…and one more on the way

Life is very interesting when you have all boys. I have three, very soon to be four.

Life with boys includes, but is not limited to:

Farting noises

Uranus jokes

Superheroes

Video games

Toy dissection

Knights and battles

I have also made some observations along the way:

1. Never say “okay” if you weren’t paying attention to the question.

2. Fighting over the baby brother can quickly turn into fighting on the baby brother.

3. A single baby fart can entertain the older brothers for hours.

4. So can a baby booger.

5. Boys have the coolest section in the toy store and the Disney store.

6. But not the clothing store.

Ben’s reach

Monday was Panera day since nobody wanted to cook. We brought home our wonderful goodness, and since it was kind of cool and rainy I got potato soup. Ben didn’t want to sit in his high chair so he was sitting on my lap as I ate. It was an interesting exchange. Ben was holding a spoon because he likes to hold things, and I was trying to see if he’d let me feed him. He was squirming and not cooperating. In all honesty these days he’s a little more adverse to oral stimulation. Ben’s getting in a few teeth and he’s been making such progress with physical development that I guess the oral motor skills took a back seat. And that’s my fault.

At one point during dinner Ben dropped the spoon he was holding. It fell to my right, so I leaned over to get it. As that happened I guess I leaned Ben forward just a bit, and he saw something else that he wanted to play with. The Styrofoam bowl that the soup was in. By the time I came back up with the spoon (total elapsed time: 0.7 seconds) the bowl was tipped all the way over, and the soup dripping off the table.

So Benjamin is coming up with some pretty creative ways to put an end to any physical / occupational therapy sessions Mom and Dad try on occasion. Luckily it was a thick soup, so it didn’t all land on Ben and my lap.

Don’t superheroes get maternity leave?

You could subtitle this post Disturbing Superhero Images, vol. 2
Here’s vol. 1 in case you’ve forgotten. I should really keep up to date on these things.

Jonathan has this Spider-man & Friends memory game. In this game you match the top half of the superhero to the bottom half. A very interesting concept and I’m sure this game is enjoyed most by the Marvel supervillians.

Well, upon close inspection of these playing pieces (because I have nothing better to do) I noticed something. The male superheroes like Spidey, Thing, and the Hulk are buff, with six pack abs and bulging muscles.

Okay, so maybe Spider-man looks more like Fonzie. The girls, however, look 4-5 months pregnant. Here’s Spider-girl and Storm:

Being married to a currently pregnant woman, I can truly say that it is indeed a super power. But not exactly in the crime fighting sense. More in the creating life sense. Karen’s other superpower is getting me to go get things for her.

Where do babies come from?

This is the first in a series of posts aimed at educating my readers. I know that drivel you were taught in health class, it was all a pack of lies. I can tell you with confidence that there are many things that make babies magically appear from the sky. These include:

1. Purchasing more Christmas stocking hangers than there are people living in your house.

We bought these when Aliyah was staying with us, but then she moved on campus. That makes this one her fault.

2. Having a car whose seating capacity is larger than your family.

3. Having an unused guest bedroom in your house.

This one is also Aliyah’s fault. Note that the color of the room is pink, guaranteeing that the child will be another boy.

4. Having a blog whose tagline starts with “Life with three boys…”

5. Being on someone’s blogroll who calls your blog “Ben and his THREE Brothers.”

6. Naming your blog “My Three Sons.”

This is what I almost called my blog, but I’m nowhere near Fred McMurray’s height.

7. Putting off the vasectomy.

Okay, so maybe this is the real reason

The Cliffs of Insanity

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That pretty much sums up how I’m feeling right now.

This summer we’re going to start this big comedy all over again. This is the reason why blog posts have been few and far between lately. Karen said that there was an elephant in the room that we didn’t want to talk about. That’s great for her to say but I’m not going anywhere near there. Rule #1 is husbands of pregnant women should not compare them to pachyderms. EVER.

Ben:1, Dad:0

Benjamin’s therapy sessions don’t always go as planned. Sometimes Ben doesn’t like what’s going on so he tries to sleep to escape it, which means we have to try something new to keep his attention. His therapists aren’t big softies like Dad, though, he doesn’t get away with much with them. But sometimes he’s already asleep when his therapists get here. This is due to Dad’s lack of a meaningful schedule for him. It’s always interesting to see which technique works to wake him up each time.

Last week Ben had Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy back to back. That’s a lot of work for one little guy. And it was also probably my fault. Ten minutes or so into OT Ben decided it was nap time. So we tried lots of different things that didn’t work. That’s when I brought out the big guns: the black beans. Yes, we’ve been using dried beans and rice as sensory therapy lately, but even that didn’t work.

Usually it’s the grabbing of his arm that bothers him the most, but he generally likes the beans a lot less than the rice. And yes, that means that one of my strategies to wake him up was to annoy him. Tell me you haven’t done it. Besides, it didn’t work. We continued trying different things and he eventually woke up when he was good and ready.

Where did I put those receipts?

Isaac goes to a Catholic school. Since we’re not Catholic his religion classes are often very enlightening, especially through the eyes of a seven-year-old. Apparently one day early this week they were introduced to the differences between “wants” and “needs.” This lesson came complete with an in-class activity:

What an opportune time to have such an activity! I noticed that he crossed out “Toys” five times on the worksheet. “So Isaac, that means you don’t need toys? If only I’d known sooner! Maybe we should include this paper with your letter to Santa!” Isaac didn’t think it was such a good idea.

The Halloween tax

Who loves Halloween the most?  Is it the kids, the parents, the candy makers?  Personally I think it’s the dentists.  Just look at last night’s takings for my two trick or treaters:

Do you really think they should be eating all that candy?  Not me.  It’s bad for their teeth, it’s bad for their health, it’s bad for anything breakable in the house.  That’s why we have the Halloween tax at our house.  The Halloween tax is taken from the loot while the kids are at school or sleeping (or otherwise engaged during the day).  The first things to go are peanut butter cups, and Mom and Dad race to see who can claim them first.  Then we calmly pick through the remains to see what else catches our fancy.  I say “we.”  It’s mostly me.

So yes, I graze on my kids’ Halloween takings.  I suppose that makes me evil.  Dr. Evil to you.

Cleats

I really mean well. Really I do, but here we have another example of what I thought was a great idea turning on me.

Your kid signs up for soccer. You think two things, right? Shin guards and cleats. That’s what he needs. Isaac has had cleats since he was five playing U6 soccer for the AYSO. So when Jonathan was getting ready for his first soccer practice I went out and got him shin guards and cleats, and his very own blue soccer ball. They make soccer shoes very narrow for some reason, and Jonathan has wide feet. That plus that equals we had to buy cleats for him that were a half size too long. That’s okay, they look great.

Then he gets out to the soccer field. Wouldn’t you know it, his uniform is black and red, just like his new cleats. Way cool, Daddy’s the hero! Celebrate!

But there’s just one problem. Jonathan is four years old. The cleats are a half size too big. They play on grass in a very uneven field. Figured it out yet? Well, let’s just say that sometimes he has trouble lifting those cleats out of the grass, with the result being he falls over.

At least there aren’t any rocks in the field.

Mark ruins August

Benchmarks are always good. It’s good to know “Ick, I ruined dinner, but it wasn’t as bad as last week’s Jerk chicken.” or “This pizza isn’t very good but it’s not the shape of Wisconsin.” Our family (and by that I mean Mark) has a new benchmark for success, or more specifically, failure.

In life we all make mistakes. We all make bad decisions, errors in judgment. And in these mistakes there are varying degrees of disaster associated with them. And in our house we now know that there are bad ideas, horrible ideas, and then there’s Wal-Mart.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. If I’m still home to watch the boys during the day I can work two or three nights a week third shift, right? Right? Perhaps not. Had I been working just weekends I still would have failed, but it certainly didn’t help that I was on four nights a week - in a row. By the morning following night #4, the boys were on their own, playing video games all day in their pajamas and eating candy for lunch. And it would take three days off for me to start feeling normal again. Well, as normal as I can be.

I’d been working nights for two weeks when I gave my notice. I told them I’d work the existing schedule and then be done. Problem was, there was three weeks of schedule already done, and two of them were jammed together - four days on, one day off, four days on. Ugh.

It’s amazing just how neurotic you become with sleep deprivation. Do you know how confusing it is to start your shift on Monday and finish it Tuesday? Halfway through the night today turns into yesterday and tomorrow turns into today. And somewhere along the line (I’m not sure the exact time) tonight turns into this morning. People start talking about “tonight” and they really mean “tomorrow.” Then I get to go home and sleep all day watch the kids. Is it any wonder that my love affair with coffee became an addiction? After working those eight nights during a nine day period I actually said to the boys “If you don’t eat your dinner tonight I’m selling the Wii on ebay!”

I once had a college professor who told me “You can’t fail if you never try.” This is something you never want to hear from a college professor. He was trying to make me feel better, knowing that at least I’d had the courage to pluck up and do something stupid. And I suppose it’s true. Adding something to the list of my stupid ideas is better than sitting around wondering what would’ve happened if I’d tried this or that. And boy, I set my sights really high on this one, didn’t I?

Oh, and a guy made a pass at me while working the cheese wall at 2:00am on a Saturday night. Or was it a Sunday morning?