Daddy Dan

For some reason, I still haven’t hit that Christmas mood yet, and it’s less than two week away.  I hope I get that Christmas feeling soon.

We’ve been slowly decorating the house, and most of our decorations are up, including the lights on the house, which have been up since Thanksgiving weekend.  The one major missing piece is the tree.

Last night I got a burst of energy and decided to set up our artificial tree, with the thousands of lights that are conveniently already intertwined on the various branches.  My first task was to get to the Christmas tree box, which was thoroughly blocked in by the accumulation of a year’s worth of other junk.

Instead of moving the junk out of the way, I decided to bring in the tree piece by piece.  I had the bottom of the tree set up and plugged in the lights only to discover that only about half of the branches lights were working.  I spent a good hour trying to get the lights to work, to no avail, when my wife said it was time for Babito to go to bed.  As I was taking him upstairs to give him a bath, he said “Daddy’s mad at that tree.”  He was right.

After Babito was in bed, my wife and I tried to get the lights working for a while, but we had no luck.  We’ll be Christmas tree shopping tonight.

Wanna see what Santa Claus is bringing Babito this year?  I feel safe sharing it here with you, because Babito rarely reads my blog.  (Smart boy!)

Here’s his gift:

It’s the LifeStyle Grand Walk-In Kitchen.  He loves playing kitchen at his day-care.  We found this one at Toys R Us when we stopped in late last weekend to get my nephew a birthday gift.  The salesperson told us that if we applied for a Toys R Us credit card we could get 25% off on all our purchases that night, so we ended up doing ALL of our Christmas shopping for Babito and our nieces and nephews on that night.  The kitchen was on sale, plus we got an additional 25% off, so we got a great deal.

Here’s the product description from Amazon:

This deluxe kitchen not only has realistic features, but is modeled after today’s deluxe contemporary kitchens. “Oak hardwood” foam flooring gives the kitchen a warm, comfortable feeling, and over six feet of spacious “granite” countertops provide ample room for cooking and dining fun. Large sink has swivel faucet with push button, and “stainless steel” refrigerator provides valuable storage. Built-in cabinets and drawer feature authentic handle hardware.

103-piece accessory set includes: frying pan with lid, boiling pot with lid, silver pan with lid, silver pot with lid, coffee pot, 4 stainless steel cooking utensils, strainer, 2 plates, 2 bowls, 2 cups, 2 knives, 2 spoons, 2 forks, peppermill, salt and pepper shakers, 5 spice jars, pot holder, 2 wicker baskets, electronic phone, and 64 piece play food set. Durable, poly construction wipes clean and lasts for years. Also includes an 11″-tall wood stool for countertop dining.

Lucky Daddy will be putting this thing together on Christmas Eve night.  I read the reviews on Amazon and a grandma said it was easy to put together.  A single mommy said it took her three hours and it was a total pain.  I don’t know which one to believe.  I just hope I don’t hear Babito say on Christmas morning that “Daddy is mad at that kitchen!”

I haven’t had time to put together a thoughtful, well-written post (have I ever done that?) lately, but I do have some things I’d like to share, in functional bullet-point style:

• Christmas season officially begins today at Disneyland.  We’re taking Babito tomorrow.  Supposedly they’ve greatly improved the lighting and the snow on Main Street this year.  It should be fun.  Also, they’re about to reopen the Sleeping Beauty walkthrough that’s been closed since 9/11.  Lastly, It’s A Small World reopens today.  I dread taking Babito on it because that damn song will be stuck in my head the rest of the day.
• I’m thinking about doing a giveaway in 2009 to all my loyal readers.  My plan, which isn’t completely finalized right now, is to hook each of you up with a FREE ticket to Disneyland on your birthday.  Any interest?
• Last Disneyland note, I was looking at the height requirements for the various rides to see how much taller Babito has to get to go on some new rides.  I was shocked to see that he’s tall enough to go on the Matterhorn!  I’m not sure if he’s ready for it.  It’s somewhat of a rough ride, but he does love the kiddie roller coaster in Toontown.  We’ll have to take a closer look at it tomorrow.
• The Social Security Administration has released their list of most popular baby names for 2007.  The top five for boys:  Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Joshua, Daniel (yes!).  The top five for girls:  Emily, Isabella, Emma, Ava, Madison.  The SSA site also allows you to put in your type in your own name to see where it falls on the list and also allows you to view the most popular names by year, going all the way back to 1880. 
• Lastly, I’d like to recommend the new album by Taylor Swift, called ‘Fearless’.  I know, she’s a teenage country singer, but she’s much more than that.  Give it a listen, you may just like it.  She got a rave review in the last issue of The New Yorker, where the reviewer compares her songwriting skills to Hank Williams, Prince, Elvis Costello, and Randy Newman. 
• Have a great weekend everybody!

I mentioned earlier that I felt bad that I didn’t stand up and say anything about my Grandma at her services.  It’s true that I did not know her well, but still it’s my Grandma, right?  I should have said something.

It’s been gnawing at me a little all week.  I’ve been thinking about what I could have, and should have, said.

If I could go back, here’s what I’d say…

“I regret that I didn’t know my Grandma as well as I could have.

From both what you’ve all said today and from the limited time I spent with her I know she was a special woman.

I’m in awe that she dropped out of school in the 4th grade, during the Great Depression, to take care of her eight younger brothers and sisters while her parents were out working.

I think it’s wonderful that she spent countless hours with dying patients, after her 12 hour shift, simply because they were alone and scared and needed someone to hold their hand.

She spent her later years taking care of her young grandchildren, my cousins, and I can see her influence on them, as they’re growing up to be warm, well-mannered, loving young adults.

What I’m most thankful for is the values and morals and caring, sensitive heart that she passed on to my Dad, who passed them on to me, and who I’m doing my best to pass on to my son.

For all of these things I will always be grateful to you.  Thank you Grandma.  God Bless you.”

We had a fun Halloween night.  Babito enjoyed his first real trick-or-treating.  He was a little afraid of some of the scarier costumes we came across, but overall had a great time.

Babito was Jack Sparrow, the pirate:

I had to wear the Mickey pirate hat because he wouldn’t put on his costume unless Daddy was going to be a pirate too.

I cannot believe how quickly gas prices are falling.  I paid $2.79 a gallon this morning, which was amazing to me.  It actually cost me $48 to fill up my tank.  In the summer I was paying $80 and up.  The gas station by our house limits credit card purchases for gas at the pump to $75, so every time I filled up I had to put my card through twice to completely fill the tank.

I’m not going to turn this blog into a “Green” blog, but there’s something about gas prices I wanted to point out.

There is a drawback to lower gas prices.  The lower the prices fall, the less incentive there is for companies to develop alternative fuels and energy.  It’s hard for an electric or hybrid car to compete with cheap gas, and companies will be more reluctant to invest significant dollars into researching and developing alternatives because they’ll worry they won’t recoup their investment.

Hopefully, our next administration will focus more on alternative energy and offer incentives for companies to continue to work on this important issue.