Second graders answer that and other questions.

My kids are into songs by They Might Be Giants. My son really digs Particle Man. But we don’t know why Triangle Man is such a poopyhead.

Also, he’s into Peaches by POTUSA, which is the greatest rock video ever because everything is better with ninja fights:

Wifey says to me that I write too much on facebook. And that she ignores people who write too much. I say ‘well, if you ignore what I say on facebook, it will be just like real life’.

Heh.

I made a bowl of ice cream the other night. Putting away the ice cream, I turned around to see this:

From Pets

Then, a minute later, I saw this:

From Pets

Walter Olson:

under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense.

The Mrs. collects children’s books. She has for years. It appears she’ll soon need a black market book dealer. HT to SIH who notes you need an interest group for everything.

Junior starts kindergarten this week. We (and by we I mean mostly the Mrs.) have been doing the prep stuff. Last night was open house where we got to go meet the people who will be shaping Junior’s life. Frankly, they were not the most organized bunch and I really question some of the things they did. For instance, yesterday was open house. And this morning was document day, in which I had to haul over various documents showing proof of immunizations and such and pay some fees. Why they can’t combine open house with document day and save me 45 minutes of time, I do not know.

Also, one of the documents was a computer usage agreement. In this agreement, Junior agrees not to look at porn and bomb making instructions on Al Gore’s Internets. And she has to sign it as though it’s a contract. For a five year old. I guess we gotta introduce them to legal contracts at some point.

Next issue I had was the ridiculousness of paying for stuff. We had to pay a supply fee, buy a tote bag, and get a prepaid meal card. Now, one would think that the school would be set up to handle common transactions in a convenient manner. You’d be wrong. I have to write one check to the school. One check to the cafeteria. And one check to the PTA. I guess they don’t have an accountant or bookkeeper to sort that out. I wrote three checks today, which is more checks than I’ve written in the last five years.

Speaking of the supply fee, that really annoyed me. In addition to paying a $40 supply fee, we also had to go buy supplies like markers, pencils, hand sanitizer, and tissues. So, we buy supplies. Pay a supply fee. And, of course, I’ve paid property taxes in The City (My The City) for a while that I thought were there to partially fund the schools. But then, it gets better. You see, those supplies we bought? Yeah, they’re community supplies. They’re not Junior’s supplies. They’re for everyone. I figure it’s a good way to teach Junior about taxes. Or communism.

The tote bag seems like a scam to me. Sure, it’s only $5 but it looks like it cost $1.25 for Chinese kids to sew it together. All the kids have the same bag. Between that and the community supplies, I’m not getting a big individualist groove from the school. I think that will be a problem for Junior, who tends to take after me. Also, we were sternly warned that the bag is for school supplies only. Sorry, Sparky, I paid for it. It’s mine. I’ll use it for whatever I choose.

It also makes me wonder. I’m guessing that not all parents can readily afford these expenditures. And it might be a particularly undue burden on some of them. I guess that’s why we all pick up the tab on supplies. But what about the fees and such?

Complaints aside, her teacher and assistant seemed to be nice folks. And the school’s renovations were nice. And they have a lot of interesting items and activities in store. This is going to be fun. But I’ll still complain about it.

The Mrs. is not a fan of my language choices, a lot of times. But good news, dropping a few f-bombs is healthy:

Well, it turns out a potty mouth does more than earn your conversations an R rating: it actually relieves pain, according to a new study by Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University in the UK. But that’s not all: you’d never know it from what your mom told you, but there are many positive, beneficial aspects of swearing, including harmless venting and social bonding (not to mention reams of adult comedy). Bad language does a lot of good.

Fuck yeah!

Sort of mood. Junior and I made some pickles, pickled garlic and pickled peppers:

From Home Life

Noms commence in a week or so.

Told you we went fishing:

From Kids

At the pond with Junior. Blog later. Maybe.

The kids dig watermelon. Trouble is, we can never eat a whole one before it goes bad. So, I started making watermelon popsicles. Fill your blender with watermelon and hit the juice setting. Then strain to get rid of pieces of seed. Place in a popsicle tray overnight and the kids love them.

Also, the latest creation is, and I am not making this up, cucumber popsicles. Our cucumber plants are out of control and, frankly, we can’t go through them all, even giving them to our neighbors. This is a bit more work but is delicious. Put a quarter cup of lime juice and a half cup of sugar in a pan and heat it up. While the sugar is dissolving, seed and peel 3 whole cucumbers. Put them in the blender and add your sugar and lime juice mix and hit the juice setting. Freeze in popsicle trays over night. No need to strain these.

Night before last, Junior and I headed to one of the fields near the house to pick blackberries. We should have waited a few days because ripe ones weren’t that easy to find. We’ll be going again soon and I expect more to ripen by, say, Friday. For the record, Junior is the worst blackberry picker in the world. Out of every four she’d pick, one made it to the bucket and three made it to her belly. Then, she carries the bucket on the way back home and eats them on the way. I think her involvement was a net loss in terms of production.

Took the kids to their grandparents this weekend for some swimming. Junior swam all the way across the pool. Cool.

We got a new dog a few months back. Then, a bit back, we got another one.

Junior has always wanted a cat. Neither the Mrs. nor I were ever cat people. But Junior was persistent. So, we now have a cat. Well, I think we still have it. I haven’t actually seen it since about 6:00 yesterday.

We’re up to three critters.

When we were at Disney, we went to animal kingdom. There was some exhibit that had all kinds of stuff on critters in the US. One thing we learned there was that a bat could eat 12,000 mosquitoes a night. So, they said building bat boxes was a good idea and a natural way to kill the little buggers. Well, I never built a bat box but we have a group of about six that I see frequently. I guess there is a cave nearby.

I bring this up because, right now, I am on the back porch continuing my silent protest of the tobacco bill by enjoying a nice Gurkha Legend. When I came out, I marveled at how quickly the mosquitoes swarmed the screened-in porch. They can’t get to me because I’m behind a screen. But I guess they sense my presence somehow (from my carbon dioxide emissions, iirc). And within a few seconds, about four bats were putting on a nice aerobatic show while sucking down the mosquitoes.

Snooping around my web album, I noticed the similarity between a pic I recently posted and one I posted a bit back. Now:

From Home Life

Then:

From Home Life

Lack of a kiddie pool aside, I thought the comparison was pretty neat.

Five years ago now, I was at the hospital with the Mrs. I was nervously pacing and carrying on. And we’d already been there for several hours. The Mrs. was hooked up to an IV. And we were many hours away from one of the happiest moments of our lives.

Happy birthday, Junior.

Wow, it’s been five years. I can’t recall a time when she wasn’t here.

Junior loves the show Fairly Odd Parents. Tonight’s episode contained this gem:

Timmy Turner: You mean, you’d let an unsupervised minor go on dangerous missions without worrying about his safety

Adult (handing him a gun): not without a really dangerous weapon.

Heh.

Had a storm yesterday. Our damage wasn’t quite as bad as JRs but we did come home to this:

From Home Life

That’s the kids kiddie pool in the field behind the house. That pool is 4.5 X 9 for scale. Also, apparently darn good quality since it did not pop on it’s journey.

Seems silly:

A Franklin woman will serve six months’ probation for leaving her 4-year-old daughter in a running vehicle while she went into a store.

Judith L. Rogers was charged with leaving a child unattended in a running motor vehicle, a class B misdemeanor.

My truck has one of those electronic keypads on the door so I can unlock it without a key. A few times I’ve had the kids in the car and realize that the place I stopped at for gas doesn’t have pay at the pump. So, I leave the air on, lock the door, and run inside to pay. The truck is locked and I always make certain that I can see my vehicle. It’s a lot more convenient than unstrapping two kids; taking them into a dirty gas station; then having to buy them a Slushee because once they see it, they must have one; herding them back to the truck while they’re under their initial sugary beverage rush; getting them back in their seats; and strapping them back in. I didn’t know I was breaking the law.

The kids are both going through a phase where crying is the reaction to, well, most things that disappoint. Can’t get your shoe tied, cry. Can’t get the pudding open, cry. I usually respond to them with something like You could try to do it another way. But the crying doesn’t help.

Also, after bath, it’s a race between Junior and the Second to see who can get dressed first. And the loser usually cries about that.

The other night, the race was on. Junior was hurriedly getting dressed and I was helping The Second put his jammies on. As a joke, I grabbed Junior’s pajama top and tossed it up on the bed to buy The Second some time. And she started crying. And I, in my usual fashion, state that she could sit there and cry about it or go get her top. And I say to her, for the millionth time, that crying doesn’t help. She runs up to the bed, gets dressed, and comes over to proudly display that she still won, despite dad’s attempt at a setback. She then looks at me and says See, crying did help.

Like father, like son:

From Kids

He keeps asking me to buy him the Sig P250 advertised in there.

Last night, Junior graduated from pre-school. The ceremony was entertaining and obviously all the kids were excited and anxious. I’ll miss that school; from other kids; to other parents; to the staff; the bye-bye buggy; the little knickknacks, doodles, and artwork she would bring home. Junior learned a lot of stuff there. She’s better off because of that place. In the Fall, she’ll be starting kindergarten. Where does the time go?

Conversation from the Uncle Household.

Me: You know how I always dreamed that Politically Incorrect Dog could talk and he had a deep voice with a British accent?

The Mrs: Yeah.

Me: Well, in my dreams, Flash sounds like Samuel Jackson.

The Mrs: Why do the dogs always talk in your dreams?

Me: Guess they got shit to say. That’s what Flash would say.

Today is the Second’s third birthday. Wow. Where does the time go?

I like to cook. The wife and I have various recipes strewn about the house on paper, note cards, and carrier pigeons. And I have the oft neglected recipes category on the blog. So, I decided it’d a good idea so start typing them up to put on the old webpage so that I can 1) find them easily; 2) share with people; and 3) for the kids to find later. I’ve discovered at this point in life that my mom and dad made some really damn good food. And I occasionally want some of the old favorites. But, I don’t have the recipe. So, I call up mom and ask how to make stuff. Like her clam chowder. So, if my kids want that, they’ll have it.

Speaking of mom, I generally like to make my own salad dressing. Here’s one of my faves from Mom: Hawaiian Dressing. And, so, it seems appropriate to start this new endeavor with a new favorite of mine: Homemade Caesar Salad Dressing (quick and easy).

1 cup mayo
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Quarter cup of milk

Add salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Whisk until smooth.

Update: For you purists, no there’s no anchovy paste. Mostly because I don’t usually have any around.

Today, we register Junior for kindergarten. Can you believe that? Me neither.

I’m a bit bummed. See, a few weeks back, I had to get rid of my dog. I’m sad to say that Politically Incorrect Dog is no longer a part of the Uncle family. No worries about his well-being or anything like that. He’s found himself a good place and, per updates we receive, he’s doing quite well and is happy.

The reason he left was that, well, he was too much dog for two small kids. His attempts at getting affection and play were a bit on the reckless side. And he was clearly jealous of the amount of attention the kids received. I did not think for a minute that he’d intentionally harm my children but that he might do so inadvertently. He was corrected for the behavior yet it continued. And, well, with little ones around, there is no room for mistakes.

So, I delivered him to the nice lady who would be his new home. When I dropped him off, I cried. A lot. It’s a tough thing after you’ve had a dog for seven years. But leave it to Junior to add some levity to the situation. As I was leaving with him, she said So, can we get a kitty now? We’re undecided on the cat. She wants one but me and the Mrs. are not cat people.

Anyway, the Mrs. wanted a new dog. I was wanting to wait a bit. She was pretty insistent on getting a dog. And we know how that goes. We opted for a more docile animal. Meet Flash:

From Home Life

Only had him for a few days. Two and a half (ish) year old Bassett hound. A rescue, of sorts. Talk about extremes. I’m not used to having a dog that lounges around all the time. And in terms of obedience training, he has none.

A pic from breakfast:

From Kids