Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

A few weeks ago Jefferson said something nasty about my wife and I responded by saying something rude about his mom. "Sir, I challenge you to a snowball fight. Do you accept my challenge?" It was on.









First he needed to taste the snow. Hmm.












Yep. Seems to be the proper consistency for a ripping good snowball fight.












We referred to Rule 13 of Code Duello:
No dumb shooting or firing in the air is admissible in any case. The challenger ought not to have challenged without receiving offense; and the challenged ought, if he gave offense, to have made an apology before he came on the ground; therefore, children's play must be dishonorable on one side or the other, and is accordingly prohibited.










Rule 22 says:
Any wound sufficient to agitate the nerves and necessarily make the hand shake, must end the business for that day.










So we went back in, ate cookies, and resolved to never let a woman come between us again.

Christmas!!

Ah, Christmas Eve. Santa has used misdirection, leaving the okay presents in the front and the DS hidden under the tree skirt. We got the idea from the Old Man (note the TV).












Check it out. The little detective found the "evidence." Kids are dumb.









In a Christmas tradition that some find a little strange, Jefferson does his annual Mick Jagger impersonation.












Something about this felt like the moment at which the present and the future met.

Pizza Dough (non-Mario, literal edition)!!

Sometimes we make pizza. It always makes me think of the Seinfeld in which Kramer brings a bag of bagels to Jerry and says: "It felt so good to get my hands back in the dough." Horrified, Jerry says: "Your hands were in the dough ..?"












He doesn't use as much profanity as I do when his dough tears. He projects calm.












Calm. Calm with a touch of insanity.












The finished product was sort of amazing looking.









I'm the last one to toot a horn, but mine looked pretty decent too.

Pizza dough!!

When Jefferson had no free will, I was happy to pick his costume for him. It's no secret that I planned to dress him as the entire Justice League (minus Wonder Woman) by the time he was 6. Well, I gave up on that last year when he picked Spider-Man. Although Spider-Man is a Marvel character, he is still in the superhero milleu. Well, we found ourselves in new territory this year. Oh, yeah, Mario time.










He talked me into being Luigi, but we got the costume home and it was obscene looking. It was certainly not appropriate for the G-rated confines of trick-or-treating at the mall. So I threw on the hat and mustache off we went.









Anyone familiar with Mario can see that I'm jumping to hit a question mark block and Jefferson is throwing a fireball. Of course.












Walking around the mall was sort of hilarious. Kids would point at me and say "Hey look! Luigi." Could I look less like Luigi? In any event: Look out, Bowser.

Jefferson, American

Most days we wonder if Jefferson learns anything at his school. When we ask him if he learned anything, the answer is always "Um ... no." Then, totally out of the blue, he springs something like this on you.

Stitch...

When Jefferson was not quite 1, he had to get his eyebrow glued. We avoided stitches. Whew! Until today! Forehead, just off center from his eyebrows, not quite an inch long. Every time you ask him what happened, the story changes a little bit. All versions of the story involve him playing on this jungle gym thing and pretending to be Spider-Man. At some point, he was swinging, he slipped, and the next thing you know, he had a hole in his head (that's how he describes it). It was pretty gruesome. I'm not sure how many stitches, but I remember the doctor using the phrase "three layers of stitches." But I've never seen a bigger, tougher boy. He didn't cry at all. Don't tell him, but I'd buy him a DS if he asked for one.

Loolyville, Part 3

Well ... the day seemed to start off so well (more about that later). No, we didn't attend the world-record setting bucket of chicken in downtown Louisville. Today was Louisville Zoo day. We recently noticed that Jefferson calls any statue "frozen." We saw a sculpture of some roller-skating kids at a mall and Jefferson said: "Hey dad. Look at those frozen kids." Here he is riding a frozen tortoise.









Here he is wrestling a frozen alligator.









Jefferson is attacked by Zombie-Mom (note: frozen).









This kindly creature was certainly friendly with all the kids waving and smiling at it. None of the kids seemed aware that it was likely calmly planning to come through the glass and rip arms and legs out of sockets. Happy day!












Today at the zoo Jefferson maintained two identities: his usual rakish self and that of a monkey. Monkey ...












... Jefferson ...












...???...












We stopped at the first Illinois rest area on the trip home today. A couple of things caught my eye. One, the doors of the stalls in the men's room only came about two-thirds the way up. So anyone walking by could totally check out your business. Word from Mom was the doors in the women's room went all the way up. The second thing was the Illinois State Parks brochure pictured below. "Oh, Ranger!" Huh? Is that "Oh, Ranger, you're incorrigible!"? Or is it "Oh, Ranger, you macho man, you!"? Weird, either way.









Now back to the near disaster. If you've spent any time around Jefferson, you are likely to have encountered P. P is one of Jefferson's baby blankets. When he was just starting to talk, he called his pacifier "Puh" and his blanket "P." P and Puh. Anyway, we packed up at the hotel and left for the zoo, not realizing that we had forgotten P. We called the hotel and, of course, they hadn't found P. We went back to the hotel to ask in person, they took our information and claimed they contact us. We figured P was gone for good. It's the last item from his baby stuff to which he maintains any attachment. And quite frankly, we're more attached to it than he is. We ate lunch, did a tiny bit of shopping and returned to the car to find a message on my phone. They'd found P. This was taken tonight, back at home with our creature comforts. P...












One last thing. Tonight at Walmart I told Jefferson he could pick a car. Every car he picked up was his favorite for 3 seconds, each one replaced by the new favorite. I directed him to the mystery car. I told him that what was inside was a great surprise. You won't know until you open it. I never thought he'd go for it. I couldn't have been more shocked when he did. He carried it around the store and couldn't wait to open it. It turned out to be a VW bug with checkerboard flames and a big #5 painted on the side. Honestly, it was quite lame. Later at Panera he'd given each of us a car. We were all talking about why we liked the car we had. I liked mine because of the color. Mom liked hers because of the metallic shiny paint. Jefferson said: "Dad, you know why I like mine?" Me: "Why, buddy?" Jefferson: "Because you picked it for me." I love that monkey boy.