Regular Life

   
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Benjamin’s first full day of kindergarten doubled as his first day of soccer practice. Unlike tee ball (which we “volunteered” him for at age three), he eagerly participated. When I wasn’t helping, I was taking pictures, and Shannon sat in a camp chair, busily filling out a [...]

While Benjamin decides which movie to watch (above)*, I’m second-guessing a parenting decision.
Benjamin received a very cool Star Wars sticker book for his fifth birthday. He came to a page with Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace characters on it and asked, “Do we have the one with these guys in it?”
I happily [...]

Thursday ended with Shannon staring at her computer screen, tears streaming down her face. “Ben’s hiding in his closet,” she said. Ben likes to do that when I get home so I can “find” him.
Then Shannon looked up at me and sobbed, “He could have died.”
Just home from work, I set down my [...]

Benjamin, speaking of his doll: Baby Rex is a Super Diaper Baby.
Me: Well, then what are you?
Benjamin: (before I could blink) A Super Underwear Kid.
And that settles it.
———-
While re-hanging pictures on the kitchen wall following our first marathon painting night, I dropped one of them.
Startled, Shannon yelled, “Oh, mother –” and then stopped herself [...]

(Note: Yesterday’s post was my 700th published. About 60 days short of three years doing this, I figure that’s one post every 1.4 days.)
Before the thievery on Saturday, there was a windfall of epic proportions.
Sometimes, you just get lucky.
You’ll recall that we were at a place featuring games that spit out tickets rewarding [...]

Shannon was a victim of a theft and a theft attempt on Saturday. Both by the same person and in the same place.
After finally finishing up a customer call that made me all but miss a five-year-old’s birthday party, I showed up about an hour late to a six-year-old’s party hoping I could just [...]

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Curses!
I sit at our home PC typing a blog post or some such nonsense. On one of her nights to put Benjamin to bed, Shannon walks into the guest bathroom to assess his teeth brushing progress. I hear them talking to each other, but can’t [...]

This post is about two more firsts in my life — one just fine and one kind of scary.
Sunday afternoon, Ben and I joined He B and his son for a football game. It wasn’t NFL. Heck, it wasn’t even AFL. Nope, this was IFL.
For those I lost after the first acronym, [...]

Boys do eventually grow out of some of their annoying tendencies. I’m sure girls do, too, but I’ve never brought one up — heck, never even had a niece — and so I claim no expertise in the female arena.
Yeah, so what’s new, right?
On Easter weekend, Benjamin and his cousin, LC, got along great [...]

(Readers of “Bernie” will be pleased — I hope — to find that the stuffed Part Ten really starts moving things along.)
Here’s the snow that piled up Monday night while all this was going on. Most we’ve seen (here) in the 2.5 years we’ve lived here. See Benjamin’s little Megablok wagon out there? [...]