One More Shot

Every night our eldest tests our wits and wisdom during bath time.

“Tell me a story”, she demands.  And in our minds, my wife and I think “Crap.”  It’s really hard to think of a story on the spot.  Granted, it only has to be entertaining for a small child so the plotline doesn’t have to be that extensive.  Thank goodness for that.

In any case, we often draw from the world and events that surround us.  Currently the Southeast is being buried by very sizable amount of snow and ice, even by Wisconsin standards.

When my daughter demanded a story tonight, I started by telling her that far far away to the south of us there was a city, and the city was named Atlanta.

“And it was filled with villians.” She declared.

Sorry Atlanta, I had to roll with it.

Well, 2010 has ended and so has my Project 365 that started on January 1st of 2010.

How did I do?

I didn’t quite make it.  I came closer than I thought I would, though.  I closed my set for 2010 with 291 photographs, leaving me only about 74 short.  I had feared that I would end up quitting after only a few months (or possibly weeks).

I’ve just spent the last 40 minutes going mano-a-mano with a three year old.  I am not proud of this.

Tonight’s battle was kicked off by milk, and the drinking thereof just before bed time.  We’d already bathed and brushed, and were in the middle of flossing when she asked me for a “little sip of milk” prior to bed.

I told her no, she could have some water.

That answer did not please her, and she launched a massive tantrum that started with milk then morphed into how she wasn’t done flossing (she’d been working on it for 10 minutes) followed by her not wanting to go to bed.

The worst (and sometimes funniest part) is when she gets declarative.  For example, I told her in no uncertain terms that she was to go to her room and get into her bed.

“No!”  she shot back.  ”I’m going to go into the bathroom, I’m going to floss my teeth.  Then I’m going to go downstairs and I’m going to have a little sip of milk!”

She’s three, ladies and gentlemen.  I’ve got 15 more years before she’s an adult.  The plan now is to start a pool as to when I’m going to lose my last grey hair.

This morning while I was working in my office, I overheard the following coming from the dining room:

Wife:  So, what should we get Daddy for Christmas?

Eldest:  Let’s get Daddy a new Computer!

Me:  ALRIGHT!

Wife:  Well now he’s heard what we were planning so we can’t get one.

Me: ….

I woke up this morning to my alarm and stared unseeing at the ceiling.  My mind was preparing itself for the day, first by remembering who I was, then why I was here.  The cry of my youngest waking from her own slumber and demanding sustenance added some speed to the whole process.

As I changed her diaper, a second cylinder began to fire.  ”Wait a minute…it’s Sunday.  I don’t have to work today.  Crap.   Why was my alarm set?”

I’m tired.  My wife is tired.  My children are tired.  Well, the eldest is.  My eldest child spent Friday evening being very vigorously and copiously sick, usually all over one of us.  Saturday she slept all day.  I think she was awake for about three hours.  The illness seems to have spared the younger, but not necessarily my wife.  She started feeling off last night.   We’ll see how that progresses.

Why am I tired?   Well, my snowthrower broke down yesterday after doing about an eighth of the driveway.  So I had to finish out 100+ feet of driveway and sidewalk by hand and shovel.

I’m starting to think that it’s going to be a long winter.

“Loser!”

When I heard the word, I almost tripped over my own two feet.   Given the rate at which I was travelling as well as my proximity to the tree that we had set up as the end goal, a tumble would have dire implications for my general well being.

“Loser?”  Was that the word that had so gleefully poured out of my daughter’s mouth just a second ago?  Had she, having barely exceeded the half-way point to four years of age, been so influenced by her friends, family, and culture in general that she would mock me so viciously?

It was unfair!  This is my little girl!  She’s too young, too fresh, too innocent to resort to the proclivities of early childhood tauntings!

Especially as I had clearly beaten her to the soccer ball and then to the goal.  I mean, come on!  She was like 10 feet behind me.

Loser indeed!

The full sized view is available on my flickr feed.

It’s quiet in the house.  Somehow we managed to get both children down for a nap within the same window of time.  My wife is sitting in her glider working on one of her oft-started and sometimes finished projects (this one’s a blanket!).  The dog is sprawled out on the ground occupying three times the area that he should physically be able to.

And I’m sitting here, on the couch, wondering what I should put off next.

Relatively recently a friend of mine got married out in California.    Regrettably my wife and I were not able to go, but I did the Right Thing and sent a lovely, heartfelt gift and wished them all the best in the world.

As Good Manners dictates, my friend sent back an equally lovely and hand-written note thanking me for the gift and lamenting that we were not able to attend.

And then I was chided on the lack of updates on my blog.  And that’s the point where I realized that maybe it’s been  a while since I’ve really updated the site.

I maintain a great many excuses why I avoid pulling up the administrative page of the website and pound out a few words of wisdom.   Lack of Time.  Aching Wrists.  Constant interruptions by people smaller than myself asking me to do things for them.  (That last category is good for both my children and my wife)

But really it comes down to Lack of Inspiration.

“But how could that be?  You have two small children.  Surely they have a great many foibles and exploits to write about.  Amuse us with stories!”

This is true.  My daughters are greatly amusing.  However, I worry.   I worry that the Internet never forgets.  I worry that someday they might find the things that I have written about them.  And then they will proceed to make my life a living Hell in retribution.

Of course, given that my girls are my life that leaves me with a great absence of things to write about.

But I think I shall try to write more.   Maybe.  If the mood takes me.

In the meantime, I am updating my photostream on flickr with the pictures I’m trying to take a daily basis.   Of course at this point my Project 365 is going to look like a Project 300.   But I’m trying.

I have a message for all of my fellow Wisconsinites….

Stop…being…dumb.

Hmmmm….that’s a very broad statement.  I could be referring to any number of things that people are being dumb about right now.   Perhaps something Political.  Or Religious.  Or Scientific.   Any number of things.  I should narrow my statement.

Dear People of Wisconsin,

Phone numbers have area codes.  Stop being dumb.

Let me elaborate.

Over the past few days, my family has received several dozen phone calls and voicemails from various confused residents of our green and verdant state.  All of them claim to have received a call from our number.  The mystery caller apparently hung up right away or left a blank/garbled message.  People would then call us demanding to know who had called them and why.  For days my only answer to those callers (some of whom were QUITE upset) was to promise them that absolutely no one in my house had called them.  It was hugely frustrating for all involved.

At first I thought it was a problem with Google Voice.  We’d made the decision a few months ago to take full advantage of the Google Voice and the relative permanence it offers.   Plus we got a kick-butt phone number.  It’s not a service without flaws however, and I believed that we were all suffering from a computer glitch.  Or perhaps even a malicious hacker.

Then I got a phone call on my cell phone that both enlightened me about the problem and just how dumb people can be all at the same time.

The call came from a number that for all intents and purposes was almost identical to my Google Voice Number…except for the area code.   The area code in question (352) corresponds with one in Florida.   And it turns out that on the other end of the phone was a very pleasant and very foreign person trying to sell me some sort of crap product or another.

So all of these people in the 608 area code who were seeing mystery calls on their caller id are calling OUR phone number.

After I figured this out, I actually asked one of the people calling me what number had shown up on their caller id.  Perhaps they had something set on their phones that did not show the area code.

Nope.  The guy who called us actually had the full phone number on his caller id, including area code.   “I didn’t recognize the area code.”  he told us.  So he just dialed without it.

What…the…fudge?

Wisconsinites….if you see an area code tacked onto the front of the number showing up in your caller id, DO NOT ASSUME YOU CAN IGNORE IT.  It’s there for a reason.  Some damn salesperson in Florida is trying to sell you a home security system.  Not me.

Stop.  being.  Dumb.