Never Again!!

Ya, it;s been a while since I last posted. I suck at this. Oh well, it's mostly for me and if I'm not yelling at me then all is well eh? The Mrs. started a blog and it inspires me to pick this up again. That, plus I have an iPhone and I'm posting from bed. This should help.

I'm not going to even attempt to recap the last year. Let's just pick up from here. Since here happens to be just after Alex's first birthday the family pictures are top of mind. The annual ritual of torturing ourselves. And for the first year of both kids lives, we did this punishment every three months. The usual process involves Picture People at the mall. Never heard of them? Count yourself lucky and move on!

We show up and wait. We get called in to the room (God forbid they stick you in the window at the front where the whole mall gets to watch you) and do what we can to explain what we want. We then spend the next 30 min crawling around the dirty floor of the studio because the 12 year old "photographer" thinks it's cute to have us do the exact opposite of what we wanted. 163 cliche posed pictures later, we are allowed to put our shoes back on, brush the dirt and dust off, pick up what's left of our dignity and walk out. Then comes the real wait!

You see, these bastards go throughout the pics, touch them up, print them out, and frame them - all while your kids are slowly melting into an unrecognizable mass of chaotic whining and crying. By the way, seven other families are packed in with you going through the same melt down. Finally, after what feels like 13 hours some other kid comes out with the framed pics hoping to get an "Aaawwwww!" out of us - fat chance, turd. Show us the picson the screen, let us hurry through this awful process, get fleeced and go to CPK for lunch.

Ya, but not this time!!! We got ourselves a proper photographer - a mom who knew better than to put us through that crap nonsense with crawling around on dirty floors. She met us a a beautiful park, took dignified photos, and let us go home when we were done. I'm in love with this lady!!!

And to the bastards at Picture People - NEVER AGAIN YOU TURDS!!!

Basketball...sort of

For the past couple of months, I've been taking Emma to soccer class on Saturdays. It's a half hour and they play little games with small soccer balls. Obviously, learning soccer is not the priority, having fun, being active, interacting with other kids, following direction, etc. is what we try to do there. But, the soccer is a pretty big part of the whole thing.

During the classes, she'd get bored halfway through and want to stop playing. She'd start picking up the ball and throwing it, she'd take off running without the ball, pretty much do everything except soccer. We thought, "Why push her? There's other sports." So, when soccer ended two weeks ago, we didn't sign her up again. Instead, we signed up for basketball.

So we get there today and the class is in a big high school gym. They have the small basketballs and short baskets set up for the kids. Emma goes and gets a ball, puts it on the ground, and takes the ball from one end of the gym to the other such that Pele himself would be proud.

Oh kids.

Flu Vaccines...

Thursdays are lodge night. I usually don't get home until at least 10pm. This means that a)I don't get to see Emma and b)poor Cheryl has to deal with both kids on her own. Lodge, therefore, brings with it a special guilt for this former alter boy.

Last night, as I walked up the stairs at 10:30, I noticed Emma's bedroom light on. Oh, that can't be good. I walk in and the house looks a bit disheveled, Cheryl looks slightly more disheveled, and Emma sitting in her lap looks like she invented the word disheveled.

The two of them had gotten the flu vaccine mist up their noses. And, as any good doctor will tell you, you don't get sick from that. So, last night, Emma wasn't reacting to the flu mist while doing her best to cough out that annoying lung of hers, and I wasn't up all night dealing with her crying, barking-coughing, and watching episode after episode of Elmo's world. Because, of course, these flu vaccines don't have side effects.

Oh, and to top it off, not only had Emma puked all over her bed by the time I got home last night, but Chloe had puked on my bed, and Alex, feeling left out, took his turn to join in the festivities as well.

Time to restart...

I love to write. I'm not that good at it, I know, but I like doing it. And how do you get better at doing something? By doing it a great deal. And yet, how to find the time to do it?

So, now we have two kids. Alex is 5 weeks old. Emma is 2 years old. We hardly have time to eat, much less blog.

I'm going to try and consider this a reset. I like to write and to keep my sanity, I'm going to make sure to do at least some of the things I like instead of giving it all up. I'll give up sleep (hardly getting any to begin with) to make time for this.

I love this train!

There is a steam train in Tilden Park in Berkeley. It is a real, live, working steam train – albeit a bit smaller. We took the little Bean to take a ride. Stopped off for some Ethiopian food for lunch – Emma was not the biggest fan, although she ate enough. I loved it!!! I kinda love food in every language though…

Anyway, we ate our fill of chicken tibs and we were off to Tilden. We followed the signs off the 24 just east of the tunnel, headed up the hills, and turned into the steam train area. Wow. A parking lot full of SUV’s and minivans with loads of families…umm…so we are officially “those” people. Whatever, we parked, lathered up Bean in sunblock and we were ready to go.

Bean had other ideas. She decided it was time to take a deuce. Awesome. Nothing more fun than changing a loaded diaper on the road. While cleaning up her little behind, we heard the train blowing its horn – the last time I was that excited was when my copy of Ace of Base’s “Da Capo” cd arrived from Bulgaria – had to buy it bootleg from some guy over ebay because they didn’t release it in the US, but I digress.

I quickly tidied things up with Bean’s tush and we tried again. We walk over to the ticket booth ready to buy our tickets and they only take cash. $2 per adult. Cheryl’s got a dollar bill, I’ve got a dollar bill and a Benny (whole other story about why I have the $100 bill in my wallet at all times) so we are out of luck. We bought one ticket, argued a bit about who would go, and then wifey went and scraped through the glove box and change container in the car. Scraping together nickels and pennies, we got the other $2 – woo-hoo!

Train pulled in, we got on and we were off. It was a nice ride through the surrounding area. The smell of the train, the burning sun (it was well into the 90s) and Bean mimicking the train horn made for a fun ride.

Now, the little monster goes up to the computer, points, says something close to “train,” makes the sign for train, and we have to pull up videos of steam trains for her. Thank you Youtube!!!

Setting the Record Straight

So, I'm in the bathroom shaving the other day. The Bean walks in, points at me, and says, "Dada." She points at herself and says, "Emma." Turns around and walks out. Glad we cleared that up.

Expressive Eyes

This kid has some eyes. She give us some looks that just kill me. Somehow, she manages to mix curiosity and concern with being utterly aloof, and it is as cute as can be. See examples below. Also of interest is the bottom picture, which is proof positive of where she gets her kooky tendencies from...