A New Face At Home

I let my facial hair grow my 1st day of college, thinking that it made me more grown up. I long since lost that need, but I became accustomed to that face in the mirror. Except for a couple of instances when I felt I had to shave off the 'stache and beard (and then promptly regrew it), I have had some form of this on my face since that day. At one point I felt that it was such a part of my face that I would just as soon cut off my nose as shave it off. Lately I've been shaving with a Fusion 5-blade razor instead of my Norelco electric one, and I like the closer shave. It's hard to shave around the goatee with a razor though and I was encroaching on it in ways that left it a little lopsided.

Last night after we put the kids down, I shaved it all off. There were parts of my face that had not felt a blade, or wind for that matter, for years. I shocked Becky while she was reading a book, but she really liked it. The boys however, had never seen me without it. When we woke up this morning, I showed Alex, who giggled, then hid his face in the covers for a little bit and sobbed. When I asked him later about it, he said that it was very startling for him. I sat with him and rubbed his back and talked to him until he relaxed. What really sold it for him was the opportunity to tell his brother about it. We both went in and Alex broke the news. I picked him up just as he was waking up and he made a startled noise and said, "I'm scared!" I asked why and he said, "You're different!" I explained it to him and he came around quickly. He repeated the "You're different!" refrain several times this morning and kept wanting to see my face. He didn't want to touch it at first. He asked me where my mustache went. When I told him that it went into the sink when I shaved it off, he wanted to rescue it so I won't be different anymore. Both boys have gotten used to it and Becky was sold from the beginning. I like the way it feels, so I'm going to try this for a while. It confirmed for me that it had nothing to do with who I really am. Same Daddy. Same Jason.

Celebrity Wait Night 2006

We went to a fun fundraiser for Alex's school tonight called "Celebrity Wait Night. It was a more downscaled version of last year's auction. The auction is such a big deal to pull off that they only do it every other year. Tonight we got to socialize with our friends and check a small number of auction items.
The kids all contributed some work to art projects for the auction. Alex's class decorated this apron with flowers - the petals are their thumbprints. Alex's flower is the red one in the lower right. Our prize item for the night was winning a set of tickets to a May performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by an area kids theater group. Alex wanted to go after we saw it at the Stranahan and brought home the soundtrack.

The highlight was getting waited on by our own celebrity - in this case it was Mrs. Seiberg - Alex's music teacher. She was great, so we left her a "tip" as a donation to the school.

Aaron's New Toolbench

Alex's Native American Presentation

Tonight we were entertained by Alex's Native American performance at school. The entire Primary has been working on this for weeks months. In art class they made sculptures (like the bison on Dad's Day), parflesh pouches like the one on his belt, and other drawings. In Social Studies, they learned about the tribes of several different regions and tonight they took turns reading passages describing the lives and cultures of these tribes (Alex did a great job with his).
In Music class they learned and performed several Native American songs, dances (pictured here), and games.

After showing us his artwork, and that of his classmates (and a snack with juice) we all gathered back in the Resource Center and learned a game that the kids had demonstrated earlier that night. Aaron did a good job sitting through the performances and enjoyed the game at the end. The only sad note was that Alex's teacher had been instrumental in putting this all together, but was unable to attend tonight; albeit for a good reason. She's still on maternity leave for the birth of her new son.

Another One Bites The Couch

I tried to tell him that it was loose enough to come out, but he didn't believe me until his face bounced against the couch in the basement.

Building a Butterfly House

Kids Workshop Day at Home Depot brought us out together to build a butterfly house in preparation for Spring when it finally arrives. Aaron is fully into this now, though he still needs a lot of help.
Alex still needs one of us to start his nails, but he's got no problem using a hammer to build away.

Now all we need is some warm weather and some butterflies!

Wacky Day

Alex got to dress wacky for school today. His clothes are on inside out and/or backwards and he's wearing a hat that he and Becky glued 100 stones onto for his 100th day of school this year - which of course he's wearing backwards. We had to talk him out of wearing his underwear on the outside.

Suessical The Musical

Today we went with some friends to see Seussical the Musical with the kids. It was a really neat show. They took a couple of Horton stories and combined them with a Cat in a Hat narrator and a few other side stories pulled from Theodore Geisel's children's books and set it all to music. It worked well because the books are already very lyrical.

This was also the first time that we got to see a show in the recently refurbished Valentine Theater which features this gorgeous chandelier. After the show the cast was standing in the lobby signing autographs, but the kids were too shy to approach them. We bought a couple of the kids favorite songs from iTunes tonight and we've been singing along with the chorus. Our favorite is little Aaron singing "A person's a person, no matter how small." - showing me a level of meaning from Ted's writing that I never really got before. We'll try to get it on video and post it here.

Dad's Day 2007

Today I got to go and spend the day with Alex in school. His 1st grade teacher is out on maternity leave, but his education really is spread out over 7 teachers that handle different parts of his day & week. So even with his substitute teacher filling in, I got a pretty good glimpse of what a day of school is like for him.
In the morning Alex completed his daily review which reviews reading, writing, and math skills that he should have mastered and reinforces them. He blew through them claiming, "These are so easy!" - which is the point, I suppose. We then worked on a story he was writing about a 3-inch tall friend (a ninja named Osaka) that they started after reading "The Indian in the Cupboard" in class.
A winter recess introduced me to the sledding hill. Apparently the grades take turns with the actual sleds, but that doesn't stop the sledless kids from penguin-sliding down the hill on their bellies. While I wanted to participate in Alex's day, here I just stood at the side of the hill and took pictures. I didn't want to show anyone up with my superior belly sliding skills. Yeah, that's it.
In art class the kids were given a lump of clay and instructions on how to compose a Native American art sculpture. Alex decided to try for a buffalo. Since they have big bodies and little legs, Mrs. Glover suggested that they have their buffaloes resting with their legs bent under them. Alex unsuccessfully tried to get his buffalo to stand up anyway...

He compromised by making him sitting on his back legs and standing on the front ones, as if it were getting up to charge at an unwitting foe.

I shared lunch with him and his friends (and a few other dads). I saw him in Math class and a social studies segment on Native American stories. By the end of the day he was really dragging, and I had to help redirect him to finish his work. His parent-teacher conferences are in a few weeks, so we'll talk with his teacher about how to help him out here.

Overall a great Dad's Day. I get to repeat it in 2009, but I'll be dancing between classrooms then because Aaron should be in the P-4 preschool here then.

Aaron's 3 Year Old Well Visit

Aaron saw Dr Bodi for his 3 year-old checkup today. He weighed 30.5 lbs. and was 36.5 inches tall. Developmentally, he's appropriate for he age, if not verbally advanced like his brother was. He spelled some 3 and 4 letter words for her just to show off (OK, we goaded him into it :) He got his temperature taken under the tongue for the first time. Nurse Leslee asked him to draw a picture of a person, so he drew an interesting picture of Alex.

He worried us so much when he was born because of his heart and his difficulty feeding those 1st few days. But he has become our little daredevil which is both exhilirating and worrisome at times. Dr. Bodi gave him a clean bill of health, so there's no slowing him down now.

I Am The Champion, My Friends!!!

Playing in the Big Snow

Today the temperature warmed enough that we could get out and play a little in the big Valentine's Day snow. When we shoveled the cars out that day, I went into the backyard and made this snow mound and a path to it for the kids to play on. Good thing too, because the snow had drifted high enough in places that Aaron couldn't even walk through it.
Aaron made an attempt at making a snow angel, but since he couldn't walk in the snow, he had to improvise. He stood at the edge of the track I had shoveled for him and fell back into the snow to make his design.

Alex wanted to be buried in the snow mound, so he laid on top and I shovelled even more on. He wanted me to go all the way, but I stopped here. Unfortunately, this snow wasn't sticky enough for a snowman this year, but at least we had a big snow to play in.

Snowed In On Valentine's Day

The winter blast that hit yesterday brought Toledo to a standstill overnight. The area is under a "Level 3 Snow Advisory" which means that the roads are extremely hazardous and that travel is only permitted for emergency vehicles. Of course this means that the schools were closed, but it also meant that we had to close my office as well. This provided us with an unexpected snow day, but it was too cold to get the kids out in it - may be this weekend will be better.
Estimates range from 8-10 inches of snowfall but all of the wind piled up drifts that were several feet high in places and made the roads difficult to clear during the storm.

Becky and I braved the winter weather to clear the sidewalk and driveway in front of the house. We've learned the hard way in the past that we need to dig as wide a swath around the cars as we can as soon as we can. Otherwise if we just scoop out the minimum to get the cars in, it freezes that way. Then if we get more snow, we have to move it over the ice mounds and pinball our cars into the ice canyon that becomes our driveway. It was good exercise but it wiped us out. The forecast says we'll likely get back to normal tomorrow.

Found Treasure

This little guy found a cache of nuts and dried fruit that we set out a couple of weeks ago. As far as we could tell we had no takers when it was sitting on the back porch, but this guy found it after it was covered in half a foot of snow. When he had eaten or cheek-stored his fill, he recovered the cache with more snow.

Happy 3rd Birthday Aaron!!!

Aaron woke up very excitedly this morning and came downstairs to his new workbench with working drill press and rotary saw.
We had to open presents in batches again, like Christmas. As usual, it was hard to open one and then move on to the next without playing with the one he just opened. Alex spent some of his own allowance money to buy him this Diego 123 game.

We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Aaron before he blew out the tools candles on his Lightning McQueen cake. Aaron, welcome to 3! World, Look Out!

Aaron: The Party Boy

Today we had Aaron's party at a new party place in town. Party Heroes, the same group that did the Rib Off kids' area and the fund raiser for the Perrysburg Jazz Choir, opened their own party place for kids. We tell them the kind of party or theme that we want and they take care of the details. It was nice to have less stress about the details of a party, but it was replaced by the stress of not being in control of the details. It turns out that we had nothing to worry about. They actually weren't scheduled to open until next weekend, but they made an exception for us because we booked it early and we'd been bugging them about it ever since we learned they were building this place. The new name - Heroes: The Party Place.
While all the kids arrived, they decorated a T-shirt for Aaron with fabric markers. Some drew their own pictures, some signed it, some colored in the line drawing on the shirt.
The party then moved to large inflatable "bounce-arinos" (as we call them) including a moon jump, a maze race (that's Aaron coming down the slide of one), and an even larger slide that the bigger kids tackled.

Then we moved into a group play area and played some group games - musical floor spots (think musical chairs with large plastic spots), relay races, and parachute games (above). If there were other groups here, they would be going to the inflatable area while we were here.

Next came the carnival area with kid-sized carnival games that they could play for prizes by spending tokens they received when they got here.
Then we moved to the party room which was decked out in 1970's furnishings (chosen because it was connected to the 1980's room where we had food for the adults - they also offer a 1950's room). There we had pizza they provided (very tasty) and some fruit and snack food we brought. Then the kids decorated their own cupcake and sang "Happy Birthday" to Aaron.
They made him a ballon hat and overall made him feel very special. Because of the size of our party, we were helped by 2 Party Heroes that handled everything and did a great job. To get the kids out, they offered them a free chance with one of those "claw" crane toy dispensers to augment the gift bags that they put together for us. Several of the kids there want to have their next birthday party here - including Alex - so we will certainly be back.

Sitting in Daddy's Chair

After about 2 dozen shots, we got Aaron to pose for this shot. The little rocking chair was mine when I was this age and so was the robe.

We did the same with Alex when he was 2 back in June 2002. We have it paired up in a double frame with the same picture of me. When we find the right triple frame, we'll line all of us up and I'll post a picture of that.

Racing to Home Depot

Today was another Home Depot Kids Workshop and after last month's experiment, we decided to officially enroll Aaron and get him to work on his own craft instead of working on Alex's. This time we built race cars which was a relatively easy one and a big treat for these two Cars movie fans.

We nailed two halves of the car together and then tapped the wheels in. The cars were prestained Home Depot orange, and the kids decorated them with stickers that made them look like the NASCAR version.

Aaron got his 1st pin on his vest. Alex got his 27th.

Black Bean Soup

Tonight I made that black bean soup I made for New Years at Becky's request. I'm using a recipe by Dave Lieberman from the Food Network Favorites cookbook that I got for Christmas.

I rendered 10 pieces of bacon and then sauteed 2 onions in the fat until just translucent and then sweated 6 pressed cloves of garlic. A minute later I added ~14 oz. of chicken broth, ~14 oz. can of diced tomatoes, 1 Tbsp chili powder, 2 Tbsp ketchup (Heinz, of course), 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, and 4 cans (15.5 oz each) of black beans - drained but not rinsed. I brought that to a boil and then brought it down to a gentle simmer for 10 minutes. Then I stirred in the chopped leaves of 1 bunch of fresh cilantro and 1 1/2 cups of leftover roast chicken (you can leave out the meat or add diced ham or chorizo sausage if desired). Five minutes later I squeezed in the juice of 1/2 lime and salted and peppered it to taste. I put it in the bowl and garnished it with shredded cheese and diced scallions (and a lime slice and tortilla chip for the picture).

Great on a cold winter day.

Becky's Chili

1 pound each hamburger and mild Italian sausage, browned & drained
1 onion, chopped
1-2 red, yellow or orange bell peppers, chopped (roasted is best, but raw will work if you simmer it awhile)
3 tsp. minced garlic
2 cans (15 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (10 oz.) Original Ro*tel (diced tomatoes & chiles)
2 cans (14.5 oz.) of diced tomatoes
1 can (15.5 oz) kidney beans
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
3-4 Tb chili powder to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Set the browned, drained hamburger and sausage aside. Saute the onions, red pepper, and garlic until onions are soft. Add the meat and remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

For a spicier version: Substitute hot Italian sausage for the mild kind, substitute Extra Hot Ro*tel for the Original kind, add more chili powder, and/or add some Tabasco or similar hot sauce.