A Two Part Family (In Two Parts)

Part One: "The Normal Years"

My husband and I didn't wait too long before beginning our family. About two months after celebrating our first wedding anniversary Nicholas was born. Well, to put it like that is an understatement. He arrived in a particularly dramatic fashion after a full day of induced labor and some concern from the doctors that the baby was under stress. I was finally whisked away to the operating room to deliver by C-section. If you've ever seen the John Hughes movie "She's Having a Baby" it was pretty much like that only without Kevin Bacon. My DH still gets teary eyed when he hears the Kate Bush song from that movie, although he'll never admit to it.

Nick seemed to be pretty much a regular baby. He had many cousins from whom to compare. We did notice that he didn't drool as much as other babies, nor did he ever have a problem with spitting up. He decided to walk on his first birthday and he was very easy to potty train. He was rarely fussy and extremely well behaved for a little boy. We, of course, assumed that this could all be attributed to our excellent parenting.

It was with this sense of confidence (now, fully recognized as delusion) that we proceeded in providing Nick with a sibling.

Ian's arrival was uneventful considering it was a scheduled C-section. Everything went well and by the book. My DH was relieved that we had another son. He figured we had such success with Nick "why mess with a good thing?"

Ian was completely different.

For starters he was lactose intolerant, therefore he was very fussy and spit up quite a bit, well, a lot really. Think of Mount Vesuvius and you're somewhere in the neighborhood. It was discovered early on that Ian was also allergic to peanuts. Despite his "messier" start, Ian, like his brother Nick, was (for the most part) well behaved with an occasional lapse into mischief. His outgoing, adventurous demeanor was the perfect counter to his brother's shyer, more reasoned tendencies. The two of them became "thick as thieves."

As a family we enjoyed trips to Disney, Santa's Village and Story Land and numerous overnight camping vacations. Every weekend we would drive (when gas was cheaper than milk) to one of the many beautiful, scenic, picnic areas, or beaches that the State of Maine provides. Our life wasn't perfection, but we at least seemed to live somewhere near it.

It was with this sense of contentment (now fully recognized as insanity) that we decided to expand.

To Be Continued

Boof and a new Hat!

Matt and I bought a cheap video camera and we've been having a little too much fun. I continued to have fun as I played with the not-so-cheap equipment here at WCSH 6. My daughter Rosa (aka "Boof", short for "beautiful girl") is really wearing a hat from Australia. It's ugly and I just put it on her to bug Matt. At least I think it's entertaining!

Sam's Top 5 Most Annoying Toys

You know how you see a toy in the toystore and you think your son or daughter would just love to have it; Then to get it home and a week later you are tempted to take a sledgehammer to it's colorful, noise making, repetitious little head and bash it till the springs are flying all over the room. Oh yeah, we've got some of those toys in our toybox and I'm here today to name just a few:

5. So, see the piano that Mickey is holding? As you push on a key, Mickey sings to it, or 'La's' to it. This is really cute the first couple of times, but after hearing Mickey La-La-La-La over and over, especially not even to any particular tune it's enough to make you want to "La-La-La Laet ME HAVE THAT THING SO I CAN RIP MICKEY'S VOCAL CORDS OUT!"

4. I think the reason this toy annoys me is because it's located in our kitchen and the thing just likes to blurt out a farm animal noice at any given point. So, say it's 6am, you're barely making it to the coffee maker and a cow noice comes out of the blue. Jumps the bejeepers right out of me evertime.

3. Ah, it's a cute little puppy, and it's a learning puppy, it sings and it teaches and it's annoying as hell. It's loud and it seems to randomly talk to itself and scares the crap out of you and I can't seem to figure out how to turn it off. Even it's freakishly sensitive to movement and aiiieeeeeee! Fortunetely, Jordan's more interested in the non-signing, non-teaching real dog. Bubba's not real thankful for that, but I am.

2. Don't tell my son, but I recently hid this dog in the cellar. Besides this toy being too big to actually put in the toybox, so I have to stare at it's ugly face everytime I'm in Jordan's room, this dog also likes to randomly talk to itselt. One day I'm going to walk into a Dog-Learning conversation, they'll probably get so smart that they'll be talking about how they are going to take over our house. This learning dog seems to suck up the batteries like a kid with a bottle of juice, and then let the annoying begins. I'll just share with you what it sounds like if I may..."Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa! So, you going crazy yet?

1. I'm having a hard time even looking at the picture of this toy. I don't know if it's the annoying music it plays or the fact that if you don't immediatly answer it's question it keeps asking and asking and asking. "Where is the lion?"......."Where is the lion?" (music plays again) "Where is the lion?" I don't know, but I'd like to find a real one so that I can feed you to it!!

Like so many things in this world, I suppose your opinion could be different, one mom's trash could be another mom's treasure. This list is just according to me, the EXPERT (ha!), you should totally avoid buying any of these toys for your own child, you could if you want buy them for someone else's child, especially if you don't like their parents very much.

Birthday Party Fun!

My daughter's good friend Emily celebrated her 12th birthday party this past weekend at the Maine Academy of Gymnastics. I must say I would have loved to have joined in on all the fun...though I am sure that would not have been the cool thing to do. I would have loved to have hung from the rings or run and jump off the trampoline into a pit of 8 foot deep foam cubes. Who wouldn't? I would not have done so well on the parallel bars or balance beam! I have a hard enough time walking some days:) This was one of those parties that I didn't have to stay but I wanted to...I grabbed my camera and started snapping away. I guess if I couldn't join in on the fun, I may as well take some pictures. There were kids of all ages, boys and girls and all seemed to be having a great time.

http://www.maineacademy.com/our-facility.shtml