Father's Day Camping

Ian and I went camping in Flagstaff this weekend for Father's day. It was his first campout. Connor is still a little too young to go and Linda does not like camping. They hung out at home and apparently went shopping at Target and stayed up late watching "Cars". I am hoping to get the whole family to go camping next summer. (hint hint)

Ian had a ball. He gave a running play by play and didn't stop talking until he went to sleep.

Here he is helping out with dinner, opening a can of Spaghettios, which was pretty much all he wanted to eat this weekend.

Some of his running banter -

"We are CAMPING!"

"I love the tent."

"Smores are good!"

"Daddy, can I tell you something... I love camping!"

Ian has gotten handy with the camera and took this picture of me cooking. I haven't been camping in 17 years and had a lot of fun too. I set up the way too large 8 person tent myself and got the fire going in only two tries!

Ian loved the tent. It was a spaceship, cave, AT AT Walker, and then a cave again.

On Sunday we went to the Lava Tube Cave. This is a pretty cool spot to visit if you are in Flagstaff. There is a bit of a climb down some rocks at first, but then it levels out and is 0.7 of a mile to the end. It is straight in and back so you can't get lost.

I explained to Ian how the lava tube was formed and then he explained it back to me the entire hike. He didn't stop talking for two hours straight. I take that as a sign that he really liked the cave. Here is a direct quote I got on video from him.

"Sooo... when a voltano has hot lava inside it's just called a voltano, but when the lava is dried up, it's called a lava tube."

Ian climbed the whole thing himself, refusing all offers of help from Daddy.

"Daddee, I am doing it myself. I am five!"

Climbing back out of the cave. Ian overheard another family that was heading down ask how long the cave was.

Ian - "It's 7 MILES!"

Other dad guy - "Really?" Wow that's far."

Me - "Yeah it's only .7 of a mile."

Other dad guy - "Oh."

Ian - "It took us forever!"

Climbing a tree after the cave. This is a little blurry because I was using the zoom.

Ian helping pack up the campsite on Monday morning.

Our hike in Sandy's Canyon.

We had a great time and were really tired when we got home Monday night. I posted some other pictures on facebook so feel free to check them out too.

More camping pictures

Sandy's Canyon, Flagstaff AZ

Hi Everybody. Three months are up and I am ready to do another post!

I really like taking pictures with the same background years apart. It is interesting to see how we have changed over the years. Here are three pictures of Ian at Sandy's Canyon in Flagstaff, AZ.

July 2004. Ian is just a few months old. When Linda first sent out this picture, she named it "Ian's First Hike - note the ominous clouds."

May 14, 2006. Kind of a neat shot of Ian. He just turned two years old and loved this trail.

June 22, 2009. (just yesterday) Ian and I went camping for Father's Day. I will add another post about our trip.

Connor and Daddy's week of fun! (and resting)

It is just Connor and me this week! Linda and Ian are away in NYC visiting Suz and having a great time sight seeing. The trip was planned months ago and Linda used a credit she had with expedia. I dropped them off at the airport Thursday night.

Connor got upset as Ian and Linda shouted goodbyes from the curb. But he cheered up with some tunes from my Ipod. Before we left fo the airport we explained to him that Mommy and Ian were going on an airplane. As we drove away I explained it again, this time raising one hand like it was flying and added airplane sounds. This has been repeated by Connor for last two days. "Mumy and Ian go airplane? Zzzzhhhooommm!"

This morning as Connor was cheerfully waking me up; I realized that I have never been with just Connor for more than a few hours at a time. It really surprised me that in his almost 3 years of life this is the first time that is just him and me on our own. It's a really great chance to hang out with him and get to know him. Yes that sounds weird as I am his father and see him everyday. But it is slightly different with just him and me.

The one little snag in all this is that I am had hernia surgery a week ago. It was laparoscopic surgery so the recovery time is relatively fast (two weeks). No heavy lifting or exercise at all. I am still really sore and a little bit paranoid that I have somehow ripped all of my internal stitches/netting stuff and will need to get this thing done a third time! I am probably fine and just being a big baby. I don't like being sick/ill/recovering. I heard from some coworkers that people get over this type of surgery really fast so I figured I would be as good as new in a week. Ha ha ha. I am not.

Connor has been great. No meltdowns or freakouts. I was concerned about watching him on my own and not feeling 100%. Thursday afternoon as Linda was packing/finishing up, all of us were pretty stressed out. He had multiple meltdowns and freakouts. I guess he got them out of his system for the time being. I have to handle him a little differently now since I can't just pick him and make him do what I expect him to do. When he is being defiant, I have been trying some humor and in general being just silly. Burping always gets a laugh. It is working really well. Maybe I could write a book on potty humor parenting.

I had lots of plans for Connor and Daddy week before this medical stuff happened. We were going to do some of the following-
- Lots of park/hiking/outdoors stuff/bike riding
- go to a spring training game (there are lots of baseball teams that train in Phoenix)
- AZ Science center
- Zoo
-Drive upstate

Most of those are out for this week. I still might try to get to a spring training game if I feel up to it. However Connor and I have been having fun just hanging out together. So far we have-

- Woken up really early! Connor is a very happy morning person!

-Listened to "The Hamster Dance" song every time we got in the car.

-Went for a short walk down to the end of the street and back. Woot!

- Played "Connect Four"... sort of. He likes to drop in ALL of the checkers and then sliding the thing to dump them out. This is followed by lots of laughing.

- Went to the park and played soccer. Sort of... I stood in one spot and gently tapped the ball with my right foot. Connor ran around and had a good time. He is getting really good at kicking it back to me. We also worked on stopping the ball. "Squish it like a BUG Connor!" And he did. More laughing.

- Connor has been my little helper, grabbing things when I ask (sometimes). I have been trying to rest as much as I can. When he gets thirsty, he doesn't just ask for a drink. He shows up where ever I am lugging the juice and his sippy cup for me to fill. "Daddy...JUICE!"

- Saw some classic cars. I spotted a bunch of guys gathering their classic cars on Friday night near a McDonalds that is close to Cindy's house. I think it was one of those once a month local car club things. So we stopped and looking around. Connor LOVES cars! He gets so excited. "WOW! CARS!"

We went over to Cindy's house after the car thing. Cindy is really cool and helping me out while Linda is gone. Connor of course played with cars. Trevor made lots of space/lightsaber noises. Annika reminded me that I had promised her a checkers game from last weekend. So we played and I lost... bad. She got three double jumps and one triple jump. Cindy would shake her head slightly each time I received a particularly smashing move from Annika. "Yeah... you missed a double jump there. Annika plays for keeps... I thought you played chess a lot." Connor and I headed home around 8pm and listened to "The Hamster Dance" again. He asked for Ian and Mommy the whole way too. "MommyIanairplane! Zzzzhoooom!"

I broke down and bought another DVD of Pixar's "Cars" this afternoon. Connor used to hunt down the last one we had and carry the disc around the house like a teddy bear. Needless to say it doesn’t play anymore. So we made popcorn and had a movie night. He gets seriously excited about that movie! Tonight he was even trying to repeat back some of the dialogue.

Bedtime was later than usual (9pm) but went very smoothly. We read a book, brushed teeth and sang a few songs. Ted the bear was put to sleep and covered in the blanket by Connor. "Ted asleep" As Connor put his head down, he said in his little voice "I miss Ian. I miss Mommy."

I am looking forward to tomorrow. Connor has been super talkative and very funny. We might try to get the park again and the library too. Nothing too active, just some fun stuff. But for now I am going to bed... Connor gets up early!

Chess

This blog is in response to my wife's entry Show and Tell. I already left this very long comment, which I figure is probably long enough to be a blog post on its own.

It was Ian’s idea that I teach him chess.

Linda started playing checkers with him a few months ago. Then I joined in. Linda and I had a few fun checkers games too. Some how the subject of chess came up and that it was a harder version of checkers. Ian was very interested and insisted that he wanted to learn chess and not play checkers. "Daaaddeee! NoOOO! I don't want to play checkers... I want to learn CHESS!" Linda bought us a chess set and I taught him the moves of each piece. He really enjoys it.

Usually we play without the kings and just see who can take the most pieces. He really likes that. Getting the king in checkmate is a little past him right now. He gets fixated on one piece at a time. The funniest thing is that he adds crashing sounds whenever he takes a piece. “SSSHHHHH CRASH!” Oh and he doesn’t just take the pieces… he knocks them over!I guide him through moves and always give a chance to think about what my next move will be. Often I just ask “What will happen to your guy if you move him there?” or “Are you SURE you want to move there?” He can often see what will happen to his piece. It is fascinating to watch his mind work. Sometimes he moves to a bad spot anyway, but that is how everyone learns. All that matters is that he is having fun.

I trade off guiding him to a win and winning myself every once in a while. It is important to have a balance between the two. Nobody wins all the time. Enough wins to keep him enthusiastic and a few losses to keep him humble. After each match we say “good game”. After we started playing, I tried to play online against the computer a few times to brush up. I got creamed every time. It was very humbling. I told Ian this and he responded “Daddy, you need to learn some COOL MOVES!”

Every so often he surprises me and takes a piece with a move I didn't see coming. The day he beats fair and square will probably be sooner than I think. Then he can teach me some cool moves.

Halloween Costume Fun?

A few months ago, Ian decided what he wanted to be for Halloween. He even described his idea to Linda and she made a sketch.



He wanted to be a Stormtrooper inside an AT-AT Walker from Star Wars. With flaps for his arms and a helmet on his head. With "shooters" attached and big robot legs to tromp around in. Being the loving parents that we are, Linda and I went about making his costume. To be on the safe side, I managed to convince him to be a two legged walker instead of a four legged one, as I was unsure if I could actually make the bigger one. For those of you who are Star Wars geeks (like me) I was aiming for the smaller AT-ST walker from Return of the Jedi. The ones that the Ewoks managed to take down with big ropes and poles and stuff.

Linda was in charge of procurement and I was in charge of construction. A trip to the craft store and Walmart got most of what we needed. Little bowls, duct tape, spray paint and sheets of foam. We took an empty diaper box, cut out the shape and made some holes for his arms. I measured and cut, measured again and cut as needed. I even used a yard stick for straight lines. Lots of duct tape around the edges to hold it together and some hot glue to attach the guns and viewport flaps. Ian was excited!

He was really excited! So was I! We had never actually made a costume before.

I spray painted the whole thing gray with enough coats to make me dizzy. A metallic spray paint was added for the special robot walker finish. Linda added in some straps inside so it would stay up. We did make legs also but they didn't fit right so we didn't use them. Here Ian is in his Stormtrooper costume driving the AT-ST Walker. "Daddy it's TOTALLY AWESOME!" I felt so proud that I had brought this much joy to my son. Ian was super excited!

Until he actually had to wear it to his Karate Halloween party on Thursday!

As soon as we got out of the car Ian refused to wear the walker costume and announced that he would just go as the stormtrooper. Now of course we didn't expect him to wear it for a long time at all. It was a pretty tight fit and he couldn't run around or eat in it. We just wanted to him to walk in with it and make an appearance. To have some fun showing off his costume.

(Side note- We were going to have Connor go as Darth Vader to complete the Star Wars theme, but he hated it! It was catching on his legs or something. As we were trying to get out of the door to get to the party, Connor was screaming, Ian was talking non-stop and we were slowly losing some of our sanity. We took Connor's costume off completely and just bundled him in the car with his regular clothes and a "Lightning McQueen" hat. Halloween is supposed to be fun, right?)

In the parking lot, I tried to coax Ian into his Walker costume but to no avail. It went something like this-

Ian- No Daddy! I don't want that! The walker is for NEXT Halloween!

Me- Umm... What? You've been asking to be an AT-AT Walker for two months. You had Mommy make a sketch. Why don't you just try it for a short while to show everybody? Then you can take it off to play.

Ian- DadDEE, NOOO! I just want to be a stormtrooper!

Linda was busy getting Connor out of the car. Ian and I went back and forth like this for about two minutes until I eventually gave in. Halloween is supposed to be fun, right?

Me- Okay E. Whatever makes you happy. I'll put it back in the car.

This is when Linda stepped in...

Linda- I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! We are going HOME! No party tonight! That costume is exactly what you asked for and your father spent hours making it! You even helped him. If you don't wear it, even for a short time we are going home! Walk in with it on and then you can take it off!

Ian- stunned silence

Me- stunned silence

Wow! I really love my wife. She is calm when I am stressed, gentle when I am stern, and hell on wheels when needed! Mothers must develop this stern technique biologically. Maybe when they are pregnant? She sounded exactly like my Mom when I was in second grade! (The year I freaked out about my costume! I asked to be The Hulk and then had a meltdown when I had to put The Hulk costume on.) I wondered for a few seconds if she was pushing Ian too hard. He squeaked a little "okay" and turned so I could put the walker over his head. We all went inside. Whew.

Everybody loved his walker costume (especially all the other thirty-something dads). Ian took the walker part off after a few minutes and we set it aside. He proceeded to have a great time at the party, running around, eating snacks and generally having fun for about an hour. Crisis averted!

Until he won "Best Costume"!

This time he wouldn't budge and started to have a meltdown. He won a $10 gift card to Target and actually tried to give it back to Mr. Meza.

Ian- I don't WANT to stand for more pictures! I'm tired! I don't WANT to put on the walker! I'm hungry! Mr. Meza, I don't want this! I want to go home!

Maybe Halloween is sometimes just too much for little kids. Ian was too upset to think clearly and probably really hungry too. He isn't sure how to act sometimes, and gets wrapped up in the enormity of RIGHT NOW. I know I was like that as a kid. Ian really is a good kid and I guess sometimes being four is a lot to handle.

We had Ian go over to Mr. Meza and thank him for the prize. We got home, got everybody fed and just relaxed for the rest of the night. Whew.

Friday-

I was home with the boys on Friday. Connor had two appointments in the morning and after lunch we hit the store to get some food and candy. I let the boys pick out one bag of candy each while I grabbed small one too. They pushed the cart all around the store. I was trying to tire them out so they would take a nap at 1:00pm. They did not. Connor played with his cars and Ian did some pre-school type workbook sheets with me. Linda got home at 3:00pm and I crashed at 3:30. It had been a long day. She woke me up around 5:00pm and guess what? The boys were out!

Cindy and Rick invited us to go over to their neighborhood for Trick or Treating. We made a quick dinner and headed out at 6:00pm. We did have Ian wear the walker costume for a few pictures but that was all. As you can see he wasn't very happy about it.

He did have a great time going around to each house with his friend Trevor. They had a lot of fun.

Connor was little skeleton guy. Linda picked him up this cute little shirt to replace the Darth Vader costume. He was really hesitant at first going to each house but soon got the hang of it. Free candy is a good motivator! When he got tired of holding his bucket he gave it to me to carry...

...until the next house that had candy! He even said "Twik Tweet" a few times.

After we got home, we stopped at two of our close neighbors houses to say hi and Ian asked to wear the walker part so he could show them. He tromped up and down the street making robot noises and I pretended that he was chasing me. If you look closely you can see that Ian looks really happy. Smiles all the way... like the last two days of meltdowns hadn't happened.

Back in the house, Connor went right to his cars for some downtime. Ian helped me hand out candy and was very generous. Full handfuls of candy for everybody! We got rid of all three bags before the creepy-teenagers-that-are-probably-too-old-to-trick-or-treat started to come by at 9pm. We then put the boys to bed and I sang a few Halloween songs with them.

Maybe Halloween is too much for parents. We try to make everything perfect for our children's future memories. As I was making Ian's walker costume I wondered who was more excited about it. We have two wonderful and funny boys. I hope they remember the fun parts from this year. I wasn't laughing much today, but I know I will have a good story to tell and laugh about when they are older.

To the Movies!

The Murphys and the Wines headed to the theater on Sunday morning to see "Star Wars - Clone Wars", the new animated picture from Lucasfilm. Ian and Trevor were super excited. Connor did really well too. He lasted through more than half the movie before he got a little antsy (the popcorn ran out) so Linda took him for a short walk.



I was four years old when I went to the the first "Star Wars" in the movie theater with my dad and two brothers (not sure why Suzie didn't come... it must have been since she was a girl!). I was so excited! I talked and asked questions the entire time. At one point Chris threatened to get the guy with the flashlight to kick me out of the theater! After the movie we made lightsaber and spaceship sounds all the way to the car.

Ian and Trevor were oddly really quiet through the whole film. They did really enjoy it though! Both boys made the required cool lightsaber sounds all the way to the car!

As far as a review of the movie from a parent's perspective... it was definitely aimed at kids. Lots of battles, snappy one liners and characters that try too hard to have "spunk" or "attitude". I was disappointed that it didn't have any of the deeper themes that the original three "Star Wars" movies had. Whether it be believing in yourself or knowing right from wrong. It is possible to have deeper meaning attached to kids movies. "Kung-Fu Panda" or "Wall-E" are both excellent examples of this. Lucas has really strayed far from what made his original trilogy special.

Oh and by the way... the soundtrack was awesome! They used John Williams original theme for the opening credits but the rest was new music. It had a lot of asian influences and drumming. Very cool!

Future Jedi Knights Ian and Trevor making lightsaber sounds.

Well that is all for now. Hi to everybody in blogland! (cue Star Wars end credit music) dun dun dun DUN!

Alarm Clock

I went back to school this week so the whole family is again on the work routine. We have been having trouble getting Ian up in the mornings. He is following the true Murphy tradition of sluggishness so Linda bought him an alarm clock. He slept through it on Friday and I wound up late for a meeting (I can't really blame him for that tough).

To give the non-Murphys a little background... My dad would regularly sleep though alarms for an hour or more. Chris (my brother) was the same, and in high school he wired in a extra loud speaker into his alarm clock so he could get up. Michael (also my brother) would throw whatever was on hand at us when we tried to wake him up. Suzie (my sister) seems to wake up just fine. Being the little brother, I was always the first one up. I would sit on top of Suzie at 6am and pry her eyelids open while asking "Hey SUZ! Are you awake?" Its fun being the little brother.

Nowadays though, I have to set my alarm a full half hour early because I will regulary reset it for a half hour later while I am still asleep (and have no memory of doing it).

This is what happened Saturday.

6:15 - Connor wakes up later than usual. Linda gives him his first breakfast. Linda checks her email. I stay in bed. Connor plays around the house and watches some TV.

7:00 - Ian's alarm clock goes off. We forgot to turn it off from Friday but that doesn't matter because Ian sleeps right through it. I hear it, get out of bed and in a daze manage to press a button that stops the horrible ringing. I go back to bed.

7:30 am - The alarm clock goes off again. Apparently it has a second alarm and I had only turned off the first one. It was ringing for a full two minutes. I decide to get my camera to record the moment. I debate on getting the same alarm for myself so I can get up on weekdays.

Tommy - "Ian, are you awake?"
Ian - .....







I reset the alarm for 8:30. Normally we let the boys sleep as long as they want to on the weekends. For Connor that is not as long as we would like. We had someone coming over at 9:30 and Ian and I were going to Karate class at 10:00 so we had to get him up.


7:30-8:30 Connor plays around the house and generally makes a lot of noise. Linda and I chat about what we are going to do that day. I have breakfast.

8:26 - Connor decides that Ian has slept long enough and goes to do his little brother best to wake up Ian.

Connor - "IAN!"

Ian - ......

Connor whaps Ian on the back repeatedly to wake him up.

Connor - "IAANNN!"

Ian - ......

Connor goes for the climb on top method. He does this to us too sometimes. I wonder if Connor will ever try the prying eyelids method. At this point Ian is awake but pretending to be asleep. He is trying really hard not to laugh.

8:35 - Ian trudges out to breakfast. Connor follows


Connor gets his second breakfast. Apparently this is why he wanted to wake up Ian.



8:50 - Ian is fully awake and super happy! Thankfully he has a little brother alarm clock!