Monday, September 30, 2013

When was the last time you saw an altar railing turned into a ballet barre?

I suppose every parent gets the opportunity to helplessly watch and cringe while their child performs in front of an audience. Yesterday I got mine.

A few days ago we found out that Char's Sunday School Choir would be singing "Peace Like a River" at the front of the church this weekend. Because we've been so busy moving, this was only going to be Charlotte's second week with her Sunday School class. Since she takes awhile to warm up to new situations, I'll have to admit I was a bit worried.

I was guessing this would go one of three ways:

1. Char would refuse to enter the church with her choir, and she's have a tearful breakdown in the narthex.
2. Char would see us in the audience, and she'd run from the choir to the safety of our pew.
3. Char would belt out the lyrics like she does when she's practicing at home with mom.

But none of those scenarios took place. Charlotte had other plans. These plans included dancing, "twisting my dress like a hula hoop!" and showing off her ballet moves at the end of the song.

I'd tell you which one is my girl, but I think you'll be able to pick her out.


Oh, man. That's quite a finish. 

Every time that dress flipped, so did my stomach, but Daphne and I were also laughing hard. 

Makes me fearful fr the Christmas program, though. 

Thursday, September 26, 2013

That Stings a Little

I worked for my brother-in-law's moving company, Mini Movers, during my last two years of college. Besides building up my shoulders, arms, and back muscles, I had a lot of fun, and I saw some crazy stuff. Trust me, when you help someone move the entire contents of their home, you see things they would never show their best friends. My that in mind, I was really happy that the guys from Two Men and a Truck saw my stuff when they helped us move last weekend.

You see, Daphne doesn't share my opinion of what's cool, and when I excitedly share my treasures from a day of hitting garage sales and/or thrift stores, she doesn't show much excitement. "Mmm hmm," is about all she'll say while she bites her lower lip. That can be a bit of a downer.

Here's a good example. Awhile ago I came home with this bike. It's a late 60's Schwinn Stingray Fastback with a 5 speed shifter, and it's also the bike I wished I could have had when I was a kid. That shifter is boss. 





Check out the bicycle license stickers. Local history rules. 



Somewhere in our new garage I have the front chrome fender, the correct banana seat, and a nice seat post, too. 

When I first showed the Fastback to Daphne, she asked, "Did you buy a bicycle?"
"It's a Stingray! Do you know how hard it is to find one of these out in the wild?"
"Isn't that a kid's bike?"
"Well, yeah. But it's about the coolest kid's bike in the world."
"What are you going to do with a kid's bike?"
I told her I was going to strip it, clean every part, replace whatever was worn out, reassemble all the parts, and then polish the Fastback like nobody's business.
"Are you going to ride it?"
"Probably not, but it's gonna be so cool!"
"Mmm hmm."

Daphne just doesn't understand retro cool. Luckily, the movers did. I wasn't there when the guys unloaded my bike from the moving truck, but one of them propped the Stingray on its kickstand, and the rest of the crew gathered around it take in its awesomeness. 

Daph later told me, "They all thought it was a great bike, Brent. Several of the guys continued to talk about it while they were loading boxes into our garage. I told them I was relieved because when you bring things like this home, I just don't get it. They really liked the Bug and your skateboards, too."

I suppose I could be frustrated because it took a group of strange men to convince my wife of ten years that I have good taste, but I'll just take it as permission to go back to Goodwill.

similar bike link

Monday, September 23, 2013

Welcome to the Neighborhood! (sans sarcasm)

Although we didn’t have any of our own, the backyard of our last house was surrounded by massive trees, which liked to drop their huge branches on our side of the fence whenever the wind blew. And I also suspect that some of those large branches were manually placed in our yard while I was away at work. In ten years the neighbor that lives directly behind our house has never waved or even looked me in the eye.

Maybe that's why I hated those trees. Clearing the yard after storms felt like doing community service.

With that in mind, I was very surprised to see this scene when I got home from work on Friday:


The fallen tree was gone! You couldn't even see any wood chips. All that was left to mark the tree's existence was the empty ring of landscaping bricks. The branches in our back yard were missing, too. How did that happen? I know Daphne called five different tree services to get their estimates, but the 70 mph winds had left them all backed up with work. One company would spend their whole weekend working full time on just one street in Urbandale.

There wasn't a note left on our door to explain what happened to the tree, and there weren't any messages on our answering machine, either. Still, mystery or not, I was almost giddy. A whole tree blew into our yard, and we didn't have to lift a finger to clean up the mess?

Turns out, our new neighbor was responsible. She got home around midnight on Thursday evening, so it was too late to knock on our door. We left for school before she could catch us on Friday morning, so she couldn't tell us that she had called in a favor, and the tree would be gone by noon.

She told us "I called my insurance guy, and boy did he p.ss me off. He said the tree was an "act of God", and since it was in your yard, I didn't have to worry about it. I told him, 'It's MY tree! They just moved in five days ago. I can't drop a tree on them!'" She wouldn't even split the cost of the tree removal with us.

That wouldn't have happened in our old neighborhood. A tree may have fallen down, but things are looking up.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Sharing is Caring

Look how nice our neighbor is. We don't have any big trees on our new property, so when the storm hit yesterday, they made sure their tree landed in our front yard. Since possession is nine tenths of the law, we get to take care of it and the car length branches their other tree dropped in our back yard.

Welcome to the neighborhood...



Actually, the tree missed our house, and no one was hurt, so I should be relieved.

I think we'll just call a tree service, and get in line. I can't find the box with the saws in it anyway.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Ariel was kind of a hoarder, too.

I haven't posted in a week because we have been busy emptying our house into boxes and filling what is now our no-car garage. The Monsons are on the move.


Here's the view from the inside of our garage:


These boxes hold about 80% of our belongings. You wouldn't believe all the things that can fit inside a box*:


But unlike my daughter, none of my stuff is priceless. In fact, if they ever do invent a time machine, then I'm going to go back in time and punch myself for keeping so much crap.

Walking around this garage makes me think of a Disney song**:

Look at this bike, missing its seat 
Here's a size small shirt from my state track meet. 
Wouldn't you think I'm the guy
The guy who saved everything?

Look, a snack can, 20 years old
How many wonders can one garage hold?
Lookin' around here you'd think
Sh.t, he saved everything

I've got car doors and Game Boys aplenty
I've got cassettes and 8-tracks galore
You want Fog Hat records? I got twenty
But who cares?
No big deal
My back's so sore...






***

* No child was harmed in the creation this post.
** My apologies go out to Howard Ashman, lyricist for "Part of Your World" (The Little Mermaid - 1989)
*** How did I get two Grease soundtracks on 8-track?

Links:
Part of Your World
Ariel's number five

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

In It For The Long Haul

Last Christmas season, I overheard two men talking while we were standing in a busy check out line at the mall.  One guy was telling a story about his youngest son, and when he got to the story's punchline, the other man smugly remarked, "Yeah. I remember going through that when I was a dad." 

I know that crowded malls can play tricks on your ears, and I easily could have misheard what was said. It's happened before. For years I thought Elton John's lyrics to "Bennie and the Jets" were she has electric boobs, her mom does too, but they were really, she's got electric boots, a mohair suit.  

Body parts aside, let's say I'm right and his words really were "when I was a dad", because I want to disagree with that guy.

Let's begin with vocabulary. Fathering a child and being a dad are completely different things. "Fathering" just means you were right there when this ball started rolling. Being a "dad" means you are always there - no matter where the ball rolls. Biology doesn't matter; it's all about the lines. The lines on a pregnancy test and the lines on the adoption papers mean the same to me.

This past summer I was asked what aspect of becoming a parent was the most unexpected? My honest answer was, "It's not going to end."

I wasn't complaining about the sleepless nights all new parents experience, and I wasn't pointing out how Charlotte currently needs constant supervision when she's not sleeping. I was talking about the emotional state of being a dad.

When Daphne was pregnant with Charlotte, I was told about a blood test the doctors could give that would let us know if our child had Down's syndrome. When researching it, I read that some people want the test so they have the option of terminating their pregnancy. We wanted nothing to do with that because we knew the test's results wouldn't matter. Nobody was going to hurt our little girl. But that didn't stop me from worrying about her health.

We were trying to sell our home when Daphne was pregnant, and we bought a St. Joseph Home Seller Statue Kit.


After burying the statue upside-down in your yard, there is a prayer you can recite. I don't remember every word in the prayer, but I remember changing the ending. Instead of "... help us sell our home." I secretly prayed, "... please let our baby be born healthy."

We didn't sell our house, but Charlotte arrived with everything intact, and I still thank St. Joesph and God for that.

As my daughter grows she is going to be less and less dependent on me for her survival, but that doesn't mean I'll care or worry less. If anything, letting her out of my sights will make me even more nervous because I'll have less control. Being a dad isn't something you shut off like a water faucet. It's a stream that's flowing into a river, which is headed for the ocean.

I'm reminded of Jason Robards' speech to Steve Martin in the 1989 movie Parenthood. He's explaining to his son how parents never stop worrying about their children, "It's not like that all ends when you turn 18, or 21, or 41, or 61. It never, ever ends… There is no end zone. You never cross the goal lines, spike the ball, and do your touchdown dance. Never. I'm 64 and Larry's 27, and he's still my son."

Age has nothing to do with parenting; you can't out grow being a parent.

At the moment you first see your child, they are permanently etched into your memory as "your little one". And the moment your little one is able to recognize your face as a "Daddy" or a "Mommy", that's the title you will always hold in their mind. There's no going back; you're both joined forever. How many times have you heard of an adult in a stressful situation later confess, "At that point, I just wanted my mom"?

While driving Daphne's grandfather home after visiting his daughter on the oncology floor, he told us you couldn't throw a stick in the senior center where he eats lunch without hitting a widow, but only a handful had ever buried one of their own. "And you're never the same after that..." he tearfully confided. Although Howard is 83 and Debbie was 57, he was openly weeping over the idea that he was losing his little girl.

After the passing of my mother-in-law, I'm not sure death can stop you from being a parent, either. Deb was so disgusted with what cancer had done to her body. She'd gesture sourly with her open hands at herself and tell Daphne, "When this is done, you know I'll be able to help you more than I can now." I don't believe she was kidding. And I'd have to say things have been working out for us lately that don't feel like coincidences. They feel like someone is silently giving us help.


Let's get back to that guy at the mall. I know he'll never read this, but I want to tell him something. You think you were once a dad, but now you're not one?  Then you. were. never. a. dad.

Dads (and Moms) are in it for the long haul.

If you're not a parent, you might think I'm being harsh. But, again, it's all about lines. If you haven't crossed that line that separates a life dedicated to yourself to a life that's dedicated to another, then I can't make you understand my view.

When Mo Rocca interviewed Martin Sheen for Sunday Morning two years ago, he asked what was it like being a father while watching all the problems his son Charlie was having playing out in public. In response, Martin asked Moe a question.
"Are you a father?"
"No," Moe answered.
"You're not? Ah, well, then you can't know. No one can."

Links:
Parenthood, BennieMartin

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Bueller... Bueller... Bueller?

I spotted this at Target. I don't like what the art department did to Matthew Broderick's face.


What's up with his eyes? He looks like a fawn.

Fun fact: The actor who played Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Alan Ruck, was thirty years old at the time.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Oh, The Weather Outside is Frightful

After finding this plate at my mother-in-law's house, I'll have to put Christmas elves right below amateur clown paintings on my list of "Unintentionally Creepy Art":


Let's zoom in:


I can't tell you what's in those packages, but I'm pretty sure you don't want them under your Christmas tree. They'd probably start leaking blood from one corner.

I was disappointed that today is going to be a record setting 100 degrees, but now I'll welcome the heat. Brrrrr...

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Friday, September 6, 2013

Busted

I have a confession to make. It's not an easy admission, but here it goes. [takes big breath... exhales heavily]

Sometimes I'm a lazy dad.

There! I finally said it. I don't feel particularly better about this problem, but I hope to start my road to recovery with this first step.

Let me explain. Daphne does a great job of providing Charlotte with enrichment activities when Char has free time at home. Got 15 minutes to kill before bath time? Mom and Char play with Brain Quest cards.


Want to play with crayons? Why not sit with mom and work on your eye-hand coordination and color recognition at the same time?


Please don't get the idea that my wife is a taskmaster. Charlotte relishes these activities, and she requests to do them. In fact, the only time Char gets mad about reading books is when it's time to put them away. Her free time with mom is fun and educational.

Free time with dad is a little different. When it's just Char and I we... watch TV. [hangs head]

We don't watch television all the time, please, that would be ridiculous. Sometimes we... watch the computer.  [hangs ahead again, but with a smirk]

As an English teacher, you think I'd recognize the importance of reading as much as possible as soon as possible. But there I am on the couch, lying on my side with my daughter tucked behind my knees, watching Bubble Guppies. Or Mike the Knight. Or Team Umizoomi. Or our newest addiction, Peppa Pig:


I'm such a parental bum. Check out how many Peppa Pig episodes I have stored on our DVR:


Sometimes when I get bored after reading the same book to her for the fifth time in a row, I'll whistle a handful of notes from the Peppa Pig theme song to see if Char will take the bait. She usually does, "Hey, Dad? Can we go watch Peppa Pig?"
"Well," I'll slowly say while tossing the book to the floor, "We've been watching that a lot lately, but I suppose so."

Sad. Truly sad. But we're behind closed doors, so who's to know how I parent? We could watch 500 episodes of Peppa, and no one would be the wiser. Would they?

Well, Peppa Pig is a British television show, and the characters speak with an accent. It didn't occur to me that Charlotte is still deep in her speech acquisition mode until she casually told us while we were in the car, "Dad, my bear is such a cheeky rascal!" And her British accent was spot on. 

Not my proudest moment as a dad. 

No, Charlotte doesn't sound like she's a cast member of Downton Abbey, but she does randomly sprinkle her sentences with the sounds from across the pond: "Da dee? Can I come ta-ooo?" That's when I wince, Daphne shoots me a look, and Char and I go to her pink room to read ten books as penance. 

So, have I learned my lesson? Will I grab math flash cards instead of the cable box remote when Daphne leaves us at home alone? Not blooming likely. Paw Patrol just started their new season, and those dogs are all American!

[link]

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Yep, That's My Kid

We took Charlotte in to get her three-year-old portraits taken last weekend.

Some of her poses looked really good.


Others looked like me.


Honestly, I'm proud of both.

Monday, September 2, 2013