137 posts tagged “kids”

Ladybug is into the final trimester now.  The kid is big.  Bigger than the last one.  Almost as big as the first one.  And showing no signs of slowing down.  Sciatica has taken hold, and it's all sort of a mess, really.  She's planning on working until the end of July, but, frankly, I don't know if she'll be able to make it that long.  I'd rather she didn't.  If her doc puts her on bed rest, she can pretty well tell her company that she's not coming to the office any longer.  It probably won't come to that.

I'm getting ready for a nice month long break from work.  Lotus starts kindergarten right in the middle of all of that, so that'll be an adventure.  Tesla will be happy to have a baby in the house, I'm sure.  At least right up until she discovers it means less attention from Mommy.  She's sort of a Mommy hog.

My parents are really looking forward to it as well.  We'll all be home, so they can come over whenever, and play with the older kids while Ladybug deals with the bambino.

It's all scary as well, of course.  We're going to a single income for at least a year.  We'll have financial support, of course, but there's other issues to focus on.  We'll be looking for ways to economize around the house, and try to budget ourselves better.  We're stuck with the cars we have, of course, but I may be able to start taking the bus or something, if I don't have to worry about getting the kids from daycare.

Then there's the fact that no one on my side if the family has any idea what the dynamics of three kids are like.  I hear stories.  Plus, the parents are officially out numbered now.

Anyway, getting ready is half the battle right?

Tonight, I am taking Lotus for registration at school.  Kindergarten.  For me it was a big step, because I was at home with mom until then.  Lotus has been going to daycare, and is excited to be going to kindergarten.  I think she'll do really well. 

For me, though, it'll be an adventure.  Daycare, to me, is sort of like glorified babysitting.  I know they teach her things there, and she gets a lot of socialization skills.  But kindergarten is the first step on the road that will eventually lead my daughter to college, possibly in some other state, and then on to her own life in the bigger, wider, wonderful world.  It's a long road, I know.  But she's my first kid, so it's new for me, and, well, there are emotions involved. 

I remember crying a lot my first day of kindergarten, because I didn't want to leave mommy.  It had only been 6 months or so since my little sister had come in to the house, so I was still adjusting to the whole "not the most important thing anymore" syndrome that all first children have to go through.  I went to preschool, but it was a co-op and Mom was there.  And it wasn't for nearly as long as I was expected to be at kindergarten.  Hours and hours!  By the end of the first day, I was happy as a clam of course.  And taking Lotus to registration will be a good thing for her, so she can learn about where the school is, in relation to our house, and where all the stuff like bathrooms are.  I'm sure she'll be fine.

It's me I'm worried about.

Over the weekend, I made a run to Ikea with Lotus.  We purchased some good quality shelving for Ladybug for Mother's Day.  Now, I know that plenty of people have been to Ikea, and many of them have taken advantage of the cafe, and all those sample rooms.  This was the first time I was able to take advantage of Småland, which is where you can deposit your children while you shop.  It was great!  I had to get some rather hefty items out of the self-serve furniture warehouse, and doing so without having to monitor a kid, or risk dropping a 400 ton (artistic license) crate of bookshelf parts on her, well, that was the best part of all.  I was even able to go out an load all this stuff into my car before extracting her forcibly from the ball pit.  She didn't want to leave.  Well, she never does. 

Shopping with small kids is a royal pain in the ass.  There is no two ways about that.  They're always running around, and the risk of them getting lost is high.  In a store like Ikea it's even higher, since it's laid out like a maze with a thousand corners where a kid could hide.  Honestly, they should have a midnight game of laser tag (or possibly låser tåg) in there some night.  How cool would that be?  Anyway, of course, every parent knows exactly why Ikea provides a service like this: it's so the parents have the time to slow down, and look a the stuff, rather than looking for the kids.  And if you're looking at the stuff, you soon realized that, well, those watering cans would really solve that issue with the kids fighting over who gets the watering can.  And then you end up leaving with two bookshelves (which you came in for), a pair of garbage cans, a hanging shelf for the kid's room, two watering cans and a blue egg chair.  For the cost of paying three girls to watch my kid for 30 minutes (I had up to 90 minutes), Ikea sold me an extra $100 worth of stuff.  This was, except for the watering cans, all stuff we needed.  It was not my intention to get them at Ikea, mostly because I wasn't thinking about anything except the bookshelves.  But by eliminating the need for me to think about monitoring Lotus while I got the bookshelves, I was able to think, hey, those garbage cans are just what we need.  Oh, right, and Ladybug wanted the blue egg chair for the nursery.  And that shelf, yes, that will go nicely in the kid's room for their non-play-thing-knick-knacks (they have music box snow globes from Disneyland that really shouldn't be accessible to them all the time).

Very clever, Ikea.  Very clever.

Yes, it's been a long while since I've blogged, I know.  

Some minor things have been happening.  First among them is that Ladybug took ill and had to spend the entirety of last week on unpaid leave of absence.  That put a lot of work on my shoulders, let me tell you.  It mostly meant a lot less free time for me to do much of anything of a personal nature, and this blog absolutely falls under the auspices of "personal."

The kids have been waking up a lot at night lately.  Maybe it's the change in season, with the evenings getting longer, that is causing this restiveness.  Maybe it's the generalized illness circulating around the house (I was sick as well).  Growing pains perhaps.  They share a room now, so there's bound to be an adjustment period there as well.

Work has tailed off a bit.  I managed to submit a timesheet with no overtime at all, and last weekend, for the first time in a long time, I got no calls and no work requests.  I was sick, so in the end, it's a good thing no one called, but the general downturn in OT has meant that I've been studiously avoiding being on the computer if at all possible, devoting more time to the kids and family.  Lately, once I get home, the computer is just something providing ambient light near the kitchen.

But there is, by far, a larger item that it has taken me a while to come to grips with.

On the day after my last blog entry, I got a phone call from someone I hadn't heard from directly in some time.  An ex-coworker of mine, Erik, from back when I taught Java with GE.  This would have been 2001-2002.  So, 6 years or so, since I got more than an e-mail forwarded from him detailing some humorous vignette or call to action to save some legislation or kill it.  

We were a pretty close knit bunch.  Five instructors: myself, Danny, Dave, Crystal, and Blood Dragon.  Also, kat>>/dev/null, for a while, though she broke our hearts by moving to San Francisco.  Diane was our receptionist, Cindy was our marketdroid.  There were even some contract instructors that we worked with a lot, Erik being one of them.  We had a lot of fun, and spent a good deal of time outside of work together as well.  Since that time, I haven't worked with a closer-knit bunch of people, and, obviously, I still consider them all to be very good friends.  We're all still in touch, one way or another.

Well, Erik called to tell me that Dave had been killed in a motorcycle accident that morning.

I was heartbroken.  Dave was such a fantastic person, personable, a loving husband, a devoted son, and so funny I almost had to cancel class one day because of something he said over lunch that I just couldn't get out of my head.  He also managed to seriously annoy Crystal on a regular basis, but, well, that was pretty endearing to me as well.  I went to his wedding reception and saw him graciously accept six (that's one more than five but not quite seven) crock pots.  He later regifted one to me on the occasion of my wedding to Ladybug.  I had a good chuckle about that as well.  We use it to make chili.

Dave and I were the last employees in Phoenix when they closed the center.

I saw him a couple months after that at a lunch with the Old Gang.  He, Danny and Crystal had all moved to Sierra Vista.  He and Danny were working together at the army base, and tried to convince BloodDragon and I to join them.  Crystal also talked up the benefits of life in Sierra Vista, thus earning the trio the nickname of SV Rotary Club.  I really couldn't leave Phoenix, I like it here too much.  All my family is here.  They had carved out a very nice life in Sierra Vista, though.  I can't say I wasn't a little envious that they had managed to keep working together.  That was really the last contact I had with him.  I visited Crystal once, and she has been to Phoenix a couple of times, but I never managed to arrange getting the Old Gang together again.  News of Crystal's impending nuptials this summer might have been the impetus we'd need.

But Erik's call put a stop to all of that.  

I've been struggling with how I feel.  Oh, there's sadness and regret there.  Also happiness that I was, ever so briefly, walking in his circle.  Honestly, though, this is the first time that someone in my age group that I care about has died.  Sure, back in high school, a couple of popular kids were killed when they, in an alcohol induced stupor, drove their birthday present Mustang into a telephone pole.  As a teenage outsider, I didn't have much sympathy.  In fact, I had no sympathy.  Worse than that, I considered that if I had been standing in front of the telephone pole and was now just as dead, all the outpouring of grief would still be for the idiot underage drinkers with their silver spoon.  But I digress (and was 17).  All of my grandparents are dead, so it's not like I've never been to a funeral or anything.  And people I've cared deeply about have died, and I've reacted as most people do.  But this was mortality looking me smack in the face and saying, "Someday, I'm coming for you, buddy."  Old people die.  Young people die.  Everyone dies.  I know this, at a logically clinical level.  This was more like the personification of Death riding up on his skeletal steed, flaming sword in the scabbard, ethereal scythe in hand, and pointing at my face, the ultimate promise made.

It's not fear, exactly.  I don't fear death.  Most people who've driven with me for any length of time come to that conclusion.  It's just not something that I've really thought about.  And now I'm thinking about it.  But I'm not sure, yet, what I am thinking.

Anyway, now you know what would keep me off the blogosphere for over two weeks.  I don't plan on letting that happen again for a while.

It was to be a wonder to behold.  We were going to meet up with our friends in San Diego.  We had two rooms booked at a hotel, the plan was for us to get there first, maybe spend the day Friday at the Wild Animal Park, and then meet them either at the hotel or at the airport.  Then, maybe the San Diego Zoo on Saturday, Seaport Village on Sunday, and we'd drive home Monday, mid-day, to make it home early, get some stuff done, and relax a little before my job jumped me again on Tuesday.

That was the plan.

Unfortunately, it's not how it worked out.

On Thursday night, my job interrupted my life until about 10 PM.  And I still had to pack.  The sad part?  The team leads asked me to reopen a closed stream, to allow for some fixes, and then put the build up for testing.  That was at 3 PM.  I was set to leave at 4.  I was more than a little annoyed, and decided not to hide it this time.  I said, "Seriously?  You want to start this now?  We're all going to be up until midnight, again.  The people you're asking me to add to the list of allowed people are known hazards to our stable code.  I'm leaving for San Diego tomorrow morning, and I'll need some sleep beforehand, so, you know, this is quite possibly the most idiotic idea I've heard in a month.  What do you all not understand about the concept of code freeze?  Do it tomorrow, when everyone is fresh, and I'm safely away from here."

Nope, they insisted, and rather than just walking out like I should have, I helped, with horribly bad grace.  I was annoyed, and I made sure everyone who had to call me, talk to me, whatever, knew it.  At one point, I was IM'ing with one of said hazards, and he asked me for my phone number to call me.  Would it have been easy to tell him over the IM?  Sure.  But I wasn't feeling helpful to people who just don't want to put in the effort, so I told him that my offsite contact number is on our contact list.  And on Accenture's directory.  And on the bottom of every e-mail I have ever sent to anyone on this project since the first day I arrived, so go.  And.  Find.  It.  

He did, he called, we chatted about how his code broke my build.  Again.  And how long it was going to take to fix it.  Again.

At 10 PM, we sort of declared that we were done.  All I had to say was, "Really?  And it's not even midnight.  For once."  >>click<<

So, I packed, and we pushed back the plan to leave by a couple of hours.  This meant that we were leaving town at the height of rush hour, instead of before, like I had originally wanted.  This had dire consequences.

As we were passing under the last bridge before our exit, I noticed a van changing a tire off to the side of the road.  I generally don't pay such things much attention, because they're not in front of me, and they're not moving.  The driver ahead of me clearly didn't think as I do and had to come to a rapid stop.  So, I stopped as well.  Didn't hit the car in front of me . . . but the driver behind was much like the driver in front, and did hit me.  I don't think I've ever been more pissed.  I'm leaving on a vacation.  I'm somewhat lacking sleep.  I'm just coming off some major stress at work.  I have my kids and my pregnant wife in the car.  And yet again, some moron who isn't watching where the fuck they're going has hit our Magnum.  This is 5 times now, and the third time when we're supposed to be on our way to California.  Well, we called the police, and I sat my ass in the car fuming and imagning burying a tire iron in this (it turned out) woman's head.  The police arrives, he takes the info, and he moves us off the freeway.  Just in time as well.  As the three of us were preparing to move, an SUV comes to a screeching, tire-smoking stop to avoid the stopped traffic in front of him (or her) because, like the two drivers I was sandwiched between, what was happening on the side of the road was apparently more important than what was happening in front of him.  Morons!

We get checked out by emergency services, but, since the wife is pregnant, it's only prudent to go to the hospital to have the baby checked out.  In order to do that, though, it's a three hour test to make sure no blood has mixed in, the placenta is intact, and so on.  Even more pissed, me.  Got the kids some lunch there at the hospital, which is not an experience I'd like to repeat (no kid control, no real easy layout, lots of "stations" to go to . . .).  Left Ladybug with the leftovers, which was all I could manage, and I'm sorry that's all I could manage.  Finally get released around Noon.

We make our way out of town, but the traffic is not exactly fun.  By Noon on Friday, people leaving town for the weekend are, well, starting to leave town, whereas in the morning, even during rush hour, the roads are more clear.  We're just getting past the traffic, and Lotus announces she has to go potty.  I not proud to say that I was still upset about that, and pulled off with bad grace.  

Let's just say that, as a whole, Friday was not my best day as a parent, a husband, or, really, a human.

Later, after I've settled, the kids have napped in the car, and I've been able to listen to 2 hours of easy going Donald Fagen, I manage to calm down to the point where I am sort of an average parent and husband.  At this point, we're still in Arizona, and Lotus says, "Mommy, there's a lizard in the car."

"What?"

"A lizard, in the car, on Tesla's chair."

Ladybug checks it out in the rear view.  "No, sweetie that's just a leaf, see it's . . . oh, it's moving, it is a lizard!"

So, we have a hitchhiker.  I tried to catch and release it in Yuma, but no dice, it escaped my grip (thankfully with tail intact), and hid.  We told Lotus not to mention any lizards at the California border check.  She keeps mum, but with a huge grin on her face.  As we get closer to San Diego, the lizard makes another appearance, again on Tesla's chair.  She's asleep, thankfully, so she doesn't notice.  I don't know whether she'd be afraid of it, or try to eat it, but I don't really want to find out.

As we pull up to the hotel, we make a discovery.  It's the same one that Marriott sent us to after they screwed up our reservation back in 2006 when we went to Ladybug's cousin's wedding.  How serendipitous.  What's more, as we're pulling in, our friends arrive right behind us.  Their flight was delayed, so, again, serendipity smiles upon us.  I manage to catch the lizard, and it scurries into the undergrowth, probably to die, as the temperature was so much cooler.  I'm sad about that, but at least it had more of a chance than starving to death, hermetically sealed in the car.  We get checked in, and unpacked, and I rearrange our room for better access for the kids to play.  I set up our little portable DVD player, after much trial and error with every connector cord I can find, and manage to put Winnie the Pooh on the bigger screen for Lotus and Portia to enjoy.  Our friends note that the rooms are really big.  Ladybug and I share a Look, because, frankly, the rooms, even though they are one bedroom suites, are cramped compared to what we get at our Hilton timeshare.  Clearly, we're spoiled beyond salvation.

We order in from Papa John's that first night, because we're too out of it to manage the four kids at a restaurant.  Otto and I go out to get some groceries at the local Von's, and we call it a night.

Next day, we get up, get our breakfast and go to the San Diego Zoo.  I miss a turn and the GPS routes us around a bit before getting us to the Zoo.  This will be important later.  We take all the rides we can, and look at lots of various animals, and generally have a good time as a large family group.  Lots of fun, as the San Diego Zoo is known to be.  Tesla gets a panda toy, Lotus chooses a unicorn which we later discovers plays most of Somewhere Over The Rainbow in a register clearly meant to annoy any adult in a 4 mile radius.  Unfortunately, we didn't discover that it made noise until it was too late.  We make our way home in the afternoon, and decide to order in from Pick Up Stix and eat downstairs in the lounge.  Pretty neat, really.

Sunday, we get ourselves up and out to Seaport Village, as planned.  We take the Seal tour, always a blast.  Lotus and Portia spend the time hiding under a blanket, playing hide and seek, so they miss some stuff, but they have a good time anyway.  Tesla becomes very Mommy-attached and refuses to sit on Daddy.  A little lunch, a little shopping, and back we go again to the hotel.  We watch Chicken Run on the little DVD, and then I decide to take the kids swimming.  Yes, in March.  The pool is sort of heated, but the hot tub is preferred.  Lotus and Tesla enjoy the warm little pool and then we go back up to get dinner together.  We get some stuff in from Von's and have a little smörgåsbord in the room.  We decide, since we were cheated out of our Friday, and the house is clean due to Ladybug's insomnia Thursday night, to stay Monday for a while and go to Legoland.

As we were driving up to Legoland, real life intruded.  Work called.  Someone forgot I was out.  Again, I did little to hide my annoyance.  Damn them.  I have no plans for forgiveness.  I've given over a lot of my life to this project lately.  I get two days (really, four, considering the number of times I've been called on the weekend) off without calls, please, thank you.

We had written off Legoland the last time we were there, because it seemed a little too boring for the adults and not all that interesting to Lotus, who was almost three at the time.  At the age of almost 5, though, she loved it.  She drove the little cars all by herself, and enjoyed walking around looking at things.  Telsa was annoyed, however, that at the age of almost 2, there was nothing she could do by herself like Big Sister did.  In the end, it's not a total waste of time, like we had thought the first time.  Well, as Ladybug had thought.  I've got a serious Lego fetish, so I enjoyed it both times.

We drove home after that.  It turns out, according to the GPS, that it was shorter to drive up to I-10, rather than back down to I-8, to get back to Phoenix.  Otto was skeptical, though, because he said that it wasn't all that great at getting us to the Zoo.  At that point, I was forced to admit that the roundabout route was caused by my incompetence, rather than the GPS's mistake.

As we were driving home, Telsa named her panda.  She's never really given anything of her's a name before.  Dolls are all called, "baby," dogs are all, "woofs" and so on.  She christened her panda Hammo.  I figured it's one of the lost Marx Brothers.  She calls it Hammo when she drops it, and when we call it Hammo, she holds it up and roars at us.  I really need to get it on video.  It's too cute.

We got back late, and got the kids to bed.  I was able to enjoy an evening watching TV with the wife in relative peace, no work calls, no kids, nothing to do around the house, really.  It was, all in all, a fun weekend, and quite an adventure.

Maybe someday I'll be able to drive to California without someone trying to wreck my car and kill my family.

Took the kids to a county fair sort of thing, the Ostrich Festival out in Chandler.  The usual sort of carnival rides, greasy food booths, and generalized fun. 

Lotus decided she wanted to ride the bungee tramps.  Before you think that's something totally inappropriate for anyone much less a 4 year old, realize that it's really just a couple of bungee cords suspending the child over a trampoline which she can then bounce on.  It's a pretty neat thing.

If you're not terrified of heights, like I am.  Oh, sure, I try to fight it, to face it down, make it less of an impact, but the fact remains, I'm not comfortable with heights.

That seems to have skipped a generation, it seems.  Lotus was happy as a clam, even after a 30 minute wait, and watching other kids doing it.  She kept asking to go higher and higher, and she was, possibly, the highest kid on the ride.  The resulting adrenaline rush kept her bouncy and happy the entire way home.  It was awesome.  We managed to get some video as well.  When my new iMac gets here, maybe I'll post some.

Sometimes, I have to wonder what the big deal is about cheese making.  Every single day, I find some new cheese in the house.  Seriously, you want to make cheese?  Come to Arizona, we make cheese in our cars.  

So, yesterday, I was driving home from daycare with the kids and listening to music, rather than podcasts.  Lotus asked me to put on the song she likes.  I know from long experiece that the song she likes is Concerto For Mandolin & Strings In C Major, by Vivaldi, from the Cosmos soundtrack.  So, I put that on.

She asked me what the song was about. 

Which brings up a rather philosophical question.  What are concertos about?  To my mind, they're not really about anything.  They're more to show off the prowess of the performer, and the range and versatility of the instrument in question.  Feel free to debate me on that score, I'm no music major, I just played French Horn for 12 years. 

But, for Lotus, songs are pretty much about something.  I'd blame MTV, except that (a) we never watch MTV and (b) MTV doesn't really have music on it any more anyway.  So, I told her that I didn't really know, but I always was in mind of a roost of chickens sort of pecking about having a good time.  Most plucky string music puts me in mind of chickens.  Don't ask.  Maybe I just have a thing for chickens.

She said it wasn't about chickens.  OK, I said, what do you think it's about?  Her answer was surprising, in the way that kid's answers can sometimes be.

She said it was about a house.  In New York.  A big house.  With a chimney.  And it had flowers all around it, and statues of horses, and big rooms.  And the chimney had flowers on it, too.  "Like they were planted in the chimney?" I asked.  No, like someone got on the roof and put them there, on the chimney. 

Wow.

Now, I have to see this house.  Just as she sees it.  I wish with all my heart that she pursues her artistic leanings and some day can draw me a picture of that house which will be so incredible I'll feel like I've lived in it all my life or something.

But I also know that tomorrow, the song will mean something else to her.  She made up lyrics to it once, she said it was about getting ready in the morning, and the lyrics, which were funny to her, and hilarious to her little sister, were essentially, "Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, have some breakfast, let's get dressed now."  Sort of a tragic commentary about her life so far.  It made me want to quit my job and be a stay at home Dad.  She thought it was fun.  No accounting for taste I guess.

Good music?  You bet.

Well, it seemed to be getting better, it really did.  Then, yesterday, she spiked a fever.  I think I will need to request to stay home from work for a week and work from home so the little one can get her diseases under control.  We're not sure what caused the fever, it could have been a reaction to the extreme amount of meds she's getting, or the infection staging a comeback, or, hell, something she picked up at daycare.  In order to assist in recovery, it just makes sense for her to be kept out of school, if only to eliminate variables.

I expect my company will agree to it, because the alternative is that I stay home anyway, calling in every day to say I won't be in because my kid is sick, again.  I have the time off, so there's not a lot they can do to stop me.  And if I have to go that route, they can be assured that I won't be doing any work at all during that time.  Some work is better than none, right?

Well, we reached a new milestone in parenting over the weekend.  Ladybug has now officially used the "when I was growing up" meme with our kids. 

Lotus was watching Word World on Saturday morning, and wanted to get a fork for her waffles.  She asked Mom to pause it so she wouldn't miss anything.  And Mom said, "When I was growing up, we just had to miss a minute of the show when we wanted to get something."  To which I added, "And we had to walk uphill both ways in a blizzard to get to the kitchen from our tiny, tiny livingrooms with nothing more than an old timey radio to listen to.  And waffles!  In our day, it was pancakes, and you had to make them from scratch, grinding the wheat into flour, and cooking over an open fire in the back yard, and you'd miss Amos and Andy as well!  And forget about syrup unless you had a maple tree, it was all hand churned butter, and we had to walk 80 miles to our neighbor to get it!"

At which point, Ladybug was finally able to corner me and kick me in the shins.