War

I hesitate to post this since I don't like to talk about my wife's affliction much. But as a matter of record so we remember what we did and when, here it is.

The challenging year continues of Mrs. Lock going through full body radiation, spot radiation, liver surgery in July, intense back pain and countless tests, scans and blood draws to combat the dozens of tumors that plague her body, she has started chemo therapy as of yesterday. The schedule is every three weeks for unknown number of years.

She's 35. That's all I have to say for now.

More toddler speak

More of my 3 year old daughter's vocabulary

hamburger = hangerburr
dinosaur = dinasorn
temperature = pentager

gloves = glubs

M&M's = M's M's

Bathing suit = Babing Suit

High five = Have a five

Public Property

The problem with public property is that you'd have to follow someone else's rules and people can come up with some pretty stupid rules.

Cell Phone Mixup

I've had my cell phone for a couple of years now. I've had the number even longer, about 10 years.

One afternoon, I was leaving work. I don't get a signal at my desk so I shut off the phone during the day to save the battery. When I get out to the parking lot, I turn it on and it plays catch up with any calls/voicemails/text messages I missed during the day. My phone chimes, I have a text message.

"Hey, what are you guys doing tonight?"

My phone doesn't recognize the phone number or it would've put someone's name on the header corresponding to an entry in the address book. I don't recognize the phone number either. So I reply.

"Who dis?"

"Mark," a few minutes later.

I know a Mark. He's very social, looking for things to do with friends so I text back.

"[Mrs. Lock] out of town. Home alone."

I get the reply.

"Who's [Mrs. Lock]?"

So I know there's a crossed wire somewhere. I text back,

"Don't know you. Sorry."

That's the end of it. No responding texts.

The next day, I get up, check my phone. There's a missed call. From the same mystery number that text me yesterday. There's no voicemail, so I blow it off.

That night, I'm sitting at my computer. It's about 11:30p. I've got my cell next to me and it rings. It's the same phone number from the strange text messages. I answer.

"Hello?" Long pause. "Hello? Who is this," I ask.

"Mark," the caller replies.

"How can I help you Mark?"

I hear the phone pull away from the speaker's mouth as he says "What the f-?" Disconnect.

I go back to the computer. Maybe 30 minutes later, it's after midnight now, I get a text. It's from you-DONT-know-who.

"Are you upstairs?" it reads.

At this point, my mental wheels start turning. I am indeed upstairs. But this guy has mistaken me for someone else. I look around and remembered I opened the curtains and windows fully to cool the room off. It's dark outside. I can't see anything but people could see in if there's anyone standing out there.

I text back. "I don't know you."

He texts back. "I'm downstairs."

Oh crap! I fly up out of my chair, I start turning on all the lights, in the hallway. I fly down the stairs, turn on the entry hall light, more hallway lights, living room, dining room, kitchen. I'm checking all the locks on the doors. They are still locked. There can't be anyone in my house. This guy must have the wrong number I think to myself despite being a little freaked out at the moment.

I hear some noises outside so I open the back door and step out onto the porch. There is a party going on a few doors down. It's very typical coming from that house though. If they weren't noisy late at night, I'd know something is wrong. I listen for any other noises, movements in the dark. There is nothing.

I come back inside, close the door. Lock it. Decide to go to bed. I take my cell phone with me but since this guy is a night owl, I don't want his calls waking me up. So I silence the ringer.

Finally I get to sleep after the adrenaline leaves my system. I get up the next morning and the first thing I do is look at my phone. No missed calls. No text messages.

I recounted the whole story to my wife over the phone. She mentioned she sold her old cell phone in a garage sale the day before and I could be getting messages from that. It's possible although the area code she sold the phone in does not match the one calling me. I decide to do nothing.

Later that day I get one more message from Mystery Mark. It says "Want to play vball at vic?" Sounds harmless. Not very stalker-like. I ignore that one and that's the last I've heard from them.

Lock Family Goes to the Fair

Took the family to the State Fair last night. We go every year but for the first time, this year, we went by train. Daughter Lock loves trains. Big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine (most kids her age seem to be). This was her first time on one after talking about them incessantly. I think she was a bit surprised people could actually climb inside and use it as transportation.

Once we got to the fair, Daughter Lock had another first. She rode a roller coaster. A year ago this time, she was apprehensive about a carousel ride we took together. That nervous look in her eyes as the plastic horse went round and round, up and down. This year, she's really showing her maturity. She saw the roller coaster and demanded she "ride the caterpillar." We tried to talk her out of it but she was insistent. I went and bought a couple of tickets, one for me one for her and we went on the caterpillar roller coaster. She loved it. I told her to raise her arms when we went around as is coaster tradition and she did it. She did a bit of friendly screaming as we roared down the track at 30 mph.

After it was over, I asked if she wanted to go again. She said,

"No. It's too scary." But she said it with a smile.

On the train ride back, she zonked out in the seat, exhausted from trying new things.

Growing Up

My kids are growing up fast. Daughter Lock is all but potty trained. Son Lock can sit up on his own for quite awhile, roll over in crib to lie on his stomach. I like it all very much.

Little people.

Why are people so anal about toilet paper?

Easy Reads

Have you ever seen the Cliff Notes on the Chronicles of Narnia books? They say:

"Read the book."

Three Year Olds

My oldest child is three years old. It's a very interesting age for a parent to observe. It's when she is most like a person but also when she is very demanding. And these aren't demands that make sense or a essential to survival to a fellow human being. Three-year-olds want the DUMBEST things! And if they don't get it, you are certainly going to hear about it.

I think I've said this before here, but kids are text book cases for severe bouts of OCD.

My theory on this is that the world is just beginning to make sense to them. There might be some order after all to this crazy environment, which is quite a shock to them. Out of the womb, everything is chaos, always has been and they're ok with that.

As adults, we despise chaos. We spend our whole life getting things in order despite the laws of entropy and the universe.

For a child, order it's something new and they're very bad at it, amateurs. So they don't know what's important and what's not important. They could take the time to sit down, draw an outline of what's necessary and discard what isn't. Unfortunately, it's rare for someone so young to reach this level of reasoning (maybe that's a good thing for development reasons) so it's just easier to demand it for everything in their life. Shoot now, ask questions later...MUCH later. YEARS later! Maybe never as is the case for many adults.

If you leave the room, my daughter yells out, "I'll be back." She will continue to yell this until you acknowledge her. And you can't just acknowledge it with a nod or something affirmative. You have to repeat the phrase verbatim. This means the following phrases are unacceptable:

"Yup"
"Yes"
"Ok"
"I'll be back in a minute."
"I will be back."
"I'll be right back."
"I'll be back, Daughter."
"Daddy will be right back."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Hush."
"Ok that's enough!"
"Do you want to go to your room?"
"Stop crying."
"Ok you don't have to go to your room, just stop crying."
"And quit asking that. Ok fine! I'LL BE BACK!"

And you better say it loud, because she is repeating the phrase every half a second. If she doesn't hear you, the cycle continues until she does. Same format for "Good night" "Going bye bye?" "You hungry?" "Carry me"

Other evidence of OCD in children, when my daughter goes to bed, she usually takes a few toys. Each night it's different toys but when she falls asleep, I take the toys out of her bed. In the morning. when she wakes up, nay before she is completely awake, still rubbing her eyes and yawning, she will ask where toys x, y and z are! Imagine how obsessive you have to be to think of the items you carried to bed a day ago and can perform total recall of its inventory after sleeping all night?

I don't think it's her daily schedule that makes her this way. She doesn't have a strict schedule per se. She goes to bed at varying times (it is every night, just random hours), eats at varying times, takes baths at varying times. I can't imagine how demanding she'd be if we did have her on such a schedule.

So there's the good stuff too. Memory like a computer.

Her maternal grandfather has a ring tone on his phone that's the Jenny song (867-5309, for a good time, for a good time caaaaaaaallll). She loves this ring tone, breaks into song as soon as his phone rings.

Weeks later we were at Jimmy Johns getting a bite to eat when the Jenny song came on over the sound system. The chorus hadn't even started, just the beginning of the song with the first verse and my daughter started bopping her head to the music. She blurted out the word "Grandpa" and then did the sign language sign for Grandpa. That's a neat trick.

Another time, we were watching the movie Gone Baby Gone with Casey Affleck. I tell her the names of the movies I am watching. She repeated the title a few times during the show, but for the most part played with her toys while I watched the movie.

Several weeks later, I'm watching The Assassination of Jesse James starring who other than Casey Affleck as Robert Ford, James' assassin. He's dressed in 19th century clothes, has a ragged black hat on. My daughter, playing with her toys in front of the TV takes one look at the screen, looks back to her toys and says "Gone Baby Gone."

So she knows and remembers stranger's faces she's only seen once. Color me impressed.

Now if we can just get her to pee in something other than her diaper.

"Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people."
-- Oscar Wilde "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," 1891