Gator Invasion

Carrie and I took the day off today to spend some time together before embarking south to Sarasota for a wedding on the beach this evening. We took a walk with Lucky and Quentin in tow this morning and then took Quentin off to daycare. Upon return we decided to talk a little shop out on our porch enjoying the last few days of our increasingly growing dirt lawn. In preparation for our new lawn coming in they came by and sprayed for weeds. Well, that took out the remaining fake grass we had cleverly disguised, but in reality our entire lawn was weeds so now it really is just dirt. So, we are sitting out there having some coffee enjoying our day off and all of a sudden a large animal comes cruising through the backyard of the neighbor and into the pond. It's extremely clear this is a big gator just by the size of its head, which is all you can see. We've had two different gators frequent our back pond, but this one is 2-3 times the size. He swims across the pond and gets out onto the bank. It was a jaw-dropping moment. It just kept going and going as it gets out of the water. It's 8-9 feet long. It could definitely eat you. The neighbors start pouring out of their houses to take a look. Everyone agrees it's bigger than anyone has ever seen since living here. And apparently no one works in our neighborhood on Fridays.

Carrie is freaking out. I am fascinated by our ever constant changing zoo back there. I have seen all kinds of animals; deer, armadillos, huge birds, 4 foot+ snakes (including ones swimming across this same pond), and of course my nemesis the still unknown beast. She thinks we have to call animal control and I want my wife to be happy so knock yourself out honey. We start with Tampa's finest. Shockingly they are of no help. I believe their response was, "Ma'am, what do you want us to do go out there and shoot it? If we moved every gator from a pond they wouldn't have anywhere to go." Okay, did we mention we are from the Midwest and keeping fat squirrels out of our bird feeders are the biggest wildlife challenge we come across? So, we have nothing outside of a man eating predator that could eat my whole family including our lovable doggy. Feed it? No, no just kidding.

What now? Well, we are stalking the gator keeping an eye on him. We are looking out the windows, running outside, taking photographic evidence - the whole nine yards. I am sure it will be fine. Best case scenario I get a new pair of boots and Carrie gets a new handbag. I think the worst part will be going out there and not seeing him. It's not the type of creature you want to sneak up on you. We'll see how it plays out. With all the gators they sort of come and eventually go about their merry way. I am attaching a few pics, but it's hard to see. I didn't want to get too close.

We are looking forward to our wedding tonight. Quinny will be staying with Aunt Peg and every time you say her name he thinks you are saying pig, so he oinks. It's hilarious! Even if you ask him to say aunt peg, he replies by oinking. Too funny!

Birthday Party

Quinny got invited to his first birthday party this weekend for a boy that was turning two. The event was held at Gator Fred's, which is a Chucky Cheese type place on steroids. It's a giant building essentially filled with inflatable blow up bouncy stations. I don't know what they are called, but you give your kid a bunch of sugar, acres of inside playground, take off their shoes and hope they come back in one piece after an hour or so. It took him a while to warm up to the bigger kids but he eventually got in the groove and had a good time.

Quinny often finds himself in a conundrum because he will be the same size as the older kids, and gets treated as such, but is really much younger so he gets pushed around a bit. The older kids roughhouse more and so he gets intimidated sometimes because even though he's big he doesn't have that kind of an attitude yet. At least not in public. At home he'll take on the dog, his mom and isn't afraid to take a swing at his old man. So appreciative this younger generation.

He has recovered nicely from this bronchitis and doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear. We have been spending a lot of time outside enjoying our 80 degree weather. We did some landscaping this weekend to make up for the winter that killed off most of our outside plants. That was a lot of work, but Quentin enjoyed toying around with a full size spade and giant rake. We decided to install a sprinkler system and then we bought a lawn and are having professionals install it. We have lived in our house for 4 years. We bought a house with a backyard full of dirt. We planted grass and it didn't survive, so that was year one. We put the patio in year two and in year three bought a dump truck worth of dirt and several pallets of sod and we did our lawn by ourselves only to watch it slowly die off. Here we are four years later with a very nice patio and a fantastic yard of dirt. After having the folks come in and bid the lawn they told us we have repeatedly bought the wrong kind of grass. Of course we have. I was a history major not landscape architecture. It makes you wonder if we have been bamboozled by the grass seed seller and the sod guys. Are there different choices up north? I miss my Wisco lawn. Soft, easy to grow and always green. At any rate we have now purchased "shade grass," which has a far more scientific name and the sprinkler system should cement our pack with the lawn gods that we will indeed have a green lawn for Quentin this summer. It should all be done by the first week of May and I cannot wait to gaze upon our green pasture.

Carrie and I are attending a wedding on the beach on Friday so Quentin will get some quality time with his Great Aunt and Uncle in Sarasota this weekend, which will be nice for all of us. He gets to play with 3 dogs and some 2nd cousins and the wife and I get a night out on the beach at a swanky hotel with some northern friends. We hope more of you follow this example and if already married at least say your vows over again in some equally swanky beach hotel within an hour drive of us. You'll love it. Trust me. And she probably deserves it. Imagine the brownie points fellas! Plus our local economy needs stimulating. We can get you a great deal.

Here is a picture of our son eating some sand. As usual I am on the road and have limited access to our picture library so this is also of the beach. He loved it. He was a bit afraid of the rough surf, but enjoyed the sand, especially throwing it at me. He thought he was pretty cool sitting in the beach chairs too. Carrie takes all the credit for the surf outfit. Maybe she can be a child fashionista some day.

Coughing Fits

Our little guy has been hacking up a storm and having a tough time getting comfortable at night because he keeps waking up with these coughing fits. We decided to take him in to the see the doc. This is how we found out he's pushing 30 pounds already. He's going to be a big boy. We thought he might be allergic to pollen. Due to the exceptionally cold winter, spring in Florida has arrived very late and all the trees are releasing their pollen at the same time making it miserable outside for anyone with allergies. It also makes a huge mess. With the extended cold there was also a release of caterpillars that eat the new leaves on the live oak trees. So many caterpillars were released at the same time that a strong breeze actually pelts you from above with them. People are finding caterpillars on their shoulders, hats, pants and bringing them into their homes. In a few short weeks this will result in a release of millions of moths, which is a buffet for the area birds.

Okay, Mr. Science will get back to the story. We decided to take Quentin in to see if he has a cold or if he's allergic to the great outdoors or mystery disease number 9. It turns out he was diagnosed with bronchitis. Yikes, that sounds terrible. So he gets some medicine and he also gets a nebulizer that he needs to use for about 7-8 minutes three times a day because he's not strong enough to clear his lungs through coughing and this should loosen it up a bit and give him a chance to expel the gunk and germs. The nurse gave him his first treatment in the doctor's office and told us it was not going to be pretty. She said you have to put him in a football hold and take your legs and hold his down. Umm, that doesn't sound like a fun treatment three days a week for a week. I don't think she realizes our son is a future WWF star. Fortunately for this dainty nurse and our own sanity he didn't seem to mind a bit and took the treatment without a fuss.

The doctor asked us to come back that next day to make sure the treatment was working, which we found odd but didn't give it too much more thought. One more co-pay for Mr. Porche right? The next morning we get back to the doctor's office and the doc deemed Quentinn 50% better. He then told us that if he didn't see significant improvement they were going to admit him that morning! Holy cow! I am glad they didn't tell us that the first day or Carrie and I would've been up all night worrying, but I guess it was pretty serious and can lead to pneumonia quickly so they wanted to get a handle on it. We just finished his treatment and his coughing has subsided but he has a pretty runny nose now and I'm not sure if that's the germs migrating out, but I think he's much better. He certainly is sleeping better and we seem to be making great progress in that department.

Oh ya and we went to the beach. I need to get another posting out here but check out our little surfer dude. He fits right in having fun in the sun.

Man Weekend

We survived the man weekend. And believe it or not there were zero visits by Tampa's finest. If that isn't a validation of solid fatherhood I don't know what is. We certainly had some ups and downs but overall we got in some nice bonding and had a solid man weekend. Let me give you some of the highlights of single father parenting.

The hardest part of the weekend was feeding time. Quinny eats like 20 times a day (weighed in at the doctor's today at 29 pounds and 14 ounces - that's a lot of curls and not my preferred 12 ounce kind). If you turn your back for one second the food hits the floor or there is a flash flood with him dumping his drink of choice into a small pond onto his table. That last bit is his new favorite past time. So, it's the lesser of two evils to attempt to prepare the food without having him strapped in or strap him in and prepare for the food fight. Your choice. The first morning I didn't strap him in so I could toast a bagel for him. Seriously, how long can it take to grab a bagel, toast it and give it to him? Well, long enough to dump a gallon jug of extra virgin olive oil on the carpet. The olive oil is apparently stored within reach of Quentin. (It's gone now so we no longer have that problem). It doesn't have a child proof cap on it as I found out the hard way. I am slaving away making him a bagel and he's dumping the extra virgin olive oil on the carpet. Interestingly enough, one can empty a bottle of extra virgin olive oil within three feet of you very quietly. Who knew?

Taking a shower is a challenge, because obviously he isn't coming with me so he's unsupervised for a few minutes. I figure he's in the bathroom, a small contained area with the cabinets locked down, so there isn't too much damage he can do. Upon showering I open the curtain and see that Q has done some redecorating. He's managed to TP the whole bathroom. A full roll. Then for the exclamation point he chucks the remaining cardboard roll into the toilet. Fantastic! It looks great. I haven't been TPing in a long, long time. I don't believe I have ever cleaned up after someone has TPed my house so this was a new era for me. It's definitely more fun to TP than to clean up the TP. It definitely isn't cool to go fishing for the cardboard roll out of the toilet. Not cool at all. No, definitely not cool. In fact, open letter to Q, please stop throwing objects that are unflushable into the toilet. Thank you.

Speaking of the tub he loves to take a bath and it was fun to have him enjoy his last activity before hitting the sack each day. The last night we are in the bath and his new favorite word is uh-oh. Like when he purposely empties his glass of milk on the table. He then responds uh-oh. He says uh-oh approximately 500 times a day so you can imagine how many times he's dumping his milk, water, plate of food, throwing his fruit, chucking your remote, breaking your favorite, well you get the idea. At any rate uh-oh isn't something that should be said while he's in the bath or when your mind wonders exactly where this is going during your man weekend. Or when you son says uh-oh, stands up in the tub and begins to squat. UH-OH! You're not going to...He lets one rip. I can guarantee you someone has never emptied a tub, grabbed their kid, dried em' off and slapped a diaper on them faster in your life. I nearly called Guinness to record the feat. The gods did me a solid that day and kept his solid out of the tub. I haven't been able to get the Caddy Shack scene out of my head where the pool gets, um, infected we'll say. I think I really dodged a bullet on that one.

Other than that the only activity I think I did a great job on was taking him to the poor man's zoo. You know, Pet Smart. Sure, it's free and your kid doesn't know the difference. They have dogs, cats, all kinds of birds, lizards, snakes, several species of fish, and varmints. Tons of varmints. Mice, rats, hamsters and all kinds of stuff I didn't even know what it was. We killed a half day in there. He was so exhausted from the zoo experience he slept all the way home. I even got him to sleep for 12 1/2 hours one night. That's right. Totally exhausted the lil' feller. I had him out cold by 6:15 one night and he didn't get up until 6:45 am. I could've hosted poker night. (I didn't. It wasn't that kind of a man weekend).

It was a great weekend and I am glad we were able to walk around all weekend without sucking in our guts. It's so refreshing to let it all hang out once in a while. It's nice to have Carrie back, but she's taking off again for a couple of days on business, so we'll be able to crack a few cold ones and eat whatever we want a little later in the week. There just isn't a substitute for some good old man time.

Carrie had the camera so these pictures are from my phone, hence the less than stellar images. Here he is watering the lawn or in our case our dirt. The second didn't come out too well, but he's eating a sour piece of fruit and the faces he was making were hilarious.

Single Parent Syndrome?

It's an all man weekend over here at the Spiegelhoff household. The lady of the house ventured out all the way to the deserts of the southwest landing in Phoenix last night well past her bedtime at 10:30 EST for a little girl getaway. That leaves proud papa to take care of junior and the Luckster all the way through Monday morning. Hopefully the cops don't get called.

Our wonderful son has entered a new stage and I'm affectionately referring to it as tantrum stage. It's quite unpleasant. It works like this. We are all enjoying ourselves. My happy go lucky son, myself and loyal pooch are outside enjoying a sunshine filled day blowing bubbles, America's second favorite past time when the dinner bell rings. I feel it's my fatherly duty to feed both man's best friend and my son. Well, we went from cheers to jeers as Quinny lost it. The screams!The howls! The bloody murder wails! I was extremely concerned some neighbor was going to come flying out of their house wondering who was slaughtering their child. I dropped everything and grabbed my flailing about supposedly human child and quite literally dragged him into the house kicking and screaming the whole way. I then set him down where he put on a 15 minute plus display of the same.

He then moved on to take his frustration out on dinner. Plate of peas. Dumped over the side. Ahoy matey! I take a peek from the kitchen where I am toiling away for grateful son and dodge the spoon that gets chucked right behind the peas and left of my temple. Okay, let's move on to a delicious pasta dish. First the tomato gets chucked at me and then the bow tie pasta assault begins. Okay, not feeling the pasta - got it. Here is some milk. You have to want to drink some milk right? It was like a moment in prohibition as the milk was unceremoniously dumped. Obviously, Quinny doesn't know how much whole organic milk costs. Don't worry it's coming out of his college tuition money.

So, not thirsty. Okay, I am running out of food groups here. I am slowly learning so instead of providing more ammunition I simply ask if he wants a strawberry. He replies with an emphatic no complete with head shake. Okay, I say and begin eating some strawberries. I put one on his plate. He eats it. Another, he eats it. Another and he eats it. It's at this point I lose my mind and give him 3 at a time. Clearly, I am a slow learner. I get pegged with all three. That's it! I've had it! We're done! My wife probably hasn't even flown out of the state yet and I find myself wishing for a wife inside and me outside with frosty adult beverage in hand thinking about how lucky I am to have a wife inside tending to the tantrum throwing beast she would be locked inside with. But no, this is not the case. I need to muster the courage to play inspired defense to dodge the never ending missles while motivating myself to turn Mr. Crabby Pants' attitude around.

The hockey Badgers are in the frozen four and if they win they make the national championship. I would like to watch a bit of it. I turn it on and sit on the floor praying to anyone that will listen to have him join me and play on the floor. Instead he wants to open up the entertainment center and play with the receiver. Of course. No, no please change the channel. But at the last second he grabs his children song CD and hands it to me. Dear Lord, thank you. Really? This is what you want to listen to? Yup, he nods. Done. So there we are listening to Mary had a little lamb on a constant loop while watching the flat screen and the hockey Badgers stick it to RIT 8-1, 3 feet away from the screen dancing - together. Sports, the common denominator for men of any age as long as you have the right soundtrack. I am so armed with sport packages and children orientated music for tonight that it's going to be one interesting scene. I have tantrumfied the living room - I hope. Man, boy and beast together as one in unity forever. Long live men. Wish me luck as I continue through the bonding!

Phone Etiquette

I took off for Wisconsin yesterday after spending some much needed time with Quentin. Since I have been traveling so much we have begun experimenting talking on the phone so we can have some kind of daily contact. This morning I can hear him in the background going , "Hello? Hello? Hello?" He had gotten Carrie's cell phone, unlocked it and made a call to her mother. Carrie was freaking out, not knowing who he dialed, so she gets the phone, hangs up, effectively crank calling her Mom, turns off the phone and hands it back to him. My genius boy, though, doesn't give up so easily. Not more than a few minutes later, he had turned the phone back on and was back to attempting to dial. Phone confiscated. I love that he's so smart. He will sit down and watch what you are doing and copy it. He's always trying to copy you but he does it remembering the smallest details. I think he has a bright future.

I did get on the phone with him this morning and we went through his ever expanding vocabulary. What's the dog say? "Woof, Woof, Woof!" What's the bird say? "Tweet, tweet, tweet." What's the cat say? "Meow." What's the horse say? (I don't know if I can type that sound. He vibrates his lips). He then says Hello 100 times before moving on to uh-oh 100 times and finally ends with bye a good 50 times. Carrie gets the phone back and I can just hear him barking, "woof, woof, woof, woof..." and I ask what is going on over there? They are on the porch and the Luckster sees birds and squirrels out the yard and is barking trying to get out so he can chase them. (Birds on my turf...) Quentin is copying the dog also barking at the birds and squirrels. Q is really into birds lately because at school they have been taking them outside to go "bird hunting." When we go for walks he gets so excited to see a bird fly over. "Oooh!" It's like we have two dogs. Quinny is copying everyone.

He's such a blast right now with his talking and expanding vocabulary. He gets so excited about everything. "Plane! PLANE! PLANE!!!" Yup, that's a plane. His enthusiasm puts a grin on your face from ear to ear. If only people would keep that kind of excitement we would be in a very different world.

Quick update on the beast. I took off early, early yesterday morning and for my own sanity chose not to look on the side of the house so I don't actually know if the beast had another night attack. Carrie did tell me that two bananas were found in our yard this morning. One in the garden and one on the sidewalk, which was odd. She couldn't be certain, due to lack of DNA testing, but she felt reasonably confident these were not our bananas. This may sound a bit odd but there is a monkey on the loose. The monkey makes the paper about every 10 days or so with a new spotting. They, whomever they are, have been trying to capture the elusive monkey for over a year now. It's quite the comical story. The bananas were found directly below one of our giant oak trees. I wonder if our beast is living in that tree. You don't think it's the monkey do you? This is a mystery that I think is going to put me on stake out when I get back to Tampa. I just might be willing to stay up all night to catch a glimpse of this thing.

Quentin Withdrawl

Let me start by saying Happy April Fool's Day. Don't believe anything someone tells you today. This blog post is real. I didn't want to be inundated with questions asking me if what I wrote was really true so I am just prefacing this post with the fact that the post is indeed real.

I am having Quentin withdrawal. We both have been doing the travel circuit. He went on spring break with my wife to that great beach state of Iowa last week. They enjoyed the waves of grain and corn but not the balmy temps in the 40s. So because of his mid-week getaway he was gone Wednesday through Sunday last week and as luck would have it I left before he awoke on Monday morning. Thus, I only got to see him for a few short hours on Sunday. I got home last night after he was in bed and I leave again tomorrow before he will be up so I will only get a few hours with him today as well. This is one reason there hasn't been too many blog postings. It's hard to come up with entertaining material when I am averaging a few hours a week with him.

So let me start with a varmint update. While Care and Q were getting on with the farm life I was on stake out with Lucky. I gave up with no beast sightings and headed off to slumber around midnight when Lucky starting barking. I mute the TV listening intently for the roar of the what must be 20-30 pound animal lurking just outside my bedroom walls. I can clearly hear something harassing my brand new garbage can. I jump out of bed in a flash and throw on yesterday's clothes. I run to grab a hefty magnum flashlight that I feel comfortable (and angry enough) to bash this thing's head open with or use for protection when I chicken out after the beast goes on the offensive. I am literally running out the front door when I bump into my neighbor. What was my neighbor doing? They were dragging their trash cans to the curb. Right. So you can imagine as I am running outside, just out of bed, ready to do battle and my neighbor, who is a female, looking at me wondering what in the H is wrong with me. This stupid animal is driving me insane! The noise wasn't the sought after beast, but my neighbor taking out her trash! Ya, that's what I would like to do to this pest.

The next day I decide I am going to put the garbage can on lock down so I don't have to sleep with one eye open. I rake the whole lawn. We have 5 mature oak trees in our yard, which isn't large, but with that many trees dropping leaves it turns into a ton of raking. I ended up with 19 full size black bags full of leaves. I packed that garbage can in so tight this thing would have to long jump 20 feet just to get to the can and after that the can wasn't moving. I had it surrounded, on top, on the sides. Problem solved. Beast 3, Man 1. I was closing the gap. The can was locked in until Tuesday night when yard waste is picked up. I came home last night and was feeling pretty good. The sick part was I haven't seen Carrie and Q for all of a couple of hours in a week and the first thing I did upon pulling into the driveway was to check on the garbage can. Insane! I am totally going insane! Well, just at that moment Carrie came out to greet me and took out some trash. Guess what? That stupid #*$%* animal tore up the trash last night! AHHHHH!!

I got up before the sun was up to take Lucky on his walk. Since I hadn't seen Q in a while I took him with me in his wagon. So one hand on 100 pound dog and one pulling wagon with small child in it. I get five paces outside and their are buns in my garden, which aren't there for the birds. Do I dare peek around the corner because the blood pressure is rising, one might say boiling, and sure enough the garbage is all over the place. Seriously, the shotgun is being bought today. I'm writing this from the car, while driving to the abundance of gun shops in this town. We are taking this thing out. Beast of Bellingham 4, man 1. I can't believe this thing is wiping the floor with me. It's time to bring fire power into the situation. It's time to get even.

Hopefully, Quinny and I can spend some time together tonight so I can write about him again. I'm sure my battle royale with the local wildlife is entertaining but not really what people are looking to read. I'll put another one out tomorrow. Scout's honor. Maybe I'll have a new skin on my wall by then. In the mean time enjoy the pictures from spring break. Here he is having breakfast with his sweet mop, making a new playmate with his 2nd cousin we think. That is Callie, Carrie's cousin, so you do the math. And one last one trying on his Uncle Andrew's size 13's.