Optimistically pessimistic or pessimistically optimistic?

The CFO and I have an ongoing discussion on whether I am an optimist or a pessimist. The CFO points out that I have a unique talent for sucking the fun out of a room. Not that I am a kill joy mind you but I can be presented with just about any situation and come up with a VERY bleak scenario. I say bleak but if frequently boarders on catastrophic.

I argue that this is a very useful skill in that I am usually prepared for most possibilities. Here are a couple of examples...

In the van I have:

• Diapers
• Pull ups
• Wipes (ready to use and and extra pack)
• Extra clothes for the Triplets
• Towels
• Blankets
• Roadside hazard kit
• Potty
• Food (snacks and canned food)
• Flashlight
• Pain medication (several different types for kids and adults)
• First aid kit
• Extra fuses
• Two liters of water
• Sunscreen
• Bug spray
• Lip balm (Addison gets VERY chapped lips)
  

I know I have more but that is just off the top of my head:)

In the backpack I carry with the kids I have:

• Extra clothes for the Triplets
• Extra shirt for me
• One liter of water
• Snacks
• Wipes
• Pull ups
• Diaper cream
• Neosporin
• Small first aid kit
• Bactine
• Hydrocortizone
• Pain medication (for the kids and adults)
• Sippy cups
• Sham wow
• Pens
• Sunscreen

And finally on my person I carry a flashlight and Leatherman Skeletool. Not that I am ready for EVERYTHING but I am more prepared than most. I like think that I hope for the best but prepare for the worst. I usually argue that I am an optimistically realist and the CFO will sometimes concede that point. No matter what she thinks about it she likes that I have all this stuff with me in case we need it:)

I've never run into a guy who could win at the top level in anything today and didn't have the right attitude, didn't give it everything he had, at least while he was doing it; wasn't prepared and didn't have the whole program worked out.
Ted Turner

Al

Is it today, yesterday or tomorrow?

The triplets seem to get their days a bit confused, I guess most kids do. Heck, I do:) But they can be REALLY confusing if you are trying to find out when something happened. But most of the time it is just plain funny. They tend to bend/break the space time continuum into something that resembles an upside down, inverted, inside out, contorted helix.

As best as I can tell here is a rough definition for their most frequent terms:

• Yesterday - before they woke up most recently. This could be right before their nap, the day before, last week, last month or any time in the past.
• Tomorrow - any time in the future. It could be later today or in a few years.
• Soon - usually before they go to sleep again.
• Last night - any night in the past.
• This morning - any time in the past. It could be a few minutes ago, yesterday or any day before that.

The Triplets actually get two days to our one. It seems, as far as I can tell, each time they wake up it is another day. I have yet to decide if this is good or bad. I do think it affects the aging process. No, not theirs, mine. I am now aging twice as fast!

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday
Proverb

Al

Potty training scare

Our saga with potty training William continues.... I feel like I am fighting in World War I. It is trench warfare and both sides are dug in. You can gain some ground but it is very painful. Some days I just stay in the trench and don't even stick my head out:)

All that being said we are having some progress. He has been going to the potty much more frequently. Yesterday he wanted to wear big boy underwear so I conceded and decided to forgo my trip to the gym. Everything was going well up till bath time. He was going on his own without my prompting and everything.

It was his turn for a bath so I told him to get his PJs off (I see no reason to change them into clothes if we are not leaving the house) and get in the bath tub while I was combing Addison's hair. A minute later William yelled from the bathroom... "I went poopie Daddy, I went poopie!" My heart dropped, my pulse raced, Addison shot off my lap and I bolted for the bathroom. All I could envision was my streak of no poopies in the bathtub had come to the end. Visions of Caddy Shack were in my head, but my in my vision it was not a candy bar.

Much to my delight when I rounded the corner I saw a VERY proud William sitting on the toilet! He got whatever he wanted for the rest of the day:)


We are the people our parents warned us about.
Jimmy Buffett

Al

Welcome to the gun show, part deux

Kids and dogs....

While we were pregnant we read a book "To Train Up a Child" that was given to us by some of the CFO's family. One of the analogies that the book uses is between kids and dogs/cats. Here are a few of the similarities.

Why is it that the kids want to bring the potty in to where everyone is? We have two of the little portable potties in the house for the kids. If we are watching a movie they will go get it and bring it back in the room where we are to go to the potty. That is all well and good unless someone has snuck one in on me and it has not been emptied. Yep, William did that:) Just like our Dog who loves to bring some of his food into the room we are in to eat it. It is cute until I step on the pieces he misses.

Ever let your child do something you don't normally let them do as a "treat?" This also butts up against RULE #1 - No good deed goes unpunished. If you have an outside cat and you let it in the house even once it will continue to try to get in the house from then on. But if you never let it in it will eventually give up. This happens to both me and the CFO. The difference is that when I let them do something I know it sets a precedent and the other two will immediately want to do it also. Not to mention they will probably do it/try to do it when I am not around, usually with messy results. The CFO on the other hand forgets this and midway through something I will mention this fact and the realization hits her. This usually happens when she lets them use something of hers; rollers, comb, brush, hair clips, make up brushes, etc....


Of course the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you--if you don't play, you can't win.
Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)

Al

You MUST be specific.

Being a stay at home dad (SAHD) for almost two years now has been and interesting trip. I learn again and again that I need to be specific and leave NOTHING up to interpretation. Teaching the Triplets to brush their teeth has been one of the times where I learned I needed to be VERY specific with my instructions. This was especially true when we switched to toothpaste with fluoride. I am also reminded that when they follow the explicit instructions but not the implicit instructions I need to give them some grace.

Here is how it went, the first time:)
Daddy - This is special toothpaste so you can't swallow it.
Triplet - I won't swallow it.
Daddy - You spit it out.
Triplet - I spit it out?
Daddy - Yes, you spit it out.
Triplet - OK
You guessed it, they spit it out alright... all over the mirror:)

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.
Anne Sullivan

Everything from airplanes to kitchen blenders and even chopsticks comes with an instruction manual. Children, despite all their complexity, do not.
Lawrence Kutner

Al

Toddler comments

If you have kids or have been around kids then you know some of the funniest stuff out there comes out of their mouths. No, I am not just talking about how they have the innate talent for picking the one word or phrase that we would least like them to remember out of a conversation and then repeating it like a mocking bird. I am talking how they start testing logic and their skills of deduction. Some of these are what a speaker at a conference once called these BFOs or a blinding flash of the obvious:)

• "When we get to school, we will be somewhere else." - Addison
• "Because I did" - William answering why did you do "that" no, it does not matter what "that" is, same answer:)
• "William, I am so proud of you" - Addison after William went poo-poo in the potty.
• "I bumped my cheek on my teeth". - Jackson in response to my question "what did you bump your cheek on?"
• "If I loose it I won't know where it it" - Addison
• "I can't see when he's in my way" - Addison
• "I didn't bite him, I pinched him with my teeth" - Jackson's answer after I asked "Did you bite your brother?"

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), What Is Man? (1906)

Al