The Great Wolf Lodge Adventure!

Man, this really should be a Choose Your Own Adventure with a name like that. But it's not. Only I get to choose the adventure that gets shared by you.

Brace yourselves. Our first official vacation . . . drum roll . . . went pretty well. Yeah. Sigh. Nothing utterly terrible to report, I'm afraid. But I'll report anyway as we did have a rather splendid time.

As I might have mentioned at another time, we've never taken Gabe on a real holiday. We have gone out to visit my parents several dozen times, but that's it. In the past, Gabe has not been what you'd be tempted to call a natural traveler. He rather hates being in the car--it's the being stuck in one place part that he hates the most. Being one of nature's runners, he finds being strapped to a baby seat an abomination upon his very being (wow, three uses of "being" in one sentence, very original). And he's not much for sleeping in the car either. So, usually, after ten or fifteen minutes, he's losing his mind with boredom and spends the rest of the trip crying and begging to be entertained. Thus, we (and by "we" I mean "me") weren't terribly excited about the prospects of keeping him strapped in for extended periods.

So we decided to start off small with this trip to Great Wolf Lodge. It's a quite nice hotel in Kansas City that has a built in water part. Yeah, not just a water slide, an entire water PARK--and a fairly impressive one at that. Now, I'm not an expert on water parks--I've only been to Oceans of Fun once, and that was almost 20 years ago. And I've been in my own hot tub probably 500 times. And that's about it. So, maybe the park inside the hotel wasn't that big of a deal. Here, you decide.

Water spouts in the middle of the floor. This was located near the life jacket station and was, it seemed, more of an afterthought than anything. Someone saw a bit of empty floor and decided to fill it with spouting water.

The kiddie area. The water is only about a foot deep through most of it. This was a pretty basic feature compared to the rest of the place.

So, it turns out that I didn't get many pictures of the bit central water feature. I was stranded most of the time guarding the baby at our table, so I couldn't really get many good pictures, and the lighting in there was terrible. But here's a video of the 1,000 galon bucket that dumps every 5 minutes. I really hoped one of those kids would get knocked on their ass for the enjoyment of anyone watching this video. But, alas, they all had sound equilibriums. Drat.

What you can't see behind this massive water maze thing are most of the slides. The kiddie area had three small slides, but on the back side of the place there were two or three big slides. One of them looked to go outside at one point, even. I didn't get to see where they went personally, or if they were any good, but I was told they were awesome. It's just as well that I didn't get to ride them, though. I have a low tolerance for awesome.

Besides all the slides, the huge thing in the middle, and the kiddie area, there were two big pools and two small-pool-sized hot tubs. All in all, a MASSIVE use of our fresh water reserves and truly a testament to the kind of fabricated extravagance and wastefulness that we can achieve when we're really putting our minds to it! I mean, we could have watered several villages for a year just with the water that was used in the 24 hours we were there! America! Fuck yeah!

Actually, they claim to be a "green" establishment, though this claim might only be based on the in-room recycling that they make available.

Besides the water park, there were a number of other distractions for kids and adults (though, not adult movies--I checked the pay-per-view, and there wasn't anything even moderately racy available. Probably the draw-back of staying in kid-oriented resort hotel). There was an arts and crafts room, where Gabe and Finn painted two plaster magnets. There was something called Magiquest, which was for the older kids. Sadly, since we didn't have older kids, and didn't feel comfortable BEING the older kids, lest we be labeled pervert weirdos or worse, we didn't get to see what this was all about. I did spot a few treasure chests scattered throughout the hotel that could only be opened with one of the Magiquest wands. I was sad that I'd never know what probably lame magicks awaited inside.

Let's see. What else. Restaurants, gift shops, an arcade filled with the best video an carnival style games that 1995 had to offer (which I can't really hold against the hotel--I've not seen an arcade with new games in it for almost a decade now, which leads me to believe that there AREN'T any new arcade games anymore), and a massage parlor/beauty salon (that was the "for adults" feature, which, I found out the hard way, isn't the same as an "adult" feature. Man, you should have seen the look on that little old sixty year old ladies face when I asked her how much a "happy finish" would cost me in addition to the massage. She nearly got the vapors!). And I guess that's it.

So, a pretty impressive place, I thought. A bit on the pricey side, not surprisingly, but quite maybely worth it.

But now, bed. It turns out that sleeping in the same room with a two year old and a three month old is not very conducive to actual sleeping. Every hour, Norah woke up to suck her fingers and snort and snuffle a bit. Then Gabe would start laughing in his sleep or wake up frantically searching for his binky, blankie, or his Trucks book. And through it all I was hardly more than half asleep. So, early night for me tonight. I'll try and post more about Gabe's time at the park (with some pictures and video) tomorrow.

Long John Silvers and Forty Pounds of John Wayne

Warning: Another discussion of poop follows.

I'm sorry about this. I'm sure there are better things for me to talk about than poop, but it is, for some reason, a topic that I'm quite comfortable talking about--no matter how much whatever audience I have might wish otherwise. I blame the Foleys (my Mom's side of the family). They are famous, or infamous, I suppose, for talking about poop at the dinner table. They aren't fetishists or scatologists (that I know of, I guess), it's just something of a family tradition. Some families talk about their gardens or their school days, it wasn't uncommon for my family to talk about their BMs--or SOMEBODY'S BMs, it often didn't matter whose.

So, with that in mind, let's discuss Long John Silver's.

Yesterday, I went into Wichita for guys' night--my every-other-Wednesday-night gathering with whomever of my friends happen to be available that night. Cammi was with us. Cammi is a vegetarian--well, mostly, he eats seafood. Usually, when Cammi isn't with us, we eat hamburgers or chicken fried steaks somewhere for dinner. Because Cammi was with us, we had to come up with somewhere else to eat. Because we were gathered on the south side of town (decidedly not a haven for vegetarians and other weirdos), there weren't many options. The only one that came to mind was LJ's.

We're no stranger to the effects of LJ's. We used to frequent it BECAUSE it made us feel like absolute balls the next day--it was a type of challenge, a rite of passage, perhaps. We tried to eat as much terrible, terrible fish or fish flavored chicken as we could. But that was as far as the challenge ever went, really. There was no winner--obviously, since we all ate LJ's. But we did it anyway, for several years.

But that was quite some time ago. Now, we only eat there when we've forgotten what it does to the human digestive system.

As I sat on the can today, for the fourth time in three hours, I began to lament the loss of poor John Wayne. If only he'd made Long John's a regular part of his diet, maybe he wouldn't have died the way he did.

"How did he die?" you ask. "I thought it was stomach cancer, possibly caused by nuclear fallout he was exposed to during a movie shoot near a test range."

"Aha!" I reply. "You are a fool! Do you not watch informercials on Sunday morning television? Have you never seriously considered purchasing the Sword of Darkness? Aren't you tired of chopping garlic, nasty, stinky garlic? You haven't heard that John Wayne died with 40 pounds of duke in his colon?" (Seriously, this web site is AWESOME. I'm sad they didn't have the Sword of Darkness one, but I suspect it might have been a local-ish commercial of some guy selling 105 pocketknives and assorted blades for one small fee. Whatever it was, I couldn't find the video anywhere on the internet, and you are really missing out for it.)

Really, watch the infomercial. The dude is CREEPY, and he LOVES to talk about poop. It even makes me a little embarrassed. I find the concept of colon cleansing ridiculous and a little repulsive, but I found myself strangely compelled to call the phone number. He's just so convicted! I haven't called, obviously, because I like my colon non-exploding with fluids, but I was tempted.

Anyway, I think I proved beyond a reasonable doubt that I could not possibly have ten to fifty pounds of John Wayne in my colon today thanks to Long John Silver's. There simply would not have been the room. If only John Wayne (and Elvis, apparently) had had the guidance from bad fish connoisseurs like myself. He might have lived another thousand years or something.

Oh, and here's a picture of Button making a funny face when I told her that termination was going to begin on her parents in early October and she would be stuck with me forever.

Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen

A few minutes ago, I realized just how little Gabe likes me these days.

As Libby has been home these last ten days (and usually a day or two a week since the beginning of June), Gabe has come to rely on her being around. If he had his drothers, Mama would take him to bed (when she went to bed, of course, and not a minute before), get him up in the morning (when he got up, of course, and not a minute later), spend the entire day with him, then put him to bed again the next night. He is, quite literally, obsessed with her these days. If she leaves the room, even just to go to the bathroom, he starts whimpering and sobbing for "Mama! Mama!" then he'll bury his head into his arms in utter anguish while he weeps bitter tears. Then Libby comes back into the room and he runs up and hugs her.

The depth of his obsession is what has progressed these last few months--noticeably, I think, even in the last week that she's been home. Libby has always been his favorite--but until recently, I was at least a passable substitute. Today, though, I finally realized just how low I've sunk in his esteem thanks to three specific instances.

The first happened this afternoon. Gabe snagged a toe on one of the many toys that he MUST have strewn across the floor in the living room. "Owie! Owie!" he wailed--though he mostly does this for the attention, when he actually hurts himself, he often doesn't make a noise--wanting us to give him a hug and kiss his boo boo. I'm sitting less than two steps away from him, so I lean over and pull him onto my lap to give him a hug, and I kiss his smelly little boy foot. Because I'm a great guy.

The second instance of Daddy Dissing happened when we went over to Kris and Jess' so the boys could play together. Gabe wanted to do some coloring on the floor in the living room, so he wanted the little tupperware filled with crayons opened. At the time, Libby was in the other room looking up houses on the internet (because that's one of her hobbies), and Jessica was looking over her shoulder. I was sitting in the chair, right next to Gabe, so close that, had he not picked up the container of crayons and moved it, I could have picked it up first. Once he picked it up and started asking for it to be opened, I said, "Here you go, Gabe, I can open it." But, instead of simply handing it to me--an action he wouldn't have even had to get up to do--he carried the tupperware into the other room and asked Jessica to open it. So, not only was I lower on the totem pole than Libby, but now Jessica ranked higher.

Finally, tonight, when we put him to bed, came the final blow to my self esteem. We put him up to bed at 8:00--his normal bed time, but tonight he was definitely not interested in going to bed. Once upstairs, he started whining almost immediately. It started with cries for "Mama." After a few minutes of that, he decided it was time to open up the field to see what he could get. So he started calling something new: "Mama! Baby! Daddy!"

Yes, I was included in the list, and I suppose at this point I should be happy to be thought of as an option at all, but to be next on the list after THE BABY, who clearly couldn't navigate the stairs, much less help him get out of bed, is a real slam, I think. And the worst part is, I don't even have an owie that Mama can kiss and make better since my owies are all inside. Boo hoo.

And, as promised, I checked the videos on the camera, but there wasn't much on there. Libby did get some video of him in his new shark flotation device that we're taking on our vacation to the water park next week (stay tuned for what I'm sure will be an epic description of how that goes later next week). It's kind of funny.

But first, here's a picture of Button, since I haven't posted any new pictures of her lately.

Not her best picture. She looks like an angry little old lady. But she's definitely getting bigger! Funny how that works.

I'm not sure whether I should correct him or not concerning the noises sharks make--not for the sake of accuracy, more to make sure he doesn't anger some shark somewhere down the line. Even though they are the "bear of the sea," I'm pretty sure sharks don't actually growl. If they say anything, it's probably closer to "I'm going to eat your legs! I'm going to eat your legs!" But, then, that wouldn't even be audible to the human ear without some sort of amplifier or something. Might be worth teaching Gabe to say "I'm going to eat your legs," though, just for the hilariousness that would ensue.

Another Missed Opportunity

Today, I passed on a possibly priceless video opportunity in favor of good parenting. Some parents have America's Funniest Home Videos in the forefront of their minds at all times, and these parents would likely have grabbed the camera right off the bat. I, on the other hand, have a thin layer of "sense" covering my basic instinct to capture funny things on video (it is, admittedly, a rather thin layer, as I have, more than once, silently hoped that Gabe would do something truly memorable that would allow me to submit to AFV--so far, there just hasn't been anything THAT funny yet), and today that sense forced me to intervene.

Gabe has been pushing his latest set of molars all this week. Three Year Molars, we were told by the dentist last week. As such, he's not been all that fond of sleeping. He's been waking up at 2:00 in the morning pretty regularly, and then waking up for good at 5:00 again (a habit we thought we'd broken by moving his bedtime back to 8:00--which has us deeply saddened as we think he'll go back to waking up at 5:00 again even when he doesn't have teething to use as an excuse). And his naps have been regularly interrupted after only an hour or so, and that was the case today.

Usually, when he wakes up early from a nap, there isn't much chance of getting him back to sleep. I've tried several times to lie down with him in our bed, but I'm a terrible person to fall asleep next to as I move around a lot, so Gabe has never had any luck getting back to sleep. So, today, I just brought him downstairs and put him on the couch. I laid him down on a pillow and covered him up with Poof--his favorite feather comforter. And, lo and behold, he actually fell back to sleep in about five minutes.

I moved to the office so the noise of me doing whatever it is I do all day wouldn't wake him up, but I still went in and checked on him every five or ten minutes (he moves around A LOT when he sleeps, which stinks because we really want to transition him out of his crib and into a bunk bed, but know that he will just end up on the floor every night). He did fine for about thirty minutes, but the last time I went in there to check on him, he was hanging head first off the couch. He wasn't QUITE to the tipping point, yet, but one mid-strength kick would have sent him tumbling head-first off the couch.

I weighed my options--either I get the camera, have a seat on the floor, and wait for the fun to start, or I try to scoop him up without waking him and rearrange him back on the couch. I opted for the second. In retrospect, I SHOULD have at least gotten a picture, but I wasn't thinking. Actually, I WAS thinking. I was thinking, "If he falls off the couch, he'll be awake, and he'll probably fall off the couch in the next few minutes. On the other hand, if I can right him without waking him up, he might still sleep for another hour and I can do whatever it is I do all day in peace for just a bit longer."

Unfortunately, he wasn't sleeping deeply enough to not wake up when I put him back up on the couch. So, all was for not.

Also unfortunately, since he's been fighting a toothache while Libby has been home all this past week, he's not been much of a firecracker, either, which means we haven't been able to get any good video to post on here. It's all very sad and I've lamented more than once that all this extra opportunity for me to blog has been going by the wayside as I've suffered from a lack of good material.

Sigh. I don't really have anything new to post on here except a video of him eating ice cream and cherry pie that we took about two weeks ago (Libby has the camera with her in Wichita, and there MIGHT be something on there, so I'll post it later if I find something). It's only mildly amusing, at best, but it's all I have to offer. I promise we'll try harder in the future.

A Light Hidden in a Bushel Basket

Yeah. That reference to a parable is a bit of a stretch, but it was the only reference to a basket that I could think of that didn't involve someone named Marion being chased by a persistence (the new official name for a grouping of men with questionable intentions--because "mob" has been done to death) of men in turbans.

Really, what we had was a basketful of Gabe's top half. It's on the video, and I'll get to it shortly.

Libby's two weeks off has been pretty nice so far--though she's been spending a lot of it away from the house as we try to get several appointment oriented activities done these next two weeks when her work schedule won't have to be rearranged. Yesterday, Gabe had his first dentist appointment.

We THOUGHT he had a cavity on one of his top teeth. Turns out, it was just a calcium buildup of some sort and nothing to worry about. Libby took him, so, unfortunately, I can't really elaborate much on how the trip went. I do know that he didn't mind parts of it, but HATED the fluoride lacquer thing they did for him at the end. Otherwise, I guess it went pretty well. Hardly blog-worthy, unfortunately.

Then, today she took the van in to have it's 10,000 mile checkup done. Thursday, she has a haircut appointment, then next week we have a court hearing for Button and a rather late in the coming two month checkup, also for Button (and late in the coming because it took us awhile to find someplace to take her that would accept the medicare cards that foster children are on--effing medical establishment and their pain in my ass methods . . . bring on the public option, I say, and stick it to the greedy bastard insurance agencies and the medical organizations they have wrapped around their fingers! Yeah! Eat it! And while I'm ranting, I want all the money back that we had to waste on the non-surgery options for Libby's back surgery last year--plus the year of her life that she was nearly laid up in pain while the slow process progressed [how's that for bureaucracy getting between a patient and doctor?]--just to keep trying the cheapest options possible to appease the insurance agencies, only to have to pay MOST of the bill for the surgery when it was actually done. Goddamn, rassafrassin, sonsabitchin, frickinfracks!)

There. I'm done. Sorry about that. I get a little irritated about this whole healthcare thing. I've found that my tolerance for the stupidity surrounding the "debate" issues is wearing tenuously thin. People should consider doing a little research before voicing their opinions (I have, so I feel safe making this statement).

Anywho. Busy next two weeks. I also plan to fix four broken windows that have appeared in the windows around our house since last winter. The panes of glass in some of our windows is about one hundred years old--or possibly older--and some of the weather we've been having has been playing silly buggers with them. So, I figured this would be a good time to try and be productive.

Now, onto the video. Here's Gabe, playing a new game of his own creation this eveing. It's called, "fall head first into a narrow basket with your hands at your side so you can't get out." This was the second time he did it that I caught on tape. He went ahead and did it a few more times afterwards. Seriously, I'm torn. Either he's gifted, or special. We can't decide which.

Two Weeks of "Yea!"

Libby's FMLA leave time officially started after work on Friday. Hurray! Only almost three months into it, she was finally able to work out two weeks that she could get off straight. And people have the gall to suggest that government employees are somehow lazy or not dedicated to their jobs. Pah, I say unto thee! And a pox upon your family!

I'm looking forward to it. Mostly because it means that, should we choose to, we could probably BOTH take naps. Every day. Naps! OR, I could stay up late, like I am tonight while I type this up, and then sleep in the next morning (and by "sleeping in," I mean 8:00--not actual sleeping in considering my normal time to wake was 9:00 for YEARS, but as close as I get now). It should be quite enjoyable.

So, get this. A little while ago, I paused for a moment and took stock of just where my life is right now. I sat down heavily on our couch and truly pondered what I'm doing with my life and what I'm contributing to the world as a whole. And then I thought about how I felt about all that. Here's a pretty accurate sum-up.

My goal, for these next two weeks while Libby is home, is to coax the baby into accepting an 8:00 bed time as her regular schedule.

That's it. That is my entire short term goal.

Now, I think this says something pretty spectacular about my life right now. I am in a place where the only short term goal I have to worry about is coercing my two month old into going to bed at a more convenient time for us. That is pretty amazing. Everyone should be so lucky.

So, yeah, I'm feeling pretty good about things. Thanks for asking.

And with luck we'll even get Gabe doing more funny stuff this week (he's a show-off for Libby, so it should be easy), which means maybe I'll have more stuff to post on here! Hurray for everything!

A Farm Story

This morning, for reasons best left to my imaginary therapist to figure out, I woke up to a dream about one of the more unpleasant experiences I had while growing up on the farm. What happened in the dream, of course, wasn't an exact retelling of what happened (for one, I was an adult in the dream, for two, there was the potential for naked women in the dream--there weren't any, unfortunately, but that potential always exists and my dream mind is always quite hopeful of the chance and more than a little disappointed when my dreams don't take advantage of the opportunity), but it put the event in my mind so I figured I would share it because it quite accurately illustrates one of the main reasons that a life on the farm was obviously not a viable option for me.

See, even though I was only nine years old when this event took place, it COULD have happened to me as an adult. I'm just that kind of adult and NOT cut from farming cloth. There were other events, of course, that gradually turned my mind away from the life my father and his ancestors through time immemorial chose or had thrust upon them, but I have to admit, this one ranks in the top two.

As I said, this event happened to me when I was nine. Rather, I was eight, but I would be turning nine in a few weeks--which would make it early July of 1983--but I considered myself nine. We were plowing. An explanation of plowing might be necessary for anyone unfamiliar with farming, but I'm not going into it because what "plowing" is really isn't important to the story. Let's just say that plowing is the part of the field working process that happens shortly after harvest and leave it at that.

The summer I was eight was the first summer that I was a "regular" plow operator. The previous summer, I had spent several hours learning how to drive the tractor, but had been relegated to lunch time relief. This summer, though, I had been deemed worthy of regular time on the tractor (or, more likely, either my dad or one of my uncles--whom he farmed with--decided that they rather liked the idea of having someone other than them driving a tractor. This, actually, is the primary reason for procreation in farm families--breeding replacement workers so that the parents can do something other than spend twelve or thirteen hour days suffering through the blistering heat and mind numbing boredom out in the field. Being the second oldest child in our chunk of family, I was declared "ready" at an even earlier age than most kids on the farm are. This, of course, sucks for farm kids and is probably the reason most of us growing up hating anything and everything about farming--it did, after all, rob us of our childhood summers and the fun that's supposed to go along with it. But that's another topic for my imaginary therapist to work out) . I wasn't full time, yet (that wouldn't happen until the following summer, when my dad "conveniently" went down with a slipped disk and I, at the ripe age of almost ten, had to pull most of his weight in the field), but I was working six to eight hour days ever day. And, by the way, I was paid $.50 an hour for my work. Child labor laws, anyone?

The day in question, we finished up in one of our fields around 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning and were preparing to move to another one about six or seven miles away. The tractors that we owned were old, slow, mostly cabless (which means there was no air conditioning except for the stifling 100 degree wind that heated up to 120+ when it was blowing over the impossibly hot tractor engines), and awful because we were poor and couldn't afford the nice tractors that the bigger operations used. This, I was assured from the very beginning, built character. And, looking back, I suppose it did.

Anyway, the top speeds on the tractors we owned were between 15-20 mph. The one cab tractor we had going that day (which my uncle got to drive because he was the oldest one out there) was the fastest, and the beat up old John Deere 4020 that I had to drive was one of the slowest. However, for reasons I never understood, these 4020's had TWO overdrive systems set up--meaning it was possible to extend the throttle range beyond the top position two additional times.

As we moved, I followed my uncle because I didn't really know where we were going. Quite probably it had been discussed, and I'm sure I was told, but I hadn't been paying the least bit of attention because, honestly, I didn't really care where we were going. It would be just as hot and dirty there as it was in the field we were leaving, and I had Star Wars to think about.

So, because I didn't really know where I was going, I couldn't just allow myself to fall well behind my uncle's tractor lest I end up driving randomly until I had to stop at some house and ask them to call my family to find me. But because the lead tractor went faster than my tractor, I had to make use of the double overdrive system to keep up.

The first overdrive is on the throttle itself. By pulling out the knob on the end, it was possible to extend it just a tad further and increase the RPMs. The second overdrive was a little pedal on the floor, which, when pressed, increased the RPMs just a little bit more.

The problem came from the fact that I was very short--far too short to press on the floor pedal while still sitting on the tractor's seat (actually, I was too short to sit on the seat and push in the clutch to change gears, too, which should have been a pretty handy sign to my family that, perhaps, I wasn't quite old enough to be driving a tractor just yet. Side note: that summer was also the first that I had an accident while driving a pickup truck--I was only going five mph at the time, but I still managed to run into a tree, also because I wasn't big enough to reach the clutch and brake without sliding down the seat). PLUS, I had a notoriously short attention span.

So, there I was, standing on the floor, trying to pay attention to keeping the pedal pressed down, barely able to look over the steering wheel, and attempting to keep up with my uncle, all while daydreaming about Star Wars (I have to assume, since that was about ALL I thought about at the time). A recipe for disaster, which is what followed.

As we reached our goal, I recognized the place we were going--one of the family farms (actually, it was the farm house that we bought the year before and which my family would move into the next year--at the time, though, it was empty as we were doing extensive repairs and remodels on it still). Since by that point it was coming up on 11:30, I assumed we would be pulling into the drive to stop for lunch. My uncle, however, decided that we had enough time to pull into the small field right before the driveway and get a start on that before we broke for lunch.

He slowed and eventually came to a stop in the middle of the road to pull out the series of pins that were necessary to keep the plow from wobbling all over the road and destroying itself at speeds that exceeded five miles an hour.

Because I wasn't paying close enough attention (and because I assumed we would be pulling into the driveway a few hundred yards ahead), I didn't slow down the way I needed to. See, tractors don't use brakes. They HAVE brakes, but they aren't used to slow them down. They are used to make sharp turns by effectively stopping one back wheel or the other. It's possible to use them to slow the vehicle down, but only if they are latched together so both brakes go down at the same time (or if the person driving is adept enough to hit them both at the same time, which I wasn't)--but even then, the slowing down process is painfully jolty as the tractor makes lunging, skidding decelerations.

Thus it was that I approached my uncle at very close to road speed with almost no way to stop myself.

I must have realized what was going on eventually, because I didn't run into the back of his plow at full speed. If I had, someone might have died. And that would have been tragic. I DO remember trying to use the brakes to slow myself down, but, since they weren't latched together, the result was more of my tractor being thrown to the right and then the left than of actually slowing down. I hit his plow at probably close to 10 mph.

What followed would have been very entertaining video to watch, I'm sure.

My uncle, wisely, removed himself from between his plow and his tractor. He waved his arms wildly at me, which might have worked a charm if I'd been a charging cow. Perhaps it was a little ironic, then, that I proceeded to mount his plow like a randy bull with my hot, dirty tractor. Or perhaps not.

What followed was a series of cursing outs that I have mostly blocked out. It was explained to me, at great volume and peppered with colorful words and phrases, that I'd mostly destroyed our biggest plow, which would take weeks to repair, and would significantly slow down our progress. Between guilty sobs, I apologized profusely and tried to explain my side of the story, to no avail, especially since I really didn't have any good excuses to give them (except that I was NINE YEARS OLD, of course, though that bought very little sympathy from any of my family).

Then I asked where we would be going for lunch.

Possibly not the most interesting story out there, but it certainly made an impact on me. So there you have it.

And in child-related news, Gabe just realized that his little cardboard playhouse was gone earlier this morning. One of his favorite games for the last several months has been to come up to the gate to the office and ask for a piece of tape. He would then take that piece of tape to his house and "fix" it by randomly applying the tape. Earlier today, he came up to the gate and asked for tape. I said, "We don't need tape anymore since your house is gone. Nothing needs fixing anymore."

He wheeled around to the spot where his house had been (but hasn't been for more than a week now), noticed it was gone, and melted down. He started wailing and gnashing his teeth and pulling his hair and pounding his fists against his breast while he cursed the heavens for the cruelty of the world. Well, he did start crying fiercely while repeating, over and over again, "House. Gone. House. Gone." He ran around the table and sat down heavily on the other side while sobbing and repeating his mantra. I went over to comfort him and tried to explain. "You have an awesome room to play in now, you don't NEED your house anymore. You haven't even played with it for a month now."

This pissed him off no end. He got up and ran to the place where his house used to be. He threw his arms up to the wall and leaned his face heavily into them, still crying and saying, "House. Gone." It was INCREDIBLY damatic. So I had to grab the camera.

Of course, when he heard the camera turn on, he knew what I was doing, so he ran out of the room and was sufficiently distracted that he stopped repeating his two word lament over and over again. Which sucks. Why is it that kids can't keep doing priceless things for just an extra thirty seconds while the camera is prepared?

Anyway, here is what video I got, which really only shows just how upset he is about his lost house and little more. Oh well.

Also, last night I got Button to laugh. Not just smile, laugh. It was a kind of weird, nearly creepy (but still cute as hell, somehow) little noise. I had her doing it for almost a minute, breaking occasionally to yell to Libby to come in there. But Libby wasn't in any hurry, so, by the time she got there to see it, Button was slowing down. Then, by the time Libby got around to getting the camera, we'd been at it for like a minute already, so Button was bored with my antics and we only got one little sort-of-laugh out of her. But it's on video! Woo hoo!

Libby's Adventure

Yesterday (Saturday), Libby decided to take Gabe and Norah to Exploration Place, a science oriented "fun" place in Wichita. She had some discount tickets from work and managed to talk Kris and Jessica into taking Finn. Here is her account of the events:

"I see why mom would have these great ideas and then later wonder why she tried so hard. Gabe and Norah and I went to Exploration Place ((EP) yesterday along with Kris Jessica and Finn. Of course there was all the pre-packing, loading the stroller, taking extra clothes, diapers, etc. along with a 45-minute drive.

· We played in the EP’s big foyer until the McHughes got there and then went down the long hall to the dinosaur exhibit. Finn was instantly petrified. Gabe was okay until the T-rex moved…petrified. Sigh. Okay…so the dinosaurs were a bust.

Norah in her stroller, oblivious to the terror and suffering going on around her.

· We all went around the corner and played in the little kids area for a good half hour to 40 minutes. Good opportunity to change Norah’s diaper and load her up in the sling and out of the stroller, so that Gabe could have a sit down break.

Inside the toddler area. Blessedly dinosaur free.

Last time we went to EP, Gabe and Finn SOAKED themselves in the water displays. This time they managed to stay pretty dry (because both sets of parents remembered to bring a change of clothes, obviously)

· Time to walk around to the other stuff (‘cause we, the moms and dads, were bored). First though…you have to walk through the dinosaurs again. I had Norah (hungry by this time) in the sling and Gabe in the stroller. I stopped just outside, but in view, of the dinos to make a quick bottle of formula and throw some fruit snacks at Gabe. Screaming baby, petrified toddler, Saturday crowds.

· Safety on the other side of the dinos we went up to the entrance to the Whales exhibit – no food allowed. Okay…we’ll walk around to the other permanent exhibits first. This would give me an opportunity to feed Norah with one hand and push the stroller with the other.

· Kansas in miniature – great. Ice cold a/c and little choo trains. Bought us a good five minutes.

· Out to the tornado exhibit that the boys LOVED when we went to EP in March after Gabe’s adoption. Kris and Jess each held a boy and went into the tornado chamber. Terror this time. This was followed by some general running through the crowds of people.

Inside the tornado exhibit. For those who've never seen it (which is probably just about everyone), it's a plastic tube. Inside, wind swirls around you while a MPH reading tells you how fast the wind is supposedly blowing. In reality, I don't think it's ANYTHING like a real tornado. They claim the wind gets up to 70 mph, but I've been outside on normal days here in Kansas and felt more blown about than in this tube. Still, scary enough for kids, so I guess it's a good teaching tool about the value of not running into the middle of tornadoes.

· On the other side of the tornado-y stuff is the “flight” area. Gabe saw a young girl turning a crank to power an old propeller and went up to the adjacent one. One crank…two cranks..bored…crank kept turning with momentum…smashed lip. Blood went everywhere. Gabe was screaming, blood was pouring out of his mouth, and the baby is still hunkered in her sling. I used one of Norah’s blankies to try to keep the blood mopped up…it seemed to take forever to get it to stop. The bash was inside his mouth and, at the time, I couldn’t tell if it was just the inside of his lip or if he blew out a tooth as well (turned out to be just his cheek but it looks like hamburger today).

· All calmed down we all headed back over to the New Zealand whales exhibit. First…we had to cross through the dinosaurs again.

· Once inside the whales, we could see the big skeletons and life-size blue whale heart, and the sounds of whale calls. Two toddlers instantly terrified. Still with Norah in her sling, Gabe has jumped up on me too. Jess takes Gabe, Finn is clinging to Kris and Norah is oblivious. We last less than 10 minutes in the whale exhibit.

· At this point we are all fed up and ready to be done. As we head out toward the exit we of course have to pass through the dinosaurs again.

· Once back in the foyer, we re-group and discover someone is poopy. Butt checks…it is Norah. Off I go to the restroom, leaving Gabe with the McHughes. Now, Norah is a really easy baby but she is a little hard to burp. All this time she has been smooshed in the sling. I move her upright to extract her and the pent up pressure of the formula (un burped) projectile pukes all over me and her. At least the bathroom is empty. A quick change of poop, scoop her up, and head back out to the foyer.

· Back out in the foyer all looks fine. Jess comes up to me and says, “you know how Gabe busted his lip on the right side? Well, while you were gone, he slipped on a chair and busted the left side. He bled for a little bit but is fine.” No worries by me…the kid is the most indestructible thing I have ever seen.

· Finally we are loaded up to leave…total time INSIDE the EP…90 minutes."

After she got back (I was at work this entire time), I called to see how things went. She told me the story. Then, because I'm an "I told you so" kind of person (probably my worst character trait, I admit), I asked "So, did you learn a valuable lesson today?" She won't admit it, but I think she did.

A Little Depressing

Last night, Libby posted a few new videos she took of Gabe over the last few months onto our youtube account. While she was there, she started browsing through the older videos of Gabe. "Wow," is all I can say.

And I say it for a few reasons. First, it's pretty spectacular how fast kids grow up in those first few years. We were watching videos of him from just last Christmas and were a little amazed at how much he's changed physically in just seven months. He's getting taller and he's losing his cute round head and baby fat. But, since we see him every day, I guess we just don't really notice the subtle changes.

The second reason runs along the same line but opposite. As I am completely impressed by how much he's changed physically, I am more than a little unimpressed with how little he's changed in the doing-what-you're-told category. We were watching movies from October of 2008, and in that video we were saying exactly the same things we say to him a dozen or more times a day now. A year of repeating myself ad nauseum. It's no wonder my brain is deteriorating at a rapid rate.

And, just to save people from having to go to youtube to see a video, I'll post one of the new ones here.

This was taken at the county fair the last weekend of July. We walked around the animal barn so Gabe and Finn could get a look at the animals. Notice that Gabe's attention is almost solely focused on the animal's butts. I'm not sure what it means, but I'm guessing we'll have to keep a close eye on the boy when he gets older.

Two Month Review

Yes, it's a little early, but I figured I might as well do it while I am sitting at the computer and have the wherewithal to type coherently.

On August 5th, Button will be two months old. We missed out on the first few days of her development, but whatever. I think I am able to do a competent two month review nonetheless.

Here are a few of the things that I've learned over the past two months:

1) Second children really do get the shaft--I can only imagine that it gets even worse the more kids you have. We were constantly hovering over Gabe and belaboring EVERY aspect of his development and environment. Was he pooping on a regular enough schedule (yes, regular ENOUGH)? Was his head size right for his age? Are the diapers we're using allowing enough air circulation? And so on. Every piece of minutia was scrutinized, analyzed, and inevitably adjusted time and time again. Great pains were taken.

With Button . . . well, things are a bit different. Maybe it's because she's so low key, allowing us to NOT worry about her (where Gabe, as I'm sure I've mentioned numerous times, DEMANDED our full attention whenever he was awake--and that really hasn't changed all that much just yet), but there is very little of the extra close scrutiny going on these days. We keep close tabs on her, of course, but there isn't much worrying about her poop schedule or if the noise going on in the background is appropriately educational. Mostly, we just keep her out of Gabe's path of terror so she doesn't get swept up in his wake (to mix a few metaphors).

2) I understand the picture thing now. Growing up, I remember noting several times the differences in the albums that my two brothers and I had. We all three had the same style of photo album, just different colors. My album, by mid-grade school, was mostly full. There were pictures of me at all stages doing all sorts of amusing and embarrassing things. Ben's album was about two-thirds of the way full--though a few of those pages were taken up with large school portrait photos, obviously meant as filler. Then, poor Jon's album was less than half full, and almost all of the pictures were school portraits or from school related activities (usually the same ones that Ben was also doing something in).

In other words, the first child is well-documented and the rest of them better be doing something damn cute and keep doing it for awhile if they wanted any sort of picture trail leading through their childhood.

I shudder to think how many pictures we have of Gabe. The last time I checked, it was over 1000. Granted, since they are digital, we're not erasing anything yet, so even the most terrible pictures are making their way into the file, but still. So far, in two months, we have about twenty pictures of Button. We did that in the first two days that we had Gabe. I'm sure that number will pick up eventually, once she starts doing something other than sleeping and drooling--especially since we have family everywhere that wants picture updates--but I can feel a distinct degree of slacking interest in documenting EVERYTHING as we had with Gabe. I just don't have the energy for it anymore.

3) According to Einstein's Law of Conservation of Energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Energy may transfer from one form to another (kinetic, potential, heat, etc.) but it's always SOMEWHERE. I have a theory about how this theory pertains to parenting and how its transfer has some direct correlations with age. I call it Albers' Theory of Parental Energy Transfer. Or something that uses bigger words and sounds more sciency.

OK, this is a bit complicated and I'm less than practiced at explaining anything even vaguely scientific, so bear with me. People have energy. When they are young, they have quite a lot of it. As they get older, this energy level dissipates somewhat. If the person doesn't have kids, their energy level doesn't dissipate very quickly. Their original energy doesn't have anywhere specific to go, so it just gradually disperses into the ether and is later picked up by young people who have the ability to tap into these reserves.

People with children, however, directly transfer their energy to their children--as the children are close and their energy sucking abilities are legendary. Thus, the energy levels of their children are directly proportional to the energy they themselves still possess. In other words, a child with high energy tolerance will syphon off just as much energy as possible from their parents (and, then, continue to draw from the aforementioned ether if need be). The parents will have reduced energy--far more so than if they didn't have children--and that energy level will continue to deplete, no matter how much they try, until the child is finally old enough to move out of the house. At which point, age has played its part and the parent really can't hope to regain all that much thanks to the natural dispersion of aging.

Let's make an equation for this. Let's say the parent's energy = "U" and the child's energy = "G." Then the resulting energy level of the parent = "H." Thus UGH. Yeah, I know that's not how math works (this equation basically means that all of them are multiplied, right, which doesn't make any sense at all), but since I don't really know how math works, it's the best I can offer. At least I had the decency not to mix numbers and letters. That was surely math's downfall, when it decided that numbers weren't good enough and it had to start encroaching on the written word. That's when it lost me and my respect, anyway.

4) And so on. I'm sure there is more that I've learned, but I don't have the energy right now to think anymore (one of the draw backs of having a high energy child like Gabe--he's sucking all the energy right out of me).

Here is a new video, though. We've been working on Gabe's maniacal laugh, so when he takes over the world, he'll be able to do it properly--sitting on a high-backed chair, stroking a long-haired cat, addressing the United Nations, laughing maniacally as he offers his demands. Usually he'll do it unprovoked, but I had to try and prompt him for the video, so the results are less than world-leader-intimidating. He's going to need to learn to do it on cue, though, so we'll keep working on it.