If you're reading this........

it means that I have officially been removed from the ranks of fertility by a scalpel and scissors at the hands of my urologist.

I'm officially infertile barring the 1 in 400 occurance where the tubes grow back together on their own. So if Mrs. Lime suddenly is pregnant at any point in the future, you know that I've hit the jackpot in all the wrong ways.

See Daddy!

Kali 3.0 has been looking at an old engagement photo of Mrs. Lime and I over the past few weeks. Yesterday, she brought it over to me. She pointed at my head on the picture and said..........

"See Daddy? You've got hair there!"

That's right. My ever-so-honest daughter just pointed out I'm going bald.

For what it's worth, I'm likely going to give my head a good buzz in the coming months to remove all doubt, but Kali was nice enough to confirm that aging is actually taking place.

Discipline...........

Last night, we were hanging out in the living room. Kali 3.0 was playing on the couch across the room from me. At some point, Kali starting doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing.

Me: Kali, you stop that right now!

Kali: No, you stop Daddy! 1! 2! 3! 4! 5! You stop!

Yes, that's correct. I just got a warning count from my child. Kali ended up being the one in trouble, but I suppose she took her pound of flesh in the process by counting at me.

My monthly political post.........

I'm annoyed far too often by the need the news networks have to focus far too often on the extreme kooks of the political spectrum.

Religious right says something stupid? You can be sure it'll be shown.

Glenn Beck saying something stupid? Yep, it'll be on TV repeatedly.

Any Hollywood political wanna-be's make a dumb statement? Oh, it's definitely gonna be on.

While we're presented with all of the various forms of stupidity on both sides of the argument, there are solid, well-informed arguments that aren't presented at all to the public. Why? Because they're solid, well-informed arguments that require far too much thought to properly assess. Who wants to waste time thinking through the possible solutions to the problems facing our country?

With that, I present a speech by George Will. You don't have to agree with what he's saying to know that he's done a great job of assessing the problems and presents his ideas about those problems in a well-reasoned speech that still provides sharp wit to keep the audience's interest. It's a 30 minute speech, but it never is boring. Would it be too much to ask the gossip-like news networks to present more of this instead of the stupidity that they currently circulate?

George Will's Speech

She's kinda smart (Volume 1)........

Kali 3.0: I see it Daddy! There it is! (Points to Taco Bell)

Me: That's right! We're going to get tacos, aren't we?

Kali: I see it!

Me: OK, we're going to get tacos!

Kali: Turn left, Daddy! Turn left!

Me: Would it be OK if I turned right so we could go to Taco Bell?

Kali: Yeah, turn left.


So she knew where the place was. She just didn't know left from right. We can't all be perfect.

She's right (Volume 2)..............

Kali 3.0: Daddy, can you put the tops back on the castle towers?

Me: Sure. (Starts to place cones on top of cardboard castle that she's been coloring)

Kali: Daddy NO! You're not putting it on right!

Me: I'm putting them on top of the towers.

Kali: No DADDY! You're putting them on the short towers. They go on the tall towers. (points to the taller two towers)

Me: Oh, you're right. Sorry about that.

Kali: See, I told you so.

She's right..........

Kali 3.0: Daddy, I want an egg please.

Me: OK, do you want a color in your egg?

Kali: I want PURPLE!

Me: Hmmm, I don't think we have purple.

Kali: Yes, we do.

Me: I don't think so. Let me see what colors we have.

Kali: Yes, we do.

Me: No, we have (pointing at bottles as I say the colors) blue......green.....pink......and purple. Oh, I guess we do have purple.

Kali: See, I told you so.

Spring weather?

We had a hint of warmer days to come. It was around 50 degrees outside today. After a punishing winter (it takes a lot for me to dislike winter) where we had several days where it barely got above zero, we're finally closing in on spring. We're also in the last part of February, which means that March Madness is right around the corner. It's my favorite time of the year. Can't wait to get the conference and NCAA basketball touranments started and see what happens. Hopefully we receive another March surprise from Mizzou again this year!

The Queen of Heat

Mrs. Lime was shocked at my previous post that I was getting hot while she was pulling extra blankets out to keep warm the other night. She said she was so cold that she was considering moving to Kali's room where it was warmer.

I told her I'd just sweat it out. I've got plenty of t-shirts to soak up the perspiration.

The great thermostat debate........

We've got issues.

My wife can't keep warm enough. I sweat profusely if the thermostat is set anywhere above 68 degrees. Never was that more evident than this morning.

I was rolling around in bed feeling hot and sweaty. I was peeling back the covers and trying to keep cool. Finally got up when the alarm went off and took a shower. When I was done and came back out into the bedroom, Mrs. Lime had already got up and got a heavy blanket out of the closet and put it on top of our duvet. I double checked the thermostat: 70 degrees.

This will be a "Til death do us part" issue. I don't see any resolution.

Yeah me!

I did it!

First time ever that I've managed to put Giselle 0.2 to bed by feeding her a bottle and having her fall asleep while feeding. Big milestone.

I have no idea how long she'll sleep, but I'm focused on baby steps. The glass is definitely half-full.

Kali 3.0!!!!!!!!

Today is Kali 3.0's third birthday! Woohoo!

She's got a big day planned. She's requested to go eat over at the "dinosaur place". That's code for T-Rex, which is a restaurant with large automated dinosaurs and huge fish aquariums. It's a great place to go eat. Plenty of stuff for a three year old to look at while waiting for the food to show up.

When we get home, she's got a birthday cookie ready to eat. It's got pink icing on it (go figure) and she's already picked out a Little Mermaid candle that she wants to put on top of it. You can never have enough princesses in the house.

Happy Birthday Kali!!!!!!

Holy information overload!!!!!!

I went with my family and my wife's family to Lake of the Ozarks this weekend to go to a grape and wine convention. Learned tons of stuff about the industry and about wines. Great stuff.

Kali 2.11 and Giselle 0.2 both had a lot of fun playing with their Grandma and Grandpa while we were down there. Giselle was constantly trying to talk with Grandma and the rest of the people. She sees everyone else (especially Kali) chattering away and wants to get involved. She has started waking up around 3:00-3:30 AM to eat of late, but I think that has more to do with her growth than anything else. The girl likes to eat!

Kali had an early birthday celebration with the family and got to open a few birthday presents. She also read a lot of books with Grandpa. She was really wound up all weekend long. All those grandparents along with Mommy and Daddy aand Giselle created a lot of excitement.

Back to the daily grind today. Gotta make some money.

Ready to go already........

Kali 2.11 has been awfully excited over the last couple of weeks since we told her that we're going to DisneyWorld in April. She's constantly focused on it in her mind. Anytime you ask her where we're going tomorrow or something like that, she immediately responds "DisneyWorld!". We then have to talk her down and help her understand that isn't happening until April. Unfortunately, telling a 2 year old that it will be two months doesn't really register on the time scale.

She's pretty fired up about eating breakfast at Cinderella's Castle. I told her we could go over to Cinderella's place on one of the mornings and eat breakfast. She gets all starry-eyed thinking about what it would be like to go to Cinderella's house. It's sort of odd in that, to us adults, it's a fun fantasy that you engage in when you go to DisneyWorld. But if you're a two year old who watches Disney movies, it's all real. She's going to walk into Cinderella's Castle, sit down for breakfast, and Cinderella's going to wander by our table to say 'Hi Kali!'. Kali, after having a mind meltdown at the sight of one of her favorite characters, will be very shy and hopefully be able to pull herself together enough to take a picture with Cinderella.

Crazy stuff. She'll likely talk about this trip for months.

The new kid..........

We're slowly learning the personality of Giselle 0.2 and how different she is than Kali 2.11.

One big difference is that Giselle isn't terribly interested in a pacifier. If I'm in a pinch and Mrs. Lime will be available in 15 minutes to feed Giselle, I can sometimes hold the pacifier in place and Giselle will reluctantly suck on it. But she'll shoot it out within 15-20 seconds if you aren't holding it in place. It makes for a bit more crying when she's hungry. The good part is that you don't have a kid crying because she wants the pacifier, which can sometimes be a mixed signal when they're young.

Giselle is also big on motion. She likes to swing or walk around a lot. She will sit occasionally if you get her upright, but even that has its limitations.

I also button up my shirt all the way to the top when holding Giselle. She grasps a lot with her hands when she's hungry or upset. As a result, she often reaches right for any chest hair around my collarbone. There's nothing more painful than a irritated child who doesn't care if they harm you in any way.

Giselle is a very happy baby. If you're talking to her or she spots certain things that she likes, she'll smile away. I spent 15-20 minutes with her sitting on my stomach last night before I put her to sleep. Just chatted with her. She grinned the whole time and thought it was just the best thing ever. She also thinks Kali is very entertaining. She'll sit and watch everything Kali does and soak it all in. I think Giselle is going to progress much faster than Kali did just because she's going to learn a lot of things from playing with Kali.

Giselle also sleeps through the night and has for a month. I can't tell you how much easier that makes it for us as parents. It's so much easier to function during the day when you're not getting up 2-3 times every night. We're extremely fortunate to have a child that has differences from the first child that are all generally positive.

Computer geek 2.11.........

Kali 2.11 has a Sesame Street game on the computer that she likes to play. She has Mrs. Lime or I start it up for her and help her out with doing the different activities.

Last night, Mrs. Lime and I were sitting on the couch watching TV when we suddenly heard the familiar music from the Sesame Street game. We both quickly realized that neither of us had started up the game for her. She was sitting over in front of Mrs. Lime's computer grinning from ear to ear at us.

Kali had:

-Opened up the computer
-Turned it on
-Moved the mouse pointer over the Sesame Street icon
-Double clicked on the icon to start the game

Mrs. Lime told Kali that she was so proud of her for starting up the game all by herself. Kali simply smiled and said, "I'm smart!".

I'm not sure whether to be proud or frightened at this point. I'm thrilled to have a smart child, but.............