A Little Piece of the "PIE"

I love sink baths!!!!
MOM IS THIS A GREY????
I think Im in the wrong crib, Who's Nolan???

Ok, we are back in business! I can't believe its the end of Feb. already!! Less than 2 months and Mr. Pie will be the big "1" He's a busy man these days. Pearly white #3 is breaking gum and Mick believes #4 is not far behind. Its hard to check, the little man wants nothing to do with opening up his mouth..... unless your holding something edible. He eats just about anything and I think he eats more than Kyan sometimes at dinner, and we all know Kyan has been a great eater all his life. This is how Nolan has earned such a round phys-eek! (maybe he'll grow into his goofy nickname after all?) Crawling is old news with Pie Pants. He now prefers to pull up on everything. He can take a few steps with his walker and yesterday I caught him edging himself along side the love seat, soon he will be straight up furniture surfing! He's pretty much mastered the sleeping 12 hours at night thing with an occasional need for a late night bubba. Nursing him is a thing of the past too, a bit touchy on that subject so I'll just leave that alone. Nolan is babbling/talking like crazy. He can say mmmaaa ma and Daaaa da. and of course baaa ba. I caught Kyan trying to train his brother the other day..."say ka ka KYAN.....ka ka KYAN" It was adorable, guess he's feeling a bit left out:( His latest as of a couple days ago is waiving Ba-bye! Well that about sums up the whole pie!

NOT SURE OF A TITLE!

The last few days have been a bit crazy! I can't believe the 22nd was my last entry....I'm slacking! Mick and I have been at each others throats lately, I think we are both tired, burnt out and feeling a bit under the weather:( It all started Friday night, I was exsausted and had a really bad head ache (he's been sick lately too, I carried around a bottle of airfreshner the other day just in case he entered the room...no joke) I dropped 2 Excedrin Migrain, put Kyan to bed and slid in next to him for a 4 hour cat nap. Once 11:30pm hit, I was wide awake. I hung out for a bit until I heard Kyan scream......MMAAAMMAA! I ran upstairs to him gagging, picked him up, ran to the bathroom.....just in time! He blew chunks but we made it to the toilet. He laid on the couch with us until around 3am when Mick brought him back to bed. I finally was able to close my eyes around 4:30 when at 4:35 Mr. Pie woke and was a hungry man. He slammed his bubba and was back to sleep by around 5:10, thank you Nolan, he's a really great sleeper these days. Then I heard a shreak from kyans room again. This time....not so lucky:( Kyan was sitting up, legs out like a "V" blowing chunks between them all over his white sheets! Did I mention I haven't gone to sleep yet and its 5:15? I changed Kyan's PJ's and brought him to our bed. Finally, can I sleep? The little man started to gag I grabbed him (I think I was half asleep) It turns out I WAS delusional, he looked at me in the bathroom like I was nuts and says, "I dont have to puke" I guess he was just coughing, Oops! So back to bed until again he woke up puking all over our bed! Ogh! Mick and I tore off our sheets as quick as we could so it didnt soak through, we dont have the plastic sheet on our bed! So finally I think I got about 1 hour of sleep before my bouncing baby boy woke up! This started our day out, Kyan continued to puke ALL day. Did you know that if you eat two packs of Quaker Instant oatmeal and puke it up 5min. later it still looks like Quaker Instant oatmeal, still warm too??!!!!

Mr. Pie is working on introducing pearly white number 3, its the top right tooth! The snot is running out of his nose like a fountain because of it! He's crawling like crazy. If you see him going twards somthing he's not supposed to and you catch him.....he only crawls faster! He pulls up on everthing too, bumps his head about 265 times a day but it only phases him about a half the times. His seperation anxiety has gone from cute to extreme. He used to only freak out when I left the room, then he started doing it for Mick, now the little drama king does it for Kyan. Its not just a cry, its a fake drama scream, something I know he's picked up from his big brother.

I leave for Cali in 4 days!!! Amy and I are going to see our friend Moski, its only for a long weekend but it will be a nice break for me. I know I say this now but I will be home sick Im sure by Friday night (I leave thurs.)

Anybody need a babysitter?

Sometimes, you see your children doing things that make time slow down for a moment, you soak up each and every little movement they make and try to hold onto their actions for a lifetime. Today was one of them moments, well at least I thought. Kyan this morning crawled up onto my bed with "Puppy" (one of his stuffed toys) and a blanket. He told me in a whispering voice "ssshhh puppy is tired and going to fall asleep" as he took one of his blankets and swaddled him (like he use to watch us do with baby brother) He then crawled down and told me he was going to place him in bed in his room, rocking him so ever gently and gazing right into his eyes. I thought awwwww how sweet is my little man, so gentle and nurturing. Kyan then proceeded to walk to the top of the stairs and chuck bundled puppy down onto the hard laminate floor! Oh well I guess we have a few years before fatherhood anyway!

In the bucket

Nolan Pie
CLAP CLAP
Get me out!

The Boyz

We were going to name him Dennis :(

For those of you who didn't know about Dennis....he was a wonderful little pup who joined our family (briefly) on New Years Day. He was lost out in Rapid River (in the U.P.) and about to run onto the highway so we picked him up and well, I guess saved his life! He was a great little dog friendly, full of energy but knew when to calm down, a great lap dog (not to mention the right size to be a lap dog....hint hint Doc) but last night we found his rightful owner and "Dennis" aka "Beau" is now on his way back up to the U.P. It turns out "Beau" (his real name) must have walked all night for seven miles to get to where we found him! That's quite the journey for the pea size of a dog that he is!!! Kyan took returning "puppy" (Kyan's name for the dog) OK, he knew we were looking for his real owners. Myself on the other hand I was great with it too I was happy Dennis would be going back to his family who loves him and has been missing him so bad, OK I was a sobbing mess! I loved that little dog....I have already been searching Yorkie rescue sites but in all reality I know we don't need another dog. Who knows, we will have to see what happens! Well farewell good old Dennis!

The Promise

It's late and we leave for the U.P. bright and early tomorrow morning, so this will be short. Last night, we had a breakthrough in our relationship. It seems that in Jen's haste to postpone our ante-bedtime discussion, she promised that she would no longer be crabby in the morning. This morning, she was true to her word. This will be a subject of later blogs, I'm sure, and I wouldn't call her a morning person just yet, but she really impressed me this morning.

Nolan, on the other hand, didn't impress me last night. He woke up at 3:00am...and when I say "woke up," I mean he "woke up." He looked like he had just main-vained a mug of espresso (or is it expresso? Sorry, I'm a diet Rockstar fan.). He finally went back to sleep somewhere between 6 and 8am. I don't know when because I think I fell asleep while he was still crying in my arms. In any case, Kyan was up at 8:30am. I thought the day might begin with a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who would get up with the kids, but, in part because Jen had already demonstrated her lack of crabbiness, I sucked it up and got up. It turned out to be a really fun morning.

I made it a point to play with Nolan while Kyan played by himself in the kitchen. I really feel like Nolan hasn't received his fair share of the attention from Jen and me, and I began today to make a concerted effort to spend more solo time with Nolan, rather than trying to play with both of them all of the time, as Kyan often demands and receives more of the attention when we play with "his" stuff. This sounds harsh, but it actually went over very well with all of us. Jen might argue that I'm jealous because Mr. Pie seems to be sort of a Mama's boy, and she might be right. I think Kyan was born with the "Daddy's boy" gene, but Nolan is going to take some work. I know, I know - we shouldn't be competing for the favor of the kids...but what a sweet competition it is.

P.S.: The boys and I completed Christmas shopping for 7 people tonight in less than 2 hours. To put accomplishment in context - when I grocery shop, I don't use a list; I go up and down every aisle in the store and figure out what I need as I browse.

Christmas Ham (Gravy)

Ok so has anybody ever had Ham Gravy before? (I'm not talking about Olive Oyl's ex ). No? Well I know it was a first for me today and make that a last as well. We had a ham for our Christmas dinner. Mick was busy in the kitchen while I slept after we opened Santa's presents. (I worked last night) Mickey starts saying he's going to make some gravy from the drippings. I tell him, "your making a ham not a turkey" He responds with "yeah I know, haven't you ever had Ham Gravy" in a tone like you can order it off of any American chain restaurants menu ("I'd like that topped with Ham Gravy please!") "Um No" I think he then said he used to make it all the time. This was coming from somebody who stared at the hams in Meijer last year for about 45 min trying to decide if the butt or shoulder is the one your "supposed" to get. So anyway he made Ham Gravy. After all my teasing him I had to try it, I dipped my finger in it and felt my ankles swell from the sodium rush. This brings a question to mind. An average human Na level is about 138 so why is a pig so darn salty, is their level like 590? Anybody know? Does the manufacturer add all the salt? (google search) Ok so I can't find what I'm looking for and don't really want to know to much about the animal I just ate at dinner. Over all the dinner was great without the Ham Gravy. (Ham Gravy..............that could easily be a Dr. Seuss title) MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Another Woman!

Mick and I have an awesome relationship heck I've known the man for more than half my life.... but I am not getting all that I want out of Mickey. Sometimes he just doesn't perform the way I want him to :( This touchy subject is honestly the only thing we argue about. He is a very busy guy and I just don't think he has time to fulfill some of my needs. So I have decided to do some research and introduce a 3rd party to our relationship. I'm going to start off slow, initially I was thinking of once a month but I am considering biweekly depending on how she preforms. I have used the local yellow pages and am waiting back on hourly rates. I cant wait to have a good house cleaning once or twice a month!!!! C'mon get your head out of the gutter!!!!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood!

As some of you probably know, I am more of a morning person than Jen. Every now and then she'll ask me "How can you be so god damn cheery every god damn morning?" The pictures below are all of the explanation I need. It boils down to this: Every day when I go to sleep, I can look back on the day and, regardless of my shortcomings in other areas [insert penis joke here...I know you did], I can honestly say that, with regard to the fam, that day was the best day of my life. Every day. It's like Groundhog Day, but I don't have to fix anything.

Now, I can't say that everyone else in the family feels the same. There are some days when Jen might go to bed thinking that day was one of the worst of her life. This usually means I forgot to pick up a sock in the living room or that I didn't pick up her dishes from the family room. But even Jennifer, who never got out of bed before 11am when we dated in high school, is susceptible to spontaneous "cheering up" by the kids when they wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:30.

Because this is supposed to be a blog about our daily lives, I'll provide an example from today that explains why I can wake up happy every morning. This morning, Jen got home from her first 12 hour night shift at 7:30am. The kids had been awake for about 30 minutes (much to my chagrin). Jen didn't walk in and go to bed; instead she got breakfast ready for the kids and got Kyan ready for school so that I could dick around for longer in the shower and quickly press my collar (because Jen says I look like a tool when it's wrinkly). This followed the 30 minutes of Kyan playing with Nolan in the bed (yes, tsk, tsk, both were sleeping with me by this morning) that I awoke to. Even though I didn't get much sleep, it's hard not to smile when I wake up to both sets of dimples smiling at me. I digress. So we (Kyan, Pie & I) leave to bring Kyan to school. There is a spontaneous rendition of whatever song contains the "Ba-rum-pa-pum-pum...," followed by a slight motion-sickness scare from Kyan as we pass the football stadium. I drop him off at school, realizing that I forgot his book bag and his slippers (his teacher would point out that I forgot his snow pants when I picked him up). Pie and I went to the mall, where I realized that I'm not a very efficient shopper. Before we left, Pie and I played in the front seat of the van for about 20 minutes after I unsuccesfully tried to get him to eat. He sucked on my nose. We picked Kyan up. After missing our exit while talking to Alltel, we made it home at about 1:00pm. Here Jen stepped up again. I was tired, so Jen woke up (note that she had to work tonight at 7pm) and took Nolan so that I could nap for a little while. <--Lucky for you, Honey, I picked a favorable day for you to post my first "log". -- I'll fast-forward through dinner because this is already really long (and by now Jen is probably the only one still reading). I put Nolan to sleep - pretty easy night - then sat down to read to Kyan. We read 3 books, then Kyan asked if I still had a headache. I said I did. He told me to sit up and lean forward on two pillows (which he handed me) and informed me that he was going to give me a massage. It consisted of him rubbing my shirt and my hair for about 10 minutes while we were both totally silent...and it got rid of my headache (after tylenol and Jen's massage failed). More importantly, seeing the look in his eyes when I told him that his massage had fixed my headache cemented in my mind that today was the best day of my life.

Gotta go...cat's scraping on Nolan's door...Friday he gets a bath Honey!