What a great weekend. On Saturday we set up a babysitter trial. We had someone that Jaime works with come over about two hours before the boys' nap time and we went out and did a lot of errands. We are going to need a babysitter on March 3 when we are attending a concert with Jaime's parents (our usual babysitters), so we set this up for Saturday as a trial run. It went very well. We arrived home at 3pm to find two sleeping children and one babysitter reading a novel on the playroom floor. We went to four furniture stores looking for dining room tables, and ended up settling on the first one we liked from the first store (that sort of thing seems to happen more often than not, doesn't it?). We also stopped by the old condo to get a carload of stuff and grabbed lunch at Don Pablo's.

Yesterday we went bowling for the first time in a long time and Stephen absolutely loved it. It's so cute to watch him carry his own ball up to the ramp. He doesn't understand the concept of taking turns and it can get quite exhausting trying to prevent him from constantly carrying his ball up to the lane. He came very close to breaking 100 on the first game. He uses the ramp and the bumpers, but he didn't receive any help from us.

For a few weeks it seemed like we were lagging with the move and setting everything up, but suddenly here we are, six weeks after the big move date. We have a newly fenced in back yard, we have coverings on all the windows (when we moved we had NONE), we've hung up a lot of our art, we've purchased a lot of the furniture we needed, and we're slowly getting organized. I think this method of a gradual move is better in a lot of ways. You're not pressured to organize everything all at once. You can sit back and see if you like what you've done before you proceed. The initial way that you set things up often isn't the best, and this gives us time to rearrange and think about what we're doing along the way. I think the next trip to the old condo will be the last time moving stuff. Every week we bring 6-10 more boxes of stuff over here. Now it's to the point of fairly useless junk that you own but never use.

The dining room table is supposed to get here "sometime in March." Hopefully by then we'll be completely ready for it. As of now, the dining room is where we put boxes of stuff and art in the interim. So, in turn, I promise you a video tour of the new house "sometime in March."

We took our first trip to the DC Improv last night with another couple. It was fantastic. We saw Comedian Bob Marley and he killed. Usually in a place like the Improv, you don't get a set of fully developed material. The comic is working on new material and mixing it with old material--just trying to hone the set to find something that works. This was nothing like that. Every joke was wildly successful and they just kept coming one after the other for an hour. Bob Marley always makes me laugh when he comes on satellite radio's comedy station(s), but I always thought of him as sort of a gimmicky comedian who talked about being from New England and had a thick Maine accent. I was wrong. He did a pretty wide range of material and all of it was so good. He is scheduled to have a Showtime comedy special this spring, so I'm guessing that we heard a lot of the material for that show.

Then of course we got derailed on the way back and probably added 30mins to the drive home. The inbuilt GPS in our Hyundai is completely useless. Fortunately I knew how to get there without the GPS so we had no problems. But then coming home there was a part where K street split into some weird upper level and lower level nonsense, and we chose the wrong one. The problem with DC is that once you get off of your initial route, you can't just go around the block and try again like in MOST CITIES. So we basically went on a sightseeing tour of DC. I don't much mind getting lost on the way home when you have nothing to be late for, but we realized that we forgot to give the Grahams a parking pass for their car and there was a good chance their car would be towed if we got home later than 11pm. So the whole way home there was this tension knowing that the night may have been ruined. We got home at 11:15 and all was well.

Last week was really rough. Henry is suffering from either sickness, teething, growing pains, or all of the above. A few nights he barely slept. Stephen seems to be sick too. For a couple days he couldn't get to sleep very well at all because of his stuffy nose. Lots of baby tylenol and children's benadryl has been administered in this house recently.

It was particularly worrisome because this was the weekend we were supposed to take both of the boys for a night in a hotel in the Baltimore area with my family. It was absurd now much stuff we had to pack for one night in a hotel. Clothes, bathing suits, two playpens, tons of diapers, special swim diapers, pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, medicine, the baby monitor, white noise generator, baby cereal, the pump, some extra milk, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things. Everything ended up going very well. We went swimming with both of the boys in an indoor pool. The rooms were very nice and the drive was just over an hour each way from the Youngs' house. The boys slept in our hotel room; Stephen slept from 8pm-6am and Henry slept from 10pm-6am. Between 8-10pm we looked up vacation homes (for 2012) in my parents' hotel room while everyone took turns entertaining an overtired Henry.

We woke up on Sunday morning at 6am, took showers, and packed the car. We had a good complimentary breakfast at the hotel and hung out a little more. Everyone had to leave to board the cruise ship between noon and 1pm, but we left at 11am to head back to the Youngs'. We watched the Redskins put together a[n ugly] win and headed home with the dogs. Henry went to sleep at 7pm which meant he got up at 4:30 this morning. Grr..

We switched Stephen's crib to a day bed and he loves it. He never gets out of the bed until you open his bedroom door, even if he is awake for a while. We kept him caged (cribbed) as long as we could, but he was beginning to escape the crib when I put him in there for a timeout. There would be a huge thud and then he would open his door two seconds later and leave his bedroom, so we figured we had to stop that before he injured himself. I switched the lock around on his door and now I just lock him in his room for a few minutes for a timeout. It's not a real timeout but it sure does improve his mood!

Stephen loves to take pictures. We don't let him use my camera yet (not for another ten years hehe), but he loves to use Jaime's and he understands how it works. He even calls your name before he takes the picture to get you to look at the camera. If you disable the flash, it can entertain him for a long time in a restaurant to take 45 pictures of everyone at the table.

I know I keep saying this, but Henry is about three seconds from crawling. He can sit up in the high chair now and he eats a pretty good-sized dinner most nights. He's tried carrots, applesauce, peas, and rice crackers.

What a day. We went to the farmers' market, played outside with Stephen in his pool, dropped Jaime's rings off to be re-sized (thank goodness for lifetime warranties that include re-sizings), got Stephen a hair cut, and ate dinner at Chili's. Great day. Now I'm going to lay down for bed at 9pm. I'm old. Goodnight.

Henry will be eight weeks old tomorrow, and things have been a bit better around here. We must be feeling confident if we went to the zoo on Friday and went out to dinner last night. Most nights, Henry wakes up once around 3am to get changed and fed. We've moved him to his own crib in his own room and it has worked out very well. I've been taking it for granted already, staying up late every night to watch the NBA playoffs. We sleep with our door open and Henry's door open. That way we can hear him without a baby monitor and we don't have to worry about where the dogs are anymore. We prefer to sleep with our door open and the dogs like the freedom. We've been closing the door because Henry was crying all night for the first six weeks and we wanted to minimize what Stephen could hear from his room.

Today, however, was horrible. Stephen woke up with a dirty diaper that was quite old (it could have been as old as 11 hours.. that's how long he slept). He had awful diaper rash and he squealed in pain every time you wiped him with a wipe. Eventually he dreaded diaper changes so much that the anticipation was worse than the changing. Henry was constantly crying and wanting his mother to feed him (growth spurt probably). All in all it was a pretty tough day, but Stephen and I went and got groceries at least. Somehow the total was over $190 today at the grocery. Ouch. It was just one of those days where you need everything that you rarely buy. Ketchup, ranch, disposable razors, vitamins, seasoning, etc. Periodic expenses all piling up at once.

This month is going to fly by. Our immediate family has three birthdays this month and we have a week-long vacation at the end of this month. Jaime returns to work May 31. Scary for me to even think about right now.

A few months ago, Jaime won four tickets (face value of $380) to see Hair at the Kennedy Center. Musicals are not my thing, and I didn't have the faintest idea regarding the premise of Hair, but it's fun to put on a tie and go out to dinner and a show. We went with C&C (newlyweds) and it was a good double date.

I honestly didn't have a clue about Hair. I thought it was something from the 80's (getting it confused with Hairspray?). I had no idea that it is a controversial product of the counter-culture and it premiered on Broadway in 1968 when all of the topics were current. Instead of an orchestra, there was a more traditional rock band. Electric guitar, electric bass, american drum set, percussionist, keyboardist, and a brass section of four people. The band was on stage for the entire show, sort of elevated above the set. The set... hmm.. it is safe to say that this musical has no real set and a vague plot that takes two hours to develop (a large portion of the second act was the drug-induced hallucinations of the protagonist, for instance). It's mostly just a bunch of hippies dancing around and singing songs about having multiple sexual partners. My main problem was that there was usually 10+ people singing and I couldn't understand anything they were saying. Also, a lot of the elements that were risqué in 1968 are just kind of cheeky and cute nowadays. For instance, one of the main themes involves males with long hair. In my opinion, that has been a dead issue for a long time. Some guys have long hair, some don't. No one really cares anymore. It has come in and out of fashion several times in the past 50 years. There was lots of stuff like that.

I looked a lot of places, but I couldn't find a version of this that sounded as good as the one we saw live. We had a great cast, apparently. Let the Sunshine In. The ultimate refrain. Cool vocal harmonies. One of the catchiest tunes ever. Again, I had no idea this song was from Hair. The song is famous in its own right and is used in other movies and even some commercials. At the end they invited tons of people up on stage for the reprise. It was funny. There were a lot of excited 60-somethings strutting their stuff on stage. The whole thing had an atmosphere closer to that of a concert. I feel like it was maybe the most informal thing that has ever played at the Opera House, hehe.

Yesterday, we went to Home Depot and picked out some potential flooring for the basement. I liked the stuff we were looking at, but it would come to $1200-1500 after installation. So, we have something to think about. First we have to do the ceiling.

Stephen was really good this morning. It's been over a week since I could say that. It's amazing how teething ravishes a baby's body sometimes. Diarrhea, pain, diaper rash, drooling, fever, loss of appetite, odd sleep patterns. When he opens his mouth, it looks like he has a full set of teeth except for canines. I haven't tried to count them in a while because he uses his teeth primarily as weapons.

Stephen needs only the slightest excuse to get as angry as possible. I don't even understand. It's as obnoxious as you can possibly get, with some violence thrown in for good measure. If you do or say one thing that he doesn't like, he either spits his food onto the floor, knocks everything off the coffee table, or tries to inflict damage on us or our computers. My wife can attest to the fact that this happens at least 100 times a day. You know he is trying to intentionally anger you or hurt you. It's hard to stay calm and be the adult in that situation. He is doing everything he can to bring you down to his level of kicking and spitting and biting.

He is really good at walking in all different situations now. To go out to the car, I just hold his hand and he plops down the front steps with me. When we get to the car, I just barely lift him up into the back seat and he crawls into his car seat all by himself and waits to be strapped in. It's so much easier! Also, he can go get his own shoes, socks, and jacket and bring them back when we're all getting dressed and ready to leave. Then he calmly sits in my lap while we put everything on.

What a great weekend. Saturday was the rally and yesterday was Halloween. We went to the Mall from about 3:30 - 4:30pm yesterday. Most of the stores were participating in trick-or-treat, and there were hundreds of families there to collect some good stuff. Stephen got a good reaction everywhere we went. He's about the smallest-sized kid that can still walk around and hold his own candy basket. Surprisingly, he loved walking up to complete strangers if they were going to put something in his bucket. He was as show-stopper everywhere we went. It's good to see that we're not the only ones who think he's the cutest kid in the world. Everywhere we went, people completely ignored their own kid(s) in favor of staring at mine. Strangers were taking his picture.

Trick-or-Treat at the mall.
October 31, 2010

Then we were able to come home and give out candy after it got dark. We handed out every last piece by the time Stephen was to go to bed, so it all worked out perfectly. Somewhere in there, I managed to walk the dogs and get groceries. I rock.

We figured out what some of the problem was with Stephen's eating. He's sort of in an in-between stage with switching to adult food. He doesn't want any baby food at all, but he doesn't like very much adult food yet. Saturday morning, I gave him a) scrambled eggs w/ cheese, b) canned green beans, c) freeze-dried apples, and d) two tiny pieces of baby cookie. He ate the apples and green beans immediately, but he hates the eggs. Now the Gerber baby food is sort of used for deficit maintenance.

My being firm and not feeding him many snacks finally paid off today. He ate a lot of food. His Nana fed him nearly a whole toddler meal (microwavable meal with turkey, mashed potatoes, and carrots).

We went over to my in-laws' house and watched the Redskins pull out another inexplicable victory over a good team. This is getting strange.

One of the [many] abandoned homes in my neighborhood just had a buyer. It's the townhouse next to me that has been unoccupied for about six months. It's an investment property for the new owner, and he is just doing repairs in an attempt to rent it out. I have befriended the owner. In an act of pity, he lent me his pressure washer. I cleaned the back of the hosue, and was going to do the front on Saturday, but the guy came back to collect his pressure washer on Friday night. That was just the first of my plans to be thwarted this weekend.

Saturday night we were supposed to attend a drive in movie with Martha & Eric. We arrived at the prescribed location (we were even on time) to find that most of the viewing area was roped off and cars were not permitted to park there. Most people brought lawn chairs and set them up in the parking lot. We did not have anything like this, as we were planning to watch the movie from our car. We basically just walked around for ten minutes and left. Stephen walked very far without ever putting his hands down or stopping to rest. Maybe 1/8 of a mile to the snow cone stand and the same distance back to the car. We instead came home and watched Frost Gaint, which was everything we'd hoped.

Yesterday was the Men's final for the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in DC. I had two tickets that I got for my birthday from S&S, and the tickets said 12 noon. We didn't bother to check the details until yesterday morning, when we found out that the doubles final was at noon, and the singles final was "no earlier than 3pm," depending on how long the doubles match went. So we changed our babysitting plans and planned to get to the stadium at 3pm. After the world's longest drive-though line at McDonald's, we ended up getting to our seats about about 3:20pm, but the match started ten minutes late so we only missed the first two games. Turned out to be a complete trouncing, with the no-name, often-injured underdog winning in straight sets.

It was hotter than hell and there we no clouds. Being up in those bleachers makes you feel like you're right next to the sun. There are some aspects that are more impressive when you watch live, but I think I'm done with witnessing live sports. It's too much of a gamble regarding the weather, traffic, and the players. This year, two nobodies made it to the finals; there was no way to predict that when the tickets were purchased more than three months ago.

We did manage to go grocery shopping on Saturday.

Tonight is the first of our "band practices." If all goes well, Fat Man After Dark is going to do an audio interview with my band on Thursday. More on that later, hopefully.

This weekend was more my speed. We took Stephen to the real pool for the first time yesterday. There was no one there despite the weather being perfect for swimming. Stephen can stand in the kiddie pool but struggles to walk. We actually spent most of the time in the regular pool, alternating between holding Stephen and swimming around for pleasure. There was shade from a tree in the late day. It was nice. By the time we got out, Stephen was dunking his face in the pool over and over and loving it. Jaime was standing in three feet of water and he kept holding his breath and bobbing into the water.

Today Stephen's Grandparents did some babysitting while Jaime and I had a mid-day date. It's nice to get babysitting in your own home. It simplifies the whole thing. We had a good 4.5 hours out of the house at a movie and lunch at Don Pablo's. Of course, during all this relaxing (never more than 3.5mi from the house), we failed to go back to the swimming pool today or go grocery shopping. Jaime's car is getting some body work done this week so I do not have a car. This means I/we have to go grocery shopping tomorrow after Jaime gets home from work. Blech.

In a month, I will be on vacation.