Buffet Bravery

The Krupps do not dine out, and even better, the concept of a buffet, especially of Asian descent, escapes them. So why not get some entertainment out of dinner.

I have never seen someone try EVERYTHING at a Chinese buffet. Dave is a brave soul. Not everything went down, but he tried his best.

I don't know what was going on here so...

Front Room Reconnoiter'd

See that? That is the face of contentment. If you had looked at this face before the weekend it would not have looked like that. It was more contorted, stretched and angled, anxiety and panic with a hint of dread. But then we gutted the front room, guest room, storage room, junk room, call it what you will, scrubbed it floor to ceiling and put it back together and now it has a proper title; Baby Boys' Room. 

This shelf just 48 hours ago held old Hardy Boys books, boxes of old photos and negatives, guitar pedals and cords, an actual camcorder, a fake skull from my teens, about three hundred 4-track cassette tapes and a squirrel statue meant for the garden. Now it looks like this.

And I don't think we could have gotten it done with much less time to spare.

Under The Tent Inside The Stars

Bringing together gifts, sleeping in her tent, with her stars alight, with her dolphin... happy as a clam

I Can't Wait To See Her Face On Christmas Morning

What to get the toddler in your life for Christmas... too old for trifling toys, too young for heavy electronics, hell her favorite toys this past year were a broken stick, a half-deflated rubber ball and an antique straw dispenser. No mom blogs got that on their list. So I scoured the online lists and here's what I've come up with...

A Stuffed Animal

Yuula has proven her love for all things stuffed and fuzzy so this year we'll put her to the test and get her the ugliest stuffed "animal" we could find. I think this guy is modeled off that new monster they found down in Marianas Trench, some prehistoric subspecies that was discovered by deep sea divers and was thought to have been long dead, or should be long dead or, something like that. I think a good name would be Pukebone.

A Dolly

Every little girl loves their dolly and every parent loves a kid that uses the toilet. I'm just combining those two things and hoping Yuula finds a muse in her new farting poop doll from Korea.

Puzzles

Oh kids love puzzles, plus she's at that age where ya gotta try and make her think on her own or she'll end up taking Geometry all thru high school and never get into law school and live in our basement, so we're getting her puzzles. Because we don't have a basement.

Music

 Kids love music. Lullabies, sing-a-longs, dance-a-rounds, all kinds of music. Music is also something I take very seriously in my life so I am not going to take this one litely. I am gonna start Yuula off right by giving her this new boxset that spans the catalog of Roxy Music, 70's glam art rockers and still highly influential outift that spawned solo careers for Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno. Plus, if there was never a Roxy Music there would have been no Depeche Mode, and Depeche Mode influenced Coldplay, and if Coldplay never wrote that song 'Warning Sign' that I put on a mixtape I made for Laura way back when that sent her an (at that time) unspoken message that probably directly led us into our current relationship which led to Yuula being born, well..., no Roxy Music, no Yuula.

Tools

All the lists have little toolsets and tool benches on their ranks so I guess that's something to look at. But why beat around the bush with plastic hammers you know ain't doing shit to build me a pergola next summer. I'm getting Yuula this bad mamajama and getting her started with heavy machinery. If I had started using these kinds of things before I turned 30 years old maybe I'd be able to operate gas-powered engines like a normal man.

Books

Here's another area where enough is enough. She's been reading about bunnies and counting babies long enough already. She needs to learn something and what better than this little classic easy reader. She needs to be equipped with some knowledge and understand why Mommy & Daddy get arrested every Columbus Day. Plus it would be nice for Yuula to add a little more to the dinner conversation which frankly has really sucked lately. Yes Yuula, I know Minnie Mouse is cute, yes and she has shoes on, isn't that hilarious. 

A Pet

 Laura's been hinting about this one a lot, saying Yuula needs a playmate during the day and that she thinks we're ready for the responsibility and all. So I think I found the perfect pet. They multiply freely so when they surely die of starvation or general neglect there's always a backup foraging somewhere around the house. I guess we should just keep them away from the cats, or maybe they can double as cat food. Multi-use Christmas gifts are always the best.

Blocks

Building and stacking is also another important developmental skill she should be developing right about now. But so is physical strength and hand calluses, so I'm opting to bypass the duplo/lego phase and head right into concrete. Besides, daddy needs someone to build a mausoleum for all these molerat carcasses.

Now I just need some wrapping paper...

Still With The Easter

do polar bears like gingerbread men?

Bouncing With Big Bear

Baby's First Felony

I had a couple last minute stops to make this morning before picking Laura up at work and hitting the road. I was in quite a hurry since our departure time got bumped up two hours, so I didn't notice that Yuula had grabbed a little stuffed fox from a display case when I placed her down. I just snatched her up and headed out. Didn't notice til it was too late that she committed her very first felony. We named him Jerry.

Closure Is Coming

I didn't exactly wake up excited about today. Glad to go down to see my parents, but not to sift thru rubble for a potential gem. I knew there was a couple hidden treasures. I don't know if I found them all. Don't know that I ever will. That became abundantly clear today, now that a clock is ticking. Now it's about balancing sentimental value with available space. I would've bagged a whole lot more today but I chose to snap the photo and leave it be. Like this horse. It reminded me of being 6 in Toms River and for some reason I thought my sister tried to sell it to some neighborhood youths, but now that I think about, I think we are the ones who bought it at a yardsale, I remember riding him down the street. I think he was 75 cents. We used to brush his hair.

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Rub It On Your Feet, Make Sure It's Sweet

This is another one of those moments in my life that five years ago I would never have imagined I'd be experiencing. But life goes on and I'm at a Build-A-Bear stuffing and fluffing and dressing a shaggy dog in dungaree and a hoody. Adorable. I'm gonna need to eat extra greasy food tonight to compensate.

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