Set Them Free!

I know this post is probably just preaching to the choir but I just had to get it out there.  What is the deal with the packaging and security measures toy companies take to keep those toys in the packages.  Are the toys actually meant to be taken out and played with or what?  For the most part these toys are in heavy duty cardboard boxes, do they also need to be cordoned off with super strength high tension wire,  secured with NASA grade clear tape and hard plastic shells.  My one year old got this little Mega Blocks pirate ship which literally took me twenty minutes to set free from it's stronghold.  And I didn't even make it out unscathed, just a little nick on my finger but it bled for an hour and still hurts today.  I really don't understand the philosophy behind it, any kid should be able to see his or her toy in the box, hand it over to Daddy and be playing with it within five seconds, not an hour later and after learning ten new curse words screamed from Daddy's mouth while he struggled to open it!  Just set them free!!

Milestones

So my little girl started school last week, yes it is just preschool but it is a huge milestone nonetheless.  I'm getting a little weepy again just writing about it.  I tried to act tough when my wife and I dropped her off that first day but on the inside I was crying like I was the little schoolgirl.  I couldn't just start balling or all the other Moms and Dads would of thought I was some kind of sissy...but I bet some of them were crying on the inside too!  It just really felt like that first tiny step towards my baby girl not needing her Daddy anymore...which may sound sappy and all but it really crossed my mind.   Of course my little lady barely even looked back to say goodbye when we dropped her off that first day, and by the time I picked her up that afternoon she already had a new little best friend.  Not exactly a shy one my little angel, which I absolutely adore about her.
But it is crazy how fast time just seems to be reeling by.  I feel like she was the one just learning how to crawl and pull her self up, but now it's her baby brother hurtling through all those milestones.  He just started crawling a couple of months ago and now it seems he'll be running around before we know it.  He still favors the soldier crawl where he just kind of slides around on his belly, but he is super quick.  I really can't turn my back on him for a second anymore, which honestly has made my life a lot more difficult.  And it really doesn't help that we recently put our condo on the market so I completely debabyproofed the entire place, except for the little electric socket covers.  Which is the one thing I really don't need or care about right now as Captain Quick is sliding his way right toward the non baby gate protected stairs!

The Claw

So the little sausage man has now attained a new nickname, the claw.  Baby boy is still wonderfully plump and all that but he has now started to grab anything and everything that crosses his path, hence the claw.  And he is not exactly gentle, just the other morning I really thought he had pulled one of my nostrils clean off my face, I actually had to run to the bathroom mirror to check if it was still attached to my nose.  It definitely doesn't help that his little fingernails would give Freddy Kruger's razors a run for their money.  I really can't even keep them trimmed, they grow so quickly, I feel like by the time I finish clipping his second hand the first reaches out and rips my lip off with its razor sharpness.  And it's not just me who feels the wrath of the claw, big sister is definitely one of his favorite targets, or at least her long beautiful hair is.  Somehow with his new ability to claw and yank everything in his path he has also developed a Shaq like reach.  Sister can be walking by the other side of the room from him and somehow suddenly she is yanked back by her hair, the claw has it in his grasp.  And then to try and get him to release the claw is similar to trying to release the jaws of a pit bull, sometimes I need to grab the nearest maraca or toy drumstick and shove it into the claw in order to pry it off.  The claw isn't the only weapon in baby boy's arsenal either, he has also developed a nasty little bite with those four tiny teeth he recently acquired.  And the biting usually occurs right after I wrench my ear out of the claw's grasp, he'll look at me and smile and then chomp down on my shoulder.  My wife and I both have suffered a couple of tiny toothy bruises in the same shoulder area.  He also recently started crawling, so I had put him down for a minute in the living room and was sitting working on the computer and he crawled up and bit me on the ankle.  Would it be terrible parenting if I went out and bought one of those octagonal playpen/cages and just plopped him in there for a while until the biting and clawing subside?  I guess I wouldn't have the heart to do that, and I'm probably not helping anything by cracking up whenever he bites or claws mommy, me or sister.  I suppose it's time to get serious...Let the time outs begin!!

Just one of those days!

Today started off like any other...baby boy up at the crack of dawn, big sister not too far behind.  Tried moving to the couch to get a little extra sleep after baby boy got his bottle and fell back asleep only to hear him start fussing a few minutes later due to his first poop of the day waiting for me in his diaper.  However, my lovely wife got up at this point to get ready for work and informed of the morning poop and was nice enough to deal with it so I could try to get that little bit of extra sleep, but just as I shut my eyes again who do I hear through the monitor but daddy's little girl with her usual morning wake up call of, "daaaady, I'm awaaaaake."  So I gave up on that extra sleep and started the day.  Things went pretty smooth until we got back from my daughter's ballet class.  Baby brother played his part perfectly by staying awake in the car on the way home from sister's class, having his lunch when we got home and then taking his bottle and going down for his afternoon nap.  Usually after brother goes down sister is right behind after having her lunch, but not today.  She just wanted no part of her nap so it took me about an hour to finally get her down, and then as I finally flopped back down on the couch who wakes up, baby boy.  So I officially gave up on getting any rest for myself and grabbed baby boy for some snuggle time.  After that I put him in the exersaucer for a couple minutes to get some laundry done and when I get back to him what do you know...a total assplosion.  All the way out of his diaper and up his back.  I think I need to just get rid of that exersaucer because it is basically ex-lax for that boy, every time he is in that thing the poops just flow.  However this one had the extra umph to rocket out of his diaper and almost up to his ears.  So I give brother a quick bath and then realize all his clothes are in sister's room, and we don't want to wake her up so we go outside for a quick air dry session, and when I come back in my daughter is standing in the middle of the kitchen in a puddle of her own pee.  She will be 4 in just a few months and totally knows how to go potty all by herself, so I don't know if she got scared because she couldn't find me right away when she woke up or what.  Guess she knew it was just one of those days!

Peaches

My family and I recently went on a family vacation down to Nags Head North Carolina, which will hopefully turn into a yearly tradition. My parents were generous enough to pay for an incredible house for the entire family, complete with its own pool and just steps from the beach.  An incredible time was had by all, especially my three year old daughter who decided flat out that the beach house should be our regular home that we live in all the time.  Which I have to say would be really sweet.  My brother's mother in law lives down there so while we were all there we got to spend some quality time with her and her husband Bill.  My three year old daughter especially took to Bill right off the bat, except his name just didn't cut it for her, I guess Bill is just too normal, so she immediately renamed him Peaches.  It was my first time meeting Bill as well and he is probably one of the nicest guys I have ever met, but Peaches.  First off Bill is about six foot four and a retired New Jersey State Trooper, so I just feel he is more of a Bill or a sir then a Peaches, but my daughter obviously felt otherwise.  And being the super sweet man that he is he just went right along with it, but my three year old couldn't just leave it at that.  Right after that lovely picture of the two of them was taken my daughter looks up at Peaches and informs him that he has a booger, and then goes on to tell him that her daddy will make the tunnel thing to get it out for him.  Now the tunnel thing is just a rolled up tissue that I used to use to get her boogers out before she learned how to blow her nose, but we decided together to let Peaches retrieve it himself.  

Life in the Big City

One of my daughter's favorite activities is heading over to the local dog park and playing with all the random doggies. She is absolutely dog crazy, and pretty much has been from day one, even though we do not own a dog. Her first word was actually dog which she uttered right around six months old, and she hasn't stopped talking about them since. And since we are already all stuffed into this little condo with the four of us, a dog is not in the cards for us right now. I pretty much keep telling her when she is bigger and our house is bigger then maybe we will get a dog. So the other night after dinner my daughter and I went for a little stroll over to the dog park and she proceeded to tire all the dogs out running around and jumping with them, throwing sticks and balls, all that good stuff. Meanwhile I'm just chatting with some of the dog owners when an unmarked police car screeches to a halt right at the gate of the park. This plain clothes cop jumps out and starts running across the park with his hand on his gun screaming at this young Mexican kid who was walking outside the fence on the other side of the park..."Stop right there motherf#*cker and get down or I'll blow your f#*cking head off...Get down right now motherf#*cker, don't make me shoot you!" I could tell the kid thought about making a run for it but he opted not to get his head blown off and laid down, at which point the cop hopped the fence and promptly squashed the kids face into the pavement while trying to push his knee through the kid's back. He then quickly cuffed him and walked him back to his car and tossed him in, cursing him out the whole time. In the meantime my three year old who was about ten feet away while all this was going on and completely oblivious to it all, which I am grateful for. I didn't really want to have that conversation with her about good versus evil so soon in her young life. But I couldn't help but wonder, if the kid did run for it would that cop have started blasting away with my daughter and all those doggies and people around? Just another night of living life in the big city.

Poopzilla

I know it may seem like all I blog about is poop, but let's face it, I am a SAHD (stay at home dad) for a three and a half year old and a seven month old so my life really does revolve around poop, pooping, wiping tooshies, poopie diapers, poops at inopportune moments, poop on my hands, poop on my clothes, poop on their clothes, poop on the floor, poop of all shapes, colors and sizes. However just the other day my sweet baby boy took a poop that put all other poops to shame. It was just one of those days where it seemed that all the poop cards were stacked against me. The first poop was an unprepared daddy poop, where he caught me at the pharmacy with no diapers in tow. I should have known better but I tried to squeeze in the stop at CVS on the way home from the gym because I had to pick up a prescription and a few other things, but as soon as I handed my scrip over to the pharmacist he dropped a bomb on me, so I had to abandon my mission and head for home. But that was just a tiny precursor of what was to come at the end of my day. I had just dropped Mommy off at her exercise class and got home with both kids, which sounds easy enough but as soon as mommy got out of the car my three year old daughter started balling saying "I miss my Momma!". We had just picked her up from school and we usually all head home together but traffic was crazy so we just dropped Mommy off...big mistake. So of course with sister crying brother decides to join in the fun and starts crying too. Anyway I managed to get home without crashing and calmed both of them down so I plopped them both downstairs and ran up to get dinner ready. And that is precisely when poopzilla decided to make his appearance. I was maybe upstairs for ten minutes tops, and I had left baby boy in his exersaucer. Well I hear him start to fuss a little bit so I finished up quickly and headed down to discover he had pooped through his diaper, through his clothes, and into the bottom part of the exersaucer. It was absolutely everywhere. I ended up getting him out of there and getting him cleaned up but it was no easy task...poop all over this kid, up to the top of his back and covering his little weiner and all over his belly, hands, legs, and feet. And he was just loving it, pretty much giggling and laughing through the entire cleaning process, and needless to say I wasn't. I wouldn't be surprised if his next word turned out to be motherf#*ker. Anyway he was clean and I cleaned myself up...I did have to change my poopstained shirt...and we rejoined sister in the family room. That's when I remembered he had pooped all over the exersaucer too so I took that apart and threw the washable part in the laundry, only to realize that the bottom of the exersaucer has holes in the bottom and the poop had also ended up in a nice little puddle on the floor. Like I said, it was just one of those days!

Hoarder

My family and I are finally going to try and make the move out of our two bedroom condo and into a bigger place, hopefully a nice single family home somewhere on the edge of the city. Our condo is just getting smaller and smaller as these kids keep getting bigger and bigger, especially baby boy who just gets fatter everyday. And we are on the verge of moving baby boy out of our room and in with his sister, which I just don't think will work out very well. Although we have ferberized the little man he still likes to get up at the crack, and sometimes earlier, and I don't know how big sister will deal with that interruption of her beauty sleep. So we're hoping this move will happen sooner than later and we find a new home where each kiddo gets their own room, but it all depends on our ability to get this condo sold as soon as possible. My first order of business is to get this place ready to show, which is no easy task. We just have a lot of stuff, between all the things my wife and I have accumulated over the years and all the junk these two kids have amassed in their short lives, it is a ton of stuff. So first thing this morning after dropping my three year old off at school I came home and started tearing up the closet under the stairs, which is the most dreaded closet we have, just packed to the gills. Now I've had my suspicions in the past that my wife might be a hoarder, but this morning I think my suspicions turned right into reality. I don't think I need to call A&E Television because she has yet to bury us alive, but there are certain things which she just refuses to let go. It all started about five months ago when my brother and his family came up from St. Louis to meet the new addition, and my sister in law volunteered to help try and organize our home. We were in that very closet under the stairs when my brother discovered my daughter's first Easter basket, which he promptly put into the junk pile, and my wife threw a conniption fit. Neither my brother or I could understand why a two dollar basket from CVS could be so important, but she was not having any of it, and at one point I actually thought she was going to punch him in the nose. She first claimed it was an important part of our daughter's childhood that we had to keep, and when that argument didn't work she told my brother and I both that we just did not love Jesus. Being Jewish I told her flat out I love Jesus as much as the next Jew from Jersey who happened to be married to a beautiful shiksha, but she would not relent. That's when I knew my wife was a hoarder. We did end up using the basket again this past Easter for my daughter so her hoarding did end up saving us a few bucks, but this morning her need to hoard reared its ugly head again in full force. One of the first things I dragged out of that very same closet this morning was an old bag of baby toys. And these were the second string toys, if they were really cool at all they would have been put back into the rotation when baby boy came, but instead they have been just sitting in the closet collecting dust. But when I immediately put them in my Salvation Army pile, little wifey came sniffing around. "What do you think you're doing with those?" she said. I informed her that they were going to charity and the hoarding gene kicked right on. She actually pulled out an old maraca and started to tear up, "this is just really emotional for me, giving away all our baby stuff" she said. So I very calmly told her we actually have a real live baby sleeping upstairs and I'm not giving him away, but this junk has got to go! She actually thought that was kind of funny so we had a laugh and I told her we would get her all the help she needs for her hoarding tendencies. And she laughed and smiled and told me to f off!

No Mo

My wife and I decided that we are not going to have any more kids, two is enough. Actually my wife decided and since she is the one that has to carry them around for ten months and lose her incredible figure for that whole time, I really don't have much say in the matter. And we did get extremely lucky having a girl and a boy so we really couldn't ask for more. But our little guy is six months old now and already starting to hit all the usual milestones, he is sitting up, eating real food, rolling over, and talking. And much to my delight his first blatherings were "Dadadadadadadada", unlike my daughter whose first word was dog, and we don't even have a dog! But as he reaches all these momentous occasions in his young life I already find myself thinking, wow, this is it, no more baby stuff. And although it is an incredible amount of work the baby stuff is really fun, just being able to plop them down on the bed and squeeze them or stare at them or just watch them sleep. I remember when my daughter was born about three and a half years ago my parents and grandparents came in from Jersey and literally stared at her for four days straight, just being absolutely tickled when she would crack a little smile, burp or make that cute I'm pooping face. She was the first grandchild on my side of the family and the first girl born into my side of the family in quite a while, but four days of staring is a lot. Now when my son came along six months ago my parents came back into town and the staring began again, only this time with a crazy happy three year old big sister to contend with as well. But having a baby in the house is just really awesome, this little creature that just completely depends on you, it changes everything. I guess I'm getting a little sappy here but now I see what might really be happening...soon this little baby boy will be crawling and then walking and then running...and then I'll have two monsters to contend with!

Sausage

I've talked before about how wonderfully plump my baby boy is, but at six months old now we may have achieved peak fatness...so much so that the whole family has taken to calling him the sausage. My three year old daughter has particularly embraced the name and really will call him nothing else, except on occasion the little sausage, sausage man, or just fatty fatty. We just had his six month check up with our doctor and he weighed in at a whopping 20 pounds 7 ounces and measured 27 and a half inches long. He came into this world at 7 pounds 10 ounces so in six short months he's gained about thirteen pounds. Not too shabby. He's not obese or anything close to that, just very zoftic. So referring to him as the little sausage has just come naturally, and everyone seems to get a kick out of it. Now his clothes have even become his sausage casing and his car seat has become his bun! He is just so soft and squishy I love it, and he really loves to be naked in all his sausagey glory which is a fantastic sight. I'm sure as he starts to move around more and learns to crawl some of his glorious fatness might start to disappear, but for now he is our family's sausage man, and we wouldn't have him any other way.

Miss Independent

As of late my three year old daughter is really becoming quite the independent young lady...she just insists on doing everything by herself. It started off with the potty, where she no longer wanted daddy to help her up onto the bowl or wipe, which I must say is not half bad. But I still have to get in there after one of her ginormous poops or else she is walking around itching her bottom all day. At this point she doesn't even use her stool but likes to climb up all by herself just holding the toilet paper roll, which I'm sure one day will simply give way and she'll take a header right into the toilet... I should probably reinforce that thing. Her budding independence is not limited to potty time, she is also making her mark in the kitchen, helping out with baby brother, getting into and out of her carseat, taking off and putting on her own clothes and shoes, helping daddy with the laundry, climbing into and out of her stroller, and tackling all the big kid stuff at the park (no more baby swings for her). It is really awesome that she is learning to do all these things on her own and I am fully encouraging her independence, but on the same note it kind of makes me sad that my sweet little baby girl is already trying to grow up. It also makes me kind of sad that all the things I mentioned above went from taking five seconds to accomplish to taking forever!!

From Zero to Stinky : The Evolution of Poop

WARNING: This blog may contain material not suitable for people with weak stomachs or people with an overly sensitive sense of smell!

It all starts with that stuff that resembles what your dad used to use to repave the driveway with when you were a kid, the black tar poops. I remember when my daughter was born and we were in the hospital freaking out when I first saw that stuff come out of my new baby girls tiny little tooshie. And then trying to change my first diaper with her bottom covered in that stuff, it was like glue, and I was so nervous if I wiped to hard I could hurt her...it was just a mess, literally. Now six months ago my son came along and although I was way more confident in my poop changing abilities, but that didn't make getting that tar poops off his little bottom any easier , especially with those two little balls getting in the way. Next comes the mustard seed poops, which don't really carry much of a scent but they just look really weird. Those are the breast milk poops, but when you start throwing a bit of formula into the mix is when things start to get a tad more interesting. It still amazes me how my little baby boy can turn a few measly ounces of formula into a seven pound liquidy caramel poop diaper. My daughter is almost three and a half now and has been potty trained since about three months before her third birthday, and although I don't have to deal with her poop filled diapers anymore, I am the official wipe master. And I have to say my little girl drops some serious bombs, I don't even know how she fits these things out of her tiny little toosh. And the smell, my goodness she turns grilled cheese sandwiches and carrots into the most massive stinky turds you've ever seen...or in my case smelled. But back to baby boy, he is now six months old and onto solid foods, so the evolution of poop continues. We tried to get him to eat that rice cereal and oatmeal stuff about a month ago but he just wasn't having it, so now so far we have given him sweet potatoes and carrots, which he is totally loving. But the poop mass index in those diapers just continue to grow in size and stinkiness as his meals do. For example today he ate a six ounce bottle of formula and a whole jar of the sweet potatoes for lunch and about a half hour later produced what looked exactly the same in his diaper. I probably could have scraped it out and put right back in the jar and no one would know the difference. Well I guess the smell could give it away, and they do smell something fierce. I really only had about a three month window of no diapers between when my daughter was potty trained and my son was born, but that was a sweet three months. Hopefully just about two and a half more years of giant poop filled diapers and I'll be finished with them forever, although I have heard it's harder to potty train boys so maybe three more years. Wow that is an awful lot of poop.

A Phase?

A few weeks ago I wrote about waking up at two in the morning to find my three year old daughter standing creepily at the foot of our bed, well it happened again last night, and it totally freaked me out yet again. Maybe not as bad as the first time but still, slight heart attack. This new wandering episode has coincided with what I'm hoping is a new little "phase" that she is going through. The don't listen to Daddy and say really mean things to Daddy and take three hours to put me to bed at night phase. Okay I'm actually praying it's just a phase because as Popeye would say "I've stands all I can stands and I can't stands no more!" The not listening I'm kind of used to because although she has always been a good girl, she never listened all the time, and the mean things she says sting a little bit, but she is three and just testing the boundaries of her little world. But our nice bedtime routine which has gone from half an hour or forty five minutes to two or two and a half hours is just not going to fly. The routine has actually stayed the same but the past few nights we have just ended up having to repeat it three or four times. My little angel who would never even get out of her bed by herself is now traipsing right out of there before we can even get the door closed. And as every parent knows those precious few hours we get between when the kiddies go to sleep and we go to sleep are pure gold, and absolutely necessary to retain any kind of sanity. So if this isn't a phase we might just have to get her some kind of cage, alright that's a tad extreme but with me staying home and my wife working full time we really need those few hours of alone time each night, a few minutes are just not going to cut it. I guess we shall just have to wait and see what happens...but she was a little sniffly today...maybe a little dose of benadryl?!

The Tattler

Every Tuesday morning I head to the gym where my three daughter has ballet class at the kid's club and baby boy gets to hang out in the baby room with all his girlfriends. It is definitely one of the highlights of my daughter's week and I have to say that without the kid's club I would have probably lost my mind quite a while back. All the people who work there are just absolutely fantastic and so great with my kids, and for those two hours a day when we go I always know they are in good hands. My daughter just loves getting into her little tutu and learning new dance moves, but the most important part for her is without a doubt getting her hands stamped at the end of each class by her teacher. But a few weeks ago when I picked her up after class she only held up one stamped hand instead of two, and with the saddest little look on her face said, "Daddy, I only get one stamp because I didn't listen to Miss Jenna and I get time out." I was a little shocked but I thanked her for being so honest with daddy and told her we needed to work on her listening skills at dance class. So before the next class I made her promise to listen to everything teacher said and do as she was told and she would be sure to get her two stamps again. Which she did and was so proud to show them off to me when I picked her up that day, and I was really proud of her. Now when I picked her up after class today she ran up to me and immediately showed off her two glorious hand stamps, and then without skipping a beat points at this other little girl whose daddy is picking her up from class and says, " Daddy, Molly only get one stamp and she get a time out." After having a little inward chuckle I tell her that it's not nice to tattle on other people, and that maybe Molly was just having a bad day. So I apologized to Molly's dad and then headed home to work on my new project with my daughter, no more tattling.

CVS = crack for a three year old

Last week my three year old daughter was on spring break from preschool, which as I mentioned before totally sucked for daddy. I do love the time I get to spend with my daughter every week but those days when she is at preschool are when I can really get things done around the house. To compound the fact that she was on break her and my little guy both got sick, and for the fourth time in as many months my daughter's little cold turned into an ear infection, this time a double. So when Monday came I was so ready to send her back to school, but since she still had a slight fever instead the three of us got to take another trip to the doctor's office. Luckily my daughter is a very good patient once the doctor actually gets into the room, but before she shows up it's a total free for all of jumping onto the scale, spinning on the stool, and grabbing tongue depressors and cotton balls out of the little jars... which becomes a lot harder to control when I also have baby brother to contend with. But at least with all these doctor's visits I am able to get a little stockpile of free formula samples. Anyway after the doctor determined that both ears were infected we're off to CVS to get her prescription filled, which is where the fun really began. That place is really like crack for my three year old, she is just completely surrounded by everything she is obsessed with in there, candy, lip stuff, and toys. All conveniently located right at her 39 and a half inch eye level. And of course on top of the fact that she keeps running away from me to grab the nearest pack of dum-dums or skittles flavored lip gloss, brother starts crying for his bottle/nap time. Wouldn't it be awesome if at that point the pharmacist showed some sympathy and rushed her medicine right out to us, instead we wait another twenty minutes even though there is only one other customer ahead of us. I really had to muster every ounce of daddy patience not to start either screaming at my daughter and making a huge scene in front of the whole store or just giving her her first ever spanking right there. Instead I dragged her away from the lip stuff and candy over to the toy section, where I even was willing to bribe her with a seven dollar beanie baby panda. And that worked for five minutes, until she spotted the nifty value pack of lip gloss with every color/flavor of the rainbow that she just had to have. She tossed that panda to the ground and went for it, and when I put my foot down and said no way she turned on me and screamed, "Daddy, you ruined my life!!" Where does she even come up with this stuff. Luckily at that point the pharmacist finally gave me the nod and I picked up the medicine, picked up the now two screaming kids, and high tailed it out of there!

My birthday present

My birthday was this past Friday and for my birthday I decided the present I really wanted was a baby boy who did not wake up two to three times a night, but just kept on sleeping right on through it. Unfortunately you can't just blow out your candles and wish for this to be so, you have to make it happen yourself. So Friday night after a wonderful birthday date night with my beautiful wife, we decided to ferberize our little baby boy. It's kind of crazy that it even came to this, because at three months old he was actually sleeping through the night, but then he decided to turn things around at about five months and start acting like a normal baby. He starting waking up two or three times a night, and we would give him a bottle but he would only eat one or two ounces, so I knew he wasn't really hungry. So without even doing any research on the internet or reading eighteen books we ferberized, with our only knowledge of the subject being to let the little man cry it out and not pick him up. Which in our case is especially difficult because we are still sharing a room with baby boy. I am sure having to hear your child cry and scream bloody murder no matter where they are is not easy for anyone, but when they are doing it five feet away from you I know it is really hard. And in that extremely long hour of bawling my wife and I both had moments of weakness, but luckily we were each able to convince the other not to give in. In my wife's case it was a lot harder because she is still breast feeding in the mornings and evenings so she not only had to try and sleep with ear plugs in and a pillow over her head, but also while holding her boobs at the same time so they would not explode. But we did get through that first night, and the past two nights as well, each getting a little bit easier. The second night he cried for about forty five minutes and then last night for about half an hour, and all we have to do is get up and shove the pacifier back in his mouth a couple of times. So even though it is taking a bit of work I am getting a wonderful birthday present, almost a full night's sleep!

Freaked out

So it's been a rather trying week for me, both kids sick and my daughter is on spring break from preschool. Which actually blows my mind, I mean it's a private preschool so why the spring break, and they even have the nerve to charge us for the week. But I guess my daughter was getting pretty burned out from all the story time, finger painting, nap time, and play time, she really could use a little rest. How about giving me a break! If I had my way no breaks!! Anyway it has been a long week, but at least spring has finally sprung here in Chicago and the weather is beautiful, so sick or not the kids and I have at least been spending most of the week outside, finally. I really don't mind the cold weather so much, just the length of the Chicago winter is what really gets me down, especially when you're cooped up in the house with two kids. Baby boy is almost six months old now and just finally getting to experience the world outside our little condo. So I thought I had my three year old pretty tired out yesterday, after letting her run around at the kids club at the gym all morning, and then at the park all afternoon. But apparently not, because for the first time ever my wife and I were awakened at two in the morning by our little girl in our room standing creepily at the foot of our bed holding one of mommy's journals saying, "Will you read me this book?" Now don't get me wrong, it was not the first time we were awakened by our little angel at two in the morning, she has never really been a great sleeper and has awakened us many many times before. But for some reason which I was always very thankful for and never ever questioned she would never leave the safety of her little bed, until last night. And for some reason seeing her standing there in our room at two in the morning just completely freaked me out, my heart practically jumped out of my chest and I flew out of that bed. After some careful explaining of why she should never sneak around in the middle of the night I think I had her convinced not to do it again...I guess we'll just have to wait until tonight!

The worst game of tag

At the moment I have two sick kids on my hands, my five month old boy caught a little cough last week which has turned into a nasty cold and terrible cough, and now three year old sister ends up with a cold as well. Hence the worst game of tag ever! I guess it's just unavoidable that when one gets sick the other is bound to get it as well. It seems like my three year old constantly has a slight cold of some sort, probably from being around all the other snot nosed kiddies at preschool three days a week. But she recently learned how to blow her nose, so her colds are much easier to deal with. Dealing with a sick five month old is a whole other story, I can only do so much with the trusty booger sucker. And with his cough continuing to get worse I decided to take him to the doctor yesterday, if for nothing else then to set mine and my wife's minds at ease, which is exactly what happened. The doctor examined little man and said his lungs and ears were both clear so we just have to wait out the cold. But two good things actually came of the visit. First off on the way to the doctor's office baby boy was coughing away in his car seat and after a few hard coughs he clearly stated his first word..."Ow!" Which even if it is just a little slang for the more common ouch I am totally counting as word numero uno. And secondly after inquiring about the use of that Vick's baby rub stuff the doctor told me to rub it not on his chest but on his feet, which totally seems to be working to get rid of his cold and cough.

Who's to blame?

There has been an ongoing debate in our house about the water we are mixing my son's formula with...we have been using the water from the tap, which as far as I'm concerned is just fine, but not in my lovely wife's opinion. I thought with the second kid we were done worrying about all that stuff, but apparently not. With our daughter it was nursery water and bottle warmers all the way, as well as sterilized pacifiers as soon as they even came near the floor. But with baby boy it's been a whole different story, pretty much just the five second rule in full effect. So that's why this whole water thing has caught me off guard, I mean he's now over five months old so why the big to do now? Apparently my wife read something about the dangers of lead levels in water, especially in rehabbed buildings where the builder neglected to replace old pipes, just like our condo. So next thing you know I'm at the Ace looking for do it yourself water quality tests, and I finally find a home kit that clearly states right on the package, Free lead in water test inside. So I pay the twelve bucks and head for home to test our water, already feeling confident that it will be safe. However once I get home and open up the kit I find every other test there is, and a card to send in for a free lead test, which says once receiving the test I can send it in with a thirty dollar money order or check to get the results. How lame is that? Talk about false advertising! Well I test the water for all the other things the kit actually came with, and discover our water quality is perfect, but I still don't know about the lead. At this point it's time for baby boy's next bottle, and I'm thinking just go with the tap water like we've been doing for five months. And lets not forget that we were all raised with tap water and turned out just fine...at least for the most part. So I give wifey a call at work to see what she thinks I should do, and she is pretty adamant about no more tap until the lead is tested, even after I tried my best to convince her that all the other tests came back safe which means there is probably no lead either, but she just wasn't having any of it. Next thing you know I'm busting out the nursery water and bottle warmer and fixing baby boy his bottle, but he was starting to fuss so I was doing all this while holding him. I get the bottle all heated up and ready and then while still holding baby boy I pick up the bottle warmer with my left hand and proceed to dump it out into the sink. Obviously forgetting that the bottle warmer uses super heated water and steam to heat aforementioned bottle therefore I burned the crap out of my finger, we're talking third degree here, the skin was basically dripping off. So the first thing I do after screaming and dumping baby boy down in his bouncy seat is to call my wife and yell at her for making me burn my finger off. I mean you tell me, who's to blame?

Angels and Demons

My son is now just over five months old and has been the most incredibly easy baby of all time, some might even say he is an angel. I know I have said it many times...I mean he was sleeping through the night at four or five weeks, never cried, just basically the perfect baby. But the past week or so it seems like the demon switch somehow got flipped, and the angel may be gone. But he can't be gone forever, I just can't let him slip away to the dark side. But I guess I just have to realize I can't control everything...especially a five month old. So this past weekend my wife had a girlfriend in town who was staying at a swank hotel downtown so she spent the night there on Saturday...and what do you know, worst night of my life. Alright I may be exaggerating but it was really rough. It started off when we dropped her off downtown and baby boy fell asleep in the car, which he usually does, but instead of sleeping in his car seat for his usual hour to hour and a half, his little eyes popped open as soon as we got back in the door at home. So that is where the trouble began, because he really needed that long nap, not the fifteen minute one he actually took. I now suddenly have the fussiest baby of all time on my hands, won't eat, won't let me put him down, just not having any of it. And what do you know, his grumpiness immediately starts rubbing off on my three year old, who now also wants me to hold her. So I'm now carrying fifty pounds of kid around the house and slowly starting to melt down myself. Luckily my daughter lets me distract her with her dinner and a movie and I can now try to concentrate on dealing with demon boy. Don't even ask how I managed to get her dinner ready while holding both of them...it wasn't pretty. So after another failed attempt at putting baby boy down to sleep it is now sister's bedtime...and low and behold she does not go quietly. But I do eventually get her down about an hour past her normal bedtime, while still holding baby brother fussing and screaming in my ear pretty much the whole time. I think she actually went to bed just so she wouldn't have to listen to him cry anymore. So now baby boy has not slept or eaten in way to long and I have to make my stand. So I finally do get him to take his bottle by wrapping him up in his miracle blanket and rocking him while also jumping up and down. And he falls asleep, until I try and replace the bottle with his pacifier...and then the demon is unleashed once again. He is just screaming and crying in my face, so in a moment of pure insanity I think maybe if I scream right back in his face he will stop...bad move...he just turns it up about twenty decibels. He actually does start to fall back asleep, but while sleeping he continues to scream and cry... how is that even possible? But after another twenty minutes or so of rocking and bouncing the screaming and crying subsides and he sleeps for real, somehow immediately transforming himself back into angel baby.

Oh the things they will say!

As we were getting ready for school and work yesterday my daughter turns to Mommy as she was changing brother's diaper and says, "Mother, he is the cutest man in town." And of course I couldn't just let that slide so I asked her what about me and she responds, "Father, you're the cutest man in town too, you stinkin jellyfish." Which was followed by a nice warm round of giggles all around. Obviously the jellyfish reference comes from the fact that at this point she thinks she lives in a pineapple under the sea with all the Spongebob she watches, but where did she get the whole mother and father thing, just weeks ago it was dada and momma. I feel like we're suddenly raising English royalty. As far as the amount of love she has for her little brother we are so lucky in that respect, because I've seen it go the other way with siblings and it's not pretty. But as far as all the things coming out of her mouth these days most are cute and sweet, but not always. My wife had taken her over to a girlfriend's house for a playdate recently and after dropping a marker off the table my daughter yelled "F*#k" and as if saying it once wasn't enough she then proceeded to sing "f$&k, f*$k, f%+K, f&$k, f@#k." She then finished it off with a resounding "F&%K!, sometimes my daddy says f&%k." So not only did she drop the f-bomb like a truck driving sailor but totally sold me out to mommy. She must of caught me saying it in the car one day, but it's really not my fault that no one else on the planet knows how to drive and that I always feel compelled to tell them. I guess from now on I really need to tone my rants down to PG levels. But for the most part she amazes me daily with the incredible things she says, and I can only hope she isn't singing her expletive songs at preschool. Click the video below to see for yourself.

Outgrowing our shell

As these two kids of ours continue to grow and get bigger our two bedroom condo just keeps getting smaller and smaller. I feel like we are four hermit crabs fighting for space in one tiny shell. And these kids are growing really fast, especially the little guy who gets fatter by the hour! So what to do, as I've mentioned before the burbs are looming somewhere in our future but we would like to stay in the city as long as possible, and I just don't know if it makes sense to try and move into a three bedroom condo or townhouse for a short period of time. Or does it, I mean I really can't move an inch in this house without stepping on a squeaky toy, a doll of some sort, or tripping over an exersaucer. These two tiny people have accumulated a lot of stuff, which is in desperate need of some sort of playroom or separate space. For now the giant baby boy is living in our room with us, but how long can that go on for? With his pack and play set up right next to our bed, which is very convenient for the middle of the night feedings, I have about six inches of space to get through on my way into or out of the room. Which inevitably leads to at least 3 or 4 stubbed toes a week, especially in the late night hours when I can't even scream bloody murder like I'd like to. The next logical step would be for the two little ones to share my daughter's room, in all its lavender glory. Why should I care if the little guy has to live in a purple room for a little while, I know he won't know the difference, so why does it bother me. I spoke to my dad about it and he reassured me that we really don't have it so bad at all. He told me when he was growing up he and his two sisters had to share a room while my grandparents slept on a pull out sofa in the living room. But he also told me that he had to walk five miles to school uphill both ways through blizzards and hurricanes, so who knows. I guess we will just do whatever we have to do.

Preschool predicament

I had no idea how hard preschool could be. Not the finger painting and learning of the abc's but the finding and getting into the right preschool for my three year old daughter. Right now she is attending a private preschool because she missed the cutoff for the Chicago Public School system which is September 15th and her birthday is November 6th. But I guess part of the price of living life in the big city is the insanity of trying to get your kids into preschool. I had no idea how crazy it would be, I mean people actually put their kids on waiting lists for certain schools before they're even born! So we want our daughter to go to a public preschool for next year so this past fall we had to join in the insanity of finding and applying to all these different schools, which I have to be honest is just no fun. Most of these schools actually run a lottery to fill the spots available, and supposedly you almost have a better chance of winning the real lottery. Which would be sweet but come on! It's crazy! Our other options include homeschooling or moving to the burbs. Obviously the homeschooling thing is not going to happen because I actually want my kids to learn and if I'm stuck doing the teaching there's a very good possibility that will not happen. And moving to the burbs has been discussed for the future, but we really don't want to do it yet. Plus if we did move to the burbs most of the schools are good and we would not have to fight tooth and nail to secure a spot, but my wife's commute would go from about ten minutes to possibly up to two hours a day if not more. Which would mean daddy might lose his mind even faster than expected! The other part of the dilemma is that most of the preschools are tuition based, and not peanuts, some serious cash, the kind I hoped I wouldn't have to start shelling out until college. Anyway I really needed to get that out there and vent a little bit, so thanks!!

Daddy's time out

My three year old daughter goes to preschool three days a week now and for some reason I'm obsessed with what she eats for lunch. I know they serve good healthy food but for some reason I just really want her to tell me what she has for lunch everyday, even though I could easily just pick up a copy of the menu or ask her teacher. Now that I've begun writing this I am realizing even more how insane it is, but anyway. Normally on the car ride home she would tell me about her day and then tell me what she "tried" for lunch. But as of late she simply says I don't want to talk about it...the lunch part that is. And it makes me crazy...I just want her to tell me! So the other day I waited until after the ride home when she was comfortably settled on the couch watching Dora and asked her in my sweetest daddy tone, "What did you have for lunch today sweety?" Blank stare. "Uhm sweety pie, what did you have for lunch today?" Blank stare. "This television is going off until you tell me what you had for lunch today!!" Blank stare with tears forming. "That's it, you go sit on the stairs until you tell me what you ate for lunch today!" Full on tears as I pick her up and place her on stairs while she screams "NOOOOO!" Alright time to change tactics..."Sweetheart you're not in trouble I just want to know what you ate for lunch today." Blank stare with tears. So this back and forth continued a couple more times until I realized I was acting like the three year old and she just wants to chill after a long day of school and watch her shows. So upon this realization I turned Dora back on and sat myself on the stairs until I calmed down. Then about half an hour later she turns to me with no prompting and says "Daddy I had green beans, crackers and milk for lunch, I'm sorry I made you angry." So I guess once in a while daddy is the one who really needs the time out!

You gotta commit

As you all know by this point I am a SAHD for a three year old girl and a five month old boy. Taking care of the litlle guy isn't too much trouble considering he can't move yet and pretty much just wants to eat and sleep. But keeping my three year old occupied is a whole different story, and the television can only be on for so long before I start feeling like the worst parent ever, so I've discovered you just gotta commit. And yesterday I just truly gave myself over to her and completely committed, which turned out to be a great time for the both of us. Alright it was a better time for her, but I had fun too! So after a healthy dose of spongebob we decided to play doggy...surprise surprise with me playing the role of doggy and she as the master. After your basic run through of barking, panting, and sniffing, she opted for a healthy game of fetch. So she grabbed one of her numerous other stuffed doggies, of course it had to be an old nasty little one from some forgotten McDonald's happy meal, and began hurling it across the room. And of course doggy daddy had to go fetch it. And as I scampered across the floor on all fours and proceeded to pick up nasty little doggy with my hand I was immediately reprimanded by my little master..."daddy, you know doggies don't have hands!" And then and there I decided what the hell, you gotta commit. So needless to say we spent the next hour or so with little master tossing little doggy and big daddy doggy fetching and retrieving that nasty little thing in my mouth. And she was cracking up and loving every minute of it...which I guess makes it all worthwhile!

Gross

So I feel like all I have been talking about in this blog is some sort of bodily fluid, and I also figured, why stop now. If any of my many readers are squeamish I do apologize. After all as a SAHD for a three year old girl and a five month old boy my life does basically revolve around pee, poop and boogers. My three year old has been potty trained since about two months before her third birthday which was back in November, but I still have to lend a helping hand here and there when it comes to her and the potty. And I've mentioned before my son is a virtual poop machine which I will be dealing with for quite some time. But I have now resigned myself to these tasks, for they must be done!
Recently my daughter reached another huge milestone in her short life, she learned how to blow her nose. And I cannot even tell you how exciting this was for me. I was pretty much doing back flips the first time she did it. Next to her learning to use the potty this was the biggest accomplishment she's done. I was pretty much ready to start contacting all the Ivy League schools to request early admission, I mean she has to be pretty special to master the art of the nose blow at the young age of three. And then I found it, and these short lived dreams of greatness began to crumble, on the wall next to her bed I found it, her booger collection. My perfect three year old angel cutey pie has been picking her boogs and decorating the wall next to her bed with them. It looked like some sort of crusty constellation. If I didn't put an end to this new habit soon she might have her very own in house rock climbing wall. But thankfully she has been talked into using the ample tissue supply which now resides right next to her bed!

In common

Yesterday one of my oldest and dearest friends and I were catching up on the phone, he is still living the bachelor life out in LA where my wife and I met and lived for the first year of our marriage. It was great to hear from him and vicariously enjoy some of his exploits, and as the conversation was coming to a close I told him to check out my blog, but then realized he might not really get it considering it's pretty much about staying home with the kids and he is still enjoying the bachelor life. Then while still on the phone he walked into his house to find one of his two shitzus had peed and pooped on his kitchen floor, which sparked a whole new common thread to the conversation. We realized that raising small children and dogs are really not all that different because they're both SEMI potty trained and neither really listen to you or your commands!

Afternoon delight

No it's not what all you pervs are thinking. To tell the truth I had to call my brother to confirm what I thought it did mean. But anyway, as a new SAHD, (stay at home dad) I have discovered the true meaning of the afternoon delight...and that is when you get both kids down for a nap at the same time and are able to take a quick snooze of your own. Ahhh, sweet peace and quiet, even if you decide not to nap yourself and just sit for a minute and enjoy the sweet sounds of silence, it's incredible. Not that the original meaning wouldn't be nice but with me at home and wifey at work it might be kind of tough...but who knows, maybe I'll get lucky with a daydream!

The poop machine

Yes the poop machine, my four month old sons newest nickname. The kid has yet to eat his first solid food but he can turn a bottle of breast milk or formula into the most ginormous poop you've ever seen. And although we did solve our diaper dilemma, we switched from the Target brand to Diapers.com brand, he still had a giant assplosion this morning. I guess that one was my fault because I was playing with sister and let him fuss in his exersaucer a little too long, but I still think it defies the laws of gravity to be able to poop out the top of your diaper all the way up your back, especially while standing up! But like I said, he is a poop machine. And lets get down to the nitty gritty, once you realize the assplosion has occurred and you see the poop has left the safety of the diaper and made its way up the back, how do you get the onesie off without covering your sons head with his own poop. Should I bust out the scissors and cut it off like they do at the hospital or what? Its like playing a game of operation except instead of grabbing the bone with the tiny tweezers I'm stretching that little cotton onesie to its limit over the boys head. And just so you know I did succeed, his little head remained poop free this morning.
But quickly back to the diaper dilemma, the Target brand had no elastic in the back so almost every poop turned into an assplosion, and the Diapers.com brand do have the elastic and until today had managed to retain the poop, but as I said today was my fault, even though he is a super pooper. We also love the Diapers.com brand because they are pretty cheap, about 40 bucks for 200 diapers, and the next day delivery rules. If interested go to Diapers.com

Benefits of being a SAHD

Yes I am actually getting to the point of using blogger lingo...SAHD stands for stay at home dad...how cool am I? I probably shouldn't mention that until about two weeks ago I didn't even know what a blog was. But on to the benefits of my new job...SAHD. First and foremost I have managed to lose ten pounds since taking on these two crazy kids full time. A lot of that having to do with the awesome kids club at my gym, but also the fact that I barely get a chance to sit down all day unless I am feeding the little sausage man his bottle. Another benefit is catching up on all the awesome daytime television, at least on the days when my daughter is at preschool, because obviously when she's here nickelodeon rules. But I am so in with the chicks on The View I could easily be a guest host, and Ellen is already starting to secure a special place in my heart. But to be honest the biggest benefit of being a SAHD is the time I am getting with my kids. Just being able to be with them everyday and watch them grow and learn and explore this crazy world, it could not be more rewarding. That may sound a little sappy but its true, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Eat my words

So my beautiful wife is an online shopper...nothing too crazy, a lot of essential stuff, but on occasion we tend to disagree on what is"essential". It is very convenient and definitely comes in handy around the holidays when we can ship everything straight to her folks house. But anyway, back to the essential...a few weeks back a package arrived and I thought I actually had a hole in one, a surefire win, but now I stand here man enough to eat my words. The package in question contained an automatic booger sucker for the baby. Yes you read that correctly, a booger sucker. We already had one of those little rubber bulb aspirator things which seemed to me to work just fine, so why on earth would we need to spend twenty bucks on this other contraption that automatically sucks out the boogs while playing music and then deposits them in a nice little clear container. I mean if you're going to suck out the boogs while playing music to your baby you should be able to clearly view the products of your labor. So anyway I kind of freaked out and put my foot down, insisting this item had to go back, but my wife wisely held her ground and now here I am, eating my words. The booger sucker rules!!! My son ended up getting a cold yesterday and being four months old he can't blow his nose, and the little bulb just wasn't cutting it, so out came the booger sucker, and I can't tell you how great it felt to fill up that little clear plastic container with all those boogs.

For more info on booger suckers go to http://www.diapers.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?productId=21015

Fatteus

Yes fatteus, one of my new sons many nicknames. He is one chunky baby. Eighteen pounds and counting at a mere four and a half months. I feel like I can actually hear him getting fatter, and I love it. He really sounds like a little hog with all the grunting and snorting he does,especially at night when he's sleeping...that's when you can really hear the fatness. I feel like I am sleeping in a barn in the middle of Chicago, but instead of a rooster at the crack of dawn we have my three year old daughter..."Daaadddyyy, I'm awake" crackling through the monitor. But back to the chunker...his wrists and ankles both appear to have really tight rubber bands strapped around them...and the rolls are everywhere. And lets not forget my favorite feature, his little man boobs, or moobs as I like to call them. Don't ask why those are my favorite part! But his sister gets the award for best nickname, with the little sausage prince...how can you top that.

Let them eat!!!

In the history of the world has telling your kid that there are children starving somewhere out there gotten them to eat their food. I think not. Or maybe I am just laying on the guilt a little early, I mean she is only three years old. What does she care if she finishes her waffle or not, or that that half eaten waffle could feed another kid starving somewhere, I guess she doesn't now, but I hope I can help steer her to become the kind of person who would someday.

Being sick blows!!!

So all things considered I guess I've been pretty lucky...just getting sick now for the first time while daughter has had like a trillion colds in the past year with a few ear infections thrown in to boot. Not to mention the swine flu scare we had while on vacation in Charleston over New Years, with brother's fever peaking at 103 and sister's at 104...not fun. But what can you do...momma's got to bring home the bacs and sick daddy stays home with the monsters...I mean beautiful offspring. Well, daughter did promise to take care of dada...but does that have to include dumping her fruit loops out on the couch while daddy fixes brother his bottle. Speaking of brother, I feel like I should put on one of those radiation suits before handling him, but since I don't have one of those handy, I guess washing my hands a thousand times today will have to do!! Lets pray baby boy doesn't get infected!!

Where not to save $$$!

Trying to be thrifty...save a little scratch...diapers are not the place to do it. We recently switched to Target diapers instead of Pampers thinking it was a good place to save considering Target brand are about a fourth of the price. But is it really worth the savings when pretty much every time my son poops it blows out the back of the diaper all the way up his back...sometimes all the way to his hair...I think not!! Back to the pamps for us!!!

This is really hard!

So I am now entering my fourth week as a stay at home dad, and this is really hard. I have had a pretty wide variety of challenging jobs in my working career...steeple jack, painter, above ground pool installer, data processor, television producer, late night bar manager, and bar owner...but none have come close to being this challenging, all consuming and crazy!! It just never stops! I have a three year old and a four month old, and they demand a lot of attention. When I'm not changing a poop filled diaper I'm fixing a snack, or doing dishes, or folding laundry, or wiping noses, or wiping bottoms, or fixing dinner...it just never ends! This is really hard...but I think I'm loving every minute of it!!!

First time blogger's blog

To blog or not to blog...why not blog, kid number 2 is sleeping off his sixth bottle of the day and kid number 1 is watching spongebob for a change. Speaking of spongebob...how much TV is too much TV. I figure she deserves some after that monster 3 and a half hour afternoon nap.