Stirring things up

As many know when you prepare to move, you discover all sorts of treasures you had forgotten.

I'm cleaning up the living room today and Robert is sort of helping me. He's still punky with fever so he just picks up things, stares blankly then sets them down again. He picked up one sheet of paper and perked up. He announced, "Hey, look! It's a blog on paper!"

He found Nonna and Da's Christmas letter from last year. He especially enjoyed the photo from Cooperstown. Colleen of course enjoyed the photo of herself.

I once had to explain to Elizabeth the meaning of knobs that said "vert." and "horiz." in the Silverstein poem Jimmy Jet and His TV Set. I guess now I'll explain to Robert that people once communicated on paper.

Kindergarten is such hard work

This was the scene shortly after Robert came home from kindergarten yesterday.

I've been working from home lately, so I met him at the bus. He didn't say one word as we walked up the driveway. I asked him if they took his tongue at school and he opened his mouth to show me. (Still there.)

Cate and Colleen were out getting plants for the garden. Robert crawled up on the couch and looked at me. I said, "Robert, it's OK to take a nap if you're tired." So he closed his eyes. When I asked him if he needed anything, he shivered, so I got him the blanket.

He barely got through lunch and tae kwon do. Then we gave him some Tylenol and he perked right up.

Happy Memorial Day!

In true ... ahem, Southern ... fashion, we spent our Memorial Day dinner eating ribs and cornbread.

As you can see, Colleen loved the ribs. She really attacked this one, and honest to goodness, she cleaned it! Fun way to finish our last Memorial Day in the south.

We also had a very southern couscous salad.

The other two were not as keen on cleaning the bones but they did eat nonetheless.

On the move front, we arranged the living room, brought up a couch from downstairs, and Cate packed our first three boxes. I cut the grass with, unfortunately, the gas-powered mower, but it looks better that way. We cut pretty far out into the common area in order to give the yard a bigger look and even up with our neighbors, who seem to enjoy wasting gasoline cutting out about 50 feet past their property line. We enjoyed kicking the soccer ball around while the ribs were on the grill, however.

What we consider progress

Three hours today and I've already lost track of how many hours yesterday and last week but finally we have exposed all the dirt we want.


This is half the garden -- the half I finished today. The rose bushes are something Cate would really like to get rid of, but I'm afraid they are beyond my ability (and patience) to remove. You can see the "railroad tie" edging in the bottom right.

We don't do "before" pictures -- at least not on this project. It was fairly overgrown and an eyesore. But the last thing I want is for a prospective buyer to stumble upon this blog and see what poor shape we had this in until seemingly moments ago.

On the bright side, I saw 177.0 on the scale this afternoon before I hopped in the shower to get the dirt off. On the dark side, those calluses never really formed on my hands ... ever ... and I have a blister on my right thumb where the shovel handle makes contact.

On the even brighter side: This was a project I thought we might not get to until tomorrow, with both of us home all day (Cate works a full shift on Sunday). So that's one less thing to do on Monday.

I believe I get to leave the planting of this plot to Cate!

Up a tree

The list keeps moving along. Three plants in our "side garden" that I thought were trees turned out to be one vine snaking its way along those awful railroad ties of edging. After removing the edging it took me about an hour to dig that beast out.

It's mostly grass in there. Easy enough to just scrape off the surface. Believe it or not, it seems like there are wild onions in this plot along with a conifer of some sort. I'm a little less than halfway through that process, but a three-day weekend with no softball will make it possible to get a lot done.

We painted Robert's room yesterday -- and by "we" of course I mean mostly Cate. She did all the tough spots and I did the broad strokes on a wall and a half. It will be sleepable tonight. Robert enjoyed sleeping in the living room last night.

The tree in the backyard had an ancient rusted chain with some silly swinging rope hanging from it. The kids have enjoyed it but it didn't strike us as particularly safe and it certainly wasn't pretty. All we've heard the past five years is the importance of staging the house -- which makes me wonder why the heck we bought this house with all the staging issues it had. It still has some of those.

There was also a frayed piece of yellow nylon rope in the tree, about 12 feet off the ground. We don't have a ladder (must rectify that for the next house) and standing on the lawn furniture didn't get the job done, so I figured I better climb it. I really wanted that chain down.

So there I am, alas. Up a tree. Not sure how to get down.

Anyway, I'm wasting time writing this when I should be out digging or something. It's just hard to see the finish when the line we've drawn keeps moving. Hard to get motivated today.

Bye bye, couches

We've made some progress in our attempts to get the house uncluttered and in shape to sell. The list of items is long but yeah, we're plugging away in spurts.

With me working 40 a week and Cate working 28-32 with no overlapping, we don't have a lot of opportunities to work on the house together and it takes a little coordination to get to the big projects. But I've been working from home a couple of days this week, which means I can pitch in on occasion.

I feel a lot more productive taking 20 minutes to weed out the garden or drill holes to hang curtains than taking a walk through the building at work.

But to the couches -- Sean had these in his condo more than a decade ago and in 1992 they were just too cool. (This might have been the only thing Sandy was good at.) Sometime shortly after we moved in here we inherited them and the kids have beaten them down over the past five years. They've been on the docket for departure. And today, Cate disassembled them and got them down to the curb.

After dinner I went back outside to work in the yard and help Elizabeth shoot baskets. Robert and Colleen jumped on the couches one final time and Robert said good-bye to them all. He'd named them Larry, Barry, Mary ... and two names that don't rhyme with Larry, but I can't remember.

Scratch another item off the list.

What Colleen ate

We spent most of the day waiting for Lowe's to deliver the new fridge and washing machine. Waiting and waiting. And since we kept the fridge rather empty, we were light on dinner.

They arrived at 5:15 and were out by 5:45.

We went to Wegmans to replenish the milk supply with the intent of coming back home and cooking, but the kids were rapidly losing patience. So instead of bringing food home, we decided to cut the trip short and just eat there. Wegmans has a good amount of take out options, as well as an extensive salad bar and hot bar, so we got half a rotisserie chicken with roasted rosemary potatoes (Elizabeth's choice) and steamed vegetables.

I put Elizabeth in charge of getting fresh fruit from the salad bar with explicit instructions to come to a consensus with Robert on choices. And I got a couple things from the hot bar, nothing too heavy. Colleen started getting fussy as I was completing my dish (some rice noodles, a couple of mini egg rolls and some breaded fish) but I was chalking that up to the hour (after 6 on a long day).

She got even more fussy as we checked out. Wegmans has some seating upstairs that I had thought we would use but they didn't allow shopping carts up there, so we ate outside.

I set the food on the table and started cutting up the chicken, and Colleen is getting rather insistent about my food. I keep telling her that I'll eat my food when I'm done serving everyone else.

Finally -- and you parents know how it is -- I actually get to eat for myself. So I lift a piece of fish out of the container and Colleen points, and says, "Dad, eat your food!"

And it hits me. She doesn't want me to eat it. She wants to eat it herself. It looks just like a breaded chicken tender.

So what the heck, I give her a piece. She snaps it up.

I give her another. And another. I got one bite. She ate the rest.

So Colleen ate fish.

Apparently, I'm a columnist

I know I'm not much of a reporter, anyway, but I can occasionally write a column. Sometimes they're even good.

Not going to claim this one is, but I have a new Verizon column up. Not even about sports. I think I'm in better shape staying away from sports writing, believe it or not.

I figure my dedicated fan base ... err, fan ... has long since stopped checking for weekly columns from me, so I'm just letting you know.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! We're in the kitchen this morning making pumpkin pancakes and fruit salad, and probably bacon if we have the energy.

It's an early morning for me -- it's not like seeing 7:30 a.m. is unprecedented since I do it every Wednesday but it's still pretty unusual.

We're forced to make the pancakes from scratch because I forgot we were out of pancake mix.

Hopefully Elizabeth will be able to help me make the fruit salad. But I also bought a whole pineapple so I know that will require intervention.

Bugs in a rug

Finally quiet at the end of a crazy day. Cate painted the girls' room basically solo this morning and early afternoon, though each of the kids got to participate a little bit. I took the kids out of her hair, to Elizabeth's tae kwon do class and two Home Depots, before Cate left for work.

Since the girls' room isn't dry yet, and we won't know until tomorrow if it needs another coat, that means there are two displaced children tonight. We discussed various options but I thought it was best if Colleen slept in Robert's room. (Robert has been dying for a roommate.)

Surprisingly, once that was decided, Elizabeth decided she wanted to sleep there as well ... with Colleen ... in the same bed.

Now, I'm not dumb enough to try to put them all to sleep at the same time, so Elizabeth read in our bed while I read the younger two a book. And since we had to make a quick post-dinner trip to the store (stuff we need for Mother's Day), they were pretty tired already. In fact, the older two are sleeping in T-shirts and sweats. Colleen is wearing Dora, but at age 3, who cares if you're out in your PJs?

But seriously, I'm glad we have more than two bedrooms.

Six weeks at goal

I've been at my goal weight of 180 for six weeks and I'm feeling particularly confident. Highest weigh-in was 183.4 and lowest was 179.2.

Thanks, Cate, for your support in all this. Literally, it wouldn't be possible without you actively on my side.

Rode my bike to the new office on Tuesday for the first time this season. There's been a lot more rain this season and even though the trip is about three and a half miles shorter, it's been harder to do it because of our various work schedules.

Homeward bound

About three years ago we began this mission with an updated resume. That summer one of the rare copy editing jobs on the Star Tribune sports desk opened up, ever so briefly. They filled it from within. I didn't get a formal interview with the job, but did chat with the sports editor in-person for about a half-hour. I had a phone interview with the Pioneer Press sports editor for a job I was not qualified for.

In the spring of 2006, a job opened up at NBCSports.com, which was starting up with operations based in Mendota Heights, Minn. I was a shoo-in for a job there, I figured, with my journalism experience and my willingness to relocate to Minnesota. (I mean, seriously, who wants to go where it's cold, right?)

So I eventually got that job. Only in the interim, it was moved to Connecticut. I took that one anyway, just to get away from the dead end at USA Today and in hopes of jumping over to the company in Mendota Heights.

Near the end of my brief tenure at NBC, I applied for two jobs simultaneously -- the Mendota Heights people had a project manager job open that our PM thought I would be good for, and Verizon had the job back in Northern Virginia. I think I would've gotten the PM job if I'd been around to finish the process, but had to take something to get a little security.

Now, I'm not about to pose on an aircraft carrier (or a snowmobile) with a large banner or anything, but we're ready to finally make the move to Minneapolis. On Friday, my boss at Verizon signed off on me working from home ... and home being in Minneapolis.

There's a lot of work to be done. We've make some progress in the state of the house the past six weeks but there's much more left to do. Thankfully, our "W"elfare check arrived on Friday, so we have some cash to play with. We have two new appliances to get in order to finish out the complete set. We'd like to do the kitchen floor and we have to repair a bathtub. Trees should be trimmed and gutters cleared.

At least the housing market appears to be picking up, at least in the micro sense. Another house on our street sold and at the moment, there's only one on the market in our two-block stretch of Argonne.

All this with a goal of being in Minneapolis in order for the kids to start school in the fall. Uhh ... what date is that?

Isle of Wight

As some readers might know, the Virginia public school curriculum is heavily saturated in Virginia history. Elizabeth is doing a project on Isle of Wight which is a county near Newport News on the James River. We decided that a little personal observation might go a long way so Elizabeth and I are off on a 24-hour historical adventure. We've got a map in hand, fresh batteries in the camera, and a (very short) list of possible attractions to visit. We'll see what the "Ham Capital of the World" has to offer and report back tomorrow.

Too many kids, not enough hands

Every Thursday night, Cate leaves for work at about 6, right after I get home from work. Sometimes, like tonight, we meet at tae kwon do and Cate leaves from there.

Used to be that I would dread Thursday nights, like several months ago when Cate's schedule changed, but lately I've just been taking it all in stride. They're good kids. Tonight's bed time started off a little wacky and I thought I would turn the little portable digital recorder on and see what came of it.

(This photo is an outtake from the other night. Not tonight.)

I have sent Elizabeth to get her pajamas on and Robert to brush his teeth. So far tonight, Robert is the star of the group because he got his pajamas on the first time he was asked, and promptly.

I don’t really ask Colleen to do anything. There’s not much point.

Robert comes out from the bathroom and says, “See how pearly white my teeth are?” I glance briefly and assure him, “You’ve done a great job getting ready for bed, Robert!”

Colleen comes back out to me in the kitchen and says, “RAR! Dinosaur!” Elizabeth has been chasing her. I shout back into the back of the house, “Elizabeth, you aren’t anywhere near your pajamas!” She is running back to her room and says, “I’m near my pajamas!”

She doesn’t have them on, however.

Robert: Nobody comes in my room! (takes book and slams door)

Dad: Robert, My Friend is Sad is a library book; it goes back tomorrow.

Elizabeth: No, my library day is tomorrow. Your library day was yesterday.

Robert: I know! I got a note. That means I have to bring it tomorrow.

Dad: Oh, because you didn’t have it today. Do you have it now?

Robert shows dad the book.

Dad: Oh, Mercy Watson. I thought you had My Friend is Sad.

Robert: Oh, that’s my library book.

Dad: Public library or school library?

Robert: School library. (Colleen complains in the background.)

Elizabeth: She wanted to look at My Friend is Sad.

Dad: And where is My Friend is Sad?

Robert: Oh.
Elizabeth: (overlapping) Robert has it.
Robert: I don’t know where it is.
Elizabeth: You just took it out of her hand earlier!
Robert: That was There Is a Bird On Your Head!
Elizabeth: Well then that’s the one she wanted!
Robert: No! Elizabeth, it’s due to the library! (Colleen complains in the background.)

Dad: Which one … which one’s due to the library? I feel like I’m in a Who’s on first sketch.

Robert: Both of them.

Colleen: Give me the birds book back!

Elizabeth: Both of them? How can you have two library books? Kindergarteners can only have one.

Colleen repeats “I need the birds” underneath.

Robert: I have one from the Loudoun County. Not the school library. (Colleen: Book! Book!) The one with the playground.

Elizabeth appears to be sucking water out of a Ziploc baggie.

Robert: Oh my goodness! That’s weird!

Dad: OK, Robert,

Robert: Is that thing running out of …

Elizabeth: It was my ice pack.

Colleen grunts.

Colleen: Daddy, I take-a off a pants!

Dad: I will take off your pants – give me a second. Robert, can we read the book?

Robert nods.

Dad: Thank you. Go get it.

Robert offers Mercy Watson.

Dad: No, the one she’s looking for.

Robert: Oh man, why?

Dad: Because I asked, and I’m the dad.

Robert: Hmmph! Meanie! I don’t want it read because it’s due!

Dad: I understand that, but we’ll take care of it, OK? We know it’s due tomorrow.

Colleen: Dad, not these jajamas – the penguin jajamas!

Robert: This book was due five, ...

Dad: The penguin pajamas?

Robert: ... five weeks ago!

Dad: Oh, that’s not true. Relax. (To Colleen) What color are the penguin pajamas? Are they pink?

Elizabeth: They’re pink. They’re in her dress-up basket.

Dad: They’re not. (Heads to the hallway.) They’re out here.

Elizabeth: Oh, OK.

Robert: But we’re reading …

Dad: Here we go Colleen, pink pajamas, OK?

Colleen: Daddy! I need the Dora jajamas!

Dad: I thought you wanted the penguin pajamas.

Colleen: No! Dora jajamas!

Dad: (Laughing) I swear to God she asked for the pink pajamas! Dora pajamas?

Colleen: Birds head? Birds head?

Dad: What, sweetie?

Colleen: Birds head.

Dad: I don’t know what you mean.

Robert: Bird said?

Dad: There is a Bird on My Head?

Colleen: Birds head book?

Dad: Birds head book? Yes, we’ll do that, but you need to have your pajamas on.

Colleen: Can I (unintelligible) will fly?

Dad: You can’t have all the Mo Willems books, Colleen. (takes off diaper, checks to see if it was wet) Oof, P.U. stinky.

Robert: Eww.

Colleen grunts.

Dad: Here you go, Colleen – arms up.

Dad takes Colleen's shirt off and tosses the rolled-up diaper into the hallway.

Robert: Why do you always throw it?

Dad: Because I want to get it into the hallway and out of the bedroom.

Robert, overlapping: Elizabeth, put that diaper in the trash can!

Dad: Because if I get it in the hallway I know I’ll get it in the trash can later. If it stays here in the bedroom then who knows. Where are the diapers being kept?

Robert: In the trash.

Dad: Uhh, how about the clean ones?

Robert: Oh. Mommy just got a new pack today.

Dad: We do – we do have a new box of diapers.

In the background, Elizabeth explains that they were on her seat in the car when she came home. I asked if they were on her seat in the car when she was in the car, which of course they weren’t. Because she was on her seat in the car. While I'm out of the room, Colleen picks up There is a Bird on Your Head and starts "reading" it out loud to herself.

Colleen: Here we go Piggie … Here you see you have birds on head … Birds! Where! … Baby birds on head! …

Dad: I’m coming Colleen, don’t worry. Robert, Elizabeth doesn’t need help.

Colleen: Ahh … A bird, aaaaack! … Oh no …

Dad: (reading from the book) They are in love. Colleen, you got your pants on, but I need to put the diaper on.

Colleen: No.

Dad: Yes, I do. I need to put the diaper on, for when you sleep. Do you want to go potty?

Colleen ponders that.

Dad: Are you going to go potty?

Colleen gets up.

Dad: OK, you go potty. (To someone) Can you turn the light on in the bathroom for Colleen? (To Robert) Mercy Watson, yes, we will read Mercy Watson, I promise.

Colleen: Daddy!

Dad: Yes, Rober… yes, Colleen, you going potty?

Robert: I’ll go in there.

Dad: She doesn’t need that much help, Robert, she’ll be fine.

Robert goes anyway. Dad is straightening up Colleen’s bed.

Colleen: Aaah! Robert! What are you doing? No!

Dad: Robert, please!

Robert: (not really under his breath) OK, she can go by herself.

Dad: I asked you to leave her alone.

Robert: Oh. I didn’t really hear that.

Dad: You should really listen.

Elizabeth runs in and flops onto her bed.

Dad: Elizabeth, first of all, aren’t you kind of old to be jumping on the bed? Secondly, your foot is on what?

Robert: Her belt (tae kwon do)
Elizabeth: My green belt

Dad: Yeah. Does it belong there, I’m sure? Maybe I’ll let Robert take it to tae kwon do on Saturday. What do you think? … I’d have to wrap it around him like 12 times but I think that would work. I think Robert could be a green belt, what do you think?

Robert: N-o.

Dad: No? Well, at least you’re honest.

Robert: Dad, don’t say the words I spell out loud!

Dad: (not really listening) That’s good, spelling’s good, we like spelling.

Robert: Do not say the words I spell out loud.

Dad: Alright, why?

Robert: H-I, D-a-d.

Dad: Hello, Robert.

Elizabeth: Hi dad!

Robert: Hey!

Dad: He just said not to do that.

Elizabeth: Oh.

Dad: We can play his game.

Elizabeth: Hey Robert, what was it that you spelled in the car for what song you wanted?

Robert: C-a-m-p-f-i-r-e s-o-n-g song. (That’s the actual title of the song, it’s spelled out)

Elizabeth: No, you said song! You said jellyfish. J-e-l-l-y-f-i-s-h! Jellyfish, jellyfish.

Dad goes to fetch Colleen from the bathroom. She’s not ready to leave. Elizabeth continues to sing Jellyfish and occasionally stings him.

Robert: Ow! Zap! On my head!

Elizabeth: (as Piggie) There is a bird on your head.

Robert: (as Gerald) What? There is a bird on my head?

Elizabeth: No, there is a pig on your head!

Robert: Aaagh! There is a pig on my head. … Daddy, there is a pig on my head!

Dad: (not looking) Really?

Robert: (balancing the Mercy Watson book on his head) Really.

Robert sings nonsense singsong chanting. Elizabeth joins in.

Elizabeth: There is a bird on your head.

She discovers the recorder.

Elizabeth: Hey, why is that thing in here?

Robert: Daddy. Daddy’s recording this.

Elizabeth: What’s this little thingy? What is it doing?

Dad: Robert knows.

Elizabeth: He told me. Heyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Robert: (laughs) I love this conversation, and now it’s going to go onto the blog!

Dad: How’d you know? How’d you know I was going to do a blog about this?

Robert: Because this is totally weird?

Dad: What?

Elizabeth: Because this is totally weird.

Dad: Well, I think we better stop it then. I don’t think we could end it much better than that.

Award winner

Robert brought home a Finest Falcon Award today! We're so proud of his hard work in kindergarten. It mentions especially that he is responsible and completes his assignments on time and according to directions. This is his first award although he recently received a ribbon for perfect attendance. He says, "I'm so happy for myself."