My It's Hot

Just a quick, fun post (and a review) of our new Lil' Squirt Baby Pool from One Step Ahead.


First of all, this thing rocks . . . err . . . squirts. At only about $20, this thing is sure to beat the heat. You hook your garden hose up and voila! Once it fills up, you have a few dozen gentle fountains of water, and some stronger ones in the middle. AJ and Abby played in this most of the afternoon -- and that's saying something! Check this out.

I'm Baaaack!

Wow. It's been a while, huh! How have you been? Doesn't look like too much has changed since I was here last.


So, let's see. Where should I start? Well, as some of you might have noticed, I've been adding to my CafePress store quite regularly. This has been quite addictive, but fun nevertheless.



Last weekend, my brother-in-law got married in Pittsburgh. With such inexpensive flights on Southwest to The Steel City from Philly, we decided to fly. Abby stayed with my parents (with her schedule it wouldn't have been practical to take her with us), and AJ came with us for his first plane ride. Unfortunately, air traffic at the Southwest terminal was heavy.



But once we got in the air, AJ seemed to enjoy himself.





I'm going to save the "Minivan Story Part I & II" for later, but suffice it to say that my father-in-law was shocked to learn how much the repair job was going to cost.

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Now I'm not sure about the bride or groom, but Meg seemed to be getting cold feet.




So Saturday was the big day. AJ was the ring bearer and he had a tough job holding everything together.



Meg and my sister-in-law Lindsay got their drink on well before the ceremony, so they were pretty well toasted by the time we got to the "I do's".



AJ had to be the adult. Again. He wasn't happy.





My mother-in-law and the bride's Mom were nervous. Instead of lighting the two taper candles, they lit the single "Unity Candle". I'm pretty sure these two ladies just married themselves by accident.



By the end of the day, AJ pretty much had enough of the whole ring bearing gig and was ready to crash.

Revelations - Coming Full Circle

Tonight, after taking his shower and getting his pj's on, AJ, without socks on, reveals to me the following:

AJ: Dad, do you know why I always want to sleep with my socks on?

Me: No, AJ, I don't. Why?

AJ: Because I'm afraid that you or Mommy might sneak into my room at night and try to cut my toenails.

Me: Well, what would you say if I told you that one night, I came into your room with a flashlight and took off your sock and clipped your toenails?

AJ: Ha! No way, Dad. You don't have a flashlight.

Looks like the kid was smarter than me . . . he was wearing socks long before I took up my covert-ops mission!

Growing Up, His House Was Like A Museum

Now I'm not saying that I grew up like Cameron Frye, where my house was cold and I couldn't touch anything, but my parents (Mom in particular), appreciate a clean house. It's only because she reads this blog -- thanks, Mom -- that I won't come right out and refer to her as a neat freak. That's much too harsh a term. A neat enthusiast is more appropriate.

But I admire her for that. Honestly, I do. And apparently, AJ is taking note of her ways and offering her quite a bit of encouragement.

The following conversation took place on Tuesday of this week between AJ and Mom-Mom:


Mom-Mom: Don't come in yet AJ 'cause Mom-Mom has to turn off the alarm, okay?

AJ: Okay . . . WOW, oh my gosh!! Do you see this house?? It is soooooo neat. How do you do that? I can't believe it!

Mom-Mom: Well, AJ, when Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop are done with their "things", we always put them away.

AJ: Yeah, but Mom-Mom, I put my things away and it NEVER looks like this! It's amazing!!


Ahhh. What can I say? My house? Not so much. And by the way, AJ doesn't always put his "things" away. The things a 4 year old will try to score some Mom-Mom points. Geez.

Don't Do This - Vol. 1

I consider myself to be a competent parent. After all, recent hospitalizations aside, my kids are still alive and well. I'm still alive too, so that's saying something. That must have been what Darwin meant by survival of the fittest. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that I've never been directly or indirectly linked to the demise of another human being.

Those facts therefore give me license to share with you nuggets of wisdom that I have accumulated through experiences which, since they did not kill me, made me stronger.

One night, about 4 years ago, when AJ was just an infant, he and I were playing after dinner. I was laying on the couch and had him aloft over me. He had eaten squash or sweet potatoes, something like that. As an infant, AJ never spit up.

See where this is going?

My mouth open with the joy of playing with my first-born son, I wound up eating squash or sweet potatoes, or something like that.

Fast forward 4 years to yesterday morning. Playing joyfully with my first-born daughter in a similar position, we anxiously awaited the arrival of her nurse with the hospital discharge paperwork.

Gee, she seems a little stuffy. Let me get the bulb suctioner. She hates the bulb suctioner. I love getting snot out of my kids' noses. Sometimes I think I'm close to actually pulling out some grey matter. What can I say? There is something very satisfying about it. And when I squirt the saline up there to loosen that junk, I show no mercy.

So there I was, laying down with Miss Abby sitting on my chest, bulb suctioner firmly up (way up) one nostril. Ahhh. The sound of that suctioner doing its job. It's a delicate technique you know, considering the stringiness of most saline-soaked snot. You need just the right touch to pull the snot from the nose and suck it up into the bulb. It's tricky.

And when things don't go well, you don't want to be laying down with the child sitting on your chest suctioning goop from the deepest part of his or her nasal cavity. As good as you think you are, it's not worth it.

Alas, I didn't have my 'A'-game that fateful morn. And much like I found myself with AJ's dinner in my mouth so long ago, so too did my precious daughter's boogie juice end up in a very bad place. Though she found it delightful to watch Daddy helplessly grasp for a towel, Daddy did not enjoy the experience as much.

And so, as a hunter tries to be downwind from his prey, so must we as parents be mindful of the devastating effects of gravity with respect to matter expelled from our dear, dear children.

Take heart. Take note. And stay dry.

I have to start a blog . . . so I did

AJ hates having his toe nails clipped. HATES it. Screaming, crying, kicking, and generally freaking out is pretty much the norm. He's been like that with his toe nails since he's been born. We got away with it for a long time as I think the crawling around on carpet in bare feet would file the nails down for us!! His finger nails? No problem whatsoever. None. Heck, he'll even cut them himself.

So the nails on his one foot in particular have gotten pretty ridiculous. On Sunday night, I decided to do something about it. When I went up to bed, around 10:30 or so, I brought with me not a flashlight, but a head lamp. Yes, a head lamp like a miner would use. I got it as a White Elephant gift this past Christmas and I figured this would be the most logical way to break it in.

I crept into his room and went to the foot (no pun intended) of his bed. Nail clippers in hand, I went under the comforter and crawled, commando style, to my target. Socks. The kid won't sleep without socks on. Slowly, I removed one of his socks. Great Scott! I had not seen his toe nails, up close anyway, in quite sometime. Ever see the picture of that lady with finger nails like 3 feet long and they are all curled under? Yeah? Well, it didn't look like that, but still. He was sleeping on his belly, so his nails were facing down. This was going to be tricky.

At this point, Meg had come upstairs. She knew the plan and was there to draw fire, should AJ wake up. I was trying to think of what would go through his mind if he woke up, looked under his covers, and saw me with a head lamp on, one of his socks off, and clipper in hand. That it would have been ugly is all I can say for sure.

And so I started clipping. I opted for the unorthodox little-toe-to-big-toe strategy. I figured I needed to get out of there with as few clips as possible. I wasn't trying to get points for neatness and so I was unsure about going for the honking big toe first and having to make multiple clips. I need to start with a clip-to-toe ratio that was in my favor.

Clip - little toe done.
Clip - next toe (ring toe?) done.
Clip - middle toe done.
Clip - index toe(?) done.

I had my little stack of nail clippings piled up for removal upon completion of the mission (I had decided that this would be a one foot job). I was home free -- which, oddly enough, is always right where you are when disaster strikes. He was moving, stirring, whimpering. My wingman, err, Megan pushed my head down to the floor so I'd be out of his sight. I covered my head lamp with my hand for good measure. Meg said, "Hey, AJ" as if she had casually bumped into him at the grocery store and as if there was not a covert toe nail clipping mission going on right under his nose.

He settled down, and I moved back into position. CLIP. The big toe. I knew it would take more than one, and sure enough there it was. The last nail. Hanging there. Taunting me. He moved again. Tossed and turned. I went for it, trying to pull it the rest of the way off. It was there, between my fingers, and just like that I missed my opportunity. I was getting hot under there. It was getting hard to breathe. Suddently, he turned over one last time. This was it. It would be all or nothing. I grabbed his foot to hold it still and I took the shot. Got it. But now I needed to get out of there. I had no time to find the button to turn off the head lamp. So in one motion, I covered the light with my hand, ducked out from beneath the covers, pivoted around to face the door, and as I passed Meg on my way out, I somehow tripped over the 3/8" pile in his carpet and just about took a header into the wall outside of his room.

We made it into our bedroom and nearly collapsed with laughter. After we settled down, Meg said that we should write this down so that we'd always remember it. Somehow, I don't think I'll forget this. The next morning, when he came out of his room, he had his other sock back on. He mentioned that when he woke up, it was lying next to him, so he had just put it back on. I asked him if he had ever heard of the toe nail fairy and he said he hadn't. I dropped the subject.