She's Got the Bug

"We've got to practice my song because the talent show auditions are next week!" It was Monday night and Kyra was in a mild panic. And that mild panic was about to transform into major panic.

"No, Sweetie, talent show auditions are this week. They're Wednesday afternoon."

Cue the breakdown. Fortunately, the two of us had already worked on a song for Kyra's birthday, so we already had a tune in the can. Meltdown averted. As you can probably tell, Kyra is our passionate performer. It's one thing to do karaoke in your family room, but quite another to get up the nerve to take your act to the next level: performing before your peers. I was proud of her drive and initiative, so we practiced. I told her that I could record the guitar track for her audition, but she looked at me with a pouty face and said, "But I want you to play for me." Remember all that crap I wrote about being the "co-keeper of the dream"? Time to put up or shut up.

Auditions were yesterday after school. I worked the morning shift, which allowed me to attend, but meant that I had been up since 3:30 in the morning. I'm not using it as an excuse...I'm just saying. I arrived at school to pick up the girls, and Kailey led us to the classroom where the auditions were being held. It was packed full of kids and a few parents. I didn't see any other parents lugging around guitars. I was hoping there would be a sheet posted with audition times, but no such luck. We would have to wait around until Kyra's name was called, and that could be a very long time. Fortunately, they sent all the kids who were playing instruments to another room to audition. We stuck around to watch a few of the acts...two girls with a gymnastics routine, two older boys cracking each other up with terrible jokes (What's the difference between a teacher and a train? The teacher says 'don't chew gum', but the train says 'choo, choo, choo'!), and two girls singing a duet...before someone noticed my guitar and sent us to audition with the instrumentalists, even though Kyra was singing. I didn't complain though. We probably cut our wait time down from an hour to ten minutes.

We arrived in the music room which was considerably less crowded with only about fifteen students waiting to audition. Much better. We listened to four auditions, all of which brought back memories as students played clarinet, flute, and saxophone arrangements of the very same tunes I learned at that age. Then the teacher turned to us. "And we have a guitar here?" she asked. Sharp as a tack, that one.

"Yeah, I'll be accompanying my daughter today."

"Great! And what song are you going to be singing today, Kyra?"

"I Miss You."

And with that, we were off. Kyra, did a fantastic job. She wasn't singing as loud or performing as animated as she had practiced, but that was understandable. This was her first audition, she was singing to a room full of strangers, and, oh yeah, she's seven. I watched her as I played, and my heart overflowed as she worked her way confidently through the song. I saw flashes of fame and fortune in her future, and it all started right here.

Then came the key change. Now I don't know if I was too focused on Kyra, too focused on my visions of grandeur, or if I was just plain tired, but I blanked...I couldn't remember the chords in the key change. I could feel the panic building from within, so I just stopped playing and collected myself for a moment. In the meantime, I thought Kyra's eyes were going to take over her head. I regained my bearings, gave her a cue in, and we finished the song to a modest applause, visions of grandeur blown to smithereens. Who knows, maybe I'm subconsciously trying to sabotage my daughter's music career.

I packed up my guitar and as we walked out to the car, Kyra, channeling her inner diva, stopped me. "Daddy," she deadpanned, "If we get picked, you're really going to have to practice."

She's so ready for Hollywood.

She's Just a Laugh a Minute

Kailey's starting an early campaign for her run for class clown. I'm so proud. This afternoon as we were driving in the van, she was telling me how mean one of her teachers was because she wouldn't let them drink from their water bottles. "Yeah," she deadpanned, "Whenever one of us is bad she makes us sit on a stool in the corner with a pointy hat on our heads."

I immediately whipped around to look at her. "What?" I gasped, intending to launch a full inquiry into this heinous situation.

She cracked up laughing. "I'm kidding!" she cackled. "GOTCHA!!"

My mom, who was in town for Kyra's birthday, was riding next to me. I turned to her and shot her a look before joining in Kailey's laughter. She had gotten me. "Yeah, that was pretty good," I admitted.

We later picked Diane up from work and went out to dinner. As we were waiting to order, Diane was asking Kailey about some of her study habits, specifically about writing down her assignment information correctly. "So what did I say about that?" she asked as she tried to prompt the results of an earlier conversation.

Kailey shot back with perfect comedic timing, "Never to blow your nose in the dish towel?" After a moment of stunned silence, we lost it.

So while Kyra aspires to be Hannah Montana, Kailey seems to be following in the footsteps of Kathy Griffin. God help me.

Weird Science

This is Kailey's science project. It's been hanging on the wall of her classroom for about a month, ripening. I think it finally repulsed her teacher enough for her to urge Kailey to take it home. I now share it with you, dear reader, before plugging my nose and dumping it into the trash.



Any questions?

Oh, and my friend Brandt also sent me this solution to my book light crisis.



Yes, those are night vision goggles. Thanks, my friend, but these babies might fall into the realm of "overkill". Besides, I'd probably need to see a chiropractor after using them.

A Little Tub Music

I was giving Kyra her bath the other night when she decided that she needed to entertain me with her take on a familiar tune. Actually, she was teasing me. You see, I was shirtless while bathing her, which she apparently thought was pretty disgusting. I'm not sure why. I had good reasons for my upper body nudity. I had just finished mowing the lawn, so I was hot, plus I'm always looking for an opportunity to rip off my shirt and show off my hot bod. Kyra had her head tilted back getting it rinsed when she broke into song:

I see London, I see France,
I see Daddy's BOOBS!
Are they brown, are they natural?
I don't know, but they sure are GROSS!

I got her in the end, though. I told her that her little song didn't RHYME and marched my natural brown, gross boobs right out of the bathroom.

Mommy's Movie Preferences

Happy Mother's Day, Moms! I hope you had a great day. This morning, the girls were excited about Mother's Day, and Kailey got up very early, before 6:00, in order to make Diane breakfast in bed, because, in her words, "every Mom should have breakfast in bed on Mother's Day." Breakfast consisted of a cold cinnamon roll, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Later in the morning, we showered Diane with cards and all of the "crafts" the girls made at school in preparation of the momentous occasion that is Mother's Day. One of the last things Diane received was a construction paper flower made by Kyra. The flower consisted of several layers of different colored paper that were folded into "petals", and the whole flower was folded up and held together by a Velcro clasp. When the clasp was opened, the flower unfolded to reveal something about Mommy on each petal. It was actually quite clever. And it's always interesting to see what your young one is going to reveal about you. Here's what Kyra's flower had to say about Diane:

Red Petal #1 had a picture of Diane, Kailey, and Kyra which was taken at a school function.

Red Petal #2: Kyra's response to the phrase, "I love my Mom because..." she loves me. Fair enough.

Red Petal #3: "She is..." 38 years old. One day she'll learn to never reveal a woman's age.

Red Petal #4: "My Mom's Hobby/Favorite thing to do is..." heng out with me! It's true. Diane spends most of her time henging out. Honorable mentions = sleeping, watching reality TV, sunbathing, and drinking margaritas.

Orange Petal #1: "Her job is..." tel peepul whin thay have to go. Though she's been to Diane's workplace hundreds of times, Kyra clearly has no idea what she does. Sounds like she thinks Diane is a bathroom monitor.

Orange Petal #2: "When I am sick my Mom..." give me mesinr. Give her a break. She's six. Besides, given the correct dosage, mesinr can be extremely effective.

Orange Petal #3: "Her favorite food is..." Tie food. Anything that TIES her over till dinner! AR! AR!

Orange Petal #4: "Her eyes are..." brown. Diane has amazing eyes, but they're hard to classify. They're actually a blue-grey.

Which brings us to Yellow Petal #1. Diane opened the flower to Yellow Petal #1. She read it. I read it. We looked at each other and broke out laughing. Here is what it said: "Her favorite TV or movie..." adot movies. No, she's not talking about Arizona Department of Transportation movies...that's ADULT movies. Now Kyra's idea of adult movies are completely different from an adult's. But our thoughts quickly turned to Kyra's teacher who clearly had to do a double take when reading her response. The joke of the day quickly became how Diane likes adult movies, and I tried to cash in on her newfound pleasure, but she wasn't biting. Kyra, being ever the sensitive soul, thought we were making fun of her and ran away crying every time we brought it up, so we had to nip that fun in the bud.

Yellow Petals 2-4...oh, who even cares. Nothing matters after you find out your wife of nearly sixteen years has a newfound appreciation for adult movies! Looks like Father's Day came early this year!

Gettin' Yer Bell Rung

Tuesday night, Diane and I took Kailey to her gymnastics class which we had to reschedule because of a conflict with softball. Her rescheduled class was later than normal, and the gym bustled with several classes of girls of varying age going through a variety of exercises from floor, to vault, to balance beam...you get the picture. Only one thing will stop all activity in the gym dead in its tracks and it's situated on one wall next to the vault: a bell. It is a common practice that when a budding gymnast accomplishes a new feat, she, or the occasional he, bounds over to the bell and rings it. The gym goes silent as all attention is directed toward the ringer of the bell, followed by the collective question inquired by all who are present, "WHADJA DO?" The bell-ringer then gives a description of the mastery of their new skill:

"I did a somersault!"

"I climbed the 20-foot rope without plummeting to my death!!"

"I did a roundabout half-pike, triple gainer with a lemon twist!!"

The gym then bursts into cheers and applause, and the bell-ringer runs back to join her class, beaming with pride.

Kailey recently moved up to the next level and is doing quite well. I'm often impressed by her gracefulness as well as her natural ability to pick up new maneuvers quickly. About halfway through the session, her class moved to the low balance beams, situated about a foot off of the floor. They began by doing their normal beam exercises, but then her instructor introduced a new move to the balance beam: the handstand toe-touch. The girls are used to doing this move on the floor. They start by going into a handstand, touch their toes at the top of the handstand, then bring their legs back down to the floor where they resume their standing position. Now they were supposed to do this on the beam. The handstand position was no problem for most of the girls, but they were falling all over the place as they tried to land squarely back on the beam.

When she started, Kailey was stumbling and tumbling like the rest of the girls, but then began sticking her landings. Granted, she was only going a quarter of the way up on her handstand, but as her confidence grew, she went higher and higher in her handstand while sticking more of her landings. Her instructor worked with her for a minute, saw her stick a landing, and, yup, you guessed it, sent her over to the bell. Diane and I smiled as we watched Kailey trot with confidence across the gym to where the bell sat on the wall. She gave the string a tug and the bell sang out, prompting everyone in the gym, as if on cue, to respond with the required inquiry:

"WHADJA DO?"

Kailey took a deep breath, then stopped. Her proud smile faded from her lips and the blood drained from her face as she realized she had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA OF HOW TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHE HAD JUST DONE. Her little body slumped against the wall as she felt the stare of every eye in the gym boring into her, waiting to hear the details of her fantastic feat. Her eyes widened to what seemed the size of her head, revealing the churning wheels of her mind that desperately searched for an explanation. After what seemed like an eternity, Kailey muttered something unintelligible, at least to Diane and me as we tried to stifle our laughter, then scurried back to her class to the gracious cheers of the parents and other gymnasts.

She completed the rest of her class without incident, but I think she left the gym having learned an important lesson. If you're gonna ring the bell, you'd better have a damn-good explanation.

Saving Our Planet

I just had the following conversation with Kyra as we were on our way to school:

"Daddy, yesterday in school we learned we need to save our planet by getting trashed."

Once again I'm questioning our decision to send our girls to public school. "What do you mean by 'getting trashed'?" I laughed.

"We need to pick up our trash and we need to have three different containers: one for paper, one for cans, and one for bottles," she explained.

"Very good, Sweetie, but that's called RECYCLING, not GETTING TRASHED."

Kyra might be on to something though. Getting trashed to save our planet might entice many more people to get with the program.

Tourette's and the CMA's

Diane was having some issues last night. To give her the benefit of the doubt, let me just say that she's spent a lot of time at work over the past couple of days and she's tired.

It was a little after 9:00 and I settled into our comfy chair to watch Monday Night Football. We used to live in Seattle and I became a Seahawks fan while there. I hoped that they would break out of their funk and lower the boom on the Raiders. During the commercial breaks I switched over to the Country Music Awards to see if there were any good acts performing. Diane has converted into a pretty big country music fan in her "old age", and I'll admit that there are a couple of country artists that I enjoy listening to. Diane came home during one of my CMA switch-overs and her eyes lit up. "Oooo...what's this?!"

She quickly changed her clothes and snuggled in beside me (it's a big comfy chair), and since the Seahawks seemed to have the game well in hand, coupled with the fact that I'm an amazingly wonderfully caring and giving husband, we focused our attention on the CMA's. Sara Evans was introduced and seemed to be doing well despite the turmoil in her life. "She's wearing a corset. Those are very 'in' these days." Diane commentated, as if I needed a play-by-play on the CMA's, but I engaged her nonetheless.

"I knew that vests were 'in', but not corsets." I'm such the renaissance man. "I saw someone wearing a vest like yours on Ugly Betty last week."

"Did she wear it buttoned or unbuttoned?"

"Buttoned. It definately looks better buttoned." Has anyone seen my balls? I seem to have left them somewhere.

Sara evans started her performance and she sounded pretty good. She has a tendency to sing flat, but last night she was right on. We were enjoying her performance when Diane blurted out, "Big red belt!" I shot her a funny look. "What? That backup singer is wearing a big red belt. We sell those."

I looked her right in the eye and mocked her, with a touch of rapid-fire Tourette's syndrome added in for flavor, "BIG RED BELT!!" She cracked up with a big belly laugh. For those of you who have never heard Diane explode with laughter, you're missing something. It is, hands down, my favorite sound in the world, and I strive to hear it often.

Not two minutes later, Montgomery Gentry came onstage and Diane, to my delight, blurted out, "That guy shot a bear!" No sooner had the words left her mouth before she knew what was coming.

"BIG RED BELT!"

"THAT GUY SHOT A BEAR!"

Peals of laughter. We laughed so hard I thought we would wake up the girls. We didn't, and for the rest of the night I would bark out either "BIG RED BELT!" or "THAT GUY SHOT A BEAR!" at irregular intervals. It kept us laughing all night long.

I guess you had to be there.

Happy Halloween: What To Do With A Wig Unused

You wear it, of course! Kyra absolutely refused to don her Princess Leia wig due to the fact that, in her words, "I hate wigs!" So we had a perfectly good wig hanging around, which we promptly put to good use. Then we passed out treats to the kids while they snickered at us. Check it out...Diane, her sister Debbie, and I took turns:

Yes, that's a sword Kailey's holding up to my throat...cute, huh? How precious!

The Halloween highlight of the night: the girls approached a house that was broadcasting a loud "haunted house" soundtrack which was freaking them out a little bit. They were more than a little afraid of what awaited them on the other side of the door and hesitated to ring the doorbell. So Diane went up to the door with them. We all cracked up when we saw who answered the door:

All of us expected the boogeyman and got a sweet little ol' lady instead. Gotta love Halloween.