Month: November 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you enjoy the only holiday centered entirely on gluttony. Halloween might be close, but you have the whole costume thing, and then Halloween isn’t followed up by Black Friday (which could probably make a case for being more a more gluttonous holiday than Thanksgiving).

This year, I’m thankful for the following things:

  1. My job. It’s not that I’m in danger of losing my job or anything, but the many examples right now of how hard the economy is serve as a contrast between being able to go to Paris with my family. Even simple things, like buying organic, would be difficult with a lesser paying job, to say nothing of no job whatsoever. So I am thankful that Sara and I can provide, and provide well, for our family.
  2. My wife. Parenting is as difficult of a job as I can ever imagine. It’s one I wouldn’t want to tackle without a partner. Sara continues to challenge me (and certainly there are times I find her challenging, har har) to be a better, healthier, more complete person. Whether it is eating more naturally, consuming less sodium, getting more exercise, flossing my teeth, or impacting the environment less, she keeps my natural laziness and apathy from preventing me from being a good person.
  3. My happiness. Even though parenting two children can be quite un-happy at times (especially at about 4:30 a.m. and again at about 6:30 a.m., plus any time of the day that Evie chooses to make difficult), it has a way of evening things out. All of the rough parts can be wiped out pretty quick by getting a phone call from Evie or a big smile or a laugh from Oliver. Nobody can welcome you home like your kids, and nothing beats opening the door to “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy’s home!” being screamed as loud as possible. Add in too many hobbies to keep track of (micro-managing my blog, playing guitar, fantasy football, my stack of magazines I can’t keep up with, etc.) and I really don’t have enough time in the day for all the good things.
  4. My country. This one is a little ironic, because most of the time recently I’ve been hating my country. But then I realized that was politicians I hated, and politics in general. The things I’m thankful for include the freedom to do what I want and the highest standard of living money can buy. Everything I like in the world is underpinned by having opportunities made possible by living in this country. Freedom, access to technology, knowing my kids are going to be (more or less) alright. There are a lot of things I don’t have to worry about, like war or famine, and that opens up time for me to do other things. Like watch football. The fact that we can even debate things like healthcare are a pretty good sign that our lives are going alright. We probably take this for granted too often.
  5. My safety. Another year with no zombie apocalypse folks. That’s one more year to prepare for the inevitable onslaught…

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Well, the big news is, Oliver is now crawling!

He started last Thursday or Friday. It was slow and difficult at first, but he’s been improving every day. He already could roll and pivot to get pretty much everything he wanted, so only the straight ahead part is new. It’s surprising how much more trouble he can get into, even though he’s hardly crawling at this point. However, I think the cause and effect relationship is reversed: I think he finally started crawling *because* he wanted to get into so much more mischief! It gave him the required motivation.

He’s doing pretty well eating solids. He certainly has his likes and dislikes. His likes are baby cereal, pumpkin, and anything he can hold in his hand. He really likes apple slices, cucumber slices, green beans, potato wedges, etc. I don’t know if he likes things like that so much more than Evie, or if we just never figured out that it was so much easier to occupy her with something like that. Certainly food seems to be going better with him than with her, although we have a much smaller sample size.

This has changed his…bathroom habits quite a bit. He goes a lot longer in between poopy diapers, but when he goes, watch out! (You can ask Sara and the bathroom wall about this one)(and the floor, and the bath mat…)

Also similar to Evie, he’s not keen on sleeping through the night. A couple of times a week he wakes up at 4:30 or so and just stays up for an hour, usually crying. He’s crying because we’re trying to put him back to sleep and he doesn’t want to go; I’m sure he would be perfectly happy if we just let him get up. However, this never seems like a good idea at the time, so I usually just end up tired and irritable. Sara has to remind me that we went through all of this with Evie and it didn’t last that long and we all survived.

Oliver is as rashy as ever, with no end in site. Some days are better and you think something you’ve done is working. Then the next day he will be as bad as he’s ever been. We’ve sort of gotten used to that at this point, and gotten a routine down. But I still feel really bad for him, because he still seems pretty itchy.

Evie and Oliver’s relationship continues to be a little strained. They are now getting into that area where Oliver wants to “share” her toys (read “eat” her toys). Naturally, Evie doesn’t like that too much. She is constantly yanking things out of his hands and telling him he can’t touch anything. However, I think she is starting to crack. Lately she has been designating things that he is allowed to touch, or giving him one thing so he doesn’t take something else. Also, she will occasionally “play” with him by building towers for him to knock over (which he finds *hilarious*). However, this usually ends in her deciding she would have even MORE fun if he wasn’t involved, and cutting him out of the action.

She still doesn’t quite get that she can’t force him to do whatever she wants him to. Something tells me he might be stuck with that for life.

Book-a-Mania

/ Shane / 1 Comment

This weekend we attended Book-a-Mania at the downtown library. (See library? We still love you! We’re trying hard on our side, but a relationship is a two-way street you know.)

It was really a staggering program. There were so many activities, that we didn’t even scratch the surface. And every one of them was booked (get it?) to the gills with kids. Every activity was about a specific book, like a fancy crown for Fancy Nancy, a shark hat for Shark vs. Train, or cutting out snowflakes for The Snowy Day. There were costumed characters galore, and they weren’t the obvious ones either: Pippi Longstocking, Pat the Bunny, and Amelia Bedelia (among many others).

In fact, it was so big and so popular, that it was pretty hard to navigate! Things were all over in the library on many different floors. A lot of it was on the 9th floor, with only a couple of elevators to shuttle the thronging masses back and forth. It was so crowded that Evie had to push her way forward to get to the tables. (Parents, seriously? You needed a plastic, junky, pretend fish tank thing?)

You needed 7 stamps at events to get a free book. Evie would have enjoyed all the events, however, it was so difficult navigating around and so crowded, we were happy to get our stamps and run.

For me, the best part was the play. They did the story lines of a bunch of kids books, most of which we had read before. Evie really got a kick out of it (which was by no way certain, since she has freaked out the last few times we saw plays). When they did Duck for President she said, “Talking animals? Who’s ever heard of such a thing?” When they did Fancy Nancy, she said reverantly, “She’s beauuuuutiful!”

Overall it was really cool, but so crowded, it was not really worth the effort (especially when Evie starts to have a meltdown). I think it could have been much better organized. First off, 11 – 3 for an event featuring kids? This is about the worst possible time. You obliterate lunch time AND nap time. Bad move. Second off, it should have been easier to get around to the things. I don’t know how they could have managed that, but it was pretty tough.

And for the record? The downtown library has internal book drops. I’m just saying.

Quote Monday Insults Aunt Rachael

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie, riding on my back like I’m a horse and giggling her head off: “I’m liking this so much I almost went pee pee!” – Side note, this is a good way to get thrown from your horse.

Evie, drawing: “Guess what this is?”
Me: “Uh…the sun?”
Evie: “Nope, its a picture.”

Evie was eating some Halloween candy and I really wished I had a tape recorder. She was all like, “Where are you going, nerd? Why are you running away, nerd?” (eating Nerds obviously) with such a sneer in her voice. She has no idea that the word “nerd” refers to anything besides the candy, so she didn’t mean it the way that it sounded, but lets just say I had some childhood flashbacks. It was hilarious.

Evie: “Who is my Aunt Rachael going to be with at Christmas time?” – Ooooh snap!

Knock Knock

/ Shane / 1 Comment

 

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