The Big 0-5

It's the girl's birthday today.  I figured I'd let her create her own lunch menu.

mEmoRies...

Because the best childhood memories come with medical bills.

Note To Self #4

The Girl:  What you doing Daddy?

Me:  The dishes.

The Girl:  You need help?

Me: I'd love some help if you want to.

The Girl:  I not want to.  Bye-bye.

Note to Self:  Never give the kids options.  It leaves an easy out.

 To be fair, she had a makeover she needed to attend.

Safety First

A parent can never be too careful when it comes to baby-proofing the house.  There are dangerous obstacles everywhere you turn.  That coffee table with your hipster photography book on it sitting over there?  A new baby learning how to walk is the perfect height for catastrophe.  One failed footstep and your baby is blind.

For the rest of her life!

  She's upset just thinking about it.

Do you want that to happen?  I didn't think so.  Those electrical outlets?  Better plug 'em up quick, 'cause that three-pronged outlet is a one-way ticket to toddlercution.  And just because those throw pillows look soft and harmless doesn't mean they're not waiting to kill your child.  Once your child figures out how to unzip the cover, it's only a matter of time before she pulls out the stuffing and chokes on it or puts the case over her head.

You can never be too safe.

That's why we take precaution when Libby watches Netflix:

Talking Turkey and the Ham Harangue

I just came home from a trip to the grocery store--the necessity of which is a topic of much debate in this household.  My father-in-law is visiting tonight and we need something for dinner.  "I could make an appetizer (it's a kick-ass Charleston Cheese Dip) and we could have sandwiches", I told my wife.  "Do we have good lunch meat?", she asked.

This question drives me crazy.

What does 'good' mean?  Who's definition of good?

I went grocery shopping yesterday, but apparently, the lunch meat in our fridge is not good enough for the family to dine on.  Our son can brown bag it five days a week, but when the father-in-law, who visits once a month, stops by I'm supposed to roll out the red carpet of cold cuts?  Don't get me wrong, I get along with my father-in-law, I just don't see the need to buy "good" lunch meat when we have lunch meat that's "good enough for our son to eat every day at  school" already in our fridge.

I tell her the lunch meat is fine and then she looks at me like I'm evil.

"What about bread?", she asks?  "Yes, we have bread".  "No, I mean like kaiser rolls or hoagies."

It's at this point that I feel my wife forgets the state I was in when she first met me.  I was a young bachelor (sexy, I might add) living with his best friend...and his friend's girlfriend...and another friend on occasion...and sometimes whoever might pass out on our couch--all this in a one bedroom apartment.

We didn't have money for "good" lunch meat.   Most of our paychecks went to beer.  I'm not talking about the "good" imported beer either.  I'm talking about 7-dollars for a thirty pack kind of beer.  That left us enough money to buy a couple packages of Budding lunch meat and the occasional treat--a QuickTrip sandwich.

  Because nothing helps that 23-cent can of beer go down like a 59-cent package of turkey.

Background really puts things into perspective.  I feel like I'm throwing money away buying Hillshire Farm's or Sara Lee's meat at 6-dollars a pound.  Now she wants me to go to Schnuck's and pay 10-dollars a pound for some "good" lunch meat.  It's all the same to me, but I'll do it for her.  Besides, I can pick up a six-pack of the "good" beer while I'm there.

How To Wake Up A Princess

Getting out of bed on Sunday mornings is hard.  Getting Leah out of bed on Sundays is even harder.

Now that I run the sound system at church on Sundays, I have to be there by 8 o'clock.  This is a huge change from our previous routine which landed us in town about five minutes before church started.  There has been more than one occasion in which we've had to sneak in through the back and quietly slip in to our seats. Quietly slipping isn't so easy when you're dragging along two girls in Sunday dresses that swish and swoosh with every footstep and a boy with the energy of a Chihuahua on Red Bull.

Last Sunday it was about 7:40 and everybody was up and ready to go.  Everybody except Leah.  She's like her Daddy.  We're not morning people.

So I go in to her room and try to wake her up.  "Leah, it's time to wake up.  Leah.  It's time for church.   Let's wake up Leah.  Time to get dressed."  Her response was less than enthusiastic:

It's at this point that I remember how much I hated when my Mom would wake me up whether it be for school or church.  She'd pop her head in the door and say, "Pooh Bear, it's time to wake up Pooh Bear."  God, how I hated that.  To this day, I despise all things Winnie the Pooh and I can appreciate Eeyore's suicidal tendencies.  But my hatred of hearing that each morning is where the genius lies.

The sooner I woke up, the sooner she'd stop saying "Pooh Bear" in that annoying, drawn-out tone.  I shudder just thinking about it.

Then I realized, despite her annoying methods, maybe Mom could help me rouse Leah from her sleep.  We sit next to Grandma every week at church.  It's a fun-filled hour that's full of coloring, stickers, and little baggies of Goldfish crackers for each kid.  Grandma is a big hit on Sunday mornings.  I try again.

"Leah, do you want to go see Grandma?"