Mary Had a Little Lamb

RyanC has been potty trained for a while and we have been really pleased with his independence. Tonight he said he had to go poop and ran into the bathroom. So there he was sitting on the toilet and taking care of his business....

All of the sudden he started singing (to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb"):

Ryan had a giant poopoo
giant poopoo~
giant poopoo~~
Ryan had a giant poopoo
filled up the toilet bowl~~~

Redemption

I have been taking the kids fishing often in the past two weeks at City Park, which had been the preferred location when I take both RyanC and AidanC out.

Today I asked them "Who wants to go fishing with daddy today?"

... silence

RyanC then said: "but we never catch any fish."

OUCH!

It was a yet another blow to my confidence since I had gone walleye night fishing and had gotten skunked while a friend pulled in 6-8 walleyes. There was a near-catch but that's how most my fishing stories end up.

So today I decided to take the kids to the newly discovered secret spot where we are guaranteed to catch some bluegills. I had to bribe them with food to get them to go.

RyanC was reluctant to take the fishing rod initially so AidanC got the first shot. AidanC reeled in his first bluegill with and RyanC helped to pick it up~ We used plastic trout worm as lure.



RyanC liked it so much that he wanted more pictures taken:




I also caught my first bass using Zebco top-water lure that came with the kit. In fact, I caught two! Neither of them were able to throw the hook this time! It was a blast to see and hear the loud thrash as the lure disappears from view. They certainly fought harder than the bluegills.

RyanC and AidanC liked touching the bass.




We also saw a frog near the shore. It dives under the water and hide in the rocks when we get closer.



We caught 4 bluegills and 2 bass at the end of the day. That's good when considering we were using fake lures instead of night crawlers.

Interesting Fishing Day

Today is fishing today for me and RyanC...

Late morning we went to North Lake Park @ Loveland to catch rainbow trout again. Wife took the kids to ride the train there and left me alone for a little while to catch the first trout. The fish started biting more when they got back. It seems that the fish were biting more at 1pm. Caught 2 rainbow trouts and one baby catfish with worms.

Tidbits #1: The Renegade hook remover purchased at Walmart were no help with these small-fish! It was hard to see how the hook was grabbed and even tougher to figure out how to remove the hook. I struggled with the baby catfish for a long time before giving up and cutting the line.

Tidbits #2: 2nd rainbow trout was "technically" hooked by someone somewhere around the lake. I saw a bobber being dragged across the lake towards my line as we were about to leave. It crossed my line/bobber got stuck so I naturally reeled that in. It's quite unusual.

In the evening I took RyanC to Sheridan Lake (City Park) and caught one baby bluegill and one adult size bluegill. The adult bluegill was caught with a spinner lure -- the first time I've ever caught a fish with a spinner! Of course then I lost the spinner to the bottom of the lake a few casts later. I don't like the obstacles on the bottom of this lake.

Wii Fit

Today is the release date of the Wii Fit game. I got to Target an hour after it opened (~9am) wondering if it's already sold out. There were several news about stores selling out all their pre-orders so my hope wasn't too high. I figured I can check out their LED flash lights or their limited fishing stuff if the game is sold out.

It turns out I was able have my pick from 6+ units on the shelf. Lucky me! The cashier asked me whether I got the last one and commented on how he had sold many Wii Fit earlier.

This evening RyanC was eagerly awaiting my return home from work. It's not because he loves daddy the most. It was more because mommy had been telling him that daddy got a new game for him. AidanC is the only one that seems truly happy to see daddy home. At least he didn't know to ask about new game as he ran towards me to give me a hug.

RyanC was happy and kept on mentioning how he is a strong boy to be able to open the Nintendo Wii Fit box as he helped with the unpacking. Inside the box we found a set of 4 AA batteries, a white-board, a game DVD, and 4 extension stands for thicker carpet.

The two boys immediately fought for position on top of the white-board. Fortunately AidanC's short attention span won out so we did not have to arbitrate too much.

We let RyanC use his Mii characte to play the game. The Wii Fit game correctly rated him as underweight and off-balanced as he stood on the white-board. However, when we entered his height at 3'2". RyanC protested heavily about the visual shrinkage of his Mii character. He kept on yelling "daddy! make me tall!" That little sensitive boy. tsk tsk...

RyanC spent some time doing yoga with mommy's help. He didn't seem to have too much fun standing on one leg for 30 seconds. He then tried the balance games and he kept on getting hit by the shoes in the mini soccer-game. Wife did better.

He had a little fun with down-hill skiing game but missed most of the gates. He also liked ski-jumping as he fails to jump and rolls himself into a snow-ball.

Finally, we found the game he had the most fun with: "Running". It turns out that this game just requires him to old the Wii controller and run in-place. He had a blast running in-place. That game didn't require the white-board. Hmm...

RyanC also played the stepping game where he has to step on/off the white-board per graphics. It was funny to watch him totally ignore the screen and started doing his step ups/downs. At the end the tired boy complained "Daddy, is it done yet?" as the music continues on... Shortly after that he lost interest as he couldn't find any other fun game.

Wii Fit calculated that RyanC spent 27 minutes getting fit. RyanC said he likes running game and soccer game. We then let him out in the backyard to run around with AidanC -- until those two collided, fell over and started crying.

A colorful beginning

Took the family fishing this morning at a new spot that a co-worker had recent success with. It was our first fishing trip this year and I reverted back to using the traditional bait: worms.

Last year it was too disappointing for the kids to see daddy catch no fish with the jig-head and other fake baits -- though they were never really asking why daddy didn't catch any fish last year. The only time I caught fish last year was when they weren't with me. "Fishing" was fun for them only because they got to go out and play.

I cast out the hooked worm for RyanC and had him hold fishing rod while I prepare my own fishing rod. Shortly afterwards, wife and AidanC wondered off to check out the playgrounds near-by -- I suspect wife didn't have any hope to see me catch any fish and AidanC didn't care much for the phantom fish-talk.

RyanC sat close to me with the rod in his hand for a while before he finally asked if he could crank the reel. I told him: "ok. just a little bit though." He obliged and I went back to struggling with hooking my worm. Five minutes later, I looked up and noticed the line had seemed to move to the right significantly. It wasn't obvious if the wind did that or if RyanC did it. RyanC then complained about the line being heavy at that point so I went over to check to see if we hooked a branch or something. It turns out a fish was at the other end of the line! RyanC was happy that he got to reel it to shore.

RyanC helped me reel in 4 rainbow trouts (~8-9 inches) in an hour: fist one escaped at the shore and the other 3 ended up as bird food eventually. A crane was near by and swooped up the released and yet struggling trouts...

I had trouble getting the hooks out since the fish swallowed the hooks deep -- I will need to get a better hook remover.

I am hungry!

We were checking out after grocery shopping and RyanC saw McDonald store inside the Super Walmart.

RyanC: "I am hungry!"

Me: "Okay. We will eat more food when we get home soon."

RyanC was then quiet..

In the car, wife commented how we can eat more fruits or the new cereals we just bought. RyanC then declared that he is not hungry. I started telling him that if he is not hungry, then he should not say he is hungry if what he really wanted was the happy meal's toy.

After a moment of silence, the 3-year old protested from the back of the car:

"..but if I say I want a TOY then you will say NO!"

AidanC's adventure in big bed

AidanC is ~1.5 now. He rarely woke up in the middle of the night so we have been blessed with the peaceful nights.

The other night he woke up crying hysterically. I took the poor little boy to our bedroom so he wouldn't wake up his brother next door. He was really happy to be with mommy and daddy. I left the light off hoping he will lie down and sleep since I was too tired to take him back to his room.

He then crawled toward mommy, found mommy's cheeks and gave mommy a big hug and kiss... "awww! nice boy" mommy said.

AidanC then started crawling toward me... I lay there expecting a hug and a kiss too - from the little boy.

Then I felt little chubby finger poking my cheeks a few times in the dark... and a little voice yelled "fat! fat!" as AidanC continued to poke my face with his finger...