The Truth Comes Out

Child #0 was forced to get his own e-mail address and blog earlier this year as part of his English class (it's called "Language Arts" now, but that's giving them far too much credit). Child #0 now considers himself an expert on blogging and after reviewing my blog posts surmised that I "blog about the problems of evil children" and left out the "problems of evil parents." I told him he could take up that cause in his blog, but that I would be reading it and I still control his access to a computer. (This is not censorship; up until recently this has worked for many despotic regimes in the Middle East.)

This lead to a robust discussion of all of the various things I had blogged about over the past couple of years. To wit: when an assignment is due the next morning and you haven't started it, the most effective strategy is to endure the lectures on responsibility, hard work & video games; make a very poor showing of it with minimal effort; and wait for the irate parent to say "Let me show you how I would do it" or if they are very angry, "Here." Then simply copy exactly what they say as an example.

Child #0 assures me that this is a very effective strategy. He also reminded me of the time earlier this year when he put off a history report until ten minutes before the bus arrived. (He got an A-.) The moral of the story? Give yourself at least fifteen minutes.

Child #0 has requested that I provide a link to his blog, which I will do in the interest of journalistic balance and in keeping with the "fairness" doctrine. I'm not sure that will help. He is my best argument.

Phases of the Moon

You may recall that some time ago, a certain child stayed up very late working on a last minute, stop-motion animation project about Planet X. Apparently the 6th grade science teacher, who Sarah now has, has decided that stop-motion animation is an accepted medium for completing assignments, in no small part to the aforementioned project.

Sarah, of course, opted for the stop-animation project. And not to be outdone by her brother, Sarah asked that her project be posted on this blog. I would like to point out that her assignment had much more planning, preparation, revision, and editing, and it still allowed her to get to bed a couple of hours earlier than her brother without needing to get up early to finish the written portion of the assignment.

Here it is: Phases of the Moon

Another Surprise - With Apologies to Paul Harvey

The rest of concert night:

8:14 - Julie sends the following text: “Waited in line for 1 hour, nearly got crushed, gave up on t-shirts for now...I’ll try to go down during show for girls.”

8:30 - I pick up Jordan from his Robotics club-thing meeting. Only one row of Julie’s zucchini brownies that I frosted are left in the 9x13 pan.

8:35 - Jordan & I sit down for the rest of a movie that we started a few months ago - the last time all of the girls were gone: The Two Towers.

8:45 - Julie heads back into the fray in search of concert t-shirts. Still crowded, but no fear of being trampled.

9:25 - Julie gets the last youth t-shirt for Katie and finds an adult small for Sarah.

9:50 - Katie is fading fast, “Mom, it’s just like home when I can’t go to sleep.” Except for the 20,000 females screaming “She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts. She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers, dreaming about the day when you wake up and find that what you’re looking for has been here the whole time.”

10:00 - Jordan goes to bed. I start doing a few of the things I was suppose to do while the girls were at the concert.

10:37 - I send Julie a text, “Did you survive? Is it over?”

10:38 - “Encores...Katie’s not making it.”

10:57 - Julie calls, “We are finally in the car. Katie was fully awake for the final encore, ‘Love Story,’ [her favorite song]. I don’t think Sarah sat down at all during the whole show. Actually, I don’t know that anyone sat down the entire concert.”

11:45 - Girls finally get home. Sarah talks for at least five minutes straight without breathing.

11:55 - Sarah and Katie are in bed. Julie tries a brownie.

11:56 - “What recipe did you use for this frosting” The one you told me to use. “How much cocoa did you put in?” 1 cup. “What?! The recipe calls for 1/3 cup” Oh. I must have been distracted. “How much sugar did you put in?” 1 cup.

11:57 - Julie is speechless and goes to bed. I re-read the recipe: 1 cube butter, 2/3 cup cocoa, 3 cups powdered sugar, 1/3 cup milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Huh, two for five: I didn’t put in any of the vanilla either. None of the flatulent bunnies seemed to mind.

Apparently, next time, I get to go to the concert. And that, with apologies to Paul Harvey, is the rest of the story.

Surprise! Surprise!

Several months ago, Julie & I decided to surprise our girls and purchase tickets to the Taylor Swift concert in Salt Lake City. As our non-girl child had heard enough Taylor Swift to create various mash-up parodies, to both express his desire to never hear a Taylor Swift song again and to annoy his sisters (mostly annoy his sisters), we decided not to buy him a ticket. That meant only one parent would "get" to go to the concert.

Fast forward to tonight, concert night.

6:30 - Julie leaves to pick-up Katie from her drama class and Sarah from a birthday party, neither of which are suppose to end until 7pm. I start making frosting for the brownies that Jordan must take to his Robotics club-thing meeting. (It's some sort of competition. The team name is "The Flying Flatulent Bunnies." The parent-coach didn't know what flatulent meant, but assumed it was better than the Flying Farting Bunnies. Jordan suggested the change.)

6:45 - Julie and the girls are on the freeway. Sarah believes that she is going to her drama class. She has not noticed that they are going in the opposite direction of the drama class. I am trying to decide whether I can use margarin instead of butter in the frosting recipe (I learned last time that you can't always do that). If I have to use butter, I will need to go back downstairs and get some out of the freezer. I decide that would be too much work, besides, what do a bunch of Flying Flatulent Bunnies care if the frosting is made from butter or margarin?

6:55 - Julie is looking for parking. Katie and Sarah trying to figure out why it is taking so long to get to drama class. I drop Jordan off at his club-thing. I ask if it is customary for adults to stay for the whole thing or just drop off their FF Bunny and leave. Jordan shrugs his shoulders. I leave.

7:00 - The concert is suppose to start at 7. I call Julie. She has parked. Katie has taken off her shoes. Julie tells her to hurry. Sarah asks what kind of errand requires them to hurry.

7:10 - Sarah and Katie see Energy Solutions Arena (f.k.a the Delta Center) and are upset. "You're taking us to a BASKETBALL GAME!"

7:15 - Sarah and Katie see large trailers with super-sized pictures of certain pop-star. Euphoric pandemonium erupts.

7:16 - Sarah calls me. "Dad, Dad, WE ARE GOIN TO TAYLOR SWIFT!! Ican'twaittotellallofmyfreinds." Has the concert started? "No, the ticket guy said we didn't have to hurry because it’s just cover bands until Taylor Swift starts at 8:30 and she will play for TWO WHOLE HOURS! Are you coming too?" No, no I'm not. "Oh, that’s too bad." Yes, yes it is. "Isn't Mom lucky?" Yes, very lucky.

7:45 - I start blogging. I have another thirty minutes until I have to go pick up a Flying Flatulent Bunny.

The World Has Gone Crazy

It snowed today. I drove to work in a blizzard. It’s May 24th. I was sustained as the second counselor in our ward Bishopric yesterday. Related? I think so.

Sarah's first words to me after sacrament meeting were, "Dad, does this mean you're old now?"

I asked who had put her up to this and she looked at me funny. "Dad you're the one who always said that people go up on the stand when they are old enough to sleep through meetings."

I'm sure those weren't my exact words.

After a long day yesterday, I was chatting with Jordan and talking a little bit about the changes my new assignment will mean for our family. I asked him if he had any questions.

“Why didn’t we have dessert?”

At least some things never change.

Live From New York...

So I've been in the city the last couple of days on business and have a few observations.

If New York is so influential in the fashion and business worlds, why haven’t they made comfortable running shoes out of patent leather that you could wear to work other than on casual Fridays? Perhaps everyone in New York has so many calluses, bunions and podiatrists no one here would buy them.

There are far too many pretzel & hot dog vendors relative to the number of Mr. Swirlee ice cream trucks. I wandered all over midtown last night and every street vendor was selling hot dogs and pretzels. I did finally find one lonely ice cream truck, but she was in the middle of a call on her cell phone and out of everything chocolate. At least I could still get a cherry-dipped Merlin’s Beard. It says a lot about a city that hot dog and pretzel vendors out number the ice cream vendors by more than 10 to 1. (This is a severe penalty to New York's livability score, let me tell you.)

There are so many people here that right now some one just like you is in Time Square taking a picture of a 20 foot, blue Elvis M&M. The real you would have preferred the picture of the grungy 6 foot Elmo, but you are one-of-a-kind. (I really mean that.)

A Late Night Conversation

It was after 9pm and so I went to investigate the light emanating from underneath a closed bedroom door. The following conversation ensued:

Jordan (sheepishly): "You found me!"

Me (trying to discourage repeat behavior): "I will always find you."

Jordan: "Aah! You stalker!"

Of all the various potential parenting conversations that have ever passed through my mind, none of them ever went quite like this.