I continue my intention of posting things my kids do here in this blog, and measuring how much I can puff up my chest. The previous Talent In The Family post on this blog featured two colored pencil drawings of dragons by Kat (the 15 year old) that she was submitting for a mascot for Red Canyon High School.
This time around, I thought I’d present you with one of my all time pieces of hers:
What does a daddy blogger write about on Memorial Day? Absolutely, this is a day to remember our fallen Military heroes, but as fate would have it, this year, Memorial Day also falls on May 25, which is recognized as National Missing Children’s Day.
This day was recognized by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, following several high profile missing children’s cases. These cases included the murder of Adam Walsh, the son of America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh. John went on to found the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center. Later, the Adam Walsh Center merged with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children(NCMEC), where John still serves on the board of directors.
OK, it’s probably a little early for this blog to go into ‘reruns’, but when I originally posted this, I didn’t feel that it got the traffic that it deserved. Fatherhood Friday is always my biggest traffic day, but I posted this one late. So in an effort to rectify that, I am posting here again, ‘We’ve Heard the Talk of Wall Street and Main Street, but Who’ll Help Sesame Street?’
Obviously, this is near and dear to me, and I apologize to those who have already read this. I promise a brand new Fatherhood Friday post will be posted next Friday.
Calli achieving warp velocity within an inflatable castle...
We had another adventure at the rec center today. We decided to wake Calli up at the wee hour of 10am (we’ve gotta do something about her sleeping pattern…) and took her to Tumble Tots!
Tumble Tots is a time when toddlers can have free play in the gymnastics area! We had a blast! Calli got to jump into a hole in the floor filled with foam blocks, into which her daddy promptly got stuck, much to the embarassment of her mommy. She bounced on trampolines, swung from rings, and achieved at least Warp 3 running around an inflatable castle.
Monday, we went for an ultrasound at 24 weeks. As long as everything goes well, this will be the last pictures we see of the little tyke until he is born. It got me to thinking about all the preparation that occurs when one is having a baby.
The latest image of the latest Howelett. Isn't he cuuuute?
The sisters relate to each other...
As a Daddy Blogger, I find myself in a unique situation: I have a 15 year old step-daughter and a two year old daughter. I feel that this gives me a different perspective. I came into Kat’s life when she was four years old, so I missed the diapers and the slow development of her language skills. I’ve watched her grow up and marveled at her dreams and the decisions that she’s made. Even though I’ve had those eleven years of being a Daddy, with Calli it feels like I’m a brand new Daddy. Now I get the diapers and laugh at the way she reasons out words. Bunnies are ‘hoppies’ for instance. Doggies are ‘goggies’. With a new baby boy on the way in August, that’ll be a whole new world, as now I’m so used to girls, what do I do?
“Who came up with pancakes?
‘No, Dear, you can’t have cake for breakfast, you can have fried cake with syrup for breakfast.
Load up on that and try not to nap.’”
-Jim Gaffigan
I can remember getting up in the morning to the smells of my father cooking breakfast. One of his favorite ways to break the fast was by cooking blueberry pancakes. He didn’t use just ordinary pancake mix however. Oh, no. That wasn’t good enough. He would fry up blueberry muffin mix into the shape of a pancake. These blueberry monstrosities were then covered in butter and syrup. These things were so thick, so heavy, and so rich that two bites were usually good for me. As a kid, I remember enjoying those first few bites, and then I’d be sorry. A few days later though, I was at the breakfast table awaiting a serving of blueberry muffin-pancake hybrids.
I am at work as I write this, and I am not wearing green.
Over the years it seems that I’ve become a bit of a St. Patrick Humbug. It’s not that I particularly have anything against the Irish people, or the celebration of St. Patrick. It’s just that St. Patrick’s Day serves to remind me of our current state of affairs as a nation and world.
Let me explain by trudging up my St. Patrick’s Day post from MySpace last year:
The other day I was reading a blog post over at johnchow.com entitled, ‘You Are Already Rich‘. It got me to counting my blessings and really thinking about the good in my life.
In posts such as last Friday’s ‘Fatherhood Friday‘ post that I called ‘…And They All Lived Happily Ever After…‘, I’ve talked of my family and all the blessings that they bring to my life.
Then I thought of other blessings:
Kat, age 1 1/2
As I begin to write this, it’s just after 4 am in the Rocky Mountains. My beautiful wife and two children are still asleep. I’m awake on purpose. I set my alarm for this time. This is my favorite blogging hour. Some days, I miss this hour. I hit the snooze alarm a few too many times, or I do get up and get sidetracked by checking email, my twitter followers, Facebook, and MySpace. But today is special. According to Dad Blogs, today is fatherhood Friday.
