Easter remnants

It's been approximately 33 days since Easter Sunday and I'm still finding this crap in all sorts of weird places -fake grass from Easter baskets. It's like a green plastic plague that refuses to go away. It sticks to the broom, the dog, the furniture and sometimes the children.

This is one of many domestic issues that I probably wouldn't have noticed before my conversion to stay-at-home dad status. I keep fighting the good fight, throwing away these annoying strands of debris, but just when I think I'm winning another one pops up someplace. It may be breeding - can't say for certain. I've even found some in the dog's piles in our backyard. Apparently she's eaten some of it before. Maybe if I don't give her dog food for a couple days she'll eat more of it.

Have a great weekend.

Lunch date

Being a stay-at-home dad has many advantages. One of which is that I can choose to have lunch with my kids at their school if I so desire. Yesterday, I so desired.

My usual weekday companion and I went to share lunch with my 9 year-old daughter. We signed in at the office and waited patiently for her class to come by. After several minutes of standing around, we met up with them and my 2 girls hugged as if they hadn't seen each other in days. In reality, it had only been a matter of about 3 hours. Nevertheless, it was nice to witness such affection for one another. Our 3 girls all really do care for each other, they're each others' best friend. But just like any other siblings, some days the "hugs" can be substituted with "chokes".

My 4 year-old and I had packed a lunch for ourselves, but the oldest child elected to buy hers on this day. The peculiar looking meat which I later learned was "popcorn chicken" didn't look real appetizing to me. She thought it was wonderful. And at the time of this blog being posted, she has yet to get sick. Yowza.

We sat on the small cafeteria benches and started making small talk. I readied my youngest daughter's lunch and we talked about how everybody's morning had gone. And then a small boy with messy hair sat down across from us. He was more than excited to talk about his day. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him "Bob". Bob was a bit of a nervous high strung child who instantly started rapidly chatting about how he had forgotten many things already that morning.

"I can't believe this! I forgot barbecue sauce. Earlier I forgot my pencil. And guess what else I forgot? My napkins. What is wrong with me?" spouted off Bob.

"Easy there, Bob," I counseled. "We all have one of those days sometimes." I think Bob's parents probably keep an eye on how much sugar he ingests. I fear the poor kid's eyeballs would pop out of his head if he ate a whole bag of Skittles.

Trying to politely avoid further conversation with Bob, I looked at my 2 little girls and thought to myself how quickly time was going by. It didn't seem too long ago that my 3rd grader was in Kindergarten. I had several lunches with her at her school that year. And each time, she would start out sitting next to me. Then, little by little, she'd nestle closer to me until she finally just made her way up onto my lap. I loved the fact that she didn't care one lick about who saw her do it, because as far as she was concerned, it was the natural thing to do.

Fast forward a few years to yesterday. Feeling a bit nostalgic I asked her, "Do you remember how you used to sit on my lap when I ate lunch with you at school?"

For a moment, her eyes kind of widened and she looked at me fearfully. She replied, "No. I did that?"

"Yeah, but don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to do it now. But it was sure nice when you used to." She seemed to sigh with a little bit of relief at the news her father wasn't going to make her look like a baby in front of her friends. Although I don't know if anybody would have even said anything. They all seemed pretty occupied with their chicken popcorn. And Lord knows that Bob had his own issues going on across the table.

When the period was over, we said "good bye" and I gave her a quick kiss. There was a slight hesitation on her part but she didn't seem to mind too much. "I love you, Daddy. Have a good day," she said as she scurried off with the rest of her classmates.

"Thanks, Honey. You too." I reciprocated. "I'll see you after school."

In my mind, the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" started playing. Jackie Paper had just decided to come see Puff no more. I suppose that's a little over-indulgent on my part. But on occasion, certain little moments like this leave a significant impression on me. Maybe it's because I'm getting older or maybe it's just that little girls have that effect on their daddies. It's hard to say.

And then, instead of feeling depressed, I began feeling blessed to have three little girls who I adore. Apparently they dig me as well. Satisfied with that assessment, my 3 1/2ft. tall buddy and I exited the cafeteria. The nostalgic sadness quickly wore off and the rest of the day was great.

Hopefully Bob got his act together as well.

Rob & Kristy's wedding

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to photograph Rob & Kristy's wedding -what a great couple to work with. They are about as easy going people as you'll find. From a photographer's stand point, that is wonderful. It was a fun group of people to hang around with and we came away with some nice images of their wedding day.

Tooth drama

It finally happened. My daughter lost her tooth. It's been a favorite subject of hers for quite awhile now. Approximately 7 months ago she began asking us to wiggle her tooth, saying in her slightly lisped way, "I think ith even getting loother!" We didn't have the heart to tell her that the silly thing was stuck solid. And today, after all this much anticipated time, she finally got the thing to pop out after an aggressive brushing of her teeth before school.

Her eyes filled with tears (of fear, not joy) and yelled for me to come into the bathroom from my adjacent room. Blood was oozing down her bottom lip. Before I could ask her what happened she blurted out, "My tooth fell out!" It was as if the clouds parted and the glory of heaven had shined down into our bathroom.

20 minutes later the joy turned into panic when her younger sister lost the tooth. We scoured for a while and then the same sister finally found it. She went from goat to hero in the matter of about 15 minutes.

3 hours later, #3 daughter lost the tooth again. She defended herself explaining to me that, "I was only looking at it and it just fell out of my hand." Whatever. I again looked for quite awhile knowing that if the owner of the tooth came home from school with it still missing, things could get ugly. And they did. A few hours later, she returned home and was told the sad news. There was much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth(that were still in her mouth at least).

Foolishly, I suggested that maybe we just put an I.O.U under her pillow, or maybe we draw a picture of a tooth instead for the tooth fairy. By the look in her eyes, I could see that she thought I had lost my mind. It was worth a shot I thought. However, the tooth was again discovered a few hours later and all was good with the world once more.

Hopefully the Tooth Fairy doesn't fall asleep and fail to perform his one job duty tonight.

Dance fever

Happy belated Mother's Day to all you moms out there!

The past couple days have been busy for me. Thursday and Friday I photographed a lot of little girls, sequins, leotards, and a truck load of pink. This was my first year as official photographer for Lyn's Academy of Dance. Each year Lyn puts on a fantastic finale for parents to come watch their kids display what they've learned. It's a lot of work for everyone involved. Mother's Day is not necessarily a relaxing day for my wife. She gets the responsibility of putting on the dance costumes, fixing hair, and applying a little bit of makeup to our 2 daughters. The youngest takes dance lessons as well, but she'll not have anything to do with the big stage. Or, as she eloquently puts it, "I only like the practices, I don't like the game."

So yesterday, hundreds of parents and grandparents showed up at the Lima Civic Center. Dads generally trailed behind their wives and daughters, carrying cameras and video recorders, looking like they were a little confused by the whole thing. I include myself in that group. Dads get demoted to becoming pack mules and valet parking attendants on days like that. That's the easy job though. Our girls don't even entertain the idea of requesting help from me with any of the aforementioned apparel issues. If I did, members of the audience would be whispering such things to each other as, "That's strange, the program doesn't mention that any circus clowns are in this part of the show."

But after all the rushing around, it's completely worth having the chance to observe my little girls on that huge stage. I couldn't help but think about how another year had gone by so quickly. I remember coming to the dance recital last Mother's Day. (It sticks out in my mind because our youngest daughter behaved incredibly poor that day. Sadly, we have several other various memories that are marked by the same issue. sigh.)

One thing about having all girls, they've made me a much more sentimental person. I don't know if I'd be quite so much had my wife loved me enough to give me a son. kidding, kidding. She maintains that it has something to do with me...genetics and chromosomes or something like that. Whatever. I admit that I tear up every time one of them prances around on that stage. I don't know about the technical aspect of their dancing, but it all looks perfect to me. That is, once I figure out which girl on that stage is my daughter. They all look very much alike up there. For a few seconds into my 6-year-old's routine, I discovered that I had been taping the wrong person. Yikes. I didn't feel too bad though. When talking to another father afterward, I said to him in a sort of sarcastic tone, "Your daughter was the best one up there." He replied, "Really? You could tell which one she was? Coz I had a hard time figuring it out."

Next year our girls will be 10, 7, and 5. Whether or not the 5 year old will participate in the stage show remains to be seen. Like I've said before, she's a piece of work. That reminds me, I'd like to write a public apology at this time to the woman who sat in front of us yesterday. My daughter did not mean to fling her plastic bracelet at you. At least I am fairly certain it was unintentional. It was very dark in there so I actually didn't see what transpired. Nevertheless, you have my apology. And thank you for returning it to us. A less kind person might have kept it or possibly thrown the 25 cent piece of jewelry back at her. I wouldn't have blamed you if you chose the latter.

foolish games people play

Since I spend much of the days with our 4 year-old daughter, we occupy much of our time with various types of games. One of which is "Pictureka!". This is a game that my daughter has memorized and mastered. She has developed cognitively quite a bit over the course of the year. We are very proud of how she's progressed in various ways, but especially how she's increased her capability to grasp new concepts.

On the other hand, I fear that there is a strong possibility that I may be becoming dumber. This theory is supported by the end result of a recent spirited match between #3 child and myself. My pile is on the left. Sadly, I was trying to win. Even cheated a bit. The problem is that she's an even better cheater than me. And evidently she has a better short-term memory and vision which are both required to do well at this game. What's even more sad on my part, is that I stole one of her cards from her pile and added it to mine when she wasn't looking.

IDW marketing pics

This week I took some promotional marketing photographs for I DO WINDOWS! LLC. IDW is a service company that offers window cleaning & pressure washing. Here's a few pics from that shoot...