A mother and her teenage daughter talking while shopping. They weren’t talking to each other, but to other people on their individual cellphones.
“Pirates of the Caribbean” brand bubble bath. I don’t know how you’re supposed to maintain your image as an ugly group of ghost pirates while hawking bubble bath.
Registration is now required to access the site. If you have registered previously (for writing comments and the like), you probably won’t be prompted for your password.
It occurred to me that I was putting up a lot of personal information up here that was really more intended for friends and family than for the general public. Nothing has come about as a result yet, and I’d like to keep it that way.
Oliver is the scared-y cat in the family. When he encounters something he’s afraid of, he’ll get a hold of my leg and put his head close to me. Or, if he happens to be seated at the table, he’ll try to get my arm and rest his head in my hand. Even though he seems to be quite interested in dogs and airplanes, he can get scared when he hears them and starts grabbing for my hand.
Maggie is fearless for the most part, but she shares one fear with Oliver: a fear of bugs. I don’t know if this is something innate or something we’ve instilled in her to keep her away from her earlier inclination to touch them, and subsequently put them in her mouth.
In any event, yesterday was a fairly warm day for November, so we headed to the neighbor’s playground setup, and we soon realized that there were a bunch of ladybugs buzzing about. Oliver would point them out when he spotted them (”Baaaah!”, he shouts), then cuddle up to me for protection.
I tried to convince Maggie that they were harmless by picking some of them up and letting her watch them crawl over my hand, but she wasn’t having any of that. At one point I asked what she was doing and she said,
“I’m stepping on the bugs because I don’t yike[sic] them.”
Hopefully when they get a little older they’ll learn to play with bugs just like I used to. There’s nothing like the smell of burning rollerbugs with the help of a magnifying glass.
So far, I’ve only been a housedad for two working days so there’s not much to say. I spend time with the kids, they eat, they nap, end of story. It’s too soon to have a regular routine, but that should shake itself out in the coming weeks.
Yesterday was my last day at the office, but we had already told our nanny that today would be her last day, so I get to celebrate my taking a day off before my entry into house-fatherhood.
The first thing I did today was wipe Windows off of my computer and install Debian Linux. That machine will eventually become our home server, but I expect it’ll take me a while to fully set it up as such.
I’m also spending some time working on this weblog. I’m still working on trying to get the links to Gallery photos to work properly.
The adventure begins tomorrow!
Another Halloween has come and gone. Maggie wanted to be a princess this year, and Oliver went as a dog even though he really didn’t have any say in the matter. Oliver is sick so wasn’t able to participate in the trick-or-treating festivities, but Maggie manged to visit a few houses. We started with two bags of candy and ended up with five or six pieces, so in the end it was a net loss.
Today, I announced to my employer that October 31November 1 will be my last day at work. As of November 12, I will be taking on a new position as a full-time housedad.
The decision has been a long one, something that we’ve contemplated for over a year now. A year ago, it would have been a difficult task to take on. Babies, even your own, simply aren’t much fun to take care of. You feed them, you change their diaper, and the best you can get from it is a smile from them, if you’re lucky. Toddlers, on the other hand, may have their challenges but they can also be a lot of fun.
That fact, coupled with Hong’s recent job promotion and frustrations with our most recent nanny, has been enough to tip the scales to where it no longer makes sense for me to work. We could have opted to find another nanny, but we’ve already been through six of them in the past three years, most of whom left of their own accord for various reasons. The process of finding another one would be draining and likely only good for another six months or year anyway. Thus, I am stepping up to the challenge.
I hope to be able to share some of my thoughts and frustrations on being a housedad on this blog. I’ll likely re-theme it soon, and should have plenty of pictures to share once I figure out how to link pictures from my new photo gallery. In the meantime, I’m going to be pretty busy trying to wrap things up at the office.
If I had to pick my favorite fruits, the pineapple would be at the top of the list followed by the apple. Apples come in all sorts of varieties, and I like trying different kinds when I can come across them.
The Red Delicious seems to be the most popular, but despite its moniker I find it to be one of the least delicious. It is, however, the best looking apple, which probably accounts for its popularity.
Typically, I go for Gala apples. They’re almost always available at the grocery store, and the best tasting. I buy these from Costco 12-at-a-time.
We live just a few miles from the Conner Prairie Living History Museum, and they maintain an Apple Store open during the apple harvest season. I can usually find some unique varieties there; I recall sampling some Liberty apples last year, although they weren’t particularly memorable.
Earlier this week, I happened across some Honeycrisp apples at the grocery store. If they appear in your local store, I highly recommend picking up a few. It is the best apple variety I have ever tasted. Extremely firm and sweet, I could eat one of these every day.
Once you have children you tend to be less materialistic, because you realize that inevitably all of your material gets destroyed by the children.
Last week, my little girl turned three. The so-called “terrible twos” have passed, and quite frankly I don’t see where that moniker comes from because she has been largely wonderful for the past year. I suspect that I will learn about that phrase when Oliver hits that age next year.
She also attended preschool for the first time last week. We have her enrolled in a school for gifted students, as her testing has her placed above the 99th percentile in ability. It’s questionable whether sending her to a gifted school at such a young age will make any difference, especially when tuition runs about $6000 for attending three mornings a week, but at the very least it means she’ll have teachers who know how to deal with her.
The preschool is nearly a half-hour commute away. Hong drops her off on the way to work in the morning but it’s my responsibility to pick her up. Driving for three hours a week also has me questioning whether it’s worth it at her young age. The coming months and years should prove me right or wrong.