Between 2am and 6am I can knock out a bunch of work! No phones ring. Even the dogs don’t need walking. Since I got up at 2am and have been diligent in my work, when Cathy woke with a migraine this morning, I was able to send her back to bed and move my work upstairs. Being upstairs with one eye on the children and one eye on the screen slows me down a little but conceptually I could take 4 hours off (realistically I need to keep pounding keys hard and fast) but the stress is off. I don’t think I could do this from an office.
Category: Family
Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.
From the mouths of babes
Evan (2.5 years old): "I want Ma Mum!"
Dad: "Ma Mum’s sick."
Evan: "I want hug Ma Mum me."
From the mouths of babes
Dad, puts on jacket and hat to go outside.
Amy: "You look like Phillips Dad."
From the mouths of babes
Dad, 6:30am: Turns on bedroom lights
Dad, 7:00am to Tommy: "Are you going to school today?"
Tommy: "Yes Dad."
Dad, 7:10am to Tommy: "Get up!"
Dad, 7:20am to Tommy: "Are you going to school today? Get up!"
Dad, 7:29am to Tommy: "Sarah’s leaving."
Tommy springs to action: "It’s 7:32. I didn’t have a chance of making the bus today!"
Your children will never hear anything you say
My children just learned hot things melt plastic. Gee. Where have I heard that before?
They also now know that popcorn was not always made in the microwave.
Tommy: "Why wouldn’t you just use a microwave?"
Mom, not answering to avoid saying: "Because I’m old enough to remember when microwaves didn’t exist!"
Gag! Thar’s critters about!
The smell of skunk has leaked into the house so badly that my eyes are wanting to water. There must have been one on the driveway and it either sprayed our outdoor cat or the neighbor’s dogs. Whatever happened, it wasn’t far away! I need new windows and doors!
Thursday Sucked
Aside from being Valentine’s Day, which I received some nice candies and a DVD from my wonderful wife, today was pretty horrible. That’s all.
Proud Dad So Happy He Wet Himself
This is one of those blogging moments that most people don’t want to read but I’m posting it anyway. My boy pee’d in the toilet! And on the toilet and on the seat and the wall and the floor. Yes, he recognized he needed to go and knew what to do! Of course, aiming and control seems to be an issue. Dude has a bladder and a half too! We could be a diaper free house soon! Even the puppy seems to be getting it. We may not even need the training pads that we used with Molly.
Holiday Cad
I let another holiday slip up on me but this time I had plans! I had a very specific hour set aside to get my shopping out of the way. Unfortunately, irony usurped that hour away from me.
From the mouths of babes
Amy: "Our house is like a pet store."
Note: We are dog sitting for a few days so we have 3 dogs in the house, an indoor cat, a fish tank full of snails (maybe some fish), an outdoor cat, squirrels, and who knows what else.
Dharma Speak!
Our German Shepherd howls when I go downstairs.
Mobile post sent by djuggler using Utterz.
Mobilizing the family
How do you mobilize a family of 7 with one car? The details have been published. Here is a typical evening for us:
- 4:00pm Wake sleeping two year old. Send 5 year old’s guest home. Dress 2 year old as 11 year old and 14 year old arrive home from school. Instruct 11 year old to grab homework materials for the car and shove some Tylenol into him.
- Tommy stayed after school for LAN Club. No one brought games so it is basically canceled. Must go to high school to pick him up then zig zag through rush hour traffic toward downtown to get Sarah to her last climbing practice before their final meet.
- 4:40pm Sarah has been dropped off. Make a U-Turn and proceed to the exact opposite side of town to drop 11 year old off at Karate practice.
- 5:20pm 11 year old at karate practice. Take leisurely drive to BFE so 17 year old can have his horse riding lessons
- 6pm Drop Tommy at S.T.A.R.. Barn cold and unsafe for little ones so we speed off to shop in Turkey Creek. The cable to the upstairs television quit working so a new run of wire has to be installed before Lost at 9pm!!
- 6:30pm Call 14 year old to confirm she got transportation home otherwise rework schedule.
- 7:00pm shopping is complete and picking up 17 year old from barn. Good weather and they run late.
- 7:20pm leaving S.T.A.R. to pickup karate kid.
- 8pm Karate kid in hand rush home to install cable while wife gripes that we are going to miss Lost and it won’t be on the DVR.
- 8:30pm install cable
- 9pm Watch Lost
- 10pm resist urge to collapse and return to programming.
Happy Birthday Sis!
My little sister turns 21 today! I remember Dad announcing her. We had just moved to Germantown TN. Each of our moves was prefaced with Dad announcing at the dinner table, "boys, we’re going to move." So when the tension at the dinner table grew and Dad started in with "boys, …" I started wondering where we might be going and why so soon. When he finished with "…your mother is pregnant" I kept waiting for the punchline. Not long after that, my sister was in the nursery around the corner from my bedroom and I would wake multiple times a night to go watch her breath dreading the horrid "crib death." I really liked the new addition to the family and looked forward to being a positive influence on her. A year later I was off to college and I blink my eyes and she’s in college!
Happy Birthday Kelly! Have yourself an adult beverage or two to celebrate but keep this video in mind:
p.s. Sorry about that dirty diaper I refused to change for 45 minutes when I was babysitting you.
My son makes a crime scene at school
Time to run to the middle school and pick up a bloody child. Ever hear of Von Willebrands? Makes a regular nose bleed look like a scene out of CSI!
Squirrels in the Attic – update
I put a live trap in the attic to catch the squirrels and move them to another part of town. After I feel sure that I have them out, I’m going to seal up the hole they are using to get into the attic. I have been warned that someone who sealed his attic prematurely ended up with $2000 in damages in one day. That person removed the adults but was unaware of the babies in the nest. Now I am a bit concerned about the same situation. When do squirrels make babies?
During LOST last night we heard rustling in the vicinity of the live trap. Bingo! I was certain we’d captured our first squirrel. Cathy, concerned for its well-being, encouraged me to go check on it (immediately after I had made a bowl of ice cream). I climb into the attic. You cannot stand in our attic. Every 16 inches, maybe 22 inches, there is another truss so you are hunched over awkwardly squeezing through these triangles while inhaling the asbestos fibers floating in the air from disturbing the insulation put up there decades ago. I usually go up with a breathing mask but its buried in the mess in the garage. I work my way down 9.144 meters* to where I have the trap. As I approach the thumbing of an irritated squirrel gets louder and louder as if to say, "My territory and your slow dumb indefensible butt came up here with nothing but flashlight!" I get about 3.6 meters* from the nest when I see th trap is empty and unsprung. And when I say empty, I mean no squirrel and no bait! All I did was feed it! I’m thinking it is time to install a squirrel cam in the attic and stream it over the Internet.
*Conversion courtesy of Onlineconversion.com.
