Until next year, Easter Bunny!

Easter is over.

Amen.

Our children have consumed more chocolate today than they have in the past 3 months. I'd even go so far as to say Eric consumed more chocolate today than he has in his entire life. I was not expecting him to have the coordination to pop eggs open without spilling anything, so imagine the surprise when I see him at the kitchen table surrounded by open eggs and M&M colors drooling down his shirt. And as soon as he saw me, he immediately downed the rest of the contents of the egg and his little hands were shaking from the sugar rush. We did manage to survive though, thanks to a lot of noisy races with the shake and go race cars and a second egg hunt with family in the afternoon (and more chocolate consumption). My only dilemma is how do I return some of these baskets/eggs to the Easter Bunny so he can re-use them next year?

The full run of pictures is on our Snapfish site (email me for the link if you need it), and here's a few favorites from the day.

The Easter Bunny Quarterback

A walk with Dad

Still not really in a blogging mood...

So we'll go back to a photo. Poor Eric is dealing with the woes of his 2 yr molars coming in and spends a lot of time looking pitiful and drooling gallons of saliva (not exaggerating--he snuggled with me for 20 minutes the other night and soaked both shoulders of my shirt--eww).

But he's still pretty cute...

Hello, TV

It's March Madness, which means there's plenty of TV to watch. And even better? Real TV is back!! Two and a Half Men was a new episode this past week!! Smell the Grey's Anatomy...

Oh crap, what have I done

This is the stage I have reached in my new job...I'm sure my prior co-workers will chant and cheer and think to themselves "Woo hoo! She's going to come back!" I have a number of reasons that says I won't do that for another 2 months, but if things don't improve in 2 months? You never know.

• I am the project manager of THE problem project. The red-headed bastard stepchild of a project.
• I have a guy who works for me who has actually rolled his eyes at me. It wasn't my best joke, but it wasn't THAT bad.
• This same guy? Doesn't actually do any work, which means I spend all day circling him like a vulture trying to get him to do things.
• Because the eye-roller doesn't do anything, I have another guy who can't get his regular job done and therefore looks at me as though I'm the devil and every time he comes to see me I pray that he isn't going to hand me a resignation letter.
  
• Did I mention I manage the problem project? So people way higher up the food chain from me want updates on issues every time I turn around? Hello...if you left me alone I might actually be able to solve something...
• Somewhere between my staffing agency guy and the company recruiter, they screwed up how much vacation I'm supposed to get. And not in a good way. And the recruiters wonder why the company uses a staffing agency.

What have I done?

How we make decisions

Ethan and I have a very scientific method of making decisions...basically one of us keeps making similar suggestions and then throws out something so horribly bad that the other person has to agree with one of the previous suggestions.

Examples (breaking point in all caps):

Evan's name - Eamon, Ethan Jr, Erisson, Eric, Evan, ERLICH

Eric's name - Ethan Jr, Elijah, Edward Tyson (to be called Tyson), Eric, EVANDER TYSON

Kitchen paint color - Arabian Red, Ripe Currant, Pottery Red, WARM TERRA COTTA (the color our living was for about 5 minutes until Ethan announced he didn't like the color--as I was finishing up the final coat of paint on the last wall)

Eric's birthday present - this, this, this, and THIS

Springtime Rhyming

Evan came home today insisting that, on Saturday, we don't need to wear jackets because it will be spring. I'm not sure Mother Nature agrees with that, so we may have to stay inside all day Saturday just to make sure Evan doesn't have to wear a jacket. And because he doesn't need to wear a jacket? He wants to wear his backpack instead.

When he picked out his books at bedtime, he chose a prayer book and 'The Polar Express.' I guess the thought of spring has already left his head. He also asked that I put lotion on his chapped little hands. Such a confusing child.

While putting on his pajamas, Evan passed gas and did his usual "excuse me,--Mommy, I passed gas." In case you didn't actually hear the passing, he still wants you to know it has happened. I give up trying to explain to him that he doesn't have to tell people that he has burped/passed gas and I figure he has a few more years until it stops being quite as cute and funny. Then he proceeded to tell me how 'pass' and 'gas' rhyme, just like 'duck' and 'truck' and some other examples I can't remember.

So he's a little gas machine, but at least he knows how to rhyme. That has to count for something, right?

Nobody?

Not one comment on the chicken with a potato for a head...have I finally lost all my readers?

An adventure-less day except for the fact that a couple of us went to a Turkish restaurant for lunch and while I didn't really eat all that much, I ate so much that even the though of dinner made me feel slightly ill. The boys were quite heartbroken that they were forced to eat leftover pizza (all off it!) and then treats from 'the leprechauns.' And I would have taken a picture of them in their green attire, but apparently Eric could not keep his shirt clean because he was wearing a blue one by the time I picked him up. Bummer.

Click. Beep.

There's that unmistakable 'click' that you hear when the electricity goes out. I heard it early this morning, and then saw the portable light go on that only turns on when you take it off the charger (or the power goes out). Nooooooo...

It actually worked out okay. When Evan woke up, I was able to convince him that it was still 'night' (since he couldn't see the clock) and he went back to sleep until just after 8 AM. Ethan decided to take the boys out for pancakes and, on the way down the stairs, there was the familiar beep of the oven as the power came back on. So Sunday morning pancakes commenced, but I skipped out to save room for brunch with 2 girls I used to work with. Yum...I think we had 3 plates a piece and tasted ever dessert they offered.

Wrapped up the afternoon with a playdate for both kids (brother in Evan's class, sister in Eric's class) with the mom I wasn't too sure how I would survive a couple of hours with. Ended up going very well, kids had a great time and were amazingly well-behaved (a few threats, but no actual time-outs/tantrums), and I even enjoyed myself too. So yes, all that yipping and worrying for nothing.

And this week I'm flying solo at work because my boss is on vacation--yikes!!

Happy Saturday!

Evan has adapted to DST very well...he's back to waking up pre-7 AM. And today, made enough racket to wake Eric up, at which point he stood outside Eric's door and 'stage whispered' that Eric was talking and awake. Well, duh, of course he is after you just made all that noise!!

Needless to say, it was an early morning, but it ended up not being too bad. Eric was in the best mood when he got up, we made some Cinnabons, and then headed to the kitchen store to make sure we liked the cabinets the kitchen lady picked out for us. We did. And this afternoon, I had a little girl time out with a couple of friends for lunch and wine tasting at a local wine shop. Fun time all around and I was able to re-stock the wine fridge a little.

Ethan decided to try beer can chicken, which left Evan totally confused as to why the chicken had a potato for a head, but the results were good. And I don't know why my kid thought he needed to wear a sweater when it had to be close to 70 degrees today, but there he is.


And did I mention Eric was in a great mood and was being absolutely adorable? Until dinnertime at least, but we won't talk about that ;-)

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

I think the Toys R Us commercial where all the bunnies are singing is my favorite part of Easter. I mean, how can you not laugh at the sound of a bunch of bunnies sounding like they've been sucking on helium balloons?

Lydia mentioned Easter in her blog the other day, which reminded to blog about Easter. In case I don't have enough other things to blog about. Our children get as many Easter treats as they do Christmas presents, I kid you not. I thought I had a picture from last year, but I can't seem to find it now...the baskets/goodies covered our entire dining room table and that was before they started dismantling them. We have a lot of Easter Bunnies visit us. And a bag of M&Ms would be more than enough candy to get our kids through an entire year, so thankfully the Easter Bunnies bring limited amounts of candy and the candy they do bring is usually good stuff that Ethan and I will enjoy as well.

This years Easter baskets (from our local bunny) will include: books that have been hiding in my closet for a couple of months, a new Jungle Book DVD for Evan since the DVD player ate our original one, a shake and go race car for Eric that shook and went in the box when delivered from Amazon causing all sorts of curiosity by the little boys in my house, some bubble blowers that are actually extra party favors from one of their past birthday parties that I just found in a closet, as well as a few token pieces of candy because you have to have SOME candy in your Easter basket even if end up eating it ;-)

Who knew the Easter Bunny could fill 2 baskets just from rummaging around our house?

Works every time

Evan insists on sleeping with a 'warm cozy blanket,' better know to the rest of us as a fleece blanket. It's getting to the time of year when I have to find an excuse to take it away, otherwise he will roast to death at night, but in the meantime, if you try to say one is dirty, he happily reminds me that he has more. Yet whenever I'm cold, I can't find a blanket to save my life.

Anyway. Sometimes Evan is not the most cooperative kid at bedtime (shocker) and will kick his feet in the air or sit up or something while I try to put the blankets on him at night and I warn him "lay still or I'll take the blanket away." This also comes in handy when he is jumping in and out of bed like a jumping bean to say "stay in bed or I"ll take the blanket away."

Last night? As I make my usual threat (which I haven't had to carry out in a looooong time), he says to me "Mom, why do you always say that?" Hmmm...hopefully he's not on to me!!

Frozen to table in six minutes!! Awesome!!

After reading Kelly's great experience with the Ziploc Zip'nSteam bags, I had to try for myself. I figured this might be a way NOT to live out of fast food containers when we are kitchen-less. The bags? Are AWESOME. AWESOME!!

I had some frozen tilapia (and hubby complains we don't eat enough fish), so I figured I would put these things to the full test--you don't even have to defrost the meat!! Awesome!! I have a tilapia recipe that we've already used and enjoyed (on the stove), so I modified it slightly and just threw all the stuff in the bag with the fish (sliced olives, grape tomatoes, salt and pepper). Six minutes later (after being convinced the bag was going to blow up in the microwave), we had perfectly cooked tilapia. I slid it onto a plate, squeezed a little lemon juice and sprinkled some grated parmesan on top, and you never would have guessed that meal was cooked in a plastic bag in the microwave in 6 minutes. Evan cleaned his plate and even earned a little whipped cream on top of his cantaloupe, he was so good about it.

I did make some pasta on the side, which took longer than 6 minutes, but still...did I mention how AWESOME the fish was?? And the only dishes to wash were the ones we ate off of?

Picture pages

Evan with his 'prizes' from the fire department pancake breakfast

Eric relaxing in his chair

Things that go beep in the night

I woke up at some very dark hour to find the house freezing, my husband missing, the lights on downstairs, and a random 'beep.' After realizing it was 5 AM, I just thought Ethan decided to get up and go swimming and ignored the noise. Then there was a crash, and another beep, so I called down to see if Ethan was okay.

"The alarm is wigging out."

Still convinced I don't need to get out of bed into the bitter cold, I figure as long as he's not running around with a flashlight and a baseball bat, then there's no reason for me to worry.

Until Evan comes in, looking for one of his stuffed animals. I get out of bed, Evan heads to the bathroom, I find the stuffed animal, and the random single beep turns into a long series of beeps. By some miracle, I convince Evan it's okay and that he can go back to sleep (with a little help from his CD player). I go downstairs to find our pantry taken apart and Ethan ripping at wires. The beeping stops.

In a nutshell, our old house alarm, which has been disconnected since we went with a different company however many years ago, has suddenly come back to life. And because it's hard wired into the electricity and has some sort of battery backup, and another nine lives, it did not want to die. But Ethan finally killed it, and I dozed until it was really time to get up.

And now? As I type this? I just heard a random beep.

**Update: the random beep last night was the battery in Ethan's pager dying. Whew!! And yes, he's sure that's not what was causing all the beeping the night before.**

Quite the story...

All I can muster after read this is "awwww" in a mixture of feeling sad for the poor girl going through ordeal and thankfulness to the TEN wonderful firemen that helped her through it. Doesn't hurt that it's a somewhat local event and I could totally see one of my kids doing this :-)

Kitchen progress---oooh

The kitchen lady sent the design for our kitchen today--yay! And the prices of the cabinets, which really weren't too horrible--double yay!! We need to go to the showroom do check out the color suggestions, but at least it's a little progress! The thought of having a dishwasher that actually washed the dishes, an oven that cooks food in the amount of time suggested by the recipe, and a working ice/water dispenser make me so happy...

Random trivia from today's training...do you know why a punch card is the size that it is? Answer to come later so my dad has a chance to show his age--err, brains ;-)

Training

I've been in an eye-gouging training class all day, and will be there for 2 more days, yet still need to get all my work stuff done. So not a lot of time for blogging. But I have learned that, if your boss asks you to take a newly approved class, say no and run far away. When you get the notification saying you need to be there from 8-6 for 3 straight days--delete the message and pretend you never saw it. When you show up to the class and people know your name even though you've only worked there for 2 weeks--run far away (and realize you will be the only female in the class).

You get the idea.

Anchorman

I think Eric is going to do well in college. Maybe not academically (ok, that sounds mean, but keep reading), but he is going to thrive in the fraternity/drinking games area.

He chugs liquids like there will be no more. I think he peed through 2 diapers today, and every time we put a cup in front of him without a lid, he emptied it (into his mouth) before putting it on the table.

The kid has a taste for beer. It's not like we're sitting around having keg parties with our kids, but Ethan and I both enjoy the icy cold bottle of beer from time to time. When Evan was a baby, he loved to gum on the bottles when he was teething. I opened a Sam Adams open night and Eric looked at it longingly with drool dripping off his chin, so I held the bottle up to his mouth, expecting him to wrap his gums around the cold glass.

Instead, he grabbed it with both hands, pulled it out of my hands, tipped it back and had 2 gulps before I realized the beer was out of my grasp. And now? When he sees me getting a beer, he follows me around saying "Mommy beer?" and I have to put the thing way back on the counter so he can't grab it and indulge.

And I thought it was bad when Evan would just backwash a lot of drool into my beer.

Sunday breakfast in a houseful of boys.

It has become somewhat of a tradition in our house for Ethan to get up on Sunday mornings and make a pancake breakfast for everyone. It very quickly evolved into chocolate chip pancakes with Cool Whip for Ethan, whipped cream for me, and all of the above plus chocolate syrup for Evan. Eric bypasses the pancake completely and just easts the whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

We suffered through about a year of Ethan making them on a griddle that sat on top of the grill when pancake-making took the better part of an hour. There were many batches scraped into the trash because the griddle was too hot, the wind was complicating things, not enough grease, etc. Sunday breakfast became a painful ordeal of Evan and I standing at the sliding glass door with our noses pressed to the glass, wondering when the food would be ready. Thankfully, pre-Christmas 2 years ago, Ethan sent me a link and I swear to you it's the only time I bought something purely on the title. I didn't read the reviews, look for a better price, or anything, I was so excited at the idea of cooking pancakes inside the house. It proved it's value in the first weekend when pancakes were prepared, cooked, and served in the time it took me to set the table.

So, breakfast this morning. Evan wakes up at his normal time despite going to bed 2 hours late, except it's really an hour later because of the whole spring forward thing. After an hour or so of TV and playing "quietly" in his room (aka crashing his race car into the wall before I confiscated it), Ethan got up to make pancakes and I went to get Eric.

Side note #1: Contrary to other people's opinions, I am not a morning person. I do get up early and like to get to work on the early side, but I do that so I don't actually have to be social for the first hour of the day.

Side note #2: I am supposed to get to sleep in on Sundays. However, Ethan doesn't usually get out of bed until a child has been making a racket for at least 45 minutes and he insists on making pancakes as soon as he rolls out of bed. Neither of these scenarios is good for sleeping in.

Back to the story. Eric and I come down and Evan and Ethan are making pancakes. Ethan asks me to find a recipe to make some sort of banana topping to put on top of the pancakes. Yeah. I did an obligatory google search and told him to figure it out for next week. We sit at the table and get everyone's pancakes the way they want them (and then give Eric cereal, after which he promptly points to the chocolate syrup--uh, no). Then someone who really should know better lets off a little gas. This is my morning.

Bring on the spring!!

Ok, Mother Nature is in her indecisive mood, which is clearly why she is a she. I think the only thing I haven't seen today is snow...rain, sunshine, 60 degrees, and now fierce wind and 20. Please, can we just make the transition to spring?

Is it just me, or do other people suddenly start to dislike their wardrobe at the end of a season? I have the same sweaters/pants that I've been wearing since October/November and suddenly I look in the closet and cannot come up with an outfit to wear to work. Instead I want to wear all the short sleeve brightly colored items hanging on the other rack, but know I will freeze my tail off and end up wearing my coat all day if I give in to the urge.

The winter blahs are in full swing.

Grrr...

My husband likes to send me all sorts of things on email, the weirdest one being this, but another link leads me to a new blog that I've added to my Google Reader. A random collection of parent blogs, some funny, some informative, but today? This blew me away. And now I must get on a parenting rant for a minute.

When I go to the store (Target, Giant, etc.), I always always ALWAYS put my children in the car before I put the groceries in. Whether it's Evan walking beside me or Eric sitting in a cart. I've seen too many carts roll away in the 2 seconds it takes to load a bag into the trunk and I myself have made the mistake of backing into another vehicle and know how hard it is to see a small child, especially in a big vehicle. When I am done loading my groceries, I lock the car and return the cart to the nearest return spot---usually close, because I try to park close, but sometimes luck is not on your side and you end up 20 feet away or a row over. So, if I lived in Illinois, essentially I could be arrested for doing this--am I reading that right? Seriously. I appreciate the law and the fact that it's trying to protect the too many children that have suffocated in a car in the middle of summer, but this seems to be a little much.

And the kicker is that in the process of arresting the woman, the police left the 3 children she was caring for alone at the Wal-mart...that just...well...you know what.

Useless uses for somewhat useless utilities

I still love my truck (although it needs a bath and a first oil change). The one feature I really really really wanted was the ability to use a remote to put the liftgate up and down. To get that one teeny tiny feature, you have to get like 17 other things. Like a backup camera. And leather heated seats. Woe is me.

I had already discovered a 'bonus' use for the backup camera...when I pull through a parking spot in the garage (old work) or the grocery store? I use the camera to make sure I'm actually over the line and not bing one of those inconsiderate you-know-what that hogs up 2 parking spaces.

And today, I discovered a bonus use for the passenger side seat warmer. I can't wait to tell my mother (she thought the backup camera to help park was a great idea). Are you ready? You're about to witness some real ingenuity here.: it keeps my lunch warm if I'm bringing carryout back to my office.

Shush. It works. I didn't have to eat cold pizza. And if you have heated seats, you really need to stop laughing because you know you're going to start doing this too!!

Last time...

I am once again moving files off of computer. Mine is too wobbly and Dell has oh so kindly extended their 21 day return policy (after I reminded them I requested an exchange less than 14 days after my date of purchase), so I need to clean off my 6 GB worth of photos AGAIN. Then I have to share a computer with Ethan until he decides what computer he is going to get (he has a smaller, less wobbly Dell, but it doesn't have the little eraser mouse, so we made a deal...and I'm not sure I got the good end of it). So basically I am blogging to waste time while all my photos move onto the hard drive. Lucky readers!!

My job is going better. The fire hose is still on, but at least I am catching a little bit of the water. I have no idea where to go with this metaphor. I did my first status report, statement of work, and conducted a meeting to address the very lengthy list of issues my application has. Accomplishing things feel good :-)

Did everyone else have one hell of a storm last night? I think it was worse than hurricane Isabel, although all our trees were standing when I got up this morning. Our house is in better shape than I thought, because I would not have been surprised to find water dripping in doors/windows when I got up this morning.

I read through my spam folders a couple of times a week, just to make sure I don't miss a message I should actually be getting. If I were to believe the messages I get, apparently I need help with dating, re-growing hair, getting cash, and renting my timeshare. I'm kind of tempted to ask one of these people where my timeshare is because, if I have one, I'd really like to be using it!!

Only 2 more minutes left of this torture...and I have nothing.

Random randomness

Kind of stuck on today's blog...too many incomplete thoughts, I think. The fire hose has been turned on at work, which is a little stressful and I am resisting the urge to pull my work laptop out of my bag. I get to work 2-3 hours before my boss in the morning, so plenty of time to get ahead of the game tomorrow, right?

I'm also trying to figure out how we are going to live without a kitchen for a month (roughly) while they know ours down and put it back together again. Hoping the no fridge/stove/sink time will be less than that, but there will still be a good amount of time while they rip everything out, remove some drywall, and tile before putting things back in again. And while eating out every night would be lovely, I'd prefer to spend that money on the uber-quiet dishwasher or a fridge with french doors and water and ice (I drink a lot of water, the water dispenser is a must...our tap water is awful). I think the lack of a dishwasher/big sink will be the biggest problem, since we have a microwave, 2 small fridges, a freezer, and a side burner on the grill. My newest dilemma? What to do with all the bottles/jars or salad dressing and olives and other things? I hate to throw them away, but I think fridge space would be very limited if I kept most of those things (don't worry B, I already threw away the old ranch dressing!)

And this is the randomness going through my head tonight.

Huh.

As Ethan says "oh no, another sick child post." But it's too weird not to post.

Eric came home Friday with a little goo in one eye, and it was there again on Saturday morning. Not really concerning to us, since both kids tend to get eye goo when the have/are getting a cold, but knowing daycare would freak out, we started using the pinkeye ointment. Sunday morning he wakes up with very red, puffy eyes and no goo. This morning - same deal, so he goes off to daycare and all hell breaks loose. Long story short is that, even though we followed the policy to the letter (return to daycare after 24 hours on antibiotics) AND there was no eye goo present for over 24 hours, they needed to hear it from a doctor. And I'll stop there. Ends up the doctor visit was a good idea, because the poor child has 2 ear infections (but does not have pinkeye and is not contagious and was allowed to return to daycare).

I like to think I'm pretty good at recognizing ear infections. My #1 indicator is that it looks like Spiderman did his web slinging thing right under the kids nose. Not sleeping, sleeping while sitting up, refusing to drink, sudden fever are also pretty good reason to take a trip to the doctor.

But this? This was Eric's only symptom:

He's actually amazingly happy, considering he looks like he just went 10 rounds in a boxing ring. And he actually looks better than he did this morning, so the antibiotics must be doing their thing (he also shoveled down an entire plate of spaghetti and meatballs, plus half of Evan's plate, and 2 pieces of bread). So I'd say he's on the mend.

Movies, movies, movies

I can't remember the last time I watched so many movies in a weekend, and I'm not even counting the testosterone specials on TBS/TNT/whatever. Those were all hubby.

Friday: The Kingdom. An okay movie, but a little too much of blowing stuff up right and left. And my biggest issue? The role they gave Jennifer Garner was like they had to meet some sort of female quota and nobody had any desire/money to make her look/sound 'smart.' It was annoying. Kind of like the chick in Top Gun.

Saturday: No Reservations. A straight up chick flick and a tiny bit of revenge for all the testosterone movies. Cute, but probably not anything I will ever watch again unless there is absolutely nothing else on cable when I'm folding laundry. Ethan thought it was better than 'Raising Helen,' but a movie with Kate Hudson and the dude from Sex and the City is WAY better than Catherine Zeta-Jones and some unknown guy.

Tonight: The Brave One. And I need to go so I can actually watch it and pay attention :-)

Rabid dogs?

No, no, just Ethan and Eric enjoying their smoothies:


I have other photos, but our internet is being outrageously slow and other computer issues. And yes, Eric is wearing a mitten in the above picture and I have no idea why but I hope it's the mitten I was looking for earlier this week!

Enjoyed a lovely pancake breakfast at the local fire station and came home full and tired after eating and touring all the engines/trucks. Evan's girlfriend and family came over for some playtime and dinner, which is always fun to have a girl in the house for a little while (and she is a girly girl, complete with princesses). And now Ethan is tormenting me with a bad weekend movie marathon--Wedding Crashers, Superbad, and now Old School. I may have to escape upstairs with a chick flick or some 90210...

Well now I HAVE to blog

My husband is claiming I 'cheated' on a blog when I was in Florida--seriously, I was awake form 4 AM to 1 AM, I think that deserves a little slack--so now I'm going to blog. And you can bet I'm going to work some embarrassing hubby story in here. Maybe more than one.

Depending on your source, night terrors occur in as few of 3 percent of all children. How did I get to be so lucky as to give birth to 2 children that have them?? In the same night! Oh right, I married a man who still sleepwalks and has the occasional night terror. He broke his thumb during one such episode after drinking almost an entire 2 liter bottle of vanilla coke before going to sleep. And we were visiting friends for the weekend. Good times, good times. And for the record, we had omelettes and and pita bread for dinner last night without so much of a hint of dyes/artificial sweeteners or whatever else can sometimes cause night terrors. My kids get them because they're tired, pure and simple. And Evan wonders why we always ask if he took a nap at daycare that day...

The kitchen lady came today and was not that bad, despite the fact I was tiny bit rude on the phone to her the other day when scheduling our appt (and grumbling about the fact that I needed to leave work early in my first week). She showed up a few minutes early and didn't even spend an hour with us, so hopefully the design (and price!) comes out well.

The DirecTV guys on the other hand...good grief. Many kudos to hubby for being at home when they were here, because I don't think I would have done very well. First, they tracked mud into the newly cleaned house. And when I say newly cleaned, I mean our chick left about 10 minutes before they got here. Then they drove on the nice muddy property, which is a big no-no in our neighborhood and technically considered trespassing. Then they only brought 1 receiver instead of 2, despite the fact that we scheduled our appt 2 weeks ago (and it was canceled last week because of the weather). AND they spent THREE HOURS at our house installing 1 (new) satellite dish and 1 receiver. And he wanted to charge us $50 to 'move' a receiver from the basement to another room. The DirecTV customer service lady was very nice, but apparently I have to re-tell the story to a supervisor sometime in the next 48 hours so we can get our second receiver and hopefully avoid Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum coming back out to our house.

Oh, and a final hubby story. I was getting ready for bed last night and came downstairs to get my shoes and hubby was MIA, along with his computer. He was in the bathroom and, to quote "I'm reading." Maybe I should get him a subscription to the newspaper...

Playdates galore this weekend and hopefully a pancake breakfast at the local fire station tomorrow!!

Out of the mouths of babes

I love when kids say grown up things....especially when I'm not the grown up they're repeating. Ethan and I are sitting at the table, PC to PC, and I can't for the life of me remember what the conversation was even though it was a mere 5 minutes ago, but I made a teasing comment to Ethan and as he was giving me the look, Evan filled in the words "easy killer!" And for those of you that know Ethan, it's the phrase that was about to fall out of his mouth before Evan beat him to the punch. I think the last time Evan did that to me was about a year ago when he sat in the backseat of the car singing "driving Mommy nuts! driving Mommy nuts!" for a 20-minute car ride. Good times. So glad I have the blog to record these precious memories.

So tomorrow is a blog-free day. I think I will have to think harder about not blogging than I will about blogging! And in case I don't blog, happy leap year!! But I probably will blog, because tomorrow we meet with the kitchen lady and I'm sure that will fill me with all sorts of stories I want to blog.

Brain overload

I spent the better part of today reviewing documents, trying to figure exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing at work. Most of the documents were written in 2006. I was actually happy to spend an hour with the client listening to him list off all the issues he's having with us right now because at least I wasn't reading it off a computer screen.

Ethan had something more fun to do after work, so it was just the boyz and I tonight and they were being pretty darn cute. Evan was good enough to get some M&Ms, which just made him that much better for the rest of the night. He looks/sounds the way I look/sound when I have a sinus infection (pale, puffy under the eyes, lots of sniffling and nose blowing), so I suggested he get ready for bed at the same time as Eric. And he did! And then came in and read stories with us, which was really cute when we got to "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You" and they were both saying all the sounds and knocking on the book. It was a rare moment. And then Evan didn't even argue when I put him to bed early, although he's still up there procrastinating going to sleep. But there are worse things in life.

We're slowly making progress on getting our kitchen re-done and I am in shock that the only time you can get an appointment with a designer is M-F 9-5. Seriously? I don't know how much this kitchen is going to cost, but I'm willing to bet I'm going to need every cent I can earn at work! And they suggest it will take multiple sessions to plan your perfect kitchen, but this lady needs to get it all in this Friday afternoon because we've spent enough time just deciding to re-do the kitchen as it is.

You gotta be out of your mind

I met some more people that I work with and am relieved to find out there is an under 40 crowd in my office. We went to what ended up to be a free lunch for everyone and the conversation went from working out/sports to yoga. Apparently, if you are nuts enough, you can be locked in a room for 90 minutes with a bunch of other nuts people to take part in a yoga class in a room that is heated to 105 degrees. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Seriously? I got claustrophobic and sweaty just thinking about it.

And kudos to Champps for giving our party of 4 lunch on the house because the kitchen was so backed up. And it really wasn't that bad (30 minutes for appetizers, another 15 for entrees), and we did not complain, which makes it even more awesome.

The first day

Clearly I had nothing to be concerned about on the first day at the new job. It went well.

• I arrived before and left after my boss.

• I only worked 8 hours.

• My cube is quite ugly, with blue fabric on the walls and red fabric on the outside of the hanging cabinets. The chair has a suspicious stain on it.

• I have a window right outside of my cube and I can actually see out of that window.

• I can't go to the bathroom without permission because I can't get into the building. So glad there's a nice lady sitting next to me who just gave me her badge when I needed to go :-)

• I had a new used laptop waiting for me when I got there and a name tag was 'installed' by noon. Now that's service!

• The guy who sat there before me didn't do a very good job cleaning up. Some items of interest include : 63 cents in change, a tube of Tom's organic toothpaste, and a take-out container that still had half a piece of bread in it. Eww. Luckily, it didn't look like it had been there too long.

• I heard a minimum of 11 new acronyms today. Spent a lot of time on google learning what they were, which turned out to be time well spent.

Evan has been in an extreme not listening state of mind lately. As in, you tell him to do something, he says ok, and turns around and does the opposite. Hopefully this is just cabin fever and will pass soon?

Okay, enough.

I'm not quitting the 365, but the numbers and pictures are starting to restrict my creativity and random stream of consciousness. So the reading world will have to deal with the randomness that is Jessica for a while ;-)

Eric said 'giraffe' today. And then kept saying it. It was absolutely adorable and I didn't want to miss a minute of it by running to get the camera, so I just sat there laughing and smiling as he held it up saying "dur-APH!" over and over. And the more I laughed, the louder and more persistent he got, which just made me laugh and smile more.

I went to Costco today to return a couple of sweaters that were the wrong size and stood in line for 30 minutes. Roughly 2o minutes in, I found their phone number online and called to ask if they could please send a second person to help with the returns. Someone appeared a minute later, but she couldn't refund cash (and most people need cash since they only take AmEx), which I found weird. But I got my cash back, so it's all good.

I start my new job tomorrow--YIKES!! I haven't been 'unknown' at my job for like 6 years, so this is truly terrifying. But it will still be great, and I just need to get to bed (and hopefully to sleep) at a decent hour tonight.

Evan is constantly pulling on his socks. Why is this? Do other little kids pull on their socks all the time?

Day 54 - Another thoughtless post

Tired...

Day 53 - The cat (cont'd)

Even though I posted yesterday on how frustrating Cole the fat cat can be, he felt that wasn't enough and wanted me to talk some more. I go upstairs today and find him once again ignoring his comfy cozy orthopedic bed and laying on...you ready? A magazine. Seriously? I'm so confused as to why you would pick a pile of paper that's not even as big as you are over a warm cushy bed.

And tonight, just now? He made me carry him up the stairs. I took the magazine off the floor though, so who knows where he's decided to sleep. Probably on top of somebody's shoe.

Cole and his new bed...
I guess I should be grateful he's only smothering a picture of a baby
and not an actual baby :-)

The great room switch aka We're not going to jump aka It's time to call George

To enjoy a tiny bit of R&R in Florida, I opted to stay in a hotel near my grandparents house. Not an easy task, considering there was a marathon AND a lacrosse tournament going on that weekend and the hotels/planes were PACKED. But I managed to get a room and figured I could check out on Sunday and go stay with another relative if needed (waking up at 4 AM = needing a nap in a dark quiet place, which is why I wanted the hotel). My aunt and uncle from CA were staying across the straight and had a room with a sofabed so their daughter (Eric's godmother, lives in NY) could stay with them. Blah blah blah, sofabed was the size of a very small cot and my cousin is a rather tall girl, so she decided to stay with me. My room had a king bed, which is not the end of the world, but obviously 2 double beds would have been nicer.

I asked the front desk about a different room and they are, of course, fully booked, but the girl will let me know if someone asks to upgrade to a king room. I remind her of this again as I head out for some beauty time, and then again, when I get back. As I leave for the party, there is a different person at the front desk, so I figure I should make sure they're in the loop and they're not. Sigh. Write down my phone number for a second time and head on my way, pretty sure I'll still be in the same room when I get back.

Next morning we get up and shower, and I stop by the desk to see about changing rooms. The girl is back, yet I have to re-explain the whole thing. Not a problem to switch rooms, lots of people checking out today. Just need to sign 17 forms and leave our bags in one of the (locked) conference rooms. We do, write down the phone number for a THIRD time, and head to church/lunch. Come back from lunch and stop by the desk to see if a room is ready so we can move our stuff before heading out for the rest of the day.

Guy: Let me check. Oh! Yes, we have a room! Oh...it's on the second floor.

Me: Yeah? And?

Guy: Your other room was on the first floor.

Me: We're not going to jump, I promise.

He checks us into our new room and I tell him twice that I need a receipt for the 'old' room, and that we will need our stuff out of the conference room. I get the receipt on the second request and hands us our new keys with a smile.

Me: Our bags?

Guy: Oh, right. Let me see...I guess I should call George.

Teresa: Yes, I would say it's time to call George.

George is a nice guy, who re-opens the room and we grab our stuff without having to show any ID or signing any more forms. Technically, we could have grabbed someone else's stuff, but seeing as how I had my laptop and a bottle of wine we had swiped from the previous night's party, I don't think we were going to get a better deal ;-)

My grandmother invited us to stay at their place the next night, but that was enough room switching for one weekend!!

Day 52 - What?!?!?

I need to learn how to speak cat. Enough of this meowing at 4 AM for no apparent reason and then finding kitty waste in various places in the house. Just tell me when the litter box is no longer meeting your standards! How am I supposed to know that you need a fresh box every 3 days?

And why won't you sleep in the nice comfy heated orthopedic bed anymore? It's right next to the heating vent and if it weren't 2' by 2', I would probably sleep in it, it looks so comfortable! Why do you have to sit next to my ear and meow instead??

And why is it that you can bang your big head into everything in the house, but you can't give your food dish a little nudge so that more food will fall down into the bowl. WHY?!?

How long do cats live? I know Ethan's answer: too long!!

Cole, in his younger days...

Whores and topless oysters

The post you've all been waiting for...and I'm sure it won't live up to the hype ;-)

After arriving in Florida and trying desperately not to get myself left by the highway after all my comments and having my luggage arrive at the same time, my aunt, uncle, and I headed to the church hall/room/place where the surprise birthday dinner was going to be held. While that sounds a little cheesy, it turned out very nice with some tablecloths and candles. As an added bonus, the church nursery was down the hall and available (with babysitter) for small children to go to after dinner which is a truly great thing when there are like 15 kids there.

So we get to the church and get tables/chairs set up and one of my aunts is making labels for what goes on what table so the caterers could do their things. One of the tables was for hors d'oeuvre which no one knew how to spell (I just had to google it), and after various attempts, someone said "just write whores on it and they'll know what it means." And that kicked off the round of jokes about the whores and the whore table and who should be sitting there and what we would wear if we were at that table. I think they ended up writing "appetizers" on the card instead.

After labeling tables (and labeling me "mom" because I had a bag of snacks that was keeping people somewhat subdued), several of us headed out to lunch at a sort-of local seafood place. One of those places where you're sitting at what looks like a folding table and the drinks are served in big styrofoam cups with whatever you ordered spilling over the side. Classy. But damn good food! And I immediately see on the menu that you can order topless oysters, which seemed like a good thing to serve at the whore table.

See? It was much funnier there, in the moment.

On the upside, all the women were at one end of the table and when the bill came we pretended to be deep in conversation until the men finally paid. Worked out especially well for the 2 of us that were there without men ;-)

Day 51 - A lady of leisure

To continue my week of unemployment, I laid around all day watching soaps and eating bon bons. Ha! Whatever. The only reason I turned on the TV was to let the boyz watch Disney channel so I could shower before taking them to daycare. Then I went to Target and spent most of the rest of the on the computer doing un-fun things that needed to be done. And still haven't touched the taxes. Maybe tomorrow?

My new laptop is slightly uneven and rocks back and forth as it types, so I called Dell to complain. The woman finally understood my problem when I compared it to an uneven table at a restaurant where you finally stick a sugar packet under one of the legs. The good news: they're sending me a new laptop. The bad news: they're sending me a new laptop. After I finally got most everything set up on this one the way I like it. Oh well, better than being computerless for a couple of weeks!!

I think it's still snowing...kind of hoping it stops so I can (selfishly) enjoy another day by myself tomorrow!

The last snowfall we had (which just recently melted)

Why 6:30 AM flights are a bad idea

Lessons learned:

1. I had to wake up at 4:00 AM to be ready to go for my aunt/uncle taxi service which arrived at 4:45 AM.
2. Taxi didn't quite make the left onto a major road and we ended up driving into oncoming traffic for about 2 seconds. Luckily, since it was so early, there was no oncoming traffic.
3. Our driver (I won't say if it was the aunt or uncle), he complained the intersection was not well marked. Then said driver asked about the road to the airport and I told driver not to worry, it's well marked. Driver muttered some not very nice words to me in the rear view mirror.
4. I made another well marked comment in the parking garage and am lucky I wasn't locked in the trunk.
5. It's damn cold at 5:00 AM when you're walking from the garage to the airport. Especially when you decided to leave your coat at home.
6. It's awesome to have your connection gates right across from each other when you only have a 30 minute layover in Atlanta.
7. It's not awesome for your bags to have a 30 minute layover in Atlanta.
8. It's less awesome when you've been making smart-ass "it's well marked" comments all morning AND you decided to carry on your bag.
9. Don't gloat about carrying on your bag, not even while sitting in the backseat on the phone with your husband.
10. Always turn down the volume in the rental car, otherwise you might be deafened by Nelly "Hot in Herre" blasting from the speakers.

Stay tuned to hear about the whores and topless oysters...don't worry, that's not going to be my picture blog!!

Mommy, I need you to do me a flavor

Time to take a break from the hideous to-do list I need to work through this week and oh good grief, it has just started to snow. Please don't close daycare early, please don't close daycare early.

I think it was Friday night (either that or it was Tuesday night, because Eric was in the tub and I really don't think I could remember anything as far back as Sunday night and those are usually the nights our children bathe/shower). Man it feels good to let that stream of consciousness go! And I spelled 'consciousness' right!! Go me!

Anyway.

Evan and I were putting laundry away (well, I was putting it away and he kept re-arranging the piles) and he said "Mommy, I need you to do me a flavor."

"A flavor?" I asked

"Yes. You need to go give Daddy a kiss."

Umm. Okay. Easy enough. I go into the bathroom where Eric and Ethan are making a great splashing mess and give Ethan a kiss while Evan peeks in through the door, giggling at us.

In his stage whisper roar "and tell him you love him"

Again, easy enough, and I have completed all my flavors for the evening.

Kids are so cute.

Day 50 - Ahhhh

It's nice to be home, and I think I need a list of all the things I need to blog about from the trip and even a little bit before.

• Mommy, I need you to do me a flavor
• The trip down
• Whores and topless oysters
• The great room switch aka We're not going to jump aka It's time to call George
• Flip-flop shopping--more than just shoes
• Atlanta to Dulles--worst part of the trip

Let's see how many of those I get to in the next couple of days, among all the other things I need to do!

But I did get home safe and sound and the boys were very excited to see me and absolutely adorable with fresh haircuts. Brave Ethan for taking them by himself! Thankfully, there were still some 'babies' in Florida and I got to enjoy a little snuggle time with my youngest cousin Olivia.

Day 49 - Almost over...

The bad news is, the trip to Florida is almost over. The good news is, I will be home with all my boys and will have plenty of blogging time to catch up on stories, memories, and generally make up for all the crap I've been posting in a rush for the past week because I've had no time to spend in front of the computer doing fun stuff.

Weather was weird today...heavy rain, sun, threatening clouds, then more sun. Makes for some great photos though...

Day 48 - It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a...

...space station?

An added 'cool thing' about the trip to Florida is that we had the chance to see the space station flying overhead. My dad gave us a pre-warning, and then stood watch in the front yard of my aunt's house until it finally appeared. It really was cool, kind of like a shooting star...this small but very bright light sailing across the sky.

I warned you that it was small...

see the teeny tiny dot in the lower right corner of the picture?

Day 47 - She missed it! Or did she?

Is this really today's blog? Close enough. After waking at 4 AM to get to the airport for a 6:30 AM flight, I made it to my secret destination--Florida for my grandmother's 80th birthday party, which was a surprise. She was surprised. It was great. We stayed up until 1 AM.

Happy Birthday Grandma! Enjoy your weekend!

Day 46 - Still tired

Today was my last day of work, and I re-start at my new job next Monday (25th). This afternoon was a whirlwind of packing stuff, saying goodbye, and pacing myself on the margaritas so I could still come home and see the family before bedtime. I have to be up and out of the house at 4:45 AM tomorrow (more on that in the next couple of days) and I hate it because I feel like I've hardly seen my boys (including Ethan) this week. But the trip is for a good cause and will be a great time and hopefully we can get into a little more relaxed routine when I get back.

Hopefully I'll get at least one night of un-interrupted hard core sleeping...like this guy :-)

Day 45 - It's Valentine's Day

As my dear hubby said to me tonight "it took me a while, but I've learned." And learned he has. I am not a fan of Valentine's Day...it looks like an excuse to spend a lot of money on a fancy dinner and flowers that you could go out 3 'regular' nights and spend the same. I love my hubby and don't need a specific day in the year to tell him, although it is a nice reminder for me to tell him at least. Anyway, I picked the boys up from daycare and they each had a card for me (with Daddy's help), which was sweet. And Evan was SO excited to give it to me, which was even cuter. Ethan and I attempted to have a semi-nice/quiet dinner at home, but the boys were not very quiet and we ended up watching the red lights of the monitor while Eric screamed and listening to Little Einsteins in the background. Ah, well, we were together and had a little bit of uninterrupted adult conversation, so that's good enough for me!

Enough blogging, back to some quality time with hubby and trying not to be on an emotional roller coaster about my last day at work tomorrow.

Here's the boys and all their 'loot'

Day 44 - The rule of thirds

Photography class #2, where we learned about composition and 'the rule of thirds.' In a nutshell, it's wrong to center your picture. Sort of. You shouldn't center the main focus of the picture. So if you're taking a portrait of a person, you wouldn't want their eyes to be at the center of the picture, because that tends to be the main focus. And if you're taking a landscape shot, you want the horizon line to be in the top or bottom third, depending on whether you're highlighting the ground or the sky. I think I do okay on the people thing, but wasn't sure about the landscape thing. Surprisingly enough though, I think I got it...most of the time ;-)

Got it.

Don't got it.

Day 43 - It's here!!

My new computer is here. FINALLY. Even though the DHL website still says it's sitting in a warehouse waiting for me to pick it up.

And I'm spending so much time trying to get everything loaded on it, I have no energy for other thoughts.

Sharing the love...

Eric is still on the nebulizer treatments, although we're down to 3 times a day. Still, treatment #2 needs to happen mid-day, so daycare has the joy of handling that one. I warned them, I really did. I told them that he has a tendency to fight and cry and scream and offered some suggestions to minimize that (books, Evan, straight jacket).

I get a phone call early this afternoon from one of the directors. Eric had his medicine, but she's not sure they will be able to continue doing this because she feels they might be breaking state laws if they have to use force to hold him down.

It was all I could do not to laugh, and I know, it's not really that funny and I understand the concern because I know how loud and squirmy he is and have perfected a "hold" to keep him from getting away. I showed one of my co-workers the hold (her son is in the same situation), and someone thought we were demonstrating some sort of self-defense move.

After picking Eric up this afternoon and listening to one of the office women going on and on about how horrible it was, I just looked at her and said "Yeah, I know. We had to do it FIVE times a day this weekend. That's TEN times." And the other office lady looked like she was doing all she could not to laugh. I felt better. And am still laughing at the fear of breaking state laws :)

Day 42 - Does this happen to other people?

In preparation for leaving my current job and giving up my sweet laptop, I bought a new laptop. No idea if I'll get one with the newjob, but somehow I don't think it's appropriate to keep a kabillion photos on a work laptop. So the new one made good sense.

Ordered it a little over a week ago, and got a notice last week that it would arrive on Friday. Sweet! I came home early Friday, saw the laptop had not yet been delivered and there was no "sorry we missed you" note on the door, and did not leave the house until Ethan came home so I wouldn't miss it. The overflowing bag of dry cleaning is still sitting in the front hallway. The delivery guy never showed up and sometime that evening the website showed they had tried to deliver at 9:30 in the morning. But never bothered to leave a note.

I called DHL and they informed me that the laptop would be re-delivered on Monday and I would have to be there to sign for it. And no, I could not sign the little slip of paper (that they forgot to leave), I had to physically be there. Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM.

I called Dell and spent over an hour on the phone with 4 different people trying to get them to call DHL to 1) deliver on Saturday, 2) remove the signature requirement, or 3) change the shipping address to my office. There was a lot of nasty exchanges, and not all on my part. I was 'disconnected' twice. The 4th guy finally changed the shipping address, so I guess I was the most polite with him. The 1st guy suggested I should go pick up the laptop at DHL between 9-5/Mon-Fri and I asked him if he was going to refund me the amount of money I was going to lose in vacation time if I did that. The answer, no surprise, was no. He had a lot of other equally bad suggestions which is why I think I got disconnected when I insisted on speaking with his supervisor (and I actually had to say the words "I insist on talking to your supervisor" because he would only put me through if I "insisted").

As of this morning, no update on DHL's website, so I call to find out when they are going to deliver it. A lovely woman says the change has not gone through yet, but they could hold the package there and I could pick it up before 8 PM tonight. I can do this.

I show up at DHL at 7:20 tonight to find out my package is no longer at their facility; it has been re-routed for delivery to my office. Maybe tomorrow. And it's not even worth calling to complain about anymore, which is why my blog-readers are victim to this whole story :-)

Evan playing on my computer at bring your kids to work day

A blog that needs to live on...

I'm still crying from laughing so hard. Go here.

Thanks Chick

Day 41 - Here's the deal; it'll only take a couple of minutes

I cringe when my husband starts a conversation with "here's the deal." Usually it means he is going to try and get me to do something that will almost entirely benefit him, but make me think that it benefits me as well.

He's also famous (in our house) for his use of the word "couple." To me, a couple is a small number, most commonly TWO. To him, it means way more. If we're talking physical objects/beings, it's a minimum of 3 and anywhere up to about 8. If we're talking about a couple of minutes? Yeah, that can go at least an hour. And "quick" is pretty interchangeable. Like today, we finally got around to re-anchoring the cabinet of death. Seemed like an easy task: shift to the right 2 inches, insert some big ass screws into the wall. How foolish of me.

I am sitting in the dining room, preparing to blog, and realize the internet has died on me. I go downstairs to find he has disconnected everything in the cabinet, namely the cable modem and wireless router. They weigh about 6 ounces each. I'm not sure how removing them from the cabinet simplified this process any. Oh, and when he disconnects things, he rips the power cords out of the back with no regard to what was connected where.

Then, apparently there is only 1 stud behind where he is trying to put the cabinet of death, and we need 2. We hang 300 pounds worth of electronic equipment plus big heavy Waterford bowls/vases off our wall with only one stud, but this one requires 2, in his eyes. So we make a makeshift stud which involves me holding a piece of wood while he drills into it and I pray that I survive this episode without injury.

And then I have to put the laptop, modem, router, phone, and printer back into the cabinet and re-connect all the wires. But rest assured, it only took a couple of minutes ;-)

A good 'evil man' picture :-)
Although it's hard not to laugh when he looks so small in that big shirt :-)

Day 40 - Time is running out!!

Just finished a lovely dinner, a bottle of wine, and a round of cards with some friends and realized I have less than 40 minutes left to post in the day--gasp!!

A long story I can't really tell to preface this, but today I was at an event where someone was, well, complaining, that there were no schools in this area that satisfied what they were studying. Seriously, we live in the general area of the capital of the United States--what the hell was this girl studying that couldn't be found in the DC, Baltimore, or northern Virginia region? Really, truly, I hope someone can tell me, because I am at a loss to think of what it could be.

Just to prove how 'city' we are, here's a video of when Evan spotted a turtle on the sidewalk behind our house about a year ago. I can almost hear the 'Green Acres' music playing in the background:

And just to clarify, yes, Evan is wearing his pajama shirt with boxers (no pants),
Eric's hat, and a Spiderman backpack. Talking about bears and wolves.

I have to do my photography 'homework' tomorrow, so hopefully the boys will cooperate as my subjects. Or at least be nearby while the camera is out :-)

Day 39 - And they laughed

Yesterday's posts were a little loose on details, so just to clarify:

• I have put in notice at my current job and will be starting a new one in a few weeks. I'm excited and nervous, all at the same time. I've received a lot of great compliments from my current co-workers and clients though, which continues my cloud from yesterday.
  

• The doctor was 95% sure that Eric just had a virus, but because of Evan's recent pneumonia, gave us antibiotics 'just to kill anything that might be there.' He's the man :-) We have to nebulize Eric FIVE times a day this weekend, but he's actually doing very well. Except when Ethan gives him the nebulizer :-(

Ethan calls this afternoon to ask if I talked to to the guy who used to be my boss and is now my boss 3 levels up. I say no, why would I have called him?

E: Because he called last night

J: And you're just now telling me?

E: I tried a couple of times, but you were talking too much and then I forgot.

So I call the old boss and immediately apologize for not calling sooner and explain that I just got the message because Ethan said he tried to tell me, but I was talking too much. And my old boss? He LAUGHED. And agreed that I can talk too much!!

And when I told Ethan that he had laughed, he started laughing too. And laughed for a long time.

I don't talk THAT much.

But my boyz do love to laugh :-)

Different planets, same universe

Conversation between hubby and I over lunch today:

Me: Eric's still breathing pretty hard, not sure whether to go ahead and take him to the doctor today or wait and see how he does over the weekend with the nebulizer.

Translation: Do I take him today when I am already working from home or do I roll the dice and hope that he gets better over the weekend so I don't have to take time off on Monday and waste a vacation day at a job I am only going to be at for another week?

Hubby: If you can get an appointment for today, then you should take him today. Or I can take him during the walk-in hours tomorrow.

Translation: Take him today because I don't want to have to take time off tomorrow to take him even though I have a job with gobs of leave. And if he doesn't go today and he really is sick, I will subtly lay on the thick guilt (see note below).

Later in the afternoon, I call to tell him I have gotten Eric an appointment for this afternoon so he will need to pick up Evan and take care of dinner.

Hubby: What made you change your mind?

Translation: Holy crap! She listened to me? I am the man!

Sigh. Are we speaking the same language?

As an added note, whenever Ethan wants to take Eric to the doctor NOW and I think we should wait, Eric is sick with something they can treat (i.e. ear infection). But whenever I rush to take him to the doctor, it's always a damn virus that they can't do anything about. Maybe my luck is changing?

Day 38 - Sometimes, it's just nice to hear it

I know I'm a good mom...I'm not perfect and I'm sure I could be a better mom, but all in all, I know I'm good. Sometimes it's nice to hear it though.

**Warning: this could be seen as another 'sick kid blog', which according to my husband, I post way too much about sick kids**

Evan is fully recovered from his latest round of pneumonia, and had a visit with the doctor this morning resulting in a clean bill of health. Eric has also been pretty healthy, except for a cough and runny nose/eyes which I blamed on the sudden warm weather that showed up earlier this week. Then his breathing started to get a little heavy after doing absolutely nothing strenuous and didn't seem to get any better after the nebulizer. After a story I'll post separately, we decide it's better to get him checked out and, lucky lucky, get an appointment for late afternoon with THE doctor. When I say THE doctor, it's because he's the reason the practice is so popular. He's old school, doesn't mess around, and whatever his diagnosis is, you're confident that's what it is because he's so confident.

Eric and I show up for the 4:40 appointment armed with snacks and toys galore, preparing for the worst after Evan's 4-hour visit last week. Wasn't too bad of a wait and the doctor comes in and does his thing...listening, diagnosing, explaining treatment, writing prescriptions. All the while, Eric is sitting on my lap drooling like crazy, flipping through books before requesting another from the giant basket they keep in each exam room. He's babbling the whole time "mommy...daddy...baby...puppy...cat" and I'm trying to keep him on each page a little longer, asking where thing are and what noise different animals make. The doctors stops all his writing and looks over and smiles and says "thanks...I'm enjoying this...it's really great to see how you're taking this time and just enjoying it with him and mothering him and reading to him."

I could continue about how great the rest of the night was, despite a trip to CVS, an awful dinner at Popeye's and TWO nebulizer treatments, but I'm still just too darn proud of myself for being a good mom and having a (almost) complete stranger recognize it.

Almost forgot the picture, I'm on such a cloud!

Day 37 - Photography 101

Tonight was my first photography class. It's in one of the science classrooms of a local high school. There's a hamster running on a wheel (in a cage), a stuffed squirrel, and a tank that looks like it should hold some sort of slithery animal, but there was no slithery animal. Is that what high school science classrooms look like everywhere?

The teacher is an odd lady with no kids, but a "cat out of wedlock." Most people in the class seem normal and somewhat intelligent with varying interests in photography (kids vs. nature vs. architecture), so it should be good. Today I learned how to take a picture without a flash by setting the aperture and shutter speed. Here's what I got:


Ooh...ahh...

Day 36 - Pictures only

Roller coaster of a day, so no time/energy for stories...

Good for a smile though :-)

Day 35 - Is that Klingon?

Eric speaks his own language, one that even Ethan and I have trouble understanding most of the time. But sometimes...sometimes he comes out with something that makes you cock your head to one side like a dog does when they think they heard something they wanted to hear, but aren't sure if they heard it.

I went to Marshalls the other day and when I came home (with a bag in my hand), he said "whadja buy?"

When Grandma was visiting last week, he asked where Pop-pop was and after Grandma said he stayed home, he asked "Wass he doing?"

(Evan used to say "Daddy! Doing!?" constantly when he was little and it was the sweetest thing ever.

We have tried to teach Eric this phrase, but he absolutely refuses to give in.)

So here's my little Klingon

Day 34 - Where does the time go?

Somehow, it's almost 10:00. Where did the day go? We got up, had pancakes, Ethan went to help a friend shop for golf clubs while the boys and I stayed home and made bread...lunch, naps, 2 trips to the Container Store, replacing the shelves in our living room with the new shelves, off to friends for the Superbowl...hmmm, I'm starting to see where the day went. And the worst part? I missed halftime. I assume it happened just about the time I put Eric to bed and then supervised Evan's shower before putting him to bed. Bummer. The last few minutes of the game are proving to be pretty exciting though, so at least there's that. And there's a new episode of House on tonight!! Sneaky networks, hanging onto a couple of episodes...

In the shelf re-arranging, I decided to pull down the picture of Evan we had up, seeing as how we (okay, I) never bothered to put a picture of Eric up there, even though I have one that's kind of the same. So, to be a fair parent and equal to both my children, I'll post them here instead:

Evan (3 days old)

Eric (5 days old)

And holy crap, I can't believe the Giants just won the Superbowl.

Day 33 - A deal of a day!!

Ethan called me at work yesterday to share a mix of news:

The bad - the blender had died. It was smoking and seemed to be melting.

The good - he got the best damn pomegranate smoothie out of it before it croaked

We estimated the blender had lasted at least 3 years, which isn't too bad considering he uses it a pretty good amount, especially during workout times. And it does a good enough job to keep me from 'needing' the Margaritaville Frozen Concoction Maker. For now anyway. At some point my mother will get tired of hers, right? ;-)

So we decide to stick with the same brand of blender (Cuisinart) and opt for a slightly different style, but it's essentially the same as the old one with a kick-ass motor. Bed Bath and Beyond has it on their website, so I head to the store with one of many 20% off coupons.

No blender.

Linens n Things did NOT have the blender on their website, but I head over there anyway because they usually have a good selection of stuff (better than BBB). Ta-da! They have the blender! For $30 more. Argh. Ethan sends me the BBB link so I can pull up the price on my phone and I head to the cash register and make my case. The guy rings it up and it actually is the same price as the BBB one, so that was a waste of an argument. BUT. Because I brought my business to LNT instead of BBB, he knocks another $10 off the price, and then gives me the 20% off (they always take the coupon). Sweet!!

It gets better.

I headed to Giant to pick up some things for a Superbowl party tomorrow and to take advantage of a 'spend $20 on sour cream and pizza and get $7 towards your next order.' I don't get my $7 (I think I technically only spent $19.98 before taxes, which may have something to do with it). Since I'm a self-checkout kind of girl, I head to customer service with my receipt and the weekly ad. The guy gives the receipt a quick glance, opens his register, and presents me with $7. Double sweet!!

I ordered a new laptop last night and today Ethan got a gift card in the mail for the same company (he bought a new laptop a few months ago). They will not apply the gift card to my already made purchase, and Ethan is trying to convince me to cancel and re-place the order so I can use the gift card (no penalty for doing this). I keep asking him what kind of deal he's going to give me :-)

Evan and his smoothie mustache (or 'soobie', as he used to call them)

Day 32 - Manly Jambalaya

I have to admit, I was afraid. Since his job allows him to work less or no hours on Fridays, my hubby has taken over dinner duty on Friday nights. It hasn't been easy. Not on me, having to relinquish control of something, and not on him, having to deal with my pickiness at what he's cooking and what he's using to cook it. I mean, the man can grill like nobody's business, so why is there a need to step into the kitchen--my domain--and cook there??

To make it even more frightening, he insists on cooking from these A Man, A Can cookbooks. Although, I have made some of these recipes myself and they're not so bad. I think I'm just still traumatized from the day Ethan made the boys chicken nugget refried bean burritos for dinner.

Anyway, tonight was 'Manly Jambalaya' night. It had chicken, sausage, shrimp, AND bacon in it. He didn't realize the recipe called for 'regular' rice and he was using instant. I forgot to buy green pepper. He used some sort of onion spice instead of one of the many onions sitting in the refrigerator.

It was pretty good. I'm pretty sure I have a clogged artery from all the greasy saltiness, but it still was good. Evan ate most of it after we convinced him the sausage was hot dogs and Eric held his own after he lost interest in putting his feet on the table (a firm voice when you're trying not to laugh just doesn't seem to do it, but the sight of his little red sock inching onto the table was just too funny to contain).

So if your hubby wants to cook manly jambalaya, give it a chance. Join in the moment and have a beer and good belch afterwards too ;-)

In the interest of being a stern parent, I was not able to take a picture of Eric sticking his foot on the table. So here's my hubby with his favorite cooking utensil.