Long Weekend

Oh boy did we enjoy the long weekend in sunny Florida. It was a much needed reprieve after too much travel, long work filled days and to simply get away from the daily grind. We had grand plans to see a Rays game, go to Honeymoon Island (the beach) and spend some quality time together as a family. We are trying to cross some bucket list items off before our sunshine state departure and failing miserably while we keep adding to the list. What we are finding is we put so much time and effort into our home that being here is finally like going on vacation. Instead of bringing out the kiddie pool and making our yard a mud pit for souped up monster trucks we have the perfect shade of green yard, the envy of the neighborhood. I keep getting compliments, and although humble am very much enjoying every second of it on the inside. For the first time in nearly 4 years, we've lived here for 3 years 11 months and 10 days, I laid on the lawn much to the enjoyment of Quentin and possibly more so for the Luckster. When was the last time one laid on the grass and viewed the passing clouds? It was sheer enjoyment stress free with son, dog, wife, good food, beautiful day and a cold refreshing drink. Although, interested to see what fields of opportunity await in Iowa it's hard to imagine it could possibly be more relaxed than the passing long tranquil weekend we were so fortunate to enjoy.

We busted out the pool for Q to splash around in, which oddly he's not interested in getting in. He only wants to splash. He also has a water station. Both are filled with water and he'll take a cup of water out of the water station pour it into a bucket on the ground and then take the bucket and dump it into the pool. He will then repeat various combinations of that occasionally spilling the buckets purposefully on the ground. He can keep this up for hours. When he's not focused on the water he's all about the bubbles. He will only take a bubble bath now, which he loves. When I say love I mean he both loves the bath and the bubbles. You say bath, he says bubbles. The enthusiasm is contagious. The way his face lights up when he says bubbles with so much anticipation it's impossible for the true event to live up to the hype. When we are outside we must have bubbles on hand for a fear of a freak out if he doesn't have them. We stumbled upon this great bubble apparatus that is spill proof so we do buy our bubbles wholesale by the gallon but keep refilling this container that can be dumped upside down and nothing comes out. Genius! Pure Genius! You can tell kids have been around for a long time. We have a lot of why didn't I think of that moments. Being outside is so enjoyable for all of us. Inside, well, that spells trouble.

Quentin is in love with three things; mischief, bubbles and water - likely in that order. Over the weekend he learned to open the fridge, which makes one ponder if it's possible that some person invented a childproof contraption to keep our little guy out of the fridge. I am not sure, but I am certain it will cost me money like only a child can. He also discovered floss and by that I mean we found him flossing with about 25 feet of floss. We forgot to teach him portion control I suppose. We recently upgraded our childproof outlet covers that, to date, actually appear to be childproof. He, of course, spends every waking moment trying to beat the system. We do have an abundance of child "resistant" outlet covers if you are in the market. Shall we say $.10 a piece and waiver of no liability? He also learned how to turn on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off lamps. That's very enjoyable if you always wanted a strobe light but could never find the time to track one down. Have my son over. He creates the same effect without the purchase price. So to date he can open doors, mostly when you are in the bathroom, the last solace of personal time away from the family. Alas, those days too, have come to an end. The fridge, which is full of glass items, although nothing has been broken yet and he hasn't quite figured out why he wants in there yet. And the strobe light effect. He's big on climbing too. He's focused on chairs right now. He climbs on them and then stands, which isn't too bad, except it keeps you on your toes and if you look around your house it's full of chairs. We are constantly chasing him from room to room, which is why it's so nice to go outside and let him enjoy the yard.

We had a great weekend and I've attached a few pics to prove it. The mosquitoes are bad so I bought 12 tiki torches. Would you believe it's not enough? The wife wants the bug zapper. I recently read about this awesome fogger that envelopes your yard in something they don't like but is harmless to people. Unfortunately it's a rich person toy and therefore only a pipe dream for us working stiffs. The beautiful outdoor weekend did result in an abundance of mosquito bites.

Before I go I would like to offer our congratulations to my brother-in-law whom muscled up the courage to propose to his lovely girlfriend this past week. And I am happy to report she said yes. I'm not sure how the math works out so am I gaining a sister-in-law? I think so, but I do know Q is gaining an aunt. Congratulations to the both of you and we will have a practiced ring bearer presumably by the date of your wedding. Now, if you are looking for a less cute option you are on your own. We only carry the best in cuteness over here. Enjoy your engagement and if having kids sleep in, because you never will again.

Chomp, Chomp

Quentin is learning that teeth can be used for more than just boring eating. We had not one, not two but three glorious biting battles at daycare this week. What's that saying? Fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice shame on me, fool me three times and I'm calling the police if you don't get your daycare under control? Or something like that. So the first day he comes home with a huge bite mark on his hand and they didn't say anything to us. "Hey hon, did you notice our little guy tattooed his hand with a bite mark while we were at work? Ya, loved that." So when we brought him in the next day and asked about it they said he did it to himself. Okay. Well, he's never done that at home, but fool me once...That day we get a call that he bit another boy. Likely story to back up the first. Okay, I won't be that parent. I'm sure that kid deserved it but we will punish him after we give him a high five for standing up for himself. That "other kid' was bigger, older and stole his toy. The punk got what he deserved. The next day Q comes home with a big old bite on his forearm. That same punk bit him (and incidentally bit another kid ON THE FACE the same day) that stole his toy the day before. So tell me where is the problem?

Coming from a senior management perspective they obviously have a supervision problem. At what point does someone come to the realization that bigger, biting, bully brat might need to be culled from the herd? I mean the third time is the charm, right? I should have gone the law school route. We think we may need a parent-teacher conference working in reverse. It's all very disappointing. I wonder what happens when they starting swinging? Do you think they just get them gloves and let them work it out? Place your bets! This is a moment when cameras would come in really handy. It would give us a much better idea of the place is out of control or if it's just one of those things. Is anyone really satisfied with their daycare provider?

Other than that things are pretty peachy. He can turn on the stove, which is gas so that's a positive. We can finally get him making breakfast for us. No, this isn't good at all. He totally gets the "hot, hot, hot." But that's not really a deterrent. He just turns it on and looks at it saying hot. He slightly burned a finger, a pinkie to be exact on the stove. Ah, another milestone achieved. And those childproof electrical outlet covers? I would say they are using the term childproof very loosely. I agree he couldn't get them off when he was 1, technically still a child, but now that he's a hair short of 18 months it's a daily routine to go through the house and take them all off and then return with different items like a curling iron he can practice plugging in. It's all very ideal. I am not pediatrician but one would think that 18 months should still classify as child. And today he performed the trifecta when he opened his first closed door. So, we need to re-childproof our childproof home as captain advanced is defeating all our safety mechanisms. Maybe he's the next Houdini.

Here is a picture of Q wearing out dad and taking a much needed nap. As you can see our boy likes to spread out. It's another reason we don't like him in our bed. He's flipping and flopping so it's not uncommon to get smacked upside the head as he rolls over arms fully extended. That's not the wake up call I had in mind.

Happy Anniversary, I feel terrible...

Our third anniversary was last Wednesday. I know, three years already. Time flies when you don't sleep all but 4 hours a night. We have two quick secrets to share for a successful marriage. First, if you are out of town traveling for business half the time does that mean your marriage will last twice as long? You be the judge. We miss each other more and enjoy each other's company more when we do see each other. It gets balanced out working from home and getting 24+ hours together. Couple that with long nights of effective communication about who is going to climb the stairs for the twelfth time at 3:30 am and viola! you have a successful marriage. Well, there is that and how to solve an argument. We prefer the roshambo method or more commonly called the rock, paper, scissors method. Who is cooking dinner tonight? Ready? 1 - 2 - 3 shoot! Sweet. I win. Enjoy cooking. Who's taking out the garbage? Roshambo. Rock crushes scissors. It's true. Your marriage never needs to reach that "who is right" stage. Who is right is simply dependent on whether or not paper covers rock, scissors cutting paper or my favorite rock pulverizing scissors. Bragging rights can last a week if you get on a strong roll or as long as best out of three. It's entirely up to you but it's really tough to complain if you are standing there holding paper when the wifey clearly has the scissors out. That's a loss. And at this age it's really hard to get away with cry baby cheating "it's not fair" antics. We already have one of those and another on the way. So, I encourage you to introduce roshambo to your significant other and watch all your arguments dissipate into rock, paper or scissors.

We had a nice night out enjoying a sunset dinner on the beach and then heading over to a swanky restaurant where we ventured into their dessert room complete with piano player (he does play requests). I will admit that I did yell out "Freebird." If you don't get it, you should. He didn't play it. He did play "pina colada" which has a legitimate name and he gave some requester quite the education. The person eventually hung up on him. I guess they just wanted to hear the song. It was a nice time. Then we got home and junior had a really tough night.

It turns out he was sick. He spent Thursday night tossing his cookies, dangerously in bed - without waking up. So, that caused a freak out. Fortunately it took place before we went to bed, which led to a family camp out on the couch for the night. That was exhausting and Carrie's parents came into town on Friday afternoon, which was a nice help. On Saturday everyone was feeling fine so we had people over and grilled out. We had a really nice night catching up and gator watching in our backyard. As the drinks flowed so did the gator sightings. We should start charging admission. We have a beautiful new lawn to gaze across now, which is fantastic. One of our buddies came into the house saying we had the best lawn in the neighborhood. Glad to hear it. (By the way the drinks were free without the compliment but I appreciate it just the same). I bought it so it's nice to know I got what I paid for. (It's not like I didn't put the hard work in. Go back about two years. I did - twice. Sometimes you have to know when to throw in the towel).

As we were wrapping up our evening, our friend the pukey bug migrated from Q to Carrie. Just after our guests left, Carrie started getting ill and was up all night on Saturday night. That made for a brutal Sunday. We literally got no sleep. I mean less than usual like an hour or two. That's saying something around here. Carrie couldn't move all day and was plastered to the couch. It was a like a solid Sunday after a rousing Saturday evening in college except she was missing the rousing Saturday night from college. She has a business trip on Monday so that means she needs to get well in a hurry and she needs to not pass it to me because I am single parenting for a couple of days. Last night the bug migrated again and moved upstairs and got Carrie's mom. So she was up last night and is also flying out this morning. Sheesh! I don't who or what brought this thing into our house, but we are really hoping no one else gets sick. Actually, everyone has gotten sick except me so when I write everyone I really mean me. Just me. Come on immune system. Thankfully I am exposed to dirty people on the regular and mostly they want to shake my hand and hack away as my seatmate on planes. I am addicted to washing my hands. I count. It's sick. I am a plus 25 as in at least 25 times a day I wash my hands and anytime I touch someone it's straight to the bathroom. You have no idea how many people walk out of the bathroom without a little soap. Seriously, I don't know where that hand has been. Alright, you get the picture. On to my wonderful son.

Here is a video of our son dancing with the dog. I came upon him and started filming but you can see he spotted me about half way through. He was having a good time. Oh, and if you think he's wearing an Iowa shirt, he is. However, it was a cleansing. We made a pact with all Iowa fans (speaking of getting sick) and we decided we would move to Iowa on a single condition - no one is allowed to buy our boy anything outside of Packer, Brewer and/or WISCONSIN gear. So, if you are an Iowa fan (I think I'm getting sick just giving you people the press) please enjoy our company and leave my poor going to Wisconsin if he wants dad to pay for college tuition son out of it. He is enjoying himself but not because of the shirt. We put it on him because he was yacking all over everything and we figured that was about the right attire for such an occasion.

Happy Mother's Day

We wanted to wish everyone a happy mother's day. We hope everyone enjoys their one day of the year when mothers are appreciated. I know that we do appreciate them much more than most will know, but it's difficult to always tell them. For Carrie Quentin gave her several art projects. She received a framed picture he created with his hand prints all over it, another one with his foot prints and a special one with a cute picture, heart and some nice words. It will make for a nice Quinny corner in her office. We wanted to save some of his art work and thought as we keep moving forward and the years pass by this would be something she could always have and look back on to remember our first little boy.

Which leads me to make an announcement. One of the reasons we wanted to make sure Quentin's art work was saved for the coming years is because we found out he's going to be a big brother. We are expecting our second child so I'm going to have to update the title of this blog. We have a couple of ultrasound pictures that I'll have to get posted shortly. We are due October 29th so they will be about 23 months apart. Quentin was two weeks early so we'll see when this one is set to arrive. Once again we have decided we are not going to find out the sex. I think it's going to be difficult to find quality Q names for this one. We already checked out our "final name's list" from when Quentin was born and don't like any of them. Wow, how times change. For the record Quentin wasn't on the final list so we never did choose a name off it to begin with. It's pretty exciting news.

I found out by coming home one day and finding the family out on the porch. I was upset about something and walked out there to tell Carrie about whatever my issue was and noticed Quentin had a shirt on that said "Big Bro." Because I was distracted it took me a minute to put it all together and then a moment of surprise. Surprise maybe but we are definitely looking forward to expanding our family. With Quentin I knew we were having a boy. I just had a feeling and with this one and I think it's going to be a girl, so place your bets! If it is we are only a white picket fence away from the nuclear family! I'll get some pictures posted soon...

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was Carrie's 23rd birthday so I hustled home from Minneapolis on a well before dawn flight through my favorite place on earth - O'Hare International in route to get to Tampa. I was in Minneapolis for some company meetings mixed in with some local clients we work with. So our days were pretty packed from morning into the evenings. I mention this because on Wednesday night I had dinner with a large group at a trendy restaurant downtown called Seven. We had a cocktail reception followed by an array of choices from sushi to steak. I wanted to make sure we celebrated Carrie's birthday with some sort of style because she was a solo parent and after all one only turns 23 once in a lifetime.

Carrie, being the doting wife that she is decided against getting a babysitter because I hadn't seen Quentin since Saturday and she wanted to make sure we got to spend some time together before he hit the sack. That was thoughtful of her on her birthday. Carrie is a big fan of the Mexican so it's May 6th and we are heading out to our favorite Mexican restaurant. Because we are getting older, me much older than my considerably younger 23 year old wife, we spaced the fact that cinco de drinko or as some like to call it cinco de mayo was the night before. The outdoor patio, which we prefer, was still trashed from the rager the day before. The difference is the experience is too authentic inside. No one speaks English. Outside we have friends that bartend and waiter so we like to visit with them while we are out there. Slight problemo. So inside it was with our authentic exhausted unenthused waiter. It's okay. It's nice to be home. It's nice to celebrate my wife's 23rd birthday and it's nice to be there as a family.

What I had forgotten is the difference of having dinner with colleagues at Seven and having dinner at authentic Mexican restaurant with an 18 month old. The milk got spilled on his head. The tortilla got thrown at our table neighbors. We did say hi to everyone in the whole place, though. The speed of service was exquisite. The tipping really goes above and beyond when you leave that kind of a mess behind. When the table is cleaner than the floor you need to add a little to the typical 15-20%. They should make tip calculators with a special family button. 50% - now we're talking. So the food was good and after we finished abusing our waiter we went next door to Cold Stone for some ice-cream. Junior isn't there yet to consume, so he just admired the pretty colors in the display case and then made sure he told everyone in the store hi and good-bye upon leaving.

It was a good night. We were rewarded by junior waking up at 2:30 am and not going back to sleep. So we were afforded the opportunity to finish off that birthday with 3 hours of looping Sportscenter loud enough to drown out the screaming from our beautiful son that absolutely refuses to sleep before rising for what could only be a glorious Friday of work. Well, that and the lawn guys cut my phone line while installing the sprinkler system. It's not important, it's only business. So if you get my voicemail don't leave a message because I'm not going to get it anytime soon. Our lawn does look fantastic though. I hope they are not going to tear it back out to install my phone again. Cringe. Turning 23 is nothing like turning 22 my wonderful wife tells me. Next up - Mother's Day. I think we are skipping the brunch. I can already envision my son chucking shrimp all over rich people. They don't remember what it was like to have little kids. When they do give the dirty looks we simply adjust his aim .

Here is a short video of Q working on his somersault technique.