Luke, I Am Your Father

A Real Nail Biter

2012-01-25T21:12:00.000-08:00

As you would expect with Christmas barely in the rear view mirror, Lukas still gets pretty excited on those days when we pull up to the house after school to find a package waiting for us on the porch.

It doesn't matter that absolutely nothing we have ordered in the past month, and truthfully there hasn't even been much, has been intended for him because he will still see it as a potential gift. So on Tuesday, when we came home and he viewed the small package sitting by the door he was eager to see what it was.

But he shouldn't have been.

That's because, rather than it being a toy for him, it was the something he certainly would NOT like. We unceremoniously removed his binky when Lukas was 6 months old. Thankfully he never ended up sucking his thumb, but at some point in the past year and a half - or more - our little guy started to chew on his fingernails.

And now he does it all the time. Gnawing them down as far as he can, damaging his cuticles, and often leaving sharp bits of broken nails in the process. Understandably, this has ended up being very painful for him, and by default for Mrs. LIAYF as well.

Realizing the problem early on, Mrs. LIAYF and I have tried many different tactics to get Lukas to stop chewing on his fingers. Everything from rewards (promising to get him a Buzz Lightyear for his last birthday if he stopped) to constant reminders including pulling his fingers away from his mouth whenever we saw him with his fingers close.

Unfortunately none of this worked.

Lukas wanted to stop too. Especially since he often has painful fingers, like after he has gone to bed and "needs a band aid" to cover a stinging digit. (Though this has recently gotten a bit out of hand when he seems to be using that excuse to buy more time before sleep and to get a Star Wars or Phineas and Ferb bandage.)

So finally, when all else seemed to fail, Mrs. LIAYF found a product online (3 different ones actually) that professed to be a cure. Just coat his fingers with it and he won't want to put them in his mouth anymore. Sounds simple right? We told Lukas it was coming and even he was on board. After all, he did want to stop biting his nails. So right before that nights dinner we coated his nails with the first product.

In retrospect we probably shouldn't have been serving finger foods with that meal. That's because with the first apple slice he tossed in his mouth also went his fingers. Immediately, his face went sideways and his mouth slowly opened leaving the partially chewed up food fully visible.

"Ewwww!" he moaned as he spit the food out. Then he cried.

I quickly handed my Lukas a fork as Mrs. LIAYF and I looked at each other, feeling more than a bit guilty. It was obvious that he was completely unprepared for the terrible taste in his mouth. In an attempt to make him feel better about it, Mrs. LIAYF then pulled one of his fingers closer and gave it a lick.

"Vomitous" she said as she shook her head.

"Wash it off!" Lukas implored, but we had to sadly explain that it wouldn't wash off, but would only wear off in a couple of days. It was at that point that my son held out his other hand to me "taste it daddy" he said. I wanted to refuse, but as I looked up Mrs. LIAYF was also staring at me with expectant eyes. So after a brief hesitation, I pulled his finger close and licked his nail.

Immediately, I felt his pain. To say it was pretty bad tasting stuff, would be an understatement. I suppose that is why it's supposed to be so effective. I again felt guilty for putting him through the experience, but that didn't compare to how we felt the next morning. That's because apparently, Lukas also chews on his fingers in his sleep. Several times that night we could hear him wake up, wretch a few times, cry a bit, then go back to sleep. In the morning he begged us not to use "that stuff" anymore.

Raise your hand if you feel like a bad parent (raising my hand gingerly).

The next morning we took Lukas to his Pre-K classroom and warned them of the nasty substance on his fingers. "Make him eat with silverware" I warned them, but when we picked him up that evening he hadn't had any further problems.

And subsequently none since then either. Who knows. As low as this experience made Mrs. LIAYF and I feel, it may be the one thing that does the trick for Lukas.

I guess we'll keep our fingers crossed. And coated too.

LIAYF Turns 4, Defies The Mayans

2012-01-17T21:51:00.000-08:00

Happy Tuesday Readers. I'm a day late, but I just realized that on Monday Luke I am Your Father turned 4 years old.

Merriment and Whatnot.

If anyone would have told me back in January of 2008 that I would still be doing this in 2012, I would have laughed. After all, according to the Mayans my blog was supposed to be extinct in 2011. That will teach people to trust the predictions of a civilization who, let's be honest, couldn't even foresee their own demise.

Mayans!

Seriously though, I think that having a dad blog that turns 4 must qualify me as somewhat of a Elder statesman of the Dad Blogging community. I am the quiet one in the corner who seems to be perpetually contemplating something, but who is really just nodding off. And nodding off is what I have been doing a lot of recently with this blog.

Sorry about that.

The fact is, I have not been visiting/commenting on many blogs, spending much Social Media sites, or posting on any sort of regular schedule here at Luke, I am Your Father recently. I can't pin it to one specific reason, but rather a combination of a lot of factors. Life has just gotten busy. With work, at home, and with Lukas. Honestly, it's amazing that I kept up the kind of pace I did for as long as I did while also working full time.

I still plan on blogging here. But on my 4th Blogaversary, I am realizing that I can do this a bit less often and still take a lot away from the experience.

I know there seem to be an abundance of new dad blogs and sites popping up all the time. Honestly, as much as I would love to, I can't really keep up with them given my current time commitments. Though I encourage you to. I did have one tell me in a recent comment that I had inspired a lot of bloggers. Really?

For a guy with no aspirations, who started an obscure blog 4 years ago to gush about his newborn son, this is a very nice place to find myself today.

Friday 5: Favorite Sports Nicknames

2012-01-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

Show me The Glove

Happy Friday readers. Today I am going to borrow an idea from my blogging buddy Tim over at Life of Riles called Friday 5. Basically, for a Friday post I list my 5 favorite things in a different and completely random category.

Today, I have chosen Sports Nicknames. Here are my 5 favorites.

5. The Big Unit: Randy Johnson was left-handed, stood 6'10" tall, and was perhaps the most imposing pitcher to ever take the mound in The Show. I know he went on to bigger things in his days with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but to me his performance in the 1995 divisional playoff series between the Seattle Mariners and the hated New York Yankees cemented him as a legend. The nickname The Big Unit is both fitting and, depending on how you interpret it, hilarious.

4. Crime Dog: While a decent professional baseball player in his day, Fred Griff will always be known more for his nickname which was a take on the police cartoon crime fighting dog McGruff, who could "Take a bite outta crime".

3. The Microwave: Vinnie Johnson won NBA world championships with the Detroit Pistons in 1989 and 1990, but was originally drafted in 1979 by my hometown Seattle Supersonics. Back then we just knew him as VJ as he was teammate with another pair of famous J's, DJ (Dennis Johnson) and JJ (Johnny Johnson). In Detroit he became known as The Microwave for his ability to heat things up in a hurry. Classic.

2. The Glove: Gary Payton was perhaps the best defensive point guard who ever suited up in the NBA. He would defend opposing guards so tightly it was like they were wearing a glove. Thus the nickname. Another Seattle sports icon, his nickname was made all the more awesome by the hand gesture that accompanied it. Palms and fingers outstretched as if putting on a glove, with the opposite hand gripped around the wrist.

1. Shoeless Joe: Legend has it Joe Jackson became Shoeless Joe, after he played a game in Left Field without his cleats because they were new and had given him blisters. Despite his involvement in the infamous 1919 Black Sox World Series fixing scandal, which resulted in his being banned from baseball Shoeless Joe is still one of the best hitters to ever play the game, posting the third highest career batting average of all time. To me, the name Shoeless Joe is synonymous with baseball history and the nostalgia that surrounds it.

So, there you go. Tell me folks, what are your all time favorite Sports Nicknames?

Photo Credit: blog.supersonicsoul.com

Biting Sarcasm From My 4-Year-Old

2012-01-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

We had just sat down for a nice evening dinner on New Year's Day when Lukas made the comment. I completely missed his point at first. You can't blame me though, because after all it was completely out of character for him.

We were having Mrs. LIAYF's delicious homemade Potato Leek soup, along with a loaf of pecan raisin bread. I had lovingly toasted and buttered the bread for him. But when I handed him a piece, he took me by surprise by making the following comment as he took his first bite.

"Thanks for burning the crust Daddy"

"But I thought you didn't like the crust burnt" I replied, genuinely puzzled.

" I don't" he quickly responded with a smile.

(By the way, in my defense the toast was merely a shade past golden brown. Not at all close to being burnt. Plus, as I mentioned, it was softened by the butter.)

"Why would you thank me for it then?" I asked. At this point I still thought I was being thanked.

And, then he gave me the kicker...

"Well, because that's the way you and Mommy say things a lot when you mean something else."

Mrs. LIAYF and I both let out a genuine laugh at that. Then she let him know "That's called sarcasm Lukas".

It was yet another reminder to us that your kids really do pick up on much more than you realize.

Yeah, thanks for pointing that out Buddy.

Dad Resolutions For 2012

2011-12-31T17:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year 2012!

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This will be my last post here at Luke, I am Your Father.

Of 2011 that is. Ba Dum, Dum! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Yes, It's still 2011 here in Seattle as I write this, but the New Year is currently steamrolling across to globe and headed our way like a bunch of crazed, vintage 1985, Seahawks fans leaping from their seats in a successive Wave, and throwing their arms wildly into the air. Only, it's timing is much better.

And, even though it's been quite a while since I partied like it was 1999 (our store of Poppers for tonight not withstanding - woo hoo!), I wanted to make sure to note the passing of the old year and welcome the new one with a final post containing some of my goals for my role as a father for the upcoming calendar year.

Yeah, resolutions can be a lame attempt by those lacking proper normal resolve to use the changing of the calendar as a metaphor for the changing of their habits to ones which might serve themselves better in the upcoming year. But hey - when you are generally sleep deprived and up to your eyeballs in daily 'tasks', it doesn't hurt once a year to give yourself a mental boost by using them to give yourself a bit of extra motivation.

All that being said, even though I think I am a pretty good father to Lukas, I believe I can do even better in the new year.

So here are the 5 Dad Resolutions I have made for myself for 2012.

1. I resolve to get to bed by midnight every night - This sounds crazy when I read it, but in reality I am often not getting to bed until 1 or 2 in the morning. Especially on weekends. Obviously this makes me tired the next day and I am subsequently not as engaged with Lukas as I could be. I should really be in bed by 11:00 but will start with midnight for now. Baby steps.

2. I resolve to look first for an opportunity to teach - I joke around a lot with Lukas. I like to make him laugh, and we do a lot. But I really need to take a cue from Mrs. LIAYF and more often look first to teach Lukas about why things are the way they are, rather than turn it into a joke. He deserves that more than I currently give to him.

3. I resolve to reduce my random online time by 50% - Sure, this is hard to measure, but it is a goal. I spend a lot of time online doing things that don't ultimately benefit Lukas. Cough*Twitter*Cough. Yes, I still give him quite a bit of attention but I can still do better. And will. This doesn't mean I will stop blogging, but there are certainly other areas where I can certainly reduce my screen time.

4. I resolve to exercise 3 times a week - This one is huge. I am forty four years old now, and although I am not in terrible shape, I am not in good shape either. I often feel guilty when I am too exhausted to engage Lukas in an activity he wants to participate in. As I get older, for Lukas' sake I really need to ensure he has a healthy father around.

5. I resolve to discipline more consistently - This is not a big problem with us, but I am a pretty laid back guy and can tend to let things go when I should be providing a more consistent message with Mrs. LIAYF. It will definitely serve Lukas well as he grows older to have a clear message from both his parents on where his boundaries lie.

So, tell me readers. Do you have any parenting resolutions for 2012? Care to share?

2011 Top Post July - December

2011-12-28T15:42:00.000-08:00

This is the 2nd half of my 2011 'Best Of' blog posts entry. You can view the first installment, from earlier this month, here. Taken together, they provide a primer on what 'Luke, I am Your Father' was about in 2011.

This past year has been the 4th that I have published here, and honestly it has also been the most difficult. I am finding it increasingly difficult to find the time or motivation to post regularly here. I'm sure most bloggers experience this at some point. Still, looking back I have published some good material this past year, and hope to continue doing so well into the future.

So, if you are new to the blog or just an occasional reader, check these following posts out and let me know what you think. I'm looking forward to hearing from you in 2012, and beyond.

July: Transformers: The Dark Side of Pretending to go to the Moon: Strange things can happen when you combine walkie talkies, Transformers, and pretending to blast off for the moon.

August: The Dad Foodie: This father is a 'Foodie', but probably not the kind you're thinking of.

September: Mermaid Spotting: I have NEVER taken my son to McDonald's, but we are from Seattle so....

October: 4 Year Old Mind Tricks: This is NOT the post you are looking for (waving hand back and forth).

November: Taking a Deep Breath: When you feel yourself getting upset, sometimes it helps to sing a song.

December: SeattleDad's 2011 Best Albums Post: My most thoroughly researched, non-parenting post!

Honorable Mention: Where I am From: This started out as a Meme, but I went in my own direction. With good results.

Honorable Mention: We're Adopting - You can Help We are still waiting for our second child to choose us. Read about our hopes for adopting him or her.

Thanks for reading. Tell me readers, what were your favorite posts from 2011?

How to Get What You Want

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

This can certainly be a good strategy, but is by no means a sure thing.

Therefore, if you REALLY want something, at times it is better to take matters into your own hands. Maybe employ an alternate strategy.

Like this:

Which, if done diligently, will in seemingly no time lead to this....

And soon enough, before you know it even you will have enough to buy yourself this...

We'll see when it arrives but I'm pretty sure this will travel waaaay higher than a Reindeer.

SeattleDad's 2011 Best Albums Post

2011-12-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

One thing I have noticed while perusing several 'Best of 2011' albums posts is that they are all vastly different. I think that's a product of the fact that there is an abundance of great music being made right now, but also because with all the delivery choices out there these days, it's easy to focus on a narrower set of genres to the exclusion of others.

And I'll be the first to admit that this is probably the case with my list as it stands below. I'm sure I have missed some great music simply for the fact that I haven't been exposed to it. That being said, I have listened to a ton of great music this past year. And the 20 listed below are the ones I personally consider the cream of the crop. Each title links to a video from a song on the album. Enjoy.

1. The Cave Singers - No Witch Smooth, folksy goodness oozes from the seams of this Seattle trios third release. Great music to play while kicking back after a long day at the office.

2. Tapes n Tapes - Outside When all the 'Best Of 2011' lists were coming out, I quickly scoured them all to see how high each rated this record. Needless to say I was disappointed not to find it on ANY of them. This record has addictive riffs and catchy hooks laden throughout. I probably played it more than any other record this year. Given that, I would be very interested in hearing what you think about it after giving a full listen.

3. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues This second release from the Seattle folk rock artists is a beautiful, mellow, and harmonious compilation that will surely be as fresh and relevant 10 years from now as it is today.

4. Deer Tick - Divine Providence I've seen this record described as 'sophomoric' and 'a party album', which is probably true but hey it's also a lot of fun. There are elements of punk, twang, garage rock, and humor all blended together to make what was easily my favorite noisy release of the year.

5. Black Whales - Shangri-La Indeed I had never listened to a Black Whales song before getting my subscription to Spotify, but I really enjoyed what I found in Shangri-La. Yes, this is yet another Seattle band, and perhaps I am being a homer but if you haven't checked these guys out, believe me you won't be sorry you did.

6. Beirut - The Rip Tide Another beautiful record from Zach Condon full of Eastern European gypsy influences and indie vibes. Beirut continue to be one of my all time favorite bands and The Rip Tide picks up nicely where The Flying Cup Club left off.

7. We Are Augustines - Rise Ye Sunken Ships Pela was one of my favorite bands a couple of years ago, and I was pretty bummed when they broke up. And, although I hadn't followed the career of band members Billy McCarthy or Eric Sanderson there was no mistaken it was their new collaboration when I first hear We Are Augustines. This is a stunningly great record and on my most played list for 2011.

8. Devotchka - 100 lovers An eclectic, grand, and distinctly European sound, coupled with beautiful harmonies permeates this release. Don't be surprised if you find yourself daydreaming while listening to this record. Perhaps their best release to date.

9. My Goodness - My Goodness Terrific debut from this Seattle Blues Punk duo. Has the riffs to keep you coming back over and over again. Very similar to The Black Keys sound, but it has its own unique vibe.

10. Sallie ford & The Sound Outside - Dirty Radio Hailing from Portland, Oregon Sallie Ford had got unique pipes and a lot of fun rock and roll energy. This release is full of rockabilly leaning music that is simply fun to listen to.

The second 10. Honestly, any one of these could easily have cracked my top ten but although it was tough I had to choose. I also have one confession. Since they are not streaming it, and it was just recently released, I have only heard a couple of Songs from The Black Keys El Camino, but I am still ranking it in my top 20 because, after all, it's the Keys and thus is awesome.

11. Mastodon - The Hunter
12. Black Lips - Arabia Mountain
13. Fruit Bats - Tripper
14. Youth Lagoon -The Year of Hibernation
15. Black Keys - El Camino

16. My Morning Jacket - Circuital
17. British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall
18. Jeff The Brotherhood - We Are The Champions
19. Cage the Elephant - Thank You Happy Birthday
20. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo

Tell me readers, what where your top releases of 2011?

A Picture that Didn't Make the Blog

2011-12-13T14:32:00.000-08:00

Looking through our old pictures, I have found a few great ones which, for one reason or another, didn't originally make it onto the blog. Like this one.

Lukas was 3 when this photo was snapped. He had just commandeered this shovel from his good friend. From her expression, can you guess how she felt about that?

Funny thing is, Mrs. LIAYF and I can routinely be found wearing those exact same expressions!

Thanks to my blogging buddy Lee over at An Ordinary Dad, for the idea for the post.

Photo Credit: Chris Landry Photo

It's School Choice Time! $K - 8

2011-12-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

Throughout Lukas' first 4 years Mrs. LIAYF and I consistently held firm with a certain mantra.

Despite statistics indicating that approximately 40% of Seattle families opt to send their children to private schools over a vastly less expensive public option, we weren't buying it. "We went to public school and turned out just fine" we would tell anyone who broached the subject. And "We're not even considering private school as an option" we told not only friends and family, but each other often when we thought about the choice we would have to make someday far in the future regarding where Lukas would go to kindergarten and beyond.

We honestly considered public school as our one and only choice. End of story.

But, and I'm sure you've gathered this by now, a funny thing happened along our path to loading Lukas onto a bus bound for the neighborhood elementary. As he entered Pre-K we started taking a more thoughtful look at the choices that were out there, and began to educate ourselves about the quality, cost, and philosophies of those different options.

While Mrs. LIAYF was busy checking private school application deadlines (many of which are due by mid-January), we scheduled some tours and attended some open houses at some very nice schools. Schools where, personally, I was AMAZED at the individualized and challenging lesson plans for kids starting in kindergarten.

These were schools with top-notch facilities, small class sizes, enthusiastic and engaged teachers, and caring and involved parents. Schools where the 3rd and 4th graders were addressing the large tour groups and giving presentations, the likes of which even to this day would make my knees buckle more than a bit, with confidence and ease. In short, it was clear to us that for most of these private schools, the kids who attended were getting a fantastic education. And they made us want very much to send our son there.

This is not to say Lukas wouldn't get a decent education at his local public school - which is one of the better public schools in Seattle. However, we have yet to tour it or even talk to the Kindergarten teachers. That's because tours in our public schools aren't allowed until late February, long after applications are due at the private schools. So basically, to even consider these private schools we have to get those apps in now, at up to $100 a pop.

What we do know about our Seattle public option, however, is that the class sizes are going to be huge, up to a 26 or 27 to 1 teacher to student ratio in Kindergarten with no teachers aides (Washington has the 3rd largest ratio in the country), and the schools are bringing in portables to handle the extra kids. This, while we would also have to pay for the 2nd 1/2 day of Kindergarten.

I mentioned to a neighbor who has a child at our neighborhood school what we had heard mentioned regarding classes that size. The kids in the middle get very little attention, while the needy kids and the squeaky wheels are focused on. That's about sums it up, she indicated.

But that has only made our choice more difficult. As you have probably already know, these private schools don't come cheap. Yes, Mrs. LIAYF and I are both professionals making a decent living wage and we are extremely lucky to even be able to consider private school, but with all our other obligations, and the hope of another addition soon to our family, it would be extremely difficult to swing yearly tuition at the kindergarten level that rivals that of many colleges. Sure, we will apply for any tuition assistance each school has to offer, though we are generally unsure what if any we would qualify for.
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But the real question isn't "Can we afford it?" It's "Can we afford not to if we can at all find a way to make it work?" Lukas is a bright, funny, and extremely social boy with loads of potential. We love him to death and want the very best for him. But the questions still remain. With some of the extra savings from choosing a public school (even though we would be paying for full day vs half day public kindergarten) could we supplement with after school classes, trips, technology, etc... which would give just as good an overall experience? Well, we're really not sure.

In the end our choice will most likely come down to where he gets admitted (did I mention these private schools are highly competitive for available spots?), how close that school is to where Mrs. LIAYF and I work, and how much, if any, tuition assistance is available.

If the combination is favorable, and the stars align just right, next year we may be eating at home much more often, staycationing in our beautiful city, brewing a lot more coffee rather than hitting the corner Starbucks, as well as any other belt tightening measures we haven't already employed. If not, we will enroll him in his public school and be active and involved parents there instead. We'll know more in the coming months.

How about you readers. If you had to tighten your belts considerably to send your kids to private school and a better education, would you opt to? What other considerations which I haven't mentioned here, would you have to consider? Thanks for any feedback you can give.

Photo credit: workingfamiliesparty.org

2011 Top Posts: Jan - Jun

2011-12-05T21:17:00.000-08:00

Tra la la la la....Oh, hello readers.

In case your were wondering, yes it IS that time of year again. And no, I'm not referring to "The Holidays". Rather, I'm talking about that other tradition that takes place as the we prepare to bid adieu to the past year, and welcome the new year (you know, the one where we will get into better shape, get more sleep, learn a foreign language, etc....) into our lives.

Of course, It's End of Year List time!

Here at LIAYF I will be doing a few list posts, most notably my 2011 Best Albums post, which I am especially looking forward to since I have listened to a ton of great music this year, but I am going to begin by continuing the tradition I started last year of breaking up my Best of list into two posts. One for the first half of the year, and another for the last half.

So if you are new to LIAYF, or if you are an occasional reader, check out these posts - which I consider to be among of the best that I published in the first half of 2011. Then, look for the July - December edition towards the end of the month.

January - Fear Not Citizen What do you get when you give a 3 year old his very first cape and unleash him on the school playground? A Super chivalrous hero for the people, that's what.

February - I Don't Blame Him, I Think She's Great Too This dad realizes he can't compete with a Mother's love, and is just fine with that.

March - Hot Potato - The crowd experiences an emotional roller coaster during this nail biting competition in the pre-school room.

April - My Good Friday - I exorcise the skeletons of my past, in order to move forward with my family's future.

May - Rhymes with Sympathy - Our very first parent teacher conference came during pre-school. And it reinforced some wonderful things we already knew about Lukas.

June - Troubles Will Be Gone - Sometimes shedding some light on ones fears is all you need to do. Especially when it comes in the form of a rocket.

Honorable Mention - Holy Dry Shorts Batman - Sometimes getting a reward for a special accomplishment is only half the fun. (Awesome picture included!)

My Pillar in The Community

2011-11-29T19:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Tuesday readers.

Though I haven't heard from many of you in my previous Movember posts, I am refusing to give up on my participation in this worthy fundraiser for Men's Health issues including Prostate Cancer research funding.

In fact, I have finally decided that now is high time for me to get serious about the spirit of the project, by sculpting my previous facial hair effort (a fine goatee) down to a very questionable looking fuzzy caterpillar mustache.

Cropped for effect

I breifly considered NOT chopping off my chin hair because well....let's be honest, this dazzling new resident of my upper lip makes me look Creepy at best. To those of you who would point out that I only sported the stache a few days before then end of the month, yes you have a point.

But, I will counter that with this fact. I was brave enough display the caterpillar on my first day here in Las Vegas. At a work related conference. With nearly 8000 of my colleagues, many of whom I have worked with for years, attending along side of me! That certainly has to make up somewhat for waiting this long to pare down.

One thing that surprised me here at my conference was the paltry number of other men who were brothers in the stache department. Maybe not many guys in my line of work know about Movember. Of course, this fact only made me more self conscious about walking amongst the throngs with my furry lip. And I'll have to admit I was a bit preoccupied about who was looking at me, and what they were thinking.

For instance, I was in one conference session which was packed to the brim with well over a thousand attendees. There weren't many chairs available and fire code wouldn't allow us to start until everyone had a seat. The speaker then announced "Anyone with a free chair next to them raise your hand" and as soon as a hand went up a couple of rows over, the woman next to me got up and moved there. Coincidence? Personally, I think she was frightened by my mustache.

Given my self consciousness, when I did see another guy sporting a Selleck, or some variation there of, I was eager to make a fraternal connection with him. I envisioned the Brotherhood of the Stache to have some sort of secret code of acknowledgement where I could give them a nod and we would instantly understand each other. Or I could point to my stache and smile. Perhaps they were participating in Movember too?

That didn't go so well.

Eventually I learned that we were sharing the facility with the participants in a rather large rodeo which was coming into town soon. That may have very well explained why I wasn't getting nods of acknowledgement in return from many of these mustached guys.

From that point on, I decided there were a few guys whose mustaches I definitely should ignore. They included: Guys with ponytails, guys with cowboy hats, guys with t-shirts tucked into their belted jeans, and finally guys with large silver belt buckles. I figured most of them probably have had the caterpillar for much more than a month.

And, just when I was questioning wisdom and timing of my actions, I ran into a former colleague of mine who had moved on to position in another state. I explained to him that I was looking creepy only because participating in Movember. It turns out his father had passed recently from a bout with prostate cancer. He appreciated what I was doing, and graciously donated $200 to my Movember page!

I have to say, that instantly made all of it worth while.

Remember readers, if you haven't already you can still donate to me or my team. Plus, there is an exciting possibility that Phillips Norelco will match the teams donation, up to $15,000, which would put us close to the $30,000 mark.

How awesome it that?

All The Leaves Are Brown. And Wet.

2011-11-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

Happy Saturday Readers.

Since it is nearly December already, and surprisingly it wasn't raining, I figured I had better tackle the ever increasing 'leaf carpet' that used to be my back yard. Of course it has been raining recently, quite a bit actually. This is Seattle after all.

Anyway, all that rain made for mostly soggy leaves not exactly ideal for working with. Thankfully, I had the best kind of help in Lukas.

And, because I'm the dad of a 4 year old, which honestly is probably the only thing which gives me license to, I got to do THIS with him:

I wonder if I can still convince him to do this when he is a teenager.

A Kinder Shade of Purple

2011-11-25T14:42:00.000-08:00

Apparently, the 'Purple Card' rarely gets handed out at Pre-K.

However, recently Lukas has brought home not one, but two of them.

These make me both happy and proud all at once.

On this holiday weekend, I am very thankful for having such a great son.

Much Mo Menacing

2011-11-18T20:23:00.000-08:00

Some people think that my Movember facial hair makes me look more "Menacing".

Seriously??

I have No idea where they get that notion.

You are unwise to lower your defenses!

Honestly though, you DON'T want to mess with my Dark Side.

So go right now and read my Movember post, then click on this link to donate to a very worthy cause supporting Men's health issues.

That is all.

One Car Family

2011-11-15T22:15:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, I'll be spending more time like this guy.

We have had the idea ever since Mrs. LIAYF took a job here in Seattle this summer, after working for the previous year in a city an hour away from home. I say an hour away, but when you factored in commute time she had spent nearly three long hours of every day during that year navigating traffic. It was a long year for all of us.

But now things are different. In a good way.

Now when we are at our jobs, or school, only a few city blocks separate her from Lukas and myself. And we have taken advantage of our new found proximity by riding into the city proper together, as a family. It affords us a great opportunity to turn off the music or the radio, and to chat about our day - be it upcoming or having just ended. In fact just last night, on the way home, Mrs. LIAYF and I were treated to an animated story about the Superheros of the alphabet. We made it all the way to the letter G which, by the way, was Girl Man. Nice.

Given all that, along with my recent foray into riding to work, our proximity to a city bus line (and in no small part that we could save several hundred Washington's a month) we made the conscious decision to reduce our carbon footprint by downsizing and eliminating one of our two vehicles.

Honestly, it's been a few weeks now and there has been absolutely no sellers remorse here. We haven't missed the second vehicle at all. Sure, there were a couple of times where it would have been convenient to have another set of wheels, but certainly not a necessity.

On a side note I never realized how technically difficult it would be to sell a car to a private party when there is still a loan balance owed. PAINFUL. Thankfully we found the perfect buyer, a retired lawyer who gave us few hassles.

Yes, I can anticipate that there will be situations which will arise in the coming weeks and months where we absolutely need the 2nd car. That's why we also signed up for a the car rental service ZipCar. There are several pick up locations near our home and work and we can reserve online, which we have already done once since downsizing.

We'll have to see how things play out when our second child comes along. But for now this seems like a logical choice given our current circumstances. Certainly not as dire as some of the scenarios that ran through my mind before selling, for NOT downsizing.

Hopefully, it will end up being similar to our decision to ditch cable and local television a few years ago. At that time I was so sure that was only temporary, but I didn't end up missing it much and it afforded us a lot of extra time to focus on more important things.

Plus, having the extra cash on hand every month while knowing that we are consuming less has been good for our feelings of well being in a tight economy. I guess the real test will be how we handle that first situation where we are truly disadvantaged by not having the back up vechicle.

How about you readers? Could you imagine a scenario where you could do without a second car? If that came into play, would you be able to bring yourself to do it?

Gaining Late 'Mo' Mentum

2011-11-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Saturday Readers. For various reasons (mainly timing) I didn't initially participate in Movember this year. Movember is a fundraiser where men all over the world grow their mustaches and other facial hair to raise awareness and funds to support men's health issues, such as prostate cancer.

However, while I am nearly always clean shaven, I have been growing my own facial hair since the beginning of the month and have decided to lend my face to the Movember cause for the rest of the 11th month.

That being said, I have joined the Dad 2.0 / Man of the House / NYC Dads Group / DadCentric / DadLabs/ team (I wasn't invited, but just crashed the party) and even created my own Movember page to accept donations to this worthy cause.

Heck, I don't care if you donate to the team directly, or to me specifically, but if any of you decide to spare even a few of your hard earned cash dollars to this cause because I put myself out here on display, then it will be well worth the effort.

So, without further adieu, here is what my face can accomplish in about 2 weeks time when it gets serious.

Soon, food will surely find a home in there.

Like I said, I would greatly appreciate any support you can give. Either in the way of donations to the Movember cause, or even comments letting me know that you are familiarizing yourself more with men's health issues and the programs Movember raised funds go to support.

Have a good weekend all. I will post more Seattledad Movember updates later in the month.

Taking a Deep Breath

2011-11-09T06:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if you could chalk it up to daylight savings time or just an extra long day at Pre-K, but Lukas was very tired and cranky last night. And, when the time came for him to go upstairs to bed, he was extremely whiny too, not wanting to cooperate at all.

About the same time, I had to leave the house for a few minutes to try to find a post office where I could mail our election ballots.

Upon returning a few minutes later, I could hear Lukas yelling upstairs, and could tell he was very upset, which is fairly rare for him. Apparently he didn't want to brush his teeth or perhaps go to the bathroom, I wasn't sure. But I could also hear that Mrs. LIAYF was standing firm in her request.

Then, when I arrived at the top of the stairs, she was telling him that his time was up, and she was going to help him out. Something he definitely did NOT want. But as she approached, something interesting happened.

"Wait!" he yelled. "Wait Mommy! I have to do something!'

"What?" she asked, clearly not in the mood to put up with much more of his attitude. Watching what had unfolded, I didn't blame her one bit.

"I have to sing something" he explained. Then he broke into the following song:

"Once I knew a volcano

who almost blew his top
-

I grabbed him by the hand and said

'Here's how you can stop'
-

Take a deep breath,

Count to Five

Till you feel all calm inside

(then quieter he sang)-
-
Take a deep breath
Count to five,

Till you feel all calm inside"

After he was done he said "I feel better now" and let out a smile. It was amazing to watch, and I just stood there for a couple of moments in the bathroom door beaming with pride at what I had witnessed.

Then I joined his mother in giving him a big hug.

The Fling That Ended Badly

2011-11-06T22:01:00.000-08:00

It was the wailing scream which woke Mrs. LIAYF and I abruptly on Sunday morning.

It was 7:00AM which, when adjusting for the fact that daylight saving time had us turning back the clock on Saturday night, wasn't all that bad, time wise. But upon hearing that plaintive scream, Mrs. LIAYF and I each sprung off the mattress instantly as if we had just hit the deck of a trampoline and were being catapulted by uncontrolled inertia towards the ceiling.

Instantly, we hit the bedroom floor and sprinted to Lukas' room. Upon arriving we threw open the door, turned on the lights, and stared for a few moments mouths agape at the carnage that was spread out before us.

Apparently Lukas who (although he has been in underwear for over two years now) is still in overnight pull ups was a slight bit too *enthusiastic* when pulling them off after waking up. As he described it through his sobs he "Gave them a fling".

Well, I'm not sure what that heavily soaked pull up struck as it was flung across the room, but the result was something akin to an explosion, with various sized chunks of gooey gel balls being splattered far and wide throughout his room.

"What in the world were you thinking?!" one of us scolded him after he had been calmed and directed to sit in the cleanest corner of his room. "I don't know" was his sullen reply.

Still groggy and in need of a cup of coffee, I found my keys and ventured out into the frosty morning to the garage to gather the shop-vac to suck up the majority of the sticky mess. During that process, Lukas couldn't maintain the frown on his face and even once pointed past Mrs. LIAYF smiling to tell her that she had "missed a spot". But she only gave him the Mom look, the one that says this is definitely NOT funny at 7:10AM on a Sunday morning and he once again became contrite.

After I had gathered up the blankets and sheets for washing, we took him down for breakfast and had a serious talk with him about the gravity of throwing his clothes, much less his dirty pull-ups in the house.

Then, after some hugs and a nice breakfast consisting of pancakes and scrambled eggs, which made us all feel much better, we forgot all about it.

That is until later on that morning when Lukas had gone up to change into clothes for going out of the house. Downstairs at the time, Mrs. LIAYF and I again heard a loud thud which sounded like something had fallen. And, again we hurried up to his room to find out what had happened.

This time our son had fallen when climbing on a stack of books he had set on his step stool. He was trying to reach his pajama shirt which, incidental, was way up on top of his wardrobe. It had gotten stuck up there we he flung off his shirt while getting undressed.

After seeing that he was alright, we both had to laugh. Oh yeah, there's never a dull moment when you're a parent. But dull would be okay every once in a while.

Monthly 5: What I'm Enjoying in November

2011-11-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

Drinking: Manny's Pale Ale from Georgetown Brewing, Seattle Washington. Manny's is easily my favorite beer. You can't get it in bottles, but it's ubiquitous in Seattle area restaurants and bars for a reason. Poured into a pint glass it's the perfect mix of smooth and refreshing. Next time you're in Seattle grab yourself a pint or two.

Watching: Friday Night Lights Season 4. Don't let anyone tell you there are no good father figures in today's media. Coach Eric Taylor as well as his wife Tammy are two of the most compelling, and well developed, parent figures I have watched on screen in quite some time. This show, which we started watching only because we were running out of good dramas to stream on Netflix, is so good Mrs. LIAYF and I find ourselves staying up way to late on many more work nights than we should. Yeah, highly recommended.

Reading: The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon I have to admit that I have been reading this book for a long time. Like a couple of months long time. That's because the only time I give myself to read novels anymore is when I crawl into bed and usually it's *Boom Boom, out go the Lights!* To the books credit I have stuck with it because, like most of Chabon's work, it really is an interesting, well written read. Check back with me in a few more weeks, I may be a few pages and a few nights from the end!

Listening to: Black Whales Shangri-la Indeed Ever since I subscribed to Spotify a few weeks back I have been on a quest to listen to many of those bands who sounded intriguing, but I could never hear enough of to get a feel for their music. With the Black Whales, I listened because I was trying to sort out all those bands with 'Black' in their band name. What I found with this Seattle! based quartet was an instantly addictive mix of Americana, Alternative, and Rock which, despite those 15 million other choices on Spotify, has me listening over and over again.

Visiting: Theo Chocolate Factory, Seattle Washington As part of her 40th (I know, she doesn't look even close to 40 right?) birthday on Halloween, I took Mrs. LIAYF to Theo Chocolates in Seattle for their factory tour. Housed in Redhook's original micro-brewing facility, Theo is darn tasty chocolate. But better yet it is Organic and fair trade as well.

With the factory tour you get to learn all about how Theo buys, roasts, and grinds Cacao beans into perhaps the best chocolate in the states, all while sampling bucket loads of exotic flavored bars. Definitely worth a visit if you have a couple hours to kill in the city.
-

So tell me readers, what are you enjoying this November?

Wordless Wednesday: Taking Candy By (The) Force

2011-11-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

I wasn't Lord Vader because he wanted me to be a 'Good Guy'

Fun is Reading

2011-10-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

We have been reading to Lukas daily for a long time now. How long? Well, since long before he was born actually.

It's true. Mrs. LIAYF and I had ourselves read a lot about the benefits of reading to your baby in-utero and thus decided it would be a great idea to employ that practice. Quite a bit.

In fact, as silly as it may sound, for a long stretch of her pregnancy I would read 'Guess How Much I Love You' nightly to her ever growing belly in hopes that it would calm our yet unnamed baby and get him used to Daddy's voice talking to him.

Now, I don't know how much these neo-natal story times actually helped Lukas, but it sure made Mrs. LIAYF and I feel like we were proactively teaching and calming our unborn child.

The practice of reading to him didn't stop after he was born either. On the contrary, we have made it a habit to read to our son as much as possible in the intervening 4 years. We have also collected a large number of books for him, so that he has a large variety of material to choose from whenever he wants to hear dad or mom read a story. In fact, our hefty kid book count was once tallied at around 600, and we have probably added a couple hundred volumes since then.

And now that Lukas is 4-years-old, we may be seeing some of the benefits of all that reading paying off. That's because under the loving tutelage of his mother, and to a lesser extent myself, our son has been excitedly learning about phonics and has been doing a terrific job of associating the letters of the alphabet and their accompanying sounds. We have had many recent impromptu sessions with him where we have helped him sound out and spell words that hold meaning to him, such as the names of his friends from Pre-K.

Mrs. LIAYF even found a cool set of magnets to help us along with the process. They start with some basic word groupings. Letters can be then be added to create different words. For example, to 'ad' you can add an M, or a D, or an S and so forth. And Lukas has really enjoyed sounding out these different letters to reveal what the underlying word was.

All that being said, Mrs. LIAYF proudly came to me on Sunday and declared that our son had probably read his first real word. Not one he recognized because we had read it in a story, but one that he had actually saw written down and to which he had applied his emerging set of reading skills to.

And, what was that word?

Well, what sound does an 'F' make? Good job, and what about a 'U'? Right!! Now, what about the 'N'? Awesome job! Yay!!

Yes. It is FUN indeed.

And I couldn't have thought of a more appropriate word for him to start with.

Wordless Wednesday: If You Build it

2011-10-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

They will want a picture.

4-Year-Old Mind Tricks

2011-10-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday readers. Do you know what I LOVE about being a dad? Well yes, most of it so far has been pretty terrific, but what I am actually referring to *this* time are those little moments, or things your kid does which take you by complete surprise and make you laugh out loud.

I had one of those moments last night.

Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I were heading upstairs to start his bedtime routine when he decided that he wasn't quite ready to give up playing the game of 'Hide and Seek' we had earlier been engaged in. So, laughing, he ran into his bedroom and hid himself from yours truly.

Right under his covers.

As I walked in and saw the squirming pile of covers, I called out "Where's Lukas? I can't believe he just disappeared! " At that point there was an audible giggle from underneath the pile. "What was that?" I said in a raised voice. "Is something under here?".

Then, I slowly raised the comforter from his bed to reveal a smiling little boy. But, before I could say anything like "Found you!" his arm extended towards me and gave a slight wave, before speaking to me in a serious tone through his grin.

He said "This is not the Droid you are looking for."

After letting out a quick laugh, I composed myself for my response. "No, this is not the Droid I am looking for" I said with a blank stare, before dropping the covers back over him, turning, and walking out of the room.

I thought that was quite an ingeneous trick, since we hadn't read his Star Wars book in quite some time. And I was still ginning about it when I sat down to write this post.

Spontaneous, funny moments like this one with Lukas happen often around here, and are just another reason I LOVE being a dad.

Next, We'll Show Him a Unicorn

2011-10-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

We had just been greeted by an impressive rain, which had passed over nearly as fast as it had arrived, leaving the sun shining brilliantly to our west.

Looking up and seeing the heavy mist trickle down in front of the sunshine, and smiling almost as brightly, Mrs. LIAYF announced "Quick Lukas, let's go out front. I think I have something to show you."

And sure enough, there it was. His first rainbow. A bit hard to tell here, but it was actually a double.

We had recently asked him if he had ever actually seen one, which he hadn't. So we were on active rainbow watch.

As you might have guessed, there were no pots of gold to be found anywhere.

Sad, because they really could have come in handy.

A Day of Note

2011-10-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

By all accounts today was not a day of note. Nothing special or memorable happened. No work projects completed. No milestones were reached. No pictures taken. No purchases were made.

In fact, the only obvious accomplishment worth mentioning which took place this day was that the soggy Seattle skies cleared just long enough for me to leave work early, come home, and finish painting my deck and porch. Like I said, it was a Thursday. Of a full work week. The sun barely made and appearance. This was definitely not a memorable day.

Or was it?

After my painting job was finished, I had enough time to get a few other chores done around the house. Some that had been nagging me for a while. Then Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas arrived home and while Lukas laughed uncontrollably while watching an episode of Shawn the Sheep, and Mrs. LIAYF watched an episode of The Closer, I made a fresh salmon dinner with kale and fig bread, while I sipped on a craft beer and listened to the baseball playoffs on the radio. Pausing to take in the scene at that moment, it dawned on me that despite my sometimes hectic schedule, I was extremely happy.

Then, after the media distractions were over, my family and I sat down to dinner together in a quiet dinning room to enjoy our meal and talk about our respective days. Lukas, of course, was his animated self using impressive hand gestures to describe the antics of the claymation show he had just watched. After dinner, a game of pirates and dragons between father and son then turned into a game of chase and lasers which lasted until it was time to wind ourselves down for the evening bedtime routine.

After the game of chase I was worn and out of breath, but as I lay on our guest bed next to Lukas - both of us laughing and silly - I again realized how happy these little moments were making me.

No, today Thursday October 6th, 2011 was not a day of note. It was just another day in my life as a parent. A busy day where I did many of the same chores I do nearly every other day: Laundry, dinner, dishes, and work around the house.

But, of course, that's really not all it was. It was also one of those many collective days that make up Lukas' childhood that I will one day look back upon with fond memories.

I won't remember a specific scene. I won't have a picture with which to recall the day. I will just remember how nice it was.

And that it made me happy.

Little Pink Porches

2011-10-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday readers. I have to admit, I am more than a bit sore today.

"Why?" you may ask. "Have you been working out more? Maybe riding your bike to work again?". Well, no on both accounts, but thanks for asking (you're so good about that). Actually, I am sore today because I spent the weekend busily engaged in an activity I had absolutely no business doing the first weekend in October.

That's right, I was painting.

The temperature here in Seattle barely cracked 60F over the weekend, with the constant threat of rain. But hey, my deck and porch REALLY need to be painted before the Fall rains come in earnest leaving everything around the Pacific Northwest waterlogged until next July. So I carefully followed the local weather forecast and decided I had a Sunday window with which I could squeeze in most of the job.

Now the reason I needed to squeeze the job in because, of course, when August and September came and the weather was actually prime around here for outdoor painting, I was much too busy enjoying the sunshine and moderate temperatures with Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas to bother myself with such annoyances.

But, unfortunately, when Fall comes here in Seattle, it can come on fast. And before you know it, it's October, temperatures are barely reaching 60 degrees, and raindrops dominate the 7 Day Forecast.

So, I prepped the areas all day Saturday, doing quite a bit of scrapping, sanding, and cleaning. Then, on Sunday the weather was cloudy but dry with a few sun breaks. The rain was due later that night, but I figured I had enough time to get at least a primer coat on everything and maybe a coat of paint on the porch.

Our house is dark orange in color, so when I had the primer tinted it turned out to be a lovely shade of pink. I tried to tell myself it was 'Salmon', but honestly it was pink. I spent all the late morning and early afternoon putting that coat down. Then after a late lunch I made the call that I had enough time to get a coat of orange on the porch. Maybe.

I really should have stopped there, but my painting inertia had kicked in. It was about 4PM when I was finishing the last of the coat of paint. And when I felt the first drip of rain drop onto the top of my nose.

I frantically finished the last of the surfaces and held out hope that the skies would clear for a couple more hours at least while the paint mostly dried. And, thankfully that one drip was a fluke. A temporary fluke, but a fluke nonetheless. I cleaned up and Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I walked up to a local food fair that was going on. About an hour later the skies opened up, and an onslaught of rain poured forth. I had thrown caution to the wind, and the wind had thrown it right back at me (along with a river of water.)

After the rain let up a bit and we had finished eating we walked back to our house. All the way I was grimacing at the thought of what I might find there. I knew the paint wasn't dry, but how bad was it going to be?

It turned out to be about as bad as I imagined it would be. There were a LOT of pink streaks from the primer coat showing through. In fact, I'm pretty sure there hasn't been streaking that ugly since they filmed 'Old School'. But on the bright side, the higher up the steps I looked (where I began) the better it was. Plus, the rain actually washed away all the orange puddles and it looks like I might get another dryish day this coming weekend so I can finish up.

Until then though, my pink streaked porch is on display for all the neighbors to see.

Yes, I should have done this job a month ago while I was enjoying my summer with my family instead. But life is short, and so is childhood, so I guess I'm okay with painting in the rain every so often.

**So many of you are calling for a picture that I decided to relent. It was darkish when I left home this morning, and I caught this blurry image with my cheap phone camera. Your welcome.

Linkin Blogs

2011-09-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Tim, over at Life of Riles recently gave me cool Meme/Award. The 7 x 7 link award tasks you with looking back at your archeived posts for ones that had an impact in certain ways.

It's been a while since I have participted in a meme, but I really like Tim's blog so I decided to oblige.

So, without too much forethought, here they are.

Most Beautiful: Sure, it was the product of yet another meme, but this post about Where I am From is perhaps my most poetic piece.

Most Helpful: Hmmmmm.....helpful? That's not really what my posts here at LIAYF are about. Probably as close as I've come is this post about My Top Ten Father Son Movie Moments. Don't give me that look. I'm sure it was helpful to somebody. Somewhere. Maybe.

Most Popular: Without question it was my post from earlier this month, about our plans to adopt our 2nd child. I had my highest number of pageviews in 4 years on that post. Very encouraging.

Most Controversial: Let's face it, I'm not a controversial writer. That is, unless you consider self deprecating humor as 'controversial'. Maybe the closest I came was just recently when I posted about not having taken Lukas to McDonald's. Ever!

Most Surprisingly Successful: The popularity of this post, about others realizing what you have as a parent, was very popular. Probably more so than I expected.

Most Underrated: Personally, I liked this post about a thrilling game of Preschool Hot Potato quite a bit. And although it did get some comments, I wish more people would have read it.

Most Prideworthy: This post about reaching a noteworthy milestone as a parent ranks up there with any I've written in terms of ones I'm proud of.

Now I guess the rules are to pass the award on to 7 more outstanding bloggers. They are listed below.

If you haven't heard of some of them, click through and give them a read. You'll be glad you did. Heck, maybe even one or two of them will play along with thier own post.

Fillets to Fishsticks

DC Urban Dad

Mom Next Door

Eduacated Abroad

Super Daddy

Portland Dad

Zen Mom

Random Tuesday: Sloppy Edition

2011-09-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

Chis Singer ( @Book_Dads ) visited Seattle last week with his lovely wife and daughter. We had them over for dinner and Lukas and I instantly hit it off with Chris. Literally! In fact, I bet he is still having nightmares about Lukas' stinging blue uppercut. "Rockem Sockem! Rockem Sockem!" Lukas chanted as they pummeled each others robots. Despite that, Chris then sat him down and read him a Star Wars book. Nice Guy.

*****

Lukas: Daddy let's play Light Savers.
Me: You mean Lightsabers buddy.
Lukas: No, I said Light Savers!
Me: It's a Lightsaber. A sword is called a saber. So, it's a sword made out of light. See?
Lukas: Yeah, but I want to play Light Savers daddy.
Me: Okay then, let's see who can turn off the lights first!

*****

The other day Mrs. LIAYF and I were engaged in some rather pointed discourse (to our credit, we didn't once yell) about.....you guessed it, Sloppy Joe's. What, you mean you didn't guess Sloppy Joe's? Now we haven't had Sloppy Joe's in years, but my lovely bride put it right there on our dinner planning menu for the next week. Not being able to read properly, I gathered up a shopping list, including what I assumed we needed to prepare the dinners on the menu, and was off to the grocery.

My mistake? I came home with a can of Hunts Manwich Sauce. Ha ha. You see, apparently she was planning to make the meal from scratch. With all healthy ingredients. It was from a recipe no less. Sure, this is what she does with nearly all ours meals, but the can just called out "Easy" to me. We were both tired so, as you can imagine, my manwich was in trouble.

It was during our discussion that Lukas came between us with his Buzz Lightyear and began to use his laser on yours truly. "I'll save you Mommy" he said as he pointed the wrist with the flashing light which was making the laser sound at me. I guess there's no doubt whose side Buzz will always take in such an exchange. Apparently, I'm Zurg. We all had a good laugh at that.

*****

If you ever want to find me, just take a gander under your nearest rock. I do reside there after all. It's true, with no television and a 4 year old, I am usually way behind the times on what is going on out there in the world beyond my narrow silo. That's why I was shocked when I heard about Spotify the other day. A music site where you can sign up for free and listen to a catalog of nearly 15 million songs, including full albums from nearly most any band you can think of (except the Beatles)? It didn't take me long to sign up. Now I am listening to many of those albums that I had always wanted to listen to before I decided to buy or not. Yeah, I'm already a big fan.

*****

You might have noticed in a recent Wordless Wednesday post that Lukas in now wearing glasses. He has been diagnosed with Amblyopia. Basically, his one eye is weak and shutting down and the brain has to relearn to use that eye. The doctor prescribed the glasses, along with patching his good eye for 2-6 hours a day. Unfortunately, we may have to follow this routine for up to 5 years. But on the bright side, since we caught this early enough his vision has a chance to correct back to 20/20.

While patching the eye doctor also indicated that he wanted Lukas concentrating on something small, and close up. He recommended at least a half an hour day of video game. Yes, video games. Doctors orders. Lukas hasn't always been too excited about this though. Just the other day he wanted to go outside and play. "Not until you play your video game!" I had to say. How humorous is that?

*****

And finally, I am hosting my biggest giveaway yet over at Luke, I am Your Father Reviews. I am giving away a Clarisonic Mia! Valued at well over a Franklin people. There are several ways to enter, including grabbing our adoption badge. So, if you haven't stopped over there yet, now is definitely the time folks.

Blue Badge of Anticipation

2011-09-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

So, I really put the LIAYF family out there in my last post. First, I want to thank all who read and commented. It's nice to know that you are thinking good thoughts for us and keeping us in mind as you carry on. Heck, there might even be a chance that one of you will hear about something along those line that you would normally have not thought twice about. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but maybe one day.

Moving forward - and at some point we must move forward - the question became "How long should I leave that post up, before posting again?" I mean, I want to give people ample opportunity to read the post, but at some point I do need to post again. Then I had an idea.

This is the point where I tell you that old (emphasis on the old) bloggers can learn old tricks.

I decided that the best way to keep our adoption post out there, while moving forward with other content, would be to create a badge, that would live in my right hand column and also appear at the bottom of any new posts. Here is the finished product:

Then I thought "Why stop there?" I could even create a badge that other blogger, if they were so inclined, could post on their sites as well.

For those of you who, like me, have never created a badge before, here is a quick and easy tutorial on how to make your own. Yes, with a quick google search you can find a more detailed tutorial, but I know you, and you don't have the time for that.

1. Create the image Pick a picture or background you want to use for the badge. For mine, I just took this picture....

loaded it to Picnik, cropped the upper right hand corner, sized to 175X175, added the text, then saved it to my computer.

2. Load the Image to a Server - There are several ways to do this, but I just loaded it to imgur, which I was able to create an account on by signing in with Twitter. After loading the image had it's own URL, which I then copied.

3. Get the HTML code - I found the code I needed with a search, and used my URL's to replace the text that indicated [Destination URL] and [Image URL] aready listed.

Then, if you want to create a text box to display so that other bloggers, if they are so inclined, can grab and display your badge, use the same steps for replacing URL's to create the following text box code:

4. Add Code to Your Site - Now take the code you just created and add it to your site. Here is my finished product.
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There you have it. Not so hard, right?

Like I said, I will be using the first badge I created to anchor future posts. And, of course, Mrs. LIAYF and I would greatly appreciate it if you grabbed our badge for display on your site as well. If you do, please let me know.

Thanks.

We're Adopting - You Can Help

2011-09-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

Save for a mention in a previous post I haven't talked about it much here at 'Luke, I am Your Father', but we are in the process of adding to the size of our family. We are doing it through adoption.

Given Mrs. LIAYF's history with adoption (her mother and uncle are both adopted) we had always planned on having one biological child and then adopting another. However, this outcome was not easy to achieve. Before Lukas was born, we spent four years, multiple thousands of dollars, and countless hours of 'practice' (yes, we could be qualified as Outliers in that field) trying to nudge along the process of conception. But, sadly, this was to no avail. We were eventually told by our doctor that we would most likely never have a biological child of our own.

As it is with many would-be parents, this was a frustrating, heartbreaking, and at times demoralizing experience for both of us. We couldn't fully comprehend why we were having these difficulties, especially when we knew we had so much love and happiness to give. Finally there came a time, after riding the emotional rollercoaster for so long, that we had our closure moment. Now, we would simply adjust to adoption as our primary option to start our family. And, we were very happy with our choice.

Then, miraculously, Lukas picked us as his parents. We literally found out Mrs. LIAYF was pregnant the same morning that we were sending our profile to an expecting mother who we had found was looking for adoptive parents. We were shocked. We held each other for what seemed like hours and cried tears of joy. Despite the stories you may have heard, statistically this almost never happens.

We quickly contacted our adoption attorney and had him refer this birth mother to another family looking for a child to love. Our plans for adoption would be put on hold.

Fast forward nearly five years. The parenting experience has been every bit the amazing journey Mrs. LIAYF and I had envisioned. We count our blessings each and every day to have Lukas in our lives. We laugh and love more than we could have ever imagined, even five years earlier.

If you read this blog, you will know that I write a lot of self deprecating humor. I often poke fun at myself, my age, and many other things. But all joking and humility aside, Mrs. LIAYF and I are pretty fantastic parents. And Lukas is a pretty amazing kid. We realize that, but we also realize that we are far from done. We have plenty of room in our home, and in our lives, to share with another child. And that child will be extremely well loved.

Since earlier this year, we have been completing all the necessary steps, including background checks and a lengthy home study, to bring that child into our happy home. Like we were pursuing before Lukas came along, we are opting for a process called Domestic Infant Adoption. This means we have an adoption attorney and are staying local, while waiting for a birth mother to pick us as the adoptive parents to her soon to be born beautiful baby.

With this path we are not contracting with an agency, but rather opting to find our child through other avenues. This involves networking. In essence, getting the word out about who we are, and most importantly that we are looking to provide a loving home to another child.

This, readers, is where you may be able to help. You, as the readers of 'Luke, I am Your Father' are perhaps our biggest network when it comes to locating the child who has picked us, and is waiting for us to find him/her. And networking, in the form of getting the word out that you are looking to adopt a child, it has been told to us by the professionals who we've been in contact with, is the key to speeding up the domestic adoption process. In fact, the first young birth mother we were made aware of 5 years ago was the daughter of a friend of a co-worker of Mrs. LIAYF's. That's usually how it works.

So readers if you have heard, or do hear in the future through your personal grapevine about a expectant mother who may be looking at adoption as a means of giving the child she is carrying the chance at a secure and loving home, please think of the LIAYF family and the healthy, happy home full of laughter and learning we could give that child.

In the off chance this does happen, please contact us using the email listed on my profile page. You can click 'View my Complete Profile' on the upper right hand corner of this screen. You can give my e-mail to any prospective birth mother. You can also give her our attorney’s contact information – Albert Lirhus in Seattle, Washington (206) 728-5858. The birth mother can ask to speak to Joan and request the adoption profile for our family – “Jim, Anne and Lukas.”

All that being said, and certainly this is the tricky part, we would prefer that birth parents not be referred here, to LIAYF. At this stage of the process, there would simply be too many yet unanswered variables to consider. That would be a decision left for another time. So, if in the off chance you do know of a prospective birth mother, please hold off on giving out this web address, or blog name.

So, there you have it, the story of our journey to adding a fourth member to our happy family. Thanks for reading, and for keeping our story in mind as you go about your daily lives.

Who knows? If you were actually able to help, I may even give you creative license in choosing a psudonym for LIAYF's newest edition.

That is, as long as it's not Jar Jar.

Top 10 Funniest Movies - In My Dreams

2011-09-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

"What? We weren't included?"

Tell me readers, is it a sign that you blog too much if you are actually dreaming about gathering information for a post?

Yeah, I thought so.

As you might have guessed, that is precisely what happened to yours truly last night. I woke at 3:30 AM from a very intense dream I was having. In that dream I was actively debating with some unidentified person (probably Mrs. LIAYF) what the funniest movies ever made were. Naturally, many of the details were a bit fuzzy, but I distinctly remember that I had to refine my list because I was going to post about it.

I also remember being adamant that, NO, Sister Act would definitely never be included on the list. (What can I say? I'm not a big Whoppi fan. Sorry.)

Anyway, I think there were some fairly interesting choices on my dream list but...unfortunately I couldn't remember most of them.

All that being said, I thought "What the hay" I should just post my actual, not buried in the far reaches of my mind, list. With any luck, it'll resolve some 'issue' I'm having.

Without further adieu, here are SeattleDad's top 10 funniest movies:

1. The 40 year Old Virgin

2. Planes Trains and Automobiles

3. Dumb and Dumber

4. Old School

5. Monty Python's and the Holy Grail

6. Animal House

7. National Lampoon's Vacation

8. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

9. Napoleon Dynamite

10. ~~A Fish Called Wanda~~ Little Miss Sunshine

So, tell me readers, do you ever dream about your posts? And what movies would make your 'Dream List'?

Here's to Good Times

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today is my Birthday. YAay.... Okay, it's not that exciting once you start creeping up into the mid 4(cough)0's. It actually kind of sneaks up on you, and at my age that is not always a good thing.

What is exciting though is getting to spend quality time with my family and friends - which I did a lot of yesterday. It was a gorgeous sunny Seattle evening last night, and I was fortunate enough to be joined for a dinner party on our deck by the lovely Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and several of our closest friends.

In addition to an abundance of good conversation and plenty of laughter we had grilled Coho salmon, corn on the cob, fresh baked bread, fresh picked blackberries, ice cold craft brewed ale, and a sinfully good chocolate cake with blackberry jam filling, made fresh with love that afternoon by my two favorite people in all the world. I even got to lick the spatula. It was what every birthday party should be.

Plus, earlier in the day Mrs. LIAYF surprised me with a very cool gift. It was a Pearl Jam concert poster from a show we attended together way back in the mid 90's when we were dating.

Apparently we had intended to frame it but never did. Not a big shock. But then she found it in a dusty box in our garage the other day and thought it would be a great gift. Which, of course, it is!

Last night when the sun had gone down, the kids broke out their flashlights and got to explore the backyard. They were all having a good time until Lukas told them about the raccoons we had seen on our deck a few nights before. Mrs. LIAYF had seen one actually washing it's paws in the cat's water dish. To which my response was "At least he's being hygienic."

Once they heard about the raccoons most of the kids were a bit weary about leaving the deck. Most, but certainly not Lukas. Typical of his personality, he immediately ran into the house and came out fully outfitted to do battle with a herd (what do you call a group of raccoons?) of the beasts. He had a Lego headlamp, winter gloves, a toke, his soccer shin guards, elbow pads, and finally his cardboard shield.

"Let's go!" he told everyone. Thankfully for the raccoons, no doubt hearing all the commotion I think they decided it would be best to steer clear of our backyard for the night.

We have a few more things on tap for tonight to celebrate, but yesterday will definitely be hard to top.

Mermaid Spotting

2011-09-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

This sounds a bit funny to say, but you can go right ahead and judge us if you will. And I'm fairly positive some of you are about to form certain opinions of us be they positive or negative, but Lukas is 4 years old now and Mrs. LIAYF and I have never taken him to...er, hmmm (wondering how to put this diplomatically), well let's just say we can safely pass any local pair of golden arches without the slightest hint of begging or pleading to stop coming from the back seat.

That's right, we have never taken him to a McDonald's restaurant before. Not even once.

There have been no Happy Meals. No McNuggets.  Nary an Apple Pie, Fillet O' Fish, or Shamrock Shake.

He has no idea who Ronald McDonald is, nor Mayor McCheese, or the Grimace, or even the Hamburgler. He hasn't once been through one of the drive-through windows or became at all familiar with a local Micky D's Play Land.

He doesn't even have the concept of fallen fries, and what a treat they are to find at the bottom of your grease stained white paper bag as your vehicle is perhaps miles from where you procured your salty meal.

In fact, when we are out driving around and Lukas happens to see the ubiquitous Golden Arches, he is 100% more likely to be impressed that he saw a giant yellow M out the car window, than to immediately associate them with hamburgers, nuggets, and french fries.

To those who ask why. "Why have you denied your offspring one of the fundamental vices of childhood?" I have one simple question to ask that really speaks volumes. "Have you not watched Super Size Me?" Talk about horror movies. That was one scary flick. What happened to Morgan Spurlock in just 30 days was crazy.

Seriously though, we try to always pack healthy snacks and meals for Lukas so that we won't be tempted to stop in and buy the unhealthy option at McDonald's. We have just been very good at enforcing this policy. So good, in fact, that he really doesn't have any clue, ANY, that McDonald's even exists.

Sure, Mrs. LIAYF are a teensy bit proud of that fact.   Once in a while we will even slip it into conversation, not at all to be judgemental of other families meal choices (we don't judge), but more to show the other like minded people in question that, yes, we care deeply about the health and well being of our child and we have been able to find better options for the past 4 years.

That all being said, I nearly spit out my coffee and laughed out loud a couple of days ago when, as we were driving somewhere around Seattle, Lukas pointed out his window and excitedly exclaimed:

"Look, a Starbucks! Can we stop?  Can we? PLEASE!"

That was just Golden.

Wordless Wednesday: Smile Like You Mean It.

2011-09-07T06:30:00.000-07:00

Hunting Bunnies and Batting Rocks

2011-09-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

We came from over there.

Good September to you loyal readers. It's been about a week and a half since my last post. (Wow, that sounds an awful lot like the beginning of a confession. All I need is a dark box to sit in. Oh yes, I forgot where I am writing this from).

For those of you who read my last post, you will remember that we were on our "Camping" vacation last week. I have to tell you, cabin camping is the perfect kind. Very civilized. Heck, if you throw in a washer and dryer, access to the Internet, and a place to get Happy Hour close by, I could've stayed there long term. Yes, It was that nice.

Seriously though we all had a terrific time hiking, biking, boating, grilling, roasting marshmallows, sleeping in, and hunting bunnies. Check that, we didn't so much hunt the bunnies as try to feed them pieces of lettuce. But hunting them sounds much more 'outdoorsy', which is the kind of trip this was so please forgive me the slip.

Despite our wishes, there was no bear around this corner.

The boating part was especially fun as Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I rented an outboard and crossed Puget Sound and the shipping channel to motor over to 'Baby Island' , which is a small rock with some sand beach where the local seals have their pups. We were able to turn off the engine a couple hundred yards offshore and eat lunch as dozens of seals popped their heads up around our wooden boat to check out what we were having for lunch. (I'm pretty sure they were disappointed to find we were eating Peanut Butter and Jelly rather than fish sandwiches, but they were polite and didn't say anything).

Those are Seal heads. About to get much closer.

Do you want to know what the best part of the trip was? We were completely unplugged for 5 days! No Internet, television, or even radio permeated our family unit for the duration of the time we stayed at our destination. This made things amazingly peaceful and nice as we spent most of the time just hanging out with Lukas. If you have ever wondered how many rocks and shells can be collected and deposited back into the ocean in 5 days trust me, it's a lot.

Along those lines I was lucky to find the perfect baseball bat shaped chuck of driftwood floating near the shore one day, which I used to hit a ton of rocks far out into the ocean water. This was a lot of fun, and Lukas sat and made "Oooohs" whenever I was able to connect especially well with one of them. I brought that piece of driftwood home with me, though I'm fairly certain I'll never use it again.

Finally, on the way home we stopped off at a local farm and picked a load of blueberries. Mrs. LIAYF used them to make jam yesterday. Along with several jars of blackberry jam she made from a recent picking closer to home, we are now stocked with enough delicious jam to last us through most of the Winter months.

Mmmmm, Jam!

Lukas started Pre-K on Tuesday, while Mrs. LIAYF and I are back to work. Thankfully our little guy was placed in the group called The Red Tigers rather than getting stuck in The Rainbow Butterflies. As a dad, I care about those things.

Yes, we are back to the grind now, but it was a great 10 days off.

Big Wheel Keep on Turnin

2011-08-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday Readers. Indeed it's happy here because Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I will again be on vacation next week.

Since it's August, and this is the beautiful Pacific Northwest, we are staying local and enjoying the gorgeous weather Mother Nature bequeaths to us each Summer. We will spend a few days north of Seattle "Camping" (quote marks used to signify that we are staying in a small cabin - with a bathroom), but other than that we will use the time to enjoy our fair city.

That means my posts here will be pretty sporadic for the next couple of weeks. In other words, don't expect to notice much change.

Though I haven't made much fanfare of it, after a fairly long hiatus from working out - to have a child and raise him to the age of 4 - I am back in the saddle, so to speak. I have been getting up before the birds for the last month or so, with varying degrees of success, to re-introduce myself to my old friend the treadmill. Now I am not going to say that I have seen any dramatic results from these efforts, but I do feel like cardiovascularly at least my health is improving.

Along with working out in the mornings, with Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas (who long ago mastered his two wheeler without training wheels) I have been riding my bike a lot more this summer. This has been a lot of fun, and actually inspired what I decided to attempt today. Or, I should alternatively say complete.

This picture should give you a clue to what I am talking about:

That would be my bicycle parked in my office. Yes, I biked to work Friday. True, It was only about 15 miles round trip, but for those of you not from Seattle there are a lot of fairly significant hills here to navigate so for me this was a pretty big deal.

In fact, by the time I finished this is what my legs felt like:

Not that I didn't expect as much, but I'm pretty sure I will be sore for a few days afterwords. Wish me luck with that.

Anyway, I have been really needing to get into better shape recently, especially with Lukas each and every day becoming more active and hard to keep up with. I want to be able to be active with him as he grows, and keeping myself in shape is a necessity so this has been a big step in the right direction for me.

How about you readers? As a parent do you find it hard to get your workouts in? Did it become easier as your children got older?

Five Leeetle Rabbits

2011-08-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

We got some good news yesterday. Mrs. LIAYF received a call from one of her sisters letting us know that we would be aunt and uncle LIAYF!

Again.

Yep, we do currently occupy that role many times over. In fact, this will be little hombre numero cinco for their family. (No, they are not of Latino heritage, but nearly as pasty white as we are. That one just popped into my head, so I decided to roll with it.)

Anyhoo, we are super excited for them. Especially since this was a planned pregnancy. Yes, I said planned. But hearing about it really got us thinking. We are planning on a second child of our own - more on that in a later post - and we can kinda sorta imagine what it would be like managing a third child. But five? That's Cave Osborne territory right there. All in! Or alternatively known as "The Crazy Train". Okay, just kidding JCO.

There is no way we, or anyone living close by us here in Seattle that we know for that matter, could pull off raising five kids. Because It's too darn expensive here.

In fact, we know a lot of couples with kids. A LOT. And we tried to think of everyone we knew who had more than just two kids. We literally sat there stumped for a few seconds. Finally, we did come up with one or two local families with a third child including neighbors down the block with a stay at home dad. But the vast majority of our peers had rounded out their families with just the second child.

I was actually amazed at how few people we knew had three or more kids. I had heard an NPR story once a couple of years ago about how the average family size in the US has been shrinking in recent years, necessitating immigration to keep the economy running. I just looked it up and shockingly in 2010 it was 2.59. Meaning on average families average less than one child now. Yes, there are a lot of families without kids who bring that number down, but by comparison the average family size was 3.7 in the late 1950's.

As I said, we are planning to add to the LIAYF family in the near future. But chances are pretty small that at our age we will consider adding a third child to the mix, much less a fourth or even fifth. The laundry alone would reduce me to a shell of my former self.

We will undoubtedly be delighted, come December, to get our first glance at Lukas' eighth cousin, a boy who will add to the abundance of love already in his household. But, we'll also probably imagine the cost and workload involved in raising that child, and secretly be relieved that those are not our responsibilities.

How about you reader? How many kids can your psyche, and budget handle?

The Dad Foodie

2011-08-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Remember, the ears must be perfectly shaped!

I was talking to a co-worker today who was celebrating her birthday. Apparently her husband was taking her to quite the fancy new restaurant here in Seattle to celebrate.

It sounded like an impressive place. Very hip and hard to get a reservation at. I tried to remember if Mrs. LIAYF and I ever dined somewhere similar, but I was drawing a blank as it's been a while since we dined out without Lukas. My co-worker then went on to tell me about how her husband is quite a foodie, and how they watch The Food Network quite a bit.

I have two other co-workers who also label themselves as "Foodies". Each has explained to me at length on more than one occasion about the length of time taken to prepare some of their elaborate and well thought out meals. For example, one told me about the sauce for a side dish she made once that alone took 4-5 hours to prepare, including trips to the store to pick up missing ingredients.

You might have guessed that none of these co-workers have children. Definitely not young children.

While their exploits are certainly impressive, I have a few exploits of my own, but generally keep those to myself. Nope, I didn't let on to any of them that I am a foodie of sorts myself. A Dad Foodie that is.
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Along with Mrs. LIAYF, I too will spend quite of bit of time doing research on particular restaurants before we decide to pull up our chairs and lay down our hard earned dollars there. That's because, for a true Dad Foodie there are specific questions which beg to be answered before just any establishment will get our business.

Questions such as:

1. What is the noise level? (The noisier the better)
2. Do they offer Peanut Butter and Jam?
3. How about milk, fruit cups, chicken strips, sandwiches, or hot dogs?
4. Are any of the items in #2 or #3 organic?
5. What about activities for the little ones? Do they offer crayons, coloring sheets, and/or mazes?

And, most importantly

6. Is the Happy Hour kid friendly, with decent food choices for the happiest among us?

Additionally, while preparing our meals at home, Dad Foodies such as myself will take great care with the presentation of said meal. The temperature of soups must be a perfect luke-warm. The meal also must include several options, including finger foods. These options will always be well balanced between protein, starch, and of course fruit. There must be milk and water available at all times, and by all means the fruit and vegetables must be organically produced.

Plus, as a Dad Foodie I will spend a large amount of time, and great care cutting Lukas' meals into bite size portions as well as giving foods interesting shapes - such as putting mouse ears on pancakes; or often cutting the crusts off of the bread of those aforementioned Peanut Butter sandwiches.

It's probably a good thing we don't have television in the LIAYF household. That's because with the endless variety of programming available on cable TV, it's only a matter of time before someone catches onto the notion of Dad Foodies or Mom Foodies, and develops a Parents Food Network. I can only imagine the valuable time I would spend glued to, and mesmerized by, such a station.

Tell me readers, what kind of foodie are you?

That's all for now. I've got the perfect PB&J to plan for.

Tweetcycling V

2011-08-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

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Happy Monday Readers. It's been months since I did my last Tweetcycling post, and since I'm suffering through a small bout of ~~apapthy~~ writers block, I thought this might be a ~~easy way get some content out there~~ way to kick start my creative energy.

For those of you new to LIAYF since last November, This is the series where I give some of my little used humor tweets a second chance at life. You can read the first four installments here I, II, III, IV.

Sure, if you look down my right margin at my Twitter Bites widget you may have read many of these already, but come on, who really does that? Alright. Besides retired people, who really does that?

Anyway, you will find these tweets barely used and in decent condition.

4yo "Daddy's a big fan of Booze" My wife: "What!?" 4yo "Yeah, I jump out and scare him, and he laughs, laughs, laughs".

I wonder if Soylent Green Tea is full of auntieoxidents.

I am working on a sunless tanning method which would require nothing other than a rather large vat of Cheetos.

My wife just asked me if I knew what bunting was. Apparently she wasn't talking about baseball. Like I was supposed to know that.

My other cup of tea is a pint of ale.

Unfortunately, the two attractive beers I placed together in my fridge failed to reproduce. Maybe they were the same sex.

3yo: "Daddy, when I say 'to infinity' it means I have to go peepee. And when I also say 'and beyond' it means I have to go poop too"

My wife said she was looking for something mindless. "Where's the cat?" I asked.

Set down book Getting things Done to check twitter. Obviously I have a ways to go.

Got up from the dinner table earlier and did The Crane. Wife said 'What is wrong with you?"

Me in a parallel universe has a beer right now. Thinking of opening a door to there and stealing it.

For the next portrait I have painted of me, I'm going to wear a button up shirt so I can stick my hand in it. It's the cool thing to do.

He broke out the bin of dinosaurs tonight. I'm one giant strawberry from it being The Land of the Lost in my kitchen.

Installed flux capacitor on my Twitter. Oh no, here come the Libyans! Once I hit 88 char

Another Hardy Laugh

2011-08-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I were having dinner at one of our favorite burger joints the other evening. We like this particular Seattle restaurant because it is like an authentic 50's diner, complete with vintage decor (such as a collection of retro hanging lunch boxes), a Jukebox loaded with oldies, and a several kid-centered vending machines.

It was on one of these machines that Lukas was primarily focused. This particular one was a two-sided vending machine which dispensed stickers on one of the sides. As I just posted, Lukas loves his stickers. As a bonus, for a mere 50 cents you could get one of 12 Superhero stickers in this machine.

Each time he came back from the vending machine, he was visibly excited by his haul.

"Daddy, daddy! I got The Hulk" he would exclaim.

Then it was "Mommy, Mommy! I got Wolverine."

Only to be followed by an excited "I got Captain America!!"

But when the time came for him to get another sticker from the machine, he called over to tell us that he was going to get something from the other side.

"Okay Buddy" I called back to him as I worked on my hash browns and conversed with Mrs. LIAYF.

"I got this one for Daddy" he let us know, as he approached after the transaction.

"Cool" I exclaimed "Thanks so much Buddy. I love Superheros! Which one is it?"

"Here you go." he smiled, as he handed the sticker to me.

Wolferine??

A "Gee....thanks" was all I could muster, as Mrs. LIAYF and I both burst into laughter, followed soon after by Lukas.

I realized that this was not a sticker after all. It was a tattoo. An Ed Hardy tattoo at that. 'Worn by Celebrities Everywhere' it declared on the back.

Who are these celebrities?

Amused, I wondered which celebrity was sporting this particular design. Still, I wasn't convinced that it was all that cool.

I have a feeling Lukas felt the same way.

The Art of Racing Down the Road

2011-08-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Thursday readers. Team LIAYF is back home and recovering nicely from our 4 day trip to the Oregon Coast this past weekend.  We loaded up our bikes and left last Friday. After getting a late start, caught behind two accidents, and getting two desperate calls from my work amidst choppy cell coverage while on the drive, things were finally going better as we approached Astoria, Oregon.
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It was at that point I thought it would be a good idea to pull over and pick up a nice shiny sticker for Lukas. Yes It was a bit on the expensive side at $113 but nothing is too good for my son, and it did have the Washington State Patrol logo on it. Plus the sticker also came with a personal visit and informational talk from a very friendly officer. You just can't beat that....which, subsequently is why I will most likely just mail in the payment for it soon enough.

I'm going to call it a Learning Sticker. Especially since not 10 minutes before we picked it up we were pointing out to Lukas what happens to people who drive to fast, as we passed a couple of unfortunate souls stopped on the side of the winding highway.

I think I actually said, "They have to spend their money on a ticket now, rather than toys". Hey, at least I got my son a cool sticker.   And, of course, a chance to show him that daddy can gracefully accept the consequences when he breaks the rules.

In other news, the LIAYF family participated in the 28th annual 'National Night Out Against Crime' on Tuesday, otherwise known as our Block Party. As usual, it was a lot of fun and a great chance to ~~hang out and drink beer~~ talk with our neighbors about local collaboration on crime prevention.

Mrs. LIAYF and I gave up our title as block watch captains last year because we assumed we were not doing enough and another, less distracted, family would do a better job of organizing the event for our block. Yeah.....apparently we weren't doing such a bad job after all. That being said, no matter how organized our block could have been, we still would have been shown up by the next block over who actually had a band play for the 2nd year in a row. Those show-offs are our blocks Newman.

During the event, the streets were closed off to through traffic, which allowed all the kids (including Lukas and all the boys from the Yard of the Flies) to ride up and down the block on their bikes for most of the evening.   At one point, after zipping by several time on his bike mentioning something about Lightning McQueen, Lukas laid it down in the middle of the street and sat there. When I approached to see if he was okay, he said "I'm tired of being a famous race car."

By the end of the night, due to all the run-ins with all the other kids, our little guy was sporting several scrapes and bruises, but he had yet to come running to us upset or crying. That all changed as it started to get dark out though. We heard him yelling and whining, and as we looked up he was running down the street towards us, arms in the air. As I reached him, I asked what had happened.

"I saw something terrible!" he exclaimed. "What was it Buddy?" I responded, concerned. "I saw a kitty without a collar back there!" Was his frantic reply.

I couldn't help but let out a big laugh. "I think it'll be ok" Mrs. LIAYF assured him with a smile.

And with that we all decided to call it a night.

Wordless Wednesday: Son on a Beach

2011-08-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Warning: Object on Your Arms May be Heavier than it Appears

2011-07-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Dads, If you have been looking for an upper body workout that incorporates in some aerobic exercise as well, I have the perfect routine for you.

To start out with, you will need an approximately 35lb weight, and it has to be at least 3ft long. Got it? Good. Now, what you will need to do is to stretch out your arms directly in front of you and lay that weight directly perpendicular across the top of both arms. Easy enough, right?

Now, keeping your arms stretched straight out as long as you can with the weight still laying over them I want you to start running around in circles. These don't have to be perfect circles, mind you. In fact it would be better if they were fairly random, but be sure to lean heavily into each turn.

Next, once you have done a couple of these circles, I want you to begin to lift your arms up and down while running around. Depending on your level of fitness, by this time you may begin to feel a bit of a burn. Nevertheless, you must keep running around in random circles while lifting your arms up and down, varying your speed.

Do this exercise for as long as you can. Once completed, that is considered one set. On the second set you may want to incorporate an additional level of difficulty into this exercise. I suggest finding a fairly open area, say a pre-school playground, and preforming the exercises there.

By choosing such a location, you may be able to incorporate any kids who may be playing there into your routine. As you are lifting your weighted arms up and down, simply swoop them at the surrounding youngsters, being careful to come close but being sure to avoid direct contact.

You may find, as I did, that these children will consider it a game to try to catch the weight that is on your arms thus giving you added incentive to be fairly elusive. If this happens you must be careful however, as more and more children may decide to participate eventually leading to a diminished area to preform your circles.

Just see how long you can keep this up for maximum effectiveness.

So, there you have it. A fun new aerobic, upper body workout for dads. Just be careful not to overdo it. Not unlike Gulliver, you may end up out of breath, surrounded by a slightly crazed crowd of little people.

Do Astronauts Dream of Floating Sheep?

2011-07-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

When Mrs. LIAYF went upstairs to grab something last night she peeked into Lukas' room to see how he was doing. It hadn't taken too much time, relatively speaking, from the time we finished reading him his stories, got him tucked in and left, before we stopped hearing the ~~pitter patter~~ heavy thumping of little feet running around his room. -
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It was a warm day in Seattle Sunday, so we had set up a floor fan in his room to keep the air circulating and cool things off, so she wanted to check out the temperature in there.

When she returned, she was smiling. "What?" I asked, knowing something made her happy.

"He's sleeping. But he's in his bed, with his astronaut costume on over the top of his PJ's" She replied. "And his astronaut helmet is under his arm!"

That made me smile too.

He hasn't had that costume out in a couple months, but nearly every day he is role playing being an astronaut and going to space. Now, it seems, he is dreaming about it too.

Wearing the costume at Halloween

Now that the Space Shuttle Program has officially ended, NASA or perhaps private companies working on their own space exploration ventures, will hopefully have a viable new program operational in the near future.

They should be able to do it in 20-25 years, right?

ZZ and Me

2011-07-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

Arrrg. I lost another pair of sunglasses this week. I'm bummed because these were actually a pretty nice pair for my face. No, that's not typical.

For whatever reason it's fairly difficult to get shades that fit snugly over the bridge of my nose without riding so close to my eyes that my lashes rub against the lenses. Not unlike the freakishly large head of Loraine on Seinfeld, I must have a freakishly odd shaped face for shades.

Seriously though, I have torn through at least 6 pairs since last fall.

Maybe it's partly because I always buy cheap sunglasses. I usually get them at a local drugstore - when they are on sale, of course. But since the only mirror I can ever find at these stores is the tiny 3" x 3" one above the display I can never truly tell whether the shades look good on me, or make me look like...well, like a guy with a goofy looking pair of shades. Unfortunately, I get more than my share of the later.

I actually had a pair for our trip to Hawaii that I bought at an old folks home thrift store. Don't laugh, those were stylin eyes. And they were only 2 large. Washington's that is. But typical of all good shades I find, I lost that pair on the trip. That was a tough pill to swallow, especially only half way through our vacation. I ended up using my backups, which sat funny on my nose.

I never loose the crappy pairs. Just the ones that fit. Like I said, I lose a lot of pairs.   It's a Seattle thing. Those of you who live in places were the sun makes a consistent appearance between the months of April and September probably don't lose as many pairs because of one simple fact.   You are wearing them!

You probably don't know this, but Seattleites buy more sunglasses per capita than anywhere else in the USA.

That's because here in Seattle the sun is often more hit and miss than the Mariners offense. Trust me, that's a lot of misses. I know this may come as a shock to those of you toiling under the oppressive heat in the Midwest right now, but Seattle has had all of...count em....74 minutes of Summer so far this year (defined as 80F or higher temperature). Actually, I'm not complaining. I'll take today's 72F with a cloud cover anyday over the 132F heat index that Minnesota recorded a couple of days ago. Yikes.

But, as a result of the sun peaking in and out of the clouds my sunglasses are on and off my face constantly. And if I am not wearing them I am holding them, or have them on my head, or hanging them from a belt loop, or in a pocket.  Hence the reason I end up losing, or breaking so many pairs.

Now what I don't understand is where the heck the reciprocity is. You would think that eventually for every, or nearly ever pair I lose, that I would also find a few nice pairs. Maybe even one. For some reason this is not happening for me.

Perhaps off the coast of Washington, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, there is an underwater swirling vortex of sunglasses the size of Texas. Don't laugh, it happened with plastic grocery bags.

But now that I have once again lost my nice fitting pair of cheap sunglasses, I am forced to carry around my back-ups. And they make me look like a complete moron. At least that's what I was thinking as I looked in several windows that I walked by on my way to my car this afternoon. Of course that made me actually look like a moron I'm sure.

Hopefully my luck will turn soon and I will find another nice pair soon. Perhaps one that some other poor Seattle schmuck lost because of our on and off sunshine.  That, or I'll have to get a pair of those cloth straps for my neck.

But I never liked those.

So tell me readers. How often do you lose your shades?

The Star Wars Talk - I'm Ill Prepared.

2011-07-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sure many of you have already seen this hilarious talking to your kids about Star Wars PSA. If not, please take the time to watch it now because it's pretty funny.

Now that you are up to speed, I have a small leeetle confession to make. It's nothing really. Not sure if it is even really worth mentioning, but here goes. Despite what the title of this here blog might indicate, I would have by no means been qualified to star in this PSA myself. That's because, though I do enjoy the films I am not a - how do you say it - 'dedicated' fan.

Hey! Alright, who threw that shoe at me? You, in the back. Yes, you. Please put down the pitchfork and consider that I have a young child.

The truth is, even though I have watched all six films, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back are the only two I have even watched a second time, and it has been at least 5 years since Empire (see, I don't even call it Episode V) which was the last one I watched.

In fact, it wasn't until after Episode I came out, which was during the lovely Mrs. LIAYF and my honeymoon, that I had actually watched the original Star Wars movie. (Do I earn back a few of my rapidly diminishing geek points by admitting we watched it during the honeymoon? On Maui? No?) One of my first movies at a theatre was Empire and I, along with everyone else I knew, watched Return of the Jedi when it was released. But it wasn't until I watched the original that the plot line made real sense to me.

So that leaves me where I am today. A fan of Science Fiction movies, and a dad with a Star Wars themed blog title. But a Star Wars Geek? Unfortunately, not.

I say unfortunately because I wish I had watched the movies several more times each. They are fun and the cult culture around them is undeniable. And, of course, this has led to Star Wars having a pretty big presence for our kids as well. Even though we don't have television, and Lukas gets amazingly little media for a 4 year old kid, he is exposed to Star Wars. He has Star Wars clothes, Star Wars bobble heads, and a few other Star Wars toys as well. Plus, the neighbor boy has a set of Lightsabers that he generously shares with Lukas.

He likes these things so much so that last night, Mrs. LIAYF actually ordered him his first Lego Star Wars set, an X-Wing Fighter, that was supposed to arrive with our groceries this morning. However, what was in there was actually a Lego Star Wars board book that loosely followed the plot of the original film. Nonetheless, he loved the book, showing off to all his friends at pre-school and pointing out who the 'Bad Guys' were, and saying things like "This is the Deaf Star!"

And, as Lukas implored me to read the book to him in the parking lot of his pre-school, I found myself becoming re-familiarized with the plot, and also some of the trivia surrounding it. for instance, did you know that the little brown robed rodent like guys that salvage and sell robots (like C3PO and R2-D2) are called Jawas? And the desert planet was Tatooine?

Yeah, I thought you did. Now that he's 4, if I am going to have the talk with Lukas about Star Wars, I had better brush up myself.

And decide whether or not to tell him who Luke's Father really is.

Think Out Loud Tuesday

2011-07-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

Even though there is no longer an official Random Tuesday Thoughts, I have a lot clanging around up in the LIAYF attic, therefore I decided to Think Out Loud today.

******

I turned on the radio on the car ride home Monday evening to NPR news. Normally when this happens, within mere seconds the words 'kill' or 'bomb' have caught Lukas' attention, so I turn it right back off. But not this time. This time we tuned it on to a story about the last Space Shuttle mission. "The last mission?" my little guy said. 'Ahhh, I wanted to see that..." So we went right home and did just that.
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Did I mention that I love the Internet?

******
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We were at a local park a couple days ago. Lukas was playing nicely with another boy when a squirrel ran onto the playground. The boys mother immediately called out to him "Gaylen, stay away from that squirrel, it has sharp teeth and might bite you!" An instant later, I realized that kids don't often forget what you teach them - as Lukas yelled "Squirrel for dinner!" and took off after the furry rodent laughing with the other boy at his heels. "Uh...sorry about that" I smiled at her, as the boys treed the beast. I'm banking that he will never actually get close.

******

Cliffhanger

******

On the way home from work and preschool we pulled up next to a city bus. "The people on the bus look really sad, really sad, really sad" I sang. Lukas thought that was funny, so I followed with "The boy in car likes Daddy best, Daddy best, Daddy best". "No. I like Mommy best" he quickly responded.

You can't blame a dad for trying.

******

At about the time you start to seriously question if this is all worth it, something like this comes along

PersonalBlogs.org

and breathes new life into your efforts. Can't say I am actually deserving with all the great sites I follow, but wow. For those of you new to the Internet, this is where you would click on the frog.

******
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"Daddy you need to be quiet and sneak out in the morning so me and Mommy can sleep in" Lukas said to me, matter-of-factly, last night. "What about me?" I replied "Can't I sleep in too?" "No, you need to go to work." he admonished me. "Or you won't get any money."

It seems he has it all figured out.

******

And finally, now that my blog is in its 4th year, I get a fairly constant stream of pitches to review products or alternatively do PSA's. Honestly, I am reluctant to post to many of those here at LIAYF so instead I have created my own review and giveaway site. In a stroke of original brilliance I decided to title the site......wait for it......'Luke, I am your Father Reviews'.

It's up now with my first post, a review and giveaway of the FLYING! by the Seattle kindie pop super group Recess Monkey. So head on over and leave a comment, subscribe, and/or tweet about the contest and you may score yourself a fairly nice album. Believe me when I say "Chances are real good".

Where I am From

2011-07-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

I am from crossing the Oregon Trail, settling on fertile ground, and clearing the land one mammoth fir at a time.

I am from blisters on your thumbs, dirt under your fingernails, and sweat on your neck.

I am from building a home and a farm, and raising a handful of generations there.

I am from getting up before the sun rises, hidden behind grey rain-soaked clouds over not so distant timber covered hills.

I am from hot summer afternoons, hay bales as far as the eye can see, and a chocolate shake after the last one goes in the barn.

I am from 12-inch trout, a river runs through it, and swimming on hot days in the icy mountain water as it meanders slowly past.

I am from Sunday afternoons, the constant variety of sports, and sudden outbursts of genuine emotion.

I am from small gymnasiums, the squeaking of sneakers, hoop dreams, and guaranteed playing time.

I am from co-ed dorms, choosing majors, late night parties, No-doz, and pomp and circumstance.

I am from returning home, real world troubles, and working 16 hour days.

I am from finding true love, tough decisions, and saying goodbye.

I am from changing directions, changing perspectives, and spectacular views of city skylines.

I am from tearing off trim, pulling carpet staples at 2 in the morning, late night kisses, bucket loads of paint, and yet another trip to The Home Depot.

I am from years of trying, utter disappointment, resignation, shock, and the overwhelming emotion of a little pink line.

I am from sleep deprivation, family hugs, stories by flashlight, and uncontrollable laughter ringing out in all directions.

I am from realizing my astonishing good fortune, taking nothing for granted, and finally understanding just why it is I'm here.

So tell me. Where are you from?

Note: I came across this Meme by reading amazing entries by TwoBusy, ZenMom, and SFD. I sat down and wrote this last night before I realized there was a template to guide me. As a result, the finished product was something altogether different. But I liked it, so decided to leave it as is.

Transformers: The Dark Side of Pretending to go to the Moon

2011-07-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

We picked up some Transformers walkie talkies at a local thrift store this weekend. There were 4 of them, and surprisingly they all still worked.

Immediately, Lukas wanted to turn them on and play something with them. I didn't blame him one bit as I kind of wanted to play with them too.

So, after a brief introduction to the basics of walkie talkie use we were ready to test them out. "Say something funny Daddy!" came his request from just a few steps away in our living room. "Something funny" I replied holding in the red button on the side as I spoke.

Through the crackling of the speaker came a chuckle and a giddy "Roger dat, Daddy". It seemed we were ready for business.

Lukas then grabbed Mrs. LIAYF and together they made their way to our backyard and into a waiting ~~large cardboard box~~ rocket ship. Holding down the red button from the deck I called out "Rocket ship 1, this is Mission Control. Prepare for blastoff to the Moon"

"Ready Mission Control" my Transformer crackled.

Then, just as I was about to start my countdown a garbled message came through the speaker of my talkie. It was a man's voice, barely audible. As I struggled to figure out and what it was saying, it stopped. I couldn't help recalling the story I'd heard about the mom with the baby monitor who picked up a video feed from the International space station. But the message had stopped, so I continued my duties as Mission Control.

"Mission Control to Rocket ship 1. Blasting off in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, we have ignition. And liftoff of Rocket ship one headed towards the Moon. Velocity 1000 mph and climbing" I continued.

But once I released the button, the garbled message seemed to start all over again. I listened more closely this time. "Something, something, November Eighty Seven" it repeated. Then again.

November 1987? I wondered what that meant.  Maybe this was a radio signal from back in 1987, returning from the planet Vega - complete with hidden plans to build a complex space travel machine.

Or, alternatively could this be a desperate looping distress signal first sent out back in 1987. One kinda like the one sent out by that crazy French woman on LOST.

The possibilities were endless.

"November Eighty Seven, this is Mission Control. Over" I called into my Transformers talkie. "Do you read?" Then, some more barely audible garbled words emanated from the tiny speaker. 'Foxtrot' might have been one of them, but it almost sounded like a reply.

"November Eighty Seven. Over. What is your position?" I repeated insistently, releasing the red button.

"Daddy! Daddy! We are at the Moon. We are at the Moon!" Lukas' excited voice interrupted through the speaker.

"Explore. Report back." I succinctly replied, before returning my concentration to the odd message.

"November, Eighty Seven"  I continued "Please verify your status. Over. This is Mission Control. Over. Please clarify, and reveal your position."  But the message seemed to only loop yet once again.

Then, as Mrs. LIAYF walked up to me, not getting any response I disappointedly said to her "I don't think they can hear me."

"You better hope they can't" she laughed. "It's probably the air traffic control....or even the military."

And I guessed that was true enough. Glancing around the perimeter of our yard just to be sure I wasn't being watched, I decided to give up trying to communicate with November Eighty Seven.

Besides, Mission Control didn't need anymore distractions.  After all, there was a return mission from the Moon to coordinate.

"Rocketship 1, are you ready to return to Earth?"

"Ready Daddy." my Transformer talkie crackled.

The Real Reason We Declared Our Independence

2011-07-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Few people know the real reason America fought for it's Independence from Great Britain way back in the 1770's.

Taxation without representation? Important sure, but not the issue that really stuck in the craw of the colonists. Actually, I have it on good authority it was because King George III declared there would be absolutely NO kid parades.

It's only because we, as a collective people, rose up in revolt all those years ago and declared "You're not the boss of us!" that countless parents can now get up early on the 4th of July and walk patriotically though the streets next to their rolling children.

Today we celebrated our right to have kid parades, and had a lot of fun doing it too!

Ready to ride.

Plenty of sun for the parade

It was a bit crowded at times

For my next trick, I will jump 20 barrels and a bus.

Happy 4th of July US readers! So tell me how did you spend your holiday? Did you partake in any parades, or fireworks?

Taking in The Boys of Summer

2011-07-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

I have been a huge baseball fan nearly all of my life. All types of baseball really but particulary the show, and my hometown team, the Seattle Mariners.

Sure, I'm a fan of football and basketball as well, but for me there are many things distinct about the game of baseball which make it like no other sport. The sounds, the smells, the history, and the anticipation that builds before giving way to the critical play all add to the richness of experience I take away from watching or more often recently, listening to, my favorite game.

It is only natural then that, as a father, I want to share these experiences with my son. I can even now envision the day when I'll be able to attend a game with him and a son, or daughter, of his own.

Lukas is 4 years old now, and now seems like the right time to begin taking him to more games to watch. Before now, with his nap and sleep schedule as well as shortened attention span, the time never seemed quite right to load up and take him to the ball park. The couple games we did attend before he was 1 were not for his sake, and frankly his being along made it difficult to focus on the game. So, since then we hadn't actually attended a big league game.

That all changed yesterday however, as Mrs. LIAYF and I took Lukas to the Mariners game against the Padres from San Diego.

We arrived early and entered Safeco Field through the Team Store. We entered there because as we were getting ready for the game - packing sandwiches, water bottles, fruit, and of course peanuts - we realized Lukas didn't own a Mariners shirt. That had to be remedied.

Mrs. LIAYF, not a huge fan, first grabbed a Chone Figgins shirt. NO! I shouted.

After getting the Ichiro shirt, like any good baseball fans, we headed straight down to the field to watch batting practice.

Seats here would have been nice.

Then, after batting practice and a trip the bullpen to watch the pitchers warming up, we found the kids play area out beyond center field. This proved a great place for Lukas to burn off some steam, and as it turned out we ran into one of his pre-school buddies with his parents there as well. Oddly enough, I later ran into one of my employees and her husband as well as another colleague I had worked with over 5 years before.

Finally, as the game was about to begin, we made our way up to our seats. This is where I admit our tickets were free. They were ones I received because I enough of a regular at Starbucks, that I knew when they were having a customer appreciation giveaway.

As you might suspect, the tickets were in the nosebleed section. If you look closely you can see Ichiro running into right field in the picture below.

That little white dot, centerish. Yeah, that's him.

But that didn't matter too much as the seats were bathed in the evening sun, with beautiful views of the city skyline beyond. Plus, I had a another fine view just to my left.

Smile at the camera and I'll buy lemonade!

For me, the game was a blast. The anemic hitting M's put on a power show scoring six runs by the 6th inning, giving all of us ample opportunities to explain the finer points of the game to Lukas, as well as to teach him how to throw up his arms in celebrations before giving high fives to the surrounding crowd.

Truth be told, he was squirming and ready to go by the third inning. But Mrs. LIAYF promised him that if he was patient and let daddy watch the game for another inning, we could go back to the real highlight of the visit to the ballpark for him.

He obliged, so we did as well.

I'll admit, this was a pretty cool play structure

After another inning of playing in the kid area we were ready to head home, a win for the team, and also for team LIAYF already securely in hand.

How about you readers? What events do you enjoy taking your kids too?

Patient Zero

2011-06-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

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It may be time to call the Center for Disease Control, because an outbreak of major proportions is immanent in the Seattle area. My fair city could very well be the next Hot Zone, but there is still time to prevent catastrophe if they act soon.

If the CDC takes this seriously, they will call in the military for support, have them swoop down on Seattle and the surrounding area immediately, set up an impenetrable quarantine zone, and hope for everyones sake that this thing hasn't gone airborne.

All roads will need to be blocked. All ships held in port. All flights grounded without delay. Dare I say anyone attempting to leave the area will have to be dealt with using the harshest of measures.

Then, once an impenetrable barrier has been established, they would be wise to call in someone with experience. Somebody who has been on the front lines of a major outbreak in the past (I'm thinking Dustin Hoffman or Will Smith, maybe both) hand them giant square-headed orange haz mat suits with extra long hoses attached to the back, and send them walking methodically in the direction of the LIAYF household while making those loud, air suctiony sounds.

As they approach, The Fresh Prince and The Rain Man, or whomever is ultimately sent will, depending on the progression of the outbreak, undoubtedly have to maneuver around the scattered bodies laying limp and motionless, many with both hands clutching their midsections, the effects of the outbreak having run its course with them.

Then, once inside the LIAYF home they will need to be prepared to use whatever means to find and stifle Patient Zero. I would suggest serious faces, stern looks, or deep breaths targeted directly at the subject. If those don't work, they may have to employ extreme measures - An offer a diversionary treat, or more effectively a story, preferrably from a book with colorful pictures!

But again I stress, it's time to act now. Without haste. I'm sounding this warning because I have seen it first hand before and know how quickly it can spread.

This 4-year-olds laughter is highly contagious.

Honest. They must act now or people won't know what hit them.

Time to Hero Up

2011-06-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

While Lukas doesn't officially turn the big 04 until Monday, his Superhero birthday party is Saturday.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we (and when I say we, I really mean mostly Mrs. LIAYF) have been busy the past couple of weeks planning for the big event, including making nearly 30 capes and masks.

Here is a preview of what's happening today:

Update:

The party was a huge success. The weather held out nicely with the sun even making periodic appearances! All 60 plus people who RSVP's, were arrived and had a Super! time, especially the Birthday Boy.

Super Lukie!

Here are some more scenes from the party:

Ready for the guests

We were expecting a block letter L, not cursive.

Time for the cake.

Super tired now

The world is a safer place today!

So tell me readers, what are your plans for the weekend?

24 Hour Party Planning People

2011-06-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

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You know, it all starts out so simple.

Your wife and you realize that your beloved son has his 4th birthday coming up soon, so you decide to throw a party. Who would deny their little guy that, right?

Well, then you tell him about it and since he is going through a big time Superhero worship phase he asks for it to be a themed party. So, Superhero's it becomes.

Then, since it is the last week in June, the same time of year when it was 90 degrees F on his first birthday, you decide to have it at a local park. And, as a bonus, the wading pool there opens that same morning.

Then, while you are making out the guest list you feel really bad about leaving some of his preschool friends off the list, so you invite them. At first it seems like no big deal, even though there are 30 kids in his class, because after all it is Summer, right? People have plans.

But then amazingly everyone, with the exception of 3 kids, RSVP's! This results in a guest list of well over 60 people, over 30 of which are 3 and 4-year-olds. And since your lovely and clearly amazing wife is making a Superhero cape and mask for each and every one of them out of adult T-shirts, you realize that you need to go back to the thrift store and find more shirts!

Of course, you still have to feed all of these people, so together you order a huge cake and buy a ton drinks and dogs to grill and graciously ask attendees to bring a side dish. You will, however, still have to get to the party site early to decorate and set up, so you enlist the services of your favorite sitter that morning so you have an extra set of hands.

You stay up late working on logistics, cutting things out, and worrying a bit about whether you are planning enough 'activities'.

Then, when you are finally able to take a breath, and you feel that everything seems to be in order for the day of the party, you take another gander at the weather forecast for the day of the party.

And you cross your fingers.

Yes, it all starts out so simple.

Wordless Wednesday: Ready for the Hoards

2011-06-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

An interactive Father's Day gift? Priceless

Yes I Swear, It's the Truth.

2011-06-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in a earlier post that we had signed Lukas up for swimming lessons at our local community center. We had actually only participated in about 5 lessons before our much needed vacation to Hawaii last month but he was doing well, swimmingly, in those classes - picking things up a amazingly well.

However, while we were gone on vacation the class ended. And then there was the actual vacation, the getting home and settled back in, and back into a frame of mind to once again leave early from work a couple of nights a week to get him to the class.

The culmination of all those factors led to a month long hiatus from swimming lessons for Lukas which ended last night when he and I once again attended a class together. I say together because for these lessons I am in the pool with him. It's actually called a 'Tot' class, but the kids can actually be up to 4 years old. Since we had never enrolled him in lessons before we decided to for this option rather than a 3 year old class where he would hang by himself on the edge of the pool while he waited for an instructor to filter through other kids for his turn.

For the next session after this one though, I will unfortunately have to sit it out as he will be 4 and participating with him won't be an option. I have to say I will really miss being in the class with him as it has been quite a bit of fun.

You may also recall from that earlier post that our son had a bit of an issue with his locker room talk. I am happy to report that this has not been an issue since *Cough* family changing room *Cough*, and that Lukas picked up where he left off during his hiatus like a champ. Better than could be expected really.

It was pretty amazing to be there participating with him actually, as in the short half hour he was floating on his back and kicking his legs almost clear across the width of the pool while I had barely a few fingers supporting his back. This in only his 6 lesson, and first after a month delay. This just reinforces what we have seen in the other games and activities he has participated in. Lukas has some real natural athletic ability.

We will certainly be fostering those abilities as he gets older as it will be a great way to keep him active and healthy.

That half hour also provided the two of us plenty of opportunities to work on his jumping into the water as I must have lifted him up out of the pool nearly 20 times, only to have him jump right back into my waiting arms.

In fact, he was getting so good at this by the time the class ended that on what was nearly the last jump, while I was in water up to my shoulders, he spread his arms out to his sides and jumped straight out and nearly over my head. But at the last minute I reached back over my head and caught his torso with my arms stretched high overhead.

What resulted was nothing short of the classic Swayze catch of Baby in that icon Dirty Dancing scene.

Mrs. LIAYF, along with a whole family who were sitting next to her in the stands witnessed this with what I am suspecting was utter amazement. Me? I simply closed my eyes while holding him there above me and tilted my head back with with my mouth open just so.

Yeah, I was having the time of my life.

To Nap Or Not To Nap

2011-06-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Something unprecedented happened with Lukas and the LIAYF crew on Sunday. It was a milestone of sorts, but Mrs. LIAYF and I are not yet sure whether this is a good thing or not.

It's a thing that was bound to happen on it's own in time. Most likely sooner rather than later. But we can't attribute this particular instance to Lukas getting older. That's because we, Mrs. LIAYF and I, decided to make it so.

The 'it' I am referring to is Lukas' first real day without a mid-day nap. His mother and I have been extremely diligent about making sure our son has the opportunity to catch a few refreshing Z's in the middle of each day. Most often that involves planning our weekend and vacation days around when we can put him down for his nap, which can make our options rather limiting. On more rare occasions he gets his nap in the car, but always there has been that opportunity.

And he has taken full advantage of those opportunities. Just shy of his 4th birthday, he still will sleep for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours during the day on weekends. He is given only an hour and a half at preschool, but has never once been listed on the dreaded 'No Nap Board'.

So yes, it was a big deal yesterday when we were all at a local beachfront park having a late picnic lunch (late because we were busy rearrangeing our living room that morning - Mrs. LIAYF calls it "Cost free decorating") and I mentioned that we needed to get going or Lukas would be napping at 3pm. It was then that Mrs. LIAYF looked over at me and asked if we should just skip the nap, which we did.

That decision certainly gave us extra time at the park to explore, walk on logs, throw rocks into the ocean, then leave and treat ourselves to some ice cream before heading home. It turned out to be a fun afternoon.

But, by dinner time Lukas was certainly getting pretty slap happy without the extra sleep, and our intention was to get him to bed by 7:30. Well, it ended up being closer to 8:30 and he was wound up enough that he still didn't go right to sleep. Then he has bad dreams not long after he did go to sleep.

We're not sure if the bad dreams were a result of not napping, but without one his brain has a lot more day to process all at once, so it could well have contributed.

In the end, we all survived our first foray into life without naps. It was a milestone that was due, but we are certainly not planning to have Lukas abandon them altogether since at his age the more sleep he can get the better.

But at least this frees us up a bit in the scheduling department. There are a lot of events that happen during the middle of the day on weekends that we have been missing up until now.

How about you readers? How old were your kids when they stopped napping?

Wordless Wednesday: Building Boats

2011-06-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Mrs. LIAYF knows how to put the hammer down!

Troubles Will Be Gone

2011-06-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

And there's a sign up to a hill to see the far of the land

Well the sign will tell you, "Turn if there's a one"

Still the day is never done, but there's a light on where you're sleeping

So I hope somewhere that troubles will be gone.

~The Tallest Man on Earth~

It's unbelievable to me, but Lukas is now less than a month from his 4th birthday. Time, she is a strange beast, no? Passing ever so slowly in the multiple sublime moments that make up each rotation of the planet - but then, seemingly in the time it takes to wrap your child in your outstretched arms, years have silently slipped past.

I find it strange, and also a bit humbling, how certain things that we as parents think we have helped our kids successfully navigate can turn out to be merely developmental stages that we have perhaps just delayed.

Take for instance, fear of the dark. From his first few weeks Lukas has slept in his own room, with the door closed and a blackout shade drawn. Save for the glow in the dark stars and planets Mrs. LIAYF and I adorned to his ceiling, his room has always been fairly dark.

Thankfully, he has never seemed to mind this and never been afraid of the dark. Until now that is. I was always sure that this was because we had approached this potential issue head on from day one.

Not so fast.

A couple of nights ago, Lukas opened his door at midnight and told his mother and I that it was too dark in his room, and that he was scared to go back to bed. He had just watched Finding Nemo for the first time, and had been a bit disturbed by some of the shark scenes.

But it wasn't just the movie. His imagination has been extremely active recently, with him telling us lots of elaborate stories about ghosts and monsters, and also of dreams - such as the one where 'Bad Guys' came through his window, chasing his mother and I down the stairs before shooting us.

Now that his imagination is in overdrive, I suppose it is only natural that he would now be more unsure of what he can't see. So, when he woke up frightened the other night, I just held him in my arms and told him it was ok. That Mommy and Daddy wouldn't let anything bad happen to him.

Then I tucked him back under his covers and Mrs. LIAYF and I plugged in some star light above his bed. They were much too bright, so we covered them and called it good as we kissed him goodnight and he went right back to sleep.
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The next day we bought him his very first night light - a cool Red Rocket.

So far, it has done a great job of keeping all the scary things away.

Dad Bucket List

2011-05-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

Like nearly all dads out there, from the day Lukas was born there has been a whole list of things I've wanted to do with him, or see him accomplish.

Of course, when he was first born he was merely a squishy little blob who would cry and poop, then turn around and cry some more and poop lots more. Obviously it would be a while before I could take him on our first hike together, or play my first video game with him.

Thankfully, as Lukas has gotten older, I have been able to cross off several experiences from this mental list, including taking him on his first independent hike and playing our first video games, as well as seeing him ride a bike for the first time, and just last week doing our very first ocean boogie boarding together, which was an absolute blast.

But as time has passed and items kept getting crossed off, new one have also been added. Recently, though unofficial, I have taken to calling this list my Dad Bucket List.

Now, I have been contemplating making this an actual working list, rather than just ideas bouncing around in my head. But what to add? And just how far into the future should I look? Obviously this idea is still in it's early stages of development but depending on how much actual thought I put into it, it could serve as a springboard to many wonderful shared experiences between Lukas and myself.

Or, it could just end up being another exercise that gets partially completed. I would hope not though as I think this idea does have potential.

But now the hard part. What to actually put on a Dad Bucket List? Perhaps I'll just start with 15 things off the top of my head that I still look forward to experiencing with Lukas for the first time as a dad. I know that as soon as I hit 'Publish' there will be several more that bounce to the front of my mind, but sure enough, I'll add and refine them.

So, off the top of my head, here are my first 15:

1. Watching the original Star Wars movie.
2. Witnessing his first organized sporting competition
3. Building and launching first model rocket.
4. Overnight backpacking trip.
5. Attending a Star Gazing Party.
6. Having him read me a story.
7. Coaching one of his teams.
8. Riding a large wooden roller coaster.
9. Reading the Harry Potter Books with him (I haven't yet read them).
10. Taking an Ocean Kayaking trip.
11. Trip to the batting cages
12. Watching a Movie at a Theatre
13. Getting a Major League Autograph.
14. Sailing outing together
15. Catching his first Fish

I'll admit I struggled a bit on how to word these, but basically they are just things I want to either experience with Lukas, or be there to witness first hand as a dad.

So tell me readers, so you like the idea of a Dad Bucket List? And if so what's on your Dad, or Mom, Bucket List?

Mr. Pac Too Much Man

2011-05-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

Not the whitest kid on the beach, but maybe the cutest?

Greetings, or more appropriately Aloha from Sunny Hawaii. For those of you who couldn't guess from the picture I posted earlier, we are on the island of Oahu. Kailua, on the windward side to be precise. It's a picture perfect destination, with one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and we are very much enjoying it's charms.

As we do on most vacations, we opted not to stay at a resort but to rent a cottage near the beach in a smaller town instead. It's less expensive this way, and although there are still a lot of tourists around, most of the people hanging out at this gorgeous white sand beach are locals. We have found this to be our type of relaxing vacation, but of course there are drawbacks. One that comes to mind is that, given that this is a beach community, most of the locals spend a lot of time in the water, getting tanned and incredibly fit.   Mrs. LIAYF even commented to me the other day "Wow, everyone is in such good shape here."

Now I am a reasonably slender guy, but hanging out on the beach amidst all these locals has more than once made me feel like I was Uncle Buck out there. And being fairly pale from the rainy Seattle winter and spring hasn't helped matters either.  Thankfully though, we are not the whitest people on the beach. Yes, we make sure to spot those who are early on with each trip down there.

Another thing we realized shortly after we arrived was how grossly over packed we were. The three of us each had carry on backpacks, plus we each checked an additional bag. Add to that a car seat and we were slugging through the airport. One of our rolling duffel's was even 6 pounds over the 50lb limit and I had to quickly shift those pounds to the other bags or pay Alaskan another 50 spot.  This was after we bought a couple of those vacuum seal bags to conserve more space to pack unnecessary things.

Our over-packing probably stemmed from Mrs. LIAYF and I being so incredibly busy leading up to the trip. We had practically zero spare time to even think about what we would need, so we ended up just bringing things, just in case.

In my own case, things such as....

A Beach tent - Way too windy here to use, even if we wanted to.
Pants - Seemed like a good idea in Seattle.
Fleece pullover - For those chilly Hawaiian evenings?
15 too many shirts - We have a washer and dryer, so I could have brought just 4 or 5.
3 books - What, the islands turn me into Evelyn Wood?
4 swimsuits - I have used only the one. Newsflash, it dries in the sun.
Beach towels - Yes, these were provided at our cottage
Multiples of almost every bathroom item - Er...I should have checked with my wife.

This was only really the tip of the iceberg, as Mrs. LIAYF also packed much more than she or Lukas would need for clothes, along with loads of toys and books for Lukas, and a few containers of dry foods so that we wouldn't have to spend so much on food when we got here.

It's not like we are amateurs at packing either as Mrs. LIAYF and I spent two weeks in Germany and Italy about 10 years ago with only a large backpack each for the whole trip. But alas, that was well before we were parents and we had plenty of time to carefully plan each item we would take along. Even so, too much stuff or not, right now we are just happy to be on vacation.

Plus, I will probably be in much better shape by the time I schlep all these heavy bags back to Seattle.

How about you readers? Do you over-pack when you go on vacations too?

Twelve Years Past

2011-05-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

Twelve years ago today, the best decision I ever made had it's day in the Sun, literally. May 23rd, 1999 was a glorious 85 degrees without a cloud in the Olympia, Washington sky.

The day was almost as beautiful as my radiant new bride.

Now, a dozen years later, my love for Mrs. LIAYF is stronger than ever, and she has shown me over and over again, through countless acts of selflessness, compassion, humor, and love, that there was good reason that once I saw her walking down the aisle that day, my nerves immediately disappeared.

We have been through 12 years of ups and downs. Mostly ups. And we now have an awesome son who is a product of our happy union. Yes, this is certainly the way it's supposed to be.

Happy Anniversary Honey.

Away

2011-05-22T02:12:00.000-07:00

So team LIAYF is on vacation. FINALLY! I can honestly say that of all the vacations I have taken in my two score and some years, that I have never (none even close) needed one like I did leading up to this one. The past couple of years, and especially the past 6 months have been especially stressful on multiple fronts, not the least of which has come from work pressures, and this trip has been highly anticipated.

Already, only one day in, and despite some early challenges (read: rain, disappointing room accommodations which lead to an immediate change, a nasty hacking cough from yours truly which kept the whole family awake most of last night, and yes, a lobster red streak across my back that is sure to start torturing me anytime now) the stresses are starting blow away with the swift island breezes.

It helps to have a nearly 4-year-old along for the trip. To some this may seem counter intuitive, but not for us as Lukas never ceases to be a joy to have around. From the ear to ear grin on his face as he sat in his window seat in anticipation of, then while the plane was taking off, to his eagerness to talk to the Captain as we exited, and his insistence on pulling his own bag through the airport despite it being well after midnight Seattle time.

Then today, seeing his squeals of excitement, non-stop laughter and chant of "Wipe out!" as he took on the mighty Pacific for the very first time on a boogie board, each time running back in for more, it just made me extremely relaxed and happy.

Tomorrow, more of the same is on the agenda. Minus I hope the dramas of our first day. We may even think to pull out our camera and take a few pictures, something we are notoriously terrible at remembering to do. Then, on Monday it's the lovely Mrs. LIAYF and my 12th Anniversary. I'm not at all sure of what the symbol of the 12th anniversary is - Sand would make sense - but whatever it is, I can't think of a better place to be spending it with my wonderful wife, and little guy.

Where exactly are we? Here's a hint:

Granted, it was a bit cloudier here on Saturday.

PJ20

2011-05-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned here before that I am a big fan of my hometown band, the legendary Grunge rockers Pearl Jam.

Personally, I consider PJ to be the greatest living and still united American band, period. Sure you could make valid arguments for other bands, but for me there is just something different about Ed and the guys that set them apart.

What is that something? Maybe it was the Saturday Night Live performance of Alive back in 1992 which introduced me to the band, and had such a profound impact on the way I would view music for the next two decades. Or perhaps it was their wild concert that same year at The Gorge in George, Washington which I made the trek to with 3 of my buddies that cemented that status in my mind.

Then again, it could have been the concert of theirs I attended a couple of years later with my hot new girlfriend at Seattle's Mercer Arena (a truly amazing concert experience) where we shimmied our way to near the front of the jam packed crowd before she smiled at me and announced "I'm going up", then disappeared - crowd surfing off during a blistering set. I knew right there Mrs. LIAYF was unlike anyone I had ever dated before. And it was she who, a couple of years later had partial lyrics to the song Smile engraved into my wedding band, further endearing me to my favorite group, and her of course.

Pearl Jam, the band who had an awesome cameo as the group Citizen Dick in Cameron Crowe's classic movie Singles, turns 20 this year.

There are a lot things planned to commemorate the anniversary including a Summer festival, a new studio album, and a documentary about the band by Crowe. I thought I would add my own small commemoration to this 20th Anniversary lineup with a post listing my choice for the 20 best Pearl Jam songs.
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Some of you might feel inclined to comment, telling me why you don't like the band. Don't bother. I know their music is not for everybody, and if you are one of those people...this is Not for You.
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But, if you ARE a fan, leave a comment telling me what some of your favorites are. Here are mine:

1. Alive

2. Smile
3. Just Breath

4. Yellow Ledbetter
5. Black
6. Not for You
7. Daughter
8. State of Love and Trust
9. Life Wasted
10. Wishlist

11. Crazy Mary
12. Better Man
13. Man of the Hour
14. Given to Fly
15. Dissident
16. Evenflow
17. Bee Girl
18. Amongst the Waves

19. Garden
20. Nothingman

Rhymes With Sympathy

2011-05-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

As unfathomable as it is to Mrs. LIAYF and I, seeing how we are fairly certain it was just a few weeks ago we first brought Lukas home from the hospital, we had our very first parent teacher conference with his primary teacher today.

Yes, they have those in pre-school these days. We were shocked too.

Teacher Kate, whom Lukas adores and who will be pretty hard to top as the finest non-parent caregiver that our son will ever have, sat Mrs. LIAYF and I down this afternoon at a tucked away table, in a corner of the quiet restaurant a few blocks away from his pre-school. She then carefully laid out an evaluation sheet in front of each of us. The form consisted of nearly 50 points of observation. This was obviously one of the benefits of the lofty tuition charges we pay laid out before us in a tangible form.

We then proceeded to have a thoughtful discussion with her about each of those points. But although it was a terrific exercise for us, we didn't learn too many things that we didn't already know about our little guy. Right now he's not so much into art or music, or rowdy play. Rather he tends toward highly imaginative play and building interesting and unusual things with a variety of different materials. He is also well liked and makes friends rather easily, while never excluding anyone from his games.

Then, to that last point Teacher Kate said something that truly stunned me. She told Mrs. LIAYF and I that Lukas was "off the charts when it came to caring for his friends." In fact, she said that he was "The most empathetic child in her any of her groups" followed up resolutely with the word  "Ever!"

I wondered if I had heard that correctly. But yes, that is definitely what she said.

Wow!  This is the lead teacher of a large preschool program (there are 32 kids in his class this year) who has more than 15 years of experience with kids. That was amazing.

She then went on to tell us how Lukas was always the first one to make other kids feel better when they were sad or hurt, and how he is always extremely generous with his toys. Those facts didn't stun or surprise us however. We see those traits shine in our son on a daily basis. If we give him treats or stickers, he is always immediately looking for someone to share them with. It makes him happy to give things away. And he always offers these items up with a smile on his face.

In fact, we went to a restaurant this afternoon and sat next to three on duty police officers. When one gave him a sticker, he responded in kind by digging through his change wallet and offering each them a shiny penny to keep. Seattle's finest really seemed to enjoy that exchange.

These are traits we, as parents, have stressed to our son from very early on and ones we believe will serve him well as he grows older. But we've merely made suggestions to him. He's the one who has developed them as a part of his personality. And of that we can be proud.

So, with our first parent teacher conference successfully under our belts, his mother and I drove over to his preschool to pick up our wonderful son. And, as we arrived we peeked over the fence into the play yard to observe.

He was sharing a box with one of his friends.

Locker Room Talk

2011-05-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Lukas started his first swimming classes this past week. We enrolled him in the parent and tot program with me and he is loving every minute of it. So much so, that with his recent obsession with superhero's I wouldn't be surprised if Aquaman becomes a new favorite. Not that there's anything wrong with Aquaman of course. I was once an Aquaman fan myself.

Anyway, we have only been to one class so far and we have already been working on kicking his feet, blowing out through his nose as he puts his head under water, and reaching with one hand and then the other as we moved through the pool to retrieve a toy we tossed ahead of us. Like many of the sporting events we have undertaken, the swimming seemed to come naturally to him.

His locker room etiquette on the other hand? Not so much.

Prior to class starting we obeyed the posted rules and hit the showers to rinse off the outside world before depositing ourselves into the pool. Next to us in the open shower cavern was a naked guy who was also showering, after apparently exiting the pool. I pressed the button to turn on a shower head for Lukas.

Then as I was immersing myself with warm water, Lukas yelled at the top of his lungs - in his normal voice "Look Daddy! Look, look! That man is washing his pen*s!! He's washing his pen*s! Hahaha. That's siwwey daddy" as he continued laughing while the water ran down his face.

I think it was more that he was doing this cleansing in public that struck Lukas as amusing. "He's just cleaning up Bud. We all do that" I replied to him, as I turned to the other guy who I could tell was a father himself as I saw his older son showering on the other side of him.

"Uh, sorry Man" I offered to the other dad, a little embarrassed "It's our first time in a public locker room". "I understand" he responded, pointing a thumb over at the kid next to him.

Then, a few minutes later, as we were drying off in another section of the locker room, Lukas whimpered a bit, before turning to me and telling me that "A man made a mad face a me, Daddy". I looked around, before telling him that I was standing right there, and I didn't see anyone make a mad face at him.

"Yes he did! He's right there!" my little guy shouted out loud again, pointing directly at another dad who was not 5 feet away from him. "Look!" To Lukas' credit, the guy did have a pretty sour expression on his face, but it certainly wasn't directed at my little dude. "Yeah!" Lukas continued - turning to me still shout talking through his clenched teeth and forcing his cheeks downward, "His face is doing this Daddy!!"

With that I couldn't help looking over at the dad once again to see how close he had nailed the guys expression, but at that he was already walking off to look for his son. And with that my 3 year old and I were briefly alone again in our section of the locker room.

It was a good opportunity to have a one on one with him about locker room etiquette. And about keeping his thoughts to himself.

Dad Streaking

2011-05-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

Hi all. I am over at Dad Revolution today talking about streaking. No, not that kind of streaking wise guy. I have yet to subject the public to such trauma, and I'm happy keeping it that way.

But I do talk a bit of baseball, and also of my own impressive personal record that I hope to keep up for years to come.

You can read that post here.

When your are done reading, let me know if you're a streaker too.

Boy's Best Friend

2011-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

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"It's dead Buddy. Daddy's going to have to flush it down the toilet." Mrs. LIAYF informed Lukas.

"Ohhhhh" he whined. "But he was my fwind". "Can't we keep him?"

"Nope, sorry. If we do, his body will just start to decay and then some flies will find him and lay eggs in him" she held her ground.

"I know what we can do" he whispered quietly with a smile forming on his face "We can put him in a box and keep him in my room where things can't get to him."

It seemed like a pretty sound plan.

"No Buddy, friend or not, we are not going to box that thing up so you can keep it in your room Silly. That's kinda gross" she responded with a smile of her own, as she politely asked me to dispose of the body.

"Really? This was your friend?" "Uh, sorry Bud" I laughed as I picked up the large dead house fly with a piece of toilet paper and unceremoniously deposited it into the toilet bowl, before sending it on its final journey.

Thankfully, he didn't seem too broken up about it.

1st Self-Portrait of The Artist as a Young Boy

2011-04-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

"And here is my biiiiiig head!"

The Road Not Watched

2011-04-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

Wow. I finished reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road a couple of nights ago. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer prize, and was extremely well written and readable. It was also an undoubtedly haunting read, perhaps made even more so to me by the fact that I am the father of a boy who is not too much younger than the boy in the book. One of the 'good guys'.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, it follows the journey of a father and his young son through a post apocalyptic landscape as they travel towards the coast in desperate hopes of finding some sort of salvation there. It is winter, they are under clothed, under sheltered, and have to scavenge mightily for the precious little they find to eat.

The lack of available food throughout this dark landscape leads to bodily dangers beyond simple starvation, and adds notable suspense to the storyline.

But it's the choices which had to be made by the father and his young son which will stick with me for a long, long time to come. Especially the Father's final choice as the story came to a close. It was a gut-wrenching ending and one which has left me speculating on how exactly I would handle such a situation myself.

Thankfully, I will never have to.

Throughout it all, it was the boy who stood out as the brightest spot in an otherwise dark tale. That really resonated with me because during my journey through fatherhood, Lukas has always been such a bright spot in each and every day.

Mrs. LIAYF preceded me in reading the book, and before I had carved out time read it too, I put the movie in our Netflix Queue. The movie has sat on top of our television for a few weeks now. She has maintained that, although she felt the book was a good read, she had no desire to watch the movie. I haven't yet sent the movie back, because I didn't really understand.

I do now.

I'll be putting the disc back into it's envelope tonight and mailing it back to Netflix. Although I'm sure it's a great film adaptation of the novel, I really don't need to watch it too. The book was enough.

What about you readers? Have you read the book, and what did you think? Did you also watch the movie, and which came first? And finally, what type of event do you think caused the destruction?

Cosmic Sense of Humor

2011-04-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

As Lukas said to Mrs. LIAYF "Poor You".

Unfortunately my wife has had an accident. She slipped going down a set of stairs and heard an audible pop in her ankle when she landed. By the time I got home yesterday, she couldn't bear weight on it and we decided it prudent to go to urgent care and have her ankle x-rayed. We were there late into the night.

Thankfully, there were no broken bones but there is still a strong possibility she has some ligament damage. We'll find out in a few days. Right now she is in a splint and on crutches and so far in need of a lot of help to get even the basic daily activities done*. An extended stint with them would not be good for her...or for my sanity.

We live in a house of stairs. We have a 3 year old. I am already working long hours. Plus, we have our first vacation in nearly a year planned in a few weeks for crying out loud.

So today, after being up past midnight last night, getting up early to get my wife and son ready for work and daycare, working overtime, picking up Lukas from daycare, stopping off to pick up groceries with a tired 3 year old, lugging everything in from the car, unloading, making dinner, helping Mrs. LIAYF up the stairs, setting the table, cleaning up a whole cup of spilled milk, helping Mrs. LIAYF and Lukas upstairs for bedtime routine, starting a load of laundry, folding two more, clearing the tables, unloading the dishwasher, loading up a new load, taking out the trash and compost, getting breakfast ready for morning, helping Mrs. LIAYF set up a station for working from home, and cleaning the cat box, I was FINALLY able to open the refrigerator and pull out a cold Full Sail LTD 05 .

At least I laughed when I popped of the bottle cap....

You know it!

* I must give my lovely wife a lot of credit, since is pretty tough. Despite her swollen and splinted leg, she is still working full-time. Something I probably wouldn't be doing. Then again, as I already know, she is irreplaceable.

My Good Friday

2011-04-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Big Exhale. I finally got my divorce papers on Friday.

What? Oh God no. Sorry about that. Mrs. LIAYF and I are indeed still happily married. I was actually talking about the official divorce papers from a short, albeit reluctant chapter in my very early adulthood. It was more or less a marriage training ground, where I learned how bad things could really be...and the value of choosing a life partner who is not only beautiful, smart, and funny but also one with solid moral character.

Thankfully I'm now batting a respectable .500 in the life commitment department.

And the papers? Well, that's sort of a humorous story. Emphasis on the 'sort of'. You see, I haven't really talked about this before but Mrs. LIAYF and I are in the planning stages of adopting a second child. If you are at all familiar with adoptions you will know that they involve a home study. This is where you hire a social worker to do what is essentially a background check on your family life, and declare you fit to raise an adopted child. Part of ours asks 'Have you ever been divorced?' and if so, asks you to provide copies of the decree.

"Go find your decree and bring it to me" Mrs. LIAYF instructed me, as she was reading through the paperwork. "Hmmm, I'm not sure where it might be" I responded. And with that I was off to dig through my papers to find it. But, all I came up with was a draft. It didn't have any signatures or even a case number.

"Is that ALL you have?" asked my wife. "Uh, yeah. I guess so." I responded with a lump forming in my throat.

"No problem, we can just look it up online." She offered. So we pulled up the court records and typed in our names. It yielded nothing at all. I began to sweat.

Mrs. LIAYF looked over at me. "You are actually divorced, aren't you?"

"Yes. I am." I said with all the conviction I could muster.

"Well, did you get anything from the judge?"

"I didn't actually go to a court house. It's been nearly 20 years ago, but I'm pretty sure I signed something"

It was at that point that we decided to do an online background search of my first wife, understanding that it would also include any divorces she was involved in. I knew she had been remarried too. But when we looked her information didn't come up with her maiden name, or her remarried name. It came up with MY last name. And there was no record of a divorce.

Shit Shit SHIT!

This wasn't good. I literally felt sick to my stomach. What if she had never actually filed the papers? I was young and stupid at the time and I just wanted it all to go away, so once I signed I never thought about it again.

Suddenly I had visions of my life being another story line from Big Love. Would I have to convert our house into a compound and hide out from the authorities, all the time fearing that I would be exposed to the neighbors as a polygamist? ~~And also, how many sister wives would Mrs. LIAYF be ok with?~~

Actually, to her credit Mrs. LIAYF was amazing during this whole episode. She instantly recognized my stress over the lack of information and reassured me that we only had to go to the courthouse and have them look up the decree. Me, I now wasn't so sure.

The courthouse in question was not local, so we had to wait til I could get some time off to go see. That day finally came on Friday. With Mrs. LIAYF by my side, we asked the clerk to look up the divorce decree for one SeattleDad and his first wife.

My stomach nearly dropped through my ass when he at first said "I am not finding anything here". But after some more searching, he then said "Ah, here it is. I found it. How many copies do you want?"

*Exhale*

We had him print off two copies, and stamp them official. As it turns out, no one is actually given copies, unless they are requested at the time of the decree. So, I never did have copies.

I gave Mrs. LIAYF a big hug and with that we left the court house. Strangely enough, as I walked down the sidewalk holding my wife's hand in one hand, and my divorce papers firmly in the other we were greeted by a throng of people walking right at us holding crosses. Having been raised Catholic, I wondered if this was a sign. After all divorce IS against the rules. But they just walked on by. It was Good Friday after all.

And it was a very good Friday for me as well, as now having that potentially disastrous roadblock out of the way, Mrs. LIAYF and I can now move forward in our plans to bring another child into our happy home.

Not Not Not a Box

2011-04-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those weeks for me at work. It seems there have been a lot of them lately. You know the kind, right? Deadlines to meet, emails coming in faster than you can read them, stress levels through the roof, a constant line of people outside your door, looking for solutions to their problems. It doesn't help that I don't have a window, or any natural light. The Humanity!

In fact it's been so busy that as I was exiting my building yesterday I entered into a world bathed in sunlight. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust. I just shook my head while soaking in the Vitamin D realizing that I hadn't left the building all day.

Then, after picking up Lukas I realized I was mentally exhausted as I drove him home, struggling to muster the energy to hold a conversation with him about how his day went. I literally wanted to just zone out and think of absolutely nothing.

Arriving home, I actually did something I rarely do. I prompted Lukas to see if he wanted to watch a video. "You earned enough stars today Buddy." "Anything you want to watch." I offered. After all I still had to get dinner together, since Mrs. LIAYF was still an hour from arriving home.

Instead he just ignored me, walking into the dining room where a large, empty, white box sat on the floor. "Look Daddy!" he grinned, pointing at the open box on it's side. "Okay, go ahead and play with that while your figuring out what you want to watch" I responded, walking into the kitchen to unload my arms.

When I returned, Lukas wasn't there. There was just the box sitting upright and closed. "Hmmm, Where's Lukas?" I called.

A giggle came from inside the box.

"What's in there? I played along. "Ribbit!" replied the box. "Ribbit, Ribbit"

"Is there a frog in this box? Lukas, you have to come in here and see this. I think there is a frog in this box."

"Meoooow" said the box. Followed by louder giggling. "Meeeeeoooooow". At that I couldn't help but burst out laughing myself.

It was at that point, Lukas popped out and said with a huge smile "It's only me, Daddy. Hey, now it's your turn."

This is reason #3423 that having a child is so awesome. Not so amazingly, this interaction changed my whole mood. No longer was I sullen and spent from the day, but rather laughing and engaged in a fun game of What's in the Box. It gave meaning to why I was subjecting myself to these brutal weeks at work.

I then obligingly put the box over my head, squatted down, and when Lukas, laughing, asked "What's in there?".....

I let out a deep "Moooooooo"

Green Eggs and Chinese

2011-04-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

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Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas and I were traveling home a couple of nights ago we realized that *surprise* we weren't in the mood to make dinner.

"Let's stop for some take out" I suggested

"Great, how about Chinese?" Mrs. LIAYF responded.

"Noooooo!" cried Lukas. "I don't want CHINESE! Yucky!"

"But, You've never even had Chinese food buddy" I nearly snorted. "Just give it a try. Like, Green Eggs and Chinese".
He was unconvinced though. "No, I don't like it!" he whined.

I don't know what was up. Maybe it just sounded like a vegetable to him.

And, just as I was about to tell him "Tough, we are getting it anyway, and I'm sure you'll like it", Mrs. LIAYF interjected with this alternate tactic.

"Okay Lukas why don't we try something else? Why don't we try out Ho-Win food instead?* It's yummy and Ryan and Ella across the street just had some yesterday and they really loved it. Is that a better idea?"

"Yeah! That sounds good! Let's get some of that instead!" he enthusiastically responded.

Mrs. LIAYF and I just turned our eyes towards each other and grinned as we pulled up to the take out restaurant.

A little while later we were all gorging on healthy portions of Spring rolls, Cashew Chicken, and of course General Tso's famous Ho-Win Chicken.

It was actually pretty good, but my fortune cookie on the other hand was pretty lame. It read: Someone is going to give you something.

I lamented for a while about not getting something more profound inside my treat. That is, until I realized that that probably a pretty standard fortune for a Ho-Win cookie.
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*Ho-Win is the name of our local Chinese Dive.

Reel Alphabet Song

2011-04-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Saturday Readers. Mrs. LIAYF and I had a real life date night last night, which is something we have thankfully been able to do more of recently! We started out by attending a nice dinner (think prime rib and open bar) and reception, then near the end slipped away to catch a new movie called Win Win.

We had a lot of fun, and Win Win was actually one of the better movies we have seen in a while. I would even go out on a limb and call it the best high school wrestling movie since Vision Quest. Yeah I know, I know, you're probably skeptical. But it really is a good flick, even though there aren't any scenes with wrestlers carrying logs on their shoulder up stadium stairs. "Shute! Shute!"
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Anyway, after seeing the movie I then visited one of my recent favorite blogs, Life of Riles, and read a post by Tim who listed his favorite movies from A-Z. The post was fun to read and it inspired me to post my own list of favorite movies by letter.

Here they are. Let me know what your favoite of these is, and also what some of your own favorites are.

A - Almost Famous
B - Big Fish
C - Contact
D - Dances With Wolves
E - The Empire Strikes Back
F - Field of Dreams
G - Glory
H - Hero
I - The Italian Job
J - Jaws
K - Kick Ass
L - Lawrence of Arabia
M - The Matrix
N - Napoleon Dynamite
O - The Outlaw Josey Wales
P - Princess Bride
Q - Quantum of Solace
R - Return of The King
S - The Shawshank Redemption
T - Tropic Thunder
U - The Usual Suspects
V - V for Vendetta
W - ~~The Warriors "Come Out and Plaaaaay"~~ Win Win
X - The X Files
Y - Young Frankenstein
Z - Zombieland

Someday Planner

2011-04-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it. I am not a very good at planning for things to come....like the future. Horrible really. I might even theorize that perhaps during a - since wiped from my memory - alien abduction, that that part of my brain may have been removed for further study. I might, that is, but I'm pretty sure the region I use for theorizing is gone too.

In fact, it's not out of the question that both pieces are in a dusty old pickle jar somewhere, light years from here.

Now, even though I don't plan very well I do do a pretty decent job of accomplishing task put in front of me. It's because of that, that I have gotten by for as long as I have. Well, that and marriage of course. As we all know, a good synergistic union can help a couple accomplish much that they couldn't as individuals. That is certainly the case with Mrs. LIAYF and I. Because, even though my planner is MIA, hers works in overdrive.
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We have an understanding. She plans things. I do them.

Okay, yes she does them too, after she gets done planning. But I help out. Like I said, it's an understanding.

As a result, she is constantly mapping things out and posing different scenarios of how we could get from point A, where we are, to point C, D, or E even. Usually this takes place at night, after Lukas is bed. It's usually also at this point that I have endured a long work day, am worthless, and most often become a lump who absorbs about every 4th or 5th word that my lovely wife is saying to me. Thankfully I have developed a knack for identifying key words, so I can comprehend the jist of what is being proposed. I'm good at nodding.

I'm not complaining. I consider myself extremely lucky that she puts up with me. Among other things, with help from her planning we have successfully remodeled two houses, find ourselves happy and gainfully employed, and of course have a pretty darn good son too.

Mrs. LIAYF also recently arranged for a summer camping trip with some friends who have kids Lukas' age. She did this all herself. The trip was for seven families in the Summer of 2012 at a State Beach Park. This will be a pretty cool trip too. We'll stay in waterfront cabins, have cookouts, bonfires, hiking, boating, stargazing, and plenty of relaxing and solidifying friendships.

Me? I could never have pulled off such arrangements. But as I said, I'm not a planner, I'm a doer.

And when the Summer of 2012 finally rolls around and all her planning comes to fruition I will certainly be doing my part. Even if it's just enjoying the get together, and the company of my son and lovely planner of a wife.

To Be Free Again

2011-04-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Saturday readers! It was nearly a year ago that I posted about the new balance bike that Mrs. LIAYF and I bought Lukas. It was his first two wheeled bicycle, and at 2 1/2 years old it wasn't long before he was off and running on it.

Our intent at the time was for him to have a way to scoot around while we were walking around our neighborhood, or on longer flatter surfaces while Mrs. LIAYF and I were also riding our bikes. As a bonus, this mini bicycle would also teach him how to balance a two wheeler - without the need for training wheels.

We certainly recouped our investment in the Rocket emblazoned two wheeler as hardly a weekend day went by all spring and summer long that we weren't out walking, with Lukas riding alongside.

And, when another spring finally arrived here in the Pacific Northwest, Mrs. LIAYF and I decided to begin the search for a pedal bike for Lukas. Our challenge was finding one with a low enough profile for Lukas' small stature. After looking at many different options, we eventually found a Specialized Hotrock 12'' late last week at a local bicycle shop, but the price tag on it gave us a double take.

Fortuitously though, the very next day while driving past a kids resale shop 2 blocks from home Mrs. LIAYF spied a mint condition 12'' Hotrock for a fraction of the price of the new one. We bought it without hesitation, promptly removed the training wheels, and let Lukas hop onto it on the sidewalk outside the shop.

In just 10 short minutes he was riding short distances on his own. The abundant rain which blanketed Seattle all week kept us from taking him out for more practice. However today, with the weekend, also came some much needed sunshine. And an opportunity to ride his new big boy bicycle.

I must say that to watch my little guy, still only 3 years old, so effortlessly master this major childhood milestone - is an extremely sublime moment for me.

Way to go Lukas. Ride like the wind!

'Sudden Death' of Coolness

2011-04-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, I guess Buzz IS pretty cool.

Lukas is finding a lot of things pretty "Cool" these days. That fact, coupled with my competitive nature, got me to wondering what would beat out what in a 3-year-old Sudden Death of Coolness.

So, when I came home tonight I pulled out 10 scraps of paper and wrote down 9 things that he has been pretty excited about recently. On, the 10th scrap I scribbled Daddy.

It seemed like such a great idea at the time. Not sure what I expected. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "Okay Buddy, what is COOLER, robot or a submarine?"

Lukas: "Um...both!"

Me: "No, if you HAD to choose which do you think is cooler?"

Lukas: "Well...a robot and a submarine!"

Me: "No, you have to choose one or the other"

Lukas: "Hmmmm. A submarine."

Me: "Good. That's what I meant. Now, what about Superheros or submarines?"

Lukas: "Um...Superheros?"

Me: "It's your choice. So, Superheros? Yes? Okay. How about Superheros or books?"

Lukas: "It would be cool if we could read a book about a Superhero driving a submarine Daddy!"

Me: "Well, you got me there. Yeah that would be pretty cool." "But that's not the game I'm playing. Now, let's try this again..."

It was a futile effort but I pressed on, not yet willing to concede that a 3 year old could simply consider everything equally cool. Or at least that it would usually be the last thing you asked him about. One moment a robot was cooler than a rocket, while the next it no longer was.

Finally, after several more choices I decided to just call it good. It seemed the game clock on my great idea had ticked down to zero.

Plus, in the Sudden Death of Coolness, although well behind Buzz Lightyear, Robots, and Rockets, at least Daddy was still higher on the list than rocks and stickers.

The Sleepover

2011-04-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Since starting pre-school back in the Fall, Lukas has occasionally received invitations to do sleepovers at the homes of other 3-year-olds in his class.

I'm pretty sure these invitations were not initiated with the approval of the other kids parents. That's because, let's face it, 3-year-olds are not prime candidates to be comfortable, let alone fall asleep, in a foreign environment with the lights out.

Mrs. LIAYF and I would tactfully explain to Lukas each time he would relay one of these invitations to us, that he would have to wait "Until he was older" to have a sleepover with any of his little buddies.

Well, that all changed Saturday night as we were hosting our visiting friends, who used to live nearby and whose 3 year old son is also one of our sons best friends. We only had one spare bedroom, so we decided to let both boys sleep in Lukas' room. We told Lukas that he was finally going to get to do a sleepover. He was pretty excited about it.

By the time we had met up with our friends, had dinner and playtime, finished up movie night for the boys and got them ready for bed, it was nearly 10:00 and both boys were a bit wound up as we laid them both down in sleeping bags on Lukas' bedroom floor. We told them to be quiet and try to go to sleep. We didn't have high expectations.

Our low expectations were well founded, because no sooner than we had reached the bottom of the stairs, than the thumping started from the room. After giving them a few minutes to goof around together while we chatted, Mrs. LIAYF and the other mother went up to tell them to go to sleep, with his friends mother ultimately laying down with her son to help him go to sleep.

When the mother came down she smiled as she let us know how sweet Lukas had been. Apparently he had rubbed the back of his friend, telling him that "It's okay, if any monsters come they will all be friendly." and "If you get scared of the dark I can grab my tiger flashlight to turn on", echoing some of the things that Mrs. LIAYF tells him before leaving the room each night.

But as we were all smiling about that story, the door once again opened upstairs. It was Lukas. It was also my turn to go talk to him about going to sleep. "He's really asleep!" Lukas exclaimed as I entered the room, looking over at his friend as I laid him back down. He then leaned over and kissed his buddy, who didn't move an inch, on the forehead before turning to me with his hands outstretched and palms up.

"See?!"

"Yeah, he sure is" I said as I hugged and tucked my little guy back into his covers. And with that it wasn't long before Lukas finally drifted off to sleep, which both boys did until 6:30 the next morning.

We all could have used more sleep, but realistically that was as good an outcome as we could have hoped for from his first ever sleepover.

So tell me. At what age did your kids start having sleep overs?

Spring Hiking - Seattle Style

2011-04-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

Good Saturday to you readers. It's Spring in Seattle. What that typically means, is if you don't like the weather, you can wait 10 minutes and it will have changed considerably. Ba-Dum-Dum! No, actually that wasn't a joke. Our weather this time of year is more hit and miss than our sports teams, which unfortunately typically trend towards the miss end of the spectrum.

We are all pleased though, that in general it is noticeably warmer here than it was a month ago. And since it was pleasant and sunny this morning Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I took the opportunity to get our gear together and go for a hike. Okay, so it was only a short hike in an urban park close to home, but since we live in Seattle and have old growth forested parks with hills, we at least had the illusion that we were somewhere deep in the forest.

Typical of our schizophrenic weather, it had rained heavily here yesterday and there were several swift streams running by the trails, which happened to be pretty mucky in places. That, however, didn't deter us as Lukas was extremely excited to be going on his first hike of the year. He was even convinced that we had to be on the look out for bears, and seemed somewhat disappointed when we told him there probably wouldn't be any in this city park.

After exploring for a while, we were joined by some friends with a boy Lukas' age who were visiting from Colorado. They actually moved away from Seattle a few months ago, and despite the rain were extremely happy to be back. They missed the green of the trees and the proximity to the water we have here. Plus, as they explained it there is just a feel about Seattle that they aren't getting where they are now. I have to agree. Where we are is a very nice place to live.

Plus, as the weather continues to warm this Spring, and as Lukas gets older, we will certainly be taking advantage of the abundance of hiking trails that we have nearby, especially in the foothills of the Cascades. It would be a shame to live in the midst of such natural beauty and not take full advantage of it.

But on this Spring day we were content to hike through our neighborhood park, passing fallen logs and crossing wooden bridges built over swampy areas. It was a lot of fun and a good warm up for what promises to be Summer of great hiking opportunities.

When we all finally reached the bottom of the hill and exited the park we were once again in a residential neighborhood. Just a couple of short blocks later, having braved swift streams, fallen logs, mucky trails, and of course bears - and with a threatening looking rain cloud creeping our way we entered a local Starbucks coffee shop for some much needed nourishment and rest.

Because, like most other things in the Emerald City, that's how we also do nature hikes in Seattle.

Jump! Go Ahead and Jump

2011-03-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

"This way! Follow me. Follow me!!" was his plea, as Lukas waved his arms trying to get the attention of a couple of the other kids nearby.

He clearly had a plan.

But the the other 3 and 4 year old in question weren't exactly cooperating on this Sunday morning as I watched a few feet away holding my steaming paper cup full of my favorite caffeinated beverage. They were zipping this way and that, energy bursting forth as they got their first tastes of what the facilities where the birthday party we were attending had to offer.

We were at a kids bouncing place, complete with several large inflated 'rooms' strategically laid out for maximum kid enjoyment.

I was still perfectly happy occupying my spot, chatting with the other parents who happened to wander by, moving only when I needed to keep my eye on my little guy. But, seeing Lukas becoming a bit frustrated by the lack of cooperation from his little buddies, I set my coffee down in a safe place, kicked off my shoes, and called out to him "I'm coming Buddy. Which way are we going?"

Now, there weren't any other parents on the bouncers, but there were no rules specifically prohibiting it either, so when Lukas' eyes grew wide and his smile big, and he responded with "This way!" jumping into an inflatable that turned out to be a giant maze with slides, I dutifully followed suit. Mrs. LIAYF, not to be outdone, also came along on the next pass.

It was a great decision. That's because I jumped, slid, bounced and laughed with him - and a lot of the other kids, plus some parents - for nearly the next hour and a half straight. And Lukas had a terrific time. Honestly though, I haven't had that much fun in quite some time either. Including a morning at the very same complex a couple of weeks before. I hadn't really participated on that morning, but this time I had the bug.

After it was all said and done, we were lining up to move to the pizza and birthday cake portion of the morning, and although I was certainly showing my 40 and 3 years by being a bit spent as well as overheated, I was ready to go again the next week. There was only one small problem.

There were no more birthday parties planned amongst Lukas' circle of friends. What a bummer. I even joked to a couple of the other dads that we should just show up the next week with our kids and blend in to whatever party was going on. Everyone's heard of Wedding Crashers. Well, we could be Bouncy Crashers. They all laughed, but none actually seemed game.

Oh well, I'll get over it. But I'm sure glad I decided to set down my Cup of Joe and join with my son in some unadulterated fun. I need to keep reminding myself to do things like that. To enjoy these moments as they present themselves.

Becuse before I am ready for it, they won't be there for me to take advantage of anymore.

Holy Dry-Shorts Batman!

2011-03-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Another milestone has been reached here at Casa LIAYF.

Lukas, who has been in underwear for well over a year now, still has his occasional accidents. This happens mostly at preschool, and because he gets so focused on what he is doing, or playing with that he doesn't realize that he needs to go until it's too late. So, it's an ongoing process.

But recently we have been employing a reward systems for different types of good behavior and promised him that if he went for a week straight without being wet, excluding sleep time, we would buy him brand new underwear. And he would get to pick them out, with any characters he wanted.

Well, this past week after several near misses, he finally did it! He was dry all day for a whole week straight. We were very proud of him, and let him know it with pelnty of hugs, kisses, and high fives. Plus Mrs. LIAYF, who picked him up from preschool, drove him straight to Target to pick out which new underwear he wanted.

After careful deliberation, Lukas decided go old school and pass on the Marvel underwear as well as the Pixar underwear which sported the likes of Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Cars, and Nemo, for none other than a five pack of skivies sporting the Superheros from The Justice League, one of my childhood favorites. These included Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern and, of course, Batman. What can I say, the boy loves the concept of Superheros.
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I heard all about the selection from a super charged and grinning 3 year old when I arrived home from work Friday. But that actually wasn't even the best part. I was also greeted with "Close your eyes Daddy. We have something for you too!". I couldn't think what it could have been, but obliged nonetheless and also held out my hands as instructed.

Then when the lovely Mrs. LIAYF handed something to Lukas, who then placed the soft item into my hands, I opened my eyes to behold....my very own pair!

I could use Bruce Waynes $$ too!

What a surprise! Apparently my being dry all week also qualified me Superhero underwear too. Believe it or not, these are the first pair I have ever owned. I never even had Underoos as a kid as I think I was too old when they came out.
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Then, after a cleansing run through the wash cycle, Lukas and I both got a chance to wear our new super shorts all day Saturday. We had a lot of fun too. (Well, that's if you qualify a middle-aged dad running through the house in his underwear singing Na-na-na-nuh, Na-na-na-nuh, Na-na-na-nuh Batman! as fun.)

And while Lukas insisted on wearing his new underwear backwards (because that way he could see the Superheros, and thus causing the front to be in back with the narrower fabric slipping into his little cheeks), I was able to officially dispell any notions that if you wear Batman underwear at night and lean back pointing them to the sky - with your hands on your hips - that you can make the Bat signal appear.

Anyway, the process of potty training can be a long ordeal, and using rewards to speed up the process has proven to be a beneficial, at least for us.

Congratulations Lukas. You are a Super good boy.

Older Dad Blues

2011-03-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon readers. It's Spring! It's Friday! The Sun is Shining in Seattle! Now, if I were only able to replace the whole 'working like a dog' thing with spending time with my lovely wife and son, this would qualify as the perfect day.

Despite being inundated at the office, I am also spending time over at DadRevolution today as well. For those of you still foggy from lack of coffee no, I haven't been cloned, but merely have a post up over there for your reading enjoyment. It touches on the physical challenges of becoming a father at roughly he same time I turned half of 80 years old.
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Here is an excerpt:

I got a bit of a late start at being a dad. My amazing son was born at the end of June in 2007, and barely two months later I turned 40. We didn’t hold a big party for my 40th birthday party, since Mrs. LIAYF and I were still in sleep deprivation induced shock at the time. Plus, I’m not sure I would have known how to respond to not only the jokes about being over the hill, but also about how old I would be when Lukas entered High School, got married, or had kids of his own.
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Sure, there’s a lot of good natured kidding around when it comes to subject of being an older parent, but you know what? It is, at least partially anyway, based in reality. By the time you are in your 40′s - unless you are some sort of health freak – you’re slowing down considerably from your earlier days of adulthood. Heck, my parents were in their early 20′s when they had my sister, brother, and I. And although 3 kids in three years sounds rough (Mom, you were amazing), I often wonder if the dealing with 1 kid when you are 40 is roughly the same equivalent...

To read the rest, including a painful turn I took a being a 'horse', you can click here.

How about you? At what age did you first become a parent, and how did that treat you?

Not ALL Fun and Games

2011-03-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

Parenting can be Super hard at times

I know that I have a certain voice with this blog. I tend to blog mostly about all the fun I have with Lukas as a first time father. About the cute things Lukas says, or the poignancy and humor I experience as the parent of a now 3 year old boy. I do this because that is what my take away is. I love being a parent, and really do enjoy spending time with Lukas.

But, of course as all parents are well aware the exercise of raising children is by far the hardest endeavor we will ever undertake. To put it another way, this is hard work people. If you are a parent, you already know that. And although I don't often blog about it, there are a lot of aspects of being a dad which I would certainly rather not have to face. I just choose not to make them a primary focus here.

All that being said, I thought I'd take this opportunity to list, from my perspective, a few of the more challenging aspect of raising a 3 year old. If nothing else, to prove that I can talk about the difficulties as well as the good stuff. Yes, there are others as well, but these immediately come to mind. They will probably even sound familiar to most of you as they are hardly unique to my experience.
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Making Sure He Gets Enough Sleep - I once read that the most significant benefit to the mental development of young children was making sure they got enough sleep. Every since Lukas was born Mrs. LIAYF and I go out of our way to ensure that Lukas gets the proper amount of rest. That includes giving him the opportunity to nap every day, and getting him to bed at a decent hour each night. We have done pretty well so far with this, and consider ourselves fortunate that he has only failed to nap once or twice. Still, sleep is always an issue and recently bedtime has often become a struggle to get him to stay in bed. (Sound familiar?) When he doesn't, he can have a rough following day.

Providing Consistent Discipline - Holy smokes 3 year olds can be super cute. This is especially true when they are asking you to consider reversing one of your disciplinary decisions. Trying to provide a consistent message in the face of "Please Daddy, I won't do that ANYMORE." is usually a no win situation. I give in a lot more than I know I should, but when I have to hold firm I find it one of the hardest things I've ever dealt with.

Dealing With Bad Dreams - Lukas has an extremely active imagination. It's not surprising to me that this manifests itself in the form of scary dreams. Mrs. LIAYF and I do our best to assure him that there are no monsters hiding under his bed at night. And when he asks "Well, what if there are?" we just assure him that if there ever were, they would certainly be the good kind. It's tough to deal with those middle of the night wake-up cries. More for how how it scares him than the amount of sleep I lose.

Teaching Him Proper Stranger Caution - Our son is an extremely social person. He has been since he was born. And while it is adorable to see him say hello to strangers, often bringing smiles to their faces, we also have to teach him to have the proper amount of caution when it comes to people he doesn't know. We have to consistently let him know that it's only ok to talk to strangers when he is with a trusted adult. He actually said to Mrs. LIAYF the other day "I can only talk to a stranger if I know they are nice, right?" To which she had to say no, it is more complicated than that. That bad people can pretend to be nice so he should only talk to an adult he doesn't know if he is with one who he does.

Dealing With Rejection - This one is probably the toughest for me to navigate as a father. As I mentioned, Lukas is an outgoing boy and prone to be a leader type (a bit bossy). Naturally, this can come across as a bit much to some of the other kids who, at the 3-4 age will simply let you know that 'you can't play with us', or 'you are not my friend'. Of course, kids at this age are fickle and who is a friend one week, is not the next and he is no exception to this rule. But with Lukas, we can tell how much it really hurts him if he is excluded. Trying to explain the intricacies of such behavior to him in a way that helps him to understand and also makes him feel better, is a very difficult process.

There you have it. The aspects of parenting which I find most difficult at this juncture. I'm sure they will change and evolve as my skills and experiences as a parent do as well. They don't at all tarnish the joy I get from being a dad, they are simply part of the package.

How about you readers? What are the most difficult aspects of parenting you face on a daily basis?

By the way, I have been nominated to be on the Circle of Moms Top Daddy Blogger list. I have installed a button on the right sidebar. If you like the blog, I would appreciate it if you would take the time to cast a vote for me. Voting can be done daily, and ends April 4th.

Petrified

2011-03-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid I may have lost a family 'heirloom' and I'm bummed. I wanted to give it to Lukas, as I am sure he would appreciate its intrinsic value.

I hadn't thought of this item in quite some time. But I certainly remember growing up with it on the shelf of my bedroom. I am also fairly positive I had it when I moved into my first house 20 some odd years ago. From there however things get pretty fuzzy.

I thought of it a couple of days ago when Mrs. LIAYF showed me a divided box of interesting specimens from the natural world - fossils, slices of rock, and geodes. She had collected them for several years and recently put them together for him. I looked at it and thought "I know what would go perfectly as an addition to his collection!" But I wasn't sure where to look.

That got me thinking. Where might it be?

Tonight, I returned to the garage to search for it. No such luck. But I did find...

-
My pickle jar of original Mt. St. Helens ash, that I scooped off the top of a fence at our Southwest Washington state farm back in May of 1980.

My jar of 'soil' from the ground breaking ceremony for Safeco Field, dug up by yours truly back on March 8th, 1997. No, it's not just another jar of chunky ash.

And...

An old cigar box filled with, among other things not one - but two harmonica's, a few cool old coins dating back to the 1850's, and a mint Topps baseball card featuring perhaps the best right handed pure hitter to ever grace the diamond - Edgar Martinez. The real value in this card however, is that it proves that Edgar at one time actually ran.

Now as awesome as all of these things are, they were not the item I was looking for. As a matter of fact the heirloom I was looking for was actually waaaay cooler than any of these things.

Frustrated, and now fearful that I had permanently misplaced my most prized boyhood possession in desperation I turned to Mrs. LIAYF to see if perhaps she had seen it.

"Honey, I seem to have misplaced my petrified turd. The one my grandpa gave me when I was a boy. It was found in a fossil field. Have you see it?"

(Blank stare)

"It's about this high (holding my hands about 8 inches apart) and the bottom is flat so it could sit upright like a sculpture. Ring any bells?

She just replied with an incredulous look "You have a petrified turd?".

"Well, I did have one." was all I could muster.

And now I am afraid I may have lost it for good, which is too bad since altough Mrs. LIAYF may not comprehend, I think Lukas would have really understood its value.

Mr. Hide

2011-03-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

"Let's play Hide and Seek!" was the greeting I received as I entered our living room on Sunday.

Despite the fact that I had a lingering cold and nasty cough the result of which had me feeling like death left out on the counter with the lid off all night, I simply couldn't refuse. The forces that hold the fabric of the universe together (well, this one anyway) would be in serious jeopardy if I begged off. I am Daddy and that's my job.

"Sure Buddy" I responded with a smile. "Okay Daddy, you go and hide and I will find you!" Lukas instructed me. And with that I was off to find a suitable place to hide from my 3 year old.

As I mentioned I wasn't feeling all that well so naturally the creative center of my brain, which I am convinced must be roughly the size of a grain of rice and buried deep down - somewhere behind the primal stem perhaps? - wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders. My first attempt to hide found me squeezed into a corner behind a wall one room over. This seemed reasonable, since in past renditions of the game this usually worked pretty well.

This time Lukas found me in 5 seconds flat. "Okay, let me try this again" I said then went off and hid behind the inward opening bathroom door, which was a surefire bet for causing lots of searching. But again I was found by a grinning boy, with little effort. Likewise I met with similar FAILS when attempting to hide under the covers of the bed, and also standing near the back entry way with a backpack held in front of my body. Lukas is older now, and obviously wise to all my dated hiding ploys.

Then I realized that I had be more creative. By this time I was smiling and laughing a lot which helped spark a new idea. "Stay here and count to 10 Buddy" I told him as I left him in the upstairs bedroom and entered the hallway. Then I lifted the rather squeaky baby gate that still closes off the stairway to the main floor and fake stomped a few times to make it sound like I was going down to hide.

Then, with my 40 plus year old Ninja skills I slipped quietly into the bathroom with nary a squeak of the Fir floors listening as Lukas came out and immediately headed downstairs to look for me. "Daddy, where are you?" he called from down in the living room, to my obvious pleasure. Yes! Point to Dad. Even though he is getting good at this game, I proved I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.

I have a feeling I should enjoy it while I can, though. My days are most definitely numbered.

Open Your Pie Hole!

2011-03-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

image: pievscake.com

Yes! It's Monday readers. Now, normally I wouldn't be very excited about the arrival of Monday, but this one is different. That's because this beginning of the work week is a holiday. Okay, it's not an official holiday, but it IS one that I can whole heartedly get behind.

Happy Pie Day to you all.

With the recent focus on the cupcake as the dessert treat de jur, it seems pie has been flying under the sweets radar. But I personally think you get much more delicious goodness for your money with a slice of pie. This day my friends, pie takes a back seat to no dessert!

As for this 'holiday', It's a little known fact that one of Nostradamus' more obscure predictions had a guy called Seattledad 3.14 times more likely to eat pie on March 14th 2011 than any other day in the year. It seems I now have the power to make that prediction come true. This is despite the fact we have no pie in the house, which can only be remedied by another after work stop which, as I have noted before, can get a bit dicey at times. Ah, but duty calls.

Mrs. LIAYF, Lukas, and I did celebrate Pie Day Eve on Sunday with a stop at Seattle's Shoe Fly Pie Company. Aren't all the best holiday's celebrated the night before? If you don't think so, tell me the last Flag Day Eve you let loose. Anyway, we were out for a weekend afternoon stroll in the rain, which we are contractually obligated to do once a month as Seattleites (It's in the contract, along with a mandatory stop at Starbucks and a stop at Pike Place Market for fish tossing practice), when it really started to pour and we took refuge in the pie store. It was a good call.

The hardest part was trying to decide which of the tasty pies to try. We finally settled on a slice each of Rhubarb, Cherry, and Coconut Creme. Lukas picked the Rhubarb, which before eating a bite was his favorite despite the fact that he had no idea what Rhubarb was. "Don't worry, it's yummy" Mrs. LIAYF assured him. He agreed after his first taste, but quickly changed his mind once he got a taste of the delicious Cherry slice. Then, when I slipped a forkful of the Coconut Creme into his mouth his eyes grew wide and he let out a prolonged "Mmmmmmmm!" We had a winner, and Lukas now had a favorite kind of pie.

Plus, by the time we had finished our slices, the rain had softened enough for us to begin our trek back to our house with proper sustenance to get us there. I would venture that the LIAYF family did Pie Day Eve up the way it is supposed to be done.

So Happy Pie Day to you all. I hope are lucky enough to score a slice of one or more of the kinds of pie you like best. We never did get to find out in the famous kids story what were the nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best, but in closing I will leave you with mine - which are in no particular order.

Blackberry
Pecan
Strawberry Rhubarb
Coconut Creme
Key Lime
Peach
Apple
Lemon Meringue
Cherry

Tell me readers. What is your favorite kind of pie?

Little Dudes Coupe

2011-03-11T03:00:00.000-08:00

Gentlemen Start Your Shopping!

I laugh about it now. There are a lot of opportunities to laugh at your former self after becoming a parent. I mean, they seemed so unsanitary, and certainly not a place I would ever want MY kids hanging out in. Grimy is probably the word that comes to mind to best describe my feelings towards them.

Of course now that I am a father - a full time working father who also drives his son to and from school- I know better. There are times, like tonight, when they seem nothing short of a Godsend.

I'm referring, by the way, to those shopping cart cars that line the entrances of local grocery stores. Yes, those grimy, beaten up red cars with the yellow roofs attached to the front of a shopping cart.

But new dad's take note. Now, if I am lucky enough to score one of them while stopping in to pick up a few items for dinner on a solo trip home at the end of the day with Lukas, I consider myself golden.

Take last night for example. After a long hard day at his daycare Lukas was T.I.R.E.D. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything at the house to make for dinner so I had to stop at the grocery on the way home. I had tried a walk in with him under similar circumstances a few days before, with disastrous consequences. He was mobile, tired, hungry, and grabby. Needless to say that outing didn't end so well.

But last night we scored a red car on the way in to the store. He actually wanted a blue version he spied as we pulled up, but once we got there, it had been commandeered by a set of twins. Lukas just looked a me with a 'Dude! Where's my car?' expression, before jumping into a red model. From there I was able to dart from aisle to aisle looking for items on my list, keeping him entertained by zipping around the store at a jogging pace making hairpin turns around newly formed displays of crackers and soda.

I have found the key is to treat the ride like it's the 24 hours of Le Mans. And most importantly, to keep moving. I don't need to tell you how many 'treats' they keep on the bottom shelves at these places. There were several occasions last night where zoomed right past an item while Lukas' arm and finger were outstretched and he implored me to "Stop! Stop! Look! Look Daddy! Look!"

There were even a couple of times when he tried to crawl out the window of the cart car while it was still moving, ala Bo or Luke Duke in the General Lee. I think I even heard him let out a high pitched "Yeeeee Haaaaw!" as we passed that same blue car sailing fast down one aisle. I could have swore one of the twins looked a little like Roscoe P. Coltrain.

And when he wasn't itching to get out and grab something tasty that we passed, he was actually hamming it up with the other patrons. There were several folks who were caught off guard by a tiny little voice inside the car saying "Hello!" as we passed them. Invariably, this brought a few smiles to some otherwise serious faces.

No, I no longer have disdain for the grocery cart kids cars. I now think they are a pretty awesome way for me to keep my son entertained and out of trouble while I am getting some necessary shopping done. And despite being foiled from grabbing all the goodies the store has to offer as he passes, I think the amusement park ride type of atmosphere has Lukas sold on them too.

Plus, as the 3 year old smiling blonde who came up to talk to him while he sat in the car in the checkout line can attest, the fairer sex seem to dig a guy with a cool set of wheels too.

Vroom, Vroom indeed.

Hot Potato

2011-03-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

I've always been a competitive person. Maybe it's because I watched, and participated in, multitudes of sports from a young age. Whatever the reason, I really enjoy the drama and the suspense that naturally comes along with the buildup and conclusion to almost any competition.

Of course, I suspect most people are wired this way to some extent, but for me this competitive nature can sometimes manifest itself from even the most mundane of situations.

Including pre-school playtime.

Such was the case Tuesday when I entered Lukas' classroom to pick him up and head for home. As I usually do, I entered and peered over the wall of cubby's that separates that area from the stage where many of the organized activities take place, such as story time. But on Tuesday another activity was on the agenda. A game of Hot Potato.

The game was just getting started when I entered and Lukas was one of approximately 22 kids gathered around in a circle while a small boom box played kid tunes. I quickly noticed that the kids were passing around a pillow sized, inflated Mylar potato. And whoever was left holding it when the music stopped, was OUT of the game.

I sat and watched as the game went on, and on, and ON some more. But with each halting of the music, Lukas would once again be safe and I could feel my excitement rising. Then, when they were down to approximately 8 kids left and the circle was tightened together I started to think that he might just have a shot a winning the whole thing.

About the same time I started to get extremely nervous every time the 'potato' ended up in his hands, especially when the music had been playing for a lengthy amount of time. I might have even verbally implored him to 'Get rid of it quick, Buddy!" but I'm not sure, because in the excitement things were happening fast.

Then, another dad pulled up beside me, and quickly realized what he was witnessing. I'm fairly certain he too could feel the excitement in the air. "He's got game" he offered with a grin. It was during his next turn with the sizzling starch that Lukas went to pass it to the next kid and it slipped out of his hands darting out of the circle. "Ooooooh" the other dad and I gasped, as another 3 year old boy, one who I had long since assessed as the biggest threat, went to grab it. When he did, the music stopped.

"Yes!" we mouthed to each other.

That left only 3 kids still in the game, including Lukas. Once again the music started, and the potato was passed. Lukas survived yet another near miss. From behind the wall, his cheering section hooted as it was now down to the final two in a truly thrilling match-up.

Back and forth went the potato. On went the music. The tension in the air was palpable as I held my breath despite my racing heart. Then, when I thought I couldn't take it anymore and might have to avert my eyes, the music stopped for the last time!!

And Lukas was left holding the potato!

"Ahhhhhh!" We groaned from the bleachers. The other dad turned to me and joked. "I guess that means no dinner for him". I just smiled as I walked over to Lukas to congratulate him on a good clean game. As it turned out, they couldn't really hear us over the music. And neither actually seemed to care who won.

Lukas just looked at me, grabbed a book and asked "Can you read this to me Daddy?" "You need to go to the bathroom first" I responded.

Then I added, "I'll race you there".

'Cool Toys' Story

2011-03-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

Hours of Good Clean Fun

This past weekend, walking into the kitchen I was greeted by the following matter of fact statement:

"Brandon has more toys than I do".

Lukas was about to leave with his mother for a play date at his buddy's house. He must have spent some time leading up to that contemplating the last time he had visited him, and all the cool things his friend had to play with and share.

"Well, you have quite a few toys too buddy." I responded. It's true, he does have a large number of toys to play with, but in reality we have shied away from making those toys with a lot of bells and whistles. So, in reality Brandon doesn't have a lot more toys. He just has more cool toys. At least perhaps in the mind of a 3-year-old boy. You know, ones that make lots of blasting noises and shoot thing across the room.

As it neared time for them to step out the door I reminded him to grab a few toys of his own to fill his backpack and share with Brandon. At that he went to the other room and returned a few minutes later with a slightly heavier pack.

Then, according to Mrs. LIAYF, later when our little guy and she arrived at thier destination and gathered in his friends living room, Lukas pulled off his backpack and emptied it's contents onto the middle of the floor.

It contained, among a small number of other things: A few random finger puppets and a rock.

Yes, I said a rock. And not even a very cool one at that. Just a small gray round one with an old chunk of cement crusted on it. And Finger Puppets?! He almost never plays with those (maybe a couple of times in nearly 4 years). In fact, these are quite possibly the lamest excuse for toys ever. That is if you can even call them toys. Mrs. LIAYF had told him to pack his red rocket, but apparently he decided against it.

At that point Brandon came over and grabbed Lukas and they both went off to play with his cool toys, leaving Mrs. LIAYF to converse with the other boys parents while the rather sad display sat awkwardly between them the whole time, not to be touched until it was time for them to leave.

Brandon's parents must have secretly thought we were taking minimalism to the extreme. Good thing he didn't also packed one of his large collection of sticks as well. It might have been too much.

I'm not sure if Lukas planned it that way or not. He can't be that ingenious at 3. Can he? But nonetheless, point taken.

SeattleDad's now on the lookout for some more cool toys for his son.