Singing

Ethan loves to sing. And he learns the words to songs pretty quickly. And if he can't quite get the tune right, he makes up for it with volume.

We have a tape of primary songs that he sings in the car. He's getting to know pieces of most of the songs. It's cute to hear him join in when it's playing. He'll sing all the way to wherever we are going.

Then, when we are at home, Ethan will also start just singing at random. Today he was climbing on the couch singing the "Follow the Prophet" chorus (over and over) at the top of his lungs. Then, on occasion, he would mix in "I lived in Heaven" to the same tune as Follow the Prophet. It took me a few times before I realized what words he was actually using.
Of course, he didn't care. He was just happy to be singing and dancing.

I love that he likes singing so much. I hope he gets his mother's talent for singing too.

News from the frontlines

So, I've been told that my blog has been neglected of late. And I can't deny it. However, today, I will not be parading around the same tired excuses with their threadbare rags tenuously clinging to their dead-horse-beaten bodies.

Instead I have a fresh new batch of excuses, still shiny with new-car smell. These I will present for your reading pleasure with the expectation that you will not question them or look under the masks.

Excuse number 1. Life is hard. There, I said it. Life is just hard, and as the blog is a all about me anyway, I'm elevating that selfishness to my frequency of posting. Sorry if this demolishes any preconceptions I have may presented over the last four years about my blog being a place to stay current on the happenings of our family.

Excuse number 2. Raising kids is hard. And, while you might think it only gets twice as hard with two kids, well, you'd be silly for thinking that. Rather, the second child is more like an exponent, squaring the level of difficulty and space required for childrearing. Our apartment that has been roomy enough for us to live in for 5 years has suddenly shrunk, seemingly overnight, until we feel that we're living in a hotel room rather than an apartment. There is no space in our house that, if not entirely consumed, is not laced with the paraphernalia of children. (Also, every trashcan in the house has a dirty diaper in it.)

Excuse number 3. Looking for a job is hard. In case you haven't heard, or been confused by Mia's post, I'm still just in the looking phase. Te first place we decided to look was North Carolina. Oddly enough, a few people we knew from Boston have moved down there. And some others here in Boston came from there. So, apparently there's something to the place. I've found a couple of jobs that are right in the field I'm looking for (haven't landed any of them yet) so it's got work I could do.
If North Carolina doesn't work out, I may look in such exotic locales as Austin, Denver, and Portland.

Excuse number 4. I've got a bigger, better blog now. Well, I don't know if it's better but I'm getting some attention on a professional blog that I've started. It's giving me a space to think about marketing, the Internet, and social media. I'm starting to carve out my career in this space, so I like having a place that I can posit on ideas that I wouldn't normally get to deal with at work.

And if you buy all those excuses, then I've also got a nice bridge we should talk about. ;)

Killing time

Things you can do while your infant son takes a 4.5 hour nap... in your arms.

1. Watch a session of conference.
2. Catch up on your RSS feeds
3. Eat a snack
4. Read a fair chunk of Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
5. Take a nap yourself

Yes, you can do all of those things and more in just one nap session. If you want to try it for yourself, come on down to our place. We'll set you up.

They Live!

Some of you have been wondering if the boys are still alive considering the recent lack of documentation. Well, I've finally got something for you.

First, are the recent uploads located on Flickr.

And here's a little video that I uploaded to YouTube. (It didn't work when I tried to upload it through my blog.) So, if you've been wondering what Edward is up to, here is his latest accomplishment.

Movie Quotes by Ethan

Ethan watches a couple of movies over and over. No surprise for a 3-year old. And because of that, he has some favorite movie quotes. Here are some samples:

Toy Story: To Infinity and Beyond.
Toy Story2: Not today Zerg. *motions to arm for laser and makes shooting sounds*
Incredibles: I'm Dash.
Cars: Ka-chuga, ka-chuga.
Blue's Clues: I skeedoo'ed into the picture.

And, then, just yesterday we got an unexpected one. He was holding the folded poles to his tent, one in each hand, he turned to me and said, "Say hello to my little friends."

WHAT!?! Where did he pick that one up? We certainly haven't been letting him watch Pachino movies. It must have been a reference in one of his other shows but it still caught me off-guard. Not to mention, carried much different connotation for me than he intended.

Forget the Easter Bunny

We have a new favorite Easter animal in our house.

When we came out in the morning, I found in my basket a very cute, cuddly looking plastic cow. When you push him down, he poops out a jellybean. A brown jellybean.


The first time I did it, Ethan just stared at it for a few seconds. Then he said, "That cow made a poop on the carpet." The cow was really calling into question his reality because poop on the carpet usually gets a bigger reaction from mom and dad.

So, I told him that it was just a jellybean like he got in his eggs. But, he didn't want to eat it anyway.

Fast forward to me coming home from work today. One of the first things Ethan said to me when I walked in the door was "Do you have the poo-poo cow?" He wanted to see it make another poop.

Of course, he still says he doesn't want to eat it afterwards.

It really is uncanny

I've posted about this before.

I'm not sure what the connection is but it's starting to scare me. This time the battery on our big car keeps getting drained and we didn't know why. Turns out the box controlling our lights has a faulty fuse that continuously drains the power.

This only started happening last week.

In Sickness and in Health

Mia got the flu last week. She got it hard: headaches, runny nose, fever, chills, fatigue. We were fortunate that Ethan was vacationing in Albany. Unfortunately, we didn't get nearly as much done around the house has we hoped because Edward screamed like a banshee.

Finally Mia broke down and bought a swing. It was amazing. Edward loves to be in the swing and will immediately calm down no matter how loud he is being. In fact... we are starting to think he likes swinging more than being held. Yikes!

At the end of last week, I got the flu. Mostly it was just a runny nose (I went through an entire box of tissues on Sunday) but when I get sick, I get hit hard with fatigue. I went to work on Monday and felt exhausted when I came home.

Fortunately, my mom has been in town so she's taken very good care of us. We've really gotten more sleep that we would otherwise with an extra set of hands around.

But, as I was telling Mia the other night, when I'm sick I realize how much I appreciate her and all the things she does. Maybe I just notice them more because I can't do them for myself. Whatever it is, when I'm sick it's more obvious to me how much I love having her in my life.

And now... more sleep.

Only Smaller

Ethan and I went to the mall on Saturday for some Dad/Son time. He's been getting kind of pushed aside lately because of Edward. Not that we want to push him aside but we can't be as active as he wants when trying to get baby Edward to sleep.

We stopped by Circuit City first, so I could browse around and try to spend my gift card. Ethan immediately wanted to go over to the fake living room areas. With the nice couches and the big TVs. He climbed up on a leather couch (and since it had been snowing) I told him "no shoes on the couch." He made it easy by just taking his shoes off entirely. Then he was able to climb around, and move between the different set-ups. He would have stayed there all night, I think.

But, we had to move on. In the mall, Ethan loves to run along the wide corridors, ride the escalator, and go into toy stores. He also asked if we could get ice cream after he saw some people eating some. Which we did before leaving.

One of the insights that I had while walking around was that tweens are like miniature horses. They look just like the real thing, only smaller.

The high cost of gas

Now, you might think that I'm talking about gasoline. Well, you'd be wrong.

This is a baby post, so you can guess what kind of gas is involved. As all conversations about babies eventually turn to poop, I'll just start this off with it and avoid beating around the bush.

Edward tends to get a lot of gas. And it's painful for him.

Now, with that context, please enjoy this anecdote.

I decided yesterday that we don't really do much as a family after I get home from work because Mia is exhausted and goes off on her own to take a break. I don't blame her after a day with the kids. But, yesterday, I suggested that we go out to dinner together. So we went to the Olive Garden.

Mia had a salad (I had the sausage soup, yum) and the Mixed Grill. She was very careful not to eat any of the vegetables she knows give her gas, including all of the squash and peppers that came with her meal. She was rather disappointed but we didn't want to deal with Edward getting even worse.

Jump forward to this evening. I came home from work and was trying to get Edward to calm down. Mia said she would make dinner for us. She poked around a bit and came up with a quick meal: Chili.
Wait, wait, I know what you're thinking and it gets better.

So, I'm dealing with Edward while we eat and as Mia finishes up her second (yep, #2) bowl of chili, Edward starts fussing and won't calm down. Mia looks up at me and says "He's probably still got some gas..." There is a pause "Oh no."

This was the moment we realized that she'd just eaten two bowls of what is probably the worst possible food for avoiding giving our baby gas. I have a feeling we are going to be in for a very exhausting weekend.