Signs your wife is out of town

This week Carrie and Q left at dawn on Monday morning, which was a change of pace. I am not understanding the effects of being alone with nobody around but the NFL network and Lucky. Here are a few observations I have made this week with the absences of Carrie an Q.

Apparently, the house does not magically clean itself. This whole time I assumed some maid just took care of this task but after two days at home I can attest this is not the case. I have left numerous times hoping to reenter the house cleaner than I left it but to no avail. I now understand the house does not magically clean itself when you leave on a business trip. I am not missing anything right? There isn't a secret password or something is there? I googled it and came up with nothing.

I have eaten pizza five of the last six days. No that is not a typo. I thought pizza night was a once in a week event but after spending the weekend eating pizza and the week days and the weekends and the week days I now realize that frozen pizza may represent all 8 food groups. That is how many food groups there are right? I am not sure how to work that machine people refer to as a stove if there isn't something frozen to put inside. If I did I would like some pasta and maybe some chicken. I keep hoping but I keeping getting pizza. Is there an instructional manual? Maybe my wife has it. I can't find it anywhere.

We are out of coffee. I sleep four hours a night. I need a pot of coffee. I'm not sure how one procures coffee but I am pretty sure it just shows up next to the coffee pot in its neat little container. I like Starbucks. At this point I will settle for Folgers. Does that guy from Venezuela just show up at your door on the donkey with the kind of coffee you like? Seriously, where does this much needed staple come from? How do I get a hold of the guy on the donkey? I think his name is Juan. If you see him let him know I am looking for him.

Laundry is stacking up. I thought I paid good money for this laundry machine. Why isn't it doing my laundry? I keep throwing my clothes in the laundry basket but I am not seeing any new clean clothes in my closet. I have a Kenmore. Do I need to call the maintenance guy? Maytag? Do I have the wrong brand?

Clearly, I am lost. The only thing I do know is I am watching a lot less wheel of fortune and a lot more of ESPN. So apparently the TV is fixed. That's all I know. If you see my wife let her know she needs to call some repair people. Oh ya, and tell her to come home!

Goofy was on the case

We put an APB out on our video camera and hired the majority of Disney characters to see if they could sniff it out. Soon after employing these characters we realized they don't talk so that caused a problem. There is only so much pantomiming one can do to find a camera. Donald Duck was especially worthless. All that quacking and nothing to show for it. Mickey, well known, but all that fame has gone to his head. He's constantly showing off. Probably for Minnie's attention. Those two spent the entire week flirting. Then we met Goofy. We know he's not the smartest pup at the pound but he's got a good sniffer. On Tuesday we got a call that Goofy picked up the trail of our ineptness and followed the scent of happier days in the magic kingdom only to discover good things do happen there. Tinkerbell of all people found our camera flying around and apparently all that pixie dust she spreads around actually works. She has some weird thing for Goofy and gave him the heads up. So Goofy comes out of this thing looking like a hero. We get a call on Wednesday morning and all we can hear is dead air on the end of the line. I thought it was a prank call. Turns out it was Goofy pantomiming he found the camera. We hang up. We get a call a minute later from lost and found saying they found it and they will ship it to us. Well, well, well. Who knew? Just when all faith in humanity is lost Goofy comes through in the heat of sincere disappointment to add a little hocuspocus to your pedestrian work day.

In the mean time I went out and bought a mirror hard drive with data encryption that holds 2 terabytes of data. Exactly. I don't even know what a terabyte is but this "system" is designed to back up a network of 20 PC's in a small business environment. Clearly, this was the solution to losing our video camera. I bought the terabyte system when we lost the camera. It was the moment when your wife cleans the fridge and you go out and do the man thing. You know, buy the biggest, most obnoxious over the top solution you can find to prove your point that even though you are a first class moron you are still a man and can fix this situation. Yup, well have that base covered. So the multi-terabyte machine arrives the same day the video camera shows up. Huh, well I guess I will be spending my weekend running back ups that apparently this over the top system can do automatically on a nightly basis and is big enough to add data for the rest of our lives without running out of space. It's sort of funny how one situation allows for such redemption later in the week.

On the Quinny front he is officially the bruiser of daycare. Wonderful. He's biting everyone in sight. It's weird. I haven't seen him attempt to bite anyone at home in months but he is chomping through his peers at a record rate. We got a call during the day today to let us know we may need a conference. We just need to stall a little while longer. We haven't told them we are leaving yet and they like us. We pay on time. Apparently, that's odd these days. So, we aren't quite sure if our duty is to go through with the conference or simply let them know our days our numbered. We anticipate retaliation so we think the best strategy is to continue to stall. I'm not sure how we can change his behavior when he doesn't do it at home. Obviously, I don't want him staking out his territory by biting the other kids I want him manning up and punching those kids. Kidding! Only kidding.

I was in Cedar Rapids, are soon to be new home in less than 5 weeks. I need to pack! And my duty this week was to visit daycares. I walk in and say, "Well, I am a bit out of my element. I have a list of questions I need to ask that my wife prepared for me. And if you could just tell me what a good mom would ask and answer those questions too I would appreciate it." She was very nice but I noticed the kids in the place weren't very big. Not sure what those Iowa people are fed up there but it appears steroids aren't in the water table. I know he's going to be biting all of them so I ask how they handle that sort of thing. She explained territorial biting. This is when you are in my space and I don't use my words so good yet so I explain my position by taking a healthy chunk out of your forearm. Take that communication. I can only imagine how effective that would be in the work place. I guarantee there would be significantly less conflict. If one, however, goes for the face, well that's a sign of a future serial killer so you're probably going to want to get some counseling. Glad we cleared that up. My kid is only going for your hands and arms. If they would stop taking his toys he would stop eating them. It seems simple enough.

He weighed in this week at 33 pounds. He's going to be a monster. He's wearing size 3. As in nearly twice his age. Yowsers. I am going to be buying a lot of clothes. I hope number two isn't shrimpy or we are going to be doling out a lot of groundings for sibling poundings. Here are a few pics. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Finding the camera was a serious highlight so we are looking forward to backing up everything including our 1984 Polaroids and wearing a smile while doing it.

Oh no!

We woke up early Sunday morning in a panic. We realized we forgot the video camera in our hotel room. I arrived a day earlier than Carrie and Q. When they showed up they were going to kill some time at the pool so I could finish my meetings and then we would head off to Disney together. Since the room had not been cleaned Carrie hid the video camera. A little too well apparently, because we forgot all about it. That's not good. It of course gets worse because we bought the super fancy HD video camera with the hard drive embedded, you know, for convenience, which means every video we've ever shot is on the camera and not somewhere safe like your computer for example. Between our computer back up dying earlier this year where we stored all our pictures (poof! they're all gone!) and now our videos being ripped off it's like we are living in the 1920s where one photograph of Quentin before the age of 20 is going to exist. We are holding out hope that Mickey is holding our camera hostage somewhere but are having a tough time getting a hold of one of the 4.2 million people that work at Disney that actually collects lost and found. It's provided an extremely sick to your stomach moment in which an impulse computer hardware purchase was made yesterday to buy a mirror 2 terabyte back up system so there will be not one, not two, but three backups automatically run each night on both of our computers. We will be running backups regularly. The irony of course being that this awesome technology has actually ruined our early family history.

If we were using an old school camera I would have 75 albums of physical pictures instead of 4,000 missing thumbnails on some hard drive. And if we were using the industrial sized video camera I would have a TV stand full of VHS tapes chronicling each and every step junior has taken in his first 20 months. Instead I have tears and a sizable hole in the wall, which will now need to be covered up by a photo hanging on the wall, which no longer exists because I lot all my photos!! If it wasn't for shelling out for professional photogs taking pictures every 3 months I'm not even sure we would exist. Okay, I didn't put a hole in the wall but I feel terrible. We robbed everyone, including our son of his most storied moments. (Yes son we had Christmas in 2009 we just didn't take any pictures). Hopefully and I have about 1% of hope left someone turned this in and we will be pleasantly surprised this afternoon that a good Samaritan (are there any left?) turned in our video camera. In another twist of fate our camera battery charger was in the video camera bag so we can't even use our camera!! Seriously? Yes this is actually happening. Where is the warm and fuzzy karma?!?

This led to a none to fun Sunday morning as we contemplated over and over how horrible we are as parents. By the time Q got up from his nap we decided to fill up the pool and hang out for a while poolside. At some point I walked inside to grab something and could hear Carrie's cell ringing. I looked all over the place and couldn't find it. I thought, maybe, just maybe Donald Duck was on the line quacking to me that he found the video camera so I was frantically wondering where she hides this thing. She comes in wondering what is taking me so long and we now have her dialing and two people searching high and low to find this phone. Well, guess where it was? It was under about two tons of garbage in the garbage. Alice's Restuarant anyone? Guess what Carrie does when she's upset about something? She cleans out the fridge. Quinny was taking a nap, Carrie was unloading all the nasty things in the fridge on top of her cell phone burying it deeper and deeper into a place you really aren't going to want to dig for later. Alas, we realize it's the garbage can that his vibrating. Then we open the top. Then we realize we just emptied all the contents of the fridge into the garbage. And then we realize we are going to embark on a romantic voyage into dumpster diving -as a couple! Yeah!

You would be surprised how fast one can go from the garbage to the beer fridge. Usain Bolt would've lost his record holder status. Only to realize, (is this the worst day ever or what?) the beer fridge is empty. Noooooooooo!!! In case of emergency break glass and chug. Where is that novelty item? The only thing that is in there is some raspberry wheat beer that was left over from some friend of a friend. I'm not even sure if that's drinkable but I know we're about to find out. Oh, what a day. That leads us to this morning. Is it possible to look forward to a Monday? It can't get any worse that's for sure.

It was magical

I had a conference this week at Disney World. So, we brought the family up on Monday and we played hooky for the afternoon to have Q get his first taste of the mouse in Orlando. Participants in the conference were given a free afternoon ticket to the park and Florida residents get tickets at discounted prices. Some how junior manages to get in free (at Disney?). Oh that Walt, so smart. I am not big on crowds and I'm even less inclined to wait in line. So, for me it was a good Florida bucket list item and I hoped Quinny had a blast but wasn't sure what the experience would be like. I am officially a believer. The last time I was at Disney World I think I was 6. I'm not sure what's changed. Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and It's a Small World all still exist today as they did then. But this is an extremely well run operation. The staff was awesome from the housekeepers to the bus drivers to everyone in between. They were pleasant, cheery and helpful. I had the towel guy at the pool wish me luck in a meeting I was heading to after dropping Carrie and Q there. Just a great staff. We were at the park for 7-8 hours and we didn't see a single person drinking or smoking, no swearing and not a single child did we witness cry including our own. Shocking. It was immaculately clean. The whole experience was a positive one. They did a great job.

We stayed at the Yacht club so they have boats that take you to Epcot or buses that take you everywhere else. We went to Fort Wilderness for about an hour by boat. Too hot! How are all these people surviving mid-Florida in July? We didn't know what it was, but it's a glorified camp ground and you don't go camping in Florida in July. The temperature was in the 90s as was the humidity. When is that boat coming back?! I dropped my waist size two inches by the time we left. We drank bottle after bottle of water, which was easy to find. Upon arrival we walked down Main Street, USA and there was a 12 person marching band that Quentin loved. He immediately starts dancing while I'm wondering how these people are surviving playing, dancing while wearing band uniforms. They were great. We moved up to the castle for some photo opportunities and then the adventure began.

Straight to the Dumbo ride we went with Quentin saying Dumbo, Dumbo, Dumbo. Line - 45 minutes long. Okay, what's next? You can't take the stroller with you and he's too young to stand and wait in line, which means you have to hold him. It's 93 degrees and he weighs 31 pounds give or take. To hold him while waiting in line for 45 minutes is fine. But to repeat, repeat, repeat and I'm gonna look like I was at the gym for the last 7 years with Hulk-like biceps. So we decided we would go to it's a small world. That wait was 30 minutes, but half of it was air conditioned, a major bonus. Quentin was just staring in amazement. There is too much stimulation in there for him. There is stuff on the ceilings and both sides of the boat so it's a lot to take in. He got a kick out of it and it was a good first ride to go on.

Then we took off to the carousel, which he has been on before from our trip to Boston. When he saddled up he had the biggest grin on his face. He was ready to ride that stallion and there was no wait so he got right on. He really likes the carousel so it was fun to watch him and I got some good pictures. I can't take all that spinning so I had to watch from a far. We then saw the Country Bear Jamboree. Every time one of the bears went "back stage" he would yell out bye-bye or uh-oh! Where did they go? The show lasts 15-20 minutes and the characters are changing every 2-3 minutes so there were a lot of uh-oh's and bye-bye's. He got a big kick out of the talking mounted heads on the wall; a deer, a buffalo and a moose, which were the comic relief.

We caught some dinner, which again I was impressed with. Quinny had a cheese burger with grapes, a cookie and a milk for $5. Not bad. I couldn't believe how reasonable the food was. It's not grocery store cheap but it was cheaper than the fare poolside at the hotel. The place is pretty crazy during feeding time. One of the observations of the crowd, which was international and about as diverse a crowd as you will ever see in one place with different classes, races and languages. The weight on these people though. We need a serious diet. I would estimate 80% of the crowd was overweight. I don't know how these people were surviving in such heat. There is very little shade and only the shops sported A/C. We didn't see anyone having an especially hard time but it had to be rough for many a park goer.

We ate dinner and then stumbled onto the Pirates of the Caribbean ride with no wait. There are two entrances and we chose wisely and got right on in less than 5 minutes. It was dark and scary but it didn't phase Quentin. We were in a boat going through a cave and it's pitch black and you drop a good 20-25 feet (waterfall) in total darkness. Quinny didn't make a peep. He took it like a champ. There was a little boy in the row behind us getting scared and his dad said, "Look at the little boy in front of you. If he isn't scared you shouldn't be." Quinny, not even 20 months old and already a leader. The ride ends and spits you out into a gift shop. That, Walt, so sneaky! We bought Quinny a new dinner set for $3 with the Pirate theme so he got a souvenir. That seemed awfully cheap to us. At this point our little guy was pretty tuckered out and it was right around his bed time of 7:30.

We moved into Tomorrowland, the future. There was a DJ playing dance music with Pluto and the chipmunks on stage. Quinny was bobbing and getting into the groove. I caught him coming back through that area again on video so we have him dancing. It's hilarious watching him get down. He gets self-conscious though, if he knows you are watching so I had to shoot it from behind. We went on a few more rides and then headed back for the electrical parade and fireworks. One of the best firework displays I have seen in a long long time.

Quinny made it through the whole day awake with no tantrums and no crying. He was great. We all had a fantastical time. It was a little hot but everyone enjoyed themselves and got to see everything they wanted. What would you expect from Disney? Next time he will be tall enough for Space Mountain and some of the bigger rides. As soon as we made it out way out of the park and onto the bus he was out cold. We changed his clothes and he didn't wake up. We made it back to the hotel by 11. But guess what? He still got up at 5 am this morning. That Quinny! He's never going to sleep in!

Gator Fred's

It's been raining for the last 10 days. We haven't seen the sun since two Saturdays ago. We live in the sunshine state. It's not good to combine boisterous 19 month old, house with no basement, lots of rain and long weekend together. You end up with said 19 month old quite literally bouncing off the walls, and climbing and did I mention jumping off objects not meant to be jumped off? His new favorite thing is to climb on chairs, like a recliner, and stand on the very edge tempting fate and your patience. As your thermometer rises, all in the hopes you save a trip to the emergency room and the interrogation from Child and Family Services, he gets oh so much enjoyment out of it. Time out you say if you don't cut it out and that only gets his juices going more. The smiles come out for him. For you the frustration grows. He laughs. Oh, that little stinker. The real problem is, and don't I know it loud and clear, is he's just like me. The second you tell him not to do it he's doing it for the next 20 minutes. That makes it so much worse. You're ready to kill him and you know you would be doing the same thing. It's irony slapping you silly right upside the head. Oh, that painful irony. So for all those babysitters I terrorized this is your payback. You probably don't even know it but it's driving me crazy. Crazy!!

Fourth of July we wake up and please let it not be raining. It's raining. You have got to be kidding me. Junior was so crabby the day before we didn't know if we would survive it. What did we end up doing? We went to the mall to unleash our little monster in the play area. We thought it was the greatest idea ever. (Internally, I am thinking where did I go wrong in this life where I am spending the glorious 4th of July in a mall)? My brats. My beer. My pyrotechnics. No explosions? Not even a little one? So, we end up at the mall. Well, it turns out there were approximately 753 parents that had the same idea. There was 1,000 kids in this little play area and the parents were so happy to let them have it. The kids were all spazzing out. It's a two way street bouncing off the walls. We finally wear out Quentin and go home to spend the evening inside (oh the tragedy!) as it rained all night long. Sure, you could suck it up, garner your rain gear and head out to the beach to see rain soaked fire works, but the point is to have fun right? Does that sound like fun? We had tickets to see a baseball game. It's outdoors. It didn't happen. The sunshine state letting me down.

On Monday we wake up to, yup, more stinking rain. I have a new creek in my back yard. The drought of last summer is well behind us. It's still raining! That's it we're heading to Gator Fred's. Carrie discovered this when Q was a little tyke and got invited to a birthday party. For $6 you can let your kid run loose in place filled with those bouncy house things. You know that are filled with air and you can climb around and tumble and jump and literally bounce of the walls. We dropped him off in there and he loved it. They had 5 or 6 different ones on one side of the place and the other was different themed houses. There was a firehouse, pizza kitchen, movie theatre, dress up location and who knows what else. It was a crazy mad house in there but your kid can go nuts. He had a great time. We wore him out good, came home and put him to bed.

We woke up this morning and it's still raining. For crying out loud! I am leaving for Atlanta tomorrow so I really hope the sun is shining there. There was a brief rain break for lunch so we let Lucky out for 10 minutes. I walk out the patio door and see a snake. I think it's dead. It's not moving and I can see its tongue sticking out so I think it's dead. I take a closer look. His mouth is open because he's halfway through devouring a big old toad. Only the back legs are hanging out. Lucky comes over now. The snake is freaking out. Carrie is really freaking out. She's running to climb on top of the patio furniture. The dog isn't quite sure what do and either am I. I'm sort of keeping my distance. The snake is running - fast! with his mouth still full but he's on the patio so there is nowhere to hide and the dog is chasing him. The snake eventually cruises all the way around the house and Lucky and I just let him go. It's the Discovery channel over here.

Here are a few pics from the monsoon weekend.