Rough Night saved by Corn Fest

Welcome back blog readers.  We have so much to catch up on after such a busy summer.  Last night was like going back in time to when we only had Quentin to deal with but he didn't sleep a wink.  It was discovered after a long day with little napping happening for either boys that Gavin was sporting 104 degree temperature.  We were planning on going to the Sweet Corn Festival (oh, Iowa!) but since neither of the boys took even an hour long nap I could see the crabby map on the wall and saw numerous public tantrums and didn't want to go down that path.  We hoped we could squeeze it in on Sunday.  Turns out Gavin was having a tough time sleeping because he was sick as a dog. His screaming led to big brother not being able to get to sleep and the afternoon adventure was in full swing.

We had our typical long, tear-filled afternoon when the boys don't get a robust nap filled with, "Dad I burned my hand touching the hot grill," touching the hot pan the cookies came out of the oven for the newly moved in next door neighbors (oh Iowa!) and my play lawnmower attacked me and smoked me in the chin.  We literally ran out of ice packs.  When is bed time!?  We finally got Quinny tucked in without much fanfare, after all the Brewers had a late afternoon national game (national! - they are so going to the World Series.  You know they haven't won a pennant since 1982 and made the playoffs exactly once since then as a wild card team in 2008) and that game was immediately followed by the first pre-season Packer game.  Boys, oh boys, can't you throw me a solid on a such a sporting afternoon?  What happened to the Sundays of, "Go Pack Go!"?

Carrie and I got little sleep with Gavin trying to navigate his way through his fever.  He was burning up, which put us on edge and was having such a tough time.  We were giving him ibuprofen and Tylenol, which helped bring his temperature down to the 101-102 range but all day today he was still sporting it.  He was still eating pretty well and wasn't dehydrated.  We can't really find any other symptoms.  By the time we were getting ready to put everyone to bed tonight he was feeling a little better but not much so he'll shuffle of to the doctor's office tomorrow.  He just made it to 10 months and we're pretty sure he's been to the doctor's every month.  I think it's just daycare.  It's been so hot that the kids don't go outside for recess so they've been trapped inside most of the summer.  They get stuck inside all winter and then it's too hot in summer to go outside?  This is bizzaro world! I don't get that but then again I'm not running a daycare center.

He's in full motion these days crawling all over the place.  He's still mostly pulling himself around army style but can prop up on his knees and crawl in the traditional sense if he wants.  He's able to sit up and down now and has begun pulling himself up.  The other night he woke up and I went in there to give him his bah and he was standing, much to my astonishment.  It freaked me out a little.  I think we may need to lower the crib again. He's entered the realm of table food as well so he's trying new foods on a regular basis.  We haven't found anything he doesn't like but we haven't given him too much either.  We're taking it slow but he's well on his way to walking, talking and eating. 

Since Gavin was sick we didn't think it a good idea to bring him to Corn Fest 2011 so Q and I went on the adventure together.  All morning long Quinny kept saying, "Dad we're going to the cornfield right?  Dad, I want to go to the cornfield!  When are we leaving for the cornfield?"  It's funny when he gets mixed up.  It's crazy to go back just a few months on video and hear what he was saying.  In just that short time his vocabulary is larger and enunciation is so much clearer.  He's growing up big time.  He and I straight up dominated the fair.  The Corn Fest is totally set up for little kids under 10.  The thing is super cheap (free parking, free to get in, $1 for an ice cream cone, corn on the cob for $.50, brats for $3, rides for a $1, games for $.25) so we did everything.  Deep breath - we rode the ladybugs, bumper boats, spinning strawberries, rocket ship, and the swings.  He won tic-tac-toe, played the ring toss game, played the launch a frog onto the lily pad game and finished it off by winning the catch a fish game.  And of course Quinny ate a ton of food.  He had an icee, a brat, a hot dog, a bag of popcorn and finished the day off with an ice cream cone.  It was good fun but we missed the other half of the fam.  Best of all it was a tantrum free day.  Hooray!  We're very much focused on listening these days so it was nice to hang out with such a good listener.  Enjoy the pics! 

All About Gavin

Gavin had his nine month check up today and he's growing up fast.  He has four teeth coming in on the top and has his two front ones on the bottom.  He's starting to copy us when we do things like shake our head no.  Every day he gets more alert, curious and mobile.  About 10 days ago he made the plunge from stationary to regular army crawler.  He's not officially crawling yet but he can go pretty much where ever he likes.  He's mostly focused on things on the floor like the dog bowls, dog toys, any kind of paper (he likes the rustling noise), and of course Quinny's toys.  So far they share pretty well.  Quentin does like to take away whatever Gavin's playing with I think just so he knows who is the man around here. 

In the mean time we are focused on getting the place childproofed.  Quinny was pretty good about staying out of the cupboards but we know we have an uphill battle of keeping him out of places he shouldn't be.  This time around with Quentin leaving a constant trail of destruction we'll have a more challenging go of it.  We've already struck out twice trying to barricade the stairs off.  Our gate from Tampa along with an extension isn't wide enough.  We ordered some more parts but they don't fit either so it's back to the drawing board.

We've been doing quite a bit of driving around with the whole family in tow this summer whether that's up at Carrie's parent's place in Prairie Du Chien on the mighty Mississippi or heading back and forth between here and Lake Geneva.  The boys have been pretty good but the dog has been a massive pain.  He's such a spasz in the car.  He's constantly trying to get into the back seat with the boys drooling on them, breathing stinky breath on them and generally doing anything but lying down and relaxing for the sometimes 4+ hour trip. 

This past weekend we headed up to Gilbertville, about an hour drive, to celebrate Carrie's Grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary.  If I make it to 91 years old Carrie and I have a shot at matching that number.  I can't imagine there are too many people out there that are married for 60 years.  Good for you guys.  So we get about 20 country miles out of town, essentially just far enough to not be able to easily get home when a stench of monstrous proportions hits me like a sledge hammer.  Oh my.  What is that?  Keep in mind Stinky wasn't in the car so we couldn't blame the dog.  It was bad.  I mean really bad.  I told Care we have to pull over.  I am never going to make it another 40 minutes with that in the car.  We know there is a gas station 5 minutes down the road so it's plug your nose city until then.  It's about 110 outside. (It's so ironic that it's 20 degrees warmer here in the summer time and 80 degrees colder in the winter than Tampa.  I asked my buddy yesterday what's the most enjoyable month to live here.  He replied, "The one you go on vacation)."  Ha!

Anyway, I have the window cracked because this car needs some fresh air.  Carrie is in the back middle with one boy on both sides.  She, apparently, decided she needed a closer look.  Um, I'm not sure what that was all about but not a great idea.  She soon discovered why it stank so bad.  There was a blow out.  I'm not talking I need to change a tire with your run of the mill blowout.  I'm talking poop was easing out of every orifice this kid's got.  I mean it's like we made a stewing pot of pooh and then placed our child in it for the ride to Grandma's house.  Gavin is directly behind me so I can't really see but I take a look back at Care, who just happens to be wearing a white skirt for the occasion that has a few new alterations, a rather notable six inch streak of pooh stew on it.  At this point there is some swerving, some speeding, some nose holding and a minor amount of sheer panic.  We finally and I mean finally get to the gas station and don't forget it's a 127 degrees outside because Iowa turns into Mexico in the summertime and then we realize we can't even figure out how to get him out of the car without spilling the special sauce all over the upholstery, which we definitely don't want. 

I get out and carefully get him, still contained in the car seat out, so Carrie can climb out of the middle and we open the back hatch and place him there.  At this point we unbuckle him and are holding him like he's the first human on the planet to come down with the plague as in by two fingers holding him as far away from our bodies as possible as we lay down a roll of paper towels to place him on.  At this point Quinny wants out of the car to watch.  And the other families in the parking lot want to too.  It was a pay-per-view event.  I take Quinny into the gas station to get something to eat and they have a popcorn machine in there so he wants popcorn.  Normally that would be great but we are knee deep, literally, in poop so everyone's hands in a bag of poopcorn, oops total typo, sounds like the most unappealing snack of all time at the moment.  By the time we get outside we have one naked boy in the back of the tailgate and one garbage bag filled to the brim with nastiness. 

The kid has to go back into the car seat and man, let me tell you, we're going to need a hose and not any old hose but a power washing hose to get this thing clean so we ultimately decide to sacrifice the diaper bag changing section and line the car seat with that so we can leave the gas station.  Then the impossible.  Carrie wants to salvage the $6 outfit he was wearing, which ultimately means poopy pants will be riding in the car.  She's sentimentally attached to the outfit because it was one of Quinny's.  Uh-huh.  Well, there's certain things you don't mess with the wife on and this request seemed to rest firmly in that category so after rummaging around we found a one gallon Ziploc bag and put the offending clothes in there, sealed it up tight and put it in the spare tire compartment.  This was a story about a blowout remember?  Outside of the wife running around with a camouflage streaked white skirt we were, shall we say on our way to a clean getaway.

Oh the joys, the wonderful joys of parenting!  The video is of Gavin enjoying lunch with his momma. What can we say?  The kid enjoys a good chuckle.

The Return to the Keys!

After the addition of a dog and two boys we decided it was finally time to take that second vacation we've always talked about.  (Now if we could only get to that bucket list we would really be making progress).  Of course we needed some salt in our vacation and what better place than Key West.  This was my third trip, Carrie's second and my 10th year reunion from that fateful first trip where I first fell in love with Florida.  During that first trip we spent nearly a month down there and I was probably lucky to return at all.  This time we flew in for the first time and due to the size of the island it's like landing on an aircraft carrier (of course I have no experience doing so making this analogy totally arbitrary so don't quote me on such a comparison).  All I know is we take our 737 and we pound that puppy straight down into the pavement and slam on the brakes.  Right before the fun begins they give you a fairly hilarious account of what's about to occur.  After all you are minutes away from your favorite tropical cocktail so no one really cares about the hard landing as long as you can walk off the plane.  It's tropical so you get the stairs rolled up to the plane and get to walk across the active taxiway with your luggage in hand because we're too cheap to pay to check or have no faith it will actually show up.  We had arrived in time to check into our B&B.  There are only B&Bs in Olde Town, the place to be.  Turns out one of the guests in our bed and breakfast is the head coach at Iowa State, Paul Rhoads.  He offered to take us out and buy us a drink (we didn't know who he was) but Carrie said, "Now, Josh we have to get up early and go snorkeling.  We have to go home."  Easy come, easy go when you're living life like a song.

We went snorkeling on the world's third largest reef, which was roughly 7 miles out to sea in search of some pirate booty but all we found was fish.  There was a supposed barracuda sighting but we didn't see him.  I did see a sizable puffer fish and who knows what else because I'm not versed in fish of the tropics.  Our friends saw some tarpon, which we later discovered after the snorkeling trip.  We did see some flying fish, which are pretty entertaining to watch skip across the water.  The snorkeling is hard work because you are out there and can't stop swimming. Well, you can but it results in drowning.  You jump off the boat and that's it my friend.  You either figure it out or become part of the reef.  Lots of people didn't last very long, but the wife and I survived and I think I will continue on to get certified for diving.  I would like to treasure hunt and there are literally billions of dollars in ship wrecks around Florida and the Keys.  I only need a few million of that. 

We went on a sunset cruise as well and a big storm kicked up just west of the city and hid our sun but we had a nice relaxing time on the boat ride enjoying a good drink and the peacefulness of the water.  It was great to get more than 7 1/2 minutes of conversation in before being interrupted to clean up some sort of bodily fluid that came shooting out of one of our children.  The wife and I got a much needed to chance to reconnect and she was reintroduced to nightlife for the first time in four years.  Child rearing is so time consuming! 

Banyan Tree

Duval street was great as usual and we enjoyed our Jimmy Buffett haunts of Margaritaville, Captain Tony's Saloon, Sloppy Joe's, Irish Kevin's and our favorite the Hog's Breath where we were deemed good enough for locals over the long weekend.  Tipping goes a long way down there!  I ate approximately 2 1/2 pounds of shrimp and left wanting more.  Seafood where have you been?!?  We were so busy finding time to squeeze a meal in was the most difficult thing to do.  We visited the southernmost point, Mel Fisher's treasure museum (Atocha), Hemingway's and saw the great trees.  They have these very old Banyan trees and kapot tree (see pictures) that are unbelievably massive.  Just walking the island is a neat experience when you are surrounded by so much history (forts, boats, smugglers, wrecks, and treasure).

We wanted to thank my parents for being gracious enough to move to Iowa for the weekend and watch the boys and the dog.  I tried to be as blunt as possible for what they were about to encounter but I still think the lack of sleep took it's toll.  Seriously people, we're not making this stuff up, we really do only get 4 hours of sleep a night.  That lack of sleep compounds over time.  We also wanted to thank Carrie's parents that came down to pinch hit so my folks could get an early start on heading home.  They were relieved to be, well, relieved.  We cannot describe how enjoyable it was to have adult time away and sleep in past 5:15 am while enjoying sunshine for more than 2 days in a row.  It did rain down there - for the first time in 5 months we were told.  It was a torrential down pour but late at night and we were safely tucked into our night spot so we didn't get wet.  We had a fantastic time.  It was great to come to see the boys and they were equally as excited to see us.  It's good to know we're appreciated by them too.  Wink, wink.  If you haven't been, get to the Keys.  You won't regret it.