ll cool k

Mr. Cool in his new shades and Daddy's flip flops.

Overboard popped into REI yesterday and got Kenny his own stylish pair of sunglasses. I'm hoping against hope that this means he'll stop trying to bend mine in half and just attack his own, but we'll see.

In other fun Kenny news, his latest "thing" is to step into my flip-flops and plod around the kitchen. He finds this pretty entertaining, and does it without any sense of malice or irony, so I'm gonna take it as an homage and not a parody of Daddy.

"I'm Daddy! Look at me shuffle around. Look at me tell the dog to stop barking! Look at me grow a playoff beard that is terrible, but still better than Sidney Crosby's!"

playoff beard-ish

Evenkeel tries to rally his teammates to hirsute victory.

The playoffs for my hockey league started about two or three weeks ago, and in true hockey tradition, I've been letting the facial hair grow. Or at least grow as best I can. I trimmed off the scruff on the sides to just allow the scruff that makes up a goatee. A goatee that is the envy of eighth graders everywhere, but scoffed at by most sophomores (and my wife).


Evenkeel ponders what it means to be called "peach fuzz" by a 14-year-old.

I know it doesn't look good, hell, it doesn't feel very good, but who am I to go against such a noble hockey tradition? I suffer for my slap shot, so to speak.


Kenny hopes this kind of sad facial hair growth isn't genetic.

Tonight is the championship game, so win or lose, it's coming off*. Here's hoping I shave it with a smile and not a tear. And here's hoping those mean kids on the schoolyard stop snickering at me as well.


"Seriously, Daddy, Mommy says you need to shave."



*[ed note] Even with a shorthanded, breakaway goal from Evenkeel, the Phantoms came up short 4-3 and were forced to settle for second place. If history has taught me anything, it's that Overboard will look at me and say, "So this [circling her finger around my mouth] wasn't working for ya, eh?" Sigh.

young mckenny had a farm

Well, Young McKenny may not have a farm just yet, but he did visit one today. After running an errand at the local garden center so Overboard can indulge her green thumb, we stopped in at Wagner Farm, which is a great little slice of the country in the middle of the suburbs.

This small, working farm has a bunch of cows, horses, geese, chickens and lambs to gawk at, and Kenny was more than happy to gawk and squawk away. There was much mooing, oinking and neighing going on, and that was just Overboard. Kenny had fun too.

Afterwards, we decided to go grab lunch over at Pita Inn, but before we could get there, Kenny passed out in the backseat. Overboard warned me that he was looking sleepy, and even though I knew it wouldn't work, I encouraged her to poke, prod and converse loudly with the boy, in an attempt to stave off his nap till after lunch. This was not successful. Oh well.

We got our food to go and when we got home I managed to wriggle the boy out of his shoes and jacket before depositing him in his bed. I even stepped on two different toys that make noise while in his room, but he snored right through it. That's my boy.

ah-choo

"Ah-choo" said I.
"Bless you, Daddy" said the little voice from the backseat.

smiley joe

there was an old lady

Kenny's current favorite song (besides the alphabet) is "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." He gets a big kick out of it, and we have inadvertently created a firestorm or two by prematurely shutting off the CD player before the song had finished (often on its third or sixteenth listening).

Our little Sinatra doesn't like to sing the whole song, he just likes to punctuate the line, "I don't know why she swallowed a fly." Of course, as mentioned in the previous post, it comes out a bit slurred...sort of a "Iahdunnowhyyyyy." But it is wicked cute.

In this version, Sadie decided to try and sing harmony.

lmnop

Kenny is very big on singing the alphabet song these days, mainly at high volume. He does it quite well and even throws in the whole, "Now I know my ABC's" bit at the end; although it sounds a bit mushy, like a drunk who's been pulled over by the cops and is being forced to prove his sobriety (and failing).

Today, while he was scrubbing his high chair tray clean (one of his favorite new things to do), Overboard caught him in a singing moment. Things got awesome when he arrived at "S".*




*Okay, it's a little tough to hear, but he totally lets loose a monster burp just as he says "S".

it's working

Another fun moment from yesterday:

Kenny was running rampant upstairs and decided to start opening the drawers on my dresser. As he pulled open the bottom drawer with some of my hockey jerseys, he spotted my Thrashers jersey (which looks just like his), glanced at me, pointed at the logo and said very clearly, "Thrashers."



The great thing is that he can say that without crying, which is more than I can do these days.

speaking of counting...

In other Kenny counting news...

When Overboard zaps up food for Kenny in the microwave, she keeps him patient and calm while he waits by counting down the remaining time until everything is ready.

Yesterday, Kenny stood at the front window and counted the cars as they went by. In an interesting twist, he counted down as well. It sounded something like this:

"One, two, three, four, five, six...five, four, three, two, one, beep, beep, beep."

count on kenny

The other morning Kenny and I were driving to daycare* when he started rattling off his numbers. This is not unusual and can be lots of fun as we count to 10 or 20 together. However, he was cracking me up when he started doing his best PA announcer-effect on the number seven.

It went something like this: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven-n-n-n-n-n-n, eight"...and so on.

I'm not sure what brought it on, but it had me in hysterics. Which only encouraged Kenny to do it more. It was a vicious cycle of laughter.


*Just to be clear, I was driving; Kenny was providing the running commentary.

kenny's current culinary quirk

Our little man enjoys food in strips or sticks. Things that are easy to handle and dip. Which is not a problem, since Overboard is more than happy to make him fish sticks, slice pears or apples into sticks, or offer up carrot sticks.

Currently, Kenny is going through a growth spurt, so he's eating like a champ. But if he decides to get picky or change his habits for some reason, the sticks just may do the trick.

comrade has received glorious spam to help the workers of the world

The other day I received my first-ever Russian spam email. As in, the email was in Russian. In actual Cyrillic. I wasn't annoyed or confused, I was thrilled! Why this entertained me to no end I can't rightly say. I think it may just be because it's different and unique. In theory.

Here's the email I received:

КАДРОВОЕ АГЕНТСТВО
предлагает Вам помощь в подборе персонала для Вашей компании.

Мы подбираем персонал под конкретные задачи компании-заказчика на очень выгодных условиях.

т: 8(985)136`15`2б

According to the translation device over at Google, it reads thusly in English:

STAFFING AGENCY offers assistance in the selection of personnel for your company. We select personnel for specific tasks of a customer company on very favorable terms. T: 8 (985) 136 `15` 26

So this is great. If I'm in need of a Russian assistant or other personnel, I know where to turn.

This has nothing to do with Kenny or Overboard, or even our suburban world. It just cracked me up and I had to share. I'm sure you feel better now that I did.

прощается! (Dasvedayna!)

mommmmmmmeeeeeeeeee!

Kenny says many things. Some are easy to understand, some are unintelligible, some are noises squeaked at a sonic frequency that only the dog can hear, and in rare occurrences, all three at once. In addition to some new fun words like faucet and awesome, Kenny loves to call for his Mommy. He does this when he wakes up, when he's hanging about, when he wants something, when the mood strikes him, and sometimes he does it just because it needs to be done.

My personal favorite is when he wakes in the morning (especially when he wakes up extra early) and bellows out for "Mommmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Overboard then grumbles under her breath, knowing that I will say the same thing every time: "Well, he ain't callin' my name, so I guess you're on."

After lovingly kicking me, Overboard will stumble into Kenny's room and try to convince him that although she appreciates her new #1 status, Daddy is overqualified to tackle any problem that should arise before 6:38am. Way overqualified.

Of course, Daddy likes to tell Kenny that crying out for Mommy is generally the proper response for most situations, except when Mommy is out of the building. Trying to convince a perturbed toddler that Daddy will have to do since Mommy is unavailable doesn't always go over well. Who are we kidding here...it never goes over well. Which is why Daddy is the king of the zerbert, and other giggle-inducing distractions.

What can I say? It's what I do.

Someday the chant may change from "Mommy" to "Daddy," but until that time I'll just keep telling Overboard to roll with the punches. And by "roll with the punches," I of course mean, take care of the boy while I go back to sleep and dream happy silent dreams.

flight of the kenny

Danny and Elise came up from St. Louis the other weekend and we discovered something new that Kenny finds highly entertaining: the flight of the bumblebee.

As it turns out, Danny's cell phone ringtone is the flight of the bumblebee. When Kenny heard this go off the first time he was mesmerized. The second time he heard it he was amused. The third time...thrilled. He danced around, swung his arms with abandon and grinned from ear to ear. He then repeatedly demanded to hear, "Bee! Bee! Bee!" And when it was done, he wanted more.

father and son

a bit behind the times

I know, I know, the blog has been a bit neglected. I have a bunch of things to yammer about, several of which date back a few weeks. But I promise to get to them soon. In the meantime, here's a picture of Kenny in a Superman car (and not a Hummer!) while getting his hair cut last weekend. I'll add an "after" shot soon...gotta keep our fans coming back, right?


Kenny wonders if a DVD player is his kryptonite, as it renders him powerless to resist the impending haircut.

happy birthday!

Happy Birthday to Grammy Shirley!

In your honor, Kenny gorged on cake frosting and milk, then ran in circles singing "Happy Birthday" at the top of his lungs until he passed out, face first, in a heap on the floor while Sadie licked his face for at least a good 15 minutes.*


*This did not happen, but the boy and the dog would probably love it if it had.

teeth

Kenny has about 10 teeth at the moment. Two in the front on the bottom, four in the front up top, and two molars on both the top and the bottom. The question I keep asking ad nauseum around here is: "Where are the others?"

I'm trying to be patient, because I know teeth will grow when they're damn well good and ready to grow, but that doesn't sate my desire to see a full row of pearly whites gleaming up at me with every fantastic smile. And that's what I spend a lot of time doing these days - trying to get Kenny to smile so I can see if there are any little choppers breaking through.

My attempts at playing orthodontist range from getting him to laugh, giggle guffaw, say "Ahhh," yell, howl, say the letter "O," sing, or pantomime taking a giant bite out of an imaginary apple or apple-like substance.

I'm pretty sure the kid thinks I'm nuts, but he's kind enough to play along. For now.