I'm golden

1. Daughter is still experiencing growing pains related to attending a new school.

2. She has just been diagnosed with an ear infection AND pneumonia.

3. Economy is in fiscal ruin and is likely to degenerate into a system using spices, canned goods and children as currency any day now.

4. I am getting ready to board a flight to Baltimore – ditching my wife and child for the long weekend in favor of a long weekend of "hanging out with the guys."

How do you spell Parent of the Year?

M-I-K-E

But wait! There's more!

And how about a little video to round things out.

I know. I'm too good to you.

If you wait long enough, it will happen.

Yes, I've finally updated. I commend the Maggie's of the blogoshpere for not nagging me about posting. (I know it was hard for you.) There were a million and one things to take care of – and unfortunately updating the blog was at the bottom of the list.

Kaylee had her last day at her old day care yesterday. I was the lucky one, I got to drop her off. So I only had to deal with the threats of kidnapping ("You know your baby won't be here when you come back, right? I'm gonna snatch her up.") while Rae had to deal with the tearful good-byes. (And this is Rae we're talking about. There were tears.) Kaylee's class even made her a good-bye card complete with photos and painted hand prints. It also made Rae cry.

Kaylee starts the new school on Monday. This will also make Rae cry.

Kaylee is really enjoying "helping" Rae with any food prep. (And by helping I mean mixing the banana bread until half of it is on the floor.) They say that if you let kids help you cook, they are more likely to be interested in eating. That may be true for banana bread – but I don't think the theory holds water when it comes to vegetables.

This Skype thing is pretty cool. Kaylee is always asking to "see picture Alice" – and now those picture move and talk back. Pictured is a "picture James" – not quite the same, but a decent substitute.

We made another trip to the zoo last weekend.
The flamingos were a hit ...

... and they inspired imitation.

The bird house is always a favorite destination. It's a huge enclosure where you get up close and personal with birds of all sizes and colors. Kaylee loves hunting for them and watching their every move.

Unless they get too close to her stroller. Because that's HER stroller, and she'll be damned if any stupid bird gets to ride in it.

We also made the switch to a big girl bed. (Which you know if you've been following the Twitters.) It's the exact same bed, we just took the front panel off.

It freaked her out a bit at first ...

... but the first night went OK ...

... but we've also found her like this a few times. I don't know if she's rolling or climbing out, but either way we find her on the floor every now and then.

Last night she wasn't feeling very well when she went down, and later I found her passed out on the floor next to a pile of vomit. I didn't think that was supposed to happen until college. And even then she's not supposed to tell me about it.

uh-huh

There's an update, with photos, coming. I swear. Once I get around to it. Monday is just a bad, bad, bad day.

Oh - and I'm still working on gathering the footage I need for the video. I'm not slacking, my subject just doesn't want to cooperate. Besides, most of you have seen her Mr. T impression already.

She pities the fools.

Currently obsessed with ...

TRUCKS – to the point where she will stop eating and cry until you let her out of her chair so she can look out the window. Too bad Papa Allen isn't driving the big rigs anymore, I think she'd get a kick out of that.

Fun day

I started off my morning by making two women cry. Or at least pushing them to the verge of tears. The two in question would be Kaylee's teacher and the woman who runs the daycare.

I told them that next week would be Kaylee's last with them – and that we're switching her to a preschool. They weren't happy. But it's nice to know that she'll be missed! 

Apparently – most of the daycare was in a funk as word spread. It's apparent that Kaylee really has become one of the favorites of the staff. And while we're sure Kaylee will miss them (not to mention some of the kids) we're sure she's going to love the new place.

Even if it is more expensive. And a little further away from my office. And we have to pack her lunch every day.

More later. Sleep now.

Vegas: By the numbers

So I'm back from my Vegas trip. (All work and no play makes Mike a dull boy.) It was great to get out and recharge my batteries and to see colleagues from around the world – but I'm happy to be home with my girls again.

4 • Number of nights spent at the swank Red Rocks Spa and Casino in Las Vegas.

160 • Starting nightly rate for a hotel room at the hotel. (Thank god for the conference discount!)

12 • Approximate miles from "the strip."

0 • Minutes spent actually on "the strip."

75 • Gambling losses. (Pai Gow is lots of fun and slightly addictive – I'm glad my group left the table while I still had some chips in my hand.) 

75 • Total amount spent on gambling. (That's right – ZERO winnings. I rule.)

2 • Average time I went to bed.

7:30 • Average time I woke up in the morning.

2 • Number of drinks actually purchased for myself during the entire trip.

? • Number of drinks actually consumed. (There's a lot of free booze in Vegas.)

4 • Strikes bowled at the Casino's VIP lanes.

2 • Number of sessions I actually chose to attend. (The rest of the time I was running around working the conference.)

1 • Pay-per-view movies watched from the comfort of my room when I was feeling slightly antisocial. (No, not one of THOSE movies ... )

10 • Number of seconds it took Kaylee to want to go to Rae once all three of us were finally in the same place again. :-P

All in all a great trip. I can't wait to go back – but next time, I'll take Rae with me. Who wants Kaylee for a weekend?!

Not that you were expecting an update ...

But you're going to have to wait a while for one. I'm Vegas-bound, which means no child updates for the next few days. (Unless Rae decides to pose as me and post. But she won't have time to do that.) In the meantime know that I've got some video coming ... and she's cute.

A few random updates

• Kaylee's getting more and more timeouts. Mainly for throwing fits, testing boundaries, etc. You'd think she was approaching 2-years-old or something.
  
• I think a big part of it comes from the day care we have her in. (Because I see it in the behavior of those evil, evil children when I drop her off in the mornings.) Hence Rae and I scoping out a few new schools when I get back next week.
  
• Kaylee is officially calling all the animals by name instead of just "kiki" and "puppy." Now we have "Mas," "Gabby," "Eddie" and "Chrpchop."
  
• Kaylee is very excited about my trip because I'll be on an "airpayne." The only thing she loves more is the neighbor kid's "byekycle."
  
• The potty is going over well – and she uses it almost every time we change her diaper. Now we just need to get her to tell us she needs to use it before we change her diaper.
  
• Rae has been trying to figure out what to call Kaylee's underpants (diapers right now, of course). She started out with "knickers" but decided to switch to "panties" after a rather unfortunate mispronunciation. Believe it or not, even Kaylee can't make racial slurs cute.
• "Green Eggs and Ham" appears to be the new favorite book. I'm glad since it was one of my favorites – but damn, that's a long book at bedtime.
  
• Kaylee doesn't quite know the difference between Quicktime and Skype. She was very excited to see the movie of Alice that Becky posted – but was a little confused when Alice wouldn't answer her. (Though she enjoyed going along with the Happy Birthday prompts from Becky.)
  

I'm going to quit before I've got an accidentally unofficial "Ten on Tuesday" on Saturday.

Like mother ...

Wii would like to play. And Kaylee would too.

Window watching

Just a random picture of a little girl and her bumble.

Bird watching.

Dress up

It started with a random request for earrings. (I'm not really sure where that came from – Rae doesn't wear them that often.) From there we got a request for a belt ... and before you knew it, Kaylee was embarking on her first official game of dress up. (You should have seen Rae's face when she realized this. I'm pretty sure this was more fun for her than it was for Kaylee.)

We got up to clip-on earrings, a canvas belt and two different pairs of shoes before Kaylee decided it was more fun to play in the closet. (Please ignore how filthy the mirror doors are.)

But in the closet she found dad's "black duck" shirt and had to try it on. Then she got REALLY excited by the home jersey (the "big black duck" shirt) – but slammed her finger in the closet door before she got around to trying it on.

Wordle

This page has just been Wordled. Try it out yourself.

Dinnertime with the kid

"How does this damn bib work?"

"Stylish – but not quite."

"That's not going to do it either."

Poor, abused cat.

Because I'm bored.

I present ...

... the only photo I have ever taken with 1,520 miles between subjects.

Saturday we ...

... helped Mom play with her new Wii. Jumping over toddlers increases the difficulty of Wii Fit – but you don't get any extra points for it.*

... found a praying mantis on the wheel of the Mustang. Kaylee was cool with it – as long as it wasn't running in her direction. (A trait she gets from her mother.)

... decided this was a safer place for the little guy than the wheels of a car. Especially since we were getting ready to leave the house. (And how about that shot? Can you say Macro lens?)

... had a KFC picnic dinner at the park. Greasy chicken, flat Pepsi, dry biscuits and mac & cheese that had likely been sitting there for 7 hours. Mmmmm-mmmmm good!

... fed the ducks our leftover biscuits. (Note the SpongeBob Band-Aid on the crippled finger. It's not Manman, but it's yellow. And that makes it good enough.)

And then the battery on the camera died.

* NOTE: Picture is really from Thursday – but I loaded it in on Saturday and for the sake of some sort of a narrative in this post, decided to just pretend. I could have just passed it off, but one or two of you smarter readers (I'll let you decide who I'm taking about) would have realized that Kaylee is wearing a different outifit. I could have concocted a cover story involving finger paint – but then you probably would have complained (I'm talking about Maggie now) until I scanned the painting because you had to see it. And then I would have had to make a snarky comment about how "I don't owe you anything" or "you'll take what I give you and like it" and I really don't have time for all of that. So just pretend this picture is from Saturday. It will save all of us a lot of time in the long run.

Ladies and gentlemen ...

... we have potty. And it only took 57 days until first splash down.

Now we'll see if she can do it again ...

Don't mind the mess

I started this morning by playing around in Photoshop to create a new banner for the page ... just kept going and ended up with a new template. I'm going to have to figure out how to fix a few default settings (like that dotted rule has GOT to go), but I like it for the most part.

At least for now.

If you can't find something, I've accidentally deleted it. Let me know and I'll see about putting it back where it belongs. Or not. It depends how much I like you and if the deletion was accidentally on purpose.

Belated birthdays

In case you hadn't heard, Rae had a birthday last week. There were balloons, salmon kabobs, wine, cheesecake, a Wii, phone callers singing in harmony, phone callers not singing in harmony, several annoying cards with pre-recorded birthday messages (Kaylee loved these) and a very special birthday card made of yellow construction paper, drawn with yellow markers and held together with yellow Band-Aids.

I'm still not sure why the fine folks at day care thought Spongebob Squarepants adhesive bandages would be what made the card extra special – but these are the same people who are teaching serial killer 101.

Today, as part of the official birthday weekend, we started off the day at the zoo* where we saw all kinds of cool things. Basically the same cool things we see every time we go to the zoo – but I guess almost two-year-olds see things a little differently. (Either that or they just have really bad long-term memories.) But we talked to monkeys, laughed at the otters, shot water at mom and got a little closer to feeding the giraffe. (That über-tongue just freaks her out.)

The day wrapped up with a trip to a friend's pool – where Kaylee got to experience swimming in something larger than the bathtub, but a little less fishy-smelling than Lake Michigan. Loads of fun and Kaylee was super cute in her little green swimsuit.

So, of course, I forgot the camera.

I'd blame it on Rae, but it's her birthday.



* A NOTE TO THE SOCIALLY INEPT: Dear lady. I think it was wonderful of you to tell your 10-year-old daughter and her cousin that it was rude when they cut in front of my child at the zoo this morning. My cute, adorable, not-even-two-year-old daughter. Manners are something that children do not come by naturally – they must be taught. That you were willing to stop your child and tell her that what she had done was inconsiderate is commendable. So imagine how surprised I was when you then did a complete 180 and then encouraged your kid to stop and pose for a picture. And then had her pose for a picture with her cousin. And then had her cousin pose for a photo on her own. Did I mention that my child was still standing there, waiting patiently for your kids to get out of the way? Did you not notice my wife and I standing there, staring at you with open mouths? We eventually gave up and walked away while you and your kin continued your photo-op. I figured it was just best to get my child as far away from you before she picked up any of your bad habits (and before I taught her any choice four letter words.) Some may say that you needed to be confronted, that if allowed to walk all over an innocent child you would just continue to do so in the future. I like to think that karma will take care of you and yours. So when little Sally comes home pregnant at fourteen or your pickup truck is clipped at a stoplight by a speeding SUV maybe you'll finally remember the lesson that it's not always easy to wait – but sometimes it's important.

Just for Maggie

Maggie's giving me a hard time about not updating my blog.

I really don't have any new stories. I haven't picked up the camera all week. I didn't take a trip on a train to visit a big shiny bean. My clothes aren't moldy. I'm not going through any legal proceedings. Things are pretty status quo. So I've really got nothing to add. Especially not 10 things.

Me? I strive for quality over quantity – and I refuse to give my audience less than they deserve. I'm even putting way too much thought into this post.

So I'll stop.