Single Parent Syndrome?

It's an all man weekend over here at the Spiegelhoff household. The lady of the house ventured out all the way to the deserts of the southwest landing in Phoenix last night well past her bedtime at 10:30 EST for a little girl getaway. That leaves proud papa to take care of junior and the Luckster all the way through Monday morning. Hopefully the cops don't get called.

Our wonderful son has entered a new stage and I'm affectionately referring to it as tantrum stage. It's quite unpleasant. It works like this. We are all enjoying ourselves. My happy go lucky son, myself and loyal pooch are outside enjoying a sunshine filled day blowing bubbles, America's second favorite past time when the dinner bell rings. I feel it's my fatherly duty to feed both man's best friend and my son. Well, we went from cheers to jeers as Quinny lost it. The screams!The howls! The bloody murder wails! I was extremely concerned some neighbor was going to come flying out of their house wondering who was slaughtering their child. I dropped everything and grabbed my flailing about supposedly human child and quite literally dragged him into the house kicking and screaming the whole way. I then set him down where he put on a 15 minute plus display of the same.

He then moved on to take his frustration out on dinner. Plate of peas. Dumped over the side. Ahoy matey! I take a peek from the kitchen where I am toiling away for grateful son and dodge the spoon that gets chucked right behind the peas and left of my temple. Okay, let's move on to a delicious pasta dish. First the tomato gets chucked at me and then the bow tie pasta assault begins. Okay, not feeling the pasta - got it. Here is some milk. You have to want to drink some milk right? It was like a moment in prohibition as the milk was unceremoniously dumped. Obviously, Quinny doesn't know how much whole organic milk costs. Don't worry it's coming out of his college tuition money.

So, not thirsty. Okay, I am running out of food groups here. I am slowly learning so instead of providing more ammunition I simply ask if he wants a strawberry. He replies with an emphatic no complete with head shake. Okay, I say and begin eating some strawberries. I put one on his plate. He eats it. Another, he eats it. Another and he eats it. It's at this point I lose my mind and give him 3 at a time. Clearly, I am a slow learner. I get pegged with all three. That's it! I've had it! We're done! My wife probably hasn't even flown out of the state yet and I find myself wishing for a wife inside and me outside with frosty adult beverage in hand thinking about how lucky I am to have a wife inside tending to the tantrum throwing beast she would be locked inside with. But no, this is not the case. I need to muster the courage to play inspired defense to dodge the never ending missles while motivating myself to turn Mr. Crabby Pants' attitude around.

The hockey Badgers are in the frozen four and if they win they make the national championship. I would like to watch a bit of it. I turn it on and sit on the floor praying to anyone that will listen to have him join me and play on the floor. Instead he wants to open up the entertainment center and play with the receiver. Of course. No, no please change the channel. But at the last second he grabs his children song CD and hands it to me. Dear Lord, thank you. Really? This is what you want to listen to? Yup, he nods. Done. So there we are listening to Mary had a little lamb on a constant loop while watching the flat screen and the hockey Badgers stick it to RIT 8-1, 3 feet away from the screen dancing - together. Sports, the common denominator for men of any age as long as you have the right soundtrack. I am so armed with sport packages and children orientated music for tonight that it's going to be one interesting scene. I have tantrumfied the living room - I hope. Man, boy and beast together as one in unity forever. Long live men. Wish me luck as I continue through the bonding!

Phone Etiquette

I took off for Wisconsin yesterday after spending some much needed time with Quentin. Since I have been traveling so much we have begun experimenting talking on the phone so we can have some kind of daily contact. This morning I can hear him in the background going , "Hello? Hello? Hello?" He had gotten Carrie's cell phone, unlocked it and made a call to her mother. Carrie was freaking out, not knowing who he dialed, so she gets the phone, hangs up, effectively crank calling her Mom, turns off the phone and hands it back to him. My genius boy, though, doesn't give up so easily. Not more than a few minutes later, he had turned the phone back on and was back to attempting to dial. Phone confiscated. I love that he's so smart. He will sit down and watch what you are doing and copy it. He's always trying to copy you but he does it remembering the smallest details. I think he has a bright future.

I did get on the phone with him this morning and we went through his ever expanding vocabulary. What's the dog say? "Woof, Woof, Woof!" What's the bird say? "Tweet, tweet, tweet." What's the cat say? "Meow." What's the horse say? (I don't know if I can type that sound. He vibrates his lips). He then says Hello 100 times before moving on to uh-oh 100 times and finally ends with bye a good 50 times. Carrie gets the phone back and I can just hear him barking, "woof, woof, woof, woof..." and I ask what is going on over there? They are on the porch and the Luckster sees birds and squirrels out the yard and is barking trying to get out so he can chase them. (Birds on my turf...) Quentin is copying the dog also barking at the birds and squirrels. Q is really into birds lately because at school they have been taking them outside to go "bird hunting." When we go for walks he gets so excited to see a bird fly over. "Oooh!" It's like we have two dogs. Quinny is copying everyone.

He's such a blast right now with his talking and expanding vocabulary. He gets so excited about everything. "Plane! PLANE! PLANE!!!" Yup, that's a plane. His enthusiasm puts a grin on your face from ear to ear. If only people would keep that kind of excitement we would be in a very different world.

Quick update on the beast. I took off early, early yesterday morning and for my own sanity chose not to look on the side of the house so I don't actually know if the beast had another night attack. Carrie did tell me that two bananas were found in our yard this morning. One in the garden and one on the sidewalk, which was odd. She couldn't be certain, due to lack of DNA testing, but she felt reasonably confident these were not our bananas. This may sound a bit odd but there is a monkey on the loose. The monkey makes the paper about every 10 days or so with a new spotting. They, whomever they are, have been trying to capture the elusive monkey for over a year now. It's quite the comical story. The bananas were found directly below one of our giant oak trees. I wonder if our beast is living in that tree. You don't think it's the monkey do you? This is a mystery that I think is going to put me on stake out when I get back to Tampa. I just might be willing to stay up all night to catch a glimpse of this thing.

Quentin Withdrawl

Let me start by saying Happy April Fool's Day. Don't believe anything someone tells you today. This blog post is real. I didn't want to be inundated with questions asking me if what I wrote was really true so I am just prefacing this post with the fact that the post is indeed real.

I am having Quentin withdrawal. We both have been doing the travel circuit. He went on spring break with my wife to that great beach state of Iowa last week. They enjoyed the waves of grain and corn but not the balmy temps in the 40s. So because of his mid-week getaway he was gone Wednesday through Sunday last week and as luck would have it I left before he awoke on Monday morning. Thus, I only got to see him for a few short hours on Sunday. I got home last night after he was in bed and I leave again tomorrow before he will be up so I will only get a few hours with him today as well. This is one reason there hasn't been too many blog postings. It's hard to come up with entertaining material when I am averaging a few hours a week with him.

So let me start with a varmint update. While Care and Q were getting on with the farm life I was on stake out with Lucky. I gave up with no beast sightings and headed off to slumber around midnight when Lucky starting barking. I mute the TV listening intently for the roar of the what must be 20-30 pound animal lurking just outside my bedroom walls. I can clearly hear something harassing my brand new garbage can. I jump out of bed in a flash and throw on yesterday's clothes. I run to grab a hefty magnum flashlight that I feel comfortable (and angry enough) to bash this thing's head open with or use for protection when I chicken out after the beast goes on the offensive. I am literally running out the front door when I bump into my neighbor. What was my neighbor doing? They were dragging their trash cans to the curb. Right. So you can imagine as I am running outside, just out of bed, ready to do battle and my neighbor, who is a female, looking at me wondering what in the H is wrong with me. This stupid animal is driving me insane! The noise wasn't the sought after beast, but my neighbor taking out her trash! Ya, that's what I would like to do to this pest.

The next day I decide I am going to put the garbage can on lock down so I don't have to sleep with one eye open. I rake the whole lawn. We have 5 mature oak trees in our yard, which isn't large, but with that many trees dropping leaves it turns into a ton of raking. I ended up with 19 full size black bags full of leaves. I packed that garbage can in so tight this thing would have to long jump 20 feet just to get to the can and after that the can wasn't moving. I had it surrounded, on top, on the sides. Problem solved. Beast 3, Man 1. I was closing the gap. The can was locked in until Tuesday night when yard waste is picked up. I came home last night and was feeling pretty good. The sick part was I haven't seen Carrie and Q for all of a couple of hours in a week and the first thing I did upon pulling into the driveway was to check on the garbage can. Insane! I am totally going insane! Well, just at that moment Carrie came out to greet me and took out some trash. Guess what? That stupid #*$%* animal tore up the trash last night! AHHHHH!!

I got up before the sun was up to take Lucky on his walk. Since I hadn't seen Q in a while I took him with me in his wagon. So one hand on 100 pound dog and one pulling wagon with small child in it. I get five paces outside and their are buns in my garden, which aren't there for the birds. Do I dare peek around the corner because the blood pressure is rising, one might say boiling, and sure enough the garbage is all over the place. Seriously, the shotgun is being bought today. I'm writing this from the car, while driving to the abundance of gun shops in this town. We are taking this thing out. Beast of Bellingham 4, man 1. I can't believe this thing is wiping the floor with me. It's time to bring fire power into the situation. It's time to get even.

Hopefully, Quinny and I can spend some time together tonight so I can write about him again. I'm sure my battle royale with the local wildlife is entertaining but not really what people are looking to read. I'll put another one out tomorrow. Scout's honor. Maybe I'll have a new skin on my wall by then. In the mean time enjoy the pictures from spring break. Here he is having breakfast with his sweet mop, making a new playmate with his 2nd cousin we think. That is Callie, Carrie's cousin, so you do the math. And one last one trying on his Uncle Andrew's size 13's.