Dads like to invent things.
Category Archives: Anjelia
Ice in the toilet
When you are nine years old a temperature below freezing is reason enough to expect inclement weather.
Last night Kansas City experienced its coolest night of the season. We spent the evening at a church-sponsored Christmas party, and on the way home Anjelia decided she needed to do everything in her power to make sure school would get canceled because of bad weather. Apparently, when you are nine the only real requirement for snow and ice are sub-freezing temperatures and a little luck. I explained to Anjelia that the weather forecast only called for a twenty percent chance of precipitation, but she didn’t care.
God took care of the freezing temperatures. The rest was up to Anjelia.
As soon as we entered the house she was on task. She disappeared into her room, and she came out wearing her pajamas inside out; step one was complete. Next she headed into the kitchen and opened the freezer. She grabbed a handful of ice cubes and proceeded to the bathroom where she quickly hurled them into the toilet, which she did not flush; step two in the bag, or the stool as it were. Finally, she hit us with a completely new one. She ran back into the kitchen, pulled out the silverware drawer and grabbed a spoon. She sprinted back down the hall and and placed the spoon under her pillow; her mission was now complete. Jessica decided to help. She grabbed our Chihuahua, Louie, and put one of his T-Shirts on him. The T-Shirt was inside out of course.
Anjelia has pulled this trick in the past with some success. I remember one evening last year when she did a bunch of this stuff, and I ended up getting a phone call from the school district at five in the morning announcing a school closing. That night the weather forecast was predicting a fifty percent chance of snow. Apparently fifty percent is the tipping point.
According to Elaina: “Anjelia woke me up early because she was looking out the window for the snow.”
It will be a sad day around our house when this last one grows past this kind of imagination. For now it is my job to just enjoy how playful she is.
Dad and Anjelia rake leaves
“Hi honey, what are you up to?”
“Helping you rake the leaves.”
“Aw, I’m glad you are out here with me!”
“Look, I can get a lot at one time!”
“Wow, that is a lot, Anjelia! Okay, hold that bag open for a minute and I’ll put some leaves in it. See, now it will stand by itself.”
“Yeah, it’s ready for us to put a bunch of leaves in it now.”
“Get down on your knees like this and use your arms to get a bunch at once.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah, that’s perfect! See how many you got?”
“That worked great! Dad, this bag is full now.”
“It’s not full yet. Look, if I put my foot in, and smash the leaves with it we can put even more leaves in the bag.”
“Wow, I’m not tall enough to do that. I can push some of the leaves down with my arms though. See?”
“You did push the leaves down really far!”
“Okay, lets move to a new pile, Anjelia.”
“Dad, we are almost done!”
“Actually we still have more to rake.”
“I don’t see any more piles.”
“This is the last pile, but there are still a lot of leaves I need to rake. See over there in the corner of the yard?”
“Oh wow, there are still a lot of leaves.”
“Okay honey, it’s getting dark now. Let’s finish this last pile and call it a night.”
“Then we can go inside, and we won’t be cold anymore.”
“It is kind of cold out here tonight.”
“Okay dad, let’s go inside.”
“Alright, let me check my shoes in case they got dirty. Thanks for helping me tonight.”
“I like it when you come outside, Dad.”
Anjelia quote of the day #1
If I could go back in time I would go to the 1980s.