Smiley's 3rd Birthday Party - pt 2

While I was busy with YaYa Lisa ran another game, this time where they wrapped each other in toilet paper like a 'cocoon'.

 

 

Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday and have some cake.

 

 

 

Smiley then opened his gifts. Note the Spiderman couch, itself a gift from his maternal Grandfather.

 

 

 

<SPANSTYLE="MSO-SPACERUN: yes?>He got lots of cool gifts: squirting race cars, an Avatar playset, Play-Doh sets, sandbox toys, the list goes on and on. From us he received Easy Link, a cool internet connectivity device. You simply take the figurine of your favorite character and insert it into the slot. Presto, it takes you to that characters webpage! There's Wiggles, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Elmo, Bob the Builder, Arthur, DragonTales, Thomas the Tank Engine, Barney, and Fisher Price.

 

 

After that it was pretty loosey goosey, but relaxed and fun. The kids continued to play upstairs

 

 

 

 

 

A very nice time, an imagininative idea by Lisa, and a relaxed and pleasant time for everyone! Happy Birthday Smiley! We love you!

Tags: Smiley, Blogplugs

Smiley's 3rd Birthday Party Pt. 1

On Friday the 7th my Smiley turned 3 years old and we celebrated with a 'Bug' party at the house.

Lisa had picked up inflatable insect balloons at Target and put them up around the dining room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smiley was initially scared of the insects, but we told him they were harmless andhe got over it. We LIED!!!

 

 

We'd also planned on a course of lasagna for the adults and sandwiches for the kids, but at the last moment Lent reared its ugly head. It was Friday after all, and while Lisa and her family are Lutheran mine are Catholic. So Lis improvised a pasta buffet with Alfredo and spaghetti sauce and an optional sausage dish.

 

Surprisingly the pasta idea was a smash hit, and we'll probably offer it again in the future.

 

While we're on the subject of food, the menu also included ants on a log (raisins and peanut butter on celery) and a bug covered mudhill cake. Without question the cake was the ugliest thing I'd ever eaten and looked downright disgusting, more a dung hill than mud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even so it was one of the tastiest I've had, more like a brownie than cake.

 

The house got crowded fast with 12 kids and 14 adults in attendance.  The kids dominated the second floor, the adults the dining and living rooms. The kitchen was neutral territory. Check out all the presents in the 3rd shot!

 

 

 

 

 

The first game was 'eat the ants'. A spoonful of jimmies - one for each year of the child's age - was placed on a paper plate in front of them on the floor. Without using their hands they had to eat the plate clean, with the winner being the first done.

 

 

 

 

Then I was dispatched upstairs to hide 30 rubber insects for a hide and seek game. The kids were sent upstairs by age to try and find them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Here's the problem. YaYa qualified for a prize but had won the ant contest and therefore wasn't eligible for another prize (the law is the law people!). She then melted down and had a hissy fit which I quickly tried to squash. Problem is she eventually admitted to being too embarrassed to go back to the party, which led to a bigger fit when I demanded she rejoin the festivities. "I'm six, I'm too old to have had a fit, I can't go out there!"

 

Man. Sigh. Kids.]

 

Ok, I had to chop the post in half for AOL. More later!

Tags: Smiley, Blogplugs

My 100th post of the year - and of course, it's political ;)

Well, if the pic above doesn't clue you in, this one's political; proceed at your own discrection.

I wasn't going to post about last week's primaries until someone was foolish enough to ask my opinion.

Short version: good job HR Clinton. I was happy.  

Long version: I don't think it changes the final outcome. Consider it akin to our experience on Iwo Jima; the Japanese fought like hell and bloodied us left and right, but in the end it was still only a short time before the war was over and they surrendered.

Last Tuesday might have been her final hurrah. Or not. Like her husband she has a knack for surviving longer then you'd expect. But this isn't a marathon, where everyone who lasts till the end has bragging rights; here you win or you lose.

Survival isn't enough.

Then again given the free pass he has in the media, the monetary advantage and the over the top adulation of 'the masses', I think Obama should have closed the deal. That he couldn't should lead to some changes in the thinking of his braintrust.

 - purple is Obama wins, pink Clinton. Iimage blatantly borrowed from Electoral-Vote.com; I'll remove it if it becomes an issue.

On that score I think it a shame that the Dems have allocated delegates (in many states) on a proportionate basis, meaning she took Ohio by an 11%  margin - a legitimate landslide politically -  and still had to share the delegates with Obama.

Why??? In the general election it doesn't work that way, it's winner take all. If a candidate can take a state primary I think it only makes sense to act, correctly or not, as if that decides which of the two is capable of notching up the state in the fall. Anything else is fairy-tale 'fairness' that generates nothing but division and drama. It's certainly done so this year.

As it stands I think the odds still favor Obama. But HRC is now in it through Pennsylvania and *possibly* through June. I don't worship that fact as the death knell of the Dems. That idea is obscenely overrated. Folks can go to blows at the convention and I think they'll still have time to pull it together and giveit a go.

A popular view, and one I share to an extent, is that slim delegate lead be damned, Obama can't pull in the big prizes that matter in November. Ohio, Texas, California, New York, and the disputed Michigan and Florida all lined up for Clinton.

Hey, I love living in Wisconsin, but if you have a canddate who takes Wisconsin, Wyoming and Maine and forfeits the one's listed above, then I think you have the makings for a loser in the general election.

It's not that simple, naturally. New York and (probably) California would go blue if you put Jesus himself on the ticket for the GOP. Therefore the win - or rather the loss - of those states in the primary is largely irrelevant.  Likewise TX is pretty assured to go Red (or course, ditto that for some of Obama's wins).

Should Clinton hold her own in the rinky-dink contests, then take Pennsylvania and somehow have Michigan and Florida thrown back into the mix (by seating their banned delegates or doing it all over again), and should John Edwards throw his 26-32 delegates to her, THEN I  think she goes into the convention having muted Obama's momentum and with a legit arguement that she deserves the nomination.

[on that score, nice year to play hardball and ban two state's field of delegates for infractions. Thanks Howard Dean, you're a peach. Best of all Howard, with all the recent calls for changing the rules midstream and allowing the delegates/revoting/blah blah you've reinforced the notion that the DNC has little respect for rules and law. Good job buddy!]

What about a shared ticket? I can't see Obama playing second fiddle; more likely he'd hold off and try again in 4 or 8 years. And I can't picture him being tied down with her as an intrusive, media hog VP, especially given his mantra of 'change'.

So for HRC it's really her last hurrah. She doesn't have the option of waiting 4/8 more years. Therefore anyone who says she should step aside or concede gracefully needs to get a grip on reality and understand that, like it or not, she's a brawler. She's not going out until the bell rings, and maybe not even then.

I still think Obama will take it, but his free pass in the media is running out and HRC is going tobloddy him up a bit; he'll have a tougher time in the fall because of what happened this past Tuesday.

* * *

In other political news, Wyoming is now sending a Democrat to the House in place of retired former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. Sure the Dems put a great candidate out there and the GOP . . not so much, but anyway you spin it it's a PR blow to the GOP. That district hasn't sent a Dem to Congress for 11 terms. Not good, not good.

Tags: Clinton, Obama, Howard Dean, Dennis Hastert, GOP, DNC

On Boots, cupcakes, my hair, sign language, and a cranky baby

Before we begin, let me point out that my house was clean on Friday for Smiley's party. Today, a scant 40 hours or so since the party ended, my house is something last seen in news reports about houses with 100 cats and 2 feet of garbage on the floor.

15% is leftover party mess, and 80% is the kids, pure and simple. They earn partial credit on the remaining 5% too, since I tore apart our bedroom looking for a credit card I assumed had fallen out of Lisa's pants pocket. In reality, the kids had swiped it  to use on Lu's pretend cash register.

Ugh.

Smiley, meanwhile, seems to have adopted his own set of sign-language. A quick tap with his forefinger on his cheek seems to signify his name, or 'I' or 'me'. A similar brushing motion on the same spot, in imitation of shaving, appears to be 'boy' or 'man'. 'Girl' or 'lady' may be represented by a brushing motion of the hair; that one I'm not sure of yet.

Likewise he has gestures for 'food' and 'drink'.

YaYa wrote a 3 chapter book on fairies, richly illustrated, and presented it to usyesterday. It's hard to decipher many of her imaginative spellings, but again: why couldn't she do it for the contest?

Oh, and a quick slap to my own wrist. I complain about her and meanwhile I miss the deadline for a writing contest in the local paper. Apparently something in our DNA enjoys pi**ing away opportunites. (also - two rejections in the last 30 days; waiting on more)

Irrelevant aside: I am truly in love with my size 14 black Stanley ankle-high workboots, complete with a magnificent steel toe. They've kept me dry and warm through all the 6 feet of snow this winter and protected my toes from my obsession (shared with Parker) of kicking ice, and I adore them. They're my first ever pair of work boots, but if I live to be 90 I'll always own a pair.

Lisa a moment ago: "You're blogging about your boots?"

Me: "Yup".

Lisa, with disgust: "Live high Dan. Live high."

In other news the Baby WILL - NOT - STOP - CRYING and kept me up most of the night and straight on til now. But, yin-yang and all that, Lu's been an angel, and even right now is helping her Mom decorate cupcakes for her cousin's party.

On the other hand she's downright cold about my hair. I just asked her if I could have her donate some hair to me. Her answer, a typical mix of age-appropriate speech and some lisp:

"Ur never gettin' it back. It's gone. And you should lose some weight too. You gonna be old real soon."

 

A rant about the kids and some pics of George Washington

I have to do a post about Smiley's 3rd birthday party, but to be frank the # of pictures to upload is intimidating. So in the meantime here's a post I wrote over the last week, 'round about the 4th.

To tell you the truth, I was disapointed in YaYa today. She came home having been scolded by another parent for co-ercing (albeit nonviolently) a cookie from her friend. She also had her name put on the board and was kept in from recess for arguing.

Frankly, she's a bit of a Junie B. Jones.

It's all cyclical. A month ago Smiley was the terror of the house. Then LuLu. Now it's YaYa's turn. Soon enough the worm will turn again. It does get old fast.

[I do realize that when you put an Oldest Child used to bossing around her siblings into a social cliche of Youngest Children used to being bossed around by siblings, someone's gonna rise to the top of the pecking order. I think she is ill-served by that setup and would have been better off in a cliche of stronger, more dominant personalities who wouldn't take her guff, but que sera and all that.]

But what really disappointed me was her refusal to participate in this years Reading Rainbow Child Authors contest. She seemed very interested up to recently, but it was like pulling teeth to get her to do the 5 required illustrations and then she just up and said it wasn't something she wanted to do this year. Never mind all the stories she writes on her own; she didn't want to do it and, reluctantly, I honored that.

Fine, I guess. Certainly not the first or last time one of the kids will make the ol' regret meter ping, but to me it just seems like a waste of talent and ambition.

One of the apparent reasons for Lu's recent turnaround was a promise that after 5 'perfect' days she would receive a new Princess area rug for her room. We figured it would be start-stop-start over for weeks, but nope, she reigned it in and won the prize. Here it is: Lis surprised her with it tonight after dinner. Lis also tossed in the Belle lamp Lu is looking at.

And the President's Day masks finally came home. Here's the work she bragged about:

Look at Lu's hair. She was complimented on it all day. I tease her and say that I want my hair back, as I had that thick dark hair most of my life. Maybe some day she'll donate to my hair transplant :)

Here's a pic of Lisa and Lu on the way out the door to Stars on Ice; yeah, I know Lis has her eyes closed and Lu looks dopey, but concentrate on the outfit. The alternate pics have Lu scowling and being a typical unco-operative kid.

To balance the scale, here's a pic of Lisa and Smiley that day.

Today (the 8th) YaYa had a screaming fit on the way out to the car, calling me the worst Dad ever, followed by Smiley having a crying jag in the store over a balloon (I finally weened him of it, and in the checkout line this[redacted] woman comes up to us and says 'here, yourboy forgot his balloon!' and started it all over again), and then Lu joined the fray when we got back home.

Happy happy joy joy.

Tags: LuLu, smiley, YaYa

Lost: The Other Woman (season 4, episode 6)

Full disclosure: my cable box went cukoo at 8:56 central time, meaning I missed most of this episode's last few minutes. It returned to normalcy in time for me to see Ben walking free among the Losties, but I have no idea what I missed.

 

Recently, in the wake of the writer's strike, it was revealed that the rest of the season will now be trimmed to only an additional five episodes. Even so it will end with the same finale; in other words, the story line will be condensed this season and some stories bumped to future seasons.

 

For those who complained online that they couldn't imagine how any episode could be shuffled to another year without damaging the show as a whole, take a look at this one. A good story, full of action with some interesting fleshing out of the Juliet character: but all in all a tale that could have been told last season, or this one, or one two years down the road.

 

Essentially the plot and backstory boil down to a sentence each: Juliet and Jack pursue the two freighter personnel to stop them from releasing poison gas on the island. In the backstory Juliet's affair with Goodwin leads Ben to send him to his death (ala David's actions in the Bible).

 

What do we learn? What questions are raised/answered?

 

Well, Locke again demonstrates his inability to lead and his predisposition to being suckered in by a con man.  Be it his father, the undercover cop, or Ben, time and time again he goes against all logic and listens to the wrong guy. Why oh why take Ben's word on anything? Why release him to the community? Why take his bait and even talk to the guy?

 

[oh, and uh, if you're worried about rebellion: don't release a hated evil-doer into a community skeptical of your leadership. The word I'm looking for John, is Duh.]

 

Via the backstory and his manipulation of Locke we get yet another lesson on how devious Ben is - "I've always got a plan John". This guy is turning into the Superman of bad guys, and no one's found his Kryptonite quite yet. One word of warning: I'd tone down his all-powerful evil powers, or he'll be so over the top he'll become a farce.

 

Do I buy his spiel about Charles Widmore as the big bad villain of the piece? No, not really. Too obvious for a true Lost revelation, although some facts certainly fit. Wait and see, as always.  

 

Juliet continues to perplex me. There's real meat to her character but, perhaps because of the actress, she just seems so ho-hum to me. Between her and Kate I'd probably go with her (more brains, good job, no known felony record and all) but as it's being played I can see why Jack still carries a torch for Kate off-isle.

 

[nice setup at the episode's start, prepping the audience to assume Juliet was off-isle and one of the 'rescued'. Well played, sirs, well played]

 

[I also love the exchange between her and Jack. To paraphrase: "it's very tiring being a Other Jack" and "Don't you have any secrets you don't want everyone to know?" Jack responds: "Sure. You read them all in my file". Touche!]

 

Juliet is the 'other woman' of the title, first in Harper-Goodwin's marriage (Harper-Goodwin indeed - it sounds like a publishing group) then, in a fashion, between Jack and Kate.

 

 

Near the start of the show the 'whispers' start and Harper

 

 

appears to instruct Juliet to stop Dan and Lewis from going to the Tempest power station.

 

 

Some points here:

 

1. The Tempest is a play about a sorcerer that manipulates survivors of a shipwreck.
2. In retrospect, Harpers instructions very nearly put the lives of the entire island at risk and in the hands of Ben. When combined with the whispers, does this mean that Harper was a manifestation of the Monster? I think so. After all, killing all the survivors 'protects' the island.
3. What's the point of having mass quantities of poison gas lying around in a power station? What kind of Nazi stuff is going on there anyway?

 

I wonder about Ben's "[the rabbit] didn't have a number on it, did it?" comment. Were the rabbits mutated as part of an experiment or was he just being a wisenheimer? Ah, who cares I guess. Small potatoes when you want to gas a whole community and dispatch others to their death for banging a girl you have a crush on.

 

[Oh, and for the record, I think he sent Goodwin out to put him in harm's way, but I don't think there's anyway he could have predicted he'd meet his death on the assignment.]

 

That's just about it I think. No numbers that I caught, no great hidden meanings that I managed to catch. Of course, there are those missing three minutes . .

 

Oh, and uh, that man of Ben's on the boat, the 'face you thought you'd never see again' . ..c'mon folks, it's Michael, don't you think?

 

Til next week Lost fans!

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Tags: Lost

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What the panel of docs and teachers said about Smiley

In retrospect I find my Favre post, at its heart, a pretentious piece of crap. Kindly ignore it.

 

As an excuse I can say that I wrote it while waiting to leave for the final evaluation of Smiley's learning ability. I was a bit nervous. I was expecting something out of Back to School, with Lisa and I playing the role of Rodney Dangerfield facing down a hostile panel of educators.

 

Instead what we got was a friendly discussion around a conference table, with the psychologists displaying their opinions on a large projection screen in the room.

 

They were very complimentary of us, especially Lisa (for her persistence in getting him seen) and of Smiley in general. "You guys are swell," one of the doctor's said, causing a giggle in the room.

All three of the ladies that saw Smiley were there, and all gave their opinions. #1 was still critical of his overall abilities, but #'s 2 and 3 leant far more weight to the opposite side of the scale.

 

In the end here's the verdict: for the time being the assumption is his only learning problem is his inability to speak, despite an obvious interest in doing so. The cause? "We may never know," they said.

 

The solution? They're going to put him into a special education class three hours a day, four days a week, for the next (projected) two years, with a full re-evaluation in three years. The class will be of kids with 'normal' academic ability but speech difficulties, which means he won't be below or above the curve.

 

They did mention that should a more serious problem be present, it's far more likely to be spotted with daily exposure to a classroom than a few hours of testing, so in a way we're not out of the woods yet.

 

The big boss of MPS who was at the meeting go the ball rolling quickly, making a conference call then and there; he starts Monday at 12 noon at a nearby school we once toured for YaYa.

 

So my boy is going to school .  . . I'm happy and proud and I think it'll be good for him.

 

I'll update everyone after his first day.

 

Tags: Smiley

Happy Birthday Stacey

Before I run out of time today, let me say that Lisa and I wish our niece/Goddaughter Stacey a very happy 7th birthday!

On a less joyous note today is also, as you know, the 172nd anniversary of the fall of the Alamo (may Crockett/Travis/Bowie live forever in our memory) and the 12th anniversary of a horrific car accident that nearly crippled my cousin.

All in all, I think we'll stick with the birthday wishes :) Happy Birthday!

The End of an Era - Brett Favre Retires

Brett Favre, three time MVP, Super Bowl Champion, record holder for most consecutive games at QB, most TD passes, most wins at QB, and beloved hero of millions of Wisconsin fans, retired yesterday after 17 years in the NFL.

'I know I can still play. I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired.', he was quoted as saying.

The news came as a shock following a great season that only ended in OT during the NFC Championship game, as most fans were  confident he'd return to lead the charge towards another elusive Super Bowl ring.

If you don't live in Wisconsin, or haven't for the last 15 years, I think it's impossible to accurately portray Favre's status in this state.

In Wisconsin he is sports icon/respected elder/warrior/leader/sex symbol/iron man. He is Moses, bringing a once proud people out of obscurity and to the Promised Land. He is Achilles, strong and feared, but with weaknesses that made him human. He is Beowulf/Arthur/Washington and Babe Ruth.

If this was a different era bards would sing tales of his life, and centuries from now children on the banks of the Wolf River would recite his exploits in exaggerated awe.

Think I'm stretching the truth? Move here.

The local nightly news devoted a full 14 minutes to his retirement, at which point the anchor apologized for having to relate 'other' news - like those pesky Texas and Ohio primaries. A few minutes later the sports segment started and we were back at it.

A local company started producing 'Green Bay 4 Ever' t-shirts and marketing them. Local papers blasted headlines as large as any announcing a war or the moon landing. Montages recounting his wife's cancer, his father's death, his own addiction, and his greatness flowed across the airwaves.

Here's the front page of the Journal website from this morning, a full day later:

You have to understand, the Packers had more world championships than any other team in the NFL. Green Bay left the '60's, the era of Lombardi, the undisputed kings of the road and then . . .  30 horrible years of nothing.

No championships. No Super-Bowl appearances. A rare playoff appearance in a strike year.

I remember many times watching the Packers take a comfortable lead (this would be in the midst of one of any number of mediocre years) and turning away from the TV, fearing they'd give up the game.

And they would.

4-12 . . I remember that as the last season before Holmgren and Favre took over. 4 and 12.

And then nearly two decades of constant playoff appearances, highlight reel passes, a Super Bowl ring and another that should-have-been, and a quarterback that is legitimately mentioned in best-ever discussions.

(I remember Socialist, many years ago, telling me in a hushed tone. "I always thought we'd have a decent quarterback someday. But I never dreamed we'd have a stud like Favre, not  the Packers. Never in a million years . . .")

I never fully embraced the Favre religion, largely because I'm only a casual football fan, but also because it seemed a bit too . . . well, like worship.

But I do remember the excitement and hope some kid from Mississippi inspired in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin. I remember Milwaukee exploding when the Pack took the Super Bowl in New Orleans. I remember disgust over his interceptions and acceptance of it as part of his necessary 'gunslinger' mentality. I remember getting sick of his yearly off-season 'maybe I'll be back/maybe I'll retire' dramas. I remember his triumphant game on the heels of his father's death. I remember countless victories, far fewer defeats, and endless confidence that  we'd do it all again next year.

We'll miss you Brett. Thanks for everything.

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Tags: Brett Favre, Green Bay, Packers