December, 2011

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Thanksgiving Re-Cap

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

I’m not going to go into every little detail about our Thanksgiving trip up to King City/Lockwood because I don’t think you really care what the kids ate for lunch or what pajamas they wore at night.

Soooo, we left San Diego around 8pm to embark on our 6 hour drive.  The reason we left so late was so the kids would sleep the whole way and we wouldn’t have to make a ton of potty stops for them.  Not even 10 minutes into our trip and we start hearing, “Momma, I go peepee.”  Great, we just discovered the problem with having potty trained kids on a long road trip.  This was going to be a fun drive.  We were able to find a place to pull over and then quickly get back on the road.  The kids seemed to fall asleep pretty quickly after that.  Yay!  Now, Pat will tell you how the drive took about 6 1/2 hours, but I disagree.  I only remember it taking about 3.  He will either blame that on the fact that I fell asleep too, or on my bad memory.  I’m going to go with the sleep.  We get to Grandma Jane’s house in King City about 2:30am and when the kids woke up they were super excited to see where we were.

The great thing about being in King City is that we get to sleep in!!!  Seriously.  We have both been running on the bare minimum of sleep since right before the kids were born.  The fact that we get a chance to sleep in every so often is awesome!  When we finally rolled out of bed the kids were eating pumpkin pancakes and playing with Grandma.  There I go with details.  Ok, as Pat will tell you, I have a pretty crummy memory, so I honestly have no idea what we did that day.  I think that was the day I dragged Pat to go see Breaking Dawn.  I guess I better explain myself.  Yes, I like the movies.  The books were shit, but I enjoy the movies and you can never have too many shirtless wolves.  They are also great movies to make fun of while you are watching them because the acting is just sooooo bad.  So, anyways, Pat will tell you he went kicking and screaming and I had to bribe him with all the candy we snuck in, but I think deep down he wanted to see Jacob without his shirt on too.

The next day Pat and his mom went and played golf and I took the kids over to my mom’s school so she could say hi to the kids.  I didn’t realize that there would be a catered lunch waiting for us in the teachers lounge.  Yummy!!!  After that we headed back to Grandma Jane’s house.  Later that afternoon Jane had a little gathering of friends so we got to be social and have some good food.  Pat’s friend Jeremy was there and I got to see my friend Mandy.  The kids were a big hit, as usual.  Later that night Pat went over to Jeremy’s house and played cards all night.  This is a little tradition they do every time they are in town at the same time.

On Wednesday we headed out to my parents house in Lockwood.  The kids pretty much just hung out and played in the tree house with grandma and grandpa.  That evening things got a little interesting.  See, every Thanksgiving my dad and I make the pumpkin pies.  I will brag a little here and say they are like eating a little slice of heaven with a cloud on top.  Getting the pies to that point can be a little tricky.  My dad is in charge of the crust and I do the filling.  It seems like every year things go terribly wrong in the crust department and it always ends up on the floor in what’s know as a crust tantrum.  I know where Jack gets it from.  This year was no different, but in the end we always make it work and the end result is divine.  I’m sure my dad would jump in if he were here and say how the kids helped and threw off his measurements or maybe it was because Ella was the one reading the cookbook.  Pat’s dad and Dorothy showed up after they pie episode so the next morning when the kids woke up they had a house full of grandparents!!

Thanksgiving:  Well, the kids played outside, My mom cooked, the grandpas BBQ’d the bird, Grandma Jane showed up, Lunchbox ate cat shit, we ate a kickass dinner, ate heavenly pie, bathed the kids, and went to bed.  That about covers it.

Friday morning started off with me working.  I had a photoshoot for two adorable toddlers.  It was so much fun because after the shoot, the twins got to come out and play with some new friends.  It was the sweetest thing ever.  They showed their new friends how to feed the sheep and gave them the tour of the treehouse.  They were all holding hands.  Seriously, the sweetest thing EVER!  The new friends taught the twins all about driving the power wheels my parents had.

That night Pat and I got to escape the house and head to The Waystation.  Let me back up a little bit here.  Lockwood is one of those “towns” that is in the middle of nowhere with about 400 people.  There is a tiny store no bigger that a shoebox, a K-8 school, and a post office that is smaller than the shoebox store.  It also has the Waystation.  It is a bar, restaurant, pool hall, and general hangout place for all the local drunks.  So why were we there?  Aside from it being the only place to get a drink, I got to meet up with a bunch of friends I’ve known since kindergarten!  Growing up, these guys were among my best friends.  There were only about 12 of us who when all the way from Kindergarten through 8th grade together.  and half of them were able to make it that night.  We had a bunch of drinks and played some pool.  Going back to the whole Waystation thing, this is the type of place that has $1 Shock Tops on tap during the happy hour and $2.50 after happy hour.  There is a reason everyone goes there to drink.  I guess we also were there on karaoke night.  There was only one person who could actually sing.  We wanted to take up donations from people to pay the others not to sing because they were just so bad.  Oh, and one guy was singing Nirvana, while sitting on the floor drinking a beer.  Classy place.  The truth is, we had such a fun night.  It was really great catching up with everyone.  This will be a regular thing the next time we are all in town at the same time.

Saturday morning came way too soon and started off with another photo shoot.  After that we just hung out at the house and then packed up the car.  We headed into Paso for dinner with my parents and a side trip to the candy store for the kids.  My dad payed them each a nickle, or “ni-no” as Ella says it, for each nail they picked up.  They got to take their ni-nos to the candy store and each buy a small bag of jelly beans.  After that we headed home after making a million potty stops.

Here are the rest of the pics from the trip

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Potty Time

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

This is a little overdue, but Shae and I realized we never wrote up a post about our adventures in potty training. My take on the experience is probably much different from Shae’s, but I’m writing this post so you’ll just have to make do with my version.

About a month before their third birthday, we made a quick trip up to Disneyland with the kiddos. Since we didn’t want to deal with running to the bathroom the whole time we were there “we” (aka Shae) decided that we’d start the potty training the day after we got back. For about a week before the trip, we kept telling the kids that after we went to see Mickey we weren’t going to have diapers anymore. I’m pretty sure all they heard was “Mickey blah blah Mickey”, but they were warned.

Anyway, the day after our trip to visit Mickey the potty training started. I have to admit that I wasn’t overly optimistic. I didn’t think the kids were quite ready (they weren’t giving us any indication when they had to go), and I wasn’t sure about the method we were using (no pull-ups, basically the kids running around naked/in underwear all day). However, Shae had decided the kids were going to house broken by their third birthday, so I voiced my concerns but then got on board.

The first couple of days were pretty rough, especially on Shae. The kids were not comfortable using their potties, and would hold it until they were in pain. Even the offer of marshmallows wasn’t enough to entice them to go. We basically spent the weekend with both kids sitting on their potties in the living room crying while Shae and I begged them to JUST GO ALREADY!!! It got to the point where they would hold it until nap or bed time so they could go in their diapers. Eventually they started to figure it out, and by Sunday night they were already figuring out ways to get as many marshmallows (or “maws”) out of us as possible.

Well, after two days of the fun I decided that I’d had enough and ran away. I gave everyone hugs and kisses, told Shae I expected both kids potty trained by the time I got home, and hopped on a plane to DC. Shae will tell you that there was a lot of work, but I’m pretty sure that the kids woke up Monday morning pretty much potty trained. When I got home, both kids were using their potties and earning their “maws”: 2 for pee pee, 4 for poo poo (and believe me, they told us exactly how many they expected). They were still wearing diapers for their naps and at night, but other than that they were doing pretty good. We had to cut back their marshmallow rewards (to 1 and 2) because they were going through our supply too fast. About three or four days later, I had to go out of town again and when I got home the kids were using the real toilet. Again, I’m sure Shae would say she had something to do with that but I’m pretty sure the kids just figured it out on their own.

I can’t tell you how nice it was to go to Costco and not have to buy diapers. I really had no choice but to buy more beer to fill up the extra space in the cart. The kids are both doing great, and outside of the occasional nighttime accident after one of them drinks too much juice with dinner there have been almost no problems. The biggest issue we have is that now nap and bedtime have become times for the “Potty Game” where the kids take turns getting out of bed and using the bathroom. It’s extremely annoying, but a small price to pay for no longer having to buy diapers.

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