and we made sure he kept eating every few hours after that.

and it almost goes without saying the naps and good nights of sleep went a long way to help.

lo and behold -- "lo" being after a couple of weeks -- he was keeping his shit together for days at a time. he even managed to stay the weekend at kris' folks place without waking up screaming in the middle of the night.

a lot of this might be his just growing out of his terrible twos -- and maybe it is -- but kris especially has been busting her ass to control the exterior variables and even controlling her own reactions to the boy's behavior so as not to add fuel to a tantrum.

and i'm going to say watching what the boy watched helped, too. the gentleness of fred rogers in old episodes of his show and his new pbs offspring in daniel tiger's neighborhood has gone a long way in providing lessons to help deal with the volatility that is a toddler's temperament.

all this goes into saying we have had to work very hard and use every tool at our disposal -- including the power of prayer -- to help this bright boy born with the fiery foibles of both his parents become the sweet child he can be.

let's see if we can keep up the good work. and the good weeks.

potty time

after, what, almost two years, the lessons are finally starting to stick. the boy's starting to use the can when he feels the need to go.

(today was a major backslide day, as he he pooped his drawers at least three times by my reckoning -- including the pool, which i did not discover until i was showering him off when we were done swimming. i'm going to call this an aberration and not a trend. i'm hoping for better tomorrow.)

we still have to be on him to ask and he works much better when he's bare-assed and can't hide his accidents and has incentive to run to the can.

i'm thinking now that he's past the novelty and euphoria of actually having a splashdown into the big potty, he's recognizing there's a bit of added work when making no. 2. i'm thinking he thinks it's easier to go in his underpants or pull-up trainers than it is to stop, run and go. he's got to be convinced otherwise.

deep breath here. process. it's all process.

but kris' reports from home that first time were priceless.

I am seriously so happy right now. The idea of not having to change his diapers anymore is almost incomprehensible.
— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) June 20, 2013

Also, he didn't go on the baby potty. He went on the regular toilet, which is even better. I feel like we should have bronzed the turds.
— stuff kris sends (@textstogrumpnet) June 20, 2013

we're not a month in yet and there's a long way to go, but it's progress.

aggressive parking

parkers, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

file under first world problems

three parking lot "confrontations" in two days. i'm going to have to call this "aggressive parking."

was lucky enough to have supper yesterday evening at the fat patty's restaurant in teays valley.

the boy was fairly well behaved after an afternoon at hurricane's amazing city water park. the girl was crazed from lack of a nap.

afterward, as we were loading them into the car, we became aware of a woman pointing her vehicle into our space.

we would learn as we drove off that there were parking spaces aplenty if she'd have driven around the building, but she apparently wanted the spot that did not require her to walk.

so she just sat there, waiting, making us feel uncomfortable ensuring that our children were securely buckled into their seats and while i tried to practice the courtesy of opening my wife's door for her as she entered the vehicle.

kris and i were a little unnerved that someone would want a parking space badly enough that it superseded common courtesy.

this woman was neither elderly nor handicapped. she apparently did not want to suffer inconvenience.

then today, after a rambunctious trip to the target store with two kids in tow, kris and i thought we'd made it to the safe haven of a non-parking space while we gathered up the excitable boy to hold onto the shopping cart more securely while we navigated the lot to the car.

it was at this point we became aware of the woman pointing her car into the vacant handicapped space behind us.

i suppose one car width was not enough to compensate for what she must have felt was her inadequate driving ability, because she waited until we were behind another car before she decided she was safe to pull in.

you'd think that would be enough parking drama for one lot, but you would be wrong.

kris was loading our haul into the back of the jeep and preparing to put the boy into his car seat.

carrying the baby, i opened my door and started the car to get the air conditioner started and to open the windows before putting the tot into the hot car.

it was then i became aware of the woman wanting to pull into the space directly next to our vehicle. never mind that she was already in a spot that would be considered parking. she had to have the spot between my car and the shopping cart corral.

the astonishing part was that a) she was a mother with a child in a car seat, so you'd think she would sympathize with the hassle of getting a kid buckled into a car and 2) she didn't seem to think twice about having her passenger side door open -- blocking my door -- and make me wait while she got out her gear.

we were far enough along the end of the row that there were a plethora of open spots. what drove her decisions and her sense of entitlement for her own convenience to trump our right to simply load our car is beyond me.

we need to start measuring iq when we administer driving tests. we've got too many lard-asses and fat-heads on the road these days.

Dad

Dad, a photo by grumpnet on Flickr.

happy day, dad. i thank the Lord that he has blessed us with the gift of you for another year and that he has blessed you with an abundance of health and a strong spirit. may the good Lord continue to bless you and thus bless us as well. amen and amen. we love you.

Via Flickr:
Birthday 77

great weekend

more to come

grand slam

southwest burger. two miller lites. sam's uptown cafe. 8 june 2013.

because this stupid app didn't save a post i spent half an hour writing, you'll have to guess why I posted this fucking picture.

addendum: in an odd reversal, what began life as a column is now a blog post. an expansion of the effed-up blog post, but this one nearly made it to print:

As a young – or rather, mostly green – father to a pair of toddlers, I’d be remiss to take a day off and leave all the child-rearing to their mother.

So kicking up my heels and sitting in front of the tube all day Sunday probably isn’t in the cards for me – not while the eldest is bent on teaching the youngest one-word lessons in capitalism (“Mine!”) and the youngest is learning how to crawl onto chairs in order to summit the dining room table.

I suspect if I asserted my rights to a lazy, leisurely Father’s Day, my wife Kris would ensure it would be my last.

But … Sweet woman that she is, the missus took the kids to her parents last weekend while I tended to some work and she got an extra set of hands to wrangle the young ‘uns.

Being that she tries to keep the family eating healthy, her last words as she left me to fend for myself were, “Don’t eat a lot of crap.”

I told her I’d do my best.

And I meant it. I had visions of a quick trip to the grocery store for some easy-to-throw-together ingredients – chicken breasts, eggs, bacon, some Pillsbury biscuits – and I’d whip something up bachelor style as I worked my way down my to-do list.

Well … things being the way they were, I wound up downtown for the long haul and knew I had to squeeze in a meal somehow that would bridge the lunch I missed and the dinner on the horizon.

My mind gravitated to an old haunt with a great grill. So I hoofed it to Sam’s on Capitol Street and ordered a pepperjack cheese and bacon burger – the Southwest -- with fries and a Miller Lite.

I hadn’t been there in ages, I figured; what was the harm? I’ll swing by the grocery store after Mass on Sunday.

Given that I didn’t finish all my business Saturday, I was back in the office the next morning to finish it. I needed a Tudor’s biscuit. A Mickey combo – Canadian bacon, egg and cheese – with a side of hash browns and decaf.

I never did make it to the grocery store. And I remembered that Sam’s made a really good reuben.

I fared no better Monday. I’d promised Kris I’d tidy up and make the living room a little less lived-in from the explosion of toys that the youngsters detonated.

There were heat-and-serve rolls in the freezer that made for breakfast as I made my way through toys and books and laundry. At the end of the day, I had to make sure that Recovery Sports Grill’s fish and chips were as tasty as the last time I had them. They did not disappoint.

I’d like to say that the bar food trifecta ended there, but I wound up going for the Grand Slam with a return to Sam’s for another reuben on Tuesday, too.

Kris and kids are home now and I’m eating like a grownup again. While I enjoyed being able to work unencumbered, I was really missing the sound of their tiny voices and their tiny hugs.

While I was working straight for days on end, I suppose you could say I did get my time to take it easy, even if it was only being leisurely with my diet. Not a bad Father’s Day present.

as kris is my best editor, i presented it to her thursday before submitting it to the paper. she scrunched her nose at the end and said, "it's too ..."

that's all i needed to hear. "self-indulgent," i finished. kris nodded. 

a better blog post than a newspaper column. i'll have to agree. so i snuck off for an hour off copydesk to bang this out instead.

fatherly words

after mass today, having watched me struggle with an exceptionally squirmy little boy during the service, the grandfatherly gentleman at the opposite end of our pew shared with me a good observation about parenting: the hours are long, but the years are short.

(i was relieved that the boy's back and forth in the pew wasn't annoying him, as the fellow smiled and spoke kindly to the boy as he stacked missals before mass and returned them after the service. after sharing his words, the parishioner offered his bona fides as the father to six kids.)

absolute lifesaver

the stack exchange answer page. a real lifesaver.

this url -- http://webapps.stackexchange.com/q/27414 -- led to an answer that spared me no small amount of remorse and heartbreak.

somehow, through multiple "ctrl+z" strikes, the entire contents of this entry was replaced by this entry.

thinking it was a browser glitch, i didn't notice what had happened to the entry and closed out of the browser entirely, thereby negating simply clicking back a few pages to find the original entry, then copying and pasting.

when i reopened the browser it was only then that i realized what had happened.

for the better part of half an hour, i rooted through my history files trying to find some image of the page to copy and paste.

my last act of desperation led me to search "finding cached pages" in the google, which led me to this page.

google's cached page from 3:56 a.m. saturday.

i republished the blog entry, copied the url, and pasted it into the google cache url. and, heavens to babbage, the original post appeared, with links and photos intact. i merely had to copy and paste into the composing field, click "update" and the entry was restored.

all the links worked (i discovered a bit of missing html code) and then i went back and made the edits i was trying to make before i cocked the whole thing up.

thank you, google, for your code and your cache. this was a very important post for more reason than you could know.

the kids

julia and the boy, november 2011.

the boy enjoys the company of his friends and cousins.

his oldest friend is my friend carrie's girl, julia.

on more than one occasion, he has said, "i need to see julia." (usually when he is facing the prospect of his bad behavior preventing that very thing.)

they've played together regularly since carrie moved back to town. lots of tutu- and tiara-wearing for the boy. dolls, too.

they seem to enjoy each other's company.

so it's going to be a little strange for the boy to wind up only seeing her a few times a year.

we'll see them on our beach trip next month. and then again in october, for carrie's wedding.

and then ...

who knows? they'll grow older. julia is almost four years older than the boy, so it's likely she'd have outgrown him as a playmate, but i'd like to think that they'd have remained friends if by no other means than by continual contact.

as it is, well, maybe they'll sort of be like those cousins you only see a few times a year.

i guess i'll just have to be the guy who documents who his first best friend was.

julia and the boy, october 2012.

out of the loop -- or thrown for one

the cover to carrie's blog.

this is my friend carrie and her daughter, julia.

i've known julia all her life and carrie, for about 13 years. (that's long enough to have gone from k through 12, isn't it?)

i remember when she started work at the paper and started dating my buddy, mike, and when they got married.

i remember when she, kris and i all moved down to charleston, s.c., to start new jobs, then when the three of us departed said jobs within weeks of each other not a year later as she and mike moved to florida and kris and i moved back to charley west.

i remember her and mike being our wedding sponsors. i remember later learning the day we got married was the day mike noticed a lump on his neck would turn out to be cancerous.

i remember visiting her and mike after we got married. mike was getting thin, but he was one being one brave dude. i remember when he died two years later.

i remember carrie missing west virginia in the fall from her florida home and when she moved back. i remember installing her dryer at her first house and again when she moved to a smaller townhouse.

i remember when she introduced me to a new man in her life, andrew. and i remember when they got engaged.

u-haul rental center, racine, ohio.

today, i helped her pick up a u-haul truck not far from ravenswood because the charleston rental office tried to pawn off on her one almost twice the size that she needed.

tomorrow, she, her little girl and fiance move to charley south.

i wrote a blog post a few minutes ago and linked to her blog and discovered that it had not been updated for nearly a year.

then i read her last entry and learned it was because it was her last entry.

originally entitled "a bowl of cherries," a play on her married name, it documented life with baby. then it became "just the three of us" maybe after mike first got diagnosed. now it has no name at all.

i don't remember checking on her blog much after mikey died. but with the last entry after she spread mike's ashes in the ocean, she writes of the story of their family:

So it seems fitting that our story will end here.
And while it didn't have the happy ending we wanted, our story had so much happy. So much happy.

when i went to her link after so long, i really expected that she would have continued documenting all this time how her life had advanced since mike passed.

but on the other hand, this was a new chapter in her life. maybe it should have its own home.

i began this post kind of lamenting the end of that blog because i really, really hate endings.

but as i write now, as carrie prepares to move to a new life in a new place, i think i can see that as much as you love your past and even your present, you have to keep moving forward.

this is life.