Category: family life

‘The Man’ Keepin’ Me Down

On Mondays and Wednesdays I pick up the Young Extroverted One from school. It’s on Mondays, however, that I take her back to work with me. Mainly because the technician that works with me has prior obligations on Monday nights. So, after many weeks of the YEO hanging out in my office playing some sort of Diego game on my computer the director of food and beverage tells me yesterday that I can’t have the YEO on property any more. WTF?!? This is after the director of sales has seen her and talked to her Continue reading “‘The Man’ Keepin’ Me Down”

This Goes Out to All My Bros, Both Real and Adopted

. . . your brotitude is so brossential that, in many ways, you are the ultimate brototype: You sprung out of the brotean ooze at the very broment of creation, unformed, unmolded, and became the ultimate bro, more powerful than any who came brofore. I don’t fear your power, bro, but I respect it. And I will always brobey it.Brosemite Sam. Potassium Bromide. Brobi Wan Kenobi. Brover Norquist.Like Broseph Stalin, you are leading the way to the dictatorship of the broletariate. It is truly revbrolutionary. Like the Bro v. Wade of our generation. You brobliterate the enemy from the very peak of Mt. Brolympus. That’s some shit. That’s brolific. But that’s the kind of bro you are.

Bro-S.A.! Bro-S.A.! I’m so pumped right now! Bro-S.A.!

You are the epitome of bro, in every brossible way, and that’s the Bro’s honest truth, bro. I may have a bropensity for broverstatement, but this no mere hyperbrole: You are 100 brocent, absbrolutely the broest. Brotally.

I wish I had the words to describe what a good friend you are, dude.

h/t: chez béz which led me to the Onion

Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt

Well, I survived 35 years on this planet.  Or is it mathmatically 34?  However it works out I’m glad to still be here!

Yesterday b-day recollections in a nutshell:

  • Birthday morning Kroger-brand blueberry loaf(?) and danishes with the youth group at church:

around 5 or 10 bucks (not really sure the Elder Extroverted Holy One bought ’em)

free for me ’cause I’m a member of the Beer Police! =)

$4.50 each (or priceless as far as I’m concerned)

  • Home-made cake by EEHO and the Young Extroverted One and so artfully decorated by the YEO

the cake! YEO and the cakeYEO and IO blowin’ out candles

PRICELESS

Eight Years of Bliss

I’ve been known to say this when describing my beautiful bride; “When I say better half, I mean it!”

Happy Anniversary Elder Extroverted Holy One! Eight wonderful years that just keep getting better. Even with the addition of one cat. And then a second cat. And then a kid. And then a dog. Most of the time it is I, the Introverted One, who is more dog-like and kid-like than our dog and kid.

Whenever I look over at her I am amazed that someone like her, a beautiful woman pursuing her masters of divinity degree to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) at Vanderbilt Divinity School, wanted to marry me, an introverted college drop out, techno/movie/TV-geek, with granola/hippie tendencies.

Maybe wedded bliss is more like ignorance is bliss. Hee hee.

Sleepin’ Triple in a Double Bed

Hi, we’re the Extrovert/Introvert family. We’re co-sleepers.

I was going to post earlier when the Young Extroverted One slept through the night in her own bed. But I’m glad I didn’t because it has been hit and miss the last couple of days.

We started co-sleeping with YEO when she was a newborn. Apparently, we were lazy parents and didn’t want to play the ‘it’s-your-turn-to-get-the-baby game.’ Hey, it was great. YEO cries for food the Elder Extroverted Holy One rolls over and pops it in and everyone goes back to sleep. It was system.

However, the transition to crib after the weening process did not go too well. For starters, I’m not a big fan of letting the kid cry and get over it. It kind of makes me sad. So, the YEO has been with us for 4 years.

When she got older we tried everything to make sleeping on her own appealing. My folks got her a Thomas the Tank Engine tent when she was into the Thomas schtick. No dice.

When my lovely ladies were working in Montreat for the summer I painted the extra room a cool green color (her favorite color at the time), put glow-in-the-dark stars (even made the constellations that are in the night sky on her birthday. Yup, I’m a geek) and got her her own ‘big girl bed.’ She no likey.

As we all grew, either in heighth or width, we stepped up to a queen sized bed. Finally! Then we figured that maybe she didn’t like the small bed and that she would prefer a full sized bed. So, we move the full sized bed into her room. Uh . . . as if .

Well, since the summer and the increased renovations on the house next door to us we’ve had increased incidents of brown recluse spiders . So, the whole big girl room/bed thing was way out of the question. So, one day while the YEO was at her grandma’s house EEHO and I carefully picked everything up out of her room and literally threw it out in the backyard. We killed several of the buggers in the process and I still feel creepy-crawly all over my skin. Ugh.  Our neighbor was wondering if threw the YEO out of the house. If I was going to do that her stuff would be in the front yard!

So, with her room cleaned out and her original big girl bed replaced and some different arrangements of the rest of the furniture she seems very excited about her new, exorcised room. Her first night in there she slept there all night! It took her awhile to get to sleep but when she did she passed out. It was great! And continues to be great. The other night she came back into bed with us and last night she did as well but said she was crowded and moved back into her room. I think we’ve turned a corner. Just in time to do it all over again with the new parasite. What is it the kids are saying/typing/texting these days? W00T? I have no idea what that means.

All I know is that I am very proud of my big girl for making transitions when she felt it was the right time. The EEHO and I have always been the organic-like parents. We never really stuck to a rigid bedtime. We don’t do the vocabulary/science/math flash cards . . . anymore. When she ate the second pack of cards and didn’t get any smarter we gave up on the osmosis theory and the cards. Just Kidding (or is it, JK?). I kid because I love. We never forced giving up the pacifier. When she sucked her favorite one so hard it tore she looked at it and then us and said, “Paci broken.” And then threw it away herself. Very nice.

Every once in awhile we get impatient and try to force something. Like the sleep-in-her-own-bed thing. But we are the ones who get frustrated. And then the YEO will just do whatever it is whenever she is ready. ‘Nuff said. If she is going to grow up into a fine young woman or gamma girl it will be when she’s darn ready to.

Quotable Quotes of the Young Extroverted One Part VI

Elder Extroverted Holy One:  “Does daddy have a baby in his tummy?”

Young Extroverted One: “No silly.  Boys can’t have babies.  He has a beer baby.”

The EEHO and I like to compare belly size.  She has challenged me to lose my gut when she loses hers.  The cool thing about the loss of my gut is it won’t be poopin’ in diapers and crying in the middle of the night.

Or maybe it will be me after detox.

Freaky Friday

I felt that I had something in my eye so I was looking in the bathroom mirror as the Young Extroverted One was . . . um . . . sitting on the throne (it’s a long story that involves brown recluses that we share our home with and some other insecurities that we are still trying to work out).

I randomly said, “YEO what would you do if my eyeball popped out?”

To which she responded, “I would freak out!”

I was kind of hoping she’d say something like, “I would remain ever so calm and pick up your eyeball and put it in a bag of ice (what does one do with a popped-out eyeball?) and call 9-1-1 to save your life.”

Hell, I would freak out too. But don’t tell a potential victim whom you’re about to rescue that you’d freak out. Right?