'Twas the night before Christmas Eve...

Vacation has begun.  I'm officially off of work for the next 2 weeks.  As part of my quest to live life like I'm still in high school, I went and scheduled myself a nice little Christmas vacation.  But now I am one day in to said vacation and I'm realizing that the reality of these two weeks might be a tad different than the ones I remember so fondly from my youth.  In my excitement to get off of work, I failed to consider that this parenting gig wasn't going to take a hiatus as well.  Now... I'm thinking I may just plan a few "working days" at the office to prepare for the new year.  We'll see how that flies.  I don't know how Mindy does it so much, because being in this house is like being constantly cornered by two assailants of need.  It's a perpetual dance of placation and/or disappointment.  It makes me tired.

But I love me some Cam.  That little dude is fun to hang out with.  Lately we've been really into playing the Madden football App on the Ipad.  He picked our team to be the Bears because they are, and I quote Cam here, "Bad Boys."  Then he somehow changed the uniforms to the Bengals so we are now the Chicago Bengals.  "We" rely very heavily on our tight ends and slot receivers.  At first I thought he was going to seriously injure Martellus Bennett by exclusively throwing him the ball.  But now he has developed a nice little rapport with Alshon Jeffery on the slant.  "We" rarely win.  It took us about 20 tries to beat the Washington Redskins (including a last second pick six that lost us the game because "we" were trying to run up the score).  That one stung.  But we finally defeated Washington this morning and advanced on to playing the Indianapolis Colts.  Cameron refers to our new foe as the "Whiteskins."  Sometimes I feel very discriminated against in my house.  It's hard to be a minority.

Cameron and I also like to participate in trivia contests. This is a sneak peak at a typical game.  I ask Cam if he can name 7 trains from Thomas.  He rattles them off in one breath.  He asks me an abstract question with multiple answers.  No matter what I guess, I am responded to by a loud buzzer noise and a harsh "wrong."  It's like doing that psychic game with Bill Murray at the beginning of Ghost Busters.  But, it's fun to hear the clever questions and answers he comes up.  Like just the other day, he asked me "who is Momma's favorite guy?" I smiled at him smugly and answered, "me of course."  I expected the buzzer noise.  I was even prepared for him to claim that spot.  But I most certainly was not ready for what was to come next.  Apparently, my wife's "favorite guy" is the man who was at our house earlier that day fixing the air conditioner.  This was rather alarming news.  Coming from my family of origin, I am quite aware of the allure that profession can have on the ladies.  Graves' Heating and Air is basically just a male prostitution network.  If my father or uncle tell you any differently, they are lying.  And when you're working in refrigeration you are always working with "hot" women.  Ok, I'll stop.  But needless to say an extensive interrogation took place to uncover what transpired between Mindy and the repairman.  The investigation is still pending.

I had more I wanted to write today, but Mindy is waiting for me so we can do Insanity before the kids wake up from nap.  Nap time is not to be squandered in pithy rantings.  Fun fact, did you know that Mindy knows the first name of all the back-up fitness participants in the Insanity DVD.  I'm beginning to think that this stay at home gig might be a little lonely.  And with  that realization, I am definitely intensifying my efforts on the repairman case.  We shall see if she goes Freon the charges or not...  Ok, I'm truly stopping.  That was just sad.

Merry Christmas,
Father

PC or Not PC?

I recently came to the realization that Mike may be more politically correct than I thought.  This may shock you, given what he has written on this very blog in the past.  However, consider the following examples:

• When Mike's dad first met Carter as a two-month-old, Carter was a cute, chubby baby.  Mike's dad affectionately called him a sumo wrestler.  Mike told his dad to stop being a racist and just call Carter fat.
• Carter is at the age where he'll do anything to reach a desired object, including throwing himself out of my arms or face planting to the ground, so I like to say he's my little kamikaze baby.  Mike immediately responds by saying this is racist, because if Carter were not half-Asian, we would instead call him reckless, adventurous, and strong.

But then again, this is coming from the same guy who suggested that our children dress up as Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un (the infamous former and current North Korean Presidents) for Halloween and has also encouraged Cameron to pursue short track speed skating as his sport of choice.  So you be the judge.