Archive for April, 2009
April 26th, 2009
miles just went to bed and erica kindly pointed out to me that i lied to the internet because i said i would post pictures and i hadn’t. and then i told her to shove it because the pictures were all up on flickr on saturday night exactly as i had promised. this isn’t germane to anything, it’s just the internet helping me get the last word that i can never get in real life even when i’m right.
so, birthday weekend recap: the boys stayed up late on friday night so that they could see dave and sue when they arrived. oz went down pretty soon after that but miles stayed up until almost 10. i woke up at 5:30 saturday morning because ozzie was kicking me in the back i couldn’t go to sleep after that because i was so excited for the day so at 6 i got up and got the coffee started.
after everyone woke up, erica and sue had the boys in the backyard and they planted a vegetable garden with miles while dave and i pulled out a strip of grass in the front yard.
once the boys were spazzing out we all got cleaned up and went for birthday lunch to red robin for miles’ favorite meal: french fries and apple juice. then w dropped off ozzie at britta and brandon’s house while we took miles to a movement theatre show in portland (zoo zoo at imago theatre). he really enjoyed it and thought it was interesting and funny and was engaged and interested the whole time.
we got oz and went back home and had dinner. miles claimed he didn’t want dinner, and he often doesn’t and we don’t force him because he usually eats a big lunch, but then he said, it time for my cake now? uh, wrong. so he had to eat, which he did once he knew cake depended on it.
sunday morning we jumped back into our yard projects. erica and sue went to costco because it’s a family tradition and also to buy flowers. we gave miles a bike we had bought him back before christmas. dave was walking with miles while he took a spin and before i knew it they had disappeared down the block and around the corner.
i needed to go to home depot and dave said he would stay with miles but he’d been working hard and taking miles on a walk is a taxing endeavor for even the most patient. i went to drive by and check on them and make sure they didn’t want to come to the store with me. they both did.
i got the materials to make a build as you grow potato bin. i had everything on one of those lumber carts with the bars that all run in the same direction. miles sat on the cart and dangled from the bars, “look daddy, i. am. a. monkey!”
we said goodbye to dave and sue around 3 and they left us with a much nicer looking yard than we’ve ever had. the four of us kept playing and working in the backyard. i moved a tarp full of compost into the backyard to fill a couple of beds. the stuff is so fine that every shovelful created a cloud of dust and miles started calling it “smoke dirt”.
i gave him the hose with a spray nozzle attached and told him that his job was to spray down the smoke while i shoveled. he was doing great and i told him he was like a fireman. he said, “no daddy, i AM a fireman. i helping people.” he spent the next hour soaking the dirt in the four beds and pretending they were full of frogs and going “fishing” with a stalk of bamboo.
he’s really good at pretending now which is cute but also irritating because any time he’s about to do something bad and i tell him not to he says, “daddy, i not touching it. i just PRETENDING.” and then he proceeds to do the thing. ugh. i’d like to think he’s not doing it willfully and that he still doesn’t fully grasp the connection between what he’s done and what he is about to do, but i fear he’s more crafty than i want to give him credit for.
i suppose i should wrap up this rambly play-by-play. I can’t believe it’s been two and a half years since our lives were miles-ified. it’s so funny to think that we went to sleep tuesday night, october 31st having no idea that it would be the last peaceful night of sleep we would ever take for granted.
we also had no idea how ridiculous and funny our lives would become. but mostly the thing about the sleep.
Posted in Miles | 1 Comment »
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 »
April 9th, 2009
this morning while i was in the kitchen miles came in and asked for something. i couldn’t understand what he said so i asked him to repeat it.
“daddy, i want beard.”
beard?
“yeah, beard, in a cup.”
you mean root beer?
“yeah!”
no, sorry, you can’t have any root beer.
“but why?”
my heart just about stopped. i don’t know if i can handle entering the why phase before ozzie is sleeping through the night. at least he stopped after the first one. i’m not thrilled about entering the multiple why zone. right now ozzie is in the permanent cry zone. this is going to be a long night.
Posted in Aaron, Miles | 2 Comments »
April 8th, 2009
we enjoyed our last few hours of nice weather yesterday evening. i grilled and we had a backyard picnic which miles gets a huge kick out of. he loves poking around in the backyard and turning over rocks to find worms.
erica stayed home with ozzie yesterday on account of he was pooping and puking up a storm. hopefully soon he’ll get over this ridiculous winter yuck that he hasn’t been able to kick. he seemed back to himself this morning and i haven’t received any exploding baby phone calls from day care so fingers crossed.
miles started waking up this morning at 4. i’m not sure what was wrong with him but i stuck my thumb in his eye and then that’s what was wrong with him. he wanted hugs and kisses and then calmed down and went back to sleep. he woke up again at 5 because his “blankies [we]re broken”. erica had moved into ozzie’s room at some point in the night so i scooped up miles and brought him to bed with me.
he’s not usually much of a bed cuddler. when he’s up he wants to be up so if we ever bring him into bed he wants to play games and do hiding and tickling and general shenanigans. but this morning he laid on my chest just like he did when he was a baby and we slept until erica woke us up at 7:30.
it seems like so long ago that he was that little baby now that he can tell me when he wants hugs, when he wants kisses, when he wants neither and when he just wants to be left alone so he can poop. but then suddenly, under the right circumstances, we can relive moments from our earliest days together. it’s amazing that our kids can give us such beautiful gifts without even knowing it.
Posted in Aaron, Miles | 3 Comments »
April 6th, 2009
this weekend’s beautiful weather presented us with the challenge of finding something fun to do with the boys’ that wouldn’t be too crowded. when we woke up saturday morning it was 29 degrees so we played at home for a while waiting for it to warm up. once it was in the 40s we loaded up and headed downtown to check out the newly reopened farmers’ market. i remembered to bring miles’ nock-a-weirs (binoculars) so he could check out the planes and trains and squirrels.
sunday was even nicer and we had a fantastic morning. erica and i sat on the back porch with coffee and the boys played in the backyard finding worms and playing on the slide.
we weren’t sure what to do with the day but i ended up digging up some information on the woodburn tulip fest. the flower fields aren’t in bloom yet but the website said they had lots of kid stuff and oz could take his nap in the car on the way.
miles had fun looking at the huge steam tractors and hunting bees in the flowers. he also enjoyed the tire swings, climbing the hay pyramid and pumping water into a channel to float a rubber ducky.
there was a booth setup with six or seven rescued parrots. when we walked up miles said, “daddy, look! there’s macaws!” oh, diego, you make my kid so smart.
Posted in family | 2 Comments »
April 4th, 2009
was just awakened from family nap to find that miles had turned on his light, left his room, opened the door to ozzie’s room, turned on the tv, unwrapped a package of fudge, taken a bite, put the fudge in a ziplock bag, tried to climb the shelves in the refrigerator to get a can of diet mountain dew, fallen out of the refrigerator. Is it too late to crate train him?
also, how long should i make him lay awake in his room before i let force him to watch basketball with me?
Posted in Miles | 1 Comment »
April 3rd, 2009
apparently nothing solves a problem like complaining in public. Miles has had a much better week. drop-offs went from tearful to cheerful (sorry). and this morning he actually said good-bye and insisted on getting a kiss before i left.
i kissed him on the head but he said “no daddy, i want a kiss.” so i kissed him on the cheek. he pulled my hat off and said “no daddy, i want to give you a kiss.” so i leaned down so he could reach my forehead. he said, “no daddy, i need to kiss you right here,” while pointing to his own cheek. so i leaned over and he gave me a big mmmmWah! on the cheek.
Posted in Miles | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2009
when ozzie woke up this morning i took one look at his face and knew that he couldn’t go to school. his left eye was puffy and purple and he looked like he had a tiny shiner.
we’ve been playing guitar together and having lots of tickles but he’s down for a nap now. he’s got so many teeth coming in right now i don’t even know how he can deal with life.
on the subject of not dealing with life, miles has been having a rough time in his new class at day care. he’s stopped napping. there are enough kids in this room that he can get away with monkeying around a little bit more and not letting himself relax.
consequently by the time i pick him up in the afternoon, his self-control has pretty much evaporated. by the time i get the boys in the van he has a hard time asking for anything without crying or fake crying.
after we get home and he has some quiet time on the couch he does a little better. unfortunately concurrent with the class change, we were moving oz out of his crib and into a bed. miles is such a pro at bedtime that we got a little lax with his routine. i thought if we kept him up a little later he’d be more likely to nap at school. not so much. bedtimes were getting rougher and rougher and he was having harder days at school.
we ended up deciding that it was too much change at once. we’ve gone back to his earlier bedtime and eased up on the potty training a tiny bit. drop=offs at daycare have been better for the past two days and bedtimes have gotten easier although he still isn’t napping at school.
i’m fine with him not napping, i was never able to nap at daycare either, as long as i’m able to pick him up without the teacher saying that he was very “emotional” (with airquotes).
Posted in Miles, Oz | 1 Comment »
April 1st, 2009
over the weekend erica decided that ozzie’s terry bradshaw hairdo had to be dealt with. we talked about taking him to the barber shop for a little work but after his bath erica decided that she wanted to have a go at it.
i held oz while erica tried to get the scissors close to his head. of course, every time he caught a glimpse of the scissors out of the corner of his eye he’d jerk his head around so she had the scissors wide open by the side of his head trying to decide when she should swoop in for a snip.
once she did get in her first snip it was clear that we did not possess the qualifications for this project. i guess more clear to me than to erica because she wanted to continue but i wanted to stop the madness while there was still hair left to save.
i made a comment about the not-a-haircut on facebook and in response erica posted the first picture and claimed that it showed the haircut. everyone was like, “looks great to me!”
then erica posted the bottom picture and people seemed to understand a little more. it’s not even that what was done was so bad, it was just going to be a little more here, a little more here until there wasn’t anything left. and it took him so long to grow it i didn’t want him to end up rebald due to a couple amateurs.
we still haven’t gotten it together enough to take him to get it fixed so he’s still working the impact crater look. maybe we’ll just let it go and he can be credited as the inventor of the anti-rattail.
Posted in Oz | 4 Comments »
