the school day was over. alex was sitting in marty's classroom waiting for her to be done so they could go home. there were a few other students in the room hanging out (yes, marty's room is a bit of a hangout room as you might guess it would be). a girl commented to another student about a creative writing group she was starting up. after a beat or two alex spoke up from his side of the room, asking about the club. marty's eyes raised looking at her son, surprised. the girl turned and brightly shared the details of the club--what they do, when they meet and the like. she said if he'd be interested he was more than welcome. he said he might be.

as we went to bed marty shared the story with me. we looked at one another a bit perplexed. i asked about the girl, wondering if that was why alex was interested. or perhaps it was the boy the girl was talking to. we didn't know. but we thought it must be one of those two things because we also didn't know our 15-year old alex had an interest in creative writing to the point of joining an after-school club to do it.

a few weeks later alex asked if he could read something to me. it was his first piece for the creative writing club. he read: so maybe marty and i mis-read this situation and it wasn't the boy or the girl and our aleo would like to take a cut at some story telling. we were bound to be wrong about something one of these days ;-). i'm happy to chalk it up as yet one more happy surprise in our turn at this parenting thing. and this being his first go at this, i'm also eager to see what else might be swimming around the gelatinous folds of aleo's brain.

the below pictures need some explaining.

it was the last day of elementary for anthony and it was the last day of middle school for alex. when anthony and i were walking to school, our last one-mile walk to school ever (next year he will be taking the bus), i asked him if we would remember this final day with any sort of vividness or if it would just blend into the soup like most days. he said we probably wouldn't remember it in any special way other than it happened. sadly, i had to agree.

after dropping anthony off and returning home, i went to alex's middle school graduation. when the ceremony was over he came home with me to start his summer. we were home for about an hour before we had to walk back up to anthony's school to greet him for his end of school and start of summer. alex and i got there a few minutes before the last bell and grabbed a comfy spot on this bench in front of the school. we waved and chatted with the other families as they arrived. many people commented on how big alex (and his hair) had gotten. then the kids started getting released and there were lots of whoops and cheers and smiles.

anthony spotted us and joined us on the bench. we sat for a bit chatting with each other and folks passing by. after a bit the boys asked if we should start heading home. i said we should wait a minute. they asked why. i told them that when you were a celebrity it was good to make yourself available to the people, so they could see you out in public and take you in. the boys looked at each other and then started taking turns making jokes about me. the short story was that if i WERE a celebrity sticking around might be a nice thing to do BUT since i was just a loser who didn't know how to dress, we were probably safe to start home. when they were mostly done, i said that i would bet them that in the next minute someone would ask to take our picture. they looked at one another, deemed it a safe bet and said i was on. with some ceremony, anthony raised his wrist, called out the time, and the game was afoot.

he held his hand out so both he and alex could see the second hand charging around the watch face. they called out the times. 30 seconds left. 20 seconds left. 15. 10. just after they called out the number 5, a woman stepped forward and said, "well look at this handsome set of men, would you mind if i took your picture?"

the boys looked at each other in shock and disbelief. they then fell into hysterics, aided by my tickling them. while they reacted i calmly said to the lady, "yes, of course, we would love to have our picture taken." and that is what led to the below series of photos.















now part of me feels that fathers, like magicians, should never reveal their trade secrets but in this case it is only fair to let you in a bit more on this moment. as the boys started suggesting we head home i noticed a woman had seen us on the bench and was making her way toward us. and it wasn't just any woman but marty's best friend jona. i had seen a phone in her hand so had a sense she was going to ask for a picture since marty couldn't be here at pickup (marty had to go back to work after alex's graduation), and jona is thoughtful like that. on her way to us a family stopped jona to chat. this was when the boys started asking if we could go and i brokered the bet. i was hoping, desperately in the end, that jona could peel away from her conversation before my minute was up. my hope almost didn't come true, as you could see the boys got all the way to 5, but because of the last second save, it made the moment all the more dramatic. as you'd imagine, jona was a bit perplexed at the boys reaction and is why she thankfully snapped this series of images, images i am super-grateful to have.

the best part of this expertly and luckily executed plan is anthony and i will now forever remember not only his last day of elementary, but his last moment of elementary.

i'm a regimented person. so much so that people mock and ridicule me for the amount of structure in my life. i have talked to many people who say that sort of daily rigor is not for them--even if we have just discussed some challenge in their life where a routine is the exact answer to a problem they might be battling. this is most certainly my family's position on this matter. dad's schedules are...

at the tail-end the holiday break marty was woken up in the middle of the night by someone coming up the stairs. our kids are now old enough that we no longer have to participate in their bedtime rituals. that said, marty will still often do rounds of cuddles at bedtime but that tends to only happen on school nights because on the weekends and holidays the kids way outlast us, me especially as i t ...

alex is not the only one wrapping up certain experiences (end of soccer). we just went to anthony's last elementary concert. i gotta say, even if it is not the focus of this story, i'm very impressed how well i am handling all of these last-milestones with my children. it's no secret that i'm the only one anyone in my house ever worried about gracefully surv...

alex just finished his outdoor soccer season. i fear it may be his last as next year he will be in high school, and i think the nature of the game changes once you get to that next level. i recall my own sports life, meager as it was, drying up post junior high.

alex's soccer life has been exciting to watch on a few dimensions. first, when he was in third grade they re-shuffled his distr ...

after returning from a week of traveling, i found this email in my inbox. 

Note: The top three pictures were taken within a few minutes of one another and represent a pretty typical summer morning in our household (granted alex isn't usually up that early but he was excited about this old iMac he resurrected from the basement earlier in the week). in the last picture, we were picking bella up from a leadership & service camp she attended where she met a boy she was pretty taken with (and is most likely responsible for her extra-giddy state in this pic). it is also worth noting that at the camp bella was known as "the awesome girl who knitted all the time". i'd say that sums her up pretty well.

alex is taller than marty.

alex no longer just has hair on his head and eyebrows (it's kinda everywhere now).

alex sleeps in super late on summer mornings.

and on occasion, alex does not smell so human.

but even with this galaxy of change ...

alex is one of the most considerate humans i know, young or old. remarkably, his siblings are running neck and ...

as i said yesterday my most pondered question of 2015 was what should we do about our children's impossible-to-police and premature exposure to the open waters of internet porn. the parental measures offered by browsers and operating systems are more laughable than my junior high hair style. instructing a child to "steer clear" rivals abstine...

when alex was young, like before he could crawl-young, if something caught his eye he wanted, he would reach for it. if it was slightly out of his reach, he might stretch for it, a little bit, and by little bit i mean almost imperceptibly. if his fingers did not easily and cleanly grasp the bauble he would straighten back up, return his thumb to his mouth, assuming he ever took it out in the first ...

below are a few more pictures from aleo's first four rolls of film.

his first shot was discussed here yesterday.


dad's famous breakfast scrumble


anthony and dad's morning chess game


arcadia!!!


impressive, tight focus on the scope, the real story of the picture, which is throwing a curious reflection.


pretty brave to try a jump-shot on your first outing--i thought it turned out quite well for a first cut at the technique.


now that is just dang cool for a timer-shot.


old country men at the old country store


spooky anthony, and according to anthony, visual evidence that i am a black man.


if you study this one, you can spot the photog in the window.

aleo recently asked me about getting a camera, like a real one. i think something at school spawned this conversation. i told him if he was serious he should learn how to shoot for real. by this i meant manually, where he controlled all of the settings himself (eg. shot speed, aperture, focus). the closest thing to an electronic aid would be the light meter which is nothing more than a bar the mov ...

in case you were worrying for alex based on his sour demeanor in yesterday's family gallery entry, worry not. our aleo is fine and well. he was just mean-mugging the camera before his first day of middle school. in evidence.







anfer is also fine and well.

marty walked into my office and handed me this. she then watched me as i read it. when complete i looked up at her and we just looked at each other for a few moments, both speechless. then after a few moments she said, "there's a lot packed into that young man". i could do little more than nod my head in agreement.

at a holiday gathering someone asked me how the kids were doing. the following stories spilled out and i thought i'd share them with those of you i might not bump into at a holiday event.

ANTHONY
i was approached by a parent at anthony's elementary. she introduced herself and explained someone told her that anthony might be a good fit for an equations team her husband runs. i told her that anthony did seem to like math so, yes, he may be interested. she said that the program was for older kids and that they had already started the training but it might not be a bad idea to get him in this year so he could familiarize himself with the process. i took anthony to their next meeting. the "coach" got the other kids working and said he was going to be over here getting anthony setup. the man proceeded to unpack a game. while doing so he started asking a third grade anthony questions like:

• do you know what the square root of 9 is? he did.
• how about the square root of 81. he did.

then he asked if anthony knew what powers were. he did not. the man explained and then ran anthony through some problems which anthony answered without fail. he then taught anthony how to play the game. after the session i thanked the man for teaching anthony and letting him sit in this year. to this the man said, "sit in? i'm going to have anthony compete this year! he's great!". if great means that in third grade he already knows more about math than i ever have, yes he is great.

ALEX
alex is in a robotics club. in this club the team gets a challenges to solve and then works as a team to solve the challenge. this year the team assigned nicknames to all the members. alex's nickname was "the guy who can fix anything". not too bad a designation on a team that exists to solve problems.

BELLA
bella is at a new school district. we were a little curious how she would fare entering an entirely new population of people without a history or reputation. two months after her arrival she was chosen as one of five female school ambassadors. these ambassadors are existing students who show prospective students around to interest them in the school. this is obviously a role the school's administration does not take lightly and for bella to get tapped this soon after her arrival gives marty and i the sense that our baby girl will perhaps be ok out there in the bigger world.

alex, like many young people his age, enjoys watching youtube videos of colorful people playing video games. because he shares the computer space with his brother and sister (in our computer cafe) he wears headphones while watching. what i hear when i'm in the neighboring kitchen doing dishes or making dinner are his titters and giggles. i understand his desire to watch these videos and i think it ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. worm-age

alex started middle school this year. for what it's worth, bella started high school, which means we have reached that unenviable milestone where we have three kids at three different schools. we were more than a little nervous towards the end of summer as the days left grew fewer with each sunrise. i don't think it would be a secret to say most of our nervousness was reserved for aleo. there are ...

aleo and i have been playing some video games together. much of this time, especially in the early going involves him getting me functional. occasionally his use of language is the greatest. two examples that stand out are:

1. i was complaining about my joystick. he asked to see it. he moved around a bit and then said, "yeah, your joystick seems to be a little cockier than mine. we can trade if you'd like." i said i'd rather not, because i for sure thought the cockier controller would pay off in the long run (this has not yet come to pass).

2. then we were playing something else on the computer and i was complaining about the mouse being extra twitchy. again, he asked to see it, opened up a control panel or two, moved some dials and then told me to try again. in explanation, he said his friend maria was over playing with him and he had to turn the "sensibility" up for her. knowing maria as i do, i'd second aleo's suggested course.

and let's get past the point where i come off as a over-delicate fool that just complains when things aren't exactly to my liking. it's not like this is getting exponentially worse with each year that passes. i can't help if i'm a touch cocky and high on sensibility.

marty recently posed the dinner table question of what each person's proudest life moment was.

without much thought alex casually said his was saving anthony from a concussion. his comment brought life to the table as people lit up in their retellings. the moment alex referred to took place a few years ago. marty had taken the kids to an event at her school. there was a standing wooden s ...

alex has played soccer for several years. over this span, he has developed into quite the defensive specialist, namely because the first team he played on got whooped up on pretty regular so we had lots of practice defending the goal. and, alex was the team's prize student in this regard understanding how to position himself to disrupt shots on goal, harassing players as to not let them get situated and the like.

one problem alex possessed when playing defense is he always had a giant smile on his face. several times i explained he should try to smile less or at least less enthusiastically because a smiling defensemen did not seem very intimidating, but some parts of nature cannot be controlled ( exhibit 1, exhibit 2, exhibit 3, exhibit 4, need i go on?)

alex's second team had an unnatural number of kids who ravenously loved soccer and played constantly. this equated to a lot of natural scorers and there's nothing a bevy of goal-minded kids loves more than a kid who likes playing defense because it means less time sharing the spotlight which means more shots on goal. this meant alex became a quick star on his team because he was one of the few kids who always asked to play dee.

but thanks to some gentle nudges from the coaches over the years (and surely helped by some blowouts where they were trying to pull the big guns off the front line), alex found himself on the offensive side of the field. as you'd expect, it is surely a different game up there and you could see alex working through the math of it all.

his intuition about the sport has been visibly improving but he'd yet to score a goal. then this last weekend, he scored not one but two goals in a game. after the first, when he turned from the goal to run back to middle field you could have seen the white of his smile from two pitches away, which sounds impressive until you consider that you could have seen my smile, FIVE pitches away.

yesterday we returned from our spring break holiday—a week in utah rife with friends and skiing. this is the third year we have made this pilgrimage which gives it some tradition-caliber stock. in perusing the rich week of leisure, laughter and recreation, the moment that most jumps out at me happened on the drive home somewhere in wyoming when alex yelled from the third row seat of our speeding minivan, "i have to go pee and REFUSE to go in a bottle!"

sadly, in my telling of this i am unable to convey the gallons of vinegar and vitriol his words included as they were hurled the full length of our honda odyssey. good to his word, alex held fast on his pee-boycott until we delivered him to a proper urinal. anthony on the other hand gladly peed in his bottle although he did confess it was hard to perform without any privacy (as the whole family was drawn to watching him see to this need). anthony also offered his neighboring passengers a taste of his lemonade at least half a dozen times. he seemed fully undaunted that no one ever took part in his generosity.

after my mom died i took a little, green swiss army knife from her house. it belonged to her father when he lived with her before he died. it was surely something my mom bought for him to help with his crafts. i was never one to routinely carry a pocket knife but took it because it reminded me of both of them.

alex quickly noticed my new accoutrement and commented on it. i explained to him where and why i got it. he shrugged his shoulders and said a casual 'cool'. after this discovery alex would routinely approach me and ask to borrow the small knife to clean out some dirt from under his nails, cut a string or trim something up.

a few years back as marty and i were plotting out christmas i suggested getting alex his own pocket knife. marty first balked saying he was too young. i confessed he was young in years but in many ways was more responsible and conscientious than either of his parents. she said that he'd probably loose it straight away. i didn't have a solid retort for this as alex is not super-great of keeping track of things but suggested it might be different with this because he would love it enough to keep track of it. marty gave a consenting shrug of her shoulders and alex got his knife. and now, better than two years later, alex still has his knife and has always kept a solid line on it.

over the next two years my knife took several rides through the washing machine because i kept forgetting to take it out of the little pocket on my right front where i kept it. after one such journey it started falling apart, the glue holding the plastic sides in place having finally giving way from repeated trips through the water. so this last christmas i replaced it, with a shiny new one, one modeled after alex's newer model.

three weeks after getting my new knife someone asked to borrow it. i said i didn't have it. they asked where it was. i said i didn't know and confessed to mis-placing it. alex's one-word response, "already?", stung then and now as i think back on it. maybe i'm the one who shouldn't have gotten a knife for christmas.

an exasperated bella interrupted marty and i talking to ask if she could be excused from the dinner table early. marty, breaking off from our conversation, exaggeratedly asked whatever could be more important than her family's company. we then looked to anthony (8) who, with sitcom perfect timing, was pushing his upper lip to his nose with his hand and saying "look alex, i can almost pick my nose with my top lip" and when you then looked to alex (11) he was in the midst of his own antic "but can you make you hair shake around like this" while he gripped the arms of the chair to brace himself and quickly rotated his head left to right making his winter mane flail wildly about. marty and i, both stifling laughter, especially at anthony's effortful, and ongoing, lip-nose contortion said, "yes, bella, you may be excused from the dinner table as it seems people are done eating." she pushed back from the table and walked out of the room with the classic teen-huff of annoyance painted on her person.