That Twin Thing

Time rolls on here on CloudEight; I blink and it has suddenly been almost two months since I posted. If I had to pick a headline among recent events here, it would be that the twins turned four last week!

As is all too common these days, they woke up bickering on their birthday. In fact, as a special birthday treat for us, they set a new record by bickering even before they were awake. Hayden had one of his recurring dreams where he is not getting his fair share and started yelling in his sleep "Cooper, give back my cereal!" Cooper woke up and starting mumbling "I didn't take your cereal" which only caused asleep/half-asleep Hayden to start yelling more. Oy.

They have been waiting to turn four for months, and Cooper in particular seemed to sense that being four would result in dramatic changes. He asked us repeatedly on his birthday whether he looked taller. He seemed mildly surprised that his pants still fit and reassured Deanna that she did not have to buy him new gym shoes as the old ones continued to appear to be able to contain his four-year-old feet.

While in many ways it has been awfully nice to have three-year olds, there are certain things I will not miss:

It would be nice if they were tall enough to stop hitting their heads on doorknobs. Hayden in particular, seems almost like he has a magnetic plate in his head that draws him to every doorknob he passes. Or he will need a metal plate soon enough if he doesn't stop whacking his melon this year.

It would also be nice if they were tall enough that they were not resting either their penises or balls on the rims of every public toilet and urinal they use. Nothing causes me to lose my appetite faster than watching Cooper shake the last drop of urine off his penis after peeing by whacking it repeatedly against the pee-stained rim of a fast-food restaurant urinal.

I will not miss the most commonly heard phrase in our house being "Can you wipe my butt?" This phrase has already mostly gone by the wayside, but was seriously heard more than any other this past year. It goes without saying that I will not miss the actual wiping of their butts either, except for maybe their excited inquiries as to how many wipes it was taking to actually clean them up each time. I guess it could be said that all the wiping helped them learn to count.

Things I will miss very much:

Naps!!!

Mispronunciations and odd phrasing. They still call going to sleep at night a "dark-out nap." The are crazy about all things Star Wars and like to fight each other with light "savers." At night, we either read from the Harry Potter books (Owen's preference) or from what the twins endearingly refer to as "storybooks with pictures."

Picking them up. I have enjoyed carrying the guys more as requests have become less frequent over time. Nothing like having a little guy snuggled against your shoulder.

That semi-fresh toddler smell. Not as good smelling as babies, but certainly better smelling than a boy.

While they are very different people, and more their own individuals every day, they remain extraordinarily close in that twin way. Cooper was giving Hayden a hard time about a young female acquaintance of theirs the other day, teasing him "You are going to marry her, you loooovvvvvve her." Hayden's reassuring reply: "I love you more Cooper." Ah, twins.

CloudEight Comedy Club

Deanna bravely takes the stage at CloudEight Comedy Club and finds it as punishing as I do:

"Deanna: Two monkeys named Pete and Repeat are sitting in a tree. Pete falls out. Who's left?
Cooper: There's one left.
Hayden: Yeah, one.
Deanna: No, Pete and Repeat are monkeys sitting in a tree. Pete falls out....
Owen: No, they are in a boat. Pete falls into the water.
Deanna: What would monkeys be doing in a boat? They are in a tree.
Hayden: One guy falls into the water. Splash.
Cooper: One guy falls out of the tree and hurts himself on the ground?
Owen: Mom, they don't even know what repeat means anyway."

Undaunted, she tries again later, but finds literalism a tough hurdle:

"Deanna: Knock, knock.
Owen: Who's there?
Deanna: Turnip.
Owen: Turnip who?
Deanna: Turnip the TV.
Owen: But the TV isn't even on."

Owen isn't the only literalist in the house. One day, Cooper and I are examining a map of Africa:

"Cooper: Dad, what country is that?
RedPlanet: That's Madagascar.
Cooper: Is that where gas cars come from?"

The Cocoon Begins to Fray

When we first moved into our neighborhood four years ago, Owen was a bit past three years old. Our block at the time was chock full of little boys, including another Owen the same age as ours. Our neighbors were for the most part welcoming sorts and I remember that as the weather warmed, we were invited to an outdoor shindig where we first got to know the families on the block. Owen gamely joined in with the crowd of boys his age and older, his first social foray into our new neighborhood, and one of his first in general outside what until then had been a fairly insular circle of relatives and close friends and his mates from daycare - a protected and idyllic little world. When we were leaving the neighborhood party, one of the older boys shouted "Goodbye Owen." He was talking to the Owen who had always lived on the block but our little guy, thinking he was talking to him and that he had made a new friend, stopped, turned around, walked up to him, and gave him a big goodbye hug. Owen couldn't see but the kid's facial expression was essentially "what the *$&% is this new kid doing." That moment is seared in my memory because I remember thinking how little and innocent and good Owen was and how much I hoped that the kid he was hugging wouldn't say out loud what his facial expression was saying. He didn't, but I knew it wouldn't be long before the world started seeping through the protective emotional cocoon that we are able to construct for our toddlers.

Tonight, as we were all reading books and Deanna was quizzing Owen about his day, he suddenly let forth with weeks of drama between himself and his close friends, as he and another boy jockeyed for the position of "best friend" of a third boy. Owen, usually so quietly popular, happy, and confident, was suddenly wracked with anguish and the sudden feeling that the boy he naively and happily thought was going to be his best friend for life was being stolen from him. His wails of sadness and loss as he told of minor cruelties were truly heartbreaking - a sudden and painful reminder to us as parents that the world is at its core a rough place, and that no matter how much we want to protect our little guys from the crueler lessons of life, life is going to be teaching those lessons whether we want it to or not. The emotional ride-along we are in for as parents is, I suddenly realize, going to be almost as painful as when we went through it all ourselves growing up. Part of life, I know, but couldn't someone of told me about this tough part of the job when we applied?

No Monkeys In Heaven!

The other day found me washing dishes and singing "Monkey Gone to Heaven" by the Pixies. As someone borrowed my CD copy of the Pixies "Dolittle" 15 years ago and never returned it (I'm talking to you Denmarsh!), my singing pretty much consisted of repeating the part of the chorus that goes "This monkeys gone to Heaven" over and over since I can't presently remember any of the other lyrics. Deanna, six years younger than I and thus sometimes alarmingly naive about the treasure trove of music that was the 1980s, first indicated that she had never heard the song. Then, taking my repeated lyric at its literal best, she declared out of the blue "There are no monkeys in heaven."

"What?!?!" I replied. Twelve years of marriage and I am blindsided by this assertion. This led immediately to a theological discussion of what exactly heaven is like, what form everything is in there, and who is eligible to enter. Deanna's vision - no physical form, just some spark of existence being promoted upon death to a nebulous free-floating state. Picture a bunch of Tinkerbell-like lights (souls) flitting around in what looks like outer space. She seemed a little vague about where the line would be drawn when pressed for details on what types of lifeforms are allowed but was clear that monkeys and trees were excluded (she later conceded on the monkeys but held firm on no trees). Worst of all, no one is actually doing anything. Just flits of light flitting. Souls floating in the ether. Boooooorrrring!

My vision is that Heaven looks a bit like Wii Sports Resort. A cool place where you can spend the afternoon bowling with Thomas Jefferson and John Lennon. I picture catching up with my friend Jeni from high school and getting to know my grandfathers whom I never had a chance to know on earth, perhaps over archery or some cocktails (but not both - experience has taught me that archery and cocktails are a poor combination). Is that Charles Lindbergh piloting the Piper Cub that gives scenic "Get to Know Heaven" tours; why yes it is!" Hey Vasco de Gama and Lewis and Clark, catch you guys later for some orienteering! How about some ziplining with Walter Payton and Teddy Roosevelt! I could go on but you get the picture. And in my Heaven, there is surely no shortage of trees or monkeys - in fact, my Heaven is lousy with them, AND they talk.

Deanna and I continued our debate upstairs, where we presented our conflicting views of Heaven to Owen, who not surprisingly found mine to be more appealing. About that time one of the twins wandered in with no clothes on. Deanna instructed him to get his pajamas on and, as an aside, noted that "God does not want to see your naked butt." Both twins then quite confidently asserted that God loved their butts as much as the rest of them, and to prove their point, joyously bent over to raise their naked butts heavenward. And somewhere far above, a foursome made up of God, a monkey, a Peruvian peasant, and Revolutionary War Hero Marquis de Lafayette looked down and chuckled appreciatively before turning their attention back to their golf game.

Putting the Fun Back in DiscrimFunation

The other day was opposite day at Owen's school, where kids wore their shirts backwards and such. We carried the theme over to home where we had breakfast for dinner, and now here to CloudEight, where I am doing the opposite of what I usually do by actually posting. Oh, and by not being funny.

This past week also saw some crazy Martin Luther King Day activities over at the grade school and, apparently, the pre-school. We were talking to Owen about MLK over breakfast at dinnertime, when the twins broke into the conversation. Cooper declared "Hey! We know that guy!" Hayden followed up by telling us "some bad people put a brick through his window." Props to the Catholic pre-school for trying to tackle a tough topic, I guess, as at least something seems to have stuck in their little three year old minds.

Meanwhile, over at First Grade, Owen, as part of the educational MLK celebration had filled in blanks in a worksheet intended to provide an opportunity to talk to our child about "values and dreams." It had a "Martin and Me" chart where it listed things like MLK's favorite games (baseball and Chinese Checkers, FYI) and Owen would then list his (soccer). In the "Dream for the Future" column, MLK had "fairness for all." Owen's dream for the future: "toys." I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the "for all" after toys is implied.

The "First Grade News" Owen's teacher sends home each week also noted that the class had "participated in some fun activities to allow the children to see what discrimination feels like." Wow. I mean Wow. What to say. It almost sounds like it should be called discrimfunation. Anyway, Owen hasn't talked about it, so I assume it was fairly mild, like making one kid wear a Packers jersey.

And it is on to the next holiday, Valentine's day, where the kids can participate in some fun activities to see what having your heart broken feels like.

More Holiday Fun: Swedes, Cookies and Jesus' Birthday Party

More Holiday Traditions:

While I am largely an American mutt, I am 1/4 Swedish, so by default I have always regarded Sweden as providing my ancestral roots. We fortuitously had a store in my childhood hometown called the "Swedish Shop", which allowed me to indulge these cultural leanings by buying advent calendars and buttons that said clever things like "Swedish Power". At holiday gatherings of extended family as a kid, I recall being given glasses of "glug" - this was good. Less good were holiday "treats" like pickled herring and lutefisk (codfish cured in lye (no lie!)). Owen's first grade class had been studying Christmas traditions around the world in the weeks leading up to the holiday, so it was with interest that he and I recently reviewed the Swedish Chapter. We especially liked the idea of Santa Lucia day, where on December 13 the oldest girl in the family dresses in a white gown, makes sweetbread and coffee, puts a wreath with lit candles on her head and wakes everyone else up to eat the treats and drink the coffee. This sounded like a much better tradition than eating pickled herring, so we were keen on trying to incorporate it into our family. The plan falls apart, of course, at the bit about the oldest daughter doing all of this, as we inconveniently do not have an oldest daughter. Owen, somewhat unwisely suggested to Deanna that she do it. This suggestion was met with the kind of withering glare and sharp retort that might be expected from someone who spends more than enough time concocting treats for the rest of us without taking on the added risk of setting her head on fire. Oh, well.

Speaking of treats, while Deanna and I may be compatible in parenting styles and a million other ways, there could not be a starker contrast between us when it comes to cookie compatibility. She comes from people who like their cookies soft, gooey and full of meringues, gloppy fillings, etc. In other words, barely edible. My people like our cookies hard like a Scandinavian winter (see above for more about my rich Swedish heritage), made with butter and/or lard with a crust of hard frosting or a sprinkling of sugar. Real cookies, like spritz and thumbprints (world's best cookie!). This incompatibility rears its ugly head each holiday season, when Deanna effortlessly cranks out a zillion cookies, most of which I simply don't like. I was apparently a bit more vocal than usual about that this year, because Deanna was actually indulgent enough to make me a big batch of spritz dough. I then spent an hour wrestling with our cookie dough gun, loudly complaining that it was a piece of inferior equipment. As it turned out, I simply had no idea how to properly use the damn thing, since when Deanna finally became annoyed enough to come see what all the fuss was about, she proceeded to crank out several trays of beautiful cookies - the only ones that later turned out to be actually presentable to guests. Then, while checking on my actual baking of the cookies, Deanna discovered that I had placed an unbaked tray of cookies in the oven on top of an already baking tray of cookies. After we all had a good laugh at my expense, I inexplicably did the same thing again! It was then that we all decided we were best going back to our old system of Deanna making whatever she wants and me subsisting on tins of thumbprints slipped to me periodically during the holiday season by my mother.

As we were driving towards church on Christmas morning, I realized from various comments being made by the twins that since they knew we were going to church to celebrate Jesus' birthday, they believed Jesus would physically be there. Not just in spirit, mind you, but wearing a party hat and smiling as a bunch of Kings and sheppards, and us of course, sang happy birthday. Mary supervising a game of pin the tail on a real donkey - best party game ever! Plenty of loaves and fishes (hopefully not lutefisk!) to go around, no matter how many guests show up! I'm picturing Jesus excitedly opening our gift of Rock'em, Sock'em Robots - much cooler than the boring old myrrh. Anyway, assuming it would be in our best interests to dissuade them of this live Jesus notion on the way rather than in response to loud inquiries in church, we did our best to engage in a rushed bit of 3-year-old theology. Why we still celebrate the birth of someone who lived 2,000 years ago is not an easy concept for them to wrap their little 3-year old heads around, as suggested by Cooper's continuing litany of questions throughout the service and since. My favorite moment however, was when we were still in the car, and I had just finished explaining that Jesus was a baby 2000 years ago and that nobody can live for 2000 years. Owen, a big Harry Potter fan, then not-so-helpfully interjected from the backseat "Unless they have the Sorcerer's Stone." Oy.

I hear next year Mary and Joseph are having Jesus' party at the Roller Rink. Should be cool. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year!

Evil Genius Christmas Mouse and More Holiday Fun!

Having been a member of a family for 43 years, married for almost 12 (holy s*&$!!!), and a parent for almost seven, it occurred to me that I am taking part in traditions all over the place - some admittedly better than others. So for December, I was ambitiously picturing a series of posts talking about some of the treasured and not-so-treasured holiday traditions here on CloudEight. Well, being that it is December 21 and I have yet to post, it appears that my year-round tradition of procrastination and slow-writing have won out. Still, it is a season of hope, so I will take a stab at coughing up a couple of posts before year's end.

Even as the remains of the turkey carcass are still lukewarm, Deanna and I like to kick off the holidays by engaging in our first seasonal tradition each year - fighting over the amount of Christmas decorating that is about to take place. When we first married, we had but a handful of our own Christmas-related possessions. Mine consisted of a box full of ornaments made or possessed since childhood, kept in a gift box that had been hand-decorated by an ex-girlfriend years before (a bad marital move). Hers consisted of a similarly sized box of ornaments and an alarmingly large collection of miniature Christmas books, the charm of which eludes me to this day. Our first house had a full unfinished walk-up attic, as well as a full unfinished basement, with the predictable result that we rarely worried about storage. By the time we had moved to our current house three and a half years ago, our Christmas collection had swollen to fill five or six large storage bins. Now, helped along by the unabated Christmas enthusiasm generated by the increase in our collection of miniature humans since the arrival of the twins, our Christmas possessions have grown exponentially. The weekend following Thanksgiving has become a full-fledged tactical operation as our current non-walk up attic spews bin after bin after bin of Christmas paraphernalia down into the main part of the house already packed to the gills with all manner of toys and kid-related accessories deemed necessary to raising the young 'uns. While I can't argue with the end result, the work involved in festooning every square inch of already limited space with a layer of green and red can't help but leave me a bit crabby, with the result that I have a reputation as a Christmas scrooge with Deanna. This simmering tension usually comes to a head when we are decorating the tree - while Deanna's bizarre but strictly enforced edict that ONLY round ornaments can be placed on the tree gets a pass, my efforts to keep the kids from layering on even one of our six gazillion ornaments are shouted down by all. While really this is not even a fight worth having, you can rest assured that I will have forgotten that fact by next Christmas when I stand in the attic scowling at a wall of green and red bins that will have grown again since this year.

Another treasured seasonal tradition here on CloudEight are my periodic battles with an mouse and/or mice who have sought to join our family during the holiday season as a refuge from the cold. And who can blame them - with three young and endlessly eating boys wandering the house leaving trails of tasty crumbs, the floor of every room resembles a mouse-friendly buffet. Upon the first evidence of an infiltration, I break out my arsenal, which consists of a variety of types of traps accumulated over years of battle. This includes everything from the lowly but effective glue trap to the ultimate in mouse-fighting technology - the Rat Zapper 2000. While this year's mouse (or mice??) have proved to be worthy adversaries, including routinely cleaning out traps without tripping them, studiously avoiding the Rat Zapper, and, most alarmingly, mockingly pushing one of my own springtraps from where I had set it along a baseboard to the middle of a doorway leading to the kitchen where any unwary and barefooted family member could have easily stepped on it in the morning. Brilliant! He is obviously an evil genius. He still has a ways to go to match wits with the mouse of 2002, however, who got such a superiority complex during his month long running battle with me that he used to do things like taunt us by watching us watch TV. I got that one eventually, but only after upping my game by building a temporary wall out of cardboard bricks that left him only a narrow opening between the kitchen and dining room. He tried to run the gap in the middle of one memorable night, only to find that I had created an Indiana Jones-style tunnel of terror for him. A misstep into a glue trap ended the reign of that worthy adversary. I will get this one to, as I have recently come into some good intel on his hideout. That and a troop surge out to do the trick.

Christmas is a pretty awesome time to be a parent. This holiday season, as I have the last several, I set up my dad’s old electric train set from the 1950’s for the boys. They are simply crazy about it despite its sometimes spotty functionality and my struggles to get the various electric accessories (grade crossings, switch tracks, etc.) to operate. My ability to work with aging electrical components and electrical knowledge are not what they could be. This is despite the diligent efforts of my father-in-law, who is always “teaching” me to do life-threatening electrical projects around the house, and whom I imagine is rather frustrated with my seeming inability to retain even the most basic electrical knowledge. I have stuck with it this year though, with the result that the old Iron Horse and its various accessories (even the famously uncooperative barrel-loader!) are firing on all cylinders. And when it is all working, it is pretty damn cool, and the excitement of the boys as they watch it circle the track is one of my favorite holiday things.

The Continuing Adventures of RedPlanet: Kiddie Comedian, Part IV

New reader Christina in Aurora, Illinois sent me the following joke:

"Me: Knock, knock;
Miscellaneous child: Who's there?
Me: Banana.
Misc. Child: Banana who?
Me: Knock, knock.
Misc. Child: Who's there?
Me: Banana.
Misc. Child: Banana who?
Me: Knock, knock.
Misc. Child: Who's there?
Me: Orange.
Misc. Child: Orange who?
Me: Orange you glad I didn't say Banana again?"

A classic to be sure. And, unlike my previous jokes, it actually resulted in gales of laughter from the boys when I told it. Unfortunately, unlike the others, it did not result in any sort of amusing or otherwise interesting comments on their part. They merely made me repeat the joke another sixteen times, laughing hard each time.

Since then, however, they have been working this joke into their own comedy routines (such as they are), each putting their own indelible stamp on it. Their variations, with some of the repetition removed as indicated in brackets, are as follows:

The Owen Variation:

Owen: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Owen: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
[Repeat again]
Owen: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
Owen: Orange.
Me: Orange who?
Owen: Aren't you glad I didn't say Banana again.
Me: Dude, it's "orange" you glad!
Owen: Oh yeah, yeah. Knock knock ..."

The Cooper Variation: Cooper does the traditional set-up but will repeat the banana section over and over and over. Literally, like eight times, chuckling all the while at the hilarity to come. Then, he hits you with his signature ending:

"Cooper: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Cooper: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
Cooper: Aren't you glad I didn't say orange again [bellylaughs]."

I wish I could say that Cooper is purposely switching up the traditional ending with his own non sequitur ending, but it seems clear that he believes he is telling the joke verbatim. No future in stand-up for this one, as he seems to have inherited both mine and Deanna's awkward comedic timing and poor joke memory retention.

The Hayden Variation: Hayden, who has never been shy about working blue, does the traditional set-up followed by this killer ending:

"Hayden: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Hayden: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
Hayden: Banana Poopyhead! [bellylaughs]."

And so it goes.

Hens in Your Backyard and Fresh Eggs Every Morning!

My mom grew up on a farm in downstate Illinois. While my sister and I have pressed her for childhood memories on a number of occasions, it appears that she was distracted and/or had her nose in a book for the majority of her childhood, leaving us largely with just the images we can conjure up from a handful of black and white photos. One thing she has always made clear however, is that she did not like gathering eggs from the henhouse. I have always regarded that dislike as no more remarkable than someone asserting, say, I don't like sardines. Nor, despite an abiding love of the State Fair and the fact that I find watching cows to be an oddly zen-like experience, have I ever felt an urge to farm or keep livestock, being instead content with my urban/suburban existence. That has all changed, however, now that I have discovered the EGLU!

Here is the EGLU. Marvel at its modern and aesthetically pleasing design! Available in green, orange, red, blue or pink! See the happy suburbanites enjoying freshly laid eggs practically every morning! Oh, and the copy writing. "A stylish and practical addition to any backyard." "Designed to be the house the chickens themselves would choose." Check out the "grub and glug" food and water dispenser! Did you know that a single hen can lay up to 300 eggs a year! No rooster needed! What a concept!

Seriously, within half an hour of discovering the Eglu, I was checking out chicken-breed discussion boards, picking out breeds, and deciding whether chickens would be happier on the backyard grass or the wood chipped area by the swing set. I was thinking about who would feed them next time we were on vacation and contemplating strategies for keeping them alive during the winter (despite the Eglu claims that that the twin-wall insulation keeps them warm in winter, I still can't ascertain whether that means they would survive if it was negative 20 out). I was also busying myself drawing up an egg-collecting schedule for the boys since, after all, the "eggport, on the side of the lid, gives easy access to the nesting box and makes looking for and collecting the eggs a daily pleasure." Heck, maybe even my mom would want to give it another go!

I had all but settled on a pair of either Rhode Island Reds or Gingernut Rangers when I checked our Village Code and learned that CHICKENS ARE BANNED. Despair! Indignation! Outrage! My dream dashed, I may have even told Deanna that we needed to relocate the family to a more chicken-friendly and enlightened Village.

Having since worked my way through the various stages of mourning, I have regained some sense of reality and am now able to verbalize these thoughts and concede that keeping chickens may not be in my immediate future. For now. I guess. Maybe. Cluck.

Pee At Sea

Recently, when I mentioned that so-and-so enjoys reading my blog, my mother sarcastically responded "that's got to be pretty time consuming." Ouch. Yep, time to get back to posting.

Last month we took a 7-day Disney cruise and spent an additional three nights at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. I returned relaxed, vaguely tan, and definitely poorer. A couple of weeks later and the tan and relaxed state are long gone, while the poorer part, unfortunately, appears to be sticking. There are the memories though too, and they were worth every one of the hundreds of thousands of pennies that were spent. Predictably, a great time was had by all. While I won't bore you with details of our many trips to the pool, beaches on Caribbean islands, the 90-something degree weather, trips to the spa, awesome workouts, the sumptuous feasts we were treated to each night, my brilliance on the shuffleboard court (skills honed during childhood summers in Door County, WI!), our $2,000 bingo jackpot (whoooo-hoooo!), or the warm milk and cookies delivered gratis to our cabin each night with just a call to room service, there are a few memories that I did want to share:

The RedPlanet Family Singers: Having never tried karaoke before, we attended a "family karaoke night" on the ship one night and gave it a whirl. Unfortunately, we selected "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", foolishly forgetting that not only does the song increase in speed to its final frenetic pace, but that the words are actually sung backwards at one point. Disaster ensued.

Least Disney Moment: One night my father-in-law was trying to secure chairs on the top deck of the cruiseship only to find them being hogged up by various people. Approaching a man who was hoarding a large number of unoccupied chairs, my father-in-law inquired what the man needed all of the chairs for. The man began to explain and then said "I don't know why I am telling you all of that, this is Disney, we do whatever the hell we want." To which my father-in-law replied "OK then, I want your chairs" and proceeded to start taking them before my mother-in-law intervened to stave off a fistfight. Go Bob!

Most Disney Moment: While Disney employees are almost all outstanding, I was particularly impressed when one day while at sea I stopped by the sports bar hoping to watch the Bears game via satellite. As luck would have it, the ship sailed into an area with no satellite signal for the duration of the afternoon. I expressed my disappointment to one of the bar employees. Later that night, I returned to my room to find that she had slid a printout under my door that had not only the score, but all the statistics of the game. Awesome!

Regrets: The Animal Kingdom Lodge offers stunning views of free-ranging African wildlife on a savanna, some wandering as close as 25-feet from your balcony. What you saw at any given time depended on what particular animals had wandered within viewing distance of your balcony. As cool as this was, I quickly become a bit jaded and when Deanna suggested on the third morning that we sit on the balcony and watch for a bit while the kids were still asleep, I replied "why bother, there's nothing out there right now but giraffe and zebra." As I sit in my cold basement a month later, rain spitting against the window for the 7th day in a row, I am wishing I had bothered!

My most enduring memories of the cruiseship, however, will be of the bathrooms. While I bragged back in May about having changed my last diaper, I did not realize that leaving diaper changing behind would result in my hearing innumerable shouts of "Daddy, will you wipe my butt???" The twins are hyper-conscious of their need to use the bathroom, and, like a pair of 22-year old girls out at a club, one cannot possibly go to the bathroom without the other. One dinner on the ship we took both of them three times! As we were rarely in our cabin during the cruise, we were most often patronizing public bathrooms around the ship. While almost every public bathroom in the universe features urinals of varying heights, astonishingly, considering how utterly predictable it is that there would actually be children aboard a Disney cruise, every damn urinal on the ship was designed for use by men 6 feet and over, leaving the stalls as our only option. Since space is tight on a ship, there was almost always only one stall in each public bathroom, and it would, of course, usually be occupied. Hayden's modus operandi upon entering the men's room in this situation was to get down low to get a good look under the stall door and announce to all in a loud voice that "there's a man in there!". He would then alternate between repeating that phrase every 30 seconds, in case it didn't sink in the first five times, and loud speculation as to when the man would be out so he could go. This proved quite effective actually, at causing people to practically flee the stalls to avoid further embarrassment. Then Cooper, Hayden and I would crowd ourselves into the stall for ten minutes of business, chit-chat and butt-wiping (often while a line formed outside), followed by handwashing and, the most exciting time of all, use of the hand dryer (the twins love to talk about whether hand dryers are automatic or push button).

So, as I dry my chapped and cold hands this winter here in Chicago, I can always warm myself up with the memories of that bathroom on Deck 4, aft, on the starboard side. You know, the one with the manly industrial style toilets and sinks, the roomy single stall and only low urinal on the ship, and the nice automatic hand dryer. Ah, sweet vacation memories.