The Side Effects of Spurs Fever

Spurs Fever in general is a good thing.  But it can have some nasty effects in a select few children three and under.  Common symptoms include crying, turning your back on people, and making unusual faces.

Even so, Charlotte would agree, the positives of Spurs Fever far outweigh the bad.  Calvin, via his mom and dad, brought Spurs shirts for Charlotte and Happy.  Charlotte was soooooo excited to wear her shirt to daycare/school the next day, and made sure Happy wore hers too.

So thank you Calvin, Sophia, Sarah, and Brian!  The shirts look a lot better than these pictures do.

And one in four stairs are also susceptible to Spurs Fever apparently.

Nacho Average Cousins

Our nephew Calvin is in Minnesota for about ten days, visiting from San Antonio.  He is spending a good chunk of it at Wolf Ridge for a summer camp but will also spend some time with us.  Calvin's visit is very exciting for Charlotte.  He was here for one night before heading to camp.  In the morning he was in the room with Big Nacho and said, "Hey Emily, that's Nacho average cat."  Emily laughed and Charlotte overheard that and then she heard Emily retelling the joke to me later that day.  So now Charlotte insists we call Big Nacho by his new official name because Calvin deemed it so.  So according to Charlotte, Big Nacho is the in the past and from here on out we call him "Nacho Average Cat." And to Charlotte's credit, that is what she calls him too.

Calvin also came bearing gifts.  One my personal favorites is this card Sophia (his sister) made for Haps and Charlotte.  We hung it on the fridge and it makes me smile to see such a nice card from Sophia every time I walk into the kitchen.

Uncle Josiah

Charlotte was playing with a train track this morning and said, "Look Daddy I made a J."  I said "That's right.  Whose name starts with J?" expecting her to say her uncle Justin.

Without missing a beat Charlotte said, "Josiah!"

I have no idea who this Josiah cat is but he clearly is cooler than her uncle.  Take that Justin.  You suck.

Overheard Exhibit P

Charlotte has an ongoing monologue in the backseat of the car, which I don't always tune into.  But she really wanted me to hear what she had to say about her cousin Hannah on the way to school today.  Obviously it is not verbatim since I can't recall exactly what she said, and she kept going on and on and on, as is her wont.  But this is a pretty accurate representation of HannahJam 2014.

"Hannah is in Texas.  She's my friend and my cousin.  She's both at the same time. Hannah loves me and I love her.  Hannah made me a bracelet for Christmas because she loves me and I wear it because I love her.  We were playing and running in Texas and she is a really good runner. She's fast like this (insert hand motion and sound effects). I'm a good runner too but Hannah is a really good jumper and I'm not a good jumper.  I'm too little to be a good jumper like Hannah.  I do little hurdles in the living room and Hannah does big hurdles and some of the big kids fall over on the hurdles but Hannah does not."

So, clearly Charlotte's ability to compare and contrast is emerging appropriately.

And then when we were driving home, again Charlotte started up with Hannah.  It took awhile for me to figure out what she was talking about because, for me, she was talking about such an obscure memory: an errand, but with family.  This time Charlotte wanted to talk about when Charlotte, Beth, and I went to pick up Hannah after track practice over Spring Break.

And then it hit me, both times Charlotte was talking about Hannah was when we went by the Minnehaha Academy track, which clearly made her think of Hannah.  So if Charlotte does get pushed into running and people want to think it was her daddy pressuring her into the sport, remember this post: Charlotte is looking up to Hannah the Track Star as a role model, not her Has Been/Never Was Dad.

And for the record, Calvin and Sophia DO get equal play in Charlotte's monologues.  I just haven't happened to have free time to post them on the same day they occur, and then whatever was said is lost in my cluttered brain, or, more accurately, it never stuck.

Battle of the Bands: How to Raise a Texasotan

Every morning Charlotte asks to hear music on the way to Montessori.  Specifically she asks to hear James McMurtry.  If the radio is on Charlotte will say, "I don't want to hear Mommy's music.  I want to hear Daddy's music.  I want to hear James McMurtry."  Truth be told, I would love to move on from these CDs but I am always going to indulge Charlotte in this context.

And then she will ask what every song is about which is illuminating in that pretty much every song that dude sings is tinged with some cocktail of unrest, depression, and emptiness.  Welcome to life Charlotte.

But Charlotte is getting a healthy dose of Music Appreciation 101 from Emily as well.  Friday night Charlotte was dancing to Prince on Emily's iPod.  Later that evening right around bedtime, Charlotte told me out of the blue, "I like Prince.  He makes me happy."  The ying to the erudite Mr. McMurtry's yang.

And then at dinner tonight we had The Current local show playing in the background and some upbeat song with a distinct Minneapolis sound/beat was going on and Charlotte lit up and said, "This is Prince!"  It wasn't, but she picked up on the familiar bass line and well, what can I say, she is going to be a Minneapolis girl through and through.

And this is a good thing.

Conversations with Charlotte #267--Parenting Fail

It's a task with built-in excuses, but I am not going to use them.  This parenting fail is 100% on my shoulders and the guilt runs through my veins.  Apologies after a failure like this are meaningless, yet to me, feel necessary.  But I won't apologize.  I won't make excuses.  I will instead accept my failure as a father and will resolve to try harder.  That is all I can do.

But it is just so hard to raise a Texan in Minnesota.

Last night Charlotte and I were drawing on the sidewalk in the front yard as we are wont to do.  I have this vision of using the front porch and cold beer as a way to make our block one giant Kumbayah community.  But the specifics behind that vision is for another discussion or blog entry.  I will say this: I just rolled out my plan for "National Night Out Every Night" last week and Emily agrees that the early returns of this soft opening have exceeded expectations.  The hard opening won't be for another month or so.

So anyway, Charlotte and I were drawing on the sidewalk.  Typically she will ask me to draw something.  And then when I draw it, she will color it in.  So far, so good.  But here is where it got ugly.  She asked me to draw a Boe Boe Head (a bunch of characters I made up when I was a kid... in Texas), a zebra (a horse with stripes, so it's kind of Texan), a baby in a crib (they have those in Texas) and then the unspeakable happened.

Charlotte: Draw a bridge over the Mississippi River.

Me: How about the I-35 bridge over the Red River?

Charlotte: No.  I want a Lake Street Bridge.

Me: Or maybe I could draw a star or a spur.  Or the Olmos Dam.   It's like a bridge.  Or not like one.

Charlotte: No.  Daddy draw a Lake Street Bridge.

No apologies.  No excuses.  But this girl is sure acting like a Minnesotan.

Texas Defined

There is a story from when I was a kid and we were moving to Texas.  I was young, two or three.  I don't remember any of this time of my life, of course, except for random five second snippets here or there (and none of these snippets are part of this story).

 But the way I remember the story (my mom will have to do the fact checking) is I knew that we were moving to Texas, but I sure as heck didn't know what that meant.  So throughout the move I kept asking, "Is this Texas?" 

I don't know if this right after the move or during the move, but we ended up doing a family outing to some caves.  I want to say we were at Natural Bridge Caverns and the tour guide turned out all the lights so we could see just how dark it was for the original spelunkers.  And as we silently sat there in the dark, I chimed in to the tour group, "Is this Texas?"

And now it has become very clear that Charlotte has no bleeping clue what Texas is either.  As we were driving back to Minnesota she kept saying, "Texas" with a smile on her face everytime Emily or I said the word in conversation.  Wouldn't it be nice if she were saying it, fondly recalling the great week she had with her grandma, aunts, uncles, and cousins?  Of course I'm not fool enough to fall for that projection.  I figured she just liked the word.

Well enough time has passed for abstraction to wash away.  Today we were at the Children's Museum and she was looking at books (as mentioned in the post from earlier today--see below). She came up to me with a board book, a smile, said, "Texas," and handed me the book to read to her.  And not just any book.  A counting book about gardening with a picture for each page.  Much like one of her favorite books, 1 2 3 Texas.

So there you have it.  For Charlotte, Texas simply means "a counting board book."  In her defense my original use of the word was "Hey! Who turned out the lights?!?!?!,"

Her understanding will evolve.  And since Texas is a part of me, I hope it will become part of her being too.  And I'm talking about livestock, sunshine, the Spurs, the Alamo, or any of that.  I'm not talking about family and my sense of home.  I love it here in Minnesota and this is where my life is.  All I want is for Charlotte's Texas to feel a lot like this video: hanging out with cousins at my mom's house.  

Here she is with her cousin Hannah, who was nice enough to put some batteries in this toy cell phone for Charlotte to enjoy and organize a bunch of toys for Charlotte to play with.  They had a great time together, as was true for the time Charlotte spent with her other Texas cousins Calvin and Sophia.  That's Texas.

And we were nice enough to leave the cell phone behind so it could enjoy Texas and we could enjoy it not in Minnesota.

Back From Texas

Emily, Charlotte and I had a very nice trip to Texas to see my family.  Charlotte has such a great collection of aunts, uncles, cousins, and an amazing grandmother (of course I'm a little biased), so it is important to us that she see them as much as geography allows.

Charlotte continues to be an incredibly patient and easy going individual.  She did great with the drive down and the drive back up.  We made sure we were done driving for the day by 5 p.m. each day to give her plenty of time to explore the hotel room, hallway, and pool.  In the car, Charlotte did an awesome job, entertaining herself with books, music, and Emily when needed.  And she was VERY effective at letting us know when she needed a break from the car.

So I'll upload videos and pictures here and there throughout the week.  I thought this video was a good place to start.

This is the second night at my mom's house and Charlotte is having her first dinner (she tends to have a first dinner and a second dinner... as long as she eats at the table, I don't care how many dinners she has at this juncture in her life).  It is a perfect example of how she will say "all done" when really all she means is, "I'm considering the notion of being done with eating in five to ten minutes."  But it is particularly funny in this case because she says "all done" right on the heels of ranting and raving about how good her cheese stick is.

Also, right around 12 seconds she looks at me (and my phone video taping her) and says "yah yah" which is how she says Charlotte.  She says "Charlotte" everytime she sees my phone because her picture is the phone's wallpaper (how cliche).  I show her pictures from  the phone maybe two or three times a week tops and yet she already knows it as "Charlotte."  Creepy.

Doggie Appreciation Book Club

Here Charlotte is in her new favorite place, doing her favorite thing: looking through books for any four legged mammal and calling it "doggie."  Just last week she insisted on sitting at the dinner table without a highchair.  We complied and she hasn't turned back since.  So we figured now it was time to get the chair out of storage in the basement to go with the table her Texas cousins used to use.  She loves having her own place to sit and look at books.

The mistake I made last week was breaking out the chair 30 minutes before bedtime.  When I got her out of her chair for bed she cried and cried and kept pointing at the chair and table with all her books while I changed her diaper and got her pajamas on.  It was so sad for her and the only time to date that she has protested her bedtime routine.  Usually I'll just say "Okay it's time for bed," and she starts crawling to stairs (still not walking but she's getting closer) ready to get the bedtime routine started.  But not the night I broke out her new chair to go with her table.  But she bounced back quickly and by the time I was halfway through "The Effing Gambler" she was totally recovered and into the bedtime routine.

Spring Break!

For spring break, we drove from Minneapolis to San Antonio to visit Mike's family.  It's 20 hours of driving and we spread it out with 2 overnight stops.  The drive was actually pretty fun.  We stopped at children's museums, parks, and restaurants that have been featured on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives.  We really enjoyed the Wonderscope Children's Museum in Shawnee, Kansas  and the Ernie Miller Nature Park in Olathe, Kansas.   Charlotte, who normally goes to sleep without a peep, was totally out of sorts in the hotels.  We had a great time in San Antonio, where we got to eat at couple other restaurants featured on Diners, Drive ins, and Dives.  We spent a lot of time just hanging out outside or playing games at Suze's.   Spring in San Antonio is like summer in Minnesota - perfect weather.  All in all, it was a great trip.  We will definitely do the road trip again!  Here is a slideshow of some of the highlights of our trip: