bathroom talk

before i forget ... so i'm helping the boy in the potty after we get home sunday after mass. mama's got lunch cooking. the air in the bathroom is fairly ... pungent.

him: "mmmm. that kielbasa sure smells good."

me: "how can you smell that through your poop?"

him: "i'm not smelling it through my poop; i'm smelling it through my nose."

the deal

so after an afternoon watching daddy tend his fevered, sluggish sister, the laudably patient boy finally had the evening hour to play legos with him. as bedtime drew near and mama announced last call for play, i checked and found we were allowed five more minutes. after informing him, he nodded his approval and conspiratorially whispered, "it's like having a sleepover" and smiled a pleased and knowing smile.

funny thing is we don't even work on the same project. i comb the floor for pieces that might make something cool, he works on his own ideas and we just sit on the floor in each other's company. twice he complimented me on some gizmo or another that i made and offered a high-five in recognition. he made a neat trap door in a maze that i oohed and ahhed over. that was "playing." there was no goal, no directive, no role-play. just sharing time and toys. i guess i'd forgotten. 

also

didn't wear a sweater vest, cap or gloves to work for first time this year. and drove with windows down to and from work. slept with them open, too.  

moments

silver dollar breakfast.

the girl and i went out today to pay down the house and our hospital bills. afterward, we had breakfast, the continuation of a sometimes ritual we'd practice when her mama would do her freelance gig downtown.

i told her about it when we got home and she told me when they go to the target store the girl points out the ihop and says, "daddy and i had pancakes there." then the boy said, "i wish could have pancakes there."

he appreciates a lot. he also is an entertainer and something of a gang leader. a big fish in a little pond. 

his sister adores him and is very much his shadow, especially in public places. she can be kind of lost without him. left to her own devices, she'd just as soon watch television or fiddle with her leap pad for hours on end as play or draw. i'm hoping she comes into her own at some point.

flashback to sunday: the boy and i are are getting in a quick moment to play in the time between mass and lunch and my having to go to work.

cannibalized cruiser.

we spend maybe half an hour playing with legos before i have to beg off and tell him i need to get ready for work. without much fuss, he acquiesces and says, "maybe we'll have more time to play tomorrow."

there was a childlike faith and certainty in his statement that wounded me, because i felt like i was not making a good-faith promise — maybe i'd keep it; maybe i wouldn't. to him, a kid, there's always tomorrow and in tomorrow desires have the chance to be fulfilled. this was his offhand, best good faith promise to the future.

what seems important to me to get to, over and above indulging an apparently inconsequential and nonproductive expenditure of time, gets put into the perspective that, in the long term, is the exact opposite. there will always be work; my son will not always be a little boy who wants me to be with him. and with every tomorrow that passes, he will be less of one.

there will never be enough tomorrows to capture the promise of the present moment. i must remember to seize them and cherish them for they are flying away with each setting of the sun.

weekend

reuben from sam's uptown cafe.

so the weekend started here. it was after a remarkably tense/anxious/crazy day in the newsroom. from multiple managerial responsibilities to an ongoing major news event all happening in a 10-hour work day, yeah, i believe i had fat and salt and alcohol coming to me. (my only mis-step was not correcting myself and ordering a miller high life instead of a lite.)

i took no chances with any unwanted, early morning wake-ups with an advil pm. and then another. this was followed by about 20 minutes of wakefulness as the boy prepared to leave for school before going back to bed for about two more hours. and here, i thank my beloved spouse for the grace of some extra sleep.

rolling and patting for salmon cakes.

i awoke to find mother and daughter preparing lunch — salmon "cookies," as mama called them — to be pan fried. everyone more or less ate their lunches — the children were saved by having fried potatoes as the side for the salmon cakes.

i thought i'd treat the kids to 2014's "the lego movie," which was good family fun until it appeared the forces of darkness would prevail and the boy couldn't stand to watch that happen, so he howled and otherwise threw a conniption until we turned off the television and informed him there would be no more for a week.

(add to that not one, but two newsroom problems that i had to attend to, and you can imagine my mental state at the time. luckily, they were both fixable via the cloud-based operating system we're using.)

anyway, while i appreciate that he is sensitive to conflict, he is even worse than me in freaking out when it appears the chips are down against the protagonists in his entertainments. we're talking full-on panic attack here. we told him he has to learn to rein in his fears.

after supper, i was in bed before 8 — before sunset, even. i woke up about eight hours later, tossed, turned, peed and surfed the web before going back down around 5 a.m. didn't rise for another three hours. thanks again to my wife. i actually felt rested. (only took one advil pm, to boot.)

uncle pj's birthday picture.

so today, pi day, as the nerds call it, or "uncle pj's birthday," as i've known it, met my benchmark of getting two loads of laundry done — and the folded backlog put away — and managed to help keep the kids occupied without benefit of tv. even tom sawyered them into making birthday pictures for their uncle, whom they still confuse with my sister's husband.

they had a party to attend in the late afternoon and apparently burned lots of energy on gymnastics equipment. i wasted my two hours of freedom doing office work from home. they got home, we had supper, i read a book and everyone was in bed by around 8. now it's time for me to go, too.

for the record

gas station gift.

the important thing about office romance is having plausible deniability that anything is going on. in the case of me and kris, a serendipitously timed question by a reputable source bought us additional months before the newsroom caught on.

our sports editor, chris, who was one of many big brothers to kris in the newsroom — and one of four kris/chrises we had working there at one time —had noticed that she and i were spending a lot of time together and asked point blank if we were dating.

i was able to honestly reply that our get-togethers were strictly as friends. and it was true. while we had been commiserating about dating and just hanging out enjoying each other's company, and sure, maybe there was attraction/tension, there had never been any romantic overtures from either of us.

but that very night, after watching bob thompson's jazz combo at what used to be legend's, we shared our first kiss. in the newspaper parking building, no less. but with chris working off my honest answer in a newsroom full of nosey journalists, she and i had cover that lasted well into the spring.

i thought at the time it was probably a bad idea, me being on the rebound and all that. but over time — and it took years before i truly realized what i had — i came to see that there would be no safer berth for my heart and that she was everything i never knew i wanted.

march weekend

just three of the 12 gathered for some mountaineer hoops in morgantown.

the boy's patient sparring partner. we all got to watch a little of season finale.

breakfast in mount morris, pa. he ate granola with raisins and a side of bacon.

quick trip to morgantown for a west virginia game and a visit with auntie joy. there's a nice lack of pressure in being able to sit for a couple of hours knowing that no more coordination than getting to the venue is all that's required. no pre-game drinks, no post-game scramble for a meal, just that moment. i think we were all just glad to see each other.

the boy mostly kept it together. not sure he appreciates the nuances of any of the games he watches, but he seems to enjoy the hot dogs and popcorn and the show. he was fairly pliable for mass and spent most of the service in my lap or just being carried. but at least he stayed still. plus, he was patient as we waited the 10 minutes or so for a pizza al's pie to take to auntie joy's.

he really does take to listening to her, whether it's keeping greasy pizza fingers off her upholstered dining set or properly washing his hands or, as at breakfast today at the amazing rising creek bakery in mount morris, chewing with his mouth closed.

a three-hour drive home and a work shift later, i'm tired but happy. nothing like spending a few hours with friends and family to not only have a good time but to know that you are loved. i don't think i can reiterate how much i take that grace for granted. thank you, Lord.

buds for you

@SamsUptownWV glad to be part of the post-february birthday observance! and thanks! pic.twitter.com/3NqwPC3xtf
— some asian guy (@grumpnet) March 7, 2015

met with my longtime charley west support system for a couple of beers and a little bit of barstool video gaming.

we first started meeting just after the 2000 election to catch up and commiserate over work and life. we weren't 40 yet and were still sorting things out — young adult things.

tonight we started right off the bat with the travails of management and freakin' heart attacks. heart attacks. we covered everything from dating to social media to being an older parent of young children.

yeah, we're definitely grownups now. we're a little bit more spread out than we were, but it's nice seeing that we haven't outgrown the support we provide for each other.

babies

big boy.

kris sent me this pic of the kids goofing around this afternoon and said that the boy was now big enough to carry his sister. and, yeah, he's growing like the proverbial weed.

next year, he starts kindergarten that goes all day. kris said she was going to miss having him around the house for lunch. if he'd have gone to the catholic school downtown, i'd have been able to at least see him or take lunch off to read to his classes. as it is, we'll lose him most of the day and i'll only have him for a day and a half once next school year begins.

i'm becoming much more aware of their growing and feeling myself sort of grasping to capture this special time when they're no longer infants but not yet on the fast track to young adulthood once they enter the school system.

i've seen parents who try to keep their children as children for as long as they can, unwilling to let them grow up or be exposed to the real world. while i know it's probably a disservice to them, i think i'm going find it very hard to let them go.

weather report

weird winter. managed to make it through a relatively mild december and january — enough so that i thought this winter would be a dud. gypped, is how i believe i was feeling. 

then, after valentine's day, we took a nice, steady pour of cold, dry powder that made for pretty much shut down the city. this was followed by two days of subzero temps that ensured we'd all stay inside for the duration. 

then it was just cold, gray and nasty for another week before the visit to kris' folks. (great sledding there, if i hadn't said it before.)

now we're in the midst of freezing rain and sleet atop melted snow and rain before more snow comes down on that and the temperatures drop below freezing. 

hasn't yet been a month of the stuff, but it seems like nature is making up for lost time. i really don't mind; it'll be hot and muggy before you know it. 

march

my girl.

snow baby. yesterday at gaga and papaw's.