Shallow Thinker

A few weeks ago, I took a Friday off to help my family celebrate my 30th birthday.  We contemplated taking the girls to the Atlanta Zoo, but then someone (I think it was me) mentioned Dauset Trails.  We haven’t been to either one with the girls, so we weighed our options.  Zoo: $50+ for entry, 1.5 hour drive each way, + meals.  Dauset Trails: $0 entry, 30 minute drive each way, + meals.  Since it was my birthday weekend, I chose to spend less money and spend less time in the car and we headed off.

The day couldn’t have been more perfect.  It was slightly overcast and the temperature never got above 85.  We arrived earlier than most visitors, so we had our run of the place for a couple of hours.   We weren’t out of the car for 15 seconds and they were already running along the trails.  (Unfortunately, they ran too much at the start and our adventure ended with Ladybug on Mommy’s back and Butterfly on mine.) The animal trail was a hit as the girls ran from cage to cage and pointed out everything.  Butterfly seemed interested in identifying each animal while Ladybug seemed interested in the job between animals.  Here’s a rundown of our journey:

Animal Trail - Lazy otters, a bald eagle, several owls, raccoons trying to escape, a black bear, a couger, bison, ducks, lots of turtles, and various other creatures
Reptile Room - Snakes, turtles and little alligators.  And a bathroom break.
Garden Trail - This was a nice, shady walk that let to the Children’s Garden.  At the end were a bunch of stones that the girls could jump between…and they did.
Lotus Pond - Absolutely beautiful.  Butterfly and I decided that this is where the Fairies live.

I was wearing my Run4Missions shirt and one of the workers mentioned that I might be interested in trying out some of their trails sometime.  It sounded cool, so she got some information for me.  Apparently I had just missed a little race that they had the weekend before.  It was a 15K.  That’s a lot of K’s.

Once the weather gets cooler for good, I think that we’ll visit Dauset Trails again.  Most likely, it will be without all of the K’s, but it was definitely a great day and a wonderful way to say goodbye to my twenties.  Here are a few pictures:

I’m not sure what happened, but when I stepped outside on Saturday morning, it felt like fall. Except that all of the trees were still green. And there was no football on later that day. But it was an amazingly crisp, cool morning. We just happened to have a Preschool Water Day scheduled at the church. So, with my wife’s blessing, I put on my jogging shoes and left the house a little earlier than everyone else and ran to the church. I estimated that it was somewhere between five and eight miles and would take most of the strength that I had.

It’s amazing how much difference the temperature makes when you’re outside. I haven’t felt that good running since the last time it was less than 80 degrees. I made it the 4.4 miles to the church (apparently I’m not good with math) and felt great. My goal is to do a 10K sometime in the fall and to not finish last. Ambitious, I know, but you got to set the bar high. Actually, the run to the church didn’t tire me out near as much as the water day did.

On the lawn, we set-up water slides, pools, hoses, squirters, and a couple of shade tents. Butterfly is an old pro at these things. This was the first one that Ladybug could really appreciate. It took once down the big slide and she was hooked. Her little legs just weren’t quite tall enough to climb to the top by herself. I think I lifted her to the top of the slide about 50 times. No exaggeration. The girl is fearless.

Saturday evening, I made it through Atlanta traffic in time for a Friend’s wedding. It’s always cool to see two people taking their vows and pledging their lives to each other. I was able to talk with some friends from work and catch up with a couple of people from college. I enjoyed a few small samples and eyed the buffet that was in the back room, but I felt a tug to get back home before it got too late. As I snuck out of the reception, I happened upon the newlyweds. They had taken a few moments for themselves and were sharing a meal together in the quietness of the building’s lobby. They were sitting at a small table looking out of a huge window. Spread in front of them was a beautiful view of Atlanta’s skyline. The scene was very poignant. A new couple stealing away together staring out over the horizon of tomorrow.

In January, I built a silly little contraption to help us sort our recyclables a little easier.  In the past 6 months, it’s been rained on and baked by the sun a little bit.  This caused me to think that it needed some type of protective coating.  As luck would have it, we just happened to have a bunch of little paint cans laying around the garage.  And then, as it so often does, my bran took a horribly wrong turn.

Yesterday, Kelley needed to get some grocery shopping done.  It seemed to me to be the perfect opportunity to get the girls to “help” me paint this contraption.  We put on some old clothes, found all of our brushes, and then I opened up the little cans of paint in the garage.  What I expected to happen was a slight mess, but some general covering of the wood.  What actually happened was a general mess and a slight covering of the wood.  At one point, Ladybug let out a sad cry and when I glanced at her, she had paint all over her face.  Either the brush slipped or she decided to eat the paint.  Either way, it was funny.

They dripped so much paint on the floor that when they walked, it left little, colored footprints all over the garage.  Pretty soon, as I suspected, they became bored with painting the wood and moved on to the plastic bins.  This wasn’t my item of choice, but it kept them busy enough for me to circle out structure and coat it with the paint that we had left…which just happened to be green.

Once we were done, I stepped back and marveled that I could actually see parts of the floor.  And, the only remaining item was clean-up.  So, I took my little paint spreaders into the backyard and let them play in the sprinkler.  This isn’t exactly the way that the labels said that we were supposed to clean the paint, but it worked well.

Moral of the story, if you have an item that you’d like painted, let us know.  We’ll spend about 5 minutes with it and in no time, your floor will be a different color.

Since work gave me a holiday, I was looking forward to stretching my standard weekend of doing nothing over three days.  It looked like a daunting task, but I was willing to take on the challenge.  Until Friday morning.  I woke up with some amazing pain in my stomach.  The rest of the day I spent curled up in a ball on the bed.  A paid holiday and I’m laying in the bed hoping to puke.  Blah.

Fortunately, by Saturday morning, I was feeling a little better.  I was pretty weak from not eating at all on Friday, but it didn’t take me long to get out of the slump.  First thing Saturday morning, we all went to the playground.  After some follow-the-leader, we took a tour of Mt. Zion’s cemetery.  Butterfly likes to stand up flower containers that have fallen over and Ladybug likes to just walk around like she owns the place.  After a brief snack at the house, the girls and I washed the dogs.  Immediately after we got done drying them, they ran to a pile of sand and rolled around.  So, we decided to wash the cars instead.  Butterfly helped by rubbing her rag around on everything that she could.  Ladybug took the hose and sprayed everything possible.  Flowers, grass, trees, bricks…herself…me.  Then came lunch and rest.  After everyone rested for a few minutes, we loaded up the van and headed to Rickie and Sheri’s for a cook-out with some friends.  We celebrated the holiday, combined with my upcoming birthday, by swimming, grilling, and then running around the Baucom’s house like wild animals.  Well, the kids ran around the house.  I sat by the pool and made up games for Gabby and Noah to play.  and then we rested.

Sunday morning was church.  Afterward, we had lunch and Ladybug was tired.  After a small protest, she let me rock her and put her to sleep.  I still love the feeling of her soft head lying on my shoulder.  When she drifted off, I took Butterfly to help me find a Father’s Day present for my dad.  (I don’t know what prompted my mind, but I suddenly realized that I hadn’t gotten on for him. Sorry, Pa!) We played more than we shopped.  We had a fun time.  When we got home, the girls and I made “surprises” for Kelley while she went grocery shopping.  We capped the evening with supper on a picnic blanket with a movie.  The girls loved it.  Kelley and I decided that Dora is one of the slowest moving shows on the planet.

So, that was the weekend and I didn’t do anything that needed to get done.  But I accomplished a lot.

Ladybug has a bad habit of picking at her sores.  She does it rather mindlessly or when she’s in the bed with nothing better to do.  She picks a scab until the blood is flowing freely.  As much as we fuss about it, she continues the practice.

In the car this afternoon, we noticed her starting in on a familiar spot.  We told her to stop and tried to reason with her.  “Don’t pick at your sores, honey.  They’ll never get better.“  Her two-year-old head bobbed up and down as if to say “I have no idea what you’re saying, but I’ll agree with you!”  Finally, the older and wiser sister stepped in to break things down:”We don’t pick at scabs.  They are doors for our blood.  We have to keep the doors shut so the blood doesn’t get out.”

After a second or two of silence, Ladybug verbalized the information she had just heard and processed.  “Day like doors.  We keep the doors shut!”

We’re going to have to hire Butterfly as a full-time interpreter.

After bed time, our upstairs is illuminated only by the nightlight in our daughters’ bathroom.  The dull hum of an air purifier or a fan keeps us entranced in our dreams.  I’m reliving a video conference for the 16th time that night.  For some reason my dreams are on “repeat”  and I can’t shake them out of the rut.  Suddenly, the silence is broken by the sobs of Butterfly (four-and-a-half) at our door.  Kelley is the first to notice and immediately fears that Ladybug has passed a faint stomach virus on to her sister.  I awake to Kelley shouting orders about trashcans and toilets and other stuff that I can’t decipher.  (I’m not very coherent when I first wake up.) I sit-up at the edge of the bed as Butterfly walks into the room.

“What’s wrong, baby?”
“I had a bad dream.” She informs me through the tears that are rolling down her cheeks.  Kelley breathes a sigh of relief and I gather Butterfly in my arms.

We don’t have these often, but on occasion, Butterfly will encounter something scary in her dreams.  There are probably ways that you’re supposed to handle this type of thing.  Perhaps you’re supposed to explain to your child the difference between dreams and reality and expect them to move past it.  Perhaps you’re supposed to send them back to bed and hope they find a way around it.  When the scary monsters find their way into our house, I take a different approach.

“A dragon ate me.  There was a whole family of big, mean dragons and they were scary.”
“Oh my, that does sound scary.  But you know what you do with dragons, don’t you?”
“No….”
“You yell at them, ‘Hey, stop for a second.  You can eat me, but I want to take a picture first.’ And then the mommy dragon will have to go put on her makeup and she’ll make the little dragons swim in the river to get clean.  Daddy dragon will polish his horns and when they’re all ready, you take their picture.”
“Why do I take their picture?”
“Because when you’re done, you tell those dragons ‘OK, you can eat me now.’  But they’ll want to see the picture first, so you’ll have to take the camera and put the pictures on your computer and then print them a really big picture, and take it back to the dragons.  They’ll like it so much that they’ll invite you over to the dragon feast the next weekend to take pictures of all their friends.  And that’s something special because no one has ever been to a dragon feast!”

My tale weaves on for a few minutes and ends with Butterfly having a new dragon friend that can fly her anywhere she wants to go.  As I close my tale, I end with “And remember, when those dragons try to eat you, you tell them that you want to take their picture.  And the next thing you know, you’ll have a new friend.”

She is pleased with this outcome and flashes a small, tired smile as she lays her head upon the pillow.  “Daddy, you’re silly.” And she closes her eyes in hopes of trying her new tactic to make a mythical friend.

Work was tough, classes are occupying time, bills need to be paid, and my dreams offer no rest.  But tonight, while the rest of the city slept, I tamed the dragons that haunted my daughter.

We never were a loud family.  On the other hand, there wasn’t a lot of silence in the house, either.  I was the last of three siblings, so there was always some type of commotion or discussion carrying through the house.  But, no matter what was going on, my brother, sister and I honored one hour of silence under the penalty of death.  It was the news hour.  Whether it was at 5:00 on the television, of 5 before the hour in the car, we soon learned that noises should cease when the headlines began to roll.  I remember thinking, “Wow…this is horribly boring.  Why is it so important?”

On the way home yesterday, I was flipping channels and trying to find some decent music.  On the last part of the cycle through my pre-programmed channels I caught the last 15 seconds of the news.  I looked at the clock and with slight disappointment, I noticed that I had missed the headlines.  For some reason, the disappointment became evident to me.  Had I actually wanted to hear the news?  And, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I like to tune-in to the newscasts and hear the highlights of the day.  Wow.  When did I start turning into my dad?  Well, at least I don’t back into parking spaces like my dad does…wait…yeah, I do.  I know, I don’t get all excited about buying pants with the hidden elastic in the waist…wait…yeah, I do.  See, it’s not that being my dad is a bad thing, but I didn’t expect to wake-up and just realize that I was him.  I thought the transition would be more noticeable.

Perhaps the one area that I don’t follow in my dad’s footsteps (yet) is with eating habits.  Although, I am appreciative of the love for food that he instilled in me.  As a matter of fact, he took me to my first Mexican Buffet.  It was the same day that he introduced me to Northern Tools. (Let’s pause for a moment of silent reflection…)  At any rate, while we were at my parents’ house a few weekends ago, I marveled as my dad fixed his breakfast.  Cereal with milk.  And blueberries, strawberries, and bananas.  And then some type of yogurt-like stuff on top.  This doesn’t rival the time I saw him top his Fiber One with salsa.  Now that is the breakfast of champions.  The man’s motto when it comes to eating is “It all goes down the same hatch, anyhow.”  I appreciate the man’s ability to eat, but I lack the cast-iron coating in my stomach to follow in his footsteps.

It is interesting to look at where I am and discover which traits I’ve intentionally picked-up (the ability to keep a yard green) and which ones have snuck in over time (see: newscasts).  Similarly, there are some traits that I’ve intentionally culled out.  (Such as the desire/ability to drive long distances with the family in the car.  That one was the first to go.)  I recognize the formation of who I am both because of how I was raised and in spite of how I was raised.  This applies to my relationship with my children, political views, religious views, musical tastes and all across the spectrum.  I am me.

A wise person would be able to take these thoughts and bring them to a really cool, coherent point.  I think that’s one of the traits that I let pass me by.

This weekend carried a lot of activity. On Friday morning, my mom took the girls to her house and left Kelley and I alone in the kitchen with buckets of paint and a few free hours. We’ve been working on our kitchen for over a month and this past weekend was a push to get it much closer to finished. On Friday morning we painted. That afternoon, we painted. In the evening, Kelley allowed me a break for some supper and a movie. After the movie, she forced me back to work with more painting.  Around 11:30, she let me go to sleep but told me that I’d better get up early in the morning for more work.  I think I cried myself to sleep.

A Preview Picture

Saturday morning I was up with the sun and back to painting. By lunchtime, we were far enough along that I could start working on the trim. Mr. Rickie was nice enough to not only bring over his tools, but to stay and help me get most of the trim work done. By the time we were too tired to continue at 4:00 in the afternoon, the kitchen looked much better than when we started. So, we loaded up the car and went to meet the girls at my parents house.

When we arrived just before bedtime, the girls told us of all the special things that their grandparents spoiled them with. Kelley and I were both very jealous that we’d missed out on the fun, but I suppose that’s a part of growing up. It’s good to be able to let the girls go off and not worry about them.  We spent the rest of the weekend with my parents consuming as much home-cooking and Dairy Queen as we could and then hit the road Monday morning.

On the way home, we spent a couple of hours at Imagine It! The girls had a blast.  I even got to play with moon sand!  On the final leg of the trip, we stopped by a Chick-Fil-A Dwarf House in Jonesboro.  The only complaint we heard the entire trip home was “I donn wanna go home.  I go back teuw GG’s howse.”

Work started back yesterday and my time at home has been split between playing in the rain and hanging cabinet doors.  As of right now, I think that the kitchen is about 96% finished.  (The last 4% will probably drag on for another few weeks, though.)  So after a long, full weekend, I’m now back into the routine of work.  Oh yeah, and classes for the summer semester start tonight.  Having two courses spread out over 15 weeks was tough last semester, so I’ll take it easy and do two courses crammed into 10 weeks this summer.  Maybe Kelley will have finished the kitchen by the time I get done with classes.

I had the privilege of attending Butterfly’s dance recital yesterday afternoon.  I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a 4-year old as excited.  The recital included two performances from about six other groups ranging from 4-years old up to about third grade.  There was even a hip-hop group of youngsters showing their agility.  (The hip-hop group had two boys in the class, which puzzled our 2-year old, Ladybug.  “Why da boyz up dare?”)

I’m a completely biased parent, but I think that Butterfly’s age group was the cutest thing all afternoon.  Though well-rehearsed, the girls frolicked about, occasionally doing similar motions before freezing in the spotlight again.  Most of the time, their little bodies made small, dance-like movements as they stared just off-stage to their teachers who were reminding them what to do.

The highlight of the entire event, though, was when Butterfly’s group ran around on the stage and then formed a circle.  As they held hands, they stepped in close to one another, and back out again.  Petite ballerina giggles filled the stage.  They repeated the move and giggled even more.  The laughter of these tiny performers carried over the sounds of the waltz and settled on the quite crowd.  If I could possibly capture a memory and share it with everyone, that one is on the top of the list.  Captured in their laughter was their innocence mixed with the fun they were having.

At the end of the recital, a group of older girls (Butterfly informed me that they were “teenagers”) performed a dance to preview the second recital, which was for the older groups and would immediately follow Butterfly’s.  My friend, Mr. Rickie, phrased it best when he said “I felt like a dirty old man sitting there while they did that dance.”  Hips were thrust, bosoms were jiggled, glances were cast and chairs were enticed.  I know that we should have stayed and supported the older girls, but I don’t think that I had enough $1 bills to make it through the show.  Reports from friends are that the second show met the expectations that the preview laid.  So, instead of watching what I would deem as border-line raunchy, we took Butterfly and Ladybug to Dairy Queen.  They were OK with that decision.

Kelley and I talked last night about “dance” and what it has become.  I thought that our daughter would eventually learn ballerina stuff for a performance in “The Nutcracker” instead of a lap-dancing technique of the same name.  As I drifted off to sleep, I slowly came to the realization of what Kelley and I are going to have to do:

Someday, in a couple of years, we’re going to bring Butterfly into the kitchen and sit her down.  As we tell her how much we lover her and support her, we’ll gently break the news to her that her friend, Dance, was shot during an armed robbery.  Everyone is hoping for the best, but it doesn’t look like Dance is going to pull through.  We’ll cry with her for a little while and then try to shift her attention with ice cream or something like that.  Then we’ll gently guide her to another extra-curricular activity that is completely harmless and will preserve her innocence.  Maybe television.

Apparently, you can genetically inherit smarts.  My sister got them from my grandfather and has used them wisely.  She pointed me to one of the coolest things to hit the internet since Zuper John first took flight.  Apparently, you can change your language settings on Facebook to “Pirate”.  Ahoy!

My grandfather (on my dad’s side) has been retired for as far back as I can remember.  But he’s always been busy.  I spent numerous summer days running around in his basement, avoiding the pieces of machinery that he used to make wooden projects or to repair miscellaneous items that he’d found along the road.  Not figuratively, literally.  Stuff right off the side of the road.  If it looked neat, he’d grab it.  He passed this trait on to my father.

Sometime in the mid-to-late 80’s, he purchased a good number of acres where he and my grandmother built a nice house and settled down.  Since that time, he’s been “building” a workshop to house all of his wood-working and yard equipment.  20 years to build a workshop?  Yep, he’s managed to stretch it out longer than you or I could.  This means that every once in a while, he’ll mosey outside and against his wife’s instructions, he’ll lift something that’s too heavy, put it in a place that’s too high, and then secure it using a piece of equipment that’s too powerful.  If he gets injured, he just waits a little longer before he tries to put the next piece in place.  If he is fortunate enough to avoid injury, he pressed on with his work until he finds that accident he’s been looking for.  He is as stubborn as an ox.  But he’s very happy.

A couple of months ago, my wife and I took our girls to see my grandparents.  The girls played with some of the same toys that I played with when I was their age.  While we were there, my grandfather proudly mentioned that his shop was nearly complete.  We slowly walked outside to the building that he has made block by block.  He smiled as he opened the door to his little piece of heaven.  Nuts, bolts, wood, machines, and miscellaneous parts filled every inch of available space.  But what made me smile bigger than anything else was his ability to think outside the box.  Outside the ice box, that is…

Yes, those are doors from an old refrigerator.  He’s bolted them to the wall to be his shelves.  I guess we know where I get my engineering skills.

Butterfly understands that her father loves her.  She’s not happy with everything that I tell her, but she knows that no matter what happens, I will always give her a hug and let her know that I love her.  Last night, as I was putting Ladybug to bed, Butterfly ran in and gave me a goodnight kiss and a hug.  It was comforting to know that she wanted to tell me goodnight.

Ladybug is still working on the concept.   On Sunday, she had to get into trouble for one of her many fiery fits.  She was not happy.  I was not happy.  Within minutes, she went from complete disdain to happily climbing on me as if nothing had happened.  She specifically asked for me after her nap and then clung to me for the rest of the day.  So, I’m thinking that maybe she is beginning to understand the concept.

This morning, I was carrying her down to get breakfast.  She was holding a fluffy Elmo toy that says “Elmo needs a hug!”  After some comfort, the toy sings a song and ends by saying “Elmo loves you SOOOooooOOOOOO much!”  Ladybug hugged Elmo even tighter and said “Love you too!”  It was such a sweet little scene.  Could it be that she is beginning to recognize and vocalize her feelings?

As I left for work, I gave Butterfly her hug and kiss and told her that I love her.  She reciprocated.  I moved around the table to Kelley, gave her a hug and kiss and told her I love her.  She reciprocated.  I went over to Ladybug and gave her a kiss on her soft cheek and told her that I love her.  Without hesitation, she gave me a cute smile and responded “I want more fruit.”  Yup, these are my girls.