Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Terrible Twos RIP

It's almost hilarious that my son's "terrible two" period ended the day he turned three.

That sounds silly, but honestly, overnight he has become a different person.

The terrible twos are hard to really define unless you've been there as a parent. The closest I can come to describing it to non-parents is thus: remember when you were a teenager and were miserable and hated everything and everyone and sulked in your room? Imagine that, but with screaming instead of sulking, and destruction of property instead of listening to The Smiths.

I have just spent the day with my son without my daughter or wife around - a rare thing. And it was great. We woke up, scratched, stretched, had breakfast, watched a little ESPN, went out to the store, went to the barber shop for haircuts, made crafts at the library, came home for lunch, I did a little work while he played with his Planet Heroes (another post will surely discuss these toys and how great they are), then he took a quick nap while I worked some more, he woke up, we went out again, played in the snow for a while, and now we're sitting home, the laundry is done, dinner is on its way home with the girls, and all is good in the world.

Compare this to a fictional hour - just ONE hour - that may well have happened six months ago (based on fact): I wake up, 10 seconds later he wakes crying, I have to restrain his arms to change his diaper, I ask what he wants for breakfast - he says toast, I make toast, it is pushed away as though I have served him a poison burger, he then asks for Cheerios but pushes that bowl away too as there aren't enough in the bowl to satisfy his hunger, I add more, he leaves them too long before declaring they are soggy and he won't eat them, he refuses to wear the clothes he chose to wear shaking his head at everything else in his closet before crying as I put on the first selected outfit yelling "ouchy!" with every tug of fabric.

To say the least, what a difference a birthday makes.

Friday, February 08, 2008

I will be sooooo glad....

.... when this week is over. I've had both kids in varying degrees of sickness during the week before payday. It's been raining pretty much all week, we've missed two days of school and one was cut short. I've done little to no work and I'm a week behind on a fundraising project for school. The highlight of today is going to be a trip to the doctors - on my son's 3rd birthday. The only thing that could make this all much worse (and I'm tempting fate by saying it, but so what?) would be for me to get sick. That will probably happen when the kids are well again, thus I will take their place on the couch sleeping in front of TV shows I've seen a million times before.

Monday, February 04, 2008

With a bump

After last night's incredible Superbowl, in which "my" Giants beat the Patriots, then spoiling the Pats perfect record and causing one of the biggest upsets in recent football history, this morning has bitten my ass.

My daughter has NEVER, NOT ONCE asked to stay home from school. Until this morning. She's obviously in some gastic distress (I just lit a scented candle) and is lethargic on the couch, but when asked: "Would you like to go to school today?" her reply: "Not really" had me checking the medicine cabinet for painkillers. For her and myself.

This also comes in the wake of my youngest's birthday party that took place yesterday morning. This means the house is full of new toys, most of which make noise.

And then, the cherry on top? Yesterday was warm enough that you didn't really need a coat. Today? It's shitting well snowing.

Snow! Two kids home all day! One sick, one armed with a pack of roaring dinosaurs, a talking basketball hoop ("Good job! Two points!") and a motorbike that plays the refrain from Born To Be Wild over and over and over...

This may be my last post.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Blah, Blah, Blurb

In the process of e-mailing celebrities and authors, to try to get them to "blurb" a quote for me for the back of my even-sooner-than-yesterday to be released book, one of them replied to me that this stage was the "worst!!!"

Are you kidding me? It's great!

I had a handful of people agree to help out right when I signed the deal last July. So perhaps there was no intimidation in for me - the hard work was already done. Since then I have had some big name refusals (Sanjeev Baskar is out of the country filming) and one big name who is reading it now ("big" in my world - I love Red Dwarf... and that's all you're getting out of me,) and a lot of "Congrats! But I'm sorry...." from some largish names in the industry.

But even the "sorry, buts..." have been encouraging, to the point where one lovely writer provided me the e-mail addresses for three other people who she recommended I get in touch with to help out. And one other handsome stud of a writer was so generous is his decling, I hope to go out drinking with him at some point in my life - and I'm buying.

I think for me, the hard work is done. But then I also enjoy "hunting" down celebs and getting signed photos from them, mainly to use as gifts. If all goes well, my kids could be getting signed photos of Dora the Explorer to go alongside their Elmo, Laurie Berkner, Tiffany Millbrett and Alexei Lalas.