bedtime on thursday night

DSCF0525
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

Just puttin' the kids to bed. Nothing out of the ordinary. The dog is in bed with Anna. PJ takes 45 minutes to brush his teeth, and then spends an equal amount of time on the john. Sam, meanwhile, feels unhappy and cheated by the whole process, though he is at a loss to explain exactly why.

bedtime on thursday night

DSCF0522
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

bedtime on thursday night

DSCF0523
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

from the archive

DCP_0242
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

Anna, in front of the Glens Falls, NY Public Library, a couple of months before PJ was born.

Anna has a slumber party

DSCF0514
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

This was last Friday. Anna invested much planning, preparation, and active campaigning in the execution of her party for her and her friends. Here they are putting there hands into a bowl of something icky. I think originally you were supposed to be wearing blindfolds, and you were supposed to guess what it was. So one thing was grapes, and you would think they were eyeballs and so forth. Instead, they just put all of this icky stuff on there hands and just jumped and danced around, making LOTS of noise all of the while. This went on for quite some time. Kids find the strangest things entertaining.

Home Alone

I am enjoying a quiet home for the next few days, which is awesome because it gives me a chance to catch up on all of my various projects around the house, like watching awful movies like Turistas and playing Online Poker.  Single guy stuff like eating tuna right out of the can (everybody does that, right?).  I am sure there is a bunch of stuff that needs to be cleaned, fixed or whatever but it will wait.  Its eerie when the house is quiet like this.  It is in one way awesome, but in another its sort of depressing.  I spend so much time complaining about the commotion around here, but when it is gone I miss it. 

Psychodoggy continued

As of this morning, my comment, about how I should be grateful she didn’t get into the milk, no longer applies. Dana grabbed a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from a carelessly unlocked pantry this morning, brought it into her downstairs bed. She also grabbed a Nestle Chocolate Milk box from the same shelf (!!!), spilling chocolate mile onto her bed, and over the cereal and the carpet in foyer. Miraculously, when questioned about the incident, Dana had no recollection of any of the events and denied all accountability. But she did lick my face. Repeatedly.

Psychodoggy

Our dog Dana is appearing to have a split personality. Most of the time she is your normal dog; happy, lazy, friendly. When we first got her I used to joke that she was a little lacking in the brains department. Maybe she heard me.

First off, Dana is extremely friendly. When kids come over to the house I tell them I tell them that Dana is an attack dog and they all laugh at me. She has never bitten anyone, is extremely affectionate, and if no is generally very needy of affection. She also is a little timid. She sleeps in Anna's bed, but sometimes will hide under Anna's bed during the night. This is pretty funny because Dana weighs probably 80 pounds, and can barely fit under her bed. When I wake up Anna in the morning, I hear the "thump-thump-thump" of Dana's tale, as she squirms out from her hiding place that is only barely larger than her torso.

But Dana has a dark side. She's kind of like Batman. Well not really. Maybe if Batman was a dog and really liked cereal. When no one is around to watch, she likes to get into things and chew stuff up. Last night, for example, she went downstairs, got into the pantry, got an opened box of Lucky Charms off of the shelf and brought it up to Anna's room. As if that wasn't enough, she also brought a roll of paper towels still in the plastic wrapping. Then she opened the box of Lucky Charms while up in Anna's room, and chewed up the paper towels. I guess I should be grateful, if she had gotten the milk there could have been a real mess.

Another time Dana was left at home by herself. She went upstairs and into Kathleen's office, and opened the closet door, and retrieved a skein of yarn. She then took the yarn downstairs, and only then began to methodically chew it up into pieces. What I found interesting is that I am not sure how Dana knew the yarn was there. I mean, did she methodically go through all of the closets upstairs until the she found the yarn and then say, "yeah, yarn, I can work with that" to herself and take it downstairs? On occasion I have been known to wake up and go downstairs to the kitchen and have a midnight snack. Dana usually wakes up and comes down to join me, but not until I either open the refrigerator or pantry door. I can be knocking around for half an hour, but when that fridge door opens, I can here the strange waddling noise as she un-squeezes herself from under Anna's bed. So I half to revise my original assessment of Dana, that maybe she isn't lacking in the brains department. She just chooses to appear a little simple, at
least until you're not looking. I can live with that.

Note from the grounding - Part 2

DSCF0490
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

And this is what I wrote on the other side.

"I love you forever,
I'll like you for allways,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be.
--Dad"

Which is of course taken directly from the book "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch, My kids call it the book that makes dad cry.

Note from the grounding - Part 1

DSCF0489
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

A couple of weeks back Anna was behaving horribly and so was grounded for all of Sunday. When she is grounded she likes to throw notes down over the stairway. This one reads:


"How much time left? Can I have 2 batteries and a light? Can I have my my tape box?
Hate,
Anna

P.S. You HATE me and you know it.

P.S.S. Write on the back of this."

Anna's big Play - Willy Wonka Jr.

DSCF0479
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

Here poor Mrs. Gloop (Anna - center) is beside herself at the sight of her son turning into a chocolate covered mess.

Anna's big Play - Willy Wonka Jr.

DSCF0485
Originally uploaded by peteshaw

Here is Anna after her big night. Just behind her feather you can see poppa in the background. She played Augustus Gloop's mother in a musical adaptation of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory.

Mom is selling your shirts and should be punished!

Kathleen and Sam and I were in the car on some errand. Kathleen had
to run into the supermarket for something, so Sam and I were waiting
out in the supermarket parking lot. Sam leaned over to me
conspiratorially. "Can I tell you something." He asked.

"Yes?"

"About mom." He was still whispering.

"Yes?"

"She sold your shirts in that store." He pointed across the street to
a dry cleaner. I figured Kathleen must have dropped off some of my
shirts to be cleaned earlier that day.

"Wow, she sold my shirts?"

"Yes."

"Well, what should I do about it?"

"You should hit her in the bed with a bat!" Sam said, and he had this
weird little look in his face. To be honest it freaked me out a
little.

"I should hit her in the head with a bat?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe I should just give mom a time out."

"No, that would be mean."

"Not meaner than hitting her in the head with a bat!" I said and we
both broke out laughing. Kathleen came out of the store a few moments
later.