Musical Talents!!

   Wow, people. We did not see this coming. It turns out that my sons might be musically inclined.

   You've seen Wyatt dance. Should I just post that video again? No, I'll link to it here instead, but anyways, rhythm and coordination and magnificent physical gifts is something Cara and I expect out of our offspring. I mean, come on...

   But singing?! And playing music? And rhythm and coordination?! No.

   Wyatt has taken up the piano. By "piano" I really mean the toy piano that sounds like a tin can underwater. He plays one song and only one song: The X-Files theme. Remember it? Doo doo doo doo DOO doo. That one. He calls it Boulder's Song, because, yknow, Mulder. (He also tells mom she's like Scully when she does something well, and asks "Can we watch Boulder and Scully?" Because parenting.)

   Cara and I also throw little dance parties pretty often. We'll turn off the lights, play some bumpin' tunes, and dance around Lincoln. He gets super curious and has a big grin. All of the above information has lead to him doing a little jig when he hears that X-Files theme:

Here's Wyatt trying to play the horrible piano-toy thing:

   Let me go back a step. There's no reason my kids should have such clear and wonderful musical talents. Sure, Cara loves to sing and make up songs. By this I mean, she sings and makes up songs only around when I am around and they are the most formulaic, predictable songs you can imagine. Let me sing some for you:

   "Hey Lincoln, Ho Lincoln, Where'd you get those rolls, Lincoln?" (this is her favorite lately)

   "If your name is Lincoln put your hands in the air, put your hands in the air if your name is Lincoln."

   "If your name is Lincoln then your name is Lincoln, yeah your name is Lincoln." (seriously)

   "Daddies put your hands in the ai-air!! Daddies put your hands in the ai-air!!"

 
   She has a particular formula that goes like this: "Noun-Verber, Verbing the Nouns!!" Here's what I mean. I'll say something like "I'm going to go mow the lawn." She immediately sings "Lawn mower, mowing the la-awns!!"

   "Wyatt just ran down the hall." "Hall Runner, running the ha-alls!! (It always has that pause in the last word. I mean, wor-ord.)

   "I need you to make dinner." "Dinner maker, making the di-nner!!" "What?! No! That wasn't even the right noun-verb format!!"""Verb format, formatting the ver-erbs!!"

   This happens anytime in the car, as well. Sometimes she just sings all the signs to me. (Was that a hard sentence to read, "sings the signs"?) "Crosswalker, walking the crosses!!" "Speed Limit, limiting spee-eeds!!"

   You get the idea. She was really the inspiration for TSwizzle's "Shake it Off" where the hater's gonna hate-hate-hate-hate-hate and the verbers gonna verb-verb-verb-verb-verb. Sometimes, Cara will pause and say "Do you think I have a chance to make it in Hollywood?" I say something about one in a million and she says something about me saying there's a chance and I'm stuck with this for the rest of my life but anyways. The point is Wy and Link are getting no musical talent from the Maternal Side.

   (Sorry, that kind of got away from me for a while there. Here's another picture of cute kiddos.)

I know you can't see their cute little faces, but it made me real happy to see the play at the work bench like this,

   From the paternal side, there's not much either. As a kid my parents had me in piano lessons for a while and guitar lessons for a few hours, but I wasn't interested in practicing anything that didn't involve a Pikachu, so I have no instrumental talent. And in terms of singing, my voice is described at worst as "passable" and at best as "stupidly glorious," but we can't evaluate Wyatt's singing yet. The songs he sings are primarily the two theme songs to Strawberry Shortcake. One of them he sings like this: "Strawberry Shortcake come," to the tune of that church song "Come Lord Jesus, Come." It's cute and sacreligious all at once. Also, theme songs.

My mood: glad to be back
Wy's mood: watching the pups
Link's mood: Standing and thinking of walking!!
Cara's mood: more x-files.
Listening to: theme songs,

Little Liar!!

Guys, don't worry, he likes it. Wyatt, I mean. Lincoln isn't so sure. Wyatt does this when he wants Link to transport him somewhere. Because Wyatt is lazy.

   Wyatt is a lot like his dad. He's handsome and charming and all that, but more than anything. He's lazy. Just like his mom. He absolutely detests cleaning up his toys. Which is somewhat odd, because he loves to be helpful. When I am working on a chore or in the yard, he will do all of the little "go get that rake" and "turn on the hose" jobs I can possibly give him. Even the "get dad a cold one" can be done, now that he can open the fridge, identify alcohol, use a bottle opener, and cut a lime into the correct sized wedge.

   A few days ago, Wyatt was in trouble. So as punishment, I had him clean. (As I am writing this, I am realizing that he only has to clean when in trouble, so of course he hates it! Also, cleaning is the worst, no matter what age.) He came up with every excuse he could think of to avoid putting away a single block, including running a lap around the house with each block because he was going so fast. At one point, he put a belt around his head and pretended to be Jake the pirate. This happened:

No, Wyatt, you're clearly a ninja turtle and not a pirate.

   Is... is that true? I feel like pirates probably do have to pick up blocks somewhere in the line of duty. However, I spent so much time analyzing pirate duties and pirate booties, that Wyatt's ploy actually worked for a while. When I realized he wasn't cleaning, I told Wy to pick up blocks. He walked a slow circle around me, and whispered "Pirates don't pick up blocks." Good gravy I laughed so hard on the inside, while maintaining "scary dad face" on the outside. I'll try to find a picture of SDF to include.

   In addition to his clinical, maternal-driven laziness, he's becoming quite the little deceiver. He's trying to hide things from us, writing on walls again when under a table or behind a chair, throwing his food under things to act like he's eaten. I tell ya, I don't know where he gets it from. I don't think I've told a lie in nearly seven sentences.

   Really, parenting is getting kind of tough. (Oh, shoot, that's the sort of line that pro bloggers but in all caps and bold. Okay. REALLY, PARENTING IS GETTING KIND OF TOUGH.) Wyatt has lots of new neighbor kids to play with on our street. We are suspicious that one of them might be a little liar. I wonder if Wyatt's picking these new deceptions skills up on the street, like how I picked up my fighting techniques. He's started to play a little bit differently when home by himself, after spending lots of time with all his friends from the street. Less, of pretending to be a fireman, "help me hero save me!" when a car is about to fall of the couch cliff, and more fighting and bickering among the cars themselves. On a positive, however, there's less of the cars saying "Dad do you want to play with me?!" "No, I'm busy." "But you're watching Duck football games from the past three seasons on repeat." "Right. Busy. Get me a cold one."

This is about as much work as Wyatt ever does, pulling Link from the toys.

   The thing is, Wyatt loves people. Friends and kids are his favorite thing. He'll stop whatever he's doing if he thinks someone under 17 is outside, ready to be his friend. It's tough to tell him he can't play in the street with a bunch of kids around his age, when really, if he played outside all day I'D BE ELGIBLE FOR #DADOFTHEWEEK (nailed it!), but sometimes the kids out playing are ages 7 - 12, and he's three. There's a lot of room for influence there.

   Wyatt is going to start pre-school here in a few days. Don't worry, billions of pictures are coming your way. More new kids and families. It's encouraging that it will be kids the same age, with a hopefully-wonderful teacher - and I am glad that he is going to be spending more time at his grandma's house, because she teaches and trains him well - but I feel like we are crossing the threshold from where parenting has been fairly easy (because it's all been in-house: "don't touch that," "eat eleven more bites," obey my dog" type stuff), but its going to take a big shift into other relations ("don't play with that boy at school," "don't say "butt" even though other kids do," "obey my dog."). I am a bit apprehensive about this whole thing, but we'll figure it out. There is just so much to learn. After all, PIRATES DON'T PICK UP BLOCKS.

My mood: getting ready for school
Wy's mood: so many friends
Link's mood: thinking about standing
Cara's mood: who cares
Listening to: R.E.M.