September Recap

September saw some pretty nice weather this year, like every year. Normally we just assume that the leaves will be falling and the smell of hot cider will fill the air as soon as September first hits. Instead we're generally walking around all sweaty trying to force the season and pretending we like pumpkin spice.


The boys had a lot of fun playing baseball, however, Josie always insists on pitching. While her stance is adorable her accuracy leaves a little something to be desired. The boys want me to pitch but Josie's screams of protest are usually enough for them to humor her at the expense of their own fun.


Like we do most septembers we loaded up the fridge with all manner of garden and farm vegetables, mostly in the form of peeled and diced tomatoes.


Our friends Debbie and Michele came to visit which meant I could cook something nice for one of the three or four times a year I am granted the time to do so. I made a mixed grill with chicken, ribeye steak, and a friend's homemade sausage on a bed of creamy polenta.


We also got to enjoy a drink or two on the deck, something we had hoped to do many times this summer but didn't happen until mid September.


Martin continued his constant goalie practice in the driveway and roped anyone he could into playing with him whether it was a brother, parent, grandparent, neighbor, or someone simply walking past our house.


Elliott spent most of his time riding his bike. Martin has given up on riding his bike. Even though he can do it, he decided that since he fell once that riding bikes is just not for him.


We also got in early on the apple picking this year. Since the kids are in school full time we weren't able to go on a weekday and have the entire orchard to ourselves. We did, however, get a chance to enjoy some cider donuts and have it feel a little less like we were trespassing on someone's private orcahrd after hours.


A few days running I have taken the boys out to play Pokemon after I picked them up for school. I even purchased the Pokemon GO late for them in the only setting where I did not feel embarrassed to order it. It's much less shameful when there are five-year-olds around.


As with any Pokewalk we take Martin manages to convince every dog owner he meets to stop so he can pet their dogs. I'm shocked at how few dog owners are annoyed by this.


At the end of the month my wood plank arrived, a vertical slab from a cedar tree. With a lot of research (and even more luck) I intend to make a charcuterie board to be ready for Christmas this year. If you don't see it in my Christmas pictures this year and I don't mention it you will know that something has gone wrong and that I have spent a lot of time and money effectively ruining a beautiful piece of wood.

Let's hope for a Christmas miracle!

Easter Potty

As we are within a month or so of Uncle Dee Dee's arrival there are several large projects that need to be accomplished. One was potty training, another was buying a new car that can fit all three children, and the last was general preparations of the Uncle Dee Dee lair.

Perhaps you could add a fourth task of coming up with a slightly more appropriate name for Uncle Dee Dee.


Instead of working on any of that we built a kickass house for the boys that ended up looking a lot more like a TARDIS than a house.


We celebrated Grandma and Grandad's birthday with a normally chaotic family dinner and a nice visit from Auntie Lisa.


We also took some time to play in our bear cave and practice our roaring.


Then the day was upon us. Jen spent days setting the stage. We woke up that morning, two Fridays ago, and Jen demonstrated how Muffin Bear uses the potty and how happy we all are about it.


She reviewed the rules and the treats they could expect to get upon peeing in the potty.


The bathroom was set. For your benefit I will not post a picture of what it looks like eleven days later.


Then they were put into their underwear. Elliott expressed his joy through one of his favorite activities: jumping.


Martin made a pose which took in all the power he undoubtedly felt from wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine underwear. Shortly after this picture he went Super Saiya-jin.


After a great morning and a nice nap we invited Grandma over for a tea party.


After a great weekend we celebrated with a trip to Dairy Queen which the boys found very exciting. We were served by a flustered 15-year-old who was left running the place by himself with lines out the door since it was unexpectedly 70 degrees for the first time in six months. We also watched a hockey game and Martin commented on how much they loved to play hockey.


We also left the boys later with Jen's mum as we went to look at minivans. We returned after a horrible, terrible experience with slow, annoying dealerships who only like to waste your time. Luckily we returned to a fantastic welcome home song performed by the boys. It was much better than having our valuable time wasted by slow-ass dealerships and unnecessarily meeting stupid managers.


After nap we climbed the tree in the back yard. Martin was terrified for about thirty seconds then immediately turned around and wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon in the tree.


When we picked them up from daycare on Friday, one of their teachers told us that Elliott now refers to himself as "Elliott Libertine." This is a word I'm pretty sure that neither Jen or I have ever said out loud as long as they've been alive. However, we are steadily learning that somehow the boys can learn words even if they've never heard them.

I'm thankful that at least he probably doesn't know what the word means. Though he is kind of a libertine.





The following night we had Passover dinner together. I made smoked salmon crepes, lemon poppy potatoes, horseradish panko crusted cod and asparagus, and matzoh crunch.


On Saturday we had a week off from swim class and the boys celebrated their new favorite album, Paul Simon's "Graceland." This continued the trend of them loving 1980s soft rock.


While I was at work on Saturday the whole family got together and dyed eggs in my absence. This would mean that they'd want to crack these eggs open and eat them after their Easter egg hunt the following day. No amount of convincing could change their minds.



Easter morning was pretty exciting as they discovered candy right outside their doors and followed the trail downstairs to find presents, bikes, and more candy!


Martin declared that he loved the rabbit and that "he's my best rabbit."



There was a lot of fun had in the Easter egg hunt despite being peppered with insults by family members who felt that our eggs being empty were a crime against all humanity.

If there were more dentists in our family they could have jumped to our defense.







Much delicious food was had for dinner.


And we also enjoyed a wine that we purchased on our last trip to France. We had it shipped home, aged if four years, then had Jen's mother declare that it was "nasty." (She later relented.)



We rounded out the dinner with Jen's pavlova. They boys screamed "cake!" when they saw it. We informed them that it was pavlova and Elliott repeated "pav-lov-a" again and again like Beavis learning a new word.

So here we go, entering into our last month as the parents of only two children. Soon there will be an additional infant to be named later. We will lose every bit of free time, sleep, and quiet that we have accumulated over the past years.

Thank God. This was getting way too easy.

New York Wedding, Illinois Birthday

The best part of kids is that they start doing weird things all the time. Constantly they start doing and saying things and you have no idea where it has come from or what inspired them to do it.


Recently Elliott has taken to saying, "Oh no, Dude!" He says this usually when laughing and mostly when he's cracking up. I'm pretty sure Jen and I haven't said this. So where did it come from? Are people saying this at day care? If so, then why does Martin not say it at all? No one may ever solve this mystery but it's hilarious so who cares?




Since the boys have lately (mostly) been getting to sleep with little incident we've been able to enjoy some slightly earlier and nicer dinners. Recently we got to crack open a nice bottle of wine and even have some cheese and grilled ribeye out on the deck. This would have been a five-day-a-week dinner before children.


The boys have gotten the best new toys which are $0.99 spray bottles that they get to run around the yard squirting. They also hole up by the deck and fire their bottles at the imaginary invaders who have taken over our house.


They've taken to gardening and have also been enjoying many more unsolicited hugs than in the past.


Each night Jen picks the strawberries which grow along the front of our house and share some with the boys.


Then they put them in a giant container and they fight over control of the container.


Last weekend we woke up super early and got to the airport to take a 6:45 AM flight to New York to celebrate the wedding of our good friends Joe and Ryan. When we got to the airport the flight had been canceled and they'd stealthily changed the flight time from AM to PM resulting in a minor panic that we'd actually purchased the wrong tickets. After several frustrating calls we were re-booked to a flight about six hours later which meant we got to go back home, sleep for two hours, then drive back to the airport and get into New York (now New Jersey) six hours later than we'd planned. This, sadly, meant no time to do anything or see anyone we had plans with.

American Airlines cited weather as the reason for the flight being canceled. It was a little cloudy and apparently the weather that was so dangerous as to cancel our flight didn't so much as delay the flight to LaGuardia that arrived 20 minutes after ours was scheduled to.

That's some sneaky weather.



Eventually we did arrive, got to keep our dinner plans with our friends in New Jersey, then head out to the wedding in the Catskills the next morning.


Then, the next morning, there was the terrible drive back to the airport. All the nostalgia and homesickness we felt at the wedding and driving through upstate New York was quickly erased by the horrors and misery of New York/New Jersey traffic.



Thanks to the traffic our planned two hour lunch with Paul and Caolan and Baby Jane changed to about twenty minutes of getting to snuggle Jane and feed her a few strawberries before dashing out to LaGuardia and flying back home.

This would have been entirely unsatisfying if it weren't for Jane's cuteness and the fact that she created a funny little dance to celebrate the brief meeting.


Back home, aside from our house being entirely infested with houseflies, all was well. Martin had continued to work on his puppet show act and show us his new routine.


The next day we took the boys to the Children's museum in the morning where they had a great time.


This was followed by a trip to the restaurant for lunch where Jen got to sit and have lunch with Martin and I had to chase Elliott all over the dining room. They also discovered that the waitress was the source of food so they took to yelling, "Lady! More chocolate milk!"

I think their age and charm will only get them by a little longer with manners like that.


Jen left mid morning on Friday, her birthday, to go to the dentist. Most people would not consider this a treat but since the trip was the final appointment in the two-year saga of having her dental implant finished she was pretty excited. And now that Elliott's head is a little more stable he probably won't knock it out again. Unless he kicks her in the mouth while he's sleeping which is entirely possible.


While Jen was at the dentist I assembled the horrible new composter we got, another thrill for Jen. Apparently only terrible things make her happy on her birthday.


We also got to pick up the second week of our new farm share from Green Earth Institute. We missed week one as we were in New York but we'd probably be overflowing with lettuce if we had picked it up.


We did have some fun by watching the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform at the Morton Arboretum and having a picnic dinner, some of Jen's favorite things to do.


Sunday morning a giant truck arrived. The boys ran out to the front yard to check it out and this quickly became the best morning they ever had as they got to watcha man lower a little truck off the back of a big truck and then move around some pallets of mulch. They yelled, "More!" after he was done but, sadly, our neighbors had not ordered any more.


After this excitement, chatting with our new neighbors and looking at the tree that had fallen in their yard earlier that morning, we took off to the beach downtown. It was the reverse of their swim lessons. Elliott was a little more timid about approaching the water but soon they were both having a blast.


Then we enjoyed some lunch at the snack bar and headed home.



They fell asleep three minutes into our car ride home then slept pretty solidly after that. Elliott put up a fight a little later but Jen was able to get him to sleep on our bed.


After the nap Grandma came over with some flowers for Jen which Elliott took great joy in helping her move to the back yard.



Grandma and Grandad came over for dinner and we had a late celebration of Jen's birthday.




Pretty much everything for dinner was made by Jen's parents, I simply put together some lobster rolls. While wrangling these lunatic monkey men that is just my speed.




There was a terrific lightning and thunder storm overnight which kept the guys up for a lot of the wee hours. We all slept in this morning after Jen left for work and since we'd slept in so late I gave them some French toast to eat in the stroller on the walk to day care.

The next birthday that comes up will be theirs. This may be the last time they are really not aware of that so it makes present buying a snap. I'm guessing things will get a little trickier when we can't hide their presents in plain sight.

I'm guessing a lot of things will get trickier as well.