Baby feet!

Summer and I worked on a little Fathers' Day greeting for Daddy.

Day 18: Signs of Spring?

OK, so I sort of slipped behind in my daily photos...again.  It's really hard being pregnant, and having kids, and maintaining all the things I need to do during the day.  I'm just going to go ahead and continue the day count and ignore the fact that I missed a couple weeks because if I try to do it perfectly then I'll completely miss out on recording our days.

I thought it would be fun to have a series of spring photos; Signs of Spring.  I've encountered a glitch though...technically it is spring, but there have yet to be any signs to show us that it really is here.  Here's one thing that usually means spring to us:  Stella.

She comes back from her 'migration' each spring and then we know the seasons really have turned.  This year, not only did she come back a little early, but this is also the year that the snow hasn't wanted to go away.  The snow and Stella don't usually co-exist, so it was weird to have her around while the snow was still on the ground.  Anyway, here she is in her winter glory.  She wanted me to take a picture of her in her snow clothes to send to her grandkids in Florida.

Day 75: Leaving for Home

Before we left on Friday, with everyone gathered nearby, we took the opportunity for some group photos. Here's the one of us I like. Click on the photo for some more, which will bring you to my flickr page.

Day 61: Curly Girl

Here's Sabine playing in the sand. She was so cute and peaceful, and her hair was blowing in the breeze; I absolutely love how her hair curls up at the beach and in the humidity. This was one of our favorite photos of Sabine at the time. Zach took this picture (she actually just in the sand of the volleyball court) while I was playing tennis just a few yards away. He was so proud to have gotten a shot that I really liked.

Day 58: Zach and his crazy kid

Ok so I just realized it's Zach's birthday (no, not just now, I'm doing this 5 days ago and post-dating) so I had to come up with a photo of him. So here he is, carrying Sabine in the Ergo Carrier (Kevin and Bethany, take note), and walking with Jacob and Marisa to go miniature golfing. We took those crazy kids mini-golfing twice on that trip and I swore I'd never do it again. They cannot control themselves when they are together. Anyway, the picture is adorable, and how about Jacob in his calf-length baseball socks? It was a phase...

Day 51: Art Therapy

Drafting this post in my head earlier today, it felt like I could make it short and brief, but who am I kidding to think that brevity has any rightful place in my life? So buckle up, or hold on, because the description that goes with this photo may contain boringness and you may fall asleep and bang your head on the desk if you're not careful.

Today my therapist asked me if I could journal it. And I was already forming this idea in my head of what I wanted to do, so I told her I didn't think I could, I didn't want to put that kind of negativity into a book that I carry around with me every day. And now that I'm home, typing this, (I have yet to take the photo that I've got in mind, the right characters aren't available at the moment) I sort of understand why I've been experiencing a craving to take this picture. I'm feeling caught between different emotions, going back and forth between being really, really angry and then realizing in the scope of things, it's not that big of a deal.

So I asked the therapist if I should just try to forget about it since no resolution is likely to come of things. On the drive home it occurred to me that forgetting about it or wrestling with the anger aren't the only two options. I need to put it into some concrete form so I can wrap my hands around the experience and shove it into place. I just need to get a hold of it, find it a good home in my psyche and get on with things; things that I'm supposed to be doing, like packing for the beach vacation, mowing the lawn, cleaning all the dog beds and anything else that might have fleas on it.

So here is my attempt at Art Therapy. This is Zach in the Civic, asleep, with Sabine on his lap, grabbing the wheel, at a pretend rest area.

This is why we were at the rest area: We went to visit long, lost friends for a few hours in NYC on Sunday. We took every wrong turn that was possible getting out of the city and that is why at 1am Monday we were still traveling and not yet cozy in bed.

This is why I needed to take this photo: Because someone else at that rest area decided it looked funny and took a picture of this scene while I was inside getting coffee. Except I was already on my way out and was right behind her when the flash went off. She saw me, my brain registered what just happened, her brain registered that those funny people belonged to me, and she went running inside.

This is what happened next: I took a split second to look back at Zach and see what she'd been taking a picture of, then turned back around and yelled, "Hey! Did you just take a photo?" If the bitch would have stopped running I could have just said, "Would you mind deleting that, please?"

My yelling that to her woke Zach, who opened the door for me and I shoved the hot coffees into his hands. I grabbed Sabine because he didn't have any hands left, and yes, someone just took a picture of my baby so my protective instinct made me hold her to my heart. Zach asked what happened and I said, "She just took a picture of you!" When I said that out loud I realized what I had to do. Not because I am particularly brave, or because I have a tendency to stand up for myself, I am neither of those. But because I am damn stubborn and will be heard, but the bitch kept running, so she left me no choice. I still had Sabine in my arms so in I walked with her.

My sister doesn't think that I should have confronted someone with my child in tow (an actual CPS worker), but I seriously had no idea it would become a confrontation. The silly little girl was embarrassed and so she ran, once I met up with her I assumed she would delete the photo at my request. Also though, I was not going to leave Sabine in the car with Zach, who was just coming to.

I waited for her little black flip flopped feet to emerge from under the stall for a good five minutes. When she came out I politely said, "Excuse me, can I ask you a question?" When she ignored me I moved a little closer and started again, "Excuse me, did you just take a photo of my family?" But this time she didn't let me finish, she starting yelling at me very loudly, so that everyone would hear. "Did I take a picture of your baby?! Of course I did! You left your child alone in the car!" She started walking away from me, and I yelled back that I did not and that she was well aware of the fact that I didn't leave my child alone because she saw my husband in the car with her and that's why she took a picture. We were in the lobby by now and everyone was watching us because she was yelling louder.

At this point her 'male companion' (who I like to think of as Ass Hole Boyfriend) came along. A lot of this is a blur in my mind now because I was having such heightened emotions. But she kept yelling the same thing over and over again, and I was not backing down. I think she wanted to embarrass me, and normally I am VERY concerned with how I look to others, but I honestly didn't care because my outrage was so great. And I think that she was proceeding with such indignity, that other people could tell she was the antagonist in the situation. Things went on like this as we moved toward the door (because she wouldn't stand still and face it like a decent human), and that's when she thought up the idea to declare she works for CPS.

Not for a second did I actually believe she worked for Child Protective Services because that's just a stupid thing to say. But also, um, no, if your livelihood is based on caring about endangered children, then no, you don't take a photo and run away. You call the police. You wait for the police to get there, you proceed with the situation calmy. And even if you don't work for CPS and you are just a concerned human being, then you still call the police and alert them that a child is left alone in an automobile. And then, when that mother you're screaming at asks what county you work for, and to see your identification, you hand it over, as policy dictates. You don't let your Ass Hole Boyfriend then get into the mother's face (the mother who is holding a 20 lb toddler) and scream at her. In her face. 2 inches away from her baby's face.

And that's what really bothers me. You don't act like that in front of a child. Me - that's one thing. You don't do that around someone's baby. And I definitely hope you never, ever procreate because God help those children. And it also really bothers me that she couldn't just delete the photo. Seriously, that is all I wanted. Not because there's anything 'incriminating' in it or because I thought Zach's skin was a little off color, or maybe I thought she could have gotten a better angle. But my child was in that photo. I seriously can't get myself enough into her shoes to figure why she couldn't just be a normal human, why she had to react so offensively.

And I know it's not that big a deal that she took a photo of my kid. It's not. But it's her reaction to my request and the way they harassed me that is what makes me feel so violated. It's everything after the photo, not just the photo itself.

I realize there are far worse things that happen to people, like actual crimes that are committed, and I'm not trying to put myself on the level of that kind of violation. That's why I'm writing this, so that I can get it out of my system and get on it with it.

And so getting back to the part where I attempt to make light of the situation, infuse it with humor and make it concrete so that I can grab a hold of it and put it away: You may have taken the photo Stupid Bitch, but I stole it from you in the end. And when you look at the photo and post it to your facebook account, you''ll probably have to look at your ugly face lit up in my car window's reflection.

You peeled away with your Ass Hold Boyfriend, but I got your license plate number:

BWF-8673

Day 36: Happy Mothers' Day to Me

I had been posting updates about My New Closet back in May. I never finished that topic up in this forum and it's one of those blog things that's always bothered me the way it was marked 'draft' on my dashboard. So here I am keeping the original title (because Zach finished it the night before Mothers' Day) but changing the date and sticking a "Day x" in front of it.

Anyway, I had that closet filled up in about three minutes flat. Seriously, Zach said, "Welp, it's done, fill 'er up" - or something to that effect - and then went to the basement to return one tool. By the time he made it back upstairs I was done filling the shelves.

Our 'Special' Child

I posted this picture a couple weeks ago and since then Sabine has been really into that helmet. As you can see from the picture below, Jacob was responsible for Sabine ending up in the crock pot box - zooming around the house at top speeds (hence the need for the helmet) - which anyone could have guessed. What I think they were trying to do was invent a new Olympic sport, one they could enter as a brother-sister team. Good luck with that endeavor, I say, as long as they don't use any of my good boxes ;-)

When I was showing pictures one day, someone remarked that Sabine looks like a 'special' child in that helmet. Indeed she does.
Here she is after putting on her own jammies. Poor thing couldn't figure out why she wasn't walking right, but Heaven help the person who might try to fix her right leg into the proper place. The one butt cheek look was kind of darling though so I would have hated to see it be corrected anyway.


But when you consider the man that half my children's genetic material came from....is it any wonder? Neither of them really had a chance for normalcy.
What a special girl she is....

The Soon-to-be Closet

Zach recently got a burst of energy and decided to tackle the upstairs closest project I've been wanting him to take on for a long time now. One of the biggest issues with this house is that there is almost no closet space to store things. We've got a closet in each bedroom for clothes, and other than that there's just the one small coat closet downstairs (of which was last year's project and has yet to be completed).

Anyway, we've got this 'dead space' upstairs above the staircase that I've always thought would be perfect to utilize as a closet. So last week Zach finally cut the hole in the wall and added the floor. He's actually got most of the new wall up too but I only have pictures of the first installment so far. But before any progress could be made, Zach spent the good part of Day 1 cutting holes in four other walls trying to remove the spliced wires (read: dangerous, illegal) he found when he cut into the wall.

The initial cut - this is in the kids' room.
This closet will serve as a linen closet,
among other things.

Just getting started on removing about
8 feet of wood paneling just to get to some
no-no wires from previous owners.

After Zach spent a full day getting the
wires out, he was able to cut through
the other side of existing sheetrock.
I leaned the door up against it because
at this point it was a gaping hole leading
to an 8 foot drop to the bottom on the stairs.

We got bunk beds off of Craigslist earlier this year.
Jacob just started sleeping in the top on. It feels
like such a luxury to have a second bed in our
house now! It still looks really messy until we get
the bottom part and closet squared away.

The view from the downstairs.

Bull Riding

This activity has quickly become a favorite pastime in our house. It's just one of the many ways we spend hours being silly. The kids just can't resist. Even if Zach is just bending down to get something, one of them will usually jump on him in some way and then there's no going back. The other child, from whatever corner of the house they're in, dropping whatever it is they were occupied with, appears and joins in.



We're all so very lucky to have Zach as a father and partner in parenting.

The Annual Thanksgiving Picture

Each year for Thanksgiving we go to Zach's Dad's house. And each year we take a photo of the four men, three sets of fathers and sons: Jacob, Zach, Zach's father, and Zach's grandfather. We've just got a new computer and I don't have all my photos on the new one, so I've pulled these from my flickr page. I guess I don't have the first couple years on flickr, but I do have them somewhere. I think it's pretty cool to see all of them, in the same spot year after year.

A few things are clear from these photos. The most obvious thing being that having kids has clearly kicked the shit out of Zach and me. We look at pictures from just a few years ago and it looks like we're ten years younger in them. Also, one can see that seriousness does not run in the family. Each year it's a little harder to get Jacob to behave for the picture, to just stand there for 30 seconds and act normal. This year I thought he was tall enough to finally stand for the photo, but you'll see below how well that worked out. The jokester quality is also observed in 'Pop', Zach's dad. Every year there's a photo with him grabbing at Jacob, trying to mess him up.

Anyway, Happy New Year. This is one of the aforementioned posts I said I'd get to before the end of the year. Did not happen, unless, do you think it's still 2009 somewhere in the world?

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Day Eight: Who's the Traitor?

Well I didn't post anything for two days because there was nothing new to report. The friggin crock pot is still in the sink. I've done sink-full after sink-full of dishes, each time leaving the dish in question behind. At this point I'm convinced that someone has tipped Zach off because not only has he not washed it, but he hasn't even said anything. Who is it? I thought for sure he'd have done it by now, at least out of guilt for having been doing so many side jobs lately.

Nor have I take any pictures of it because I've grown apathetic about the whole thing. I doubt anyone else is enjoying reading about it anymore, maybe nobody else thought it was funny to begin with.

The only thing that has changed is that the stagnant water in the crock has grown cloudy. It really smells too. Not like a big emanating smell, but if you stick your face in there a little bit of your nose hair seems to get burnt off. Yesterday for some reason I was like a butterfingers doing the dishes and things kept falling off the drying rack into the schmaltz water. And today Jacob was throwing around one of Sabine's toys like it was a baseball. Into the water it went.

This morning before he left for his current paint job, Zach told me the faucet in the kitchen is really acting up (because it is only six years old and leaks like crazy) and that I should try not to use it today. Is he kidding me? Is he trying to get a rise out of me, daring me to not wash the crock pot?

I may have just done myself in though. I promised to make this a completely natural experiment, with no prompting of Zach to do the dishes or anything like that. No mentioning of it at all. I just wanted to see how many days it would take my husband to wash a dish that is just SITTING THERE, growing things.

Well we were both just standing there in the kitchen, right next to the sink, I was off the the left cleaning something up from dinner and there were just a shit ton of dishes. The absurdity of the situation struck me. There is this nasty dish sitting in the sink and I'm trying to ignore it. Zach knows I am as anal as they come, how can he not notice this dish in the sink and not realize it must be bugging the shit out of me?? We're both standing there not mentioning the elephant in the room. Does he really not see this?

I really, really just wanted to sit down and type this out so I sort of asked Zach if he would do some dishes. "You know, just some of these around here on the counter, just to get some of them out of the way." I tried to cover. If Zach washed the crock because of what I said, then I will have to admit defeat by a technicality. I will not have been the one to wash it, but I cracked nevertheless.

My urging might have been the thing to throw him over the edge. When I walked into the living room to hang out with Jacob I heard the kitchen faucet start to run. Will this be the conclusion? We'll see...

Day Five: Game On

Welp. The Yanks won last night.

Jacob requested we get Chinese food last night, which is a rare treat, so I said yes because Zach was going to be working late, again. This means there wasn't much dinner cleanup. In fact, I have gotten so lazy in this recent wave of Zach working late that I didn't bother doing any dishes last night and the kitchen is a mess. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, it's almost like I left the kitchen a mess on purpose to disguise the chicken gook (yeah, that's what I'll call it) because I was afraid Zach might actually clean it up.

I needn't have worried. There was never any mention of it. The reason I thought it might happen is because Zach couldn't sit down for most of the game. I kept urging him to and he'd just look at me, a little wild-eyed, and say, "I can't, I have to stand up." Poor thing was so nervous. It was around this point he told me he might actually not go to bed at all. I think it came up because I said something about the rabbit cages and he told me he'd do them after the game. Say what?

Understandably, I thought the kitchen might get cleaned. Like I said, I was dreaming.

Below are the pictures. One I took yesterday when I thought it might be my last photo op. I cheated though, I moved it from the counter in order to get a better shot. I put it right back though, I mean, after I tested its reaction to gravity. Guess what. It didn't budge. I held it completely perpendicular to the ground and the only thing that happened is a little bit of unsolidified juices ran from the center. I'm assuming this is just what's left of the water. or maybe some kind of oil that remains liquid at room temperature?

** Fun fact - It jiggles! Like Jello! Hm, what does that say about what's in Jello?

Here is the picture I took this morning. It's not very good because Zach was just in the other room and I didn't dare draw attention to the counter area by moving things around. Notice the line of delineation on the top, a little to the right. Is it just me, or has it receded a little more?

Look at all the pretty colors! To be fair, I have to mention that this is not all just from the chicken. What I did was I cooked it in mushroom soup. Being a vegetarian, I'm not sure if that is an appropriate thing to do with chicken? I thought it might infuse some yummy taste into the chicken...but what it really seems to have done is add more life to the gook by way of colors and fun texture. Let me ask you this, knowing now that there's mushroom in there, does that answer some questions about the nastiness, or does it just make it that much worse?

More Fun with The Husband Experiment

Remember The Great Husband Experiment of 2008? That was some good, clean fun. Well The Husband Experiment is baaAAaack, compliments of our latest kitchen appliance: The Slow Cooker.

Here's the synopsis: I purchased a slow cooker earlier this year and have been really enjoying the fact that I can cook more meals for Zach that include meat (in our otherwise vegetarian household) without me actually having to handle it. The deal is that I do most of the cooking of it, but if there's any sort of action that included prolonged handling of the rotting animal flesh, Zach has to take care of that. I'd cooked these chicken parts that had bones in them, not sure what kind, I tried not to look. Zach ate them for dinner and the rest stayed in there while he went to watch Game 4 of the World Series.

I am not a Yankees fan, as are the boys of the house, so I decided I was too tired to make it through the whole game awake. I cleaned up the kitchen and told Zach that I was going to bed so could he please remember to strip the chicken off the bones per our agreement? I'd told him earlier that I'd like him to strip the bones so that I could freeze the chicken bits and later make chicken pot pie from scratch for him. I left a container out for him to put the chicken in and went to bed.

The next morning I was pleased to find that Zach had remembered to take care of the chicken and did not let it sit out all night to rot. However, the 'juices' were still sitting in the slow cooker. This is not out of the ordinary. Often times Zach will leave the juices of something cooked to solidify in order to more easily clean it up later on. He also has more energy for tasks like this in the morning. I assumed that after the coffee was brewed and he was fully awake, he'd probably get rid of the now-hardened chicken slime.

Funny, after Zach left for work and I was back downstairs getting everyone breakfast, I noticed the slow cooker was still as I had previously seen it. Hm. This is the first indication of trouble. We'll call this day 2.

Later that night Zach remarked that we should have dumped the chicken juices over the dogs' food when we fed them the night prior. "Oh yeah, they would have loved that last night. Too bad it's infested with bacteria by now," I remarked. I didn't give the stuff anymore thought that night. Again, the Yankees were playing and everyone was distracted, our routine still being messed up because of the World Series.

When I got up to run pre-dawn the next morning, I couldn't believe my eyes that the stuff was still there. I was all bleary-eyed though, so I rubbed them a little and tried to refocus. Nope. Well, the Yankees had lost the night before so maybe that was Zach's excuse for not cleaning up. But if that's so, they'd won the night before so common sense would dictate that he would have cleaned it up the night he was in a good mood, right? So begins Day 3.

Later on that day while I was making lunch I had to clear some space so I took the inner crock out of the clow cooker and put the larger electrical parts back in the box and onto the shelf where they are stored. I was going to clean up the chicken mess, but upon further investigation I just decided my stomach couldn't take it. The kids and I left the house after lunch for Jacob's gym class.

I expected Zach to be working late so Jacob, Sabine and I went to my mom's house to hang out for a while. Zach actually beat us home so on the phone we talked about him cleaning out the rabbit cages and getting other stuff done around the house while waiting for me and the kids to pick him up to go vote.

Back at home after a quick trip to the polling place, I started dinner. Funny, the crock pot was still there. Oh well, it will get taken care of after dinner because there's no Yankees game on, I thought to myself.

After a late dinner when Zach had started talking 'going to bed early', I was about to ask him to clean up the chicken stuff before he retired for the night. But instead of doing so, I saw an opportunity and grabbed my camera:

This is the scene of the investigation.
The sink is just to the right, you know,
the place where someone might clean out
something like this. The coffee maker (i.e, the
thing Zach and I both use a couple times a day,
is just to the left.

Exhibit A: You can see from that upper film,
which is separated from the hardened juice by
black (we'll call this the line of delineation), where
the stuff once came to. Over the course of 48
hours much of it has evaporated.

Exhibit B: This picture is shown to demonstrate
the detail and texture of the stuff.

Now here we are beginning Day 4. I think it is time to give the 'stuff' an official name. I'll think on that today and get back to you. Feel free to leave your suggestions. As for my prediction: Tonight is game 6...if the Yankees win, there's actually a good chance Zach may clean this thing up. Part of me will be disappointed, but then again, I'll be able to use the slow cooker at long last so there's an up side either way. If the Yankees lose, there's no chance of it being cleaned up.

It's Facebook's Fault

I miss my little blog and I'm constantly telling myself that today will be the day I catch up. There's just so many things I want to post about, I don't know where to start, and it feels hopeless anyway because there's never enough time. I don't entirely know how it happened that I've been so inattentive to blogging, but I do know that Facebook is mostly responsible.

I've been on Facebook for a couple years, with waxing and waning interest, but I guess our relationship (mine and Facebook's) turned serious when Jacob and I started playing Farmville. I thought it would be a cute game for us to play together, because farming is his thing and maybe it would teach him problem solving skills and some other life concepts, numbers and spelling and whatnot, motivate him to learn to read, etc. It did do all that, and it might sound cheesey, but since I was sitting down with him to play and we were talking about it together I think he was learning things. I don't think it's so much what kind of tools you use to teach your kids, as much as it is you sit down with them and spend that time together talking it over.

I also used Farmville as a bribe to get Jacob to get dressed in the morning, get ready for bed, help me with certain tasks, but then he just memorized how to log on himself and started playing without me at times. He'd always get caught and warned not to do that again, etc, etc, but he'd always do it again. The weeks went by and it became an obsession. So I've phased out our crops and weaned us off this week. We're going to be taking a break from it for a while. It's feels liberating. I'm going to have to start hiding the computer from him though.

Anyway, being on Farmville meant I was logged onto Facebook at least a couple times a day, and so naturally I started posting more and more on facebook. It's like an abbreviated form of blog posts and is an outlet for me when time is sparse and I don't have time to blog. A lot of the things I would have ended up blogging just ended up as a status post on Facebook, and helped alleviate whatever stress was building up from not being able to get my thoughts out - but not all of it. And there's far more people I'm in contact with on Facebook than will ever read my blog. It's just a better way to keep up.

In no particular order, here is some stuff that happened over the last couple months in status posts copied from Facebook:

is teaching Jacob how to play Uno. Oh my God for the 80th time, no, you can't put a that RED 5 on that BLUE 8. I seriously underestimated the difficulty a five year would have with this concept!!! Holy crap, nooooo that Draw 2 can't go on that GREEN 6!!!!!!!

Ran the half marathon this morning. 1:56:30's. I'm happy with that and I don't think I ever want to do it again....

Just got home from the movies...Saw The Time Traveler's Wife. You definitely have to have read the book to follow the movie.

BIG DAY today. Zach met the president, shook his hand, told him his name and got his picture taken with him! AND I was on national television breastfeeding!

To mark the official start of homeschooling, Jacob and I just made frosting (science and math), but with nothing to eat it on, we're just having it spread on bread!

Sabine took two 10 minute naps today. That's it.

I am celebrating the last birthday of my 20's in my home, alone, cleaning like a madwoman. Believe it or not, this is an often sought-after fantasy of mine!

is trying to get Zach to sit still and look at people of walmart. I can't get enough of this!!!

ran the 5k today and Jacob ran his first kids' run. He also won the Wii they had up for raffle! It seems luck follows wherever he goes.

This one is a post from Zach: Happy 5th Anniversary...We are still alive...and so are the kids! Looking forward to today and the weekend...

Just finished reading Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting book.

Jacob and I couldn't stop watching the puke scene today from The Office wedding episode....hilarious!

Well there you have it, Facebook. Now that our relationship is out in the open, I have to break it off. Well, not completely, but I think we need to see other people and I need to visit other internet playgrounds for a while. Get some perspective. Some 'me' time. Don't worry, I'll still be visiting. Just a lot less. Well, at least a little less. I still care about you, but it's just that my blog is more of a long-term relationship, and we're a little more serious than you and I can ever be.

Bigger Red (for now)

By August Zach had finally saved enough to buy his work truck and a nice one showed up on craigslist. Here it is. We don't know what to call it because the best name for a big, red truck (Big Red) has already been taken by Jamie's truck. Since they're always in (joking) competition for whose tools are bigger and better, or some such thing like that, we all joked that Big Red is the new truck's little brother and so Zach's should be named Bigger Red.

All the other names he's come up with haven't really taken. Jacob's been calling it the Big Rig but Zach says that doesn't fit. I told him he should just call it Diesel, or maybe Big D, but he didn't like that either. So we're in the market for a name...any ideas?

Jeter'sTwin

Zach was talking about Derek Jeter just a little while ago (he is always talking about Jeter) and I said something about his twin. Zach was all, "What twin? He has a sister, but that's it." For a couple minutes I had myself thinking that I know something about baseball that Zach doesn't, and then I remembered I tend toward the naive side of things.

Here's what I was thinking of though: Remember that Skippy peanut butter commercial Jeter was in a few years back? Actually, I've since looked it up and it appears that it's from 2001. Jeter's 'twin' appeared in it with him, or at least that's what I've thought all these years. Apparently it was just computer imaging. So I am stuck on this now and I want to find the commercial so I can show it to Zach because he's claiming to not know what I'm talking about.

I just spent a large amount of time driving myself crazy trying to find it. I can find several places online where they make mention of the commercial, but no clip of it. Not even on youtube or anything. I know someone reading this (if there is anyone left who still reads my blog) will have better luck and you'll post a link for me.

Yes Day

Ever heard of parents being fed up with always saying no to their kids and in response declaring it a 'Yes Day'? This is where they consciously say yes to everything they would normally say no to. Kinda like Jim Carrey in that movie, Yes Man. Well, it looks like today we are going to have a Yes Day.

Here is the reason: About a month ago Zach found out his step-father had Yankees tickets for a game today. There are four and Zach will be going with his mom, brother and step-father. If you can count you'll realize that that leaves no ticket for Jacob. Well Jacob got to go to Yankee Stadium (the old one) last year and that sort of set a precedent in his mind that Yankee Stadium is a thing to do. So when Zach found out he'd be going, and without his little boy (with whom the Yankees have become the stuff of major father-son bonding), we didn't know what to do.

I told Zach we couldn't tell Jacob, that he'd be crushed. And when Zach mentioned the camera, I thought that there was no way we could get away without telling Jacob because he'd see the pictures. Also though, we've never lied to Jacob. I don't want to start now.

Well today's the day and as Zach said a really long goodbye to Jacob this morning, the guilt was building. I'm good at lying and making the day fun in a pinch, but all I could of was that I didn't want to lie to him. I sort of brought it up in a casual way, as in a hypothetical situation. And Jacob was so good about it. "What? Tell me, Mommy." So I told him.

He tried so hard not to cry, but his face belied him. It slowly contorted, the forehead and bottom lip getting closer to one another. I told him it was ok to be sad and to cry, that we could talk about how he was feeling, and that we'd do plenty of fun things to make up for it. Jacob is taking full advantage of my guilt, and suddenly it's turned into a 'Yes Day'.

On one hand I realize there are many of kids in the world who don't even have the luxury of a roof over their heads, so we may seem spoiled, but I think it's more than that. I think it's about the father-son bonding thing. I think Jacob feels left out that Daddy is going anywhere, period, without him. They have such a strong bond that I'm actually surprised Zach is even going. I would think that he'd be like, "Oh I simply can't go if Jacob can't." I know that is completely naive though, coming from someone who is not a Yankees fan. Jacob had a really awesome first-time MLB experience (fourth row behind the dugout, a player handed him a ball, almost caught a foul) which will be hard to top in his lifetime. I think he is sort of spoiled in that respect. The same way we're runined for road-trips now that we've had the experience of three weeks in a free 31ft. RV (we're very lucky people that we've had some great opportunities land in our lap like that and I am forever thankful).

So for today Jacob has already had hot chocolate for breakfast, we're going to the diner for lunch (where he plans to have chocolate milk and pancakes), we'll have ice cream (probably chocolate), we'll go see Marisa....and who knows what else.

1 AM: A play-by-play

1:10 am: Zach wakes me, there's pee in the bed. A quick assessment is made on his part. He decides Jacob wet the bed. I, however, am covered in pee. So is Sabine. I wonder how the hell three humans are soaked in pee from only one bladder. I conclude that Sabine has also leaked through her (doubly-stuffed) diaper.

1:11 am: I'm only half aware of the things that are happening because as it is we've been asleep for a very short while. Sabine woke up from what turned out to be just a nap at 8pm. She was awake for the next three hours.

1:12 am: I somehow manage to open my eyes. Zach is going into action. It amazes me how good he has become at the middle-of-the-night routine. I used to be the one who was fully functional in the middle of the night. Ha. Something just struck me - though we are failing miserably in the bedtime routine area, we have gotten this 'wee hours of the morning' routine down pat.

1:14 am: Zach has escorted Jacob to the bathroom and I hear a stream hitting the toilet water. Check. I realize I am sitting up in bed and a new diaper has magically appeared at my side.

1:15 am: Zach and Jacob re-enter the bedroom. I'm still sort of coming to. Oh yeah, I am wet, and starting to get cold. We are arguing about who will change Sabine's diaper. I am wet with pee, and on this night Zach is not. I win.

1:16 am: I find a cold, wet washcloth hanging from the hamper in the bathroom. I don't care where it has come from or what it is wet with. I use it to wipe pee off my skin.

1:18 am: I've managed to change my clothes and Sabine is ready for me. She has a dry diaper on but no clothes. Zach has removed the two, count 'em, TWO bed covers that we keep on the bed so that 'accidents' may go there. Funny, there are still puddles in the bed when the covers are removed.

1:19 am: We question aloud how the hell pee got under the bed covers, then remember whose lives we are living and oh yeah it all makes sense. Why wouldn't that happen? Why bother with bed covers anyway.

1:20 am: I got to the bathroom the get a bath towel. Lay it over the giant pee puddle in the bed. Then lay on top of that. Grumble about how I JUST washed the sheets and hung them on the line to dry two days ago.

1:21 am: I commence nursing Sabine, Zach begins his first attempt at getting clothes on Jacob.

1:23 am: Jacob is sideways in bed, naked from the waste down, kicking and thrashing at Zach as if he's trying to kill him. Zach is repeatedly attempting to put underwear on Jacob.

1:24 am: Jacob has underwear on and Zach throws the jammie pants across the room. Fuck it we both agree.

1:25 am: Lights Out.

We're so immature

Dog obedience the other night was actually really good. The lady was a good public speaker and very entertaining. But I do have to admit I was snickering at her in the beginning when she was setting up the microphone and was all, "Testing, testing, one-two." There were 15 other people in the room so I didn't think it was necessary.

Zach was so against going to dog school. He grumbled about it and I had to cause many fights getting him to sign-up for the class (it's through the college, so can you say tuition waiver). And then we went and he thought it was great, and most importantly he thought it was great and got all, "Gee, good thing I made you come with me to this thing." Like it was his idea. So I am making a mental note to add this to my arsenal of I-Told-You-So arguments for future reference.

I think we'll get some good information out of this class. I actually think some of this stuff can be applied to the human children. Bonus! But Zach and I both agree that knowing what to do is one thing, finding the time with which to do it is another matter altogether. Already we've completely forgotten to be practicing the letter we chose for her. This letter, as in one letter of the alphabet, will be her cue that we use in training. We're supposed to be saying it to her all the time, giving her treats when she looks at us when we're saying the letter, or whatever, basically letting her get to know that letter, and to like it.

So what letter did we choose? We went back and forth, how can we just pick one letter when there are 26 to choose from? Should we pick J for Jacob, G for Ginger? What to do, what to do. Finally it came to me in a flash. "F!" I shout-whispered to Zach in the middle of class. And he totally got it right away. It's a word that I shout out loud a lot because I try not to swear in front of kids, so I'm constantly shouting things like "Ef!", "Sugar!", "mother!", "Sonofa....!", and so on. Add to Ginger's F-letter, well, we'll be attempting to train Mango on our own at home, so, naturally, she'll be U.

We're going to have so much fun with this...