Yeah, it really is about the kids.

I had originally written a much longer post here, but I think it's more fun to let this stand on it's own. Updated: Hopefully the video works now. James absolutely loves the interactive parts of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  It's a close call between that, Frosty the Snowman (the Rankin-Bass one from the 60s, of course) or (the Chuck Jones) How the Grinch Stole Christmas as to which is his favourite, but I'll say that yesterday morning he heard the opening music from A Charlie Brown Christmas playing on the radio and he rushed into the living room to see if it was playing on the computer.  Undeniable as it was that the music was coming out of the radio, he still looked at me like I was playing some kind of dirty trick when I showed him the music was there and the video was not actually playing.  Poor guy.

I know I said I'd talk about Charlie Brown, but that's no in the cards today.  Next time. Today started off bad.  Brazen woke me up, howling at the top of the stairs.  That's never great, but today it happened sixty-five minutes after my alarm went off.  I say it went off without any evidence it actually  went off, but it does not have a habit of failing (unless you count allowing me to turn it off too easily) so I'm going to assume it went off. The rest of the day is irrelevant, it was just a series of minor, frustrating-but-not-serious failures.  But now that I think about it, it was actually a good day.  Today was the first day James gave me serious advice that I needed to hear and wasn't going to figure out on my own. Starting the day more than an hour late does not do much for my mental state, but I do my best to try to keep things in perspective.  I will not skip reading James a book in the morning as a way of waking him up gently. ...

A couple quick ones before I catch up on the older posts I have half-composed from the fall. Last weekend we visited my aunt and uncle and some of my cousins in Cardinal.  It was a long  overdue visit -- they'd never even met Daniel yet -- but this year has been absolutely crazy for us and my aunt is incredibly busy for a septuagenarian.  Actually, incredibly busy for tricenarian, too, for that matter.  Also, she can't visit because of Brazen.  That's a story I don't even know, just that Reta cannot stand cats and she's passed that particular foible on to her children. Coordination is a challenge, to say the least. Well, we finally managed to make it happen and we even went to dinner across the border in a very nice sports bar called Busters, I think.  I didn't realize it at the time, but now I know.  Next time I'm there I'm not even ordering off the menu, the salad bar is awesome and that'd definitely satisfy. Now the point of the st...

I was going to write something completely different here.  And I wasn't going to write anything tonight.  But today was a momentous occasion.  We have a graduated level of rewards for going to the potty, the highest level had been a Kinder Surprise.  Seemed like a good level, both chocolate and a silly little toy or game in a very large package.  Surely enough to get a little boy excited about making his next big step into adulthood. We failed in a couple of ways, though.  When Christine took the boys out east, she left the Kinder Surprises here.  So I brought some.  And we forgot them at Dad's place when we left. sigh So back at her family's place I took James out for us to pick a reward together.  We picked "That Guy" from Bulk Barn.  That guy being a plastic M&M candy dispenser (maybe? container for sure) with an M&M dressed up for Halloween in a wizard's cap and robe and carrying a propeller ... because ... wizards. I...

Last weekened was the Spencerville Fair .  I've been going to the fair since before the boys were born partly because I like fairs and partly because I have so many relatives that attend it I've never failed to run into at least a couple of them there. This turned out to be the first year that we've gone to the fair where I did not meet any relatives.  That's a real shame, because James was in a really talkative mood. So, last year it was just James and I and we arrived early so we'd have plenty of time before his afternoon nap (man, I miss afternoon naps)  but we left before the big Sunday event.  The demolition derby.  Since James has taken a hard line against afternoon naps over the summer, I figured this year would be the first year we could reasonably expect to attend. Christine stayed home with Daniel and I packed James up in the car and off we went.  I completely zoned out while we were driving down, James and I were talking the whole way, and ...

Being on vacation for August followed by one week home and a week of work travel (with the requisite fire-drill in the middle of it) kept me away from here longer than I intended.  So I've got a few stories I want to get down before I forget about them.  In fact, I know I've already forgotten one of the things I planned to write about.  Hope it comes back. So the big one was while we were on vacation.  I think it was the Wednesday before we hit the road for home.  It was kind of cool and threatening rain, though I don't think it ever did, and I'd been waiting for a day like that to justify spending the afternoon indoors.  Why?  Because this was the first day James and I were going to a movie together. He's seen plenty of movies already, usually on the portable DVD player or the computer or in the home theatre, but he's not been able to sit through a whole movie.  He's just too busy.  Christine told me, though, that she'd noticed him be...

Two quick stories. First, this was a little while back.  I'm pretty  sure it was during the first week of July, when James was home all day with Christine and Daniel because our day-care provider was on vacation that week.  It may very well have been the day that Christine IM'd me at work during James' "nap" time saying she could hear him running around at the top of the stairs calling out "WOOF!" Anyway, for quite a while now one of the things James has been doing when he gets bored is tossing stuff down the stairs or over the railing along the upper landing.  "Stuff" is, regrettably, as specific as I can get without examples.  So let's have a few.  His soothers.  His stuffed animals.  His garbage can.  His socks.  His books.  You get the idea.  If it is influenced by gravity and isn't obviously alive it is fair game. Back to the story. This day I arrived home, Christine was in the kitchen with dinner almost ready. ...

Hope I don't get into trouble with Disney here. The evening routine, I may have mentioned before, is Christine reads stories and helps James brush his teeth, then I take over with getting him settled, usually read one  more book (unless he talks me into reading more) and I lay down with him in bed until he either falls asleep or I despair of him falling asleep and leave him on his own. An example in the despair  category would have been from the other night when he had sookie in his mouth and sneezed.  It launched out across the bed -- as you might imagine -- and when he realized what happened, he thought it was the funniest thing ever.  So then he started saying "ah ... ah ... CHOO!" and hoping sookie would launch out of his mouth again. He reminded me a lot of that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Data was practising sneezing. After a few failed attempts he concluded something was missing.  So he added in pushing sookie out of his mouth wit...

Okay, so I've actually got a collection of short James stories this time, but probably the best is the one (two...) that inspired the title. First, though, very quickly.  The other night James and I were sitting on the loveseat in the theatre watching Toy Story (I think, might've been Toy Story 2, I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of the Cars movies).  Lately he's taken to wanting to sit at the opposite end of the loveseat.  After a few minutes he'll even move the cushion over there and hand it to me to hold.  And make no mistake here, it's for me to hold .  I've tried taking it, saying thank you, then putting it down between us or on the ottoman. Both fail, he'll announce "no" and hand it back to me. Anyway, this evening as the movie progressed he moved more and more toward the middle, until he was scooched right up against my hip.  Then he took my hand and put it around his shoulders.  Then he turned to me and held up his sippy cup full o...

This one isn't for the squeamish. I'm serious here.  Off colour humour follows. You've been warned. I'll even insert a break here, so I don't feel guilty about what's to come.

We were over at CHEO today.  Just a regular visit with Nancy, the OT that sees James, to assess how he's doing with his arm.  He, of course, refuses to wear it any time we ask him to and he only infrequently puts it on himself.  On the other hand, as soon as he's in Nancy's room he's perfectly happy to put it on and do stuff with it.  Nancy tells me that's pretty common and that we shouldn't try to force him to wear it if he doesn't want to, but she had a lot of good suggestions on ways to encourage him to want to wear it. Anyway, we were there an hour and he still didn't seem to be getting tired of it yet, so we kept it on.  Then I suggested we play in this playground for a little bit rather than get in the car and go for lunch right away. He thought it was a pretty keen idea.  About ten minutes after he started telling me all about the play structure and interspersing the info-dump with "Nancy fun!" I thought to myself "I should be ...

Another couple of stories about James. I remarked about the predominance of James stories here to Christine the other day.  There's two main reasons for that.  First, I just necessarily hang out with him more than Daniel right now.  It's the nature of being three months old that you don't go very far from mama.  Second, even the times I spend with Daniel are great, but they're of the variety where I do something like blow a raspberry and he squeals and waves his hands or kicks.  He's not in the habit of surprising me or tricking me yet. source:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/etradersplace/5961199800/ That'll come; sooner than I think. Anyway, so James and I were out this morning -- it's Saturday after all -- and one of our stops was the grocery store.  He was sitting in the seat on the upper level of one of those dual-layer shopping carts, kind of like that one over on the right. During part of the expedition I was standing in the bread aisl...

Actually, when I got in to the office on Tuesday morning, about 10:30am, that was almost  the phrase I used to describe to my co-worker Mark what had been going on so far that day.  If you know me reasonably well, you probably know the phrase I actually used. That is precisely how it felt, though.  I had an overwhelming sense of "wow, that could've been so  much worse!" after a completely unexpected start to the day. And it all started with James teaching me (again) that he knows more than I think he does and is better able to communicate than I think he is.  (And again, if you know me reasonably well, you know  what I think of his ability to communicate and his ability to surprise me.) "Good morning, James!  Did you sleep okay?"  "Daddy?" "Yes James?"  "Foot broken." Thinks I:    What?  Did I just hear that?  Of course not.  One, his foot isn't broken.  Two, if it was, how would he know to describe...

What's a Monster Sookie ?  There's probably two parts to that question. The first being, what's a sookie ?  That's our name for pacifiers or soothers or whathaveyou.  I have no idea where the name came from, but I'm pretty sure I gave it too them when James was in the special care unit just after he was born and it was probably based on the sound he was making with the one the nurses had given him while he was there. So what's a Monster sookie?  That picture over there.  Brenda and Steve bought one for James well before he was old enough to actually use it (it only comes in one size, which is, I think, intended for six-month-olds).  We didn't really get a lot of use out of it until just last year when I was Han Solo for Halloween and James got to be my Li'l Chewbacca co-pilot. Exceptionally adorable. Last summer we brought out the outfits again for the Ottawa Comic Con.  When I was wandering around just as Han Solo I had maybe a half-dozen peo...

It's actually kind of difficult to live in the moment.  At least for me.  I'm not sure why, it just is how I've always been.  Years ago a former manager of mine told me that I should enjoy the quiet periods at work because they never last.  This was, for the record, about four months before that particular place shuttered (and about three months before I left for a different job, but that's a different story). James is firmly in his two-year-old "no" phase.  Nearly everything you ask him gets and answer of "no" right now, whether he means no or not.  Usually he doesn't and he quickly corrects himself, but his first position is always "no".  It's cute.  I have a really difficult time not laughing when I'm trying to be stern with him. "James, c'mon and put on your sneakers, it's time to go out." "NO NEEKERS!" "James, c'mon and wash your hands, it's time to eat." "NO WASHY ...

We were at the War Amps CHAMP Seminar in Burlington this weekend.  James had an awesome time there and I'll probably write more about that later.  (I've got a lot of things I plan to write about, though, so who knows if I'll catch up or just move on ...) We arrived back home early this evening and during the train ride it was pretty obvious that Daniel was done  of the weekend.  He might have had fun (as much fun as a two-month-old is going to have anywhere) but it'd been too long away from familiar surroundings.  He went right to sleep as soon as we got in the house and Christine put him in the swing while I unpacked and she put James to bed. I came downstairs and finished watching Boiler Room, which I'd started on Thursday evening instead of going to bed early, like I'd planned.  When I came up about three-quarters of an hour later he was still in the swing, but he was wide awake, grinning and looking all around.  I swear, that boy was as happy a...

James and I were out this morning on our usual Saturday morning outing.  Coffee, comic book shop, (The Comic Book Shoppe, specifically) and whatever other random errands a required for the day. Today that included going grocery shopping for a couple of things and swinging by the Centrepointe branch of the library.  Since we were early for the library, I opted to go shopping at the Loblaws at College Square.  We got everything we planned on, then on our way out of the door James announced in his "I'm telling you something I'm looking at right now" voice:   Fire truck! I did my usual "Fire truck?  You see a fire truck?  Okay" routine then looked around to see where the truck was, expecting it was on a box, or maybe a toy fire truck in the entrance or something. Nope, a real ladder truck was pulling into the parking lot.  Presumably the guys were out shopping for the fire house.  So after I got our groceries loaded into the car, James and I too...

Jumping in context free.  It's more fun that way. Yesterday I was sitting in the living room with Julie sharing a short story about James and I said something like "I don't want to forget that, that's awesome."  She told me to write it down.  Seems like not a bad idea. Most of this blog will likely be very, very  short entries.  I like to write a lot -- if you know me at all, you know that about me -- but I simply don't have the time to do even a quarter of the writing I want to do. So two quick stories to start things off. One.  Yesterday I was off.  I took the day because James had an appointment at Smith Prosthetics and I thought rather than taking him back to daycare we'd just make it an outing and head over to the  Science and Tech museuem  while we were in that part of town.  Most of the visit consisted of him running ( prancing  to be more accurate) around aimlessly, arms out to his sides at shoulder h...