Sunday, January 25, 2009

The Reason the Hibiscus Died

My family has finally returned home. I have missed the rumblings of a full house, and for the next few days, what ever happens, I'll be smiling.

I picked them up at our least favorite airport in the world yesterday around 10:00 in the morning. Anyone that has travelled alone with children can commiserate with Vic. She takcled the trip here from Panama City by herself. This trip consists of a brief jaunt to Atlanta, a four hour wait that starts at the kids bed time, followed by a nine+ hour trip that lands at an airport straight from 1941 Cairo. I hate making this trip by myself; I can't imagine trying with the kids.

About an hour after they landed, Vic came trooping around a corner with 540 pounds of baggage (this is not an exaggeration, we weigh them before boarding), two kids, and a porter to push the heavy stuff. She hadn't slept in 36 hours (hence there is only a picture of a fat cat in a pot this post). The kids had done only marginally better and even the porter looked to be struggling...of course the four hundred pounds in front of him may have contributed to his appearance. At least the trip home from the airport was uneventful, and, following a well deserved nap by the three of them, I finally had something that resembled my family back. I threw the kids in the pool and Vic went back upstairs to start nap number two. I'm hoping the kids are over jet lag by tomorrow. I have awful memories of it from my own childhood, and there is just little to be done until their internal clocks readjust.

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, we are in full potty training mode at the Plank household. The following two conversations occurred about four hours ago and less than three minutes apart. We had been swimming all afternoon, and, in lieu of Sawyer running through the house every ten minutes to the toilet, we had brought his new, singing potty outside (everyone should have a potty that sings to them). This is relevant towards the end of the second conversation. Sawyer is done swimming and is running around the yard naked as all men enjoy doing.

Sawyer (naked squatting near a tree): grunt

Dad: Sawyer, do you need to go poo-poo?

Sawyer (quickly standing up): No

Dad: Are you sure?

Sawyer: No need go poo-poo Dad (with a rather high level of naivete): OK. Just let me know if you need to go poo-poo.

At this point, I turned around and continued to clean up around the pool. Two minutes later, I lift my head to check on Sawyer.

Dad: What are you looking at Sawyer?

Sawyer (now standing in the middle of the driveway, looking at something on the ground with Walker): Yuck!

Dad: What's yuck?

Sawyer: Poo-poo, yuck.

Dad: Did you poop in the driveway?! Four feet from your potty?!

Sawyer: Yuck!

Dad: Sawyer, don't pick that up!! Sawyer, STOP!! DON'T TOUCH THAT!!! Dangit Sawyer.

Sawyer (Now wiping his hands on his naked thigh): Yuck! The previous conversation was editted to remove language unsuitable for small ears.

As you can tell, we are not that far along with the potty training.

I was planning to end with that and publish, but before I could Sawyer decided to add a little more to the post. He has been crying for ten minutes, so I went to check on him. Upon opening the door, he immediately stops crying. He is naked from the waist down, his diaper is in one hand and with the other he points to the bathroom and tells me he needs to tee-tee. I think about this for a second, and then ask him if he has all ready tee-teed. He smiles and proudly says yes. I ask him where he tee-teed. He points to the ground under my bare feet. As quickly as I realize I am standing in a puddle, I understand why.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Poo poo and a new do

I sit here writing this entry late on a Saturday afternoon while watching my new Jimmy Buffett concert DVD (Jimmy's playing Wrigley). I have spent the day removing quite a few items off my honey-do list, sitting in the pool enjoying two coconuts, several beers, beautiful sun and more Jimmy from my Ipod. This evening I am going to meet some friends at a restaurant on the beach for some great food, live music and more beer. If you have read this blog before, you would know that there is no way Vic or the kids would allow me an entire day to pretend to be staying at a Carribean resort. Well, this is another one of those quirks that come with expat life. While I am able to return home for a mere two or three weeks at a time, Vic and the kids stay in Florida for six or seven weeks at a time. I thought this freedom would be more than I could possibly imagine: beer, pizza every night, late nights watching any sporting event I could find, a lack of underwear, and a beard. The truth is that I find myself wandering through a house missing the routine of taking care of the kids, spending time with my wife with an upset stomach because I am no longer eating healthy or at normal times. Don't get me wrong, I'm having fun...it's just not as much relaxation as I thought it would be.

A quiet Saturday Afternoon...there's a coconut in the cooler.

On to the title of this entry: I remember sitting in college, confident that the world was mine to tackle, and planning my route. A great moment usually involved nothing more than an Auburn win, several friends and the fermented beverage of the moment. I nostalgically think back to these times because earlier this week Vic informed me that Sawyer had finally managed to take a dump in the toilet and not his pants, and this news lifted my spirits, made me smile and was reason to celebrate. If you are reading this and have kids, I'm curious to know if you felt the same way about your kid's crap. Anyway, we're not through with the toilet training, but this was a big step. Luckily, Vic is in Panama City so I don't have a picture of the event to post, but if you are curious, let me know and I'll make something up and email it to you. One of the inevitable conclusions of boredom and a lack of supervision is an alteration of my hairstyle. Following Katrina, this resulted in a beard for several months. This time, it resulted in a result in a decidedly different direction. I'll let you all take a look and let me know what you think. After being this way for a couple of weeks now, I'm used to it and I like it. It did take most of that time to get there though. The other outcome of this condition is that I tend to try things I haven't done in the past. Last time it was hang gliding off the side of a mountain. This time I went surfing. Depending on the person here, surfing is either very tame or more bold than running off the side of a mountain. My only comment is that I did receive more injuries surfing than hang gliding. Of the two, I plan to go surfing again tomorrow, but my hang gliding days are probably over, so I'll let you figure out which is more fun. It helped that I was able to get up on my first try and ride several waves to the beach, but I was shocked at the effort involved with moving a surfboard through waves and paddling around. I discovered several muscles that day in both my arms and my legs. Unfortunately, my photographer left before I got up, so the only pictures are on the beach; however, there were other witnesses and if you want testimony, email me and I will provide the names and numbers of these individuals.
A very small lycra shirt It's me...I swear
Hope everyone else's summer is as good as mine has been so far.