Baby Cow Mama!!

   As any good parent knows, it's helpful to get a child who is about to become an older sibling some sort of doll, so that they can show their affection towards the new baby and mimic the parents. All good parents do this.

   Cara is not a good parent. Recently, Wyatt took the initiative to adopt a baby cow, because someone who is Wyatt's mom gave him no baby human.

Blurry Baby Bump

   Wyatt is... an unorthodox parent. He loves his baby cow very much. He likes to take care of it when we are all sick, he likes to hang it upside down from the crane truck and laugh hysterically, and he likes to put it in his shirt to keep it ... warm? Safe? Or is that his womb? I don't know. He'll place it gently in a shopping cart to ride through the store, and he'll throw it across the table to get my attention.

Some of Wy's best parenting. There's a lot I could learn from this kid. Note
the koala comfortably driving. Note the still-terrifying "M-is-for-Monster."

   He wants to sing lots of baby cow songs to his baby cow. He doesn't know any baby cow songs. He'll ask me, over and over and over "Sing the baby cow mom song!!" So I'll make up a song about a baby cow mom. It goes like this "Baby cow mom, baby cow mom, this is the song of the baby cow mom," only the tune to it is way better than however you just heard it in your head.

   The problem, however, is I'm singing the wrong baby cow mom song. He gets very upset and whines at me that it's the wrong one, to sing the other one. Please remember, there is no actual baby cow mom song. Much like Atlas or Hercules or some Greek character I am not going to bother to look up, I am stuck pushing a boulder up a hill, and as soon as I am about to reach the top, the boulder starts screaming that I should push a different boulder that isn't real and sounds totally different. Xena? I am pretty sure that one is Xena.

   Wyatt likes to say that I am the baby cow's dad, he is the baby cow's mom, and the wolf is the baby cow's mom. I am terrified to ask what the wolf actually is, but otherwise I think this makes pretty good sense.

He really wanted to take some family photos, so here we go (wolf mom not pictured, because we are in a fight).

Wyatt really wanted his arm around me in this picture. And he REALLY wanted my knee to
 play a large role. He also thought Cara should be in it so she dangled some hair in the corner.

   Wyatt loves to put the baby cow between his legs, lightly shake it back and forth and say with great excitement "Baby Cow is hatching!!" You might think it's weird that he thinks a mammal is hatching, when that's only for spiders, but it makes sense. When we told Wyatt where babies come from, we made a cute little medley of the classic stories: The stork, some eggs hatching, God knitting in the mommy's belly, and any Twilight werewolf references that seemed to fit. The whole time, Wyatt was like "Why are you telling me this I never asked I'm barely three," so it worked out great.

   One day Wyatt will outgrow the baby cow. We are hoping it is tonight, because I had to steal it from him while he was sleeping to get that crane picture above, and now I have no idea where it is. But whenever that day comes, I feel like this is something we will forget all about in 10 years. That's the main reason I write this blog: To have lots of ammo to use against him when he is in his formative, highly embarrassable years.

My mood: very amused by all of this
Wyatt's mood: very paternal and maternal at the same time
Cara's mood: glad Link is sleeping better and feeding less frequently
Link's mood: starting to smile!!
Listening to: Andalucia by Pink Martini

Big Boy Backfire!!

   When Wyatt turned three a couple weeks ago, he had a proclamation to make: He had entered the world of the big boys.

   "Wy three, Wy not two-half. Wy not little boy, Wy big boy." It was easily the longest story he had ever told with words. (You should have seen the story he told with his hands when his star balloon floated away. Tragic.) It was the closest thing he's come to a full sentence since that time he said "Why doesn't dad pay any attention to me when he's playing Nintendo, mom? It hurts my feelings." (Kidding!! He never said any of that stuff!! It was more like whine whine fuss fuss "dad pay me pease?" So there's no scarring of any sort going on in this home!)

   Well, I've been holding the "big boy" card over his head for a long time now. You see, his favorite people in the world are a pirate named Jake, a certain fire-truck driver named John (who he just calls "J" now, because they are on a nick-name level of friendship), and the four boys who live across the street. These boys are aged 5 - 13 or something, and I've talked about them before, so stop making me repeat myself over and over.

   Wyatt wants to play with them all the time, but when they are playing a real game of basketball or soccer or "throw the littlest one in a trash can," I tell him. "No, Wy, that's for big boys."

   Big boys. All he wants to be in the world is a big boy. So when he turned three, he was ready.

Big boys sleep with the sharks.

   But do you know what else big boys do? Poop in the potty. Eat their whole dinner. Go to bed without fussing. Grade daddy's papers. Pick up their toys. Make dinner. The list goes on and on.

   This worked for a while. Sure, he never once pooped in the potty for this reason, and he has no idea how to grade anything, let me tell you, but he went to bed well and put on his clothes and ate all his food and even made a decent roast.

   But now?! Oh no. The magic is gone. I asked him to take a bath, like a big boy, and he said "Wy not big boy, Wy little boy." It was horrible, Then, later we were at a two-year-old's birthday party, and everyone kept saying how the little punk was a Big Boy now, and Wyatt was kind of in shock. His eyes were all like "Wait, what, THAT'S a big boy? I was a big boy when I was two?! You've been lying to me this whole time. I still like you better than mommy, but this hurts." Shut up, eyes!!

   I had to do something. So you can imagine how awkward it was when I screamed "No! Jason is not a big boy! He's only two!! How can a two year old be a big boy!?" Jason wasn't really getting it, so I had to get down on his level and say into his face YOU. ARE. NOT. A. BIG. BOY. Then I turned and winked at Wyatt, grabbed some pizza, and left.

   Saved the day there.

Big boys take artsy photos. Wyatt grabbed his baby cow, put it on the couch, grabbed mom's phone, logged in with the password, opened up the camera app, took this picture. Big boy stuff. Cara still can't manage to get her thumb out of her iPhone pictures.

   Wyatt gets that the definition of "big boy" is very fluid. He's starting to use it to his advantage. He's very smart, which is a direct result of me sleeping with my head really close to his on most nights. It's going to be a problem, how smart he is. Because, if you haven't noticed, he's also really cute. So he gets pretty much whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. And he's also kind of spoiled by absolutely everyone who comes in contact with him. And he's just the best little thing in the whole world, so I guess there's no way this could turn bad.

See!! I wasn't kidding!!

   What do I tell him next year? That he's a super big boy? That he's a huge boy?! How many superlatives can I tack on to the front of the word "boy" to keep him maturing and growing as a person over the next 15 years?! This is going to be hard. Crazy, enormously, gargantuanly, insanely, immensely hard. Okay, maybe not that hard.

My mood: hoping I didn't ruin a pretty good friendship with Jason's parents. Or Jason.
Wyatt's mood: not wanting to poop like a big boy
Cara's feeling: bigger and pregnanter.
Listening to: Future Islands

Just The Cutest Little Prayers!!

   We've been praying with Wyatt at night as we go to bed. We don't really pray before our meals because we don't really have meals as much as we have a grazing system. Sometimes Wyatt repeats what we pray, sometimes he just sits, but he loves holding hands and cuddling. Here's the best video we have:

   He likes to translate things into his own language. If I pray for a good night's sleep, he says "night night," and if I thank God for mom he says "thank mom!"

   Here's the worst video we have:

   The other night, we actually got him to pray on his own. It went like this: "Dear God. Night night. Thx mom. Thx dad. Thx papa mama. Thx weem wy. Thx choo choo. Thx choo choo track. Thx dump truck. Thx water truck. Thx trash truck. Thx car. Thx wee car. Thx faith. Thx granmama." Just like we taught him. It's like how I pray "Thanks God for my Nintendo Wii, and my DS and my old Super Nintendo and my old Gameboy and also for my frisbees and for netflix and for bikes and for The Wire and for Arrested Development."

   Odds are pretty good this is about as cute as it will get. Pretty soon he'll be enunciating and using whole sentences, sadly, so I'm glad I have just a little bit of video here to remember.

My mood: Nostalgic
Wy's mood: Car racing.
Cara's Doing: Hungry
Listening To: U2

Track Star!!

This picture has nothing to do with the following text. In fact
you can ignore my stupid grin and just get going, if you'd like.

   Living in Eugene, Oregon, AKA Track Town USA, AKA Smells Like Pot has lots of wonderful things about it. One of those not-wonderful things is the fact that there's a marathon or 5K or half-marathon for pretty much every cause and every holiday every weekend.

   So, you have to do them. They are for a good cause. They fight hunger, or you walk for a cure, or you walk for heart disease. I've never really understood why anyone would be "for" heart disease but I am sure I am missing something. You can even shuffle for a truffle, which, I'm sure is something we should all support.

   Worse, everyone you know except for you has run a marathon. I can't tell you how sickening it is to see 100 status updates one morning that say something like "Can't believe I did it! Another one off the bucket list!" or "Wow am I tired but I sure feel good. Team Beat Insomnia did it!" (there's a half-marathon to fight insomnia. It starts at 2:00 am. I am lying.) or even "Just finished a marathon and I bet my ex Jordan is still on the couch getting fatter." (Get over it, Sam, you just look sad!) These people are running marathons and you're reading about it while eating cereal because you were too lazy to make pancakes. The only thing I've knocked off my bucket list lately is "spend a whole day in your underwear," which was actually kind of awkward because I had to take out the trash. I mean, how do you expect me to do a 5K!? Don't you know that it's five thousand!!

   Wyatt, however, that kid is going to run marathons, man.

   He can run, non stop, for hours. This is not an exaggeration. He's done it after church, running in circles around the gym, he's done it at this courtyard in town where we go to eat Fro-Yo, and just today he did it around the neighborhood.

   Sometimes we go to visit our friend, Marianne. She's not home a lot, but we stop by anyways. She lives at 1933 Roosevelt Street, which is exactly 0.8 miles from our house. Marianne, who has tons of nice stuff in her living room, wasn't there today around 9:15pm during our run, but that didn't matter to Wyatt because he wanted to go "pas," which is his adorable way of saying "fast." He says it all the time. "Mon da go pas!" (Come on dad go fast!) is easily his most used phrase, distantly followed by "oh car broke" (whenever he sees my broken down Buick Grandma which is for sale by the way only $6000), and "oh no ma wor oh no" (we are sad mom is at work). He turned around and ran home, which means he ran 1.6 miles tonight. Which means I ran 1.6 miles tonight. Which means heck yeah. Here, look at the Google Mapping I made:

Google Map of the route we took.

   His first sentence he ever said was "I gon ge goo!" which, loosely translated, means "I'm going to get you!" He yells it and then runs away from me, wanting me to chase him. He literally wants nothing more than to go pas all the time. When he's not going pas, he wants his cars to go pas or his choo choos to go pas. It's an obsession on par with Ricky Bobby.

   We decided to test out this need for speed, and took him to the last All Comers Meet at Historic Hayward Field. Since you might not live in a track-and-field-and-not-deodorant crazy town like I do, an All Comer's Meet is a track meet put on for anyone and everyone who wants to. A couple even have official enough time keeping to count towards things like national meets and Olympic Trial Qualifying.

   Wyatt went, and here's what happened:

We're in the middle of the screen. Wyatt's in the yellow-orange shirt, I am kneeling behind him giving him pointers. "Okay, now, it's a 40 meter race, so don't go too hard and wait for the other kids to get tired, then sprint hard at the end! If you *accidentally* trip another kid, that's all part of racing and winning and making dad proud."

The race has just started! You can tell because Cara put her finger in the screen a little.

What's the big hurry, kid in the red?! It's just for fun and we weren't even trying to win anyways.

   Just so you all know, I wasn't even going my fastest. If I'd wanted to win in that race I totally could've. It's just that my hamstring has been bothering me a bit lately.

   Once Wyatt really understood what a race was, he wanted to do it again, over and over. We would ready-set-go a few of these for him:

   There was also a long jump that Cara filmed. Well, "filmed" probably isn't the right term. It's more like she was "out looking for sasquatch" who is always in a blurry field.

   Thanks for that glorious, one-second video of Wyatt's first-ever-athletic venture, honey!

   He had a great time, and got a participation ribbon for all three of his events!! (Long jump, 40m dash, softball throw). I am usually totally against the whole "everyone gets a trophy" mentality, but I am all for the "Wyatt always gets a ribbon" craze that is sweeping the country. It will only make him tough and strong. Besides, winning isn't everything, if you lost. If you won, well, winning is obviously all that matters.


   Without really knowing it, I've actually been preparing him for races all along. I've spent the summer building up a little obstacle course in the back yard for Wyatt. It's really not much, it just has him running some loops and climbing some things, but he likes trying to do it faster and faster. Watch!

   My intention with this was actually to work on a few things: Counting (when he does the slalom at the start), shapes (I have him run around a circle, square, or triangle and say the shape each time), putting his face in the water (he's afraid to do it when in pools), climbing and jumping (he is hesitant if there are no cushions), and running under hammocks (self explanatory). There were other things I wanted us to do, like color or make animal sounds, but he just likes the "go pas" ones, so that's what it's turned into.

   Cara's always been afraid that Wyatt will love baseball, because she finds it so boring. I've always been afraid that he'll love math, because then he'll be so boring. Now we are wondering if he's just going to be one of those runners, who just runs all the time and doesn't really know how to throw a hatchet like all the other kids. Still, we're glad he's happy going pas and having fun.

My mood: Actually quite tired from that run. My hips kind of hurt. Ugh.
Wy's mood: Not at all tired from that run.
Cara's doing: Well. Not sleeping great, but that's mostly due to the fact that I am taking up the drums.
Listening to: Third Eye Blind

Big Announcement!!

   Yeah okay let's get this over with we're having another baby.

   I thought about mustering up some excitement and throwing down lots of my trademark double exclamation points!! and trying to build up some suspense or something, but that wasn't going to work. Let's face it: This new one isn't going to be our first one, and that means you aren't going to be as excited.
   My parents already have their first grandkid. My brother and sister already became an aunt and an uncle for the first time. Wyatt's cousins already have cousins. Now it's just more of the same old same old.

   But!! We can still make this exciting!! I'm talking about photos and updates and pinterest and fruit and all kinds of good things!! Here's what I mean.

   Spend half an hour on Pinterest (which my wife does like 6 times a day), and you'll see that pregnancy announcements and gender announcements are A HUGE DEAL. You have to let the world know how cute and artsy you are and how happy you are to be having a baby and also that you are going to be the best parents evar!! So, we've got that covered:

   These are 6 images that appeared on the first page of searching "Pregnancy Announcement" on Pinterest. Let's see what we've got:

Can't spell. Is that ring both an "o" and an "a"? Just trying way too hard here.

Whoa! I don't want to see people making out unless it's me and a steak. Also, walking around on those shoes must've been stressful.

Um, hmmm. Well, so, I guess anyone who can recognize those feet knows who this girl is and that she's pregnant. Angela?

Ah yes, the chalkboard with arrows and colors. Classic.

So, wait, boy + girl + tree = 3? I don't get the math on this one. Maybe it's boy tree girl plus sign three?

And this one!! Okay, actually that's really funny. You guys win.

   As you can see, there's a lot of pressure to pull this thing off right. People need to get excited for you and also know how wonderful you are, all at once. A while back, Cara and Wy and I were bored and decided we'd get a head start on this whole "baby announcement picture" thing. These were the results:

This is the creative process at work.

We realized people would take this the wrong way. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!

True story: We had a friend take these photos. The friend is actually a photographer. The friend didn't want us to use his name because he didn't want anything to do with these things. Thanks, Jake!

We figured we'd make a few with some random dates, just hoping to get the due date right. Notice we didn't put down any years or anything.

What fun we were having.

Our try at the whole mathy thing. Because there'd be four of us. I guess I forgot to add a tree in there somewhere. During this photo-shoot, someone actually walked by and said "What does that even mean? Are you having a baby or something." I politely replied with "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS AND DON'T LET THAT DOG POOP ON MY LAWN!" (It wasn't my lawn.) (She didn't have a dog.)

It's not... you know, Cara ...  the baby's not going to be in my belly. Why are you doing this?! You know I've had body image issues ever since we were pregnant the first time around. It changes you.

What is with this belly obsession!?

Do you get it!? Cara drinks water, dad drinks whatever's in that bottle and we're not telling but it's probably just used for cooking anyways, and Wyatt LOVES milk.

Here, we gave Wyatt a bag of chips and said "spell out "I'ma big brother!" or something" and then came back a few hours later.

   So there you have it. The secret's out: Not only are we pregnant, but we aren't photogenic, clever or going to be featured on any pinterest boards.

   Now, I'm sure you have a ton of questions, so let me answer them for you.

   How did this happen?!

   That is not a question I am going to answer. This is a family blog. Well, it's a blog about a family. No, it's really a blog about a dad who needs attention. 

   Are you going to change the name of the blog?!

   To what? "My Kids Is Special!!?" That doesn't even make any sense. You should be embarassed for even suggesting that.

   You should be embarrassed that you can't spell "embarrassed" right. Those aren't my questions, Grant. I have questions like "When will-

   - "When will I get a new little plushy batman drawing for the new kid?" Great question. I probably need to update Wyatt's anyways to reflect his age and sensibilities. We don't know if the new kid is a boy or a girl yet, so the plushy image could be Link or Spider-Man if he's a boy, and Zelda or Samus if he's a girl.

   You are awful at this. At least you answered the question about the gender. When is the soon-to-be-forever-screwed-up-by-this-blog kid coming?

   The "doctor's" tell us it's coming in December, but I think I know my own body and have a good feeling about late August.

   Ugh. Are you going to find out the gender in advance?

   Probably. But not because of ultrasounds or anything. We have a neighbor who has visions about these sorts of things. He accurately predicted that Wyatt would be a boy and he'd be super cute and he'd grow up to be a rock star, so he's pretty reliable. He also knew in advance that Hillary was going to run for president.

   Ugh. How's mom doing?

   Yeah great fine who cares what else?

   Have you thought about names at all?

   Yes. If it's a boy, probably Link or Spider-Man. If it's a girl, um, can you trade those things in for boys?

   What, you don't want a baby girl?

   No no no, it's not that at all. I'd love a baby girl. I don't want a middle or high school girl. Those things are terrifying.

   Aren't you a teacher?

   Yes and if the girl's knew how scared I was of them and their drama they'd have all the control.

   Okay let's wrap this up.

   Well, I'm in charge of this blog. I ask the questions around here.

   No, seriously, I've been asking questions for like 15 minutes.

   Wait, what? Seriously?

   Yes!! That's been your whole gimmick!

   Are... are you sure that's right?

   Well, now I guess we've switched and you are asking stupid questions.

   How did you do this? Are you like a spy or something?

   You keep asking questions. And if I were a spy I obviously couldn't tell you.

   Okay. Got it. You can't tell me. I'll just have to do some digging on my own some other time. 

   I need to be moving on. I can't just sit here and entertain all day. I've got important things to do like mail a few more wedding thank-yous. Let's wrap this up.

My mood: ecstatic! Also, I can't believe any of you would read this far!!

Wyatt's mood: kind of understanding what's going on but not really!

Cara's mood: Sleeping okay these days!!

Listening to: The Shins.

Auntie Ashley Got Married, so Wy Got Dressed Up!!

I don't know if you've heard the biggest news in Eugene, but Wyatt's auntie Ashley got married!! What a perfect opportunity to dress up all adorbs!! Hope you can handle this (but you probably can't).

Just after getting dressed at home and seeing how stinkin' cute today was going to be. Don't worry, the room is very clean in the background, no need to check.

Well, this is pretty fun.

The groom and groomsmen in the background. Kirk, Wyatt's new uncle (pronounced "Kowik") gave all his groomsmen and none of his brothers-in-laws sweet longboards as presents.

Strolling to a his business-school presentation in a half an hour.

He actually found this photo-shoot setting on his own...

... and promptly struck some model poses

Holy crap this kid is cute.

No big deal, just cruisin'.

Wy on a longboard while the wedding party preens for the camera. If only we had some video of his first time trying to longboard!

Here's some video of Wyatt's first time trying to longboard:

Look out, Tony Hawk!! It's crazy that I have to mention you because no one know any other skateboarders except for maybe Kirk he might know a couple.

My mood: proud of my genes!
Wyatt's mood: working on that balance.
Listening to: Neil Diamond

New Feeding Rituals!!

We've always been pretty informal when it comes to feeding Wyatt. When I say "we" I really mean "not Cara" because she actually likes to sit down at the table and have a good meal and talk and stuff. I just think we should get food in our bellies and get back to watching reruns of White Collar.

Here's a tip: when the special little kid is eating, he's going to make a mess. So, if eating outside isn't an option, just leave everything on the kitchen floor, in a bowl, as if the kid were a pet. At more advanced stages, it looks like this:

No clothes, no napkins, no carpet to ruin, just some cereal on a stool. And the dishwasher is already ready to be loaded already!

Sometimes Wyatt is eats really quiet and takes a long time. Any seasoned parent knows that silence is a very unsettling sound, but I am not a seasoned parent so I go with it. When I realize something's probably up, it's way too late. A few days ago, I gave Wy some Psgetti and then decided to use my valuable time elsewhere. When I returned, after having not supervised Wyatt eating pasta with tomato sauce for an extended period of time, well, things actually couldn't have gone much better:

Holy meatballs did I dodge a bullet. Sure, he ate almost nothing, and just played with his food the whole time, but he basically washed his dishes for me and contained the whole mess in one space. We'll attribute this to the fact that I've raised him well.

Now, you might be looking over these meals and thinking "Wow that's a lot of carbs there, Grantly, don't you think you should throw something green in there?" Funny story: I went grocery shopping, and returned from Costco with several days worth of food: chicken, bison, salmon, lasagna, pasta and pasta sauce, cereal, brownie mix, milk and cheese. After preparing a feast for the first night, Cara comes home from work, ungrateful as always, and asks "Do we have any vegetables?" I thought for a second, and then said "No. Um, buying vegetables didn't even cross my mind."

Because I'M A MAN.

My mood: hungry
Wyatt's mood: bored with his food
Listening to: The Zombies

Wyatt Loves The Ocean!!

He's saying "Come on, let's go play in the water!" We'd just played in the water for like an hour.

   Oh man you guys, I had no idea. I mean, we've been to the beach before, as you've seen a couple of times, but never before had Wyatt been so in love with anything. Like, ever.

   On our trip to Santa Barbara, among other places, we spent half the day at the beach. Once Wyatt realized that you could be in the water for 15 seconds and still feel your toes, he realized that the water in California is more fun than the water in Oregon. And he never wanted to leave.

He would've run straight in, as far as he could, if we'd let him.

His face was like this the whole time. Look at that cute little face!!

Just some boring sand time with no water that he frickin' adored.

Oh yeah Cara was there too. We decided to all wear collared, blue shirts.

   He laughed so hard and smiled so big the whole time!! I bet his jaw hurt!! And the whole time he was thinking "What great parents I have to bring me here and let me play!!" Because we really are great parents. I mean, just watch this video of him rolling down the teenie-tiny sand dune:

   That probably happened 15 times total. All of this sand climbing and rolling, ocean chasing and laughing is probably what lead to him falling asleep as he kept playing.

   Okokok you get it, this was great and he had fun and everyone was happy. Can we talk about something else now? Like, elephant seals?

      Cara and I were laughing so hard because that scene reminded us of our bedtime ritual.

My mood: can't sleep
Wyatt's mood can't sleep just long enough to keep me from sleeping.

Color Symmetry!!

   Hey guys! Listen up! Wyatt's starting to color coordinate things! Wow is it fun. I need to show you like a hundred pictures to prove it.

You're really glad we got these new, larger, high-quality photos here at MKIS so that you can really enjoy these blocks.

   He did this while we were at the aquariam in Monterey, California. Yeah that's right we went on a trip to the California Sunshine and I didn't even facebook or blog about it because whatever it's not like it's a big deal and I don't have to announce it to the world or anything. Also, Yeah, uh huh, while at the aquariam that had actual sharks, otters, and lots of pictures of jellyfish without actual jellyfish, we spent most of our time playing with blocks that we have at home. Still, this color action was new for him, I hadn't seen it yet.

   Full diclosure: I am not convinced this was Wyatt. There is a chance it was Cara, because this is about at her level of craftsmanship and (in)attention to detail. I think it was the special kid, though, so we'll go with that.

   Man, can you believe it?! Coordinating and symmetric with colors already!! Most kids aren't doing this until they are, I don't know, twelve? (No, seriously, I don't know. Fifteen? Judging by my freshman, it's probably after 15.) And my brother still doesn't quite get that YOU CAN'T WEAR GREY SWEATS WITH A GREY SWEATSHIRT TO OUR AWESOME DINNER PARTIES!! Heck, based on how the girl students at school point at me and laugh, and have even suggested a fashion tumblr for me to follow, it seems that Wyatt is really getting these color-matching skills without any help from his dad's side. Regarding that tumblr: I didn't follow it, but instead sent in a picture of myself and asked what I needed to work on.

 

And so you can really enjoy... whatever this is.

   They did not respond. There's only one way to interpret that: I have nothing to work on.

My mood: so proud Wyatt is inheriting my color-awareness genes (and jeans, if we're lucky)

Cara's mood: trying to stack the blocks higher than ever!!
Wyatt's mood: george george
Listening to: Magic Schoolbus Theme Song

Daddy's Assistant

   I am coaching an ultimate frisbee team at the high school where I teach. Wyatt came to practice one day and caught on pretty quick:

"My daddy's so awesome, he wears a cape when he coaches!! Also what's up with my tongue?!"

"I can coach everyone from up here!!"

"Ooooh. Daddy gets serious when things aren't going well. He's so intimidating."

"I can do this too!! Go over there!! You're awful!!"

   The kid's a natural. At everything he does, btw. Like, the other day I was all "Hey Wyatt, hand me that pillow!!" and instinctively, he just knew that I wanted him to kick me. He's probably the smartest kid in all of Eugene Oregon 97408.

My mood: disgruntled, like every good coach is

Wyatt's mood: gotta get those kids running drills!

Listening to: Pumped up kicks