Some Kind of an Update

I know I've been behind on updating anything lately. Sorry folks (all 5 of you that might check this site on a semi-regular basis). Things have been hectic around here and I just haven't had much of an opportunity to sit down and put some words out here.


I wanted to take a moment and share two specific instances from this week before I forgot them though. One was a couple of days ago, and one was this morning. Sometime on Monday, Anita went into the bathroom and I hear her shriek and groan that motherly "oh great, look what one of my brood has done now" kind of groan. I was sitting on the couch and had just seen Zach run into and out of the bathroom about 2 minutes prior to this. He was in there for less than 20 seconds before I yelled for him to get out of the bathroom and he did so. Well, I go into the bathroom to see Anita scowling over the toilet with a quite disgusted look on her face. I look down to see the toilet seat up and the hand towel floating in the toilet water. Classic. Of course, a laugh just popped from my mouth like a soap bubble popping. I couldn't help it. I caught the blame of course. After all, I should have kept him out of the bathroom right? I mean, 20 seconds and all..... I figured that was about the same as keeping him out of there.


This morning, I awoke suddenly to Anita shrieking quite loudly, "CONNER NO! What on earth are you thinking!?" To which Conner replied, "I was going to cut Zach's hair. I got a haircut, and I wanted him to have a haircut like mine." Though I wasn't in the room, I can very well picture the scene with the look on Anita's face and the pose the boys were in.... good stuff.

Little Monkeys

Today was interesting. Actually... yesterday.. since it's nearly 1:00 AM as I am posting this. I'm going to speak as if it all happened today though, otherwise I'll get all confused talking about yesterday when I'm really referring to today. Well, not the "today" today, but the yesterday "today". eeeehhhhhhh. nevermind, you get the idea.

First, Conner gets up this morning and after bugging Anita and I for about 20-30 minutes, he finally goes back to his room and closes the door. Where he then picks up his guitar and starts strumming a tune and singing for something like 20 minutes straight. Seriously. Solid music for nearly 20 minutes. We have no idea what he was singing, but that's okay. He was putting words to music and just making up his own stuff.

Then, as we lay there, Anita thought she heard something and she gets out of bed. She walks to Zach's room and he isn't there. uh ohhh... Well, he vaulted out of bed again this morning, opened his door, and Anita found him standing in the kitchen. *sigh*. I guess we're going to have to gate off that part of the house now at nights to prevent him from roaming in the mornings should he decide to make a break for it. This also means we are likely going to be converting his bed to a toddler bed this weekend.


Next, this evening, we were out at an ice cream shop and after we ate, I made Conner go the restroom since we had about a 30-40 minute drive home in the rain and it was already nearly bed time and I figured he'd go to sleep in the car. After he finishes his business, he walks over to wash his hands and I offer to help him get the soap from the dispenser since it is so high up on the wall. Well, he doesn't want my help of course and gets frustrated that I am trying to help, so I back off. What happens next? Well.......... he sticks one hand up very awkwardly, then uses the other hand to press the lever to get the soap to come out. Meanwhile, he is standing directly under the soap dispenser looking up to try and see what he is doing. He then presses the lever and..... WHAM, the soap comes FLYING out and goes RIGHT into his EYE!!!! He pauses for a second, stunned. Then the burning kicks in. This apparently wasn't baby shampoo and it definitely wasn't "no more tears", cause he starts screaming!

At this point, I quickly grab a wad of paper towel, wet it, and prepare to rinse his eye out. I tell him to stand still and look up at me and keep his eyes open. Can a 4 year old with something burning his eye do this? NOOOOOOOO! I'm trying to grab his head and hold it still and squeeze the water into his eye. Meanwhile he is dancing and screaming and I can't get a good shot on him so I keep squeezing water all over his face and hair while he moves all around. Finally, I have to pin him between my legs, and force his head back and hold his eye open while I squeeze water into it. This of course, brings torrential wails that I'm sure has the customer base outside thinking that I'm trying to flush my son down the toilet or something.

Well, eventually, I had to just pull him out simpering to the car. It was late, he was without a nap on a very long day, and was tired, and now had soap in his eye that was burning him. Poor little guy. Anyway, he fussed and kept complaining everytime we went under a light or turned on a light in the car. Finally, I told him to just cover his head with a blanket we had lying around and try to go to sleep. He took my advice and was out of it before too long. Thankfully!

Whew! What a day.

Conner with a Tie

For those of you who don't think Conner is growing up fast - as if there is anyone with that thought, this should eliminate the doubt. Conner in a tie! This was what he wore to church last week. It was appropriate to celebrate him scoring his first goal on the day before. He just looks so BIG here, it kills me.

Zachary.... uh uh uhhhhh.. this boy!

Since I'm finally getting around to making a few posts today, I thought I'd at least post something new and funny that isn't just a bunch of pictures. Though, I know that's what everyone comes for anyway... I know it isn't my [attempt at] witty banter.

Well, Zach is probably moving to a "big boy" bed soon. Sooner than Conner did for sure. Have we said before that this boy is our climber? Yah... so.... he is. Monday, I put him in his bed because he was throwing a fit as we came in the door from being outside. Within in 30 seconds, he had thrown his leg up over the rail and pulled himself up and was laying spread eagle balanced on the rail, holding the end of his bed to steady himself. I just looked at him and said, "You are going to fall from there if you don't stop that."

Yah, that was Monday.... so, this morning.... leg up, straddle rail, swing legs over, hang and drop, run away. Your standard "climbing the fence" exit strategy. The kids good... I'll give him that... really ... really good. Grrrrr.... this means we won't be able to contain him at all though, which sucks.

I'm thinking maybe something with a roof on it next....maybe thick bars or chains to hold him in place. He'd probably just figure out a way to get out of that too. Much like his pajamas... oh yah, did I mention when I went to get him out of bed Tuesday he was standing there in nothing but a diaper and a grin? I'm just happy he left the diaper on.

Soccer Games

I know everyone has been wanting some pictures of Conner in his soccer uniform, so I finally got around to pulling a few out, cropping them, sizing them, and loading them up for you to see. The last two games have gone well. Unofficially they have won every game they've played. I say unofficially, because we don't keep any kind of official score for the games.

Most of the kids have a sense of either they are winning or losing and of course all the parents know who is winning. Two games ago, Conner's team played against a team that one of his good friends plays for. They fortunately played well together and didn't get in any fights or anything. He and Max have been known to get a little wild together even though they are very good friends.

In last week's game, I think we "unofficially" won 5-2. However, one of the boys from the other team scored on our goal, so that truly wasn't a score for us if you want to be technical. There was one little boy on the other team that every time he'd get the ball, he would TAKE OFF with it. He was FAST! The only problem was, he always ran in a dead straight line. So, whatever angle he was at when he got the ball, that's where he was going with it. The second problem was, getting him to stop. We had to chase him down once after he was halfway to the opposing goal.... ON THE NEXT FIELD OVER! hehe.... ahhhh... great stuff.

The biggest thing to happen in last week's game though was that Conner SCORED HIS FIRST GOAL EVER! WooHoo! He was very excited. For the last two weeks, on the way to every game and almost every practice he has said at least one of the following, "I really want to score a goal. I'm not sure I'll ever score a goal. I'll work much harder to score a goal. I'm going to do my best to score a goal." We were very happy for him and very proud. He was proud of himself too, which was really cool to see.

Anyway, here are some more great pics of game day. You can see the guys before the game, all intently studying a spot of dirt in the ground. I still don't know what it was they were doing. I think they found a bug of some sort I'm pretty sure. Go figure, they're boys. You can also see some of them standing around talking to our coach (he's the head coach, I'm the assistant). One of the pics, you can see the boys standing with their arms around each other in the middle of the field and Jose and I are standing there laughing at them. They did this all on their own. We don't have any idea what they were doing. They huddled up and were jabbering at each other. It was quite cute and hilarious. In one of the pictures you see Conner holding the flag like he just claimed the land as his own. I don't know what he was doing, but it was too funny not to capture on film (pixels).

Caterpillar Boy

Here are some pictures to go with posts I made a week or so ago about Conner and the caterpillars. I'm pretty sure the name of this caterpillar was Cutie Pie.

Busted Finger

This probably isn't post-worthy without a picture, but I'm in Memphis and don't have the ability to get a picture, so oh well. For anyone who wants to know though, I busted up my left ring finger really bad Sunday night. I've been helping out with our youth group at our church and Sunday night we all played dodgeball. Well, sometime during the 4th game (out of 6 - I thought they'd kill me), I went to catch a ball and smashed my finger. I think what happened was as I went to catch it and was bringing my arms around it, I actually hit my left hand with my right hand somehow and jammed my finger that way. However I managed to do it, it really hurt and immediately I was feeling it.

By the time I left youth and was on the way over to Dave's house afterwards, my finger was already starting to swell and was really starting to hurt quite a bit. I decided to take off my wedding band from that finger and put it on my other hand. I was really happy I made that decision, because by the end of the night, it had swollen up like a plump little sausage link. It was also starting to get this sort of dark blue/green/black color under my knuckle which wasn't very attractive either.

Anyway, apparently I didn't break it because I can still move it, but I must have really sprained that joint really bad because it is still swollen - though greatly reduced now - and is still tender. I'm hoping that a few more days and it will be back to a fairly functional finger again.

Dangerous Dreams

A few nights ago I had this weird dream. I was in a dingy, dusky attic (or possibly an upstairs of an old house) that had an open window at the end of the walkway where I was. The walls/ceilings were close to me and on the wall was this weird plant kind of thing. At least it kind of looked like a plant. It had this spiky hair all over it with these really long stalk things at one end of it's body. Upon closer inspection it kind of looked like a caterpillar with hair that was entirely too long and stiff and that was of gigantic proportion seeing as this this was close to 3 feet long and 7 or 8 inches wide.

I'm standing there looking at this thing and for some reason I decide to spit on/at it to see if it is alive or anything, or if it is just some kind of weird plant that started growing up here somehow. As soon as I do this, the thing leaps off the wall, hits the floor, and starts scuttling toward me incredibly fast in a very threatening manner. Well, the creature is between me and the open window and my first thought is... kick it hard and kick it out the window. So, as it draws nearer, I rear back and WHAM, kick it as hard as I can and it doesn't go flying out the window at all, it is still attacking me. Now frightened out of my skin, I rear back again and kick with all my might.

It is at this point that an ethereal voice starts screaming at me, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP! STOP KICKING ME!"

I *pop* out of my dream and there is Anita screaming at me saying, "YOU JUST KICKED ME IN THE SHIN! TWICE! HARD! You have GOT to stop doing this in your sleep!" (note, this isn't the first time I've done something similar to this because of a dream) To which, I reply groggily, "If YOU had seen the thing coming after me, you'd have been kicking too!"

I profusely apologized next and then we both went off back to sleep.

As I remembered this story today though, I just remembered the spitting part for the first time since it happened and Anita doesn't know that part yet. I'm hoping I didn't spit in her hair before I started kicking her!