Archive for the ‘Erica’ Category
December 1st, 2009
it’s going to be an interesting december around here. miles is really excited about christmas because he remembers some of the highlights from last year. but he doesn’t really understand everything he remembers so we’ve been trying to explain why santa didn’t come on thanksgiving and why he hasn’t come every night since. why we had to wait until today to start the advent calendar. why some places had christmas lights up but some places didn’t.
we put up the tree on sunday. the boys helped with the ornament hanging and were fully engaged the entire time. the front bottom third of the tree looks ridiculous, but they did such a good job coming to me to get an ornament and then taking it over to the tree and finding a spot for it. miles would stop and ask about different ornaments and where they came from and ozzie would stop and pluck ornaments off the tree and try to hit vixen with them.
i waited until this year to put up christmas lights outside. i wanted to wait until someone besides me would appreciate it and in past years erica’s been a little grinchy about stuff like that. miles was pretty oblivious to lights last year but i knew when i saw how excited he was when he saw the christmas lights on the starbucks in september, that this year would be the year. i finally finished the job today and had the house all lit up when i brought the boys home from daycare. miles said, “daddy, the house is so BOO-dee-ful!”
the cutest thing so far though is miles singing “jingle bells.” his best bit is the part that goes “oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh, HEY!” in miles-speak it goes “oh what fun it is to ride and what, What, WHAT YOU SAY? HEY!!”
before i get in more trouble, i have to say that erica isn’t grinching this year. she was supportive of my idea of starting a “snowy village” she says that like everyone knows what that is. she also said she wanted to start collecting snowmen which prompted our friend to say, “when did you turn so middle-aged?” which i think is what erica always wants to say to me at christmas time. i’ve been planning our future christmas traditions for the past three years and obviously that makes so much sense to erica because “planning” is her middle name. hopefully we’ll have plenty of traditions that develop organically, but the years fly by and without a little planning, before we know it the boys will be teenagers and i’ll be all, “where’s my snowy village?”
Posted in Aaron, Erica, Miles, Oz, family | 1 Comment »
May 3rd, 2009
today was also supposed to be rainy but was actually beautiful. we started working in the yard fairly early. i took down all the bamboo and erica cut the stalks close to the base. and that was when we got our first visitor. during the course of the day, everyone who lives in the circle of houses that surrounds ours had to stop by and ask why we were cutting down the bamboo.
they all said something that alluded to the fact that our bamboo situation had been a conversation topic in their homes over the past week or so. ugh. so embarrassing. but in case you were wondering, numbskull gardening project = quick way to meet the neighbors.
Posted in Aaron, Erica | 2 Comments »
April 24th, 2009
we’ve been having busy times now that the weather seems to have caught up with the calendar. last weekend we went to the zoo early on saturday. we were out of there before lunch time which was great because on our way out the line to get in was up the block. crazy.
we rode the zoo train for the first time and both boys really enjoyed that. the train boarding area is near the tiger exhibit and when we got off the train there was a zookeeper standing near the fence with a tiger skin for the kids to feel. miles went over and was feeling one of the paws and said something in his weird little whiny voice. erica asked him to repeat himself and he said, “i want to wear that!” the zookeeper said, “i thought that’s what i heard.”
sunday we had no plans but ended up having a ridiculous craigslist day. i spent the afternoon with miles hacking away at an enormous bamboo root ball at someone’s house. i managed to get about 12 stalks out of the ground. they were all about 20-25 feet tall and i had to figure out how to get them home in the van. i got home without getting a ticket but that’s about as much as i want to remember about that debacle.
i pulled out a few bushes along the side of our house to plant the bamboo so i’ve been working on that and constantly readjusting all the strings i have holding the bamboo up until it takes root. i had one fall over the first day but no casualties since then. pretty good considering most of them are taller than the house.
we still had 2 enormous lilac bushes on the side of the house that we’ve been trying to get rid of for a billion years. they’re beautiful but seriously huge. erica spent sunday fielding calls from people who were interested in them but then erica would say, “no, you don’t want these. they’re really big. like really big.” so we didn’t get rid of those.
erica decided she wanted to plant a vegetable garden with miles this year. we ordered a raised bed to attempt to keep vixen from digging up all the goodies. we found a guy on craigslist who would deliver the beds and fill them at our house so he brought us a 2′x5′x18″ garden bed and a 3′x3′x3′ compost box.
he came and started working and then erica got home and started doing her thing which, “oh, you like that? you can have it. no really, you should take it.” so before he knew it he was pulling two 700lb. lilac bushes out of the ground and trying to load them on his truck plus hauling off everything i’d pulled out of that bed the previous week. he seemed excited about it but the guy he had working for him was making serious hate eyes at erica.
so that brings you up to speed. tomorrow is miles’ third birthday and we’ve got some seriously fun weekend plans planned. there’ll be pictures coming tomorrow night hopefully.
Posted in Aaron, Erica, Miles, family | 2 Comments »
April 12th, 2009
oz is finally back to himself which is really good news. i can’t speak for erica but i was just hanging on by fingernails. another day of worrying about my kiddo on top of non-stop laundry and puking and a three year-old trying to gawk at all the puking would have been one too many for me.
seeing good old ozzie smiling and eating this morning was about the best thing i could have woken up to. unfortunately for me it was one of those situations where the adrenaline or absence of a known ending just keeps me trucking. then having the end in sight takes the edge off enough for me to realize how exhausted i am.
we decided to take the boys to church since the weather was crummy and we wanted to get them out of the house a little bit and get a little break ourselves. after church we made egg salad with our colorful eggs. we put the boys down for their naps and erica hid easter eggs in the front rooms. then we tried to catch a bit of a nap ourselves.
miles took a great nap on saturday so i was really hopeful that he’d sleep again. after about ten minutes i heard a thump and got up to tell miles to lay down and turn off the light. i opened my bedroom door and saw his light on and bedroom door wide open. i found him out in the living room with all the eggs in a pile and half the candy eaten.
i had to march him straight back to his room and tell him all the things he did that were not cool and try to convince him that it would be best for him to have a nice little nap and not continue acting like a crazy monkey. i must have been convincing because we didn’t hear from him for two and a half hours.
once he was awake we had to talk to him about how he had played our special game without us. i didn’t want him to have bad easter memories so we had him apologize to erica and ask nicely if we could play the game again (with reduced candy content).
the discipline thing is a bummer but i’m trusting that small unpleasantness in the present is likely to prevent larger future unpleasantnesses. and since no one can prove otherwise i’m going to keep believing it because it makes me feel better.
Posted in Aaron, Erica, Miles, Oz | No Comments »
March 25th, 2009
i’m beginning to understand why it’s so important for a child to have two parents. erica was going to let miles go to school in footie pajamas today. i had to be like, “whoa. there’s a line.”
Posted in Aaron, Erica, Miles | No Comments »
March 24th, 2009
(watching 30 rock)
erica: (erupts into hysterical laughter) she’s dressed like Angelina Jolie!
me: what? (rewinds) who?
erica: that woman with the baby.
aaron: (pauses) just because of the baby?
erica: (laughing too hard to talk but nodding)
Posted in Erica | 2 Comments »
March 6th, 2009
i heard that i’m driving people to facebook with my lack of activity here. i’m working on a redesign so i feel like i’m on the web all the time but none of it ends up here.
plus, i did something bad to my upper-right back-ish region so i’ve been hopped up on vicodin and valium. i’ve been afraid that i might write something incoherent enough to trigger an intervention.
i seem to be on the mend. had a physical therapy session this week and i’ve been doing my “exercises”. which is actually helping quite a bit although it amounts to nothing more than leaning forward and raising my arms. miraculous!
the boys are doing great. miles is developing such a funny imagination. he’ll play with his toys by himself and narrate all the action. he’s in the middle of a super love-fest phase with vixen. he’s always checking on her and making sure oz isn’t getting her food and snuggling her on the couch. she’s not sure whether she can completely trust him because he can still be a little rough sometimes, but the rest of the time he treats her so well that she can’t stay away.
last night while we were on the couch just before bedtime he started grabbing for vixen’s leg, which we usually try not to let him do, but then we noticed that he was saying, “nice to meet you.” so i put out my hand and he shook it and said, “nice to meet you.” and i said, “nice to meet you too, mr. miles. how are you?” “good mr. daddy. how are you?”
miles moved up from the transition class to the preschool class at daycare last monday. i’ve noticed a sharp increase in his talkativeness. he seems much more able to hold a conversation that progresses rather than being such a repeatasaurus rex.
oz was supposed to have moved into the wobblers class this week, but the infant room teachers can’t let him go so they’re trying to convince us that he’s retarded (not really). in anticipation of the move we’ve started practicing dressing him in real clothes. it takes two to three people to pull pants over his “ample” thighs. he’s still not walking although i can totally see in his beady little eyes that he knows how.
we actually thought he had chicken pox last weekend. we kept him away from all humanity all day saturday but the pox never poxed so then on monday we hurried and got his vaccinations up in there. it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world for him to get the chicken pox, but i would have felt horrible if we had exposed all the kids in the infant room.
in both boys news, we moved both boys into the same bedroom two nights ago. the first night we moved oz into his big bed after he was already asleep and then moved him back when he woke up. fail. last night we put oz to sleep in the big bed and read miles his stories out on the couch. then we took miles in and quietly put him down.
everything was quiet for about two hours until i heard both boys crying. i went back to the bedroom and found oz in the middle of the bedroom floor. i picked him up and rubbed miles’ head until he settled down (i think he was mostly crying because he didn’t think i could hear oz). then i rocked oz back to sleep and laid him in his bed. miles had been so quiet that i thought he had fallen back asleep. i leaned over to sneak a little kiss before i left and he whispered, “nigh, night, dad”. and then i died of a cuteurysm.
and then everything was quiet until approximately 20 minutes after i left for the gym when the boys (both still in their beds) woke erica for a tv and milk party. obviously still a little rough around the edges, but a pretty decent start.
Posted in Aaron, Erica, Miles, Oz | 3 Comments »
January 26th, 2009
erica and i got a babysitter at the last minute on tuesday evening to go spend a little time with friends. our usual babysitter is the daughter of one of the ladies who work in the infant room at the daycare. she has a friend who lives with her during the week so they usually both come over for the babysitting.
oz was asleep when we left and both girls were sufficiently impressed with miles’ thomas the tank engine bathrobe that he didn’t squawk at all when we left. but after hanging out with britta and brandon for about 45 minutes we got a call saying that ozzie had thrown up. everywhere. twice. so we headed home.
we walked into the house to find two barfed-on, grossed-out 17 year-olds, oz wearing only a diaper, and miles sproinging around on the couch chanting, “ozzie barped! ozzie barped!!”
oz stayed home on wednesday but went back around lunchtime on thursday. about an hour later miles got sent home. erica was also feeling cruddy on thursday and i had my turn on friday. on saturday night erica had to take oz to the hospital because he was screaming his face off. he ended up being asleep by the time they got there, but at least we were able to make sure he wasn’t dehydrated.
hopefully we’re out of the woods now. no one got sent home from school or work today so at least there’s that.
Posted in Aaron, Erica, Miles, Oz | No Comments »
