Bombs Away

I think it has been awhile since we've had an immature, gross kind of post. This is not a sign of Kristin and me maturing, but rather just us getting so use to gross things happening. I did have a new one the other day though. After bath I had Cole up on the changing table in his bedroom and he said something about going to the bathroom and did a reach around ass grab. I quickly grabbed him and hurried to the bathroom, carrying him sideways because I wasn't sure which end it may come out. As usual though, Cole sat down and nothing happened. Disappointed, we walked back to his room to put on his diaper and jammies. As I was hoisting him up to the changing table, while in mid-air, I hear a "pshhhh" followed by a "SPLAT," like a demented Batman comic. I looked down and sure enough, Cole shot some diarrhea on the floor at a pretty good velocity judging by the splatter (which as a Dexter fan makes me excited for the new season to start this Sunday; although he specializes in blood splatter, not poop splatter). Amazingly, I was poop free, the dresser and changing table poop free and the rug poop free. He just hit the hard wood floor and a little on his jammies. Not bad.

We didn't take a picture of the poo on the floor for the blog ...maybe we are maturing.

Hungry Hank

This how Henry reacts after you take away his snack cup and encourage him to play at the park instead.  Ridiculous. Kristin apologizes for her bra.

Car Jamming

Lately Cole has been taking more of an interest in what is on the radio or our iPod, which means I am going to have to delete Kristin's crap music and somehow put on radio controls so she can't dial into 103.7 fm. Cole will often shock us by "requesting" a song or starting to sing lines/refrains. Once when a song started up on the radio he told Kristin, "Oh good, I like this one." We often have our iPod on at home without really paying attention to what is playing. We should be happy he seems to favor our 90's deep cuts as opposed to rap or songs with swears, although I'm not sure what is worse - swears or Call Me Maybe. Although, I would love to hear him start rapping a little Perfect Gentleman. He also does a little dance move with his arms, slightly similar to fist pumping.

Cole's current play list:
We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister
It's Not Your Fault - AWOL Nation
Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen
Some Nights - Fun
Peaches - Presidents of the United States

He would be happy listening to these over and over and over but we would go nuts. When we need to not hear, "No! We're not gonna take it!" (Twisted Sister is definitely his favorite as previously mentioned) shouted in our ear by Cole we tell him the band members need to rest their voices and take a break. Seems to work because he will then check back in a little later and ask if "the break is over?"

Car Seat Overload

I am always amazed at the amount of kid shit you have to buy. I certainly would have guessed with having one kid you would need two car seats, one for each car. I quickly realized if you have nice grandmas that will help out they also need car seats. Now it is four. Then you learn that there are 3 or 4 different levels of car seats. Then you have two kids and things just get out of control. Next thing you know you have car seats littered about your house for a cleaning session.

6 of our 8 convertible car seats; infant carrier and bases not pictured

• 8 convertible car seats: approximately $1,050 (we even got one free)
• 1 infant carrier and base: approximately $200
• 3 additional infant carrier bases: approximately $200
• Total: $1,450
• Constantly bitching about the cost of kids: Priceless

Kristin's Projects Continue...

Kristin's next project, following the teepee, was a kitchen table. I had no interest in this venture. I just didn't think our kitchen could fit a table with chairs. We spent an entire morning shopping around for a kitchen cart that would be just the right size, and not 200+ dollars. It ended up to be a huge waste of time. We couldn't find anything meeting our needed specifications.

When we got home Kristin remembered an old table that was left to us by Flora, the previous resident of 1818 East Webster Street. It is a Sellers table from 1941. Pretty cool table. It has inserts that pull out to expand the top so it is pretty convenient for our small kitchen. A little larger than we wanted but we decided to make it work. It was in okay condition, the top is enamel and after a good scrub looked great. The metal legs were rusty so we had to sand and spray paint those. We had to sand, prime and paint the wood sides - good thing we had a long weekend to work on it.

I have to admit that I was wrong...yep, in writing. Of course, I still find Kristin's giant list of projects annoying, but the table fits pretty nice in the kitchen and so far the kids are much better eaters without all the distractions in the playroom. There are not many options for placement in the kitchen but after a few tries we seem to have found the one that works best. After some googling we are very lucky that our table just has the red trim - it seems that most of these tables from the '40s have an evergreen motif or a multi-colored diamond pattern. That would have been a deal breaker.

Not quite right yet

We do have another restaurant style highchair for Cole. We are going to take off the lap bar so he can easily climb in and out

We also plan to get a rug for underneath to center it more in the room

 

Henry is thrilled to be at the table and not shoved in a corner of the playroom

 



 

We Built A Teepee

Yep, Kristin and I built a teepee. Like every project, it wasn't even as close to as easy as Kristin made it sound. She does this every time! I think it turned out alright though and the kids are having fun. And, thanks to Cole's book about feeling angry, I did not hit or throw anything during the annoying and frustrating project because "feeling" is okay, but "doing" will get you in trouble.

Below are some pics of our teepee. It's nice to know that although I probably wouldn't be the greatest Indian, I would survive; at least in the summer. I am not confident this thing could withstand a snowstorm. We struggled the most with the cover, we ended up using drop cloths from Home Depot and iron-on fabric tape to connect the panels. Kristin had hoped to paint a chevron stripe on the canvas but after we were up until 1am finishing the damn thing any hopes for decor went out the window and we called it done. Happily we all do fit inside pretty nicely - there is even room for Bella although she prefers to curl up outside the opening and keep watch.




Shopping for teepee supplies

 



Testing things out with a sheet. We really wanted to make sure it was big enough so we could all fit easily



Oops. Lots of extra fabric. Error number 20

Finally all done