Follow up from yesterday’s post.

Around 4:00 yesterday morning, Calfgrit4 came out of his room and called for his mom. Cowgrit got up and went to him; he said he needed a sip of water. Cowgrit had also heard him coughing a few times before he got up, so when she put him back to bed she mentioned that she may need to give him some cough medicine if the coughing keeps him from falling back to sleep. She went back to bed.

Ten minutes later, Calfgrit4 called out for Mom, again. Cowgrit got back up and went back to his room. He told her he needed the medicine to stop coughing. So she poured the medicine and he drank it. He laid down again, and she went to bed again.

Ten minutes later, Calfgrit4 called out for Mom, yet again. Cowgrit got back up and went back to his room. He informed her that the cough medicine was working — he wasn’t coughing anymore. With a tired sigh, she thanked him and went back to bed.

So through that night, CG4 called his mother into his room a total of five times. Fortunately for me, I had taken a Benedryl before bed that night, so I slept soundly through the early morning calls.

Bullgrit

The most annoying sound in the world:

We get the boys in their beds and quiet. We sit down on the sofa for a little rest and TV entertainment, and maybe even a little snack. The house is calm. Five quiet minutes pass. Our minds and bodies are finally relaxing.

From the boys’ room comes, “Daaaaad.” (Or “Mooooom.”) <- That sound, right there, with that timing, is the most annoying sound in the world.

Sigh. Get up, go answer Calfgrit4’s question. “Yes, dear, you have preschool tomorrow. Now good night.”

Last night we went through this routine, but then we got an extra summons.

The phone rang, and we let it ring until the answering machine picked up. While the phone rang, Calfgrit4 called, “Moooom . . . Mooooom . . . Mooooom.”

Cowgrit went to the boys’ room, she stuck her head in, and asked, “What is it?”

Calfgrit4 informed her, “You just got a phone call.”

“Yes,” said Cowgrit, “I know. Thank you. Now go to sleep.”

Cowgrit says she could hear me laughing in my office.

Bullgrit

I recently joined Facebook. Pretty quickly, several old high school classmates found me and sent me friend requests. That’s cool.

Out of curiosity, I started looking up some of these old friends’ names on the Web, outside of Facebook. I also looked up old friends who apparently weren’t on Facebook. It’s amazing, and a bit scary, what you can find about someone with a simple Google search.

Then I thought to do a Google search for my own name. (My real name, not “Bullgrit.”) Google brought up 829 hits for my name. Funnily, there’s some guy with my name who’s really into anti-taxation, and apparently has been such an activist for many years.

Besides this anti-taxation guy with my name (who’s probably three-quarters of the hits Google found), there’re several other people with my name: someone in New Zealand, someone who’s posted something on YouTube, someone on LinkedIn. This surprises me, because my name ain’t something common like John Smith.

Digging through the results, going in over a dozen page results, I found a reference actually to me: an old html page from 1998 where I asked a question on a discussion forum about flying strategy in a WWII computer air combat simulator. Going a few pages deeper, I found a minor reference to me working for a computer game company as a freelance writer.

And that’s it. I went through all the page results, and found no more hits on myself. Two very old web pages with a very limited mention of me in regards to a couple of computer games. And you know, I like it that way.

With the way information gets passed around quickly on the Internet, I’m relieved that I’m not scattered all over the place. Maybe in a few more years, those two references to me will disappear and my name will be completely cleared off the Internet.

Bullgrit

I was in Target, wandering the aisles, when a grandmother and a young mom came by pushing an infant in a shopping cart. The baby was saying “dadadada.”

The mom leaned in to her baby and said, “Say mama.”

The baby replied, “papapapa.”

The mom straightened up, disappointed, and said to her mother beside her, “It’s not fair! He can’t have two names when I don’t even have one, yet.”

* * *

I remember when Calfgrit8 was just learning to talk in sentences, and I tried to teach him to say, “I love mama.” When Cowgrit was in another part of the house, or out of the car:

Me to the little Calfgrit: “Say, ‘I love Mama.'”

Calfgrit: “I wuv mama!”

Repeat half a dozen times to make sure he got it.

When Cowgrit came back into the room or got back into the car:

Me to the little Calfgrit: “Calfgrit, you wanna say something?”

Calfgrit: confused look.

Me: “Don’t you have something to say to mommy?”

Calfgrit: big grin.

Me: “What were you just saying?”

Calfgrit to me: “I wuv you!”

Me: “Thank you, but don’t you want to say something to mommy?”

Calfgrit to Cowgrit: “I wuv Daddy!”

Me: shrug shoulders, sigh.

Bullgrit