The miracle cure

"Daddy I've got a boo boo" How many times have dads and moms around the world heard this? It made me stop and wonder where and how the term boo boo ever originated. I mean Boo Boo seems like an appropriate name for Yogi Bear's sidekick. It just somehow fits. But boo boo for a bleeding contusion? I understand "owey". I could even accept "hurty boo" or "booh hooh". I don't get boo boo. But with that said, I'm not in the business of challenging possibly centuries of the terms usage. What I am fairly sure of is that since the 1920's there has been this miracle cure for boo boos, we know it as the Band Aid.

According to the Band Aid web site, the product was introduced in 1920. The first Band Aid was three inches wide and eighteen inches long. They only sold $3,000 worth of them their first year. I wonder why... "Dude I said I needed to cover this scratch not be mummified". Apparently there have been significant modifications since the early days. Because today they are a must have commodity for any household with kids. Compared to the Band Aid Brand, Louis Pasteur looks like the Barney Fife of childhood ailment cures.

If either one of my girls gets the teeniest, tiniest little scrape or scratch, their first course of action is to alert either me or my wife about it. They'll ease on up or sometimes coming running up like their being attacked by a swarm of killer bees and say "Daddy I've got a boo boo". Of course I respond by inquiring as to where the boo boo is physically located on their person. The pointing then begins. "It's right here". Sometimes I can see the faint outline of a scratch. Other times I can see only clear, beautifully complected childhood skin. I'm pretty sure that even if I had the full personal use of the Hubble Space Telescope coupled with an MRI scan to examine them, I'd still find nothing. The fact of the matter is that whether the injury is real or perceived, in my house 9 times out of 10 the Band Aid is the preferred antidote by both parent and child.

Band Aid knows what they're doing to generate sales. Little kids love stickers. My girls would rather have a cool shiny sticker than a ten dollar bill (we've got training to do on the whole value of money thing). So Band Aid has created all sorts of glitzy character bandages. The one staple Band Aid we must have is Dora the Explorer. When my little girls need a bandage and you give them a Dora bandage everything is right in their world. Conversely, if we happen to have run out of Dora Band Aids and you try to use one of those pale skin colored plain Band Aids that look like they're intended for a corpse, it still works but it's not the same. It's kind of like winning the lottery and then finding out you've got to split the winnings with your ex-wife. You're still up but now you've got mixed emotions. It feels good and disappointing at the same time. To get the true adrenalin rush of the reward, you've got to have Dora Band Aids.

Remember the old Band Aid jingle "I'm stuck on Band Aids cause Band Aids stuck on me". Now that's a classic. The problem was that back then Band Aids were stuck on you. Really stuck on you. I remember what it was like to pull one of those things off.... see below
div>

Back in the seventies the Band Aid would stop the bleeding but I almost would prefer to lose a pint of blood or give up a limb than to have to tear one of those things off. The Band Aid sure has come a long way. For our household they are truly the miracle cure and have saved us plenty of crying and whimpering. Rock on Band Aid Brand!

Catholics in the House!

For the past two years my five year old daughter has attended a Catholic school. I'm not Catholic, my wife is not Catholic, in fact before sending our daughter to that school, we didn't even know one Catholic person. We had heard they were around and had even seen evidence of it via buildings a/k/a churches. For all practical purposes we were completely Cathologically challenged. We chose to send our daughter there because:

1. It was close to our home
2. We like the uniforms
3. The Priest speaks with a lovely Irish accent
4. Thought the steeple on the church was a nice touch
5. Spanish style architecture reminded daughter of Dora the Explorer
6. It was close to our home

After the decision was made, we had to some way figure out how to navigate through this new world. As coincidence would have it, all of my daughters new found friends had parents too. It's strange how your social circle increases exponentially in direct relationship to the number of friends your child has. These parents befriended us and helped us understand to some degree how the whole thing works. We'd get a note in my daughters backpack stating that "Crowning Day" was happening, so take the appropriate action. Crowning Day? What the.... I'd tell the wife "we better call Sally's parents to see what we need to do". There have been so many phone calls made the itemized monthly phone bill is now delivered by Fedex Freight Solutions. I don't think they ever identified what caused Tom Hanks plane in the movie Castaway to go down, but it very well could have been our phone bill. From the Our Fathers to the beads and statues it's all very foreign. But I like it. You learn something new almost every day. As an example, heretofore for me a hail mary has always been a football play ala 1984 Doug Flutie playing for Boston College against Miami. That my friends was a Hail Mary. At my daughters school it has something to do with like saying hello to Mary. I'm not sure what it means there, but I know they're not talking about football.

As part of our initiation into the system, my wife and some other mothers from my daughters school started a monthly dinner club type thing. The first one was a bit weird and awkward, second one better, third one there was beer so it's been all gravy since then. The host couple decides what to have, cooks the meal and basically is just a good host. The first meal we hosted was awesome. Good chatter about this that and the other. It was Halloween time so we had a little Jack O' Lantern carving contest. It was golden. Man we were riding high after the party saying to ourselves how all of our guests enjoyed themselves. The challenge is... how do you sustain that positive energy and interaction the next time we hosted. Now here is where my genius kicks in. We strategically manipulated the next hosting time to coincide with St. Patty's day. Now we had a theme with so many good food options it was ridiculous. I got to work preparing a gorgeous corn beef and cabbage, an Irish Stout Stew (this is the gold standard of stews) and for the kids a home made macaroni and cheese. I was ready and looking forward to the evening. Guests started showing up. From the start something seemed awry with the facial expressions and off kilter glances between the visiting moms and dads. One of the Moms actually showed up just to tell us that their entire family had suddenly become ill. Then the final couple shows up carrying a cheese pizza. I asked them "what's up with the pizza"? These people are so nice they were trying to be as diplomatic as possible.... Charlie's Mom says it's Friday night and it's Lent. I said "I didn't lend anything to anybody"... I didn't get it.... then the light bulb went off, somebody had lent her the pizza and she couldn't say no. Needless to say, my family ate stew and several variations of corn beef for the next week. Sometimes it's unwise to stray too far out of your knowledge zone.

All joking aside, our experience with the Catholic church has been completely positive. We've met some unbelievably nice people who we now consider dear friends. I'm still not Catholic and almost surely never will be. From now on when one of these friends comes over for dinner I'm going to announce their arrival by proclaiming "Catholics in the house!" After that dinner stunt I'm not sure I want to know how they would proclaim my arrival.

Ricky and Dakota

Over the past several months we have had a uninvited daily visitor to our backyard. The dude crawls over our fence saunters across the lawn and helps himself to whatever he wants. He does this with complete disregard for common courtesy, never mind the fact that he's trespassing. My Baby Momma and I are concerned. Being a complete stranger, we tagged this guy with the name of Ricky... Ricky the Racoon.

Ricky has found himself a little honey hole of food from our dog Dakota's Autodine feeder. I have known Dakota longer and possibly spent more on him than any other member of our family. He and I have memories that go back to our bachelor days. No one else in the house shares these memories nor would we want them to. I've always told him (usually while drinking beers together) some day he would earn his keep. The day would come where the investment would pay off. Dakota would just look back at me with a steely resolve as if to say "I got your back brother". Now that day has come and he's like the Maytag Repairman. He sat around for so long without any calls he's gotten fat and lazy and nobody is buying what he's selling. The big oaf just lays with his head between his paws and watches Ricky devour his food. Not a problem... for the last 12 years there always been plenty. I heard the boss man telling the little ones just the other day that it was important to share. Hey what's a few kibbles between mammals?

All the while my little girls love to watch Ricky. For some reason my two year old usually spots him first. Excited chirps of "Wicky here, Wicky here" set us into alert condition two. This requires one adult to maintain a defensive position on the back deck perimeter. A shovel or some other object that can inflict blunt force trauma to the head is required. As long as Ricky keeps his distance, we agreed to live in peaceful co-existence. That was until my brother-in-law came over about a week ago.

Brother in Law brought with him a friend of his. My Brother in Law is pretty much fearless and has no reservation about chasing a rattlesnake down a river (I've seen him do it). He comes up with this genius plan of surrounding Ricky and somehow trapping him (the details weren't all that detailed). Well, us other two guys aren't going to look like girly men so we say "yeah... let's do it". I've got to give bro in law props though, his plan would have worked. The problem wasn't the plan, it was the execution of the plan. Once Ricky identified that he was being surrounded and that the walls were closing in he started to make his Houdini like moves. First running at me like an animal in strict survival mode. I yelled (some onlookers have described it as a shrill scream) to scare Ricky... yeah I wanted to scare him into submission. Well he turned and ran at bro in laws friend. That dude jumped out of the way so high and so fast he looked like the FTD man leaping to deliver a dozen roses. Ricky escaped through a hole under the fence. I've got to give it to Ricky though. He was smart enough to not run at the one guy who might have tried to catch him.

All the while Dakota laid there and watched. He had a look on his face as if to say, "These guys are a joke. What kind of half baked plan was that? If I didn't have this here thyroid condition I would have tracked that SOB down and showed him what a good chewin on is". We've only seen Ricky once since the event and my daughters keep asking me where he is. Somehow they know what rake I was holding when Ricky made his run at me. My daughter Kinsey spotted the rake the other day and asked me if that was the rake I scared Ricky off with. I like her version of what happened. It's good to be Dad who they believe to be fearless.

My Girls Dad

As any parent can tell you (and probably will at some point), rasing kids is an experience. A definition of experience is "something that happens to somebody". Occasionally my girls will have me truly believe that were my hair on fire while sipping a molotov cocktail it would be a more pleasant something than dealing with their "crises". The level of anxiety that Capt. Joseph Hazlewood felt while running the Exxon Valdez ashore is mild in comparison to my two year old when she drops her eating utensil on the ground. Then there is Kinsey, my five year old daughter. She has her blanky that is still a great comfort to her. I think if everyone had a blanky like hers there would be a lot less need for Paxil, Lexapro and a host of other mind altering drugs. However, the physical connection is very real and very strong. See catastrophe in Websters for an idea of what happens when she loses it. Just to top off the day with a generous dollop of frustration, the blanky's abscence is usually discovered at bedtime. Let the great blanky hunt begin....at 8:30 PM.

With all of that said, almost every day my two girls make me laugh, make me proud and make me so happy to be their dad. The refreshing perspective they bring to a day by inquiring, misusing words, telling a joke that makes no sense and laughing is simply awesome. The intent of this blog is to share some of these weekly joys and smiles with others. Sometimes it will be my perspective on being their Dad and other days it will be my girls perspective on things in this world.

I'm looking forward to memorializing here thoughts and moments that otherwise would be forgotten. Additionally, sharing the somethings that happen to this somebody will be fun. See you soon.

Brian