Tales of a Toddler Chasin', Diaper Changin' Maniac

Rule No. 1482

2008-05-10T19:46:00.002-04:00

Hey look at this. I don't blog for 6 weeks, and then it's twice in two days!

I learned today that apparently it's not common sense, and you have to explicitly tell a preschooler NOT to wipe his face against a wall rather than seeking out a tissue.

Hell, even using his sleeve would be more acceptable than walking across the room, pressing his face against the wall and then slowly dropping to his knees.

WTF?

Did you miss me?

2008-05-09T20:02:00.012-04:00

Hey there ladies and gents! Long time, no blog! I just checked and see that the last time I wrote was Easter. Hmmmm, I can't say that things have been slow here, as they haven't: We've had a smattering of trips, activities, haps, mishaps and everything in between. I'll try to re-cap the best I can.

Let's see, after Easter we went on a trip to Orlando, but Allison wrote about that so I won't bore you with repetition. If you want to read about it, you can check out her blog over at http://dupreesgal.blogspot.com/ She didn't put any pictures up there, so here are a few of our favorites:

The girls on the monorail, excited for the day ahead:

The boys on the monorail, excited for round 2 (this was taken on our way back into the park after a nap and some downtime) :

The family with a famous rat:

The kids taking on Zurg from behind bars:

Leah, recovering from her drawn out battle with Zurg:

Ian having a blast on the teacups:

The girls relaxing on the Tomorrowland Transit Tram thingy:

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After our trip to Orlando we decided enough was enough with Ian and the whole non-potty training thing. I told Ian to say goodbye to his pull-ups because he was going to wear underwear from here on out. He was pretty excited.......until he heard that there were concequences for accidents.

Yeah, that's right. There are concequences for accidents now. I decided it's time to pull out all the stops as he's almost Four and there is nothing medically that's holding him back: He's just lazy.

Now before you gasp in horror:

a) There are only concequences for pooping in his underwear, not peeing.

b) I gave him a several day 'period of adjustment' window. I think it was 4 or 5 days.

If he pees, there are no major concequence. We just change his clothes, remind him that he needs to pay attention to his body, we give each other hugs and a kiss and off he goes playing again. But if he poops? Well, then all hell breaks loose. Here is what happens:

*He gets a spanking while still wearing his poopy underwear.

*I make him take off his shoes, socks, pants and poopy underwear by himself in a dark room.

*I wipe his body down using dried up baby-wipes so that you really need to scrub hard to get all the poop off.

*I put the poopy underwear up to his face and scream: Is this how big boys behave?
*I then put the poopy underwear on his head and make him do the "I'm a little Teapot" dance, all the meanwhile Leah and I point at him and laugh.

If you STILL have a horrified look on your face and think I'm serious, please close your web browser and never return to this webpage again...thanks for visiting! Okay, so thats not what I do...but it makes what I DO do as punishment seem not so bad!

If Ian poops in his underwear, he gets all his transformers taken away until the next time he poops on the potty. My reasoning for the punishment is as follows: As far as the peeing goes, I totally get that he's not 4 yet, and that he can easily get sidetracked and if he doesn't pay attention it's VERY easy (and understandable) that he'd pee in his underwear. All it takes is the mind to wander a bit, and BOOM, you've got soaked grundies.

But pooping takes effort. It's a deliberate act that requires a combonation of concentration, will-power, determination, breath-holding and (depending on diet) a fair amount of grunting. That is not something that just slips your mind. I say that if you can slip off into a corner of the room behind the lamp and endtable, squat down outta sight and open up and let loose, you can easily say "Daddy, I gotta go poopy". Premeditation, my friend, is the determining factor here.

So before I implimented my hard and fast rule, I drilled it into his head and made sure he truly understood what the concequences were. When D-day came, I let him know it. You know what? It was DAYS before he pooped in his underwear. He pottytrained like a champ!

Sure enough, the first time he pooped in his underwear was his first day at his new preschool (Go figure!). So he got a pass on that one, since I wasn't there. But the next time he did it, which was a good 3 or 4 days later I took his Transformers away and he was SO upset. Rightfully so, as they are his favorite possessions...but I then explained to him that it depends on his actions.

Even though we've had some accidents here and there, generally I think Ian is doing pretty well. Granted, he's at the stage that he should have been at around 3 or even 3.5 yrs old (he turns 4 in less than 2 weeks!), but we're certainly seeing progress. Knock on wood, lets hope this continues!

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In other news, I got a new tattoo a few weeks ago. I decided to get this most recent one commemorating the impact running has had on me over the past few years: It has helped me to lose 60lbs (keeping all 60 off is another story!), which has greatly improved my self esteem & self image. It also commemorates my ability to complete a flippin' Marathon. That still floors me to think that I was able to achieve that, by the way.

I chose the image that i got because it depicts how I feel during my long runs on the weekend: It's just peaceful, quiet and I'm out there all by myself enjoying what I am doing. The tattoo is a silhouette of a runner against a multi-colored sky (sunset or sunrise, you decide). You might recognize the image!

Here is a picture:

I have a Half Marathon in 2 weeks that I am SO not prepared for...but believe it or not, I'm starting to get the itch to do another marathon. I told Allison I wouldn't do one anytime in the near future, but I'm looking at all these upcoming races and get to thinking "Hmmm, I could train for that."

We did agree, however, on one marathon that I will do. We're going to go to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary and while we're there I'm going to run the Honolulu Marathon. I gotta get training though, as it's only 31 months away!

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I recently got back from a 'guys' weekend. The plan hatched at a wedding reception last July, but first a little backstory: Allison and her roommates from college get together every summer and go somewhere for a weekend. They've been doing this every year since we graduated and I think it's great.

Well, anyway so the husbands/boyfriends of all these rommates were at the bar (go figure!)during the reception and it was decided that we were going to have a guys golf weekend. We decided it was going to be a long weekend of, well, golf. I ran out on the dance floor to where Allison was all alone doing the funky chicken...or was it the electric slide? Anyway, and I checked with She-Who-Brings-Home-The-Bacon, and she gave me the green light. Silly her thought it was a drunken plan that would be forgotten about by morning!

Anyway, as plans do, they changed and it morphed into a trip of 4 guys to Myrtle Beach. We were all excited because none of us had ever been there before. We ended up playing 5 rounds of golf in 4 days, and we all did well at some point or another.

The most memorable part of the trip? Nope, not either of my birdies, nor the slew of pars I got. And not even the fact that I was able to keep my drives in the fairway for a majority of the rounds.

It was the fuckin' squirrels.

I kid you not, these things were bullies. They would walk right up to you, and I mean right up to you. I think it was Phil who first held out his driver to shoo the thing away and the motherfucker came closer! The little bastards had deathwishes as we'd even resort to yelling at the things and they'd still inch closer taunting us.

And this was not an isolated instance, as these creepy little fuckjobs were everywhere the first 3 days. You have never lived until you've seen about 900lbs of homosapiens fear for their lives due to 3lbs of fur. Someone took a picture of it, or maybe it was even a video with their cell phone...but I'm not going to say who, as I'm pretty sure you can hear me scream like a schoolgirl when the thing lurched forward at us.

In case you can't even fathom what the Devil himself looks like in such a small package, I found a picture online of those menacing little freaks-of-nature. If you cross paths, steer clear, my friends, if you value your life:

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This past weekend we went camping, as Allison put in her blog. Again, I won't bore you with the details as she already has (typed out the details, not bored you...well, maybe she has but I won't tell her you said that). You can go to her blog to read about it if you haven't yet.

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That really is about all that has been going on...as if that isn't enough! I'll leave you with a few pictures I took yesterday while at a playground. The kids went down to a stream that is nearby and we usually throw rocks in the water. Well, it wasn't very deep and there was a line of rocks that Ian wanted to cross. At first I said no, but then realized it wasn't cold out, and I had a change of clothes for both kids in the car. So I decided to let them go hog-wild. Please note that Ian had just been riding his bike and often forgets to take off his helmet. Who am I to tell him, especially if he's stomping around on wet and slippery rocks!

Dad card suspension / Easter Outtakes

2008-03-23T20:27:00.030-04:00

Ok, Easter is over. The famous bunny has left his mark here in CT and has moved on to other parts of the world. Everyone in the world will put up the cutest, most adorable, greatest shots of their kids and loved ones from this historic and fabled day.

Not this guy.

Below you will find only our outakes. That means you won't find a great shot of both kids, or Leah smiling or Ian showing his cutest side. You'll only find the pictures that shouldn't be put up for others to see.

BUT. Before I do that, I do have to share a heart wreching discussion I had with Ian last week. This was an impromptu talk i had that ended up (in my opinion) requiring the suspension of my dad card. Thankfully a neighbor pulled me back into the game and allowed me to redeem my status of allowing to raise my children 'without the supervision of others'.

Okay, so last week we had beautiful weather, so we decided to take a walk to the water tower in our neighborhood. No friends were around, so it was just Ian, Leah and I. We walked down there and did our obligatory ritual of 'throwing of the rocks into the drain' routine as well as the 'walk around the tower and see if there are any snakes' ritual. After that was over, we decided to walk back home as the sun was going down and the wind was beginning to pick up.

We passed a neighbor's house, and for the record these neighbors used to have 2 rottwillers, Wanda & Marvin. Wanda was the mom, and Marvin the son. Wanda was an awesome dog who would give anyone kisses and Marvin, well, wouldn't. Let's just say there are probably only 4 dogs who have ever walked on the face of this earth who I have not liked, and Marvin is one of them. He is just not a friendly dog, and I would not miss him if the UPS guy decided to run over the devilish canine. Oh, remember way back when, when I first started running and blogging that I heard 2 monstrous horses running behind me?? Yeah, it was these two.

Anyway, Last fall I noticed that Wanda wasn't looking too good. She was limping badly and wouldn't even get up to greet anyone as they walked up her driveway, as she previously had. The biggest clue was when the neighbors posed her in their yard with the brilliant autumn leaves around her, snapping pictures. Nothing smells more like death than that.

Anyhoo, last week we were walking by their property back to our house when Ian noticed only one of the dogs (Marvin, the asshole) was out in the yard. He asked about the other.....and this is where I deserve to lose my dadcard.

Silly me, should have just said, she was inside the house. Did I say that? Oh no. That would be too peachy keen and easy as pie. I decided, impromptu-ly and without second thought to engage my son in a 'life discussion' that was a long time coming. Honestly, I didn't think it would come until one of my In-Laws decided it was time for a dirt nap. But apparently the neighbor's elderly dog decided it would come sooner. So here I was, facing a life-altering discussion on life and death...and man, did I fuck it up.

I said above, he asked about the missing dog. Smart Don would have said that the other dog was inside their house sleeping...but Idiot Don decided to have this life discussion on a random Tuesday afternoon that involved a neighborhood dog that Ian hadn't seen since November as opposed to a beloved relative lying in repose in the serenity of a hospice or funeral home.

This is how the discussion went:

"Dad, where's the other dog?"

"Well, Ian, Wanda was really sick."

"Who is Wanda?"

"Wanda was the other dog, and she was really sick, and really old, and hurt a lot so Wanda's body couldn't keep up anymore, so Wanda Died."

"What's 'died', dad?"

"That means that Wanda's body stopped working, Ian, so she stopped breathing and her heart stopped beating."

"So where is she, Dad, and when will she get better?"

Okay, this is the point where my 'dad' card deserves to be ripped from my possession. Remember, I was in the heat of the moment and was SO not planning on having this discussion anytime whatsoever in the near future.

"well, Ian. Her body stopped working, so she stopped breathing and living, so she was buried in the ground".

Okay, hold it.

You can only imagine the questions that my explanation lead to, and the panicked look on Ian's face. We actually had to stop our walk and I had to sit down and comfort Ian because he was crying so hard, knowing that Wanda wasn't coming back. He just kept repeating that Wanda was his 'favorite' dog and that he loved her 'very, very much'. Mind you, Ian hadn't seen this dog in several months and didn't even know her flippin name.

So I tried to further the discussion, but it just wasn't going well at all. We got back to our house and a neighbor walked by with her kids, both whom are which about the same age as ours.

As the kids were playing, I told their mom about what had just happened. She tells me about when she had to deal with the subject, about an uncle of their kids...and how the uncle was in Heaven.

HEAVEN? Aw, dude. Why didn't I think of that? I try to explain death to my kid, and I go for the scientific/natural angle as opposed to the spiritual/feel good angle.

"Wanda is rotting and decomposing in the backyard of our neighbors, Ian, not playing in poppyseed fields and drinking unlimited supply of mineral spring water." Way to think on your toes, Don.

Anyway, I tried re-explaining the whole thing to Ian, how people (and pets) actually go to heaven, and aren't sick or hurting anymore. He believed it, and actually took comfort in it. It pulled on my heart-strings to hear Ian talk about how he's 'happy' to hear that Wanda isn't hurting anymore and that that she's happy and that we all can be happy and a family when we all get to heaven someday.

Okay, since he bought into it and I saved myself, I feel that I can keep my Dad card afterall. And to celebrate that, I give to you those outtake photos of today, Easter 2008.

No cute shots, no great pictures of the kids in their 'holiday best'. Just the pictures that should have been deleted in the first place. Happy Easter!

Okay, I need to explain this next one. All the kids go up to the front of church and today they were asked if they knew how to read...some kids raised their hands, and not wanting to be left out, so did Ian. Obviously, he doesn't, but he INSISTED he knew how to read. Pastor Ricki skipped over him and he really didn't like it. So he started crying and just put his head in his hands. Allison went up to get him and calm him down. I just reached for the camera.

Okay, so there are the goofy pictures. I swore to myself that I wouldn't include any 'good' ones, but how can I leave them out. Here are just a few.

Ian and I blowing up a baloon

Ian getting ready for the Easter Bag Hunt

Leah, Post-Candy

Pooptastic

2008-03-09T20:28:00.004-04:00

So today I went with my Father In Law to pick up a bedroom set that Allison's aunt wanted to give us for the kids. We're not planning on using it now, but we decided to put it in our storage unit for when we move.

I come back and Allison tells me that Leah was playing on the floor, then crawled over to the diaper bag that was on the floor, pulled out a diaper (it was actually Ian's pull-up), held it up in the air towards Allison and said "poopy? poopy?". Allison changed her, and guess what? She was poopy.

I kind of laughed, thinking how weird would that be that Leah could do that. Well, we were over at my in-laws later in the day for dinner and Leah was playing on the floor. Well, guess what she did?

She crawled over to the basket where the diapers are kept, pulled one out, held it up in the air and did her little potty chant: "Poopy? poopy?". Allison smiled and pointed out what she was doing and said she bet Leah was poopy. So Allison proceeds to change her and what do you think happened? Sure as shit, Leah was poopy.

HOW TWISTED IS IT THAT OUR 14mo OLD IS MORE AWARE THAN OUR 46mo OLD?

In case that age difference didn't hit you square between your peepers, I'm going to filter out the caps yelling and just put their ages down:

14 months VS 46 months.

That is so fucked up.

I swear I'm going to switch my efforts over to Leah and try to get her potty trained first.

Oh my god...the reality of it just set in. It is a distinct possibility that I'll soon be able to say that I have only one child in diapers...and it will be my preschooler/kindergartner and not my toddler.

Excuse me while I go stick my head in the oven.

A confession

2008-02-27T23:34:00.004-05:00

As you know, I don't hold any punches here in my blog. I tell things like they are, whether it makes me look like a rock star or a complete buffoon. I say that because something has been weighing heavy on my mind lately. I've been debating whether or not I want to talk about it here, but as I say, I usually don't hold anything back and tell you guys what's going on with me. So I've decided that I need to spill it. It's not easy to fess up to it, but as I understand it, it'll help with the healing process.

There is something about me that I'm not proud of. It's been affecting my family for years, and across a few generations...two that I know of for sure, maybe more. It's common, yet no one really talks about it because of it's devestating effects it can have on families.

There is treatment, yet I doubt everyone who needs it seeks it. No one wants to own up to the fact that they need help from outside sources and there are many who feel they can beat it on their own.

Well, I am not one of those people anymore. I am now willing to face my demons and admit that I have a problem. A big problem. I have a problem and I need help. Ok, here goes...(this is the first time I'm writing this out).

Hi, My name is Don. And I'm Lactose Intolerant.

Wow. That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be! I thought it would be more difficult to admit that in a public forum such as this. Hmmph.

I don't know when, why, how or what triggered this. Well, I know what triggered this, but for some reason I have become lactose intolerant. At least I think I have. I still need to try to cut out all dairy products to see if that makes a difference, but I've been paying close attention the last few days and I'm pretty sure thats the culprit.

This royally sucks because I've always prided myself on having an iron stomach, not to mention that I'm a huge fan of dairy. I know there are daily pills I can take to help with it, but I'd rather not have to go that route and have to rely on taking a pill otherwise risking isolating myself from anyone within 100 yards....for hours on end. But then again, I'm already taking multivitamins and other crap every day, so whats one more pill.

So I'll begin to cut out dairy and see if that makes a difference. Fear not, I'll keep you updated. Oh. And if we're at a party together and you see me hovering around the cheese plate, I give you permission to knock some sense into me...unless I've taken my lactaid.

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On another equally (if not moreso) sucky note, we received some bad news about Ian's preschool. Without getting into details here (which I couldn't really do anyway because it seems to be a he said/she said kind of thing between the principal and the teacher), it boils down to this: This semester Ian's school is one hour a day, two days per week.

Not only that, but they shifted the time up by 15 minutes. So instead of Allison bringing him in at 8am and me picking him up at 10am, he now will be in school from 7:45 to 8:45. What the fuck is that? What in God's name can you accomplish in an hour with a room full of Preschoolers?

Oh yeah, thats another doozie! Ian's first day of the new semester was yesterday (Tuesday)...out of the 10 kids that were in the class last semester, only 3 are returning for the 2nd semester. Yup, 7 sets of parents decided to pull their kids from the program.

I certainly don't blame them, as one hour, twice a week isn't much of a program. But if there was still the same number of kids it at least would have FELT like preschool to the kids...3 year olds can't tell time. Time flies for them anyway, I bet they never would have noticed the difference. But there is a HUGE void with only 3 kids there I bet. I didn't pick Ian up yesterday, so I didn't get what the vibe was. But I'm looking forward to getting the feel tomorrow.

I'm not sure what kind of luck we'll have getting him in somewhere else for the balance of the semester, not to mention the cost of another program...a major deciding factor in going with the one at the High School was the low cost.

But that's my next objective: To see if we can find a supplemental place for Ian to get a school-type/group setting a few hours a week to show him that, in fact, he is NOT the center of the universe!

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Let's see, what else is going on? The kids are still sick. Well, Ian seemed to have pulled through for the most part, but Leah is hanging onto this virus like it was a new Transformer (Leah's favorite toys too, by the way). Hopefully she'll be better in the next few days, because honestly, I'm tired of isolation...I try to keep the kids away from others when they're sick, because it's the right thing to do. But my patience is wearing thin, so we might go out and infect the world in the next few days. So if you see us, cross to the other side of the street.

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I'm sure there is more to tell, but I'm spent. It's time for bed.

Have a fantastic day, and for God's sake, stay away from the dairy case.

Quick Update

2008-02-20T09:46:00.004-05:00

Yeah, it's been awhile, I know. What can I say, nothing exciting has happened: No dogs have shit on my lawn, no fish have died, no 10' bowling pins shuffling along has scared Ian, he hasn't dropped the F-bomb lately and neither kid has cured cancer.

But do you know what miracle DID happen? I had a DIY project go smoothly! In my umpteen tries at doing something myself, I believe this is the very first time that I completed a project without a single derailment.

And what was this wonderful project that I magnificently kicked ass on? It was replacing the toilet in the basement bathroom.

Last week I was in there feeding the cats when the semi-retarded one (Cleo) came in squeaking, squaking and getting all excited. She chose her path very carfully: She ran right between my 2 moving size 14 boots. Stupid me tried to avoid stepping on the 4-legged nuisance and tripped up myself and bashed into the 1970's pale green porcelin god. Immediate dripping ensued.

So anyway, on Monday afternoon allison took the kids for a bike ride/walk around the neighborhood and I was able to do the entire project in a little over an hour! This includes unhooking/draining the old one, taking it apart & bringing it to the garage, scraping off the old wax ring, installing & hooking up the new toilet, and cleaning up the tools.

Since it went problem free, i was SURE that there would be a leak when I turned the water back on....but there wasn't! Booyah......

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on an unrelated note, the kids are sick...again. Allison and the kids got sick towards the end of January. They were sick for awhile, as it just lingered. I was lucky that I didn't get sick with them. I attributed it to my eating well, working out and taking my multivitamins...yeah, that worked. I ended up with a nasty chest cold that lingered for a few weeks. That finally cleared up last week....just in time for the kids to get sick again.

We usually don't take them to the doctors for a cold, as I don't want to clog up the Drs office for something like this, especially this time of year: tis the season. But Leah has been grabbing at her ears the last day, so we have an appointment for them to check her out. I'll have them look at Ian too, since we're there, but I think it's just the run of the mill cold.

Anyway, thats all for now. I apologize for not updating sooner, but honestly there hasn't been anything to report!

Believe you me, when something fucked up happens in my life, you will be the first to know!

Photo of the Fandangled Fishy, As requested

2008-01-17T17:04:00.000-05:00

The morning after I posted the blog about Aloe, I walked into the kitchen and saw that he was swimming normally!! I couldn't believe the timing of it....that little rapscallion must have heard me typing about the possibility of his demise.

Several times a day I've gone back to check and see how he's doing. All has been well, until this morning, that is. For some reason, he is back to floating on one side. So of course, I snapped a picture.

As requested, here is Aloe lying horizontal in the water, working on his flourescent tan.

Fishy Medical Condition

2008-01-12T22:22:00.001-05:00

Before you get all worried, no, there is nothing wrong with any of us. Well, I take that back. There is plenty wrong with ALL of us here in our house...but that's not what I'm talking about.

We have a lame fish. Not lame as in: "God, does his personality suck!". But lame as in: he lists to one side. One morning a few weeks ago I went into the kitchen and glanced over at his little bowl on the kitchen counter and saw him floating on top of the water motionless.

Ian was with me, so I made breakfast while trying not to draw attention to the future sushi roll not 4 feet away from us. All of a sudden the little fucker sprang to life and started bolting around. The fish, that is...not the boy.

Okay, so I fed him and went about my day. Every time I was in the kitchen I would look over and sure enough he'd be on his side looking at both the top AND bottom of the bowl at the same time. This went on for a few weeks, but every time you would tap the bowl or feed him, he'd perk up, swim around and then just kind of stop and hang out. The funny part of watching him is when he stops swimming he slowly tips and rolls over on his side. Instead of Aloe, we should just call him Tim-berrrrrrrr.

Anyway, I was telling my neighbors that I was considering Bettacide because of his ailment. Now don't get all freaky on me, hear me out. No creature deserves to live with one eye permanently glaring at recessed kitchen lighting. What a confused little fishy he must have become! One eye blind and one eye looking at clear glass rocks at the bottom of the bowl. How would you like to go about life always looking through a kaleidoscope? I call it high school and college, but I wouldn't want it to be permanent!

So anyway, I was telling my neighbors about it, and going through my proposed methods. Hmmmm, do I need to stop here and elaborate on my proposed methods of eliminating a 3oz lopsided fish? Because, yes, I have given this thought. Okay, you win. Here goes:

Choice A: Pull a Finding Nemo and flush him out of sight, out of mind. The problem I have with that is that in the movie, Nemo is flushed down the spit sink and out into the ocean. In case you have never been to my house I neither have a spit sink nor an ocean nearby. The closest Aloe would come to the ocean is the septic tank in my back yard. Not a very pleasant choice.

Choice B: In-Sinkerator. Also known as my garbage disposal. Once again, hear me out. Surely he's in pain. He can't be comfortable. And flushing him down the pipes into the septic tank would be a slow and ugly death. That would be a really CRAPPY thing to do to him.

So I came up with the idea of tossing the floppy little bastid down the sink drain and flipping the switch. At least it would be a quick death, as those things are sharp, fast and mean business! But fear not, as that is not the way that Aloe will meet his demise. I kind of get a chuckle out of my reasoning for NOT doing it, so I will share it with you.

I decided not to go this route, because..... Okay, when you use the garbage disposal you need to keep water flowing to the drain, right? You need to do that because it helps keep what your chopping and disposing of moist and lubricated and choppable. I'm actually not exactly sure why you need to keep the water flowing, I just know that you do. But my answer sounds good doesn't it?

So you need to do that, and if I WERE to go that route, I'd want to place something over the drain (like a plate or something) to both stifle the scream and keep fish bits from flying up onto the light fixture above the sink. After all, who wants to clean pet remnants from a light fixture? And if I do that, water wouldn't be able to go down the drain to keep all the bits of Aloe nice and wet.

So basically Choice B is out because I'm too lazy to clean fish shit off of everything. (Before I go on: yes, I have realized that nothing else splats out of the drain, so why would he. I'm using that as a reason because knowing me, it WOULD happen. That kind of stuff happens to me all the time, and thats a whole 'nother sack of potatos to write about).

Anyway, back to my original train of thought. I was telling my neighbors this, and while her horrified expression was leaving her face, she told me that she had a fish who did the same thing. She googled it on-line and diagnosed that her fish had an (are you ready for this??) Obstructed Bowel.

She said it sounded exactly like what happened to hers, so it boils down to the fact that my fish can't take a shit. How funny is that?? Aloe can't squeeze out a turd! She read that feeding him peas would help, and that she gave him a few every day. And after about 6 months, he righted himself and was better. Wow, 6 months. That must have been some murky water the day he became 'well' again.

I tried giving Aloe some frozen peas but the poor little guy couldn't right himself enough to eat it. He flippered his way over to it and tried, but it was just too big for him.....and then the pea thawed and sank. I then tried thawing them out for him and THEN giving them to him, but they just sank right past his hungry little fishy-face that was desperately trying to get some fiber.

So now I'm at a crossroads. What do I do? I still feed him regular food, but I don't know if it's helping him. The peas cloud up the water faster than you can say "Does this topic really deserve it's own blog?", so I don't want to keep feeding them to him if he's not going to eat them. Should I call the vet and see what she thinks? (You can bet your ass I'm not going to call the vet about a $4.99 fish that I bought out of sheer boredom). Or should I just break down and go to the pet store and see what they think? I'd prefer not to do that, because, well, the kids have fun at the pet store and who am I to bring joy into their lives?

In reality, that's what I'm going to do. Not that they are marine biologists over there at PetSmart, but maybe they have an idea. And if not, we'll welcome home Aloe Jr.

Hapy 1st Birthday Babycakes!

2007-12-29T07:43:00.001-05:00

My Eloquence comes through for me, yet again.

2007-12-06T13:29:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, but I really haven't had much to say. But lucky for you, something happened to me today that is blog-worthy...or at least I think you will get a kick out of it.

So I pick the Rock-Star up from preschool and we hit dunkin' donuts before heading over to the RV store to pick up a cover for our camper. Now, there are several DnD's that I frequent. This one is part of a gas station that is near an entrance to the highway, so it's my go-to one when travelling.

I get to the window and begin to order. I kid you not how this went. This is our conversation, verbatim:

ME: "Extra Large Green Tea with skim milk only, please". I say 'only' so they don't even have to ask if I want sugar. No, I don't.

GIRL: What do you want in your tea????

ME: Skim milk only, please.

GIRL: You want milk in your tea????

ME: Yes please.

GIRL: Why do you want milk in your tea? Does that even taste good?

This is where my eloquence comes into action. I wanted to show her in some way that I was displeased with her line of questioning, yet not be rude because there are ALL sorts of things she could do to my drink.

ME: Dude!

Way to go, Captain Thesaurus.

GIRL: Okay, DUUUUUUDE (obviously making fun of me). Milk in your Tea. Do you want anything else?

I then proceeded with the rest of my order. I also got a drink for Ian and a piece of fresh fruit for him...because that's what they have at YOUR dunkin' donuts, right? I mean, I wouldn't get him any of the conventional crap that they serve.

When I got up to the window I was annoyed. There were a few girls wearing the headsets, so I couldn't easily pick out who led the Inquisition. I would understand if I ordered a coffee with monkey piss or if I asked her to drop a deuce in my hot chocolate, but c'mon. I kept looking at those with headsets but no one acknowledged our little exchange of Shakespearian dialogue.

Tea with milk, it's not that friggin' odd. Speaking of odd and for those who are wondering, yes I do have the same quirk with tea as I do with coffee. For those that DON'T know, here is my quirk:

If I am at home, in a restaurant, or somewhere else where you can just sit and chill and have a cup of coffee in a ceramic mug I drink it black. If I go to Interrogation Donuts, or 7-11 or somewhere else that serves coffee in the paper or styrofoam cups I drink it with milk. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it may be to cool it down a bit. I don't remember starting this or following any line of reasoning. But its the way I do it, and as we all know, change is bad.

Okay, thats really it for today. So if we meet up anytime soon, please excuse my floppy tongue, primitive grunts and chest thumping as I'm sure I'll be unable to adequately hold a basic conversation using more than two syllable words.

26.2: Check!

2007-11-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

Been there, done that. Just kidding! Here is the story behind my experience at the Philadelphia Marathon:

Saturday night I checked the weather several times, and it was calling for rain throughout the whole day. That started to seriously bum me out, because I was hoping for perfect race day conditions as I didn't want to be waterlogged even before starting, thus starting cold and wet...didn't sound fun to me!

But then I remembered a conversation I had with a running buddy the week before and he said to just remember: no matter what you're going through, every other runner is dealing with too. That kind of put my mind at ease a bit and thus took a c'est la vis approach to it: can't do anything about it, so fuck it!

We were staying at my brothers house from the Friday before the race til the day after Thanksgiving. As you may know, our kids tend to be horrible sleepers, so on the eve of the race I opted to sleep on the living room couch. It was comfy, dark and quiet. That means Muy Bueno! It took about 15min to fall asleep, but once I did, I slept soundly until my cell phone alarm went off at 4:10am.

Race time was 7am, but I wanted to get there a lot earlier to scope out the weather conditions and make a game time decision as far as what to wear. I got up plenty early to get a decent meal in me and allow my body plenty of time and opportunity to, shall we say evacuate, in a nice, warm home-like environment.

My sister-in-law drove me into the city, and we left around 5:30 to give us time to get a parking spot and get to the race area.

We got to the starting area around 6:30, but wouldn't you know it I had to um, evacuate, a second time...nerves I guess. So I hopped in line and waited 15 minutes or so.

After the bathroom Erin and I were looking to see what all of the other runners were wearing and it was kind of split down the middle. A lot were wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirt or long sleeved shirt. Others had pants and long sleeved shirt.

I had already dressed in shorts, long pants, long shirt and short sleeved shirt over it. Erin had written my name on the front of my short sleeved shirt (AWESOME idea by the way!!!), so I knew I was going to wear that on top. But my dilemma was whether or not I should go with the pants.

I was pretty chilly even while wearing them, and since there were plenty of other people wearing pants I decided to stick with them...also because my bib (For you non-running folks, the 'bib' is that paper with your race number or ID on it) was already pinned to them, so it would have been a pain to change it.

So I also had a hat and gloves with me, that I decided to bring...Again, I already had them on and was chilly, so it wouldn't hurt to start with them..I could always ditch them later if it warmed up and I didn't want to carry them.

So Erin bode we farewell and good luck and I lined up with the 5hr pace group. I introduced myself to the pacer and then began chatting with a few women and we all decided that we would stick together. No one knew each other previously so it was good: No hard feelings whatsoever if someone wanted to push ahead or fall behind.

The race started and away we went! Mile 1 went down the Ben Franklin Parkway and then snaked through some streets. There was a lot of dodging sweatshirts, hats gloves and whatnot that were just thrown straight to the ground. A lot of people threw them off to side, but I was surprised how many just dropped them where they were, right in the way of thousands of people behind them.

Mile 1: 10:26. That kind of surprised me, as it was a good 40 seconds ahead of what the pacegroup wristband said we would do the first mile in. But I shrugged it off as maybe the pacer was just banking some time for later in the race.

Mile 2 was more of the same as far as dodging clothes. I kept my hat & gloves on and just kept grooving along. Mile 2 time: 10:44.

Mile 3 found a water stop and shortly thereafter I noticed that i had to pee again. I was VERY surprised as I had already gone several times already. I guess all the water from the previous day was catching up to me....so i veered off to this little area where other people were going and then caught up to my little group. Mile 3: 10:56

Miles 4 & 5 were pretty non-descript. Our little group found ourselves slightly ahead of the 5hr group, but I wasn't too concerned as we were going at an easy pace. I did have a split-second reconsideration, as I knew the pacer would keep his pace, and I should go by that rather than running with three girls, but we were less than a quarter mile in front, so I shrugged it off. Miles 4 & 5: 10:50, 10:54.

Mile 5 included a decent-sized hill and one of the girls in our group started saying that she just wasn't getting into her groove. She said that maybe she tapered TOO much because she wasn't comfortable at all.

I was feeling great, and at the 6mi water station I took a gel because that's what I've been doing on my training runs (taking gels every 6 miles). Mile 6: 10:36.

It was right around this point that the pacer called out my name and waved...letting me (and everyone else in hearing distance) know that I was ahead of the pace group. Looking back, I know he was just looking out for me, since I signed up for his group and he didn't want me to gas early, but at the time I kind of got offended at that. Way to publicly call me out, pal. I just waved back and stayed right where I was. Fuckin' Dicknose.

Mile 7 10:21

Mile 8 included another hill, and a water stop which we walked through so our partner who wasn't having a great day could catch her breath, stretch and get another gel. Mile 8: 11:31

Miles 9-11 were more of the same: slow easy pace, good conversations and still staying within 100yds in front of the 5hr pace group.

Mile 9: 10:47
Mile 10: 11:07
Mile 11: 10:30

Throughout the entire race I was taking my hat and gloves off and putting them back on. We'd be in this one area where the wind was dead, so I'd take them off, but then we'd turn a corner or switch directions and it would pick up and I'd be really chilly. So I'm glad that I never threw them to the ground, I just tucked them into my waistband.

Okay, mile 12 is when the race started to get 'not fun' for me. We were trotting along and all of a sudden I noticed a pain forming on the outside of my right knee. I have occasionally felt 'pressure' there AFTER long runs, but never PAIN during a run.

I tried to shake it off, mentally telling myself that it was just my brain telling me that it wasn't having fun (even though I was VERY comfortable otherwise). No dice. It got bad enough where I was doing a Terry Fox kind of stride. I just started thinking to myself "Good God, no. I'm not stopping. I've been training long and hard for this and to bonk out at 12 measly miles? Fuck you".

Immediately one of the other 3 girls noticed. I was about 3 steps behind them and she kept asking how I was doing. I told her I was doing fine, just hanging back a bit. Almost immediately the girl who never quite got into the race to begin with said she was slowing way down. Apparently she was hitting a wall. So she hung WAY back, while I just slowed down a little to see if I could run through it while staying with the other two girls in the running group.

Mile 12: 10:56
Mile 13: 10:47

We crossed the Half Marathon finish line and people were cheering like CRAZY. I got lots of personal encouragement (remember, I had my name on the front). That got my adrenaline going and I was able to run strongly through the downtown area in no pain at all.

Mile 14: 10:26

In the 15th mile, the brother of one of the girls I was running with hopped in and joined us for a bit. He is a Marine, so we all thanked him for his service and we all began chatting for a bit. He then veered off so he could get back to the rest of his family. Mile 15: 10:23

Mile 16 is where the pain came back, and with a vengence. One of the 2 remaining running partners asked if I wanted some advil. ADVIL? You have advil and didn't tell me about it 4 miles ago??????? WTF?

Of course i wasn't mad at her, and didn't even act like I was. I just graciously said YES! and at the next water stop I grabbed the advil, bid my awesome running partners adieu as at this point I would only slow them down. They wished me luck and ran on, while I took the advil, re-tied my shoes and stopped to stretch for a minute. Mile 16: 11:32

Mile 17 was more of the same: slogg for a bit, then slow to walk/stretch, etc. Mile 17: 12:42

I knew that Allison and the kids, my brother, his two kids and aunt and cousin would see me around mile 20, so I needed to get all this walking and stretching crap out of the way now. I wanted to look good and strong for them.

I started up again and the advil must have kicked in, because my knee felt better. Although it was right around mile 17 that I could feel the heat of a blister forming on the ball of my right foot. GREAT. something else that I have NEVER gotten during a run. But other than that, I felt okay...I mean, I felt good, but I was tired because at this point I had run 17 miles!

Mile 18: 10:16

Mile 19 was probably one of the BEST water stops I've ever encountered: Orange Wedges. Man, those REALLY hit the spot. I mean I didn't know it, but I think i was even craving them because I took a whole handful of them and ate them like there was no tomorrow! Someone was also handing out brownies, so I took a little square of that too.

Mile 19: 10:51

Mile 20 is where I saw my family. Although I was feeling better, it was still AWESOME to see them right before the turnaround. It was exactly the boost and pick-me-up I needed to see my 3.5yr old son yell "Run Daddy Run!". I stopped and posed for pictures for a minute and chatted with my family and a cop who was just standing there too.

I bid them farewell and continued to the turnaround....until Ian yelled for me, so I just HAD to go back and give him another kiss! So after I did the turnaround, I saw them again..I mean not even a minute after I bid them goodbye! I posed for another picture and told everybody I'd see them at the end.

Mile 20: 12:09

Mile 21 found another waterstop with oranges and also in that mile I realized I had to pee again, so found a not-so-well hidden place where others were going and relieved myself. Also, I found it hard to get back into my groove after peeing, so I took a few walk breaks Mile 21: 12:40

In Mile 22 I was doing yet another walk break when I heard a pack of people slogging up behind me and then pass me. It was Captain Dicknose and the 5hr pace group. Ever since he called me out early in the race, I had made it my mission to stay in front of them. DOH!

I NEEDED to beat him. You know what? F this guy. He's not going to beat me. I hopped right in step behind him and re-joined the group. There were probably only 8 people left, and only 2 of them looked better than I felt. So I knew I could keep up.

Mile 22: 11:09

Mile 23: 12:01

The pace group took an extended walk break at the next water station and the pacer gave a bit of a pep talk. We counted down from 10 and began running again. He said we were ahead of schedule, so we'd take the next mile slow.

Mile 24: 12:25.

It was at this point that the pacer said that he was still a little ahead of schedule but HIGHLY encouraged anyone who could push on to do so. He said "if you can go, GO! GO NOW! Don't hang back if you have it in you!".

Well, I'll be if that wasn't the invitation I'd been waiting for. I was going to wait a bit longer before pulling away, but here was my opportunity.

I put my head down, mentally flipped off the pacer, and focused on my breathing. Once I felt my body synch up I looked up and pressed on.

The next two miles were I have to say the hardest two miles I've ever run. I was too close to the finish to walk...F that. I was going to run this thing out..but it took all I had to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I remember thinking at one point that I reasoned not stopping because it took more energy to stop and walk than it did to keep running.

But I kept going and just kept thinking to myself that I'm soooo close to becoming a marathoner. Heck, I was even PASSING people!

Mile 25: 11:05

Mile 26 is when the crowds came back into play. THere was LOTS of cheering and encouragement and THIS is when I was glad that I had my name on my shirt. Spectators would call my name and I would look them in the eye as they told me I looked great and that I was near the finish line.

Mile 26: 10:39

The crowds got bigger and louder and then I saw Erin in the crowd cheering me on. All of a sudden the finish line was in sight. It took all I had, but I managed to pull out a full-on sprint to the finish and raised my arms as I crossed the line.

CHIP TIME: 4:55:03

My goal was to finish between 4:45-5:00 so I managed to pull that out even with the unexpected early 'injury'.

Immediately after the race, runners were treated to cup of hot chicken broth. As soon as I saw that, I can honestly say I got excited! That totally hit the spot and couldn't imagine anything else that I would want to drink at that point in time...a plate of oranges with it would have just been the bees knees!

Post-Race, Erin and I picked up cheesesteaks for everybody from Pats, but then we stopped at Geno's for a cheesesteak for me so I could compare the two. Yeah, that's right: I had two cheesesteaks. Guess what? I rounded out that shit with some cheese fries, probably a third of a pan of brownies and about fourteen beers. I was a freakin' bottomless pit after the race. Not to mention that I was practically completely sober as well as the last one to go to bed that night!

Before the gorgefest though, I took an ice bath before my shower to help with the soreness. Doesn't that sound enticing? It's as horrible as it sounds, but the 10 minutes of agony is worth the relief it provides. In case you can't visualize it, here are my titanic toes in the middle of the ice field:

Before the trip Erin had promised me a massage (she's a massage therapist at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia) after the race to also help with the soreness and I must confess: I was SOOO looking forward to it. I have only had one professional massage before and that was a few years ago on vacation in Arizona. It was friggin' phenomenal and have been jonesin' for another one ever since. She said she would do it Sunday, but her kids needed soothing back to sleep, so she went and took care of them and then just crashed for the night. I certainly don't blame her.

Monday I woke up with a VERY sore right knee and had a giant blister on the bottom of my right foot. So Erin did what no sister-in-law should EVER have to do: She volunteered to pop that bad boy (the blister, not the knee!). She poked the thing with a safety pin and immediately she was greeted with a spray of blister juice....right in her face. She laughed, and I wanted to as well, but first I had to swallow the puke that had quickly gurgled up and found its way into my mouth. So we bandaged my foot up, I took some Ibuprofin and just kind of hung out and relaxed.

Monday evening Erin set up her massage table and got all the stuff together and told me to hop on. I was treated to the BEST 3 hour massage of my life. I didn't know it would last that long, but let me tell you what a pleasant surprise that was!!!!!

She did a phenomenal job and paid extra attention to my sore knee. Apparently what she did worked, because there is no pain there anymore at all. I was treated to another massage Wednesday night to work out the final kinks and now I feel as good as ever!

I'm a wee bit concerned about the knee in the future, but like I said it's feeling good now so only time will tell.

So I can officially say it: I've run a marathon!

I'm not about to run out and sign up for a spring marathon, but I'm certainly not ruling out future ones. But as expected I think Half Marathons are more my cup of tea. So maybe I'll just sign up for a marathon every OTHER year or so. All I can say right now is that I'm glad the training is over, as is Allison.

The plans for the immediate future is to focus on getting back into the gym on a regular basis to get rid of the flab that has developed due to the lack of dedicated gym time.

I'd like to thank all of you who have supported me and my running, especially you Allison! I certainly couldn't have done it without you and your support, encouragement and occasional kick in the ass to get out there and run on the days that I didn't want to! Thanks to everyone who have ran with me, gave advice, cheered me on and even those who told me to stop running because I'm just going to hurt myself. Well, I take that back. To those people I say: Ha! I did it!

Oh, and one more "bite me" to Pacer Mike. Of course I don't mean that...like I said, I know he was just looking out for me. But thanks for the motivation to finish strong! Without you I could have missed my goal!

T minus 4 Days

2007-11-14T20:29:00.000-05:00

I'm beside myself that the Philadelphia Marathon is just a few short days away. I've been training four and a half months for this puppy, and its just about upon me.

I feel confident about how I will do, barring any unforeseen circumstances. I'm not cocky, by any means, but I think I've trained well enough.

"Well enough" is the operative word here. I was supposed to run 4x per week (Tues-Thurs and a weekend run). Except for the first 3 weeks, I've missed AT LEAST one run per week, sometimes two. The upside is that I never missed the two longer runs of the week, just the short runs mid-week (tues and/or thurs).

Am I concerned it'll affect me finishing? No. Do I think it will affect my potential of finishing faster? Yeah. I don't have any major time goals going into this, just to finish. My soft goal however is to finish between 4:45 - 5hrs. I'm still debating whether I should 'challenge' myself and go for the faster time or just head out, enjoy it and take it slow and finish around 5hrs or whenever.

I'm certainly not going to stress about it or give it too much thought, because after all there will be people crossing the finish line almost 3 hours before me. . Here's to the pokies bringing up the rear!

-------------------------

In other news, Mr. Ian came down with Croup. It all started while Allison was away this weekend. Around 3am Sunday morning, Ian woke up crying. I was already awake and downstairs as Little Miss Sleep-Is-For-Suckers decided around 1:30 that that she was having none of this "eyes-closed and lie motionless" stuff that normal people do in the middle of the night.

So anyway, I went upstairs and Ian was soaked (from sweat, not pee). I changed him and gave him some motrin because he was really warm, and got him back to sleep. Well, that lasted all of an hour. He proceeded to wake up screaming absolute bloody murder around 4 (yeah, Babycakes and I were still up). I heard him through the monitor (which was in the next room) yelling "Daddy!!! Daddy!!!! Where are you???" and then something else.

I ran upstairs and he was friggin hysterical. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever seen him this upset. Actually, I take that back. Maybe when he hurt his arm and ended up getting a cast...but I think he was more upset this past weekend. Anyway, when I got upstairs he kept yelling that he saw ghosts, that they were in the hallway, there was one under the bed, one IN the bed and then he screamed that there was one behind me.

Okay, so I'm gonna take off my 'superdad/nothing-bothers-me' hat for a second. Little Haley Joel Osment over here freaked me the fuck out. Of course I hugged him and reassured him, but I'd be remiss if I didn't admit that I looked around the room. Mostly to try to figure out what Ian saw to make him think there were ghosts, but also to see if I crapped myself for any good reason.

Needless to say he wasn't going back to sleep by himself, and since Leah was downstairs, I brought him down with me. We just chilled on the couch watching TV for the next hour while Leah played on the floor oblivious to the supernatural phenomena going on in our house. I finally got those two yahoos to sleep by 5am and we were sacked out til around 9.

After that, Ian was hoarse, had a barky cough and fever. You could hear him wheezing and tell that he wasn't very comfortable. It was really sad to see him cough and then watch him make a really painful expression on his face. We took him to the pediatrician Monday morning and the doctor confirmed that he did have Croup.

I didn't realize that it could go away rather quickly, as he re-assured us that Ian wouldn't be contagious and could go to school on Thursday. He still has a junky cough every now and again, but the fever is gone and his voice is almost back to normal.

Oh yeah, let me tell you about that. Since Sunday Ian has been complaining that he wants his 'real voice' back. Well, we have a humidifier going in his room and I've been using that as a tactic to get Ian to take a nap. If he balked or asked why he needed to, I just told him that being in the room with the humidifier would help his voice. No joke, he would hop into bed and then get into his little 'sleeping' position (as opposed to the lie on his back and stay awake and ask a million questions position).

Today though, the little weasel tried to tell me that his voice was better. I was able to convince him that he needed just a little more time in there, especially if he wanted to go to school tomorrow. Well, that bought me a 2hr 10min nap. Booyah!

Okay, thats about it. I'll update this puppy with a good race report in a week or so when we get back.

An Open Letter to the Hotel Staff

2007-10-23T12:58:00.000-04:00

Note: What is below is what I usually consider a 'first draft' of my blogs. I spew a bunch of shit and then go back and cut and paste and edit and form it into what you usually read. But since Leah woke up from her nap, and I want to put this up so everyone can read about our hotel experience this weekend, I'll leave it as-is. Enjoy!

This past weekend we traveled to NJ to see some friends and family. I'd like to write an open letter to the staff of the hotel where we stayed. I usually change the name or at least attempt to in a cute and funny way...but I'm kinda pissed, so F it:

Dear Douche Baggy Bags of the Comfort Inn in East Brunswick, NJ:

I'd like to thank your wonderfully incompetent staff for an unforgetable visit to your hotel. Now, wait a minute. Before you go patting each other on the back on a job well done, you bunch of cumguzzlers, let me explain.

It's not 'unforgetable' as in "oh my goodness, I can't believe how great that was. I've never had customer service like that before in my life. Hark! Let me rave to all my friends! Please! Please! Everyone I know, go stay at this enchanted palace!"

No. It's more like "oh my goodness, what a bunch of fuck-ups. Can you believe the lack of intelligence of that sack of shit? Hark! Hey everyone I know, steer the fuck clear of these bumbling jackholes."

So you see, collective staff, my family arrived from Connecticut around 5pm this past Saturday. Since my beautiful princess of a daughter was napping, my wife went inside to check us in while I drove around the parking lot waiting for her. I ended up circling the lot umpteen times because you employ nincompoops at the front desk. She was the only one in there and it still took you guys about 8 minutes to check her in. According to her, the two of you snaggletooths stared at a computer screen for a few minutes silently.

Either you were baffled by the information on the screen or you were watching porn in front of a customer and diddling each other underneath the desk. Apparently you were surprised that a customer uses 'points' for a free night stay. You DO know that your employer offers this, don't you? If you can't handle it, please take this chamois cloth and go wash my car.

While my beautiful bride was checking us in, she requested from YOU, Mr. Dicknose behind the desk, a crib to be put in our room. What was your response? 'Sure' or 'no problem' or whatever you fuckin' monkeys were trained to say at your 'how to be an idiot' class that apparently you were required to attend.

We came back to your hotel slightly after 11pm. I'm going to repeat that, because it will be relevent in the next part: WE CAME BACK TO YOUR FUCKINGGGGG HOTEL SLIGHTLY AFTER 11 PEEEE EMMMMMMMUH.

Because your parking lot is slightly bigger than my ass-crack, we had to park on the opposite end of the building. Common sense (or at least successful hotels) would suggest to put a 2nd entrance to the hotel. But we weren't at a successful hotel, now were we?...No, we were at the (non) comfort-inn in East Brunswick, NJ. So we had to park on the opposite end of the building (Hey Allison, Shhhh. I know it was actually on the side, but it was the last possible spot on the side thus still being a far walk in the wind carrying 2 sleeping kids).

So as I just stated in a side-note that only my wife can read (right?), we carried the sleeping kids from the car to the front of the hotel and inside. Fortunately, our room was right off the lobby...and I mean, right off the lobby. It's the first door past the dining room. It can actually be considered still IN the lobby, it's that close. It's in clear view of everything IN the lobby. So, I get the keycard out of my pocket while holding Ian, and swipe it through.

Nothing. Oh dear God.

Try it again. Nada.

Again. Nope.

Motherfucker. Wait, let me stop here. I understand that these things need to be re-programmed every now and again. I'm cool with that. At this point in the night I just thought it was shitty luck. Now I know it was probably due to assholedness behind the desk.

So we both walk right back to the desk (sleeping kids still in arms) and with our quiet, inside-voices inform your staff (including Captain Dicknose that Allison dealt with before) that our key doesn't work.

At this point I would like to thank Captain Dicknose and Leutenant Bumblefuck for utilizing their observational skills. Oblivious to a sleeping 3 year old draped over my shoulder and a sleeping 10 month old in Allison's arms, you proceeded to use your boisterous outside voices to ask stupid-ass questions.

"oh, your key doesn't work? What room is that?"

The one you JUST saw us try to get into, you asshat! We were within eyesight and there was no one else in the lobby. I saw you watch us come in and go to our room! If you weren't busy cupping your friend's balls, you would have noticed us.

You then proceed to continue to use your "hey lets wake up the kids" voice and ask us 3 times our name, how its spelled and where we were from. Again, YOU WERE THE TWO NUMBNUTS THAT CHECKED US IN!

Anyway, congratulations. You did in fact wake up one of our kids. Fortunately Ian was pretty dazed and asked why we were at the dentist (WTF?) and just put his head back on my shoulder.

We trek back the 15 steps to our room while dummy one and dummy two re-insert their thumbs in their respective asses. We go in, and voila: No crib.

We put the kids down on the bed, and Ian pops up and sits on the edge. I'm pretty pissed at this point. Anyone who knows Ian will tell you that he is King Shitty Sleeper, or at least always has been. Dare I say now that he has taken a turn for the better...but history could rear its ugly head. But I digress.....

So I go back to the front desk and inform that fucking cocksucker that Allison talked to upon check-in that there was no crib in our room and that we requested one. His response? "We'll be there in two minutes".

Two minutes. Two minutes? TWO MINUTES? FUCK YOU AND YOUR TWO MINUTES. You had 6 motherfucking hours to put that (what ended up to be a) piece of shit crib in our room. TWO MINUTES? How about "Oh I'm so sorry sir, we'll be right over with it. I am a complete and totally useless imbicile and moron and have forgotten to take my head out of my ass this evening. Please forgive me for overdosing on my stupid pills this morning" Fuck you for blowing it off like that.

So this cocknocker wheels this crib into our room, leaves it in the center and says "if you need anything else, let me know" and walks the fuck away. HEY ASSHOLE, THANKS FOR HELPING ME SET UP THIS CRIB. YOU KNOW, THE ONE THAT I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN MY LIFE, BUT YOU DEAL WITH ON A REGULAR, IF NOT DAILY, BASIS? YEAH, THAT ONE, YOU FUCKIN JERKOFF.

I didn't say anything to him at the time because we needed to keep the room as quiet as possible if we wanted any chance of the kids staying/going back to sleep.

So Allison and I fumble with it and get it together with a dazed Ian watching us. It would be too simple if it ended there, right? No sheets. Again I go back to the desk and ask for sheets for the crib (and a blanket for Ian and his blow-up mattress). He goes in the little fucking back room cave there behind his desk and brings back sheets, then asks if I checked the drawers in our room for a blanket.

No, you dumb dick. I did NOT check the drawers in my room for a blanket. I did not do that because MY MOTHERFUCKING KIDS ARE SLEEPING (well, at least one of them was still sleeping. The other one was awake, thanks to you, you fuckin' rimjob).

He goes back to where he just was and gets a blanket. Two trips in the back room. Very efficient, you lumbering sorry sack of moose jism. As he hands it to me, he remarks that if I need any more that I should check the drawers.

I don't think I have ever wanted to shit down someones throat so bad in my life.

Fortunately thats about all the rediculousness/insanity for the night. Allison was able to transfer Leah to the crib, we were able to blow up Ian's mattress and get him back to sleep, and we were able to go to sleep.

By the way, clueless staff of the hotel, here are a few other things we experienced in the morning:

*No hot water for oatmeal at breakfast. We were told that someone else had already complained to you. Everyone was still waiting for hot water.

*Crappy coffee. Hey man, I take my coffee VERY seriously in the morning. DON'T fuck with my coffee.

*Shitty French Toast Sticks. Even my son wouldn't eat them.

*Plenty of stuff to make fresh waffles, but nothing to put on them. Way to go, kitchen staff!

*No sign identifying the foods. The cheerios you had were honey nut cheerios, not plain. Babies can't have honey, fuckwads.

*The breakfast you had served was Friday's breakfast...at least according to the menu you had posted on the wall. This was Sunday morning. Either you serve your customers two day old food or your cooks can't read. I'm sitting on the fence as far as deciding which was the case.

I was thinking Saturday night that I should complain to you. After all, how are you going to know that you're stupid unless I point it out to you...right? I mean, c'mon, after all, you ARE stupid! Well, I was too pissed off, so I decided to sleep on it.

Sunday morning I was still pissed off, but Ian was getting antsy and punchy so we kind of high-tailed it out of there to continue on to the next leg of our journey. You know how I let you know I was pissed? I didn't say 'thank you' or 'good morning' or even make eye contact with you upon checkout. As a matter of fact, I had my WIFE do it while I went and got the car. Yeah, take THAT bitches.

So in conclusion, management staff that is working hard at running a brand new hotel into the ground, your operation blows goats. Congratulations, I will not come back to your establishment. And I beg all 4 of my readers to consider the same!

Sincerely,

The Toddler Chasin', Diaper Changin' Maniac

Last Weekend ; Things preschoolers dream of

2007-10-10T14:50:00.000-04:00

So I previously told you that I was going to spend the majority of last weekend away at a golf tournament and running a half marathon. Well, thats exactly what I did and I had a friggin blast.

The tournament was a memorial tourney for a friend who had died unexpectedly several years ago. This was the 4th year that the tournament was held and a fun time was had by all! It was a 4-man scramble format (for you non-golfers, that means that all 4 people in your group hit a ball and you decide which one you want to play...then you all go and hit from that spot and decide which one is the best, etc).

It was fun because it was only the 3rd time this year I broke out the sticks, so there was no pressure to do well. But I did manage to kick some serious ass. Well, not really kick ass, but I had some excellent shots and it was the best I've played this year. Unfortunately I don't have any more golf outings on the books until April when we're taking a 'guy's golf weekend' down in Florida.

So it was fun to get out there and play some golf and hang out with guys I haven't seen in years.

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After golf I headed up to Kara & Tommy's to spend the night before the Boston Half Marathon. I won't go into boring details (unless you're a runner, then I'll give ya our mile splits), but the abridged version is that Kara and I had no expectations going into the race. We weren't going to 'race' it, just use it as a long-run since we're both training for marathons.

We started off nice and slow, deliberately keeping it at a slowish pace and not trying to pass people and worry about time. We got to the last few miles and decided to pick it up since we both had a good amount of energy left and finished with a good kick and a fast mile and a half. We both clocked in at 2:11 and change.

I'm super happy with the run because:

a)it was a lot of fun
b)it was good running weather (cool, breezy with some misting rain)
c)our time was pretty damn good! Although it was about 2 minutes slower than my personal best, it was a good 3 minutes faster than my first half marathon which was exactly 364 days earlier.

It was only 3 minutes faster than last year, but our (well, at least my) conditioning is so much better. I made a comment to Kara during the run that the hills didn't seem as bad as they were last year. Kara also pointed out to me that last year I told her that I wouldn't be talking on the hills and just focus on breathing and making it up them (which I vividly recall)...but this year, I was doing all the talking on the hills. Those factors, plus that it was a deliberate slow run made it a VERY successful run in my book! Thanks for the great run, Kara!

Oh yeah, one more thing. Right around mile 4 I felt that familiar warm friction feeling upon my left nipple. I did put on liquid band-aid in the morning, which I had success with on my previous 2 long runs (15 and 16 miles)...but apparently it didn't work on Sunday.

Mile 4 there was a little pink stain. Mile 6.5 found Kara laughing at the red mark and asking me if I wanted to stop at the medical bus that we were about to pass. Mile 13.1 found Tommy blurting out "Jesus Don, what happened? Did you get shot?"

Of course I took a picture of the carnage...The picture is from later that night, so the blood had settled into the shirt, so its not fresh and the deep red color that 3,500 other people saw that day...but you get the jist of it:

And yes, it did hurt like a mother. But only when I was running into the wind or taking a shower. How much did it hurt? Enough to make a grown man whimper for his mommy.

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This weekend I'm signed up to run the Hartford Half Marathon, but will be banditing the Marathon course instead. I'm scheduled to do 18 miles, and was planning on doing 5 miles before the HM started. Well, I talked to Kara last weekend and she convinced me to just run the Marathon route and stop at the 18 mile point.

It feels weird going into it KNOWING that I'm not finishing, but then again, its just a training run for me. I could barely walk after 16 miles 2 weeks ago, but didn't do any mid-week runs between and probably could have hydrated better the few days leading up to it. I'm not making that mistake this time! Wish me luck!

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Ian keeps talking about the game "Hungry, Hungry Hippo". He picked it out as a birthday gift for 2 of his friends and has been saying for weeks that he wants to ask Santa for it.

Well, he came down from his nap today and announced that it's Christmastime. I told him it wasn't and tried explaining the concept of time and winter and months and blah blah blah. No joke, he looked at me and said that Santa told him that it was christmas time. WTF?

He said that Santa rang his "grey" bell and said that it was Christmastime so Ian asked him for Hungry Hungry Hippo and Santa said yes. I asked him when this happened and he said 'just now'. So deductive reasoning tells me thats what Ian dreamed about today.

So it's official: It's Christmas time.

Well, if we're going on that kind of logic, it's also official that I defiled the Swedish Women's Olympic Volleyball Team.

Fast Frog, Faster Car

2007-10-04T14:30:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I find this so funny, but I do. The following two pictures are of what's at the end of our driveway.

If you can't out-run (out hop?) a japanese half-sized SUV, then you don't deserve to live. Notice the legs bent back over near his head. Survival of the fittest, baby:

The right thing to do would to take the mangled carcass off our driveway and huck it into the woods or something, right? Yeah, that would be the right thing to do. Kermit is still sitting at the end of our driveway (I took the pictures yesterday afternoon).

He'll get a proper and respectful catapulsion (is that even a word?) into the trees when I get around to it. Until then, let the flies buzz around him joyfully mocking his lifeless body.

Ok, since you made it this far, I'll put a picture up of Ian goofing around the other night at Target in the halloween costume aisle:

As you can clearly see, I have absolutely nothing of substance to say today. Ian has been loving school and apparently has been behaving okay. Although the teacher told Allison when she dropped Ian off today that they were going to talk about 'time-out's' today. Sounds like some of the kids are a wee bit rambunxious.

When I picked Ian up after school the teacher told me that only one kid got a time out today. And it wasn't even Ian, thank you very much, but apparently he was close.

The weekend is shaping up to be a good one for me. I have a memorial golf tournament for a friend of mine on Saurday and the Boston Half Marathon on Sunday. That means almost an entire weekend of being kid-free. Oh, the horror of it all! I say that now, but I'll miss them by halfway through the round on saturday.

Well, maybe by the time I'm driving home Sunday afternoon.

First Day of Preschool (kind of)

2007-09-25T10:10:00.000-04:00

Well, we just got back from Ian's first day of school. It wasn't really his first day, but more of a meet & greet. You may recall, Ian is part of the Childhood Development Program at the High School, so in the room were: 10 preschoolers, 20 parents, 20 high school kids (each preschooler gets 2 high school 'buddies') and the teacher. Good thing it is a VERY large classroom, but there was plenty of room for the kids to all play and meet each other.

It was really cool walking in because you could see how excited the high school students were to meet their charges. We walked in the door and the teacher asked Ian his name, so he replied and the two girls who were assigned to him came up and introduced themselves to him and to us and they both started playing with Ian.

He had no problem whatsoever adjusting to the atmosphere. Within 3 minutes he had a police helmet on (with the shield), and his two buddies had a firemans helmet and a chef hat. After about 20 minutes the HS students had to go to their next class, so then the preschoolers got to meet their OTHER set of buddies. (the meet & greet wasn't at the normal school time, Ian will get about an hour with each class of kids).

I got to spend a minute or two with each set of buddies just giving them the general rundown on Ian. The biggest thing I wanted to let them know was about Ian's speech: He doesn't say 'S' or a few other letters. I just gave them examples of what words containing those letters would sound like. They'll be able to pick up on it fairly quickly, but I just wanted to give them the heads up.

The teacher we met last year moved away this summer, so this new one kind of got thrown into the mix. She seemed nice enough, but she is kind of a scatterbrain. Allison's hairdresser's daughter is in one of the classes and she has said the same thing about her, so I was on the lookout for it today. I'll give her some slack, but here is an example of her being kind of all over the place: She had said in a letter last month that she'd hand out a schedule during this meet & greet. Someone asked for it and here is her answer why she didn't have it, verbatim: "Yesterday I sent two students to the store, they got hung up so I couldn't print out the schedule this morning". What the hell does that mean? Obviously the kids aren't attending Harvard, so it really doesn't matter...but I think that shows the lack of preperation of even the most basic things.

Overall, I think Ian's gonna have a great time at school and will enjoy all the students. By the way, the preschoolers are split down the middle: 5 boys, 5 girls. We even ran into a couple that we met during our Birthing Class with Ian. The dad was there checking his blackberry every minute (no exaggeration), and the mom was busy with the nanny handling their 3 month old daughter. The dad even mentioned something about the nanny "We both work, but we make sure someone is home with our daughter.". Jeez. I should have said "Yeah, there are lots of people home with Ian too: Clifford, Curious George, Diego......"

And on the potty training front, everything is going AWESOME. He tells us if he has to go, even if he's watching a show, he'll say "daddy, I gotta go potty...I gotta poop!" and then run to the bathroom. He also like to pee standing up, like daddy.

He's had some accidents here and there, but hey're few and far between and whats even better is that he gets bummed and bothered by them. Today, when the first group of kids left to change classes I mentioned to Allison that it was a good time to show Ian where the bathroom was, and to take him as it had been awhile. As I was walking over to get him, he went up to the teacher and said "excuse me, I have to go potty". WOO HOO!!!! So I took him, but he didn't go. Hehe, Ian's pee-shy! But Allison took him again later and he went.

So overall, today was a good morning and Ian is gonna have a BLAST at school!

What I learned today on my run.

2007-09-22T20:20:00.000-04:00

Today I had a 15 mile training run, which was the furthest distance I've ever covered. Before this, my furthest run was a half marathon, 13.1 miles.

So what did I learn today on my run? That 15 miles is a long fuckin' way. And 26.2 miles is a hell of a lot further than that....and to be honest, I'm a wee bit nervous.

I felt good up til about 11.5 miles, then my feet started to get heavy and the humidity began to take it's toll. It's been 2 weeks since I've run even 13 miles, so my body didn't quite remember what to do at that point in time. But afer all, I was able to get my mental game in order and got through it. I ended up walking from 13.68 miles to 13.88 miles, but other than that and 4 water stops, I chugged along the entire time.

I actually kept a pretty consistant pace, except for that 14th mile there. So in reality, it was a really good run. It just felt tough those last few miles. I'm very stoked that I've now covered that kind of distance, but its nowhere NEAR what I'll be facing in oh, just 8 weekends from now.

I have 8 weeks to prepare this lumbering shell of a body of mine to go 11.2 MORE miles than what I did today. Well, if we want to get technical, I only have 3 more runs that are longer than what I did today....and the longest one of them being 20 miles. That means that come race day, I'll have 6.2 miles of unchartered territory to cover. That's 6.2 miles above and beyond only one run of 20 miles that I will have previously done. Am I fookin' high???

I'm pretty damn nervous about it now that I know what a 15 mile run feels like. But after thinking about it today after the run, I know I'll be fine considering several factors:

A) I'm not the first person in the world to run a marathon 13 months after running my first half marathon. Other people have done it, some who probably were in worse shape, so I know I can do it.

B) Today I only stopped for water 4 times. If you really care, they were at miles 3.8, 5.0, 10.0 and 11.2. The marathon will have 12 water stops...thats 12x I can grab some water, walk a bit and gather myself. In 15 miles, there would have been 6 water stops and a 7th just half a mile later. So today I 'rested' less than I would have on the marathon course. (side note: I know that I don't HAVE to run the whole thing, but I have discovered that if I walk at any point other than water stops, mentally its THAT MUCH tougher to not stop again just .25 miles down the road. I try to only use walking as a last resort.)

C) Dispite my Nervous-Nellyishness, I know that I'll be fine and that I can do it. Even if I have to walk at times other than the water stops, which I understand is most likely going to happen. Even though my race history shows that I'm good at just plugging along mid-race, 26.2 miles is a whole new ball of taint hair. (you thought I was going to say wax, didn't you? Thats right, I said taint hair. I'm here to keep your eyes from getting too comfortable and keep them on their little eyeball toes).

D) Running longer distances is as much about conditioning your mind to handle the abuse, as it is your body. This was told to me by a runner-friend and I certainly understand now and believe it. But I know that I will prevail because I'm much stronger psychologically now than I have been previously. I obviously can't say I can condition myself for 20 miles, as I haven't run that distance yet.

Even though I wanted to stop and walk around mile 9.5, I know I didn't have to. I also got the urge around 12.5 but I kept on going. I know people say to listen to your body...fuck that. My body was trying to take the easy way out, but I wouldn't let it. In runs past, I would have easily obliged. But it wasn't as hard as I thought today to just tune out and listen to my feet hit the pavement and focus on my breathing. When I do that, I'm unstoppable.

So for those reasons and more, I know that I'm gonna kick ass in Philly.

not-so poopypants

2007-09-21T16:47:00.001-04:00

We just had a breakthrough in the potty-training department.

I was filling in some nail holes on the garage door trim when Ian blurts out "daddy, I have to go poopy!" He runs into the downstairs bathroom, drops trough, drops on on pot and drops a few logs.

This is friggin' HUGE for us. Usually Ian will just casually lean against the coffee table to take the weight off his feet and quietly squeeze out some odoriferous waste products. I don't actually know that he's taking the weight off his feet. For all I know, he's applying abdominal pressure to help work out all thats in there...kinda like squeezing the last bit of remnants out of a tube of toothpaste.

Yeah, kinda like that.

Either way, that's his usual M.O....but not today! I made a HUGE deal out of it and we even called mommy on speakerphone to tell her our great news. It would have been better if SHE had US on speakerphone!

What made this whole thing even better is that Ian said that he started to poop in his underwear (no evidence though) but then realized that he should go on the potty. Fuckin' A. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but school IS starting on Tuesday. I think Ian was just toying with me and playing headgames all summer.

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In other news, my Marathon training is going well. I have my first ever 15 mile run tomorrow morning. I have yet to run anything over a half marathon (13.1 miles), but I know if I take it slow and easy it won't be a problem.

Oh my, how life is changed. On Friday afternoons I used to call up my friends and we'd talk about what bar we'd meet at and proceed to get annhililated. Now I"m blogging to anonymous (and not so anonymous) friends about my son's methods of shitting himself and how I'm running like an antelope out of control.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget: It's fun to poop on the potty!

It's his potty and he'll go if he wants to.

2007-09-07T15:21:00.000-04:00

There may be hope for us yet on the potty-training front.

As you may (or if you're getting old like me, may not) remember, we gave up potty training several weeks ago because it was a losing battle. Ian had no desire what-so-ever and couldn't care less if there was crap in his underwear.

Well yesterday, while wearing a pullup even, he told me he wanted to poop on the potty. yeehah! He didn't though, just peed, but hell that's a start!!

And just this morning, out of the complete blue, he told me he wanted to wear underwear because he wanted to "go to school and learn". Looks like I'm starting the process all over again:
*Dragging him (and most likely Leah) to the potty every 30 min no matter where we are
*Hauling 3 changes of clothes wherever we go
*Carrying the portable potty in & out of my car as often as I do Ian

But hey. If Ian is on board with us now, I'm all for it! Maybe 3rd time is the charm.

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Oh, Allison: hurry home. Leah is thisclose to crawling.