Like a full sippycup.

A delicious meal.

The perfect eyewear.

Star Wars.

(ok maybe not quite yet)

The wind in your hair.

Family.

Quiet contentment.

And of course, cake in the morning.

I love you. Happy birthday, little thing.

Look closely at the picture above. To the casual observer, this may look like Nerf darts scattered across a suburban cul-de-sac. To me, they spell the word validation. Validation for a moment’s notice decision to move the entire family from Los Angeles to a small town no one’s ever heard of in Northern CA. Validation for my using the word hella in a post title in an attempt to adopt the vernacular of my new home (ok, maybe some things can never be validated).

When we first packed up and left, I had fears. My own migration into suburbia also happened in 4th grade. It didn’t go so well. While times and racial tolerance are different now, I couldn’t help but worry that I was removing Fury from everything that he ever knew and plunking him down in unfamiliar territory to fend for himself. Well, he fended for himself, alright. With Nerf guns blazing, sqeals of laughter and a gang of neighborhood homies of all colors, creeds and Axe spray varietals. They show up at all hours of the day, ravage our snacks like locusts, and make this new house a home for Fury.

And because this town was built with parks and bikepaths connecting every neighborhood, I can actually let him bike outside of our own driveway for once. In fact, I give him a cell phone and he rides for miles. I know this because he calls me and says “Dad, I am in front of [any given address]. Check Google Maps. How far have I gone?”

The only thing missing is jobs, which d Wife and I both moved here without. However, things are looking up on that front for both of us. I don’t like to jinx things that help me pay my mortgage, so that’s all I will say about that for now. However, not having to go to work each day means I can do things like help my buddy Toheed (who moved here from LA a year before I did, and wouldn’t shut up about how awesome it was until I did too) do random things like dismantle a car wash. Lessons learned there: a rented forklift is worth every penny, and tweakers you hire off the street are excellent at unbolting lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of bolts.

The dismantled carwash is pictured above. Also, the house next to ours is empty and available in case you’re looking to move to the best little town no one, not even NorCal people, have ever heard of. And no, we’re not turning it into a carwash, though if that crossed your mind, you know me well.

Oh yeah, file this one under “Makes your relocation a whole hell of a lot easier to swallow”: LG Electronics found me at the Dad 2.0 Summit and said (and I paraphrase): “Jim, we’d like to pimp your family room for our Techorating Challenge.”

I said yes, and showed them a picture of my family room:

“Have at it,” I said.

Then this happened…

And then they gave me a script, some makeup and turned my house into a film studio for 18 hours.

They also did the same thing to High Tech Dad and then pitted us against one another in a grueling fight to the finish. At least we both get to plunk down at the end of this Techorating Challenge and rehydrate in front of our 55″ LG LCD 3D TVs (QRS… TUV… WXY and Z). The electronics and home decorating cockfight, hosted by ESPN’s Stuart Scott, is depicted below, if you dare:

I’m showing you all this because it too can be yours. Just go to the LG Techorating Challenge Facebook page and enter to win your own Techorated room. You only have one day left to do this (procrastination would be my middle name if it weren’t Ching-kuo). They close it off on Wednesday, May 2 at 11:59:59 pm EST. You have to vote for one of us, but really, it doesn’t matter who you vote for. The TV and room make-over were enough for me. I don’t even know what I win, if I win and it doesn’t really matter.

And remember kids, a good disclosure statement gives you healthy teeth and gums and keeps your blog out of the government no-no house, so here goes:

*YO YO YO! LG or its affiliates have not kicked me over a dime for any articles or posts. They did, however hook me up with a gang of stuff, like a 55″ 3D LCD TV, some classy “MTV Cribs” caliber furniture (I’m still waiting on that stripper pole, though), an LG Bluetooth Soundbar, and they even threw in a microwave just for the hell of it. All this was provided as part of the Techorator program experience. However, all articles, tweets, and other materials that I post related to LG products and the Techorator program are entirely my own opinion. In fact, everything I post is always my own opinion, which would mean that if this were North Korea, I would be making license plates with my healthy teeth.

*Mic drop. Peace in the middle east.

Living means sharing the things you love with those you love, even if they can’t quite stand on their own yet.

It means shouldering the burden, every once in a while. And making your chiropractor rich in the process.

And rocking on with your bad selves, whenever and wherever possible.

Living also means passing on valuable life skills, like an intimidating staredown.

Or the ways of the Force.

And realizing that making a mess is half the fun, no matter what you’re trying to do…

But that cleaning up well will get you far in life.

Living also means knowing that some rules were meant to be broken (this is us visiting the temple where my dad’s ashes rest – and bringing some JD to pour one for our homie).

Most of all, it’s about knowing that one day you will pass the baton to your lion cub and stand proud as he carves his own path over the one you have started together.

Happy 10th birthday, son!

Love,

Your biggest fan.

If it were up to me, age would be a factor of poop, not years. Is your child 3 years old? No, he’s 1,345 poops old. Time is nothing but an arbitrary man-made unit that reflects nothing of significance. Who cares when the sun came up last? What I want to know is when did you poop last? One poop cycle is like one stroke of an engine. Fuel enters, it’s consumed, then the waste product is expelled. One poop equals one round of being a functioning human being. For both my kids, I could never relax for the day until they pooped. A successful poop meant that I was fulfilling my responsibility of keeping my offspring functioning properly as human organisms. It meant I earned another first down in the game of life.

“Look, Fury grew his first tooth!”

“That’s great! By the way, did he poop yet?”

* * * *

By the time the moving vans rolled up to our house 10 days ago, everything was boxed up and ready to go. While leaving Los Angeles was something I promised myself I’d do as soon as I had kids, the act of selling our house and buying a new one in a small farm town six hours north took 9.5 years of procrastination and merely two weeks of execution.

Logistically, everything was perfect. Sudden, but perfect.

Who are you guys and what have you done to my room?

I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna get every last minute of Minecraft in before they drag me outThe movers showed up by 10 am and got to work wrapping all the furniture. Our cars were packed with everything we needed for the drive up, we had exchanged goodbyes with our friends, sent out change of address cards, and in a matter of a few short hours, we’d be pulling out of our driveway for the last time.

“Did Lessi poop yet?”

No, she hadn’t. She hadn’t pooped the day before, either. And with each dolly-load up the truck ramp, visions of an agonizing 6.5 hour constipated upstate trek alternated with doomsday scenarios of Lessi filling her diaper with mega poop somewhere in the middle of the California desert miles away from the closest Koala Bare Kare diaper changing station. This was not going to be my first memory of the first move that either of my children would ever remember.

“Lessi… poo poo?”

“Nnnnno!”

“Poo poo time?”

“No poo poo.”

 Please, baby. Please just poop!

The house was emptying fast, and my baby was doing the opposite. With nothing left in the house but some of the larger furniture items, the team foreman had me sign some final paperwork and assured me we could head out and let them finish the rest. It was 2pm. Exactly when I had originally planned on leaving.

Lessi munched on some Cheez-Its, and we didn’t leave. I busied myself with taping random boxes shut, watching–hoping–for the “poop face.” Then around 2:30, Lessi strolled over to the bathroom and stood next to the toilet. 

“Poo poo.”

I sat her down triumpantly on that toilet for what would be the last t–

plink…

“All done!”

That’s it? A lamb’s pooplet? Baby girl, that is not a day and a half’s worth. You owe me!

Back to more random box taping. And three more futile poop attempts. Lessi likes to say “all done” and I’m guessing that seeing her dad plead with her to poop so we could move to our new home also amused her.

Then around 3pm, I heard quiet. The quiet that a toddler makes when she needs to focus. The quiet accompanied by the look of concentration. The poop face.

I swooped Lessi up and sat her on the toilet, but this time, I had to make her stay. The big one was on its way and I wasn’t going to take an empty “all done” for an answer. Lessi isn’t fond of sitting on toilets and the only way to make her stay on one is to distract her with objects. But everything was boxed up! Everything but one little ceramic bird that somehow managed to escape every wave of packing frenzy that swept through the house over the past three days. A bird that my mom got us in China. A very breakable, kind of sentimental bird. A bird that could save the day.

I gingerly picked up the bird and placed it in my daughter’s hand. I tried to keep my hands under the bird as Lessi played with it, but since the baby toilet seat adapter was long packed, I had to keep both hands on Lessi so she wouldn’t fall in. The bird was in fate’s hands.

Not two minutes after I gave Lessi that ceramic bird, I watched in slow motion as that bird tumbled out of Lessi’s hands and shatter into tiny shards of porcelain as her little gastrointestinal system focused all its energy on doing what it was born to do.

Movement happened.

And the next round began.

This weekend was particularly tragic for Fury because we were taking a road trip up north (did I mention we sold our house and are moving up to Northern CA in March? More on that in a few weeks). On road trips, Fury is allowed to be on the laptop/Nintendo DS/iTouch all he wants without limits, since we’re just sitting in the car anyway. He also gets unlimited screen time once we get there because my buddy has a 15 month old baby and no age-appropriate toys for Fury. I guess he picked the wrong week to fail a test.

“But it wasn’t a fail, it was a D-”

Oh Fury, in some Asian villages, that gets you banished until you’re 18.

So what did Fury do without anything electronic for the entire weekend??

He read books in the car.

He pushed his little sister around in a toddler mobile.

He pushed my friend’s kid around in a toddler mobile.

He played catch with me in the yard.

He hit wiffle balls with me in the yard.

He read books at night.

He had conversations.

He had fun.

He adapted.