Rule No. 1482

Hey look at this. I don't blog for 6 weeks, and then it's twice in two days!

I learned today that apparently it's not common sense, and you have to explicitly tell a preschooler NOT to wipe his face against a wall rather than seeking out a tissue.

Hell, even using his sleeve would be more acceptable than walking across the room, pressing his face against the wall and then slowly dropping to his knees.

WTF?

Did you miss me?

Hey there ladies and gents! Long time, no blog! I just checked and see that the last time I wrote was Easter. Hmmmm, I can't say that things have been slow here, as they haven't: We've had a smattering of trips, activities, haps, mishaps and everything in between. I'll try to re-cap the best I can.

Let's see, after Easter we went on a trip to Orlando, but Allison wrote about that so I won't bore you with repetition. If you want to read about it, you can check out her blog over at http://dupreesgal.blogspot.com/ She didn't put any pictures up there, so here are a few of our favorites:

The girls on the monorail, excited for the day ahead:

The boys on the monorail, excited for round 2 (this was taken on our way back into the park after a nap and some downtime) :

The family with a famous rat:

The kids taking on Zurg from behind bars:

Leah, recovering from her drawn out battle with Zurg:

Ian having a blast on the teacups:

The girls relaxing on the Tomorrowland Transit Tram thingy:

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After our trip to Orlando we decided enough was enough with Ian and the whole non-potty training thing. I told Ian to say goodbye to his pull-ups because he was going to wear underwear from here on out. He was pretty excited.......until he heard that there were concequences for accidents.

Yeah, that's right. There are concequences for accidents now. I decided it's time to pull out all the stops as he's almost Four and there is nothing medically that's holding him back: He's just lazy.

Now before you gasp in horror:

a) There are only concequences for pooping in his underwear, not peeing.

b) I gave him a several day 'period of adjustment' window. I think it was 4 or 5 days.

If he pees, there are no major concequence. We just change his clothes, remind him that he needs to pay attention to his body, we give each other hugs and a kiss and off he goes playing again. But if he poops? Well, then all hell breaks loose. Here is what happens:

*He gets a spanking while still wearing his poopy underwear.

*I make him take off his shoes, socks, pants and poopy underwear by himself in a dark room.

*I wipe his body down using dried up baby-wipes so that you really need to scrub hard to get all the poop off.

*I put the poopy underwear up to his face and scream: Is this how big boys behave?
*I then put the poopy underwear on his head and make him do the "I'm a little Teapot" dance, all the meanwhile Leah and I point at him and laugh.

If you STILL have a horrified look on your face and think I'm serious, please close your web browser and never return to this webpage again...thanks for visiting! Okay, so thats not what I do...but it makes what I DO do as punishment seem not so bad!

If Ian poops in his underwear, he gets all his transformers taken away until the next time he poops on the potty. My reasoning for the punishment is as follows: As far as the peeing goes, I totally get that he's not 4 yet, and that he can easily get sidetracked and if he doesn't pay attention it's VERY easy (and understandable) that he'd pee in his underwear. All it takes is the mind to wander a bit, and BOOM, you've got soaked grundies.

But pooping takes effort. It's a deliberate act that requires a combonation of concentration, will-power, determination, breath-holding and (depending on diet) a fair amount of grunting. That is not something that just slips your mind. I say that if you can slip off into a corner of the room behind the lamp and endtable, squat down outta sight and open up and let loose, you can easily say "Daddy, I gotta go poopy". Premeditation, my friend, is the determining factor here.

So before I implimented my hard and fast rule, I drilled it into his head and made sure he truly understood what the concequences were. When D-day came, I let him know it. You know what? It was DAYS before he pooped in his underwear. He pottytrained like a champ!

Sure enough, the first time he pooped in his underwear was his first day at his new preschool (Go figure!). So he got a pass on that one, since I wasn't there. But the next time he did it, which was a good 3 or 4 days later I took his Transformers away and he was SO upset. Rightfully so, as they are his favorite possessions...but I then explained to him that it depends on his actions.

Even though we've had some accidents here and there, generally I think Ian is doing pretty well. Granted, he's at the stage that he should have been at around 3 or even 3.5 yrs old (he turns 4 in less than 2 weeks!), but we're certainly seeing progress. Knock on wood, lets hope this continues!

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In other news, I got a new tattoo a few weeks ago. I decided to get this most recent one commemorating the impact running has had on me over the past few years: It has helped me to lose 60lbs (keeping all 60 off is another story!), which has greatly improved my self esteem & self image. It also commemorates my ability to complete a flippin' Marathon. That still floors me to think that I was able to achieve that, by the way.

I chose the image that i got because it depicts how I feel during my long runs on the weekend: It's just peaceful, quiet and I'm out there all by myself enjoying what I am doing. The tattoo is a silhouette of a runner against a multi-colored sky (sunset or sunrise, you decide). You might recognize the image!

Here is a picture:

I have a Half Marathon in 2 weeks that I am SO not prepared for...but believe it or not, I'm starting to get the itch to do another marathon. I told Allison I wouldn't do one anytime in the near future, but I'm looking at all these upcoming races and get to thinking "Hmmm, I could train for that."

We did agree, however, on one marathon that I will do. We're going to go to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary and while we're there I'm going to run the Honolulu Marathon. I gotta get training though, as it's only 31 months away!

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I recently got back from a 'guys' weekend. The plan hatched at a wedding reception last July, but first a little backstory: Allison and her roommates from college get together every summer and go somewhere for a weekend. They've been doing this every year since we graduated and I think it's great.

Well, anyway so the husbands/boyfriends of all these rommates were at the bar (go figure!)during the reception and it was decided that we were going to have a guys golf weekend. We decided it was going to be a long weekend of, well, golf. I ran out on the dance floor to where Allison was all alone doing the funky chicken...or was it the electric slide? Anyway, and I checked with She-Who-Brings-Home-The-Bacon, and she gave me the green light. Silly her thought it was a drunken plan that would be forgotten about by morning!

Anyway, as plans do, they changed and it morphed into a trip of 4 guys to Myrtle Beach. We were all excited because none of us had ever been there before. We ended up playing 5 rounds of golf in 4 days, and we all did well at some point or another.

The most memorable part of the trip? Nope, not either of my birdies, nor the slew of pars I got. And not even the fact that I was able to keep my drives in the fairway for a majority of the rounds.

It was the fuckin' squirrels.

I kid you not, these things were bullies. They would walk right up to you, and I mean right up to you. I think it was Phil who first held out his driver to shoo the thing away and the motherfucker came closer! The little bastards had deathwishes as we'd even resort to yelling at the things and they'd still inch closer taunting us.

And this was not an isolated instance, as these creepy little fuckjobs were everywhere the first 3 days. You have never lived until you've seen about 900lbs of homosapiens fear for their lives due to 3lbs of fur. Someone took a picture of it, or maybe it was even a video with their cell phone...but I'm not going to say who, as I'm pretty sure you can hear me scream like a schoolgirl when the thing lurched forward at us.

In case you can't even fathom what the Devil himself looks like in such a small package, I found a picture online of those menacing little freaks-of-nature. If you cross paths, steer clear, my friends, if you value your life:

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This past weekend we went camping, as Allison put in her blog. Again, I won't bore you with the details as she already has (typed out the details, not bored you...well, maybe she has but I won't tell her you said that). You can go to her blog to read about it if you haven't yet.

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That really is about all that has been going on...as if that isn't enough! I'll leave you with a few pictures I took yesterday while at a playground. The kids went down to a stream that is nearby and we usually throw rocks in the water. Well, it wasn't very deep and there was a line of rocks that Ian wanted to cross. At first I said no, but then realized it wasn't cold out, and I had a change of clothes for both kids in the car. So I decided to let them go hog-wild. Please note that Ian had just been riding his bike and often forgets to take off his helmet. Who am I to tell him, especially if he's stomping around on wet and slippery rocks!

Dad card suspension / Easter Outtakes

Ok, Easter is over. The famous bunny has left his mark here in CT and has moved on to other parts of the world. Everyone in the world will put up the cutest, most adorable, greatest shots of their kids and loved ones from this historic and fabled day.

Not this guy.

Below you will find only our outakes. That means you won't find a great shot of both kids, or Leah smiling or Ian showing his cutest side. You'll only find the pictures that shouldn't be put up for others to see.

BUT. Before I do that, I do have to share a heart wreching discussion I had with Ian last week. This was an impromptu talk i had that ended up (in my opinion) requiring the suspension of my dad card. Thankfully a neighbor pulled me back into the game and allowed me to redeem my status of allowing to raise my children 'without the supervision of others'.

Okay, so last week we had beautiful weather, so we decided to take a walk to the water tower in our neighborhood. No friends were around, so it was just Ian, Leah and I. We walked down there and did our obligatory ritual of 'throwing of the rocks into the drain' routine as well as the 'walk around the tower and see if there are any snakes' ritual. After that was over, we decided to walk back home as the sun was going down and the wind was beginning to pick up.

We passed a neighbor's house, and for the record these neighbors used to have 2 rottwillers, Wanda & Marvin. Wanda was the mom, and Marvin the son. Wanda was an awesome dog who would give anyone kisses and Marvin, well, wouldn't. Let's just say there are probably only 4 dogs who have ever walked on the face of this earth who I have not liked, and Marvin is one of them. He is just not a friendly dog, and I would not miss him if the UPS guy decided to run over the devilish canine. Oh, remember way back when, when I first started running and blogging that I heard 2 monstrous horses running behind me?? Yeah, it was these two.

Anyway, Last fall I noticed that Wanda wasn't looking too good. She was limping badly and wouldn't even get up to greet anyone as they walked up her driveway, as she previously had. The biggest clue was when the neighbors posed her in their yard with the brilliant autumn leaves around her, snapping pictures. Nothing smells more like death than that.

Anyhoo, last week we were walking by their property back to our house when Ian noticed only one of the dogs (Marvin, the asshole) was out in the yard. He asked about the other.....and this is where I deserve to lose my dadcard.

Silly me, should have just said, she was inside the house. Did I say that? Oh no. That would be too peachy keen and easy as pie. I decided, impromptu-ly and without second thought to engage my son in a 'life discussion' that was a long time coming. Honestly, I didn't think it would come until one of my In-Laws decided it was time for a dirt nap. But apparently the neighbor's elderly dog decided it would come sooner. So here I was, facing a life-altering discussion on life and death...and man, did I fuck it up.

I said above, he asked about the missing dog. Smart Don would have said that the other dog was inside their house sleeping...but Idiot Don decided to have this life discussion on a random Tuesday afternoon that involved a neighborhood dog that Ian hadn't seen since November as opposed to a beloved relative lying in repose in the serenity of a hospice or funeral home.

This is how the discussion went:

"Dad, where's the other dog?"

"Well, Ian, Wanda was really sick."

"Who is Wanda?"

"Wanda was the other dog, and she was really sick, and really old, and hurt a lot so Wanda's body couldn't keep up anymore, so Wanda Died."

"What's 'died', dad?"

"That means that Wanda's body stopped working, Ian, so she stopped breathing and her heart stopped beating."

"So where is she, Dad, and when will she get better?"

Okay, this is the point where my 'dad' card deserves to be ripped from my possession. Remember, I was in the heat of the moment and was SO not planning on having this discussion anytime whatsoever in the near future.

"well, Ian. Her body stopped working, so she stopped breathing and living, so she was buried in the ground".

Okay, hold it.

You can only imagine the questions that my explanation lead to, and the panicked look on Ian's face. We actually had to stop our walk and I had to sit down and comfort Ian because he was crying so hard, knowing that Wanda wasn't coming back. He just kept repeating that Wanda was his 'favorite' dog and that he loved her 'very, very much'. Mind you, Ian hadn't seen this dog in several months and didn't even know her flippin name.

So I tried to further the discussion, but it just wasn't going well at all. We got back to our house and a neighbor walked by with her kids, both whom are which about the same age as ours.

As the kids were playing, I told their mom about what had just happened. She tells me about when she had to deal with the subject, about an uncle of their kids...and how the uncle was in Heaven.

HEAVEN? Aw, dude. Why didn't I think of that? I try to explain death to my kid, and I go for the scientific/natural angle as opposed to the spiritual/feel good angle.

"Wanda is rotting and decomposing in the backyard of our neighbors, Ian, not playing in poppyseed fields and drinking unlimited supply of mineral spring water." Way to think on your toes, Don.

Anyway, I tried re-explaining the whole thing to Ian, how people (and pets) actually go to heaven, and aren't sick or hurting anymore. He believed it, and actually took comfort in it. It pulled on my heart-strings to hear Ian talk about how he's 'happy' to hear that Wanda isn't hurting anymore and that that she's happy and that we all can be happy and a family when we all get to heaven someday.

Okay, since he bought into it and I saved myself, I feel that I can keep my Dad card afterall. And to celebrate that, I give to you those outtake photos of today, Easter 2008.

No cute shots, no great pictures of the kids in their 'holiday best'. Just the pictures that should have been deleted in the first place. Happy Easter!

Okay, I need to explain this next one. All the kids go up to the front of church and today they were asked if they knew how to read...some kids raised their hands, and not wanting to be left out, so did Ian. Obviously, he doesn't, but he INSISTED he knew how to read. Pastor Ricki skipped over him and he really didn't like it. So he started crying and just put his head in his hands. Allison went up to get him and calm him down. I just reached for the camera.




Okay, so there are the goofy pictures. I swore to myself that I wouldn't include any 'good' ones, but how can I leave them out. Here are just a few.



Ian and I blowing up a baloon


Ian getting ready for the Easter Bag Hunt




Leah, Post-Candy

Pooptastic

So today I went with my Father In Law to pick up a bedroom set that Allison's aunt wanted to give us for the kids. We're not planning on using it now, but we decided to put it in our storage unit for when we move.

I come back and Allison tells me that Leah was playing on the floor, then crawled over to the diaper bag that was on the floor, pulled out a diaper (it was actually Ian's pull-up), held it up in the air towards Allison and said "poopy? poopy?". Allison changed her, and guess what? She was poopy.

I kind of laughed, thinking how weird would that be that Leah could do that. Well, we were over at my in-laws later in the day for dinner and Leah was playing on the floor. Well, guess what she did?

She crawled over to the basket where the diapers are kept, pulled one out, held it up in the air and did her little potty chant: "Poopy? poopy?". Allison smiled and pointed out what she was doing and said she bet Leah was poopy. So Allison proceeds to change her and what do you think happened? Sure as shit, Leah was poopy.

HOW TWISTED IS IT THAT OUR 14mo OLD IS MORE AWARE THAN OUR 46mo OLD?

In case that age difference didn't hit you square between your peepers, I'm going to filter out the caps yelling and just put their ages down:

14 months VS 46 months.

That is so fucked up.

I swear I'm going to switch my efforts over to Leah and try to get her potty trained first.

Oh my god...the reality of it just set in. It is a distinct possibility that I'll soon be able to say that I have only one child in diapers...and it will be my preschooler/kindergartner and not my toddler.

Excuse me while I go stick my head in the oven.

A confession

As you know, I don't hold any punches here in my blog. I tell things like they are, whether it makes me look like a rock star or a complete buffoon. I say that because something has been weighing heavy on my mind lately. I've been debating whether or not I want to talk about it here, but as I say, I usually don't hold anything back and tell you guys what's going on with me. So I've decided that I need to spill it. It's not easy to fess up to it, but as I understand it, it'll help with the healing process.

There is something about me that I'm not proud of. It's been affecting my family for years, and across a few generations...two that I know of for sure, maybe more. It's common, yet no one really talks about it because of it's devestating effects it can have on families.

There is treatment, yet I doubt everyone who needs it seeks it. No one wants to own up to the fact that they need help from outside sources and there are many who feel they can beat it on their own.

Well, I am not one of those people anymore. I am now willing to face my demons and admit that I have a problem. A big problem. I have a problem and I need help. Ok, here goes...(this is the first time I'm writing this out).

Hi, My name is Don. And I'm Lactose Intolerant.

Wow. That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! I thought it would be more difficult to admit that in a public forum such as this. Hmmph.

I don't know when, why, how or what triggered this. Well, I know what triggered this, but for some reason I have become lactose intolerant. At least I think I have. I still need to try to cut out all dairy products to see if that makes a difference, but I've been paying close attention the last few days and I'm pretty sure thats the culprit.

This royally sucks because I've always prided myself on having an iron stomach, not to mention that I'm a huge fan of dairy. I know there are daily pills I can take to help with it, but I'd rather not have to go that route and have to rely on taking a pill otherwise risking isolating myself from anyone within 100 yards....for hours on end. But then again, I'm already taking multivitamins and other crap every day, so whats one more pill.

So I'll begin to cut out dairy and see if that makes a difference. Fear not, I'll keep you updated. Oh. And if we're at a party together and you see me hovering around the cheese plate, I give you permission to knock some sense into me...unless I've taken my lactaid.

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On another equally (if not moreso) sucky note, we received some bad news about Ian's preschool. Without getting into details here (which I couldn't really do anyway because it seems to be a he said/she said kind of thing between the principal and the teacher), it boils down to this: This semester Ian's school is one hour a day, two days per week.

Not only that, but they shifted the time up by 15 minutes. So instead of Allison bringing him in at 8am and me picking him up at 10am, he now will be in school from 7:45 to 8:45. What the fuck is that? What in God's name can you accomplish in an hour with a room full of Preschoolers?

Oh yeah, thats another doozie! Ian's first day of the new semester was yesterday (Tuesday)...out of the 10 kids that were in the class last semester, only 3 are returning for the 2nd semester. Yup, 7 sets of parents decided to pull their kids from the program.

I certainly don't blame them, as one hour, twice a week isn't much of a program. But if there was still the same number of kids it at least would have FELT like preschool to the kids...3 year olds can't tell time. Time flies for them anyway, I bet they never would have noticed the difference. But there is a HUGE void with only 3 kids there I bet. I didn't pick Ian up yesterday, so I didn't get what the vibe was. But I'm looking forward to getting the feel tomorrow.

I'm not sure what kind of luck we'll have getting him in somewhere else for the balance of the semester, not to mention the cost of another program...a major deciding factor in going with the one at the High School was the low cost.

But that's my next objective: To see if we can find a supplemental place for Ian to get a school-type/group setting a few hours a week to show him that, in fact, he is NOT the center of the universe!

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Let's see, what else is going on? The kids are still sick. Well, Ian seemed to have pulled through for the most part, but Leah is hanging onto this virus like it was a new Transformer (Leah's favorite toys too, by the way). Hopefully she'll be better in the next few days, because honestly, I'm tired of isolation...I try to keep the kids away from others when they're sick, because it's the right thing to do. But my patience is wearing thin, so we might go out and infect the world in the next few days. So if you see us, cross to the other side of the street.

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I'm sure there is more to tell, but I'm spent. It's time for bed.

Have a fantastic day, and for God's sake, stay away from the dairy case.

Quick Update

Yeah, it's been awhile, I know. What can I say, nothing exciting has happened: No dogs have shit on my lawn, no fish have died, no 10' bowling pins shuffling along has scared Ian, he hasn't dropped the F-bomb lately and neither kid has cured cancer.

But do you know what miracle DID happen? I had a DIY project go smoothly! In my umpteen tries at doing something myself, I believe this is the very first time that I completed a project without a single derailment.

And what was this wonderful project that I magnificently kicked ass on? It was replacing the toilet in the basement bathroom.

Last week I was in there feeding the cats when the semi-retarded one (Cleo) came in squeaking, squaking and getting all excited. She chose her path very carfully: She ran right between my 2 moving size 14 boots. Stupid me tried to avoid stepping on the 4-legged nuisance and tripped up myself and bashed into the 1970's pale green porcelin god. Immediate dripping ensued.

So anyway, on Monday afternoon allison took the kids for a bike ride/walk around the neighborhood and I was able to do the entire project in a little over an hour! This includes unhooking/draining the old one, taking it apart & bringing it to the garage, scraping off the old wax ring, installing & hooking up the new toilet, and cleaning up the tools.

Since it went problem free, i was SURE that there would be a leak when I turned the water back on....but there wasn't! Booyah......

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on an unrelated note, the kids are sick...again. Allison and the kids got sick towards the end of January. They were sick for awhile, as it just lingered. I was lucky that I didn't get sick with them. I attributed it to my eating well, working out and taking my multivitamins...yeah, that worked. I ended up with a nasty chest cold that lingered for a few weeks. That finally cleared up last week....just in time for the kids to get sick again.

We usually don't take them to the doctors for a cold, as I don't want to clog up the Drs office for something like this, especially this time of year: tis the season. But Leah has been grabbing at her ears the last day, so we have an appointment for them to check her out. I'll have them look at Ian too, since we're there, but I think it's just the run of the mill cold.

Anyway, thats all for now. I apologize for not updating sooner, but honestly there hasn't been anything to report!

Believe you me, when something fucked up happens in my life, you will be the first to know!

Photo of the Fandangled Fishy, As requested

The morning after I posted the blog about Aloe, I walked into the kitchen and saw that he was swimming normally!! I couldn't believe the timing of it....that little rapscallion must have heard me typing about the possibility of his demise.


Several times a day I've gone back to check and see how he's doing. All has been well, until this morning, that is. For some reason, he is back to floating on one side. So of course, I snapped a picture.


As requested, here is Aloe lying horizontal in the water, working on his flourescent tan.