How does a family deal with these situations, that often occur daily, on White Oak Road?

We’ve come up with the following set of principles and accepted truths to help keep our household happy and productive:

1. Be sweet to Robah… he never done nothin’ to nobody (and when you recite this rule, use Robah voice). All the rest of us have been mean or rude one time or another, but Robah never done nothin’ to nobody. Here’s McLain, mouth full of eggs, proving why this rule is necessary as he comes close to crossing the line.
   

   McLain tests the limits of rule #1

2. At any time, in any place, JAMS will be played on request. For example, let’s say Cokie Roberts’ Monday segment is on NPR when we get in the car to go to Ms. Rose’s house, and Jackie says, “Play some JAMS, Dada.” Then, it’s goodbye Cokie, hello Bear in Heaven, Guided by Voices, J Dilla, etc.
   Note: “Dada” is the keeper of the JAMS, and this is the only situation in which a “please” is not required (see rule #4).
3. Always thank Katie/Mama for dinner; we’ve got it really, really good. On the rare occasion that Dad cooks, try washing it down with your milk.
4. Manners matter; good manners is an easy way to show respect to your co-eaters. Exception: good manners are postponed if McLain is practicing for his future in competitive eating.
   
5. If Baxter brings you something, and you throw it he will fetch it and return it to you. If you continue to throw it for him, the result will eventually be Baxter passing out or maybe even perpetual motion.
6. Every story told to Jackie at bed time must feature at least two of the following characters: a mean witch, a nice witch, a family, mean or nice animals, and girls with pretty dresses (including, but not limited to princesses). The more of these characters you work into the narrative, the more positive her post-story review is likely to be.
7. Try not to show off at the playground, even though Jackie might swing better by herself than an older boy being pushed by his mom.
   
8. Any statement that begins with, “I want…” automatically gets the following response: “Oh, you want something? Okay, well, I want a new custom-built home computer and compatible wireless music system.” Please ask nicely for something that you want, and understand that you might not get it.
9. If McLain takes off his shirt and runs around the house or yard, don’t be alarmed. He has been possessed with his alter ego, Party Boy. In extreme situations, you can change Party Boy back to McLain by putting him in a bubble bath.
   
10. As you go through life, assist other people (the Kendall Marshall rule). When you’re the recipient of an assist, be grateful and give credit to anyone who assists you (the Dean Smith corollary).
    

McLain has earned new nicknames lately: Mayor and Guvna (you know, cockney, as in ‘ello guvna) are a couple of the most-used. He is 16 months old, and he’s now entering the play stage that involves moving figurines in and around human scenarios and structures. For example, loading up the plastic pirate ship one by one, and placing little guys and girls at desks in the Fisher-Price school house.

We simply call this type of play People, as we did when Jackie was in that stage. It’s like McLain is starting to understand the fun in simulating human activities. He also seems capable of focusing his attention; it now takes him about five minutes to make a substantial mess, rather than his minute-and-a-half average a couple of months ago.

I doubt that it’s coincidental that his language has started to flourish recently as he rules over the micro-societies in our house. He attempts, on request, to repeat word cominations like Brussels sprouts and basketball goal, but he probably has a working vocabulary of about 25 words at this point.

Here’s a short video of him dealing with a track obstruction on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe.

Note: Don’t miss the ineffective tap to Robah’s snout at the 0:08 mark.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that for my wife Katie and me, the Kenny & Dolly duet is “our song”. So, before you even skim my list of 2011 music that I deem excellent, I’ve already destroyed any smidge of credibility you might have assumed that I had. You must understand that sometimes lovebirds don’t choose their song; rather, their song chooses them. Such is the anomaly Katie and I shared during our third date. It’s an anomaly that we both now own, and proudly. But, that’s another story for another time.

Don't judge me, not yet at least.

Let me explain why I’m an island in the stream. I’m in the Stream because I no longer consume music from files that I store on a hard drive. Instead of a carefully researched and price-shopped collection of music that I assembled, I depend on the cloud (and Spotify’s label affiliations) to hear anything in their catalog of more than 15 million songs. I can’t imagine returning to music, and life, as it was with an 50 GB iTunes library.

I’m an island because I have few friends using Spotify. I jumped into a premium Spotify subscription in mid-July, soon after they launched service in the U.S., and I haven’t looked back since. If only the 10 or 12 people whose taste in music I really value would do the same, the Spotify experience would be further enhanced. Maybe I’ll ramp up my recruitment efforts in 2012.

Spotify is not without flaws. Most importantly, artists get a miniscule revenues from streamed music. This seems fair for the albums I wouldn’t have purchases outright, and grossly unfair for the albums I would have bought. Katie has reminded me that I don’t make the stuff I like as available as I did with iTunes. That’s because I only sync playlists with my phone, and not with the family mp3 players we use around the house and on the go.

There are some new releases (maybe about 5% in my brief experience) that I can’t find when I look for them. Interestingly, two of my favorite albums from this year (by The Weeknd and A$AP Rocky) were mixtapes available on the web for free download. To hear them in Spotify, I have to import them from a local directory. I also miss all the metadata tied to albums in iTunes (e.g. BPM, year, etc.).

Overall, I love Spotify. It’s cut my annual music budget by more than half, and I have access to almost anything at almost any time. Before this post turns into a full-blown Spotify review (too late?), I’ll get to the point of all this.

Albums

In sharp contrast to the iTunes years, using a subscription service has resulted in listening more to full albums and EPs. When I relied on hard-drive storage for music files, individual mp3s were the basic units in my collection.

I would pick and choose songs and avoid purchasing LPs to save money. Now that I no long have a discrete collection, and unlimited access to (most) albums, I’m back to consuming long-form recordings. And to think, I used to the album as a genre was dead!

Also, I’ll go on record as saying that I think three of the best-received albums of 2011 according to Metacritic’s aggregation are overrated (PJ Harvey, Bon Iver, and The Horrors). My daughter would agree — when I played Bon Iver soon after it came out, Jackie gave me a bored look and pleaded, “let’s play some JAMS Daddy.”

These are my 20 favorites of the past year, classified in four tiers below:

Tier One

Days – Real Estate
House of Balloons* – The Weeknd
SUBTRKT – Sbtrkt
The English Riviera – Metronomy
Black Up – Shabazz Palaces

Tier Two

Lenses Alien – Cymbals Eat Guitars
Electronic Dream – araabMUZIK
Wounded Rhymes – Lykke Li
Sepalcure — Sepalcure
Parallax – Atlas Sound

Tier Three

Looping State of Mind – The Field
Mirror Traffic – Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
A$AP Rocky — LiveLoveA$AP
Tomboy – Panda Bear
No Color – The Dodos

Tier Four

Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes
Hurry Up We’re Dreaming – M83
Smother – Wild Beasts
Carrion Crawler/The Dream – Thee Oh Sees
It’s All True – Junior Boys

Songs

My 60 favorite songs of 2011 are listed below, and here’s the link to the Spotify playlist.

1. It’s Real – Real Estate
2. An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum — Shabazz Palaces
3. The Bay – Metronomy
4. Wildfire (feat. Little Dragon) – Sbtrkt
5. Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name) – Cymbals Eat Guitar
6. I’ll Take Care Of U – Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx
7. The Morning* – The Weeknd
8. Black Night – The Dodos
9. Street Joy – White Denim
10. Video Games – Lana Del Rey
11. Nasty – Nas
12. Gorilla* – Clams Casino
13. Stick Figures In Love – Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
14. Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out – The Antlers
15. Streetz Tonight – araabMUSIK
16. Still Sound – Toro Y Moi
17. Reach A Bit Further – Wild Beasts
18. Love Out Of Lust – Lykke Li
19. Pencil Pimp – Sepalcure
20. Ungirthed* – Purity Ring
21. Is This Power – The Field
22. New Map – M83
23. Come To The City – The War On Drugs
24. Street Halo – Burial
25. Alsatian Darn – Panda Bear
26. Lotus Flower – Radiohead
27. Need You Now – Cut Copy
28. Ritual Union – Little Dragon
29. Top Bunk – Gauntlet Hair
30. Brand New Guy (feat. ScHoolboy Q) (prod. Lyle) – ASAP Rocky
31. Edge of Extremes – Clubfeet
32. Make My – The Roots
33. All The Same – Real Estate
34. What You Need* – The Weeknd
35. Santa Fe – Beirut
36. If I Had A Boat – James Vincent McMorrow
37. Other Side – Family Portrait
38. My Mistakes – Eleanor Friedberger
39. Shut Up, Man (feat. El-P) – Das Racist
40. Songs 4 Women* – Frank Ocean
41. I Follow Rivers – Lykke Li
42. Grown Ocean – Fleet Foxes
43. Woods – The Rosebuds
44. Falls (Violet) – Van Hunt
45. Angel Is Broken – Atlas Sound
46. Every Night – James Pants
47. Don’t Move – Phantogram
48. Under Cover Of Darkness – The Strokes
49. Like Gentle Giants – Corduroi
50. Something Goes Right – Sbtrkt
51. Banana Ripple – Junior Boys
52. Something Came Over Me – WILD FLAG
53. Wait In The Dark – Memory Tapes
54. Get Right – Megafaun
55. Hey Sparrow – Peaking Lights
56. Gangsta – Tune-Yards
57. Weekend – Smith Westerns
58. Get Away – Yuck
59. Make Me Proud – Drake
60. Holocene – Bon Iver

* denotes a track that can’t be found on Spotify, but can easily be found on the web.

They grow up so quickly!

Before I had children, I was tired of hearing this because it seemed so trite. It is trite, but now that I have children, I am tired of hearing the cliché because it’s redundant. My expectation of the things that my children can do is continually exceeded by them actually doing those things (before I expect them).

Some days, it seems that if I stare at my nearly three-year-old daughter, I can see her brain development in-process. The evidence is usually a slightly different action than the day before. For example, I’ll notice that she looks at her breakfast a little more critically than the morning before, or maybe she suddenly wants to know our family plans for the next two days instead of just tomorrow.

Our bi-weekly painting sessions are one of my absolute favorite ways to spend an hour. They also provide many glimpses of Jackie’s development, and early signs of what I like to think are her artistic talents. For one thing, the child has laser focus when she commits to an activity. Instead of scribbling with her brush, she uses long strokes with directional purpose. Jackie also likes to cover the entire surface of the paper that we use. Here are a few of my favorites from our sessions.

I’m really excited that Jackie is learning to paint before she learns to draw. I think sometimes that the transition from drawing to painting is like the transition from a baseball swing to a golf swing. The ingrained practice of drawing (or hitting a baseball) is really hard to suppress when you start painting (or hitting a golf ball) because the learned activity is similar enough to the new activity to contaminate or hinder it.

I don’t force painting on Jackie, and she can quit at any time she wants after we get started. I took Jackie to the Rembrandt in America exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art last weekend. I’ll be the first to admit that the greatest of the Dutch Masters wasn’t the greatest for a toddler, but we still enjoyed ourselves. As we skimmed a Rembrandt book the week before our visit, I explained to Jackie what a portrait was. After 15 minutes walking through the exhibit, Jackie gave me a serious look and said, “Daddy, all of these pictures are portraits.”

Other museum-goers gave us you’re-being-noisy-in-a-library-type looks as we talked loudly about the paintings on the walls, which reminded me why people perceive art exhibits as stuffy (because they are). I even got scolded by a museum proctor when I pointed to Rembrandt’s signature on a painting from his Leiden period and my finger got within a few inches of the canvas. However, the exhibit was fantastic, Jackie was a good sport, and I think she enjoyed it (although not quite as much as she likes the modern area of the permanent collection).

And one day soon, when she or McLain creates something amazing that makes me proud, I’ll probably be surprised. After all, I was ready to cut up an apple for Jackie’s snack this past Monday, and she told me, “you don’t need to cut it Daddy…I’ll hold it and eat it.”

Jackie and I were busy this weekend with a new art project.

Jackie's on the left, mine on the right. I know, I know -- I probably could have picked a scarier paint color than pastel orange.

We made these light-up haunted houses that are pretty darn spooky when you turn them on in the dark.

Darth Vader lives in Jackie's box. When he's renovating the Death Star, he lives in a first-floor room with a large window.

Here are two more pictures from our family trip to the state fair on Friday. Katie took both kids on a tour through Jalopy Junction.

McLain is posing here with a sweet potato that’s close to the same weight as he is, with about the same amount of hair as he has.

KBJ

• Katie has been traveling some lately, and works no less than 55-60 hours every week.
• She continues to be an exceptional mother and wife.
• Despite her demanding work and home life, she completed a full year of breastfeeding with Jackie and 11 months with McLain.
• Her two primary college football teams (Georgia Tech and Clemson) are a combined 12-0, so she’s never a tad grumpy on Saturday evenings.
• Nothing pleases me more than those not-so-rare occassions when Jackie and Katie are talking to each other and each of them reminds me so much of the other one.

JBJ

• Jackie can read every letter in the alphabet, even when presented in random order. And, she’s playing semi-organized soccer.
• She chooses outfits for the day and dresses herself, often at an agonizingly slow pace.
• She’s prone to spontaneous acts of sweetness, on a daily basis.
• She is in a full-blown nurturing stage, although she would much rather look after her two baby dolls than the real 1-year-old who truly needs constant supervision.
• She’s learned to appreciate “sad songs” at the age of two, but she’s not afraid to request “jams” if the music gets too down-tempo.

MMJ

• McLain can throw just about anything that fits his tiny grip 10 feet or more, with either arm.
• He now stuffs food into his mouth as if he’s the underdog in a competitive eating event.
• If you ask him what sound a <insert any animal here> makes, he always replies promptly with, “Pthffffttt”.
• He’s goofy in the coolest way, and remains the smilingest kid I’ve seen. He’s serious with his drumming though.
• All that smiling reveals a lot of gums and only three teeth.

APJ

• When I stand from the sitting position, my right knee makes a noise that sounds like the action of a short zipper. It doesn’t hurt though.
• I used to think I knew what it was like to be “busy”. I didn’t, but I hope that now I do.
• Some of the things keeping me busy now will be either postponed or outright canceled during the Tar Heels five-month quest for 2011-12 basketball glory.
• I’ll remember this past summer as a time when I thought a lot about two important people who died at the end of May.
• Paradigm shift in our family’s music procurement and selection operation; iTunes and Amazon Cloud have been replaced with all Spotify all the time.

BBJ

• Baxter is still crazy after all these years.
• The earthquake this summer scared him more than thunderstorms do, but not as much as lawn mowers.
• When the high temperature started dipping below 80 degrees over the past month and a half, he started begging to be covered with a blanket.
• He’s still the best jogging partner I’ve ever known.
• I see some early signs of arthritis, but it’s no match for his high tolerance for pain. He was born to run.

RBJ

• Robah hangs in my home office when I’m there, and if he has indigestion he makes a “Ruhhh” sound that sounds just like Rick Ross.
• He seems to be eating less, but hasn’t lost much weight. Not that he’s fat — just a little big-boned.
• He now enjoys fetching about 75% as much as Bax, which is a whole lot.
• He’s like my shadow when I’m home, and I love him for it.
• McLain treats him like a bouncy castle. Robah tolerates it, and I love him for that too.

Also, one day last week, I was playing Purity Ring’s “Ungirthed“. On a whim, I switched to a Wes Montgomery song. Jackie heard the smooth jazz guitar and asked me, “What happened to the jams?” Talk about your priceless parental moments — it was my daughter’s first critical + music-related comment. I was proud, and I honored her request.

This post is not a lame attempt to describe the best of the first half of the year. If that kind of thing strikes your fancy, you can find it at NPR Music or Paste or somewhere.

Here are the albums we’ve, or I’ve, been listening to this year, even though the last three in the list were released in 2010. Even though there seems to be an ever-increasing number of exceptional (and free) mixtapes, I didn’t include those in the list.

Note: My favorites (so far) are denoted with an asterisk, and albums are listed in order of acquisition, most recent first.

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Shabazz Palaces – Black Up*

Random Axe – Random Axe

Junior Boys – It’s All True*

Burial – Street Halo (EP)

My Morning Jacket – Circuital

Wild Beasts – Smother*

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Drive-By Truckers – Go-Go Boots

Curren$y x The Alchemist – Cover Coup

Panda Bear – Tomboy*

The Dodos – No Color*

Frank Ocean– Nostalgia/Ultra

Austra – Feel It Break

The Weeknd – House of Balloons*

Radiohead – King of Limbs

Cut Copy – Zonoscope

Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde

jj – Kills Mixtape

Lower Dens – Twin-Hand Movement

The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt*

Other music notes:

• I’ve been using Amazon Cloud Player quite a bit.
• I’ve been experimenting with Google Music, even though it’s another online locker for music like Amazon Cloud.
• Ultimately, I’m waiting for Spotify to come to the U.S.so I can jump head-first into a subscription service.

Before I get to the visuals, the past month brought us two major developments:

My grandmother died at age 97, early on Saturday, May 29. Her funeral was Wednesday. I want to write about that in a different post.

Holly and Scott Freeling gave birth to Robert Joseph Freeling (R.J. for short) about a month ago. They will be excellent parents, and I can’t wait to meet R.J.

Now, about this post. I was flipping through the photos I’ve taken with my phone over the past six months, and a few weird ones jumped out at me. I’ve also included some not-so-weird images, just so you don’t start worrying about me unnecessarily.

Katie got an interesting awesome Mother’s Day present, and Jackie and I have since been hunting down winged intruders in our house. Our hunting is done humanely — we’re all about catch and release around here. Here’s a picture of a fly, post-catch and pre-release.

Photo of a trapped fly, taken from the mouth of a discharged Fly-Goodbye vacuum canister.

Here are a couple choice images from our 20 minutes inside the Amococo exhibit at Artsplosure a few weeks ago.

Katie and Jackie breaking on through to the other side.

Jackie taking a break from all the psychedelia.

This is one of many ways Jackie likes to help out with McLain.

Jackie strolling McLain, somewhere downtown.

Jackie and I met and chatted with a real falconer for awhile.

Here’s an unintentionally spooky picture of Baxter quivering with fear in the bath tub. Let me explain. We had some heavy weather in Raleigh this past spring. As in other parts of the country, a lot of people in Raleigh and the rest of NC were victims of tornadoes. You would think by looking at him that he’s waiting out a storm. He’s not. Whenever Baxter hears a lawnmower outside, he gets completely terrified and goes to his safe place.

Here’s McLain and me. If you haven’t met him, trust me when I say he’s extremely cool.

I took this one right after Christmas. It’s the kind of picture you could hand to students in a creative writing class and say, “Write the short story. You have one hour to complete this final exam.” My father and I were attempting to show Jackie a real (and dead but frozen) bird up close. She wasn’t sure what to make of the brief experience. I love the picture though. Note the portrait of Rich, Maggie, and me hanging on the wall. Also note the small rubber chicken under Jackie’s hand.

Learning about birds

Katie entertains us before lunch at Busy Bee Cafe.

Prosthetic Play Doh nose

Here’s a pic of the two drooliest and downright sweetest members of the Jones family.

Slobber buddies

Jackie is not just the source of intermittent treats dropped on the floor; she also provides their real food. Twice a day, after breakfast and dinner, she is eager to complete her first real chore of filling the dogs’ bowls. I look forward to the day when she teaches McLain how to feed the dogs and is promoted to the bigger task of back yard waste management. I’m ready to pass the torch, as well as the official title of Head Pooper-Scooper.

McLain just started eating food other than breast milk last week, and there’s no better place to start than with what I believe to be the perfect food: the North Carolina sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas). He’s since tried banana and avocado, but if he shares his sister’s tastes, a large part of his diet during the next year will consist of sweet potato.

Oh, and it’s March 8, 2011, which marks the sixth birthday of Baxter Burns Jones. Goodness knows we thought our reckless and crazy dog might kill himself long before now, so we have much to celebrate. Baxter is the eldest (and certainly weirdest) of our four dependents. He’s been with us during some drastic changes to our family unit. He usually listens better to the voices in his head than he does Katie and me, but we love him.

Textbook pointing form -- probably hunting a tennis ball