Wednesday, February 21, 2007

I made a Padua

After a coughing fit at dinner...
4yo: Dad, I made a padua!
Dad: A what?
4yo: A padua.
Dad: A paddle?
4yo: No, a padua.
Dad: Oh, a padawan.
4yo: No, Dad, a padua. Cough, burp, cough, burp, cough, burp...
Dad: I get it! You made a pattern!
4yo: Yea, a padua.

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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Burning down the house

I have about 10 days until I sell my house. We've lived here for about 2 and a half years, so you'd think that the percent chance of major damage happening to my house during this 10 day period of time would be small. Let's do the math for those interested. 10 days/900 days=1.1%. That's pretty small. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to any damage done right now, but there seems to be a lot happening to my house the last week or so.

  • My 8yo ran into a corner and dented it with his knee.
  • A little cousin tripped and jammed a (plastic) lightsaber into the wall in the stairway. A real lightsaber would have been much worse.
  • An eraser for a whiteboard was smashed into the carpet, leaving a nasty black stain. We was able to mostly get it out with our carpet cleaner, but I can still see it in the right light.
  • And the piece de resistance. I just about burned the place down.
I'm done with home improvements on this house, but I noticed that some small rodent had dug a home under my back patio. This displeased me, and I had 3 rodent-killer smoke bombs left. So, I thought I'd take care of the problem.

The process is this: wait until evening so the rodent will be home, find the front and back doors of the rodent dwelling, block one with dirt, stick a rodent bomb in the other opening, light the bomb, cover the remaining opening, and wander off to enjoy your rodent-free evening. I've done this before without incident. (Well, I guess the rodent had an incident.)

So I lit the smoke bomb, and buried the hole. I went inside and retired to the basement to watch Nacho Libre with my boys and my sister, who was visiting. As the movie progressed, we started smelling more and more smoke. I just thought that some of the smoke from the bomb was getting into the house. The smoke kept getting worse, even though I was ignoring it! I went out to investigate.

This is what I found. I had blocked the hole with decorative tree bark, not non-flammable dirt. Not so smart. There was a large section of bark that was glowing red hot. Fortunately it didn't ignite into flames, but it was really hot. I got a bunch of water and doused it, but the smoke was everywhere. The hole was close enough to the house foundation that had it ignited, it could have really done damage.

What happens if you burn down your house right before selling it? I guess the move would be off. That would be bad.

I blame George Bush and Karl Rove.

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Monday, February 19, 2007

I love technology

I really love to read. I mean, I really love to read. I devour books. I especially love it when I find a good series made up of 10 books where each book is 800 pages long. I like slowly unfolding political dramas, I really love books with betrayal and murder. I really like thrillers, spy novels, alternate history books, fantasy, science fiction, history. It's all good.

Let me tell you about the new way the I have to feed my addiction.

Books are expensive. Even paperback books are like $8.00. Even though I do like to re-read books, I still can't afford to buy all the books I want to read. And then there's the book storage problem. Books are big and heavy and take up a lot of space. So I get a lot of books at the library. I live in a small county and our libraries are very poor. The library by my house might have book 1, 3, 4 and 7 of an 8 book series. I don't have time to drive to 3 different libraries to get the books I need to complete a series. Plus, I'm almost always at the library with my kids, and they don't have enough patience for a lot of browsing. It used to be really frustrating.

Notice that I said "used to be." A few months ago I figured out that I can access my county's library database through their website. I can browse for books there. I can also see if the branch I use has copies on the shelf, or at least when the book I want is due.

The best thing of all? I can request books. I put in my card number and my secret pin number and I can request any book to be picked up at any branch. It doesn't matter if a certain branch doesn't have all the books for a series, I just request the missing books. So, whenever I hear of a book that I might want to read, I log in and request it at the library that I drive past on my way home from work. Then, in a few days I get an email saying that it's ready! I just stop off on the way home and walk up to the counter. They have my books all wrapped up for me on the shelf there and I'm out the door. Slick as black ice.

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Saturday, February 17, 2007

The Eyes


We bought this picture a few years ago for a decoration for my oldest boy's room. We're always trying to find decorations that we like and that aren't too expensive. We also liked the sentiment expressed in the picture. I hope my boys turn out to be brave, truthful, and unselfish.

I took the photo of the picture this evening to show you. You'll notice that it's not hanging on a wall, it's stuck in the back of a closet.

There's something wrong with the picture, something eerie. The boy in the picture may, in fact, be alive.

This hung for a lot of years in my oldest's room. He hated it. He was always asking for it to be taken down and out of his room. "At night," he said, "the eyes look like they're moving. They move from side to side." Finally I relented and we moved it to the next boy's room. Whatever, kids are weird.

From the moment we put it up in the 2nd boy's room, he complained about it. He wanted it gone. My wife asked him why he didn't like it. "The eyes, they look at me and follow me around. Especially at night. I hate it." I made him keep it up for several months. I thought that he had just picked up on something from his brother, and after a while he'd let it go. He never did. Almost every day he's ask for us to get rid of it. My wife took it down and put it in the littlest boy's room.

He wouldn't hear of it. He threw a fit. "Why don't you like it?" I asked him. "Because that boy is ugly!" he replied.

So now, the picture sits collecting dust in a closet. I will admit that the eyes do seem to follow me around the room. Especially when the room is dark. Is the boy alive? Is the picture haunted? I wouldn't dare to guess.

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Friday, February 16, 2007

The Gigapxl Project

I like to pretend to be a photographer. My dad bought a really cool 35mm Fuji film camera for me as a young boy. It took really nice pictures, but it was fully manual, so it was slow to get the settings just right. I never really mastered it, but it did start me thinking about framing shots, color, shapes, etc.

Balboa ParkThe guys at the Gigapxl project have created their own amazing digital camera. Early images started at 260 Megapixels, and the latest images contain 4,000 Megapixels (4 Gigapixels). That is a lot of pixels! They are travelling all over and taking ultra-high res pictures of the world. Check out the the amazing detail in the pictures, even when the image is greatly enlarged. Don't you wish your digital camera could take pictures like these! The image to the right is of Balboa Park, San Diego.

Here's the full gallery- they have some amazing shots, including some breathtaking panoramas.

Some of my favorite images.

  • A beautiful day a the beach watching paragliders reveals man's darker side.
  • You can see the hair on the man's legs- amazing!
  • A beautiful picture of the San Diego Temple.

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Transferring a Pharmacy Licence

It seems like you always hear horror stories about doctors who lose their license in one state because of terrible malpractice. These doctors seem to be able to move to another state all willy-nilly and start over again. I'm sure I've read all about this in the Reader's Digest!

It is not that way with pharmacy.

You may have heard that there is a shortage of pharmacists. My wife gets some sort of job offer every week by mail or phone. The general population is aging and in need of a wide array of drugs to ease their passage to the next life. Pharmacies are popping up on almost every street corner. At the same time, the number of pharmacists graduating is not increasing much, and many older pharmacists are retiring. Many of the pharmacists that graduate are women, and many of them only want to work part time (like my wife). These factors are resulting in a huge shortage of pharmacists.

We're moving to Arizona for a job change for me. Because of the pharmacy shortage and because she's really good, my wife was able to easily find a great job with great benefits. In contrast, getting her pharmacy licence changed to an Arizona licence has been amazingly difficult. This is a great showcase of government bureaucracy at work. Since there doesn't seem to be any other guide to this process, I thought I'd create a helpful step-by-step guide for any other foolish saps that want to transfer their pharmacy license to Arizona.

How to get Arizona to accept a transfer of an out of state pharmacy licence

Step 1: Send $300 and application form to National Board of Pharmacy.
Step 1a: Wait for 3-4 weeks for the National Board of Pharmacy to review the application form and mail a different application form back.
Step 1b: Receive application form from the National Board for the Arizona State Board

But wait, my wife didn't explain on the 'job history' section of the application what she was doing in the spring 1999. (She was on bed rest for 4 months, pregnant with our 8yo). This requires a significant delay as she had to respond to their request for information.

Step 2: Send $300 and the state application form from the National Board to the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy
Step 2a: Wait for 2 weeks for the
Arizona State Board of Pharmacy to review the application form and mail a different application form back.
Step 2b: Receive new application form and 1 inch thick packet of Arizona State Pharmacy Law. Not a study guide, or a practice test. The actual state law. Here's an excerpt.

36-2522. Registration requirements

A. Every person who manufactures, distributes, dispenses or uses for scientific purposes any controlled substance within this state or who proposes to engage in the manufacture, distribution, dispensing of or using for scientific purposes any controlled substance within this state must first:

1. Obtain and possess a current license or permit as a medical practitioner as defined in section 32-1901 or as a pharmacy, pharmacist, manufacturer or wholesaler pursuant to title 32, chapter 18.

2. Be a registrant under the federal controlled substances act (P.L. 91-513; 84 Stat. 1242; 21 U.S.C. sec. 801 et seq.).

B. A person who is registered under this chapter to manufacture, distribute, dispense or use for scientific purposes controlled substances may possess, manufacture, distribute, dispense or use for scientific purposes those substances to the extent authorized by that person's license or permit in conformity with this chapter and title 32, chapter 18.

C. The following persons need not register and may lawfully possess controlled substances under this chapter:

1. An agent or employee of any registered manufacturer, distributor or dispenser of any controlled substance if he is acting in the usual course of his business or employment.

2. A common or contract carrier or warehouseman or that person's employee whose possession of any controlled substance is in the usual course of business or employment.

3. An ultimate user or a person in possession of any controlled substance pursuant to a lawful order of a medical practitioner or in lawful possession of a schedule V substance.

4. An officer or employee of the department of public safety or the board or a peace officer as defined in section 1-215 in the lawful performance of that person's duties.

D. The board may waive by rule the requirement for registration of certain manufacturers, distributors or dispensers if the board finds waiver consistent with the public health and safety or the requirements of the United States drug enforcement administration.

E. The board may inspect the establishment of a registrant or applicant for registration in accordance with the board's regulation.
When laws are written like this, I wonder how the police know if someone has broken a law? The parts of law that are readable by a non-lawyer are so boring that my mind skips over it all. Did you read it all? I didn't. But my wife had to read it and remember it as possible test material. Yuck.

While you're (not) reading section 36-2522, remember that this is just one little piece of all the laws. The entire applicable pharmacy law is an inch thick! Of 8 by 10 paper! The test covers all of the laws and they often ask trick questions! Studying for this is not a trivial matter. Oh, and it costs you $185 per attempt. Oh, and you only get 3 tries before you have to appear before the Arizona State Board to explain why a complete idiot like yourself that can't pass their simple little test should deserve another chance. So, at least there's no pressure.

Step 3: Send a whole bunch of information including marriage license, birth certificate, university graduation information, residency hours, bla bla bla, to the Arizona board. They also want another $300.
Step 3a: Wait for the Arizona board to review the information and, if approved, forward said approval to the National Board. The National Board then sits on it for a while. After sufficient aging, the National Board generates a letter approving the applicant to take the state law test and sends it to you. This takes approximately 3 weeks.

Lucky you! The test is administered at some sort of nationwide testing center called Prometrics. Of course, there are three centers in my state. One is 30 miles away, one is 60 miles away, and the third is 350 miles away. It's nice of them to give us a selection of convenient locations!

We finally received this letter yesterday. EIGHT weeks after beginning this process. My wife was thrilled to finally have the testing letter and to get it all behind her. Then she looked over the the bunch of new rules listed therein. One of the new rules was that the name listed on the letter had to match EXACTLY with your picture ID that you will bring with you to the testing center. Can you see what's coming?

She had used the same name on her application that she used on her licence for the state where we currently live. She thought that would be simpler and cause fewer problems with the licence transfer. Wrong. Unfortunately, she included her maiden name as a middle name on her driver's licence, but not on her pharmacy license application. Just so you notice what just happened, I'll summarize. The name on her testing approval letter DOES NOT exactly match the name on her photo ID. Crap.

No problem, I thought. It's just her maiden name, they'll understand. A quick phone call should clear this right up! If it was so critical, they would have had some sort of BIG BOLD NOTE on the first set of forms we sent to the National or State Boards of Pharmacy.

(Hint for the National and Arizona Boards of Pharmacy: Notice how BIG BOLD NOTES stand out on a page full of text. If there is some information that you need in a certain format, and having the incorrect format can derail a complicated 8 week process that requires 4-5 separate mailings, please have a BIG BOLD NOTE at the beginning of the process explaining this important detail! Or maybe put it on your website
that details this complicated process. Or maybe have a website that details this process. That would really help. This process is really confusing. Thanks.)

A call today to Prometrics verified that the names have to match exactly, or the tester will not be allowed in. A call to the National Board was also unhelpful. According to them, they need to issue another approval letter with the corrected name. They wanted us to fax to them the following information: a letter detailing what had happened, her driver's licence, a second form of ID that includes her full maiden name or the initial of her maiden name, and finally a copy of her marriage licence with her maiden name.
Figuring this out only took 2 hours on the phone. I'm surprised they didn't want $300.

Processing this information to produce a new letter will take approximately 7 more business days. Then they have to mail it to us. Then she has to schedule a testing time at this Prometrics place.

Step 4: Schedule to take the state law test at Prometrics. They schedule the test for about 7 days after you call to schedule.

Step 5: Take the state law test.
Step 5a: Rinse and Repeat as needed. (But only 3 times, sorry!)

Whew! What a pain. It's almost like they don't want pharmacists to move to Arizona. I don't think we'll be changing states again. How do those malpractice doctors do it? Maybe I'd better write Reader's Digest and find out.

Read More......

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

I-15 is like a Woman

We met when I was just a small child. She was fast and wild, often terrifying. Even then, I was attracted to her. Maybe it was the element of danger, maybe it was breaking free of the day-to-day. I only saw her when I was with an adult, but I knew that it could be special between us.

As I grew older and began to spend time with her alone, I began to appreciate her even as I grew to understand her faults. And, oh, the places she could take me! I could be free with her, uninhibited. It was true, the slightest mistake could lead to disaster, but I knew that it was worth it. Being with her was like being in a whirlwind- it was fast, fun, and just a little bit scary.

Nine years ago, I started a committed relationship with her. We have spent a lot of time together almost every day. It has been a love/hate relationship. Most days it is pretty rocky. She has aged and slowed. She's often too busy for me. She seems emotionally clogged, it's difficult to get through to her. The slightest problem seems to get to her and when she's unhappy, she can make everyone unhappy. No one can ruin my day like she can.

But, oh, those days when she's free and open- it's like returning to our youth. I can't imagine being with any other. Sadly, those days are few and far between. Most days, she seems distracted by all those others who want her attention. She has so little space for me in her life. And she is so high maintenance- it seems like she always needs something. When she needs a little work done it takes months for her to recover. And the whole time she just won't give me the time of day. It's difficult.

I've made a decision. It's time to leave her. I hope she can find herself, start over. She says that a Legacy or a FrontRunner will help her reclaim her happy, open personality. I hope so. But it's too late for us. I'm moving on.

I will miss her. A little.

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Monday, February 12, 2007

The Announcement

On my way to talk to my boss last Friday, I walked by an inspirational sign on a bulletin board here at work. It said "Do something every day that scares you." I think that I achieved that goal on that day.

"Can I talk to you for a sec- in the conference room?" I asked. I hear a quiet "uh, oh" as he stood up. We walked toward the conference room. What sort of small talk can you make in a situation like this? "Boy, I'm glad it's Friday" I say. "Me too" was his reply. We walked the rest of the distance in silence.

We sat down as the fluorescent lights flickered into existence. "Well, I don't really know how to say this, but I'm giving you my two-weeks notice." "OK'" he says, "where are you going?" "To Phoenix," I respond. "You took a job with eFA?" was the shocked reply.

Efa is a division of my company that is, amazingly, even more poorly run and less satisfying to work for than my division. They transferred everyone to Phoenix last summer.

I tried to stop the laugh, but all that did was to cause a loud snort to escape my nose. "Never, I'm actually changing careers. I'm going to go run my brother in law's medical practice." he seemed to take it OK.

And now I can finally talk about the life-changing decisions that my family and I have been making for the last few months. It has taken tons of time to make all of this happen, and it has cut into my blogging time. The funny thing is that I had a lot to talk about, but couldn't due to my lingering fear of my bosses finding out.

I'll try to post a little about abandoning engineering, finding a house, selling a house, the amazing amount of theft involved in the mortgage and the real estate industries, and so forth in the next few weeks. However, I am moving in the next few weeks, so no promises!

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Thursday, February 8, 2007

Girls, make your move!

I know, I know. It's the man's job to ask the girl out. But what if he won't? MSN dating has the solution for you! Here are 6 ways to make your move. You go girl.

So, I'd like some feedback. Do like getting dating advice from a man who's been married for 14 years? I could make this a regular column!

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Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Better than a shoebox

Computers are wonderful. It is really amazing what you can do easily at home that just a few years ago required hiring a printer or hours in a darkroom. Especially with photography. I love being able to take an unlimited number of pictures and then fix the pictures at leisure. It's very liberating.

Of course, all of this technology has a dark side.

All of the pictures and other data on your computer are actually little magnetic charges stuck to a platter spinning at 7,200 rpm with a big sharp metal arm that comes really close to the surface. For some reason, when you double-click on a file name, this metal arm zips over to the right area of the platter, reads the charges, sends the values to the processor, which then converts it all into a cute photo of your kids, dog, or girlfriend wife.

We trust this system to keep our treasured memories? What if the arm slips and scratches the disk? What if someone in Buffalo, New York, blows a fuse and creates a chain reaction failure through our nationwide power grid that sends a power spike like an electronic tsunami up into the delicate electronic components of your precious computer? What if your child jams peanut butter sandwich into your DVD drive? The possibilities are terrifying.

But seriously, the data on your computer is fragile and needs to be backed up. Here are the main risks to your data.

  • your hard drive could crash
  • power spikes
  • your computer could be stolen
  • your house could burn down
Each of these dangers poses unique challenges in saving your data. Here are a few of the options available to you in keeping your data safe.

Do nothing. This will work just fine for a lot of people, the odds are decent that nothing will ever happen to your computer. If you're OK with this, you should go and cancel your homeowner's and auto insurance.

Make CD/DVD/tape backups. This is a common solution for people, and it can work well. Some issues with it are that you have to remember to make the backup, DVDs only hold like 9 GB, so you may need multiple disks for a full backup, and you need to store them away from your house (like at a safe deposit box or your mom's house). This is not a good option for me because it is awkward, and I'll forget to do it. If you are able to consistently make backups and get them out of your house, you have avoided all the risks outlined above.

External hard drive.This is a great option. You can buy a 160 GB external hard drive for $70 after rebates. This is cheap and allows for an easy, automatic backup copy of your data. I have a 150 GB version that I bought a year or so ago that I really like. However, it can't guard against theft, or power spikes, or house fires.

Remote storage. This is a new option that I've recently discovered. You pay for a service to backup your data remotely. For $5 per month, you can use a service like Mozy.com to have unlimited secure data storage. (They offer 2 GB of free storage.) It integrates with the OS, so it looks like a drive in the windows explorer, and backs up the folders you select when your computer is idle. I just signed up a week or so ago, and it took a good 7 days for it to upload my 25 GB of pictures and music to their servers. Now it only checks for changes and can complete a backup in minutes. I've been playing with deleting and restoring files and it works great! It is a nice feeling to have everything safe and secure. If your computer crashes, you can access your files from any website and download the files for restoration.

There are still a couple of worries with a service like this- They could potentially access your files, so you shouldn't backup really sensitive information to their servers. I personally don't care if some Mozy software dude accesses my Bear Lake vacation photos. Another risk is that they go out of business and shut down the site. For this reason, you should still keep copies of your important files on your local hard drive. If they do go out of business, you'll only lose the time you used in setting up the service.

You will need some sort of high-speed internet service to make this useful- dial-up would be impractical.

I know it can be complicated, but remember, a shoebox full of pictures isn't really safe, either!

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Sunday, February 4, 2007

Superbowl Irony

So, I watched the superbowl today. It was OK, nothing spectacular. The best part was having an excuse to sit around all afternoon and eat chips.

One funny thing- it was raining in Miami during the game. The rain coated most of the camera lenses with spots. Some of the cameramen must have disliked the spots and tried to rub them off with a rag.

You know a whole bunch of guys ran out and bought the huge high-def flat panels for the big game. I wonder how the rainspots and the smears on the camera lenses looked on a big screen HDTV? They looked terrible on my little TV. Someday (maybe next year!) I'll buy one of those big flat panel LCD HDTVs so I can see my smears in HD. The thought makes me laugh.

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Saturday, February 3, 2007

Tamagotchi gone

At some point I'll be ready to talk about our first child, Meisje. My wife and I had 4 frustrating years trying to get pregnant. (There are also a bunch of good stories about that, but I'm afraid they are not appropriate for public view-if you know what I mean).

After a few years of failure, we got a puppy to be our temp baby. She was a purebred black toy poodle that we named Meisje September Sunrise (purebred dogs get a lot of names). I'm not going to talk about it here, but I'll just say that it didn't go well. The lingering sadness from that experience is one of the reasons that I'm hesitant to get a family pet for my kids. That, and the fact that having 3 kids is enough 'pet' for me.

To put off the inevitable day when the 6 sad eyes come begging to me for a puppy, I've turned to virtual pets.


My oldest son asked for a Tamagotchi for Christmas. Have you heard of these? I remember them from a few years ago, but I thought they'd stopped being 'cool.' My son informed me that most of his friends at school had them, and that he really wanted one. It seemed like a waste of money to me. The thing is really low resolution and only has three button- what good is it? He got one for Christmas, but I thought it would sit in his drawer, unused and unloved. But, boy was I wrong.

He fell in love with this hunk of plastic and electronics (he must be my son!). You have to feed it, pick up it's droppings, play with it, etc. when it's needy it 'cries' by beeping. If you aren't taking care of it, it gets sick and then eventually dies. If you do care for it correctly, it grows and changes into different creatures. Supposedly it eventually will marry and produce offspring that you must care for. The best feature? They go to sleep at 8pm and don't wake up until 8am. This really helps with the kids bedtime.

To my surprise, my son really took it seriously. He even enjoyed picking up the droppings! (which is a serious advantage over a puppy). His Tamagotchi grew and matured and added more and more games and activities. He earned points by playing games with it that he used to 'buy' accessories for it- like hats, etc. He was looking forward to watching his Tamagotchi marry and continue the circle of life.

There was only one problem: School.

He goes to school for 7 hours. According to my son, the Tamagotchi will suffer terribly, or even die, if abandoned for 7 hours. You can pause the Tamagotchi. But, if you pause it, then it's not growing. So going to school was interfering with the development of my son's pet. This, you can imagine, was a source of much distress. I decided to let him take it to school if he promised to turn off the sound and keep it in his pocket except for recess. He agreed.

It worked fine for a couple of days. Then I got a phone call at work from my crying son. He had left it in his desk while he went to computer class! When he got back. it was gone. Someone had stolen his Tamagotchi!

He was so sad. He had really put a lot of effort into it. His reaction was (interestingly) a lot like if a real pet had died or run away. We agreed to go to the store to get another one. "But, dad", he said, "it was almost ready to get married! The new one will have to start over." Life is hard, then you die.

My 8 year old wanted one too. So I agreed to let him buy one. However, when we got to the store, we discovered that the Tamagotchis were the bomb, that latest thing, the 'must-have' toy. According to my boys, all of their friends have one, or are saving to get one. There were no Tamagotchis at that store or at any store. We looked online and even there they were somewhat hard to find. I did finally find some at Buy.com that could arrive in 4-5 days.

They finally came last Wednesday to much rejoicing. I'll let you know when the babies are born.



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Friday, February 2, 2007

His first love

4yo: Mom, will you cut up my food?
Dad: I'll do it.
4yo: No, Mommy has to do it! (this is a common demand)
Dad: Why can't I do it, Mommy is busy.
4yo: Because I love Mommy lots more than you.
Dad: Oh :(
4yo: Remember, I told you, Yellow Blankie first, then Mommy, then Daddy.
Mom: So, if you had to pick between Mommy going away forever, and yellow blanky going away forever, which would you choose?
Dad: Who would you want to stay?
4yo: (Face scrunched- deep in thought)
4yo: I want Yellow Blankie to stay. Yellow Blankie is my first love.
Mom: Oh :(
4yo: But Mom, I love you lots more than Dad!

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