Jumpers

In my last post, I put up a bunch of pictures of the kids we took when we went down to NJ. It was a great time and I was so happy to see all the kids, littlest to biggest playing together and having a great time. When we were at the beach I told Ryan I wanted to get a picture of him jumping... and that turned into getting pictures of everyone jumping. :) Seeing I had a camera with my yesterday when we went to our local playscape, Ryan insisted in continuing the trend in stop action jump pictures. Without my trusty SLR, it's difficult to get good focus on these... but it was fun to do and Ryan loved the pictures. Another boy met up with Ryan and they had a good time terrorizing the other kids on the playground together.

I remember when Ryan was little, taking him to the local playground and watching the older boys running around and how much Ryan wanted to be like them. Now he is bigger and focused on still bigger kids and being like them. When your almost 5 and the size of a second grader, this can cause problems. I know I'll be pulling him out of difficult situations because of his height in the future, but until then.... we jump.

Connor was very interested in what the kids were doing as well. He went on the slide a dozen times watching Ryan's every move and every trick. Ryan moved on to another part of the playground, and I followed for a bit to make sure he was going to be OK.... when I turned around... there was Connor... mid-air.

Sick Monkey

It is never easy being sick. You feel like you're missing out on things and that you are an albatross around every one's neck. I know I have felt this way about being sick this week, and to see Connor feeling this way today I have more empathy then usual. Connor doesn't complain about being sick, he just stops like a toy whose spring has unwound.

This evening we were invited to a friend house for some pizza and socializing with the locals. Lise and I saw Connor was a little beat, so we thought he'd give it a college try. He rallied for a bit and then wanted Mama to pick him up... then his heater went on and he was a wet noodle for about 15 minutes. He went as far as sitting on the couch, staring at the TV which was off. I picked him up and took him home... 1 short book and he was just about in a coma... this may be a long weekend, we shall see. I have friends visiting us and I hope we are going to give them something to take home. :(
Ryan on the other hand, couldn't be happier. He is entrenched in a group of teenage boys that tolerate little guys and they are having lots of fun playing games and being boys. Ryan would have probably liked having a big brother, one that doted on him, not the kind that hides your socks or drops mud in your hair before dinner. :) Anyway, he's having the time of his life and Lise is visiting her friend, and I got to blog... What did I say the other day about counting your blessings?

Snakes, Grapes and the Super Models

Working from home has certain advantages, a moment of privacy is very much welcome in the environment that I come into on a daily basis. As I have posted before I share my office with 3 other full time residence, and 3 or 4 other folks who float through. It's a great place but you do miss a quiet moment to think, and the room has been deemed "an ADD sensory overload cell" by some folks.

Today, besides my work, I found out he following things. First off, one of my workmates asked me if I was drinking cranberry juice. I said yes, and then asked if I was drinking real cranberry or the "ocean spray stuff" and I just assumed... it said "100% Juice - Cranberry". On the back it said "a cranberry cocktail with grape juice". Just what the doctor specifically DIDNT order. I was told low to no sugar... I checked: 31Grams for every 8 oz... *gads... it may be natural sugar, but it's as bad as a Coke!! My poor kidney. So I added real cranberry juice to my shopping list. (Thanks Susan)

Lise and Ryan came home from dropping Connor off at school, and since Ryan's had Connor needs it, as he is coming down with Ryan's cough. Ryan needs it because he has been evil and the devil fears rested children. :) After good naps, Connor painted some eggs Lise had for Easter-like emergencies and Ryan his helicopter and a truck he had made earlier. I must say... still very proud of his creation. It's good to see my old boy back and having some fun. There are some glimmers of his old self mixed with flashes of his rotten self, but good is winning over evil, so we count our blessings.

At the end of a good day, I needed to go pick up my cranberry juice and some other things, so I left after putting Connor to bed. Lise called me at the store, and asked me to come back asap because Ryan wouldn't let her leave his sight. He has been telling me there is a snake in his room, and so tonight it took me from 7:45-9PM to get him to feel confident enough to go to sleep. I know it has something to do with his mental development,as well as age and his recent behavior. I know that this will pass and something will fill the void, but I hope it passes quickly. Lise and I will be doing some fun activities in his room during the day to help him get past it, and I hope tonight I gave him some skills to handle being frightened in bed.

Yuck 3.0

Yuck 3.0 is different than Yuck 2.0. First and foremost, it attacks girls. That's something new in our house... Yuck has been very attached to boys, and being attached to the only girl in the house is particularly bad, when that girl is your wife, and she cant go into the bathroom when you're trying to take the toilet out, due to the septic smell. The other thing about Yuck 3.0, is that it's not the pukes, just the constant threat of treating your neighbor to a roman shower. Nevertheless it was Yuck 2.0 that made it's presence most felt when Ryan decided that he wanted to revisit his lunch this afternoon. All this while I was pulling out the last of the demolition debris and getting ready to tile.

The morning had started out rough for Ryan. First thing this morning, he decided that he was feeling good enough to test Dad. He was outside of Connor's room at 6am being very loud. I told him to be quiet and not wake his brother. The then told me "I'll wake him up if I like and I'm going to wake up Mommy too." This he says naked from the waist down, to a man that's been up since 4am with Connor. (SMACK) One red hiney... way to start the day right... with a shiny butt. I know you might have strong feeling about this, but today makes exactly one time that I have hit him. He was stunned, and didn't even cry for at least 2 minutes. I don't like doing this, but he's trying to figure out who runs things around here for a few weeks now and conversation and long talks aren't sinking in. I know that this kind of thing has limited effect, and I hope it's the last time I have to flex any muscle with him, that doesn't involving lots of tickling. To get over the trauma, we went to the Flamingo place for breakfast. He had a muffin, and was telling me that the had "pooped out the monster in (his) belly". I told him, that that was great, but not the best conversation for the table, let alone a restaurant. He told me he felt great and was happy as a clam when the clocks in the restaurant all tolled 8am and the Coo Coo clock's resident popped in over Connor's head.

Getting back to the power room. For a project that had so many things competing with it's priority, we got alot done. It was completely demo'd by noon, and we had finished tiling by 7. It took us some extra time to get into the swing of things, measure 1/2 the thinset we needed, hold pales for puking kids and have me return a drum sander that I shouldn't have rented. All in all, it is starting to look like a powder room again, and it will have grout going in tomorrow at noon, and the next day, we'll have a toilet again... depending on how long the grout sealer takes to dry. Worst case, by mid-week, we'll have our bathroom back and water will once again be spilled all over it from kids washing their hands like squeegee men in NY, wringing their hands and shaking filth on the walls and vanity. Why am I doing this again?

(Pause)

Ok, so the puking kinda stopped. Connor is feeling fine, but joined Ryan on the couch tonight. Ryan had bland food all day and is feeling better. We had one "dry heave" episode and now is feeling better and laying in bed. I hope we all get some good sleep tomorrow and banish this stomach bug for good.

It's not a late night for us tonight, but I plan to prep for the impending bathroom overhaul. I have to do my materials list and take care of a bunch of last minute details... Until then, wish me luck.

Easter

I cant describe the whole day.. it was fun and it started with a little confusion. It seems that when we came down stairs, there was string everywhere. It took us all a few minutes to figure out what it was the Easter bunny wanted us to do. You can click here on this video to see what happened next!


After finding Power Ranger Gold, Mom got the cooking going while Dad foraged at the local store for some eggs and we prepped the house for Gigi, Nee nee and Louise and Bob. The boys were thrilled to see them and let them know all about the Easter bunny's arrival. After some amazing food, we ran off the extra pounds by kite flying.

I have to say, Louise and Denise started things off, and the boys followed her lead. Soon the both of them were flying their own kites, without assistance from any adults. It was a treat to watch them have so much fun while burning out on the front lawn. Both of them so exhausted, that first Connor and then Ryan asked to come back inside to rest. I think it was the best idea for the adults too. :)

We all had a great day together, and enjoyed the time thoroughly. Even though Marie was a little checked out, she told me that she needs these kinds of days to "stay young". I couldn't agree more.

Brenda's Birthday

Today was our friend Brenda's birthday. Brenda is only 3 months older than me, but she thinks she looks 10 years younger and is 10 years smarter... and then again, who am I to dispute her. :) Ryan and Conner helped mommy make her cake this afternoon, and besides beginning at the end of her rope, with kids that wont take naps without assistance, who have been sick and puking, and a long list of other Mom-like stresses, the cake came out wonderful. I even had a bite. Ryan and Connor had theirs before me, but when you help, you get the spoils. :)

After a yummy plate of ribs and a pile of cake in the kids, I revved them up and told Ryan and Ally, that it was acceptable to tickle Brenda today, because it was a birthday tradition. Connor and Sean got into the act and totally chased her down the hall and around the room. :)







It's been a fun but stressful day and I think the weekend might be the same, I'm going to see how much sleep I can get tonight, with the kids going to bed late, it should be a late morning. I have a haircut tomorrow and then a party in the evening. (Late st. pats), so if I don't blog early, it will have to be on Sunday.

I promise I'll take my picture.

Tonight I took a horrible picture with my new camera of the moon, After I played with it a while, I got it looking kinda spooky-blown-up-filmy-blotchy. It's got a sixties rock poster appeal. :)

The Yuck Stopped

I took this picture this morning and over saturated it a bit... I still love it. One morning I'll get down to the beach at sunrise... yeah, right.

A new day and the baby has stopped his puke-fest. Connor started the day asking for a bagel and kept it down. He spent the rest of the day tailing Mommy and going to the Dr for a quick checkup. He seemed otherwise fine, so we thought we should check to make sure this is a virus, and not something crazy. He's been sick pretty much since he started preschool, and the doctor tells us, he has maintained his streak with a fine rotavirus. I remember this same sick for months bit with Ryan. Lise and I were praying for summer recuperation time. It hasn't been so bad with the boys YET. I'll bide my time till the warm summer sun scares away these mutant preschool strains of stomach and nasal infestations. Until then, I was thinking about a bubble outfit for Connor. When I tucked him in to bed tonight he said "Ouchy Belly bye bye.... Ooooh yucky... Connor tooted". That kid is definitely broken on the inside. phew.

Side note... I found this site very funny. It's worth a review.

Yuck

OK...so I posted at 6:00... by 7:00 Connor puked... for the second time today. If you recall on Sunday, we had a similar reaction... I have been under the weather, and thought he may be coughing so hard he puked yesterday... Guess I was wrong. I wont send pictures of this one. Unless he makes a habit of it. :) Dr's visit tomorrow... if you're having trouble loosing weight, now would be the best time to visit us.

-M

Listening in.

I felt under the weather today so I worked from home. I wasn't crazy sick, but I felt like it could go bad on me. I like working from my home office. It has some distinct advantages. I am still in my seat and it's just about 6PM, and I got alot done today. The office is sometimes the worst place for me. Anyways, where else could I be and hear screaming of children, and the occasional conversation that goes something like this:

Ryan: "Shh Connor, I don't want Dad to hear us"

(giggling)

(shrieking)

(giggling)

Ryan: "CON-NOR"

Connor: "Shh, Daddy"

Ryan "Help, I climbed the stairs my self and I cant get down. I need a power ranger to save me!!!"

(Prolonged Silence)

Ryan: "Coooonnnnn-noooorrr.... Come and save me..."

(inaudible)

Ryan: "I'm not being loud."

(inaudible)

Ryan: "I'M NOT BEING LOUD!!!!"

:)

On a side note, where I sit at work is right by a helicopter pad, and I see one about 4 times a week. This is pretty neat, but I noted while sitting at my desk today that in the neighborhood of 5 or six flew over my house today and they create an awful racket. The scourge of the suburbs.

Sappy Sunday

Being a Sunday and all, I decided to make pancakes from scratch for the family. I keep making them from recipes online, and today I decided I had gotten the hint and me and my helpers got to business mixing the ingredients. Essentially, I add mix and hand off to Ryan and then Connor. They love the mixing and concocting of breakfast, no matter what the ingredients, no matter what I make. After a pretty good job and some very cake-like pancakes, we sat down to eat. Connor decided to throw a wrench in the works when his unproductive couch became very productive, and he puked up breakfast. At least I had eaten something by then and didn't feel the urge to over stuff myself with breakfast. Thank god for small favors. He seemed OK after a glass of OJ, and then we had to make him something else, well, because neither Lise nor I could see making him eat more pancakes after his eruption.After checking to see if he was sick or just had a cough get the best of him, we all went outside as a family and killed trees. Mom with her clippers and me with my chainsaw, trapped and killed another score of budding saplings (most of which were 8-10 feet tall). I never did take down the big tree I wanted to get, but it's pretty huge, and will be a few hours to dispatch. Meanwhile my chainsaw has become pretty dull and I pretty much found I was burning down trees, instead of cutting them down by the end of this session. We think it will take one more weekend to finish this saga of tree murder. In the interim the carcasses of discarded tree soldiers will line the street as a warning to other passing spring seedlings of their fate, should they try to plant in out newly exposed front yard. :) Being that we know the trees have their own protectors we showered after getting inside. I have yet to find a tick on the kids, but we don't dive in the leaves and stuff like that, yet. Then the kids passed out for some good naps. When the kids woke up, we decided to give up on work and go to enjoy their first movie with them. The movie was "Horton hears a Who", which was tolerable as kids movies go. If I suspend my preference for the original, then it was really good, and The boys loved every minute of it. Ryan kept standing up and talking to the screen, while Connor was singing and asked "Who's that? Whats that? Who's that?" Lise and I enjoyed it very much and when we got home, we called Grandma to tell her about it. Ryan was very impressed and told us "That's the biggest TV I ever saw!"

Cut em down to size

The Great tree destroyer visited Clinton today. Lise had her eye on cutting back some of the overgrown front yard for almost 2 years now, and she's ready for action. Today the carnage started after our weekly visit to the flamingo place. After the customary breakfast, we sped back home and gunned up the chainsaw. Like at our house in Amston, Lise decided to clear the font yard with clippers first and made a good run at it. I took down the trees and we have about 40% of the yard cleared. The big trees will stay along with some of the larger saplings. We are taking one tree down that is sick, but the others will stay... I'll probably take the big one tomorrow... It's not the cutting that's so bad, it's the hauling.

After a good morning of hard work, we showered and took naps. At three we woke up the crew and went on an Easter egg hunt. Our neighbor up the street has an annual event, when they hide (in plain sight) over 300 Easter eggs with candy and get the neighbors to stop by and hunt for them.
The kids loved it and played until close to 5pm, where we decided to go to dinner. This time at the parrot place. I figure that tomorrow I will be working all day on the trees (weather permitting), so what the heck.




Connor has had a great day and can't get himself to quiet down. Ryan is still awake, but being quiet... I guess all said and done, it's been a great day, and I look forward to a great weekend.

Wake Up

Every morning at 6:30 or so, Ryan or Connor wake up. If one of them isn't up early, then we're supposed to be headed out for something early. :) The first thing that must happen every day is the boys need to mess up my bed. This requirement come from some place deep within, and they feel it a necessity to make the day right. This morning was no exception, except they slept in till 7:00am...and so DID I!! After I ran nonstop and out the door, Lise had to get them off to school and the lateness rippled into the day.

Connor is fighting a cold and but remains in good spirits. He has been enjoying preschool, and I think things are finally calming down for him. The transition to school has been hard in the sleeping department. so it's good to see him going down a bit easier. I hope he's back to his old self. The moon was out tonight and it wanted it's picture taken. I know it's getting boring, but I like how the light plays with the trees. One of these nights, I'll get it right.

Eats-ter

So Easter is coming and therefore the Easter bunny is on his way. Ryan has been reading a story about the Easter "ribbit", about a frog who helps the Easter bunny out. In the book the Easter bunny puts out a flyer for other bunnies to help, and misspells the word rabbit as ribbit and the frogs (who always wanted to be Easter bunnies) help out. The Mama rabbit puts makes Easter baskets and the Easter Ribbit delivers them. After giving Easter baskets to our cousins we in NJ this weekend, we ended up with two empty baskets back here and Ryan asked if they were for the mama rabbit to fill in. Lise wasn't sure if Easter was blown, but avoided the subject a bit and when she told me I kinda put the two together.
It's cute to see the excitement in his eyes... he knows something fun is going to happen and can't wait for the event to reveal itself. This year, he remembers Easter being fun, but hasn't a clue what will occur. It's been an interesting time. I remember being his age and know he will remember these days as special, so Lise and I have invested some time into the whole experience. This morning we talked about a little surprise for Easter morning. If we do it, I'll have pictures, so you'll have to wait to hear it. Let's just say, its great to be 4 going on 5.

My friend Carla mentioned to me today that it's about time for another superhero comic like the last one she did. I am hoping to dig up a few different pictures of the boys wresting and some being friends in this next episode. :) Sort of a resolution to the first set of slides. Although, I'll need to get one of Connor in that Spiderman mask he had on last time. Maybe the Easter Bunny will show his face in light of the upcoming season who knows?

RUN RUN RUN

It's been 2 days since I blogged, but I took a picture each day, so I'm happy. On Thursday, the Boys built a monument in the living room while Lise and I met with Ryan's preschool teacher. Ryan is enjoying school and it shows in his work and the teacher's attitude toward him. It was a wonderful walking in to the school and listening to someone read my child's presence. When we got home, Lise and I set up a babysitter for the next week, and planned to meet my Sister and my Brother-In-Law. On Friday after work, we headed out to New Jersey to see Grandma and Grandpa. Since Friday was my Mom's birthday, we decided to go down that night instead of Saturday. It was nice to be there at my Mom's house on her actual birthday and it turned out to a blessing. My sister was sick and couldn't stop by, and Lise had made my Mom a spice cake (her favorite), so we were able to celebrate the day with her alone. The kids loved every minute of being with Grandma and Grandpa. Aside from the cake, I think the kids loved spending the time with their grandparents, and we unwound over cake and a cup of tea. It was nice to get a little break before a big weekend

Macho Man vs. Jake the Snake

Lise's Mom and Dad used to watch professional wrestling all the time. While this was before my time, it is a hoot listening to Marie talk about the same wrestling heroes of my youth as if they were still on TV. Lise told me that after her father's heart attack, her mother would make him sit in the other room and narrate what was going on in the ring so he could enjoy it, but not suffer another heart attack. So it's very understandable that Ryan and Connor dress up and wrestle in the living room just about every night.

It reminds me of puppies gnawing on each other and then running back to Mama, only one of them is almost always dressed like a superhero of some sort. Last night, somewhere in the middle of watching Milo and Otis, the ruckus began. I knew I was in for trouble, when Connor showed up and asked me to dress him like "Spidamhan". The first blow was a sudden attack from below when Spiderman spied one of his arch enemies and decided on a preemptive strike. Very quickly, his enemy was dispatched and Spiderman and his villain brother went to bed.

Kindergarten

Tonight was Kindergarten orientation night at the school. Ryan matriculates into full day kindergarten in the fall and they went over the first orientation in an hour and it was good. Our town has 160 kids starting in the fall and Ryan is one of them. It was somewhat interesting to see that not much has changed since I started 31 years ago.
The boys enjoyed being with their favorite babysitter tonight and went right to sleep. Connor had a long day that didn't include a nap and he was just about melting at the dinner table. The poor monkey went right to sleep after we left. I just hope he sleep through the night. From the sound of it right now, I'd say no.