Well I didn’t see it coming, but I think I’m done here.
1. Cut cord
2. Stay up all hours “caring” for him
3. Fed, bathed, diapered
4. Learned to walk
5. Feeds himself
6. Pees and poops in appropriate locations (for the most part)
7. Can write and read his own name and a few other words…
Rides a bike!!!!
He can figure out girls and cars on his own. God knows I haven’t.
Scroll down if you want to read this in order. It won’t make sense anyhow, so either way….
Still in Bryson City, NC we have a number of things on our list. Curiously a town in the hills of North Carolina has quite a few “things to do”. Today it is the Great Smokey Railroad. I’d love to tell you that we hopped the rails in a fit of adventure and stowed away on some freighter through the Smokey mountains, but we didn’t. In fact I think we paid enough in fares to extend the railway all the way to the “Just OK Smokey Mountains”. Sam is a bit of a train nut and saw one of those brochures and we were screwed from there. We had a good time, but the trip is like 4 hours long and after about 45 minutes of 5 MPH train riding and a couple of bridges you’ve seen it all. It followed the Nantahalla river and we waved at every one of the 500 river rafters and that was also fine for about 15 minutes. The other 3 hours was pretty much a snooze fest. Here are a couple of pictures.
Ok…only one picture…I’ll post the “Pay $20 for a good tourist picture or you can’t get off” photo later.
Stay tuned. Stories of bears, swimmin’ holes, deadly storms and probably more pictures of goats.
Boy I haven’t typed anything in a while. Sorry. I really need to have a notebook around my neck or one of those voice recorders to take notes on my killer observations. I usually chuckle at something and think “That would be really funny to write about” and 10 minutes later it’s gone. I will either have to try a lot harder or give up.
I will share with you a Sam story. Sam is now in first grade. In first grade there is much academic pressure. Stay within the lines, form the letters correctly, Capitalization. Sam has decided that there is really no room for expanding on his work that much. He is pretty much a bare facts kind of guy. Here let me share with you some of his work.
Accurate. Simple. Sam.
Get a load of this. Jen, a woman of many ideas and plans, has been crafting special lunches for Sam lately. I have almost no idea where the idea originated, but she has a fascination with all things “mini”. Go ahead…I’ll wait.
Here are a few of the lunch surprises that Sam has been feasting on at school. She’s becoming a master.
He says he loves them, but I’m not sure what grade you are in when this gets you beaten up on the playground. Even if there is a playground scuffle out of this I’m pretty sure the thing he will remember is how great a mom he has and how much love she put into making him lunch. I’ll stop her if she starts adding little notes though.
Had a recent and quick visit to Orion Sam and I took a couple of days to head out and see the sights of the Quad Cities. Most important to Sam was that he got to play battleship. Kids are weird. Here are some photos.
We visited the Andover park after breakfast. Larry couldn’t resist.
A visit to the Quad Cities isn’t complete without a trip to the John Deere Pavilion. A trip to the John Deere pavilion isn’t complete without the obligatory picture of “People in a tractor bucket”
This picture has an interesting story. The playground equipment Sam is riding on I rode on as a kid. I repaired it as an adult working for the Village of Orion, and now Sam is playing on it. How many kids have been flung off this thing over the years?
This post is mostly for the grandparents, but I’m sure my vast network of readers will find it cute.
Sam takes one nap per week. Why? You might ask. Well he actually doesn’t take any naps, but he goes to swimming lessons on Tuesdays. Like clockwork this kid falls asleep 15 minutes before we arrive at swimming. He recently has decided he doesn’t like swimming lessons. I think it is because every time he experiences his lesson he is waking up from a slumber and isn’t quite sure where he is until about halfway through.
The whole point of this little entry was the picture. I could take this same picture every week.
So for Sam’s 6th birthday the collective geniuses that = me and Jen decided to buy Rock Band for our Wii. This may eventually go down as one of the biggest mistakes ever. Interestingly PLAYING Rock Band is quite similar to being IN a Rock Band. Here’s why:
1. – All of the band members think they are better players than they really are.
2. – The latest gig ended up with the drummer freaking out and kicking the other members out of the band. (That was me)
3. – The guitarist / bass player is moody and can’t get along with the lead singer.
4. – Don’t even get me started on the manager…she is strung out on all sorts of medication.
Here are some promo shots of our band – Lorax
This photo is staged. No way would I look like that unless I was trying to look goofy.
As mentioned, Sam wanted everyone to jump in the pool with their clothes on for his birthday. Why? Who knows. This kid is the product of some very goofy genetic code. We will likely be repeating this next year. Better to preserve a relatively tame tradition than to leave it open to his creative imagination to come up with something that might be more daunting. As promised, here is the video.
Today is Sam’s birthday. Grandma and Grandpa Carroll are here. The weather is great. I think Sam picked a perfect day to join us 6 years ago. This is also the 1 year anniversary of my dad finishing his chemotherapy. It’s already been “one of those weeks”, but as I type this I know that things are ok.
Stay tuned because one of Sam’s wishes for his birthday is that everyone is to jump in the pool with their clothes on. I’m not kidding. I think this is best served by video.
I only have myself to blame. “What does Sam want for Christmas?” they asked, all innocent and grandparenty. “He says he wants a train set” I replied ignorantly and without foresight. It even seemed ok Christmas morning when he excitedly opened the train set and rejoiced that someone was actually paying attention to him when he asked for a train.
So now here it is May and I’ve discovered that you can’t really have a train set without a proper place to set up the train. Grandma and Grandpa #2 (You know who you are) complicated matters by chipping in for some train “accessories” and lo and behold we are now about $4,159.23 into this hobby of mine. Yes…my hobby. Sam just wants to turn the dial and watch the train roll around for 5 minutes and then it’s on to the next thing. I’m about 80 man hours into building Sam a table to run OUR train on and I thought I would share this adventure with you. Here is some early construction photos.
Okay, so they are both the same picture really. You get the point. Stay tuned. I’ll let you know how the lake turns out. Yes. Lake.
Sam and I had the BEST day yesterday with one exception (scroll down to the next entry for details). We attended the MacDill 2010 Airfest and spent the entire day together wandering around the tarmac checking out airplanes, eating junk food, and staring into the sky. Reading about it this morning in the paper it seems that there were approximately 100,000 people there with us, but it was so huge there wasn’t that crush of people usually associated with other 100K events. It was basically a 6 years olds dream. We rode the bus there, climbed in and out of planes of all shapes and sizes, saw men in uniform with weapons and had hot dogs for lunch. What’s not to love? Oh, did I mention the Blue Angels were there? About ten minutes into the Blue Angels show Sam observed that having them fly overhead was simply making the other lines really short, so we missed some of the Blue Angels appearance. This event is best described in pictures. Here ya go.
I know that playing with my kids is what I’m supposed to do, but I also know that playing with them always ends up in some kind of weirdness. They keep going and going until….this.
So I’ve decided that Sam is afflicted with a bad case of DKDC. This is the ‘ought 10’ equivalent of ADHD. I’ve also decided that there are probably more kids diagnosed with ADHD that actually have DKDC. Since I just made this up I should probably let you in on what it means. It stands for “Don’t know, don’t care”. See it isn’t that the kids are distracted and unable to concentrate, it’s that they could give a shit. Whenever I try to get Sam moving from one place to another he dawdles and does a thousand things in between. Pet the dog, pick up a toy, talk about something completely off topic. His attention level hasn’t been reduced it’s just that he doesn’t know why I want him to hurry and even if he knew, he wouldn’t care. His set of priorities are different. I have to get from point A to point B in X amount of time. Since he is already at point A, doesn’t care about point B and doesn’t tell time yet, he thinks he’s pretty much all set. There is no amount of drugs I could give him that would make him care. I could probably give him something that would make him care even less and then I could just drag him around…but that just makes the game different. I’m giving him until age 6 to grow out of DKDC, but since I also see so many adults afflicted with it, the odds are not in my favor. Whatever….
Inspired by a site or twitter feed that has been spreading for a while, “Shit my dad says” I’m going to give you a few Sam’isms from the last few weeks. He’s much less profane that the guy in “Stuff” my dad says, but he’s just as funny. Here are some things that Sam has come up with, mostly out of his own brain or silent contemplation….or TV.
- Dad. You know what you shouldn’t send in the mail? Time bombs.
- I really hurt my back. That was very not interesting.
- (Reading a sign) Open 24 hours…hey dad, that place is open 24 hours! What’s an hour?
- (Randomly – quoting something he saw on TV, oh and loudly in public) – BUTT SCRATCHER! BUTT SCRATCHER?
- I have to pee! Oh wait, do we have donuts?
Add to the list of “Things Jon thought he had all figured out, but alas, does not”, sick kids. Sam is sick. He’s just your usual sick, nothing to be worried about, but it does involve taking medicine, and that’s the part I thought I had figured out. This isn’t unusual, because I have solved this problem many times. The first time we had to give the kid medicine we would put it in a dropper, wave a bunny in the air and then shoot 60 cc’s of motriprofin into his cheek. No problem. It didn’t take him long to catch on to this and as soon as the blue bunny made an appearance he would curl up into a ball and stuff his fist in his mouth. We were then able to get away with the “look Daddy will drink it first” method. This lasted about 2 illnesses and now I can’t even get near that stuff or I get sick. Finally I thought I had stumbled upon the miracle of all medicine taking miracles. NERDS. This is candy that is sour and disgusting to adults, but to kids it is basically a spoonful of sugar. Get it? Don’t make me hum the song. Pop whatever medicine we were taking into his mouth, follow with spoon of NERDS and whammo. Smiles and fever free Sam. Until last night. Suddenly NERDS tasted disgusting and there was no bringing back any bunnies. I’m not sure who came up with the idea, Lunesta impaired Mom or empathy deficient Dad, but we are now chasing medicine with chocolate chips. Two chips per half table and the world is a happy place. I’ll let you know what the next iteration is. Who knows? Maybe there is a book deal here. “What to expect when you’re expectorating”
Today I participated in a necessary ritual that has its roots in medieval times, the kindergarten, flash mob, sheep fest birthday party. I don’t really know when this started but it seems that the party du jour for kids consists of the following:
1. Invite as many children that you possibly can to aforementioned event.
2. Take the number as obtained above and then add 10%.
3. Find a space that only accommodates the above number –15%.
4. Supply some form of entertainment along with appropriate waivers.
5. Sit back and watch the fun.
Me and Sam went to “Bounce-U”, and indoor version of all of those blow up jump around thingys you see advertised or used in county fairs around the country. Kids love them, and much energy is expended, but attending these events is such an awkward social exercise the the parents. I guess it’s just one of those things you do for your kids, but sheesh…consider the following.
- I enjoyed talking to the mother of the girl who bit Sam on Friday, but she never mentioned it until I bit her back….not her back, but in return. You get the idea.
- The hostess of the “party” was one of the women who never says hi to me. We are now fast friends. Ok, well…we speak now. Cross that off the bucket list.
- The husband of the hostess, not to be referred to as the host since he really didn’t do anything, bumped into me and I thought we were gonna fight when my apology went unacknowledged.
Here are some pictures of the event. If they seem fuzzy blame Apple and the iPhone camera. This phone was not intended to capture 5-6 year olds in their native environment.
I have an obligatory post due today regarding my visit to Sam’s school and their “Thanksgiving Feast”. Jen had to work, Sara had school, but me and Sam had a good time. I wonder what those people think of me? Maybe it’s a tad conceited to think that they pay any attention to me at all, but I drop Sam off and pick him up pretty much every day. I show up in the middle of the day in shorts, T-shirt, and in need of a shave. I’m sure most bets are on “unemployed slacker”. I guess they would be half right. Anyhow…here are some pictures of “The Feast”
After delicately balancing the camera on the TV and failing to get the timer to work about 10 times. I finally captured the entire collection of the “2009 Orion to Tampa Dog sled” competition.
I’ve got to type this up before I forget. I’m also typing this up strictly for posterity. I’m sorry if it is mushy or sounds silly, but I make mental notes to remember things and then I don’t. The blog is a diary for this moment.
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been dropping Sam off at school in the morning as Jen continues to recover from surgery. I have discovered that this might be the most satisfying and relaxing part of my day. No, not because I am dropping my 5 year old rambunctious kid off and getting some much needed quiet time. It’s because when I drop him off and he heads out to the playground I get to see him in a lot of different ways. He’s independent and confident. He’s excited and happy. He’s curious and active. I watch him run out onto the playground and immediately begin searching for two things. How many of his friends are there and where are they? Where is Miss Marjorie so that he can tell her “Buenos Dias” and get one back from her. As strange as it seems I think that if Miss Marjorie takes a day off we are going to have to prepare Sam. I stand and watch Sam for a while before I go. I probably have a luxury that the other parents don’t have as I watch them throw the backpacks on a hook and run the other way. He doesn’t really do anything worth watching except he is healthy, happy, and having una buena dia.
Since there hasn’t been a lot going on I thought I’d just post a picture or two of Sam. He cracks me up. He doesn’t want anything to do with having his picture taken, but every once in a while he must think he looks pretty cool because he will tell me to take his picture. Today we put this hat on him on his way out the door to school and he says, “Get the camera”. This is what he thinks is cool.
