Ah, Kids and English.

I was just thinking of some of the cute things my kids say. I don't know exactly how they learned them, though. My seven year old has had an interesting expression for showing his frustration. "oh, for the love of Pete's sake." A nice combination of two similar expressions. I try to correct him, but it's hard when you're supressing a laugh at the same time. His new insult is calling you a "Dimblewat." At least I think it's an insult. I've also been called a "shut up head" by my three year old (now 4). Apparently, adding any maligning phrase to "head" creates an instant insult. I did say cute things, didn't I? Well, interesting, anyway.

Eating out

Eating out with 3 and 7 year old boys is always an adventure. Today, my wife was working late,so I decided to take the kids to a nice local diner. Of course, conflict begins as soon as we need to choose the seating. One wants to sit at the counter, the other one at a booth. We settle with the counter, because the main source of discontent will be quieter that way. We order mac and cheese for both of them, to split becuase the portions at this diner are enormous. The food arrives and as I split of the heaping pile that would feed some villages in this world, the 7 year old declares "where's mine?" My answer, of course is "right in front of you." Alex then insists this food is his brother's and pushes it away. Several rounds of this later, I relent because he said he ate hios whole portion last time. Fine, another round of mac and cheese. It arrives and when he eats less than half, Alex corrects me that he said he "may" eat all of it. Silly me. Next, Alex asks for ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream (a sundae, as it's know in the vernacular.) Said sundae is ordered and upon arrival its deficiencies and errors are quickly pointed out. First, I did not specify chocolate ice cream. (I should have remembered he is the one who likes chocolate.) But, tough, eat it I say. A second later he's picking off the multi colored sprinkles off the whipped cream one by one. Again, no request for sprinkles had been made. And since he's on a roll, he wanted chocolate "sauce" not fudge. Fine. Eat or that's it. I start tatsing the fudge to show him how delicious it is, and realize I can do some damage to it, so OK, a new small sundae with chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, and absolutely no sprinkles, waitress, if you please. I won't be surpised if next time out he orders a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, jelly on the top, peanut butter on the bottom, spread on second after the jelly, and applied using a counter-clockwise concentric circle pattern, cut diagonally, not straight through the center, served with an odd number of potato chips. Shaken, not stirred.

car accident can be a bummer

Well I wasn't sure what I wanted to talk about today, but about three hours ago I was in a car accident which has pretty much dominated my thoughts since then. first is the initial "why the hell is a car turning in front of me and bits of her driver side window shattering about?" followed by the realization that oh crap, that's going to leave a mark. Basically, on a four lane one-way street some lady decided to turn left, which would be perfectly fine if she was in the left lane, but she was to the right of me. Her first comment was "but I had my blinkers on" which, again, would be perfectly fine if he had not turned across traffic into my lane. Luckily there were no injuries, but we were both shaken up. She turned the driver side of her car just in front of me as my right passenger/front wheel area by the headlight plowed into her door and pushed her car up onto the sidewalk. It's amazing how fast these things happen and how you question what the hell just happened. A man started walking towards us, and I quickly realized he must've seen what happened. My first instinct was to to ask him if the other driver had in fact turned in front of me from inside lane. He said yes she did. Good. That puts a few worries to rest. The lady realized she must've done it based on where her car ended up perpendicular to traffic and on the sidewalk.
So then the stage almost as traumatic as the accident starts, which is the aggravation of knowing your car is damaged and it's going to be in the shop for a while and getting a rental car. I called my wife to pick me up and had her drop me off at the car rental place while I was on the phone with the insurance company giving you the details. Of course they tell me that my insurance does not cover the car rental, but hopefully since the other person was at fault her insurance will cover that. And what ends up being the most frustrating part of it all: they get me a minivan from the rental place that's nicer than mine which is going to spoil me for a few days and then have me disappointed when I get my regular car back.
Oh well. But in the end what really matters is that the kids were not in the car, and even though the way this accident happened they would not likely have been hurt, they would have been upset by the accident. PS once at home all they wanted to do was take a ride in the "new car."

Easy, Cheap activity with kids.

One activity I suggest if you have small children is birding. I've just started watching birds a couple months ago by watching the birds in my front yard. The best thing about birding? It's free. Well, practically. You may want to get some binoculars (I got some at a CVS for $9.99 which were 7x magnification, and which is great.) Then get a cheap bird reference guide, and you're pretty much set to go. I've been able to identify at least a dozen or so species in my own yard. Previously, they had been classified by me as black birds and not black birds. It's very impressive when your 3 year old can tell grandma that the bird outside on the rock is a mourning dove, because it's gray with gray spots.
Put some birdhouses/birdfeeders out. You can get simple ones from Michael's craft stores for about 5 bucks, or make one easily. I have some large rocks in my front yard and I put bird seed on them, especially black sunflower seeds. The birds will continue to come back once they know it's a spot they can count on to find food. Or just put stale bread crumbled up. This really can be a fun activity that the whole family can participate in. Pretty soon, you'll find your eyes wandering upwards while driving when you catch a glimpse of a large bird gliding overhead. "Hey kids, look, it's a hawk!" It might be a big crow, but at least the kids are getting interested in nature. The most interesting realization about birds in the northeast I had is when I realized that there are buzzards around. I saw a particularly large bird once, said to myself "why, that looks like a buzzard from the shape of its head and neck" but dismissed the idea since vultures only hover around the skulls of long gone cattle in the desert while a tumbleweed rolls by. Some time after that I got hold of a reference book and lo and behold, I confirmed that turkey vultures are local inhabitants. So, the long and short of it is, birding is a cheap, accessible hobby that parents and adults can do, even if just casually. Take a look at my picture of a flicker. Of course the bird watching got me to convince myself I needed to replace my ailing camera....but hey, I didn't even know a flicker was a woodpecker until I started paying attention to the visitors to my yard.

Hi this is me.

Hello. At the urging of a friend, I've decided to join the blogosphere. I have no real experience at this, so please be patient. And forgiving.
I thought I would write a blog aimed at busy dads (and moms) and offer some ideas to save time, impressive recipes, and a little ranting about life in general. If you're like me, you really love your kids. Especially when they are sleeping or at school. Yes, they're a lot of fun, but far too energetic, not to mention afflicted with random hearing loss, usually at whatever decibel level the words "no" or stop" are at.
It still amazes me how a parent can say "stop hitting your brother" at three feet and have the comment be responded to with an assualt on said child's brother.

Anyway, One thing I do enjoy is some cooking. I also like cooking things that taste good. But even better, I like cooking things that taste good, look impressive, but really aren't that much work. I've also decided that for many things (except baking) cookbooks and recipes can be used as inspiration, not hard and fast rules.

One quick favorite is sauteed chicken. I take thin cut chicken breasts. Beat an egg in a bowl and coat the chicken with the egg. Dredge (drag) the chicken over Italian seasoned bread crumbs and coat them completely. Start heating some olive oil in a large non-stick skillet. Once it's hot, reduce to medium heat and put chicken breasts on for about 2 minutes a side, till a little golden brown and cooked through. I like to tip the skillet so the oil accumulates in one spot and really sears the chicken. Serve with steamed broccoli and looks nice.