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“Peanut butter cookies,” Emma said.
Are yummy? I thought, in that inner, silent, I know what she’s going to say voice full of wisdom, and knowledge.
“Taste like peanut butter!” she finished.
“That is just one of their many charms,” I informed her, somewhat chastised.
I’ve run through a number of updates recently, from WordPress MU 1.2.1 to 1.3 to a “release candidate” version of 1.5, to 1.5.1 proper, to a brand new install to fix some admin issues I was having.
Of course, I managed to blow away the former site header, which gave me a good excuse to post a new one.
And now maybe I’ll start using tags rather than categories. We’ll see. Wheee!
Emma was sitting in a chair with her
Golden Book of Children’s Hymns the other day…
…and she was “singing”
Whups. Found this post just hanging out in limbo. It’s from a couple of weeks ago:
Emma says to me today: “Poop starts with the letter P!”
Niiiiiiiiice.
We’ve been using the reward [1] system to get her to to eat her vegetables.
You know; “Emma, eat your vegetables, and you can have some [insert desert here].”
It often works, but the payoff isn’t apparently great enough for her to finish her spinach or asparagus.
This evening, she finished her peas, and then horked down all of her fudge, and half of Margaret’s. So I told her that since she ate all her fudge, she could have some broccoli!
Amazingly, she went for it, and actually ate the broccoli.
Strange.
- Yeah, I know. Another word for it is “extortion” or “bribery.” Though I prefer “direct compensation.”
I upgraded the site from WordPress MU 1.2.1 to 1.3. If anything’s broken, that’s why. It’s probably because I haven’t updated a plugin.
This is a story Emma told yesterday (with some slight editorial license to tighten up the plot a little bit):
Deep in the jungle, there lived a frog and a panda. They were a happy family.
But one day, a scary ghost came. It was Duck, pretending to be a ghost!
Frog and Panda ran and ran. When they got to a river, Frog hopped across the lily pads and Panda swam.
They ran through the forest, until they met a pile of mean and nasty bears.
They kept running down the road until they met Wormy Churmy, and they all hid in a leaf bush.
Duck, still dressed as the ghost came and scared the bears, and they ran and hid in a bigger leaf bush.
Frog and Panda put on some sheets, and scared Duck!
Everyone went home and got in bed and pulled their covers over their heads and went to sleep.
So it’s 10:15, she’s been in bed for an hour and a half. I go in to check on her, and…
(shuffling pages)
“Emma, you’re supposed to be asleep!”
“I’m reading about Curious George making pancakes, she informs me. “And taking a nap!”
I gently correct her. “Emma, you’re not asleep, your eyes have to be closed to be asleep. To bed!”
I go to leave, and she asks “Dad? Can I keep one eye open?”
June, 1990 - February 8, 2008
For the first time in seventeen and a half years, I am unable to claim ownership by a cat. T.C. finally began suffering the effects of chronic renal failure, and so I made the decision to have him put to sleep.
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Photo Credit: Carol Stanley, Faith and Danger Photography, faithanddangerphotography.com
Surely I could own no sweeter cat, no more affectionate cat, no more forgiving cat. And perhaps no tougher cat. Tests done earlier in the day revealed levels of BUN and creatinine much much higher than normal, and much higher than cats generally tolerate.
I adopted T.C. from a coworker’s pet store as a kitten, in July or August of 1990, between my first and second years at Indiana University. He lived long enough to see me finally graduate college, in August of 2007.
T.C. also saw me get married, moved with us to St. Louis, moved with us to Austin, saw the purchase of our first home, and the birth of our daughter. In fact, save my parents, I have lived in the company of no living being longer.
One of my favorite memories is the time I came home to find he’d knocked a bag of flour off a pantry shelf. The kitchen floor, and his black fur, were covered in flour. How could I be angry; it was so cute! Then there was the time he decided he didn’t like eggs, so he dragged the shirt I’d dropped on the floor, over the plate which formerly held the eggs, which I’d also put on the floor.
He had, until his later years, a compulsion to hide in empty boxes, and empty bags.
He liked to sleep beside me in bed, until Ellington usurped his place. He started sleeping beside me again a few months before he succumbed.
He would greet me with a chirp when I entered the room. Woke me up reliably around 4:00am if he had eaten all his food. Remained playful until nearly the very end.
Groomed my beard, my hair, my arms - sometimes to the point of causing discomfort.
Insanely protective of his turf, he once took a chunk out of my face when I interrupted his warning caterwauling at a feline interloper on the other side of the apartment door.
Ever a cat of sensible intuition, I knew to head for cover if he sought a safe place during severe weather.
He enjoyed sitting on the papers on which one was working, and sitting on one’s lap, even if the timing was inopportune. I even found him, in his last few months, curled up on our laptop computer keyboards.
He liked head butting, sometimes fairly forcefully, and rubbing cheeks. I’m no fool. I know he was marking me as “his.”
He also answered to “Goof” and “buddy.”
T.C. was preceded in death by Ellington, an intruder who he generally tolerated fairly well. But - not always. Ellington was supposed to be a companion for play to help keep T.C. trim. T.C. instead taught Ellington how to be chunky.
T.C., you too, will be missed, sweet boy.
In the car today, she asks, “Why are we real?”
I suggested that Descartes would say that we’re real because we think.
“What would day-cart say?”
“I think, because I am,” I replied.
“Why do we, why do we, why do we, why do we fink?” she asked.
“Because we have a brain. Inside our head,” I said.
“Why do we have a brain inside our head?”
Hrm. I liked her existential question better.
A bit later she informs me she doesn’t have a brain in her head, because she’s dressed as Eeyore.
In celebration of November, National Novel Month, my favorite public radio show, On the Media, is having a contest wherein listeners submit a 12 word novel. Here’s Emma’s submission:
A novel in twelve words, by Emma, four years old.
Adapted by her daddy from her 31 word opus, “In the Shadow of the Moonlight”In the moonlight, a tiny, tiny, little bird hatched.
It was me!
Whispered:
In the shadow of the moonlight, a little egg dropped onto the ground, and it cracked open and a little, tiny tiny bird came out, a little tiny bird…and it was me!
It’s ye olde international talk like a pirate day.
Arrrrrgggghhhh!

(Pirate getup courtesy Erica Sadun’s Pirate app for the iPhone.)
Emma and I read Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” last night at bedtime:
(Note that the file is 2.5MB, and lasts for just over 5 minutes.)
These we have:
- Henry Climbs a Mountain, by D.B. Johnson
- Guji Guji, by …
These we’ve checked out at the library:
- Mooses Come Walking, by Arlo Guthrie, illustrated by Alice M. Brock
These we…haven’t:
- Little Old Big Beard and Big Young Little Beard, by Remy Charlip
- Slithery Jake, by Rose-Marie Provencher, illustrations by Abby Carter
- And Here’s to You!, by David Elliott
- The Pelican Chorus and Other Nonsense, featuring poems of Edward Lear, illustrations by Fred Marcellino
- Wind in the Willows, (New Abridged Version) by …, illustrated by Inga Moore
- Three Stories You Can Read to Your Dog, by Sara Swan Miller, illustrations by True Kelley
- Mr. Blewitt’s Nose, by Alastair Taylor
- Jellybeans, by Sylvia van Ommen
- Bake Shop Ghost, by Jacqueline Ogburn
- How to Be a Good Dog, by Sara Swan Miller
- Bats at the Beach, by …
- The Picture of Morty and Ray, by Daniel Pinkwater, illustrations by Jack E. Davis.
- A Day in the Life of Murphy, by Alice Provenson
- The Red Wolf, by Margaret Shannon
- Farfallina & Marcel, by Holly Keller
- Arlene Sardine, by Chris Raschka
- Little Babaji, illustrations by Fred Marcellino.
- The Frog Wore Red Suspenders, by Jack Prelutsky
- Davy Crockett Saves the World, by Rosalyn Schanzer.
- Another Perfect Day, by Ross MacDonald
- Yellow Umbrella, Jae-Soo Liu
The improbability of Clifford the Big Red Dog’s size aside (and, oh yeah, the talking dogs), I’ve noticed some an interesting thing about the denizens of Birdwell Island:
- Dr. Din is apparently single
- Charley’s dad, Samuel is apparently single
- Cleo’s owner is apparently single
- Sheriff Lewis is apparently single
- Jetta’s mom is apparently single, and has two children!
- Birdwell Island’s librarian is apparently single
In fact, of the characters on the show, only Emily Elizabeth’s parents and the their neighbors, the Bleakmans, can be confirmed to be married. Although their teacher did get engaged…and moved off the island.
What is it about Birdwell Island that makes it so hard for its residents to get or stay married?
“I’m going to go get some air out of my room. So I can fly!”
“I put the wind up in the sky. So I can fly!”
“The wind is going to blow you up in the sky so you can fly and your compuner* so you can e-mail!”
* Yes, she says “compuner” instead of “computer.” In spite of us working with her to say it correcnly (sic). Or maybe she’s combined “computer” and “commune.”
And from the “Who says TV is bad” Department:
Emma: Turtles don’t have any teeth!
John: They don’t?! Where did you learn that?
Emma: On TeeVee.
So I’m looking at the Radio Flyer #36 Classic Red 10″ Bicycle. Just, you know. Because I’m looking.
And I look over the list of “features.”
- Classic bicycle styling
- 10″ steel spoked wheels with real rubber tires
- Chain drive
- Sturdy steel construction
- Padded, adjustable seat
- Chrome handlebars and fenders
- Ringing chrome bell
- Training wheels
- No brakes
So that all looks pretty goo…wait a dang minute…no brakes!? What the?!?!
“No brakes” is a “feature”? I hope they mean “no brakes like you’ll find on a ten speed,” and not “No brakes like they just failed on our 72 Gremlin, but we’re broke and gonna drive it anyway, so look out for us!”
I think I’ll see what Schwinn has to offer. Something with, oh, I dunno…brakes, maybe?
So Emma and I are eating a home-made banana split, listening to a mix playlist (Robert Johnson, and artists who’ve covered his songs.) Cream comes on, playing “Crossroads.”
I went down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride.
Down to the crossroads, tried to flag a ride.
Nobody seemed to know me, everybody passed me by.
Emma, possibly juiced on ice cream, starts dancing. Until the song ends, and then Robert Johnson, playing the original “Crossroad Blues” comes on. She’s dissappointed, because she wanted to dance, and she can’t dance to an old delta blues tune. So I cue up “Mantenca” by Ella Fitzgerald, a song she’s gone crazy to in the past. She loves it, especially when I step away from the ice cream for a turn on the dance floor with her.
After that, I cue up the Brian Setzer Orchestra’s “Dirty Boogie” LP (except it’s on MP3), and she goes to town. Until it’s time to run to her preschool to take a look at the photos in the following (or is it preceding) post.
While in Chicago, they put statues of bulls (cows, Margaret’s informed me) painted by artists on the street corners, in Austin, “the live music capital of the world,” they put guitars, similarly festooned, on the streets. Here’s Emma, rather too tired to put up with daddy’s request for a photograph, or mommy’s request to play the guitar. (Click on thumbnail to see a larger view.)
Thanks to the young ladies supervising the playroom who took this picture for us!
Since they have a supervised playroom at our local YMCA, where Margaret works out, she takes Emma with her. That allows me to get a little homework done in the evening.
This is the only photo I didn’t take, nor was it taken with my camera.
She started waking up when I went in to take the 5:00 picture. This is a time lapse, and she moved around a bit during the 30 second exposure. I kinda like it.
She came out in the living room. I did suggest to her that she sit on the new laminate floor I laid down in the foyer, but the pose is all her own. Sleepy girl, still trying to wake up.
OK. I confess. I had her pose for this one. But she’d just hurt her pinky, and was showing me, and inadvertently did the University of Texas sign. Or an obscene Italian gesture. It’s all relative.
But I digress. I gave her kisses on her pinky and asked her what she was doing with her hand. “Hook ‘em horuns,” she said. So then I had to get a picture of her flashing the UT sign.
She looks thrilled, doesn’t she?
This is Emma getting some physical therapy with Miss Kerri.
This is the first time she’d stood up on the swing. She was choosing the color of ball, which Kerri would place on the swing. Emma would pick up the ball, Kerri would spin her to face the frog, and Emma would throw the ball into the frog’s mouth.
The goal was to challenge Emma’s balance (part of the initial diagnosis was “gravitational insecurity.”) Emma did quite well with this excersize, and even challenged herself by holding on to two ropes and wiggling back and forth to make the swing move. Kerri was surprised and please to see Emma do that.
We take her to Children’s Therapeutics, and we’re quite pleased with Emma’s progress, and the level of professionalism and the care she gets.
We purchased, on advice of Emma’s physical/occupational therapist, a small trampoline. It helps her with her balance, encourages her to challenge her self, helps build strength, and gives her a little energy boost. They call it “arousal level.” Spinning really helps her arousal level. And that’s important, because she’s more active, has a brighter countenance, and communicates more easily when she’s more energetic.
I think she was pretending to be a doggy, so the socks on her hands were “paws.”
She has this thing she does where she lines items up. It’s just a thing she does - not OCD; I can move items, and she doesn’t freak out. It’s odd, and somewhat endearing, all at the same time.
Frequently heard around our house: “Watch Cwifford! Wet’s watch Cwifford! Can I watch Cwifford?” Alls I can say is “thank goodness for the DVR.” We’ve got numerous Clifford and Curious George shows sitting there, waiting to be played upon demand.
So here she is watching Clifford, the Big Red Dog. I think Mr. Bleakman is saying “You know, when I was a boy, we didn’t have lint. We had to play with dinosaur poop. And we liked it!”
So today, I’m trying to get her out of the house to PT/OT.
She goes to the potty. Great. But I have to coral her to get her to wash her hands. Which she does. But at some point, she grabs the towel, is running around, runs back into the bathroom, and shuts the door to the toilet/bath area. A few minutes later, she hollers at me that she needs help hanging up the towel. Whilst helping her, I notice the towel is wet. “Emma, did you get the towel in the potty?” “Yes,” she admits, brightly.
So we’re back to washing her hands. While she does that, I go finish collecting spare clothes, snacks, etc. She comes back out, and her hands are dry. Anyone who has a toddler in the family knows it is impossible for a three year old to wash and dry their hands completely.
Back to the bathroom. “Get your hands wet!” She places her finger tips in the water. At this point, I hurry things along by physically directing her actions.
Once we’re done with that, we have to get her shoes and socks back on. Which is annoying, because she’d already put her socks on earlier, all by herself, and has, subsequently, taken her socks off, all by herself.
It wasn’t as bad as other times, which have included last minute trips to the potty, complete with oversprays that soaked pants and underpants. Meltdowns while I’ve tried to comb her hair. Meltdowns while trying to get her dressed. Meltdowns while insisting that she doesn’t want to go to school. Strenuous requests to watch just one more episode of “Clifford.” And so on.
I was looking for an update to the Twilight 1.0 theme, used hereon, so I checked out the author’s homepage, and ran across a post about massive snow silliness. Notre Dame? I’m guessing her city is South Bend?
My wife grew up in Mishawaka and we live in Austin, because we don’t want to subject our beautiful daughter to more than one snow event a year.
Silly us - we drove up to South Bend for Easter, and as we were on the Crawfordsville (my folks) to Mishawaka (her folks) leg, I asked our three year old daughter, Emma , what we were going to do at Grandma Theresa’s house.
Remembering Christmas a year and a half ago, she suggested we’d play in the snow.
“Oh,” I sagely opined, “I don’t think we’ll have snow at Easter.”
Mother nature sure showed me.
So we’re at the physical/occupational therapist’s office, and Kerri, Emma’s OT, was helping Emma put on shoes after the therapy was finished.
Emma was more interested in a book about how to dial 911. There was a phone number pad, a boy with a broken arm, a girl, and a dog.
“Emma,” I asked, “why can’t the doggie dial the phone?”
“Because he doesn’t have ‘pposable thumbs,” she answered.
Made me so proud!
Kerri thinks I like to teach Emma tricks. Except I didn’t explain to Emma why doggies can’t dial phones…I explained to her why our kitty, TC, can’t draw. She made the conceptual leap all by herself!
I’m taking your blood pressure. I’m a doctor. So I don’t cry. I don’t cry at the doctor’s. I just smile at the doctor. I am doctor Emma.
Although it sounds more like “I’m taking your bread pressure.”
Emma: “This is my baby brother.”
Dad: “What is your baby brother’s name?”
Emma: “His name is Cocamosa.”
Uh… Cocamosa?
Yes, it’s true! DaddyFu is, slowly but surely, moving to a new hosting platform.
DaddyFu is moved. That is all.
So, yes, if you’re linked to specific blog posts, those links will get busted, and your link to the RSS feed will get busted, but daddyfu.jelyon.com will point to the new blog, so that link, at least, won’t get busted.
As for why I’d up and do this… clickenzie here
Dad: Emma! You’re doing a good job of putting that together!
Emma: Yeah, I am doing a great job of putting it together.
Uhmm…. Uh-oh.
“Where’s Aunty Linda?”
“Dallas.”
“Where’s Dallas?”
“Texas.”
“Where’s Texas?”
“It’s in the United States.”
“Where’s the United States?”
“It’s in North America.”
“Where’s North America?”
“It’s on the planet Earth.”
“Where’s the planet Earth?”
“It’s in the solar system.”
“Where’s the solar system?”
“In the Milky Way.”
“Where’s the Milky Way?”
“In the universe.”
“Where’s the universe?”
“There universe is everything. It holds everything.”
Believe it or not, she stopped this line of questioning. I didn’t want to have to get all cosmological on her.
Like I know what that means.
I Go Swimming
Peter Gabriel
Ooh, I go swimming, swimming in the water
Swimming in the river, swimming in the sea
I go swimming
I go swimming, swimming in the water
Swimming in the pool, swimming is cool
I go swimming
The sun is burning, I am yearning
For the waterflow (waterflow)
Next to my skin I, like to begin a
Waterflow (waterflow)
Letting off steam I float in a dream,
I can’t let go (can’t let go)
Follow my wishes, follow the fishes
Down below (down below)
I go swimming
I need water, water to drink
Water on my brain, water sustain,
Water over me
I want water, water I need
Water to think, water to drink
Water over me
The sun is burning, I am yearning
For the waterflow (waterflow)
Next to my skin I, like to begin a
Waterflow (waterflow)
Letting off steam I float in a dream,
I can’t let go (can’t let go)
Follow my wishes, follow the fishes
Down below (down below)
I go swimming
I go swimming, I go swimming
Swimming in water, swimming in water, swimming in water
Water all over me
Swimming in water, swimming in water, swimming in water
I go swimming, I go swimming
I go swimming, I go swimming
Swimming, I go swimming
Oh I go swimming, I go swimming
Water all over me
Swimming in water, swimming in water, swimming in water
Water all over me
Swimming in water, swimming in water, swimming in water
Water all over me
Swimming in water, swimming in water, swimming in water
Water all over me
I’ve decided it’s official. We are now in the “question” phase.
“Is this the horse from Gramma Nancy and Grampa Bob?”
Well, yes it is, and she knew that before she asked the question! I’m not sure what’s going on when she asks questions like that. Confirming that what she thought is indeed the truth? I’ll have to find out.
I got my first string of questions today.
“Where’s Aunty Linda?” “She’s in Dallas.”
“Where’s Dallas?” “It’s north of us.”
“Where’s north?” Uhh…. “It’s that way” didn’t work very well.
“Were’s Dallas?” “In Texas.”
“Where’s Texas?” “In North America?”
“Where’s North America?” “It’s on the planet ‘Earth’.”
At that point, did she get distracted by something else?
Just so you know. Don’t call me “Mr. Mom.” I’m a stay at home dad. I own my masculinity. I’m not trying to be a “mom.” I’m a “dad.”
I’m not the hapless Mr. Mom from that crappy 80s movie. I’m a Problem without a Solution. I’m a SAHD. Hear me roar.
If you’re calling yourself Mr. Mom, I’d prescribe a night of hard drinking followed by a road trip to Vegas, where you should watch a prize fight from the first row. Total the car, hit on Marg Helgenberger, then hop a flight to that weeks NASCAR event.
Failing that, just hangout for a weekend with Ragin and Eamon.
(And if you call yourself a “Mommy Daddy,” I’m going to prescribe the road trip, and the weekend with Ragin and Eamon. Maybe a full week.)
Via Yahoo News
Mr Mom becoming more of a household name in US
by Jocelyne ZablitSun Apr 8, 11:18 PM ET
The day his daughter Olivia was born, as Mark Ruis puts it, was the last day of his career — at least for the foreseeable future.
On that day three years ago, Ruis joined a growing number of men across the United States who are bucking tradition and taking on the title of Mr Mom, or stay-at-home dad.
“I didn’t think I had it in me,” Ruis, 38, of the eastern state of New Jersey, told AFP. “To be a stay-at-home nurturing parent with patience, to be able to do all the chores, all the organizational stuff, I didn’t think I could do it.
“But lo and behold, when it came down to it, I was able to.”
According to the US Census Bureau, there are 159,000 stay-at-home fathers currently in the United States, a more than three-fold increase from 1996 when they numbered 49,000.
Researchers and associations that represent these fathers, however, estimate their number to be closer to two million, as the Census Bureau figures do not take into account fathers who work part time or from the home.
And they’ve come a long way in the quarter-century since the bumbling dads in the 1983 hit “Mr Mom” starring Michael Keaton. While it may have popularized the term, the film treated the species as an oddity, a stay-at-home dad who is there because he lost his job, struggling to cope with diaper-changing, meal-cooking home multi-tasking handled “easily” by women.

If you look carefully, you can almost see her cast.

Emma: “I’m afraid of the monsters, dad.”
John: “What are you going to do if you see a monster?”
Emma: “I’m going to scare them away. I’m going to scare them to mommy and daddy’s room.”
Emma: I found some monsters in my bag!
Emma: I’m going to turn into a balloon!
I was jumping rope, but it’s a snake!
Look at what a snake did - he ate some plums!
You scared me dad! And my pull up!
I scared her pull up?
Yeeeeah. I got nothin’.

Who knew? Here she is with her blue cast. She picked the color herself, pretty definitively, which was cute and sweet and a little surprising. She’s becoming her own person.
On the other hand, with her natural reticence, low muscle tone and gravitational insecurity, the cast is making it difficult for her to walk. She did pretty well at PT today, though.
So Emma took a little tumble off a curb while we were at an event downtown Saturday.
Turns out she broke her tibia, near her ankle. She’s been fussy, as one would expect (especially considering the cold and borderline ear infection.)
But she’s also been quite sweet and accepting of the situation.
I’m finding out that dealing with stuff like this is just taking one moment at a time. It sounds really bad to family or friends, but when we’re enmeshed in the situation, it seems quite organic and natural.
Kinda weird. But nice to know, too. One day at a time.
I found it particularly interesting the other day - we took a nap together (”in mommy and daddy’s bed”). At one point, she told me a story about her day; she fell down, hurt her foot, the doctor listened to her chest, and made her foot feel better.
That was pretty cool!
Featuring the Austin SAHDs group.
(Emma’s watching “Sesame Street.”)
Someone’s knocking on Elmo’s door.
Emma suggests “Maybe it’s the kibble crook!”
(Kibble crook - from an episode of “Clifford the Big Red Dog.”
Dad: “Emma, would you like some more pineapple?”Emma: “No thanks!”
Got a great comment to my post on why I’m always late.
Like the commenter, we, too, worry about loosing animals, especially “Guck” (Duck.)
Oh, the horror. The horror.
She tends to be bad about dropping items and either not realizing it, or not saying anything.
“Guck” has been dropped on the hike and bike trail. Luckily I realized it quickly, and didn’t have to backtrack too far. (And luckily, no one’s dog or kid claimed it.)
And yesterday she dropped her new “Cwifford” (the big red “gog”) in the parking lot on the way to the car. Didn’t say a word. Glad I looked back.
We’ve been looking for a replacement “guck.” I fear we may never find one, and may loose it someday.
“You need to move if you’re going to be swinging your monkey.”
Followed by:
“No more. You’re done. No more swinging your monkey.”
I’m pleased they replied to my e-mail:
John,
We are aware of the outages and found and corrected the problems on that circuit





