Yesterday Michael, his mom and I drove up a short way into Washington to retrieve sister S, who’d spent a week with her dad. Her first grand announcement as we pulled back onto the freeway headed for home: “I’m a vegan now!” “Good luck with that,” I replied. See, this is a girl who only [...]

Michael and his sisters and cousin are back from vacation at Grandma’s. I drove 173 miles to pick them up, 3+ hours of driving along the mighty Columbia river through alternately verdant and barren countryside, to reach a small town whose main claim to fame is being home to one of the few remaining coal-fired [...]

We’re watching “Shrek The Third” at Michael’s request. As usual, he’s watching it mainly with his mouth: “Why he’s green?” “What’s the cat doing?” “Where are they going?” “The donkey is mad.” “Shrek has a big hand. He’s loud, too.” And on, and on, and on. From the first frame, Michael continued to make observations, [...]

Today, Michael presents a useful tool for five-year-olds everywhere. Hey, kids! Michael here. You know when your parents glare at you with the angry face and words are coming out of their mouths but you really don’t know what they mean? Me too! I’ve done some studying and I think I have a few of [...]

Last night Michael, his mom and I went to his Kindergarten orientation. It marks the start of his public school career; the point where he is added to the official rolls of a brick-and-mortar learning institution. He is growing up. He could have started Kindergarten last year. In fact, we had signed him up. But [...]

Okay, kids, here’s a scenario: you walk into the bathroom, and just after you shut the door you notice there’s no toilet paper. The dispenser has an empty cardboard tube, and the spare rolls are all gone. What will you do? What Will You Do? True, you could use the facial tissue that’s in the [...]

As I’m making dinner, the kids are all playing Beatles Rock Band. They’re really good at it; even Michael joins in, playing the drums sometimes and other times singing. He’s actually got a pretty accurate voice, and considering the fact that he can’t actually read the lyrics, he gets most of the words right. And [...]

While a vast portion of the United States is being buried in snow, here in Oregon it’s sunny and warm-ish. So there’s no excitement in the weather. I heard that Illinois got hit with a respectable earthquake last night, and lived to tell the tale. And while we didn’t exactly have an earthquake, we did [...]

This weekend we were finally able to make a purchase that we’ve been planning and saving for quite a while: a big screen television. When we brought it home, the kids’ eyes lit up with delight. We unpacked it, set it up, and the kids began enjoying it right away. Were they amazed by the [...]

My kids are infamous for their skills in finding ways to use toys completely wrong. Aside from merely leaving trails of board game pieces in their wake all about the house and setting up “Mouse Trap” just to spring the trap (I don’t think we ever actually played that game), they find ways of using [...]