Owner: Dad2twins URL:http://www.dad2twins.com Join Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:10:40 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Dad2twins is about the amazing adventures of the farty pants twins. This blog is also about the wit, wisdom, trials, and tribulations of being a father to twin girls and it also chronicles my attempt to survive and thrive as a parent and a husband. Site statistics:Click here
I’ve got BlogHer envy.. 2007-08-03 14:35:16 Last year BlogHer was in San Jose and I was living in San Jose. I was supposed to hook up with Sarah and buy here a drink. It was only just around the corner. I could have gone over there and bought her a drink. OH well, something very unimportant came up and I was not able to make it. Besides, I had never met Sarah and why should I ply her with booze? No really, why?
Now a year has past and I still haven’t met Sarah but we talk occasionally via email. I send her cool Hello Kitty guitar picks and she sends me cool stuff as well. Is it ironic that she sends me a cool bottle opener? Should I use it to open her beer that I have not bought her yet? Or does she drink only wine? Hey Sarah, where is the SATGS wine opener?
Well, this year the BlogHer convention was in Chicago. Chi-town. I love Chicago. But I hate deep dish pizza. Alas, I did not go again this year. And it looks like there was a lot of drinking. I drank some beer at home the other day, does that count? Yes, I know it wa
Deep into summer and all that it brings… 2007-07-26 10:44:59 It’s funny how it takes until the end of July to get settled into summer. I imagine I may be feeling this way only because of the drama our family has had to endure since the May death’s of my Dad, Grandma, and beloved neighbor. But still, I am only now feeling as if summer is in full swing and the days are long and hot.
I still must work. That is how life is. But I find myself dreaming of the weekends and trying to figure out what we are going to do that the farty pants twins will consider fun. I still have the desire to be the cool parent. I just swing that way I guess. Anyway, we haven’t gone on a proper vacation this summer. We have done the weekend in Lake Tahoe. The weekend down at Grandma’s pool. The weekends at home hanging out. But no real vacation. And it is unlikely we will go anywhere before our big trip to Europe this September.
Speaking of which. How brave is my wife? I must stay behind for a couple of weeks and work. She, on the other hand is leav Read more:hellip
Celebration of life…. 2007-07-24 10:38:42 As many of you know, my Dad died in May. May 16th to be exact.
Well, after much planning, we had his “Celebration of life” party last Sunday.
My Dad was a big fan of the Hawaiian Islands and anything tropical. So we invited about 200 of his friends, family, business associates and acquaintances to a big party. We requested that everyone wear something tropical and come ready to eat and drink. We asked that the club we had it at, make tropical drinks (Mai Tai’s and Blue Hawaii’s) and we had a really nice buffet for everyone to feast on.
My brother made a great slide show of my Dad’s life, and I made a movie of the same with some of the video we captured over the years. My Mom and my Sister made these really nice picture boards of his life and my Sister-in-Law had tropical flowers flown in from Hawaii for the event. We even got lai’d. With real authentic ones.
We had several of my Dad’s friends, family, and neighbors come up and talk about their Read more:hellip
Making a Father proud. 2007-07-11 21:35:28 Let me begin by saying, we are a gaseous family. At least on my side. Though my Wife can compete with the best of them. (Yes, we are that juvenile sometimes.) I mean, come on, I do call my kids the Farty Pants Twins for a reason.
So, suffice it to say, that tonight at dinner, Reese (all 25 lbs. of her) laid down a world record fart bomb. I mean, we are talking a 200 lb man bomb. After a bowl full of chili and beer. Reese let one go, that had a long, low, rumble that hovered over our neighborhood like a sonic boom that echoed for at least 5 minutes. If I had not been there to witness it, I would have thought my Wife a lier.
I am not sure how, a little 25lb mouse could have the intestinal fortitude to gather up a fart of this magnitude, but I am a proud man. Had I been able to let one go of this magnificence, I would be bragging about it for weeks. I know my daughter was proud, because she looked at me and did her lower voice giggle after she parted with the aforementioned fart.
I guess Read more:Father
No, I know I can’t dance. 2007-08-10 14:17:13 We love reality T.V. in our house. We watch most of the big reality shows. Survivor, Big Brother, Top Chef, all of the Real Estate flipping shows and Fox’s So you think you can dance. Go ahead, stop laughing and pick yourself up off the floor.
Can I continue?
I know. I don’t know what the hell got into me on this one. But I must confess, I didn’t just start watching it this season. I was glued to the television last season as well. I blame my wife for this. She started watching it and I was walking by the television when a couple of the contestants were doing this amazing swing routine. I was hooked.
I confess, I can’t dance. I can’t actually even pretend I can dance. You see, I can pretend to do most sports. I am naturally gifted at the ability to do most sports pretty well right from the get go. I am one of those people who does many things well and nothing very well.
I also must confess, I have always had a fascination with swing dancing. I had friends
Please be seated and wait. 2007-08-09 15:56:16 I know, I know. Two posts in one day. There may even be a third. But don’t hold your breath.
So anyway, last Monday we took the day to go to San Francisco to the German Consulate to get the Farty Pants twins their EU passports and register them as German Citizens. The benefits of dual citizenship, in these times, are definately a plus for us.
Like many things European, they have really short working hours. They are open from 9:00am to 12:00pm. Yes, that’s right. Three whole hours. I attribute this to the fact that there aren’t really any Germans in the San Francisco Bay Area. Except, that is, for the Bosnian man and the young American girl that were in the lobby with us. We didn’t see anyone else for the first hour and a half we were there.
So we arrived at 10:00am and entered Germany. I immediately bragged to the Farty Pants Twins that they should be thankful I take them to such exotic locales at such a young age. Already traveling the world at 2 1/2. So th Read more:Please
Um.. no Daddy. 2007-08-09 10:41:27 I hear that phrase a lot around the house. Even when they don’t mean it. The standard default phrase for everything around hear is “no daddy.”
Do you want to go to Disneyland? …..”no daddy”
Do you want to eat something? …..”no daddy”
Do you want me to leave and never come back? … Yah!
just kidding on that one. Anyway, the girls are about 29 months old. I may have mentioned before that we are a bilingual house. In fact, I know I have mentioned this before. You were listening? right? German is the answer to your question. Oh, and English of course.
I have read (actually, my wife reads it and I claim I read it) that bilingual children take a little longer to start talking because of the process of instituting two languages in their little developing brains. They will probably also have a little trouble reading until they hit their stride. Which is around 7 - 9 year sold. Then (drum roll please) bilingual children excel and pas Read more:Daddy
The Last Town Chorus 2007-08-22 17:59:10 I am a musician. You may not have known that about me. As a musician, I enjoy an eclectic array of music. You will find me, at anyone one time, enjoying Rock, Trip Hop, Metal, Classical, Dance, Folk, Irish, World, and recently Chill. I realize Chill is a relatively new category, but I find it is a category that is deserving of its own place in the lexicon of music.
That brings me the point of my post. I have recently discovered “The Last Town Chorus“. You may have heard this song? It comes attached to her video on Youtube. She is Megan Hickey. The Village Voice said it best; “She sings like an Angel and plays lap steel guitar like the Devil.”
I love the remake of this David Bowie song. After listening to several other original tracks on her album, I found I really liked most of them as well. She is friends with “The Innocence Mission” A band I have followed for well over a decade. The Innocence Mission may not even remember it, but my band once
Lois Joslyn Smith 2007-08-20 11:15:10 It seems my blog has taken a turn toward the darker side of late. Death has visited my family and my friends much too often this year. Well, we must add another to the list.
Lois Joslyn Smith
.
She is my best friends Mom. She was a wonderful lady. I really liked her. I have known her for over 25 years and have spent many an hour playing guitar at her house with her two boys and her Husband. We would sit around and play Hawaiian music and drink wine and laugh. We would laugh and laugh and laugh.
She didn’t play any instrument that I was aware of, but she would sit in the family room with us and just chat away in between each song. We would end up talking more than playing. Of course, I was okay with that. I love to talk. She always had the most interesting things to talk about. Whether it be about family, friends, their dog, the news, etc. No topic was off limit.
She was also married to a really cool guy. He is Hawaiian and the Hawaiian culture runs strong in this ohana. You see,
Ich verstehe nicht 2007-08-24 18:33:55 It means “I don’t understand” in German. I have written about this many times in this blog that we are raising bilingual children. As you might have guessed, that means English and German.
My wife leaves on September 11 to Hamburg Germany with the girls. Because of work obligations, I will not be able to follow until September 24th. Don’t even think about robbing us because we will have a house sitter.
Anyway, I am very bad and lazy about learning German. I will be the first to admit this. I would say, right now, my spoken German is at about 10% fluency and my understanding, when spoken to, is about 65%. My 2 1/2 year old kids, on the other hand, are already at 100% fluency. What the F@%&! How can a friggin 2 1/2 year old trump the old man who has struggled for years already be friggin fluent?
So when I arrive in Germany in a few weeks, my kids will be speaking exclusively German and I will just stand around and say “Ich verstehe nicht”.
That is
Has Elmo heard about this? 2007-08-28 10:12:16 Today I was reading the morning newspaper. Our rag is the Sacramento Bee, a worthless paper if you ask me. Especially coming from the Bay Area were we had the Mercury News. I digress. Anyway, the Bee recycles all kinds of stories from the major news services. This was an AP story about potting training that caught my eye.
Here at the Farty Pants headquarters we are in the throws of potty training right now with the Farty Pants Twins. My usual morning stupor swiftly changed to unbridled excitement when I saw this story. I would try to glean any possible potty tips for use with our girls. I would find the answers to all our potty problems. As you know, this is what fathers do. To my shock, the story was about parents who start potty training at birth. BIRTH People! Who the hell starts potty training their kids at birth? Isn’t this child abuse? Has anyone out there actually done this successfully? Am I just freaking out over nothing?
So after I wipe up the coffee that dripped uncons
T-minus 3 days and counting… 2007-09-21 11:42:24 Well, today is my last day working before I head off to the Fatherland.(Germany for those of you who have not been paying attention.) I am spending the day wrapping up last minute Client issues, begging my co-workers to handle my email when I’m gone and generally being as lazy as possible before the last push to clean the house, do the laundry, pack and head off to a land far, far away.
My two weeks of bachelorhood have pretty much sucked. I realize now that I am a married man and father. I miss my wife and kids way too much to be a single guy. I have also lost about 10 pounds in the last two weeks because I haven’t been eating that much. And the answer is no, I do the cooking around here. It’s just that I haven’t been cooking because there is no one to cook for. I also hate fast food most of the time and so my dinners have consisted of microwave popcorn and glasses of water. I know, I said I’m lazy.
In my defense, I have also been busy traveling around Read more:hellip
I’m fired up and there is no one around to vent to…. 2007-09-13 14:30:57 Julia and the Farty Pants Twins are in Germany. Here is a picture of them arriving in Hamburg, Germany. Julia’s hometown. Yes, they made it. And what an adventure it was. She called me last night to tell me they arrived and the girls slept most of the way, so it went pretty easy. At least until Amsterdam. Then the fun began. Well, actually, let me back up. The fun actually began when we arrived at San Francisco Int’l Airport. The girls flew Northwest/KLM to Amsterdam. When we were in line to see if we could get bulkhead, we were informed that the 3:00PM flight was delayed until 9:30PM. Something about the plane being delayed on its flight to SFO. Of course, I asked if that was the only plane KLM had. They didn’t answer me. We then got our bulkhead for the girls and they also handed us $35 in meal vouchers for dinner while we waited. We grabbed lunch and then decided to head back out to my Mom’s house. About an hour from SFO. We went down there and hung out until Read more:hellip
On, off, on, off, on, off…… 2007-09-10 16:30:40 We are deep into potty training here at the Farty Pants world headquarters. Everything is pee and poop, all day and all night. The girls want to take a pro-active roll in there discharges and who are we to get in the way. BUT! This is just a sampling of what we contend with at the headquarters. In no particular order.
“Daddy pee pee.”
“Mommy pee pee.”
“Mommy, Daddy pee pee.”
“Reese poopy.” Courtesy of Kiera.
“Reese poopy” Courtesy of Reese. She calls Kiera Reese also. I have no idea why.
“Poopy now!”
“I want pajama’s.” This is how they bribe us into thinking they are going to sleep. Lies, all lies.
“I poop.”
“Daddy stinky” Yeah, I get blamed for everything around here.
“Uh oh!” - For just about everything they do.
They are constantly taking off their clothes, diapers (if they are wearing any), underwear without the diapers, pajama’s, etc, etc.
We are exh Read more:hellip
Oh Flannery O’Connor, I wish I would have met you. 2007-09-06 17:00:20 When I was in a band a hundred years ago, we used to tour a lot. We spent an ton of time in the South. Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida. Wherever there was a college, we probably played there. Or at least slept there in some girls dorm room or on the floor of a fraternity house.
But that was another life. Anyway, I spent a lot of time reading while we were driving from place to place. Some of the stuff I read was geographically discovered. When at Ole’ Miss you find yourself reading William Faulkner of course. But when in Georgia I found myself attached to Flannery
O’Connor
.
Now I imagine there are other famous Georgian writers. I even imagine I have read some of their works. But Flannery O’Connor stole my heart. From the first story I read through to the very last, I was in love with her writing. She was wicked, funny, sad, brave, and weird. A perfect combination for me. And her stories dripped of the South. The people, the places, it was pure so
Observations from Germany Part 1. 2007-10-01 01:40:55 Well I have been in Germany
for almost a week and I have made some simple observations that I want to share.
Boy these people love to eat meat! Specifically pork. It’s cheaper than steak and they eat a lot of it.
You will be invited to BBQ’s even if it is snowing outside. Oh, and you will eat outside even if it is freezing. I know this from last night’s dinner. It didn’t snow, but it was COLD!
I dare you to get the checkout lady at the grocery store to smile at you. In fact, I will give you a Euro if you can.
Everyone knows everyone else in a small town. If you are not from here you will get lot’s of people staring at you.
If you like pork, you are in heaven.
If you like eating outside in cold weather, you are in heaven.
Sorry, no pictures to post yet. We are leaving my brother-in-laws house tomorrow and heading towards Berlin. It may be days before I can post more observations or any pictures, but I promise I will.
Oh, and can the U.S. not bomb Iran u
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