It is pretty much official, Eckenrode House is moving operations to Manhattan. In preparation for this venture, The Wife has been on an advanced scouting mission for the past week. She has been wildly successful. The cubs and I have been continuing to live our days here, and trying to go about our normal routines of school and development.
So with that said, yesterday morning, I promised TheBubster that we’d get ice cream after school. Since she has reached the age where she remembers these promises and reminds you of them, even when you have forgotten them, we had to go to Christina’s Ice Cream shop. Over ice cream, we started talking. She asked my why I was sharing mine with LittleBud, and I said because he’s my buddy. This lead to a discussion of what a buddy is, which turned into a discussion about belief which turned into a discussion about truth. See how fast you peel away the layers and get to the heart of the matter when you are talking with a four year old?
It’s like Carl Sagan says, “If you want to bake an Apple Pie from scratch, first you have to invent the Universe.”
Our discussion of truth sort of started to go down the road towards logic states and how some things can be true in one situation but not true in another, but the ice cream was gone by then and it was time to go.
When we got home, TheBubster decided she wanted to play with her OLPC, so she carried into her room and sat on the floor with it. Then when LittleBud was bothering her too much, because he wanted to play with the pretty green laptop too, we moved her onto her bed. Her bed is six feet off the floor, and is accessible only by climbing a ladder. And the thought was, He’s not even walking yet, he certainly can not climb a ladder.
Well if you have seen the picture, then you know, that not only can he climb the ladder, but he can climb the whole way. Seems its all about incentives, and that is an entirely different set of lessons.
Well, TheWife is off to NYC on a job search in order to find a position that will fulfill her needs in the career arc which leaves me in the house alone, with the kids. The first day or so they are terrible little brats who will not listen to their Daddy because they are looking for the soft nurturing from their Mommy. After that everything evens out and we are all good.
LittleBud needs to be held from ten o’clock onwards every night. I discovered this in a very funny way. I have been putting him to sleep in his bed around eight o’clock or so. Then I concentrate on getting TheBubster asleep, sometimes she does this while I’m putting him to sleep. Then around eleven he wakes up with a wet nappy and I change him and put him back to bed, usually in our bed. Well the other night, I heard him wake up at one o’clock; yes I was still up and still working on school stuff; and he started crying.
This particular cry he was making was more of a honking goose sound. And as I sat there letting him cry a bit, to see if he’d go back to sleep, I noticed that it was getting louder. Not louder as in him making more sound and screaming louder, but louder as in the honking sound got closer and closer. This was quite funny as all the lights in the house were out except for the desk lamp on my computer desk. I turned around, just in time to see him crawl into the circle of light, honking his little cry at me, insisting that I pick him up and hold him. As soon as I did that, he fell back to sleep.
Thus I learned he must be held after ten o’clock at night.
This morning, I woke up with the kids in bed with me. There was no surprise cause that’s how I put them to sleep. TheBubster got up and started on her morning routine by herself; thanks to the sticker chart idea from Nana; she insisted that we had to get up and have “brekfass”. Once the cereal was poured into the bowls we discovered that there was no milk. She was not concerned at all by this matter and simply decided that it was ok if we ate it without millk. Then I set about the trial and error of feeding LittleBud.
He did not want bananas. He did not want the brekkie bar. He did not want cereal. He did want his yogurt. The last one.
I set it on the table and went to get my hoodie from the living room. I returned and saw that TheBubster had opened the yogurt, picked up the spoon and fed him a bite of yogurt. I was about to demonstrate my mock indignation when she put her hands on her hips and piped up, “Well, I never!”
Oh my! How much stuff can you cram into a day? Well, when you are in Vegas with small kids, turns out alot.
Swimming pool, long walks through crazy casinos with flashing lights, water ballet fountains, pirate ships, and meals of ice cream, coffee and cheesecake. TheBubster even managed to get herself a free make-over job at j’Adore in the Forum Shops at Ceasar’s Palace. And that was just in the daylight hours.
After a little break, we took our kids, our friend and our friend’s kids to see the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur Casino and Hotel.
The kids were excited about eating with their fingers and TheBubster was beside herself with excitement to be inside the castle themed building. I mean, referring to herself in third person about how excited she was to be in Her Castle!
The show started with a blacked arena. The spotlight shined on the stage door and a loud noise heralded the dwarf sprinting directly at us, dressed in a medieval jester’s outfit. LittleBud nearly jumped out of his skin. He shook for at least five minutes before he got over that sight. He’ll be in therapy trying to get over that when he’s thirty-five.
But once the horses and swords, dancing ladies, and tournament began, all the kids were enraptured. LittleBud pounded on the table and even learned to clap his hands when I yelled aloud.
We are all in the air right now, quite literally, as we are on our way to Las Vegas for some much deserved gambling as a family; Bud is getting fairly good at counting cards in a four deck stack. Actually, we’re off to visit an Aussie family that has wandered up to this hemisphere, this should be an interesting week.
Lately, TheBubster has been watching “Kiki’s delivery service” alot. It’s a movie about a 13 year old apprentice witch who flies off for her year of solo study. Bubby stands in front of the telly and uses her umbrella as a broom and copies every line of dialog and every action that Kiki performs. It’s quite entertaining despite grating my nerves at the same time.
Bud just crawls up on the telly stand without any regard to the content. We need to get a wall mounting bracket for the telly so he doesn’t pull it down on himself.
A few weeks ago, I decided that was going to make a little spilt in the way I publish my life. So now my efforts in art are concentrated over on a new website, Nacreo.us. The content is posted erratically, and depends upon my creativity flow whether it is visual, written or musical in nature. There is a podcast which has a video channel as well, but I am just learning how to do that stuff so it will only get better over time. Anyways, just thought you might like to know.
One day last week, I picked up TheBubster from school and took her to the Museum of Science. It is just down the road from us so it’s an easy walk to get there. This time rather that paying normal admission, I purchased a membership to the museum. I am planning to have some place to go that LittleBud will accept as a suitable walk in the daytime, yet still be inside and away from the brutal cold. It will also be somewhat interesting for me to be there, although I imagine come January I will have memorized all of the exhibits.
The very next day, TheBubster’s class went on a field trip to the museum. Since I found out about fifteen minutes after we were supposed to be at the school, I figured we’d just find them somewhere in the galleries. Today, we overslept and TheBubster stayed home with me, so we went to the Museum and ate in the cafeteria. Looks like our membership is off to a roaring start. Plus we get a discount in the cafeteria! Yee Haw!
When we got home, TheBubster decided she wanted to play with her OLPC, so she carried into her room and sat on the floor with it. Then when LittleBud was bothering her too much, because he wanted to play with the pretty green laptop too, we moved her onto her bed. Her bed is six feet off the floor, and is accessible only by climbing a ladder. And the thought was, He’s not even walking yet, he certainly can not climb a ladder. 
TheBubster as a ronin hatching her eggs