Friday, January 29, 2010

I Never........

This is my life. I am the type of person who likes to make statements in the absolute, and I have therefore been forced to eat crow more times then not. It is starting to happen with such frequency that I fear by actually making a statement of something I am not going to "ever" do, I am actually opening the door for that situation to happen. Below is a sampling of things I have said over the year and the eventual outcome.

On Raising Kids:

  • I will never bribe my kid with candy. - yep, I did it, more times then I care to admit...don't judge...please.
  • I will not use the TV as a babysitter. - pretty much failed on this one...since the twins have arrived, Mrs. B and I are constantly looking for moments to do things like bath, eat, brush your teeth-and so the only way to keep the boy engaged for more then 2 minutes is to throw on Thomas the Train (at least it isn't Barney). I guess the trade-off is worth it...and most of you standing within two feet would agree.
  • My boys will never play throwball we are a football(soccer) family. - The boy still doesn't play football, but everytime he does see it on the TV (see above) he yells "Football" and then proceeds to tackle something...usually the dog. Being that we are in Texas, he has also mastered "Hook'em" at a disturbingly young age.
  • I will never own a Mini Van - yep...still holding firm on this one

On Life:

  • I will never be like you....said to my dad - Epic Fail.....but I couldn't be happier about it. Since I can remember, my dad has been a principal at the elementary level level, and now I am pretty much doing the same job at an elementary school in Round Rock, TX.
  • I will never wear Under Armour - not sure why I made this statement, but it may have its roots in the whole throwball bias. In reality, I do actually wear Under Armour now, but only under doctors orders. It was recommended, I begin to wear compression shorts as a way to avoid groin and leg injuries common as you get older.
  • I will only wear Adidas soccer shoes as long as I continue to keep playing - This one is still true....I actually am still wearing the same style I wore through college....the good 'ol Copa Mundial.
  • I will never live in Texas - I made this proclamation in college in the midst of an on going feud with the "Texans" down the hall. (I will now digress into a college story - In college, as many of you know, I had a tendency to provoke individuals to do things they wouldn't normally do. In this particular instance during my freshmen year, my roommate, Matt, and I lived down the hall from from a True Texan (cowboy hat, cowboy boots, Texas flag hanging in room, etc - these types of things really stick out in Minnesota). Matt and I had a tendency to constantly say things piss off the "Texan". It actually became like a game and we were constantly trying to outdo each other when it came to insulting Texas. We eventually ran out of things to say and went in search of the ultimate exclamation point. Matt and I had become quite proficient at using our long range water balloon launcher to launch pretty much anything (including: water balloons, snowballs, rotten fruit, you get the idea). Up until that point we had launched golf balls over I-94 at the public housing across the highway, we bombarded the front door of a rival male dorm with oranges anytime people came in or out, and we had launched water balloons off the roof of the student union on unsuspecting couples out for a romantic night stroll. Getting back to the story......we decided that using the balloon launcher, we would launch rotten bananas at the door of the Texan from about 2 feet away. For those of you who don't know, a water balloon launcher is designed to hurl a 3 lb water balloon about 100 yards. We had anticipated a particularly nasty explosion of rotten banana, but we had no idea how nasty. The force at which the banana hit the door caused the now liquefied banana to squeeze through the actual door frame and shoot into the room. AWESOME right. As the banana shot into the room, it happened to get all over the Texas Flag hanging from the ceiling, this elicited an instant reaction from the Texan. The Texan shot out of the room, knowing full well who was responsible for this desecration of the flag for the "Republic of Texas" and ran down to our door and began trying to beat the door down and yelling threats....this of course resulted in Matt and I laughing hysterically, which only served to further enrage the Texan. Here are a few quote from the Texan which are still some of my favorites:
    "No-0ne destroys or damages the Texas flag....you are going to pay for this"
    "Get out here and act like a man" (um....NO - he was brandishing a large knife at this point)
    and my personal favorite
    "you can't hide forever, we are going to get you, if you run and hide we will find you, if you go to Nebraska, we have family there, if you hide in Alaska, we have family there" (this of course resulted in us yelling random locations through the door to see if they in fact "had family there" i.e. "How about India, do you have family there?" "what about the North Pole, do you have family there? Is his name Santa?"
    Eventually the RA came out and sent the crazy boys back to there room, and were were able to flee to the friendly confines of the women's dorm.)
As most of you well know....we are now fully established residents of the beautiful state of Texas, and we love living in the beautiful city of Austin. So I guess I am glad I didn't stick to my guns on that one.

I fully expect there are going to be many things I will have to do, that I said I would never, ever do. Maybe I should just stop making these statements, but that just seems whish-washy, and if it is one thing I will never be...it is wishy-washy.

Beer and Chili

On Friday night we got together with a group of friends who we have dinner with about once a month. The group is comprised of people with kids of all ages, from our infants all the way through the Drakes daughters who are both in college. I don't think that we have missed one of these dinners in the last 3 years because the company is outstanding the food delightful. Typically the Drakes act as gracious hosts, and the rest of us bring a dish or two to share.

Tonight the theme was beer, Kelly is the homebrew king, and chili. Kelly is always looking for taste testers for the latest evolution of hoppy goodness. I am more then happy to be the test dummy. (Sorry the image quality isn't up to our normal standard, but I forgot the camera at home, and was forced to use my Iphone instead.)

As always the beer was excellent and the chili was perfect for the freezing (35 degrees) night.

The twins got lots of extra attention from Jen and Annie, which was greatly appreciated by Mrs. B and myself.

We have been doing these dinners since before the boy was born, and it has been fun to see now that he is older how much he really enjoys playing with the adopted cousins, especially his close buddy "the Diva" (aka Amelia)

Friday, January 22, 2010

Dinners from Friends

Over the last week we have had a couple of really awesome dinners delivered. We were lucky enough to have a wonderful beef vegetable soup and a delightful shrimp cobb salad.

The boy also really like this visit, because he got Burger King which included fries.


A couple of nights later we had a wonderful homemade Chicken Parmigiana, with fresh salad and homemade bread.

Friday, we were lucky enough to have our very favorite Chinese food from Asia Market Cafe. As always I had the Spicy Fish, and Mrs. B stuck with the always delicious Sesame Chicken. It was also recommended that we try the green beans, and they didn't disappoint.

Spicy Fish

Sesame Chicken

Green Beans


Last night we had Manicotti and Salad brought over and it wasn't even on the schedule. WOOT WOOT

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Potty Party

There are often times as you are growing as a parent where you just have to figure it out as you go. In fact, that may be the definition of what parenting is all about. Sure, you can read all kinds of books, but lets be honest....those books can help a parent know what color of poop is "okay" and how often you should be feeding the little poop factories (as if the screaming wasn't a fairly obvious clue). Mrs. B and I are continually figuring out that we don't really have any idea what we are doing.

The two year old has recently shown a strong interest in using the potty to go pee-pee. I am not so sure it is the intrinsic motivation to get out of diapers or the fact that he gets a piece of candy each time he successful uses the potty. I am guessing the candy if a far more powerful motivator. This has been reinforced by the fact that we now want to use (I use that term very loosely) the potty about every 15 minutes. Sawyer figures as long as he can produce a few drops (literally), he has done enough to warrant a Smartie. The kid is producing diapers you would swear came from a full grown man, so I am ready for this kid to be using the potty, but do I do it at the expense of future dental bills.

Continuing the potty theme, the two year old has now noticed how everybody goes to the bathroom, including the dog. Your thinking great not a problem right....WRONG. Yesterday the boy decided that he was going to emulate the dog and just squat it out while he was taking a shower, much to the horror of Mrs. B. She called me at work just to let me know how much I should appreciate going on "vacation" (that is what she has taken to calling me going to work). From all accounts, the boy, displayed pride in the accomplishment of not having used a diaper to "release a couple of hostages". This sense of accomplishment therefore lead to the obvious request for Smartie's, but his hopes were quickly dashed as Mrs. B pointed out that he hadn't follow proper Smartie procedure and "dropped the kids off at the pool", aka he didn't use the toilet.

Is it little wonder the kid is confused about whether he should use the toilet like a normal human or use the squat approach like the dog. Over the previous weekend, there were a number of times that the boy wanted a snack while we were riding in the car. This really isn't a problem, except for the fact that with the twins now taking up the entire middle seat, the boy has been relegated to sitting in the far back with the dog. When driving and trying to provide a snack to a screaming 2 year old, the only option is to just toss the treat at them and hope it lands close enough for them to grab it before the dog does. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised we are still having a little difficulty distinguishing from human and animal behavior at this point.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Who is going to dress me?

Woke up this........no wait, lets start over.

Struggled out of bed this morning and discovered that I should have already been leaving for work. In between the 1am feeding, the 4am feeding, and Sawyer waking up at 5:30am and screaming for "Dada" like somebody had lit his polyester pajamas with feet on fire, the alarm got turned off. I am not a morning person to start with, but I am REALLY not a morning person when I am running late. I shot out of bed and showered, deodorized and dressed in record time. I made an english muffin and bowl of cereal to consume on the drive to work and rushed out the door. I was lucky to remember to grab my lunch, unfortunately I didn't realize that I had forgotten the coffee I was bring for everybody in the office, until I was about to get on the toll-road. Showing up without coffee on a morning like this wasn't an option, so I turned around and returned home to grab it, thereby making me even later.

The day unfolded in a fairly typical fashion, with the usual frustrations as well as moments of levity. It wasn't until I was using the restroom after lunch that I noticed something strange. Looking down at my pants, I noticed the tag on my boxers was on the front. "That is strange" - I thought, and when I looked closer, I realized having the tag at the front of your boxers means that you are an idiot, and don't know how to put your clothes on properly. Apparently, I am so brain dead at the moment that I don't even know how to put on a pair of underwear properly, and even worse, I don't notice for over 6 hours that my skivvies are butt front. I would like to think that had I been wearing that thong that Mrs. B got me for Christmas, I would have been able to tell the difference....but at this point I am not sure that I could.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Great Friends, Great Food

Having a child has its many perks,
1. You have a cute little face staring up at you at 3am with a look that says "What up, you look tired, why is that?"
2. You get peed on (hopefully your mouth is closed)
3. You lose and find all kinds of stuff (we are currently on the losing things side of this curve, but eventually you run out of stuff to lose and you start finding random things)
4. The more kids you have the more times you get asked, "so when you getting a minivan" (uh, NEVER)

but seriously

One great thing, at least in our experience, is that you get to see your friends because they bring over dinner. Sometimes they even stay and eat dinner with us. Our dear friend, Stefanie set up a "Care Network" for us. In other words, every other night, for the next month, somebody new is going to bring over a dinner for the family. We have already had a couple of wonderful dinners, and after last night, I decided to share each of the wonderful dinners we are getting. We have already had Chuy's take-out (mmmmmmmm-creamy jalapeno dressing and fish tacos), baked ziti (sorry no picture for this one, but trust me it was good),

and last night a pot roast with all of the fix'ins (potatoes, carrots, , green beans, peach cobbler, mini pecan pies, rolls, and chocolate dipped strawberry's).

Mrs. B and I are eternally grateful for our wonderful friends, because with no family living nearby, they really are our family in Austin. I can't wait to see who shows up tomorrow night to have dinner-the food they bring is also a nice addition.


update: tonight we had a wonderful italian dinner delivered.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Longshot

In the last couple of nights we have had fairly good luck with Jack and Finn sleeping for sizable chunks of time (3-4hrs). Sawyer started sleeping through the night at about six weeks, so here is to hoping the twins get there soon. Mrs. B has been getting up with them during the work week, but on the weekend, we are working together. In the wee hours of the weekend, I have had time to formulate my new theory on getting a baby, let alone two of them to sleep through the night.

Having one baby is initially very difficult, but you eventually get that kid to sleep through the night. With two adults on duty it is actually pretty easy to get a solid chunk of sleep from time to time. If you will excuse the basketball reference, it is kind of like being a #1 or #2 seed in the NCAA tourney. There is enough talent that you can pretty much handle anything that is thrown at you and come out on the other side fairly well rested. You may have bad night personally, but there is always another all-star ready to step in and share the load. Having twins is a completely different story, you are no longer the favorite to win night in and night out. Heading into our nightly routine, I have the feeling that we are more like the #16 or #15 seed. We can go out and hit all our shots and still not get much sleep. In order for my team to win (solid chunk of sleep), we need to have our best game and a hefty amount of luck, and even when that happens you most likely still aren't going to "win". I think this is made harder by the fact that we have been successful in the past.

I know that very soon the twins are going to grow out of this phase and start sleeping larger chunks of time, but at this time of no sleep, I can't seem to focus on when that will start happening. Thankfully, I have the most awesome friend and partner to share the load (or more accurately, I help her share the load, because she does so much).


We see lots of this at about 3am....cute, as long as you can keep your eyes open.

Sometimes we get this......


Here is how Sawyer feels about missing out on sleep


Special thank you to Carrie for the really awesome hats for the boys.


Sawyer with his awesome red hat to match Jack and Finn