A conversation between M- and E-: Weggo my wego

The following is a conversation that just took place in our playroom, where my 8-year-old son D- and 5-year-old daughter M- were each playing with Legos in their own way, after my buddingly verbal almost-2-year-old son E- happily waltzed in. I think it pretty well captures their relationship most of the time, these days.

E- (idly content): Wehhh-gooooooes...

M- (sounding not unlike Ian McKellan's Gandalf): E-, this is my tower, and you cannot touch it!

E- (decisively oblivious): TOUUUUCH!

M-: No, DON'T touch it!

E-: TOUUUUUUUUCH!!

M-: Arghhhhhh!

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You may enjoy my previous D- conversations, M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations, as well as my future E- conversations.

A conversation between M- and D-: Truth and Consequences

I'm not sure that there's a lesson to be found here in this conversation between my 7-year-old son D- and my 4-year-old daughter M- as they got ready for bed recently, but it is what it is, and I swear this really happened:

Me (to D-, who's given to sleeping shirtless solely to save himself seconds of time in the evenings and mornings): Get a shirt on, or you'll be sorry-- this morning you were huddled up in a freezing ball again.

M- (gleefully butting in): He should have "CONsequences", Dad!

D- (seeming to have temporarily forgotten his deep familiarity with this word): What?

M- (in a rational, expository tone, with only a slight hint of smugness toward the end): Consequences-- you have to sleep with no shirt, and you're very cold. That's "consequences" of what you did.

D-: BANG! Two socks in the face-- that's YOUR consequences!

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You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

North Dakota on my mind

In a footnote yesterday, I suggested that I might compare* the U.S. state of North Dakota to a state of near-death.

You must understand that I say this based on the fact that it's the only U.S. state from which I haven't yet recorded a visit to this blog. Every other state has sent me anywhere from a handful to well over a thousand hits, and in fact half the states have visited at least a hundred times, along with 53 foreign countries, but between the two Dakotas, I'm holding steady at 1 visit in almost 8 months.

What gives, Dakotas?!? We must have some common interests or interpersonal connection that might trick you into coming here. Given that you have the highest percentage of churchgoing citizens in the U.S. (according to Wikipedia**) and your highest point is something called White Butte, I feel sure it's a temptation when I suggest you can stop by once in awhile to yell at me for being a "filthy, godless, America-hating, city-slicking, Obama-loving, liberal hippie!" Sound good? You know it does.

Actually, the most cutting of criticisms would be that this whole post is just a ploy to attract an unsuspecting hitchhiker or two wandering the Google turnpike from up Dakota way. This, however, is not remotely accurate, and furthermore: "Gov. John Hoeven", "Mt. Rushmore sucks", Sioux, departing, "Western Meadowlark", "flights out", Minot, "how much longer till I can leave", and "Who needs Mt. Rushmore, anyway... we're just not that showy".

Whatever you wanna say to me now, funny-talking folks, fire at will-- my comment board is open as always!

In closing, it is a distinct honor to disappoint you, my likely-incensed casual North Dakotan drop-ins. I'd love you to stay, but if you simply can't, I ask only that you leave a tiny piece of your Very Upper Midwest souls with my friends at Google Analytics on your way back out the door, so I can finally finish coloring in my cool map of the U.S. various shades of green***.

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* In case you were born/raised in North Dakota, or you have family there, or you'd just like to defend a physically large state containing only almost exactly 10 times the number of people as the minor Chicago suburb in which I live, please note the supremely artful and undeniably endearing hedging of my phrasing^ here. I'd appreciate it if instead of cursing at me, you just chuckled lovingly and suggested I go into politics. ...Okay, go ahead now.

** This is a disclaimer that must always accompany any fact taken from Wikipedia-- new rule.

*** They don't call it "Anal-ytics" for nothing!

^ Or alternatively, you could just admire my extensive and arguably excessive use of adverbs and gerunds.

The one-eyed monster

For those of you who are new, who may have missed the earlier posts, or who just want to amuse themselves again at my expense should read my accounts of my 1-year-old daughter's attempt to blind me before continuing with this post.

Having had some time to think this all over, aided by TerriRainer's continuously referring to me as One-Eyed Dan for the past several weeks, and after becoming sick of seeing the old Draft post I had filled with unused one-liners and other tidbits from those two posts, I've decided to close the book on this traumatizing chapter of my life in one explosion of randomness.

I have come to believe that this assault was not an accident but rather a well-disguised act of revenge for my not having a bottomless supply of Goldfish crackers, about which M- had protested and threatened about a week before the attack. See me ignorantly passing along her blatant warning at the end of this post of quotes from our house.

Further supporting this theory is the fact that the assailant may be starting to feel her Sicilian blood. She comes from a people with a documented history of serving their revenge as cold as gelato, with all-natural marinara, shall we say.* Due to my side of the family, she also comes from a people known for drunken brawling, but guess which is the bigger threat in the long run?

In my time spent pondering the implications of all this, I've decided that I should probably wear an eyepatch over my remaining eye as a preventative measure. And actually, for the sake of the continuing recovery of my tender injured eye, I think I'll just go all-out and wear two.

Another quandary is that, as the world's newest Cyclops, would my arch-nemesis be Odysseus or Magneto? Or both? "Damn you, you sheep-stealing evil mutant mastermind!!" Nah.

I think that choice is decided by the fact that Odysseus has long since passed over the River Styx**-- I'm forced to go with Magneto. This means that from now on, I'll officially be lying in wait for the chance to sucker punch Sir Ian McKellan right in the throat.

Until that blessed day, however, I'll have to continue running through wistful montages in my head-- things I've seen with two eyes; my unblemished face while looking at stuff; me laughing at something undetermined with two good eyes (montages always include laughing scenes); me staring blankly at a computer for much of the day, blinking occasionally without an eye-injury-related care in the world; and so on.

The caption for all these montages would boil down to something like this (be sure to use your happy memory voice): "Remember all those times I looked at stuff and was able to more accurately judge its approximate distance from my face by using the impressions from more than one eye to create a composite image with reliable scale in proportion to said distance? Those were good times."

I was a fool to not see that back then. I was also a fool to not see the frisbee D- threw at my face the other day.

* That sounds disgusting, and yet it makes me hungry nonetheless.
** Domo ari-ga-to, Mis-ter Ro-bot-o.***
*** You're welcome. Now go enjoy the rest of your day irritating people with the awe-inspiring genius of Mr. Dennis DeYoung.

Editor's Note: Notice that I went through this whole post of tidbits without once mentioning pirates. It's just too obvious, and you know how I hate obvious humor.

Copy Editor's Note: Editor's Notes don't count as part of a post.

Silver lining: Monocles are cooler than glasses

Continuing with yesterday's post about the probable complete loss of my right eye, now that I'm presumably a bit more composed, I'll say in M-'s defense that she had been supposedly coming over to give me a hug (which, to complete the ruse, was telegraphed by a call of " 'ug! 'ug!!") and she ostensibly just got a bit carried away.

This particular snake puppet is naturally made of pretty rigid plastic, including a potent little forked tongue that apparently comes factory-equipped with a hunger for fresh corneas. Well, I can assure you that this was one happy little snake, because he got his fill that day of his favorite flavor.

I had been sitting on the floor with the kids, so after the assault, I simply laid down with my hand over my eye, wishing awful, awful things on most of the world (nothing personal, by the way). J-, being a self-trained EMT as well as a teacher, calmly took charge of the situation by remaining on the couch and asking if I was okay between bouts of hearty laughter. I refused to answer, instead just laying there breathing slowly through gritted teeth.

D- then decided to try his hand at crisis management by leaning over my still-covered snakebit eye and asking (in a very tender voice), "You okay? Where does it hurt?" Even in that moment I recognized the sweetness, as well as the fact that through his previous injury experience we have programmed our robot well. However, in my pointless anger (you get used to this feeling after dealing with babies), the latter question seemed so colossally stupid that I couldn't bring myself to answer without undeserved sarcasm, so I just stayed silent like my mother taught me.

J- made sure M- said sorry (pronounced, as always, "Rah-zhee"), but that girl was remarkably jolly during the whole ordeal, due to the undeniable fact that she still had this awesome snake head on her finger, dripping precious drops of scleral fluid as it forever will whenever I close my eye.

This previously useless little goody bag prize had been blessed that day to discover its two Special Purposes within the same hour-- first to pounce upon all human eyes in reach as an attempt to level the playing field for the animal kingdom, and second to give great joy to 15-month-olds for whole minutes at a time (an eternity) while inspiring them to practice their maniacal laughs (I kid you not-- priceless). During these exultations, M- several times reached her new weapon towards the Baby Gods* in thanks and tribute, a la He-Man and his Power Sword, until she reached a height of about 31 inches, at which time she fell over backwards from stretching too far.

Much of the charm of this display, and almost all of the visuals, were lost on me at the time as I lay there quietly suffering, or I might have been able to capture some pictures. I'm a little wary, as you might imagine, of reuniting these two powerful entities in the interests of re-creating the moment, because I fear she might quickly scuttle up my front, sit on my shoulders, and repeatedly stab me in the left eye to finish the job she started this weekend. Or at least that's the vision my Dream Shaman showed me sometime last night, just before I woke up to the eerily appropriate sound of D- crying.

So that's the story of what happened-- I can discuss the fallout (regrets, memories, plans for the future, etc.) tomorrow or the next day, and then I'm sure I'll be done talking about my eyeballs for the rest of my life. Or at least the next month or so.


* Copyright hereby claimed for all derivative works and toy/book/other licensing. Any similarities to The Muppet Babies are entirely coincidental though probably advisable.

Editor's Note: The saga continues, believe it or not, here.

I didn't need that eye, anyway

Let me start by wishing all you mothers out there a Happy Mother's Day. It's probably belated, since I'm sure most of you won't read this until tomorrow, unless one of your well-deserved selfish activities for today is to read all the blogs you want in peace. If that's the case, good for you!

If I sound like I'm typing this with only one eye, I'll just say that you, sir or madam, are exceedingly perceptive.

Furthermore, I'll assume you are sympathetic and genuinely want to know more details of how I came to be this way. Addressing your first point, I wish to express my gratitude but to offer pettily that it doesn't quite make the pain go away, and addressing your second point, I can certainly find it in me to indulge you with my tale of woe, spun as well as I can muster in my present state:

My own daughter stabbed me in the f***ing eye with a novelty snake-head finger puppet.

...More tomorrow, if I survive.

Part of a balanced breakfast

Let me tell you, there's nothing like waking up to the sight of this first thing in the morning:

Curious what that might be? You shouldn't be.

But since you're still reading, I'll tell you.

That's avian feces that somehow managed to travel roughly dead east with enough velocity to slice through the screen and spray itself all over the inside window. How this was achieved, and whether the bird from which it was deployed actively hates us or merely felt compelled to send us a message, I do not know.

What I do know is that the effect is even more disgusting than any picture could ever do justice. I think I'll stop writing about it now, just as we've tried to stop looking at it whenever we go in the dining room.

Any cleaning tips for the screen? I'd like to take care of this mess before any of Buzzy's relatives come in for Fly Thanksgiving.

Hippo with a hammer in hand

Only as a parent do you have to be on the lookout for hooligans cruising by on a hippo, squeaky hammer in hand, looking for victims innocently relaxing on the floor.

M-'s new chauffeur silently pushed her up alongside J-, whose eyes were closed at the time, and M- began lining up a hammer strike on J-'s temple. Where the kid learned this, I don't know, but had I not been able to grab the hammer in time, I don't think J- would have believed the Helpless Muscle Spasm defense M-'s little baby face has sold us so many times in the past.

Don't let the squeakiness fool you-- that is one solid hammer. And don't let the baby fat (and tiny little toes!!) fool you-- that kid's arm is hard as a coffin nail.

Now that these two are allied, J- and I will quickly be outmatched. Because you see, only children can get away with acting like children, as I've sadly discovered, and I know they will soon begin using this to their advantage.