Once and a while when the NC Symphony concert has extra seats my Percussion teacher will call at 9pm the day before the concert and give them to us. Once he even tried to sneak John into a concert by having him dress in concert dress and escorting him to our seats. Whenever we need a great sitter our fabulous neighbors Chuck and Kim are always there so we really owed them a babysit.

A few nights a month John needs to work really late. Of course the one night John needs to work (and relax and have a few beers) until 2am Chuck and Kim cash in their babysit.

So last night I had Tyler who is six and has a very, very active imagination, Sydney who is three and a half and very headstrong, and Dominic who spends every minute of every day doing his best impression Wild thing #4 for the new Spike Jonze movie Where the Wild Things Are. Tyler brought all of his imaginary friends Ratty (a rat) Scary Owl (a scary owl) and Coyotes #1-11 (not kidding) and his blanky. Sydney brought chocolate milk in a princess cup.
We played, we had a dance party, we talked about vomit and what stomach acid smells like, and we talked about what types of chemicals are good at cleaning up stomach acid. Then we broke out the play dough. We took turns rolling out the longest snake we could and then the kids took them to the kitchen and beat them with golf clubs. Somewhere between the worm rolling contest and the beatings I earned the nickname Mrs. Cracker.
Dominic was exhausted and went straight to bed after I read every word from every page (Tyler counted) from two books. And then came the trek across the hall to put Tyler and Sydney to bed. An hour and a half of giggling, switching beds, and the repeated question of “How is your sandwich Mrs. Cracker” followed until they were finally asleep.

I hope Chuck and Kim ask us to sit again because that was fun.

I want to give credit where it’s due, and Tyler recently posted the following video on his site.  Thanks for the tears, Bro.

I’ve been having trouble deciding what to buy John for his birthday. What do you get for the man who has everything he needs and a bunch of toys already? I think this is a great gift for a guy who enjoys a full day. it’s especially great for a guy who hits the snooze button five times. Happy Birthday (soon) John!

…. when I go out of town on business.

Caitlin called last night around midnight when I’m just about asleep in my hotel room and tells me “There’s something outside.”

She got up and through the phone I can hear she’s frightened and thinks there’s an animal outside in the trash on the back porch.  Between giggles and screams we determine that it’s an opossum on the back porch rummaging through our trash.

At first I tell her to slam the door a few times to scare it off but she’s afraid of it and doesn’t want it to run in the house.  Then I tell her to crack the door and yell at it, but she’s hesitant to do that because it might wake up the neighbors.  I hear her over the phone trying to reason with the oppossum with a whisper and I know there’s just not an another alternative.  She’s going to need a brute force attack.

I tell her to get the broom.  She does.

She tries to beat the opposum but…

… it bites the broom.

Epic.

Culprit below.

Added a few links to the blog roll on the right…

Ma Joie (Katie)

Tim

Today while in the shower Dominic barged in and yelled “Daddy! Daddy!”

“What is it, Dominic?” I asked as I peeled back the shower curtain.

“Daddy, I Tigered” he said to me

“You what?”

“I Tigered!  I Tigered!”

“You…. are a Tiger?” I asked

“NO!  I TIGERED, OVER THERE” he replied.

Mom pops her head in and says, “You’re son hit the ball like Tiger Woods in the living room.  It went really far”.

Oh, I get it.  You Tigered.  Didn’t know you could turn his name into a verb.