Dancing Boy

I looked at some of the tags on this blog site and Drew was clearly lacking attention. So, here's some long overdue Drew love.

When I was a little kid, my Dad played Harry Chapin songs pretty much daily. If my father had theme music it would be something by Harry Chapin. In my opinion, Chapin is probably the most underrated singer songwriter of his generation. Few singer-songwriters have the ability to write songs that take on new meanings as you get older.

Dancing Boy, was a song that my father played when I was about Drew's age. At the time I remember thinking it was an excuse to get me to dance, which I often did. Well, I'm a father now and I have my own Dancing Boy. Drew will be four in June and he continues to amaze me everyday. His humor, his antics, his unabashed approach to life, and well, his dancing. Drew's got a thing for Kid Rock, Ray Lamontagne and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse "Hot Dog" song. Quite an eclectic taste and he's probably game for some Harry Chapin - sooner rather than later.

So I started thinking about this song and of course there are no live version of Chapin singing Dancing Boy so I had to make my own video. I'll be honest in saying that looking back at these pictures stirred some great memories inside of me. And if you know Drew, it should stir similar emotions in you as well.

As you watch the video, I encourage you to read the lyrics. I was going to bold the lyrics that make me pause and reflect on this little man I have the prevelidge to call son, but it seems like every word of the song was written for a father and son. My dad's a whole lot smarter than I ever gave him credit for as a kid.

And now that Harrison is here, all of six weeks, I get to have two dancing boys. A good way to go through life, don't you think?

Harry Chapin's, Dancing Boy

When your daddy plays guitar,
You dance without a smile.
Kid you may not have great rhythm,
But you sure got style.
Just four years old and still it seems,
You've got it figured out.
When daddy sings, and then you dance,
The people clap and shout.

Cuz, you're my dancing boy,
And it's so scary how you trust me.
Just one look from you,
And I come pouring out like wine.
Dancing boy, I'm sure by now that you must see,
You're dancing means much more to me,
Than any dream of mine.

Yes, I'm so proud when you are with me,
That my heart digs in my throat.
And when you stop to strut your stuff,
My eyes go all afloat.
And when I have to leave you home
As sometimes it must be.
I feel that with my leaving
I leave far too much of me.

Yes, you're my dancing boy,
And it's scary how you trust me.
Just one look from you,
And I come pouring out like wine.
You're my dancing boy,
I'm sure by now that you must see,
You're dancing means much more to me,
Than any dream of mine.

You know the time will come my dancing boy
When you're dancing days are done,
And when daddy and his dancing boy
Will have dwindled down to one.

You know the world will've taught you other steps
To match the march of time,
So you'll have to keep our dancing days
Dancing in your mind.

Yes, do your dancing, boy,
Cuz it's so scary how you trust me.
Just one look from you,
And I come pouring out like wine.
Do your dancing, boy.
I'm sure by now that you must see
You're dancing means much more to me,
Than any dream of mine

My new favorite picture of Drew

Potty training

This is getting brutal. Drew is three. Drew still poops his pants. I ask the kid every hour if he needs to poop. He says, no. Let's sit on the potty and try. No. I don't need to. Ok, Drew.

Then Drew performs the great escape. He sneaks into some corner of the house and cranks one out. I'm not sure what the deal is. He goes #1 just fine.

Daina and I are at our wits end. We have offered Caroline and Bella $5 each if they can get him to poop on the potty. They are pumped! They are to ask him constantly about going to the bathroom.

Any suggestions out there are welcome...

Wedding in Laurens

What a great weekend. The rumors I heard about this wedding were largely untrue, although it was still an interesting weekend to be sure. I'll start by debunking the myth that there were 350 people. More like 200. The BBQ pork was actually pretty good, although Caroline now has a rash and a fever. Here is the first of many pics to come. Good times had by all.

This could be interesting

This weekend we are headed up to Laurenes, Iowa (pronounced LA Renz) for our kids babysitters wedding. Apparantly, Laurens a.k.a. "The busiest little town in Iowa" has quite a history, and suprisingly a web site.

All three of my little dudes will be in the wedding. Drew as the dashing ring bearer, and Caroline and Bella as flower girls. I anticipate blog posts of this event to much to list in a single blog post, so I am planning on a 4-5 part series. Here's why:

The food at the wedding is going to be leftover bar-b-q beef sandwiches. They have been frozen since June when our babysitter's cousin graduated from highschool. There will also be potato salad that a lady in Laurens is making. Did I mention that there will be 350 people at the wedding? Yeah, that's a lot of mayonnaise for the masses if you ask me.

The flowers are plastic, but don't worry. They were spray painted to match the fall color scheme theme. I am hearing orange and brown which only makes me wonder how ridiculous Drew is going to look in an orange tux. I am presuming that its orange, plus it goes well with the Dumb and Dumber picture.

I'd get into more of it but it hasn't even happened. I'll be back Monday with evidence including photos and potential some YouTube videos that you will see here first. I am both frightened and elated all at the same time. Tom Arnold's show will have nothing on this shin-dig. 

Tom if you're reading, bring a film crew to Laurens.

Caroline perspective

I picked up Caroline from dance on my way home from work yesterday. Its always nice to have one-on-one time with any of my kids so I usually shut the radio off and we talk about things.

So I asked her what she thought Bella and Drew were doing at home with mom.

"Well, Bella is probably being good, watching tv or something," Caroline said, "Drew is probably going crazy because he's pretty much a meatball."

It's going to get louder....

So I had the kids all day yesterday while Daina worked. I got them up at about 7 a.m. and we were on the road at about 7:30. We have a plan for mom's birthday that the kids are helping me on. This was to be a big secret, but Drew blew my cover five minutes after Daina came home.

There are some things that Daina still doesn't know about this surprise and it won't be posted here until "The Big Reveal" - sorry, I digress, too many home improvement shows. I am going to digress further. The problem with home improvement shows is that I watch them, get a lot of great ideas, but never get motivated enough to do anything with my own house, except for staining the stuff I have, which I did yesterday, for the third time for the deck, but I digress further.

So after our 8-9 a.m. adventure the kids were squawking for breakfast. I wanted to introduce them to the Waveland Cafe. Now they have been to the new Waveland in Boonville, IA, but the one on University in Des Moines, is old school, righteous and ideal for a Sunday morning. Its great greasy spoon fare with terrible service and poor cleaning ethics, but mom wasn't around and Big Red wanted a Lumberman. A lumberman is a plate of hashbrowns, topped with four biscuits, topped with two fried eggs, and then a bunch of sausage gravy. Like I said, mom wasn't around. We parked and walked to the door to find people standing outside. Boo. I knew my crew couldn't wait.

"McDonalds?" I asked, figuring it was a quick and cheap solution right around the corner.

"No McDonald's!" yelled Bella from the back seat.

"What, why?" I asked.

"Because they don't have toys for breakfast!" Bella informed me. (Note to McDonald's - breakfast happy meal people, get with it!) I digress again.

So we hit the HyVee for breakfast. French toast and bacon a plenty. No happy meal toys, but plenty of happy faces.

Straight from HyVee to church. Caroline and Drew made it to their Sunday school classes and Father Vince had a great homily about being generous. I guess that's all well and good but then I looked at my check book register. I guess I'll have to be generous later.

Quick stop after church at home for pasta lunch. No spaghetti sauce, but butter, parmasean cheese and some sort of Italian spice I bought six months ago that is running on empty. There were like six different selections, but we are now on the last two. "I want mine with butter, cheese and spice" Caroline said, "Me too" said Drew, "Just butter and cheese" said Bella. I got it right.

I made those kids scarf their meals down and we made it to Drew's Flag Football practice right on time. Big game against the Panthers next week so we actually started running plays today. The whole idea that three year olds can comprehend the game makes my encouragement from the sideline seem even all that more ridiculous. Drew would see someone bending over to hike the ball and he would get in front of them and get in the same position, all the while his but in some unexpecting kids face. Sometimes Drew would tip over. Each time he laughed. Its great to see him just standing there looking into the clouds thinking about stuff, thinking about anything other than the task at hand. What do I care, he's three.

Home from flag football and its "Happy night night time" - kids down for a nap. I stained the deck for a couple of hours, she's all done for now, or at least I thought it was until Daina pointed out a spot to me when she got home.

So Daina gets home at about 7 and I made dinner. Tacos, from a box, not the meat, but the rest of it was. At this point I told Daina that I need about 15 minutes of quiet. I somehow found a beer in the fridge - and it was a good beer, a micro brew I actually bought at a company auction a year prior. It had aged well. It was like found treasure. I went upstairs and geeked out on football for about 15 minutes and came back downstairs.

"You feeling better?" Daina asked.

"Yeah, just needed a little quiet" I said, "I've had the kids all day and it was getting loud."

"Well," Daina says holding her pregnant belly, "It's going to get louder."

Baby names

So most of you probably know that we are expecting, again, yes, that would be four, and no need to remind me how it happened cause I know. And quite honestly we are thrilled.

We decided to wait until after the first three months to tell the kids. We decided to go to Cold Stone and have some ice cream and tell them there. The kids all went for the cotton candy flavored ice cream mashed with marshmallows. Yeah, not what I would have chosen but I am sure the sugar high was great. This ice cream color was smurf blue and the marshmallow were aplenty.

As we were eating ice cream we told the kids that mom indeed have a baby in her tummy. There was speculation, the kids had seen an ultrasound pic, and we had told them all along we thought there might be a baby in there but we had to be sure though.

Caroline was very interested. Is it a boy or a girl? When will it be here? Where will it sleep (We have four bedrooms, four kids, plus mom and dad so this was big stuff to consider for Caroline.) Then Caroline asked, "What will we name it?" Caroline had a girl name already picked out. "Lilly" was her choice. Any boy names? Caroline didn't have any boy names, so we asked Drew.

"Drew, what would you name the baby? Drew replied, "Marshmallow Ice Cream"

Birdland

A good friend of mine sent me an invite to help distribute materials in the recently flooded Des Moines suburb known as "Birdland." This effort was a local church's effort to make a difference for flood victims.

With Daina working at the time, I told him I would help, but it was a package deal. Me and the three kids. He loved the idea. This morning, we walked around flood ruined homes, and talked to some of the people that had evacuated and were now trying to rebuild. They were happy to meet us.

The church provided a small gift and an invite to a Free Garage Sale by invite only that the flood victims could come to. There will be gently used furniture, appliances, clothing and toys available. The expect to fill a 3,000 foot sanctuary with free items.

Bella, Caroline and Drew, walked down these sad streets holding presents from the church and taking turns giving them to the people living there. I asked them on the way home what they had learned and ultimately there answers were that its nice to help others. They got it.

We talked to one woman for about 30 minutes. Her house was destroyed and she was rebuilding. Her husband was let go from his job the day after the flood, she was ill, he was looking for work. It was tough going. It was as if our news was the first sign of hope this woman had received in a long time.

She will be at the Free Garage Sale, I can count on that. So if our morning spent walking around this neighborhood reaching out to those who needed help only bring this one lady then it was worth it.

The Fleming Kids are planning on giving 3-4 things to the garage sale. Its all they can talk about this afternoon and it makes me humble and proud at the same time. The thought that even young people, my young people, can play a part in the help of others is an amazing thing to witness. And to be quite honest, it feels great.

The Free Garage Sale is at Valley Church, in West Des Moines, August 16, 8 a.m. -1 p.m. Email me if you want details as this is an invite only program specifically for the flood victims.

Sunday afternoon rainbows

Drew and I took our traditional errand run on Sunday night. We hit the book store, the grocery store and then Lowes. We parked at Lowes in the middle of a downpour. It was bad. I was looking for tornados and such. The two of us sitting and talking in the rain. He was scared of the thunder and lightening so he got to sit shotgun, which being a car-seat man for his entire life was a pretty big deal. We talked about "rain no hurt you" and "thunder no hurt you - it just loud" and so on.

Then a rainbow appeared.

It was the first rainbow I have seen this summer and it may be Drew's first. His only real understanding of rainbows are his watching his older sisters drawing pictures of them. We spent some time looking at it in the parking lot after the rain had subsided. He named off the colors he saw and talked about his favorite colors and how we should go inside soon because it might rain again.

Inside Lowes, the cashier struck up a conversation with Drew who provided her with details about the just witnessed rainbow, the colors, etc. It was basically the same conversation just more refined, better articulated. A future in sales for Drew?

So we settle up at Lowes, walk outside and Drew starts crying. No reason, just freaking out. The rainbow is gone. Daddy, where my rainbow. This was not good. I told him that rainbows don't stay very long, you need sunshine and rain and some science stuff that Dad doesn't remember.

Drew delt with it. He came to the conclusion, that the rainbow "had taken and a nap."

We'll see him later I told Drew. "Yeah Daddy, after his nap" he said.

McDonald's

For the last two weeks the kids have been begging me to take them to McDonald's. Now I like me a Big Mac as much as the next guy but McDonald's is a place I usually try to avoid.

This trip to McDonald's I was assured by Bella and Caroline was special. They had some little pet shop toy or something in the happy meal. And Drew could get a boy toy, a Transformer beep beep. And, the promotion ended today I was told. So, off we went to McDonald's.

Daina was working so we went through the ritual we always go through before we get to McDonald's. The kids have three choices to make. Cheeseburger or Chicken Nuggets, french fries or apple dippers, white or chocolate milk. They made their choices and we were well prepared. Now typically I am a drive through man, but tonight they wanted to go inside McDonald's. Love the atmosphere there, great mood lighting, clean floor, tables so clean they sparkle. I caved and we went in.

Orders were placed, a booth by the window right next to the Red Box was selected. Back at the table with a tray full of food; packets of ketchup to open, open my toy, open my milk, I'll do my own straw, open my apples, open my caramel, I need more dip dip, I need a napkin, where are my nuggets, no Drew, that's my toy, you got a Transformer, and on and on. Once everyone was set there was more playing with the toys than actual eating going on.

An old friend of mine's father used to tell us at the dinner table. "Less talking. More eating." It was a good line and I realized that by using it I had become that guy. That father that wanted nothing more than a little peace and quiet over a meal, even if it was McDonald's. The kids were good, just excited and eventually ate their meal with a little begging from Dad.

As we ate I asked them how they knew the toys weren't going to be there tomorrow. That the "promotion ending" today seemed like way too much information for a five and seven year old to be losing sleep over. Bella told me, "We saw it on the TV, the TV told us." I just laughed and ate the rest of my now cold food. And yeah, we had to get a Red Box video for the kids. A Hannah Montana DVD filled the evening entertainment bill, and lucky for me, you and the rest of us, there were no McDonald's videos in the previews.

Mini-Tor

If you don't know my father-in-law this may not be as amusing. I encourage you to read it anyway as it paints a picture of who my father-in-law is and who my son is becoming. If you do know my father-in-law, Kazimierus Totoraitis (Cuh-Zim-Er-Russ Toto-Rye-Tis), or Tor for short and obvious reasons, then I encourage you to get a fresh pack of underwear. Tor is from Lithuania, speaks in a high falsetto voice yet stands 6'2 and weighs about two and a half bills. Think, Kojack, with white hair and more lovable.

My son is turning into Tor, or mini-Tor as his sisters have been calling him. Here's the evidence.

Tor will walk into a room at any given moment. You will be in the middle of a 30 minute story and he will but right in and say, "What's the problem? What are you talking about?"

Mini-Tor runs around yelling at people at any time. "What doing? What saying?"

Tor will drive seven hours to our house, not even stop to use the bathroom or say hello and go straight to the basement and work on the computer. The computer doesn't really need work, he just lists "defragging" as a skill on his resume. For hours on end he will defrag, update, check his updates, install programs I will never use and provide me with the latest and greatest version of Norton Anti-Virus. He won't sleep because he is worrying about something happening to the computer. Lightening struck the house the last time they were here. He didn't rush to see if we were ok, but he made darn sure the computer was just fine.

Mini-Tor spends hours in the backyard focused on one task that really doesn't matter. Whether its moving dirt from the sandbox to another location, or moving buckets of water between the kiddie pool and a sand bucket, Drew is focused on the task at hand.

Tor is a very generous man. He will often tell you he is going to do something overly kind and you object. He resonds with "Don't argue with me. Please Sashua don't argue" (He can't say the letter "J" so he calls me Sashua.)

Mini-Tor doesn't like arguing either. I will say, "Drew, its time for bed." He responds with "No say that!" Both of them seem to live avoiding confrontation.

So if Drew grows up to be a generous, determined, focused and thorough adult I guess I can't complain. Although everyone enjoys a good argument every now and then.

Talking to horses

Drew, soon to be three was talking to some horses through a fence. It went something like this.

Drew: Hi horsies. I Drew. I Three. What doing horsies?
Horsies:
Drew: I said hi horsies, what doing?
Horsies:
Drew: Why you no talk to me. Mommy! Horsies no talk to me! Tears, cry, fits of rage.

I guess at some point in our lives we realize that animals can't talk back. I'm not sure when I learned that or how I felt about it. I suppose it wasn't nearly this traumatic for me. Chalk it up to too much talking animals on tv and a kid could get a complex. Let's hope he gets over it. Pretty sure showing him reruns of Mr. Ed is not a good idea though.