Tuesday - cute song heard on the way home from dojo

Odd how the timing of some things just seems to be perfect. For example, last year Logan's favorite song was The Heat is On, which is sang as "I'm 3 years old". He indeed was 3. Now he's moved on to Doctor Doctor (Thompson Twins) as his favorite. But I was driving home from sword class tonight and heard a song on the radio about a dad and his 4 year old (Logan is now 4). Some of the lyrics (like the chicken nuggets ) are a little corney, but man that song hit a chord in me.

Here's a link to the video on Youtube.

It's called "Watching You", by Rodney Atkins.
It's all about how a 4 year old boy is watching his dad, and picking up cues on "how to be". Man, do I ever know how that feels!


MORE ON MUSIC
Last week Logan and I were in an "I love you MORE" contest, when he decided to give up, but in a most unusual way. Right after our 4th round of "NOOOO, I love YOUUU more", he looks at me and says
"Dada, you can run, you can hide, but you can't escape my love". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I've been practicing piano (Casio keyboard) more recently. As well as strumming away on my guitar. The boys have their own guitar and keyboard. Through trial and error, I was able to learn to play "Don't stop the rock" by Freestyle on the keyboard. I got it down so well that the boy thinks I recorded the song for him. When we jam to it in the car, he'll sometimes say "Thak you da, for making this song for me. Too cute.

In the Watching you song, he refers to the son as Little Bear. It reminded me of some of the nicknames Ive had for the boys over time. Logan's nickname was "My little pierogi". We're slovak, and I love pierogi!

Lance has probably had more names. He was the fartingest little boy when he was a baby. And Logan is a wild card who laughs all the time (and acts silly), so I called them "Toots and Giggles", when they were together.

Another Lance name was given to him by his then 2 yr old brother. We tried to get Logan to say "Ba-BE", but he always said "Ba-bee-bee". So we called Lance Baby Bee.

Or my little Jelly Bean.

Logan was called "Your Majesty", and Lance is still refered to as "My tiny King". The tiny king reference is an inside joke. The wife has phots of her a a very young age, with a baseball cap on that has the letters TP on it. She said it was for Tiny Princess, but I've always joked her by saying that it was for Toilet Paper.

SICKNESS
All us boys still have a bit of chest congestion. Gets really bad in the mourning, but after an hour of being up, it lessens. But the wife has been hit the hardest lately. Always tired, out of energy, upset stomache at the mere mention of some foods. She made a dr appointment for Feb 7th. Guess we'll find out then about how long it'll be before she gets to feelin better.

Karate stuff
Tonight was a pretty nice night at the dojo. Only a handful of little ones for karate, and 3 others for sword. The head instructor took the kids, and left me to go over the first sword with the iaido people. I wanted to take Logan tonight, but I think it's better to limit him to Thursdays. This way, he don't get burned out, turn against martial arts, or against me for yelling at him to stand still and quit running around. I love having him at dojo, but there are some times (like when trying to talk to adults) when he can drive you up a wall. Although it's held in a church, it's a HUGE church, so I constantly try to keep an eye on him. One on him, one on the teachers, one on the students, one on myself ---you get the idea.

To keep the kids interested, I instituted a neat system of rewards where the students will accumulate points for attendance. Over the period of 6 months, when will have earned prized like custom made karate headbands, and even their own sparring gear.

Another thing I'm working on is having theme nights. Like maybe doing a cardio "tae bo" styled class one night a month. I got the go ahead tonight to plan a Kung Fu night for the kids. It'll be neat to pass on mwhat I learned in Shaolin kung fu. Because of the use of animals, I think it's so much easier to captivate kids interest with kung fu than karate. Soon, we will put that belief to the test.

Also discussed tonight were plans for the 2007 Homecoming Seminar. We'll have people from Va , NC, and a few other states attending. It's a good thing we have a HUGE gym. I'll post more on that as plans are set.

Well, I have an hour to browse the web and then head for bed. Night all!

Lots to say

There is a cold that we are all taking turns dealing with. Logan is on the down side of it, but he also just finished taking amoxicillin for a week. The baby has been coughing pretty bad with chest congestion, and a runny nose. I've had a stuffy head, but now it's progressed to really bad chest congestion. We've all kept warm when we go out, but I guess even so, if the weather is wacky, you're bound to catch something.


I attended a martial arts seminar this weekend in Northern Virginia. Besides the iaido class I co-taught (samurai sword forms), other instructors covered bo staff forms, Okinawan kata, practical application (extracting real life stuff from practice forms), and a few other things. It was a 4 hour drive to the north, but well worth the trip.

Strange thing happened though - I've trained in various weapons (bo, jo, handbo, sai, tonfa, weighted chain, nunchuks, bla bla bla), but most of my recent study has been sword. Either what to do with it when it's in your hands, or how to disarm someone else with one. At the seminar, when I participated in a weapons class, I knew what I was doing, but it felt like speaking in a non-fluent foreign language. I knew it, but hadn't practiced it lately. But when I got a sword in my hands, it felt gooooood. It flowed. I can fight or do flashy moves with other weapons, but don't think I've ever hit the big 3---- 1. I can fight with it 2. I can defend against it and 3. I can take yours away. As much as feel resentment at how shitty I was treated at my Aikido class in Norfolk, I have to admit that I can't keep the art out of my head. It works.


ABOUT BEING LATE:

Ok - maybe I shoulda put this one first. Before I left for the seminar, I made sure I packed things and pretty much knew where everything was. I had lots to do. Had to pick up 2 other people, had to travel 250 miles, had to practice, had to make sure my house was in order. All things that required time precision. I did not want to be late on any task. Not late to pick peopl up - not late to arrive at the seminar. The night before the trip I was informed by the wife that no matter how early my departure was going to be, we were already late. Then she told me a one liner that proved it.

PARENT TEACHER CONFRENCE
We had our first parent teacher conference this mourning. The principal occupied the boys in another room while we sat down with his teacher. As expected, he got rave reviews. Plays well with others, is very friendly, artistic - everything a dad always hopes to hear. We really made the right move switching him to this preschool. If you are reading this, and your children are attending Chesapeake Christian Academy, I implore you to take a day off of work and sit on on the school for the day. If you are happy with grumpy people and militaristic styled compliance methods - by all means, leave your precious little flower there to wilt.

SNOW!!!
Yesterday, we had snow. For about 5 minutes. At first it was small. Then the size of the flurries got HUGE!! Big Big BIG flakes! Then it stopped, and upon returning it was very small - like hail instead of snow. Logan got to see it, but Lance woke up (from his nap) right after it had stopped. Fortunately, I've been very lazy about taking down the exterior X-mas lights on the house, so when it started to snow, I ran out and fired them up! We were the only house in our hood so nicely lit during that 5 minute snow "storm".


Let see - I guess that's about it for now. I've been busy using my computer time to scoure the web for martial art pictures for the kids at the dojo to have as color sheets. At first, I just wanted them to color them for fun, but then I started using them to reinforce whatever I taught that night. If I taught front kicks, I found color sheets showing proper form. Same with strikes, stances and blocks. I've also developed an attendance contest, with prize levels
- but I need to make the actual "put it on the wall" sheet.

Oh, and Logan got to see dad's sewing skills and artsy side today. I had bought some white material , and red fabric paint, and started working on headbands for the dojo kids today (Hachimaki). Very simple design. White cloth, big red circle. I'm going to put the names of each person in black, written in katakana. Should be a nice suprize for them when I'm done.

My browser keeps crashing!!!!

The boys have been sick. But they are better now. Logan has an ear infection. Lance is over his massive liquid poops.

Logan has been invited to a birthday party coming up soon, for a friend at his new skool.

I have a martial arts seminar coming up next weekend, where I will assist in teaching Iaido (samurai sword stuff).

I'll try and type more when the browser is more stable - it's crashed 4 times already!

Fuckers at Walpoff and Abramson

Those friggin blood sucking lawyers decided to pull a swift one. They won a judgement against me a while back, from a Disputed Discover Card balance (that they bought out).

The decided it would be funny to put a seizure on my business checkign account right before Christmas. The amount that they ended up with is piddly, but man did they cause me some trouble. The bank froze the account, and about 4 charges (at fast food places) went thru, but I was charged an additional $35 each for them. Every day that they account was in overdraft, I was charged an additional $5. But I couldn't bring the account OUT of overdraft, cause any money I put in got froze. even though I called to cancel the automatic withdrawl (from my cable/phone/internet compnay), it was too late, and they already proccessed it. That meant that they would process it twice (2 payments, each processed twice - each time occuring a $35 overdraft fee), AND a returned check fee to the cable comapny.

What a friggin mess! Finally got it all cleared up (the bank was understanding , and refunded most of the fees). Still got to hash things out with the phone/cable compnay.

Message from the dead

Ok - not the actual dead - from the " dead to me" department.

Lat month, I received a raher stange phone call. It was from someone looking for me. At first, I thought it was a bill collector, and almost hung up. But when I asked why they were looking for this person (me), I got an unexpected response..

Turns out my bio father, (estranged for almost 20 year now), was in trouble with the county for having a messy yard. He was told to get i tclean, and a community group was trying to help him get it all straight. One of them decided to play social worker, and ended up discussing his family - me. He told her that he had lost touch, and wondered if she might be able to find me on the internet.

Mind you, he is very tight with his own mother, and she's had our mailing address (from Xmas cards) for 6 years now.

I gave the lady on the phone permission to give him my address (which he shoudl already have had, or had access to), and figured that'd be the end of it.

Then, a week or two later, cards came. One for each of the boys, and one to me (and my wife).

This is where it gets confusing. The one to me (and the wife) seemed pleasant enough. Lot of hints at self pity, and subtle hidden agendas, but nothing terrible. The one to Logan seemed nice. But the one to Lance struck a nerve. Wording like "Sorry I don't know your name . Maybe someday I can get a picture of you?!" Im reading this going "who the hell is he trying to intimidate? My 2 year old? You want photos, asshole, you talk to the big man - not try a guilt trip on a 2 year old".

I shoudld mention that all 3 cards had NO return address on them. Only a phone number in the one to me. This brings to mind Sun Tsu (The Art of War). Something like "he who can decide the location of victory has an advantage". By not putting a return address on, he's trying to force a phone call. I figure he feels he'll have an advantage over the phone, have a better time at sidestepping issues, and be better able to manipulate the conversation. And perhaps he might. But, if I choose to respond, it will be in a method of my choosing, and it will be in writting.

Im actually suprised to have even gotten the cards. The story I was told goes like this...
This community group is trying to help him clean up his property. He's walking thru it deciding what to scrap and what to keep. There was a small fishing boat that he wanted to keep, and told the lady "I hope to one day take my grandkids out fishign on that boat".

Two things came to mind:

Number one: One time, he was very in the rears with is child support. My mother took him to court (and this was back in the late 70's, when the courts didn't give a shit about enforcing child support). He had a motorcycle, and the judge threatened to take it from him. He beg and pleaded that the bike was old and worthless, and barely worth $1,500. The judge let him keep it, and was they walked out of court, the doors of the court room weren't closed yet, as he turned to my mother and laughed "$1,500 wouldn't even touch the chrome of that bike!"

Number two: He'd be better off getting a blow torch and a seat warmer, cause if he ever takes my boys fishing , it'll be ice fishing. Cause it's gonna be a very cold day in hell.

Screw it, bring on the new year!

Over the blues - done with the blaaaaaas. It seems (through visiting a few of my fellow dad blogs), that the time of year is when we have the most to write about, and have neither the time nor the urge to do so. Add in my recent dojo fiasco, and I've really been reluctant to put anything into writing.

But, it's a new year, and with it come renewed resolve to "say it like it is".

Today, after waking up, my miniature dark lord ran to the bathroom and threw up. This was right after my even more miniature dark lord tested the holding capacity of his diaper, with less than desirable results. Great way to greet Thursday, huh?

An our later (decision time of whether to take big boy to skool or not), he was feeling fine and wanted to go. His throw up was entirely yellow mucus looking stuff - probably the result of post nasal drip and a pissed off tummy. He looked, acted, and felt fine, so I took him to skool .

After pickign him up (and signing the incident report of how he banged his head on the playground equipment), we came home for lunch. As I set the bowl of macaroni and cheese on the table, he started crying and said he couldn't eat it. A mid grade fever struck out of nowhere, and he was feelign like shit. He was upset that I would be mad if he didn't eat. After calming him down (and reassuring him that dada was not going to be pissy over macaroni and cheese), baby brother went down for a nap, and I got big boy to lay down as well. Then both napped (baby for longer than Logan). He whined, cried, fussed, and wwas burning up for about 2 hours, and then came the miracle cure. Kinda. He asked for some applesauce. We have strawberry flavored applesauce, in single serving tubs, and that rought Lazarus right back from the dead. He still had a fever, but was laughing, and singing, and rather chipper. The wife said after I left for dojo, he played nicely, and went to bed early.

Must be some virus goign around. Darth Lance has had liquid shits for 3 days now. That nasty acid-type poop that they boys used to get when they were teething. The kind that if you don't change the diaper with minutes of them pooping, it starts to burn their little tooshy.

Both are fast asleep now - but it's gonna be a restless night for me. Even if they sleep through, I'll be waking ever few hours to check on them.

I have more to share - but I'll break it into different posts..

1st Day of 2007

Happy New Year to all!