Category: lil’ chino

the coming spawn

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the pitch, the timbre, the tone

Good morning world. Welcome to blog.

O what a productive Monday! No, really. No sarcasm to be found. Dust rose around my desk as I set up then knocked down to-do after to-do. Vacation tried to make me soft, but I came back with a heat in my eyes. I left the office dizzy at five, the sun already down past the horizon in this idiotic light-deprived time of year. Ruined bodies of undone tasks cast away in my wake, nothing more than bloodied shells of their one-time threat. Work lost today.

Sometimes I slow things down and just listen to my daughter’s voice not for the words but the sound alone. The pitch, the timbre, the tone. Small and almost miniature feeling. But confident and well-versed for her age, her vocabulary seeming overmatched to the sound of her own voice.

Sometime in the earlier days of our dating relationship, Sharaun and I were going through a box of old things in her room to kill time. In there was an audiotape her folks had made of her reciting the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme around the age Keaton is now. I can remember thinking how amazing it was to have her voice on tape at that age… to be able to hear the youth of it and try to reckon it with the voice I knew at the time.

I think having heard that tape is partially why I record Keaton as much as I do. Even though we’re really bad preservationists when it comes to video, we’ve got audio and still images down I think.

Yeah I love her voice. Talking, praying, singing. I just love it when she sings.

Too bad most of the stuff she seems to parrot is the Top 40 junk Sharaun listens to. I did, however, catch her singing the hooks to a couple catchy tracks the other night and made her repeat herself for the iPhone so I could capture the verses for posterity. Here, then, is our little songbird flexing her pipes on her own takes of some popular tunes. Enjoy.

[audio:MeetMeHalfway.mp3]

Keaton sings the Black Eyed Peas’ “Meet Me Halfway”
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)

[audio:NewYork.mp3]

Keaton sings Alicia Keys’ hook from Jay Z’s “Empire State of Mind”
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)

And yes, I do some minor editing for continuity’s sake – she’s not that perfect. But for really though, isn’t that something to hold on to? I’ve locked it away in my head as a memory, but the aural reminder these recordings may offer in ten or more years will surely be acutely appreciated. I can’t remember everything, you know. Humans fail.

Oh and before I go, a note about some small enhancements here and there to the blog. If you view any individual entry (not sure many regular readers do this, as, if it was me, I’d just be checking the homepage every so often or reading via RSS) you’ll now see a list of other entries written on the same date in the past. With more than six years of blogging-past to exploit, I figure these “also written on this day” links might be a neat window into the past.

I also tinkered last night at getting a running list of what I’ve been listening to on my iPod for the sidebar, but gave up when it proved to be too stupid to deal with. Maybe I’ll give it another go on an evening when I have a little more patience. Always looking to make this place more readable… shoot me any suggestions.

Goodnight.

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sore loser

Greetings, year of our Lord two-thousand and ten.  Greetings indeed.

Tell you what, you let the passing of the 00s help ease the memories of the worst of the mistakes made therein and I promise to make less in the 10s, OK?  Deal.

Wednesday Keaton and mom were playing Memory.  Remember that game?  Little tiles with pictures on them, always in matching pairs, that you flip over and then hunt through looking for matches?  Of course, Keaton’s set the Disney® Princess™ version; need you even ask?  First game went to Sharaun and Keaton was not happy.  Her reaction was unlike anything I’ve seen from her before.  She got immediately frustrated.  She denied her mother’s win loudly, started grabbing for Sharaun’s pile of matches.  She then tried to deny her defeat.  “We weren’t even playing for a winner!,” she declared.  “I didn’t lose because there is no winner!  We weren’t playing it like a game!  We were just playing it!”  At that she stomped off back to her room and slammed the door.  Odd, irrational, and seemingly unprovoked.  She stayed back there pouting while Sharaun and I looked at each other, considering.

Yes, I’d never previously seen this behavior from our little angel.  I have, mind you, seen it before though.  From me.

And so I said silently to myself, “Lord… please help us teach Keaton patience and sportsmanship.  Please help her to best the me in her in this regard.”

While my folks were here they recommended a book called The Road to me, said they thought I’d dig it.  I bought it, and read it through, on Tuesday.  Powerful book; hard to put down and as such a quick read.  Well written and came nicely to life inside my head.  Apparently there’s a movie now.  After my birthday, I told myself that I needed to shake this fantasy-only book kick I’ve been on since… oh, I don’t know… twenty years gone now…

See, I got the latest novel in the Wheel of Time series for my birthday.  You know, the massive fantasy series I’ve been reading, off and on, since college?  Yeah – that long.  I’ve re-read the series once in its entirety to catch up when a new book is released… but at 10,000+ pages it’s more than a quick effort as a refresher. I devoured it, feeling accomplished at finally coming to the end while there are yet books to be published.

See, this last one was supposed to be the final book, was supposed to end it all.  But the author died before he could bring it to a close.  His wife, who’s also his editor, asked a young fantasy writer at the same publisher to take up her late husband’s extensive and detailed notes and finished his unfinished masterpiece.  Only, the new guy, upon seeing the original authors final story arc, deemed it impossible to fit into a single volume and so now we have three final volumes, spread over three years.  So, even though I thought I’d be done, turns out I’m still only through twelve volumes of an eventual fourteen… and have at least another two years to wait.

In the meantime though, I have to diversify my reading material more than I have in the past years (thanks Ham On Rye, Vonnegut, and On the Road).

Goodnight.  Happy New Year.

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torture

Happy Tuesday friends.  Hope your Christmas was good.  Ours was great.

Now I’m going to jump into some blog.

There are two well-defined moments in each day where Sharaun and I have come to expect maximum bad behavior from Keaton.  One in the morning when it’s time to brush her hair, and one at night when it’s time for bed.  While her reactions aren’t 100% predictable, I’d estimate she explodes into an irrational fit at these events about 80% of the time.  And folks, 80% of the time is just too often.

I think it’s probably worst when it’s time to brush her hair.  Likely because, when that time comes around, it’s usually right before we’re about to walk out the door to be somewhere we’re expected to be.  To Keaton, having her hair brushed is akin to torture.  At first she balks: running, hiding, dodging.  Once you finally corral her and begin brushing she enters the protest phase: squirming, ducking, shifting on her feet, anything to get out of the way.  When you’ve had enough of this and you demand she remain still so you can continue, she enters the ridiculous phase: screaming, crying, whining, and generally fighting you as you try to gently rake out the tangles.  I mean, her hair isn’t even that bad… it stays fairly de-tangled and we had it trimmed recently to help with the dry ratty ends.  It’s just something she’s opposed to.  I’ll be glad, though, when this “phase” (it’s a phase, right?) is done and gone with and she can brush her own her without intervention or argument.

Bedtime is sometimes as bad, but usually more tolerable as we aren’t pressed for time.  Here, the first phase of protest is the classic kids tactic of bargaining for more awake time.  Once she’s warned bedtime is nigh, and is asked to start the readying process (clean-up, teeth brushed, potty, jammies), she starts negotiating.  “Daaaaddd… can I just have three more minutes, pleeeaase?”  We set audible timers on the iPhone as a way to reinforce the time warnings and keep her from delaying, and those seem to help… but once the time is upon us and it’s go-time, she escalates.  Knowing she’s got to do her routine, she instead shifts strategy and moves to delaying tactics.  This can be the “thousand-year brush” style of teeth-brushing,the “slow-motion potty,” or the “inch-a-minute” style of walking from one place to another.  Quite crafty, that child.  After being called out on delays, we move to a similar endgame as the hairbrushing fiascoes: all-out panic and fighting.

In general, bedtime usually doesn’t get to that last phase… but hairbrushing… oh man hairbrushing.

Goodnight.

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pert near impossible

Not even going anywhere...

It’s 10pm and, because we only have the one car at the moment, I couldn’t go to the gym tonight (Sharaun had the vehicle for her volleyball game). So I stayed home and played with Keaton before I put her to bed. Then, I decided I’d write (I’m doing that now) before I’d read a little, finishing off the book I’m in (haven’t done that yet, but have a strict be-done-writing deadline of 10:30pm so I can). Let’s go.

Feeling guilty, maybe, tonight I took the house to task a bit. I focused on the kitchen and master bedroom, mostly because I think Keaton needs to be responsible for her bedroom and toy room (and this behavior needs to be taught and continually reinforced, but I digress). Most of the scattered mess is random half-unpacked suitcases stretching back to travels as musty and dusty as our Thanksgiving trip to Florida.

This time, I can blame that solely on Sharaun. Once she packs a suitcase, it’s pert near impossible to get her to unpack it again. I’d do it myself, and make one of my trademark “piles” of unsavory materials (a technique I learned from my Dad, I fear, where I stack various items I feel aren’t where they should be in some conspicuous place as a passive-aggressive message to any opponent of tidiness), but she’s forbidden me from doing so, claiming there are unwraped Christmas gifts for me still half-packed inside. So, they rot.

As I was putting Keaton to bed tonight, I found myself wishing once again that she was done with nighttime diapers. She’ll be four in February and she’s still can’t make it through the night without one (not technically true, but you get my meaning). All her friends her age are out of diapers for good, and most of them have been for a while now. We’ve tried all sorts of different things… but so far nothing has worked. She’s great during the waking hours, using the bathroom at will and as trained as you’d expect any almost four-year-old to be; it’s just overnight that gets her.

Sharaun has a theory that she’s just a super-sound sleeper. She’s come in after naps sometimes (no diapers at naps, if we even get a nap) to find her having peed multiple times and not even stirred. She swears she read somewhere that kids who are really hard sleepers often have a harder time recognizing the impulse to get up and use the potty; no idea how that explains not being able to learn to hold it… but that’s her theory. I don’t really know… she is a pretty deep sleeper, so maybe there’s something to it.

We’ve tried doing no diapers and just dealing with the daily cleanup, but we got tired of the added work after two weeks of nightly accidents (sometimes more than one per night, which isn’t easily managed with a limited amount of fresh bedding). We’ve tried a psychological approach, “You’re a big girl, right? Well big girls don’t use diapers at night.”

And, I must admit, I, at least, have even tried twisting the psychological approach by adding the element of shame, “None of your friends still use diapers at night. Not Jake, not Gracie, not Matthew; no one.” I know, I’m a bad dad… but I’m telling you, I’m tired of diapers. We’ve tried a graduated approach, using pull-ups as some kind of intermediary “Look! They’re almost underwear” fakeout. All to no avail.

The only thing we haven’t tried is the high-tech approach one of my buddies swears by, where you hook some loud wetness-sensing alarm thing into their underwear. When it picks up on the first molecule of liquid it apparently sounds a loud alarm, theoretically waking the child and helping them remember to use the bathroom instead.

I haven’t tied this because, #1 it sounds all crazy 1984 loony and #2 who the crap wants to be scared awake by an alarm in the middle of the night because they are peeing? Seems like that scenario is a setup for some kind of future therapy… or at least some kind of unwanted urination/loud-noise subconscious association. Really though, I’ve not tried it because it’s probably expensive and sounds like too much like shock therapy, literally.

So we soldier on, going through diapers at the pace of one-a-day. At this rate, we may actually have two kids in diapers come next July. Now that thought is bumming me out. What do you think? Maybe she’s just not ready. Still, I’d love for her to ditch the diapers…

Goodnight.

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the creeping mess (or, keaton knows)

Sleeping on the couch.

Tuesday already?

One more week until work slows to a near stop. For all most folks will care, as good a “stop” as any real “stop” would be. No, we’re not one of those companies who “shut down” for the holiday weeks, but, effectively, the pace of business (depending on where you work at the sawmill, I suppose) dwindles significantly.

For me, one of the lucky folks who calls on customers (some of whom who do shut down for the season), things grind to an almost-halt. This will be most welcomed. Lately, I’ve been buried and I’m ready for a break. Our Christmas plans are strikingly stark; we plan to do the thing at home with the family. We may join some friends for Christmas day afternoon and the meals and good fellowship which accompany it, but other than that we’re kicking it family-style.

I don’t have much for tonight. We did tell Keaton about her coming new brother or sister, and video’d the conversation, but it wasn’t as all-out hilarious as I thought it might be and something crazy happened with the audio to where it’s got a terrible background hum. Even after several passes of noise reduction and voice amplification I was left with a slurry mess that isn’t worth further cleanup. So, you’ll have to take my word for it: Her reaction was underwhelming. I think she knows what’s going on, but almost four year olds are used to immediate pay-off, and this thing doesn’t satisfy there. Maybe as Sharaun’s belly grows and grows and grows it’ll sink in more for her. We’ll see.

OK folks… that’s enough for this evening. Off to load some 24-bit Beatles files onto my iPod (see the ‘tweener entry below for some context). Goodnight.

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unhurried & unharried

Not this time, Florida.

Finally.

A week of “vacation” in Florida where we haven’t been rushing from place to place to spend not-quite-enough time with friends and family gone unseen over the past year.  Oh sure, maybe you’d call that a bad thing, on the face of it… but I do hate to spend a “respite” from the sawmill all hurried and harried.

Not that I don’t enjoy seeing family, not that we haven’t, actually we’ve managed to spend time with most of the usual suspects just somehow in a less rushed, frantic way.  I guess what I mean is, the majority of my time off has been spent in this comfortable living room with my brothers and sisters-in-law, our children and their grandparents.  As compared to my ideal Thanksgiving, this doesn’t miss the mark by much, if any at that.

I’ve read hundreds of pages, played Yahtzee and Mexican Train (both family favorites and somewhat of a tradition on our trips home), danced around the living room to Motown with Keaton and her nephew Hobson, watched football and had beer with the men, and spent very little time online.  Keaton occupies her time primping in front of Ami’s (her nickname for Sharaun’s mom) dressing mirror, where drawers filled with jewelry and hair-baubles offer her hours of dress-up fun.  Each time she comes out to the living room to “reveal” her new look, and names herself modeled after a different Disney princess.  Her black eyes seem to be getting a little better, too, but she’s taken to calling the marks her “eyeshadow” and, I think, she’s actually starting to like them.

Even with the lazy slow-paced week, time seems to have passed much too fast and we’re faced with leaving after just another two nights in town.  Upon learning this, Keaton said, “But I don’t want to leave yet, dad.  Let’s leave in four days instead.  I love Ami too much; she makes me good food.  And I like playing with Hobson.  And my new bed; and getting to sleep in the same room as you and mommy.”

Owell, four days would be nice… but I don’t think the airline would honor our tickets, babe.

Until later then.  Have a good weekend and we’ll see you back in chilly California before too long.

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two black eyes

Bonk!

A week ago Tuesday, the week before we left for Florida, which is where we are now, I was on a phone meeting with an employee of mine around 5pm.  As we were wrapping up, with another ten minutes or so remaining in our conversation, Sharaun called my cellphone.  I didn’t answer.  About 50% of the time, when I’m working that is, I don’t.  Usually, she’ll just leave a message or send a quick text, assuming I’m occupied and can’t get to the phone.  This time, however, she rang my desk number immediately after.  When I didn’t a answer that, the cellphone again.  Curious, I politely put my call on hold and answered.

“Keaton hit her head really hard on the table and the size of the bump really has me worried,” she said.  “OK,” I replied, “Was she unconscious?  Did she get sick?  Is she acting funny?”  With a round of “Nope”s in reply, I told her I’d go ahead and get off the phone right away and come home just to check, but it sounded OK to me.

When I got home I was greeted with a seemingly normal daughter, all but for the humongous bruised and swollen lump over her left eye.  Sharaun was helping her ice it when I got there, and a friend who’d stopped by just minuted before I arrived had already given it his best dad’s inspection and “all’s well” report.  I took a look myself, poking it a bit and asking her how she felt (you know, the real scientific kind of diagnosis-stuff I learned in computer engineering school).  After talking to her and prodding her I myself was convinced she just had one heck of a bump (or “hematoma,” as Trapper John taught me). And folks… it was indeed a large  bump… as the picture above somewhat indicates (bad light plus iPhone doesn’t make for superlative photography).

Anyway, as the week wore on, and we got closer to coming back to Florida to see family and friends we’ve not seen in year, the blood in that bump drained down into little Keaton’s face.  First, the bridge of her nose appeared swollen; next, small black circles at the corner of her eyes.  By Saturday, however, when we flew across the country, she had two fully-developed shiners.  We got some looks in the airport, and one flight attendant even stooped to whisper, “I couldn’t help but notice your daughter’s eyes, are they just naturally dark like that?”  “No,” I replied, “She took a header into a table.”

Oh well… part of growing up I suppose.  I’ll spend the last few evenings before we leave GIMP’ing out the black eyes from all the Thanksgiving photos for family, no biggie.

Maybe later this week I’ll write a bit about being in Florida.  In brief though: It’s good to be back and the place feels the same.

Until later.