The Pet Situation

As some of you may recall, several months ago we added a new family member in the person of a small betta fish named Bluetail. The kids really wanted a dog, but I figured that was something they probably ought to work up to from something smaller, so we ended up making a deal: if the kids could remember to feed the fish every day for two months, we would get a new, bigger pet. Well, after a few false starts, we're just a few days away from the landmark day of two months of perfect pet-keeping. Deciding on what the next pet will be has been quite a project in itself, we've made a few rounds to various pet stores and here are the lists that the kids came up with.



This first one was their first crack at it a few weeks ago, it features (for those having trouble reading the picture, man I love kid spelling):
GOLDFISH
HAMSTER
GUINEAPIGVPLL
CARNARY
eeL
TURTUL
FROQ
GUPPY
BLACKMOLLY
BUNNY.P

They put together the second list after spending half the day on Saturday visiting some more pet stores. For the picture reading impaired:
Mice.v
HAMsteR.v
TURtule.vLW
Rabits
Ginuqig
fi*sh
blakmoley
GuPey
Goldfir*sh
eel
Grble
rat
Lisrd
S*naKe
Chranchla
PiG
Knarey
Parakeyt

I'm quietly trying to steer them towards a nice, low-maintenance aquarium with a mess of little feeder fish and a swimming turtle, but I'm pretty much ok with any of the stuff on the list, except maybe the Chranchla (tarantula), since those can be poisonous and I don't think they'd be very good for a two-year-old. I'm also trying to play down the small, quick things that can escape from stubby pet owners that have the reflexes of a three toed sloth on valium, but I figure we can have those as long as we set up a child proof cage so they can't let 'em out without adult supervision.

Fairies and Reading and School, Oh My!

For those who have never had a chance to witness my girls voracious reading habits, you should probably know that for a four and a six year old these girls are serious readers. Laine devoured the first sixteen Magic Tree House books and Eve followed close behind. Their new favorite reading materials are the million and one fairy books written by a group of authors that all share the pseudonym of Daisy Meadows. The fairy books consist of a bunch of series, each with seven books, each featuring a different set of fairies. Eve is currently loving the weather fairies while Laine chomps through the rainbow fairies. I think they're having a contest for who can finish first, but I can never quite figure out the rules of the competition. As far as I can tell, the winner get the first go at the dance fairies series, but I could be wrong, it's hard to tell, the girls talk fast and laugh a lot when I try to understand the game.


James on the other hand is pretty easy to figure out. He's excited to be a school boy one day and get to go to school like his sisters. Some days he likes to borrow Eve's backpack, put it on upside down, and walk around the house announcing that he's going to school. He's so cute it's unbelievable. He also loves being turned upside down and tickled, but I figure that's pretty standard for age two.

I had my birthday yesterday, we celebrated by going to the state fair and seeing a bunch of animals and some art and riding some of the carnival rides there. The girls had a ball at the photography exhibit doing the photo scavenger hunt, they found all the pictures on the list except for the dog with the hat. They also thought seeing the sheep get sheared was pretty cool. One of the weird challenges of being a single parent is that you don't automatically have someone to take the kids to get you a present using your own money anymore. Took me a while to figure out what to do, but I ended up slipping my mom some cash and telling her to take the kids shopping. That ended up pretty well, they got to go get some presents for Daddy and I got some shirts that don't fit and a very delicious chocolate cake. All in all it was a pretty good day.

School, trips, and a new routine

The kids finished up their second week of school on Friday, and the adjustment to the new flow of life is well underway. The three little monkeys wake up each morning to grab some breakfast and try to sneak in a few cartoons while try to sneak in some work before the day gets going. Laine heads to school at 8:20, most days I'm able to walk along with her up to H. R. Driggs Elementary. The morning walk is nice, all of the kids in the neighborhood walk to school so it's like a little parade to school every day. Then it's time to get some work done, conference calls or research or putting together documents for my current project. At noon it's time to switch gears again and get Eve off to preschool and James down for his nap. A few more hours of work to hopefully finish my work day (so I don't have to get back to the grind after the kids go to bed) then it's off to pick Eve up then take Laine to Kung Fu, take Eve to dance lessons (starting this Thursday, she's so excited), run to the bank, pick them up from lessons, shop for food, buy more socks (how do they always lose their socks?), make dinner (something awesome!), feed the kids, go over homework, get teeth brushed, tuck them in with books for our new bedtime reading routine, say prayers, read scriptures, then make up a new and original bedtime story on the fly from stuff they choose, hugs and kisses, lights out, then head upstairs and blow off some steam (so I can do the whole thing again tomorrow). How do single parents who don't have awesome families to help out survive this?

Then of course it's time to start prepping things out for my next trip to the East Coast for business. It's been pretty steady at a three-day trip (three full days there, which means four nights away) once a month, sometimes with more notice than other times. I only had a week's notice on this last one, and I found out that it only takes eight adult relatives in a coordinated schedule to replace one superdad. Pretty good on their part, I would have thought it would take at least ten of 'em. Seriously, how do single parents who don't have awesome families to help out survive this? On the upside I get my airline silver medallion next trip, that's 25,000 miles I'll have flown and now I won't have to wait as long in the security line every time.

Laine seems to be loving her first grade class, Eve has no complaints about preschool, and James is still the king of afternoon naps. Thanks to everyone who helps so much, we really couldn't do this without you.

It's Starting Again

The potty training has commenced in earnest now that the boy understands he get M&M's every time he successfully makes a deposit in his little froggy potty. So far he's managed to get three pees in the thing, still no solids but we're making progress. His sisters have figured out a method of sitting him down and making him drink a bunch of water to make him go, which seems to get results (and therefore candy), but I'm not sure if it addresses the fundamental issue of recognizing when you gotta go and getting to the potty in time. We'll keep reinforcing and rewarding and hopefully he'll get motivated to pay attention to his little bladder.

In other news this week we got a crate of fresh peaches off of Emo's peach tree. We've had em fresh and raw, in crepes, in cobbler, and in peaches and cream. Thanks Emo, they've been great.

In case you didn't know...

There are a few things you should be aware of about the boys in the family. The first thing you should know is that I am the best cook ever. In case you don't believe that, Eve went ahead and made a sign for us to put up in the kitchen to let everyone know.

The second thing you should probably be aware of is that James happens to be the cutest sleeper in the world. He's a very busy little guy and sometimes he just gets so tired he needs to sack out on the couch with a pillow for a blanket.

The third thing you should know is that James at age two knows more about picking up girls than most guys learn in a lifetime. Check the video, you'll see him captivate three older women using nothing more than his charm and acrobatic abilities.

The Divorce

This weekend we finally clued in the children to what we had decided on months ago. We're getting a divorce. This probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to most of the people who read this, and for those that we didn't tell personally, sorry, it's tough to spread the word on something like this without the kids finding out and we wanted to make sure they heard it from us first.

We picked up Christine at the airport and took the kids out for a picnic at the park. We told them we were getting a divorce. Laine started crying immediately, Eve saw that and started crying too. James just kept grinning, he's a little bit little to understand what's going on. We explained to the children that we would both always love them, and that it wasn't their fault, and that everything would turn out ok in the end. Eve cheered up after about a minute, then went off to climb the monkey cage. James scampered after her, still grinning. Laine asked a few questions and cried some more, we held her and answered the best we could. After a few minutes, Laine seemed to decide things were going to be ok, and her tears dried up and she went off to play with Eve and James.

I'm sure there will be more tears in the days ahead, but they seem to be taking it very well so far.

Anyway, the legal gears are churning, everything is agreed on, paperwork is done; we don't know when we'll be official, probably sometime in September. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive to both of us and to the children.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Shauna

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This Saturday we had the good fortune to be invited up to my Uncle Jim and Aunt Shauna's place. For those not close with the Bradley clan, Jim and Shauna live up in the mountains about a bazillion miles from civilization. This is a very good thing. They have all the great stuff up there that us city dwellers miss out on, horses, cows, swimming holes, rivers in their backyard, peace and quiet, and old fashioned good clean fun (which is a weird name for it, cause it usually involves getting dirty).

It's about an hour out of Salt Lake and we managed to make the drive with only one or two "Are we there yet?"s. Only got lost twice, once because the streets stopped having street signs, once because the houses stopped having numbers. It's rough finding something that's not on a neatly numbered grid, sometimes I forget how nice it is to live in a city that looks like my old geometry homework. We arrived to meet the two friendliest dogs on the planet, which didn't stop the kids from freaking out for a few minutes before getting brave enough to stand on the ground while the dogs were with sniffing distance. Jim and Shauna greeted us next, they didn't sniff and lick as much but they were at least as friendly as the pair of labs playing on their front porch.

I'd like to pretend I don't brag much, but if you're reading this you probably know better than that by now. This time I'm serious though, I have the best Aunts and Uncles on the planet. Jim and Shauna are a great example of why I can say that with such confidence. If you ever have the opportinity to meet them you should definitely take it, cause they're straight up great people.

The first activity up there was catching a horse, followed by grooming the horse, then riding the horse. All three little buddies were brave as could be and hopped right up on ol' Cactus's back for some trots around the arena. I even gave it a go. Cactus was a good sport and didn't kick any of us.

After the horseback riding, we were hot and dusty, so we changed into our swimwear and headed over to a real old-fashioned swimming hole. Well, mostly old-fashioned anyway. The folks around had dammed up a spot on the river big enough to be a pool and had it all set up with some stairs going down into the water, canoes, little inflatable rafts, deck chairs, and tables with big umbrellas in case you wanted to sit in the shade. The kids had a ball there, swimming, wading, boating, and sunning. James found his new favorite thing in the world, a green plastic canoe paddle. I haven't seen him that fascinated by anything in a long time. He didn't really want to do anything with it, he just loved carrying it around and stirring the water with it a little bit.

After the swimming hole we headed back to Jim and Shauna's house where they grilled us up an awesome dinner and the kids played until they were about half past exhausted. We had early church in the morning, so we headed out with some happy good-byes to the people and the dogs and made our way along the long gravel road back to the highway then back to the strange land of cell phones and asphalt we call home.

Thanks Jim and Shauna for a really truly great day.