Sadly Selfish

There is a little boy who is very sick. His mother is a friend of Heidi's, his big brother goes to pre-school with Merry. This little boy is fourteen months old and his liver is failing, he is struggling for his life.

Heidi wants to talk about it. She wants to go over their struggle and their feelings. She has sympathy and empathy and she wants to share with me.

I do not want to hear it. It makes me feel so sad and helpless that I want to hide under the couch. My brain immediately attempts to put me in the same position as the little boys dad and I begin to feel sick to my stomach. If I linger on the thoughts my eyes begin to tear.

I feel sad and selfish, I do not want to subject myself to those helpless feelings even though I understand that Heidi has a need to discuss them.

I ask you to please put this little boy and his family in your prayers.

Excellent Adventure

Merry and David spent the weekend with Auntie Shannon, they headed down Maine to visit with Mr. and Mrs. Arch, Shannon's parents.

By all accounts they had a terrific trip, the thing is, that the boy who arrived home Sunday night is not the same child that left on Friday. David has always been a spare talker, not really all that interested in sharing all of the details. Things change.

David has not stopped talking since he got back! Fishing pole this and fishing pole that. I did this and can we do that? It is a nice change although a bit tiring.

Auntie Shannon's influence is spreading over my children. Auntie Shannon can talk with the best of them and David is her new disciple.

Getting it Out of my Head

I was driving home from work last week listening to The Jim Breuer show when he interviewed Joe Rogan on his recent run in with Carlos Mencia. I guess Carlos has a reputation among comics as a joke thief. What impressed me about the story was how thought out, calm, cool and collected Joe Rogan was. The guy has a lot of theories and opinions and is not shy about expressing them.

I know Joe Rogan was or is the host of Fear Factor and a commentator for The Ultimate Fighting Championship. He was also on a sit-com with Andy Dick about a radio station back in the 90's. I knew he was a comedian, I knew of his disgust for joke thieves due to some of his interviews on the Howard Stern show.

I was not aware that 90% of his jokes are written when under the influence of THC. I was not aware of the fact that he has an isolation chamber in his house where he spends considerable time under the influence of hallucinogenics. One of his revelations from this time in his isolation chamber has stuck with me since I heard that interview. Joe Rogan's thoughts on mankind have burrowed into my head and I have not been able to shake the concept.

He stated that mankind is nothing more than an infection or bacteria on the planet Earth and that the evidence for this is the appearance of our cities from an airplane. Cities are scabs on the planet. Places where the stamp of mankind's injuries to the planet are most evident. Then he went on an even crazier riff that also rings true to me.

He was talking about conscience and where reality really happens. He made an argument that reality happens when we sleep and that the time we spend awake is the dream. This talk was in reference to a drug DMT that our brain manufacture during sleep that is the most powerful hallucinogen known to man. When you follow the link on DMT scroll down to the one titled Joe Rogan on Life. It all sounds nuts but like any good conspiracy there may be just enough truth to hold your attention.

If you have some time, follow the links and check it out for yourself.

Time Out

It was bed time and David was ready. The boy was overtired and acting up. "I don't want to go to bed, I am not tired"
He was told to go and sit on the "Time Out" stair until he was ready for bed. His protests came to an immediate stop, yelling to silence.
Upon checking on him to make sure everything was alright this is what was found.
Good Night Davey.

Play

I love to get lost, lost in play. As an adult we do not often lose ourselves, one of the gifts associated with being a parent is the ability to get down on our children's level and play.

We got snow here in north eastern Massachusetts last week, the snow was then coated with rain, which then froze solid. This combination almost put Jet Blue out of business. Jet Blue's blue's were the Old Blue House's happy.

We went sledding, I love sledding, you do not get to experience the full effect of the joy of sledding unless you share it with three and four year old's. It is all new to them, the speed, the danger and the exhilaration. It makes me happy and my enthusiasm makes them happy. We cheer and high five and laugh. When the sledding is done, over hot chocolate and cookies, we recount our stories of daring and laugh and high five and smile.

Another game that we have been playing a lot of is "tickle me, Daddy" This is David's favorite and quickly rising on Thomas' list. David yells out commands, "Stop", "Tickle" and we laugh and roll and laugh and catch our breath, and laugh. Lost in time, lost in Play.

Two Things

Number 1: Last night as I was tucking the children into their beds I was overwhelmed with love.

Number 2: I predict before President Bush is out of office The United States will be millitarily involved with Iran and possibly Syria.

Hey Now!

Thomas had a doctor's appointment this morning at 8:45, we think he has an earache. David needed to be dropped off at pre-school at 9:00. I took him to school.

David and I walk into the building, we were a little early so the doors into the class room were closed. There were some mom's and their children milling around. When David makes it into the fray he says, as clear as day "OH SHIT"!

Nothing special happened, he did not drop anything or stub his toe, nothing. I started to smirk, I was a bit embarrassed. I put my hand on his head and before I uttered a word, one of the mom's informed me that I should not laugh or else he might think that it was OK.

I informed her that I did not teach him the word his mother did and that I thought it was kind of funny. I wanted to tell her to go suck an egg, I refrained. The other mom's were stunned that I threw Heidi under the bus, I could tell by the looks on their faces. Heidi may or may not have been the influence for the expletive, in reality it may have been me. If I had to bet I would put the finger on Grampy, he does not restrain his speech around the whipper snappers.

Today I got a look into the world of mom's and I was exposed to some of the pressure that they put on each other. Did that mom really think that I needed her lesson, what benefit did she derive from telling me not to laugh. She made me feel small, she attempted and succeeded, for a moment, to make me feel uncomfortable.

There is an old saying about advice that goes like this "Wise men don't need it and a fool won't heed it" When pressed I turn into a fool and will not listen nor employ your words advice. Is stating the obvious advice?

I want to poke her in the eye. How's that for mature?

Inversion

Heidi and I were talking this weekend about how the relationship between the parents and the children in our house is upside down. I always thought the kids were supposed to work for the parents, in our house the parents work for the kids.

One hundred times a day we answer the call "Mommy do this, please". or "Daddy do that, please". we always respond quickly and in the affirmative. "Yes, I will get you some milk". "Yes, I will get Thomas off of you".

When it is our turn to ask of the children the answer never comes as quickly and most of the time is answered in the negative. "Not right now, I am to tired". Is Merry's favorite. "That job is too big, you need to do it" is another common response.

Where I have gone wrong is that I am lazy. Instead of insisting they clean it up I just do it. A recent example is Merry's bookshelf. At the beginning of last week David emptied the contents of said bookshelf onto the floor. When pressed he explained that he did it in order to make room so that he could climb it. Terrific.

Merry has a lot of books, the pile was substantial, daunting, even to me. Every chance I had, I asked that the two of them please put those books back on the shelf. Up to Merry's room they would go and there it would end. Different games would be played and stories read. The pile of books remained at the foot of her bed. Until I put them back on the shelf.

The saving grace is that they do the little things well, they are good, and try to do the right thing more often than they do the bad. When I need help they are quick to give it. Sometimes it just seems that we are their personel servants and they enjoy the service.

Oops!

I was entering my jogging stats, I pressed the wrong button and The Tutu Boutique blog got really messed up. I went to another blogspot blog copied some of their css code and inserted it where I thought it should go. This is what came out, this is so much better than where I was before, but still not quite right.

Monday I will reach out to my template guru and see if we can not get things back to normal.

Frump

I am in the middle of a blogging frump.

I do not have any particular insight or thoughts of interest to pass along.

If any of you want to know what a man thinks about a certain moisturizer you can read his thoughts here. If you want to try that product let me know. If you want to get started on the road to financial independence, network marketing and direct selling maybe an option. Shoot me an e-mail.

We are all just a bit sick at The Old Blue House. Lots of snot in the morning but as the day proceeds we all begin to feel better. Makes for a tricky morning, the children being grumpy makes the parents feel grumpy. Tough way to start the day but we work through it.

The Tutu Boutique is experiencing its first growth spurt, it is humming along at such a pace that Heidi has started to make some structural changes to the way the business operates. Heidi has three children, young children, she has an Arbonne downline that needs attention and lots of customer service questions to attend to at the Tutu Boutique. It is exciting and scary at the same time. I hope when the dust settles that maybe we can get some part time help. Either with the children or the business or even better with both.

Many evenings when I get home from work I find Heidi at her computer with Thomas on her lap, typing an email response while talking on the phone. There does not seem to be enough time in the day for her to accomplish all of the tasks that she wishes to accomplish. I want her to know that I really appreciate her effort and hard work. I want her to know that I love her and that I am thankful that she is my kids mom.

Dance Recital

There was a large audience on hand for the recital.Primaballerina Merry had the largest gallery consisting of Grampy, Thomas, Dad and David.
The show started with some long stepping.
Thomas could not contain himself, he had to get involved.
Next they performed some excellent skipping.
Finished off with a perfect first position.

Fun

Merry looked out the window of the Old Blue House Saturday morning and declared "Daddy, it's a winter wonderland out there!" and you know what?

She was right.

Friday night we got two or three inches of a wet sticky snow that with the falling temperature was like cement on Saturday morning. Merry, David and I ate breakfast,got dressed and headed to Heidi's Uncle Dougy's. Uncle Dougy is Grampy's brother and he has an awesome hill for sledding.

Grampy met us there and the four of us sledded our asses off. We sledded all morning and through lunch. We broke all kinds of speed and distance records, we went of jumps and had wipe outs, it was great. David and Merry are even big enough to walk up the hill under their own power, most of the time.

We were all pooped but Merry had a play date, her bestest friend was coming for the first sleep over at The Old Blue House. Everybody had a great time and went to bed at a reasonable hour. The interesting part of the sleep over story is that our guest is afraid of dogs. Odd to go to a house with two large dogs for your first sleep over when you are afraid of dogs. In the end, it worked out fine.

Sunday, I dusted off the jogging shoes, the last time they saw action was 1/13, 21 days ago. It was nice, nice and cold and tough, hopefully it will not be 21 days until I get out there again.

Sunday night I watched the Super Bowl home and alone, the children were in bed and Heidi was working the tutus. The commercials were fun, the game was tough. Rex Grossman was terrible and the Colts finally finished their season with a win. No more Peyton can't win the big one talk. Thank goodness.

6 Things You Don't Know About Me

Thank You Wendy for tagging me, I have been dying to get some more embarrassing personal information out there into cyberspace. Wait a minute this is not embarrassing things, it is things that you may not know about me.

1. In Grammar school my best friends nickname was Skinny and I was Fatty. Fatty and Skinny had the quickest wits and the least developed bodies. By seventh grade this was a bad combination.
2. I attended an all boys Catholic High School, I was the captain of the Ski Team my Junior and Senior years.
3. I attended the oldest private military college in the nation, I was the captain of the Ski Team my Junior and Senior years.
4. I am not very good at math however I have a strange relation with the office of Treasurer. I was the Treasurer of my Senior class in High School. I held the office my Junior and Senior years of college. I just recently moved from the position of Treasurer in The New England Pest Management Association, I held the office there for eight years.
5. I was addicted to nicotine from 1989 until 2003. My addiction started with Copenhagen and evolved to a pack of Winston Lights a day. Stopping did not stick until after David was born.
6. I have two younger brothers and one younger sister, I am the third oldest of 32 first cousins on my mom's side of the family.

There you have it, Peter exposed. I am tagging Croutonboy, Mary P., and Mamacita Tina, either meme or don't either way I am clear.