Fuzzy Armadillos

Unless you've been avoiding all social media, or haven't seen the 30-minute Hanna-family infomercial I directed for OWN, the Oprah channel, you already know that the Eastside Gang had a pretty great Siskiyou Golden Fair.

We kicked off fair-season a day early and Dylan and I went over for the officially-unofficial heifer, steer, goat, and lamb weigh in.  This is the day when all the livestock exhibitors bring in their animals and get a sense of how many marshmallows they'll need to feed Daisy that night so it'll make weight the next day.  It's a lot like a MMA weigh-in, with fewer men in chonies and more fights.  Dylan got the job of reading off the digital scales to the contestants (or, usually, their mothers).  It was great watching her be a part of the fair machine.  I shoved, tugged, and begged the livestock into the scales and Dylan (with the help from another board member) quietly read off the weights.  Emphasis on quietly.  There was a lot of 1 ... 3 ... 2 ... ... ... 2?  And a lot of, "What did she say?"

The evening shows are what our kids love because they get to stay out past their bedtime and they get shaved ice for dinner.  Grady got a one-day stomach flu and had to miss the rodeo (more on that later), but was there for his favorite events: Tractor Pulls and the Destruction Derby.  The Tractor Pulls were new this year and are exactly as they sound.  Tractors and trucks pull a lot of weight across the arena.  Some make it all the way, most don't, and some break down somewhere in between.  To make this event, um, more exciting, there are motorcycles doing stunts.  Grady's mind was blown at the first flip and he didn't stop grinning until we had to leave to avoid suffering permanent hearing damage.

Regina took the monkeys over early on one day to see the sights and let the kids go nuts in the carnival.  We somehow talked Dylan into not playing the goldfish game by reminding her of the pile of dead goldfish the last 3 fairs have yielded.  Besides, her Sea Monkeys are alive and growing, and pet-competition would be unhealthy.  When I showed up that afternoon the kids, and Regina, were very excited about the Exotic Animal Petting Zoo.  They even got to pet a fuzzy armadillo.  I questioned Regina and she just shrugged, "That's what the lady said it was."  I had to see this, so we went back.  Of course, there was no fuzzy armadillo to be found.  There was a real one, you know, with a hard shell, but nothing else.  Did it escape? I asked.  We pondered this as we checked out the monkeys, snakes, lizards, and, oddly, a possum. (In an exotic petting zoo?  Welcome to county fairs.) Regina started laughing.  There it was: the fuzzy armadillo.  Someone, maybe she didn't even work there, or maybe she was bored, convinced my family that a common possum was an exotic fuzzy armadillo.  I love that person.

The highlight was, of course, that Dylan won the Siskiyou County Mutton Busting Championship!  You can get the entire 3-hour story if you happen to wander within earshot of me.  I've been boring everyone with it, but I can't help it.  We were so proud.  The short version is that Dylan qualified as an alternate, got the chance to ride, stuck to her mutton, and came home with a buckle and a black eye.  The eye has healed and she wears her buckle proudly, even with outfits that don't have belt loops.  We'd been listening to Tanya Tucker's, "Rodeo Girls Don't Cry," in the truck all summer and afterward, as she was trying hard to wave to her grandparents in the grandstands and to not cry, she told me, "I just kept thinking, rodeo girls don't cry, dad."  So badass.

Our local fair is a great one and this year it gave us so much: a new appreciation of possums, a champion rodeo buckle, and even a second-hand high in the Winema Hall men's room.  We'll hang this one up as great and will cherish the memories, unless we wander back into that men's room, then we won't remember a thing.


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Etna Spring

Place Your Bets

Summer's almost here and it can only mean one thing: dog vs chicken races.  You're thinking, A) Judd, tell me something I don't know, and B) Easy, dog wins every time.  Nope.  Not at Casa de Hanna.  We eat our dinners outside and our kids (read: me) spill -- pie, steak fat -- and the first animal to the food wins.  Our dogs may be fast, but don't bet against the chickens, that's my only advice.

As you can tell from our new gambling passion, our summer plans are pretty much booked solid.  What did we do before this new family hobby?  Who can remember?  I'll try.

Duck

Let me tell you this, we are fortunate to even have dogs and chickens (and a son and daughter) after Dylan's Brave-themed birthday party.  It might as well been a Hunger Games or Full Metal Jacket-themed party.  We sent invitations with BYOB (Bring Your Own Bow) and had a target shooting contest.  I was, absolutely, in over my head and when one of Dylan's friends (we'll call her "Ted Nugent") showed up with a compound bow, I knew things would end badly.  By the grace of God, no one was punctured.  At one point, I looked over and one girl was holding the target, like Vanna White presenting a vowel, while little Nugent was drawing back on her bow with her tiny trembling arm, ready to fire.  We probably should have just gone with the ubiquitous Frozen theme, but the threat of losing an eye sounded better than hearing "Let it Go" sung by 1st-graders.

Grady, from past experience, knows where to stand when the arrows are flying.  He holed up by the hot dogs and cupcakes and avoided trouble.

The very next weekend was the May Rodeo.  We shined up our boots and went to town.  Dylan is still hell-bent on being a Mutton-Buster, so she donned her kitty cat helmet and Wranglers and gave it a shot.  She had the grit, unfortunately, her lamb didn't.  It ran out of the chute and rolled over.  Kind of like what happens when you try piggy back riding on your drunk friend's shoulders.  Dylan was smothered in soft and smelly lanolin fuzz, and got up grinning and planning her July rodeo ride.

What else?  Dylan and Grady both have new bikes that they're rocking.  It's a Hanna tradition to be unable to ride a bike until A) you are mocked by your classmates, or B) Grandma bribes you to learn.  We're bucking tradition and Grady cruises behind my mountain bike on a tow behind while Dylan rolls on a princess bike.  Grady's supposed to pedal along, but he's figured out it's more fun to watch his fat old man struggle than to actually help out.  Dylan's legs and elbows bear the marks of a kid learning to ride a bike on loose gravel.  Regina and I sit in the backyard, sipping wine, and listen to the soft sounds of a bike skidding out in the dirt, punctuated by the immediate, "I'm okay."

So, come visit us this summer.  We'll fling a few arrows, shoot a few squirrels, and place a few bucks on the crafty speckled hen.  It'll be a hoot.

Snitches Get Stitches

Last week I brought Dylan to the corrals while we were giving one herd of cattle their spring vaccinations.  At one point in the day, she and Greg were helping me as I was bringing a few mother cows from the back and running them up to the chute.  Greg started laughing at something Dylan told him and he asked me, "Snitches get stitches? Where in the hell did she get that?"  I cringed.  In my defense, it seemed like really good advice when I told her that (boy, was I waxing philosophical) about a year ago.  Also, in my defense, I can be a really shitty parent.  Want more examples?  Yeah, I thought so.

Holidays:  Regina and I, for whatever reason, have a very loose grasp on how holidays are supposed to work for children.  She blames it on growing up overseas.  I have no excuse.  I grew up with all the traditions and rituals that Easter, Christmas, Arbor Day, Yom Kippur, or whatever, offer.  We really thought we had Christmas nailed down.  We have a tree-cutting day, we hang stockings, we wrap presents, we are merry.  But, two years ago we forgot to wrap any presents from Santa.  Regina asked me, "Does Santa bring presents?" and all I could come up with was, "Maybe?"  We're back on a Santa-gift routine, and thought it was smooth sailing, until the evils of the internet introduced us to Elf on a Shelf.  The Hell?  I hate everything about it.  I'm genuinely freaked out by horror films that feature A) dolls (see: Chucky), or B) leprechauns (see: Leprechaun I - VII), and that freaky little Christmas elf looks like those two movies made a baby.  So, no mischievous elves.  And, for that matter, no mischievous leprechauns on St. Patricks Day.  When did the tradition of trashing your house and blaming a silly leprechaun start?  The last thing Regina and I want to do is create a bigger mess in our house, especially on a day dedicated to day-drinking and poor choices.  

Mommy, who brought these baskets?

And, finally, there's Easter.  Ah, Easter, it's a piece of cake, right?  On Easter-eve, I was up baking a tart while Regina started putting the kids' baskets together when she innocently asked, "Are the baskets from the Easter Bunny or from us?"  We finally settled on: Let's just leave them out and let the kids decide who brought them.  Same goes for egg hunts.  We've always done an egg hunt wherever we go for Easter supper, then I had a revelation on Easter night that I used to wake up to hidden eggs all around the house.  How had I forgotten that tradition?  How do I even remember how to tie my own shoes anymore?  It's a good thing I wear cowboy boots.

I can see!

Health:  We've been watching Grady stand 4" in front of the television for about a year now.  We thought that he was really into his shows.  Dylan thought he was in the way.  The school, after they ran an eye-test, thought he needed a professional to take a closer look.  Yep, Grady's getting eye glasses next week because he can't see things that are far away.  You know, things like a TV.  We've spent the last two years hollering at him to sit down while he's just been trying to figure out what Doc McStuffins looks like.

Dylan, fortunately, has her father's teeth.  That's sarcasm.  Basically it means that she's doomed to have cavities until she's 40.  Her dentist found 6 cavities last fall and decided to break up the filling appointments in thirds.  By round 3, Dylan had a firm distrust of modern dentistry.  I took her to her last appointment and, like I do with any doctor's appointment, I brought a book and settled in in the waiting room while she went to the back.  An hour and a half later she came out crying and I realized that I'd made a terrible mistake.  Why I didn't go back there with her and hold her hand while she got her teeth drilled out, I have no idea.  I'm still trying to figure out a way to divert my guilt and bad-parenting into blame on the "scary" dentist, but I realize that my plan will probably backfire when Dylan has to go back, probably in the near future, for another filling.

On good days, I think Regina and I are doing alright as parents.  My dad told me story that when he was very young, after reading the story of William Tell shooting an apple off someone's head with an arrow, he tried to shoot an apple off his brother's head.  With a .45 pistol.  After hearing that, I feel pretty good about our petty mistakes in parenting.  Our giant poster that reads "Dylan has gone ____ days without detention," now sports double-digit numbers, and we're 90% successful on what gluten-free foods to feed Grady.  We've accepted that we'll ignore holiday traditions that involve nightmarish creatures, we'll try a little harder to be in tune with the health of our kids, and I'll quit trying to impart words of wisdom that I've learned in Spike Lee movies.

Buzkashi and Your Anus

One thing about raising little critters on the ranch is the general perception that country kids are tough.  And, really, a lot of them are.  A friend of Dylan's recently was kicked by a horse.  When I told Dylan about it she was A) very concerned, then, B) shrugged it off and said, "Oh, he's tough, he'll be okay."  I like that.  I like the idea that others will perceive my kids as tough without them actually having to do anything particularly macho.  No alligator rasslin' or unfiltered cigarettes, no backyard bare knuckle bouts or that dead-goat polo game they play in Mongolia necessary.

The Wild Bunch

And really, our kids are pretty gritty.  I've seen them shake off hits and falls that would have put me in the cry-corner.  This winter Dylan slammed her finger in the car door as we were going into the Masonic Hall for breakfast.  She cried a little, then wrapped her bloody finger in a napkin and dug into her pancakes and bacon.  And last fall, when Grady and I went in for flu shots, I really expected the worst.  Instead, when the nurse jabbed him with a needle, he scowled at her like she'd just told him Christmas was cancelled.


Despite all this, both kids can also be pretty dramatic.  I used to think Dylan was tougher than an old boot, and then she started school.  She started coming home every day with a new bandaid covering some phantom injury.  We told her that bandaids over scratches were useless and she was wasting the school secretary's time.  When the bandaids stopped, Dylan started opting for ice-packs to cool off those gruesome wounds.  We tried to dissuade her with "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"-esq tales, but she didn't listen.  We finally had to put a hard stop to all of it when Mrs. Jenna, the secretary, told me that Dylan came in during one recess and requested an ice-pack for her heart.

At dinner, if Grady isn't very hungry, I'll often try my feeble attempt at reverse psychology and tell him, "Okay, if you aren't going to eat, then you can go to bed."  Ha, I think, now he'll eat.  Instead, his bottom lip curls down and quivers.  He climbs out of his chair and Charlie Brown-walks to his bedroom.  I watch as the door slowly shuts behind him.  My plan, of course, has completely backfired, and I spend the rest of dinner coaxing him out of his room with sweets like I'm befriending a stray dog.

Mucho Macho

It's easy to forget how sensitive the kids can be.  When Dylan came home from school this week and proudly announced that she was doing her first real school report on, wait for it, Uranus, my eyes lit up like a pinball machine.  Jokes!  Regina, fortunately, can read my very simple mind and shot me a "Don't you dare," look.  But Uranus!  It's right up there with Lake Titicaca, Titmouse, and pianist jokes.  I stopped, took a breath, and bit my tongue.  I knew that I'd take the jokes too far and would, undoubtedly, squelch her excitement for science and probably hurt her feelings.  Instead, like a proper father, I checked my jokes at the door, took a deep breath, and said, "Awesome.  Tell me all about Uranus."

Mi Car-o es Blanco

When the temperatures here dipped to -8 and our days were spent thinking of creative ways to thaw pipes, my brain took an early vacation to Baja.  I had a mental Cabo Advent Calendar, and each day I opened up a little flap to reveal either a Pacifico or a shrimp taco.  So when I sat in my chonies on our patio in Cabo, with Regina on one side and a michelada on the other, I felt, for the first time in a long time, completely thawed.  I thought I may never leave.

We took our annual trip to Mexico this Christmas and the kids, of course, had a blast.  We spent a week in Cabo and three days in Todo Santos, and most of our time was spent on pristine beaches, or at the pool, which overlooked the pristine beach, or eating shrimp tacos, near some lousy pristine beach.  Give Dylan and Grady a set of arm floaties and a beach bucket and they practically babysit themselves.  At least that's what I told all the glaring parents.  Grady was perfectly content building, then demolishing, sand castles all day long.  We'd slather on a layer of sunblock and turn them loose.  Dylan has a Rainman-esq affinity for numbers, and between playing in the waves and building sand-cities, I'm pretty sure she got an accurate count on the grains of sand on each and every stretch of beach we visited.

If Dylan wasn't counting things, like pom-pom trees (her name for palm trees), or buzzards, or Mexicans, then she was asking about numbers.  A typical conversation went like this: "Dylan, look!  I just saw a whale with a kitten on its back."  "What's the number 7-0-0-1?"  If her numbers infatuation keeps up, I'm teaching her to count cards.  Our non-sequiter conversations won't be half as frustrating if we're stacking chips in Vegas.

Our only misadventures came at my expense.  One day we decided to drive to downtown Cabo and walk around.  After searching for parking, I found a great spot in front of a coffee shop.  Sure, the curb was painted red, but the entire block was lined with parked cars.   I concluded that a red curb means, "Come on over, whitey, park here."  When we returned from our stroll, we stopped in for a coffee.  Just as we were served we watched two traffic cops pull up on their motorcycles.  Since I'm 1-0 in getting out of traffic tickets in Mexico, Regina sent me out to investigate.  I stood near them in an awkward silence as they eyeballed my rental.  They'd look up at me and glare, then resume writing.  Finally, I thought I'd better throw down some espanol.  "Uh, mi car-o," I said confidently, "es un problemo?"  "Ticket," they replied.  Crap.  Luckily, Regina sensed my dilemma and figured I was probably going to say something accidentally offensive (like "car-o") and came to the rescue.  No ticket, and I'm 2-0 on blundering my way out of traffic fines in Mexico!

The second flub came in Todo Santos at a seafood restaurant.  I thought I'd go rogue and not order shrimp tacos.  I went, for no reason, with camerones aguachili.  It translates to "translucent-grey raw shrimp, with little or no seasoning save lime."  Regina laughed when it came to our table, mostly because of the pile of raw shrimp on my plate.  I'd also ordered shrimp ceviche, so doubling up raised a few flags in my brain.  Unfortunately, the cook was standing near our table, and I'm a people-pleaser, so I ate it all.  You ever get sick from too much Jose Cuervo, then try a shot of it the next day?  That clench in your gut?  That's how I felt the entire meal.

The weather, when we returned, was above 0, and the kids had a few days to acclimate before school started up again.  My only hint of Mexico, a red belly, is slowly turning back to raw-fish white.  Regina, somehow, will stay beautifully tanned until April, just in time to start catching sunshine here.  After bringing home a little bit of Baja in their bellies (Dylan announced, loudly, in an In-N-Out in Redding that she had diarrhea), the kids are back to their old routines.  And we've already started planning our next Baja adventure.

Eastside Vice

Every time I go to the dentist, he tells me to stop eating so much candy, then either informs me that A) I need another gold crown, or, B) I have a few spots he's going to, "keep an eye on."  Dylan, too, seems to have inherited my knack for collecting cavities and she's becoming well accustomed to hearing the same thing from him. Aside from poor dental hygiene, our kids have a couple of bad habits that, for now, are borderline, but, in the immortal words of Dr. Willis, we'll definitely be keeping an eye on them so they don't blow up into full fledged vices.

Grady's habit is seemingly innocent.  He still sucks his left pointer finger.  It's not too big of a deal, but as a four-year old, he should be outgrowing it.  It's a habit that he clings to, and whenever he's bored (in the car), or tired, he immediately sticks his finger in his mouth.  Apparently, he gnaws on his finger because he's developed a callous that looks like it came off a Pacific Crest Trail hiker's foot.  We'd be okay with his habit if he didn't double it up with a hand-down-the-pants combo.  The degree of difficulty is high to manage both things at once, but he's become a master.  If it were merely the Al Bundy-style, or "The Judd," as Regina calls it, and he stuck his right hand down the front of his pants, we'd chalk it up to weird genetics and let it go.  Instead, his free hand shoots down the back of his pants and we're constantly worried he's going to get some crazy butt-sweat rash on his little hand.  Ok, maybe "we're" not worried, that one may just be on me.

If A&E decides to spin off from their unsettling show Hoarders with a dark side of children-hoarders series, their first stop will be in Dylan's room.  The girl collects everything.  On last count, she had five jewelry boxes, none contained jewelry, and all were overflowing with ... I'd say junk, but she gets mad when I call it that.  Ditto for beneath her bed, and behind her bed, and her backpack, and her pockets.  If it's a vessel, or just an area that will store stuff, she'll fill it.

Last week, Regina was washing one of Dylan's jackets.  It felt unnaturally heavy and so she checked the pockets.  This is certain to be on Episode I, because this is what we found: a paper clip, 3 pieces of scrap paper, 3 rocks, a small stuffed animal, a stick, one used fake fingernail, a water bottle cap, a marble, an "I Love You," note from her friend, Hello Kitty hair tie, hair clips, a dime, a piece of a sugar pine cone, stickers, a pack of glitter, plastic jewels, a ring, and a bolt.  Yes.  All of that in two child-sized pockets.  She's going to need a full TSA pat-down before school each morning.

As far as bad habits go, we're pretty lucky.  They aren't arsonists, or feces flingers, or booger eaters, or plagiarists.  We, of course, are keeping an eye on them to make sure they don't turn into full-blown vices.  And now, if you'll excuse me, I think there's some leftover Halloween candy with my name on it.

Orange United

October is impossible.  It's a month cramstuffed with so many events that the good leaders of this nation have decided to celebrate its ending by letting everyone eat candy.  Here, they say,  nice job keeping your shit together.  Have a Payday.

Soccer was a twice a week commitment for Dylan that she seemed to be 52% committed to.  This year was a step up from the pup-tent sized goals and tiny field melee that is pee-wee soccer.  Now the goals are, you know, soccer goal sized and the field is proportionately bigger.  Dylan's enthusiasm for the game hasn't grown proportionately, but we're working on that.  Dylan played on the Etna team.  Or, to be more specific, The Etna Team.  Right, there was only one.  And guess who they played?  Yep.  The Ft. Jones Team.  1 league.  2 teams.  10 games.  October, yea!  I dubbed the Etna team Orange United.  They wore orange, and played (comparatively) like an English Premier League team.  The purple team, or the Ft. Jones 3 and Under All-Stars were good, but my God, they were small.  I think they recruited from the wrong playground.

If getting benched for fun-wrestling players from the other team and skipping to the ball means Dylan  enjoyed soccer, then I guess we'll pack up the mini-van and all become soccer moms, because it's in our future.  On the field, when she wasn't wrestling, she sometimes managed to focus long enough to be a pretty good player.  But stick her at goalie in an oversized red shirt and she'd become leader of the elephant walk and have all her defenders on their hands and feet doing the Jungle Book waltz.  Sometimes, when she was keeper, I'd look over and notice a completely empty net and see Dylan on the sideline getting a new beanie or gloves -- you know, because they matched better.  In fact, the only goal the FJ3UAS scored all season happened while Dylan was playing goalie.

Grady was a perfect little hooligan and tried to terrorize every match he attended.  If it weren't so cold he would have streaked.  Regina and I learned early that we needed to divide and conquer.  That meant either one of stayed home or, if we both went to the game, one of us kept an eye on our little Sidetracked Suzy while the other got playground time with the Hungry Monster.

Aside from organized sport, deer season monopolized quite a bit of our (my) time.  "Got to go get food for the family," I'd tell Regina whenever the kids were especially bratty.  This year Dylan wanted to join me.  I was excited about this time together so I planned a few easy hunts that we could do.  Our first morning out we hiked up on the hill and I decided to test Dylan's observation and keeping quiet skills.  We sat on a rock that overlooked a brush patch and, sure enough, several deer started moving around.  Dylan looked through my binoculars (backwards) and pointed out does and fawns.  The observation skills are good, but keeping quiet?  No.  She chatted the entire time.  Why those deer stayed in the same county as us, I don't understand.  We moved on to another spot and, again, saw more deer.  I kept feeding her candy bars to keep her mouth chewing and not talking, but the sugar might have backfired on me a little.  We were just about ready to pack it up and go home when a few more deer appeared.  I turned the binoculars around and saw that a couple of them were bucks.  Here we go, I thought.  Dylan's hunting gloves are little purple things with a yarn person on each finger.  When I looked at her, ready to plan our hunt, she was was flapping her hands like a hummingbird's wings.  The bucks looks warily on.  And when I tried to sneak over to a rock for a better view, I heard a loud crunching behind me.  Dylan decided to hop along behind me.  For obvious reasons, the bucks changed course and we didn't see them again.

While Dylan is my little hunter, Grady is my little logger.  When I got my chainsaw back from getting repaired, I decided to test it out by knocking down a few dead oaks in our horse pen.  Grady followed along and I was sure the loud saw would scare him.  Nope.  As soon as the first tree crashed down, he raised his arms like I'd scored a touchdown and yelled, "Yeah!"  So I kept on cutting until I fell a tree over the fence and thought I'd better slow down a little bit.  He just needs a little pair of Prison Blues jeans and and a hickory and he'll fit right in.

Next time I cut wood, I'll let Dylan help too.  The kids can be as loud as they want and it won't be their crazy hand gestures or voices that scares anything away.   No one will ask them to wear an oversized shirt and stand in front of a net while all of their friends play on the other side of the field.  Maybe I've finally found the perfect October sport for the whole family.