It's my weekend, again, and we just got in. I haven't smiled this much in two weeks. I have big plans for the weekend. Saturday is: breakfast, pay the rent, haircuts, the park, lunch, "fun" shopping (toys and games, probably), dinner (pizza buffet and games) and a movie. Sunday is: breakfast, church, games, lunch, clothes shopping, and then dropping them off. I'm really looking forward to it... I'm already having a great time!

This one was barely planned... I knew about it since Sunday evening. I had to drive all the way there and back to pick them up, and I'll have to make the same trip on Sunday. 12 hours in the car this weekend, not counting local driving time... but it's well worth it. We're going shopping for more things for the apartment this weekend, and we will be hitting up the church tomorrow for Mass. Honest, this time. We're probably doing lunch at "our" McDonald's today, and I hope we have tim...

The lease states that I can't have pets, although I suspect that some tenants (the lady directly below me, for example) got "grandfathered" (or grandmothered) from a previous lease that allowed them. So, we can't have dogs. However, since the Superman/Batman pillowcases and beach towels were such a hit (and allowed me to determine pseudo jr's preference: Man of Steel), I decided I'd try something a little different: Link They're going to meet Krypto and Ace this weekend. I hope t...

This weekend alone, he has been: a rollerskating robot (without rollerskates, mind you) a baby a baby animal a baby hippo a monkey a racecar driver (specifically, Hot Wheels Acceleracers) a racing drone (from the above show) "Daddy, I a drone!" Superman (thanks to his new pajamas) I'm going to see if he and his brother want to be fish or frogs in a few minutes... they opened the pool at the apartment yesterday. edit: 1259 Central Time 21MAY06 - baby giraffe

"Daddy puppy." He pets Daddy. "Oh, good putty." Daddy pants. "Arf, arf." "Dad is a chair." He climbs on Daddy's shoulder. "Daddy chair!" "Daddy horse!" Daddy's horse is too tired. "Get up, horse!" The horse has rug-burned knees. "I tired, too, Daddy.""

There's a three-year old monkey hanging all over me this morning. We're watching TV, he's sitting on my chest. I'm on the computer, he's literally hanging on my back (watching TV). "Go down! Squish!" And I lay on top of him. "Go up! Go up, Daddy!" And I sit back up and write another line. "Shoulders!" So I can walk around with a miniature human backpack. "Ticklish!" "Feet!" "You got me!" It's already a great visit...

I get the impression... From the way the daycare workers go out of their way and give me and my boys special treatment... Because my unit doesn't have a unified policy to handle my situation... Is a military father being involved in the lives of his children after divorce this rare? I can't imagine not having the relationship with my sons that I now have, and I wouldn't give it up unless I was forced, I became convinced it wasn't good for them, or they became old enough to choose ot...

He's not a great soccer player, but he's one of my two all-time favorites, and he certainly is much improved. He loves games; we even played RoboRally today, which is supposed to be well above his age level. Of course, even the younger one enjoyed the silly robot noises that their Dad made. I was surprised at how much he wanted to play, but I told him we would again the next time he was down. He's ticklish and he knows I am, too. I can packmule both of them while they're hanging off my...

This is the first time I've seen my boys since I gave them back after Christmas. Contractually, that weekend was mine but I offered it to her because the boys missed their mother, and it didn't make much sense to give them back on a Wednesday afternoon just to take them away again on Friday. I'm finding that I'm feeling more domestic while they're here. Areas of the apartment that were "good enough" for me aren't when they're around. I actually broke out the vacuum cleaner just now and ...

It's like Chuck E. Cheese, but without the giant rat merchandising. First, we gorged ourselves on pizza... okay, I gorged myself on pizza, they had a moderate amount. Then, we headed to the game room. 100 tokens for $20, and we had a random one left over from last time. pseudo jr runs off immediately after I hand him a cup with 20 tokens and by the time I catch up with him he's already bored with the bulldozer game. akulaboy plays that for awhile, and I become convinced it's out of...

Going home was... nice? But awkward. And if there's any doubt that I'm thinking of myself more than my kids: I returned them to their mother three days early so they could spend a day visiting their uncle (her brother) and his family. At SeaWorld. I would've been within my legal rights to say, "No." I would've also been a selfish prick.

Baby 'Slock' - What? 'I Baby Slock!' Do you mean sloth? 'Yes!' You don't even know what that means. 'Slock is in the trees!' I guess you do... Baby Skunk - He even arches his back, sticks out his butt and says, "Pfff!" Baby Tiger - He tried to bite my face. Baby Snake - He slithered off and back on the couch, going "sss! sss!" This kid is nuts.

The boys have settled into a Superman/Batman preference. pseudo jr has decided he likes Superman, so that leaves akulaboy with Batman. He's alright with it. This is how we split up the pillow cases and the beach towels... and it's also how we split the super-puppies. pseudo jr got Krypto and akulaboy got Ace, the Bat-Hound. Ace is carried around sometimes, but he's shunned in bed in favor of Curious George (since akulaboy is sometimes a "baby monkey animal" anyway). Krypto gets a lot ...

Sometimes, I like to say things to my son that aren't serious. Like telling him that we need to pick up more spankings at the store because we're almost out. Or that we're going to Spanking Land when he asks where we're going. I had to have a talk with him yesterday when he got a little bent out of shape over it ("Tell me and don't do the spanking part!"), but he couldn't remember that I ever actually spanked him, so it's okay. I don't now, and it has been a long while. Friday night as...

The older boy is fixated upon Scooby Doo. I mean, the younger one is as well, but not to the extent that the older one has honed in on it. Both of them have SD underpants, we have two Scooby Doo video games and they enjoy my Scooby impressions. He also wants a puppy. Every time he mentions how much he wants one, he immediately amends it with, "But we can't, because we live in an apartment." This isn't entirely true, but it's something I told him when I moved in. See, we had a dog (w...