It smells yucky

Can someone please explain to me why our entire town smells like the pachyderm house at Brookfield Zoo?

With Friends Like These

What's the difference between a friend and a spammer?

The difference is when you receive an email with a picture attached and the only text is "Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?", if it's from a friend, you might actually open it. Thanks for the pic Stacey!

The Myth Maker

I have discovered the answer to an archeological mystery that has stymied experts for centuries. How did the Greek mythologies get their start? Who was the first to tell of these stories? I have that answer my friends. All of Greek mythology was created by a parent of a 3 year old just to stop that infernal question "Why?".
I have now joined that great tradition of myth making in an effort to get my 3 year old to stop asking why. Honestly, how do you answer "Why is it raining?" Any scientifically accurate answer I could muster would almost immediately result in another why question. "Why does water evaporate?" "Why does water condense". Quite frankly, Lauren needs to be at least 5 years old if I'm going to lecture her in climatology (accreditation pending). So, I came up with this: "It's raining because the clouds are sad. Their friend, the sun, has left, so they're crying". Huzzah! That stopped the why questions! Of course, every time it rains now, Lauren has to repeat my newly created myth, but I can deal with that.

Growing up too fast

It is amazing how fast the kids grow up.
In a matter of a few months, Eric went from crawling to running; gummy smile to 10 teeth; eating baby food to demanding my steaks for dinner. He also apparently suffers from PMS. I have no idea how this happens to a 15 month old boy, but it has. He can throw the most extraordinary fits imaginable. These fits usually include flinging his head into something hard. If you're lucky, it's an inanimate object instead of something animate ... like my cheek. What makes this PMS though is not the fit itself, but that in the middle of these fits, he laughs. This weekend, he was laying on the floor screaming like a banshee. As a concerned and caring father, I decided to pretend I was going to step on him. He found this hysterical. Each time I planted my foot on his stomach, he giggled and laughed and guffawed. Each time I removed my foot, he immediately resumed the tirade. No transition. No start up phase. It was Full Laugh - Full Scream - Full Laugh - Full Scream and so on. and I thought Lauren was moody!
Instead of throwing a fit, Lauren almost caused me to throw a fit. This morning, we cuddled on the couch and watch the Weather Channel. It was a great moment that I cherished, because earlier this morning, she did something that was a little too ... adult. Walking from Eric's room to ours, she tripped, got up and exclaimed "Awwww ... DAMMIT!" I froze in my tracks. I didn't know what to say. This was the first cuss word she's ever uttered. I wanted to chastise her, but I also wanted to compliment her on using it correctly. I mean, if one were to exclaim "Awww ... DAMMIT", that would be the time. I did gather my composure and explain that she used a bad word and she shouldn't speak like that. As with any parent, I then did a search of my mental data bank. I was worried that somehow I had taught her this exclamation and was going to pay the price when Debbie found out. I couldn't remember saying this around the kids, so I thought I was safe. Searching for a source, I mentioned the incident to Lauren's daycare provider. Her face said it all. One of the kids at daycare had said this phrase earlier. Phew! No retribution for me. I could safely tell debbie about the incident and not have my beating heart ripped out of my chest and, still beating, displayed for my horror. Now, that still might happen for Debbie's amusement, but at least it wouldn't be for a good reason ... well ... at least not THAT reason. There's reasons a plenty other than that, but I at least I wasn't guilty of teaching our daughter to curse.

Well, not yet anyway.

Gallery is back up

Among other projects I've been working on the past few months, one of them is restoring our online photo gallery after a server crashed wrecked the hard drive. I used the opportunity to upgrade to Gallery 2.0 which has some nice features, like a random image as part of the web page. Anyway, the gallery is now up featuring photos starting in October 2007 going through February 2008. Still a lot of photos to post, but this will give you a nice start. The link is:

http://www.chrispy.net/~brown/gallery