High Class Bath Soap

I have a chance to stay home with the kids this week. Feels like the good ole' days of SSAHD! How sad that back then, I couldn't wait to get a job, and now it feels great to stay at home with the kids. Oh well. Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence I suppose.

Here's some wacky stuff that I miss about staying with the kids:

When I take the kids out, it always feels like I'm hauling around everything but the kitchen sink. Well, now I've actually hauled around the kitchen sink too!

Bath soap has apparently gone up in price since the last time I was trawling Target for miscellaneous crap to buy. Looks like that bonus bottle adds a bit to the price, I guess.

The week isn't over, so I'm sure I'll get to see plenty of fun stuff before the week is out.

Super Hero Time!

Too random to make up. After his second huge poop in the same day -

Me: How did you make two man-size poops in one day?

Emmitt (with a totally straight face): I have super powers, dad.

Soooo... it's been a while.

Ever since I started working again, I've completely blown off this blog. I've had a few complaints, and I have to say that I'm shocked! I didn't know there was such a loyal following! Anyhow, it's been a tumultuous few months with the life change and the recent death in the family (SSAHD has been a big loss to us.... see previous post). I'll try to keep up on this, but as most "resolutions" go, the proof is in the doing, right?

Mia is biiiiigger now. She's outpacing Emmitt's growth when he was the same age. I keep trying to motivate him to eat more by telling him that his sister is going to monkey stomp him when she gets older.

She had her baby blessing back in June. Whole lotta dress, little bit o' baby.

She has such a great little personality too. Everyone around her gets plenty of smiles from her.

This is Emmitt about to get what we call a "guppie." That's a big, sloppy kiss that feels like she's nursing your face. We call it a guppie because the last thing you see before she "loves" on you looks like a guppie about to swallow something.

We tried to feed her rice cereal. She loved it. Can't you tell by the look on her face? Yeah, the picture sucks, but the look was hilarious. It still feels funny when you put a spoon in someone's mouth and they sit there with their mouth closed in total bewilderment. Notice how we branched out in this picture? She NOT on the couch!

Emmitt started preschool, and he's had a great time so far.

He likes to sing his school songs at home and quizzes us on how to sing them all the time.

We're mainly glad both our kids came out normal, with all 10 fingers and 11 toes. Other than feeling a wee bit scattered, we're holding our own. However, I'm starting to think that SSAHD didn't have such a bad gig afterall!

We Have a New Recruit

Her name is Mia, and she arrived last Saturday. She was 6lbs, 11oz and 18in long. Her pullups could use some improvement, but otherwise she's a great addition to our platoon. Michelle woke up early last Saturday morning feeling like she needed a light duty chit, so she headed down to sick call (civilians call it the hospital). We got to sick call about mid-morning and got ready. Michelle was a champ and worked Mia out in less than an hour.

Both Michelle and Mia are doing great. In this picture she's 7 days old. Mia sleeps decent already, feeds like she's done it before, and has an appetite that should get her to heavy weight status in no time. Her cry is even pretty quiet! She doesn't even cry that often! What's not to like?

These are my girls hanging out in the hospital. Michelle is adjusting to having pink in her babies' closet, and she has been very creative in combining other neutral colors with it to dilute the girliness. The nurse in the hospital was nice enough to make Mia a baby hat with a bow.

R. I. P. Super Stay-at-Home Dad

The ride has finally come to an end. The show is over. The cookie has crumbled. That's all she wrote. Blah blah blah... bottom line is that Super Stay-at-Home Dad is on his death bed. His funeral is on Monday when his new job starts. This illness came on suddenly and we're still coping with this sudden change. SSAHD has been reflecting on what he's learned during his brief 1.5 year long life. He now has a great respect for other stay at home parents that do a good job at raising their kids. He's also come up with a few truths he has discovered and a few things that he'll miss after he dies.

Some things he's discovered in his role as SSAHD:
* There is never a meal that you'll actually sit down to eat without getting up multiple time.
* Trips to the bathroom are always a team effort... for both Emmitt and SSAHD.
* Showers are best accomplished while Curious George is doing something really interesting.
* Fruit snacks should be reclassified as a controlled substance for toddlers.
* Waiting for a toddler to poop? Take him/her to someplace inconvenient to accomplish a diaper change.
* Strollers are carrying your crap, not your toddler.

Things SSAHD will miss:
* Big hugs from an appreciative little boy when he gets something that makes him happy.
* Showering at 9am.
* Getting first dibs on first experiences and first accomplishments.
* Having conversations with the little boy where he discovers what the little boy really notices and values in life.
* Having new gymnastic and wrestling moves tried out on him.
* "Daddy, I want pick up," followed by a big hug with head on shoulder when aforementioned pickup is accomplished.

Buh bye Super Stay-at-Home Dad.

Road to Nowhere

Emmitt and I were out looking for adventure today... and didn't find it. We were going to look for a mining museum near a huge former mercury mining area. The museum was being renovated when we got there, so no dice. I love taking roads out to the middle of nowhere, so I kept going passed the museum. We ended up behind the mining area on a road I hadn't been on since I was into cycling (something like 15 years ago). We found a road that I had ridden by numerous times but never took.

At the end of the road (and top or the mountain) is an old, closed down Air Force base that served as a radar station during the Cold War era. You can see the huge block that was the base station for the huge radar dish on the top of Mt. Umunhum from miles away (look really close at the square on the peak in the middle of the picture).

Here's what it looked like in it's operational days.

I've always wanted to see the thing up close, so when I realized which road we had stumbled upon, I pooped my diaper (again). I thought it was closed to the public, so I got kind of excited to see that it was open. Up we went, and the big block got closer and closer.

Everything was going great until we saw this:
BUMMER.

Undeterred, I hauled Emmitt out of the car, and asked him if he wanted to see the "big block" as he called it. He said yes, and we started hoofin' it. I put him on my shoulders, got over the fence and started hiking up the road (and I mean up).

As Silicon Valley got further and further away, the base got closer. The view was great too. Those buildings, or white and red smudges, down there are where Adobe and several other software folks camp out.

We hiked up as far as we were legally allowed, until we hit another sign without a gate that warned us of the stiff penalty for trespassing. I was distracted by the barking dogs and yelling coming from a couple of trailer homes off to the side of the sign, so I neglected to get a picture of the "Turn Back" sign. Besides red neck n' dogs fear, I'm broke, so fines are a deal breaker for me. Emmitt was bumbed out, but we made up for it by repeating lines from Ice Age 3 back to each other while he rode on my shoulders down the hill.

This is a shot from as close as we could get to the "block."

The area up there is beautiful though, so it wasn't a wasn't a wasted trip. This is what it looked like over the steep drop on the side of the road.

Even though we didn't make it to the top, I did find a picture of what it looked it looked like at the base a year ago when the unit that ran that place had their reunion. While I was waiting for my pictures to upload, I lifted this picture from http://www.jaber.net/AAFS-Reunion-2008/.

The Pulhams Return!!

Emmitt has been without a regular playmate since we moved out here. He has a couple of kids that he occasionally gets to see, but not with the same regularity he was spoiled with in Boston. When the Pulhams moved last year, we were really bummed out and missed them a lot. Emmitt was a wreck as he watched them pull away. I won't post that tear-stained face again out of pity, since he did look pretty pitiful... and Steph said it wasn't fair to post sad stuff like that!

A couple of weeks ago, they had some time off and made it up to see us! Both Emmitt and I pooped in our diapers. Nick is doing a residency down in LA, meaning this kind of time off is rare for their family, so we appreciated them making it all the way to see us (no small feat with two youngin's in tow!).

We made it out to the park, where Ali and Emmitt got to run around and check stuff out.
Ali was supportive as ever. Here she is using Emmitt's butt to push help him up onto the firetruck. Within a few minutes, Ali was pulling Emmitt along by the sleeve/hand. It was so cool to watch them play again.

Amazingly, Kat is old enough to play now too! Who woulda thunk that?

It was great to see the Pulhams, but we were sad to see them go. Emmitt still asks for "Ali - Steph" in the morning after breakfast. When we get in the car, he tells me to follow "Ali - Steph." It's our turn to head south, so hopefully we can catch them during another lull in Nick's schedule. Thanks for coming guys!