With the
holidays right around the corner, it’s hard to remember to keep up with the
bloggin’, ya know? Couple that with the fact that Mommy B’s birthday is 4 days
after Jesus Christ’s, and that means I have a lot of presents to get all at
once. Of course that also means I get to coast from now until our anniversary
in June, but I digress. What are the little boogers up to these days? Well,
just about everything…
Alli is getting bigger
and smarter by the day. She is learning so much at school and is growing in
more ways than I can even keep up with. She has so many friends in her class
(many of which are almost a full year older than her) that each day she comes
home talking about what she did with a different kid that day. Her teachers do
a great job of implementing the school’s curriculum and we see it in her
vocabulary each week. Not just the fact that she’s learning new words, but what
they mean and the context in which they are used. They delve into sensory and
visual cues and talk about how they differ. Hot-cold, near-far, in
front-behind, on top-below, loud-quiet… that kind of thing. So she not only
knows those words, but also what they mean in the larger scheme of things and
how the words relate to the object/person/feeling in question.
She’s completely
potty-trained and has been for some time. She very rarely has an accident and
if she does it’s usually because of something outside her control. Even though
she doesn’t really like to, she can completely dress herself (or undress
herself which is typically the case), including putting on her shoes. Her movies
of choice at the moment are any of the Toy Story trilogy. She knows and loves
all the characters, and will recite random lines from the movie at random
times. “Daddy, you are a sad, strange little man.” Thanks Ms. Buzz Lightyear, I’ll
keep that in mind when you start bringing boyfriends around.
Aiden is also
growing like a weed. He’s only a few inches shorter than his big sister and he’s
only 20 months old (today)! Sometimes I feel like they weigh the same when I
pick them up… even though Aiden is “smaller” still. The kid is thick – and I’m
not talking baby rolls/Michelin Man thick, I’m talking solid. He doesn’t look that heavy when you reach down, but when you
slip a disc because you didn’t lift with your legs – don’t say I didn’t warn
you. And I can’t say I’m that surprised, the kid eats like he’s been in prison
for a 10-15 stint. Don’t get me wrong, there are still times where he won’t
each much for a certain meal but for the most part he’s a miniature version of
his father. A human garbage disposal. Alli can still house some grub too, but
she’s getting a little more moody about it these days.
Not when it
comes to certain meals, though. This past Sunday my parents cooked breakfast
for us while Mommy B stayed home and worked on papers. There was a total of
three adults and the A Team in attendance – and they scrambled up a dozen eggs,
an entire package of bacon, and a 10-inch diameter, 3-inch thick coffee cake. I
even brought our faithful Golden, Scarlett, along to help mop up. Guess how
much was left? Let’s put it this way, Scarlett was sorely disappointed with the
scraps. I think there was even one point where I saw Aiden double-fisting it
with a strip of bacon in one hand while shoveling in Tatsy’s scrambled eggs
with the spoon in his other hand. Alli mowed through her eggs (so of course I grudgingly
gave her more) and had more than a couple strips of bacon all by herself. Tatsy
said next time she’s going to get the 18-pack of eggs just to be safe. They’re
barely out of diapers! I shudder to think of how it’s going to be when they hit
puberty. I’ll probably be better off just
buying a chicken… and a cow while I’m at it.
While Alli is obsessed
with Toy Story, Aiden is obsessed with the vacuum. I don’t know what it is
about the vacuum or the Shop Vac I use to sweep the hardwood floors, but the
kid simply cannot get enough of
them. The first thing he’ll do when Mommy B gets home with them is to run over
to the closet where the vacuum resides and pull on the door handle. If he’s
lucky enough, we’ll open the door and get the vacuum out – at which point he sprints over to the couch and plops
himself down like he’s about to watch Old Faithful erupt. Once the switch is
flipped on, he stares in a trance until the rug is completely clean at which
point he’ll say “All done!” The only bad part about this that we have hardwood
floors throughout our entire first floor so there really isn’t much for us to
vacuum. But, we have the cleanest area
rug in the whole neighborhood!
We’re making our
annual trip back to Ohio soon. We’ve decided to make a short stop in Cincinnati
to see what’s left of my family that still lives there, catch the Bengals (my
team) game as they stomp play the Vikings (Mommy B’s team), and see some
friends before heading the rest of the way up to Findlay. Then it’ll be fun
times with Mommy B’s family since they haven’t seen the kiddos in over a year
or so. I’m not looking forward to all the driving, but the kids aren’t really
at a good age to fly yet. There are just too many things that have to stay on
schedule and when you put your travels in someone else’s hands, that’s not a
risk I’m willing to take yet. I’d much rather have my own car handy if we
needed to get out of dodge if a bad storm is headed our way.
All in all,
things have been going pretty well recently. Mommy B has been keeping up with
her school work, and I give her tons of credit for keeping her nose to the
grindstone. Work has been going well for me, with new opportunities on the
horizon. I’ve been able to take a little time to reflect on all we’ve been
through as a family this year and I’m very proud of all we’ve accomplished.
Next year seems equally as bright, and I’m hoping that everyone has a chance to
count their blessings with those they love. Hopefully I can get another blog
post in before this year ends, but I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas
and happy New Year.
