Stuology

Day 167: Best Daddy Ever

I made pancakes in the morning for everybody. We then lingered a bit around the house. I gave both kiddos a bath. We left for JoCo right when the flood gates opened to take Mac out to lunch. We picked up a gift for him, and then back home for naps. I made Curt some homemade Heath Crunch ice cream. Then we all went out for dinner with Mac’s dad. Ada and James gave Mac the card that Ada and I picked out about a month ago. I’ve been known to get cards for people when I see one that is perfect, and then forgetting that I have it and finding it a year or more later. I hid Mac’s and remembered that I had it. We usually end up with a talking or singing card when Ada assists me. I’m glad she liked this one because it perfectly expresses Ada and Mac’s relationship. It was this exchange from The Simpsons:

Homer: If I said `no’ the first time, what makes you think I’m going to say `yes’ the second time?
Lisa: Nothing, but you may say `yes’ the ninety-ninth time.
Homer: Oh? Try me.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: No.
Lisa: Please, Dad.
Homer: Oh, okay, okay.

Day 83: Mac and James

After looking at my 260 photos I took yesterday, I almost listed my camera on eBay and quit. AI Servo cannot keep up with my children, so I ended up with tons of out of focus photos of Ada hunting for eggs. The number of days of me feeling stretched thin are increasing, and I’m not sure I want to spend the time trying to learn to take action shots the old way. Plus, the CMD is going to take another 1.5 hours out of my day. I don’t have room in my house to learn what I want to. When trying to read, it is either way too loud in our house or someone interrupts me half the time and I immediately forget what I just read, so I’m having to read the same thing again and again, and I just don’t have time or patience for it.

Plus, the WordPress editor is a (*&*(#)#*$&#(!

Day 76: Look who came out of his room!

I haven’t been able to reach stuology, or our other hosted domains or even the hosting service site from home all day. Mac checked our server monitor, and it said the server was fine. I checked one of my feed readers, and there were no errors. Probably a networking issue. I’m posting this with my phone courtesy of AT&T’s network which is slow but at least I can post my photo today.I organized the kids’ room. I’ve set aside stuff for give-away. I found a container of books I forgot we had. I’m putting a ban on toys for Ada’s birthday. We have too many. Anyone who gets her a toy has also volunteered to come to our house once a week to pick them up and organize.I’ll have to post my first give-away later. I picked this photo because I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to post.

Day 69: *Gasp*

I was pleased yesterday evening that Ada was spending most of her time in her room playing. It is unusual for her not to be constantly running from her room to the kitchen to the living room to our bedroom to the kitchen to their bathroom and so on. I welcomed the peace. Then I went back to check on her and saw this. A ultrawide angle lens or a panoramic shot would have probably done this more justice so you could truly understand why her room knocked the air out of my lungs and all I could do was let out a little gasp.

Last night we put the toys back in the bins, put the stuffed animals and books back on the shelves, restacked diapers and made her bed. Now her room is made up of mostly floor and not toys.

James woke up this morning with a gooey, puffy eye. Boo. Mac talked to me a little last night and this morning. His alarm didn’t go off to take his pill, so he missed a dose. Ouch.

Now Ada has oranges all over the kitchen floor. Why or why? Of course, James is enjoying it. He has lots of balls to throw and go chase.

Day 67: You don’t need to shovel it in.
There more where that came from.

Ada eats her pears with a shovel. Just…whatever. She’s my child. That’s the only explanation I have.

I also taught her that before you eat bananas/apples/pears the sticker that comes on it must go on your cheek/nose/forehead.

Mac ordered some games with his Amazon Christmas monies. In the mail today, we received Burnout Paradise, Some Other Game Bully, and Scene It.

Mac is still giving me the silent treatment.

Mac had a case of hiccups early this morning. They were bad enough that I could hear them from the bedroom while he was in the kitchen. I asked him if he would like me to scare them out of him. He nodded yes, so I said “I took all of our money out of our savings and bought a BMW.”

It scared him, but didn’t work at vanquishing the hiccups.

His pain is staying at tolerable levels. We have read that the first few days are fine, but it is after about day three that the pain starts getting really bad.

He has my laptop to speak his words for him. It pronounces our last name incorrectly. I bet it will pronounce “Ada” wrong as well.

Day 64: What a deal!

Mac had surgery at 9:45am, and was out by 10:30. He was awake enough for me to see him around 10:35, but he wasn’t doing well. He was having a hard time coming out of the anesthesia, and took two hours before they could get his pain under control. I stayed with him until that last shot of morphine knocked him out. I left to fill his prescription and came back an hour later to take him home. He was home by 1:45. When I talked to the surgeon, he said that he was surprised to find that Mac’s tonsils were badly infected. If he hadn’t been feeling well lately, this is probably why. Now he has to not only swallow his pain pills, but also antibiotics. His pain is down to a tolerable level. Thanks to the Vita-Mix, I was able to mix up lots of fruit flavored crushed ice.

While he was in surgery, I ran to Target to pick up a few items. I came home with the things that I had on the my list, and some things that were not. Included in the “not” list was this napkin holder, but wow, look at it. It goes with my kitchen so well even though I have added yet another thing that I will have to wipe off fingerprints. Also, it was only $1.91. I thought this photo would be a better one than a photo of Mac’s stitches which you can see when he opens wide enough.

Mac is moving the 360 into the bedroom so he has entertainment and pain distraction from his surgery that is tomorrow. I’m not nervous about the surgery, but I’m finding myself nervous about the recovery. You’d think that I was the one that is going through this. I will probably feel the same way that he did with my James recovery. You want to be able to have the power to do something about the pain, but you won’t be able to do anything.

Anyhow, totally going to lie in bed and play the 360 tonight. I haven’t done that since, um…my Sega.

James has been moving around more–cruising along furniture. I’m counting down until he decides to let go and make a break for it. He’s getting so much better with food as well. He’s mostly lost his gag reflex, and is eating more solids.

Day 24: Attempt at framing

This was an attempt to frame my subject, and also ongoing practice for paying attention to what is around my subject, not just my subject. I was going to upload this at work, but it takes genius only I can produce to not realize that my symbolic link to my pictures on the fileserver are not valid when I’m at work.

I’m so tired that I cannot keep my eyes open. Work was busy, but not stressfully so. I didn’t get home until after 7:00. Mac was wonderful and made sure everyone was fed, and had food out for me when I got home. I ate and then bathed James, and was going to Ada, but my super-sleepiness has decided to put that task off until tomorrow.

I just mentioned that I”m tired, but I mean, I’m tired! If I don’t go to bed, I’m going to pass out on my laptop.

Day 14: Finally, the perfect mousetrap

Due to the things I want to get done tonight, I don’t think I’ll be taking any photos. I’m posting an old one for today.

Mac doesn’t like mice. Or any rodents. Or insects. Or most animals. The other night while we were watching a movie, I thought I saw something from the corner of my eye scurry from behind the sofa into the kitchen. I took an educated guess, and declared that I saw a mouse. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I think we have a mouse again.
Mac: No, we don’t. I don’t want to hear it.
Me: Okay, but I saw something run from the sofa into the kitchen.
Mac: No, you didn’t. I don’t want to hear it.
Me: Um, okay. I didn’t.

I was going to claim that maybe Mac was correct since my Saturday cleaning of the kitchen yielded zero evidence of any mice. Then this morning, my mother said she saw a mouse in front of the dishwasher. Ah-ha! I knew it!

That brought back memories and the sharing of the story of this photo. Back in 2005 when we had our regular winter mouse problem, Mac called me from Ada’s room saying he had the mouse trapped. I opened the door, and this is the first thing I saw. It turned out that it was trapped in the corner of her room, not in her crib. Still, I love to bring up Mac’s mousetrap just for the giggles.