Knock, Knock...Who's There?

Let's take a little trip to Odd-Land, shall we?

Our three-year-old woke up this morning, came into our room and announced the following:


"I heard a noise in my room last night while I was sleepin'."

"You did?", we asked, "What did it sound like?"

Our daughter replied, "Well, it, um, sounded like...a knock-knock joke!"

I will pause for a moment to let that sink in.

It was at this precise moment in the conversation that I could feel the synapses of my brain frying. Surely, I was about to have an aneurism trying to figure this one out.

After we re-gained our composure, we asked,

"What did the knock-knock joke sound like?"

"Well," said our daughter, "it sounded like....'knock knock, who's there, banana!'"

I can tell you that, at this point, my brain looked at me, picked up its coat and said, "I'm outta' here...check please."

Now, I have heard lots of noises in my sleep. I have had moments where I could've sworn that the kids were calling me. At times, I have heard the dog having some sort of "gotta' get that rabbit" dream and huffing & puffing in his sleep...at least I HOPE that's what he's dreaming about.

I mean, he's a dog. What about his life is so stressful that he has nightmares?

"Laying on the floor, laying on the floor, licking up crumbs, licking myself, laying on the floor, gotta' go outside, gotta' go back in, gotta' eat, gotta' see what's on top of this counter, gotta' grab this brownie before anyone sees me, oops got yelled at, gotta' go get some sleep."

That's the extent of his exciting day. Still, he huffs and puffs and whines in his sleep. This, by the way, usually causes me to ball up one of my socks and lob it down to the foot of bed and peg him right in the snout.

"SHHHH!", I call out to the dog.

He then assumes that I am calling him, of course.

"Hmmm....'SHHHH'," he thinks to himself, "That must mean 'come here and lick my hand.'"

He then comes over to the side of the bed and plants a big, wet one on me to see what's up. I usually give him an obligatory pat on the head.

"Now, go back to sleep....good boy...and shut up."

ANYWAY, in all of my years, I have never heard a knock-knock joke in my room in the middle of the night...although I admit, the prospect does seem rather entertaining.

Of all the knock-knock jokes in the world, why would she hear the old "Banana...'banana who?'" joke?

I gave my daughter the only advice I could think of.

"Orange you glad you were able to go back to sleep?" :-)

Busted by a Three-Year-Old

My wife came home from work on Saturday and we all decided to head over to the mall for some shopping and dinner. 'Tis the season, right?

I had just spent the morning alone with my girls and was relieved to have my wife home from work to lend a hand, although Saturday mornings are my favorite as far as 'Daddy Time' goes.

As we were headed over to the mall, my three-year-old daughter chimed in from the back seat,

"Daddy! Tell Mommy about when you got MAD!"

Uh oh, I thought. Here it comes. I replied,

"Yes, Daddy got a little mad this morning but it's OK now."

Just when I thought that this would blow over...she chimed in again,

"Yes, Mommy. Daddy bonked-ed his head on the kitchen chair and he got mad...and yelled at it...and then he KICKED it!"

Yep, I was toast. I've got a pretty good handle on the old Italian temper these days. Still, I was bent down, trying to fix a loose screw on the cast-iron chair when the phone rang, the doorbell rang, the baby started crying, and the dog started barking.

I jumped up and slammed the right side of my eye socket right into the cast-iron chair. For a moment, I thought I was going to have a black eye and I momentarily went a little ape.

I could tell that I had scared my three-year-old, though, so I immediately went over and told her I was sorry for yelling at the chair (no BAD words, thank goodness) and that I shouldn't have kicked it.

I also made sure she knew that I wasn't mad at her, that I had just gotten mad at that silly chair.

Eventually, the family had a good laugh about what is now known as 'the kitchen chair incident'.

For now, I am focusing on 'breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out'. :-)

Blogging Award!

My good friend The Sports Mama was kind enough to give me a blogging award.

Head on over to her "You Don't Have to Like Me" blog to check it out!

Three Girls & a Daddy

Now that our littlest one is three months old, my wife has gone back to work.

She works on Saturdays so this past Saturday was my first day ALONE with our girls...ten, three, and three months, for those playing along at home.

Now I admit, once her car pulled off, I had a brief Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone" moment..."AAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

However, this quickly passed and changed over to a Southwest Airlines commercial...

"Don't...leave me...with...the baby!"

Once I settled down, I remembered that I had been through this before...it was just that before there were TWO girls and now there were THREE.

I began to wonder...could I really fix a pony tail, blow a nose, and change a poopy diaper all at the same time? Could I really fix an iPod AND get the Dora website unstuck WHILE holding a baby and a bottle full of breast milk?

Which reminds me...I have never been so careful not to spill something. I don't know why...it just doesn't seem right.

"Oh noooooo, there it goes....down the sink! NOOOOOO!"

And so the morning went.

"Dad?"

"Daddy?"

"WAAAAAAH!"

"Dad?"

"Daddy?"

"WAAAAAAH!"

I was becoming brainwashed. We went to a party that night. Someone introduced themselves to me. I replied,

"Yes, Hi, I'm Dad Daddywaaah. This is my wife Mom Mommygooo."

The morning was sort of a blur...but we survived. The next thing I knew, it was 2pm and the ten-year-old had gone off with her 'other' dad, the three-year-old was taking her nap, and the three-month-old was asleep in the swing.

Ahhhh. I could finally take a minute and relax on the couch.

I had just sat down when the dog came over to me and gave me that look...you know, the one where he's saying...

"Did you notice that I need to go out?"

Just then I heard the garage door open. Not a moment too soon, I thought.

"Tell it to the judge," I told him. "I'm off duty."

Template Crash

I had a nice little Blogger template crash today. It was really my own fault but, hey, now I get to try one of these new-fangled Blogger templates.

It looks just like the old one except that I lost every single thing I had in the other template.

Do me a favor, if I had a link to your site here, and it's gone now, remind me and I will put it back.

Well, off to restore everything I can. Good times.

Letters from Santa!

Hey, everyone. My older daughter came home from school told me about this website where you can send your kids an 'actual' letter from Santa that will arrive in the mail.

For about $10, it's a no-brainer...

So, just click here --> for Letters from Santa.

"Daddy, What's a 'Ho'?"

It was only a matter of time before my 10-year-old daughter came home from school one day and hit us with a bomb.

Yesterday, as we were sitting down to eat, she looked right at my wife and me and asked,

"What's a 'ho-house'?"

My first reaction was to just HOPE that our 3-year-old daughter wasn't paying attention. Words stick to that kid's brain like glue.

I could just see her playing with the grandparents one day...

"Look, Pop Pop...it's a HO-HOUSE!"

Anyway, my wife and I looked at each other and did our best to stifle a chuckle. My wife looked at me and whispered under her breath,

"I think I see a blog coming on."

Does she know me or what?

So, my daughter explained that one of her friends used this term at school and claimed that she didn't know what it meant...although, she DID substitute the 'proper' terminology later on in the discussion with no explanation as to how she knew the term.

My wife and I did our best to provide a straight-forward, yet slightly ambigous explanation.

I was relieved when about two minutes into it, my 10-year-old said,

"OK, OK...that's enough."

Thank goodness!

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Post-script - My 3-year-old daughter came home from preschool today with her Thanksgiving crafts in hand. At school, she had to write down three things she was thankful for...and, from the home office, here are the results...

- My Mommy

- My Daddy

- My Bed

Smart kid.

She Rolled Over!

Our two-month-old rolled over yesterday! She is ahead of the game in MY book, granted, I'm a little biased.

Maybe there's hope that she won't pick up my procrastinating habits. I mean, really, I think I'm the only guy in the neighborhood that races down the driveway and HANDS our full garbage cans to the trash guys as they go by.

Now, I know, if you don't have kids, you might be thinking, "Heck, I roll over all the time."

For a two-month-old, however, this seems to take quite a lot of effort.

Her thought process seemed to go something like this...

"Laying on my stomach, laying on my stomach, laying on my stomach....OK, I've been doing this for two months...I'm in a rut...I need a little variety...

"Maybe if I PUSH really hard......I can try to.....maybe I can JUST....

"On second thought, my stomach isn't so bad. No, wait...this is BORING...I can DO this...

"I'll just PUSH again...here we go...here we go...

"Oh GREAT! Now, everyone is looking at me. What, you've never seen someone roll over before?? Sheesh.

"OK, here we go, here we go, here we go...I THINK I can, I THINK I can, I THINK I...

"WHOA!! I'm on my back! Everyone is clapping! WOW, this is GREAT! Laying on my back, laying on my back, laying on my back...

"OK, how do I get back onto my stomach?"

Ban on Hugging??

Please tell me this isn't happening...

MASCOUTAH, Ill. - Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday.

"I feel it is crazy," said Megan, who was to serve her second detention Tuesday after classes at Mascoutah Middle School.

"I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend," she said.

Megan's mother, Melissa Coulter, said the embraces weren't even real hugs — just an arm around the shoulder and slight squeeze.

"It's hilarious to the point of ridicule," Coulter said. "I'm still dumbfounded that she's having to do this."

District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair and that administrators in the school east of St. Louis were following policy in the student handbook.

It states: "Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved."

Coulter said she and her husband told their daughter to go ahead and serve her detentions because the only other option was a day of suspension for each skipped detention.

"We don't agree with it, but I certainly don't want her to get in more trouble," Coulter said.

The couple plan to attend the next school board meeting to ask board members to consider rewording the policy or be more specific in what is considered a display of affection.

"I'm just hoping the school board will open their eyes and just realize that maybe they shouldn't be punishing us for hugs," Megan said.

Don't Crash, Daddy - Part II

Why is there a part II?

Because I had a conversation with my three-year-old this morning. As I was leaving for work, she once again said,

"Bye, Daddy! Don't crash!"

I said, "Sweetie, if you're worried about that, just try saying 'Drive carefully.'"

We practiced a few times. She had it down pat.

So I went to leave for work once again.

My daughter turned to me with a proud grin and said,

"Bye Daddy! Drive carefully!.....and don't crash!"

Back to the drawing board.

"Bye, Daddy. Don't Crash."

The 3-year-old mind is an interesting thing. My daughter was saying goodbye to me this morning as I left for work.

I now know what the 3-year-old version of "Drive carefully" is.

"Bye, Daddy. Don't crash."

This kid might need some medication when she grows up. :-)