More Halloween

This is a straight up, legitimate prize
winning pumpkin. I'm a proud husband.

Costume parade. They said wave.
He never stopped. 

This week is going to be all Halloween, all week. Yesterday you got poetry. Today, you get some pictures. Tomorrow you'll get the real pictures because trick or treating isn't until tonight so I can't possibly have any pictures of it yet. Later in the week I'll finally finish showing you putting a zipper on a tunic and hemming it, and if there's any week left I'll talk about candy and pumpkin seeds and what not. One whole week of Halloween!

Pumpkin Guts

Pumpkin guts, pumpkin guts, there on the floor
Pumpkin guts, pumpkin guts, scoop out some more
You first took a knife and opened his head
Now should he look happy or scary instead?

What kind of eyes, round triangle square?
How 'bout his nose? Should he have hair?
Do you put teeth in his mouth open wide?
Will you carve ears over there on each side?

You're almost done and he's looking grand
Be careful my boy and don't stab your hand!
Those pumpkin guts make it easy to slip
The last thing we need is a hospital trip

Looks like you're done, his smile is so wide
Grab him, be careful! Let's take him outside
Light up the candle, now watch him glow
I could stand for hours just watching this show

Pumpkin guts, pumpkin guts, clean up the floor
Pumpkin guts, pumpkin guts, look there's some more
The house smells of pumpkin, it will for a while
I close my eyes, I sniff, and I smile

Rallycross

Yesterday I took a day off. I left home at 3:30 in the morning and didn't get back until 11:00 at night. I drove 409 miles all told. Why? All to drive ten laps, slightly over 5 miles, around a 14 acre field with a bunch of other people that all thought it sounded like fun. At it was fun. A lot of fun.
A while ago I wrote a post about autocrossing. The best explanation for this type of silliness is this: It's like drag racing, but instead of going in a straight line, it's all curvy, and instead of being on a purpose built track, the track in laid out with traffic cones in a big parking lot. There are classes for different cars, but basically the guy who drives fastest wins. Wins what? Nothing, it's all for fun. Spending a whole day driving fast (or slow in my case) cars around a parking lot for fun. This is an odd subset of the population to be sure.
However, there is a subset of this subset that is even a little bit odder. Those are rallycrossers. Rallycrossers somehow have decided that pavement is simply too boring and predictable. They prefer to run events that are basically just like autocross, but instead of parking lots, they use big dirt fields. People say that autocross is about the most fun you can have with your car. They're right. It is about the most fun. The most fun is rallycross.
So yesterday I did my first rallycross in a decade. There was one event held in Houston way back in the day, and then nothing until this year. This year there are monthly events held either west of town a couple of hours, or north of town about the same distance. It's a bit of driving, but driving to go driving seems to make sense. My street tires are incredibly inappropriate to drive in anger in the dirt, so I bought a set of agressive snow tires and had them mounted on an extra set of wheels. I loaded them up, drove to the event and switched wheels in the parking lot. My gentle daily driver was instantly transformed into a rallycross beast. Kind of.

Prouder than I probably should be. 

I had a great time. There were two of this year's rallycross national champions at the event. Everyone was friendly and helpful. It was very common for everyone to cheer when someone had a good run and beat their previous best time. The course and the facility were fantastic. I spent the day looking at cars, talking about cars, and driving cars. Also, quite surprisingly, I won. After ten runs, the times were checked, and I was the fastest two wheel drive car that drove. I don't win a whole lot when I compete at anything, but when I do, it feels really good.
It's hard to justify taking a whole day to myself. There is a house that perpetually needs things done. Things fixed, laundry washed, cleaning in general. There are four kids that need tending to lest we end up with a Lord of the Flies situation. Parenting is a team sport, and walking away from that just to have fun is a hard thing do to sometimes. It's also hard not to do it. It's hard to keep your nose to the grindstone day after day and not occasionally engage in a pastime that you love and blow off steam. Recharge if you will. My wife is awesome and understands this. I try very hard to be awesome and not abuse the privilege. It's a balance. It's working. If you ever see me in person and wonder why I'm so damn happy, this is a big part of it.

Big Belly

I'm not sure that kids really understand when someone is pregnant. They sort of do, but when they're little, not really. Whenever my wife was pregnant there was a whole lot of shoving things in shirts. Blocks, stuffed animals, whatever. The kids (both my daughters and my older son) were trying to make sense of the fact that mommy had clearly gotten huge and that people kept telling them that there was a baby in there. They could see it. They could feel the baby kicking. It was there, but it was still part of mommy. It's all pretty weird and they all dealt with it by imitating. It was always fun.

Edit: My wife wanted me to add a disclaimer. All posts that reference my wife being pregnant have absolutely no bearing on whether she is, or will become pregnant in the future. She's not, and won't be. She just was a lot in the past and I have some very fond memories.

Smile?

Click on the picture over there and look at the weird look on that little boy's face. Go ahead, I'll wait. That's a smile. Really. He thinks he's smiling. How does that happen? Just weeks out of the womb babies will smile. It's perfect and sweet and incredible. There's nothing like your baby smiling at you. Then at some point they get it in their heads that they really have to work on that smile. Especially when there's a camera involved, they need to give it some gusto, and it always turns out so weird. It's scrunched up and their jaw is crooked and their eyes are closed and they're certain they look good. All of my kids have gone through this. Thankfully they've come out the other side too, and learned to tone it down and bring it back from a look of comical pain to one of general cheerfulness.
Kids are weird.

Driving Dad

Where he grew up. 

Today I drove one hundred miles
Hauling around my kids
Sit right back and listen to
All the things we did

I drove and dropped the first two off
At school and drove away
Then I dropped the third one off
To enjoy her short school day

I drove the fourth one to his school
And for a little fun
While he was learning ABC's
I did a five mile run

Then I picked the fourth one up
It had been a little while
"It's time to go to the dentist now"
I told his teacher with a smile

We drove and picked up two and three
It was time to head back south
Then we picked up number one
To check the teeth in their mouth

We got done, no cavities
I dropped off two and three
Then I dropped off number one
And she said "Bye!" to me

Then I went home for lunch and nap
Four was a sleepy son
You might think that I'll rest too
But my day is not yet done

I need to wake up number four
Drag him back to the car
We need to pick up two and three
The drive isn't very far

Then to pick up number one
What a wonderful day I've had
They should not call me "stay at home"
I'm more of a driving dad

Fall Soccer. Yay!

Hurray for fall soccer! Spring soccer is fun and all, but it's not as good as fall soccer from a parenting standpoint. To start, it's cooler. In fact, sometimes it's almost pleasantly cool while watching games. Almost. To add to that, it's getting dark early. This means that practice during the week can only go so late. We actually get home before bedtime. How novel. To finish, there aren't as many players. This means not as many teams. This means that all of the weekends games are played during two time slots instead of three. Now we're only at the soccer fields for four hours every Saturday instead of five and half or six. I get to do things like eat lunch at home. It's pretty sweet.
So let us all raise our glasses of Gatorade to the wonderful joys of fall soccer. Three cheers!