The Latest Earworms (a.k.a. The Songs That Get Stuck In Your Head) At Our House...

Earlier this month we went on a family camping trip (which, by itself, is a whole other post!) and Jen made a CD for Claire and Bridget to listen to on the way to the mountains. Not realizing the extent of the explicit lyrics to I Love It (radio edit provided) we popped in the CD and down the road we went.
Then, last week, Jen's brother sent a text regarding the best app ever. Dumb Ways To Die is now a game. It is a pretty funny video, and the game itself appears to be quite entertaining.

I gotta tell ya, hearing I Love It immediately followed by Dumb Ways To Die is bad enough. It's worse when the get stuck in my head ALL. DAY. LONG. Its to the point now that I'm doing an internal mashup in my head.
However, its rather hysterical to watch Bridget dance to and scream along with I! DON'T! CARE! - I LOVE IT, then mimic some of the dead dancers (my personal favorite is the super glue eater!).

And now that you're doing your own internal mashup, here's the surefire cure for getting songs unstuck from your head!

For Want Of A Leotard...

For those of you who are new, or may not be aware, Audrey belongs to a dance studio located by our house. Wednesday she received her costume for her Jazz Dance class, and was told what time to be at the studio for pictures (whoa, wait...PICTURE time? Already???) on Saturday. As soon as we get home, she tells Jen the news/time and goes about her evening.

And Estrogen Hell has ensued ever since! All because we cannot find Audrey's nude colored leotard. Each night since, and all this morning has been a cry/fit/yell fest, for which the only remedy has been the promise of a new leotard.

Perhaps its because I'm a guy, or maybe because I'm inherently lazy, but for want of a leotard...

Deeper and Deeper...

So, over the Veterans Day weekend, some more estrogen was added to the pool. I met my sister Kim, her daughter Melina, my step-mom Debbie, and my soon to be sister-in-law Sara. These new arrivals will add even more new dimensions to my already vast array of testosterone laced goofs.

The good news is that I met Kim's boyfriend/Melina's dad Kirk, and Sara's fiance (my brother!!!) Brian as well. So, hooray for me. While the pool just got a little deeper, I also have a couple of new testosterone based life preservers!

Just A Little MORE Understanding, Please...

If you missed it, here is the first installment of my lack of understanding.
This is a continuation of the following Google+ post:

In high school, I was really good friends with my best friends sister. And not just because I was passionately in love with her (which I denied every five seconds!), but because we understood each other. I still have friends who are girls/women, and all of those friendships are purely platonic. But we're still great friends.

Of the myriad of jobs that I've had, more of my managers have been women. I have found all of them to be excellent leaders and great managers to work for!

I have always worked well alongside my female colleagues in the workplace. I have found all of them to be competent and just as dedicated as I like to think I am!

Why is it then that I just DO NOT get my wife and oldest daughter sometimes?! It's like we all speak some sort of alien gibberish at each other.

This is really troubling to me, now that Audrey is a full-fledged "tween". I don't want to be the dad who doesn't "get" my kid. At the same time, I don't want to be that husband who cannot communicate with his wife.

To Audrey...

Ten years have come and gone so fast! I remember bringing you home; you were so tiny. I can picture everything we've done together since then. Your first smile, tooth, step, fall, skinned knee, split lip, soccer goal, softball hit, report card, drawing, word, hug, and kiss are all lovingly etched in my brain. Today you are  more than a kid. Now you're a young lady, but you'll always be my little girl!!
As I think on what the next ten years will bring, I can't help but feel they will be exciting! I look forward to makeup, junior high school, driving (ok, not so much), high school, boyfriends (ok, not really at all!) and college.
I hope that you will always remember how much your mom and I love you, how proud we are of you, and how much you mean to all of us.

Ēadiġ ġebyrddæġ Sweetheart!

Look, Dad...TAN LINES!!!...

Ah, Summer. A time for pools, bikes, BBQs, and sunshine.
It sure seems as if my girls live at the pool. We have lots of friends who enjoy taking Jen and the girls to their pools, and Jen loves taking the girls to local public pools. Its a great way to keep them from staring at the idiot box, or the iPod/Kindle Fire, for countless hours.
Jen is extremely careful to slather sunscreen all over our kids. But when you're at the pool as much as they are, you're going to get some color. For those of you not aware, I am as pasty pale white as they come. I burn, peel, and turn white again. My arms are only slightly less white that the rest of me due to 40+ years of exposure, not because I tan well.
Last week, Claire came racing up the stairs from their latest trip to a watery paradise with exciting news for me. She and Audrey yanked down their swimsuits and said, "Look at us dad, we have tan lines again! Aren't they great?!?". I said yes, and went to go start the bath. Claire then came in and said, "Dad, you should get a tan too. Then you'd be pretty, just like us!".

Tempting, but I think I'll pass!

A Trip To The Attic...

Recently, Jen decided that Claire and Bridget needed an update to their wardrobes. With "Sprimmer" here, each will need clothes that are a little more comfortable for the warmer temperatures. The fact that it snowed and rained and was 20 or so degrees colder than the previous days when we started this adventure is irrelevant.
So while I'm up in the attic, my feet dangling from the in-ceiling access hatch, Claire decided she wanted to come up with me. She climbed the ladder like the little trooper she is and got to the top step...and FROZE! After 10 or 15 minutes (ok, probably not THAT long, but it sure seemed like it!) of coaxing her to reach up with both hands for me to grab her, she chose to skip the fun in the attic and concentrate on the new batch of jeans, shorts, and T-shirts being plucked from the bins. Bridget had already pulled out a myriad of items that were, seemingly, very fun to play with (and chew on, in the case of the shoes!).

Poor Audrey however found out the hard way that she was exempt from all this apparent fun. In the middle of the event she asked Jen if she were getting some new outfits from the attic as well. Jen's reply was, "No. These are all YOUR old clothes!" A dejected Audrey sulked away, embittered by the fact that she's the oldest and can only "get new clothes". HUMPH!