Professor Austin

I know that no one will believe me but the kid has been the devil the last couple days. The glasses are only going to make things worse as I think they've multiplied his cute factor by 1000x. He really will be able to get away with murder.

Some videos

For your viewing pleasure.

First up, Austin loses his first tooth.


And Ashley getting around. It's time to clean up the living room as no cables, books, or anything else that might be laying around is safe. At least we have a sunken living room so she'll be contained for a few more months.


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The finesse of being dumb.

Beware...insomniac drivel ahead. Proceed with caution.

There is a method to my madness at times and playing the incompetence card has gotten me quite far in life. The art of it is riding that fine line between coming off as a bit confused to looking like a stupid dumb ass. Or as the POTUS says, a stupidly dumb ass.

I blame my father...he is the super heavy weight champion of the world in the game of incompetence. It's much easier for my Dad to screw something up just once and then have Joe or some other unlucky sap have to deliver him from here on out. Of course he has found the trump card in getting Joe over to do his dirty work, i.e. fix his treadmill, figure out the cable box, look at his car...he simply has to call and say why don't you guys come over and I'll buy food, food, food!! He knows that we'll never say no to the Colonel's mashed potatoes and gravy and like crazy suckers off we trek and while the boys and I eat, Joe gets stuck fixing something that Dad probably should have done himself and usually the potatoes are gone by the time Joe gets to sit down to eat. Poor Joe. My Dad is a flipping genius!

Key points in my game of incompetence include but are not limited to the following.

1 - Ask tons of questions. After a while the person answering will usually say "how about I help you do that" and usually that translates into "let me do this for you before you majorly screw it up!"

2. Ask one "key" question. "Honey, where do you keep a hammer?" I know darn well where Joe keeps his hammer. Asking for a hammer then opens up the dialog of "why do you need a hammer?" "I just want to hammer some large screws in our walls and hang pictures." "There are picture hanging kits for that." "What are picture hanging kits." "Don't worry I'll do it." Bada boom bada bing ching.

3. Screw something major up just once. I am no longer in charge of balancing the checkbook because I did something bad years ago that I can't remember. Worked though.

4. Cry - works every time.

5. Feign major worry about doing a good job. If others see you are making yourself ill over doing something they will usually step up and do it for you or at least help you out. At the very worst, if you do indeed screw it up, it'll be more forgivable.

6. Live by the mantra of under promise and over deliver. You will shock people this way. Sometimes this ruins your cover though. My cooking is a good example of this. If people expect nasty crap than they'll be pleasantly surprised to find something quasi-edible waiting for them.

Okay, so I'm not the smartest cookie to crumble. So what of it? I do wish I was less naive and gullible. I will believe about anything you tell me. I'm also crazy forgetful. It's a horrible trait but like the incompetence my friends know how to get by this character flaw. They will use an intermediary to get things done. After telling me did you ever do "such and such" and me proclaiming "no, but I will"(many times over)... friends know to ask Joe "did your wife ever do such and such" and that usually lights a fire under me. For this week, yes I finally turned in that receipt that's been in my wallet for over a month. Yes, I got the salt shaker cap out of my purse. Yes, I sent Tommy's hockey camp registration in. Yes, I turned in our golf registration.

I guess I'm lucky that I have a husband who puts up with my crazap and doesn't put me down too much for it. And I'm thankful my friends haven't bailed on me yet either. And FTR - if anyone ever wanted to get Joe a t-shirt that says "I'm with Stupidly" I'd completely understand.

Our Crazy Week ~ Happy & Crappy Style

Happy - Ashley has been sleeping well again and so have I.

Crappy - Our basement flooded due to a sump pump switch failure and monsoon rains. We are still drying out.

Happy - Austin lost his first tooth! He was so brave letting Ms.Jill yank it for him.

Happy - Tommy lost his 7th tooth!

Crappy - I flunked my EKG at my doc's office.

Happy - A visit to the cardiologist and running on the hamster wheel gave me the all clear.

Crappy - Little Stellan the Internet celebrity is doing poorly again with his SVT. So many people are praying for him to recover. I know many of you readers are following him too. It just breaks my heart.

Happy - Our ball team is doing well. We won our first game yesterday and got rained out the 2nd game. We'll try to finish out the tourney next Sunday.

Crappy/Happy - It pretty much rained all last week but we did need it so it's all good.

Happy - We had two awesome parties at the Bojo's. One with the school staff, one with the ball team.

Crappy - My Mom's van broke down when we were at Sam's Club. What a day...

Happy - Cleaning the basement I've found more memento boxes. Who can say that they still have the shirt they were wearing when they shared a first kiss with their future wife? Joe also has his Chuck E Cheese uniforms, his Super Science Team shirts, and other crazy shirts. Our kids are going to be spitting someday cleaning out all our crap. I can just see the garbage pile that day.

Happy - I'm looking forward to the St. Elizabeth golf outing this weekend with the Bojo, Muylle, and Wark families. FORE!

Happy - I learned how to play "Spoons." I don't know how I managed to live 31 years without being schooled in this.

Crappy - Due to the sump pump crisis I had to sacrifice the big sale at JCPenney's and the closeout at Education Express! DOH! I was looking forward to the Penney's sale. :( I'm sure I'll live.

Crappy - My house looks like a hurricane hit.

Crappy - My van looks like a hurricane hit.

Happy - I found the rest of the baby toys we'd packed away in the basement.

Happy - I have no appointments the rest of the week!

Happy - Ashley's a healthy little critter. 25 inches, 14.4 lbs at 4 months. She handled her shots like a champ.

Happy - We are going to Disney World in 27 days!!

I guess life is still good with the Happy's winning over the Crappy's. But I tell you what after the prime of my life post things kind of went south and I feared I had jinxed myself. Sleep - bad, Heart - Broken, Basement - Flooded, Flower Garden - Weedy, Diapers - failing. Hahaha, no life is still good. Be thankful for everyday.

Keep praying for Stellan, I know things for his family are definitely not good right now.

6:20 ADD CRAPPY - Our grill just burned up but thankfully our dinner hadn't been thrown on yet! Like major flamage and smokage, Joe putting it out with the garden hose kind of fire! Our neighbor came out and says "I guess you'll be eating your steaks well done." Isn't he witty. ;) Hardy har har! His grill is open right now maybe we'll be heading over there. My mercy it's been a rough week! Joe was calm, I was less than calm. I kept waiting for the propane tank to blow! What on earth will happen next?

Happy - Oh yeah, and Happy Belated 2nd Birthday to my blog. :)

I am royally screwed

Because I can't blank-ety blank sleep!!!!!!!!! I've gone to bed many times and just cannot drift off. My brain is moving 100 miles a minute! Don't know what's happening. I've checked on Ashley and the boys many times tonight. I can hear Ashley's ticker going, she has barely moved a muscle and sleeping so peacefully. Maybe tonight she will sleep again. She has woken up every night between 1:30 & 2:30 so I figure I have about 22 minutes and I will be in the clear. Yeah right! She'll be up...as sure as the Pope is Catholic, Ashley will be up. And I will be a mess tomorrow. When I get overtired I get grouchy. Then I will laugh until I cry. Then I get feeling sick. Wash, rinse, repeat. This insomnia is a recipe for disaster. I could blow a "major-hindy" to quote a friend.

On a nicer note. I must give a Happy Birthday shout-out to Julie. My dear friend who has been my sanity saver many, many times! I don't know what I'd do without her to sound off to. Probably blow more major-hindy's. ;)

4 month sleep regression

Okay, so this waking up every 2-3 hours in the middle of the night now is for the birds but apparently it's fairly common. It all started Wednesday and we're in night four of this bullarky! I started googling 4 month old and got a bunch of hits on sleep regression. Scary comments - some kids didn't get better. Crap!!! My good sleeper from day 1 is now kicking my butt at 4 months. All I can say is thank goodness I don't have to work.

Tommy has an 8:00 baseball game in Millington so it's almost time to get up anyways.

Prime of my life...Prime of my life...Prime of my life...

The Best Medicine for letting your older kids go...

A new baby of course.

Last summer I had the helicopter Mommy post about how I was so leery about letting the boys have much freedom. Well with Ashley I've had to let my guard down a bit. I'm not just being neglectful but I have let Austin run amok at the ice arena when I've had to nurse Ashley or something. Today Austin had an eye appt. and I had to dash to the "contacts room" to feed her and Austin stayed with the doctor all on his own. He has to get glasses by the way but that's another post.

And the last couple days I've let Tommy hang out with the neighborhood kids until dusk. Last night it was just next door and I finally had to call to get him to come home. Tonight it was the neighbor a little ways down. I look out my front door and they are about a football field and a half away on the side street in our little circle. Every so often I would look and I could see his red baseball cap in the back yard but for the last 20 minutes or so when he was gone I kept looking out for him. Pretty soon I saw him trudging down their driveway, into the road and walking home. I was just watching him from the front porch and he had his shoes and socks in his hands (they'd gotten muddy) and the closer he gets I realize he is in his own little world singing something. Tommy LOVES singing by the way, I swear he is always singing something. He's embarrassed me a few times with his singing in fact because it's always something odd, sometimes inappropriate (Clarence Carter Strokin as a two year old on the way to Disney World with Grandma in the car comes to mind.) ;) Pretty soon the neighbor dog starts barking and he starts sprinting towards the house. It was quite comical, I start laughing and he finally realizes I've been watching him.

I guess in posting this, lately I've realized that Joe and I are in the prime of our lives. The boys are so much fun. Ashley is a doll. The boys are still young enough to love on and snuggle. Tommy especially is super affectionate, Austin not so much but you might get some sappy love from him if you catch him at the right moment. He just shows his love in strange ways, i.e. blocking doors so you can't leave, or hanging on your leg. Julie found this out Saturday. With Ashley I feel like the luckiest person in the world getting to experience all the joys, the wonder and awe of raising a perfectly healthy baby without taking it for granted like I maybe did with Tommy after all the trials and tribulations we went through with Austin and later Autumn Rose. We are all healthy generally speaking. Our parents are still doing well enough that they can enjoy their grand kids. Life is good. We're established and secure, much different from those volatile 20's where I think we still had a ton of growing up to do although we thought we were true adults. I've got to remember where I came from in the future when my kids are driving me crazy as teens/young adults. They'll turn out okay. (I hope) But for now, I'm thankful for where my life is. I'm thankful for everyday, but just wish they wouldn't pass by so quickly. I blinked and Tommy was 8. Even with a new baby, I'm not ready to let him go too far...just a quick run down the road is far enough for me.

The Haircut

So as Joe says I live a "transparent" lifestyle and yesterday was the "the haircut day" and I've been talking up this haircut for over a month now. The long hair was getting to be too much to handle every day with blow drying and straightening forever so it had to go. I always do this after having kids. I went very short a year after Austin was born and decided to grow it out one more time before getting old and needing to keep it short. i.e. 31. ;) I don't know why I thought 30 was old but now that I'm 31 I was clearly wrong. Maybe 40 is the "new old." Make it 60 actually. My beautician did a beautiful job cutting it, it looks exactly as I pictured it. But I know it's the wrong style for my face shape. But then again, my poor hairdresser has the worst job in the world because I'm never happy with how my hair looks.

Before



And now I present to you SpongeBob Squareface. My 8th grade haircut minus the poof bangs.

Oh what a beautiful morning...

I went to bed around 11:00 by midnight she was up and no mild soothing was going to work. She wanted to eat. In the middle of that I heard Austin howling about something. Thinking this was going to be the beginning of a nightmarish evening I walk to our bedroom with baby attached, flip on the lights and make Joe go up and deal with Austin. He was trying to get into his bed which if you saw via twitter he found every stuffed animal we had and put it on his bed. So Joe dealt with that. I put Ashley back to bed and go back to sleep. I think I only woke up once and looked at our monitor, saw it tick and drifted back to sleep. Finally around 6:30 she started yelling for me, I go up and am greeted by a great big smile. We survived.


...Everything's going my way!

Trepidation

The baby is upstairs in her crib. I REPEAT THE BABY IS UPSTAIRS IN HER CRIB!!!

If all goes well tonight I will be heading to Babies R Us tomorrow for some mesh crib bumpers to contain her little feet. She went down fairly easy after a very crabby day. Just a little squawking and she was out. She didn't nap well and was just a grouch. Maybe the time away from home on our little northern getaway was too much for her. I hope she sleeps okay. We have an Angel Care Monitor that will go off if it doesn't detect any movement from her after 20 seconds. Well it's already gone off twice because she has scooted all the way to the side of her crib and is sleeping sideways against the head of her crib. We're trying to adjust the sensitivity. Uh oh, it just went off again. Not sure how this is going to go. Maybe I just need to turn it off and have faith that all will be okay. She was fine in her pack-n-play up north and we didn't have a monitor. I just have a feeling I'll be running up there fairly often to check on her. But if she's sleeping well I guess that is all that matters. I'll let you know how it goes.

I can just hear her saying to herself where the heck did these buttheads put me?

Dodging Summer Boredom

With baseball of course! Tommy had a tourney this weekend with his 8 & under team and got 2nd place. He is also on the 9 & under team but didn't play with them because they were in a 10 & under tourney. Last week he had practice every night, sometimes 3 hours with both teams. He played pretty well but was by no means flawless. He played 2nd base and every time the ball would get hit to him my heart skipped a beat because he tends to throw wild and I just don't have the confidence with him on the field like I do when he is on the ice. Anyhoo, he'll stick with the 9's now since he played with them last year. I don't know, he says he'd rather ride the pine with the 9's then be great with the 8's. (Like my hokey rhymes?) I guess with him on the pine I have less stress. He's having fun though so I guess that is all that matters. And we are having fun hanging with great parents and watching America's favorite past time.

Down & Ready Reese!


Hoping to score from 3rd


The Reese Rockets


Sherri's puppies enjoy their day out at the game.


Runner Ups