The Swing Set

We bought Dean his first Swing Set this weekend. I didn't even know they still made this style of Swing Set anymore - it's almost exactly like the Swing Set I had when I was Dean's age, way back in 1979, although the colors of mine were WAAAAY cooler than this one! See for yourself:
KMart had these things for super cheap (at least compared to the play structure monstrosities that are available on Maui for exactly 3.5 hours for approximately $1200 each Spring at CostCo before they're sold out until the following year). This one was only about $120. Granted, it did take Joel about 8 hours to assemble on Saturday and I was worried the neighbors might call the police to report a domestic disturbance due to all the loud swearing that was going on in the backyard (not to worry, I decided NOT to supervise this project, so the swearing was aimed at the author of the instruction booklet, the engineer who designed the swing set and various other people involved in the manufacturing of steel, plastic, and small tools rather than me - this time). But I'm willing to say that we've already got our money's worth out of that little $120 investment. Dean wore himself OUT Saturday night and all day Sunday playing on that thing!! The kid does love to swing and he is an EXPERT at pumping his legs (which is good for us - no pushing!). Just look at the height this 3-yr-old can get with the leg-pump:
(and yes, in case you were wondering - he IS playing in his pajama shirt and underwear). (and yes - he DOES have a worse farmer's tan than his father). So anyway, Dean's pretty happy with the swing set. His favorite part is the swing. He likes the slide OK, although I'm pretty sure he thinks it's kind of lame and too small. But it didn't take him long to figure out he could slide other things down, like every single truck or car he owns. And last night he asked me if Nani (one of the cats) could go down the slide. {sigh}. Oh, and it also didn't take long for him to discover that the underwear is probably a good idea - naked sliding isn't so fun. Joel tried to warn him, but there are some things I guess a boy just has to discover on his own.

But anyway, here are the rest of the pics. We put the swing set on the side of the yard where we can see it from 2 of the large living room windows and from the kitchen window, so hopefully we don't have to constantly be out there with him when he's playing on it. And since we have our windows open most of the time, we can usually hear him the whole time as well. Just look how much fun he's having:

Friday Evening at Kalama

March 7, 2010

We spent Friday evening, March 7 at Kalama Park in Kihei. We used to do this almost every Friday evening when we lived in Kihei. In fact, when I was pregnant with Dean, Joel and I would go get a gas station hot dog at 7-11 across the street (ok, I'll admit it - I would have 2 of them - the big juicy Jumbo hot dogs with TONS of mustard!!) and go sit and watch the kids roller skating in the outdoor skating rink that is about 25 feet from the ocean at Kalama Park as we enjoyed sunset and the cool ocean breezes (this is when we lived in our HOT Kihei condo without air conditioning...and again, I was pregnant). We'd walk all around the park and just enjoy being outside. It's kind of a friday night tradition. Then even after Dean was born, when he was a baby, we continued this a few times a month until we moved to town. Now we don't go as much. But everytime we do, we always say we should do it more often.

Anyway, the intent of this particular outing was to let Dean watch the kids skating on the roller rink - thinking we could trick him into believing it was like Apolo Ohno, since he's been very disappointed in the lack of Apolo Ohno on TV since the Olympics (or "Malympics" as Dean calls them) ended. And no, his fascination with Apolo Ohno and Short Track speed skating has not fizzled out. In fact, THIS is what he sat down and created this morning before school to take for show and tell on his first day back after Spring Break:

He wrote that himself - only asking for a little help with the spelling, wanting to know if there were 1 or 2 "L's" in Apolo. He knew the numbers. (He did ask me to fix the "5", getting upset that it looked too much like an "S" after he wrote it. So I made the top of it a little more straight for him, but other than that, he wrote it all on his own). Then he wanted to put the stars on there for the medals. He already knew he needed 8 stars, but he wanted me to look up on "Noodle" (that is Dean-speak for "Google" - I think it's adorable that he thinks it's called Noodle. He'll say "Mommy, I need to Noodle something" and get on the computer and start typing. It's not that he can't say Google, he just thinks it's Noodle.) how many stars needed to be gold, silver and bronze. Then he wanted to know what color bronze was. I told him blue would work, so his picture has 2 gold stars, 2 silver stars and 4 blue stars to represent Apolo Ohno's 2 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 4 bronze medals. I do not know where my child gets these ideas, but he woke up this morning talking about Apolo Ohno. Of course, he was also talking about "Space Storms", so who knows?

So anyway, back to our friday night at the park...Joel had a client in Kihei late friday afternoon, so Dean and I met him at the park after that. Joel picked up some Da Kitchen for dinner and we had a little picnic on the rocks while watching the Humpback whales play at sunset. Dean and I shared our favorite Da Kitchen meal - Kalua pig (Dean is NOT a meat eater and Kalua pig is just about the only meat he ever consumes, but it is pretty good!! - as in tasty, NOT healthy!). After we ate, Dean played at the park for about an hour and was not the least bit interested in watching roller skating. I tried telling him it was "like Apolo Ohno" and he just looked at me like I was crazy. He didn't even bother responding. So much for thinking we could maybe trick him into thinking roller blading was the same as ice skating!! Poor kid. No ice skating on Maui. Maybe some day we can take a trip to Oahu and let him try out ice skating. It would almost be worth the trip just to let him see some Short Track skating in person!

So here are some Kalama Park pics...

Friday Morning at the Tropical Plantation

Dean and I spent about an hour Friday morning hanging out at the Maui Tropical Plantation. It had been awhile since we went to feed the ducks and run around. Dean had a blast. He was less interested in the ducks this time, but still doesn't want to share his bread - stuffing piece after piece into his own mouth as fast as he can to keep from having to feed it to the ducks. After the bread was gone, we went up to this big grassy area above the duckpond and I just sat and let Dean wear himself out running around. He was pretty cute...






Sometime in the middle of all that running around, Dean took a break to drink an entire juice box, then went back to running around. Then he got a tummy ache. I asked him if he had a stitch in his side and he was horrified. He pulled up his shirt to look and kept feeling to see if there was anything there. I think he thought I meant Stitch from the movie Lilo and Stitch!!
Then we walked around the gardens a little bit and Dean found these little round seeds that fall off some palm tree and got super excited. He called them "cloons". I have no idea what that means, I'm pretty sure he just made up the word (he makes up A LOT of words). He gathered up a bunch of cloons, then made up a very elaborate game that consisted of rolling cloons down a groove in a bench to the ground. He won "11 medals" and I won "12 medals" playing the cloon game!! So cute.
Anyway, I took a really long - 5 minutes - (and noisy - sorry, it was a super windy day) video of him as he made up the cloon game. You'll have to just deal with the noise of me talking really loud and the wind and turn up your volume so you can hear Dean. I know it's annoying. Sorry. But hopefully it's worth it so you can see the way Dean's little genius 3-yr-old mind works!!! It was too long to post directly to the blog, so I uploaded it to YouTube and am going to try embedding it here. In case it doesn't work and you can't see the video, HERE is the link to the video at YouTube.

2nd Painting Video

Ok, well apparently Blogger only lets one video per post work. So I deleted the 2nd video and am reposting it here in this post. Once again though, if you get the updates int he Feedblitz e-mail you'll have to go directly to the blog HERE and scroll down the to actual posts to watch the videos. This is the 2nd video I've posted today. There's another video in the post titled "The Underwear Artist" that's really cute too!!

The Underwear Artist

Dean loves to paint in his underwear...Just like Daddy!! (ok, I have to clarify that it's a little joke around here that when we say Dean does something in his underwear, we add the line "Just like Daddy" at the end. I don't know why. It just sounds funny funny to me. Joel doesn't actually paint in his underwear. It's been a long time since he painted anything. He does watch a lot of TV in his underwear though).

Anyway, I got some cute pictures and video of Dean painting - this was back in early February - that I thought I'd share. The videos won't show up in the e-mail from Feedblitz, so you'll have to click HERE to go directly to the blog and go to the post for today's date (March 6, 2010) and then scroll down to the video and hit the "play" icon in the middle of the video to watch it.

Random February Happenings

I still have a couple of blog posts to catch up on from February, but I also have a few just random photos I thought I'd share with you...

Dean absolutely LOVED watching the Olympics!! It was so cute! Some of the events he enjoyed were the Luge and the Bobsled, Freestyle Skiing (he would just laugh and laugh at those crazy jumps for some reason), and finally Speed Skating. The first night of competition (the night of the failed camping trip) we watched Apolo Ohno win a medal in men's Speed Skating and Dean has been completely OBSESSED with Apolo Ohno and Speed Skating ever since!! It's kind of weird. He talks about Apolo Ohno several times a day. He knows that Apolo Ohno (and he always says both his first and last names, never just Apolo) has won 8 Olympic medals and he knows that the Korean skaters were the "naughty ones" in the races (I'm not being racist here, I think Dean equats "naughty" with the guys we didn't want to win). He knows that the number on Apolo Ohno's helmet this year was 256 and he will write that number on papers all over the house. He has sat TWICE and watched a 35-minute biography from start to finish online about Apolo Ohno. He will stand in the living room with his feet staggered and one arm raised up in the air in front of him and the other arm behind him and say "Skaters, ready", then all of a sudden run top speed around and around the living room, usually he ends by "sliding" across the pretend finish line with his skate as he falls. He saw and remembered that in one race, Apolo Ohno had to jump over another skater who had fallen in front of him, so sometimes when Dean is running around the living room he'll put a pillow on the floor and jump over it before he "wins" the race. Sometimes he falls in the middle of the race (very dramatically by the way), in a kind of sliding type of fall, usually ending up on his stomach, looks up and then bangs his fists onto the ground before lowering his forehead to the carpet in defeat (not sure where he got this as as nothing like this happened to Apolo in any of his Olympic races this year. Maybe in the biography??). It's all very melodramatic. For the past 2 Mondays at school (Show and Tell day), he asked me to find pictures of Apolo Ohno online and print them off for him to take for Show & Tell. When the Vicks commercial comes on TV, Dean will drop whatever he's doing and yell "Mommy look! Apolo Ohno!" and then he'll make us rewind it and play it again and again. It is seriously so weird. It makes me feel bad that Maui doesn't have an ice rink - like maybe I should put the kid in some ice skates and let him try it out. Doesn't this sound like the perfect story for me to be telling in 15 years in our Bob Costas interview when Dean is living the dream he's had since he was 3-yrs-old to follow in Apolo Ohno's skates and be an Olympic Speed Skater!?!? ha!
Dean and I often go on "long, long, long walks" around our neighborhood - that's how Dean describes them, but they are pretty darn long for a 3-yr-old. Sometimes we'll walk nearly 2 miles. I think I've mentioned before that Dean has always been a really good walker. He's never been one of those kids who whines and asks to be carried (like I'm pretty sure I was as a toddler) - he would much rather just walk himself. I'm not sure if this is just his strong independent nature or his desire to explore. But I like it. It makes him a good hiker and it saves my back!! Here we are walking along Kamehameha Avenue, just outside our subdivision, one Friday morning with Dean checking out the clouds over the West Maui Mountains and the construction going on across the street:
Sometimes when we just want to go on a shorter walk, Dean will ride his Tricycle. He wants a 2-wheeler bike, but he's not allowed to have one until he agrees to wear a helmet. And so far, Dean absolutely REFUSES to put ANYTHING on his head. I'd be willing to bet my last dollar that he wouldn't wear a bike helmet and the kid is pretty stubborn. I know him. If the deal was that he had to wear the helmet in order to ride the bike, he'd just be like "well screw it then. I just won't ride the damn thing". (ok, maybe not in those exact words, but that'd be what he really meant). So for now, we're sticking with the trike.
Playing a little Super Mario Brothers on the Wii in his underwear....just like Daddy!! (for the record, Dean isn't actually allowed to play video games, but he does watch Joel play Super Mario brothers sometimes and on this particular day Joel went to the bathroom and Dean jumped up and grabbed the Wii remote and started playing. He got waaay farther than I would have!!):
I think I've mentioned before that Dean isn't the greatest eater on the planet. Mealtime is a DAILY struggle around here. The kid just doesn't want to eat. First of all, he'd just rather be playing than sitting at the table. Second, he is definitely my child. I'm really bummed that he seems to have inherited my majorly picky eating habits. I know some people will disagree, but (and Joel is actually with me on this one) I really don't think this is something I've taught him. I think it's just the way he is. And MY own pickiness certainly isn't anything my own parents taught me! (right, Mom?). We are working on this, but at the same time I struggle internally with this issue as I understand what he feels like. We do make him TRY new foods, but as long as he puts it in his mouth - after that, the choice is his - If he doesn't like it, he doesn't have to eat it. I know that my pickiness is probably 90% related to texture rather than taste. And I can see that is the case with Dean a lot of the time too. So I don't push it. I'm hoping that with Joel's influence, he'll outgrow some of this, but I'm not holding my breath. I certainly haven't outgrown my aversion to a lot of foods. He still doesn't eat many vegetables, but he'll down pureed veggies (baby food veggies) like it's Kool-Ade! So we just go with that - at least he's getting his veggies, right? Anyway, I saw an idea on a parenting blog that I wanted to try with Dean - mostly just to make mealtime fun and interesting for kids. It's called "Muffin Tin Meals" and Dean LOVES it!! We've been doing this several times a week in the evening (and most lunches that he's home) and it's working really well - he's eating a lot more than usual and getting a much larger variety of food at each meal. Basically you use a small muffin tin and put a different type of food in each "muffin hole". I have no idea what the appeal is to kids, but it works!! And it really does help him get a nice balanced meal. The example in the photo isn't the best example of the most nutritious meal, but normally we'll try to do 2 veggie holes, 1 protein hole, 1 grain hole, 1-2 fruit holes, and then 1 either dairy or sweet hole (usually yogurt). Dean LOVES to empty out each hole and makes a game out of emptying the holes in a particular pattern.

Fun Times with Rylee

Dean LOVES playing with the little girl, Rylee, across the street. Rylee's about 8 months younger than Dean, but they both beg to play with each other all the time. I'm not sure why - Dean's SUPER bossy and neither of them likes to share their toys. Dean is getting better at taking turns, but he has to CONSTANTLY be reminded to let his friends have a turn when he's done playing with something. And when a friend picks up one of his toys, he suddenly decides that's exactly the toy he wanted to play with! They usually do pretty well for about an hour and then tempers start to flare. But they're pretty darn adorable!!!

Lily

I forgot to tell this funny little story about our camping trip....Dean doesn't see me wearing a hat too often and I had on a stocking cap most of the day while we were at Poli Poli. Dean looked at me and said "Hey! Lily wears one of those Mommy!" and then giggled really cute like. I was like "She does? Who's Lily?". Then my 3-yr-old son says "You know Mommy. Lily. From the Young and the Restless!". Yes. That's right. My son knows the characters on the Young and the Restless well enough to know that Lily, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy treatments for Ovarian cancer, wears a stocking cap every day to hide her bald head!!!!

You think this is my sign that maybe it's time to stop letting my 3-year-old stay in the room while I watch my soap?? Maybe I should have taken the hint several weeks ago when I was watching and Dean, almost as excited as I was, squeals "Mommy! Mommy! Look! Victor's back!! Why is Victor so mad Mommy?"

Camping: Fail

If you're getting this in the Feedblitz e-mail update and the words are cut-off on the side, click HERE to go to the blog to read the post in full.

Well, this just might go down in history as the worst Tapler Valentine's Weekend ever!! We attempted to go camping up at Poli Poli State Park Saturday night, which sounded like a lot of fun and took a bit of planning ahead since we had to secure a camping permit before Thursday - because all State of Hawaii offices are closed every single Friday thanks to "Furlough Fridays", then of course we had to do a bit of shopping for Dean since the child didn't own a single long-sleeved sweatshirt or any type of head covering. And I know what you're thinking - how cold could it be? It's Maui, right? Well, my friends, we ARE weather weenies you know. Plus, Poli Poli sits halfway up Haleakala Volcano, right around an elevation of 6200 ft, which can get quite chilly, especially at night!! But not to worry, Old Navy saved the day and I bought Dean a cute little zip-front hoodie sweatshirt and that combined with an old pair of knit pants Balin had passed down to him over a year ago (that granted were a bit short, but they would do, especially considering I wasn't absolutely certain Dean would keep them on, so I wasn't spending a penny more than I had to on clothes for a one-weekend thing!!). So Saturday dawned bright and sunny in Kahului and we were all very excited about our upcoming adventure!! Jayci had decided to join us, but at the last minute decided to drive her own car (she had laser eye surgery a few days earlier and her story was she wanted to be able to drive home if her eyes started bothering her...whatever...I'm pretty sure she just didn't want to be either (a) stuck halfway up the mountain all night with a bratty 3-yr-old or (2) freezing her ass off halfway up the mountain all night!!!). But it didn't matter. Turns out this was a VERY good move on Jayci's part!

We took both cars up the loooong, winding road to Poli Poli campground - the looong, winding, narrow road that turned into a dirt/sand road about 5 miles from the actual campground. So far, so good. We arrived at the campground safe and sound only to find a church group there playing a guitar and singing a bunch of church songs, which annoyed Joel - not because they were a church group and actually he was more annoyed because they were NOT church songs, but in his words they were "butchering" some of the greatest songs ever written (I thought he was going to lose it when they all joined in on Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful", one of Joel's all-time favorites). I think he was mostly pissed off that because they were a church group he couldn't act like an ass and make them all uncomfortable enough to shut up. But whatever. They didn't stay long anyway. They were way smarter than us.

When we got to the campgrounds there was a little bit of cloud cover, which is normal at that elevation, and actually at that elevation you're right INSIDE the clouds, which is normally kind of cool (we've hiked at Poli Poli a lot, and we normally really liked this whole being-inside-a-cloud thing). So, it's kind of all misty-like. Joel proceeded to set up the tent, only to discover the tent stakes were missing. (I'll spare you the back and forth of the as yet undecided argument of exactly WHO was responsible for making sure the tent stakes made it into the car....but since I'm writing this blog post....we'll lean towards placing the blame on the man in charge of setting up the tent and just assume that since this is turning into a rather long post, Joel will probaly skip reading most of it anyway and just look at the pictures). Anyway, so as it's misting on us (and to us weather weenies really REALLY cold - like already requiring the sweatpants plus fleece pull-over and windbreaker and stocking cap I had packed for after dark!!), Joel fashioned some hand-made tent stakes out of some sticks he found and his pocket knife (which I claim the Eagle Scout in him thoroughly enjoyed doing!!). I forced Dean into his long pants and hoodie and tried to shove his socked feet (which he did NOT love) into his only somewhat close-toed shoes he owns, his Keens, which we quickly discovered he has outgrown. So then I tried to get him to go super local-style and just wear his slippers (flip flops) with his socks, which lasted a little while, but his socks got a little wet and then he decided he was done with the socks. It didn't take long for him to just decide that, cold feet or no, he still prefers to be barefoot!!

And almost as soon as the tent got set up that pleasant mist turned into real rain. And then we discovered that someone had never sealed the seams of our somewhat-new tent. (again, I'll refrain from pointing any fingers....I won't even point them directly at Joel here or anything and I'll just let you all draw your own conclusions on who's job that was...ha ha!). So even with the rain fly up, the tent soon began to leak a little. We quickly soaked the 2 beach towels we brought sopping up little puddles inside the tent. And before long the light rain turned into a torrential downpour. Then Jayci and I started worrying about that dirt/sand road we drove in on and the fact that both of our cars are kind of old Maui Cruisers and not exactly Four Wheel Drive or anything. Finally, after about 5 hours of "camping" (Dean had a BLAST by the way!!), we decided it was best if we just headed on home. So we packed it up, in the pouring rain, while we were freezing our butts off, and started out on that looooong, winding, narrow road out of Poli Poli State Park. Now, by this point everyone else who had been at the park when we arrived had long since left - again, way smarter than us!!! So there were no other humans in sight.

We got about a mile from the campground, it's still raining and cold, and my car just died. Totally and completely dead. We were just driving and the engine died with no warning at all. And wouldn't start again no matter what we tried. We were right in the middle of that narrow, winding, dirt/sand road. There was no way a tow truck would come up there. And not much we could do at that time of day in the rain. So we had to just abandon my car up there Saturday night. Now, you have no idea how glad we were that Jayci decided at the last minute to take her own car AND that we all left at the same time or we might have been stuck up there overnight!!! We did have to push my car a ways down the road to get to a spot where we could get it off the road enough so it wasn't in the middle of the road. Then we all just piled in Jayci's car and headed on home. Dean passed out in the car almost as soon as we left the campground and slept through the entire ordeal, even transferring the carseat to the other car!!! We made it home in time for Joel to cook some hot dogs at home (what we had planned to cook over a campfire) and then we all sat around and watched some Olympics!!

Unfortunately, we think the trip up to Poli Poli might have been just too much for my old piece of crap car. It's been dying a slow death for quite awhile and I had said I would drive that thing until the wheels fell off. Sadly, I think I just might be there. Joel and his buddy Vince had to drive back up to Poli Poli Sunday morning with towing cables and "pull" my car all the way down the mountain. Man, I am soooo glad I was not there for that - I can't imagine how stressful it must have been pulling that car down that crazy narrow winding road just to get back to Kula Highway. Then Joel decided that since it was all downhill from there, he just let it coast all the way down Haleakala to town!!! He coasted the car all the way down the mountain (from 6200 ft elevation to sea level) to the intersection of Haleakala and Hana Highway (now within5 miles of the house, so a free tow with AAA!!) where he finally called a tow truck to tow it to the house). And now my old crappy car sits dead in the driveway while we decide what to do. I hate not having a vehicle. I'd really like a new reliable car, but I hate spending the money. Our neighbor is a mechanic and looked at it and we're pretty sure it's the fuel pump. As you all know, NOTHING on Maui is cheap and that includes Auto Work. It will probably cost around $700-900 to replace the fuel pump, but the car is only worth about $1200 and has multiple other things wrong with it. So....do we even bother spending the money to fix it? I'm not sure we could get much more than that for trade-in value and I'm not at all comfortable selling the car to an individual (it's way too small of an island to sell a car that needs that much work to someone without being completely honest about it - and in that case I think it would just take FOREVER to sell). I was really hoping someone would steal it while it sat up there at Poli Poli Saturday night, but no such luck. I guess nobody wants a dead car. {sigh}. So anyway, there goes our much hoped-for trip to the mainland this spring. The money will most likely now be spent on a new car. Bummer.

So....there's the story of the Worst Valentine's Weekend Ever. Sorry it was so long, but really....can you think of any part of that I could have left out??

Now, here are some photos of our failed camping adventure for your enjoyment:

Dean looking SUPER adorable in his long pants and hoodie (I almost can't stand it!!) AND the short-lived socks-with-slippers look:
"Helping" Joel set up the tent (notice he's already lost the slippers)!!:
Checking out the inside of the tent with Aunty Jayci while waiting for the rain fly and for Daddy to whittle some tent stakes!! (and the first of a few shedding of the hoodie):
Half a shaka while eating a sandwich (and look! he actually has the hoodie up for half a second!! What you can't see are his purple lips.):
Off to attempt to gather dry firewood under the Redwood Trees (while we were still under the crazy belief we might spend the night!! ha!):
Reading all the park signs to Aunty Jayci:
Seriously, isn't he the cutest thing ever!?!?
Trying to stay warm and dry inside the tent (we weren't successful):
Jayci making a run for it from the bathroom in the pouring rain:
This is just getting ridiculous and this is about the time I said enough's enough and we decided to go home:

Good Grief - Word Association

*This post would best be viewed on the blog. If you're getting this in the e-mail updates, please click on the link to go directly to the blog: http://taplerohana.blogspot.com

I think most of you know that my Dad, who is only 59 yrs old, is in the late stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Watching a loved one slowly slip away from you emotionally and cognitively while they remain (for the most part) physically intact creates a very difficult and unique grieving process. In reality, the amazing man who raised me is already gone and has been gone for quite some time. I mean sure - there's an unresponsive, agitated, incontinent, grumpy, anxious, weird-smelling, detached man who essentially looks exactly like the man who raised me - but trust me, that is NOT the man who raised me. However, I'm finding it harder and harder to remember that amazing man who was my father and instead when I think of my Dad, I first think of THIS difficult person. And that is my greatest fear - that all of my wonderful childhood memories will slowly be replaced with memories of this person that Alzheimer's Disease has left us with. And I had a pretty kick-ass childhood in great part because I had such a kick-ass Dad (and Mom too)!! I don't want to forget that.

So when I discovered the Good Grief blog - a scrapbooking journey through loss and healing - and their scrapbooking challenges related to helping you scrapbook and journal about a loved one you have lost, I decided this might be just what I need to help me deal with the roller coaster of emotions I am experiencing as I watch my father quickly decline. And hopefully, this will help me hold on to more of those happy memories and not dwell so much on what's happening now. And yeah, I realize technically my Dad isn't DEAD, but for all intents and purposes my Dad is already gone, ya know?

So anyway, I hope you all are OK with me sharing my Good Grief creations here every now and then. These will be my "Therapeutic Posts"! LOL. So here goes my first Good Grief Challenge...

February's challenge is to Use Word Association. That's it. Open to plenty of interpretation. Here's my digital layout (click on the layout to view it larger if you'd like to read the journaling):


Of course, these aren't the only things that made my Dad who he was - but the smaller words / phrases are more like little "memory joggers" for me - each of them tells a story from my childhood, each special and significant in it's own way - some funny, some poignant and some just very specific memories I want to hold onto.

If anyone has anything else they'd like to add or any words/ phrases they think I forgot, please comment here and let me know. This blog is in itself a type of journal - so if you knew my Dad "before" (because that's the way we think now - in terms of "before" Alzheimer's and "after" Alzheimer's - it sucks), what words/phrases would you associate with him? Or just feel free to share a special or funny memory of my Dad.

Our Fruit Houses

Tonight we were having a funny conversation with Dean. He was playing a game he made up where he was saying all the "fruit" things he liked. It started out with fruit punch, fruit roll ups, fruit snacks, and then progressed to him just naming everything he could think of with fruit in front of it - fruit sandwich, fruit cereal, fruit soup, etc. Then he just started getting silly and just saying anything and everything he saw with the word fruit in front of it and wanted Joel and I to play along, so we all took turns naming stuff like Fruit Chair, Fruit Table, Fruit Clock, etc. Once we had exhausted everything in the room, Dean looked around and said "Fruit House" and started cracking up laughing. The rest of the conversation went something like this:
Me: "Fruit House? That's silly! I want to live in a Fruit House. I would live in a Pineapple House. What kind of Fruit House would you live in Dean?"
Dean: "ummm, Apple!"
Me: "Apple? That's a good round house!"
Dean: "Daddy, what kind of Fruit house you live in?"
Joel: "Watermelon"
Dean: "No Daddy! That would be all watery! Your house would drip drip drip. Like rain inside! You can't live in a Watermelon House".