Merry Sickmas, Team Body Fluid!

Hopefully this year will mark the low point in our family Christmas history. Truman woke up this morning and was utterly underwhelmed by the magical glow of the Christmas tree lights on all the presents Santa left. He just wanted to lay on our bed and whimper–he felt sick. Asher wasn’t much better, but then again, one-year olds just kinda do their thing anyway.

After we’d coaxed Tru into opening all his presents, he flopped over onto the floor, head on his arm and muttered, “This was the best Christmas ever.” No emotion, no smiles, totally deadpan. Later, after unloading an intestine’s worth of yellow oil slick, he wanted to take a bath. At 9am. At least he played with his new dinosaurs. Post-bath, he put on his clothes, marched into the kitchen and puked all over the floor. I’m grateful it was in the kitchen and not on the carpet.

Once we’d gotten Tru’s puke cleaned up, Asher needed to get changed and dressed and lo and behold! He’s covered in red dots, from neck to feet! Looks like a rash, or maybe some kind of pox. Fortunately he has a regularly sheduled checkup tomorrow morning. Geez. It doesn’t help that his nose is leaking like a faucet. Every time I turn around he’s got big gobs of snot/spit hanging off his head or strung between his nose/hand/mouth. Gah.

Of course, Amy’s stumbling through all this herself because she feels under the weather too. Plus, she cut a big old chunk out of her finger last week, and had to have the wound cauterized because it wouldn’t stop bleeding, since she “nicked an atery.” So she’s operating on only nine fingers since the cut one is all wrapped up in bandages and unusable.

I’m feeling okay though. Knock on wood.

I don’t like Typepad

I’m done with Typepad. I had problems with their customer service in the past, which were quite frustrating and now the application has been down for many hours. And Slacker Manager is displaying content that’s two days old. I’ve had people write to me asking for the recent del.icio.us post and I’ve had to point them to Google’s cache or the AllBusiness blog. Not cool.

Once I can access the application again, I’ll be exporting all the entries and files and setting up a new WordPress blog elsewhere. Once it’s up and running and redirects are working, I’ll change the DNS entries and that’ll be that. Or maybe now is the time to just have one blog and let it be the AllBusiness.com one. I’ll have to think about that…

Hook me up

I’m usually the first person awake during weekdays. I’ll make coffee, have a bowl of cereal and read a bit, or check email, etc. Lately, Truman has been waking up kinda early at least once a week. A couple of times he’s stumbled out into the living room mumbling something. When I ask him to repeat, he says, “Dad, would you hook me up with some corn flakes?” So I do.

The Knowledge Airplane Airplane of Knowledge

After work I picked up Truman at his friend Ethan’s house. When I got there, Tru and Ethan and their friends Emma and Mykel were having a little jam session. Tru was on drums, Ethan on the trumpet, Emma on some kind of whistle and Mykel on guitar. It was caucaphonolicious. When they were done, I asked what song they were playing. Emma identified the song as “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Truman and Ethan immediately objected. I asked them what the song was and Truman piped up, “The Knowledge Airplane Airplane of Knowledge.”

I have no idea what that means.

Do You Know

Do you know,
I would quietly slip
from the loud circle,
When first I know
the pale stars are blooming.

Ways will I elect
that seldom any tread,
In the pale ev’ning meadows.
And no dream but this:
You come too.

Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Do You Know’

I post this every few years. Amy and I had this printed on our wedding something-or-other. The last line always gets me, and it always makes me think of Amy. The poem elicits this feeling of solitude and quiet. And one forever friend.

m-y-n-t

Today Truman got a little frustrated that I wouldn’t read to him on command. So he said he wanted to learn to read. We sat down for a few minutes and worked through some stuff. He’s not bad at reading the letters and sounding things out. “Elastigirl” might be his favorite word.

Well, anyway, this evening we went out and got some ice cream at the store. Mint Chocolate Chip to be precise. Tru wanted to know what we bought and I told him. Then I asked him to spell “mint.” He was just sitting in the backseat, not looking at anything and he sounded it out and came up with m-y-n-t.

He amazes me daily.

(ps: new pics up today)

A two-wheeler!

Been meaning to write this for days, so it’s a little overdue. Last Thursday Truman decided that it was time to take the training wheels off his bike. I performed the requested maintenance and Truman hopped on and rode away. He’s a two wheel bike boy now!

I’ve got some video of the event and more of the next day when we went to the church parking lot down the street (where he learned to ride the two wheel scooter). I’ll get that stuff up here soon.

Now that Tru’s a two wheel guy, he hangs out with the bigger kids who ride the parking lot. One dude asked me how old Tru was. When I told him ‘four’, his eyes got big.

“Four?”, he said, “I didn’t learn how to ride a two wheeler until I was eight!”

“How old are you now?”, I asked.

“Nine.”

That seems to be the general response. I’m not too surprised, considering his good balance, but I have to admit, he does look like he belongs in a circus sideshow…

Yeah, Matt, next up is a skateboard… 🙂

No Chouinard for me

This evening I went out to Lewis and Clark College to listen to Yvon Chouinard give a talk. Presumably about his new book. The place was packed. I was supposed to meet my buddy Pete, but I got a call from Amy saying that Asher had a 103.5° fever and she was a little freaked. Hard to concentrate on a lecture when you think your house is burning down. So I went home. Everything is fine and I’ve got no regrets about missing the lecture. I’ll probably still read the book though.

The littlest philosopher

A few days ago, driving in the car, Truman suddenly asks the following question: “Hey dad! If God is standing on the ground, can a bee fly over His head?”

Gulp. Our little philosopher. For the record, my answer, which seemed to satisfy him, was “Only if God wants it to.”