Day 461 - Cartoon Wednesday

Day 460 - Crazy Grandma Ichikawa Storytime

Break out the bubbly and snap on your rice patty hats because here is the last entry of 2008 for...Crazy Grandma Ichikawa Storytime!

COOKIE MOMSTER

When we left Santa Clara, Lisa's sister, Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse Auntie Susan, gave us a box of homemade holiday cookies. I love cookies. If there was a movie like Sophie's Choice where I had to make a decision between the kids or a freshly baked sheet of chocolate chip cookies, let's just say you better grab me a glass of cold milk and sell the kid's stuff on Craigslist.

Through the day, we were all snacking on the cookies. Suddenly, the cookie box disappeared. Not in the living room. Not in the kitchen. Not in Emma's crib. Where did the cookies go? I'll tell you where. My mom hid the cookie box in her bedroom!

"Mom? Where did you put the cookies?" I asked.

"You guys eating too much of my cookies! I hid dem! You nevah find!" cackled Crazy Grandma.

I'm not too sure how Crazy Grandma got the idea that the entire box of cookies belonged to her, but it's not too surprising. In the past she has also hoarded a bucket of fried chicken, a bag of rice, and a box of Bagel Bites.

Of course I went snooping through her bedroom looking for the cookies. Awkwardly, I found all of the cookies in her underwear drawer. Odd hiding place, but no less odd than Lisa stashing tampons in a rainstick.

I took out all of the cookies, and replaced it with a note. The note said: Thanks for the cookies! Love Emma.

Last night, Crazy Grandma craved some cookies. So she went into her underwear drawer only to find an empty bag with a note from Emma. From across the house, you could hear Crazy Grandma shout, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeey! Where maaaaaaaaaaah coooooooooooookies?!?!?!" with a weird vocal mix of Fat Albert, Cookie Monster, and Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

AT THE MOVIES

We rented several movies at Blockbuster over the holiday break, and my mom had interesting commentary for each one.

"Eagle Eye"
For the first ten to fifteen minutes of the movie, my mom was trying to figure out who/what was Eagle Eye. There was a close-up of a missile, and my mom said, "Is dat eagle eye?" Cut to a close-up of a terrorist. "Oh! Dat eagle eye?" Pan to a government agent. "Maybe dat eagle eye?" Soon she gave up and fell asleep. She woke up at the very end of the movie to find out what Eagle Eye was all about. She then said with wisdom, "I knew dat was eagle eye!"

"Mamma Mia"
For the first ten to fifteen minutes of the movie, my mom was trying to figure out who was the father of the daughter. Close-up of Pierce Brosnan. "He dah father!" Close-up of Colin Firth. "He dah father!" Close-up of Stellan Skarsgard. "He dah father!" Once again, she gave up and fell asleep. Again, she woke up at the very end of the movie to find out what happened. She then said with even more wisdom than the last time, "Dat stoopid."

"The Dark Knight"
An hour into the movie, my mom said, "Is this Iron Man?"

Day 460 - POSTING DELAY

Our original plan was to return to Los Angeles yesterday, but we are still here in Sacramento because both of the kids are sick. Andrew caught a cold first, and Emma followed about 2-3 days later. Neither Lisa or I are sick (yet), but are pretty tired tending to two needy and whiny babies -- three if you count Auntie Anne (pretzel maven). I should have the last Crazy Grandma Ichikawa Storytime entry for 2008 posted soon, and shortly after will post New Year's resolutions for the Ichikawa family.

And if you'll excuse me, I'm off to wash my hands clean of baby boogies.

Day 459 - Poll Results & New Poll

Two weeks ago, I asked how should I keep up with the blog during the holidays. Forty-two percent thought I should post every day like I have been for the past year. Thirty-one percent were a little more forgiving and would understand if I had to skip a day or two. And twenty-six percent thought I should post something every day even if it was just a picture or a video. As you can tell from the past week, I kept up the entries although some of them were just some terrible Nhat Anne Geddes photographs (Boy...what a waste of money that was!). Seeing that there are only a few days left of 2008, I think I will be able to keep up with the entries for the rest of the year. And if not, I would probably have to blame the expired egg nog that I just drank. My tummy don't feel so good now...

**********

Since this is the last poll of 2008, I thought I should select a poll question that somehow reflects this blog over the past year. At first I thought I would ask which Crazy Grandma Ichikawa story was your favorite, but how do you select the best one when they're all equally crazy. My next choice was going to be what was the craziest blog entry of the year, but then it would be a Crazy Grandma Ichikawa story and, once again, they're all equally crazy.

So the question I finally came up with is this: What was your favorite part of the blog from the past year? And for personal reasons, I did not include as a choice any story that would further emasculate me.

Day 458 - Christmas (Not Really A) Break: Part 2

To quickly summarize where we last left off: cow manure, impaled kids, and white ass hairs. Wow. What kind of blog is this?

Around 10am on Christmas Day, we packed up the car once again and drove to Sacramento. It was a quick two hour drive, and when we arrived we fed the kids lunch and immediately opened our presents.

If there's one thing Crazy Grandma Ichikawa loves to do besides mangling the English language, it is guessing her presents. With every present she gets, she has to guess what it is. For instance, we gave Crazy Grandma a necklace this year. Her monologue went something like this:

CRAZY GRANDMA
Hmm. What dis? (shake shake) Hmm. I tink it kind of jewerlee. (shake shake) Hmm. Maybe earrings. (tear tear) Wait. Too big for earrings. (rip rip) Hey. Too much scott tape! Gimme scissor! (cut cut) Wow dis tough for old lady! Hahaha! Whee! (cut cut) Okay dere! Hey what dis? I KNOW! It must be necklace! I bet it necklace! (open open) Lot of boxes. Dis crazy all dese boxes! I poopy out! (open box) Yup! See! It necklace! I knew it! Pretty good huh! I good guesser! Gimme next present! Whee! Haha!

If anyone out there is in a drama class and is in desperate need for an audition piece, please feel free to use this piece of dialogue. Just don't come whining to me when you flunk the class.

My parents gave Lisa and my sister Anne (pretzel maven) these pairs of funky looking socks. One pair is blue, the other purple, and they're both ugly. Here they are:


Soon the socks became a running joke. We started taking pictures of everyone opening up their gifts with a pair of these ugly socks:


To top it off, we covered the kids' limbs with these socks. The kids looked like cross-bred mutated Muppets. Emma liked the socks, but Andrew seemed a bit horrified by the whole experience:


Everything else about Christmas was great, except for the fact that Grandma and Grandpa's house is not exactly 100% baby-proofed. Just like when we were at Grandma Ichinaga's house, the kids find their new environment absolutely fascinating. What we may see as ordinary items such as walking canes, prune juice, and large print Reader's Digests, the kids see swords, magical potions, and large print Reader's Digests.

For the most part, there isn't any thing inherently dangerous around the house, but there are just every day items that could be unsafe for fifteen month old kids. For instance, my mom has a small stack of magazines (i.e. elderly porn) in the corner of the living room. The kids started to stand on it and they would slip and slide as the magazines would fall down.

Lisa and I just end up telling the kids not to touch something for the majority of the day. "Don't touch the television screen!" "Don't touch the shoe rack!" "Don't touch the antique bear trap!"

We're not too sure how long we'll be here in Sacramento, but I'm sure as long as we're here there will be at least one last Crazy Grandma Ichikawa entry before the end of 2008.

Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Day 457 - Christmas (Not Really A) Break: Part 1

On December 21st, we packed up the car and left for our trip to Northern California. Instead of leaving at night, we decided to leave right before the kids took their first nap. First stop, Santa Clara.

When you take Interstate 5 and pass Coalinga, you drive past a gigantic field of cows. I've become pretty adept at quickly turning off the a/c and fan in the car lest we get overwhelmed by the stench of wet cow and manure -- unless you're a fan of Calvin Klein's new cologne Eau de Vache Humide et Merde. Even with all of the ventilation off in the car, you still get a little whiff of bovine bowel. Just as we finished passing the cow patties, we started hearing someone coughing in the back; it was either one of the kids or asthmatic Uncle Akio. It was Andrew, and he was coughing and wheezing and contorting his face into all kind of crazy. I guess the smell of cow poop was too much for him, although it's not like Andrew's Eau de Merde doesn't smell.

We arrived at Santa Clara with no problem, and the kids adjusted to their new bedroom fairly quick. What they did not get used to was hardwood floors and steps. When Emma and Andrew started walking around on their socks for the first time, it looked like a bunch of first time ice skaters being chased by a loose zamboni. We also had to teach the kids how to get up and down steps by telling them to sit down and scoot down to the next level. Unfortunately, it took them a few times and falls to get a hang of it. Fortunately, the kids' black hair covered up all of their head lacerations and bruises.

Our plan was to stay in Santa Clara until Christmas and leave for Sacramento before their first nap. This meant that Lisa's mom had to be on her best behavior for five nights and four days or else she knew she would be featured in this blog. She knows what I do with Crazy Grandma Ichikawa, and Grandma Ichinaga wants no part of it.

Except for the annual Ichinaga Christmas Eve senior citizen orgy (BYOD - bring your own Depends), Grandma Ichinaga did nothing to embarrass herself. Although...I do have one story.

Grandma Ichinaga has this stainless steel gum drop tree. It should look something like this:


Grandma Ichinaga was having a hard time finding gum drops to put on the tree, so she resorted to Sour Patch Kids. Is it me or is there something not so holiday-ish about seeing little kids impaled by silver tree branches? I'm sure there must be a culture out there that celebrates the holidays with presents, egg nog, and impaled children on pine trees, but it sure isn't this one. Here are a few pictures of the tree.

**MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR SOUR PATCH KIDS UNDER 13**

Christmas Eve came up really fast, and practically all of Lisa's family was there: Auntie Susan, Uncle Kerry, Cousin Jamie, Cousin Kevin & Shelvey, Uncle Mike, Cousin Matthew and Gracie, Uncle Wes, Auntie Chieko, Uncle Joey, Auntie Rosa, Cousin Jason and Jacob -- basically enough Asians to populate the It's A Small World Asia diorama. Emma and Andrew were tentative at first, but soon enjoyed being around their gigantic Ichinaga family.

Cousin Jason, who is 9, had an observation about me. As I was sitting on the floor, Jason walked up to my head and started looking at it.

"Wow! Uncle Scott! You have lots of white hair!" shouted an astonished Jason.

"Umm. Oh. Yah, I have some white hair," I responded.

"I mean you have LOTS of white hair! Not some!"

"Okeedokee...that's great."

"Man...how old are you? That's a lot of white hair! Wow!"

Minutes later, Jason was still in shock by my bevy of white hairs. Smartly I diverted his attention, but it too failed.

Jason just ended up exclaiming,"Wow! Uncle Scott! You also have lots of white hair on your ass!"

CHRISTMAS (Not Really A) BREAK: PART 2 -- SACRAMENTO tomorrow!

Day 456 - Picture Friday

Day 455 - Merry Christmas!

The postings might be a little bit more late than usual, but I'll keep up on it now that I'm in Sacramento with internet connection. Yay for the internet!

I'll post a bunch of holiday pictures tomorrow, and then will give you all of the exciting stories from our holidays with Lisa's family and my Crazy Grandma Ichikawa Christmas.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Day 454 - Geddes Up!

Here is what should be the last of the Nhat Anne Geddes photos. Hopefully tomorrow I'll post a little Christmas recap.

Happy Holidays!!!

Day 453 - Nhat Again!

Once again, master PHO-tographer...Nhat Anne Geddes.

Day 452 - Nhat Anne Geddes

Since I don't have internet access in Santa Clara, I'm going to extend last week's poll for one more week.

And now enjoy another Nhat Anne Geddes masterpiece!

Day 451 - Travel Day

We are leaving for our Northern California trip today. If all goes well, we should be out the door at 9:30am and arrive in Santa Clara by 4pm.

Since I'm not 100% sure whether or not I'll have internet access, I have arranged to have several posts automatically posted until we arrive in Sacramento on Christmas Day. As part of our stupid -- but hopefully funny -- holiday newsletter, this year's premise is that I had Anne Geddes take pictures of Emma and Andrew. But the idiot I am, I actually hired a little Vietnamese lady named Nhat Anne Geddes to take the pictures.

Anyhoo, I'll be posting a few of these pictures every day until I'm able to get back on a computer. Enjoy!!!

Day 450 - Christmas Exchange

Today was our annual gift exchange with our friends Paul & Michelle and Bernard & Joyce. Paul & Michelle have a three year old boy, Jared, and Bernard & Joyce have an 18 month year old girl, Abby.

I made a couple of observations during today's festivities. First of all, it is very difficult to get a good shot of four kids in front of a Christmas tree. Even with the obnoxious ability of digital cameras to take hundreds of pictures of one pose, the shot you see was the best one we were able to get. Eventually, you just settle for the most amount of face for each kid.

It's no wonder when I was a kid most of my holiday pictures were crap. With only 24 or 36 photos in a roll of film, how could you get a decent picture? But then again my parents had me wear a brown paper bag over my head most of time so during the holidays they would just draw a smiley face on it. Problem solved.

Secondly, although I feel our kids are growing into these little people before our eyes, I sometimes forget how young they still are. When it was time to open presents, Jared was the first child to open one up. He opened the gift we gave him which was a Radio Flyer scooter. He was pretty excited and said, "Thank you Uncle Scott and Auntie What Your Name."

Next up was Abby. She opened up her gift which was a shelf that held different number and letter puzzles. Although she didn't show the same amount of excitement as Jared, you could still tell she had fun opening up the present and she immediately started playing with her puzzles.

And now here comes Emma and Andrew. We placed their presents in front of them and told them to open it. They just stared at the box and stared at it like a vegan would look at a piece of meat ("What the hell do you want me to do with that?"). So we tore a little bit of the wrapping paper. That helped this sad situation and both of them began to rip the paper with glee. Maybe too much glee because they ran away with wrapping paper in their hands. Minutes later, we were able to get them to at least finish taking the wrapping paper off to see what presents they received.

I was a little embarrassed because our kids weren't able to enjoy opening presents like Jared and Abby. If Forrest Gump could run a shrimping empire, our kids should be able to open up a damn Christmas present. But I realized that our kids are still pretty young and have a lot of learning and growing to do.

I think as parents you go through these moments when you wish your kids would hurry up and grow up, but when they do you wish you could turn back time. Since our kids are only 14 months old, I haven't gotten to the point when I wish I could turn back time quite yet. I really don't need to reexperience sleep deprivation, spit up, and poop on my clothing. Lisa does those things to me more than enough.

Day 449 - Picture Friday

To celebrate Marie Callender's 60th Anniversary, every holiday feast box comes with ham, vegetables, pie, and an Asian baby with two stacking cups.

Santa says, "You've been nice!"

Santa says, "Naughty...definitely naughty."

As part of a new government recycling initiative, babies are now officially recyclable.

Have a great weekend!

Day 448 - Blah Blah Blog

These statistics are over a year old, but get a load of these numbers regarding blogs from Technorati:

*There are over 70 million blogs.
*Over 120,000 new blogs are created every day.
*About 1.4 new blogs are created every second.

That's a lot of blogging!

The reason I started this blog was for three reasons: 1) So family and friends could keep up-to-date with the kids. 2) I wanted to create some sort of journal to track the development of our kids. 3) It gives me the opportunity to relax for 15-20 minutes each night to just write about poop, pee, and other bodily functions.

But in the course of writing this silly blog, what started out with a few measly hits each month has slowly grown into a steadily increasing audience. This got me thinking that a lot of people who don't know us are reading this blog. It sure isn't just friends because I can count the number of friends I have on one hand. More accurately, I can count the number of friends with the number of testicles I have: one.

The other day, I noticed I had a comment from a stranger who found a link to my blog from another site. The New York Times wrote an article about parenting blogs, and in the feedback section someone left a comment suggesting this blog. This is the closest I've come to being mentioned in the NYT if you don't count the Sunday crossword hint "_____ Baio".

I bring this up because it made me realize that although I initially thought this blog would be of no interest to anyone else except friends, family, and the occasional person who did a google search on "edamames", I might've been wrong. There's a universality to raising kids. Although we may feel we're on our own at times, there are millions of people out there going through the same joys and problems that we're experiencing every day.

So to those strangers out there reading this: welcome to my stupid, little blog. There are just two rules to reading this blog:

1) You must laugh at Crazy Grandma Ichikawa stories.
2) You MUST LAUGH at Crazy Grandma Ichikawa stories.

Oh. And I'll add one more: Please don't be creepy. Creepy strangers give me the willies.

Day 447 - Cartoon Wednesday

Day 446 - I Crap on Ikea

Sorry for another late and short post, but I have a good reason today: a wall collapsed at home.

I exaggerate a little bit, but let me backtrack. About two weeks ago, Sony had this great Holiday Sale where you got an additional 15% to 25% off the employee price. The electronic geek I am, I priced together a new sound system for home. Ever since I got a blu-ray player, I've been secretly longing for a new receiver and speakers. And by secretly, I mean whining and complaining about it to Lisa for the past ten months.

Lo and behold, the sound package I put together was a terrific deal. If you compared the employee cost to a Circuit City or Best Buy cost, I would save around 60%! I thought before spending the money, I should pass it by the wife. So I explained to Lisa how great a deal this would be and it would be something we could enjoy for years to come. Lisa said no. So of course I bought it anyways. I figured if Lisa got mad at me, I could always use my new stereo system to overpower her screaming.

One thing I needed to do before my order arrived was to install some shelving on the wall behind our television. The center speaker would be too heavy to hang, so I needed a shelf to put it on. Last weekend I went to Ikea and bought a couple of black floating shelves. These shelves were pretty easy to install, but my cordless electrical drill was dead. So instead of waiting an hour to let the drill charge up, I ended up impatiently using the drill for a minute until it died. Then I would let it charge for 5 minutes. Drill for a minute. Charge for 5 minutes. And on and on. It was pretty stupid of me, but sometimes I'm a dumbass.

Which brings us to today. All of my sound equipment arrived today. After brushing the kids' teeth, I anxiously opened the boxes and began to assemble all of my sexy Sony toys. I grabbed the center speaker and placed it on the floating shelf. As I tried to insert the speaker wire into the back of the speaker, the floating shelf collapsed! I grabbed the speaker, but everything else on the shelf fell. The shelf didn't fall all the way to the ground, but it hit these little lights we have behind the television and shattered the glass all over the floor.

The kids were watching me in awe. They never heard such words come from Daddy's mouth before. Words that Crazy Grandma Ichikawa knows how to spell. With the speaker in one hand, the shelf in the other hand, and glass around my feet, Lisa showed great awareness of her surroundings and asked me with great insight, "Wow....did the shelf fall?"

It took several hours after the kids fell asleep to clean the aftermath, fix the shelf, and install the new sound system. At least the shelf fell down on me rather than the kids. Which reminds me...I should really double check the shelves I put up in the kid's room. I don't know how much longer it will hold up the bowling balls above their cribs...

Day 445 - Poll Result & New Poll

Last week I asked what I should do about our musical selection for the kids. Seventy-one percent of you think we should use our common sense and play music that is appropriate for the kids and not necessarily purely kiddie music. I totally agree with that thinking and hopefully this will change Lisa's stubborn stand on this issue. Lisa would rather play traditional children music, but I would like to introduce my taste of music to Emma and Andrew. Granted I listen to nothing but musical theater soundtracks from the 1950s and synthesized porno music from the 1970s, but the kids love it! You should see Emma tap her feet to "Bali Hai" and Andrew grind against the Pack N' Play when he hears the soundtrack to "Behind the Green Door."

**********

I think on the whole, we are usually pretty much on top of things during the holidays. But ever since the two gifts that came out of Lisa's vagina, the holidays seem a little more overwhelming. And to clarify, the two gifts I'm referring to are Emma and Andrew and not my Casio watch and travel tripod.

Between work, the kids, the holidays, and the blog, I'm finding myself a little short on time. I'm wondering whether or not I should cutback on the blog entries due to the holidays. What do you think? Should I scale back the posts for the next two weeks? Or I could post something every day as usual, but make the entries much more brief? Better yet, I can just post a Crazy Grandma Ichikawa story every day.

Day 444 - Random Weekend Ramblings

Over three hours, Lisa and I did the following: picked up the family portrait photos, shopped for our nieces and nephews at Target, went to Circuit City to buy a new printer, did a stop at Aaron Brothers to buy holiday ornaments, ate a turkey and avocado sandwich at Togos, picked up more photos at Costco as well as some baby necessities (i.e. diapers, wipes, blu-ray movies), bought groceries at Ralphs, and dropped off several bags of clothes at Goodwill. WHEW!

And because of this exhausting marathon of shopping, the best I can do today are some random weekend tales for today's blog entry.

*****

We were watching the movie "Step Brothers" at home with my parents. My mom has seen Will Farrell comedies before, but I think this one was a little too far off base for her tastes. It might just be me -- please tell me if I'm wrong -- but I think my mom MIGHT'VE been offended by the scene when Will Farrell plays the drums with his testicles. Like I said I might be wrong...I'm just guessing here folks.

At one point -- maybe the testicle scene -- my mom said, "I don't get dis movie!" Right after she said that, Will Farrell said the f word. To which she answered, "Well I get dat! I know what dat word means. I even know how to spell it! F-U-*-K! F-U-*-K! F-U-*-K!"

*****

-At Togos, we were caught behind the most high maintenance woman ordering a sandwich. It went something like this...

"Hi, I'd like a turkey and swiss sandwich on wheat bread. Could I have the larger half of that loaf? Can you spread out the turkey evenly across the sandwich? Another piece of cheese, thanks. Do you have baked potatoes? You only have one left? Can I see it? Are you sure that's the only one? It's a little small. I don't want it. How about chili? I'll take a small chili. Too much cheese. Take some off. Just a little bit of onions. A little bit more...more...more...more...STOP! Do you have any balsamic vinegar for the sandwich? Are you sure that's balsamic vinegar? Are you sure? Really? Ok, but can you shake the bottle more?"

At this point, a man behind me went "...oy..." This caused the woman to stop her order, turn her head towards the man with her head tilted in a condescending way, and say, "You know what? You can wait. You...can...wait."

...and then the man stabbed her to death with a spork.

*****

-I was playing with the kids, and Emma started to pick her nose. I told Emma not to pick her nose. She laughed. I turned my head, and I saw that Andrew started to pick his nose. I asked Andrew not to pick his nose, but all he did was laugh. Now both kids were picking their nose and laughing. I wanted to laugh, but instead I put on my serious face and said in a stern voice, "Do NOT pick your nose." The kids stopped, looked at each other, and proceeded to pick each other's nose.

Day 443 - Holiday Madness

We've been running ragged trying to get all of our holiday crap done this weekend. Thankfully my parents are around to babysit while we drive around trying to do last minute things. Because of this I'm going to give the blog a little rest today. There there...nice blog...nice blog.

But in the mean time, here's a picture of the kids in their Santa hats. Ho ho ho!

Day 442 - Picture Friday

We caught Emma sleepwalking and trying to milk her fingers for something to drink.

Andrew's the right size. Andrew's the right age. And Andrew has the talent. Yup. He'll be on China's girl's gymnastic team at the next Olympics.

"Hello? Baby Gap? I need a longer shirt."

"One day...one day...I too shall be an expert at playing a fake guitar."

Have a great weekend!

Day 441 - Call Me Irresponsive

Almost every day since I returned to work, I call home around 1pm to see how my parents and the kids are doing. Most of the time the report I get is whether or not they pooped, how long of a nap they took, and if they have been well-behaved. And I'm just talking about my parents!

The point of the phone conversation that has become awkward for me is when my mom puts the kids on the phone. At first I thought it was kinda cute, but now I'm not too sure what to think about it. The daily conversation goes a little like this...

CRAZY GRANDMA
...and dat why you should use q-tip to clean around sink. Oh! Let me put Andrew on phone!

SCOTT
That's okay, mom.

CRAZY GRANDMA
An-doo! An-doo! Guess who on phone. It...DADDY! DADDY DADDY DADDY!

SCOTT
...hi...

ANDREW
(silence)

SCOTT
...um...what's up...son?

ANDREW
(silence)

CRAZY GRANDMA
Say hi to...DADDY! DADDY DADDY DADDY! Scotty! Talk to him! Say someting!

SCOTT
umm...how about those...gas prices?

ANDREW
bah bah.

CRAZY GRANDMA
Okokok. Dat enouf.

SCOTT
Well, I got to go. I'll talk to...

CRAZY GRANDMA
NO! You talk to Emma now! Emma...guess who on phone? It...DADDY DADDY DADDY!

SCOTT
...err...hi...emma

EMMA
(eats)

SCOTT
So...what you...doing?

EMMA
(burps)

CRAZY GRANDMA
Ok! Say bye bye now. SCOTTY! Say bye bye!

SCOTT
bye bye.

ANDREW/EMMA
(silence)

CRAZY GRANDMA
Ok! I go clean bathrooms now. Bye!

I don't know if the kids recognize my voice on the phone because all they want to do is to press all of the buttons and try to hang up on me. Come to think of it...maybe they do recognize my voice after all then. I just feel weird talking to someone on the phone when I'm met with nothing but silence. Much like the awkward silence I get from Lisa when I ask her if she regrets marrying me.

I'm sure these pointless conversations will continue with Emma and Andrew, but who knows. Maybe they do recognize my voice and enjoy it. Without praising myself too much, I do have a very nice voice. I was once told during my musical theater days that I have a voice that sounds like two of our foremost musical talents of the 20th Century: Carol Channing and Tom Petty. Hopefully the kids will be blessed with my vocal talent.

Day 440 - Cartoon Wednesday

Day 439 - Booger Nights

Some how the kids caught a cold again. And not surprisingly, the entire Ichikawa family is a little sick again. I remember the first time the kids got sick, Lisa and I tried to keep the kids away from each other. That was easy enough since they couldn't move -- not because they were too young, but rather they were immobilized due to an unfortunate Sit n' Spin collision. Despite our best efforts, the entire family still got sick. So now when we find out one kid is sick, we don't even try to prevent the other one from catching it. Why? Runny boogers.

That's right. Look at those pictures. See their runny noses? Pretty disgusting. Now imagine that clear snot on every object in your house. If you think that Dateline crap with black light on hotel beds is disgusting, get Anne Curry in our living room and see our entire room light up like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

This past weekend, we went through several boxes of tissues to wipe up their nose diarrhea. Just like Del Taco aftermath, you can wipe and wipe, but it just never gets clean.

Before we put the kids down for a nap or the long sleep, we like to use a nasal syringe to get the snot out of their nose. Getting the boogies out becomes a well choreographed dance of boogers, syringing, and wiping. You first try to calm the kid on your lap. Then you tilt their head back, insert the syringe, and suck some snot out. When you pull out the syringe, a long trail of either clear or yellowish nose poop lays on top the kids' upper lip and cheek. If you don't act quickly with a tissue, the kid will take their hand and wipe that crap all over their face and anything else within a one foot radius. And you repeat this over and over again until no more snot comes out or your kids can no longer handle this nostril rape.

Lisa stayed home from school yesterday because she felt pretty bad, but I've been able to weather this sickness out. Thankfully, my parents were around to take care of the kids while Lisa stayed in bed. My mom even tried to make Lisa feel better by using the nasal syringe on her. But this just became an embarrassing moment because my mom was actually trying to clean out Lisa's nose with a douche kit. At yeast she was trying to help out.

Day 430 - Poll Results & New Poll

Last week I asked whether or not I should continue our tradition of doing unconventional holiday newsletters. It looks like most of you like a little liquor in your egg nog because 82% think the weird newsletters should continue. The rest of you could care less about it because you don't really know us despite the fact that I have been writing this blog for 430 days.

I have a few ideas for the newsletter this year, but time is ticking away! There's only a few weeks to get everything done, and I haven't even had a chance to buy Lisa's Christmas present yet. Does anyone know whether or not there is an online store that sells monogrammed sanitary napkins?

**********

It's a speed turtle! Whoa-ho!
It's a speed turtle! Oh no!
Man alive, it's in overdrive.
Go, little turtle, go go.

These are the lyrics to the song "Speed Turtle" sung by Brian Wilson on the kid's CD "Blue Moo." One day at work, I started humming a song at my desk. I had no idea what it was. Then it suddenly dawned on me. It was..."Speed Turtle."

Those 6-7 weeks when I was home with the kids, I would play a lot of music for them throughout the day. It was a mixture of children songs, Disney songs, classical music, and movie soundtracks. But the moment at work when I had "Speed Turtle" racing through my head made me wonder whether or not I needed to play only kiddie music for Emma and Andrew.

What do you think? Does it matter what type of music we play for the kids? Is it okay to play a little Madonna or Billy Joel? Or is it really important for our kids to listen to songs that drive us crazy?

Day 439 - Crazy Grandma Ichikawa Drawing Time

Crazy Grandma Ichikawa drew these pictures of our family. Ordinarily, my mom is a pretty good artist. She takes watercolor classes and has painted some pretty good pictures of flowers and landscapes. So I'm not too sure why these drawings you're about to see are crap.

DAD

I suppose my mom got my dad's ears right because they're pretty big for a smallish head. But that doesn't explain why the rest of him looks like Barney Rubble. Look at my dad's sabertooth tiger vest. Yabba dabba don't.

ANNE

My mom drew a profile picture of my sister. I think my mom did a pretty good job with my sister's hair, but look at those nasty lips. Someone sketch this girl a roll of Chap Stick! Better yet, let casting know we found who can play the plant in Little Shop of Horrors.

LISA

This actually isn't that bad of a drawing because I think it actually resembles Lisa. But look at Lisa's boobs. They haven't been that pert since Jimmy Carter was president.

SCOTT

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