Awards

Kids can be the sweetest thing. Sometimes I am reminded that isn't true, but not tonight.

Waiting for me on my pillow was a pink envelope with some writing, what looked like a candy wrapped in a bright yellow wrapper, and a ribbon. The ribbon says "Awarded to Dad, for: the best dad in the world." The candy wrapper is yellow paper with little smiling lady bugs all over, carefully drawn and colored. Wrapped in the yellow paper is a worn, smooth rock for a lucky charm. The pink envelope has three screws in it with a note inside, "For working on something" and on the outside of the envelope it says, "To: Dad, from: madeline."

I think there's a couple little things that make this so tender and beautiful. First, the red ink on Madeline's hand when she came in and gave me a huge bear hug, and told me how much she loved me. There were little ink blotches on her fingers, and I could picture her coloring the little lady bugs studiously. She later told me she worked especially hard on the lady bugs. One of them almost looks like it has three dimensions.

The screws are sweet, because I've been doing some work out in the garage and she of course knew I could use them. These are just some random screws she picked up from somewhere. It couldn't have been my garage, my garage is immaculate (I do have a Ridgid 6HP, 16Gallon Shop-vac/blower). She's thinking of me when she sees something as simple as a wood screw melts my heart.

But the real tender side comes from yesterday. As a "punishment" for not listening, I had her help me in the garage sanding a few things down, and I had her use some citrus cleaner to wipe dried glue from some clamps with a wire brush. She was so mad at first, but she really worked hard. I had to go inside once and she asked when I would be back. By the end of both chores she was completely into it, and I dare say even liked it.

So a couple things are coming out of this bright spot in my evening. One, Madeline and I are going to Dunkin Donuts tomorrow morning for breakfast before school, and two, I've got to stop cursing all these "lady bug" beetles that are everywhere in the Midwest. At least in front of Madeline, I'm going to stop cursing those things. I can't stand the @!#$* beetles. I squish them every chance I get.

Funny words

Two funny stories about Jack with words.

After dinner one night this weekend we played a game. We went around the table and tried to get Jack to repeat the word. I started, "Jack, say 'Daddy.'" Slam dunk, Jack says daddy all the time. Then it was Mom's turn, "Jack, say 'Mommy.'" Another slam dunk, of course Jack says "Mommy" all the time. Madeline goes next, then Terra and back to Dad. We started with Jack's favorite words, Cookie, truck, fire truck, train, airplane. Jack is eating up the attention and we are laughing hysterically. Jack's into it now, he's rolling. More words come out, airplane, apple juice, rain, tree, cracker, milk, everyone's scoring and the game is tied.

Eventually it got back to Mom, and she pauses. "C'mon Mom," Madeline says and Mom replies, "I'm thinking..." As if on cue, Jack comes right back, "I'm thinking!" Everyone laughed so loud. Jack loved it, everyone did.

Then on Sunday night we were playing Uno with our neighbors. I was down to my second to last card, played it, and Mom gets me, "You didn't say UNO!!" Ohh, I was so aggravated, I picked up my two card penalty and repeated "UNO, UNO, UNO" several times. Then Jack screams out, "UNO!"

Teeth News

Madeline had some braces for orthodontia (I spelled that write the first time!) work and we are looking at the results right now. Her teeth are so straight.

Sick News

Madeline was deathly ill the first week of school. She went for two days then was home for three days. I haven't seen her sicker. Terra was sick last week. She thought it was the flu, turned out to be strep throat.

Now, when you go to the hospital with flu-like symptoms you are going to get a surgical mask handed to you. I thought it was a trip. Like MJ out on a trip in the town, the girls gets to wear a surgical mask to not infect us others.

Trains

"Choo-choo." Misty found out about a reading session at one of the book stores. I've got one thing that I think a book store would be able to give to the reader of the book, and that would be a book, right? But evidently, the book store didn't have the book, the lady was reading from a photocopy of the book. A photocopy?! What the heck, man.

So Jack listens to the story for a little bit, screams out "truck" every chance he can, then goes off to find a train set in the store and falls in love. Little did Jack know we have a storage box filled with trains. I got it out that afternoon after Misty told me his joy over the trains. It's setup now in the TV room. Jack loves it.

So do the girls. They are all over it, the train set is everything that they wanted and didn't get in . . . wait, uh, I think they have everything they wanted. I remember with Terra, my biggest trap was setting up the train track so it was too complex. Now the girls are ready to setup the complex mazes that are possible with the tracks, but Jack gets overwhelmed and the trains get frustrating for him when he can't make a 270 degree right turn on a Y shaped track.

Alea is over and has put together a nice track with bridges, circle's, curves, and all the goot stuff. Jack is ramming his train head on to her train.

No Shirt, No Shoes . . . fun

Jack's new thing is no shirt. He doesn't like to have a shirt on, especially when he is outside. I think this is a phase every boy goes through. This is how the no shirt rule started out; he got something from the ice cream man, it melted and created a mess all over himself. When it's all over the boy, then the shirt needs to come off, and the next thing you know he's trying taking his clean shirts off that we just put over his head three minutes ago before going outside.

Truck Fixed

Truck finally fixed. It wasn't the catalytic converter, thank heavens. I tried to remove the catalytic converter just to see if that was a problem, but the bolts are rusted on there so bad, it was going to have to come off the hard way.

Travis brought his OBD, connected to the truck's computer. I'm not sure that's what lead to the fix though, it though the neutral safety was an issue. Real problem turned out to be the fan clutch. Bought a new one and replaced the old busted on this afternoon.