There is obviously a stealth in this that I have not mastered yet. I get it. I keep EVERYTHING. You never know when you are going to need that right? It is a hard habit to break. The problem is, and we all know this, is that you can’t keep every little cute thing they make. You should however keep certain things, like notes that they write to you, their first report card, and creative moments that are just too sweet to throw away. My wife is more calculating and I am more of a sentimental sap so it is hard for me to say goodbye to some of these things. We already have a plastic bin full of Adam’s firsts and it makes sense to me that hey, I better ween some of these things out because he is only in 1st grade! His first grade math homework I will pass on but the note saying “Dear Daddy, You are a great Dad. Keep up the good work. Love, Adam” is something I will cherish forever.

Thank god…any more would surely kill me.

(Yeah, so, totally sorry about the lack of anything remotely interesting but, well, as I tell my kids, you get what you get and you don’t get upset.)

Guess which one is Frank

I wrote about the creative ailments that Segundo has suffered through and his story telling prowess but in the last couple of days he has come up with a whole new schtick that raises the bar of three-year old comedy. He no longer wants to be called his given name and would instead like to be called Frank. “Daddy my name is Frank now so that’s what you should call me!” He informed us of the name change on Sunday and since then he has really been fleshing out this new character. When we dropped Primo off at school on Monday morning he was still Segundo but once we got home he informed me that he was now Frank and needed to go change. He put on a t-shirt and shorts and came running out  of his room to pose in an action shot stance and tell me that “Frank loves to exercise!” He then started running laps around the house and asked me to keep track of them. We got up to twenty before he took a break and told me that Frank needs some water in order to exercise more. Then he went around the house picking up the things he could and lifting them up over his head chanting “Ex-er-cise, ex-er-cise, ex-er-cise”

I was nearly wetting my pants from laughter watching him transform into this crazy character apparently channeling the ghost Jack Lalane. His whole face changes into this new person and the glint in his eye is hilarious. He has put on a show for Beautiful and my Dad when they both got home for work and had them cracking up too. We learned that Frank has the same parents but is not the same person as Segundo, the way you can tell them apart is that “Frank just loves to exercise, and Segundo just likes to play.” I don’t know how we continue to encourage this creative expression but I want to make sure that I do everything I can. Right now he good for a post a week on this blog and I can always use the content.

I’ve heard it said that daughters are “easier” than sons. Quite a few times actually, and now that I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anybody tell me it the other way around, at least not with any real believability. I’m not sure what part about raising daughters is supposed to be easier. Personally I’m a father of three boys, and Charlie’s got a son too, so our website must seem a lot like Charlie and Andy and the Sausage Factory. Despite the high-testosterone volume on our site, we love the fact that women rock out on our site as much as men do, so we put the question to both genders of our readers: are daughters easier than sons?

Don’t be shy. Crazy opinions with no foundation in reality or any prior experience are welcome. We write about stuff we have no clue about all the time.

–Andy

To cap off bedtime is his innumerable menagerie, beasts which co-exist in remarkable ways. A lion, some bears, a penguin, an alligator, a gorilla, a gruffalo. I’m pretty sure there’s tiger and some dogs, an octopus, and a giraffe. And of course we can’t forget the various forms of juvenile sheep.

Who can blame the little guy. If his animal friends keep him company (and better yet asleep) then where’s the harm. I’ve only started taking a bit more notice as I’m repeatedly waking with one or two members of this personal zoo blocking my airway. He’s taken to a nocturnal prowl that ends with him creeping into our bed with as much of the wild kingdom as he can cram in his surprisingly encompassing toddler grasp. And this week I’ve started to have a bigger problem with the recent additions to his nighttime cuddle buddies. Last night it was Francesco Bernoulli and this evening it is a mobile phone.

I don’t mind the characters, but my ribs miss the forgiving lambs of nights past.