But they have some winters, and they knew how to keep from freezing to death.

Fashionable… well, maybe not. However, you fold the flaps down, and it’ll keep you warm. ….ish. 8 degrees out there, and puppy had to go for his walk.

I’ll spare you the photo of me wearing it. I didn’t want to break the new camera.

We’ve been twice in the last week, which is surprising to me. But then again, it’s a large playground to them… It’s not like they are going to actually spoil the fun learning anything.

Part of the attraction of the Science museum for me was obviously trying to get the kids interested in Science. That actually wasn’t very difficult. William isn’t showing preferences.. It’s all good. Mary is 5, so therefore EVERYTHING must be answered. If we can get the scientific method involved there, we’ll be ahead of the game.

So, we went for the Winter wonderland exhibit… Which, frankly, was an artificial snow machine (soap suds). Joy. And a Planetarium movie on Ice Worlds.

Color me unimpressed.

MV and W, however, were thrilled. 2 hours later, as we were leaving that afternoon (New Years Eve), it was decided that we would come back.

That turned out to be Saturday. Quicker than anticipated.

At this point, Daddy is reeling from a Camera body that he’s been waiting months for…. and it doesn’t focus. At all. The motors don’t click, nada. Disappointing is not really the word. So we’re taking the old one (which, truth be told, is still a good body. It’s just not … ), because the only place I could get stock on this was from a shop out of New York that I’ve done business with before. So there wasn’t going to be any resolution to this problem this weekend.

I’ve decided to limit myself even more, using a single 50mm prime lens.

Good news, it’s cheap.

Better news, it’s fast, which helps since there isn’t any LIGHT in this place.

Best news, it’s sharp, light, and makes a camera package that I can weave around the center without worry.

The Center of the Adventure Science Museum is a multi-story tower filled with various activities. It’s actually one of my biggest gripes, because it simply hasn’t changed since we first went there several years ago. A refresh would not hurt it one bit.

The kids didn’t care, so long as they could climb to the top!

The other area that seems to be static in time is the Body Quest exhibit. For William, the slide out of the lower intestine, complete with bodily noises was the best ever…

Unless you count the Ambulance.

Mary, who apparently maintains that a flower in the hair is perfectly sanitary in an OR, was intent on surgery. With Ketchup as the main tool, obviously. Apply directly to the retina.

Scattered around the center are various activities, including the ever popular coin eating spiral of death! Every aquarium, museum, and shopping center was one of these, and we have to hit it each time. The Adventure Science center was no different.

Or was it?

Yes, they plugged the hole at the bottom, so you could repeat the coin rolls over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. With Sister’s help, William was quite enthusiastic to do exactly that.

The newest exhibits were relating to the Sudekum Planetarium. The Kids really enjoyed this. 2 liter air pressure Bottle rockets, planet displays, stars, and weightlessness displays were all fun.

If they would only let Mary do them.

She’s big enough! Look!

No, NOT at the feet! Maybe in the summer.

And to close it out…. Jack stayed at home. Doing this.

(taken with the new body, manually focused, but in the dark! 2 stops better than the best the old could do! The replacement should be here this week.)

ANYWAYS…. And then Jeffie comes driving up. 10ish. That’s not right.

Is everything ok?

Well, not really……

And in she comes with an 11 pound ball of fur and teeth. And Droopy eartips. She’s been given an 8 week old male German Shepard dog.

We had an incredible dog, that was with us practically our entire relationship. Jeffie came into my house AROUND THIS TIME of the year 15 some odd years ago, carrying Kosh. And we loved her dearly. She was the absolutely best friend and dog we could have ever asked for. She was the maid of honor at our wedding. (don’t ask me… Maybe Jeff will actually explain with a post. She hasn’t posted in a while. ) and she became super protector for both of the kids. But time and a spinal disease finally caused her to have to leave us, and it’s been a very different year without her. Some of the reduction in ‘hassle’ and certainly DOG HAIR (Kosh could shed more hair in an hour than some dogs do in a life) has been nice. But it’s also been much lonelier without that constant greeting at the door when we came home.

This GUY! is not Kosh. Oh, he reminds. (And you can actually see a picture of MV and Kosh IN his pictures) And oh boy, he’s cute and playful.

And 8 weeks old. Which is most definitely not house broken.

By a LONG shot.

Make that a light year WIDE long shot.

And my, those little puppy teeth are sharp. And Active. Cat 5 cables don’t stand a chance. Power cords should at least prove entertaining.

And HE’s definitely a boy, and he’s got a dominating personality. He did NOT like the Vet doing the physical. There was some snapping at hands during that. Ms. Kosh was as gentle as possible with the kids, and frankly, unless they or Jeff was in danger, would hurt anything more than a Fly. Flies were actually fair game to her. Rabbits too, but she never came close to actually getting those.

Puppy here… Oh, not at all like what we were used to. I can see the 3 year old Human boy grabbing the puppy, and fur and kid skin mixing with blood and flying. And I can definitely see the hugs and kisses immediately afterwards, from both sides. Too Protective?

I took him back this afternoon, after getting his shots and physical, leash, collar and food, before the Kids could see him. I’ve got to think about this, We have to talk about this as a family. I’m not saying ‘No’, but I want to be so sure before I say ‘Yes’, and introduce him to Mary and William. It’s a long commitment, and I want the best for both us, and him. I asked for a few days to discuss and think.

(And until we make up our minds he’s not touching the d0gz.net domain. Kids might see.)

I am so incredibly conflicted.

William isn’t potty trained yet. This guy doesn’t even know when he’s even peeing at this point. It would be a ton of work, and disruption. And Hair.

But then again, I have ALWAYS said that Mary was going to have a BIG Male German Shepard Dog, that was HERs. Not mine, not Jeff’s. Mary’s. So that when she’s Ten and playing outside, anyone that looks at her funny would have a curious feeling of being separated from their trachea. His name would be Guard.

I’m asking for advice. ANYONE. Do we take the puppy?

Do we wait for a little more age on the children? (William being my major concern. Mary is big enough and grown enough to begin to understand. She obviously wouldn’t take care completely of him, but I don’t worry about her jamming her fingers in his Eyes and having the ensuing battle of teeth.)

I don’t think he’s a bad dog. I think he could EASILY be the protector for both of them. He’s 11 pounds at 8 weeks, and looks to me like he’s going quite a long ways to grow. He’ll very obviously be a great dog. But I do so worry about that dominate personality and the different dog that He would be from Kosh. Both kids remember Kosh, and they played well with her. She put up with a LOT from them, and the worse she ever gave back was a licking (which ALWAYS actually did the trick in making them stop. She was a smart dog). I don’t see him being as laid back as her, and I worry about the initial learning curve from the children.

In a lot of ways, this is just for me to get some of my feelings and doubts out there. But I’ll still ask. Any suggestions?

I’ve got a feeling that my Epson 4000 wide format printer is going to get some duty cycles very soon. And that’s not counting the hard drive beating that will occur in 9 days when we hit the beach.

It’s a good thing the 5d Mark 2 isn’t coming out until November.

The teaser(s) are after the jump….

It’s VERY exciting, isn’t it?

Oh yes, there will be macro shots, WITHOUT macro gear….

We’ve been members @ the Nashville zoo pretty much from the moment that Mary was born. One of the nice things they do is have members only events. This morning was the ‘Members’ morning. They open the zoo an hour early, allow free rides on the Carousel, and you get to watch the animals being released into their habitats.

We loaded the kids up as normal (but about 30 minutes earlier than usual… Good thing they don’t watch the clock). Ordinarily, Mary is VERY tuned into the route that she takes in the van. Today wasn’t much different, except that they got Cereal and Milk to eat in the Van… So obviously something wasn’t QUITE right.

Then Dad missed the turn.

“Dad, are you taking us to the Store? I think this is the way to the Store!” with a significant amount of fear in the voice…

“No, I know a SHORTCUT to School.”

“Oh”.

That worked for a while… She took great delight in passing cars on the Interstate (HOV lane during rush hour… Only way to go). And then she saw the sign.

“Dad… Don’t go straight! This is the Zoo way!”

“Well, would that be bad?”

“Just don’t go straight!, we can’t go to the Zoo, it’s not open on School days!”

Dad went Straight.

William continued to happily eat his cereal, wondering what his sister was freaking out over.

Soon, I don’t think Mary believed that this was much of a shortcut.

“Daddy thought you might like to come look at the Animals for a little bit before School. Is that ok?”

There wasn’t much resistance after pulling into the parking lot.

“Now Mary, what are you going to tell Mommy?”
“No! I’m not telling Mommy. I don’t want her to figure it out!”

Any bets that they want me to take them to School more often now?

Last post, I showed our first look at the Baby Blue jays.

Yesterday, I was able to get a better shot of 1 of them.

Unfortunately, It’s sibling didn’t survive. Jeff and I debated about the nature of Blue Jay’s (we both thought that they were the type to push the sibling out of the nest to maximize the biggest’s chances).

I had thought a feline had taken care of it, but this morning I had to do the duty with a trash bag. Then, this afternoon, we found the remaining sibling. I don’t think there are any left. I don’t know if they left the nest too early, or what happened. I don’t think that a cat got them, they weren’t very disturbed.

Now, the issue… I tried VERY hard to make sure that Mary didn’t know what I was doing. I told her I had to take care of some stuff out in the yard, and get rid of some things that needed to go into the trash. Jeff had obviously mentioned baby bird loud enough that Mary could hear… I didn’t realize that. So, as I brought the bag back in, took care of it, and washed my hands, the inquisition began. I had thought I deflected it well enough, but when I came back in, I heard Jeff explaining that a baby bird had died, and Daddy was taking care of it.

Honestly, that was the last thing I wanted her to hear. Yes, I’m a protective parent. Yes, I have told less than the complete truth to her. I know that she’ll come to age. I want to make sure that she’s emotionally able to handle that when it happens. She still talks about her pet Kosh. I have enough problems in my heart when that comes up. I really don’t want her to make the full connection yet.

I know I can’t protect her from the fact that life includes death. Heck, some of her favorite programming is the Giant squid programs and the Killer (Humboldt) squid from the Discovery channel. She’ll quote facts and figures! from that shows all day long. And yes, it includes death. I think she does know, but it’s a theoretical knowledge.

I don’t want her to realize that it’s a real phenomenon just yet.

I certainly don’t want to field the questions, as even though she does have that incessant ‘why’ that kids have, some of her questions bite a bit, and you can tell that there is a mind behind there, probing, and trying to learn the reality. I want to enjoy the kid in her, and I want her to enjoy it. I don’t want her to grow up too quickly. It seemed that I had grown up quickly because of all of the relocations that my family went through. I feel that I came out stronger because of it and it certainly forged me, but I’d like for my kids to grow up ‘normal’.

I didn’t expect a 4 year old to have to deal with death. I was worried.

She dealt with it much better than I did. I hope it’s done and over with, and my worries were unfounded.

And yes, I’m a bit sad that the ugly UGLY bird above won’t make it to be a prettier adult. I was looking forward to watching them grow.

That being said, Having a two year old and a four year old under foot certainly makes you feel old and young again at the same time.

We’ve basically been celebrating all weekend, which is fine, as Mary Vic got to run around all weekend singing happy birthday and making birthday cards.

It’s been a good weekend. There has been so much going on, it’s hard to hit all the high points. The pool opened at Polk Place, so we spent several hours over there during the weekend. It was nice to be able to walk down there, but I have to say, it needs a bit more warming before that water is going to be really good. The kids pool was a bit chilly. The Main pool was downright cold. IF you jumped in, and stayed in, you’d be ok. You couldn’t ease in however… You’d never make it all the way. The kids, of course, were completely oblivious to the temperature. We need about a week of 85+ to get it nicer.

Papa has spent the last few months re-working our grill, and that hard work finally came to a close. Wrestling with mail order grill fulfillment has been the order of the day, complete with multiple shipments and broken grids. The supplier obviously isn’t used to drop shipments, as their packaging was completely inadequate for UPS (or Fedex for that matter). If I can’t ship servers that have been packed well without having UPS take pleasure in disassembly via tow motor and other abuses, there is no way the grids were going to make it with a single piece of Bubble wrap.

But it all came together in the end, and we cooked some burgers and hot dogs to start it up with. I managed to sear a temperature probe wire across my index finger and thumb. The wire braid over the sensor wire conducts heats ALL too well. That sucked pretty badly, but it was pretty much alright the next morning. Neither Mary or William would have anything to do with the cooking…. If they weren’t picky over everything right now, I’d take it personally. We did some trimming of the trees and bushes earlier in the day, which also allowed us to find that we have another family at the house…

They are hard to see, but there are a couple of grey little heads right at her feet. I don’t believe that she was overly happy about our discovery of them.

Mary was able to finally get a Rose bush. We waited until it was slightly cooler and less humid to plant it, but it was done. Mary dug some of the hole herself, and replaced almost ALL of the dirt herself. She was VERY proud of her gardening skills, complete with her own wheelbarrow and tools.

Papa picked up some crickets, so we had to find time to go and retrieve the smallest fishes capable of actually bitting the hook. More than a few hits on the lure and hook weren’t large enough to even think about getting the hook in their mouth. Mary and William didn’t care. I think they enjoyed the smallness of the fish, and the ability to torment them while hanging on the hook.

Monday was a bit of a washout in the afternoon, so no pool, but we did have a Birthday party. Mary acted as the officiator of presents, and William acted as the official Cake icing removal expert. Jeff has the pictures from that, so maybe they’ll come later.

The Grandparents looked after Mary and William while Jeff and I went to dinner and a movie (Indy 4). One of the high lights of the meal was the server coming by to check on us after our food was brought out. We went to a place that we had been going to since I moved to Tennessee. They have been revamping their service, definitely trying to push into the ‘upper level’ of service and food. For the most part they succeed, but it doesn’t feel the same for us anymore. The waitress was fresh from training, VERY nice, but unfortunately, we are definitely in the south. I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but in order to place our expectations in line, the phrasing of her inquiry into the preparation of our meal was toward the exemplary. “Is everything with YALL’s dinner excellent?” was the question. The dichotomy of the word choice was wonderful. And while the dinner was good, I can’t say that it was Excellent. It used to be. I want it to be. Heck, I proposed to Jeff in this place. We used to think very highly of it. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s also not as good as we remembered. They want to play in the bigger leagues, but they just aren’t there, and frankly, their metamorphosis hasn’t been the best for them in my opinion. Trying to be everything to everyone rarely works well. We’ll probably try there again in a while…. as I said, it’s not BAD, just expensive and not as good as it used to be. And we’ve got great memories there.

Indy 4 was entertaining. Suspension of Disbelief was a bit harder to come by with this movie as opposed to Raiders or Indy 3, but it was eventually fun enough that you stopped thinking about how insanely bad the realism isn’t.

Of course, one of the best gifts I could have had for my Birthday was William’s followup examination from his femur break and subsequent Spica cast. He did super well in the Xray room (for the FIRST time), and the Xray’s came out wonderfully. You can barely tell where the break occurred now on either angle, and he’s set for a followup in Six months. Unless something really drastic happens, we won’t even need to xray then. Dr. Martus was pleased with his recovery. Seeing that nearly clean Xray, especially in comparison to the previously broken shots was a wonderful gift. It’s amazing how well the body heals at this age. Dr. Martus told us in the beginning that they don’t try to match the ends of a break together, but just get them in the general area and pointing in the same direction. It’s strange to hear when they tell you that, but it does look like it’s true. He says that there isn’t much point in a followup xray after this, as it will look identical to the other bone.

Of course, that has to be peppered with a little additional ‘lookout’. Because the bone is going to heal faster and grow to match the other, it’s possible that the accelerated growth will cause the OTHER leg to be a little shorter. Of course, it’s also likely that over the next 20 years the two bones will leapfrog each other, eventually closing the gap to nothing, or effectively nothing.

Whew. That’s enough for now.

William started attending daycare last week. The owner is keeping an eye on him herself and we have tailored his return around her vacation. He went a half day on Monday and Tuesday then a full day on Wednesday. MaryVic went half a day on Monday and for a full day on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Drop off on Monday was awful. MaryVic went to class with no fuss after getting hugs from Momma and William. William who had been ignoring all talk of his imminent return to ‘school’ on Monday tried to keep on going past his classroom. There was no coercing him into the room and no one wanted to make a bad association by forcing him through the gate. Finally, the owner pulled just a little and I pushed just a little and he scooted past the gate. He had been quietly saying ‘no’ to all our entreaties…play with your friends, color, get the tractor, etcetera. The volume increased noticeably when the gate closed and he went to bawling. I sat in the office for 20 minutes listening until the owner came to talk to me. We agreed to see if he would go to breakfast and if not I would leave work to retrieve him. No one was going to pick him up and carry him, he had to get up and walk. Right then, he was laying on the floor refusing to do anything. “NO!”

He did perk up and had a nice time. He was quite happy to see me at 12:30 and didn’t really want to wait for his sister to get out of the lunch room. He would point at the door, take a few steps, and look back at me, annoyed at his escape being delayed. We all went home, took naps and had a nice afternoon.

Tuesday, both of them went to class without fuss. MaryVic was excited to see her class was in with Williams. She went through the gate while I whisper hissed, “Mary, grab your brother’s hand!” She turned around and said, “William! Come On!” He ran on in after her, pausing to enthusiastically wave bye to me. I ran!

I picked him up at 12:30. I had time to chat with the owner who said he was much doing better than she expected. There was one piece of the playground equipment they were not letting him get on but it was more them not being ready for him to be on it. William was happy to see me again and we spent another afternoon at home.

MaryVic wanted both parents to pick her up so William and I waited for Greg to come home before getting her. Of course, she then fussed about being picked up late! Fortunately the distress didn’t last long since it was Tuesday night and time for the weekly visit to see Cow at Chik-Fil-A.

William’s special balloon surprise. It was slow when we got there so Sean Hughes the Balloon Guy made more elaborate balloons for the children present.

William loved his balloon man and couldn’t decide which way to wear it.

Minnie Mouse ears were very popular with the girls.

The Cow is a ham and cut up with Greg some. He really interacts with customers, stealing milk, asking for phones and cameras, and high-fiving everyone. He does like to have his picture taken.

Wednesday William went to class without a problem, waving bye to me. MaryVic was unhappy despite big hugs from Mom and brother. Unlike before the ‘break’, William gave her a huge hug each day. He stayed all day at daycare. I was worried he would be fussy after nap. We had a note from the owner about trying Tuesday through Friday of the following week.

William was tired each day and we made sure he had a warm bath with epsom salts at night. Otherwise there were no issues.

The daycare did move the teacher who was in the room when the break occurred, to caring for a different age group. The new teacher is the one he had prior to being moved to the 2 year old room. The trucks the children were pushing have been removed from the room.

Now for some pictures of our time at home…

I couldn’t resist taking these pictures of the kids waving bye to Daddy on Friday morning. MaryVic had been borrowing my bedroom slippers but the slippers were upstairs. I let her borrow some of the shoes I had stashed in the pantry and William snagged a pair too. They clattered around for part of the morning before returning the shoes to me.

And that’s all the pictures I have of them at home!

Everyone at work has been super nice and welcoming my return. I am still on intermittent FMLA leave until the first or second week of June. The first full week at daycare for William will be the first week of June. This lets me have the flexibility to be available should any issues arise. Currently I have no sick leave so once I’m off FMLA completely, Greg gets to be the point man for child care. Sick leave accrues at 8 hours per month so what are the odds that the kids will get sick in the first month of daycare?

Thankfully everything has worked out in all areas of our family life from my job, my availability to care for William, Greg’s ability to provide for our family when my income went to nearly nothing, toys from friends and family to entertain the ‘stuck’ little boy, little mother MaryVic, the return to normal going smoothly so far, and many other things big and small. Hopefully everything will continue to progress in a positive manner. Now that our time will be more crunched between work and the home front, I anticipate that our blogs will be less frequent although I hope we can pause and share our lives with our family and friends on the weekends. Maybe at naptimes like now!

William’s next appointment with the doctor is May 27. His leg will be x-rayed to be sure it has healed or it is continuing to heal well. We are not anticipating any problems and will be sure to let everyone know what the doctor says about it.

In a rare state of wakefulness, Daddy got up this morning and we went to the Zoo. It was a bit cool outside, but would warm on up to the mid 70′s by afternoon. We got there before most of the crowd, and was immediately in for a shock, and a treat.

William decided that he did not want to ride in the stroller, nor push it, nor be carried. William decided that he enjoyed walking yesterday, and would continue the tradition. From the car to the gates of the zoo. And then to the Macaws. AND THEN MOST OF THE REST of the Zoo. Kid did NOT want to be carried, would cry and scream if you picked him up. He’d stop, crouch down, occasionally LAY down on walkway, but then would get up and go. He walked almost non-stop from the Car to the far end of the zoo near the Cougars. At the end, Mary gave up her seat in the stroller so he could sit and eat some dinosaur chickens, but it was his stomach that got him in the end. I think that had he not been hungry (2 hours after starting this adventure), he would have kept going. Certainly after he ate, he was back up and walking again.

Mary Vic was quite happy to show Daddy the new Porcupines, and we got to watch a bird show with a hawk. Mary watched quite attentively, while William decided the most fun to be had was walking between where Mommy had sat to Mary and then up to Daddy, and repeat.

We stopped and had lunch at the Cafe there @ the zoo. Mary was introduced to Dipping Dots. I didn’t want to get her on those, but there weren’t any icee’s, and frankly, I was still in a bit of a cloud of bliss from all of the bipedal action William was demonstrating. I gave in.

After Lunch, it was on the play park, where guess what? William kept right on going.

You would think after as much as they did this morning and early afternoon, they’d be asleep immediately upon hitting the car seats. Both of them are still up as I write this.

Jeff’s try to get William to go to sleep, MV’s watching a movie as part of her quiet time, and Daddy is on cloud 9.

Now unfortunately, he does stumble quite a bit, and the speed simply isn’t there yet, but I don’t think it’s going to be long before he’s back. There were plenty of signs of it today. Anyone recognize this pose?

He’s bouncing back, and it’s one of the best feelings I can imagine.

Off to the pond. MaryVic walked and carried the crickets part of the way. No worms this time! We still have my willow stick fishing pool though.

Poppa set her up and she caught a fish 95% of the time.

William watched from the sidelines at first.

He tried to free the crickets and then poked at them with the clippers.

One of Greg’s teeny tiny catches. More than big enough for the kids.

William takes a turn with Daddy.

And catches a fish!

It takes Momma a few tries to catch him a fish in a coordinated effort with Poppa and MaryVic.

The smallest catch of the day.

Let’s do it again!