Repair Man

On my way to a meeting yesterday, I passed by a house in West Valley with a sign in front that read something like:

Home repairs or home renovations (and then listed the number to call to hire a home repairman).

Interesting though that the house boasting the sign had several exterior items in desperate need of repair and a fresh coat of paint.

I don't need to be self-deprecating or flippant, but there's more than one good reason why I didn't become a nutritionist and have never been an aerobics instructor. Have you ever walked into an exercise class at a gym and realized the class was taught by an overweight instructor? I have.
It does not inspire confidence.
You're immediately filled with a realization that you just might be about to waste an hour of your life.
But you can't change your mind once you're in there or you're the lazy fat person who gave up before class even started.

The Parrot

We play two games as a family (minus Jayson). Angelina Ballerina Uno (Uno with the dancing mouse, Angelina Ballerina--the colors are pastel pink, blue, green, and yellow) and Sequence for kids. Sometimes we play as a family (minus Jayson and Rylee). It depends on our patience level.

Rylee can engage in serious game play for about two minutes. Then she's gotta mess around. She will go out of turn. She will place her chips (in Sequence) on an animal that isn't one of the cards she drew. Or she will try to secretly, or not-so-secretly depending on her mood, switch chips with someone else's on the board. My favorite, until tonight, was when she leaned back and put her bare foot up on the table. She then put the cards in her hand between her toes and held her "hand" of cards with her feet. Nice.

Each time we ask her if she wants to play, she promises us that she will not be silly. But it lasts only a short time.

Tonight she did better than she has for a long time. She lasted through 3 games of sequence and four hands on Uno (she won three of the four rounds of Uno). She celebrated her victories by quietly climbing up on my right shoulder to sit. As she perched up there, she turned to me and said, "I a parrot".

OK. Game over.

Bro-Mance

It's become so commonplace you hardly even notice it anymore.
Two or three gals getting their exercise on with a brisk walk through the neighborhood, or as often is the case in my neck of the woods, around the track surrounding the park adjacent to the Layton Firestation.
I've seen them in the early morning, afternoon, early evening or even late at night. Group exercise walking is beneficial in so many ways. Not only does it address safety concerns, but it increases the obligation of both parties to participate in the exercise ritual, and provides company (which lessons the pain and boredom of repeated walks in an area providing no change in scenery). Without a doubt great conversation is also an essential ingredient to the successful group walk exercise and fitness program.
Years ago Jessica was involved in an early morning walking group. They successfully pounded the pavement of our subdivision and the Firestation track on many a very early morning (the early morning comment may come as a great shock to those of you who know my wife and her love for sleep.) Jessica would come home rejuvenated and no doubt filled with the latest information on who was doing what around our neighborhood.
Well times are changing.
Some neighborhood drivers have undoubtedly seen a different form of group exercise ritual emerging in these parts.
The benefits are all the same. Exercise. Obligation. Safety (well, not really). Pleasant conversation.
But the group composition is slightly different.
This pair doesn't just blend in due to commonality.
United with a desire to increase health and fitness, drop the poundage, and boost energy levels, two three-hundred-plus pound male fitness walkers have been hitting the pavement with semi-regularity.
There are definite differences from the typical walking pair.
1) We actually need the exercise.
3) We are bound by similar goals and limitations.
2) Due to our subpar fitness levels, walking actually constitutes exercise.
3) Conversation is often cut short due to brief periods of breathlessness.
4) When we can talk, we don't talk about other people, we talk about ourselves, our ideas, our goals, our common interests and challenges.
5) Cars have to swerve significantly in order to avoid hitting us.
6) We never have any pre-conceived route or distance. We prefer to meander through the neighborhood, take random turns and eventually end up somewhere close to where we started.
7) When we move to the sidewalk and try to walk side by side, we have to take turns being the one either slightly ahead, slightly behind, with one foot off the sidewalk, or dodging the low-hanging branches of grass-strip trees.
8) When we finish, we are actually perspiring, even in 20-degree weather.
9) Afterwards, we feel tired as opposed to rejuvenated.

Jess calls it a "Bro-mance" (she views it as a match made in heaven).
I prefer to think of it as "two big guys on a very slow jog".

Stiff Competition

Jayson's apparently trying to upgrade his current status with his "BFF".

The other night Jess and I were sitting on the couch watching TV before bed. Jayson wouldn't go to sleep so he was hanging out with us. Rather, he was cuddling with Jess. I was the third wheel.

It got worse.

I heard Jess chuckle so I looked over to see what was so funny. Jayson had his arms locked around Jess' neck. He was staring longingly (yes, longingly) into Jessica's eyes. His head was tilted to the side and he was clearly smitten with his mommy. It was all Jess and I could do to not laugh outloud.

"How long has this been going on?" I asked her.

"A couple days now." she responded.

Well, I've decided to think it's cute.

But still a little creepy.

Jayson better be ready for a war, cause I'm gonna fight for my woman.

You better bring it...Momma's boy!

The Sisterhood

So during movie night this past week I was torn between two movies that I was dying to see.

Tay and Rylee were watching "A Barbie Christmas Carol" upstairs.

Jess was watching "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" downstairs.

Jayson was frantically vacuuming the house with his new vacuum from Santa (more on that later).

I went with the pants movie.

Great choice.

I got to spend time with my sweet wife....

and learn some valuable life lessons from a fictional girls club.

Jess and I never watched the first movie, so we were grateful the movie so quickly and conveniently caught us up on the most important bits of drama we had missed.

The four girls in the movie traveled to different locations for their college summer break, but shipped the magic hippie pants back and forth with a brief note so they could all wear them at some point during the summer.

The pants were so important that they all four traveled to Greece to find them once they heard they were lost by Lena's little sister Effey. (Really? Effey?) Well, three of them went to find the pants and make sure their friend once again connected with her "love of a lifetime" beau-married to another girl due to a before-the-show-started pre-marital pregnancy that turned out to be a lie (by his manipulative girlfriend/wife)-subsequently freeing him up to annul the marriage just in case Lena would have him back.

Very intense story line.

As it turns out, Lena leaves her new (better looking, I might add) boyfriend who is very nice and sweet to her, for her former boyfriend from Greece (who I might have liked better if I'd seen the first movie). They never did find the pants.

I could never really get into the show. I'm not sure if it was because I missed the first one, or if I couldn't get one thought out of my mind..."There is no way all four of those girls could fit into those 'magic' pants".

Coincidentally, Carmen never even tried to put them on (at least not that I remember). At least the show turned out in the end to be a little more realistic than first portrayed.

Biggest life lesson learned: When Jess watches the Traveling Pants 1...I'm going to be pretend-vacuuming with Jayson.

Christmas Donation to Clearfield City

Apparently Clearfield City expects drivers to make a complete stop at four way stops--even when nobody else is on the road and one of the four roads is merely a circle. Who knew?

Since when did "putting your foot over the brake and looking in all directions before proceeding" stop being good enough? And since when did being in a hurry for Larry Miller's Free Christmas sing-a-long at the Energy Solutions Arena not constitute an emergency?

Turns out it was a fairly expensive Christmas FHE for the Dunroes. And Merry Christmas to you Traffic Officer Durrant...

"Train up a child in the way he should go...."

So tonight Jess showed me something alarming about Jayson. It got me thinking about a potential career path for my little Momma's Boy.

http://www.daisymaids.com/

Yep. He just might be a "daisy maid" someday.

Tonight Jess showed me his new favorite thing.
Laundry.
She gets the clothes out of the washer (a few items at a time). She hands them to him.
He giggles with delight and puts them in the dryer. Then turns back to his mommy to get a new bunch of wet clothes. She said when he is around she can't put the clothes in herself or he grunts in disgust and then takes them out and puts them in by himself.

I would like to think he is just being a gentleman. But I know him too well.

His second favorite thing is to unload the dishwasher. He takes out the dishes one at a time and brings them over to me to put in the cupboard. Saturday I watched him wrestle a frying pan that was stuck in there too tight. After three or four minutes, he wrestled it free.

His third favorite thing to do is sweep the floor. He even knows how to use a dustpan.

His fourth favorite thing is to try to use the vacuum. Our vacuum is so heavy, yet he manages to move it across the floor (whenever we aren't around). He is obsessed with it.

He's a dream come true for mothers and future wives everywhere.

I need some more one on one time with him. We need to just sit down together, with our feet propped up on an ottoman, remote in hand, watching a football game or mindless sitcom. He needs to learn to tune out the sound of the washer buzzer (signaling another load for the dryer). I need to teach him not to hear the sound of the dishwasher open and the sound of dishes being put away. I need to teach him that all he needs to know about the vacuum is his responsibility to lift up his feet and let someone else vacuum under them. I need to teach him that you can sweep crumbs under the edge of the cabinet with your foot in a fraction of the time it takes to even get the broom out of the broom closet. I need to teach him that a "honey do" is some sort of fruit and not a mandatory list. That kid has so much to learn.

Most importantly, he needs to learn that when he hears his mom call him from the other room, it usually means.....
Ooops. I will have to finish this blog later, Jess is mumbling about the kitchen being a mess and laundry needing to be done...

I better go find Jayson.

P.S. According to Jess, Jayson said his first "non-Momma", "non-Dadda", word today.
The word...

"Mote".
He yelled that three times as he pointed towards the half wall where the TV remote was sitting.
I couldn't be more proud of that kid!!!