Circle of Blahhhh

So my family and I recently moved from Chicago to Charleston, SC thanks to my rock star wife landing an awesome new job down South.  We have been here since mid November and it has been incredible...I can't believe they even call what we just went through winter, I mean it did dip down into the 30's a couple of times but after spending nine long winters in Chicago that was kind of a joke.  I'll take 30 all day over -30!!  But the toughest part about our first "winter" down here has been the circle of sick my kids and I have gone through.  I don't know if they have been exposed to different strains of colds and sicknesses down here but it has been brutal.  My 4 year old would bring home a cold from school and then proceed to pass it around to the whole family.  And when the little sausage man ended up with it he would hold on to that thing forever.  And he couldn't truly be happy with just a simple cold, so he would turn that into an ear infection...and of course make that a double.  He's had five of them since we moved here.  I feel like this family has single handedly been keeping the pharmaceutical companies in business this winter.  Actually I guess they don't really need my help but you get the point.  And my sweet little girl couldn't be outdone by her little brother so she had Strep Throat, which began with a massive barf session in the middle of Target, as well as her share of viruses, other stomach bugs, and the flu.  She has actually puked more this winter than I did in College, and all who know me know that is saying a lot.  And Mommy and I didn't want to be left out so we both had sinus infections, a couple of different colds, and I threw in some Strep for good measure.  On two separate occasions this winter the entire family was on antibiotics.  And if you were not grossed out enough by all the vomitorium talk let's discuss what antibiotics do to the stomach of a one year old.  So the little sausage would get the cold, which then became a double ear infection so here come the antibiotics...and about an hour after that comes the massive explosive poops finding their way out of the diaper, up his back, on the carpet, the crib sheets, his hair?  And then of course the massive diaper rash which only about an entire tub of Aquafor will cure.  And after the ear infection gets cleared up and the ten day antibiotic binge is done and the poops begin to subside and the diaper rash finally goes away...guess who comes home from school with a new cold and guess who gets it ten minutes later?  You got it...baby boy! 

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?