Holidays tend to bring out the emotional side of people. I’m no different in that regard. But on an average day, I’m a little more ‘sensitive’ than your average dude, I drift into a mushy ball of tears around Christmas. I think a lot about the years that have past and the years that are ahead of me. The past is littered with the successes and failures of my choices. It’s also marked with the additions and losses in the family.


It’s funny how the additions and subtractions of the past create a new path for the future. The more you think about what the future holds, you begin to realize what will be missing as you move forward. That begins to pain you to the core. Because all you are is where you’ve been, you can’t help but get caught in a cycle of feeling disappointment in the results. Then, you step back, gain composure, and realize that the additions are intricately intertwined to the losses. It’s a universal balance, with subtraction comes addition. And with pain and disappointment comes peace and elation.


If it’s one thing I’ve learned in my limited years on this planet, it’s to innocently accept the fortune and the fate you are dealt. You are never given any more than you should have and you will have no more pain than you can deal with.

How do I segway into the final chapter of this trilogy? Well, it’s about thankfulness and it’s about ears and it’s about my boys. Being able to hear their laughter, complaints, and fighting are just one of the beauties that were born from disappointment and loss only a few years earlier. This final chapter is about being thankful for being able to hear the universe remind me about the balance. That reminder is in the simple form of what emotions ‘sound’ like. Music.


I think about my successes and none are larger than my two boys. And while struggling with the loss of my little brother and listening to one of our favorite groups, a kismet moment occurred. A song. W music, its enjoyment, and interpretation are unique to each listener, the song is a simple message from a parent to a child about moments in time. We take those moments for granted too often. Then they’re gone.

Harlow’s Song:
When you close your eyes and go to sleep tonight, I'll be right outside your door
Dreams will come and they'll take you away, let them bring you back to me

And tomorrow when you wake I'll be next to you, the protection from the day
When the tears fall down your face like morning dew, I'll be there to put a smile on your face

and I'll say;

I don't wanna live this life without you, I don't wanna spend the night without you
I don't wanna know what it's like, I can't dream without you. I can't dream without you.

Let your fire burn bright for the world to see, you are the better part of me
When you hold my hand I swear that I believe, I'm living in my wildest dreams

and I see,

I don't wanna live this life without you, I don't wanna spend the night without you
I don't wanna know what it's like, I can't dream without you.

Flowers for your hair
Rainbows for your eyes to see
Your dreams are everywhere
To carry you away from me
Away from me someday
Away from me someday

I don't wanna live this life without you, I don't wanna spend the night without you
I don't wanna know what it's like, I can't dream without you.

I don't wanna live this life without you, I don't wanna spend the night without you
I don't wanna know what it's like, I can't dream without you.

The song isn’t unique in its context or its message. Parent loves child, parent misses child when grown up. The uniqueness of the music is the moment when it hits you and you actually ‘hear’ it. That’s what happened to me. I was sitting there thinking about my next entry and thinking about the kids. I was down right emotional about the holidays coming up and doing as much as I could for them while still retaining any disciplinarian strength I had left.

Good Charlotte, while being pop-punk, is one of my guilty pleasures when it comes to music. The latest record, “Cardiology,” would’ve been my review for New Music Monday, but I opted to span a trilogy of thankfulness instead. “Cardiology” is the most mature album from Good Charlotte to date. Both in musical experimentation and lyrical content. The lead singer, Joel Madden, is now a married father and the music reflects the growth into adulthood.

“Harlow’s Song” was written about his baby girl. I think all parents can relate to the message at any time in their parenthood. But I think younger parents have a harder time grasping what the future will hold for them as parents of adult children following their dreams. For me, I find a lot of frustration in listening to my children scream and run like headless chickens throughout my house. At times, I can’t wait to put them to bed and having some quiet. As younger parent, you forget that these nights are finite and all too soon they’ll be a fading memory of noise in a quiet house when your two sons are married and out in the world with out you as their security blanket.



So I’m not only thankful for the nights when my children eat their dinner effortlessly, but I’m thankful for the nights when I could rip their arms off and beat them senseless until they submit to my pleas of silence or at least dull the roar. I’m equally thankful for my ears which allow me to hear the entire sound spectrum of them. And then, I’m thankful for what emotions sound like. That is music and being able to hear it at the precise moment in time. The timeline of life is less about the hours and days as they pass through our hands and more about the little moments that span from beginning to end during our existence.

Moving on now to the second part of the thankfulness installment. If you recall from the first entry, I’m thankful for ears. And it’s not that I have model-quality ears or elephant ears for that matter. I’m thankful for the functionality of ears; hearing. Keep in mind that hearing doesn’t equate to listening. My wife will tell you that I hear things fine, but my listening skills may be less than stellar or desirable by her judgment.

Son #2 is an odd duck. Now just cresting two years old, a majority of the spoken words that emanate from his mouth are incomprehensible. It’s amusing to watch people try and talk to him in public and he will spew forth a set of nondescript words that confuse even the most fluent of English speaking folks.


PART II
Son #2, while know significantly fewer words and lacking in the enunciation of spoken word, tends to jaw with his equally unique stories as well. Instead of gracing you the reader with any one of his intelligible diatribes, I thought it would be more useful to provide a translation document for your decrypting needs when communicating with Son #2. Think of this following list as the toddler version of Rosetta Stone for missing consonant sounds and incorrectly emphasized syllables.


Courtesy of yourdictionary.com and my general knowledge of his vocabulary:

mors (more) n. 1. a greater amount or quantity; generally used with candy or fish crackers.

ight (light) n. 1. a source, such as fire, that admits illumination.

moon (moon) n. 1. the celestial body that revolves around the earth in 27 days with reference to the stars and once in 29 days with reference to the sun, and that accompanies the earth in its yearly revolution about the sun OR anything bright in the sky.

fiss (fish) n. 1. the baked cracker goodness from Pepperidge Farms and only satisfactory item for all meals.

huggies (hug) n. 1. the act of embracing a friend or loved one when there is a need to coerce that loved one into giving you what you want.

gall gone (all gone) n. 1. the absence of a wanted object; nothing remaining.

gan gad (grandad) n. 1. the father of one’s father or mother who condones running and shrieking indoors.

ido (I do) n. 1. affirmative answer to all non-go-to-bed related questions.

gammy (grammy) n. 1. the mother of one's father or mother typically trafficking significant amounts of objects of play.

out (out) adv. 1. away from, forth from, or removed from a place, position, or situation.

bruz (brother) n. 1. a boy related to one by having a parent in common and one’s sworn adversary.

mom-mee (mommy) n. 1. the female parent of a plant or animal and source of comfort and punishment.

dad-dee (daddy) n. 1. a person regarded as a male parent seen as a punisher though possessing no real power.

cars (cars) n. 1. any vehicle on wheels

fuck (truck) n. 1. an automotive vehicle for hauling loads along highways, streets, etc.

ining (lightning) n. 1. a flash of light in the sky caused by the discharge of atmospheric electricity from one cloud to another or between a cloud and the earth OR the Disney automotive character one wants from one’s brother.

wardz (water) n. 1. the colorless, transparent liquid occurring on earth as rivers, lakes, oceans, etc., falling from the clouds as rain, and emitted through one’s refrigerator dispenser.

milk (milk) n. 1. a white emulsion secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals for suckling their young.

peetz (pizza) n. 1. a baked pie of Italian origin consisting of a shallow breadlike crust covered with toppings such as seasoned tomato sauce, cheese, or pepperoni.

buss (bus) n. 1. a large, long motor vehicle designed to carry many kids, usually along a regular route.

guy (guy) n. 1. a man or boy; plush stuffed monkey for comfort.

nannas (bananas) n. 1. the long, curved fruit of these plants which usually has a soft, sweet, whitish pulp and a thick, usually yellowish skin.

powerz (powder) n. 1. a dry substance in the form of very fine, dustlike particles, for sprinkling in a diaper.

blow cannles (blow out candles) v. 1. to extinguish any cylindrical mass of wax with a wick through its center by puffing small amounts of air through a thinly opened lips.

peez (please) n. 1. used in polite requests

gen (again) adv. 1. once more

tanks (thanks) n. 1. an expression of gratitude; grateful acknowledgment of something received by or done for one

eat (eat) v. 1. to put (food) in the mouth, chew if necessary, and swallow.

This is only an abbreviated list of the words and phrases that Son #2 tends to mutter. Now armed with these words, you the reader can successfully communicate with Son #2. Granted, your topics will be limited to asking for Pepperidge Farms fish crackers, ordering a mil, and negotiating die cast metal cars away from their oppression.


The great part is hearing him try to work his mumbling and sometimes incomprehensible words into phrases and stories so he can get what he wants. Son #1 and #2 aren’t all that different in that regard. Both want things and both use incredibly long drawn out stories ordering words in odd forms to attempt to get their points across. The difference, Son #1 paints a long drawn out picture with out using punctuation. This ultimately confuses the listener and out of listener fatigue, you submit to his needs. Son #2, with significantly less words but significantly more phonetic complicating sounds, uses burst of phrases emphatically delivered with varying intonation and volume. Again, it wears the listener down to the point of submission and/or insanity.


They must be related based on the above communicative efficiencies. Despite my near unending listener fatigue, I’m very thankful that I can hear Son #2 ramble his nondescript words in his own attempt to deliver value to a conversation.

I typically get caught up in many of the same topics while writing. Maybe it’s because my life is somewhat one dimensional and I can only write about beer, kids, music and skateboards. I don’t profess to be an expert on anything other than applying obnoxious and irreverent updates to my Facebook status. Here today, I’m going to begin a three part stretch in things I’m thankful for. Yes, last month was November, and as most people do and practice, they conjure up some lengthy list of things they are so thankful for and can’t live without. Not me. I’m thankful for one thing only and it’s the topic of my trilogy. Without further adieu; Ears.

So now that there’s a collective let down with all of my readers, hear me out on this one (no pun intended).

And it’s nothing to do with the fact that ears hold up my hat and sunglasses, or that they give my earrings a place to ride when I’m out. It’s about their functional purpose for being; and that’s hearing. Some things I have no choice in hearing. Like when my wife is nagging me about painting a room or remodeling a wing of the house before a Hallmark holiday. But some things I do have a choice in hearing. It’s those things that I don’t want to hear when they first sound. But in retrospect, I can’t imagine not hearing them. That’s why I’m thankful.

PART I
Son #1 has a penchant for dropping incredibly irreverent yet totally appropriate details of an event at the most uninteresting and/or annoying times. The recent winter snow storm brought out not only cold weather and snow flakes but Son #1’s innate ability to verbalize some of the most unique snapshots of his view on life and the world around him.


I was trapped at home due to the nature of the weather-disturbed roadways and the inability of local NW drivers to successfully negotiate the challenging conditions. I opted to stay home in the internal chaos. During my home office ‘break’ time, we opted to gear up and play in the snow covered back yard. Outside, Son #1, using his cunning expert tracking skills, made the obvious observation of the animal tracks left in the virgin snow-covered yard. The tracks vaguely resembled some sort of small mammal such as a raccoon, cat, or other form of varmint puntang.

However, leave it to Son #1 to earnestly describe in colorful accuracy the source of the footprints.

Son #1 had discovered these footprints the day before so he had ample time to formulate his hypothesis on how they originated. Stretched from the front gate to the back corner of the yard, he analyzed the size and shape of the footprints. But it would take two inspections to truly uncover the nature of Son #1’s conclusion on his findings.


First, he discussed his National Geographic findings with his younger brother in an effort for possible conference. “Because the foot prints are small and round, it could not have been a lion or tiger.” Of course, it couldn’t have been a lion or a tiger due to the footprint size. It has nothing to do with the climate why it couldn’t have been a ferocious cat. His logic, I suppose isn’t all that flawed.

In science, to prove your hypothesis you must unsuccessfully attempt to disprove the theory by some sort of substantiation method. Next, we were out in the front of the house shoveling snow out of the driveway for my sensationalist roommates. Wandering through the arctic tundra of the front yard, Son #1 found the entry point where the varmint entered our back yard.


Son #1 correctly ascertained that it scurried below the gate. Once again he reminded me of the size and shape and how it couldn’t have been a predatorial wild cat. I agreed. It’s easier than trying to explain that large cats are not indigenous to Washington and are not fond of sub-freezing temps. Apparently, he has some sort of wildlife tracker in his blood and now he’s convinced that no four legged animal on Earth could’ve made these tracks.

According to Jack Hannah, err..my son, they’re too far apart to be a raccoon or a cat. Therefore, it must’ve been something with “two legs.” Something like a kangaroo he concludes. Yes. Something like a kangaroo. The mysterious, yet elusive, Northwestern gray wallaby of Washington. Who would have known.


The thing is, he always has some sort of interesting anecdotal comment or story for everything. Like hugging his mom while she is wearing a fluffy bath robe, “I fee like I just at blueberries.” But I am truly thankful that I have ears to hear the strangely creative commentary. Next…Part II.