My Beard is Cheap Acupuncture

Earlier this morning, I grabbed Analisse (2), aka, The Freak, up in my arms and began chewing on her cheek and kissing her nose.  I like to grow my beard for a week or two, then shave it off nice and clean and start the process all over again.  I began doing this when I grew my first whisker and determined to maintain the habit when I read a study that stated that people who don't shave their beards every day die earlier than those that do.

I think I need to inform Aunt Gertrude.  She has an epic 'stache that needs to be trimmed daily.  

Anyway, I'm determined to provide their control by bucking the trend.

In the meantime, I'm kissing Analisse and she's screaming and giggling while pushing me away with all her might.  I giggled right along with her and then put her down so she could run away from me.

A few minutes later, Jack (4) began to whimper about some Legos that fell apart.  I crawled over to him and assured him that Legos fall apart all the time because they want you to put them back together (I learned this in another study that measured the feelings of inanimate object like Legos and Nerf bullets, the latter being petrified every time they were loaded into a Nerf gun.  The trick is to spread superglue on the tip of the bullet to shield their sense of flying through the air.  Just watch the eyes when you shoot).  He took it like a champ, smiled, and began to clip those bricks back together.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught The Freak staring at me.  I looked her direction and noticed her cheek.  The one I had been chewing on and smooching.  It was covered in red dots that were spreading.  

Oops.  Guess it's time to shave.  Now I know why she was screaming and pushing me away.

I Think He Loves Me

I arrived home this evening to freshly washed floors and a complete disaster of a living room.  Some of the kids were cleaning the living room and Kristine was making supper.

Renaya (10) was stirring a pot of grits, laced with butter and cheese.  Kristine was baking bacon. (Yeah...I know.  A perfect way to ruin bacon, but anything Kristine makes is worth it, so I enjoyed it anyway.)  On the counter was a plate of an attempt at over easy eggs.  My bride had tried and failed to make eggs for the one billionth time (she openly admits this to all hearers even though I love her eggs).

She was frustrated and told me to make them instead.  I made them - perfectly for only the third and a halfth time in my egg making career.  I was proud of myself, proud of Renaya, proud of my bacon baking wife, and proud of the rest of the kids, who were still valiantly pretending to clean the living room.

I had just cracked my third batch of eggs and dumped them into the pan when I felt something brush against my leg.  Jack (4) was looking up at me, just standing by the stove.

"Um...daddy?"

"Yes?"

"I just want to hug you."

Wow.  That never happens.  Tonight was a good night. 

Winning a Battle, Losing the War

Characters - My daughter, Analisse (2) and my son, Jack (3).

Setting - A house in Colorado.


I'm sitting at a long wooden dining room table, quietly chatting with our hosts, Kristine sitting next to me, when I hear a quick double pitter patter of small feet.  The sound is unmistakeable for that of two children beginning a fight.  My head whips to the right as the fight unfolds.

Jack has one of those children's toys where you turn, crank, screw, or press things and faces of cartoon characters pop up.  Then, you press those faces back down and do it again.  The toy is popular with the littles and even me in an unreserved moment, sitting in an easy chair, leaning over the side, playing with the toy on the floor, stopping only when a large drop of drool escapes my lips, dropping to the carpet, jerking me back to mature reality.

Jack reaches the hallway off the living room with Analisse right behind him but that is as far as he gets.  Analisse catches the back of his shirt, spins him around by the neck, latches her arms around the toy, and drops to the floor.  Jack begins to scream a very high pitched scream, weeping through his labored breathing.  Analisse is very quiet and calculated, making nary a peep.  She slides her legs expertly under his, twists her body over from her back to her stomach, and ends up laying on top of the toy.

Jack has lost.

Then, in two swift steps, he disappears down the hall and out of sight.

Analisse sits up and calmly begins to play with the toy.  Only, she isn't enjoying herself.  She is worried sick, not knowing where Jack is or what he has up his sleeve.  She presses one face down, looks up in the direction of his disappearance, then repeats.  Press, look.  Look....look, press.  Twist, look, press, look.  Push, press, look.  Look.  Look.

Fed up with her suspicions, Analisse jumps up and quickly walks down the hall, leaving the toy on the floor, looking for Jack.  She disappears beyond the turn of the hallway.

Before you could say "hello world!", Jack appears around the corner.  In one leap, he is at the toy, swooping it up in his arms, with the devastated Analisse screaming and crying behind him.

Analisse won the little battle, Jack won the war.