Huh?

Sometimes your kids just say things that you can't understand.  My youngest hasn't fully mastered the english language yet, so there are times I just sit there scratching my head.  He doesn't have all of his tenses down and doesn't know the names of everything he sees, but he does a pretty good job of describing things, so it's not THAT hard to figure out what he is talking about,.  There are those occasions though where I have no clue.

Wednesday was a perfect example of this.  When Carter came to me crying hysterically about something, I had absolutely no idea what the problem could have been.  I certainly thought that he could have hurt something, or most likely his brother wasn't playing with him, which is usually the case.  Sometimes HE needs to be in charge, but you can only play with lightsabers or pretend to jedis so often.  There was much more going on here, it wasn't something his brother did or didn't do, he was very upset.  I could tell we had a serious issue on our hands.

His hair can get a little crazy sometimes

I was able to calm him down a little, which is not easy to do with this child. After about five minutes I could hear the words CRAZY, HAIR, and DISCO. How on Earth could these words together be the cause of such torment for this child?  He has never been to a disco, neither have I, but his hair has gotten out of control sometimes. Another minute passed and I was able to decipher DANCING. OK obviously he wanted crazy hair so he could go disco dancing.  But he told me in the most high pitched squealing cry that wasn't it. There was more to his anguish.

It took me a little longer to get the word LEGO out of him, which is a surprise because that is usually his first word every morning.  If you know us at all we are a family obsessed with Legos. Ok it's only me and the boys, as my wife would love nothing more than melting these colorful blocks together to make something more useful, like a pair of shoes or a purse.  I deduced that this had to do with some sort of crazy haired dancing lego.  I am quite the decoder in my spare time.  But what the hell does it all mean?

Now I thought I have seen every Lego made, at least that is what the floor of basement will tell you, but I have never seen a crazy haired disco dancing one.  WTF?  It took me a little longer to get my next clue, ZOMBIE.  Holy crap!  What the hell is happening to my child?  It was only then that I asked Carter, "Do you want crazy lego hair to make a disco dancing zombie?"

He paused from his hysterics for a moment, and in the sweetest voice replied, "yes."

Well he should have told me that in the first place.  I was getting worried he had lost his mind.

This is who he wanted to make

We are apparently in a Plants vs Zombies phase... who knew?

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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Sweet Caroline

Jesse Eisenberg could take lessons from this guy

We have new pet bird in our house and he is teaching my son to dance.  You might recall Blu the domesticated Macaw from the movie Rio, well he has swooped in and made my son a regular Fred Astaire.  Well maybe that is stretching things a little bit, but for a kid with a father with no rhythm it's the closest thing I can compare him to, if Fred Astaire was a hyped up naked four year old.  Every night for the past week Carter has decided the thing to do before bedtime is play with this McDonald's toy, you see it makes music when you push a button.  If you have kids who force you to go to the McDonald's play place then you have probably seen it.  I will tell you, there is much more life to this bird than there was in the movie.

I guess the dancing helps him sleep

The other night Carter decided to step up his game a little bit.  Somehow he managed to turn on the radio in his brothers room, something I have yet to even figure out, and dance.  Now this was not some sweet little child performing a charming waltz, he was a stripped down, literally naked, out of his mind, whacko going crazy to the sounds of "Sweet Caroline", you know the sing along anthem sung most notably at Red Sox games.  I am pretty sure that Neil Diamond didn't have my son in mind when he penned the lyrics to this song.  Nonetheless there we were singing along and dancing, only one of us was naked.

There are a lot of good times that we tend to forget over the years.  My wife constantly reminds me of things that seemingly happened yesterday.  We wish we could capture our kids lives even more than we do, but as is often the case some of the most memorable things happen when the camera is not turned on.  We remember good times when we visit places or see old faces.  Sometimes a song comes on the radio that brings us back to a good time we don't want to forget.  I think I found that song, and I have definitely found that moment.

"Oh, sweet Caroline, good times never seemed so good."

So good!

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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My Little Animal

My little man has a strange way of eating, either he doesn't or he shoves everything in his mouth at once. This morning he inhaled a box of frozen waffles, he looked like Scooby Doo eating a sandwich. For lunch we decided on chicken, not pieces of chicken mind you, he likes the WHOLE chicken. I swear he was a coyote in his past life.

I know most kids love the legs, I am a leg man myself, as well as a boob man but the whole chicken?

It might be little strange, but what is the harm a letting him pick at a bird with his little Buzz Lightyear fork? I will tell you that it stops with chicken. There will be no eating a side of beef or an entire pig at a luau. Could you imagine if we gave him an entire turkey at Thanksgiving? I don't think that would go over well with grandpa.

Unless you want your little cats and dogs to end up looking like this, I suggest you bring them inside the house tonight. There is an animal on the loose and he is eating everything in sight.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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Where is Commander Cody?

Take a look at these two Lego Clone Troopers. Do you notice any difference between the two of them? Yeah, me neither. Somehow in the mind of my three year old though they are two completely different guys. Now I always thought that Clones were supposed to be exactly the same, but I guess that I was mistaken. I have spent hours looking for Commander Cody only to be told that every guy I find is not him. How am I supposed to find him when the only person that knows what he looks like is Carter?

From my vast Star Wars knowledge I know that this guy is not a clone trooper so there is no way that he could be Commander Cody or could he? Everyday he seems to be a different guy. I have completely lost track of what he looks like now because he looks nothing like he did yesterday.

At last count my house had around 387,453 Lego pieces and that includes a full 7,523 minifigures half of which are clone troopers and only one that is Commander Cody. Yeah we have way too many legos but the kids love them especially the Star Wars ones. They keep making new ones thanks to the animated Clone Wars series. It really is endless because they can introduce a new character every week, some that we have never heard of, and low and behold there is a new Lego set introduced within a month. I should have bought stock in Lego years ago, I probably would be some sort of majority share holder by now. Of course as a former child who LOVED Legos I have no problem with this, except for the mess in my basement.

It seems that every set comes with a clone trooper. We probably have more clones than the actual clone army. The only problem though is that some have no heads, others have no arms, and others have only one leg. Carter likes to mix and match to create his clone trooper so I never know what an actual one looks like to him. He can be a very creative kid with these little guys, I sometimes think they are his best friends. He might not know how to fully count to ten yet or know his ABC's but when it comes to Legos he does know his Clone Troopers. You or I might not think this guy looks like him but to Carter this is exactly what Commander Cody looks like... At least today.

Update as of 2:05 pm today, this is what Commander Cody looks like

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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MURDER (Parent Teacher Conference)

"He doesn't talk about murdering people? Does he?"

My wife actually posed that question to Carter's preschool teacher at his most recent parent teacher conference. And the answer we got was quite surprising. No. Everyone knows how these meetings work, the teacher lists off a bunch of things that the child does at school like cleaning, listening, and reciting the Declaration of Independence from memory. All things he would never do at home, although he is a big Abe Lincoln fan. Certainly she must be talking about the wrong student as I looked through her pile of papers for Carters actual performance review. This is not the same child I know. The next time he picks up something off the floor will be the first and if he does listen it's only to Anakin Skywalker whom he pledged his allegiance to long ago.

How could this be? I certainly must not be alone in this. Millions of parents are sending their kids off to school and the teachers don't know who these kids really are. Or do we as parents have no idea who OUR kids are. We had the same thing happen with Tyler, he really never listened at home and we were all worried that we would get a bad report from his teacher. Well, she actually thanked us for letting her teach him.

Maybe my wife got a little carried away in her line of questioning during the conference, but who could blame her. When we left, Carter said he was going to punch her in the face and rip her head off. I guess he has a weird way of showing his love. As for the review itself, it was one of those proud parent moments. His teacher says that he can pick out letters from the alphabet, although they apparently taught him that the letter "k" is the number "7", and he knows all his shapes and colors. Everything they would expect from someone his age. He is a little advanced though in Star Wars and Ninja training.

Carter can be the nicest sweetest little boy but can also show a very rough side not unlike a lot of kids. As parents we feel like we are failing sometimes but we are apparently doing something right. At least we have taught him to respect others. While it would be nice to see the same kid at home that the teachers see at school, it's nice to know what things the little guy is capable of doing. And while I don't think he would ever harm a fly, it's GREAT to know that murder is not one of them.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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A Hairy Situation

Carter's hair has always been a sticky subject, he never wants to get it cut and so it just grows and continues into some sort of rats nest.  In fact the other day we found a lego clone trooper stuck inside it that we have been looking for for over a week.  We don't comb it, just kind of push it over to one side, however he wakes up is how he goes to school.  I think its cute, because that is Carter, he has always had some craziness to his hair, just adds to his personality.  But I wonder if we were the type of parents that combed his hair everyday would Carter be the same, who knows.  I am sure there is some sort of study done based on the correlation of hair to personality and I am sure it says that we are awful parents  because we don't comb his hair on a daily basis, whatever.  As long as there has been Carter and hair in particular his hair has gotten out of control, witness some of these images.  

I don't know how many times we have actually gotten this kid a haircut in his almost four years but it is probably less than five.  He NEVER wants to get his hair cut because he say he doesn't want to lose his curls, he probably learned that from us, and that it is going to hurt.  Like he has some sort of ability to feel his hair tips, who knows maybe he does.  Maybe we should have introduced him to the barber earlier on his life and taken him more often but you know as a parent you see how a kid looks and you don't want to change it.  It's especially that way with the first hair cut.  They go in looking like a baby and coming out looking like a big kid.  It's totally traumatizing.  Every time we take Carter in for a hair cut he comes out looking like a different kid, totally un-Carterlike.

Then you realize that it is not the hair that makes Carter the way he is, its just Carter being Carter.  He is always going to be a little more wild than most, regardless of what he has on top of his head.  Are we bad parents for not getting our son a haircut more often so he doesn't look like a little homeless child?  If thinking you have the most adorable son and don't want to change a thing about him is a bad thing, then I am guilty as charged.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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The End of an Era

Well it happened... Carter's shoe finally fell apart, a big giant hole broke out where his big toe would be.  Now I knew this day was coming as these crocs never leave his feet. Yes we have had near record snowfall, but he continued to wear them through rain, sleet, snow, and dark of night.   Much like a postman with his appointed rounds you could count on Carter to be walking around with these shoes on. My last blog I talked of buying a car and how much I disliked the process, well I think that this is going to be even worse. He has grown very attached to these shoes, I can't even tell you when we got them for him, and he is very much a creature of habit, notice the orange shorts, he has worn them everyday for the past two weeks.  I almost think it would have been better for him to lost a foot or something.

We as parents probably feed into his craziness by not wanting to get him upset so naturally he wears the crocs all the time.  I honestly don't care what he wears on his feet as long as he has something, but what am I going to do now?  I have a couple pairs of sneakers that he could wear but I don't think that there is any chance of me getting them on his feet tomorrow.  I do have an old pair of crocs that used to be Tyler's but they seem a little bit too big.  This reminds me, I don't like the sizing of these sandals because you are either an 8/9 or a 10/11.  Give me a 9/10!  Obviously Carter's feet are to big for the smaller size but they are way too small for the bigger size.  I need something just right.  Where is Goldilocks when you need her?

I will have to admit it was kind of sad seeing a giant hole in his shoes.  Those Crocs WERE Carter and not seeing them on his feet will leave a little empty feeling.  It really is the end of an era, my boy is getting bigger by the day, at least his feet are anyway.  As for those 3T shorts, the way the rest of Carter is growing, we should be safe for a couple of more years.  Lets hope so anyway.

By the way for those with an Iphone or an Ipad, who just need to get to my blog on the go, I have created a little icon that you can add to your homescreen to follow my blog.  Just click on the add to homescreen button and instead of a generic webpage you will have a picture of my two boys on your phone, its that easy to follow the life we lead, give it a shot.   Just another easy way to keep in touch with the Willey universe.  For those without an iphone, well I don't know how other phones work so I suggest that you go get yourselves one.  Thanks for reading.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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The Curious Case of Carter Blake

I know that most kids have their little quirks, and mine are no different.  Its these little things that makes us love them more.  Carter is just one of those little boys, yes he is a little boy now, that takes quirkiness to the extreme.  Or maybe he is no different than others, you tell me.  It was a snow day yesterday, a topic for a whole other blog, so I decided to take the kids out for a much deserved lunch date with daddy.  Ok it really was more we wanting to get out of the house, as you can only play with so many legos, and time just seems to go faster when you are not cooped up inside.  A good break to the day.

Both boys wanted pancakes, which I am fine with, they could eat them at every meal if I would let them.  Its all they eat in The Netherlands right?  It was then I noticed something strange with the way Carter was eating, he was eating from the inside out and leaving the outer rim of the the little silver dollar cakes.  Somewhat bizarre but I for a three year old probably seems pretty normal.  I mean who cares HOW they eat it as long as the DO eat it.

A ROLE REVERSAL


As much as the boys like pancakes, they LOVE donuts.  The problem with where we live, like most in the northeast, is that there is a Dunkin Donuts on every corner and just so happens to be one almost right across the street from where Carter goes to school.  He could eat donuts at every meal.  I actually caught him the other day hiding behind a chair eating his brothers donut.  What a little sneak.  Anyway Carter has a curious way of eating these little treats,  HE ONLY EATS THE OUTSIDE leaving the hole in the middle.  What happens if he comes across a pancake donut?  Who knows, maybe the world will end or something if these two delicacies were to ever collide.  I think Carter's brain would explode, because he would have no idea how to eat it.

I guess we all have our little intricacies that make us special.  My mom still makes comments about the way I eat pie, always eat the top with the fruit filling, then the bottom, then the crust.  I don't know why I eat that way, always have always will I guess, just one of those little things that makes ME special.  As for Carter I hope he is still leaving the holes in his donuts when he gets to be my age, but if he is still eating pancakes the way he did yesterday that would just be strange.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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Who Wears Short Shorts?

A curious new problem has arisen at my house, and I have no idea where it came from.  My youngest son Carter has decided that he wants to only wear shorts.  Now, I don’t live in Florida or Hawaii where that might be acceptable, this is New Jersey where in the past month we have gotten close to three feet of snow and todays high temperature was a whopping 27 degrees.  I have no idea where he got this crazy idea that we could wear shorts in the winter.  Sometimes when we comeback from vacation there is a little bit of transitioning that takes place and he forgets he is back home.  That I can understand but we have not been on vacation since early November.

Among the Quirks

Of course these sort of things aren’t new with this boy.  Before his obsession with shorts he would only wear sweatpants or those Old Navy fleece pants, which I might add are quite comfy.  Needless to say we have very nice clothes that we have been lucky enough to inherit over the years but they sit in his closet as the 7 pairs of fleece take turns keeping his legs warm.  Carter has not worn a pair of sneakers in God knows how long.  I have purchased a couple of pairs of them in the past year and the only thing to grace his feet are a pair of Buzz Lightyear Crocs that he has been wearing since the springtime.  I don’t know how there is anything left to these shoes.

It was so bad that at a recent wedding that he was asked to be the ring bearer in, he wore the tuxedo but insisted on wearing his Crocs.  For fear of ruining the entire wedding with a screaming three year old we obviously let him, and boy was it quite the fashion statement.  He didn’t end up walking down the aisle, of course that is a different story, but there he was with his blue sandals.  In retrospect we probably should have done a better job of getting rid of those shoes, but yet again we give in.  Then of course he has a problem with his socks everyday, none seem to fit him right, he thinks they have holes in them, or something is wrong with the color.  Something must be seriously wrong with this boys legs to put me through the stress of getting him dressed and out the door everyday.


Only one Solution
I don’t know what will happen when he outgrows these crocs.  Maybe his feet will always stay a size 8-9 who knows.  As for the present and Carters wanting to wear shorts and crocs all the time, the only solution that I can come up with besides chopping his legs off, is move to a warmer climate.  It certainly beats having to deal with the pain everyday of getting him dressed. My only concern then is he might not want to wear clothes at all.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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