Lortab makes me sleepy

I just woke up from a 3-hour lortab-induced nap at 6:30. I took my second lortab at 8:00. Now I feel like sleeping again.

Maybe I can get Dad to prescribe some slightly lower-strength stuff.

(Details when I feel like typing more one-handed. 25 wpm sucks.)

The difference between Mommy and Daddy

Got pulled over again.  This time by a motorcycle cop at the bottom of a hill coming home from Wal-mart.  

"Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"Probably because I was doing 45."

"That's right.  I'm giving you a written warning.  Keep it down, okay?"

(Man, that really works.)

Matthew and Melissa were with me, and of course Matthew had a zillion questions.  I explained that Daddy was driving too fast.  "Why?"  Well, nobody ever goes 35 down that hill, because the hill just goes right back up again, so you coast down and just let the next rise bleed the speed off.

I showed Rachel the warning receipt.  She was a little inclined to give me a hard time at first.  "Don't tell me you don't do 45 down that hill, because you do," I replied.  Rachel admitted that there was some truth to this.

"But Mommy doesn't get caught!" Matthew put in from the back seat.

Too much is not enough

Date night!  Rachel and I dropped the kids off at Gymcats and went up to Game Night Games and played Power Grid.  Power Grid is a notch more complex than something like Settlers, so with it being Rachel's first game and my second, it took a while.  We played with Brian and Peter.  (As Rachel pointed out as we left, "There aren't a lot of women here, are there?")

So we got back to Gymcats around 10:30, way past our kids' bedtime.  Rachel was nervous the whole way down.  "Should I call the gym and see if they're okay?"  "No," I said, "That place is like Melissa heaven."   "Yes, but three hours is a long time for a three year old.  I hope she's not bored and angry and doesn't want to go back."  

The kids were happy to see us.  They were not happy to leave.  I believe Melissa's exact words were, "No!  Never!"  Rachel had to pick her up and carry her out the door.

With luck the kids will sleep in, but I am not counting on it.  Melissa's official bedtime may be 8:30 (or earlier, depending on how tired Mommy and Daddy are), but she has not actually gone to sleep before 10:00 in a long time.  Although I am not actually sure how late Melissa stayed up last night -- I'm assuming not much past when we put her in bed, but I'm not sure, because I was asleep before she was.

Why Our Children are Not in Charge of Dinner

I rhetorically mused about what to have for dinner within earshot of Melissa. She knew right away what she wanted, "Cinnamon rolls! I want cinnamon rolls for dinner!"

In which I almost went to a Death Cab concert

Gary at work is into indie music. He mentioned that Death Cab for Cutie was playing at Thanksgiving Point a couple months ago, with Rogue Wave opening. (Gary was more interested in Rogue Wave.) This happened to be when Ben was in the throes of excitement about our party and toy fund, so he immediately got tickets for the company.

The concert was supposed to start at 5, so Gary and Nicole got in line at 4:30 and Ryan, Travis, and I joined him by 4:45 with our wives. The line was not moving. "Maybe 5:00 is when they open the gate." 5:00 came and went. At 5:30 some people in a golf cart drove by shouting that "because of the rain" they would open the gate at 6:00. This darkened the mood of our group a bit because anyone with an IQ over 60 could have told you that it was going to be a wet day any time this morning. In other words they had all day to plan for it and take the steps that apparently only occurred to them when they were supposed to actually start.

6:00 came and went.

About 6:30 I proposed to Rachel that if we weren't making material progress by 7:00 we cut our losses and do something else with our remaining babysitter time. (We had scheduled Karissa til 8:30. 3 hours of concert = plenty, right?) At 6:45 they finally started letting people in... very, very slowly. It was clear that by 7 our odds of actually being inside were poor, so we bailed. We stopped at the ticket office to get F50's money back, or failing that, at least give them a piece of our minds, but they had closed at 6. Wimps.

We ended up having dinner at the Harvest restaurant right there in Thanksgiving Point. Harvest is one of the best Utah restaurants for the $20-a-plate price range, but for some reason underappreciated. (Possibly because Lehi is in the middle of nowhere, population-wise. If I had to guess I'd say most successful restaurants in that price range are either in Provo/Orem or Salt Lake. And then there's Park City, but $20 would be very low end there.) Rachel had the ribeye. ("Baby wants steak.") I had the tomato soup, because my gut was a little mad at me for eating a bunch of Doritos and chasing it with hot chocolate while standing in line. Getting old, I tell you.

At 7:45 Jeremy texted me that the opening number was starting.

Second day of frisbee

Went up to Murray park yesterday for a 9:30 game. I got there at 9:37. Nobody was there. About 9:45 one person showed up so I decided to wait a bit more. At 10 a couple more showed up and we started tossing discs in the cold rain.

By 10:30 we had eight and the rain stopped, so we started a game. After one point a ninth showed up and we were down a man.

Being down a man sucks when you are fat and slow. You have to work twice as hard on defense since there is always someone open.

I was only the second-worst player this time. Not that I improved so quickly, but someone showed up who was worse. He was fast enough, but he couldn't catch. So we mostly left him open and hoped he would drop it if they threw it to him. Usually he did.

I got cleats especially for this game since it was clear the grass was going to be very wet. Turns out baseball cleats are cheaper than soccer or football, so that's what I got. The Reeboks I tried were horribly uncomfortable, but some brand I've never heard of fit my slightly wider than average feet just fine.

The one guy who was playing without cleats was sliding all over the place, so yeah, worth the $30.

I stopped playing after a couple hours when my left knee said "uncle." I guess it's time to try an "old man" brace. Also losing 20 pounds wouldn't hurt.

A Letter to Uncle Chris

Dear Uncle Chris,

I planted strawberries in my garden, and I planted the stuff that likes the shade, and the stuff that likes the sun a lot. I ride to my scooter to church and I really like it a lot! My Dad found my Darth Vader watch. It was under the bed downstairs. Tonight I want to sleep downstairs, so Melissa doesn't bother me. My Mom planted corn.

We had an ice cream party at preschool and it was kind of fun. You could have all three things on your ice cream. I had just sprinkles, and so did Luke, but some peoples had all three. I only wanted sprinkles. In church we played a game and guess the answers. We stood and threw the penny on a piece of paper and I got the answer right. All the class got answers right, so the teacher said, "Oh darn!" because HE wanted the treats. That was so so so funny! I liked that part. That's all.

Love,
Matthew

Ultimate

I went to the Sandy ultimate field mentioned on the UPA aite on Tuesday, but the entry was two years old and the contact email bounced so I didn't expect much. Sure enough, there was nobody there.

Ultimate SLC mentioned a group that meets at Murray Park at 11 on Saturdays, so I decided to check that out too. This one sounded more promising.

There was a group of 14 just finishing a game when I arrived. One left so teams were still even with me. I was definitely the worst player there. Seven years ago I would have been in the middle. Now I am fat and slow. I did catch a pass to score and made a couple good throws, as well as some bad ones.

The same group is playing Monday morning, a Memorial Day special. (Almost?) everyone had cleats. Looks like I should get some too.

My neck was sore this morning before I played. As in, "I avoided changing lanes because it hurt to check my blind spot" sore. It was really sore after the ultimate. I iced it and heated it and now it is about back to where it was in the morning. I could use some opiates. Or anything stronger than Advil really. I'd blame getting old but I remember how long my shoulder took to get better 7 years ago. So far I'd have to say my neck is getting better faster than that, not slower. Two different injuries, of course.

Public Service Announcment

After three and a half years, I have figured out how to correctly set the time zone on this blog so that post times are correct and not an hour early. It's in formatting under Settings.

Seriously, is that where you would look for time zone settings? Me, neither.

Table Tennis

I drove down to the Pleasant Grove table tennis club on Wednesday. I played for two and a half hours. Now I am sore. Good start to exercising again.

I was in the lower middle of the club skill-wise. Matches were best 3 of 5 games. Two people I clobbered. Another I had close games with, but we could both tell I was better and I won three straight. I was up 2-1 against John C, but he took me to five games and ultimately won. He gave me a backhanded compliment: "You have good form; you're just too slow." Give me a couple weeks and we'll see who's too slow.

Yuan beat me pretty handily but I could take some points from him. I took one game from Tom, who is 67 and considers himself the second-best player there. I guess my style matches up well with him or he was going easy, because I could see myself beating him, while if I am not misremembering he said he beats Yuan regularly.

Finally, the best player there that night was Glen, 60, who completely destroyed me. I think I took eight points total as he beat me in 3 straight games. 10-2, 10-2, 10-4. Glen plays an unorthodox style where he only uses one side of his racquet at a time -- not penhold, sort of the opposite, with thumb and forefinger making a V against the back. He has very different rubber on each side of his racquet, and he turns it around frequently, so you have to pay close attention to see what kind of spin he's adding. He's not very aggressive, but never makes unforced errors.

Glen looks like he has sub-10-percent body fat and could probably bench more than I. Tom said he plays basketball three times a week, too. Impressive guy.

The bad news is, a year ago they changed the rules for service to be totally wimpy. Now you have to move your hand completely off to the side as soon as you toss the ball. I am not a strong server, and my only one that was at all hard to return was one where I would toss the ball high, then hit the ball under my tossing arm, which made it difficult to see if I was serving with topspin or backspin until the last second. With that gone I have no real serving advantage which hurts against people who do, which was almost everyone at the club.

Don't Mess With ME!

Matthew came storming in. "G said to meet him in his backyard. He thought he was tricking me, but he was messing with me and that makes me mad!"

"What happened?"

"He wasn't in his backyard, he was hiding in my backyard and then he ran and wouldn't play with me! Hrumph!"

I wonder how long this friendship will last... G and his siblings have a mean streak and in general aren't very friendly kids. I've tried to warn Matthew but he's not ready to listen. Thankfully there are a lot of nice kids on our street too. The mean ones are the exception rather than the rule.

Kudos to Totally Toddler

I was practicing in the yellow room (which is NOT kid proof) while Melissa was playing downstairs. She crept into the room silently behind me and found some india ink. Naturally she opened it and dumped it on herself and the floor.

I turned around, but the damage was done. Melissa I deposited in the sink with instructions to stay put and wash your hands! I raced upstairs to find the carpet cleaner, but we must have run out. Drat! All I could find was Totally Toddler which works great on throw up (all colors), spit up, and about any other kind of accident a small child can have on clothes, bedding, and carpet. I was skeptical that it would work on ink, but there weren't any other options. Certainly couldn't let that dry on the carpet!

I am happy to report after a lot of blotting and nearly a whole roll of paper towels, that it does indeed work on ink! I'm buying that stuff by the gallon.

Fat

Did I mention I was fat? Yes indeed: 190 pounds. I'm 5' 11"; do the BMI calculation if you're curious. (For the record, though, that puts me into "overweight" but a long ways from "obese.")

Wii Fit also assigned me a virtual age of 46 based on my crappy score on its balance test. Boo.

Just to prove that there's some truth to the stereotypes you've heard, my BMI is not the worst in our office. Actually it is in the better half. (Barely -- #3 out of 6.) I take a small amount of pleasure that my boss, who made fun of my test results ("do you trip a lot when you walk?"), has a good fifty pounds on me.

Speaking of table tennis

We have a table at work. Jeremy is the only one who can give me a decent game, but he recently complained that since I switched to my right hand he doesn't really have a chance of winning. I have to admit, he's right. :)

I tried playing right-handed on my serve and left- on his. That worked okay.

For fun I also tried playing with one paddle each in my left and right hands, with the rule that I can only hit forehand shots. That way at least I play the same way the whole game instead of having to pull a mental switch every two points. And it definitely looks pretty cool.

Sports after college

When I was in college I played a lot of sports. Not at the varsity level; just for fun. I was not fat.

Now, I do not play a lot of sports, and I am fat.

Despite my friend Gary telling me that diet is more important than exercise, I think there is a causal relationship here. (Also, Gary hits the gym daily. So definitely take him with a grain of salt.)

But it turns out that it's really hard to play most sports after college. There's nobody to play with.

Going down the list of sports I used to play --

• Tennis: you pretty much need to find a regular partner or two. How do you do that? There is no "tennis partner" section on Craigslist.
• Soccer: if you're not serious enough to play in a city league, there is nothing (where I live and I suspect most of the USA)
• Volleyball: see "soccer"
• Table Tennis: there are two clubs in the area, both about half an hour away. (Yes, I'm good enough that I don't call it "ping pong." :)
• Judo: there is a new dojo about 10 minutes away. For $35/month I could play twice a week
• Ultimate Frisbee: there may be a group that plays on Saturdays 20 minutes away. Other groups that I googled no longer exist; this one might not either. Otherwise there are definitely groups 35-45 minutes away.
• Racquetball: like Tennis, requires a partner. Also requires either $50/month or $5/session to use a gym with a court
• Weight lifting: gym memberships start at $30/month. I don't really have room for a weight machine (free weights would require a spotter) at my house.

Unfortunately I am not one of those people who can just go running or biking. That stuff is incredibly boring to me. I need competition. Direct competition, not the sort of "who can go faster" competition that you could do in isolation. (Yeah, weight lifting is on my list. That's boring too. But at least it results in manly pecs, you know?)

My Mommy

Melissa woke up to use the bathroom, and as I rediapered her she said, "My diaper, not baby's diaper."

"Yes that's your nighttime diaper."

I tucked her in, "My bed, not baby's bed."

"Uh huh. Melissa's bed."

"MY Mommy, not baby's Mommy."

Problem. (And the baby is not even here yet!)

"I'm Melissa's Mommy, and Matthew's Mommy, AND baby's Mommy."

"And Daddy's wife," she added.

"Yes, and Daddy's wife. Goodnight 'Lissa. Mama loves you."

She curled up in her bed, content.

Sweet dreams my girl...

Garden Saga Part 4

This last week I have spent raking, clearing out grass clumps, and adding nearly 2 cubic yards of "good" soil to the garden.

I finally got around to planting today. With the exception of a few more rows of carrots which will be staggered over the next few weeks, ALL of the planting is DONE.

Whew!

Now I can just sit back and relax.

Oh wait.

There will be thinning plants, weeding, fertilizing, watering...

Bliss.

Maybe Jon's right, I'm a frustrated farmer at heart.

Dinner at the Rumbi Island Grill

Wow.

The rice was "minute" rice. (Seriously. What the hell?) The orange chicken tasted microwaved. The "full" serving of steak teriyaki was okay, except that there was about two ounces of steak (remember the rule of thumb: four ounces is the size of a deck of cards) and a very generous amount of zucchini.

I guess the zucchini lovers will be pleased. Me? I won't be back.

Shout-out to Grant

Blogging up a storm. Nice work, bro.

(You still need to turn on full text in your rss feed though.)

Passion fruit jolly rancher candy

Rachel's mom usually sends me some Jolly Rancher candy when she sends Rachel chocolate or Applets and Cotlets. (It's okay, Mom -- I just don't have as big a sweet tooth as your daughter. One of the few parts of my diet that is above reproach, for the most part.)

But I owe Mom thanks for introducing me to the Passion Fruit variety. I like them better even than the classic. (Especially since they dropped peach and lemon from the classic and added blue raspberry, which is nasty. The kids get the apples and blue raspberries.) The raspberry tastes slightly medicinal, but better than its blue counterpart.

Recommended.

Why would anyone buy from CarMax?

The minvan hunt is officially on.

There's a huge CarMax dealership about five minutes away, so I checked out their web site. CarMax's selling point is haggle-free buying, but CarMax's price is frequently higher than the "you're an idiot if you pay this much" sticker price at other used car dealers for comparable vehicles. And it's never anywhere near what you should be able to haggle down to.

CarMax offers a five day money back guarantee and a thirty day warranty on its vehicles, but that is mostly a non-issue, since most vehicles sold by CarMax are new enough to still be covered by the manufacturer's warranty.

That's not nearly enough to justify paying a 30% premium. I don't get it.

Incidently, I'm looking on autotrader.com, ksl.com, craigslist, and cars.com (which both local papers outsource to). Let me know if we're missing a good option. I checked ebaymotors but it looks like the new hotness there is the "Best offer" sale rather than a real auction, which is super lame.

Not much of a party

Hi Cousins!

Jonathan and I would be happy to host this Sunday's dinner.  Please email or
call me if you can make it.  Dinner will be at 6ish.  Look
forward to seeing all who can make it!

Love,
Rachel

On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Heather <@hotmail.com> wrote:

>  Hey Cousin-a-roos!
>
>
>
> Well, the cousin dinner looks like it might need to be cancelled due to
> lack of host/hostess.  Sorry fam!  My bad.  Anyway, it was scheduled for
> Sunday, so if anyone wants to volunteer to head it up this month, let me
> know.

Attendance? Zero. Should have invited my cousins instead.

The cousins missed out on Jonathan's Baked Ziti. Yes, I cooked dinner. Although halfway through the ziti preparation, Rachel couldn't stand being left out any longer and took over the seasoning. Seriously. I think it was my mixing of the marinara sauce and ricotta cheese that drove her to it. It made getting the ricotta distributed evenly far easier but pink is a decidedly non-traditional color for ziti sauce. Not that you could tell when all the cheese covered it on top, and it certainly didn't taste any difference, but watching me mix the two provoked a very visceral dislike in Rachel. So she did the second one her way.

Predictably, the kids did not like the ziti. Matthew tried one noodle and one bit of sausage and decided he would rather make himself some toast, which he did. (And pronounced it much better than Daddy's toast. Knock yourself out, kid.)

Melissa refused to have anything to do with the ziti and eventually went to bed very much against her will and screaming bloody murder. (Actually, the screaming preceeded and caused the going to bed.) She didn't nap today, and it showed.

I, on the other hand, napped fantastically today. Unfortunately, my 1:00 nap falls right smack in the middle of church, and the Sunday School teacher's quiet, slightly monotonic monologue combined with by body demanding to sleep puts me out like a light. I'm a little embarassed that I haven't stayed awake through her class in weeks, especially since she's Matthew's preschool teacher too, so we see her during the week for that. "There's that guy who always falls asleep during my lesson," I suspect her of thinking.

But I have to admit that there is a part of me that is a little glad that my sleep schedule has resulted in putting that class time to better use.

A new low

My lawn-care philosophy is that

• every two weeks is plenty to mow
• every month is plenty for weed whacking, and
  
• edging is strictly optional.

Rachel had enough and hired a professional to do a good job today. It cost $40 -- more than the usual rate of $33 because of the profound state of neglect things were in, he said -- but Rachel pronounced herself pleased with the results.

Maybe Rachel will let me take care of it (well, mow) every other week. Even the "low" price of $140 a month is a lot of money.

Six kids

We watched the four Galbraith kids tonight so their parents could go on a date. They haven't been on one since their youngest was born a year ago. (!) Babysitters are hard to come by in their upscale neighborhood.

As bedlam ensued, I looked at Rachel and said, "This is what having six kids would be like." She protested that she'd never said she wanted six kids.

(A) That is not true and (B) I was just pointing it out, that's all.

Dreams

Rachel has high-impact dreams, like being a secret agent, James Bond style. Or situations involving life-and-death medical trauma.

I usually don't remember my dreams. This morning, though, I did remember one: I dreamed about eating Life cereal.

I was a little disappointed that my subconscious is so pedestrian.

(No, I'm not on a diet. Yet.)

Work it 3

To wrap up The Saga Of The Garden --

Rachel put in a wall of cement blocks around the new garden area to match the old one. She measured the old ones and told me to get the 16 inch blocks that looked like trimmed trapezoids. I brought home eight (as many as would reasonably fit in my car) and started unloading them so I could go get more.

They were the wrong size. They were about 6 inches deep and the old ones were about 10.

I would have recognized the difference if Home Depot had had any of the old ones around, but they didn't. We checked Lowes, too; they didn't, either.

To add insult to injury, Rachel had done a lot of extra work digging out the wall area deeper than necessary and had to fill it back in.

After the non-matching wall was in, I rototilled one more time with our neighbor's tiller over the dirt Rachel had excavated for her wall to de-clump it. It took about an hour for what would have been five minutes with the Manly Tiller. I miss that machine.

Making sense of the universe

I borrowed Super Smash Brothers Brawl from my office for the weekend to play with our guests Saturday. Matthew is fascinated: it has "Metroid" [Samus]!

How could Metroid be in two games at once?

Matthew figured it out: "When Metroid comes to fight, she comes through a magic door. When Metroid goes to a planet, she goes on her space ship."

TSL time

The community at TeamLiquid is putting on a $10,000 Starleague (Starcraft league), the biggest ever for foreigners (that is, non-Koreans). They're really doing a professional-quality job with videos, commentators, the whole nine yards. I've been watching the games live, somewhat to Rachel's dismay. Saturday there was about three hours of games; Sunday the games went longer and more matches went to three games so there was over five hours. I'm watching the second half now because I got the "so how long were you planning to watch that?" look.

Here's game 3 (of a best of 3 series) of Dinot vs Rondo in the round of 16. Craziest game I've seen in about... forever.

Here's all the round of 16.

Need to blow my nose

That's what Melissa just summoned me to her room for.

What the heck -- you wipe your nose on your shirt all day, but at 5:30 in the morning, you need Dad to bring the Kleenex?

I don't understand children.

Work it harder

As planned, I went back to Home Depot to get a manlier rototiller. I decided I was done playing in the kiddie section, and went straight for the top of the line, 13 horsepower tiller with a separate hydraulic drive for the tines, so you can put the tines in reverse and the drive in forward and just rip the living hell out of the ground.

Which is exactly what I did for an hour.

This beast was so heavy that it did almost all the work. I was almost sad Rachel didn't want to rip up more of the yard. Hurrah for the right tool for the job.

I have to wonder how pre-internal-combustion-engine farmers ever plowed anything, though. A couple horses ("two horsepower") would have been like the wimpy tiller. I'm guessing they must have just given up on crappy ground like ours and farmed areas with less clay in the soil.

Impressing Melissa

On one of the occasions I had to put Melissa back to bed in the middle of the night last night (this is getting to be a habit. I'll be glad when she's better and not coughing herself awake constantly) she noticed my shirt.

"Daddy, you have horsey on you shirt!"

Her tone clearly said that Daddy is cool.

Work it

I pulled up in our driveway last night in a Home Depot truck with a rototiller in the back. I can't remember seeing Rachel more excited to see me come home.

Unfortunately this was Home Depot's wimpiest rototiller, and although it was (barely) able to chew through the grass it did not make short work of things. Unknown to me, they had the manly rototillers locked up in a cage out back, not out on the tool rental floor, and Junior Sales Drone didn't know enough to suggest one of those when I said "I need to rip up my lawn so my wife can plant corn." Damn shame, because the next step up costs less than 20% more and it's a big step up.

But, I will get to try that rototiller too, because after an hour and a half, just as I was starting to get the hang of the wimpy one (use the sides to slice into the clay-filled ground), the throttle broke off. I could tell starting out that it was loose, but I didn't think it was in imminent danger of breaking.

Fortunately I had opted for the "yes, please charge me 10% more so you don't charge me full retail price in case your crap breaks" option so not a big deal except for having to go back today.

Everyman 8

I haven't written a sleep update in a while.

First of all, I should note that I threw the schedule out the window when I got sick. I think that's the only sensible thing to do. I slept all night and large parts of the day.

When I went back to a polyphasic schedule I felt like I was picking up pretty much where I left off, in terms of adaptation. The first couple days were a bit tougher but not spectacularly so. If I'd had to "start over" I probably would have given up. (For about 10 days I had a mild headache almost constantly. This is a symptom of sleep deprivation.)

My current schedule is core sleep from 11 to 2 AM, then another 1.5 hours from 5:30 to 7. Then nap around 1, and another nap at 5:30. Total of 5.5 hours, which is high, for polyphasic sleep.

The 5:30 nap is problematic; I often have trouble falling asleep. I think that primarily it's just too soon after waking up at 1:30. If I feel especially not sleepy I will push that nap to 8:00 or so, after the kids are in bed. I don't like doing this because it cuts into my time with Rachel. But if I don't get that nap in at all I feel pretty wasted by 11. I was able to sleep better at 5:30 when I was only sleeping half an hour from 6:30 to 7, and napping again at 12, but I was not nearly as alert in the morning (7-12) doing that. All in all the current situation is better.

If you're getting the impression that there is no hard and fast set of rules that says, "if you sleep at these hours you'll be in good shape" then you are coming to the same conclusion I am. There's definitely some trial and error involved.

I rely on my alarm to get me up at 2. Then for 5:30 to 7 I just let my kids wake me up. This means that 90% of the time I get to "sleep in" a bit past 7. But every once in a while they get up at 6:30 or earlier, which sucks. Then I usually put some cartoons on and try to doze a bit.

I still set my alarm for naps but I almost always wake up before it goes off, which I take as a good sign.

Perhaps the worst failure is that it turns out I'm a lazy couch potato and still haven't been to the gym.

Demands

Melissa yelled incoherently and kept yelling. For the record, it's 3:50 AM.

I went to see what she wanted. "I wan' da reh sippy tup." [I want the red sippy cup.]

I pulled out the sippy cup Rachel had given her at bedtime. "Here is a perfectly good sippy cup. I'm not getting the red one."

Amazingly, she decided not to argue with me.

Rachel is fairly pleased about this aspect of my polyphasic sleep schedule -- normally, she gets to answer these calls by virtue of being a lighter sleeper.

Update: Melissa got up at 4:30 too. No demands this time but I heard her banging around in her room. She was looking for her princess wand. Silly Daddy, not the old princess wand that I saw in her toy box. The new princess wand that came with her birthday cake. I told her we could look in the morning and turned off her light. She actually accepted this solution. ("Iss dark outside." "Yes. Go back to sleep.")

Catch-22

Rachel spent most of the last three hours cleaning.

Why? Because we have a maid service coming tomorrow. And we don't want them to think we have a dirty house, do we?

"You're making me sound like a nutty woman," she complained about this post. "I haven't cleaned anything. Just picked up."

I rest my case.

Allergies

Allergy season. For the last two days I've sounded like I should be on bed rest. In fact, Ryan at work asked me if that wasn't where I should be. I feel a lot better than I sound; it's mostly just my sinuses affected. Although combined with the cough that I seem to have caught from Matthew, it's fairly unpleasant.

We'll see how the Claritin I picked up tonight does.

"I turn 3!"

"I'm a BIG girl!"

-Melissa

A Tickled (blue?) Uncle and Aunt

Congratulations Telitha and Nolan on the birth of your sweet new baby boy! May you have a lovely and peaceful "babymoon." And congratulations to the new Big Brother James!

Peanuts

This evening I went to check in on Melissa and to turn off her light. She was sitting on the rocking chair footstool looking thoughtful.

"Melissa, what are you doing?"

(Melissa) pats her back sadly. "I don't have wings."

"You don't have wings?"

"Yes. I don't have wings. I can't fly."

"Oh. Yes I suppose that's true. But you can fly in an airplane."

She brightened a little at that thought as she climbed into bed.

However, she is still not asleep...


Matthew can now count by tens. He has been able to count by ones to 100 for some time now and has delighted in showing us. Over and over and over again.

Matthew has been rooting for a baby boy. A few days ago he told me, "I know the baby is a brother if he has a penis." When I suggested that he could be the one to check and let everyone know, he seemed quite pleased with the responsibility. "I can call Grandma and Grandpa too!" That sounds like a great big brother job!


If we do have a boy Matthew really really wants the baby to share a room with him.

"And if the baby cries in the night I will pick him up and sing songs and burp him!"

"Well, little babies sleep with Mommy and Daddy so Mommy can take nurse the baby and change diapers in the night."

"That's okay. When he gets bigger he can share a room with me!"

I don't think he appreciates how long it takes for a baby to get bigger...and then when little brothers do get bigger they tend to get into get into mischief (and older siblings' things). Speaking strictly from experience.


Melissa has recently figured out that there's a difference between boys and girls and men and women. I don't think she's noticed any specifics, just that Mommy and Daddy are somehow different and Daddy is a MAN and Mommy is a WOMAN. Recently she has started gleefully declaring, "Daddy, YOU 'DA MAN!'" much to her Daddy's delight!

A Good Day

Matthew was good in the morning. He was good at church. He took a nap afterwards, and was good in the evening.

So we let him stay up until 9 and watch an episode of The Cosby Show with us. With popcorn.

I don't think he "got" most of it, but the exploding hot dog alone was worth the price of admission to him. He did say that he liked it better than "the puppet show," whatever that is.

But I think that given the staying up "late," watching a show with Mom and Dad, and eating popcorn Just Like An Adult part, it didn't really matter what we watched. At least, that would have been the least significant part of the evening when I was five.

My little boy is growing up, just a little.

Fashion agnostic

We watched some Cosby Show episodes tonight. We laughed at those crazy 80's fashions.

Then Rachel got thoughful. "What do you think about my fashion sense?" she asked.

"Dear," I said truthfully, "You're asking the wrong guy. It's all I can do to notice when you get your hair cut. I couldn't give you one example of a fashion trend that changed in the last ten years."

Rachel wasn't convinced. "You must notice what other women wear."

"Let me put it this way: the last fashion change I noticed was that stone-bleached jeans aren't 'in' anymore. Actually it wasn't 'noticed' so much as I just vaguely realized it over time."

I think she believes me now.

It's gotta be the shoes

Matthew lost his sneakers. They were good shoes: they had Spiderman on them and lights in the heel. And they were cheap. Very good shoes. But he lost them.

Rachel looked all over. (I looked all over too, but that never convinces Rachel of anything. With reason, I admit.) They were not to be found.

So after he trudged everywhere in his snow boots all week, we bit the bullet and got him new shoes. Wal-mart didn't have any velcro shoes in his size, so we went to Payless where we found some excellent, if expensive (for a five year old) shoes.

On the way home Rachel started wondering what happened to his old shoes again. A thought struck her: "Did you take off your shoes to jump on the Macey's trampoline?" "Yes." Rachel sent him over to check, and he came running back with ... his shoes. Sweet! $22 saved!

Five minutes later I found him clipping the tags off his new shoes. "What are you doing? We found your shoes!" "But I like these too!"

So he paid us $4 (a month's worth of allowance) for his new shoes and kept both. He's convinced the new ones make him jump higher. And he hasn't even watched any sneaker commercials!

(We let him wear the new ones to church today, even though normally we'd rather he wear his dress shoes.)

Biohazard lite

I'm feeling well enough (after sleeping all night and morning) that I feel slightly guilty about not going to church, but not so well that I'd feel good about going and exposing everyone. Lame.

A Manly Day

Rototilled Rachel's garden today. Manhandling that sucker around was a good workout. Then I mowed the lawn. Usually Rachel mows the lawn, since I am allergic to grass clippings (really), but I was not about to let my six-month-pregnant wife do the mowing. Now my eyeballs itch; time to stock up on Claritin. (Allegra works even better but getting a perscription is not worth the hassle.)

(Un)fortunately, our neighbor's rototiller is not designed for chewing up lawns, just for turning over already-broken ground. It was unable to make a dent in the grass for the more-than-doubling of the garden area that Rachel was planning. I wasn't too disappointed, since that would have turned a forty-minute job into 3 hours or more. But now I'll probably have to rent a heavy-duty model from Home Depot next week. I know those can do the job, because that's how I put in the garden we have now.

Darn kids

Rachel and I wanted to play some Dark Kingdom tonight but we could only find one ps3 controller.

I solved the problem the lazy man's way: I ordered another from Amazon.

Mozy reunion

My old employer, Mozy, threw a party at Hard Rock Cafe SLC in honor of Mac Mozy hitting 1.0 and coming out of beta. Rachel found a baby sitter, so we went up and had a good time. At least I had a good time, talking to all my ex-coworkers. (I only knew about half of the people wearing Mozy tags -- they've gone from about 50 people when I left to 80.) Rachel was a good sport talking to a bunch of people she didn't really remember from the Christmas party at the Nickelcade where she met them once, although we've had Jacob and Paul over for games with their wives.

Rachel declined to do vocals on Rock Band but she did consent to do guitar while I did vocals. (She nailed her part. So did I!)

Not at the same time, I played guitar while Jeremy's five year old daughter beat out the drum track. He says she does DDR on Difficult, too. Impressive. ("Heck, my wife is still on Easy," I told him. "So is mine," he replied. I think his wife is named Rachel, too, but I wasn't sure enough to call her by name.)

Free Mozy T-shirts, yay. Only I asked for a XXL for "Rachel" to give to F50's Jeremy, but they gave us an S instead. Shoulda checked the label.

Night time is the right time

Doing the polyphasic sleep thing, I mostly hang out in the living room while I'm up. When I go back to use the bathroom, I often find that Matthew has woken up and turned his light on at some point. I turn it off and mutter under my breath about how that's why he's grumpy in the morning, but I've never caught him awake enough to explain why he thought turning on the light in the middle of the night is a good idea.

Tonight I actually caught him awake at 3:30. I asked him why he was up. "Because."

That was less enlightening than I'd hoped.