Go who?

Yesterday, I sat down to watch the USA/Brazil soccer game. It was a big game in that it was the first time that the USA had ever reached the finals of a FIFA international tournament. The USA put up a good fight, but lost 3-2 in the end to the heavily favored Brazil team.

Mrs. Lime and Kali 2.4 were in the room watching it with me. The game started and I was ready to go......

Me: Let's go U.S.A. C'mon! Beat Brazil!

Kali 2.4: Yea! Yea! Go Royals!!!!

Yes, you can tell that we're in the midst of baseball season and my daughter is paying attention every step of the way. She just hasn't sorted out the part where we don't root for the Royals during an international soccer match.

Doctor Kali is in...........

Kali 2.4 and I are on our own for a few days. Mrs. Lime went out to see her sister. I had a chat with Kali about the situation when we got back home after we dropped off Mrs. Lime at the airport.


Kali: Where Mommy go?

Me: Mommy went to see Aunt Shell.

Kali: Mmmmm-hmmmm.

Me: Aunt Shell wasn't feeling very good. She was sad about feeling bad.

Kali: Mmmmm-hmmmm. Aunt Shell sad.

Me: Yep, Mommy went to make her feel better.

Kali: Mommy make her feel better. (pause for thought) Mommy give Aunt Shell Kleenex!

Me: Yes, I'm sure Mommy probably gave her a Kleenex.

Kali: Aunt Shell very sad. Mommy give her TWO Kleenex!


Kali's diagnosis? Two Kleenex make it all better.

I thought race cars were fast?

OK, seriously. We need to have some sort of honor code for people who have NASCAR decals on their car. There should be some kind of rule that anyone that has a numeric NASCAR decal of their favorite driver should be required to drive faster than the speed limit in the LEFT-HAND LANE. Anyone who fails to do that should have their NASCAR fan credentials revoked and all NASCAR decals removed from their vehicle.

If you were the one driving 55 MPH in the left-hand lane in a 65 MPH zone this morning, consider yourself cited as violating NASCAR's fan code. Please remove the '2' from your back window and move into the right-hand lane immediately.

Happy Father's Day (I think?)!

Mrs. Lime and Kali 2.4 had some Father's Day cards at the ready when we got home last night. Kali was excited to help open the envelopes and open up the cards.

After the cards were open, Mrs. Lime brought out a Father's Day ice-cream cake. Kali knew what time it was!

Kali: (singing)

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear Tinkerbell!
Happy birthday to you!

Evidently it wasn't Father's Day after all. It was Tinkerbell's (the dog's) birthday (4 months early)! Ah well, at least the cake was good.

Steep price...........

I'm still watching the news come through online concerning the uprising in Iran by their citizens. It's riveting and terrible all at once. People standing up to men with guns and batons with little more than rocks or their voice.

Technology has obviously played a huge role in this situation. The internet has been used to give information, photos, and videos that provide an unbelievable insight into what's going on. Innocent people being beaten. Innocent people being shot. Innocent people dying.

Women are also playing a major role in this uprising. They obviously are fighting for much more than their male counterparts. Not only do they want what every man already has in Iran, they also want equal rights. Women have often been leading the charges in the streets, telling people not to back down or urging them forward. They want this uprising to happen more than anything and are willing to die for it. One woman in particular has captured this cause through her death. Her name is Neda. She was doing little more than speaking out against her oppressors. For that, she was shot and killed.

I've linked Neda's video below, but it should be made perfectly clear that it a video of a young woman dying. At the same time, it's so important to show the sacrifice that even this one woman made to make her life and others better. Freedom is not free. I'm fortunate enough to live in a country where others have made a similar sacrifice before me. Even now, they are making sacrifices in places like Afghanistan for our protection. In Iran, the people don't have that luxury and are forced to become the patriots on their own. Hopefully, Neda's death won't be in vain.


Neda's sacrifice

Sing along........

Kali 2.4 is quickly becoming quite the singer. She knows a lot of songs from her favorite movies. It's not uncommon to have her break out singing regularly. She has the usual Disney favorites along with movies like Annie or some Sesame Street shows that she enjoys.

The other night, we watched 'The Sound of Music' for her first time. She was zoned in on the movie the whole time. Songs come pretty regularly and the kids in the movie keep the action interesting for her.

Later that evening out of nowhere, she suddenly exclaimed, "The hills have sound of music!"

Granted, it wasn't the exact line ("The hills are alive with the sound of music!"), but it definitely caught me off-guard. She had only seen it once, but she had already pick up on one of the main lyrics. Pretty impressive.

BOOM!

Our family ran out to get some food last night. On our way home, we were in a pouring rainstorm.

As we pulled up to a stoplight, there was a huge flash just across the intersection from us. A lightning bolt had hit the antennae of a Ford Taurus. You could clearly see the bolt enter and leave the car through its tires. The glow on the surface of the road was orange on the surface and blue where it was exiting the tires.

Mrs. Lime was excited as she had never seen a lightning bolt strike the ground before. The amusing part was that the driver of the car after 10-15 seconds got out of her car and started looking around WHILE LIGHTNING CONTINUED TO STRIKE ALL AROUND US.

Note to lady: You just missed being killed by a lightning bolt. Don't tempt fate.

Amazing stuff in Iran..........

I have a friend at work who immigrated to the U.S. two weeks before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. She still has family members in Iran that she speaks with regularly. They have been sending e-mails in recent days surrounding the election to keep her updates.

As many of you likely know, the election was rigged (and honestly not even rigged very well) to allow the conservative incumbant to be re-elected despite a huge groundswell of support for the more moderate candidate within the youth of Iran, who are a large part of the total population. Hundreds of thousands of people have hit the streets in protest, often met with police resistance.

The coming days are SO important for Iran along with the rest of the world. A revolution movement has been forming in recent months and the rigging of the election could be the powder keg that sets off that revolution. While there's no question that Iran could be destabilized in the immediate future, a revolution would be a wonderful thing for that nation and the world. These kinds of things rarely happen in a lifetime, so to see these kinds of events occur is amazing. All anyone can do outside of Iran is give the opposition their support and hope for the best.

I'm a glutton for punishment.......

I'm an extremely loyal fan to my sports teams. As a result, I'm a lifelong fan of the Royals. I remember when they won the World Series in 1985. I remember how good their teams were in my youth. But somewhere around when I started high school, the wheels fell off.

The Royals started so well this year. They were 6-7 games over .500 and looked like their pitching was coming around. In the last 6 weeks, they're 14 games under .500 and sit in the cellar of their division.

Being the sucker that I am, I decided to turn on the game last night and watch Zack Greinke pitch. He pitched extremely well and left the game with a 3-1 lead. 10 minutes and two errors later, the game was tied. Eventually they lost the game in extra innings.

I'll be a Royals fan for the rest of my life, but man, these are tough times.

The world according to Kali..........

Kali 2.3 had the very special opportunity to 'hang out with Daddy' last night. It's basically a situation where I let her sit in bed and watch TV with me for a bit past her bedtime when it's blatantly obvious that she's not tired yet. She bounces off the walls and gets extremely excited when I say it's OK.

Last night, she was goofing around on the bed while I was watching an episode of 'Intervention'. Near the end of the episode, they were in the actual intervention.

Kali: Mommy crying.

Me: Yes, the mommy's crying.

Kali: Daddy crying.

Me: Yes, the daddy's crying.

Kali: Girl crying.

Me: Yep, she's crying too.

(girl in intervention says she'll take the help and hugs parents)

Kali: (jumps over to hug and kiss me) HUG!!!!

Free hugs for Daddy! I should watch interventions with my daughter more often.

**************************

Kali's Uncle Tom and I were watching a movie. At some point, a man jumped from a balcony to his death. Kali looked up to see the man falling. While they didn't show him hitting the ground, they did show him lying there.

Kali: (man's falling) Uh-oh!

Me: Yeah, uh-oh.

Kali: Man fall down.

Me: Yep, he definitely has a boo-boo.

Kali: (pointing at screen now showing blood puddle) Uh-oh!

Me: Yeah, uh-oh.

Kali: Man spill red nail polish.

Me: Yes, he obviously had a nail polish spill. Nice job, sweetie!

*************************

Yesterday, Kali and I rode the Octopus at Worlds of Fun. It's like a spinning ride that goes up and down. Kali was really fired up about the ride. She was skipping/bouncing through the whole line. We got on the ride and she was smiling in-between occasional determined looks.

The ride starts up, and after one time around..........

Kali: (scared) MY DADDY!!! MY DADDY!!!

Me: It's OK, Daddy's holding you. You're fine.

Kali: (silence while white-knuckling the safety bar)

Me: See, it's not that bad.

Kali: MAKE OCTOPUS STOP!!!!!

Me: Well, we have to wait for the end. It'll be over soon.

We rode the rest of the ride with similar conversation throughout the ride. At the end of the ride, she got off and starting hopping towards the gate where Mrs. Lime was waiting for her.......

Mrs. Lime: Did you have fun?

Kali: Mmmmmm-hmmmmm!

I'm sorry, but did Kali and I just ride the same ride? Amazing how terror can lead to a ride assessment of 'fun'.

Back in the water.......

Kali 2.3 was back in the water again on Sunday. Our neighborhood pool opened last week. Kali loves to go swimming. We have a zero-entry pool in our neighborhood, which makes it easy for Kali to walk into the water on her own.

She did the usual things that a 2 year-old does. Splash, kick, throw balls, sit next to Mrs. Lime in the sun, etc. She was also able to figure out where I was and where I was going when I'd yell at her from the top of the water slide. As soon as I emerged from the bottom, she was headed out into the water to meet up with me. Usually it involved giving a hug or laying down in the water with me to kick her feet. Pretty mundane stuff, but incredibly exciting when you're two years old.

Joke of the day..........

Q: How many federal employees does it take to fix a printer?

A: I don't know for sure, but three of them have been standing next to the one just outside my cube for a half hour, and have made absolutely no progress on fixing it.

Just checking up on you..........

Mrs. Lime's sister, Shell, is also currently pregnant along with Mrs. Lime. She's been having some sickness as is expected. Mrs. Lime and Shell talk regularly on the phone. Mrs. Lime has a dual headphone set to talk on her iPhone. Often when the two of them are chatting, Mrs. Lime gives Kali 2.3 one of the earphones to listen in.

Last night, I was upstairs playing a video game that Kali likes to watch. After awhile, Kali went over to a desk and found a pair of headphones in a drawer. She grabbed the headphones and said she was going to call Aunt Shell. The rest was comedy gold.........

Kali: (holding earpiece to her ear and giving off her best mommy impression) Hello, Aunt Shell! How are you doing? Are you working? Are you feeling sick today? I don't know anything else. Bye, Aunt Shell!


She repeated the same phrases over and over again while holding the earpiece. The hilarious part in case you haven't ever listened to any phone calls between Mrs. Lime and Shell is that they both repeatedly make these same statements each and every phone call that they make. Kali's obviously been tuning in, because her impression of her mother on the phone was spot-on, even to the point of changing her voice pitch to sound more like her mom.

I fell back laughing on the bed when she started doing it, which only encouraged the behavior. Kali was smiling at my reaction, but she never broke character which shows great comedic talent. She just kept right on 'calling Aunt Shell' and mimicking Mrs. Lime.

My 2 year-old daughter already has a comedy routine down pat. Fantastic.

Random conversations.........

I've been warned by other parents that little girls can be pretty odd when you chat with them. You could be talking about one topic and they'll switch on the fly to something that's totally unrelated. Take last night when I got home from work......

Me: Hi, Kali!

Kali: (Smiles) Daddy!

Me: So what did you do today?

Kali: Joey!

Me: You went and played with Joey?

Kali: Mmmmm-hmmmmm.

Me: What did you guys do?

Kali: Rocco! (That's Joey's brother)

Me: You played with Rocco too?

Kali: Mmmmm-hmmmmm.

Me: Where did you go?

Kali: I need apple juice.

Me: Did you go play somewhere?

Kali: My chicken piece is hot.

Me: Did you go to Worlds of Fun?

Kali: Mmmmm-hmmmmm.

Me: What did you do there?

Kali: (pauses) I need mustard for my chicken.


At that point, all was lost. Food was the topic and the day's events were an afterthought.

Bossing around Joey........

Kali 2.3 has a play friend named Joey. The two of them play together pretty often. She talks about Joey and his brothers pretty often.

Last night, we were in a store doing some shopping. Kali was sitting in a shopping cart that had two kid seats in it. Each seat had a seat belt. Kali is very seat belt conscious and always wants to put it on when she sits in a seat. So she buckled up her own belt and then began a diatribe to make sure that her friend Joey (who wasn't there) had his seat issues resolved.

A few snippits........

"Joey, sit down in your seat."

"Joey, you put down seat to sit there."

"Joey, you sit on top of seat."

"Joey, you put on your seat belt."

"I want to sit in Joey's seat."

(switches seats)

"Joey sit in Kali's seat."

"Joey put on Kali's seat belt."


I'm just glad the poor guy wasn't there to get his ear chewed off the whole evening. 3 years old and he's already got a girl telling him what to do even when he's not there.

Bad Lime........

Yes, I've been a bad blogger. A stretch where I didn't post at all. I feel great shame.

Busy weekend was the main culprit. Kali 2.3's cousin Gwen 2.0 just had a version upgrade. Big party with little toddlers and babies all over the place. All that chaos made me glad we didn't have octuplets.

I also spread a ton or two (literally) of mulch and dirt in my yard along with my dad. Exhausting stuff in the heat.

We also went over to Worlds of Fun for a bit on Sunday. More of the same rides that Kali loves. Carousel, ball pit, slides, log ride......we did it all. It's a 2 year-old's dreamland.

The pool and waterpark in our neighborhood are now open. I'm sure that will be our next destination this week.