Ry and Coop Dot Com

A quick side note to our day. After coming back from the most crowded place on earth, we took a nice long nap and ventured over to Animal Kingdom to spend some time with all of the exotic animals of Africa and Asia. Unfortunately, winter decided to visit Florida on a small vacation this evening.

The Magic Kingdom wasn’t so magical for many today. At 11:30 this morning, the powers that be had decided that the world’s most visited theme park had hit maximum capacity. While it’s not clear what maximum capacity is, there were rumors flying around that it is in excess of 100,000 people. To give some fun facts to fill this blog entry, that’s roughly $6 million dollars in ticket sales…in one day!

We’ve just arrived in the hotel after a very ironic beginning to day two in Disney. After fighting sleep last night, Ryan decided that today would be the first day in his two and a half years of life that he’d sleep in until 8. For those who remember, our little man has been on antibiotics for a double ear infection, medicine he absolutely hates. In typical Ryanesque style, he decided this morning, as we were trying to rush out the door, that he’d had enough and would make himself vomit all over the floor of our room. Now, this sucked. What’s worse though is that, with this action, he has extended his record for puking on Disney vacations to a record 2 for 2. Congratulations to him. We’re sending the dirty towel to the parenting hall of fame for their records.

Christmas in Disney began as a true test in patience. While I caught myself on more than one occasion wondering, while in the Christmas spirit, if Mary and Joseph ever had to discipline Jesus, I quickly succumbed to the fact that our little flyer shouldn’t be held to such standards.

Merry Christmas everyone!  This has been a great Christmas where I’m reminded that it’s not how much you get but who you’re with that counts.  It’s particularly true for our young elf.  Because Santa was kind enough to have a good year in 2011 despite the silver commodity market, he brought us all tickets to Disney World!  While that’s wonderful, Ryan didn’t really get that.  Instead, he found his Play-Doh fun factory and that was all he needed.

With that said, Ryan seems most excited about the upcoming plane ride.  This got me thinking, it might be cheaper to take a flight from Albany to Elmira and have Grandma and Papa P drive us home.  That and a pack of Play-Doh will do it next year.

Happy Holidays!

Life as a parent is not easy.  For those of you who are parents, you know this.  For those of you who aren’t, you should know this.

I’ve tried to be a good parent.  I stay involved in my son’s life, try to teach him right from wrong and generally encourage him to explore the boundaries of life in a safe and loving environment.  In return, I expect him to strive to be the best he can be.

Encouragement does have its limits though.  Take, for example, the other day when Ryan decided to wear his mom’s lipstick.  I’m all for freedom of expression and he seemed genuinely proud of his new look but I quickly discouraged him from future makeup sessions.  If he wants to wear women’s makeup when he’s 14, I’ll deal with that but, until then, this is a no makeup on boys household.  One small point here.  The rule can be temporarily suspended if I get really crazy with Rock Band 3, of course.

Tonight we spent some time with some good friends and, as usual, the kids took center stage.  Ryan and his friend Gracie spent time entertaining a room full of mid-30s adults (and Pete who’s left the mid-30s classification) and they did not disappoint.

What was fun to see though is not so much how they entertained us but how we could put all our inhibitions aside to entertain them.  I can remember in high school and even, to a lesser degree in college, that I was always somewhat aware of how uncool I was and there was a part of me that cared about that.  Now, years later, I realize that I’m equally uncool but now that has become my greatest asset.  My friend Marc showed us all tonight that being uncool is not only okay, it’s ironically cool.

I will say the walking tunnel monster was a particularly cool touch.  In writing all this I realized that my 7th grade English teacher would be cringing at the various uses of “cool.”  Using cool four times in one paragraph is not cool.

I’ve had a few near-death experiences in my life, the first of which happened when I was born.  The second happened when I was just about Ryan’s age.  As the story has been recounted on a number of occasions, my mother had left me to play in the kitchen with my ride-on tractor while she worked on something.  She returned moments later to find that I’d taken everything in the refrigerator and spilled it on the floor.  Not to leave a job unfinished, I took several ingredients and covered our dog with the mess.

Every time I hear that story, I laugh at the mental image of such destruction and I thought, until today, that it must’ve been some mess for my parents to remember all those years later.

So I tell you all that to share this.  I love chocolate, always have.  Tonight I took it upon myself to show a little independence and bake some cookies.  Of course, my fearless sous-chef was ready and willing to volunteer to help.  As I began mixing all the ingredients together, the FedEx delivery man came with a package Jenn had ordered.  No problem.  I had everything under control.  I calmly set Ryan with a spoon and an empty bowl and told him to stir the bowl and get it ready for the cookie dough.  He seemed to understand.  I went and had a nice chat with our overworked FedEx an who complained about how he had to work overtime delivering packages and he expected to work until around 10 tonight.  After signing and chatting for about 45 seconds, I returned to my station.  What I found was a floury mess of great proportions.  The dog had been caked with it and managed to shake most of it off while Ryan looked as if he’d become a ghost.  I wanted desperately to get a picture at that point  but time wouldn’t allow it.  Ryan was determined to run through the house and Maddie, being the loyal canine vacuum that she is, had already begun the cleanup process.  I snapped these pictures as soon as I had the situation under control and, much like wartime photographers, I caught the essence of the damage.  In the cookie season, I think I might leave this job in the more capable hands of Jenn.

Christmas came early in Corning this year and our little spoiled man was not disappointed.  His Uncle Joey delivered a home run with his very own little real guitar.  Though he doesn’t really understand what’s going on, he knows that he’s being showered with gifts.  On more than one occasion tonight he said, “Happy Birthday.” Though I guess you could say it’s someone’s birthday, we’ve got a bit of work to do in this department.

It’s that time of the year and although there isn’t any snow on the ground and I was able to run in shorts today, we’re excited for the holiday.  Ryan had a blast decorating our Christmas tree and was excited to get ready for Santa.

In other good news, we found out today that Ryan is going to have some help next year from him new BABY BROTHER!  We’re so excited and, although Jenn and I apologize to all those who were pulling for a girl, in the end this is for the best.  After all, one little monster deserves a terror mate.