Unlicensed

(Hi… yes, yes it is awkward to begin an essay with a parenthetical aside but I’m going to, hell, I might italicize it as well, being unlicensed and unregulated and all. I just wanted to say that there are several links to previous posts in this one.  Feel free to check them out if you care to.  But, hey, maybe you could read all the way through this one before you do, because, I’m pretty sure that if you jump elsewhere on your phone, I probably won’t see you again.  Thanks.)

They came to take away my "dad blogger" license away back in September.  A couple of guys sporting beards and superhero tees knocked on my door.  The one with the bigger beard suggested that I knew why they'd come. I did.

I hadn't done the obligatory back-to-school post yet.  I scrambled mightily to get one up on time the year before, but this year… yeah, nothin'. Also, I haven't posted in a long while, which is usually pretty forgivable but, months...?  I've also made a concerted effort to talk less directly about the boys, again, understandable, but, sort of off brand.  And, I neglected to do a Father's Day piece, which is, well, unheard-of.

I was informed that I can only wear my cargo shorts to do yardwork, which seems reasonable and I'd already been doing that.  They wanted my "World's Greatest Dad" mug as well but decided I could keep it when I told them it was in the back of the fridge full of bacon grease (which in and of itself makes me the world's greatest dad).  They also asked for the decoder ring I used to translate the stuff the boys wrote and said early on which didn't make sense.  I told them I'd like to keep it because I've actually got drawings and stories and such that I haven't yet figured out.  They seemed cool about it.

There were a few other caveats as well.  In honor of my nearly ten years of service to the community of dad bloggers, I am allowed to post anything I want on Father's Day and the first day of school – no questions asked.  But, I mustn't post new sentimental slop as I did for so many years at any other time, at least dad slop, I guess.  I can, and this surprised me, repost old pieces when I'd like.  I gather this is a result of the "throw-back Thursday" clause.

The one thing that really had the whole system messed up was that the name of my blog here is, and shall always remain, "ihopeiwinatoaster."  I guess not having a reference to "daddy" or "father" or "pop" or anything Star Wars lets me keep using my same domain.  Usually, you are asked to archive your "Dad" period and, if you wish to continue blogging - which no one in their right mind should - you need to start afresh.  Ha, I knew that stupid handle was a good idea.

There was a lot of mumbo-jumbo legalese.  I had to initial off on a few subjects I'd need to stay away from - Lego and tee-ball and doing laundry and broken arms and, let's see, uhm, homework and math and misspellings, whimsical writings and inexplicable drawings and, oddly Harry Potter – because, apparently, it's the dad's with younger kids turn to write about the good stuff.  I can see all that, really, and there's a really good cadre of fresh dads taking up the cause… God love 'em.  I had to write a piece to say I understood the terms of the dissolution and to say goodbye, see above.  However, because of the domain name loophole, I can just keep posting here.

Listen, I actually think it's good that they stopped by and took the license, I may go rogue every now and then and talk about the boys, but I think in principle the gag order is valid.  There is a sweetness and a sentimentality in writing about babies, toddlers - just children in general - that should be explored.  I certainly have read a great number of posts from men about their kids over the years which have moved me to tears.  And, you know what, I hope that continues.  However, I'm not really the guy to do it anymore.

The wickets get a bit stickier as children turn to adults or, in my case, boys grow into men.  The stakes are a little higher, tales of teddy bears and movie scares and misspellings and odd math no longer seem appropriate, even, as I worked very hard to do, if they are told tenderly and lovingly.  It's no longer my business (was it ever?) to tell you about them.  There are crushes and heartbreak and failures and successes and books and fights and glories coming to learn from, and they will.  But, those are now their stories to hold or to share.

So, I was supposed to have this submitted to and approved by the Blog dudes by the end of last year, but, well... I didn't.  That's because I didn't want them to see this last part.

You see, I'm not done yet.  I've got more to say, a few more stories to tell, some advice to give.  I've worked very hard to honor and respect N and Z over the years I've been doing this and I think I can still do that.  Not by sharing their awkward and embarrassing teenage angst and pubescent bodily functions (which I see bloggers using more than I'd like to), but by offering a little help to them as the years go forward.

I can offer them a little more of me by sharing my past dreams and even my current hopes, perhaps…

There is an undeniable arrogance in assuming your kids will want to know more about you as they go on in their own lives.  It's embarrassing but, here's the thing, two things really - I'd give a lot to see something like this from my own father and I've heard that from a lot of guys over the years.  Also, over and over again folks say to me that the boys will treasure the posts I've done here over the years.  I've been proud to curate their childhood, proud to have thought deeply about them, considered them, and I've been so very proud that they are my sons.

There are a lot of folks I should thank from those years I was sorta in the scene… but I won’t.  I would hope they knew, know, whatever.  Some offered me much needed technical support, others lifted me when I was falling, some were frank in criticism, some just liked the words I lined up into weird rows.  Trying to name them all would be irritatingly long and probably ill-advised.

However, there is one individual I would like to call out: You, kind reader.  Yeah, you.

When I write, I don’t imagine a big audience or entertain the notion that there’s some sort of “ihopeiwinatoaster Nation” out there.  No, I’m pretty much talking just to you on the porch watchin’ the trees grow and the wind blow or in the kitchen waitin’ for the coffee to finish and the biscuits to bake.  I’ve tried to keep it casual and soft here - although, I have gotten my britches in a bunch a few times - and I intend to keep it that way.

Thanks for stopping by, I know you are busy, I hope this maybe slowed you down a bit.  Feel free to poke around in the basement archives if you’d like, but that’s hard on the Blogger phone app… oh well.  It’s a sad truth that blogging was meant to be done on a computer monitor, not a tiny screen in your palm.

God’s peace to you kind reader. 

Here's a picture of me in a blue workshirt.  Not a picture of the boys. (Sorry, it was required... weird, I know.)

Cheers...

Chess and Salvation

I've played a lot of chess in my day.  I've gifted chess sets to friends on several occasions, I even knew an old man who carved them.

That being said, I've never played on one this cool.

It used to be that I understood what they boys were talking about - hell, I even speak fluent toddler - but now, as their horizons reach further, as their education experience broadens, as their personalities and sense of selves expands as it will forever, I, um, don't.

Nick made this for an extra math project his teacher had given him to, well, keep him busy and focused.  Apparently, it's called "Decimal Chess" and one has to draw a card and solve a decimal problem, i.e. one and three-fourths is what as a decimal, what is the average of .5, one-fourth and 1.25, use a number-line to solve...  you get it.  You can move after you solve the problem, if you don't the other player moves again.

I suggested that chess was hard enough without solving an equation - although the idea of getting two or more moves in row is sort of interesting.  He said they were easy equations and everyone would know them.

Remind me not to play "Decimal Chess" with Nick...

I found this piece of notepaper on the floor.  It is Z's writing so I asked him about it.  He looked at it and quickly crumpled it up and said he didn't remember why he wrote it down.

"True Salvation is off to a good start."

It sounds like an opening line to a novel.  Perhaps, True Salvation is a new band.  Maybe he is experiencing a profound religious, uh, thing...

You know what?  I am not going to ever find out.  I am well past knowing everything about them.

That's sad... and good.


This parenting thing can really mix a guy up.


From Marci's  "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"Chanting always works."

There is that...


Thanks for coming around again.  Peace and goodwill and stuff.

The Memification of Folder X

I have, of late, been wordy, verbose and irritatingly long-winded around here lately here, on this page.

I had every intention of being the same today.

I'm sorta kidding, but I'm not.  School starts a week from tomorrow.  The boys are nervous, I'm nervous, Marci is nervous.  I had a soothing, gentle post all lined up to go and I was looking for an image to go with it.  Inside a folder inside a folder these seven images have been hiding for two years.  When I opened it and saw what was inside a wave of nostalgia and whimsy came back from when I first started here.

I abandoned the sentimental slop I'd been working on and did this instead.


I don't really know why I took this particular series of pictures.  I think the boys encouraged me to take them, or - more likely - I needed them to clean up and they wouldn't put these away unless I chronicled them.  Sometimes I take pictures of things that really don't matter too much so we can get rid of them.  Actually, that may have been the theme in my early days here.

Anyway, I don't know what any of these are or why they're important so I did the mature thing and made some simple memes out of them.  Yes, clever, I know.  This is really the first time I've tried this around here and certainly, other than some snarky FB thing, the first time I've tried to memify an image of something of the boys.

(Apologies to all the real folks who do this for a living.)


Nick arranged all the items in one box on the carpet:

The funny thing is Nick loves those "Find-It" puzzles and such.

I remember Zack spent a lot of time with this one, he went on to build a whole restaurant around it as I recall:

I am not sure why I find that so funny...

There's this bit of inspired madness.  Mike over at a site called Spoon and Knife suggested the trading card idea and this one also:

This is a part of that scene as well:

What is up with that guy on the right, in the wig, with the Statue of Liberty crowny thing and a lamb in his lap?

I have a vague recollection of them making this fort, sort of, a little, well... maybe not:

That's a good fort right there, I don't care what ya say.

There was one other one, a picture that made me sigh a little when I saw it.  Remember, these are two years old.  It is eerie in a way to see how little and how much they've changed in that time.  I like this image, it is how I remember them, how I see them, how they are and forever shall be... boys, growing up, and out, and into my heart.  Melancholy is hard and bittersweet.

I went upstairs and tried to sneak a candid shot of them.  They caught me.  Nick gave Zack "bunny ears" in all three damn pictures - he's sort of a Ninja at it.  I didn't see them until I looked at the photos after they were done.

So, that's how they are now, were then, will be... damn, trapped in the strange space/time loop I always get in here.  Whose 'now,' whose 'when?'  I am never sure.


You know what?  I lied.  I did do a meme like thingee once a long while back.  Lemme go try to find it...

Wow, sorry I was gone so long there, I had a nice trip down memory lane looking for this.  It's from March, 2013:

I tried to reenact it but the boys would have none of it, but the sentiment remains the same:

Listen, I know life gets serious.  I know life gets busy.  But... life gets silly, too.  And serendipitous, and curiously profound and roundabout and odd.

Thanks for coming by today.  I'll get back to the feels again soon.  I've got most of something written that you might remember I abandoned earlier today.  But, for now, I'll just leave this as it is.


You might have noticed I didn't link the site I mentioned above, you know, Spoon & Knife.  Well, I was going to, but, honestly, I didn't want to lose you to it.  It is a beautiful site with great information and recipes and stuff and, well, it's better than mine, prettier and to the point.  Check out this steak article there, "Grilled Steak Shootout."  Yeah, that's some pretty good stuff.  Thanks for your help, Mike.


So, I'll say goodbye again, and thanks for looking over my shoulder as I looked back a couple of years.  It was fun.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

(upon hearing an advertisement for a Reds statuette giveaway)

"What's the point if it doesn't bobble?"


 It's a pretty valid point...


Peace to you, keep the boys in mind when the school year starts, hope the best for them, because "a hope is always a prayer."

I said that...

Lists of Lasts, Messing With Zack, Chicken Note

Lasts are more difficult than firsts because you know the firsts are coming.  You know, your walking your talking, your tripping and cussing, first teeth and holidays and all of it.  All the memories we make and expect.  But... lasts seems sudden, unexpected, bittersweet and ever so final.

I can barely carry Nick anymore but I don't remember the last time I held him, toddler style.

Zack could never get a hoodie off, he'd somehow get comically stuck.  He can now, and I don't remember the last time we laughed together as we struggled to get it over his head.

Both boys shower all on their own now, hair, body, underarms (I still scrub a back or two, truth be told) all clean with no cajoling or prompting.  I don't remember the last time I washed them off or rinsed their hair.

Last diaper, last soothie, last bottle, last crawl down the hall, last kiddie pool, last burping, last turn the light brighter, last jump in a puddle, last... God, why am I tearing up?

You get the point, the list of lasts is heartrendingly long.  Important accomplishments checked off a giant spreadsheet.  Done and forgotten.  Forgotten until the smell of baby powder washes over you at church or in a store and you realize, heart cracking a bit, that there isn't even any in the house anymore.

Had I known a year ago that last years' Valentine cards were to be the final ones they'd make in school, I probably would have laminated them, and put them in the firebox.  I did scan them and put them in this post.  Would you go take a look at that post?  Please.  It's short I promise and the bulk of this post is sort of dependent on you taking a quick look at that one.  I'll wait...

Thanks.

You probably noticed, beyond the cuteness of the cards, that Marci and I had made some "Things we love about..." lists for each boy.  Last year we gave them to them as they got of the bus, they went inside and read them.  The first thing Zack said was, "Can you do this every year for us, Dad."

"Yes," I promised.  The very thought of some lasts seem unbearable.  As God is my witness, I will do this for them until my last breath is drawn.  And then I promise I'll have twenty more for the rest of their lives ready... laminated, in the firebox.

 

So, my sentimental and tardy Valentine's Day bit is done so I will just let you get...

Wait.

Right, I almost forgot, that's why this is so poorly titled today, it's really a mnemonic device cleverly disguised as a lame post title.


Sometimes I am so tempted to mess with the boys.  I wanted to tell them one color wrong, like red for blue, or something, when they were little because I thought it would have long-lasting comedic impact.  Suggesting the impact might be more emotional and, well, damaging, Marci nixed that idea.

I am still tempted, but, I don't.  Except when I do.

The boys are building their recently purchased LEGO sets in the dining room, I am trying to play a little guitar but end up basically playing half a song and then stopping to look for a dropped or missing piece which is damnably difficult holding a guitar.  Giving up, I decide to put in CD.  I deliberate a while, and choose a greatest hits Police album we like, which is damnably difficult holding a guitar.

I put my guitar away downstairs and come back up and Zack asks:  "Dad, what's he mean "that book by nab-a-cough in that last song."  I push a couple of LEGO pieces off the table and, guitarless, pick them up with ease.  Distraction successful.

"How about some Koolaid, guys?  We haven't had any since last Summer," I say to further distance my self from creepy teachers and worse, Russian Lit.

I am blundering about, distracted myself by the shocking number of inappropriate songs that even my boys hear, and, as I pour the sugar into the pitcher, I spill it down the side and pretty much all over the place.  I get the lid on and turn on the hot water.  I begin to rinse the sugar and blue stuff - Raspberry Lemonade as I recall - off of the sides of the plastic jug thing we use for making drinks that, uh, need making, and, since the whole thing needs to be shaken, I begin to do that as I rinse it off under the running water.  With me?

Well, Zack walks in, watches for a sec, and says:  "What on earth are you doing?"  (Someone has said that to him before I suspect.)

I can't say if it was the tone in his voice, his cute little curious face or just my affinity for off-center humor, but I answered:

"If you shake Koolaid under hot running water it mixes better and tastes extra good.  It's science"

Of course now I have to decide whether to extend this fib as the years go on.  I probably will.  It'll be worth it when, someday, I see his son shaking a pitcher of Futureaid under a stream of hot water and see Zack look me in the eyes and wink, saying, "It makes it sweeter, Grampa."

"Yes, science," I'll say.


("Chicken Note" what does that even mean?)


Oh, I know...  Sometimes I write something down for Marci to put on her "things from the backseat" thing intending to give it to her so she can post it so I can use it here.  It's a convoluted process.  Maybe I should just do this instead.

A note from Bill's pocket that he was supposed to give Marci so she could put on her FB page thingee so he could steal it for this blog:

It is fun to say.  Let's all say it together - "They took credit for the chicken..."  Very satisfying sentence, I think.  I could see why we've always wanted to say that ...

Thanks for coming to see us here today.  Oh, and thanks again for looking at that other post (last time, I promise).  I appreciate that.

Say, uh, since you're still around can I ask you something, is this a Valentine?

It came home from school Thursday.  Didn't St Valentine slay a dragon or something before he met a horrible death?  Yes, this is a traditional Valentine's Day dragon-electrified-alien-lizard-o-love.  Right?  Hey, I better get out the laminator.

Now, where's that firebox...

Christmas.thirteen

In my last post I mentioned these, in fact, they were supposed to be the main focus of the whole thing, but, best laid plans and all:

I want to go on and on about them but, I don't feel up to it.  It occurs to me that what I wanted to say about them may have seemed boastful.  You see, I am very happy they don't have mile-long scrolls of stuff they want and what they do want is wholesome and simple.  I'd wonder why that is but, I already know, and it's simple:  the boys don't watch commercial television.  If they do watch, say, Phineas and Ferb or something like Wipeout, say, it's either DVRed or on Netflix.  Simply put, they haven't been told what to want.

We emphasize the birth of Jesus and family and all that around Christmas, I suppose that's good, but, seriously - my boys don't know what they are supposed to want.

I think it's cute.  I think it is good.  I think it is right.

I was saying to Marci on the drive home from the first family Christmas this year at my wife's parent's house that I thought Christmas will never be brought back from the crass commercialism it has become.  It's just too great a fuel for rampart capitalism, I mean, you try to make a better economy driver.  It can't be done.  Buying stuff makes people happy, how are you going to argue that.  But, around here, we are sort of, just barely, hanging on to the sacred intent of the day... for now.

Zack wants a LEGO guy and a vest for his favorite stuffed bear, Bear-Bear.  Nick wants an elf hat and A stuffet (stuffed) animal crab, in aqua, thank you very much.  And a story book "including A horned toad, A kangaroo, A duck And A camel."  Part of me feels bad about these simple, dear requests, but, basically, fundamentally, I am proud that they are so sweet and pure and, well, decent.

See there I boasted and I didn't want to... well, actually I did.

Anyway, a horned toad, a kangaroo, a duck and a camel walked into a bar.  Who bought the first round?


You know what?  A blogger I know, Carter Gaddis at a great blog called DadScribe, wrote this piece, "How an 8-year-old Boy Sees the Universe" and it blew my socks off.  His tender and lovingly crafted words make mine pale in comparison.  Give it a look if you have time and then you'll understand why I had a such a hard time with this post.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat..."

(leaving a Reconciliation Service)

Mom:  "Sometimes I think I confess the same things over and over ..."

Nick:  "That's why I go to a different priest each time."

Well, there ya go ...


Thanks for coming around today, I know you are busy.  Someone asked me at school the other day if I was ready for Christmas, I felt sort of tired of all the busyness and all and, without thinking, I said;  "Ready for the birth of a Savior, or ready with all the gifts the boys are getting?"

Maybe I shouldn't have said that, but, it is certainly worth thinking about...

Happy Christmas, if you don't hear from me before then.

Nananananananana, Thatman

I don't really want to be "that guy," you know, the one always showing off and bragging about his kids.  The guy that talks only about his kids, as in when asked 'what's up' he starts telling you about his kids.  I don't want to be the guy so focused on his sons that he forgets that he can still be himself, and not just someones dad.  I don't want to be that guy that shows funny pictures and tells you heartfelt stories, teary-eyed and earnestly, forgetting along the way, that he had once dreams and aspirations of his own.  I don't want to be that guy that lives through his kids...

I choose to be "that man" instead.

I honestly gave some thought to this, for once.  I took a look back through a lot of the nearly two-hundred-and-eighty posts I have laid down here and, overall, I don't think it sounds too braggy, does it?

I mean it's not really bragging if I show you something, like, say... the giant-ass LEGO scene they conjured and cobbled together with pieces from dozens of different sets.  It wouldn't be bragging because I would tell you that the boys spent hours on it inspired by the LEGO magazine they get.  I'd tell you that they wanted me to take a picture of it to send in to get published in that esteemed periodical.  I might go on and on about the nature of heartbreak, how I knew that it would most likely not be used - for one thing Zack looks demonic in it and Nick is, well, upside-down - but it's fun to try and such and all.  I then might point out that all I really want to do is have a picture of it here so they can remember the excitement in sending something in, remember filling out the forms and using cursive to sign their little release forms.  I'd tell how cute and earnest they were choosing the name "Jungle Palace" for it, how hopeful and optimistic.  It wouldn't be bragging then, right?

It is pretty cool...

It wouldn't be show-offy to show, say, a couple of interesting crayon drawings that I think are ushering in a new era of a more symbolic style art, a tentative, exploratory foray in to personal iconography and metaphoric thinking.  It wouldn't sound like too much of a boast if I wrapped some fancy words around it and tied it up with thoughts about hopes and dreams.

Nick did "Dragon-Fly At Noon"and Z did the, well, other one...

It wouldn't be bragging to show a paper dragon that Zack made because I could introduce it with the notion of invention and necessity and how, improvisationally, he came to invent the leaf-spring on which his majestic dragon hovers as if in midair, so convincingly brilliant.  But, it wouldn't be bragging because I wouldn't have to tell you the genius of what he did because it is so obvious. 

I'd just be being silly if I added this image and told a little story like...

I asked Nick what he was making after he'd been working on this orange construction paper and string creation for over an hour and he said:  "I do not know, I think it might be a Christmas ornament."  I could hide my boastfulness in a chuckle, and, perhaps, I'd add something about  mindfulness, being in the moment and the profound art of unitasking, which he is so very good at.

If I were to over-analyze an image, dissect it a bit, poke a little fun at it, find wonder in it; if, say, it were a quick sketch of what appears to be a rocket girl a snow suited girl a snowman, uh, girl a Rockette a figure, it wouldn't seem like I was bragging on it.  Would it?  I could ask myself why it seems feminine to me and why, for what strange reason, is she, well, sorta hot?  I could vamp a bit about Earth Mother imagery and, feminine mystique, and happiness and no one would think I just think it's a really great image and I wanted you to see it...

It wouldn't be showing off Zack's mad math skills if I showed you a difficult equation that he figured out because, I'd just say self-deprecating things about how I'd never be able to do it the way he did it and how he is being taught a far deeper and more accessible style math than I ever was.  I could laugh off my jealousy and make you wonder how much you truly understand math.

Seriously, could you do it that way...  now, see, that sounds braggy.

I could show this cool "storey bord in comic form" that Nick came up with.

We could have a laugh or two at his poor spelling:  "creashion" for creation, "asosheashion" for association.  I could chuckle at what is not his first adobe church with three crosses, and his curious habit of writing upwards when he works in graphic novel form.  None of that would be too boasty, just fun.

But, on this one panel, if I were to show it to you - yeah, I'd be bragging, because I am proud and stand in awe at the beauty and love and understanding and creativity and empathy that is in the heart of all children:

Well, so, is what I am doing here a sort of bragging?  Yeah, I guess it is, but, I am trying beyond measure to justify it and make it seem like I am not.

I still don't know what's going on in Marci's backseat so, here's a visual something you don't expect...

What makes it so odd is that is clearly a tsunami wave not a "blizzerd" and, I feel confidant, Nick might have been able to spell tsunami correctly, I mean, it already seems misspelled ...

Thanks for popping in today, I hope I didn't seem too smug.

Factual Post

Truth:

I look exactly like this:

See what I mean:

From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"This guy's new, so sorry if he shoots you."


Never trust the new LEGO guy, ever...