First Day of 3rd Grade

My baby. My first baby. The person who made me a momma. He started 3rd grade today. How did he get so big and so smart? A little bragging here: Trevor is going to be in the gifted program this year. Academics are truly his gifted area. He is a quick learner, a fabulous reader, and is a math whiz.


A retrospective


FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN, 2005

FIRST DAY OF 1st GRADE, 2006:



























FIRST DAY OF 2nd GRADE, 2007:





























FIRST DAY OF 3rd GRADE, 2008:

Momma jump starts the mini-van, with too much help

By Not-the-momma.

The mini-van has automatic closing doors. We are a distracted family and twice a door has been left open inside the garage all night. This would be fine, but our mini-van is not smart enough to turn off the interior lights when this happens, so the battery was low in the morning, the second time.

I had taken public transportation to work. That is another story, but it means my car was at home with a good battery but also I can't just run home.

So Andrea calls me and I start to walk her through the process.

First up, our bikes hang from the garage ceiling over my hood, so the hood on my car could not be raised. Andrea had to pull my car out, take down the bikes, then pull the car back in and open the hood.

Then I talked her through the process all the way up to the last connection on the good car. I mention there might be a little spark and Andrea stops. She has heard about car batteries exploding and all the children are either strapped into the mini-van or leaning over the hood. Not going to do it. Note to self: Don't mention 'There might be a tiny spark" when explaining things.

Andrea gets a neighbor to help and tries again. I guess it is a little known fact that battteries don't blow up if there is a neighbor present. With some additional phone support the van is started.

Andrea walks the neighor out and exchanges some pleasantries and says goodbye.

Andrea comes back to the garage to find the van off!. The oldest child has decided to turn the mini-van off to "prevent the battery from running out!" Frustrated, but with her fresh experience Andrea is able to restart it.

No, not done yet with story yet. The van's sliding doors are electric and they are confused so they won't shut. More phone support, but I am not really Googling anything on stuck open doors. Eventually, we found that they will close manually if you are determined enough. That reset them and she was on her way one hour later and drenched in sweat.

End of Summer

Summer is over. Trevor starts third grade tomorrow. I should have included a picture of his school. They are working on a renovation during the summer and the day before school it still looks like it was bombed out. I assume they have figured out how to hold classes in it. The preview day was canceled.
.
After only working one week of the five weeks Simon has been around I am back at work. I (Not-the-momma) went back to work Thursday for a two day week. I stayed late the first night and almost had to work this weekend. Back to reality.
.
Simon is doing well. He is 10 and a half pounds and he does everything well. He is occasionally cooing instead of just grunting and crying. The boy can grunt. He can pretty much hold his head up and his legs are pretty strong too. We even think we have caught him with a few smiles.
.
Trevor is a great help with Simon and Camille always wants to hold him.
.
Anyway, here are some pictures...

Simon, says "I caught a fish this big!"

Trevor, Camille and Simon in front of the newly stained, finally, front door.

Bubba and Sissy posed

Bubba and Sissy not posed.

Camille showing us her 'Yeah, I threw my bread off the table, so what!" face

Gratuitous Picture Upload

I'm home by myself now with three kids. As if I even had time to come up with a thoughtful, comprehensive post about the joys and otherwise of raising three children, much less write it down. So just enjoy the pictures.

Camille wearing the size 9-month overalls someone gave Simon:























Camille doing her favorite thing:























Munchkin trying to convice us she's as cute as Simon (didn't work):


















Our three kids in the morning:














Babies sleep in funny positions:























Luka (Andrea's Mom) and Simon:

The Family Minus One

Trevor is spending the night at a friend's house. Down one kid, we have free blogging time.

Simon with a good hair day

Simon says "Why is my boppy pink?"
Camille takes the opportunity to get a closer look
I caught Camille napping earlier
Andrea, sleeping Simon and our curious cat Xena

We had a good day today. Simon slept most of it. Hopefully we will not be up all night.

Catching up in photos

Here are some of the pictures and video taken in the last week.

Trevors Diving ShowTrevor took a 5 night diving class. and this was the performance for the parents.
.

Camille can't hold Simon Enough

Mr Big Pants
Simon says 'Thanks Aunt Cindy for the Shorts. Mom and Dad like how they come up to my armpits."

.

Simon learning piano from his big brother.

Trevors big dive...

BioHazard

On Monday night Simon befouled himself and his changing station. Then while we were cleaning up we left him uncovered and he peed on our sheets requiring a 3AM linen change. We now have a story to tell at Christmas in 20 years. :-)

.

I should have posted this yesterday, but ya kn0w, we'er like soooo busy. We were out of the house by 9AM to take the older two children to the dentist. After that we went to the mall for several hours. We have not done that in ages. Then, I went and got a haircut. That transitioned into a hasty dinner and bathing. Then both Momma and Not-the-momma had hour plus long conference calls AT THE SAME TIME. Momma's was local. Mine was Malaysia. Amazing coincidence.

KL
(Internet photo of Kuala Lumpur)

Not-the-momma

Olympics

We are enjoying the Olympics. This is the reason HDTV was invented. If you did not see the opening cerimonies, shame on you, they were awesome...until the parade of nations. Who knew there were so many countries? :-).

.

We have a special link to China and we have seen many of the sights first hand. The cycling road race went to the same section of the great wall that we went to.

.

I almost titled this 'Bye Bye to my TV shows'. We use a laptop as a TIVO and recording the Olympics has pretty much flagged everything else for deletion.

.

I am off work again for a couple more weeks and it is, get this, raining. The other day I poured four gallons of water into a coffee can with the bottom cut out (to check for Chinch bugs) and within a minute you could not tell I had poured water in that spot.

3rd Child Syndrome

Simon Getting Changed, 3rd Child Style

We all know about third child syndrome. We have seen it in others. First child is raised in absolute sterile conditions. Everyone's hands are washed a dozen times a day. By the third child the standards have fallen far. If the third child kisses the dog on the butt it only merits an eye-roll. We are not immune to this. Take our diaper changing station.

For Trevor it was in his own room atop a $300 changing table. His butt soothed by the freshly washed terry cotton surface. He could gaze out the window that was just above the changing table. His diapers and other paraphenalia were tucked away in their proper place in drawers just beneath him. His soiled diapers went into the 'diaper Genie'. Now contrast the picture above.

1) Simon is getting changed at the foot of our bed. Why? Because that is the shortest distance at 2AM and his room is totally empty and painted the wrong color. I'M WORKING ON IT ALREADY.

2) Simon is laid directly on the plastic of the waterproof changing pad. Why? Because he would pee on the washed terry cotton surface if we put it on. This is easier to wipe off.

3) Simon has no window (See #1). However, he can usually gaze at a cat that is twice his weight who looks back with a gaze that says 'Just wait kiddo, one day you will have a room and I will poop in it.'

4) Simon's diapers, wipes and lotions are spread across Andrea's dresser a couple feet away. Why? Easy to find at night.

5) Simon's soiled diapers go in the gender neutral colored tub that we got for 'free' with a two night hospital stay. Why? Lets face it. Up to a point the diapers don't smell so you don't need a diaper genie to put them in. Then once they do smell the odor is so bad that it penetrates the diaper genie so that the clean plastic of the genie smells just as bad as a diaper. Oh, and the tub was 'free'.

Not-the-momma

Still Going

What are YOU lookin' at?

Simon 1 - Dad 0

Well it HAS been an interesting couple of days. When the kids came back from Andrea's parents Friday it was late and everyone was hungry. I got dinner all set up and we sat down. Camille who had been acting strangely projectile vomited all over the dinner table. The only one who was unaffected by this chaos was Simon who slept through it. Camille has not shown any signs of illness since, but that killed our social plans for the weekend and set up a mini quarantine.

.

Yesterday I very nearly caught some Zs in the afternoon on the couch, but we have too many children and an answering machine that could wake the dead. So, no nap.

.

After two weeks I (Not-the-momma) am officially tired. I woke this morning at 5:40 and everytime I moved Simon grunted. I thought it better to get up and maybe get things done, but before I had finished a cup of coffee and early morning surfing Simon was up and needed to be held. At least he is really cute.