Author: Josh

I gave Maly her bath tonight. We followed our usual ritual, for the most part. She ran out of our room when it was time to put on her diaper. I called for her. She didn’t come back. I called again. No response. I aggressively called. No response.

We put Maly in time out because of her unresponsiveness.

Maly is usually great in time out. She knows that she’s “removed” because she did something wrong. In this situation, we let her know that she needs to pay attention and respond to mom or dad.

After a minute or so after having been in time out, she knocked from the inside of her bedroom door and exclaimed, “Pee pee!”

Elise and I both jumped up and ran to her room, thinking she peed on the floor in her room. Upon opening the door, we were surprised to not see a puddle on the floor. Instead, Maly ran to her bathroom and sat on her toilet. And, after a minute, she went to the bathroom in her own little toilet.

So, I witnessed my little girl go to the bathroom on her own tonight. That’s a huge step from a dad’s perspective. Huge in that she didn’t fart while she did it. If she would have farted, there would have been high-fives and beer.

I love having a baby girl. Even though she’s not a baby anymore, she’s still my baby girl. And she farts. Oh yes, she farts. And if she’s anything like her mom, she’ll make me, and her Boppa proud.

Today was pretty melancholy. It wasn’t until having come inside for the evening after having dinner and playing on the deck with Elise and Maly that it really sunk in.

I came inside and started writing an email to my dad. He’s been gone for almost 2 years, and an email address that I created for him many years ago is still alive. I write to him every-so-often. And that’s when I broke down. There were so many things that I wanted to tell him; about how Maly talks about him and about what’s going on in our lives these days, and then I realized, he already knows these things.

I just wish he were still here. I didn’t have enough time with him.

I love you, Dad.

“Cheezin’. Cheezin’ Cheezin’ poochy poochy mom! Arriba!”

Czech rock rocks!

Mr. Marc in his bicycling/ninja uniform

Jenny had a bad day at the office

Chicken Fried Venison Tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes, creamed spinach and herb-cream gravy from Patton’s on Main (their website design looks very similar to another restaurant’s. I’m sure Jeff Blank is flattered)

Damn that was a good meal though. I swear that fried tenderloin was almost a pound! Plus creamed spinach and mashed potatoes loaded with butter. Totally healthy!

Lobster tacos from Iron Cactus – probably the most overrated and overpriced spot for food on our famous 6th Street in Austin. Just look at that puffed orange gelatinous goo. The table-side guacamole was good, however.

Green Chili Pork Taco from Torchy’s. Awesome tacos!

What happens to your garage door remote when you leave it clipped to the outside of your pocket while racing PlasmaCars.

Late last week Elise and I concurred that we needed to do something with Maly’s closet. We decided to gut it, do away with the Rubbermaid adjustable shelving crap that we spent too much money on, and just have me build shelves for her.

So I built and painted some shelves.

And, given the extra lumber, I made a little desk for her:

Nothing’s cooler than building something for your kid.

We were all sitting on the driveway. Matt and I looked at each other.

“Want to hit the big hill?”

“Okay.”

[flv width=”500″ height=”375″]http://www.plasmafun.com/video/20080531_PlasmaCarracing.flv[/flv]

The three-day weekend started with me driving down our 79 house street on Friday night to see each and every lawn adorned with a little American flag. I found out from Elise that our neighbor, Stacey, had placed them in everyone’s lawn. We soon found ourselves at the Fender residence. I forgot why we found ourselves over there, but that lead up to us ordering a couple pizzas and going back to our house. Maly and I drove to Oak Hill to pick up dinner, and soon we were back at the house and the seven of us shoved our faces full of pizza.

Next we hit the driveway to play on PlasmaCars. Next thing we know, we’re having another mini block party (we wound up having a mini block party last Friday, too). A pitcher of margaritas showed up, we broke out the lawn chairs and fifteen or so of us took in the night air and just had fun hanging out in the driveway. Oh, and we kept Maly up until 10 p.m.

On Saturday we made a quick trip to the ol’ HoPot to return some stuff, buy a couple plants and some topsoil. We got back to the house and I filled in the low spot that was once the path on the side of our house with the topsoil. I then took the 1,500 lbs. worth of flagstone that used to be aforementioned path and loaded into the car. Then we were off to the Engler’s house for a steak dinner. The kids played in the pool in the backyard and John and I got finally hang out outside of work. And I don’t think we even talked about work. It was also the first time I’d been to their house since November, so it was cool to see all the things they’ve done to the house and the backyard. We came home after visiting for a couple hours, and again managed to keep Maly up past 10 p.m.

On Sunday we ran some errands, patronized Which Wich for the third weekend straight (I love that place but am now, officially, burnt out). What was so cool was at some point during lunch, Maly switched into Daddy’s girl. She got out of her chair, walked over to me and pulled herself onto my lap and just held onto me. She wanted nothing more than to just hang out and stay latched on to me. She wasn’t being needy; I guess she was just having dad withdrawals. It was really awesome. After lunch and a quick trip to Academy, we came home, Maly took a nap and we watched Wayne’s World. That took me back… I couldn’t tell you how many years it’s been since last seeing that movie. Elise also had to log in our Nielsen Ratings journal (yeah, we became a Nielson family a few weeks ago. $30 is $30!). We were saddened to see that we have ~500 channels, many of which we didn’t even know we had. And here we sit tonight, TV off, because American Idol ended last week. Elise even called Time Warner last week to get bump us down to basic cable, they told her they would gladly do that, but our monthly phone and Internet fees would increase. Awesome!

Sunday evening our neighbors, Brandon and Stacey had their somewhat-annual Memorial Day party. They had ~70 people over and served fajitas and beer. We had a blast. Kids got to eat and play, then went to bed. The adults stayed up way too late. I had to cash out at around 1 a.m. Elise stayed out until 2 a.m., which made for a groggy Monday morning.

Late Monday afternoon we drove out to the Balcones Country Club to hang out with the Swendners. The kids got to play in the pool, we watched a belly flop competition and just had a good time hanging out in the hot Texas sun by the pool. We went back to Marc & Cyndi’s house and ordered pizzas, then went out to the fairway that backs up to their backyard, chased fireflies and let the kids wear themselves out. Maly was quickly getting tired, ran up to me and had me envelop her in my arms, pointed up to the putting green that was fast disappearing into the night and said, “there choo-choo train. No choo-choo train.” And she kept saying it. So after repeating that a few times, I just said, “It’s okay, Daddy stopped the choo-choo train. It’s not coming.” Then she put her head down on my shoulder and said, “Daddy stopped choo-choo train.”

IN MY DAUGHTER’S EYES, I STOPPED A CHOO-CHOO TRAIN! I don’t know of a greater power that I possess. That’s pretty awesome.

Soon after we headed back home, again putting Maly to bed around 10 p.m. Tonight we witnessed the wrath of a sleep deprived 2-year-old. She had a melt down, freaking out during dinner, bath and brushing of the teeth. It got to the point where I found it necessary to grasp my daughter’s cheeks, forcing her mouth open while she bawled, tears pouring down her cheeks and past the corners of her mouth as I brushed her teeth. That was hard to do, and I felt so much like I was doing something to hurt her, but just kept in the back of my mind that she was suffering from an over-exhausting three-day weekend. And knowing that if I can stop a choo-choo train, I can damn sure brush a toddlers teeth, although the latter is much, much more difficult.

[flv width=”500″ height=”375″]http://www.janicek.com/video/20080526_Malyind.flv[/flv]

Give a Bohemian a fan, some misters and zip ties and he’ll innovate to keep a neighborhood Memorial Day party a little bit cooler in this 100 degree Texas heat.

[flv width=”400″ height=”300″]http://www.janicek.com/video/20080525_BohemianInnovation.flv[/flv]

It’s so awesome when you email your dentist’s receptionist to share recipe ideas and then do a quick Google search for “chicken fried Spam” only to find that you’re ranked right up there with the best of ’em. I am a culinary GOD.

I’ll challenge anybody to the Ultimate Chicken Fried Spam Culinary Competition. That’s how hardcore I am when it comes to chicken fried Spam. I even have a few ideas, one that I’ll even share with you here, that should fry up some inspiration. Spam, wrapped in in a pounded out layer of Snickers, then coated in a thick-shelled layer of Blue Bell Moo-lenium ice cream, then flash-frozen in dry ice, then Shiner Bock beer battered with egg yolks, deep fried in bacon drippings and served topped with chile con queso and sour cream.

That’s hardcore Spam.

And here’s even more on hardcore spam…

[Thanks, John]

Remember the movie, “Along Came Polly,” where Ben Stiller’s character, Reuban is a risk analyst with OCD? He’s the guy with a ton of throw pillows on his bed that he puts away every night in his little storage cabinets.

Today’s a lazy Sunday. Maly and I got up this morning, played and it wasn’t until around 11 a.m. that I took a shower. After my shower, I decided to make the bed. We have a sheet, a comforter, a “doo-vay” cover thing (I think that’s what it’s called) and a “throw blanket”. After the half hour that it nearly took me to get all of the mentioned blanket-type things somewhat aligned and spread across the bed, I then put all of the pillows on the bed. And I counted those pillows. Eight pillows. We have eight pillows on our bed. Two of those pillows we actually use.

Eight pillows.