Turn Out the Lights, The Party's Over



We had our New Years Eve party on December 30 this year. It was a block party/open house that started at three and was scheduled to run until five. Rhiannon helped us kick the remaining guests out shortly before eleven that evening. Not wanting to keep people from coming over and having a good time, we invited grown-ups and children, too, who could occupy the basement which we converted into a kid-friendly playroom. Big, big mistake.

First, almost no parents showed up. They sent their kids over to eat and drink and basically tear the place apart in our (not Michael Jackson's) small version of Neverland. So Jayni and I and two neighbors from next door and one neighbor from down the street and about fifteen children under age ten enjoyed a bit of Aerosmith paired with cheese, sausage, crackers, sandwich fixings, and about ten pounds of shaved ham courtesy of my brother-in-law.

Other grown-ups finally showed up around 5, found the house warm and inviting, and stayed to eat and drink and meet other nieghbors (which was the goal, anyway). At around 7, two men showed up carrying practice amps and new electric guitars, a microphone, and monitors, and spent the next three hours playing our party, singing hits like "Gloria" and "Born on the Bayou". One of my neighbors, Pete, and I played during their breaks, playing songs like, "I think this is in G" and "Huh?". I even played a solo rendition of "Little Red Caboose" for the ladies.

Meanwhile, the children had regressed to being, well, children. I blame FEMA for not warning us soon enough, because the aftermath included damaged property, spoiled food, trash everywhere, and light vomit. The corner next to the weight bench had been converted to a dumping site for lollipop sticks, candy wrappers, bad nuts, tissues, and assorted debris. The record player had its top removed along with its needle. One cabinet door was torn off the hinges. Jayni's slide drawers had been rifled through. Rhiannon's keyboard had been puked on by one of the sick children from down the street whose parents had sent her over to get her out of their house. One could not see the carpet for all of the toys and food strewn across its surface. On my few trips downstairs to invesigate crying, I variously sw children swinging from the weight set, five children jumping on the exercise trampoline, kids rummaging through video boxes, and more. They were all feral and shared a group-think that succeeded in repelling anyone over fifteen from coming down for more than twenty seconds.

At the conclusion of the party, we all received hand-made invitations to go to Rhiannon's wedding. She was supposed to marry Anthony, also three, from next door, today, with reception at Chuck-E-Cheese's to follow. Rhiannon still thinks this is going to happen, but Jayni and I are trying to talk her out of it as Anthony beats her and has a foul mouth. But still she loves him. I thought girls were supposed to fall in love with boys who were like their fathers. Hmmm. I wonder who Rhiannon's dad is.

So we all slept until 8:30 this morning and spent the next six hours completing party clean-up. The place looks great now, but Jayni says, "never again". And Rhiannon says, "again, again!". Repeatedly cute.

Andrew (Papa)

The Day After

Game over, man. Yesterday at the in-laws' was great fun, and now we enter the long, dark Christmas hangover of opening boxes, disentangling dolls from mechanisms, bands, and wires not heard about since de Sade published Justine, paper clean-up, and the constant retrieval of shoes, dresses, and assorted acoutrements proprietary to Barbie, Barbie Fairytopia, Disney Barbie, Polly Pockets, and other dolly detritus that makes my head ache. So I'll stop writing about it. Somehow, my Star Wars toys were different.

Today also marks the last day of my vacation, and I used it as any dad should: playing with Rhiannon. Dads from all over the neighborhood stopped in to play. At $10 a person, we did pretty well. Actually, here's a list of our activities:

Assemble and play five rounds of Don't Break the Ice. Assemble and play six rounds of Lucky Ducks. Re-assemble Fairyland playset. Unbox Baby Cinderella. Unbox and load Frosty the Snowman Pez. Decant seven sticks of gum. Read all ten, new books, some twice. Thanks to grandpa for the knock-knock jokebook especially. Assemble and deconstruct giant Sleeping Beauty puzzle. Unbox small Narnia puzzle and rebox immediately. Distribute chocolate. Assist in two beadwork projects. Unwrap, load, play, and somehow watch the original Barbie Fairytopia DVD. Assemble and charge portable DVD player. Unbox and collate Barbie Kelly with pony and accessories. Wrap Rhiannon in Jayni's new, winter fleece wrap. Unwrap a sweating Rhiannon ten minutes later. Distribute venison stick. Assist with Scooby Doo card clean-up. Read Christmas books again.

But the coolest thing we did today was go for our first treasure hunt together. Jayni was sleeping off Christmas and Rhiannon's head was still spinning from the past 48 hours, so no nap for her. We suited up for our 32-degree gray day and drove out to Anderson Park. My brother gave me the coolest gift ever: a Garmin eTrex Legend hand-held GPS unit, which I spent the better part of the day learning (in between all of the above activities), and then went to www.geocaching.com to register and locate treasure hot-spots that are a mile or less from our house. Finding one at Rhiannon's favorite park was fortunate, so we drove out and followed the unit to some concrete benches near the swimming pool. The treasure I was looking for had been taken, but Rhiannon found a bottlecap which she was happy to add to her collection. She has a treasure chest on the hutch into which she places these caps, foreign coin, shells, interesting rocks, and other natural debris that holds some unknown meaning for her (unknown to us, that is). We had fun, got cold doing it, and came home to a mystified mom who is glad that father and daughter are finally connecting. (<= joke).

Rhiannon cuteness came during opening when she got to the Little Mermaid DVD and shouted, "I knew it!" Predictable cuteness.

Andrew (Papa)

Daddy, I Slept Wrong!

This morning at 5:39, our bedroom monitor crackled to life. It took a second for the alert to come into focus, but I could hear Rhiannon whimper, "Daaaadyyyy... Daaaaaaaaaadyyyyy... I slept wrong...."


Well that's odd.

So I got up, walked to Rhiannon's room, opened the door and turned on the light. She was right: she had slept wrong.

The first thing I noticed was her Christopher Walken hair, followed immediately by the fact that her body was turned 90 degrees from its normal position, so she was trapped, head to foot, between the rails on her bed -- with a little imagination, she looked just like Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter, the part where he's trapped, half-submerged in a bamboo cage, right before he gets taken up to play Russian roulette with his VC hosts. OK, so it would take a lot of imagination, but I guess that's where I was surfing on my alpha waves at quarter to six.

It took me a second to right her, re-apply four layers of covers (it IS Wisconsin at the start of winter after all), got her dollies sorted, and then it was back to bed for me, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling with "dang mao!!! dang mao!!!!!" ringing in my head.

Captive cuteness.

Andrew (Papa)

Merry Christmas!

A recent, French-speaking guest spent the final five minutes of his visit ranting against the generic "happy holidays" that has everyone on their best behavior. But here he was, a Christian among same, and he resorted to, reverted to, recovered the long-lost phrase, "Merry Christmas!" It's that time of the season. But this blog is not about him. It's about....

Rhiannon has been counting down the days with her secular advent calendar. Every morning she asks, "which number will we open today?" She remembers what we have opened, and which chocolates have been hidden behind the door in Santa's gut, or little Timmy's megalocephalic dome. She wonders every night if Santa is coming over. On December 1, she said she wanted to sit and wait up for him. Knowing her energy, she probably could have.

She has been out Christmas shopping with the parental units almost every day this past week. We went to the movie store and she quickly found her way to the "little kids" section where she started pulling DVDs off the shelves, shouting, "maybe Santa will get me one of these!" Scooby Doo meets Batman, Barbie, and a late Olsen Twins movie, something for dad! If only they were the late Olsen Twins, the world would be somehow less saccharine, more gritty. Exactly what we need right now.

Rhiannon has seen Santa twice so far this year (not even close to the five lap-sittings she counted coup on last year): once at the library and once at the Racine Mall, on the Saturday afternoon a week before Christmas, with 27 other children, their parents, grandparents, and assorted presents. Rhiannon has asked these Santas for the following gifts, in no particular order: Lucky Ducks (as opposed to the teen-oriented console game, Dead Ducks, or the politically themed Lame Ducks, or the NHL-driven Mighty Ducks, I'll stop now), Band-Aid bubble gum, "Barbie stuff", Anaksenamun make-up (from the Mummy), other "mummy stuff", Polly Pockets, "Ariel stuff". Not so big on movies and books like last year, but she might be taking these as a given.

We even got a toy to donate to needy children. Rhiannon said that we should "give it to the neighbors". Hmmm....Conscientously cute.

Andrew (papa)