Week of 10/26/14 to 11/1/14

This was a week in late October! Wow!

Sunday: Watched football and baseball and Hell in a Cell PPV on WWE Network

Monday: Cleaned the house, including the bathroom and stuff. Deep clean, because...

Tuesday: My mother-in-law Kris flew into town that night! Listened to the World Series game six on the radio, mostly.

Wednesday: Went out to Lucky Ladd's farm in Eagleville, TN. Was a lot of fun. Lydia brought her new puppy to our house. We made all sorts of Oriental food. Is oriental not okay to say anymore? The Giants won the World Series!

Thursday: Made homemade waffles. Trick or Treating at Lipscomb for the kids. Got MafiaoZa's pizza and carved pumpkins!

Friday: Halloween!!!! Got donuts from Donut Den! Lots of exclamation points! Rainy, gloomy day. Didn't go tricker treating with the kids becasuse had to nap and go to work. Yes, I spelled tricker treating wrong.

Saturday: Read a lot of Boy on Ice: the Life and Death of Derek Boogaard. A lot.

So...what day would I discuss in more detail?  I'll go with Wednesday!

Wednesday was a cool day for the fact that we drove the 45 minutes out to Eagleville for the pumpkin patch/farm for a fun time.  It's so quiet out there when you get away from the city! the silence was deafening.  I ate a carmel apple. I ate a fried peach pie. I fed goats and llamas feed out of my hand. I climbed in a giant spiderweb with my kids.  I went down a huge slide with Miles. Evie rode a pony and rode on tractor thing.  So much fun! And later...later! Lydia brought over her impossibly small new puppy named Lola.  It's a pug mix and it's way too small. Then the Giants won the World Series! What a day!

Week of 10/19/14 - 10/25/14

Hello everybody and how do you do? I'm doin' alright, I reckon. Anywho, here's a rundown off everything that happened last week!

Sunday: Read some of my nice book called Blood Aces The Wild Ride of Benny Binion. the Texas Gangster Who Created Vegas Poker by Doug J. Swanson. That's a lot of capitalizing of letters right there.  Anyway, I did that, then watched the Titans lose and the 49ers lose and it was all just a terrible day.

Monday: Didn't do a whole lot.  Made burritos and they continued to rule.  I believe this would be about the 88th consecutive week in which I made my favorite food, homemade burritos.

Tuesday: Bethany skipped half her work day to come hang out and watch Evie at dance class with Miles and I. We ate on campus which I hadn't done in a while.  The World Series started and the Giants won.

Wednesday: Finished that Benny Binion book.  World Series game 2.  Podcastrated interview with my dear old friend Tommy Feathernuts.

Thursday: Pretty standard Thursday.  Workout. Eat food. Surf web. Play with kids.  Predators beat the Blackhawks which is always nice.  RandomMania and Caleb joined.  Was fun timez.

Friday: Went Dollar Tree and Party City and Five Below...so cheap stuff stores which is fun because you can buy a lot of things for not a lot of money.  I ran.  I ran so far away.  Not like a flock of seagulls, but I actually went for a jog.  Running is the worst.,  Miles fell asleep in the car on the way to the grocery store so I stayed in the car with him while the ladies shopped for the food.  Miles and I had sleepy time in the parking garage listening to Superchunk.

Saturday: I watched Hulu my entire shift because I'm an asshole.

So lets' touch on two things.  One, I read that Benny Binon book and it's crazy because afterwords, my mom told me my great grandpa Roy Lee met him years and years ago, and continued to correspond with him via letters through the mail for a long time.  My great grandpa corresponded with a legendary Texas gangster/racketeer-er/illegal gambling establishment runner/murderer.  Yeah.

Secondly, I went for a jog on Friday and it was the first time I'd gone for a run since April and like, the third time I'd ever seriously ran outside.  I ran 2.62 miles in 27:37, which is 10:33 min/mi.  I think that's pretty good.  I didn't hate it, but I certainly didn't enjoy it.  Running is boring. All I can focus on is how much it sucks and how much I'd rather stop running.  I can't stop thinking about the place I'm gonna stop next, or how far away it is and how long it's gonna take me to get there.  My shins are sore as hell now, but at least I know where I stand on the whole running thing.  We're planning on doing a 5K in a month so I had to see if I would actually be able to do one.  I think so!

Okay I'm done typing now. 

Week of 10/12/14 - 10/16/14

Oh hey, what's up? I hated my post from May so much I decided to not write for five months.  Well, I just sent email to someone and I really liked the way typing felt, so I decided to come and blog.

Sunday - I made burritos and watched the Cowboys beat the Seahawks which is hilarious.

Monday - Got to try out my new heart rate monitor with my Inferno HR program and the HRM doesn't work all that well (it worked better every other day this week).

Tuesday - Nothing happened

Wednesday - Watched the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown which the kids seemed to like. Made lentil minestrone soup and it was really good.  The Royals are going to the World Series.

Thursday - Watched some hockey.  Pretty boring day I think.

Friday - Killer workout with that HRM. Felt really good. Happy with it.

Saturday - Working hard!

So I guess if I was to talk about one of these days, I'd talk about Wednesday's soup. It was super good, man. I like making soup because you can take some real, whole ingredients and throw them together and eat it.  It tastes good and it's got very few ingredients and the ingredients in it are vegetables.  I think I just said the same thing twice. I like cooking because I like to create something out of a bunch of other things.  I can't just create something, though.  I couldn't just say "well, I have this that and this so I bet I could make a killer this." No, I have to have a recipe to follow, and I'm pretty good at following those directions.  Finding a good recipe and making something that tastes good is super satisfying.


Alright, that's all! See ya next week maybe!

Week of 5/11 - 5/17 Daily Burn

In the immortal words of my daughter Evelyn, "Hey, I got a nice idea!" Let's talk about last week.

(I skipped a week, so what? I'm not good at this.)

Week of 4/27 - 5/3 - What Day Is It?

This is the stuff that happened during the week of April 27th through May 3rd, 2014.  The week started off with my mom already in town. Here's a brief description of each day last week.

Week of 4/20 - 4/26: Easter

So here's the rundown on what went down the week of Sunday, April 20th through Saturday April 26th. 

Week of 4/13/14 - 4/19/14

Right so I'm probably not going to update this daily or even every other day, so I might as well do a weekly wrap up thing, right?  Seems easy enough. 

Sunday we watched Monsters University and we all enjoyed it.  

Monday I was hanging out with the kids but had to run to CVS and get TP in the rain before Raw started.

Tuesday I went to Bridgestone Arena and watched a WWE Smackdown taping. Pretty awesome day!

Wednesday I made the floor really sweaty. We went and got pictures with the Easter Bunny.

Thursday I listened to Braves on the radio, made burritos and gave kids baths...the worst day of the week.

Friday we dyed eggs with Lydia and Jesse. 

I don't know if I need to only summarize each day with one line, but I did.  Perhaps I will now choose one of these events/days to write about?  Yes, yes I will do that, I think.

Let's talk about Wednesday. Every year, Bass Pro Shop/Outdoor World at the Opry Mills mall has free pictures with the Easter bunny at rather inconvenient times like 6-8 on a Wednesday or like, 2-6 on a Friday or whatever. So we went down there Wednesday night to get that done.  If you get you picture with the Easter bunny at like, the regular mall Easter bunny they charge you a ridiculous fee, I guess. I don't know, we've only done the free one at the BPS/OW. Anyway we got the kids all dressed up in their cutest clothes to go to Bass Pro Shop which I thought felt funny. Not funny awkward, but funny haha.  Anyway, they have a huge fish tank there with huge fish (naturally) in it, and Miles loved seeing them swim around. There was also a huge dead bear, which Miles liked to roar at, and that was super cute of him. The Easter bunny was on break when we got back to where he/she sits, which is odd because it's only a two hour shift, for cripes sake. You didn't use the little bunny pisser beforehand? C'mon Easter bunny, get it together.  Anyway, I wasn't that upset about having to wait five minutes (the bunny is only human, man. Shit happens) but there was a supermom that came in behind us that was very vocal about the missing Easter bunny. I tend to believe that there was probably a perfectly good explanation for where the Easter bunny hopped off to, but supermom would not accept anything except this Easter bunny be there no matter what for her free picture that is free, at no cost to her. I don't see a reason to complain about free stuff,,,ever. They are doing you a favor. After the kids were super cute with the bunny and they printed us off our pics, we left the store. I felt that we should buy something as a thank you for providing this Easter bunny for free. Bethany wasn't feeling as thankful, and we left quickly without making a purchase, which is fine, that's their choice for having a free Easter bunny. Heck, we even cropped out the Bass Pro Shop logo off the picture after scanning it and before posting it. We're real bastards lol. 

Anyway, that's what happened this week. I'll do this weekly because that's easy enough to handle. Thanks for reading!!!!

-Brad

Miles' First Birthday!

It's Miles' first birthday! Wow, that went by fast. Seems like it was just a short 12 months or so have passed since he was born! Oh wait...

Anyway, my parents are in town so Bethany and I got to take a date night last night. We went a real nice Mexican restaurant and ate amazing food. It was pricey, but we charged it, because it's not like we go out and do that all that often. We took advantage. After that we took our date night over to the Dollar Tree and Party City for stuff to decorate for Miles' birthday. Even when we get away from the kids for a couple hours, we still do stuff for the kids. You can't take the parents out of us that easy. We went and got a couple drinks at a bar we'd been meaning to go check out for quite a while and then came home and decorated.

I didn't really want to decorate the house because it was really late and I was tired, but once we started, it was kinda fun to do. I got to blow up a pack of balloons which was more fun than I even imagined it would be. It was oddly gratifying. We hung up streamers and stuff, and it started to look real nice in here.

This morning when Miles woke up, he was already in a super good mood, and when he came into the living room, his face lit up. He loved all the balloons and streamers and dangly things from the ceiling. I picked out a toy monster truck thing for him at the dollar store, and when he caught sight of it, he ran and excitedly started playing with is.  So cute!

Anyway, it's been a fun birthday for Miles.  He's the best and I'm happy when he seems happy. I think he can tell it's a special day. Too bad he won't remember it.

Nice Monday

I haven't written anything in a while, so let me change that. Right now, at this moment, it's 9:00 am on a Monday. Bethany is sleeping in because she needs it. Miles woke up this morning at like, 6:30, so I got up with him and we watched some USA Women's olympic hockey, as the team was thrashing Sweden. Got his butt changed, made coffee and gave him his waffle. He devoured that sucker like a champ. We came back in here and he was clearly getting tired again, so I got him back to sleep, and now I'm sitting here with two sleepy kids, a sleepy wife and a quiet house, except for the washer, of course.

I'm taking this moment to not do anything. I'm just going to sit here and mindlessly play around on the internet and my phone and enjoy the sunshine in my living room while it lasts.  Supposed to get warm this week, and do some raining.  I hope it doesn't rain too much so I can take my children outside and play, because we all could use some fresh air.

Speaking of fresh air, I can't wait to be able to open some windows in this place.  We moved in at the end of October, so we didn't have that many nice days yet in the new house. I haven't tried to open many windows here, but I certainly hope they open up, because I love the feeling of the fresh breeze flowing through my home. Perhaps this week when it gets warm enough I'll test them out. There's 14 windows and two doors that could be opened throughout the house, which should create a nice cross-breeze.

Okay, that's all for now.  Time to go off and do nothing.

#DaddyProblems

The kitchen is a mess. The toys are a mess. If I cook anything for dinner, Evie won't want to eat it, then complain to me an hour later that she's hungry. I can't cook anything because the counter is a mess. Miles probably needs a nap but right now isn't a good time to put him down for one.  Miles pulls everything off of every table. He pulls the diapers off the drying rack. He goes into the bathroom and gets into everything he's not supposed to get into. The dog probably needs to go pee. What do I feed Miles? When do I have time to feed him something? I bought a bag of flour and I need to put it into the flour thing but I can't do that, Evie is hungry, but she's not gonna eat whatever I make for her, and it's probably not going to be all that healthy for either of us. Miles spilled his water on the floor and Evie stepped in it and she needs new socks because her feet are wet.

The water is boiling.

The kids need baths tonight, especially after the poop Miles had earlier.  All up his back because he got it on his shirt.  They needed baths anyway.

And I can't complain about it because Bethany has it worse on the weekends when I'm at work and she's all alone.

All I want to do is drink a beer and watch a hockey game.  Instead, I have to chase Miles around and put out Evelyn's temper fires.

I'll miss this one day, but today isn't' that day. 

Rainy Day and Diamond Youth

Well, it's a rainy, cold, gloomy day in the capitol city of Tennessee, both kids are napping and I've gotten my copy of the Diamond Youth EP downloaded to my iTunes.  So the weather is crap but the music is good.

Miles has been having poop problems lately so we're gonna try and cut out wheat and/or dairy from his diet and see if that helps him out.  He ate an entire banana earlier, which was a sight to see.  I'm still amazed sometimes at his ability to eat solids.  He's just a baby! And as far as that point, of him just being a baby, it's still so weird to see him walking around. He's so good at it, and he's so little.  It's hilarious.

So it never really got bright enough today to not have lamps on in the house.  To further my original point here, it's such a shitty day, weatherwise, I don't really feel like doing anything else except what I'm doing at this very moment.

I think I'll make burritos for dinner tonight.

Here is a link to this album.  It's really good, but I see there are two songs not available on the Bandcamp page as what I got from my preorder.  Weird.  Doesn't matter, it's till good.  I highly recommend this band.

Why Are We Up?

Tomorrow is my brothers birthday, and that's awesome. it's weird because he's three years older than me, and his old age always seems like such a far off time for me, but it's really not.  Pretty soon I'll be old and wrinkly like him, too.

For some reason we're still awake and Bethany is watching Dexter on her phone and I'm blogging.  We're sleep deprived parents, what the hell are we thinking? I'll be kicking myself when I'm up with the kids at 6:45 again. Because now that I think of it, that's what happened this morning, but I seem to have blocked that from my memory. It's too horrible to dwell upon.

I'm getting really good at giving the kids baths by myself lately. That's all. 

The Nap War

It's a battle every day to get Evelyn to take a nap.  I imagine this is something other parents of 2 1/2 year olds have to deal with, making this not a truly remarkable revelation, but still, it's frustrating and confusing. I understand that she likes to play with her toys, as I do this same sort of thing, albeit in a much more adult way, when it's time for me to go to bed.  I like to play with my phone at night before bed, and sometimes I need to be told to put it down and go to sleep. Evie is that way, but deals with it like a two year old would deal with almost everything, and that's crying and screaming. And not to mention, she's a bear when it's time to wake up. I guess she just doesn't have the ability to see what going for a nap is all about. On every other aspect of being two and half, she's a dream to me. She's funny, she listens (mostly) and she's considerate. When it comes to nap time, forget all that. You'd think I was asking her to go do something awful. It's a nap, kid. You're going to be begging for them when you're older.

That being said, I just laid both kids down for their naps and now I have a decision to make.  I could lay on the couch like a lazy bones.  I could go do a chore of some sort. There's always something to be done around here. Or I could play video games. I haven't played any games in weeks. I could watch a TV show or movie, which I guess is part of laying on the couch like a lazy bones. I don't know. I feel sort of lazy today. It's Monday which is sort of like my Saturday.

Ah, screw it.  I'm playing PS3. See ya later, dudes. 

Weekend Update

I guess I should do a weekend update.  This week, Miles really started walking a lot, so that's a new wrinkle. He was able to crawl really fast and climb up stuff and pull everything off of tables already, so it's not that different I guess. But now he can fall in different ways, I guess.  Pretty cool to see him walking at 10 months. Evie didn't walk until she was 17 months.  In the grand scheme of life, that's not that big of a difference but at this stage that's a huge difference.

As I write this, it's one in the morning on Sunday, the 26th. Earlier "today" on Saturday afternoon, I got home from work and there's no better feeling than when your kids are excited to see you. Evie was eager to show me the clothes basket of diapers. My work schedule makes it so I go to sleep on Saturday afternoon so I can go back to work at night. I asked Evie if she would take me to bed for my nap, so she led me by the finger to my room and made me get into the bed.  I asked her to turn on the fan so she went over and tried to figure it out. I helped her use the remote (yes, a remote controlled fan which is awesome and also 14 years old). She then wanted to climb into bed with me and snuggle and take a nap with me.  It was so nice. It's the best thing. I love her so much. Miles came in there and was climbing all over me, too. He was chasing the cat around the bed and I was just trying keep him from falling off. Then he tackled Evie's head.  I dunno, I'm rambling now, but it was nice to see my kids for five minutes earlier. Made my day.

It would be nice if I used the computer during the week to write more blog posts, but I kind of keep it hooked up with the HDMI cable and the TV for streaming purposes. I think I would really like to change that. I say that often, but maybe I'll try harder this week. Thanks! 

Championship Birthday Spectacular!

Alright so this week was a bit of weird week.  The kids got sick, so I naturally assumed I would get sick as well, but I didn't.  I don't know know where they got the illness from, because we didn't really go anywhere.  Miles' was exceptionally bad because it settled in his chest.  His breathing became quite labored and wheezy by Wednesday afternoon, so we decided to take him to the doctors.  They gave him a treatment of Albuterol, and sent us off with the machine to give him more treatments at home over the next few days. Most of the time he did just fine having the mask up to his face for a few minutes, minus a few squirms here and there.

Evie got a little sick, too.  Her's wasn't as bad, just a runny nose, bit of a cough, couple sneezes.  She hasn't seemed to minded too much. It's hard because she doesn't' really tell us if she's feeling sick, we just have to read the symptoms ourselves and react. Like the other night when Bethany was home with her at night alone while I was at work, she gave her chest rub, ibuprofen and all that and got her back to sleep. Read and react!

Today is a particular predicament for me.  Today is my lovely wife Bethany's birthday. The predicament is today is also the NFC Championship game which involves my beloved 49ers against the hated Seahawks. I want to make my wife's birthday the best it can be, but I also want to give 100% to my favorite teams quest to get back to the Super Bowl. I feel bad about it, but I suppose I'll have to make it work. I told Bethany that if there was a baby-wearing/cloth diaper/crunchy mom convention on my birthday that I would go to it with her.  I hope that is some sort of consolation.

So that's the update for right now. Go Niners and sorry Bethany. 

Kids Do the Darnedest Things

So I just took my Jeopardy online test and man...not too good.  I mean, I think I did better than last year, but I'm sure it wasn't better than most/I ain't getting on the show.  It was fun to try, and if I make it, it'll be surprised and happy, but I don't think it's going to happen.  I've been watching Jeopardy! for years and I do pretty well when yelling answers to the screen.  I think I would do really good at regular Jeopardy, but when double Jeopardy! hits I tend to do a little worse.  The point here is I tried, and probably failed, and that's okay.  I had fun reading the answers to Bethany, who answered a few.  Whether they were correct or not is a different story. Anyway, I took the test, and if I end up on the show, I'll let you know.

I should mention that I cursed us by writing a blog about how great Evie sleeps at night.  After that post went up, all she has done is wake up in the middle of the night two nights in a row.  She's been waking up and just crying and wanting to be held.  It's the saddest thing, but it's also super annoying.  It's annoying because as a parent, you have to have a reasonable expectation that things are going to go one way or another.  I expect Miles to get up multiple times a night, so I don't get upset about it.  I don't expect Evie to do it, so I get mad at her for doing these things.  What I need to do is let go of my expectations of what's going to happen on a night to night basis and understand that it's completely possible that Evie will wake up and want to stay awake every night I go to sleep, because it's a possibility. That's a hard bit of info to adjust to, though.

Anyway, we gotta give the kids a bath tonight.  Here's to hoping that this helps the kids pass out and STAY PASSED OUT.

The Night Time

I was talking with Bethany the other day about Miles and his inability to sleep though the night. Evie was such a different baby in this regard. Miles is a nursing baby and Evie was a formula baby. We would fill up Evie's belly with formula and wrap her up in the swaddle (until she was 8 months old) and she would almost always sleep through the night. Her sleeping though the night continued after we ditched the swaddle, and after we ditched the bottles. It was real nice, I have to say. We didn't know how good we had it. I said it before and I'll say it again, if there were more babies like Evie was, there would be a lot more babies. Miles on the other hand was rolling over in his swaddle from like, one month on, and has never slept for longer than six hours at night...and he only did that like, once or twice. He usually wakes up every couple hours, anywhere between every two to four. We haven't had a full, unbroken night of sleep in months. We're not cracking. We're not fed up with this world. We deal okay, but we're tired a lot.  It's become normal now, but it's never cool to get up two or three times a night and get the kid so he can nurse. Boohoo, poor us. Not cool, Miles. Miles, you are the opposite of cool, okay?

Like I said, someday, hopefully soon, all these shenanigans will stop. Someday he will be a big kid and sleep through the night. Honestly that day can't come soon enough. I wish where was a switch I could flip that would get him to sleep like his sister always has, but that's just now how it works. I mean, there's nothing I can really do about it except bitch about it on a blog, so I just deal with it. I'm not upset, per se.  I just can't frickin' wait to sleep through the night again someday.  Oh well. Until that day comes, I'll be getting up and bumping into shit on the dark, groggy walk to their room to get him. I do this as a team player. She's the one that has to nurse him, why should she have to do all the work? I can help somehow, and that somehow is bringing him in and taking him back. He's cute, so that helps make it okay, too.

Another difference between the kids waking up is that Evie would wake up, but she would just lose her pacifier somewhere in her crib, so I would stumble over there, pop the paci back in her mouth and she would just fall back asleep.  This does not work at all with Miles.  I haven't tried all that often, because the few times I've tried, it didn't work. So I just pick him up and bring him to his mama. He usually falls back asleep after hittin' the boob for a little bit and then we do the cycle again in a couple hours. This is our life.

If you need me, I'll be over here not sleeping very well.

Leaving the House is the Worst

Leaving the house just seems like so much more of an ordeal than it used to be.  It's gotten progressively more and more difficult as the kids have grown bigger and the outside temperature has fallen. In the summer, we lived in the old apartment, which meant leaving the house didn't involve stairs. Evie isn't good at stairs because she's sort of new to the concept.  So leaving the new house has the added element of Evie getting upset about the stairs.  She'll go down them, but it's like she's stepping into a cold pool or something, she has to go slow and hang on the rail for dear life.  I'm happy she's cautious, because she's less likely to fall and hurt herself, but c'mon kid, just go down the stairs.  In the summer/fall, when it was warmer out, I didn't have to put coats on the kids.  That is a chore, just putting coats on the kids.  And if it's exceptionally cold out, I don't want Evie or Miles in a bulky coat in their car seat.  It's not safe.  So then I have to rush Evie out to the car and get her in and cover her up with the outer part of her coat so she's not cold.  She's really good at telling me how cold she is.

 "I cold I cold I cold."
 "Yes, Evie, just a minute."

Not to mention putting Miles' coat on.  Squirmy little baby arms are hard to put in the coat.  And he doesn't want a hat or his hood on so he tries to rip it off to no end.  And I have to carry him to the car, and of course, Evie doesn't like the stairs or whatever so she insists on being carried (sometimes) so I have to pick up both kids, open and close the door, lock the door and try not to drop anything...like a kid.  I can only put one kid in the car at a time, so Evie has to go second because Miles can't stand around waiting like that because he's just a baby.  So she has to stand out in the cold while I strap Miles in.  I get her in and I'm finally ready to go.  I like to take the kids to the grocery store because I look like superdad, and I think the kids enjoy riding in the carts and stuff.  Like at Kroger, they have those carts with the plastic cars attached. The kids seem to get a kick out of riding in there, which is nice. Plus they look cute.

What's the worst is when I can't find a parking spot close to the door, like for example this past Friday when I took the kids to Trader Joe's.  The parking lot is too damn small, so there's no good spots on a busy Friday morning.  Sometimes Evie is good and walks while holding my hand.  Sometimes I have to carry her if she's cold...Like this past Friday. Then when I'm done, I can usually take the cart out to the car with the groceries in it, but when I get home, I don't have a cart to haul it inside. So what I've been doing lately is bring the kids in first, set them up with toys and run out, grab everything quick and run back inside. It used to be a lot easier when Miles was smaller and he rode in the car seat that came out of the car.  But now that he's in a convertible seat, it's just so much more complicated. I can't wait for winter to be over so I can leave the house and skip a few of these stupid steps. Or maybe I should just strap a handle to Miles' back or something so I can carry him at my side with one hand, ya know?  

A lot of the times it's just feels like it's not worth taking the kids out. But I enjoy it all, I really do.  Even though I just wrote a whole post about how much it sucks to take the kids out because it's a lot of work, I really do cherish the moments. Enough people have told me to cherish these moments because before you know it, they're 30 and you will wish you could go back. So I don't take it for granted. I try not to, at least. But I wish I could just say "get in, kids" and they would just hop in the car and buckle up and off we'd go. I know that day is coming, but not really anytime soon. Until then, I'll suffer haha.