Confessions of a Dork: Holiday Edition

Songs leave such deliciously indelible imprints on us throughout our lives, reminding us of particular moments in time, or as time passes, general eras in our lives, whether happy or sad. They also mean different things to different people. That is why, for instance, while you may cringe and dive for the dial, I will never switch the radio station off of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” but will instead lamely listen to the entire thing for reasons best kept to myself, or why, at your friend’s wedding, you will go charging out to the dance floor in excitement when “Paradise By the Dashboard Light” comes on and I will simply see it as a chance to get another drink.

The imprint songs make on us is even more pronounced at Christmas, a time that I believe most people are more prone than other times of year to romanticize the past. The imprinting of Christmas carols into our brains starts at an early age, as noted in the last post. My family (my Mom excepted), for instance, is unnaturally attached to the Elvis Christmas Album, which my parents had on vinyl and which was a Christmas staple in our household in the Christmases of my youth. Two of my top 5 favorite Christmas songs of this and every year were birthed not in the distant past of my childhood, however, but instead were created in the relatively less-distant year of 1984, where they sat atop the English pop charts at numbers 1 and 2 that year at Christmas of my freshman year of college.

The first is “Do They Know Its Christmas?,” the English 80’s superstar compilation that was the most thrilling musical event of 1984 to my 18-year-old self. You should know, of course, that my 18-year old self wore parachute pants and had dubious judgment, as well as a fervent love of all of the seemingly brilliant music pouring forth from England at the time. Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats and Midge Ure of Ultravox wrote the song in a 24-hour period and 3-days later had gathered a whose who of pop talent of the moment in a London studio as "Band-Aid" for a day long recording session, including Sting, Simon LeBon, Bono, Boy George, George Michael, Paul Young, etc., as well as lesser lights such as Bananarama and Marilyn, who was not invited but showed up anyway. With the profits all going towards Ethiopian famine relief, it was the first in the stream of politically conscious charity songs that later spawned “We Are the World” in America and the Live-Aid concerts. For anyone interested, there is an interesting entry on the recording of the song at Wikipedia. Anyway, despite the sometimes ubiquitous presence of the song, especially that first year and the next one, I have never tired of it and my heart still gives a little jump each time I hear the opening chimes. I still have the 45 of the song given to me for Christmas in 1984 by my friend John (a dedicated reader of this blog!). Curiously, I learned just this week that Deanna had always thought they were egotistically singing in the song that “The greatest gift they’ll get this year is this.” “They,” being of course, the starving people of Ethiopia, and “this” being, I suppose, the record. While it may have been the greatest gift I got in 1984, and while I am sure Ure and Geldof and the rest of the crew they gathered to record the song that long ago day in London all had outsized egos, they were actually singing that the greatest gift the Ethiopians would get that year was life, due to the money raised by sales of the record, and not the record itself.

My more embarrassing 1984 favorite is Wham’s “Last Christmas.” The song, despite its infectious chorus, is numbingly repetitive and checks in at a bloated four and a half minutes. It is the video that left its impression on me, however. It features a brokenhearted George Michael sadly but gamely enduring a Alpine holiday ski-trip with a big group of friends, including his girlfriend from the previous Christmas, who is now dating Andy Ridgley and who has, cruelly, sadistically even, given Andy the brooch that George bestowed upon her the previous year. The video and its bittersweet story of love lost, in addition to setting unrealistic expectations for the kind of holiday get togethers with friends I should expect during my 20’s (never did get that call to meet everyone up at the big lodge in Kitzbuhel, Austria for a bit of skiing and some holiday fun), made such an impression that I still, sadly, make Deanna watch it with me each holiday season (thank god no one reads this blog!). There is much mocking by her of course, but for the most part, she is reluctantly indulgent of this bizarre holiday tradition. Reason enough to love her right there, I say, because frankly, holiday traditions don’t get more dorky than that. I might even buy her a brooch this Christmas.

Ginkle Bells

Hayden wandered by me the other day, smiling to himself while he tunelessly sang Jingle Bells to no one in particular. Because he is 2 1/2, and most likely has no concious memory of hearing the song before a week ago, it went like this: "Ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells, ginkle bells." At that point, just when I thought he had some sort of robot-like short circuit in his brain, he unstuck, and launched into a verse that went something like "fun ... ride ... horse ... sleigh." In addition to finding this damn cute (seriously, like 10 times cuter than I have been able to convey here), I was also struck once again how awesome it is in some ways to be two.

Less than two months ago, the twins left behind a summer that was chock full of two year old fun and adventure and were immersed suddenly into Halloween culture - a blur of costumes and parties, pumpkin carving, and scary but fun decorations. They often insisted on wearing their costumes parts of each day leading up to Halloween, merrily following Owen in whatever crazy game or monster related fun he was cooking up that day. On Halloween itself, it took a total of about two houses to master the concept that if they said trick or treat and held out their bags, they would be handed actual CANDY - score!!

Then, before the sugar high had even worn off, everything was about turkeys and pilgrims and horns o' plenty, culminating with a giant party at our house attended by all of their favorite people on earth.

Two days after Thanksgiving, life changed abruptly again and we were hauling 14 bins full of Christmas wonder down from the attic. Suddenly, everything is Santa and lights and Christmas trees and Baby Jesus and songs and reindeer and stars. One day they are reading about snow and not really understanding it, and the next they are standing outside in the real thing, laughing delightedly as they attempt to pelt me with snowballs (I say attempt because to actually be pelted by a two year old, I would have to literally stand six inches from them). One day, they see lights on a tree in someones yard and go nuts. A week later, and we are, crazily, bringing a tree INTO THE HOUSE and putting lights on it. Madness, genius, ecstasy!!!

They accept these constant changes to their lives without question and with a good natured enthusiasm that is, of course, infectious. And really, why shouldn't they, as life at this point is a wonderous series of costume changes for the house which is essentially their world at this point, each more awesome than the next (actually, it is pretty debatable whether Thanksgiving is literally more awesome to a two year old than Halloween, but you know what I mean).

So, while being two has its downsides, a limited ability to fully express your wants and desires and our quite obviously unfair and onerous household policy of demanding children go to bed being chief among them, it seems, overall, like a pretty damn fine existence. Ginkle on.

A Billvember to Remember

10:30 p.m. this past Saturday night found me cleaning a vomit-drenched car seat inside the cold, dark minivan parked in our driveway. Before I go on, writing that sentence prompts me to offer the following word of advice for any prospective parents out there: while safety ratings in a car seat are great and all, I suggest you instead base your decision to buy a particular car seat on its ease of cleaning when something disgusting happens. Because, my naive young friends, something disgusting will happen, and many more times than just once. Car seat makers must take some secret glee in creating all kinds of nooks and crannies for nasty half-digested food bits and fecal matter to hide in, because despite my extensive efforts, I speak from experience when I guarantee that that car seat, and by extension the entire van, will still smell nasty 6 weeks from now.

As I went about my grim chore, my wife appeared behind me in the doorway of the van, looking bedraggled. Her voice husky with the beginnings of a cold and her lip still swollen to Angelina Jolie size from a shot absorbed from a two-year old head as she tried to wrestle one or another of the twins into clothes while I was at the office for six hours on Saturday morning. I turned and handed her yet another armful of vomit-soaked blankets and rags, careful not to put pressure on my toe that I was sure I had broken during some Christmas decorating excitement the day before. While it throbbed with pain the rest of Friday, it may not have been actually broken. It most certainly was on Saturday when Cooper jumped off of a wooden box directly onto nothing but the already injured toe, leaving me writhing in pain on the basement floor while Cooper stood over me asking "Daddy boo-boo?" over and over and over.

So, fittingly, ended November, not so fondly referred to as Billvember here at CloudEight due to the fact that it is the end of the billing year at the law firm where I am employed. Each year during Billvember, I disappear into a blur of work that leaves me largely unable to participate in any meaningful way in life at home and leaves Deanna spread even thinner than usual. During periods that I was at home, I was often distracted. My distraction did lead to some amusing incidents, such as absentmindedly handing the boys a half-full bag of cashews when they asked for oyster crackers for their soup. I only realized my mistake moments later, alerted by Deanna's confused exclamations upon finding Cooper enjoying a heaping bowl full of pumpkin soup soaked cashews. Anyway, while it is true that we here at CloudEight truly have an extraordinary amount to be thankful for, right now I am mostly thankful Billvember is behind me, and am looking forward to once again rejoining the family, and you all, for some Holiday and winter fun. See you soon!

Times Up, Pencils Down. Please Hand in Your Votes

We here at CloudEight are projecting an Obama victory Tuesday, with Obama getting 51.8% of the popular vote, compared to McCain's 47.3%. We are able to make such a confident projection after Obama trounced McCain in voting by grade schoolers throughout our local school district, besting him by an almost 2 to 1 margin and winning in all three grade schools in town. This result was then fed into a sophisticated computer program developed with the able assistance of a junior-high kid CloudEight keeps on retainer for special projects such as this. The program is able to extrapolate the local grade-school results into nationwide results using census data, other math stuff, and 11 secret herbs and spices. While I am confident the grade school election results have yielded accurate data upon which to make our prediction, I am mildly concerned that the model is projecting that SpongeBob SquarePants, Miley Cyrus and Iron Man will split the remaining 1%. While it appears there may be some minor kinks to work out for 2012, our projection has a margin of error of just +/- 1/2%.

Interestingly, the margin of victory for Obama in Owen's kindergarten class was 20-3; even bigger then the districtwide margin. It was actually 19-4 until Mikey wisely decided he didn't want to throw his lot in with a loser and switched his vote - an insightful peek inside the head of the independent voter perhaps?

The grade school campaigns of the candidates appeared to be based around only three pieces of information - all critical in winning the all-important youth vote. So, while Owen may not be able to detail the finer points of the candidates' economic policies, he can tell you their favorite hobby (Obama = basketball, McCain = hiking), favorite books (Obama = Harry Potter, McCain = "some book about King Arthur") and favorite food (Obama=chili, McCain=tacos). In these answers we can see the reflections of the candidates. Basketball, a youthful, urban sport that emphasizes teamwork but allows the most talented to shine brighter than the rest and to even become superstars. Hiking, trying to be youthful, but a bit obscure and old fashioned seeming; eliciting images of McCain holding a walking stick, dressed in German alpine clothing while he trudges alone through meadows high in the Alps. Chili, a bold and spicy yet substantive food. Tacos, a food that could not seem less "McCain" like, eliciting suspicions of political pandering. Obama digging Harry Potter, perhaps seeing a bit of himself in Harry, the unlikely longshot hero with the funny hair/name, who, thrust from relative obscurity onto a broader stage, suddenly finds himself burdened with the outsized expectations of some and the target of insecure jealousy of others. While picking a book that has sold a gazillion copies may have been designed by Obama to counteract charges that he is "elitist", it was also a risky move that could have backfired if conservatives had been able to make hay out of an argument that Obama identifies himself with the elitist "wizards" and looks down with condescension on the Muggles who are clinging to God and guns in their desperate non-wizarding lives. McCain, King Arthur, again we see the political pandering ("Hey, I'm the next Camelot, not that one over there!") and general out of touchness (assuming that touchness is even a word).

It is too bad the schools did not ask the candidates the really tough questions, like what their favorite color is. Think about it. While Obama might have been tempted to go with red, a youthful and energetic color, it is also the color associated, rightly or wrongly, with Republican states. Would choosing red then result in charges of political pandering? But would choosing blue be playing it too safe, exciting your base while doing little to energize those in the middle. The logical choice then, is purple, the color of the all important independents. How about favorite sport? Would McCain have transparently sucked up to the all important grade school election demographic of males age 5-11 by choosing NASCAR.

While these and many other tough questions remain unanswered, it is time, at last, to go to the polls, cast our votes, and, hope for the best, visions of Quiddich as a demonstration sport at the 2016 Chicago Olympics dancing in our heads. See you on the other side of history.

Two Shots of Whiskey for Us Please, and Three Cheese-Waters for the Kids

Why we continue to try to eat out as a family these days is, quite frankly, a mystery to me. Within two minutes of being seated Deanna and I are desperately trying to corral a server and get our entire order in immediately so we can get served and shovel food at the kids as fast as possible so we can then quickly flee the premises before the twins start loudly demanding freedom to wander about terrorizing the other patrons and staff. Well, terrorizing may be too strong a word. Its not like the twins are purposefully misbehaving. They have never, for instance, gone through Owen's unpleasant toddler phase of signaling he was done with a meal by tossing his plate face down on the floor – always a hit with restaurant staffs. They are, however, two, and, no matter how you slice it (wait, you don’t have a knife? Here, use one of mine from this pile I have confiscated from the kids during the meal – I don’t have a fork though, those are all on the floor, along with various crayons, the salt shaker, my sunglasses, 2 sippie cups and approximately 1/5 of all food served to our table), it is often tense and never relaxing to dine out with two two-year olds and a sometimes cranky and overtired five-year old. We hit rock bottom over the summer when things went so badly one lunchtime that we were forced to acknowledge that even the six-table, un-air conditioned hot dog diner in our town was too fancy an eatery for our little crew to dine out at. A sad day.

Still, who wants to give up on eating out altogether. Not us, that is for sure. You wouldn’t want to dine in all the time either if you got a look at the floor underneath our table following pretty much every meal at home. Tonight, for instance, the boys decided to create “cheese-water” by putting big pinches of Parmesan cheese into glasses of ice water. Not only was it disgusting, but the twins Parmesan cheese-pinching skills hover somewhere between muppet and Cro-Magnon. Who wants to spend every evening as the janitor of the cafeteria at the insane asylum. And so we persist in going out, motivated partly by stubbornness, partly by principle, and partly by laziness. And on those occasions when it does go well, there is that glimmer of hope that someday, in the not so distant future, everyone in the restaurant won’t be thinking of us as THAT family. You know the one. That glimmer keeps alive our little dream that we can someday take our seats once again with the rest of you, tsk, tsking to ourselves about the behavior of some as yet unborn children that some couple will by then be inflicting on us, and smiling to ourselves as we dawdle over a second cup of coffee and desert.

Mr. Obama Goes to Springfield

Upon graduation from law school I spent a couple of years working as an attorney for the Senate Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly, where I was the lone democratic staffer for the Civil Judiciary Committee. My main job was to analyze the bills that came before the Committee and advise the four Democratic members of the Committee on the bills during Committee meetings. After the bills moved out of Committee to the full Senate, I would be present on the Senate floor to advise any of the Democratic Senators in the event they had questions. We would do other things too, write legislation, meet with lobbiests, etc. but the Committee support and analysis of bills was the main gist of the job. All in all, a pretty cool first job to have after law school.

Six months before I left the job, a newly hatched State Senator by the name of Barack Obama arrived in Springfield and was assigned to the Judiciary Committee. Before his first Judiciary Committee meeting, he summoned me to his office to talk about the bills and my analyses - my first meeting with this extraordinary person. I, like many others in the Statehouse, grasped quickly that this was a person of exceeding intelligence, charisma, talent, and ambition. But, as hard as it is to imagine at this particular moment in history, back in those early days, he was also just a normal person new to the job (well, as normal as a brilliant constitutional law professor from University of Chicago freshly elected to the Illinois Senate can be). I remember standing in a bar one night with him in those early weeks at some function or another, with him pointing to this person or that, asking me who they were, what their story was. Another time in those first months of Barack's legislative career, when Chicago's Mayor Daley was down in Springfield for an annual party that Chicago threw for legislators, I watched as Barack, after waiting in line, introduced himself to the Mayor, shook his hand, and posed to have his picture taken with him. I was aware even then that Barack was destined for bigger things so I paid attention to little moments like that. I have a cool black and white picture of Barack speaking on the floor of the Illinois Senate on a bill he had sponsored, with me standing to his left in the event he had questions or needed additional information. I liked and admired Barack, enjoyed the time I spent with him, and believe he liked me. I got to know Michelle Obama a bit as well, especially when we sat with Barack and Michelle at a friend's wedding not too long after I left the Senate job, and I thought she was fantastic. While I left the job disillusioned in some respects about politics and the legislative process, I continued to hold Barack in high regard. Several years later, Barack was one of my references when I got my current lawyering gig. It is simply amazing to think how far he has come in just these few years, although Deanna and I were predicting great things for him to anyone who would listen long before he became a household name.

The coolest thing to me about the Obama phenomenon is not the man himself, but what he inspires in others. Aside from knowing Barack personally, that is why I feel so strongly about this election. I actually first started this entry the day after Barack’s speech accepting the nomination for President. That day, still riding a wave of emotion from seeing this extraordinary person accept the nomination, I wrote that “No matter who wins this election, I firmly believe that we stand on the brink of a new American epoch. There is no denying the energy, aura, hope and power that hangs thick and heavy in the air today, like the smoke following a fireworks finale in the moment just before everyone exhales, turns their gaze from the sky, and goes back about their business. The culture is changing at a breakneck speed, and, at this moment, for the better. The last decade, defined by its winking cynicism, is slipping away, replaced by a rising tide of hope that will transform all in this nation who care to come along, for the better. The transition to the next epoch is happening now and will be marked in the coming years by turbulence – but, in four years, this world will be completely changed, whether for the good or the worse.” (Apparently my time in politics did not completely beat the optimism out of me!). While I believe some of that remains true, the breakneck speed and turbulence parts seem most true (hello stockmarket!). Only a few weeks have passed and the economy is in shambles, and, it appears to me, the Republicans, in these last desperate days of the campaign, are encouraging, tacitly if not overtly, a cultural war and ugly acts by their supporters. The nation continues to hold its breath but the mood has shifted: things are tense, nerves are frayed, and we are all holding on tight and watching history unfold.

This being, ostensibly, a parenting blog, I will dispense with the politicking at this point but will leave you with one story that is kid-related and always amuses me. The last time I saw either Barack or Michelle Obama in person was at a relatively lightly attended press conference when he announced his long-shot bid for the U.S. Senate seat. I happened to be working at the time in a building across the street from the hotel where the press-conference was taking place and decided to swing by and watch the announcement. Owen had recently been born and Deanna had been corresponding with Michelle Obama via e-mail regarding a daycare facility near our home run by one of Michelle’s friends. After the press-conference, I ran into Michelle in the hallway outside and we took a minute to catch up. While the events in the Obama’s world, I would guess, had been much more eventful even then than the doings in our little corner of the world, Michelle, charming as always, asked, among other things, how breast feeding was going for Deanna. After we parted ways I was making my way through the crowd towards the lobby to leave when I heard my name behind me - Michelle trying to get my attention. I turned around and she called out to me down the crowded hallway with a smile "Tell Deanna to use lanolin on her nipples!" And that, my friends, is a pretty damn cool thing for a (hopefully) future first lady to say.

Summer Wrap-Up

Best quote of the summer - Deanna, speaking to me while changing Cooper's diaper one night after a long day during 4th of July weekend: "How did Cooper get orzo on his scrotum??" How indeed my young friend. If you end a day with orzo on the scrotum, you can say with some authority that that is a day that has been lived to the fullest.

With October here and temperatures hovering in the 50’s and 60’s, it has become futile to argue that it is still summer in Chicago. It is thus time to formally bid adieu to what was truly an outstanding season. We laughed, we cried (including over spilled milk, my parental admonishments to the contrary notwithstanding). Those of us who didn’t know how to talk at summer’s outset are now little talking machines, a bike laden with training wheels at the outset of summer is now a sleek two wheeler, and the water that looked so deep and intimidating on Memorial Day was simply a place to joyously jump into and swim by Labor Day. There was a week in Wisconsin, three weekends in Michigan, five hours in Canada, one weekend in Springfield celebrating my grandmother’s 94th birthday, lots of days at the beach, visits to the zoo, and bike rides with me towing the twins in a trailer and Owen trailing Deanna on a tagalong. We went to the horseraces, car shows and cruise nights, to parks and parades and picnics, watched fireworks, hung out at the pool, ran through sprinklers, slid down slip and slides, rode the rides at Kiddieland, climbed on tanks at Cantigny, saw the sights at Navy Pier, went up in the Sears Tower, and visited Millennium Park and Buckingham Fountain. We ate hundreds of cherry tomatoes off of the vine, grew sunflowers from seed, and picked blueberries at a farm. We bought a new car (2004 Toyota Corolla) and said goodbye to our beloved old one (1993 Camry). Owen played t-ball and took swimming lessons, I ran a 5-K and went kayaking. We went to concerts, barbecued, spent many happy hours visiting with family and friends, and drank to excess a couple of times. We gathered around a fire pit with friends, telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows. We endured floodwaters in our Village and were caught in a torrential downpour at the beach in Michigan after lingering too long watching the rain and lightning roll in from Lake Michigan. We watched sunsets, slept in hammocks, and Owen and I spent a great night camping in a tent in the backyard, where we read old Calvin and Hobbes cartoons and ate junk food. All in all, not a bad way to spend four or so months. Here are a few final pictures – soon, all that will be left to warm us up until Spring:

Of 10 photos in the giant chair at Julie's in Fish Creek, Wisconsin, this is the only one where everyone is vaguely looking in the same direction.

Awesome Norwegian flag tattoo sent to Owen by CloudEight reader Gail in Minnesota. Thanks Gail! Owen wore it on his head for 4 days straight until we made him wash it off for the start of the school year.

Hayden goes full on patriotic, right down to his NASCAR sippy cup, the toddler equivalent of the American flag lapel pin.

Buckingham Fountain!

Summer takes its toll.

Young Love in Paris

Owen, our little internationalist, often brags about having been to four countries - the U.S., Canada, Belgium and Holland. He tends to gloss over the fact that his trip to Belgium and Holland was while he was inside Deanna as a 5-month-old fetus. While one might argue that his trip prior to birth thus did not technically count as him having been to Belgium and Holland, the more conservative among you might be inclined to argue that Owen's life had begun at conception and that he came out of the birth canal already qualified to be Vice President, at least from a foreign policy experience standpoint. He also, by the way, gets high marks in another important VP qualification category: the ability to give your offspring goofy names, assuming he someday makes good on his stated goal of a year or so ago of having twins named Coasterball and Googly-Goo. Political arguments aside, he was, as I recall, enthusiastic about the Belgium/Holland trip, even in his unborn state, doing excited backflips inside Deanna each time she ingested one of the chocolate eclairs that one stumbles into every six feet or so in Belgium (its a wonder those people aren't fatter!). But I digress.

While largely girl-averse these days, Owen recently came home from kindergarten raving about "Jane", who sits next to him in class, who had been to EVEN MORE COUNTRIES THAN HIM, had been BORN IN FRANCE, and had CLIMBED ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOWER. Quite a resume for a five year old. Owen's eyes were all starry as he talked and you could almost see his little heart thumping out of his chest like a cartoon character.

Last Thursday, we had the opportunity to meet Jane's parents at parent night at the grade school (which, much to our happiness, turned into parent night at the local martini bar afterwards!). Deanna had brushed up on her French a bit and I was ready to talk semi-knowledgeably about all manner of things French with my new future in-laws like, uh, Jerry Lewis movies (yuk!) and cheese. As it turns out, Jane was not born in France and has never left the country, although she has, apparently, gone up in the 1/3 size Eiffel Tower replica in Las Vegas. What she lacks in international travel experience however, she appears to make up for in imagination and an ability to weave a spell of love over the hearts of five-year old boys.

Meanwhile, in twin news, we made the boys go cold-turkey on the pacifiers, which they previously used mainly when sleeping. Hayden was much less of a pacifier addict than Cooper, so he does not seem to miss them much. He is, however, a natural agitator, so he makes a point of asking about pacifiers at every nap and bedtime in a loud voice with the apparent goal of making sure Cooper hears and starts to get worked up. Cooper used to sleep with as many pacifiers as he could get his grubby little hands on, often sleeping with one in his mouth and a spare in each hand. He has, predictably, taken the change hard, cuddling up each night with the empty box that the pacifiers used to be kept in. A sad little sight!

Big Z. and Little O.

When I was about eight, my dad and Uncle took me to my first Cubs game. After the game, they took me to a Wrigleyville bar for a bite to eat when in walked Mr. Cub himself, Ernie Banks. Ernie graciously stopped by each table, including ours, signing programs and chatting. While I recall that Ernie politely questioned why I was wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates cap (my choice at a vendor outside earlier), he could not have been nicer and I have been a devoted Cubs fan ever since.

Now that I have sons of my own, I am intent on passing along a love of the Cubs, especially during this possibly historic season, and an appreciation for baseball in general, with its endless intricacies, rich history, and a rhythm that seems to hark back to a simpler era.

That all being said, is there any prouder moment as a Cubs fan/father than showing a picture of Cub's ace Carlos Zambrano in the newspaper to your five-year old son, asking him who it is, and having him correctly reply: "That's Big Z!". The answer, by the way, is no. I will, however, acknowledge that my moment of pride was slightly dampened when Deanna asked him how he knew which Cub that was and he answered "Because he's the fat guy." Oh well, its a start.

Belgium v. Italy in the Labor Day Poop Flag Throwdown

A perusal of posts over the course of my little blog's history will show that two of the most common themes have been poop and flags. At long last, these two CloudEight favorites came together delightfully this Labor Day weekend while we were at a restaurant at Navy Pier having a bit of touristy fun. I had just finished parading all three kids to the bathroom for a much-needed hand-scrubbing, and, in Owen's case, a pee-break, when Owen, upon returning to the table, declared that he now had to poop. Deanna, thankfully, took him this time as my patience was beginning to wear a bit. Upon finishing his business, he summoned Deanna into the stall and informed her that he was trying to determine whether the poop he had just made looked more like the flag of Italy or the flag of Belgium. While I wasn't there to observe, I can imagine that she, although seldom lacking for words, simply stared in disbelief. Undeterred, he continued his one man debate, ultimately concluding that because the poop had more of a squarish-quality to it, it looked more like the Belgian flag (which, for you non-flag-o-philes out there, is indeed shorter and thus more square in shape than your average flag, for reasons only the Belgians probably know). Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on whether you are reading this post shortly before having a meal), we weren't able to capture the subject poop-flag for posting here. It should be noted that the flag of Italy is vertical green, white and red stripes, while the Belgian flag is vertical black, yellow and red stripes. According to a post-incident interview I conducted with Owen, it was not the color of the poop that inspired his debate, but rather its "stripey" qualities. His ability to produce squarish poop beyond this one incident is undocumented, so no need to suggest medical intervention as of yet, although an ability to crank out "squarish, stripey" poop may serve him well should he decide to become a performance artist, especially if he starts working with food coloring.

In other news, rather than take the end of summer lying down, we spent this Labor Day Weekend sucking the marrow out of it, engaging in an orgy of activity designed to fatten us up on summer memories for the long, hard winter ahead. On successive days, we went to Navy Pier (for the afore-mentioned touristy and bathroom fun), Arlington Park Racetrack (never too young to get the kids hooked on playing the ponies - Owen picked several winners!), and to Cantigny Park for a Labor Day picnic (featured attraction here is gardens and climbing on the 10 or so army tanks they have on the grounds around the 1st Infantry Division museum).

Polygamy, Yay-Yay & Poopa and More!

Due to my lengthy absence, I'll briefly summarize some recent events:

We recently spent a long weekend at the beach in Michigan, sharing a rented house with three other couples and a total of 10 kids, of whom Owen, at age 5, was the oldest. The sheer number of small children lent the weekend sort of polygamist commune feel, absent the sex with multiple women part. Actually Owen was more of the polygamist hero, as at one point there were was a scrum of naked little girls duking it out on an air mattress for the right to marry him. On a polygamist commune, he could simply have married them all - problem solved.

Owen is growing up before our eyes. He lost his first tooth and started kindergarten this week. Judging by my perusal of other parenting blogs, I will give birth to an obligatory reflective post on this subject sooner or later, but at the moment, it still appears to be gestating.

The most exciting event has been the fact that the twins have gone from worrisomely nonvocal, like two miniature Silent Bobs, to constant chatter in the space of a month. They are counting, laying down sentences, and, charmingly, referring to themselves as Poopa (Cooper) and Yay-Yay (their variation on Hay-Hay, which is what we most commonly call Hayden), which remind me of the sort of fun names rappers used to give themselves back in the 80's . If we could lure Spinderella out of retirement to round out the group, we might have something going. Maybe record a number called Hip-Hop-Hooyay-yay (featuring DJ Fresh Poopa).

Oddly, they both seem to speak with some sort of heavy working class Boston accent. In addition, Hayden has a rather high-pitched little voice, which has me constantly trying, for my own amusement, to teach him to say "miiiiiiseryyyyy" like Helium in the Strindberg and Helium cartoons. No luck yet but I'll keep you posted. Get it - blog, posted. All right, enough already.

Forbidden Fruit

We are all friends here on Cloud Eight, dear readers. After all, it is in this space that I have shared with you family tales involving everything from vomit to poop. Our communication has, admittedly, been a little one-sided, but I feel close to you nonetheless.

So, lets get a little more intimate shall we. Share some secrets. Take a peek behind the curtain.

The truth is, Deanna and I have what you might call an “open” marriage. It is well known around the RedPlanet household that Deanna has been having a torrid affair with her Blackberry for several years now. She spends time that was once devoted to me poking away at its tiny buttons, peering at it in adoration, lost in the seductive glow of its screen. Even as we sleep, I can hear it downstairs, chirping and humming in an attempt to draw her away from our bed.

I am similarly openly amorous towards my i-pod, a subject for another time perhaps, as all of the foregoing information is really only background. What I wanted to share, to confess, to unburden myself from, is that while the four of us have reached an understanding of sorts, a comfortable marital détente, I recently introduced a fifth player into the marriage, upsetting the delicate balance. Her name was Pie, and yesterday, we broke up.

I could go on about the scandalous details: how we first got together (we met at a Baker’s Square), her scent, that revealing lattice-pattern top she was wearing. But I digress.

While I admit to tasting Pie’s forbidden fruit occasionally in the past, it wasn’t until recent weeks that the whole thing really heated up. A few weeks ago, Deanna made a Tripleberry Pie. Our little family of five demolished the entire thing for breakfast the next day, with me eating at least 1/3 of it. It was on.

Things just got hotter after that. We dropped in excess of $50 on Pie during our week in Door County alone, the bulk of it consumed by me. Deanna and I fought over my insistence that we bring multiple Pies home with us from the trip for my consumption. I won, and Pie moved in with us. I made the case (unconvincingly) to Deanna and my family that Pie, due to its fruit content, was actually a health food, as I wolfed it down at all hours. This week, as the kids ate cereal at the table in the morning, I would stand elsewhere in the kitchen with my back turned and eat Pie, careful to remain out of their line-of-sight, jealously guarding it for fear of having to share. Deanna tried to serve one of the pies to guests. No, I hissed, Gollum-like, my-precious Pie is mine and mine alone.

Yesterday, things came to a head as Deanna’s jealousy bubbled to the surface. First, she offered in an e-mail to friends to bring my last Peachberry pie to a barbecue on Saturday night. Then, she sent another warning shot across the bow. While I finished up dinner at the table last night, she sent Cooper to carry my nightly hunk of desert pie to me, handing him not just my piece, but also the entire pie box. Handing Cooper anything that requires a semblance of balance is a sure fire way of ensuring that it ends up splattered across the floor. True to form, Cooper uttered one of his cute little “uh-ohs” and I saw my beloved pie headed for the floor. I made a diving lunge, but was slowed by an unexplained recent weight gain, and came up just short. Not a proud man, I knelt on the floor and sobbingly ate the entire thing anyway, as my wife and family looked on with a mixture of pity and disgust.

Later, I gazed at the reflection of my swollen, doughy, and quickly expanding belly in the mirror, alarmed at how much Pie and I were starting to resemble each other after just these few short weeks. I vaguely considered working out, but was simply too lethargic after coming down from the latest fruit-sugar high – a feeling I realized had also become the norm these last weeks. I heard a baking timer go off up in the distant kitchen and it was then that I decided that this must end. I marched up to Deanna, pulled up my shirt, and announced: “Pie and I have broken up.” She glanced up momentarily from her Blackberry, looking only vaguely interested. I know, of course, that her seeming disinterest was merely a defensive mask to hide her intense feelings of relief. I saw it in her eyes. Or would have if she hadn’t said “Whatever” and gone back to punching buttons.

The whole episode brings to mind the old adage: “two humans and two electronic devices are company; two humans, two electronic devices and pie are a crowd.” In this case, that old saying rings, unfortunately, oh, so true. So tomorrow night, in a brave and symbolic gesture of marital solidarity and goodwill, we will offer up that last Peachberry to our friends at the barbecue, a bittersweet farewell to a sweet summer fling.

Poopie the Brown: Fearless Viking Warrior, and other Wisconsin tales

Just back from a week of family vacation in beautiful Door County, Wisconsin, the Cape Cod of the Midwest. What is it about a family driving vacation that causes me to go into Dad overdrive? I was up at 4 a.m. the day we left and we had our sleepy charges on the road by 5:20 a.m. in a pounding rainstorm. From there, it was a week of big fun. Some highlights, for those of you who couldn’t make it:

1. MUCH NEEDED SLEEP: Including napping in a hammock with Owen;

2. MUCH NEEDED CHANGE OF SCENERY: This view from our rented house;

3. MUCH NEEDED SLEEP INTERRUPTED: We took advantage of the twin’s general level of exhaustion by plugging them into twin beds for the first time rather than cribs. The house we had rented was high on a bluff away from pretty much anything. Each night the peaceful silence was broken several times by thuds that back home would have been neighbors car doors slamming shut nearby, but here signaled a twin falling out of bed in his sleep once again, followed by a plaintive and confused wail. Apparently bed rails are necessary for our next trip;

4. VACATION WITHIN A VACATION: Owen decided the first day of our arrival that our rented house was a lodge in which Deanna and I were the proprietors and in which he was a guest. Once in full guest mode he played it to the hilt, at one point looking quizzically at his little brothers, then turning to me with a serious little face and asking “What did you say their names were again?”;

5. WIFE REPELLENT: The intensity of the mosquitoes caused me to buy some bug repellent that was so toxic it caused Deanna’s lips to go numb after she kissed me on the neck. When mosquitoes were in the air, romance was not;

6. PIE!!!: We gorged ourselves on all manner of pies in our cherry-orchard laden vacation destination. Peachberry: peaches, cherries, blueberries; Summerberry: raspberry, blackberry, blueberry; Carmel-Apple-Walnut: you figure this one out. Pie for snacks, pie for desert, and best of all, pie for breakfast!

7. BOILED WHITEFISH: Eating boiled Lake Michigan Whitefish drowning in butter after laboriously picking their bones out is not for everyone, it is true. Including Deanna, seen here in front of the pot of boiling fish with Cooper shortly before she bolted to a different nearby restaurant with her Mom for dinner, leaving some of the rest of us to enjoy this Wisconsin delicacy. Mmmmm, mmmm, good!

8. NORTHERN WISCONSIN HUNTING CULTURE TAKES HOLD: Spying a life-size fake sheep on the front lawn of a store, Owen spontaneously yelled “I’m hungry for lamb!” and proceeded to unleash a barrage of imaginary bullets into the sheep from close range with a pretend gun;

9. POOPIE THE BROWN - FEARLESS VIKING WARRIOR: The twins tried on plastic Viking helmets in the store of Al Johnson’s Swedish restaurant. While wearing the helmets, they both suddenly began dancing around, grabbing at their diapers and loudly chanting “I’m poopie!!!” in unison. The stoic Swedish crowd in the shop were unmoved by either the cuteness, or, to their credit, the stench, of what was a fairly amusing, albeit stinky, display.

10. MY MEXICAN BRIDE. Lastly, Owen and his 8-year old cousin Emma, going by their stage names of Aiden and Annika, concocted a 100-act play that included the death of their moms (causes never specified, but some suspect insecticide poisoning!), the subsequent adoption of the twins, now named Leo and Ian (pronounced, amusingly, Ion, as Emma/Annika has apparently only read this name and not heard it said out loud), and their dads subsequent remarriages. While my brother-in-law, I am told, had to search “every church in Illinois” before finding a new bride, I was apparently able to avoid all that pesky church-going by picking mine up in Mexico. One night, when Deanna poked her head into a room where the “play” was taking place, Owen looked at her and said “Mom, what are you doing alive?”

Anyway, as I adjust back to life back here in Illinois, with my new Mexican sweetie and my sons Aiden, Leo and little Ion, I will leave you with a couple of more pictures from our trip. Adios for now.

Kids 3, RedPlanet 0

Dodgy bit of parenting tonight. Deanna worked late and I steered my herd of little dudes down to the town picnic. While the three-on-one ratio did not appear promising on paper, I am older, wiser and faster than the three combined so I had a bit of false confidence going in. The first half passed fairly uneventfully aside from the repeated failure of the twins to grasp that pistachios need to be shelled prior to eating, and my cockiness grew. Turns out the fates, or perhaps the kids, were just toying with me. The second half started with me realizing I had forgotten the diaper bag, the parenting equivalent of having to play a man down. Then some kid stepped on Owen’s forehead during one of those constant scrums that any gaggle of five-year old boys seems to engage in, leaving a large welt. During the next 5 minutes I hit up all nearby moms for a band-aid (not due to bleeding but because of the well-known magical curative powers of band-aids), came up empty, and was forced to jog to the nearby police station for a band-aid after leaving the kids in the care of friends. Upon my return, I predictably found Cooper freaked out about my absence and in a crying frenzy. After finally getting him calmed back down and back out of my arms, he promptly disappeared into the crowd. After a desperate couple of minutes of searching I rounded up a posse of neighbors and friends who quickly spread out through the crowd. Cooper was retrieved, hysterical once again. It was at this point that I threw in the towel and decided to cut my losses by returning home. Tough game, no doubt, and not one that raised my stock in the race for POTY. But, as Coach always said, losing the game is better than losing a kid. Amen.

Flagging

We are coasting towards the end of the interminable Holiday Season and I am flagging, literally and figuratively.

First there was Country Day, already discussed.

Then came Flag Day. Considering Owen’s love of flags, we couldn’t let this one pass in its usual minimally celebrated manner. It was all in the decorating, of course, and the actual party consisted of a small gathering at our house that degenerated into a suitably American-style battle of kids and adults wielding heavy water weaponry such as Super-Soakers and hoses.

This week the holiday schedule peaks, with Canada Day (July 1) (thanks to Michelle in Berkeley for the heads-up on that one, although Owen has of course had the date firmly in his mind for months), the 4th of July, and, of course, North American Day.

Canada Day was celebrated earlier this week with the traditional feast of Canadian bacon and waffles with maple syrup, served on paper plates emblazoned with the Canadian flag. Special Note: All spills were also mopped up with Canadian flag napkins.

Up tomorrow, the joint celebration of the 4th of July and North America Day. Although the 4th has long been one of my very favorite holidays, Owen has refused to acknowledge solely his home country on this most American of holidays. He has thus proclaimed it to be “North American Day” and towards that end, has been busily cranking out Canadian, Mexican and Honduran flags using his patented paper and crayon technology and taping them to sticks to wave at our little Village’s uber-Patriotic 4th of July parade. I fear for my safety if forced to protect my little Internationalist from patriots who don’t see the humor in little kids waving homemade Honduran flags at a 4th of July parade. All part of a dad’s days work I suppose.

A favorite 4th of July memory: Years ago, I was spending the summer studying in Tilburg, the Netherlands. Despite all the fun and adventure that went with that summer, I remember being a bit sad to be spending the 4th in a country where it passed unnoticed (and where the sun stubbornly refused to come out for weeks at a time). I recall being greatly cheered when one of the Dutch guys who lived on my dormitory floor but did not speak very good English approached me on the 4th, awkwardly shook my hand, and said “Congratulations on your independence.”

The Words Less Spoken

Successful parenting, as "they" say, is 8% patience, 22% common sense, 14% genetic roulette, 13% yelling, 18% luck, 6% tolerance for foul substances and sleep deprivation, 3% television, 8% wise and memorable parental-style nuggets of advice, and 18% what you don't say. The same formula applies to marriage, by the way, although you need to swap out "moods” for “substances”, “sex" for “wise parental-style nuggets of advice, and "telling your wife she looks great no matter what she is wearing" for “genetic roulette”. Anyway, it is the “what you don’t say” category of the parenting formula that is the focus of today's post:

The scene: Me, in shower, 6:30 a.m., Owen peeing in toilet 3 feet away;

***

[NOTE FROM REDPLANET: THE MIDDLE OF THIS PREVIOUSLY POSTED ENTRY HAS BEEN DELETED AT THE REQUEST OF THE REDPLANET POSTING STANDARDS BOARD, SO YOU WILL JUST HAVE TO LET YOUR IMAGINATION TAKE IT FROM HERE - SORT OF A "CREATE YOUR OWN CLOUD EIGHT POST" FEATURE. YOU ARE SET UP FOR A GOOD START, AS ANY STORY THAT STARTS WITH SHOWERING AND PEEING IS NATURALLY GOING TO BE HILARIOUS. GOOD LUCK, AND, NOW, BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING.

***

What I said: “I have no idea.”

See, this parenting stuff is a breeze.

P.S. If you added up the percentages above and were tempted to point out that they totaled 110%, you: (1) have way too much time on your hands; and (2) must be a bad parent because all good parents know that if you aren’t giving 110% your kids will end up in the juvenile home.

3 Hours

Both Deanna and I work in demanding jobs. I often leave the house prior to 5:30 a.m. in order to bill enough hours and still make it home to relieve the nanny by 6. Deanna takes the opposite shift, leaving when the nanny arrives at 8:45 a.m. and often working late or after the kids go to bed in order to get her work done.

While our work schedules frequently leave us wishing we had more time with the kids, I am sometimes amazed at how much we can fit into the time we do have. Tonight, for example, I got home about 6. Deanna called from the office to inform me that she would be arriving home after bedtime and that it was the night to pick up the food we had ordered through Owen’s (now former) Catholic preschool. I changed my clothes, got the boys shoed and the twins plugged into the stroller and we set off down the block.

On the way, Owen kept up a constant stream of chatter. Over the course of our walk we talked about why leaves turn brown on branches that fall off trees, which roofs we would be scared to stand on (consensus, third floor is too high to be hanging out on the roof!), what car companies DON’T make gas-hogging giant SUVs (i.e. Porsche, Saturn, etc.), the price of gas, and why different kites need different amounts of wind to fly. We lamented the passing of our local coffee shop (abruptly closed down due to a lack of business), marveled at the tallness of particular trees, decided to refer to our kick-ass Graco double-stroller as a Graco Turbo to give it a bit more cache, speculated about which houses we might consider moving to, discussed why guys using jack hammers wear so much protective gear (and consequently look like bugs), chatted about my old summer job during college at a municipal wastewater treatment plant, argued about how many banks are in town, and kicked around a bunch more things I am sure I have forgotten.

We picked up the food from the school (all frozen), ordered food for takeout at the local Bohemian restaurant, spent a bit sitting next to the railroad tracks for a premium view of trains going by, and made it back home where we gorged ourselves on breaded pork tenderloin, dumplings, potato pancakes, cooked carrots, beef noodle soup and apple sauce. After hosing down the dining area, I herded everyone upstairs for baths. Baths were followed by a lot of crazy running, with the twins popping their little heads around corners and yelling “boo” as loud as they could. Owen set up a race course using red blankets and a checkered flag, and drew large numbers on paper which he proceeded to tape to everyone's backs like we were running a marathon. The twins were finally wrestled into bed by 8:30 or so.

Deanna arrived home and she, Owen and myself took in a bit of a PBS show on Great Lodges of North America which in turn caused us to explain to Owen what a lodge is (tougher than it sounds, really, even if we certainly know a lodge when we see it. I was surprised to find myself winging this one a bit, as opposed to, say, my aforementioned concise and scientifically accurate exposition on kite sizes and wind speeds) and to explain what a glacier is. All in all, not a bad way to spend three hours.

Dinner Menu at Cloud Eight: Decibels and Spills

For those of you don’t have three boys aged five and under, or haven’t had the pleasure of dining with us (come on over, I’m making Daddy-Os!), it would be hard to describe the chaos that is dinner at our place. The energy and noise levels are, in a word, “high,” while the competency levels with basic eating skills such as use of a cup or spoon might best be described as “less high.” I have taken to announcing the time of the first spill, much like a doctor pronouncing a patient dead – “Time of first spill, 42 seconds into the meal.” Not a great analogy, I suppose, since if we actually had a dead patient for each spill, our license would have been yanked months ago and all three boys locked up in debtor’s prison for eternity, what with all the malpractice and wrongful death judgments against them. I suppose actually giving them glasses as opposed to sippy cups makes me contributorily negligent, so I would be on the hook as well, but they have to learn somehow. Thank God the only real casualties are our newspapers, work clothes, patience, etc.

Although pictures in this case are not worth a thousand words, and I should actually attach an audio file, I have no idea how to do that, so pictures it is.

Above you can see Cooper participating in a favorite dinnertime game developed by the twins. Hearing any mention of the word chicken, both twins will start flapping their arms like a chicken and squawking loudly. After a bit of this, they both loudly yell “BBAAAAAWWWWK!!!” and throw their arms skyward. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Cute the first time, less cute the 187th time. Any fellow diner who sets them off by use of the word chicken is severely punished.

Here we see another popular dinner pastime: Monster. Rarely does a dinner pass without all three boys pretending they are monsters. One will start to growl in an appropriately menacing manner while extending his arms forward like Frankenstein. Soon the others join in the Monster chorus, and all three continue to make monster sounds simultaneously until we are able to restore order or something spills, whichever comes first. Although Cooper actually does the best Frankenstein face, I haven’t been able to effectively capture it on film (rarely daring to bring the camera to the table for fear of spills, fittingly). In the background you can see Deanna is quite enjoying this particular game.

You know, as a closing thought, as chaotic as things sometimes are these days, I am not so naive as to think I won’t someday miss all of this. When we are sitting around a quiet house years from now, with the boys long ago moved away to Canada (Owen), California (Cooper) and Prague (Hayden), these are the memories that will make us smile, and maybe even toss a glass of milk on the floor for old times sake.

Oh, Canada - Part Deux

Our foray across the border into Canada is complete, and I am here, as promised, to report back.

The majority of our long weekend was actually spent in Dearborn, Michigan, where we visited the Henry Ford museum and Greenfield Village. The museum is huge and features not just cars (including the Wienermobile!), but also big sections on planes, American life, etc. It was a pretty cool museum and we were all reasonably entertained, including the two-year-old twins. Greenfield Village is Henry Ford’s collection of historical buildings that he had torn down from various places and rebuilt in Dearborn – things like Thomas Edison’s house and the old Logan County, Illinois courthouse. The highlight for Owen was probably a couple of rides we took in the fleet of old Model T’s being driven around the grounds by retired guys. As if the whole Greenfield Village conglomeration of buildings wasn’t enough, there happened to be a big Civil War reenactment taking place throughout the Village. This meant that encampments were scattered throughout, and the Village was populated by both Union and Rebel soldiers and their girlfriends and wives, hanging out, cooking, playing instruments, cleaning rifles, riding around on horses, etc. Bizarre and fascinating.

Anyway, we set off for Windsor, Ontario after 5 p.m. on a Sunday. Having asked around some, I had learned before hand that Windsor is most famous for its high-end strip clubs. Since I had been the lone vote at the family meeting for a good ole’ fashioned strip club crawl, Sunday night seemed like a good bet. Upon reaching the border, we found that between my wife’s expired passport and our photocopies of the kid’s birth certificates (as opposed to actual certified copies), the Canadians were not anxious to let us in. Having successfully talked our way in, however, we commenced a whirlwind Canadian tour that included a quick stop at the tourism office, a lengthy visit to a Dollar store, where we dropped over $40 on cheesy Canadian souvenirs (nail clippers with the Canadian flag on them!?! I’ll take two please!!), scored a box of Tim-Bits at the local outpost of Tim Horton’s (sort of the Canadian equivalent of Dunkin’ Donuts), played at a great playground along the river teeming with kids of seemingly every nationality, and had dinner at an old-time BBQ place (no broken plates, only three spills, and minimal peeved looks from other patrons – a good meal!) before heading back to the States.

As we approached the US border checkpoint, Owen, whose love of Canada had now reached a fever pitch, was loudly singing a song he had made up called “Bad America.” After our efforts to shout him down with an extra loud version of “My Country Tis of Thee” failed, we resorted to the old “you need to be quiet when we get to the booth so we can hear the man talk” trick, which, thankfully, worked like a charm. The jaded security agent at the booth asked us the standard questions in a bored monotone: “Where are you from”, “How long were you here”, “What did you do while you were here.” Deanna’s perky answers caught his attention and he looked up from her expired passport to skeptically drone “You drove all the way from Illinois to go to a dollar store???” Whether he ultimately believed us or not, Owen remained thankfully quiet in the back and we were eventually able to convince the guard, with some help from the hypnotic power of our rockin’ Canadian Dollar Store disco ball, that we weren’t spiriting Canadian children across the border to sell them to wealthy Americans. As we chugged back towards the Dearborn, Michigan Hampton Inn, Owen happily sighed from the backseat, “You know Mom and Dad, Canada is all about fun.” As I stuffed another Tim Bit in my mouth and watched one of our three Dollar Store Canadian Flag pinwheels lazily spinning in the gentle warm wind coming in through the rolled down car window, I could not have agreed more.

Oh, Canada

Continuing on with our international theme from April here at CloudEight, I wanted to relate a tale of my American ignorance. As background, you should know that Owen, at age 5 apparently already preparing for a summer of backpacking around Europe when he is 19, or perhaps sagely predicting the return of the draft, has essentially renounced his American citizenship and declared himself a Canadian. This started awhile ago when our nanny brought him a Canadian Soccer t-shirt back from a trip to Canada. Owen has since periodically declared himself to be a member of the Canadian soccer team, who apparently use our backyard as their stateside practice facility. His love of Canada has most recently been manifesting itself in his cranking out about 6 Canadian flags a day using 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper and a red crayon.

Anyway, Owen had been on about Canada early in our Florida trip awhile back, telling us he was now Canadian and no longer an American citizen. As we were walking through the parking lot of the condominium complex where my parents were staying, we spied an SUV with Ontario plates. Shifting into “teaching Dad” mode, I pointed it out to Owen – “Look Owen, this SUV is from Canada.”

On a roll, I decided to “teach” a bit more: “Do you know why Canadian license plates have a crown on them??” I asked.

“No Dad, why??”

“Because Canada has a queen!” I stated authoritatively.

Now, in my defense, I have since learned that Canada is a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth of England as the token Head of State. In my not so defense, I must confess that I was not armed with such knowledge at the moment the words came out of my mouth and, due to a temporary brain cramp, believed that Canada had its own Queen. I half-realized the ridiculousness of my statement even as it was leaving my mouth and all would have ended well, despite my momentary lapse into ignorance, if I had corrected myself right then. In fact, Deanna began to wheel around to helpfully say “Canada doesn’t have a queen, you moron.”

Unfortunately, before she had the chance, a gentleman appeared before us out of a stairwell wearing a t-shirt that said “Canada” in 10-inch high letters. His appearance was so perfectly timed to Owen earnestly saying “really Dad?” that it was almost like an elderly Canadian fairy had suddenly descended from the Great White North and materialized before our eyes. Inexorably propelled by this confluence of events, I continued bravely on: “Here Owen, this man is from Canada, we can ask him. Does Canada have a queen??”

The man gave me a sort of bemused quizzical look that let me know almost immediately that not only was I wrong, but I sounded like a complete stereotype of the ignorant American, imparting false information to my impressionable young son. “No.” he said testily. “We have a prime minister.”

Not content to let it go yet, and unable to stop myself, I pushily demanded: “Then why is there a crown on all of your license plates??” Everything sinking in at last, I then sputtered “Is it because of Canada’s former status as part of the British Commonwealth.” Yes, I actually uttered such a sentence.

“Yes.” he said patiently, by this time staring at me more with pity in his eyes than anything else.

“Excuse my ignorance.” I choked out, and hustled Owen off up the stairs; the same stairs up which Deanna had quickly fled upon realizing where I was headed with the Canadian.

So there you have it; my unfortunate contribution to Canada’s view of Americans as self-absorbed and ignorant of events beyond their own borders. I will be doing penance by leading the family on a short foray into Canada on an upcoming weekend and will report back for your benefit some additional actual facts about our fair and mysterious neighbor to the north.

Hungary? Pass the Turkey if its not too Greecy

Hello there. It has been awhile. Haven’t even blogged since before Country Day. Hope you had a good one. What’s that? What’s Country Day?? Hmmmm. A relatively new holiday. One in a series of holidays recently declared by Owen here at our place as a matter of fact, the one before that being the somewhat similarly themed (International) Flag Day. I added the international to distinguish it from its American counterpart, since Owen’s interest in the American flag is limited compared to his zest for the rest of the flags in the world. You may be sensing that Owen is into countries and flags at the moment and if you were, you should be congratulated on your keen Internet instincts. Owen has spent his days in recent weeks feverishly cranking out flag after flag using crayons and 8 ½ x 11 sheets of paper. Particularly good ones are then affixed to wooden barbecue skewers. This has left our house looking like a miniature UN, with flags pretty much everywhere. We are constantly quizzed as well. This was relatively easy at first when he was concentrating on Italy and Germany (both favored for their fast cars) and Canada (simply favored). Since the Easter Bunny dropped off a World Atlas that features the flags of even the most obscure nations however, the “what flag do you think this is” challenge has gotten much more difficult for those of us who can’t tell the flag of Trinidad from that of Greenland (I didn’t even know anyone actually lived in Greenland until now).

But I digress. With International Flag Day in the rearview mirror, we recently turned our attention to Country Day. The proximity of the two holidays to each other (a mere week apart!) came in handy as we found ourselves still well-stocked with leftover flags for our Country Day celebration last Saturday. The best part of making up holidays is you get to decide not only when, but how to celebrate them as well. For Country Day, we decided the holiday would best be celebrated by stereotyping each country through Americanized frozen versions of their native cuisines. This is how we here at CloudEight came to be feasting last Saturday night on mini-American hotdogs, Italian ravioli, Mexican mini-tacos, sag paneer from India, and French Toast with Canadian maple syrup. Oh, and Danish Kringle for desert. Not a bad way to pass a Saturday night, as a good time was had by all on this inaugural Country Day celebration. Oh, and Country Day happens three times a year, I’m told, so come on by next time. Our place is the one with the St. Kitts and Papua New Guinea flags in the window. Only one on the block as a matter of fact.

FLORIDA!!!

With Winter continuing its unrelenting march into Spring, we had had enough. The cure for what ailed us....

FLORIDA!!!!!

Cold Shower

“I’m dirty!” the voice behind me said. My head snapped around, and there was my wife of ten years, on all fours, mischievous smile on her face, crawling down the hall towards me. “Take my sweater off!” she ordered.

I know what you are thinking: “Holy @#!$! RedPlanet!, That is pretty hot after ten years of marriage. That Deanna is some woman.”

Indeed she is. And indeed it would have been pretty hot, if she wasn’t holding a stuffed Mickey Mouse wearing a sweater in one of her hands as she crawled along, pretending to make Mickey walk, and had actually been talking to me rather than in Mickey Mouse’s high squeaky voice to the three boys I had in the bathtub at the time. And so it goes.

DaddyOs

I have a number of goals jotted down for the year, one of which, I will confide, is to create a new family dinner recipe. As background, we are often instructed in gatherings of my extended family simply to bring our “specialty.” Since peanut butter on toast is not a big seller at most holiday gatherings, I have long sought to create a signature recipe for these family parties. You know, the sort of dish that people would refer to as “RedPlanet’s famous (insert delicious specialty here)”. Almost all of my attempts have met with failure – everyone but me, for instance, has long forgotten “RedPlanet’s famous Welsh Rarebit.” Having abandoned my efforts, I am now focusing simply on coming up with something the immediate family can enjoy beyond my usual grilled cheese and tomato soup (I have successfully trained the now 22-month old twins to eat tomato soup with a spoon from a bowl and to say “mmmmm” enthusiastically after each spoonful).

With Deanna working late the other night, I decided to seize the opportunity to work up something pleasing to my crew of little dudes without regard for her usual demand that meals be “well-balanced.” My endeavor began modestly enough, with a giant can of SpaghettiOs with meatballs as my template. The twist, yes I ADDED hot dogs. What!, you say, SpaghettiOs come with either meatballs or hot dogs, not BOTH. Yes, friends, it was a new twist on an old favorite. Think of those old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials where someone with chocolate and someone with peanut butter collide and inadvertently combine the two, much to the world’s delight and amazement – “two great tastes that taste great together!” Owen was duly impressed as I set his plate down before him, delightedly exclaiming, “it’s a mix!” This dish, which will henceforth be known as DaddyOs, was enthusiastically received by all. Cooper even had thirds.

Perhaps I should pitch the idea to SpaghettiOs maker Franco American, as it has apparently never occurred to them. I can see the ad now: Guy eating a hot dog rounds a corner and runs smack into a beautiful girl carrying a large order of spaghetti and meatballs, hot dog pitches out of the bun and into her spaghetti (sex sells!) and viola, they fall in love AND have a signature recipe right out of the box. I suppose the guy could be eating a meatball sandwich and she could be eating SpaghettiOs with hot dogs, but I digress. Rest assured that this early in the year, I will not be content to rest on my laurels, and will continue my culinary adventures. Perhaps a little something with Spam. Hmmmm. Stay tuned!

The Walking Man

Recently, based the history of heart disease in my family, my doctor referred me to the hospital to have a “stress test.” The “test” essentially consists of walking for awhile on a treadmill at increasing rates of speed while nine different monitors attached to various places on your chest are read by computer. Mine was an “echo” stress test, which meant that they also took ultrasound pictures of my heart while resting and once my heart rate had reached a certain target.

Now I have never belonged to a health club or had other occasion to use a treadmill, other than maybe for 30 seconds at a store. But lets face it, its not brain surgery. It is, when you get right down to it, walking and/or jogging. That is why I was unprepared for the looks of grave concern and trepidation on the faces of all three nurses as they learned, one by one, of my paucity of treadmill experience. “YOU’VE NEVER BEEN ON A TREADMILL???” they exclaimed, clearly alarmed. One even pressed me, insisting that I must have at least been on one to mess around, even if I hadn’t been serious about getting some cardiovascular activity. I felt like I had just told them I had never taken a ride in one of them newfangled auto-mobiles or seen a talking picture show. I stuck to my story through their interrogation concerning my treadmill experience, or lack thereof, which was easy considering it was the truth rather than, say, some Roger Clemens-style pack ‘o lies. Finally, satisfied that I was genuinely inexperienced and was therefore facing near certain death, each nurse then felt the need to explain in detail how a treadmill works, where to stand, where to put my hands, etc. I assured them that I grasped the basic concept and that it would be fine but I could tell they were not so sure. While all this was going on, they shaved various patches of my chest hair off to attach the monitors, leaving me with a “40-year Old Virgin” style patchy chest hair look. Normally, that wouldn’t be problem, it being February in Chicago and all, but unfortunately for me we are off to Florida for a little down time shortly.

Anyway, the test finally got underway, as I stepped aboard the great machine and it began to move. As it moved, I walked. It was then that things got even more bizarre as the nurses, apparently convinced of my doom mere moments ago, now began to marvel at my treadmill skills with comments that included, and I am not making this up “Are you SURE you have never done this before” and “You are so good, you must do a lot of walking.” The former is a compliment that hasn’t graced my ears since a particularly memorable night back in 1984, although that involved more horizontal-type activity. But the latter, what do you even say to that? “Why yes, as a matter of fact I do. Walked in here from the parking lot, if you must know. I may even walk a bit more later, perhaps around the block, or to the library and back. I thought about turning professional once, but it’s hard to make a living on the circuit, even with my natural abilities.” With each increasing level of speed on the treadmill, they became more open and enthusiastic in their admiration. Finally, my stint on the treadmill having come to a triumphant end, the machine having eventually wrestled my heart-rate up to what the staff considered an acceptable rate, the technician having studied the ultrasound pictures intently for a few moments and having decided I was not on the verge of death, I was dismissed – given my walking papers, so to speak.

As I strode through the halls of the hospital, the fresh knowledge of my natural walking ability lending a newfound confidence to my gait, I could feel the eyes of the staff and patients upon me and hear the whispers – “Who is that? So tall, so obviously talented, one foot placed successfully in front of the other time after time, never tripping or tiring, just moving inexorably forward towards his destination?? Yes, it is he. The Walking Man.”

Jesus Wore A Coonskin Cap

Owen is in his second year at a Catholic pre-school. Overall, we have been generally happy with his time there (although not so happy that we won't be packing him off to public school come next fall). Not having attended Catholic school myself, or even being Catholic for that matter, I have been interested, bemused and sometimes downright befuddled by the religious aspects of his pre-school education.

During the exciting weeks leading up to Christmas, for instance, we unloaded Owen’s backpack one day after school and found, among the usual two-inch thick pile of updates and fundraising pitches, a picture of Mary with a caption below that said “Mary is Jesus’ mother.” When you flipped the picture over, there was a picture of Joseph with a caption that said “Joseph is Jesus’ stepfather.” Now when you get right down to it, I suppose that is the technically correct term, but I had just never thought of it that way in all of my 41 plus years. Jesus was from a broken home? Jesus had an absentee father? I suppose you could say God is everywhere so he really wasn’t absent per se, but do you think with all he had to do, especially back then, that he was making it to every school play?? The whole thing conjures up images of a 16-year old Jesus, recently grounded yet again by Joseph after turning water into wine for he and his posse, yelling “Don’t tell me what to do, you’re not my real dad. My real Dad totally rules, and when he comes back for me, he’s gonna kick your ass! So go to Hell!”

Speaking of school plays, I attended my first during the recent Holiday season. How could I not, considering Owen had been promoted from his role as a cow in last year's Christmas production, all the way up to shepard this year (one of three shepards in the play, keeping watch over a single sheep, thereby creating a shepard to sheep ratio that the public schools could learn a thing or two from). He was outstanding, leading his two fellow shepards as they heartily shook Joseph's hand, mistakenly assuming, perhaps, that Joseph was Jesus’ father and congratulations were thus in order. By far the best part of the play was when the cast earnestly belted out some lyrics written by the teachers especially for the show to the tune of the old theme from Disney’s Davy Crockett. “Jesus, Baby Jesus, Born on Christmas Day.” Bit of a bad break for Jesus by the way, as every kid knows there is nothing worse than having your birthday so close to Christmas.

Most recently, and perhaps most bizarrely, this week Owen brought home what is allegedly a letter from God. The entire text is “Dear Owen, I Love You. God.” The I Love You is written in big white letters inside a large red heart – no God of fire and brimstone and eternal damnation at the old Catholic School apparently. Although it has been theorized that God might be a woman, it is not often assumed he/she is a junior-high aged girl. The “letter” is actually inside a fake airmail envelope, addressed simply to Owen and bearing the return address of “God, Heaven.” Not sure what the kids were told, but Owen was excitedly telling all of us that there is a post-office in Heaven. The stamp bears a picture of a single tree and gives no indication of what kind of currency they may use in Heaven. No postmark either. It would have been interesting to see whether it came through the branch office at the Vatican or, perhaps, was routed the long way through the sorting facility in Hell, which is definitely where I am headed for writing this post. Unless, of course, God Loves Me Too and I just don’t know yet because my letter is sitting in the Purgatory branch due to insufficient postage.

POTY Hopes Down the Drain

For those of you who have been on the edge of your seat since my September post, the votes are finally in, the ballots have been counted, the red (and somewhat stained) carpet has been rolled out, and the winner of the Parent Of The Year Award here on Cloud Eight is … Hey there. Stop rifling through the goodies in your POTY Award giftbag and pay attention. There will be plenty of time later to enjoy that sample size Head and Shoulders shampoo and leftover Halloween candy each lucky attendee will be taking home.

Anyway, the winner is … whoa, a dark horse candidate has swept in from nowhere to claim the prize. No, not Hillary Clinton. This is Illinois damn it, Obama country. Anyway, we are pleased to announce that this year’s award goes to none other than ... Suzy the Nanny.

That’s right, when it came right down to it, despite a year of solid parenting by both me and Deanna, neither of us were able to really distinguish ourselves from the crowd (I made a last ditch effort, but my attempt to potty-train 18-month old Cooper only pissed the boy off, sending my hopes, but nothing else, swirling down the drain). In the end, it is only right to give the nod to our awesome nanny who, in addition to taking such great care of the kids on a daily basis, keeps our chaotic lives and household afloat in a myriad of ways. She is, in all seriousness, truly a blessing. Well done, Suzy.

All right, enough of that, lets eat some three-month old Nerds.