The Cycle and the Blue Sheep

As many of you know I'm back in KC with the family for a couple weeks.  It's been awesome, a bit like coming up for air after diving far too deep in the pool.  But it hasn't been without its, uh, glitches moments.  To go from living totally alone to living back with the family DURING CHRISTMAS VACATION is a pleasant shock to the system.  But it can feel a little like trying to run a marathon after not running a step for a few years.  You see, the kids (all 4 of 'em) are on the constant Christmas-binge-and-crash-cycle. 

It's really quite something to see.  They happily play, even sharing at rare moments and we all have a great time.  Then the tension creeps in and before you know it they're reprimanding each other, and sometimes me, for deep offenses such as accidentally putting the daddy doll in the kid's nursery room in the doll house.  (of course I had no idea I was committing an actual atrocity since to my untrained-eye all the rooms look pretty similar)  Then the kids play harder and harder (and consume additional sugar), which results in much more impressive yelling and statements shouted at me including, "I don't want to eat now or ever!!!"  (actual quote from my 7 year old when I tried to peal him away from the new Wii for lunch) 

But eventually comes the crash portion of the cycle, which is beautiful to watch, assuming you've kept a safe distance.  At the peak of the super-rational-freak-out (good name for a rock band) the child suddenly falls totally asleep no matter where they are.  Oh they might fight it, but it's clear the brain has shut down.  For instance, instead of shouting, "I don't want to sleep on my bed" they may say, "I kicked a blue sheep on a shed."  The tough part is that it's nearly impossible to predict the crash, but if you have the stamina to endure the rest of the day, observing the child falling asleep can be like a hot shower after shoveling all of the snow on your driveway with your hands while wearing shorts.  (I probably overreached on that particular metaphor) 

Don't get me at all wrong, my kids are great and usually marvelous to deal with - we've had some awesome moments the last few days and there is no place on the planet I'd rather be.  I'm the luckiest guy you know.  But the cycle is cracking me up.  Anyway, I have one more week to soak up the fun before I'm back in Seattle and the kids are back to the normalcy of school schedules.  Until then you can count on me to take in every minute whether or not I'm being tongue-lashed for such offenses as enforcing a strict midnight-toy-curfew on the kids.

The Little HTFers are Dancing Elves!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Remembering The Great Marble Incident

I had a talk on the phone with my 9-year-old son tonight. I asked the questions my parents used to ask me and had the same conversation we've all had with our kids at the end of the day:

Me: How was school?

Him: Good

Me: What was good about it?

Him: I don't remember

Me: Ok, then, how was the rest of your day?

Him: Good

Me: (pausing . . .) Why was it good?

Him: I don't remember. Can I have your football that's in the closet? (I have a fancy autographed football in there that I won at some thing I don't remember)

At this point I racked my brain trying to think like a 9-year-old - not that tough actually. You see, they think pretty big, and they think immediate. Planning is something you do when you're old. And what happened 10 minutes ago was forgotten 8 minutes ago. As a 9-year-old boy you just want to maximize the fun - now.

For instance during fourth grade a conspiring friend and I decided that during indoor recess it would be a marvelous idea to sneak away to the bathroom and throw handfuls of marbles at the wall as hard as we could. Made perfect sense at the time. We laughed heartily as we dodged the careening marbles (good name for a rock band) while avoiding, most of the time, putting a shoe in the urinals. We'd pick the marbles up off of the super-duper-clean floor and make more throws. This was way better than Connect-Four! To our dismay a teacher walked in - catching me mid-throw. Somehow her spidey-senses had picked us up, since I'm sure we weren't making any audible noise, what with the ricocheting spheres and our prepubescent cackles . . .

So I guess my point is that I won't be frustrated with Ethan's not wanting to talk about the day. But you can bet that if he (who happens to go the same elementary school I went to) had happened to discover the power of high-velocity marbles and cinder-block restroom walls, we would've had a great talk about that.

And if you're wondering if I washed my hands after emerging from the scene of the crime all those years ago - I don't remember!

HTF and HSM

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking the Mrs HTF and the four little tadpoles to a showing of the long-awaited, in our house at least, High School Musical 47. (I’m calling t HSM from here on out, cuz it takes up less space) You should know that my kids are extreme fans of the series including such vital memorabilia as HSM pajamas, underwear, and fruit snacks (I’m guessing on that last one, but it’s a darn good guess).

One Pope-Family-Tradition that you should all be lucky enough to observe from a safe distance at some point is our Dance-Parties. This is where I plug in the iPod to some speakers in the kitchen and the kids let loose doing moves that are a mix of break-dancing, aerobics, hip-hop (my girls can “shake in” if you know what I mean), and intense interpretive dancing, which often results in injury. In all seriousness, if I had 10 minutes left to live, the family Dance Party is how that time would be spent. Well, over the years, HSM music has been featured prominently on our wooden dance floor. I’m pretty sure our DVR defaults to HSM when you turn it on, regardless of where it was last set. Allison could say “Gabriella” before she could say “milk.”

Well the movie didn’t disappoint at all. My expectations were low, but it was great. At one point my girls were literally dancing in the aisle next to our seats – this is the sign of an effective pre-teen movie. The characters are way too good to be true. (Although I got kinda concerned when on the way home Traci made us stop at the store so she could get her own life-size Zach Efron poster to hang in our room while I’m living in Seattle. Not sure how I feel about that . . . (j/k). At this high-school there are no drugs, drinking, cheating, sex, or violence – even the food in the lunch room looked pretty good. Imagine if we’d have all had a high school experience like these kids. They’re not overly selfish (Sharp-Hey excluded as the not-so-evil villain), and heck, the theme song is “We’re All In This Together.”

I see high school kids, and they may make fun of the HSM gang, but they should be jealous. Teenagers do SOO much to make those years way harder than they need to be. A little more singing and dancing would help. I say this as a former participant in high school musicals myself. Oh I wasn’t much of a performer, but if you were male and could walk a few steps without falling over and also lip synch effectively you could make the show. (I have some stories that I’ll share in future posts) But there was a real power to being part of something like that. I remember those feelings and the closing moments of the show brought some of ‘em back. I hope my kids can do shows at some point. They’re certainly working on the dancing part!

Anyway, I recommend the movie. And, if you’re too embarrassed to go see it, you can borrow several of my kids so you’ll look more like a compliant parent than a groupie. But it's a package deal - I get to go too.

How I Get Dumber

I love being a dad. My kids regularly ask for my opinion and act like they genuinely care what I have to say. They are fine with the clothes I wear and the music I listen to. I've even been called "cool" on multiple occasions. (but I'm guessing those were followed by snickers after I left the room) However, my oldest turns 9 next week and as this graph clearly shows - I'm about to start getting a lot dumber . . . At least there's hope because it looks like I may stage a recovery in 20 years or so.


more graph humor and song chart memes

So to all you STUPID parents out there . . . just stay alive and it looks like things will get better, at least in your kid's eyes.

PS - please don't show this to my parents.

The Invasion of Lake Texoma

Monday was my first day back at the office in like 10 days. So I got to answer the "how was your vacation" questions a dozen times or so. That's a good thing, because we had a great time. Wow, was it hard getting back into work mode (I say that like it's a thing that's already happened, but it hasn't really...) So here are a few highlights:

• First and foremost- didn't see a single snake. But we did see a bunch of very non-scary armadillos. I don't recall seeing these up close before. They looked like a cross between my parent's wiener dogs and a rolly-polly.
• On Thursday I saw that we were under a "Severe Wind Advisory." Part of the notice said that anyone on a lake should "use extreme caution." So naturally we decided boating needed to be part of our day. A few of us spent some kinda scary moments on a pontoon boat rolling around "waves" that were strong enough to ensure that we were thoroughly soaked. At one point we took on so much water that the front end of the boat (remember this is one of those pontoon boats that are kinda like a raft welded to a couple of massive 2-liters) was actually submerged so the water was above my knees while I was seated. It was like our very own "3-hour tour." In hindsight, not a huge deal, but I was glad we didn't have any kiddos with us.
• The adults were out-numbered 15 to 12, so that always makes for good entertainment. One of my kid's greatest discoveries was, well, mud. They called it "clay" and "sculpted" odd shapes with it. My first statement to them, said with some foresight, was "you're not bringing that home." Their answer, "ok, daddy."...................... The mud is now on our front porch greeting all who come to our house if you'd like to see it. But the kids were amazingly self-entertaining and just kinda became roving mobs that went in small, but feisty, groups from place to place doing important things like gathering rocks, dumping cups of water on each other, riding inflatable dolphins, and looking for bugs. I'm glad they never realized that if they'd have combined their might they may have overthrown the adults.
• In another embarrassing sign of, well, lots of things . . . I pulled a muscle in my chest just as I was getting up on the water skiis and that was the end of that. Maybe if I wait another 14 years until I ski again I'll be better at it.
• Not too long after we arrived I started hearing the phrase "talent show." To which I snickered a bit, and assumed this was just talk and would never happen. Well, it did happen and it was marvelous. Here were some of the acts on display:
• Traci and I threw water balloons at each other
• An elephant named "Nuts" relieved himself on some unsuspecting kids
• Braeden tore up an entire field dancing emphatically to High School Musical . . . by himself
• Jake (a cousin) did a river-dance thing that was mind boggling. If I moved my feet that fast, I'm certain they'd fly off or at least I'd not be walking for a while.
• The older boys poured water on the daddies
• The older boys poured water on the girls
• The older girls poured water on the boys
  
• And who can forget this, which was pretty much the cultural highlight of the trip for my boys:
• We all sang a song led by Grandma & Grandpa Morrow - a good warm, fuzzy moment.

Anyway, this post is far too long already, so I'll close with this. I usually set low expectations for things, especially when there are multiple kids involved, but to answer the question in my first paragraph, this was an awesome vacation. Everyone got along so well, and we deeply appreciated being invited along. Anything that keeps the kids smiling and me reasonably safe is a good thing by me! Thanks, Mike & Kathy!!