It's good to be back

I'm baaaaaack!  I had a rough time at the office for a little bit.  It's hard to write a blog about kids when you're POed! I'm thinking about starting a whole other blog that would be less kid friendly, but undoubtedly funnier.  Seriously, you wouldn't believe what I go through on a daily basis.  Dilbert's got nothing on my work life. 

We've had some nice weekends and it appears that spring has finally settled in.  We are getting some much needed outdoor time and that's made our household much less stressful.  If we could just hit one of those multi-hundred million dollar jackpots we would be set.  The boys are doing well and appear to have finally gotten over the near constant winter colds.  Gavin weighed in a couple of weeks ago at 18 pounds and four ounces when he finally was well enough to get his four month old shots on March 29th.  He's getting big already. He just turned six months old!  It's hard to believe when we moved here Carrie was still pregnant and we didn't even know if we would have a boy or girl.  Now we have a six month old boy.  He's learning how to sit up and roll over but isn't quite there yet.  He's chomping on everything in sight trying to cut his first tooth, which we think will show up soon.  Quinny got his tooth before he turned 6 months old.  If you want to bust out your flux capacitor and go back in time I posted pictures here.

Really young driving age in IA

Quinny is still throwing the occasional tantrum but we are starting to wear him down.  Ignore, ignore, ignore.  The time outs have subsided at home, and at school they tell us they don't work.  He enjoys them.  Who wouldn't enjoy a little quiet time alone? He's a bit of a follower and there is a trouble maker or two he's buddies with.  Carrie witnessed a minor incident the other day when she picked the boys up. The trouble making kid, we'll call him Billy so no lawsuits can be filed, was jabbing his little bad boy finger at the chest of my poor kid.  Now we do teach a mean right cross but we teach restraint first so Quinny was pretty upset.  Well Billy's 17 year old parents weren't very good about parenting.  I mean let's face it, we've been doing this for nearly 30 months already so clearly we are the experts and these people were crappy parents plain and simple as we could deduce from this 90 second or so of insight into the lives of this family.  So, my wife did what any expert parent would in this situation.  She grabbed the offensive lil' Billy by the ear and took him over her knee.  A few good whacks and the situation was rectified to our satisfaction.  Billy's momma had the look of a shocked that's how you parent? look.  At least that's what I took from her jaw hitting the floor.  At any rate Billy doesn't mess with the Q-dog anymore.  Gold star parenting.

Lucky, still living large

This weekend we are looking to move Quinny to a bed.  We did some bed shopping last weekend.  We walked into the bed factory store and Carrie tried out some beds.  How much is that one?  $279.  And that one over there?  $576.  Uh-huh.  Well, let's see my bed costs a lot so is $300 reasonable for a kid's bed?  Who knows this stuff? Why isn't there a manual for child rearing? No, I mean a non-psycho-babble book. Million dollar idea?? I knew I was going to have buyer's remorse so we left.  We get in the car and go to another furniture store down the street.  This place didn't really sell beds but they had some cheapo ones.  How much is that one? $129.  Uh-huh.  I see.  Okay, let me think this through.  I look at Care and ask, "As a kid did you even once complain that your bed was uncomfortable?"  Puzzled look.  Hard thinking expression on her face.  You know the one.  The one where you get the eyes looking up in the corner and the wrinkled forehead as her brain flips through all those years as a child and wah-la, "No, never."  Okay, Mr. Furniture guy?  Ya, where is the cheapest bed you sell? We'll take that one.  Pee on that my potty training friend.  We'll make it up to you in college tuition!  I mean after careful thought and the realization that my son weighs 30 some odd pounds does it even matter?  I mean I could pitch him a tent in the middle of his room and he would be stoked to spend the next 6 years in that thing.  We'll let you know how it turns out when he walks into our room at 4:30 in the morning instead of just crying Momma! and us finally having a big enough house to sleep through it, or is that me sleeping though it?  Exactly, no problem here.