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Dear Jack: Reading Bedtime Stories With A Scream Mask On

3 years, 9 months.

Dear Jack: Reading Bedtime Stories With A Scream Mask On

Dear Jack,

This past weekend for Labor Day, we took a road trip in the 2015 Buick LaCrosse through Chattanooga and then to your Nonna and Papa’s house. More on that later…

With all the driving around we did, Mommy and I needed to make sure you got a good nap on Sunday.

As we made our way upstairs to what used to be your Aunt Dana’s bedroom, you saw a Scream mask and a hockey mask I had from high school, lying in the floor of my bedroom which hasn’t been cleaned since… circa 1999.

You asked me to read you a bedtime story, while wearing the Scream mask, before you went down for your nap.

So I did…

For your story, I chose a book from my own childhood: Sesame Street’s Ernie Gets Lost.

I had to make sure my voice matched the character of the mask, so I did my best impression of the voice modulator used in the Scream movies.

You decided you wanted me to use a “quieter” voice instead, so I changed it to a good ole fashioned falsetto female voice, which was much more pleasant sounding- technically.

Keep in mind, this was all your idea. Good thing Mommy and I had the camera handy!

After nap time, the scary masks ended up downstairs and they were passed around for more entertainment. Your cousin Calla appreciated the masks as well, for some reason.

Dear Jack: Reading Bedtime Stories With A Scream Mask On

So yeah, it was pretty much the typical American Labor Day holiday… Scream mask and hockey mask included.

I have a feeling that when we drive back there in a month for your Uncle Andrew’s 30th birthday, you’re going to want me to wear the mask and read a bedtime story again.

This may have been the beginning of a new tradition! What should have been terrifying was simply entertaining, apparently serving as the best way to transition you to peaceful sleep.

[Cue Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”]

Love,

Daddy

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Nashville Man Mysteriously Rescued By Monster Trucks

This past Sunday afternoon as a Nashville man, Nick Shell, 33, was rounding the turn at Old Hickory Boulevard and Nolensville Pike in his newly restored 1985 Toyota 4Runner, he slid into a giant mud-filled ditch.

1985 Toyota 4Runner funny

“I had never seen mud that deep and thick before. It was all the way up to the windows. But then I looked up and saw a monster school bus and a big black monster truck with the phrase Crusader written across it. It was such perfect timing. How the monster trucks appeared immediately after my moment of need, I’ll never know,” Shell explained.

The giant monster trucks were able to nudge the 4Runner back up to the main road to safety. Perhaps miraculously, after all the mud was washed off, both the driver and Toyota 4Runner escaped the crash without even a scratch.

1985 Toyota 4Runner funny

However, the monster trucks mysteriously drove away shortly after the 4Runner was saved from the mud pit. One anonymous eyewitness who happened to be driving behind the monster trucks stated that the two vehicles had directly left from seeing Disney’s Planes: Fire And Rescue.

Did the new Planes movie help inspire the monster trucks to be on the look-out for smaller vehicles they could rescue? It’s possible.

1985 Toyota 4Runner funny

Some wonder if, in the likeness of the anonymous kindness of comic book super heroes, there will be more stories to come which tell of other monster trucks helping out drivers in need out there on the road.

It is also uncertain what exactly caused such a large area of deep mud so close to the main road. Large, asteroid-like clumps of rocky mud were also discovered near the site of the rescue.

We can only hope that where people are in despair, heroes continue to mysteriously appear to save them.

As for now, to the monster school bus and Crusader… whoever and wherever you are, your good works have not gone unnoticed.

1985 Toyota 4Runner funny

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Daddy, Did You Run Over That Squirrel?

June 12, 2014 at 10:40 pm , by

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Raising Jumpin’ Jack Flash, The BASE Jumper

June 10, 2014 at 10:34 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

Ever since you took that gymnastics class a few months ago, you’ve made a habit of looking for things to jump off of, like a BASE jumper.

That’s right- you learned to jump, as funny has that sounds. And now, it’s something you take very seriously.

When we stayed at the hotel for the Wizard World Atlanta Comic Con recently, you were very excited to see there was an ottoman in front of the sofa.

Needless to say, you knew just what to do…

When you weren’t using Hungry Hungry Hippos as a toy, you were being Jumpin’ Jack Flash!

A recent new tradition you and I started is that every night when it’s time for you to go upstairs with Mommy to take your bath, I take a break from doing the dishes and give you a piggy back ride to your room.

Then, I throw you onto your bed.

For the next couple of minutes after that, you jump off the bed onto the carpet, only to have me throw you back on the bed.

Your face slams into the bedspread and pillows. You love it.

Convenient for the sake of you continuing this roughhousing with me, is the fact you have never gotten hurt doing any of this.

This whole time, I’ve never had to put up a baby gate on our stairway. You have always had a reverent fear of the stairs- which is part of why you like to ride on my shoulders while going up them.

But despite your new love of BASE jumping, you have no desire to try jumping down the stairs.

You know that if you get hurt jumping, or while I throw you on the bed, that you probably wouldn’t get to have this much fun.

Smart kid, you are.

 

 

Love,

Daddy

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Boys Can Make Toys Out Of Anything, Like A Plastic Potato

June 7, 2014 at 10:53 pm , by

3 years, 6 months.

Dear Jack,

Almost exactly 3 years ago on June 21st, 2011, back when you were just 7 months old, I wrote aDadabase entry called “The Magically Entertaining Wooden Spoon.”

It talked about your ability to make a toy out of anything.

You still have that skill, by the way.

But these days, you also find a way to make a chore out of the new toy you discover.

Two weekends ago while at your cousin Calla’s 3rd birthday party, you somehow found a plastic potato container.

Apparently, Nonna (my mom) got it kind of as a joke for your Auntie Dana (my sister) to pack snacks for her lunch, back when she was in high school.

One of the things I didn’t mention in my most recent letter to you about the birthday partyis that for the first hour or so, you were carrying around that plastic potato with his googly eyes.

You used the potato as a place to store the rocks you found in the backyard.

I think it would be safe to use the words “proud” and “protective” to describe the way you carried that thing around.

Of course, you did share it without whoever wanted to see it for a minute. But you kept a close eye on it, as you can see in this picture.

So in closing, you have knack for finding a way to make a toy out of just about any random thing you find. Then, your version of playing with that new toy comes across more like work; or at least a game.

Honestly, you’re a pretty low maintenance kind of kid.

Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll upgrade you: I could just give you a real potato and say, “Here ya go, Son. Have fun.”

The thing is, I’m sure you would.

 

Love,

Daddy