Zombies Scare Me

A Day in the Life

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:14:00 +0000

7:00 am. Ethan, Ryan and Jen are still asleep. Ethan is a world champion sleeper most of the time, unlike his brother. When Ryan was 2 he normally started the day sometime between 5:45 and 6:15am and when he woke up he would pound on his crib and yell until someone came in to get him. Ethan is the exact opposite. Even if he wakes up early, he will sit in his crib and talk to himself until he exhausts all possible conversation topics.

8:00 am. I think everyone is still asleep. Ethan might be talking quietly to himself. Either way, he's not requiring any services and so Jen and Ryan are free to sleep. I am currently at an eye exam but I would rather still be in bed. This represents the last time I schedule anything before noon on a Saturday.

9:00am. I am now home and Ethan is now awake. He runs to the door to greet me and grabs my legs so that I either have to pick him up or risk tripping. He's got quite a grip and the best bet is simply to lift the little dude in the air and carry him around for a bit. He knows what he is doing and he knows how to get what he wants.

9:30am. Ethan and Ryan are downstairs watching Elmo on the TV and sitting peacefully next to each other on the couch. They are sharing a blanket that is pulled up to their laps, and Ethan is enthralled with the little red monster on the screen. This has got to be one of the best brother moments I have witnessed. Two seconds later, Hope, our 35 pound (and growing!) dog runs downstairs and leaps onto the couch, scattering little Doyles and inflicting at least one tongue swipe on Ethan, the slower of the two boys. He wipes it off and pushes her away. "NO, Hope!" he says. "Bad Grill!" He still calls her a "grill" rather than a "girl". I don't think I am ever going to correct him on that because it is just so darn cute.

9:45am. Perfect brother moment ruined, Ethan makes his way up to the living room where he sits on the rocking chair and watches me pick up all of the paper that Hope has shredded while the boys were downstairs. He then, inexplicably, shouts "Daddy! Watch this!", stands up and attempts to leap off said rocking chair. Unfortunately for him the concept of action/reaction has not crossed his young mind and when the rocking chair moves back as he pushes off from it he ends up diving face first into the coffee table. I see this from the other side of the room and the only thing I can do is rush over to console my now crying son. Jen and I attempted to put ice on it, but trying to put ice on a 2 year old's face is kinda like trying to give a cat a bath - there is a lot of squirming, scratching, and anger and in the end the only thing that was accomplished is that you are now slightly more tired than you were when the ordeal started and the cat/kid is now more upset. His face is puffed up and he now has the first of what will be, given his propensity for climbing and then leaping off of tall things in the house, many black eyes.

10:30am. Dance party. Thanks to the Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce, and a little Bob Schneider, the coffee table incident is forgotten and we commence with the getting down. "You don't know me but my name's Eileen!" screams Ryan as the first line of "The Californian" by Schneider comes out of the speakers. Ethan jumps around like he has no cares and is simply enjoying the moment and I soon join him. Soon I am tossing the boys into the air and swinging them around while the stereo plays at a level almost certain to produce hearing loss. Eventually I run out of gas and fall to the floor, which Ethan takes as his cue to jump on my testicles. Immediately after Ethan rolls off me laughing his little head off, Ryan leaps onto my stomach in what appears to be a coordinated attack. I roll onto my stomach and tell the boys to go find mommy because daddy needs to lie on the floor for a while.

10:45am. The boys are "helping" me to fix the switch in a ceiling fan. This "help" consists of Ryan taking my tools away as soon as I set them down and handing them to Ethan while Ethan repeatedly hits my knee with whatever tool Ryan has just given him.

11:30am. Lunch. Nothing terribly exciting. Sandwiches, applesauce, water, and the occasional demand for cookies, cake, ice cream, or all of the above at the same time. Request denied.

1:30pm. Ethan's nap time and Ryan's story time. As mentioned before, Ethan sleeps like a champ. Apparently so do mom and dad because after Ryan's stories, Jen and I both laid down to rest while Ryan colored on our bed. Thankfully he had coloring books. Had there been no coloring books, I am fairly certain that he still would have colored on our bed. I think that he thinks our white comforter is like a giant blank canvass.

1:40 to 3:30pm. Ryan is done with his books and had now switched from artist to politician. Almost immediately he began lobbying and pushing for his "Halloween Decoration" agenda. Jen and I were behind this proposition, but we felt that there was room for negotiation, mostly as it pertained to the time frame. He felt that immediate action needed to be taken on the item while we were more in the mood for a slow deliberation on the matter. He began more aggressive negotiation tactics which consisted of expounding on the merits of pumpkin carving while pulling my eyes open, while Jen and I preferred the silent filibuster route to put off voting until a future time to be decided later. Finally after much negotiation, with Ryan conceding ground on the "pick-up-your-room" amendment as well as the "put-away-your-toys-in-the-living-room-first" provision, a consensus was reached and we all got moving. By now, Ethan had exhausted his list of solo conversation topics and was now yelling for us, so it was time to get up anyway.

4:00pm. Before pumpkins could begin to be carved, Ryan and Ethan jumped onto a large Thomas The Tank Engine riding toy, taking turns being the rider and the pusher. After a few rounds of pushing each other, Ryan accidentally (for real - I saw it) pushed Ethan too hard and Ethan fell off the train and banged his head on the kitchen floor. After a little comforting he was back to normal and ready to carve the pumpkins. For Ethan, carving pumpkins consisted of sitting on either my lap or Jen's lap while the other wielded the carving knife. He didn't really get into the whole pumpkin carving thing, and his sole contribution to the process was to make a face and say "Yuck," while pointing at the insides of the pumpkin.

5:30pm. Ryan is hungry and Ethan is getting cranky. Ryan deals with his hunger by asking for something to eat and then playing with his maze books until dinner is ready. Ethan deals with his crankiness by moving furniture around. Chairs, tables, drawers - whatever he can push or pull, he moves it. His favorite thing to do is move his wooden high chair to the sink and play in the water, so he attempted to do just that. However, since there were pumpkin guts and knives in the sink I quickly moved his chair back to the table before he could climb it and hurt himself. Unfortunately, he then climbed into his chair at the table and then tried to push both himself and the chair away from the table. This was successful up to a point, but the point where it became unsuccessful is also the point at which he fell face first into the edge of the table. The rest of the injuries suffered today were all bloodless, but this one more than made up for those others. He had blood on his hands, his face, my shirt, and the floor. Looking back on it, the amount of blood was rather impressive considering that it all came from two little cuts on the inside of his lower lip, but I guess if you are an already cranky two year old a little blood is going to go a long way. We got him calmed down and gave him a little pain killer, and by now dinner was ready so he sat and ate fairly contentedly.

7:00pm. Bedtime for Ethan and Story Time for Ryan. Ethan drifted off to sleep uneventfully just like almost every other night and Ryan moaned a bit about having to get ready for bed just like almost every other night.

8:00pm. Ryan has brushed his teeth and is in bed "sleeping". Normally he grabs a book and looks at the pictures or listens to music on his little radio for a while before falling asleep.

8:30pm. The first of several nightly visits to either mom or dad explaining that he has a "small problem". This small problem can be anything from needing more water to needing the clock set to the correct time ("Because my clock says that it is 100 o'clock and I think that it is wrong.") to needing his pillow fluffed.

9:00pm. Now he needs "A healthy snack" because "I haven't had enough fruit/cheese/yogurt/etc. today." This is a nightly thing.

It is now 9:27pm and I still hear him occasionally upstairs. I expect at least one more "small problem" before the night is done.

It may take an hour or two after we officially put him to bed for him to fall asleep, but he is adorable when he sleeps so it is well worth the wait.

Good or Bad?

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:28:00 +0000

I love Star Wars. I am not able to quote lines from the movies, I can't give you the names of all the minor characters, nor am I able to tell you what planet Wookies come from, but I do enjoy a good lightsaber duel from time to time. I distinctly remember cheering along with the rest of the audience on the opening day of Episode 1 when, at the climactic fight scene, Darth Maul pulled out his saber, pressed a button it on, and blades extended out from both ends. I am fairly sure that several of the people around me had actual nerdgasms. Darth Maul then proceeded then to kick the crap out of the good guys for a while, even (spoiler alert from 10 years ago!) killing the one who's name I can't spell before getting cut in half by a quick-thinking Obi-Wan. Due to its sheer awesomeness, this particular fight scene is burned into my memory with such clarity that I don't even really need to watch it ever again. But of course I will watch it again. That is one of the great things about having a son who is now old enough to get into Star Wars.

After much debate, I decided that the best way to introduce Star Wars to my son was the same way that it had been introduced to all of us, namely with the older 3 movies followed by the newer three movies. This was not a simple decision to make, nor is it easy to explain to a 5 year old why we are watching movies 4, 5, and 6 before we watch 1, 2, and 3. But, as it turned out, like about 98.3% of the population, Ryan could not have cared less about which order we watched them in as long as he got to see himself some Star Wars lightsaber action.

We started watching Episode 4 - A New Hope (commonly known simply as "Star Wars") one Friday night for Ryan's movie night. It opens up with a dramatic scene in which Darth Vader and his Storm Troopers board a ship containing Princess Leia, C3PO, R2D2, and a whole lot of cannon fodder. There is a battle royale in which, eventually, Leia is captured and the two droids are shot into space in an escape pod. Lots of fighting and lots of action, but all Ryan wanted to know was who was good and who was bad.

"Is that a good guy or a bad guy?" he'd asked when Leia was talking to R2D2.

"First of all, she isn't a 'guy', she's a girl," I informed him quickly. Like most males my age, I had a huge crush on Leia and I was not going to allow Ryan to refer to her as a "Guy". "Second, she is good. She is Princess Leia."

"Oh," he said, nonplussed. "Why is she talking to that trash can?"

"That 'trash-can' is R2D2 and he is a droid." Anticipating the next question, I continued, "And a droid is a type of robot that helps people."

"Is he good or bad?"

"He is good."

"How do you know it is a he?"

I had no idea. "I have no idea," I told him. "Maybe because he is blue?"

"Does he have a penis?"

"What? No! He doesn't have a penis. At least I don't think so.... Never mind!"

I'm not sure if he was messing with me or not, but thankfully he changed topics and asked "What about the big gold one? Is he good or bad?"

"Good. That is C3PO."

"What does 'C3PO' mean?"

"I have no idea. You are taking some of the fun out of this."

"Ok. Who is the big guy in the black?"

"Darth Vader," I responded, back on firmer footing.

Continuing with his theme for the night, Ryan asked, "Is he good or bad?"

"He is bad. Really bad. The worst guy in the universe."

"Worse than Glenn Beck?"

That's my boy! Apparently he has heard me rant a few times about that dude, and apparently I have to be more careful about what I say and when I say it. He's like a little malfunctioning tape recorder that records everything but plays back only the stuff he shouldn't have heard.

I laughed. "Yep. Even worse than Glenn Beck."

"Wow."

"I know."

The pattern then continued for each and every person, droid, ship, machine and star in the entire movie. "Is that (blank) good or bad?" After hearing this question about 100 times it actually got tough to answer. Not because I got tired of it, but because for some things I felt like a simple "good" or "bad" was not a proper answer. He just wanted a black and white, good or bad, with-us or against-us type of answer and I was spending far too much time thinking about these things. Is a ship good or is it bad? Does it depend on who is in the ship? Are droids good or bad? Doesn't it depend on who programmed them? And if they are just responding to their programming can they be considered to be either one? What about Han Solo? He is a smuggler and owes a bunch of money to a known gangster, which is bad, but he helps Luke and Leia, so that is good. Luke? He is kind of whiny, petulant, and hard headed (not great characteristics) but he is the hero of the story and saves the day (good. Probably. But he did kill all those people on the Death Star to do it, so...).

Also, on a different note, is anyone else aware that in that first battle that I already described as the two droids launch themselves toward the planet in the escape pod, the Empire gunman actively chose NOT to shoot the escape pod containing the only hope of the rebellion? Had he simply pulled the trigger, this entire series would have been approximately 7 minutes long, including opening and closing credits.

Aparently I have to turn my brain off when watching Star Wars with him in the future.

Anyway, Ryan now has a better idea of what good and bad mean, and thanks to Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and the "Clone Wars" cartoon, he is getting the idea that it isn't always a clearly defined line. Given that there are many adults out there who struggle with this concept, it will probably be a while before he understands it completely. In the mean time, I'll simply enjoy the fact that we get to have some father-son bonding time and watch some totally fun lightsaber duels.

Me love you long time.

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:57:00 +0000

Parents have lots of jobs to do when it comes to rearing their children. You have to teach them to poop in the potty, not to poop in the plant, not smear oatmeal all over themselves and the dog, how to properly strike a soccer ball so that it bends just a bit around the outstretched arms of a diving goal keeper and into the upper corner of the goal, and how to talk. Sometimes little things that we do can affect how our little offspring begin the process of learning, but often these aren't visible to the rest of the world. Not so with the process of learning how to talk.

For example, when Ryan was young he wasn't very specific when it came to his desires. A whine could mean anything, and even if he was pointing in the general direction of whatever it was that he wanted, it was often a guessing game to determine what, exactly, he wanted.

"You want this?" we would ask holding up a cup. Ryan would shake his head.

"How about this?" as we held aloft one of his many Thomas the Tank Engine trains. Again with the head shake.

"This?" More shaking.

This could go on for many minutes until we finally picked up on the one thing in the car that he was looking for. As a result, he spent several months thinking that everything in the world was called "this". Sippy cup, train, stuffed animal, goldfish crackers, it didn't matter. His misunderstanding led to him simply pointing at anything and saying, "This," which wasn't much of an improvement on the point-and-whine system we were used to. It was still a guessing game ("This?"..."How about this?") but now he was using a word instead of a sound.

We have recently run into a similar issue with Ethan, but it doesn't seem to be so innocuous. He doesn't call everything "This" like his brother did, and in fact he is fairly good at knowing the names for things he wants. He might use his own particular version of the word but at least most things have their own sound. For example, "Peng" is his penguin, "juice" refers to any liquid that is not milk or water, and "weenie" is Tortellini, his favorite dinner.

He is also remarkably good at delineating when something belongs to him, and when it belongs to someone else. "Ethans juice" is clearly his juice, while "Ryan cookies" are Ryan's cookies but with the caveat that if Ethan wants them he should be entitled to them.

One issue that he is having, however, is telling the difference between "me" and "you". This is understandable given that whenever he wants something, like a book read to him, we ask him "Do you want me to read to you?" He now comes up to me and says "Read book to you," which means "Read the book to me". We are trying to get him to use the proper word, but he is still only 2 and there is plenty of time.

All of these little errors can lead, however, to a big misunderstanding. This afternoon, for example, I was preparing tortellini for his lunch, and he wanted to make sure that everyone knew that it was his tortellini. He also made sure to throw in the fact that he wanted his tortellini as soon as possible. All of these ideas are not remarkable, but today at lunch when they all came out of Ethan's mouth, it sounded like this:

"You want Ethan's weenie now?"

To me, this sentence simply means that he wants his lunch right away, but a poor babysitter is going to think that she is being propositioned by a two-year old.

We'll just have to make sure that tortellini is not on the menu when Jen and I go out before dinner.

The coolest crash up derby in the world.

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:27:00 +0000

Scintillating conversation is not normally something you expect from a 2 year old, but sometimes you can get some amazing things to come out of the mouths of these almost talkers. Ethan, for example, is great at having conversations. The problem is that the person he is having the conversation with is generally completely unaware of what the hell is going on. I had this experience the other night at dinner.

I was putting Ethan into his seat for dinner when he said, "Foamers."

"What?" I asked, looking around his seat for something he might have dropped. With a 2 year old, context clues are everything.

"Foamers," he said again, this time pointing in the general vicinity of the rest of the house. Precision is not something he is known for.

Seeing nothing around on the floor or on the table that could be described as a 'foamer', I turned to my wife. "Jen? What is a 'foamer'?"

"No clue," she said. "He's been saying that all day."

I asked the same question of my oldest son, and he replied, "I think he means 'Transformer'. He loves his new shoes."

"Foamer shoes," said Ethan smiling, pointing at the rest of the house again. He has some new shoes that have Bumblebee, one of the Transformers, on the sides and back, and Ryan is right in stating that Ethan loves them.

"Do you want to wear your new shoes?" I asked.

Smiling and nodding vigorously, he replied, "Foamer shoes. Outside."

Another mystery solved. "Ok. After dinner we'll go outside and you can wear your new shoes. Does that sound good?"

Another vigorous nod and smile, followed by a single word, "Fants."

Feeling on firmer ground with this cryptic clue, I told him, "No, there are no elephants outside at our house. You don't have to worry."

"Scared. Elfants," he said. Then, pointing at the rest of the house agian,"Foamer shoes."

"Elephants are not going to eat your new shoes."

"Scared. Roars."

"There are no dinosaurs either."

"Elfants. Roars. Foamer Shoes. Crash derby."

The first three seemed to make sense, but I was at a loss to explain the "crash derby" reference. I know he had been to the crash-up derby at the fair with Nonnie and Papa a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it, but I am fairly certain that there were no elephants or dinosaurs involved. I wasn't there of course, so I could be wrong, but it seemed unlikely that a county fair would have the money or the desire to either bring in an elephant or genetically engineer a dinosaur. Again, I turned to my fellow codebreakers.

"Little help here," I said to both Jen and Ryan.

Ryan chimed in first. "Dad, I think he is worried that the elephants and dinosaurs are going to have a crash up derby to see who gets to have his new transformer shoes."

"That is quite a story, but I don't think that there is any way that he is thinking that."

"Ask him," Ryan said, smiling. Looking back on it, it seems that he said it smugly.

"Ok. Ethan? Are you worried that dinosaurs and elephants are going to engage in a crash up derby to see who gets your transformer shoes?"

Ethan smiled and nodded vigorously.

"Ethan?" I said. "Do you know what a crash up derby is?"

In response, he grabbed his two cars that were sitting on the table and smashed them together. "Crash derby!" he said.

"And do you know what a dinosaur is?"

"Sookis," he said, pointing outside. This is another cryptic clue that I know. "Sookis" is his word for Sarcosuccus, a 40-foot long Cretaceous crocodile. He is afraid of these, along with T. rex, Velociraptor, and cows.

"And you are worried that Sarcosuccus and an elephant are going to have a crash up derby in our backyard so that they can have your Transformers shoes. Is this right?"

Smile and vigorous nodding.

"And you still want to go outside?"

"Well, Dad, wouldn't you?" said Ryan. "That would be awesome."

Indeed it would. Then it hit me. "Ryan?"

"Yeah," he said, smiling.

"You wouldn't have told your brother that an elephant and a giant 40-foot crocodile were outside waiting for him, would you?"

Still smiling, Ryan responded, "I don't know."

As it turns out, Ryan is not as difficult to read as Ethan, and his "I don't know" is as good as a "Yes" to me.

"And you also told him that they wanted his new shoes, right?"

"I don't know." Smile.

"Please don't scare him with stories like that in the future, ok?"

"Ok." Smile.

Clearly this isn't the last time Ethan will be messed with in this manner, but at least this time Ryan basically admitted to it. The next time won't be so easy.

So after dinner we put on Ethan's Transformers shoes, convinced him that Sarcosuccus was still extinct and wasn't going to be in our backyard, that elephants still only lived on other continents, and that there were no cows that we knew of out grazing in the dog run, and stepped outside to enjoy the evening.

Fun at the Park

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:12:00 +0000

Ah, the park. One of natures greatest inventions, so full of bark, slides, swings, and strange screeching children. The Doyle Boys love going to the park, sometimes so much that they are willing to injure each other to get to one.

Allow me to explain.

The other night, Ryan and Ethan were playing outside when the metaphorical dinner bell rang and they had to come in and wash their hands. Ryan was unhappy that his playtime was cut short and asked if we might be able to go to a park after dinner. Jen and I both thought that his was a good idea, but we wanted to hold it out as a reward to increase the possibility that there would be no incidents during dinner. So we promised the little ones that if dinner went well we would go to a park. This went over fairly well, as did dinner. After dinner, however, things turned for the worse when Ryan and Ethan, in their excitement to go to the park, started running around the house jumping into each other and, in general, having a fairly good time. We tried to put an end to this, but short of physical restraint nothing was working. Eventually their boisterous play ended badly when both ended up injured after one body slam too many and we had to put off the park until the next day. This resulted in many tears due partly to the impact injuries but mostly due to the loss of the park for the evening.

The next morning, though, I surprised the boys by telling them that we would go to one of the big parks in the area. This particular park is basically 2 medium sized parks merged into one giant mecca of playtime fun. It also has a decent sized pond with walking trails, ducks, birds, and other fun nature things. There were, it must be said, no elephants or giant prehistoric crocodiles despite Ethan's testimony when we got back home.

After a relatively uneventful half hour of playing on the slides and jumping around in the sandbox, I asked if they wanted to cruise down the trail and around the pond. Both boys shouted their approval and off we went, Ryan at a run, me at a walk, and Ethan at a run/walk/complete stop/walk the wrong way back to the swings/run away from me when I tried to catch him/walk again. This particular trail starts up on a fairly steep hill and follows a switchback route to get to the bottom. From the top of this trail the entire pond is visible, as are the various bridges, paths, and open spaces surrounding it. It is rather beautiful, but Ethan didn't waste any time protesting.

"Scared," he said, pointing to the open land to the east of the pond. "Elfants."

Confused, I asked him to clarify. "Are you scared of Elephants?"

He nodded and pointed again. "Scared. Elfants."

Ryan joined the conversation and tried to be helpful. "But Ethan, there are no elephants out there. Do you see any Elephants?"

"Scared." Point. "Elfants." Point Hard.

"No," Ryan said again. "No elephants!"

"ELFANTS!" yelled Ethan.

I could see that this was going to go nowhere, so I just said, "Why doesn't Daddy pick you up, and we'll go show you that there are no elephants here, ok?"

Ethan paused for a second while he appeared to think it over, nodded, and put his arms up in the universal childhood symbol of "pick me up". I grabbed him, and set off again down the path. I kept reassuring him that there were no elephants down there, that elephants did not live in this area, and even if for some reason one or two relocated from their African or Asian homeland (I'm not sure which type of elephant he imagines is down there) they would be very visible due to the fact that they are the largest land animals around.

When we got to the bottom of the path, Ryan led the way ("Just like Nigel Marvin, I'm in search of giant dinosaurs...") and Ethan squirmed to be put down. I obliged and we followed our tour guide.

"I've been here many times, Dad, so you just follow me and we'll be ok."

"OK," I said, "but just be careful not to get too close to the water, and watch out for ducks and geese."

"Why?" Ryan asked. "They're not that big. And they are kinda slow."

"Sure, ducks are small won't normally do anything, but geese can be big and will bite if they feel that they are in danger."

Ryan turns around, looks me right in the eye and calmly says, "I'll fight a goose."

Trying hard, and mostly failing, to suppress a laugh, I said, "Really?"

"Really."

"Fight Goose!" said Ethan, flailing about with his legs and hands in his best Power Ranger impression. "Quack!"

The time had come to lay down the law. "Ok - No one is going to fight any animals while we are here, understand?"

"Why not?" asked Ryan.

"Fight Animals!" said Ethan.

"Because," I said pushing on, "this is where they live. You wouldn't want an animal to come into your house and try and fight you, would you?"

Ryan thought for a second. "No, but if a goose ever comes to my house, I can fight it then, right?"

"Right. You can fight a goose if it comes into the house."

I bet you don't have to have this conversation with little girls.

The rest of the walk went well and we eventually made it back home. And Ryan was a little disappointed to see that in our absence no geese had invaded our house.

Atch Ow!

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:10:00 +0000

We went out clothes shopping for the little ones this afternoon and, unfortunately for Jen, they are still boys. She has said many times that she would rather not be the only girl in the family because little boys don't get to wear cute dresses and frilly little outfits. Unless, of course, they happen to be her little brother. She apparently dressed up her youngest brother in dresses from time to time when they were both kids. Not that there is anything wrong with that - I'm not here to judge. Anyway, it is nice that she now has a few friends with little girls so that she can indulge in what appears to be a pathological need to purchase little pink dresses.

It has been said that little boys and little girls are different from each other, and not just in the genitalia. As the rhyme goes, little girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice, and little boys are made from frogs and snails and puppy dog tails and they are fearless and don't give a rip about their own safety and are, it seems, completely willing to jump from a ledge about 4 1/2 feet off the ground onto, thankfully, a large air mattress despite the fact that they have yet to reach their 2nd birthday.

I might have that a bit wrong, but it is fairly accurate.

The other day we were at a dinner gathering that was both adult and kid friendly. This means that the party had both beer and a other little kids that our little kids got along well with. As an added bonus in the kid-friendly department, there was a bouncy castle which belonged to the host family. For those of you without kids or without a soul, a bouncy castle is one of the greatest things ever in that it is a room sized contraption that is totally inflatable. This inflatability results in a safe, bouncy, fun little room loved by kids of all ages. I think I might have actually seen Ryan wipe away tears of joy when this castle was unveiled.

In addition to a thick inflated floor, this particular bouncy castle had a climbing wall which was a little over 4 feet tall. This wall then led to a slide which could be either used as a slide or, in a pinch, as a slanted trampoline capable of propelling the kids into the opposite wall a few feet away. I'm not sure I ever saw it used as a slide and I was, to say the least, a tad anxious for the safety of all involved.

We had kept Ethan out of the castle because we were worried that he was too small and might get pushed around by the bigger kids. He was unhappy with this and kept pointing to the castle, saying "Peas! Peas! Bown!" (Translation: Please! Please! Bounce!). We could distract him with a variety of things, but after a short break his eyes would invariably wander back to the castle. After some of the larger kids got out for a break, I thought it might be a good chance for Ethan to get a shot at it, so I put him in there along with Ryan and the other 5 year old boy, Thomas.

Ethan took a few minutes to get used to walking on the bouncy surface, but eventually got comfortable and began running around. He crashed into Ryan a few times yet seemed more interested in staying in the castle than crying, so all seemed to be going well. He even successfully scaled the climbing wall which led to the slide and became the first kid all night to simply slide down. I was impressed. My little boy was doing quite well in his first bouncy castle and seemed to be really enjoying himself. The beer was cold, the birds were chirping, the kids were having fun, and all was well with the world.

For a while.

Then, at the instigation of his older brother, he climbed up the slide and stood at the edge of the climbing wall. Nervous, I looked sternly at him and said "Ethan, don't jump. Go back down the way you came," and surprisingly, he did just that. Then, a few minutes later, this time with no instigation from his big brother, he climbed back up the slide and stood at the edge of the climbing wall.

Again, I looked at him sternly and said, "Ethan, don't jump."

At this point it seems prudent to mention that I was outside the castle and could do nothing about what happened next.

Ethan yelled, "Atch Ow!" (Translation: Watch Out!), and proceeded to leap from the top of the climbing wall, smacking into the inflatable floor with a squeal of laughter. He scrambled back to his feet and looked at me as if to say, "Get used to it, old man," and then clamored back up the slide to the top of the climbing wall ("Atch Ow! - Wheee!") before I could get in and stop him.

I was able to grab him after his second solo jump and make sure that he was ok. He seemed to be fine and considering that the bouncy castle was designed to allow such things, I let him stay in to continue jumping. After a few more jumps, the host, Bob, asked that either we get him out of there or I sign a piece of paper exempting him from legal action should something happen to Ethan. Bob is a bit of a cautious soul, so I pulled Ethan out and that was the end of his little jumping expedition.

He still enjoys jumping, and every now and then while he is in the living room and I am doing the dishes or otherwise engaged in the kitchen, I'll hear "Atch Ow!" followed by the thump of his landing after his latest leap from the couch. I'll have to keep the ladder locked up so I don't find him on the roof when he is Ryan's age. Despite the fact that I did it when I was younger, the last thing I want to see is Ethan on the roof with a sheet ready to "parachute" into the bushes.

No Dad. You are wrong...

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:25:00 +0000

I have to write this one down before I forget it.

I was just upstairs reading Ryan a few books before his afternoon "rest time". We can't call it "nap" anymore because 5 year-olds don't nap, at least according to our resident 5 year old. Anyway, I always give him a choice of books, and today I jokingly asked if he wanted to read "Your Inner Fish", a college level book about human evolution written by Neil Shubin, instead of the latest "Power Ranger" cartoon book.

"Wait. Inner Fish?" he asked. "Do I have a fish inside me? I thought they were all in the tank."

"No, you don't have a real fish inside you," I answered. "But since we evolved from fish 400 million years ago we all have little bits that come from those fish."

"Dad," he said in a condescending tone. "I have skin, not scales."

"I know, but you do have some bits left over from the process of evolving from those fish."

He looked at me, clearly not getting it. I had to try a different tactic. "You know how you have that LEGO set where you can make two different motorcycles OR a car from the same parts?"

"Yeah."

"Well, we built the motorcycles first and each cycle looks pretty cool. But if you take those pieces apart and built the car, you have a car that isn't exactly like one of those motorcycles, but you can still tell that some of the pieces came from the motorcycles."

"Oh," he said, apparently getting it. "But that's because they did come from the motorcycles. I took them apart myself."

"Right. And that is the same thing that happened with us and fish. Evolution sort of took the fish parts and made us."

"You mean if we look at us, we can see fish parts inside?"

"Kinda."

And then he said my favorite thing of all time, "I totally want to read this book now."

So I grabbed it off the dresser and we fell onto the bed, one of us eager to impart the beauty of evolutionary biology to my son, and the other of us totally ready to find out whether he could breathe underwater.

We just basically flipped through the book looking at the pictures, and it all started well when we got to the first image of what we science geeks like to call "homologous limb structures", but what dads need to call "same arm bones". There were 4 pictures, each one showing the front limb of an early transitional tetrapod (translation: fish with arms).

Image similar to the one in the book. This one also includes
Tulerpeton, which is not found in the book.

"Which of these looks most like our arm?" I asked Ryan.

He pointed to the Acanthostega image which did, indeed, look most like our arm.

Then I asked him, "Which of these do you think we are more closely related to?"

"This one," he said, pointing again to the Acanthostega.

Cool! He seems to get it, but anyone can make a guess, so I ask him the next, more important question. "Why?"

Again with the condescention. "Cuz it has those little bones which look like my fingers and the other pictures don't." If he were a few years older he would have thrown in a "Duh, dad!", for good measure.

"Good!" I am fairly excited at this point because this kid seems to be getting something that my high school and college students sometimes fail to grasp.

On to the next pictures. These are just of a cladogram ("Evolutionary Family Tree") which shows relationships between humans, dogs, fish, and jellyfish, and a few other animals. He asks what it is and I tell him that it just shows that we are all related and that he has animals like a jellyfish in his really distant family tree.

"Older than Nonnie and Papa?" he asks

"WAY older than Nonnie and Papa."

"Older than the Dinosaurs?"

"Yep. They dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, and these Jellyfish were around about 500 million years ago or so.

"Nope," he says with total confidence. "Dinosaurs went extinct 65 hundred ten hundred thousand years ago," - We are still working on his large numbers - "You are wrong."

"You are wrong," I say with the confidence that a masters degree and 11 years teaching the subject will give you. "65 million years ago."

"Whatever dad."

Really? Whatever dad? When did he become a 13 year old?

Anyway, the next set of pictures we flipped to showed one of the more interesting bits (at least to a 5 year old) of our "inner fish".

"Hey!" he shouts as I initially flipped past this picture. "You missed one."

I flipped back a page and, sure enough, he was right. I missed one.

"Those are testicles," he says, pointing at the picture. Then, smiling and grabbing at his groin, "I have testicles."

The were two sets of pictures on this page. One set was of a dissected shark showing the location of the testes, way up in the body cavity near where an armpit would be. The testicles Ryan noticed were on a line drawing which showed how during development, the human testes form up in the armpit area and gradually descend into the pelvis.

"Why does that little man have testicles in his armpit?" he asked.

"Because we all have testicles in our armpits when we are developing."

"So I peed out of my ARMPIT?"

"No. Back then you had an umbilical cord so you didn't pee out of anything. Besides, testicles don't have anything to do with peeing." Whoops. I realized my error a fraction of a second too late.

"What are they for then?" asks the five year old innocently.

Tactfully, I changed the subject. "Can you IMAGINE having to pee out of your armpit? Wouldn't that be WIERD?"

He laughed. "Totally wierd!" Then he proceeded to pretend he was peeing out of his armpit for the next few minutes.

"A snail poops on its head!" I said naking sure the subject stayed changed, "and an abalone has 5 butts!"

"I want 5 butts!" he shouted and proceeded to pretend to pee out his armpit and make as many farting noises as a 5 butted abalone.

Evolutionary biology might fascinate his dad and hold Ryan's interest for a little while, but pee and fart jokes are still a 5 year olds favorite things.

Ethan! What does a duck say?

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:00:00 +0000

During car rides to keep the Littlest Doyle happy, we have taken to playing a game called "What does a (blank) say?" Ethan is typically good at it, but has a few mistakes. The following illustrated guide will give you an idea on his progress.

As you can see, we gotta work on a few.

A night of soccer with Ryan

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Mon, 25 May 2009 00:19:00 +0000

One thing that most people know about me is that I love soccer. I played most of my life (with a few years off here and there for a variety of reasons), I coached for 7 or 8 years at the high school level, I play on an over 30 team, and I plan on coaching my sons Muppet soccer team in the fall. I stopped coaching high school due to the time requirement and I have been totally happy with the decision. However, sometimes I totally miss it. One of the things I miss is getting to see a different side of the students I teach. It is almost impossible to connect with students in the classroom in the same way that you connect on the practice field.

The other night I had a chance to take my son, Ryan, to watch the old Mustangs battle it out for the regional championship against the Vikings, a team that, to be honest, was their superior in almost every way. Ryan doesn't do well with sitting around and he kept asking me when he could go on the field and run.

"When can I run, dad?"

"Not right now. In a little while."

Ryan sat there vibrating in his seat for about 7 seconds. He turned and looked at me, pleading. "How about now?"

"Not yet. In about 20 minutes you can run."

This conversation repeated itself about 5 more times, and then the Mustangs, against the run of play, put one in the back of the net. The game now stood at 1-0 with about 15 minutes left in the first half. The rest of the half passed uneventfully and at halftime, we proceeded to run around the base of the stands for the entire time. We played Follow-the-Leader which basically consisted of Ryan running as fast as he could while I trailed behind trying to keep up. This kid of mine has limitless energy. One of the things that made this a little wierd were all of my current and former students who were cheering us on. Oh well. It is good for them to see that I can do more than just tell stories and occasionally teach them some biology.

The second half began and proceeded in much the same manner as the first, only with the Vikings pressing even harder and the Mustang defense working that much more to maintain their slim lead. With about 5 minutes to go in the game, a poor clearance on a corner kick saw the ball pop out to a Viking player who hit a 20 yard shot into the upper corner making the score 1-1. A few minutes later the buzzer sounded and the game went into "golden-goal" overtime.

At this point in the game, Ryan was getting a bit cold and began arguing that we needed to leave so we could go get ice cream and warm up. I pointed out the flaw in his logic, and he simply repeated his position louder and with more jumping up and down. I told him that we had to wait until the game was finished before we could go, and he reluctantly agreed that he did, in fact, want to see the end. So with that discussion at an end, the first period of overtime began.

It wasn't long before an injury to one of the Mustangs put a stop to the action. This injury was serious enough to require the assistance of an ambulance, and Ryan had a bunch of questions.

"Why is that girl lying in the ground?"

"Well, she seems to have gotten injured," I replied.

"What does 'injured' mean?"

"It means that she got hurt. Someone pushed her over."

He looked at me, a bit puzzled. "Why would someone push her over? That isn't nice."

"No," I said. "It isn't nice. But sometimes that is how the game is played. Two people going for the ball don't always agree on which of them should have the right to get it."

"You mean like when Ethan has my ball and I want it back so I push him over or hit him and take it from him?" he asks, seemingly oblivious to the what he just admitted to doing.

"Yes. Like that. Only you shouldn't do that to your brother. Unless you two are both playing soccer and you are both going for the same ball. Then it is ok. Except if you are playing for fun in the backyard, then it is not ok. But if he has the ball and is dribbling it, go ahead and take it. Except that he is not even 2 yet, so always be nice to him." Man, this parenting thing is hard.

"Ok. Well, why is she going into the ambulance?"

Not really thinking it through, I said "Well, the ambulance takes care of people when things are wrong with them. Remember when mommy had to go in the ambulance when she was gonna have Ethan?"

"Yeah...OH! So the girl got pushed over and now she is going to have a baby?"

I busted out laughing. "NO! She isn't going to have a baby!" At this point, some of the fans are looking at us a little funny. "She is not going to have a baby. She probably hurt her leg and the people in the ambulance will take care of her until they get her to the hospital."

"Oh," he said, slightly disappointed. "So no baby?"

"Nope."

"Just a hurt leg."

"Yes," I said, thankful that we were done with the baby talk.

After a few more minutes, the game got undeway and the first overtime period ended with no one scoring. The second one began and right away, unfortunately, one of our girls made a bad tackle in the penalty box which resulted in a penalty kick for the Vikings. Our goalkeeper got a hand to it, but it wasn't enough to stop it from going in and the game ended in a 2-1 defeat.

It was an unfortunate way to end the season, but the girls put in a great effort and Ryan got to learn that ambulances are sometimes good for things other than childbirth.

You want to do what with that bird?

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:32:00 +0000

I have found that there are some things about my boys that are predictable. That they will wake up between 6 and 6:30 on most days, that Ryan won't eat whatever we have prepared for dinner, and that Ethan will quite literally eat anything we put in front of him are things that you should bet on. Also, like clockwork, if Ethan sees a car he will immediately point and say "CAR!" over and over again. He is incredibly excited about each and every car he sees and wants to share his love of all things automotive with each and every person within earshot. "Daddy! Car! Mommy! Car! Ryan! CAR CAR CAR!!!"

One thing that I would never have predicted involved Ryan and a robin. We got home last night around 6:15 after fighting traffic for almost an hour. We had been discussing dinner and I had been messing with him, as per usual.

"So, Ryan. How do you feel about chili tonight?"

"No. No chili ever," he said. "I'll never eat chili."

"How about chicken?"

"No. I'll hate chicken for twenty-hundred years."

"Wow. That is some profound hatred for chicken. How about squirrel?"

"No, dad," he said, exasperated. "No wierd dinners with animals in them."

"No animals at all? Not even a penguin?"

"No! I won't ever eat animals, especially not penguins!"

Eventyally we got home and he immediately unbuckled his seatbelt, jumped out of the car and took off running around our front yard. This is nothing new since he typically has enough energy to power a small country, but what was unusual was the reason for his running.

I looked up to see him hiding behind a tree, glancing around the side like he was stalking something. I asked, "Ryan? What are you doing?"

"Trying to catch a bird," he replied in a whisper. "Shhhhhh."

"Oh," I whispered back. "Which bird?"

He pointed to a robin about 10 feet away. "That one. He looks good."

"Birdy!" yelled Ethan, pointing. "Tweet! Tweet!"

Ryan turned quickly to Ethan. "Shhhhhh!"

"Birdy," Ethan said again, more quietly. "Tweet."

"Ryan? What do you mean that it 'looks good'," I asked, slighlty confused.

Ryan snuck out from behind the tree and walked a little closer to the bird. "It looks good to eat. I want you to cook it."

"You want to catch a bird so I can cook it?" I asked incredulously. "You don't even like chicken. If I recall correctly, you won't eat chicken for twenty-hundred years. What makes you think you'll like robin?"

"I don't know, I just want to eat it."

Great. My son has gone from vegetarian animal lover to Ted Nugent in the span of ten minutes. "I'm not going to cook a robin."

He looked at me for a second, smiled, said "ok", and then ran up to the front door. I've been thinking about it a bit and I am still not sure if he was messing with me. Part of me hopes that he was because that would mean that he is developing quite a sense of humor. However a bigger part of me hopes that he wasn't because, quite frankly, I am not sure I can put up with that kind of crap for the rest of my life. He's just going to get better at it.

I don't know where he gets this stuff.

Ethan: A simple dictinoary

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:45:00 +0000

Ethan is learning new words almost daily, and for those of you who wish to communicate with our 19 month old, here is a handy sample dictionary that will make things a little easier.

"AAAH" - an exclamation meaning "Hey, look at me!", "Hey! I need food!", "Hey! get off my foot!"

"Bah!" - Typically shouted, which is why there is the exclamation point. Normally means "Ball", but can also mean "orange", "apple", or other round thing.

"Ball!" - Ball. Sometimes he actually pronounces the "L" sound.

"BEAR!" = Teddy Bear, with capitals and exclamation point. This word is only used with extreme excitement.

"Buzz" - Buzz lightyear.

"Car"- Anything with 4 or more wheels. He points out every car when we are on the highway. Can get really old really fast.

"Coo-coo" - Cookie.

"Coo!" - Cookie.

"Cook!" - Cookie.

"Cookie!" - Cookie.

"Cow" - Cow. However, can also mean pig, sheep, horse, or woman wearing a black and white fur coat. That was hilarious. We were in Wal-Mart and he pointed at this woman and said, quite loudly, "MOOO! Cow!"

"Daddy" - Me. This is one of my favorite words.

"Doggy" - pronounced "goggy". Means dog. Duh.

"Drink" - cup of water, juice, or milk. Doesn't matter, they are all interchangeble.

"Elmo" - The one word EVERY kid knows.

"Funt" - Elephant. Or Rhino. Or dinosaur. Or semi. Size is the key defining factor in this word. Elephantness doesn't seem to factor in.

"Fire" - Chicago Fire. Or Pacifier. He is a pacifier connoisseur, using different colors and sizes for different needs. Sometimes he carries two or three at a time, switching between them every few minutes.

"Gangyou" - Thank you. Adorable.

"Go!" - This is an invitation to run either by himself or with others.

"Hi" - Hi.

"Juice" - orange juice.

"Kitty" - Kitty. Or dog. Or bear. Whatever happens to be nearby and furry.

"Mine" - This is a recent addition, one that is quickly becoming his favorite.

"Mommy" - Mom. There are times he wants mom and times he wants dad...it is nice that he can let us know these things.

"No!" - He knows how to say this word, but doesn't seem to want to listen when we say it.

"Peas!" - Please. He only uses this when he really wants something. Normally it is "Peas! Cookie! Peas! Coo-coo!"

"Roar!" - Roar. He says this whenever he sees a dinosaur. Lots of fun while we were in the Evolving Planet exhibit at the Field Museum. Basically a solid hour of "Roar!"

"Sorry" - Sorry.

"Teef!" - Teeth. He loves playing with his toothbrush, and several times a day he will yell "Teef!" and run to the bathroom.

I am sure that tehrare others, but they are escaping me now. I'll update as he adds words.

Don't worry...you'll be safe.

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:06:00 +0000

Children are natures way of reminding you that there is a 6am, even on Sunday.

They are also a good way to remember what it was like to be a big brother or sister. Ryan and Ethan are now playing "together" a little more than they used to, throwing airplanes, pushing cars around, and kicking a soccer ball, but normally they just run from the kitchen to the living room and back again, screaming. They do have a little plastic tube that they like to play in, but this is normally reserved for special occasions, like when Ryan wants to torture his little brother. This tube comes in two forms - the rolled up, hula-hoop shaped form which takes up no space and sits in the corner of the room (my favorite form), and the 6 foot long, 2 foot wide form that seems to expand to take up the entirety of whatever room it happens to be located in.

The first time they played in it together, Ryan and Ethan had a lot of fun in the tube and there were only a few incidents requiring dad's attention. Ethan would climb in and Ryan would shake the tube until Ethan either laughed or cried. Either one seemed to be an acceptable outcome. After that though, Ethan became a little more wary of his big brother's motives and at times refused to get into the tube. Ryan had to coax him in using toys, bears, food, and whatever means he could so as to inflict the shaking torture. Eventually nothing worked, and Ryan resorted to flat out lying, using the phrase that big brothers/sisters have used for ages to entice their little siblings into situations which will most likely end in an injury: "Get in the tube, Ethan," he said, followed by a pause. Then, "Don't worry, you'll be safe."

Ethan, of course, bought this and got into the tube. Ryan then laughed in what I would describe as a maniacal way and proceeded to shake him around in the tube until he fell out, laughing/crying.

I think Ethan learned a valuable lesson that day. First, I think that he learned whenever Ryan uses the word "safe", he should immediately begin thinking about the variety of ways in which he may not be safe. His thought process will probably be "Wait...no one was talking safety a few minutes ago. Why is he mentioning my safety now? Typically I am safe even when no one mentions my safety. It is only when my safety is mentioned explicitly that Ryan tends to injure me. Perhaps the word "safe" doesn't mean what I think it means. Wait! What if none of the words I know mean what I think they mean? What if everyone has been lying to me about ALL the words I use? Huh. This is wierd. I think I am experiencing an existential crisis. Of course, I am only 19 months old and until a few seconds ago I had never used the word "existential", or "crisis", or, come to think of it, "and", so possibly dad is just putting words into my mouth for the sake of this story. Whew. Ok...I feel better."

Most likely his thought process would be something like "Ryan = brother. Brother = cool. Ryan = tube? Tube = safe? Ok."

So until he gets a little older and can have a existential crisis, Ethan will continue to get duped into doing stupid stuff because his brother told him to. I dread the first time I hear from an 9 year old Ethan, as he lays on the ground after jumping from our roof, "But Ryan said if I tied these sheets together, they would act like a parachute!"

Kitty!

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Every Saturday I get the privilege of teaching an introductory biology class in which, for the most part, the students are conscientious and hard working. Due to their conscientious nature there are a few lab groups that are a little slow. This morning, for example, 4 of the six groups finished their lab activity 20 minutes ago, one is just now completing the project, and one group is basically just starting the second part. This second part requires that they leave little vials of yeast in a water bath and take measurements of the carbon dioxide production every 5 minutes for 30 minutes. It is now 11:45 am, all of the other lab groups are gone now, and it will take this one group about 10 minutes to complete the setup, 30 minutes to do the procedure, and then another 10 - 15 minutes to clean up. For those of you who are unable to do the math in your head, this means that I hate them.

The one good thing about the time that this group is taking is that it gives me a chance to post another story.

Last night Jen wasn't feeling well so I took the boys out to Petsmart to pick up some things. We needed some fish food because, as it turns out, they die if you don't feed them. We also needed to pick up a sucker fish to clean the tank because, as it turns out, lots of fish in a small tank means lots of poop and lots of algae. This poop and algae eventually make a film on the glass which makes enjoyment of the fish more challenging.

Ryan, Ethan and I hopped into the van and cruised to the store, listening to Metallica along the way. I am becoming a little more sure of the fact that they shouldn't be listening to this stuff, and Ryan let me know that I might be overreacting when he said, after the music ended, "I'm not going to do what Metallica says cuz it is really hard to sleep with one eye open. Plus, I haven't found any beasts under my bed." Then he paused a second. "But I don't really know what a beast is, so I could be wrong."

By this time we were in the parking lot and I was able to change the subject from Metallica to fish, so I took that opportunity. "Ready guys?"

"Ready!" said Ryan, climbing out of his seat.

"Car!" said Ethan pointing at the car next to us.

And we were off to the joys of Petsmart. We walked in and headed to the doggie day care section by running (Ryan)/walking (me)/running, walking, pausing every few seconds to look at something on a shelf, and general impeding the progress of the rest of us (Ethan). There were no dogs to be seen, but this simply meant that we had more time to go look at the cats. We then proceeded to the cat section in much the same manner as we had to the doggie day care. When we finally got there, Ryan noticed that all of the cats were asleep.

"Dad and Ethan, be quiet," Ryan whispered. "They are all asleep."

"OK," I whispered

"Kitty!" Ethan yelled, pointing at the cats. "Kitty! Kitty!"

"Let's go somewhere else so we don't wake them up," suggested Ryan.

"Kitty!" said Ethan, still pointing, clearly not in agreement.

I picked Ethan up to speed our progress across the store to the fish section. This section sports an entire wall which contains at least 50 tanks with different types of fish in each. When we got there I put Ethan down and Ryan quickly started looking for the sucker fish tank. Ethan stared in seeming awe at the wall of tanks. He ran up to one tank, pointed at it, and said "Fish!" He then looked to his left and appeared to notice that tank for the first time and pointed at that one.

"Fish!" he said.

Then, he looked up, his little face filled with joy. "Fish! Fish! Fish!" he said as he quickly moved from one tank to the next.

"Man. He really likes fish," said Ryan. "I like fish too, but he might like them more than me. We should get him his own tank." He paused slightly, as if thinking this next part over. "And a puppy. Mom said we could get a puppy this summer."

"Really?" I asked. I happen to know that Jen is more likely to allow Ryan to get a flamethrower and use it to practice igniting cars in the church parking lot, but I let it slide for now because Ethan then let out what sounded like maniacal laughter and ran down the length of the wall pointing at all the fish. I jogged after him and eventually grabbed him and we found someone to help us with our suckerfish purchase. As we moved on to the checkout line he noticed a dog down the aisle. Of course, you would imagine with his love of all animals he would yell out "Dog!", but alas, he did not. I was a little disappointed when he instead pointed at the dog and yelled "Kitty!"

"No, Ethan, that is a dog, not a kitty," I said.

"Yeah, Ethan," said Ryan, ever the helpful one. "Kitties are small and say 'meow' and dogs are bigger and say 'bark'. That's a dog. Mom said we could get one."

"Kitty!" said Ethan.

"Nope, that's a dog," I said. "Doggie."

"Kitty!" he said again, this time pointing at the dog. One of the things I have learned over time with these boys is that, aside from the incident with the Clementine orange earlier in the month when Ethan couldn't be convinced that it was not a ball, they are typically not this adamant about things when they are wrong. So I looked around the store for the kitty he might be seeing. As it turns out, there was a kitty, but it was on a sign way above the floor and it happened to be exactly above the dog that he seemed to be pointing at.

I mentioned this to Ryan and we both acknowledged that Ethan was right all along.

"We really need to pay more attention to that kid," said Ryan. "You can't always understand what he says, but he sure knows his kitties."

As soon as Ryan said this, Ethan pointed through the window at a dog getting its hair trimmed. "CAR!" he shouted.

We'll have to work on that one.

Do we have to call DCFS now?

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:54:00 +0000

Yesterday, Jen and I got out of school a bit late and consequently we were a bit late to pick up the boys from Nonnie's house. Normally this isn't really a problem but yesterday I had a massive headache and wanted nothing more than to simply lie down on the couch, or any horizontal surface for that matter, and sleep for about 2 to 3 weeks. We got to the house and were basically assaulted by a wall of noise - Ethan was squeeling with delight that mom and dad had returned and Ryan was jumping out from behind the door in full superhero mode complete with his own theme music. He likes to hum the theme from The Incredibles as he sprints from one room to another.

After wading through this onslaught, I made it to the couch where I sat down and relaxed for a few minutes. Surprisingly, this helped the headache quite a bit and I was actually able to concentrate on what was going on in the room without wincing. What I noticed as I opened my eyes was that Ryan and Ethan had both attacked their uncle Justin. Ryan jumped onto his stomach while Ethan repeated head-butted him.

This is Ethan's new attack move. He learned it the other day when we were playing our newest game called, surprisingly, "The Incredibles," which involves listening to the Incredibles soundtrack while I pretend to be the Omnidroid and Ryan pretends to be Mr. Incredible. This game could just as easily be entitled "Jump on dad Until the Music is Over," but he likes to pretend and I'm happy to indulge him. Now that Ethan is big enough, he gets to play the part of Jack-Jack, the little baby from the movie. In the movie, Jack-Jack has all kinds of cool little powers but Ethan's version is somewhat less powerful. The game now involves Ryan jumping on me while pretending to be Mr. Incredible, and Ethan as Jack-Jack climbing onto my chest where he either laughs until he drools, or laughs until he farts.

The other day Ryan had me "pinned down" and I was pretending to struggle to escape. Ethan then ran up, seemingly out of nowhere, fell to his knees, and head-butted me right in the side of the head. Hard. He then sat back and laughed while I clutched the side of my head where his cranium had met mine. I figured that this was a one-off thing and was an accident, but then he did it again a few minutes later with very similar results. This was now not an accident but a carefully planned maneuver. And it was this carefully planned maneuver which he used against his Uncle yesterday.

Eventually Justin got up and called it quits, but Ryan wasn't ready to be done so he asked me to join in on the fun. Since I was feeling better I figured I'd jump in and we'd have some fun and Ryan could blow off a little of that excess energy which he always seems to have. I got on the floor and Ryan charged at me. I reached out to grab him and accidentally bopped him on the nose. Immediately his nose began to gush blood and he started to cry. I scooped him up and we ran to the kitchen where Nonnie provided us with some Kleenex to mop up his face. This whole thing - from me agreeing to get in on the fun to using Kleenex to wipe blood off his nose - took approximately 7 seconds.

I didn't mention that I had to teach my night class the day before and that I hadn't seen the boys since the previous morning. Given this fact, along with the fact that I was not feeling well when we got to Nonnie's house and that I subsequently moved immediately to the couch to rest unpon entry into said house, essentially my first real interaction with my son in almost 2 days involved me bonking him in the face and giving him a bloody nose.

It didn't seem to phase him too much. Once the bleeding stopped his first action was to start humming his theme music and he jump on me again. Very resilient, that kid.

Something new

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:50:00 +0000

I thought I'd try a new little thing in which I post more regularly. My kids (both the biological kind and the kind at school) give me enough material that I could probably write several posts a day, but I think I'll keep it realistic and attempt to get in at least 2 a week. I like doing this and I find that I don't do it often enough for my liking, so I am putting up an arbitrary goal to try and keep myself writing. We'll see how long this lasts.

First Argument

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:23:00 +0000

Being a parent is one of the great joys in life. It affords one the opportunity to discover how amazing it is to see your son or daughter grow from a tiny fetus (assuming you had an ultrasound) to a floppy little thing with no neck muscles whose head apparently needs to be supported all the time. From there, the growth continues in which the floppy little thing becomes slightly less floppy and a little more interesting, but not quite as interesting as he or she will become. This is mostly due to the fact that he or she is still a little floppy, poops and pees almost constantly, and has yet to develop any kind of vocal utterances beyond "Wah." Granted, they get a lot out of "Wah" and can change the meaning and intensity of it to mean a variety of things ranging from "feed me" to "change me" to "I'm bored" to "feed me again" to "seriously...change the damn diaper".

Eventually the growth process gives the little one the ability to move about by rolling, crawling, flopping, or whatever the child deems best for his or her needs, and things become downright fascinating. Now you have to deal with MBS (Mobile Baby Syndrome) which is one of the most frightening things a parent has to deal with. It is frightening because now your formerly sedate (or at least stationary) youngster has begun to migrate from one place to another. They will roll from one side of the bed to the other and, as I discovered one day, if you are not careful they will roll right off the edge of the bed and utter some form of "Wah" to alert you to their displeasure. Generally the translation for this "Wah" is closer to "What the F*CK, man!" than it is to "feed me."

You can get used to this after a few days or weeks, but the only constant in life with a new child is that there is change. Change continues after the MBS sets in and becomes routine in that your mobile but generally floor bound child stands up and begins cruising along the furniture. He or she will often fall down a lot during this stage. This is quickly followed by the "Holy Crap he's taken his FIRST STEPS!" stage. This is often a humorous and entertaining time in your child's life due to the fact that you now have, living in your house, your very own Weeble. (Remember Weebles? "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!" was the theme song for the commercials when I was a kid.) Your child is not the "don't fall down" kind of weeble. Your is the kind that will fall down. Often. And generally it is hilarious, assuming, of course, that he didn't just fall down the stairs or off the bed or onto a knife. (Note: remove knives from floor when child reaches this age.) He or she only looks like Weeble most of the time, listing from one foot to the other as he walks across the room. My youngest, Ethan, reminded me of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.

After the walking stage comes the climbing stage where he or she will want to be on top of everything in the house, including the bookcase, bed, table, counter, and the dog. (Note: Remove knives from counter at this stage. Also, remove dog from house if dog happens to be a hyperactive Jack Russel Terrier that doesn't like to be ridden.) Ethan is now at the stage where he climbs out of his highchair and onto the table where he plays with whatever he can find up there until we rush over and put him back. As soon as we turn out backs, however, he carefully maneuvers his little self out of his straps, apparently breaking several physical laws to do so - I strap that sucker in TIGHT - and climbs onto the table again.

Soon after this climbing stage comes the talking stage. This is where we are now and this brings me, finally, to the point of this little ramble. Ethan has taken a little while to begin speaking and seems to be making up for lost time by learning tons of new words over the past few weeks. At one point, he learned to say "Ball" which was handy downstairs as he could now declare his intent to ruin the game of soccer that Ryan and I were playing by scrambling over, grabbing the ball, and running with it. "Ball!" he would exclaim as he ran out from behind the couch to grab what was sure to be an amazing goal.

It was about this time that I discovered Clementine oranges. I love Clementines. So juicy and tiny, they make a perfect snack and, since the don't have any seeds, they are easy to enjoy. Ethan had a few slices of Clementine one day while I was snacking and we discovered that he really liked them. Later that same evening he saw a few sitting on the counter and yelled "Ball!"

I replied, "No, Ethan. Not a ball. Orange."

Ethan paused for a second. "Ball!" he said again.

"No. Orange. See?" I then said really slowly, as if it would really matter to a kid who was still mastering monosylabic words, "Cle-men-tine."

"Ball!" he said, pointing at the counter.

"Orange."

"BALL!" He pointed harder.

"Orange. Cle-men-tine." Trying a different tactic, I switched to Spanish "Na-ran-ja."

"BALL!" Now he was really pointing hard. Totally putting some effort into the point.

"Really. It's not a ball. Balls are not edible unless they are of the meat variety."

"Ball. Ball! BALL!" he screams, stamping his feet and pointing so hard that I expect to see a hole spontaneously develop in the orange he is guesturing at.

At this point in time it hits me that he is 16 months old and is probably not going to come around to my way of thinking quite yet. Additionally, I though, who am I to tell this kid what is and isn't a ball? Am I THE MAN all of a sudden, stifling my kids creativity and harshing his vibe? Absolutely not. So I decided that the vocabulary lesson is over and I handed him the little orange.

As soon as he had the thing in his hand, he took a little bite of the peel and made a disgusted face. He then chucked it at his brother, grabbed his pacifier from the nearby chair, popped it into his mouth and toddled out of the kitchen.

A little disturbing, even from a 4 year old.

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:42:00 +0000

Ryan and Ethan were eating a snack this afternoon and I stepped into the other room for something. When I came back into the kitchen there was an unfortunate scent floating about. You know the one I am referring to.

"Smells like someone pooped his pants," I said as I sat down.

Ryan looks at me, wide eyed with surprise. "Wasn't me! I didn't do it. It was probably Ethan!"

"I know who is was, Ryan," I said, picking up Ethan. "No need to think that I am blaming you for this olfactory offense."

He calmed down a bit and looked distinctly relieved. "Oh, good. Well, just so you know, it could have been me. I don't wipe well and sometimes it gets all crusty."

Did you know this about elves?

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:33:00 +0000

Just the other day we were talking about what he wanted for Christmas. After he had completed his list, he asked me what I wanted from Santa. I told him that I wanted a 52" LCD or Plasma TV. He thought about it for a second and then said, "It is good that you want that, but there is just one slight problem."

This is his new favorite phrase, "one slight problem", so I pressed him on it. "Oh? What is that problem?"

"The Elves don't know how to make cords."

"Really? So they can make the TV, but they can't make the cords that plug into everything?"

"Right. So it looks like you won't be getting your TV this year."

Nuts. I was really counting on those elves to come through for me this year.

I May or May Not Spy

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:30:00 +0000

Since the beginning of the year, Jen and I have been working at the same school. This gives us a chance to ride into work with the boys 2 days a week. The rides in the morning are normally not terribly eventful as all of us are barely awake, and the only excitement comes when Mr. Sun comes out from behind the clouds and blinds the driver causing unknown damage to his/her retinas and forcing the rest of the family to scream “Watch the CAR! OHMIGOD You almost hit that car!” This normally doesn’t happen, but when it does, we are wired for a little while, let me tell you.

Anyway, while the trips in the morning are relatively boring, the trips home can be a little more happening. We sometimes play a game called “I Spy” in which the instigator, normally Ryan, starts off by saying “I spy with my monkey eye, something that is…” followed by a descriptor. This descriptor can be anything – color, size, location – and most often they are fairly simple. For example, he might say “I spy with my monkey eye something that is white,” and we have to guess that it is the white stripe on the road. On the other hand, sometimes he tells us that he is going to come up with something really hard in which case what he is spying is normally a single bird in a flock a thousand strong, or an individual blade of grass.

The other night he outdid even himself. He started off with his typical “This one is going to be tough,” and stated that he spied something white. We began guessing.

“Is it the line on the road,” I asked.

“Nope,” he replied, smiling.

“Is it the white car over there,” Jen asked pointing.

“Nope.”

“Is it the bird way over there?”

“Nope. Keep guessing!”

And so we did. After about five minutes of the “Is it the…” followed by laughter and “Nope!” I figure that he is just messing with us and I decided on a different tack.

“Is it a squid?”

He paused for a moment. “Huh? A squid? No…not a squid.”

“How about an albino squirrel?”

“What’s albino mean?”

“It is a genetic mutation that causes animals to be all white. Never mind.” Whoops. I forget that he is only 4 sometimes. “Is it a jellyfish?”

“No jellyfish in this game.”

“Perhaps a white whale?” (Thar she blows!)

“No, dad,” Ryan said with all the contempt a 4 year old could muster. “Nothing from the sea and no weird all-white other animals either.”

Well that kinda killed all of my other guesses. Surely he couldn’t really mean what he just said about things from the sea. I pressed on. “Is it a white starfish?”

I heard a tiny sigh from the backseat. “Yes. It is a white starfish. You win.”

“Yea!” I exclaim, relishing the victory. “But wait. Where do you see a white starfish?”

“I don’t see one. It is imaginary.”

“But this game is supposed to be ‘I Spy’, not ‘I Imagine’,” I said.

“I know, but you were never going to guess my thing anyway.”

“We might have. Give your parents some credit. Tell me your thing and we’ll see if mom and I would have ever guessed it.”

“That flake of snow on the sign back there.”

As it turns out, he was right. We never would have guessed that.

Today is Barack Obama day!

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:14:00 +0000

Actually, November 4th was Barack Obama day according to my son Ryan. He went around telling everyone with ears to hear him that the election was going to be won by Barack Obama because he is "awesome" and "not John McCain". I would like to stress the fact that while his mother and I are flaming liberals and were totally behind Obama from the start, we rarely discussed politics when the kids were around. Not because we were trying to hide anything from them, but because any time we try and talk about something other than Ethan's dinner, Ryans trains, Ryan's current level of dissatisfaction with the proximity of his younger brother to said trains, or candy, we get interrupted about every 2.4 seconds with one or the other of the boys interjecting "Mom! Dad!" or "Eeegh! Ake!" depending on the age and vocabulary of the one doing the interrupting. This makes it all the more surprising that Ryan became a huge fan of our president-elect.

I was first made aware of his love for Obama when we accidentally found ourselves at a "NObama" rally held outside the local Barnes and Nobel store. As we drove up to the parking lot of the bookstore, I noticed a bus plastered with pictures of McCain and Palin and a few hundred people surrounding it. A womans voice was clearly audible even from where we parked, and I thought it sounded like the woman herself, Sarah Palin. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go hear her speak, so I grabbed Ethan in my arms and the three Doyle boys set out to attend our first political rally as a family.

About 50 yards from the stage, the speaker said something, I forget what, that made it clear that it was not actually Sarah Palin speaking. (In hindsight it is obvious that there is no way in hell she would have been out in a parking lot in Illinois that close to the election, but the person speaking really sounded like her.) I decided that if we weren't going to hear Palin speak that we would just head into the bookstore as we had planned. On the way back to the store, Ryan asked some questions.

"What were those people doing there, Dad?"

"They were having a political rally," I said.

Ever the curious one, he asked, "What is a rally?"

"A rally is when people who all believe the same thing get together and cheer each other on."

"Like at the Fire games?" Thats my boy...way to bring it back to soccer!

"Yep, except at this rally the people are not cheering for a team, they are cheering against a person."

A confused look crossed his face. "Who are they cheering against?"

"They don't like Barack Obama and would rather see John McCain elected president. They are cheering against Obama and the things he wants to do as president."

And then, with no prompting whatsoever, he says, "Well that's stupid. Barack Obama is going to win. He is totally awesome."

And with that my son made his first correct political prediction, and election day (and each subsequent day) became "Barack Obama Day".

Let's just hope that Ryan is correct about Obama being "awesome" as well.

The littlest Doyle speaks!

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:24:00 +0000

Finally, the littlest Doyle does something worth writing about. After a little over a year of basically just eating, pooping, and sleeping, he is now starting to walk and talk a bit. He has been crawling for quite a while and, believe me, while this starts out being kinda cool it quickly loses its luster when he gets it into his little laser-focused brain that he wants to knock over all the DVD’s, eat his brother’s crayons, or play in the toilet. No amount of picking him up and moving him to another part of the room deters him from his mission. Typically, as soon as you put him down he laughs and turns immediately to head back to continue where he left off. I half expect him to flip me the bird as he crawls away.

Recently he started heading right for the stairs whenever he was given the opportunity. He loved the thrill of the chase, apparently, because he would begin by playing quietly until we became distracted by something else. As soon as our back were turned, he would bolt for the stairs, laughing his little head off and crawling as far up them as he could in the time it would take Jen or I to catch him. Having a four year old in the house makes for fairly distracted parents, so he got plenty of practice. It got to the point where he could make almost to the top of the stairs before we could catch him. The little sucker is quick.

Now he is talking a bit and says things like “Dada”, “Mama”, “Non-non”, and “peaches”. These are all great, and it is wonderful to hear “DADA!” when I come home, but my favorite word of his is “Ake!”

He was sitting in his seat after dinner and Jen and Ryan were having a little cake for dessert. Jen, being a good mom, didn’t want her littlest son to miss out on the experience of chocolate cake, so she gave him a little forkful of the stuff. He seemed to dig it, because after finishing his little bite, he began pounding on the table with his little fists, shouting “Ake! Ake!” and pointing at the rest of the piece on Ryan’s plate.

Thankfully he was satisfied with a few more bites from Jen's piece because, as you are all probably aware, 4 year olds do not share cake well.

I was right!

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:44:00 +0000

I was chatting with my brother the other day when the topic of conversation switched, as it inevitably does, to sports. We were both bemoaning the terrible status of our schools respective football teams, both of which are having a difficult time this season. My school is having such a tough time that we joked about the idea that the soccer team has scored more goals this season than the football team has points. I even went so far as to say that I thought that this was actually the case, but I’d have to look into it.

I did, and unfortunately I was right. The football team has scored a total of 24 points this season after 5 games, while the soccer team has scored 27 goals in 15 games.

I was right, and I rule.

It begins...

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:40:00 +0000

As it turns out, there are a lot of words in the French language. And, as you may or may not be aware, they are often different from the words in English, which makes the learning process that much more difficult. If other languages would simply use the same words with a slightly different accent, learning another language would be so much simpler. Plus, it would certainly cut down on the misunderstandings that crop up from time to time in international relations.

I have spent some time with several books, podcasts, and websites in my attempt to learn French, and each of these things is helpful in its own way. For some reason though, the thing that works the best for me is listening to music. Maybe it is the beat in the background, the voice of the singer, or the fact that music tends to get lodged in my brain and won’t go away for days at a time so I end up with phrases repeating over and over again until I forget it, replace it with a new phrase, or go gradually insane. I can’t tell you how many times I have had “Hot Potato” by the damn Wiggles, the theme song for Thomas the Tank Engine, or something by Laurie Berkner running through my head all the live long day. Thankfully Ryan is getting away from “kids” music and moving into other genres.

As I mentioned in previous posts, he has been groomed to enjoy Metallica (“Enter Sandman” is still one of his favorite requests), and he, with the help of his dad, is now a fan of French pop music (although to be more accurate, he is a fan of French pop music circa 2001, with a few newer tunes thrown in). His personal favorite (and for the time being mine as well) is one called “Mademoiselle Juliette” by Alizee. You can catch him singing it from time to time. It's adorable.

We often have dance parties in the basement in which we play music loudly and “dance” around, (basically jumping and running and flopping on the couch), while “singing” at the top of our lungs. I know the words to the song because I have looked them up and translated them for practice, but he has no real idea what he is saying so it comes out something like this:

“MADEMOISELLE JULIETTE-AH, la, la la la TÊTE-AH, la, la, la, la, la, something - CAPULET!”

All things considered, this isn’t bad for a 4 year old. He has the rhythm of the song and he apparently can hear the main emphasis words, so I’d say he is doing fairly well. With Uncle Justin speaking Spanish with him and dad attempting French around him, he might well turn out to understand a little of both languages, which would be fairly cool.

The other day we were hanging out during his resting time (i.e. naptime on days when he simply WON’T nap) watching The Incredibles and Toy Story videos on the Disney site when Ryan asked to hear his favorite song. Since we were in a video state of mind, I asked if he would rather watch the video that goes along with it and he readily agreed. So we went to a website with music videos on it and in a few moments we were watching. He sang along and enjoyed it, asking questions about what the boy is doing, what she said, and why she didn’t like the girl in black. When it was over, he asked if there were more music videos he could see.

So I made a deal with him in which we would put the videos on the TV while we played baseball. It wasn’t terribly difficult to get him to agree to this since both were things he wanted to do, and I set up a little queue to play a few videos and we found his squishy ball and bat.

He wanted to be the pitcher first and I totally cranked his first offering into the far wall. I am unbelievably good at basement baseball when he pitches the ball exactly where my bat happens to be. He glanced at the TV for a few seconds and tossed the ball again. The next pitch didn’t go as well, and I hit the ball off the end of the bat causing it to spin erratically off and hit the TV. My boy has a different feeling regarding my abilities. “You are terrible at this, Dad,” he said.

He pitched it again and I hit this one off the top of the bat which gave the ball a little spin. This caused it to whiz toward the ceiling where it ricocheted off an exposed beam and smacked into a picture frame on the wall. The picture frame wobbled for a second and then righted itself without falling off the shelf. The ball then fell through the net of his basketball hoop and came to rest right at his feet. Surprised at what just happened, I looked at Ryan and said, “Wow! That was rather exotic, don’t you think?”

He looked at me with confusion all over his face. “Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“What does ‘exotic’ mean?”

Nuts. While I feel like I have a decent vocabulary, I am not often very good at actually defining words. I gave it a shot anyway. “Well, it means different or unusual,” I said.

“Oh. Like when Ethan poops and it gets out of his diaper and into his pants. That is exotic?”

“No, that’s gross," I said, making a face. "But it’s a start. Most of the time ‘exotic’ is used to refer to something that is out of the ordinary. Often we use it to mean far away, or interesting, or something that we haven’t really had much experience with.”

“Like the island where Dash runs on water in the Incredibles! It’s far away and very pretty.” Everything comes back to the Incredibles.

“Yeah. Just like the island in the Incredibles.”

He smiled. “Dad?” he said, eyes moving between me and the TV.

“Yep?”

He pointed at the TV which is still showing Alizee music videos. “She’s exotic.”

There wasn’t much to say after that.

"Will their skin come back on?"

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:34:00 +0000

This summer has been a bear. Lots of things to do and such a short time to accomplish any of them. You'd think that with both Jen and I working in schools and thus getting almost three months off during the summer that we could easily make a list of things to do and knock them off one by one. You could think that, but if you did it would be evidence that you clearly don't know who we are and how ridiculously good we are at procrastinating. For example, I have been putting off getting my brother David a college graduation present for about 11 years now.

One of the things that we have had on our list since late May is to take a family trip to the Field Museum in Chicago so Ryan could see the dinosaurs. We read a lot of books, and many of them have dinosaurs as the main characters. With all the counting, playing, chasing other dinosaurs, and learning their alphabet, the dinosaurs in his books lead very active lives. They also, without exception, all have skin. Muscles, bones, blood, and other connective tissues are assumed, but they all have skin.

He is very interested in animals and people that have skin. He is also very interested in what happens to the skin of the people and animals that shuffle off this mortal coil. We can be having a conversation about anything, and this subject will almost invariably crop up.

"Dad," he says.

"Yep," I respond.

"Why does Dash run so fast?" Dash is from the movie "The Incredibles" and is his new favorite person in the whole world. He talks about him and his movie almost nonstop.

"Well, Dash is a superhero, so he has powers that normal people don't have."

"Oh. Can I be a superhero?"

"No, not in real life. You can pretend to be a superhero if you like, though."

"Ok. Watch how fast I can run!" With this, he takes off around the living room making "VROOOM!" noises and running into things like chairs, his little brother Ethan, and the occasional wall.

"That is really fast," I exclaim. "Now, say sorry to your brother."

"Are you sure I'm not a superhero?"

"Yep. Pretty sure."

"Your dad died," he says, tactfully switching the subject.

Thankfully this is not news to me, as he has been dead for a few years now. "Yep. He did."

"His skin will come off and he will get all hard," says the four year old medical examiner. Apparently this is what you get when you make the mistake of answering a few questions truthfully. A few months ago he learned that the cat which lives at Nonnie's house was probably going to die soon, so he asked Jen and I a few questions about that. In order to answer his questions, we told him about the concepts of decomposition, rigor mortis, other facts of death which went into the little cement mixer that is his 4 year old brain and came out "skin off/hard body". Leave it to a little boy to break things down to their bare essence.

"This is true," I told him. I try not to elaborate or encourage more questions when he talks like this. Not yet, anyway.

"Lets go play soccer," he says, changing the subject yet again.

"Yes. Let's."

So on the way to the museum our little interrogator starts in with the questions about dinosaurs. "Are they all dead? Do they have skin? Why did they die? How old are they? Was the meteor that killed them alive? I'm four years old. Are they really 200 million years old? I'm not 200 million years old. Your dad is dead. Am I 200 million years old? How old is Ethan in millions of years? Who is bigger, me or a dinosaur? Why am I smaller than a dinosaur? Can a dinosaur run faster than Dash? Will their skin come back on?..." and so on. Never a dull moment in the car with that little one.

We cruised through the museum, eventually hitting the "Evolving Planet" exhibit where the dinosaurs are kept. He is too little to be really interested in the really cool stuff, like transitional fossils of tetrapod evolution, or the entire room dedicated to the evolution of humans and other hominids, but he did dig the large dinosaurs. He also loved the giant ground sloth and the other large mammals, and was even able to point out a red eyed tree frog and a macaw in their amazing picture gallery at the end of the exhibit. Overall, he seemed to get a kick out of the entire place which is exactly what we wanted to hear. Learning should be fun, and it appears that for him, at least for now and in this place, it was.

Now, if Jen and I would only learn to stop procrastinating we might be able to get to the zoo and Botanic Gardens in the few weeks we have left.

J'apprends le Français

noreply@blogger.com (Jed) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:27:00 +0000

Since my foray a few weeks ago into the world of pop culture as presented by France, I have found myself more and more enamored with the French language. The sounds, phrases, and accent of French have totally captivated me. Even when you are saying something completely banal like "I am doing fine, thanks," the language is beautiful, and I decided that I would like to be able to speak and understand it.

I do this from time to time. By "this" I mean take on projects that are completely useless to me. When am I ever going to need to speak French? I live in the Chicago area, for crying out loud - it is more likely that I will need to know how to say "please put me down - I don't like you that way" in Klingon. However, with drive times that reach into the 2 hour mark on some days due to my multiple teaching jobs, I have some free time in the car that needs filling, so why not learn a new language? I already speak spanish well enough to hold parent teacher conferences in that language if necessary, although I do have to refrain from throwing the words "pinche" ("fucking", as in "la pinche burro me golpeó con el pie en mi pinche cabeza" - "the fucking donkey kicked me in my fucking head") and "guey" (which translates into many things, depending on who is saying it and to whom it is being said, but most of them are not polite) into the conversation. (I learned much of what I know from students and players on my soccer teams.) I want a new language.

So I downloaded some podcasts from "Coffee Break French" to start the process. These podcasts are about 20 minutes in length - the length of a coffee break, hence the name - and are hosted by Mark (the teacher) and Anna (the student). In each podcast they pick a topic, like "greetings", and teach you words and phrases that fall under that heading. Obviously, the "greetings" podcast covered things like "Good morning", "How are you?", and "I'm fine, thanks," along with a variety of other things including "good-bye". There are two things I love about this podcast. First, Mark spends quite a bit of time making sure Anna is pronouncing words correctly, which is very helpful to a newbie like me. Second, they both are from Scotland, so I get to brush up on my Scottish accent while I learn French. I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I have been able to pick up in the 2 weeks since I started listening. I can now have the following conversation:

"Bonjour. ça va?"

"Je suis en forme. Et tu?"

"Ca va bien, merci. Je m'appelle Jed. Comment
t'appelle-tu?

"Je m'appelle Bob. Qu'est-ce que tu faites dans la vie?"

"Je suis professeur de biology."

I can keep going from there, asking where they are from, where they live now, etc., but after a few more sentences I have to throw in something like "Le singe est sur la branche. C'est tout que je sais," which translates to " The monkey is on the branch. That is all I know." I suppose I could also follow it up with the French equivalent of "Well, see ya later!", but I don't think lines from the movie "Dumb and Dumber" translate properly.

Anyway, I have found myself totally digging the process of learning a language again. I forgot how much fun it can be to go from having no clue what is going on to suddenly having a tiny clue. A REALLY tiny clue. I don't claim to be able to speak, read, or write with anything near that of a first year french student, much less fluency, but I am starting the process. Perhaps I'll keep going, or perhaps I'll drop this new hobby like it was something that gets dropped quickly - a bag of flaming dog poo, for example, or an angry cat that hasn't been declawed. If the next podcasts continue to be as entertaining and helpful as the first 10, I'm sure I'll have no problem continuing.