Peeping Tom

Iowa's not looking so safe these days.  We have a total perv on the loose and he's been having his way with our neighborhood for nearly a year and still no leads as to who he is.  Here is the news story.  You can actually see our house in the video.  Way too close to home (pun absolutely intended). The police have been called 8 times already this year as residents and neighbors have spotted him.  He's carrying around a 20 foot ladder with him and peering in second story windows.  Four doors down last Friday our neighbor caught the guy in the act and said, "He dude, where you going with that ladder?"  At that point the perv dropped the ladder and for a 45-50 year old weighing 200 pounds is apparently athletic because he then proceeded to outrun the local vigilantes.  End result, we are the proud new owners of an AK-47.  Nothing deters pervs better than 640 rounds per minute.  So if the weirdo is reading this beware this house is packing some heat.

I did a little asking around about my rights.  In Florida if this person was on your property you have the right to shoot him.  Of course you do.  This is America.  In Iowa my friends tell me you don't, even it you wake up at 3 am and find this dude peering into your second story bedroom window.  I am shooting anyway.  I think I am willing to take a chance with a gun toting jury of my Iowan gun loving peers to acquit.  What kind of community wouldn't applaud a local citizen gunning down a local predator caught in the act?  Carrie is speculating a painter and that's why he has so many ladders.  Per the local news affiliate "two ladders are in custody."  We are hoping the ladders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Last night someone threw a brick through our neighbor's window a few houses down the street or at least that was the gossip the other morning at our daycare, which is near our neighborhood.  I love access to the small town gossip.  After further investigation it turns out it was a smoke bomb and not the kind you let off on the 4th of July. Hmm, the plot thickens.  Let me put my FBI hat on for a moment and start creating a criminal profile.  White male, age 45-50, married, has children, lives in the neighborhood, possible painter or cable guy that may or may not have done a stint in the military (procures smoke bombs).  How am I doing so far?  I think the CRPD should give me a buzz and allow me to consult on the case.  I think I could wrap this up twice as fast as they are. 

In short our kids are sleeping but I'm not because I wake up to the faintest little sound and do the rounds searching for our local degenerate.  The next door neighbor that moved in about three weeks ago recently installed a 1,000,000 candlelight spotlight that lights up both our yards.  That would be great except he placed it directly outside Quinny's window.  Now bedtime is, "Dad, what's the bright light shining in my room?  Oh, that's just the neighbor trying to keep the sexual deviant away.  Nothing for you to worry about.  Sweet dreams!"

Fortunately it's still winter here so we are hoping the cold temperatures keep this guy away.  It snowed enough to collect on the ground Tuesday night.  Man, I am really loving winter.  I hope it never ends!  Care, just reminded me it's spring.  Right, spring.  I am loving this spring weather!  We'll keep you posted.  If you visit and notice anyone with a ladder immediately become suspicious and call 911.  This guy looks totally "normal" but is clearly not playing with a full deck.  Cue banjo music.

The Bird Feeder

We took Gavin into the doctor on Monday and they only test for one strain of RSV. Fortunately he was negative.  I am not sure how many there are but they prescribed another round of antibiotics, his third this month and his second breathing treatment.  There are 7 babies in his the nursery and 3 are out with RSV (43%).  It's a mandatory week at home once a baby has been diagnosed so as long as they send in the janitors to scrub the place clean those germs should only be there for another 4 months or so until the temperatures break 60 degrees to burn off the germs.  He sounds much better and is sleeping longer at night without interruption so he appears to be making progress.  Hopefully he turns the corner this time and makes a full recovery so they can inject him with a docile version of viruses number 6, 7, and 8.  Have to love that medical profession.  That will be $20 for the visit, $90 for the medication and we'll see you next week (big smile)!  If that doesn't prove getting a liberal arts well rounded education is well all I can say is ha! and here's my wallet.  I should've been a better student. 

We are at a bit of a crossroads with the potty training.  He does great in his Pow! Bam! Batman underoos but then he spends the week at school wazzering freely in his diapers because they only take him to the john twice a day.  He's had a few accidents like yesterday when the weather was finally warm enough to go outside.  He and I are staring into the endless sea of what should be a knee high cornfield and he looks over at me and says, "Dad, I'm peeing my pants."  I'm sorry, what?  "Dad, I'm peeing."  I take a moment and look down, admiring his well fitting khakis and then realize he surely is letting loose in those fine fitting khakis.  Yup, that's what we get for finally enjoying the outdoors.  We take a leak out there the first chance we get.  Clearly, this kid is fitting in just fine to the Iowa culture.  He's one farmer's blow away from getting his masters degree in farm culture.  Um, Care!!! ya, we're gonna need you to work this out.  It's been a while since I peed my pants.  What exactly is the procedure?  Sink? Straight to laundry?  Hose?  Who knows about this stuff?  We need a serious straight to the point man manual for kids.

We are thinking this weekend will be it and next week he goes to school with 14 outfits and lots of underwear and we figure at the very least we'll start getting our money's worth out of that place.  We were giving him M&M's every time he successfully went potty but this kid is no dummy.  He was going every 15 minutes to score the M&M.  You are in the bathroom for 10 minutes out of every 15.  So on a Saturday when he gets up at 7 and goes to bed at 8 and pees every 15 minutes you are only getting a total of 4 hours of free time.  That's 52 trips to the bathroom and a lot of sugar highs and more importantly sugar lows.  Those crashes are like Intervention.  "GIVE ME MORE!"  "RRRAAAAR!!!!"  Okay, okay, just take the M&M and calm down. No, here you go.  We don't want anymore trouble.  Just take the M&M and leave.  Thank you, thank you.  You're such a good boy. 

To distract him and gain a bit of weekend sanity instead of going to Spago for a nice romantic evening we head to Theisen's.  First, we get out of the house.  And trust me that right there is good enough.  This wonderful store of feed and tack provides free popcorn straight out of a help yourself popcorn machine.  And that is priceless.  Every time we say store around here Quinny inquisitively says popcorn?  That's right son, popcorn. And it's free!  Daddy likes free.  Plus you can't beat the prices on hay.  This past weekend we put together a little engineering feat I like to call bird feeder.  Yup, Quinny and I built our own bird feeder.  It wasn't easy but with the use of some high school calculus, geometry, free popcorn, a dash of toddler tears and minimum swears we built a very successful bird feeder for what we think are house finches.  I had no idea the mess they would make or how expensive birdseed is so we're not sure how long this experiment will last.  There is a recession going on and this economy is for the birds.  Okay, that was bad.  Enjoy the pics of the small weekend victory.

It's a Whitey Tighty World

As we continue to navigate our way through the transition of diapers to potty trained euphoria we have entered the vast expanse of whitey tighty land.  Quinck million dollar idea - boxers for toddlers.  You are one celebratory endorsement away from the mansion down the street.  Quinny is officially sporting Batman underoos and has really taken to them.  When wearing them though, he doesn't like to wear pants.  Seriously, who does?  Decorum - who needs it?  It's a little awkward when people come to the house and we have our very own Calvin Klein model posing in the background but we're starting to get used to it.  When he's at home he's out of diapers and into the roos but when we leave the house he goes back to diapers.  He doesn't care for transitioning back to the diapers but we don't know what else to do.  He does alert us when he has to go potty while out and about but he's going to fall in if we take him to a public restroom so it leaves us in a bind.  I think next weekend we will go for the whole enchilada and just let him, ahem, roam free shall we say for the weekend. The word on the street is we can finish this process off in 3 short days.  We're ready and he seems ready too.

A lil' coffee w/ my tighties in the morning

While he's running around missing his pants he seems so old.  He's shot up and is gangly tall and without pants or diapers on seems like an older kid.  He still has to kick the "bah" habit but one thing at a time.  We are thinking potty training in the next couple of weeks, transitioning to a big boy bed mostly so Gavin can get his own crib without us having to buy another one and finally getting rid of the bah.  We thought if we did that one last, he would be more inclined to get through the other two.  Don't hold us to that order.  These kids have a mind of their own so we expect to have some issues with all 3 processes. We've only had two minor accidents with the potty training (no leakage) so we seem to be doing pretty well.

Gavin isn't doing so hot.  He's contracted something and he can't kick it.  He still hasn't had his 4 month shots and he turns 5 months old today.  We've taken 3 trips to the doctor thus far and will be heading there again on Monday.  We debated taking him to the ER this morning because he's having such a hard time breathing.  He's coughing so hard he can't catch his breath and then he just wheezes all day long like he's been a life long 3 pack a day smoker.  He's had two rounds of antibiotics and one round of breathing treatments.  We rented this thing that blows the medicine into his face and he inhales it to clear out the junk in his lungs.  He started getting better but has seriously regressed this week.  When we called the doc this morning she thought it wasn't likely he had something serious like pneumonia because of the recent meds and instead it was viral.  I guess we will find out tomorrow. I feel really bad for him and it freaks us out so we are sleeping with one eye open to make sure it doesn't escalate.

This past week was a tough one for all.  I was doing a tour of California making stops in San Diego, Stockton and San Francisco.  Carrie was a 4 day single parent. Gavin was coughing up a lung and Quinny was making the terrible two's ring true at every step.  I literally flew home minutes ahead of the tsunami that caused some pretty extensive damage and took one California life. I was up at 5 that morning to catch my flight and the whole place was a buzz.  I didn't know what was going on but they were telling people to seek higher ground.  That was a new one.  New state motto?  Iowa - Fields of Opportunity We Don't Have Tsunamis.  I was pretty tired and did something I hadn't before; I arrived at the wrong hotel on the last day (right brand, wrong location).  After finding that out the hard way my colleague and I convinced the staff to just let us stay.  It's a lot to juggle; traveling, having a family, remembering which hotel you are staying at every night. On top of that it's still freezing!  Everyone is dying to go outside.  March doesn't hit 40s?  Really?  When do we get to go outside again!?!?!

P.S. I got a parking ticket in San Diego because I forgot to feed the meter upon exiting the vehicle.  The fine?  $42.50, which included a "$12.50 CA state surcharge."  Uh-huh.  Right.  Well, we don't have that issue in Iowa either.  Sheesh.  Highway robbery. 

Don't make me stop this car

Your whole life you've heard it and you finally get to say it.  The anticipation has literally taken decades and finally the moment is here.  You weren't sure if it would happen when your kids were 3, 12 or maybe it wouldn't even be your kids.  You just knew you had to have your moment.  And you knew it would be awesome.  Sarcastically you had been practicing your whole life and now the moment had finally arrived. I pulled the parent moment of a lifetime; the stop short.  Not the Seinfeld stop short, the parent stop short.  Quinny pulled a "don't make me stop this car" infraction.  When I heard it I slowly pressed the brake, but being that we were in the country and my instantly recognizable reaction to the don't make me stop this car years of catching a short break nose pressed against my father's driver's seat I knew in an instant it deserved a more serious breaking and a raising of the voice with a well practiced, "Son, don't make me stop this car! Now apologize to your brother!"  Both Carrie (totally not needed) and Quinny apologized to Gavin.  Seriously, Carrie, I was speaking to Quinny.  The stop short has so much power.  It was awesome; a moment I wish I had the video camera.  We could've caught that in HD.  And man, does that work!  The look on Quinny's face.  He was done. The shenanigans were over.  He was sincerely sorry and immediately took it down a notch.  I'm not sure what it takes to make eagle scout but I am pretty sure that's one of the badges for Eagle Parent. 

After the car incident we had another snowy weekend.  I don't think when we moved here we realized how close we were to the north pole.  Did you know that our house is only a few hours drive?  It seriously snows here at least once a day.  It's March, people, March.  Enough already.  It's snowed so much Quinny is actually starting to become helpful in the shoveling department.  Normally he just throws the snow in places you've already cleared.  You know, helping.  This last time he was actually shoveling to the side and dumping into the grass.  Progress! So much so, that it's translated into controlled cleaning.  He's worked his way up to full command of the vacuum.  Check out the video I shot of him actually cleaning our floors.  He's in training and he doesn't even realize he should be getting an allowance for this!  I think this might be a sign we all need to get out of the house - bad.  Redrum! Redrum! Redrum!  It's a good thing there isn't an axe in the house.

I don't know if it's fair to blame winter but I know Stinky, Gavin and myself are all putting on the weight around here.  Gavin is putting on the pounds and Quinny is shooting up like a string bean.  He's back into a skinny phase.  He usually plumps out and then goes straight up and loses the gut and then goes back to packing on the pounds.  I got him dressed for school yesterday and totally had him in high waters.  He threw a major fit getting dressed.  He wants to wear his Packer jersey every day.  I know.  Who can blame him?  I want to wear my jersey too.  Anytime I let him dress himself he wants his red Badger warm up pants and his Packers jersey.  That works for me, but his mother thinks he should match.  He does right?  Champion football teams from Wisconsin.  That matches.  So he's wailing away in his high waters and his mother comes to the rescue and tracks down a more suitable outfit.  In short I'm playing this dad role perfectly.

I haven't been good about the blog.  February is too short.  I'll get more out in March.  Cheers!