Chocolate Cake - A Tradition

At our house, celebrating your first birthday means that, in addition to receiving tons of extra coo-ing attention and dozens of presents, you get to stuff your face with chocolate cake while people watch and snap photos. Past reactions to this occurrence in our family have ranged from tentative...

To unbridled... 

And from shy... 

To eventually gung-ho, with some gentle prodding.

One thing is for sure though—it's an experience we all look forward to watching, together!

Evacuate!

We were so happy to get to take a family trip to Walk Disney World in Orlando Florida this fall. The older three had been anticipating it for a long time, and we surprised them when we decided to go ahead and book a trip and leave Cuatro (still only two) at home.

The flight and arrival at our hotel went without too much fanfare, and so on the first morning, bright and early, we made our trek into the Magic Kingdom.

Goofy's Barnstormer roller coaster in Disney's Magic Kingdom.

After a few rides like Mad Hatter's Tea Cups and Dumbo, we were all ready to upgrade. We hurried to our next planned destination, a fun kid-sized coaster with some decent hills and speed called Goofy's Barnstormer.

Entrance to The Barnstormer.

There was only a 15-minute wait, so we got right into line. The kids were very excited since none of them (believe it or not!) had ever ridden a roller coaster of any size.

After we curled our way up through the aisles and approached the loading area, we broke up into groups of two (and one, me) and got strapped into our seats.

As we launched out of the loading barn, I commented to Tres in the seat in front of me, "Here we go! Your first roller coast- ..."

As the words came out of my mouth, we ground to an abrupt halt.

There was nothing obviously wrong with the ride: No trains stuck in front of us, debris on the track, etc. We just sat there, unable to move an inch.

In a few moments, the frazzled and bewildered Disney staff began to trickle out of the loading area and down to us, as we sat helpless in our seats. They seemed to be as just clueless as we were regarding the stoppage.

Twenty minutes later, Orlando firefighters arrived with ladders to humorously evacuate us from the ride. We were escorted out a back exit, and given free Fast Passes good at any attraction in the entire Disney resort complex.

Uno being evacuated from the ride.

Dos being helped off.

The kids would have to wait till later in the day to ride their first coaster. We returned back to the exact same ride right after lunch—just as the pent-up rain finally began to fall in buckets, completely soaking us to the bone as we zoomed around the track!

It's safe to say none of us will ever forget those two infamous rides on Goofy's Barnstormer ever again.

In a Tight Spot

I'm blessed to have folks who take us all on a week-long family vacation every summer. Odd-numbered years we visit the ocean. Even-numbered years we trek deep into the wilds of Appalachia. The Bluegrass State is the setting for this next story...

Carter Caves State Park is a great spot off the beaten path in eastern Kentucky, not far from the West Virginia border. And as the name would suggest, spelunking is the main attraction.

Several days into the getaway, after venturing deep into the numerous caves within the borders of the park, we attended a campground contest held underneath a rickety old picnic structure.

The name of the competition was simply entitled "The Squeeze Box."

A device vaguely resembling a Middle Ages torture chamber was waiting in the center of the concrete slab. And, as the park ranger calmly explained, it was designed to test out how tight of a spot you could squeeze through. It is often employed in caving training, used to gauge just how thin of a passage you can reasonably expect to pass through once you actually are in action.

Waiting for the competition to begin.

Dos was chomping at the bit to have her shot.

My kids' reactions ranged from excitement to reservation. But they all agreed to take a shot at winning that year's Squeeze Box title.

The contest worked this way: Each child would make an attempt to navigate the 8-foot long passageway at a specific height. Those who succeeded would proceed to the next round, when the height would be lowered again slightly and everyone would go through again.

Think: limbo for the non-claustrophobic!

Uno attempts to pass Round 1.

Dos works the small space in an effort to pass Round 2.

Success for Dos in Round 2!

The first rounds came and went, the only drama provided by Tres becoming horribly stuck in Round 2 and having to evacuated from the chamber by un-cranking it and freeing him.

Tres had to be evacuated from the chamber in Round 2.

As each round came and went, the number of contestants shrank until only a handful remained. Uno and Dos were among the finalists. At the 6" mark, Uno had to bow out along with several others. She received a round of applause, and sat down satisfied that she had made her best effort.

Dos and one other adventurous (and thin!) girl were the only ones left standing for the 5 1/2" inch round. 

The buzz around the picnic area was palpable as the finalists prepared to enter the Squeeze Box at a seemingly impossible height. The park ranger announced that this dimension would be the lowest ever recorded at the park. It was hard to imagine how a human skull could even pass through a spot that tight. And, that was indeed the case for the first of the two finalists. She gracefully retired from the competition after only a few seconds.

When the moment of truth arrived, Dos passed from one end of the chamber to the other like a greased pig. The outcome was never in doubt, and as she triumphantly emerged with a huge grin on her face, she was presented with a prize shirt, congratulations from the park staff and a rousing applause from all the observers!

Dos was the Squeeze Box champion! Here she is wearing the trophy shirt prize to prove it.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The calls come when you least expect them.

My work day had gotten off to a good start. Coffee was hot and in the mug, desktop computer was booted up, and I'd delved into the glut of emails waiting to be dealt with. The sun was out and it was going to be a good Friday.

The phone rang and I turned to answer it, when I noticed an unfamiliar number was displayed on the screen.

"Mr. B-----?" "Yes." "Hi, this is Ms. Allen from your daughter's preschool class."

Gulp. It was about Dos.

Meaning, what I was about to hear next could literally be anything.

"Your daughter seems to have something stuck in her ear."

"Oh, really." I was actually relieved. I consider myself a pretty handy solver of kid problems, and on the scale of 1 to 10, this seemed relatively minor.

After a brief conversation, I agreed to come down and take a look. The twenty-minute drive passed quickly, and I arrived at the school expecting to find Dos comfortably resting in a nurse's office or something.

"She's out there," the teacher pointed, referencing the playground equipment.

As Dos walked over, she casually said hello, and appeared to want to resume playing. I implored her to come over, expecting that my Dad skills were about to be revealed, and that would be that. I poked my finger into her ear gently, searching for the elusive object. My finger abruptly ran into the thing, much deeper than I had originally imagined. It was like running into a cement barrier.

It was clearly a rock. And it clearly wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

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On the ride to the pediatrician, I ventured to look in the rearview mirror and ask the meaning of this latest escapade.

It appeared that Dos had a close friend with a hearing aid. Dos had simply wanted to fit in - and somehow a piece of pea gravel from the playground had seemed to be the best fit for this task.

At the doctor's office, a team of nurses and staff marched in who, along with myself, held Dos down while we wrestled to eject the foreign object from her ear with a long menacing tool.

After what seemed like forever to all of us, the stone popped from ear like a cannon, we all had a nervous laugh—and then they turned and went back to business.

Dos strode out to the car - lollipop in hand - enduring one last lecture from me to find other ways to fit in at school.

Glam Rock Band Dress Up Session

My kids love to dress up. Plus, they have always had good imaginations. We encourage that interest by having a large trunk in the basement full of fun items, like cowboy hats, doctor kits, lace princess gowns, fireman boots, etc.

But sometimes - playing dressing up can go to a whole new level.

One Saturday, while trying to steal a few minutes alone in the living room so I could down a cup of coffee, some strange characters drifted in.

These bizarre individuals introduced each other as members of a new band. I wish I could remember the actual name of the band, but the pictures below speak for themselves.

The Minnesota Stomach Bug Caper

The trip was planned. The bags and cartopper were all packed. We were heading out on a 700 mile road trip to visit my wife's sister and her new baby in the morning.

Little did we know what wonders were in store for us...

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The evening before we left, I found myself watching old Batman episodes with the girls on YouTube. During the scene where a gigantic fake felt spider catches Robin in some sort of fishing-net-sized web, Dos asked us to pause the show and excused herself to the bathroom.

The rest is history.

Stomach flu is a horrible thing to have personally. It's worse when half a dozen people get it. It's a nightmare when it hits everyone in a daisy chain effect - and you're far from home.

We finally decided to go anyway the next morning. Only one of us was sick, right? My wife really wanted to see her new niece and have a chance to catch up with that entire side of the family. Plus, if we DIDN'T go, everyone would end up being fine. That's how these things work.

The trip was going decently well until Victim #2 was struck in Wisconsin. The staff at CVS would have been dismayed to learn the true use of the Toy Story Easter bucket we paid for as we ran back out to the car and resumed the trip.

Victim #3 decided to wait until the dead of night at a Super 8 in Janesville. The poor little guy spent most of the night awake—and since we were all stuffed into a 10 ft x 10 ft holding cell together—we all did.

The next day we arrived in Minnesota, exhausted but relieved. We had agreed to stay at a hotel for a while instead of crashing my wife's sister's house and spreading our family plague.

The three recovering victims hung out at the AmericInn hotel, watching TV and lounging around. A couple days passed and we began to breathe easier. The virus appeared to have died out. We had tempted fate and come to a draw.

We had some fun at a park with the cousins, and even ventured a visit to their actual home.

Victim #4 was my wife. She spent the next 24+ hours in agony, alone in the hotel. She was hit the worst and really was out of commission for the next few days.

The time came for all of us to face the reality of a return trip. Kids bounce back fast and by that time, the illness was just a happy memory for them.

I was feeling nearly invincible by this point. If I hadn't contracted the bug during a week of close quarters in the car and the hotel, I was pretty much good to go, I reasoned.

States fly by in the rearview mirror and we neared home. As we slowed to a halt in a Chicago traffic jam, that unmistakeable feeling dawned on me with all its fury: I was going down for the count, right there on the highway. I was Victim #5.

A quick perusal of my road atlas bore the startling news that there was not a rest area anywhere in our near future.

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Late that night we were all safe at home, relieved. I lay on my back on the floor in our darkened living room and smiled weakly through the cramps, knowing that the Michigan Welcome Center would never be the same.

The Screamer

My second daughter (Dos on this blog) loves school these days. And this has almost always been the case since the first day she marched in the door at kindergarten.

Her spelling acumen is the stuff of legends. She has not gotten a single word incorrect on a quiz or test — in four years.

At Christmas and birthdays she asks for the dictionary-sized curriculum guide for the grade ahead of her.

You've heard of kids counting down the days until summer vacation? She counts down the days until summer vacation is over.

One day midway through the year in kindergarten, however, things had gone downhill rapidly during our morning routine. I can't recall the exact event that pushed her over the edge, but she emphatically made it clear that she was not attending school that day.

Absentee-ism is not an option at our house, so I proceeded to calmly but firmly herd her into the car with her sister and hit the road.

Her irritation grew as we rounded the corner and parked alongside the curb in front of the elementary building.

By the time we reached the threshold of Ms. S's classroom, I was basically carrying her by the scruff of her neck like a naughty kitten.

After several attempts at reasoning with her the inevitability of attending class, my patience began to wane.

Ms. S looked at both of us and could probably sense the tension building. She lovingly reached out to guide Dos into the room with the other children, busy handing in folders and greeting their beloved teacher. Her nonverbal signals to me said "Get out, and fast. I'll take over from here."

After a last ignored farewell to Dos, I gratefully turned to leave, and as I did, a hideous and contorted series of screams resonated through the hallway. I shuddered but did not lessen the pace of my stride towards the outside door. The screams went unabated until I was beyond the school and entering my car. I could vaguely hear them still from inside my vehicle as I pushed away from the curb.

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Later that morning, I called home to my wife. She had a career as a teacher in our district before taking a leave of absence to care for our children, and knows many other professionals in the district.

After a moment or so she mentioned that she had been speaking with her friend the librarian at our daughter's school. In the background during the call, both had picked up the wailing, echoing sounds of a child. Her friend had remarked, "Well, we have ourselves a screamer here today." Both had chuckled at the intensity of the noise and wondered what could cause such a ruckus.

I broke the news to her about the source of the screams.

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Turns out Dos was fine about 5 minutes after I left. And, strangely enough, she never really did it again.

The Great Wolf Lodge Caper

One summer, I had the brilliant idea of taking my two girls to a wonderful place of fun and frivolity called Great Wolf Lodge.

Great Wolf Lodge is a wondrous mix of indoor water slides, pools, hot tubs, expensive snack foods, clouds of chlorinated air—basically nirvana for children. We packed up the car and made the couple hour drive down into Ohio. My wife stayed behind for this particular adventure.

Upon our arrival, we managed to all get dressed in our swim suits and headed out into the spacious tangle of tubes, teen lifeguards, and the deafening thunder of thousand-gallon buckets dumping their contents onto awaiting kids' heads. I cajoled the girls to climb with me all the way to the tip top of one of the water slide structures, against their mild objections.

Once at the summit, we surveyed the view, and found ourselves in line for a tube that shot straight down towards the pool below, appearing to conduct several loops along the way. Without considering the potential hazards, I placed my younger daughter in front of us, and she seemed to have no qualms about sitting down and preparing for launch into the darkened tube of fun before us.

As soon as the pimpled red-shirted helper let go of her, she was off like a shot, and her departure made a sound similar to a bank tube returning its contents to the teller. A second or two after she began her descent towards the bottom, the noises emanating from the tube alerted me to my rash decision.

Without a thought, I stuffed my older daughter into the tube. All I knew was that we needed to get down to the bottom - and fast. Ignoring the warnings of the hourly lifeguard next to me, I inserted myself in seconds afterward.

Gravity took over and I found myself hurtling downward in a tight spiral, water engulfing me around every hairpin turn. Somewhere in the middle, I caught up to my oldest daughter. We suffered a mild collision but finished the ride together in a heap, landing in a long, shallow receiving pool at the end of the tube slide.

Both of us were mildly dazed, but after a lightning quick analysis of ourselves, we realized we were simply shaken and not hurt. My next move was to look up expectantly, assuming to see my younger daughter patiently waiting for us, ready to scold me ever so slightly for making her endure such a harrowing experience.

She was nowhere to be seen.

Frantically darting several feet in every direction, unsure of where to go first, I scanned the horizon for her. After what seemed like several minutes, we both spotted her.

Her hair, shoulder length, was now completely reversed, hanging down over her face and chin like a veil. Her arms were outstretched and groping, like someone searching for the light switch in a pitch-dark basement. We ran to her and comforted her as best we could.

A hour or so later, we were sitting on a picnic table in a safer region of Great Wolf Lodge, eating stale hot dogs and some Cracker Jacks. Haltingly, I suggested we try some tubes again, this time on a lower kiddie level.

The looks I got from both of the girls made it clear that would not be happening.