Outbreak!

A little behind on the blog right now because the entire family has a cold. Poor Emma's nose is as chafed as my thighs when I used to wear corduroy.

Should have some new posts up by Friday afternoon!

Day 409 - Cartoon Wednesday

Day 409 - Election Results

Will post a cartoon later!

Day 408 - Wetensils, Youtensils

When you observe your kids, you tend to think to yourself, "When are they going to stop doing this and start to do that?" For instance, when are they going to stop crawling and start walking? Or when are they going to stop babbling and start talking. Or when are they going to stop peeing on Lisa's side of the bed and start peeing in their diaper (I added that because for some strange reason I've been accidentally peeing on Lisa's side of the bed and trying to lay blame on the kids.)?

You can also add to this list of questions, "When are they going to stop using their hands to eat and start to use utensils?" Lisa and I have been trying to get the kids used to using a spoon when we feed them soft foods like mush, yogurt, apple sauce, Velveeta cheese. It usually ends up with food all over them, the floor, and us. When I'm at home by myself, I've occasionally given them bowls of dried foods to let them practice with a spoon without the mess. But inevitably the kids end up using their hands because it's too difficult to use a spoon to pick up Cheerios, crackers, and honey baked hams.

This past weekend, Lisa let the kids use a spoon with a bowl of yogurt and it was pretty successful! The main thing is that you just got to supervise the kids to make sure they're doing everything correctly. Are they holding the spoon on the handle? Is the right end of the spoon going into the bowl? Are they putting the food into their mouth or their ear?

Here are a couple of pictures:



Unfortunately, I don't have the patience to let them feed themselves when I'm at home alone. I've tried it twice and it was quite disastrous. While I was supervising one kid, the other kid was making a mess. While cleaning up the mess, the other kid would make another mess. Then I tried to just feed one kid at a time, but the other kid would get pissed off because they weren't being fed. So I tried dumping Cheerios on their tray to keep them occupied, but they ended up throwing it all on the floor which with the spilled yogurt made the rug look like a delicious granola parfait.

I figure there's no big rush to have the kids learn how to use spoons. They're only 13 months old, and we can have them practice with spoons when Lisa is around to help me. In the meantime, I think I'll just have them practice using steak knives with their tofu pieces. After all, this should be much more safe since you never use knives to put food into your mouth. Take that Supernanny!

Day 407 - Poll Results & New Poll

Last week I asked whether or not I was correct not to post the original video of Andrew playing with Farmer Dick's knob with a rather suggestive synthesized soundtrack. Interestingly enough, 45% of you thought I was right not to post it, and 45% of you thought I was wrong and should have post it. The remainder of you could care less and just wanted to know where I got the music. So for the two of you who need a little love music for you and your loved one (or just for yourself), the music came from a soundtrack entitled "Pornosonic: Unreleased 70s Porno Music." It's one of our favorite CDs and Lisa walked down the aisle on our wedding day to Track #4 (check out the Amazon description for the track title).

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I know I haven't written my entry about my life as Mr. Mom yet, but I haven't had a chance to get my thoughts together. Most of the day I'm in a slight daze going through my daily routine. The one thing that might make the day go smoother for me would be to stop drinking two bottles of red wine, but then I would remember everything and I don't think I want that to happen.

The one thing that I will write about briefly is Andrew's new found skill: screaming. Andrew likes to have these little meltdowns throughout the day. Andrew doesn't want to nap? Meltdown. Andrew wants a bottle? Meltdown. Andrew wants Emma's toy? Meltdown. And it's just not a little bawl. Remember in the movie "This is Spinal Tap" how their amplifier went up to 11? I think Andrew's volume goes up to 12.

I'm not too sure what to do about this. I don't want Andrew to think that every time he screams he's going to get his way. But I also don't want to ignore Andrew for too long if he's screaming bloody murder. Any suggestions besides stabbing my ears with an ice pick?

Day 406- Don't Touch that Button!

There are a couple of spots on the human body that make me uncomfortable: armpits and the belly button. It's a pretty irrational repulsion, but I have it nonetheless. Just trying to find an image of a belly button for this entry made me feel weird. Not if I were talking about testicles that would be a whole other thing. Testicles are nature's pendulum clocks.

I bring up my uneasiness about belly buttons because both Emma and Andrew find them fascinating. One day while lying on the floor, Emma walked up to me and flopped herself on top of my body. She then lifted my t-shirt and began to poke at my flab...err...six pack. Her index finger suddenly entered my belly button, and I freaked out.

"No!" I told Emma. "Don't poke my belly button!"

Emma just laughed at me; she must've learned this response from Mommy. Then Andrew walked over to see what was going on. He dropped to the floor and began to poke around at my belly button too.

"Andrew! Stop!"

Now both of them laughed at me; they must've learned this response from my immediate family. I gave up and stood up.

The problem for me is that they continue to do this to me. I pretty much stopped lying down on the floor, but this hasn't stopped them from trying to get to my belly button. If they're sitting on my lap, they'll try to pull up my shirt. If I'm sitting on the floor, they'll do the same thing.

What's the fascination with my belly button? There's absolutely nothing special about it. If anything, I wouldn't stick a finger in there for health reasons. I have no idea what's in there. My belly button is an inny, and I don't know the last time I went poking around. For all I know there might be a small colony of feral kittens shacking up (yes...my belly button goes pretty deep.).

I truly hope the kids stop this behavior. I figure I need to be nonreactive when they probe the button because they're probably enjoying the reaction. All I can say is that they better not find out my fear of wedgies because I may have to disown them at that point.

Day 405 - Halloween

For Halloween, we dressed the kids up as Luke & Leia. There were several other twins we thought about before settling on the Skywalkers: Fred & George Weasley, Mary Kate & Ashley, Romulus & Remus, and the Minnesota Twins. But we figured Star Wars costumes would be the coolest.

Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse Auntie Susan volunteered to make the costumes for the kids. She bought Emma the Princess Leia costume and made the Luke Skywalker costume with needle and thread. As for Auntie Anne (pretzel maven), she gave the kids a little scare: a wallet-sized photo of herself.

There were two little snags with the costumes. The Princess Leia costume had a belt that you attach with velcro. Sadly, Emma's solid waistline prohibited us from securing the belt. Lisa dusted off the sewing kit to pull out a couple of safety pins to keep the belt together.


As for Andrew's Luke Skywalker costume, everything fit perfectly. The thing was that Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse Auntie Susan made Andrew a little lightsaber to go with the outfit. As you can see in the photo, we might as well had dressed up Andrew as Farmer Dick. Either that or Andrew took home a piece of C3PO after a night of robot passion.


Our initial plan was to take the kids trick or treating and then keep the candy for ourselves. But once we started walking with our friends from house to house, Lisa and I felt awkward about asking for candy since it was obvious our kids weren't going to eat the candy. So we went to Plan B: steal candy from unassuming kids under four feet tall. And how did Plan B go? Let's just say I'm enjoying a bowl of Milk Duds while finishing up this entry.

Although the kids had no idea what was going on, I suppose it was cute enough to see them dressed up. Honestly I think if we had to do this over again with a one year old (...and we're not...), I don't know if I would have walked around a neighborhood. It took enough effort to get the kids dressed into a costume and try to get a couple of decent photos. Next year, I'm sure we will go through the same thing and hopefully the kids will have a little more fun. As for costumes, I think we might be able to transform Emma's Princess Leia costume into a bantha. What you think?