Got to work on the verb/noun differentiation

After getting home and unloaded the babies' car seats into the front hall, I remarked how hot it was in the house and removed my jacket before going back grab stuff from the van. Kiernan was jumping out from the back seat when his yelled announcement echoed through the neighbourhood:

"Daddy took off his dress!"

"Um. No. You get dressed in clothing, not in dresses. Although girls can wear dresses. Some boys do too, but those are kilts. But let's simplify: Daddy took off his clothes. Um, but don't yell that either."

More fun word misinterpretation:

Sometimes Lara has a slight bit of trouble getting up in the morning after dealing babies who decide 3am is the perfect time to be wide awake. All the kids were up and getting a bit bored/cranky/demanding, so I sent Kiernan upstairs to wake mommy up. Kiernan returned soon after saying "Mommy says two more minutes."

Soon enough, Kiernan was sent on a return expedition to let her know ten minutes had passed. He came back down and said "Mommy's not done lying yet."

The question arises: Did she lie about only needing two more minutes, or is she just lying down?

Sleep deprived climbing...

2:50am: The drama queen wakes up, she's screaming, super starving; why isn't mommy feeding her already? I plod in and reswaddle her, Lara follows and sits in the chair to nurse Juliette.

3:20am: Juliette is done, Lara is asleep in the chair. I plod back and put her into bed, help Lara to her feet and out the door, where I pause to shut it behind us. Lara hangs a left into the bathroom. Not unremarkable, except that as she enters, she turns the light off. So I stop in the doorway to see her moving the step stool from in front of the sink- no, wait, she's picking it up, she's carrying it towards me... I decide it's better to stop this sort of thing before she tries to sleep-climb, so I take the step stool away. This angers her greatly, saying "I just want to go to bed!" "Okay, go ahead!" I let her pass.

3:35am: Quinn, from the playpen at the base of our bed, practices his new habit of screeching. Is he happy? Sad? Hungry? Hungry. Lara gets up out of bed and asks "Can you hand him to me?" and as I gather him up I see she's halfway out the bedroom door. "Where are you going?" She pauses, then returns to the glider to feed Quinn.

3:50am: Quinn is done, Lara is asleep in the glider. I pick him up, put him back into bed, and help Lara to her feet. She walks straight out the door and into the bathroom. This time I'm curious - I won't let her actually climb the steps, but I'll see where she wants to bring it. Unfortunately she immediately pulls an about-face, comes back in the door and literally falls into bed.

My name is Eric, and I am a youtube subscribaholic

Since creating a youtube account at the end of October 2006, and subsequently had Big Brother track my every move, I've apparently viewed 10,872 videos.

When I try and find the average video length, I get articles from 2006 stating the average is about 2 minutes, but I think things have boomed a bit since then (and I know I've watched a few multi-part epic length shows) so let's assume the average video length I watch is 3 minutes.

I've watched 22.5 days of youtube.

Serendipitous fact of awesomeness: According to dayssince today marks exactly 1000 days since I joined youtube. (which makes the math to calculate percentages oh so convenient!)

When I first calculated (with a 4 minute average) I got a full month's worth of video watching. Halfway through calling the addictions hotline, I thought of things that could be artificially boosting this number:

1. I am subscribed to 34 youtube channels (only a handful of which update often) and I like to check the main page of youtube to see what's new. I also obsessively like to keep my "What's New" list clean - and often videos I've already watched pop back onto the list. I click the video and then hit the home page to see my freshly cleaned list.

2. Some channels post a long clip as well as edited clips (ie: Jimmy Kimmel's opening monologues also have sketches and highlights from the monologue) so when I watch the full video, I don't need to watch the shorter bits. So of course, click-Home-clean page!

3. The World Series of poker. I didn't really want to watch all the interviews with all the winners of all the events, nor did I really need the daily chip count updates, so I just clicked them away.

5. Kiernan wants to watch videos. And another video. And the pink video. And that one. And...

6. Pomplamoose and Garfunkel and Oates. Because you can't just watch once. Except wait, that's not artificially boosting anything since I'm actually watching. And by that I mean I'm watching them again right now that now I've linked to them.

So this probably reduces things by at least a quarter, right? Only two weeks worth of my life spent in front of youtube? So from now on: A Cluttered What's New page is not a big deal, and I'll check back in 100 days and see if 2.25% of my days are still spent watching videos.

Quick calculation: 2.25% of 24 hours = 32 minutes a day... hold on, does sound about right? Crap...

Melodrama

Lara and the kids were up at my parents' cottage all week, and Friday was her birthday. We were lucky enough to get babysitting so we were to go to see Harry Potter and grab a late dinner.

The time span needed to leave work, drive to the cottage, grab Lara and get to the theater was slim, so Kiernan had only a brief amount of time seeing me as we ate cake (before dinner, I might add). My parents distracted him from our leaving by saying he could watch one of his DVDs with the giant stuffed bear.

"Gasp!" I gasped (gaspingly), "Bears can't watch TV!"

As we got into the car, my mother called up to me. Apparently Kiernan was quite upset, yelling "I'm! Talking! To! Daddy!". I needed to go back to the kitchen to find out what's wrong. I hiked back to the door and asked what he would like to say to me.

"The bear CAN watch TV, Daddy!"

"Oh! Okay then!" This sufficed enough to get back out the door.

With that drama overcome, we drove off. Five minutes later we decided to phone back to the cottage to remind my parents that the twins needed medicine before they went to bed. I was informed that Kiernan had been crying because he had forgotten to tell me something. He was put on the phone:

"Hi daddy."

"Hi, what did you want to say to me?"

"Um. What did I want to say to you?"

"I don't know, what have you been crying about?"

"Um. Oh. DON'T GO DADDY!"

"Oh, was that it?"

"Ya. Bye."

My kids are growing up literarily unsheltered!

Kiernan's nightly routine involves putting on his pyjamas, brushing his teeth, then the reading of two books chosen from his overflowing bookcase (courtesy of the garage-saling prowess of my mother-in-law). The lights then get turned off, then comes another story - when it got dark earlier it was projected onto the wall but this time of year it's "stories from daddies head" - followed by a song, water, hugs, and a kiss. Finally it's "Get out the door now daddy."

The stories from my head fall under two categories. Either Kiernan asks "I want the story about the zebra on the swings." and I get to make up something involving said zebra, or he asks for a classic nursery rhyme.

Some may know I dislike the politically-correct versions of nursery rhymes these days, so when I tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf wants to eat Red and not just her basket of goodies, grandma gets eaten and not just hidden in the closet. The woodsman slices the wolf open to extract grandma, then they fill him with rocks and toss him into a lake. Time to go back to the cottage to enjoy the basket of goodies, hurray!

A few weeks ago one of the books pulled off the shelf was a copy of Little Red Riding Hood published in 1995. If it was bowdlerized at all, it was going to get one reading then be given away. Fortunately, it was the best version of Little Red Riding Hood yet, despite being written in the past two decades.

Grandma AND Red Riding Hood get eaten alive. The wolf takes a post-lunch nap when the woodsman happens by to cut them out. There's an illustration of the wolf sliced from neck to groin, and another with happy-go-lucky Red gathering stones in the forest. There's no lake, however - the wolf just wakes up, attempts escape, and becomes so weighed down by the stones he dies just yards from the cottage. The pièce de résistance is the final photo of Grandma and Riding hood happily enjoying cookies:


I have to admit that when stories-from-my-head is the Three Little Pigs I end it at the wolf giving up and going home, simply for brevity's sake (with screaming twins overwhelming mommy downstairs, often stories are speedy). The story is supposed to continue on with the Big Bad Wolf attempting to lure the pig out to pick turnips, apples, and to go to the fair, and finally attempting to climb down the chimney. Some books still include the chimney - the pigs manage to light a fire and he runs off with his tail smoking, never to return again.

To get the best stories you have to search the shelves for the books published in the 50s and 60s. Here for my your enjoyment is the best two page spread of the Three Little Pigs ever.

Couldn't have flown any lower...

Today was a potluck lunch at work.

I brought a big bowl of dinner rolls.

As I exited my office, joining the RAs also heading up, one of them looked at the bowl and said "Hey, Nice buns!"

Who am I to pass up such a chance as this, so I said "Thanks! I get that a lot."

Absolutely no reaction from any of them.

Outnumbered

When big brother Kiernan was a baby, I referred to him half-jokingly as my little chrono-vampire -- his sleeplessness (20 minute naps were a luxury!) and constant demand to be carried or bounced for approximately 27 hours a day sucked time out of our lives.



You would think that the twins, who allow themselves to occasionally be put down and who sleep hours at a time, would give us more spare time, yes?

Hells no. Quinn and Juliette are the ultimate tag-team yearn-for-attention-ers. In order to find time to do anything that doesn't require a baby on your arm, you need at least three adults in the house. If elder brother is home, the number of course is bumped up to four. This past weekend, my mother- and father-in-law came to hold babies, my wife took Kiernan to the park, and I was able to spend an hour assembling the new IKEA TROFAST organizer in the basement.

Actually putting the TROFAST into use and organizing the basement will require at least a small army of visitors.

Volunteers?