Back to School

I realize it’s been a while since I posted. The ending of summer, travel for work, back to school for the girls, and summer semester finals and projects for me have kept me busy. We pretty much stay on the run nonstop now.

It was an eventful new school year because my baby, Amelia, started kindergarten. Fortunately, Olivia is at the same school (in 3rd grade) and has been able to help little sis out. Before they started, I told Olivia she’d have to show Amelia the ropes. This was of course countered with, “daddy… we don’t have any ropes at our school.”

That’s when I told her it was just a figure of speech, which was met with, “What’s a figure of speech?”

Never mind.

The girls are enjoying school so far.  Olivia is in the accelerated 3rd grade class – a point that she makes every time she tells someone what grade she’s in.  They are riding the bus for the first time this year.  Fortunately, they are only on it for a few minutes because we are the last neighborhood to be picked up and the first one to be dropped off.

Olivia begins her extra-curricular activities next week.  We started something called Girls on the Run.  She’ll be doing some actual running (culminating with a 5k), but they also have a curriculum designed to help young girls develop confidence and build a positive self-image.  I’m not really sure what to expect; I just hope she can start running with me someday (and get a cross-country scholarship to college in 9 years).

Amelia already has three new BFFs and no telling how many boyfriends.  She is not going to make fatherhood easy for me.  Here they are from their first day of school…

 

 

Are You Ready for Some Futbol?

On the day of this being published, the US will play its first (and possibly last) game of the knockout round of the World Cup. Sara was the captain of her soccer team in college, but I know about as much about soccer as I do about soap operas. In fact, they seem kind of similar – over dramatic with very poor actors. At the onset of the US/Portugal game Sara told me that soccer players were tougher than football players becuase they don’t wear pads. After about two dozen flops, dives, and players rolling on the ground crying – yes, crying – she recanted that statement.

Regardless of the level of toughness of the players, I have to admit that, like most of the country, I am keeping up with the World Cup. During the World Cup we always hear about how soccer is gaining popularity and will make a breakthrough in the US.

Don’t hold your breath. Yes – I am watching and even recording the games while I am at work, but that does not make me a soccer fan. I mean come on – I watch bobsledding and luge once every four years but that doesn’t mean I’ll be traveling to Sweeden anytime soon to go sledding.

Don’t get me wrong. Soccer is a great sport. The barrier to entry is low, it has international appeal, it is safer than football, and the uniforms are quite spiffy; but a 1-0 win after two hours of viewing is just not satisfying enough for most Americans. Here are my suggestions for making soccer more exciting:

• Play with three balls at once… more action = more scoring = more exciting
• Every time a player flops and does a poor job faking an injury, the opposing team’s striker gets to kick him in the shin as hard as he can
• One person on each team is allowed to tackle anyone, anywhere, anytime without a penalty
• Stop the clock when not in play and actually play a specified amount of time like every other friggin sport in the world.  Then you will actually know when the game will be over and clock will mean something!
• Ban all players who wax their eyebrows – yes, I’m talking about you, Cristiano Ronaldo

 

Amelia and JJ

Apparently we are now cat owners. I’ve never liked cats… in fact I may have never really liked people who like cats – I’ve always been more of a dog person. Our dog, however, is almost 15 years old and we’re not sure how much longer we’ll be dog owners. Plus, I have to admit that having an outside cat to keep all the critters under control around the house wouldn’t be a terrible thing.

This cat showed up one day as we were having lunch on the porch. I tried to scare him away, but he actually walked toward me. Later, as I was doing some work outside, he was right underneath me the entire time. He’s really more like a dog than our actual dog. It’s been a week now and he is still hanging around (plus he has a name) so I guess he’s ours. About the name – Olivia made a comment that I finally had another boy around the house and he loves to follow me around, so she named him “Jason Junior”. I shortened that to JJ – I’m still not really a cat person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roW356B0bxs

Check out this video for an introduction to JJ by our correspondent, Amelia.

 

Smile-With-Freckles Rides Again

A few years ago, we had to come up with Olivia’s Native American name for school. I named her Smiles-With-Freckles. It seemed fitting and stuck. Olivia also made sure to tell the other students that she was part Native American – I’m sure nobody believed her. I think I am something like 1/32 Native American, but the German ancestry seemed to win out for most of my DNA. On the other side, my wife is Scandinavian, so Olivia looks about as Native American as an albino squirrel… technically, I guess those are Native American.

Despite her paleness, Olivia’s Native American spirit has begun to emerge. Both of the girls spent last week in Tennessee at Nana and Granddaddy’s. They got to spend a lot of time with Aunt Amy and her boys, Blake and Matthew. They are older than the girls and were able to teach them a few things. I’m not sure what all the girls learned during the week, but I do know that Olivia tried to shoot a frog with a BB gun.

Being an over-the-top animal lover, Olivia shooting at any living creature is like Gandhi getting into a barroom brawl. The funny thing is that she had no regrets. In fact, she asked me if we could go shooting. She later asked me if I would take her hunting. The idea of her sitting still and quiet for hours is laughable, but I appreciate her enthusiasm.

Where did this killer instinct come from? I can only attribute it to the hunter spirit living deep within her… or an older, male cousin who showed her that shooting stuff is pretty fun. As for Amelia, she said that she wasn’t old enough to shoot a BB gun yet (must be all of those episodes of A Christmas Story), but have no fear – if there is a warrior in our household, it is definitely Amelia.

 

Summertime!

The girls have just one more week left of school and then summer vacation officially commences. I can’t believe Olivia will be a third grader and my baby will be in kindergarten, but I’m also proud of the girls they are growing up to be.

We kick off the summer with the girls’ annual trip to Nanna’s. Sara and I take the girls up for Memorial Day weekend and leave the kids there to spend some time gettin’ countryfied with the cows and chickens. They love it and I’m glad they have the opportunity to spend some extended time with my family. I know Nanna enjoys it – though I think she is silently thankful when she gets to hand them back over to us after a week of quality time.

We’ve already taken our family vacation this year, but Sara and I have another trip planned in June for our 15-year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been that long. We’ve decided that there should be a 15-year “We Made It” shower because all of our wedding gifts are pretty much worn out now. Hey – it’s not fair that we have to buy gifts for friends who are remarrying while all our stuff is decomposing!

Hopefully it will be a fun summer with lots of time at the cabin and on the lake. Last year was kind of a wash out with all the rain and unseasonably cool weather. I want to make a concerted effort to maximize our time with girls. Olivia is already starting to spend time in her room with the door shut. That’s one of the reasons we got the cabin… with four of us confined to 968 square feet, solitude is not an option.

I look forward to the summer and hope all of you spend yours wisely.

 

Pardon My Protrusion

I turn 40 this year. I already have my progressive lenses (that’s the new politically correct way of saying “bifocals”)… I can’t sleep past 6:30… and I’m finding that injuries are coming more frequently and lasting longer.

I’ve always been a pretty active person. I work out daily, run whenever I can find the time, and spend as much time as possible outdoors. You would think that would keep me operating in top order, but now things just hurt more.

Just last week, something happened and I may be dealing with a hernia.  I’d like to say that I was lifting a tree or deadlifting 400 pounds, but no… I was play-wrestling with my 5 year-old girl. 

We have a game that the kids call “Bad Guy/Good Guy”.  I don’t know where they came up with the name, but I’m the bad guy.  Basically, I get down on the ground and they run at me full speed.  I catch them and do a sort of fake body slam.  At this point a bunch of tickling or fake punching ensues.  We generally continue this until someone cries.

Last week; however, it was me who had to throw in the towel.  My oldest, Olivia, outweighs her younger sister (barely), but is much more gentle.  She runs at me and slows down a little to soften the impact.  Amelia, on the other hand, is about as gentle as a mother grizzly bear with a caffeine buzz and serious anger issues.  She comes at me full speed and hits me like a linebacker.

As I lifted her up after one of her attacks, something gave.  It felt like something popped out pretty far north along my hip flexor.  I’m a week into it and still hoping that it’s a pull or strain, but I’ve had those before and this just seems different.  Also, I’m finding that my old tried and true method of ignore it and hope it goes away seems to be much less effective than it was in my younger years. 

I want to give it some more time before going in and getting it checked out and I can be very stubborn about these things.  Last year’s IT Band Syndrome left me unable to run much more than a mile or two without excruciating pain in my “one good knee”.  However, after waiting it out (for about six months), it finally went away – leaving me vindicated in my decision not to seek medical advice.

So here I am again… in pain, but too stubborn to do anything about it.  Yes – I know all about the medical risks and know I should probably have it checked out, so no need to nag about it. Like I said… I’m stubborn – it’s one of my biggest faults and greatest assets.

 

Vacation Photos

We went on a Disney Cruise and Universal for Spring Break… now I’m spring broke.  We had a great time.  I think this will be a memory that the girls will have for the rest of their lives.  Here’s some photos:

Goofy sending us off

Ready for a day at the pool

Mischievous?

Three Princesses

The girls loved the “Towelogomoy”

Look out, Jack Sparrow

Hogwarts!

Don’t worry… I told her to

Hogsmeade

 

Call the “Midlife”

For those of you who don’t know that’s a play on words for the popular PBS show “Call the Midwife”.  I’ve never seen it… and based on the title, I don’t think I ever will.

The topic of this post actually has nothing to do with midwives, but it is about my new baby… my car that is.  I’ve owned a Chevy truck for the past 21 years.  The one I’m currently in is 9 years-old and, while it is in good shape and has pretty low mileage, it was becoming time for a trade-in. 

I don’t know if any of you are in the market for one, but a new four wheel-drive full size truck with all the extra little goodies costs a pretty penny.  After doing some calculations (rationalizing), I found that I could keep my truck and buy a new (to me) car for about the same out of pocket expense. 

Since I still have my four-door truck and Sara has an SUV, I had the option of buying something a little less “practical”.  I test drove a nice, sort of sporty four-door sedan that was ok, but still a little too practical for my taste.  Then I test drove something else a little sportier.  Let’s just say that if you take the car’s horsepower and divide it by 150, the number you end up with is still greater than the number of doors on the car. 

I’ll give you some time to work that one out.

It’s black, it’s good-looking, and it’s fast.  Sara threw the word “midlife” around more than a few times during the buying process.  Crisis or not, this thing’s a blast to drive.

Yes, I still drop Olivia off at school every day and it is much more cumbersome for her to get out of the backseat now, but she loves it.  To her, daddy just got a lot cooler and with the tweenies on the horizon, I’ll take all the help I can get.

 

Snakes in the Grass

My oldest daughter is a tad bit on the dramatic side.  On a recent hike, she was leading the way and was completely oblivious to the fact that she had stepped over a snake.  Being the second in line, I had to point out the snake so that my wife and other daughter didn’t accidently step on it.

This was the aftermath.

Olivia and the Snake

Had I not mentioned the snake, she would have just kept hiking happily along.  Once she realized that she was in the vicinity of perceived danger; however, a meltdown ensued.  There are snakes all around us.  Whether they be disease, financial crisis, toxic relationships, or job loss; the greatest pain inflicted by these tragedies is often not the damage that they bring directly, but the loss of security and hope associated with them. 

About 20 years ago, my truck was broken into and the stereo was stolen.  I distinctly remember that what upset me the most from that experience was not the loss of my stereo.  Instead, it was the sense of being violated – of someone intentionally doing harm and taking my possessions for their own benefit.  I didn’t get hysterical and cry about it like Olivia did with the snake, but I think the emotion was similar.

Whatever fear or struggle you are currently dealing with, remember that you are the one who controls how much power that fear has over you and the biggest opponent of fear is hope.

 

Back from Nicaragua

Sara made it back safely from Nicaragua over the weekend.  Between the two of us, this makes seven trips to Nicaragua in the past four years.  They had a good trip – it was a very good group and she didn’t have to pull any all-nighters this time around. 

Her team saw over 900 patients and even had time to visit a Nicaraguan carnvial.  She respectfully delicined a ride on the Ferris wheel AKA the Wheel of Death.  I’ll post some photos once I get them downloaded off her phone.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get down there again sometime.  While it is a life-changing event, it only takes a few months back home to lose perspective.