'Aaah, freak out!' Don't let this happen to you!

I took vacation this week and did a lot of house hunting. Right now we’re in a 2 bedroom apartment, which with the approaching birth of my son, will be waaaay too cramped for a family of five! So we’ve been looking for something a little bigger.

We found a townhome that I immediately fell in love with. Nice grassy back yard, another nice grassy area we can play in out front. (with no mowing by me, FTW!) It’s located on a quiet cul-de-sac, so no crazy drivers. 3 bed, 3 bath, fireplace, and a garage. Perfect. The two smaller rooms even already had a pink shade on the window in one and a blue shade in the other!

We looked at more, but that one was just calling my name. First freak out: I couldn’t remember which number in my phone was the owner’s cell! I left a message on his home phone, with no return call. Then I fumbled through my call history and called what I hoped was his cell. It was! Second freak out: it went to voicemail. I left a message, confident he’d return the call soon. A day passed. He finally called me back to tell me that his neighbor knows someone who really wants to buy it, so he’d rather go that route. They’re looking at it this weekend and he’s putting the renting thing on hold until then. Not so much a freak out as complete and total crushing blow.

One thing about me: I’m not the most assertive guy, nor do I plan for the worst-case scenario. I just knew that was the place for us, and now we have to keep searching. One thing about my wife: She IS assertive, and she doesn’t necessarily plan for worst-case, but she always has a back up. She already had a list of properties she’d seen in the paper, handed it to me and told me to suck it up and make some calls/send some emails. I just checked my emails, and someone sent me a reply at 10:30 at night! Hope springs eternal!

Add to the above destressing situation the new found fact that the doctors are talking like they are going to want to induce my wife a week early, moving the due date from around the 18th of August to around the 11th of August. Mind if I just lie down here for a minute?

Interlude: When I was in High School, I referred to myself as an ‘Amateur Animation Historian’. My love for animation and the history of the art survives to this day. So here’s an antecdote from early Disney history that helps me when times get tough:

The premiere for Fantasia was getting near, and the animators were still filming the ‘Ave Maria’ sequence. The scene required an extensive use of the multi-plane camera, which consists of a camera pointing down through multiple levels of painted glass that can be adjusted depending on the depth desired. So the filmmakers are filming the last sequence when the unthinkable happens.

Earthquake!

The animators could do nothing but watch helplessly as the plates of glass, and all their hard work, danced on the framework of the camera.

The earthquake stopped, they reset the shot, and got the film to the theater just in time for the premiere.

I think about that story and realize that things happen, but everything always works out. Maybe not the way you planned, maybe not without a few heart attacks along the way, but they always work out!

One other thing that helps: Check out Calli’s artwork! She turns three today, and look at the wonderful works she’s already created on a MagnaDoodle!

Here, Calli demonstrates her ability to achieve motion through speed lines. Dude! She did this all by herself! Major Daddy geek out!

Calli handed this one to my wife and said, ‘Look Mommy! A duck!’ Tell me this doesn’t look like something by Berkeley Breathed!

I better stop, my eyes are welling up! *sniff!* Thanks for reading, and Happy FatherHood Friday, everybody!

Check out the other cool guys and gals who participate in Fatherhood Friday at dad-blogs.com!

The darkness was thick as chowder. The audience sat in nervous anticipation. Not a child stirred, nor adult clear their throat. No event save the royal croquet match was as anticipated as the Mad Hatter’s Carnivale and Cavalcade. A drum roll began like the faintest, distant roll of thunder. A crescendo and a cymbal crash. A spotlight sliced the darkness like one of the Red Queen’s executioners taking off a head. In the beam of light stood the Mad Hatter. His green pants and jacket shimmered with rainbows in the spotlight. His large bowtie did not flop as it usually did, but stood proudly horizontal. His head was bowed as much as it could be with such a bowtie, and the spotlight glared off of the tag: ‘This style 10/6″. The wide brim of the hat obscured the little man’s face, but his large front teeth protruded like white monoliths. When he spoke, the nasal voice echoed from the wall of the big top though there was no evidence of a microphone or anything else.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, March Hares and Doormice, It is without any further ado that I present … the Greatest Show In Wonderland!”

The big top lit up as if it were daylight to reveal an extraordinary array of colorful characters. Mice danced on large colorful balls, angels danced on pins, a magnificent elephant carried a Persian Prince who waved to the crowd that exploded with cheers of gratitude and excitement. The Red Queen applauded despite herself. A Cheshire Cat juggled his head. The Doormouse was wide awake.

The Mock Turtle sang, “Now I will, Now I can, Join the dance!” The only tear on his face was one of sheer joy.

The griffin spread his wings that glistened in the theatrical lights like stars in a sky with no moon.

Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum shook hands and danced and fell over each other, laughing all the while.

The White Rabbit, of course, had to hurry to catch up.

Just as the procession really got going, the music ceased and the lights went out. The audience, dazed and with ears ringing, fumbled for their seats as the Mad Hatter’s voice was heard.

“Twinkle, Twinkle, little crowd

Your applauding was much too loud.

Up above the show you sit

Don’t make a peep, not one bit.”

The crowd did not move. Silence took over once more. The blinding light illuminated the Hatter once more.

“Thank you.” The Hatter said, removing his hat to reveal long rabbit ears and a rabbit face. The crowd gasped. Beady black rabbit eyes turned, examining the crowd. “As you can see, I’ve been through some… changes.” Everyone remained still and quiet. “My attempts to bring Alice back to Wonderland have gone unsuccessful. But the March Hare and I …

Well, we put aside our tea and bisquits and spent quite a long time searching. We became so engrossed in the work that we began to think as one.” He quickly turned to the left, and seemed to take on another voice. A familiar voice. The voice of the March Hare. “So we literally became one!”

The crowd gasped. It was grotesque. It was horrifying. It was exactly something those two mad creatures could and would do.

The Hatter’s head snapped to the right. “Do not be alarmed. We really just wanted Alice’s attention.”

Left. “Are you getting this, Alice?”

Alice awoke in a cold sweat. She clutched the bedclothes to her chest. She looked over at her husband, who seemed to bear the slightest resemblance to a Mad Hatter she had once met as a child. She shook her head and looked again. There was her handsome husband. She slipped out of bed without disturbing him and looked in at her kids. They slumbered peacefully. There were no white rabits or doormice or any Wonderland creatures hiding in her home.

Alice went back to bed. She put her arm around her dear husband and drifted back to sleep, swearing that she or her family would never ever know the horrors of Wonderland again.

She hoped that they wouldn’t.

But her dreams were always there, pulling her back. The March Hatter had been wrong.

Alice would never be able to leave Wonderland…

Calli can help you conquer the world!

Yesterday I was stressed at work. The day before that, I was stressed at work. Last week: yeah, more stress. I don’t want to get up in the morning. I don’t blog but once a week (FatherHood Friday, as seen at dad-blogs.com! Be sure to check out all the cool moms and dads who selflessly share the lives of their families for your entertainment and delight!) I can hardly take making a decision anymore, because somehow it’ll be wrong to someone.

So. After a stressful day at work, I walked through the pouring rain to my car. Generally, when it’s raining and I feel blue, I imagine myself as David Banner, put my hands in my pockets and whistle the ‘Incredible Hulk’ theme, but this time it wasn’t enough to make me feel better. I had to stay later than I wanted, causing us to miss the performance of Alice in Wonderland I really wanted to take Calli to. I popped the trunk and realized I’d left the laptop back in the office. Perfect. Only I didn’t think ‘perfect’. I try to keep my blog family-friendly, so I’ll leave out what I really thought.

I drove home, rain crashing on the windshield. I did NOT turn on the radio. I just sulked.

So I come home to the family. Calli is inconsolable. She REALLY wants to go outside. But she doesn’t want to wear her raincoat or boots. We plead with her and essentially wrestle her to the ground to get her to don her rain acoutrements. I try real hard to tuck in the raw nerve she keeps stepping on. It’s not her fault I had a bad day, week, and month. She’s just being her precocius two-year old self. And judging from stories I’ve heard, she’s not even all that bad!

Raingear on, Calli, Kat, and their Mom go outside. I pace the apartment, not wanting to be rude to my family, but feeling like I need a moment alone. The half hour in the silent car wasn’t enough. Aw, heck, I’ll go see what they’re up to!

I stepped outside my building in my Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robot pajama pants and Legion of Super Heroes t-shirt (a sign I truly don’t care. I normally don’t set foot outside in something like that! I usually match the pants to the t-shirt, come on!) and turn left, so absorbed in my sulking that I don’t notice the family off to the right.

“Justin!” I hear my wife call. I turn to see her jogging back to our apartment. “I gotta get the camera! Wanna go watch the kids playing in the mud?”

I looked over, and there they were: the two ‘sissies’ (sisters, not cowards) were splashing and playing in the mud.

Calli looked up with her big baby blues and said, “Try it, Daddy!”

“I don’t know, maybe later.”

“Peeeeaze? I wanta you to try it!”

“OK.”

Good times...

I kicked off my sandals and let the mud ooze between my toes. I watched Calli and Kat stomp around in the mud. We laughed and splashed and played. I began to think of when I was a kid, and rain was almost magical! Rain was when you went outside and splashed and played and delighted in your merry mess making. Rain’s not a literary symbol for sadness and depression. Rain is liberating and cleansing. I had forgotten that.

Kids will do that to you. Sometimes you have to shake off the cranial-anal disorder to see it.

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When I post Kat’s art, I get comments that say ‘Keep them coming!’ So, I’m happy to oblige!

Today we present some Kat-style fantasy!

Without too much more drivel from me, I thought I’d share another of Kat’s paintings…

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On to my park story: Yesterday I sent this tweet:

I got a couple ‘Oh, how sweet!’ type of replies, with one twitterer even retweeting! But something bothered me about it.

A facebook friend said, ‘Growing up in the twenty-first century’, which echoed more of what I think bothered me.

In this day and age, we have to protect our kids. The days of sending them to the corner store for a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter is long gone. We have to be with them all the time, to keep them safe.

But no matter how hard we try, we simply can’t. They go to school, they run around the park, they hide behind apparel racks in department stores. I challenge anyone to comment on this post that they are within eye sight of their children 100% of the time.

So we educate our children. Don’t talk to strangers. We teach them to yell and scream if they’re grabbed. This is all sadly necessary.

I guess all I’m saying is, of all the things we do for our kids, the most heart breaking for me is taking away their innocence.

Check out the other cool guys and gals who participate in Fatherhood Friday at dad-blogs.com!

This time around, I thought I’d present you with one of my all time pieces of hers:

Kat is fascinated with Japanese culture, so here you have a depiction of Mount Fiji, along with a Japanese-style home, a cherry blossom tree, and the Japanese character for love. She is amazing when it comes to drawing trees, in fact I could fill a blog just with those drawings she’s done through the years!

**A very special shout out to John over at Gay Dads in Munchkinland for kinda sorta inspiring me to post this today through a conversation we had on twitter. I met him and many more amazing friends over at dad-blogs. If you haven’t checked that site out yet, you’re just a loser. Move along, I have nothing more to say to you.

This post is part of dad-blogs’ Fatherhood Friday, a weekly tradition that has shown me, as a daddy blogger, I am far from alone!

Unsuccessfully suppressing a shudder, I asked, “No, what would be ‘sick’?”

“If you put a gallery of my artwork on your site!”

Not one to refuse anything to my kiddos, I agreed. So for the first in what I hope will become a long series, today’s work from Katrina are a couple of designs she proposed for a logo for her school. The school is called Red Canyon High School, and their mascot is a dragon. It is an Expeditionary Learning School, sort of an experimental idea that I’m sure I’ll explore in more length in the future.

In the mean time, enjoy the art. 

Incidentally, the lead character of my upcoming webcomic, Mickey Gumshoe, is now on twitter! If you feel so inclined, you can follow her @MickeyGumshoe. Her profile background features Katrina’s vision of the character!