School at 30

So I started school....again....for the 3rd time now. While the 1st two times were only 2 years apart...it has now been almost a decade. Does that make me feel old? Oh yeah. I'm only actually going to campus for 1 of my 3 classes this semester and while I know I look older than most of the people in my class, oddly, I don't feel older. I do feel a little wiser because let's face it: I have 5 kids and some of my classmates still live at home. But another part of that is that when I address my professors, I do so by first name because I feel on the same level with them as opposed to when I was still a kid and looked up to them. That seems weird to me but maybe it's not. I have re-learned one fact that I am surprised I forgot. I hate math. I think it stems from me being right-brained and math being a left-brained thing. We have never gotten along. Much like Homer Simpson when he takes the science class to get his diploma, "'Ok brain, I don't like you and you don't like me. But let's get through this and I'll go back to killing you with beer.' 'It's a deal.'" This would not really be a problem except that for some stupid reason they believe that math and computer science are tied together. If I was going to be an electrical engineer or maybe a hardware guy or something then I suppose that makes sense but I'm going to be a programmer. The most math I need to be able to do is line 1 plus 2 =line 3 unless line 2 is an invalid entry in which case print error 15 and return to line 2. I mean seriously....does anyone actually use quadratic formula in real life? Are you really ever faced with an Au^2+Bu+C=0 that doesn't factor? The only sine I really need to worry about is the Stop one. And I only cosine with my wife when we feel it absolutely necessary. Although I admit I do go off on tangents rather frequently. Co-tangents just get confusing though and people start to wonder if you have multiple personalities. Evil it is. Required as well so if I want to get a real degree I guess I'll suffer through and hope I don't end up in a dark alley with Pythagorean.

Mid-life ponderings....or things that make you go hmmm

So I only turn 31 this year which is hardly mid-life...and if it is my wife is going to be very pissed off. But anyway, as I was looking over my blog, I realized that it tends to the deep and philosophical side as opposed to the light whimsical side that I love to read. I love Dave Barry. So why the crap am I being so thoughty? Is it because I feel at a crossroads in my life? I have a great job, I love it but another department is trying to get me to join them where I would get paid more and I got a call the other day from a company that wants to interview me if I'm interested. I have never had this kind of employement opportunities...ever. I'm going back to school after almost 10 years of abscense. I'm very nervous because while I did well in high school, college was a little too relaxed for me. I need structure apparently. Granted now I have a wife to kick my butt and tuition re-imbursement to shoot for but it doesn't make it any less scary.
So not a crisis and I don't see a sports car in my future(can't carry lots of people and poor gas mileage) but it has definitely brought out the ponderous me. Perhaps my better writing side. I don't know. Hopefully as this path unfolds I will be able to get outside my life and see what is going on in the world again...laugh and mock and cry with the issues that concern so many more of you. But for now, I'm lowering my horns, pushing through to see where I go and hoping when I raise my eyes again I will find myself where I want to be. Wherever that is.

The Puke of Earl

Life is full of so many wonderful things: chocolate, flowers, video games, old people NOT driving, chocolate....and then there are those experiences you just don't want to have but inevitably(especially if you have kids) you will get. Oh yes, a bug has come home to my house. It's a 24 hour thing thankfully but not the nice you just feel icky and then your find variety but the you know your sick because LOOK! It's your dinner! Round 2 is never, ever, EVER as pleasant as Round 1. So it started with one of my twins, Lance. He spent Saturday night puking his guts out...seriously, his apendix and everything. Then my wife got sick on Sunday night/Monday morning, Cameron(the other twin) started on Monday night and last night...well let me start a little story.
My wife has been invited to play Bunco with a bunch of women in the neighborhood. Apparently it's a fun dice game and they have prizes and socialize and eat dinner. Last night was that night. I had made BBQ Beef ribs in the crockpot so my wife ate with us because, HELLO it's ribs. Then she left and everyone was fine. Crickett actually finished her dinner first which almost never happens. That was the first sign. The older kids went out to play and I stayed inside trying to appease the twins until bedtime. Long story short, I got all of the kids in bed and finished watching "Spies like us" and decided I hadn't played football in a long time. I have been playing Madden 2003 for the Xbox for a long time now. I'm in my 10th or 11th season on franchise mode. It's the one game that I play by myself. So I went downstairs and turned it on not expecting my wife until 10 or 11. She got home halfway through the first quarter which is only 6 minutes long. *sigh* Still she is my wife and I do love her so I paused it and went to talk to her and welcome her home. Then she reminded me in that gentle wifely way that I still had not finished putting away the Christmas town. Yeah the one I put in November...hehehe. I was almost done so I did that and went back to playing my game. Then as I'm working through the 3rd quarter my wife calls me into her craft room to say she can hear Crickett crying. Really? My game room is right below her room and I didn't hear anything. Must have the volume up too much. So I went upstairs to check thinking that she probably wet her bed again. But to my joyous(sarcasm implied) surprise, she too had gotten the bug. It was all over her shirt, sheets, blankets and in her hair. *sigh*
I cleaned her up, put her in the bath stripped her bedding and washed her up, got her out of the bath and situated in the living room with a towel. I went back downstairs at a little after 11. It had now been 2 hours since I started my game that usually only takes an hour at most with a few interuptions. I went to bed at midnight. So now four members of my family have been bitten and there are only 3 left. I'm hoping it stops here because it is a very smelly messy bug. And I'm tired of cleaning up after it.

Year of a million dreams

So it is billed by Disney this year. You know, the theme they come up with to aid in marketing the park to people. Well, this year, it lived up to it's hype. Oh yes, it was everything I could have hoped for. So the funny part came a day or two before we left when I was putting my son to bed. He said he wanted me to see something and he pulled out a brochure from school. Apparently the same travel company we had booked our trip through had teamed up with their school district to promote trips to Disneyland. In the brochure it showed a father and son posing with Buzz Lightyear. He pointed to that picture and said, "Look, you were right." I was right, Buzz was real. He had a picture proving it and he hadn't even met him or thought he was going to meet him. Somewhere a bunny is hiding colored eggs, healthy and alive. My kids are funny when they meet the one person they want to meet, their first reaction is stunned silence. Not screaming and running to them, just stunned awe. So it was when we were in the Inovation center or whatever it is waiting for my wife's sister to meet us there and Buzz comes in and goes over to play Guitar Hero on one of 3 XBOX 360's they have set up right next to the "Healthy You" center. The irony was not lost on me. He watched Buzz play XBOX and we talked to the "handler" and told him how much Ethan loved Buzz. When the song was done and Buzz turned around, Ethan just stood there. Like he couldn't believe it was really happening. We got some great pictures of them together. He loved going on the Buzz Lightyear Orbital Blaster and for his souvenier he got one of the guns you shoot on the ride. I know it will be something he will talk about and cherish for a long time....and it was worth every headache, the 13 hours of driving and all of the money spent.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my girls and I'll post about them and the whole trip and my cute twins(Cameron gave us some the cutest pictures with Winnie the Pooh and Eyeore ever!) but my Ethan and I have a special bond. I wasn't around much for the first two years of his life as I was working a second job nights to pay the bills so I tried to spend as much time with him as I could and he has always adored Dad and wants to do stuff with me. After we moved out here to Eagle Mountain, he kinda made friend with the boy across the street who was his age. But then that boy thought it would be cooler to be friends with the older boy who lives next door to us and they said they were "Dudes". Ethan wasn't included in that and he came home in tears. I heard the story when I got home from work and I took him on my knee and told him that he and I could be "Dudes". And we have been ever since. And there are times when he calls me Dude, that I know he is expressing more than our relationship as parent and child but as friends, as that special someone who cares about you no matter what. It is a bond I hope I never lose.

Killing the Easter Bunny

My son loves Buzz Lightyear and has since he was 2. He has told us on more than one occasion that he wanted to grow up to be Buzz Lightyear. He has been Buzz for 3 of the last 4 Halloweens. My mother-in-law made him the most gorgeous and awsome Buzz outfit I have ever seen(when he bends his knees you see the knee joints). He still dresses up in it on a regular basis. He just turned 6 and for the first time in our kids lives, we are going to Disneyland. We have talked about it for 2 years and finally had the financial ability to do so. Our biggest motivation is so Ethan could meet Buzz. Sure my two daughters love the Disney Princess' but not to the extent that Ethan loves Buzz. So it was today as I was pouring his cereal and he was sitting there coloring yet another picture of Buzz(he is becoming quite good at it), and I said it looked really good and then I said, "Who knows, maybe someday you'll get to meet him." He looked me straight in the face and said, "Dad, Buzz isn't real."
The Easter bunny was dead. The cute 2 and 3 year old that wanted to be Buzz had accepted the truth that Buzz wasn't real. Have we waited too long to see his joyous face when he meets Buzz at Disneyland?? Did I blow that Kodak moment because I felt the kids were too little? Only time will tell, 2 weeks to be exact. I can tell he still loves him, just because he still draws him and still plays as if he is him but has the childish innocence of dreams been snuffed out? I'm hoping not. He still believes in Santa and the tooth fairy(he checks his teeth every day for a loose one) and the Easter Bunny. When he meets the under-paid sweating teenager stuck in an oversized suit will he laugh and smile and hug him and believe in Buzz again?
After he told me Buzz wasn't real I just gave him this look that said, "Don't be so sure." I know we are going to Disneyland, my wife knows but we haven't told the kids at all. We want it to be a surprise so I couldn't say anything. I guess I'm just crossing my fingers that somehow a part of his hope and innocence will be restored and I suppose in some ways...I'm hoping that some of mine will be too. It's too soon to kill the Easter bunny.

Nights and days like these....

So sleeping soundly in my bed yesterday at 3:30 when the phone rings. I look at the clock. "Who the freak is calling at this hour?" The only thing I could think of though was this was important. So I got out of bed and went to get the phone just as it stopped ringing. Now I had to know. I was up anyway. So I checked caller-id and it was my wife's sister. That meant it was important. I called her back and she asked to talk to Michelle(my wife). She was out the door in 10 minutes. I went back to bed. My wife's nephew had been complaining of stomach pain for over 12 hours and he had been throwing up. He is 13 now. So m sister-in-law took him to the ER and they took him by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital for emergency surgery. He had a bowel obstruction caused by scar tissue from when he had his appendix out. And to top it off, it turns out that his intestine got wrapped around the blocked section and killed it so they had to remove a foot of intestine. Why did she call my wife? Well her husband was in California on business. He got an earlier flight home and went straight to the hospital. Then he finally came home to relieve my wife who basically got her sister's other 5 (all younger) kids up, dressed and ready for school and dropped the older 3 off. Then she did lunch and picked them up and luckily some neighbors brought dinner over so she didn't have to worry about that. But she didn't get home until 8:30 last night. I luckily have an awesome boss and was able to work from home for the day. Oh and take care of my 5 kids all day in the process. Long day doesn't adequately describe it.
And someday I promise to make this blog more uplifting or at least funny.

Moments of DOH!

Love the Simpsons. Could go on for hours with great lines from their many years and believe me, there have been dinner conversations when we are at my parent's house that have been almost exclusively that. My little brothers have watched almost every single episode.
Anyway, had a moment on Monday where apparently my good judgement turned off. I put on X-Men 2 for my son and the neighbors boy while we were upstairs playing cards. Their son said he had seen it before. Sure it's PG-13 and my boy is almost 6 and theirs is 7...but in my rush to get the card games from the game closet down here and get the video on, I stopped thinking like a parent. So consequently, I got in trouble. See there were also 4 girls down there that decided to watch it as well and they all got scared and claimed they were going to have nightmares. I managed to handle my kids but I just sent the 3 neighbor kids home with their parents. Brilliant. Sometimes I can be such a moron. My wife gave me the what-for later about all of it. I feel bad because normally I'm much better. I'm a little more lenient with my kids but I know better than to do that with other people's kids. Why did I do it? I have no good answer. Nothing that soothes the guilt at any rate. So tonight I am pleding to do better. To think more...yes, that's right, a guy pledging to use his brain more often, don't die from shock. To be more parent-friendly and child-centric. You'd think after 5 of my own that I would be doing better. It will be 8 years from when Adeena was born on April 4th. 8 years of learning this whole parenting thing. I guess it only goes to show that I need more practice to become perfect.

Jump start my fingers

So as I'm sitting here on a Saturday night with SNL dropping edgy crude from the tv, I thought what the heck...let's see who's been hitting my HP. I'm bored. My wife's sister came into town tonight from Cali and is staying at her other sister's house. We had our neighbors across the street over for games, great couple. After that she took off to go say hi. I stayed behind because the twins were already in bed and it was past the kids bedtime. Which is fine by me honestly. I had laundry to fold, dishes to finish and if I were them, I wouldn't want to do anything but crash. But women are not that way...they don't do most of the driving.
Anywho, so this is my blog. Welcome to my world. Hold on, it's a ride and three-quarters.