Archive for the ‘Miles’ Category
February 4th, 2010
at school miles class has an estimation jar. the teachers fill it with buttons or marshmallows or cotton balls or pens and then the kids all guess how many whatevers are in the jar and the teachers write down the guesses and circle the closest one, wahoo.
last night in the bath, miles filled a bottle with water and said, “let’s guess how many water are in this jar!”
i guessed 53. in a slightly condescending but gentle voice miles said, “that’s kind of a large number, let’s try to think of a smaller number.”
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December 1st, 2009
it’s going to be an interesting december around here. miles is really excited about christmas because he remembers some of the highlights from last year. but he doesn’t really understand everything he remembers so we’ve been trying to explain why santa didn’t come on thanksgiving and why he hasn’t come every night since. why we had to wait until today to start the advent calendar. why some places had christmas lights up but some places didn’t.
we put up the tree on sunday. the boys helped with the ornament hanging and were fully engaged the entire time. the front bottom third of the tree looks ridiculous, but they did such a good job coming to me to get an ornament and then taking it over to the tree and finding a spot for it. miles would stop and ask about different ornaments and where they came from and ozzie would stop and pluck ornaments off the tree and try to hit vixen with them.
i waited until this year to put up christmas lights outside. i wanted to wait until someone besides me would appreciate it and in past years erica’s been a little grinchy about stuff like that. miles was pretty oblivious to lights last year but i knew when i saw how excited he was when he saw the christmas lights on the starbucks in september, that this year would be the year. i finally finished the job today and had the house all lit up when i brought the boys home from daycare. miles said, “daddy, the house is so BOO-dee-ful!”
the cutest thing so far though is miles singing “jingle bells.” his best bit is the part that goes “oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh, HEY!” in miles-speak it goes “oh what fun it is to ride and what, What, WHAT YOU SAY? HEY!!”
before i get in more trouble, i have to say that erica isn’t grinching this year. she was supportive of my idea of starting a “snowy village” she says that like everyone knows what that is. she also said she wanted to start collecting snowmen which prompted our friend to say, “when did you turn so middle-aged?” which i think is what erica always wants to say to me at christmas time. i’ve been planning our future christmas traditions for the past three years and obviously that makes so much sense to erica because “planning” is her middle name. hopefully we’ll have plenty of traditions that develop organically, but the years fly by and without a little planning, before we know it the boys will be teenagers and i’ll be all, “where’s my snowy village?”
Posted in Aaron, Erica, Miles, Oz, family | 1 Comment »
August 18th, 2009
miles: dad, those people didn’t pick up they garbage.
me: yeah, we don’t leave our trash out do we?
miles: dad, they bad people.
me: i think they’re good people who just did something not very nice.
miles: dad, some people are bad people.
me: most people are good, but yes, some people can be bad.
miles: dad, some people are bad people and some people have swords.
me: bingo.
Posted in Aaron, Miles | 1 Comment »
August 12th, 2009
1. miles to erica: mommy, i yike you. (higher pitched) a yot!
2. at the grocery store i grabbed some nutter butters for ozzie because he was losing his brain. miles insisted he didn’t want one but then grabbed one anyway then said, “hey, wait a minute! this IS good!”
3. miles: daddy, i pooped this big (arms wide open) in my pottah!!
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July 20th, 2009
the funniest thing happened last night. we had had a pretty busy weekend with a little shopping on saturday morning followed by our usual trip to the vancouver farmers’ market for lunch. the boys like to visit pete’s paella stand. they’re so fancy. there was some kind of firemans’ chili cookoff happening so miles got to check out some big fire engines and spray a fire hose into the trees. after a late nap we went out for dinner and then played in the backyard until bedtime.
we had promised miles a trip to the zoo on sunday so after i watched the end of that day’s stage of the tour de france we went to the zoo and looked at the animals and took a train ride around washington park. from the top of the hill miles spied the playground on the other side of the park and requested some play time at the “red park”. unfortunately by the time we got loaded in the car oz was semi-conscious and miles was being agitated by everything. the air he was breathing, the sun in the sky, the color of his shoes, he just did not yike it. i finally just told him that i knew he was unhappy and uncomfortable and that i was sorry but he needed to just sit and not talk. somehow that worked.
our neighbor and her daughter were coming over sunday night to watch the boys so that erica and i could get dinner and go see a musician perform in portland. so after another late nap for all of us, we decided to take the boys to the park for an hour to get the squirrels out a little bit. we stopped and got some fried rice to take to the park for a little picnic. miles was too busy playing to eat much and without a table, the extra distance from food to mouth was too far for ozzie to get much in his mouth with a fork, which he insisted on using. when we got home i set them both up with a little plate of food they needed to finish and then gave them each a fortune cookie.
either ozzie’s was a special kid cookie with no fortune or he gobbled it almost immediately after cracking the thing open. wouldn’t put it past him. some lucky diaper changer may get an inspirational message today. miles cracked his cookie and handed me his fortune and i read, “today you will have an important discussion.” i set it down on the counter and he immediately picked it up and pretended to read, “you will go to the zoo again today.”
Posted in Aaron, Miles, family | 2 Comments »
June 25th, 2009
miles: daddy, cover me.
(daddy covers miles)
miles: daddy, i cold.
(daddy snuggles close to miles)
miles: daddy, get a-WAY from me!
(daddy rolls eyes and scoots back to where he was)
miles: daddy, i can’t be-YEEVE this room.
miles: daddy, i can’t be-YEEVE you paint this room.
daddy: why?
miles: daddy, the shy-yer (shower) broken.
daddy: i kn…
miles: daddy, why the shy-yer STILL broken?
daddy: i have to wait until i get paid to have someone come and fix it.
miles: daddy, i want to help you fix the shy-yer.
miles: daddy, i went to coyege (college) yessday.
miles: daddy, i learn about ammals (animals) as coyege yessday.
miles: daddy, i yike cheetahs. they FAST!
miles: daddy, take me to the couch for movies, please.
(daddy picks up miles)
miles: daddy, you big.
miles: daddy, my big too.
daddy: yes, you’re getting really big.
miles: daddy, i watch wubzy and have milk now.
silence
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June 22nd, 2009
it’s been quite a while since i’ve had a chance to update my blog. i’ve been working quite a bit and spending the remaining time playing with the kids or working in the yard.
i have just been enjoying the heck out of our kids. miles has kept me laughing since day one, but he continues to up his game. in addition to being accidentally funny, he uses a growly fake yell to signal “this is a joke.” the past few days instead of taking his morning milk on the couch, he joins me in my bed for ‘nuggles under the sheets in our ‘tent’.
this morning i was having a hard time waking up and had started to nod off again. suddenly miles was fake-yelling and i realized that the tent had been filled with a noxious smell. then i realized what miles had been saying, “DADDY, YOUR BUTT IS DIS! GUSS! TING!!”
oscar is growing into his personality more every day. miles’ favorite song is “another believer” from meet the robinsons. we listen to it over and over again in the car and at home. every time i put ozzie in his car seat his starts singing the song.
we’ve started instituting a binky in bed only policy. removing the plug has resulted in a constant stream of sing-songy babbling. he has a few words: more, cracker, puppy, ball. mostly he just babbles with lots of inflection.
he does sometimes manage to make his way back into the bedroom to grab the binky. he then slowly walks out of the room and makes constant eye contact while sucking vigorously on the binky. it’s somehow obvious that this is him asking if he can have his binky. we then tell him to go put the binky back to bed. he slowly turns around and ambles back to the bedroom and then reemerges after a few seconds. then he comes back out more slowly again with the binky and the asking eyes. he knows what we’re saying but he just can’t quite bring himself to put it down.
i just can’t believe i have such wonderful kids. i hadn’t planned to be a parent, in fact i had specifically planned not to be a parent. part of that is because in my unmedicated state i can only make the con side of pro/con lists. i didn’t want to have to deal with discipline and teenagers who hated me and my own inevitable failings and second-guessings.
then my sister had her son and my mother-in-law couldn’t believe how comfortable i was holding a baby and our parents and a few other people started mentioning that we would be great parents. this coincided with me beginning to take an amazing medication called effexor that allowed me to begin to imagine the positive outcomes of a particular course of action and to stop living in mortal fear of my own failure.
i’m not any kind of evangelist for parenthood, i have no energy invested in whether anyone else does or does not have kids. i will say that i have realized that there is something amazing about being a parent that you just can’t grasp if you haven’t been a parent. i’m not necessarily claiming that it’s something everyone should experience, but my own life is certainly richer for it.
it’s incredible to be one of the few people my kids feel completely unembarrassed around all the time. i get to be right there when miles says from the backseat of the car, “hey aaron, what you doing, aaron?” to open the door to a room and have miles so excited to see me that he comes running across the room and leaps into my arms. to have oz raise his arms to me and when i lift him up he stops crying and pushes his cheek into mine.
i can’t believe i get to be ‘that guy’ for, as far as i’m concerned, the two most amazing kids in the world. they’re so full of energy, humor, surprises, love and sweetness and i’m so excited to get to know them as they grow. i hope i don’t forget to help them get to know me so that in twenty years on father’s day 2029, they don’t have to call erica from the bookstore to ask her what kind of books i like, they’ll know that what i’d like a million times more is for them to read one of the books that i like, come and sit in my backyard and talk to me about it all afternoon and tell me that my butt is still disgusting.
Posted in Aaron, Miles, Oz, family | 2 Comments »
May 18th, 2009
it is with utmost affection for our friend brandon that i tell this story. britta and brandon came over for a few hours on sunday afternoon. miles had been really excited because he adores britta and brandon and oz got very excited once they arrived. unfortunately miles was pretty loony and had to take numerous trips to timeout before he was able to develop some impulse control.
after we took the boys in and gave them a bath and i got miles down for bed (and then came back outside to find that erica had oz outside in his pajamas) i was finally catching my breath. brandon, who will be a dad by the end of the year, said, “so, do you find that weekends are less restful than weekdays?” my response, “are you kidding?” i love my life, but we left the realm of the restful years ago. we no longer have a position relative to the state of restfulness.
Posted in Miles, Oz | 6 Comments »
