Kellie's Keeshond Adventures

So Much for My Resolve

2011-12-18T08:44:00.001-06:00

I promised to post more often. I failed. I'll start over in 2012. Update on Zazzles: We're up to 6 points.

The Lone Star State Classic - Dallas, TX July 8, 9 & 10, 2011

2011-08-14T12:43:00.003-05:00

Our first show!

After a good deal of internal debate regarding whether or not I could handle the pressure of a dog show on my own, without the help or guidance of a mentor, I decided that I'd give it a try. Even if we walk away empty-handed, it will give me the opportunity to expose Zazzles to the sights, sounds, smells and overall hustle and bustle of dog shows. So out we set.

We went to Market Center in Dallas on Thursday morning to claim some space in the non-reserved grooming area. I have to admit that I was a little concerned about leaving my things there with no one to keep an eye on them, so on Thursday, I just took over the grooming table and crate to hold our space. We were packed like pickles when we came back Friday to get ready for our first show sponsored by the Texas Kennel Club. I quickly made friends with our new neighbors; since I was solo at this show, there was no one to pal around with.

Our ring time on Friday was reasonable. Despite hours of practice, I'd never done anything like this. We stood and watched while all the class boys did their stuff and the Winner's Dog was named. Then we were up, and Zazzles and I headed into the ring and around. This judge had chosen to use the "ramp" an apparatus we'd never practiced with before. We'd just watched all the boys do it, and everyone knows girls are smarter than boys, so how hard could it be, right? Zazzles went half-way up the ramp, then jumped off to the front so I had to go around, pick her up, and set her on the platform at the top. I'm sure I blushed, looked at the judge and said, "We've never practiced this." Fortunately, our little misstep didn't seem to bother the judge. She looked Zaz over, then told me to take her down and back, and awarded us 1st place for the 6-9 puppy bitch class. We were the only entry in that class. My next blunder was that I didn't wait for the blue ribbon, and the steward called me back in by waving the ribbon in the air and saying, "Excuse me, this is your ticket back in!" After the other bitch classes were complete, Zazzles and I went back into the ring to compete for "Winner's Bitch", and this is where it gets really exciting, because we won! First time in the ring, and we won. WOW! Winner's Bitch and Best Opposite Sex. Zazzles' first point!!

I guess my decision to go ahead and give the Dallas show a shot paid off.

Saturday, we had an early ring time. We didn't win Saturday, but we did get a reserve. So, I went home and did my homework on the judge we would have Sunday.

Our judge for Sunday was Randy Garren who just so happened to judge Keeshonden at Westminster in 2010. That means, not only must he know his stuff, but there are videos available!!! So, guess who studied Randy Garren on Saturday night? Nope, Zazzles lounged around. I watched all of his judging from Westminster, so Sunday I knew exactly what to expect. I'm not sure if I can credit my preparation, or the fact that I have a really nicely bred show bitch, or maybe some of both, but Sunday was our day, too! Zazzles took another Winner's Bitch and Best Opposite Sex. Point number 2!

What a great first experience! Now, on to San Antonio!

Outrageous Blogger

2011-08-14T12:39:00.003-05:00

Apparently I missed the part where it said that to be a top-notch blogger, one must post blogworthy events in a timely fashion. This is a skill of which I am entirely devoid. So, now, in an effort to compensate for my inability to write about things when they actually happen, I'll attempt to recap the goings on of Zazzles and myself and our "Texas March of Death" in the month of July. Hold on to your pants! This is going to be a wild ride.

Darkenwald Join The Chase

2011-05-31T08:46:00.003-05:00

In January, I acquired "Zazzles" (Darkenwald Join the Chase), and made her the newest member of the Siekierski family. Since then, we've been working on obedience and conformation, and are getting ready for our first shows this summer. This is going to be a new spin on an old blog, since my babies aren't babies anymore. Here you can follow Zazzles' adventures on her trek to fame.

Emily: My sweet bunny girl

2008-08-11T16:45:00.003-05:00

Some of you may already be aware that last Thursday (August 7, 2008) we lost our precious Flemish Giant Rabbit Emily. Emily would have been five years old this coming November. She suddenly became very ill with renal failure that wasn't due to infection, and there was nothing medically we could do. We received news of the vets diagnosis Wednesday night, and made the extraordinarilly difficult decision to have her euthanized. As I gently stroked her soft fur and comforted her through the tremors that her body was having, she gave me her last kisses and ground her teeth before she went to sleep peacefully around 2:45 in the afternoon last Thursday. We had her cremated and will keep her ashes in a bunny shaped box.

Needless to say, I'm am extremely sad and miss her very much. Emily was Pete and my first pet together, and was very much like a baby to me. I am overwhelmed by emotions when I think or talk about her, and it will take time before I'm able to discuss her life and death rationally. I need space and time to grieve and thank you in advance for providing that to me.

Fox 4's Candidate Matchmaker

2008-01-08T14:02:00.000-06:00

What about me?

2007-06-30T14:53:00.000-05:00

I found this online, but what about ME?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are
0
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

A Bloggable Occurance

2007-05-15T09:16:00.000-05:00

So what do you do when your everyday ordinary life takes a turn for the strange, and even borders on bizarre? You blog about it!

Last night at about 8:30 p.m., Pete was taking a shower with Alex because they had both been out in the backyard and had gotten pretty dirty and sweaty. I was holding Teagan and we had gone into the master bathroom to see if I needed to get Alex out of the shower and dry him off. Pete was complaining that the water was too hot, and that it wasn't getting cooler in spite of the fact that he was adjusting the temperature. I reminded him that I had experienced the same phenomenon a couple of weeks ago, and I had to turn the water all the way over to cold before it would get cooler and then readjust it to be warm again. (I think that we must have a worn out washer or something in the faucet.) When all of a sudden, I heard a loud crashing, shattering sound. I had no idea what had happened; I thought that maybe something fell. I proceeded to check the closets for fallen rods, the nick-knack shelves for broken figurines, and the front bathroom. I thought, considering the violence of the crash, that maybe the mirror had fallen off the wall. Then finally, I figured it out: A full, unopened, 12 ounce can of Dr. Pepper had crashed thorough our bedroom window. Thrown presumably from over the brick wall that separates our backyard from American Boulevard, the can had managed to break both panes of the top half of our bedroom window. Fortunately, the blinds were down and closed, so the can appeared to have hit the glass and broken it, become lacerated and spewed soda all over the backside of the blinds and between the remainder of the panes of glass, and then fallen back out onto the ground. Before I realized that the damage had been caused by this can of soda, my mind was racing: "Had our foundation suddenly shifted?"; "Did someone hit an incredible fly ball from the softball fields at EDS?"; "Did a roller coaster car fly off the Texas Giant and fly all the way across Grand Prairie only to smash into our back window?". Okay, so I never actually thought the last scenario, but the others were definite possibilities.

So, Pete and I were left with a lot of broken glass to clean up, and a window to patch (we used cardboard and duct tape) as quickly as possible before the entire fleet of West Nile laden mosquitoes came to reside in our house, but before we started our clean-up, I felt it appropriate to call in Gil Grissom and his men .... actually it ended up being Officer Keck with the Ft.Worth Police Department. The officer came out and took a report of "criminal mischief" and advised me on how difficult it is to remove an Oleander and prevent it from growing back. The officer said that the can couldn't be used as evidence, because apparently soda cans pick-up quite a few fingerprints in their journey from the bottling factory through the convenience store or soda machine to the purchaser and then finally through our bedroom window. He theorized that someone may have tossed it out the window of their car, but I disagree. I have a couple of theories about "who done it": My first theory is that Jon Douglas Rainey from the Discovery Channel show It Takes a Thief threw the can through our window to get back at us for recently installing a cipher lock in the garage, but I think they do most of their filming in New Jersey, so that is a bit of a drive. My second theory is that TXU (the electric company) is angry that we keep the thermostat set at 78 degrees in the summer and they don't think they're sucking quite enough money out of our pockets as it stands, so they decided to break out one of our windows in an effort to make our house less energy efficient, and thereby take for themselves every last nickle and dime we have this summer. Or, maybe it was just some teenager walking down the street, up to no good who suddenly had the brilliant idea to toss a can of soda through some one's window, and we happened to be the unlucky house he was by when this idea took shape.

We contacted our homeowners insurance, but at last check they were still sorting through all the other claims from yesterday and hadn't yet found the time to look at ours and schedule an adjuster to come out. I'll keep everyone posted on the outcome.

I know that Pete was hoping for a little excitement in the bedroom, but something tells me that this isn't what he had in mind. *wink*

The lights weren't on, but we were home

2007-05-03T09:47:00.000-05:00

Last night we had some severe thunderstorms with reported wind gusts up to 100 miles per hour. We dodged the bullet as far as damage, but we did get to sit in the dark for about five hours. We spent about 30 minutes taking shelter in the closet while the storms were right over us. No one should ever have to spend 30 minutes in the closet with Alex. Anyway, the lights came back on around midnight, so we got up and reset all the clocks and Pete set his alarm to wake up this morning. We've been getting to hear the tornado sirens go off at least once a week for the past month. I guess we're in the midst of a fairly volitile severe weather season.

Potty Training Update

2007-04-19T12:23:00.000-05:00

Great news ... Alex hasn't had an accident since last Wednesday (04-11-07)!!! I'm so proud of him! He's even dry when he wakes up in the morning.

They call it an Epiphany, but that's a big word ....

2007-04-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

So, we're going to call her "Piffy" for short. Meet the newest member of the family: 7 week old, blue Flemish Giant bunny girl Epiphany.

To move or not to move ....

2007-03-02T15:59:00.000-06:00

I was thinking of moving the blog because it seems that Blogger has been going through some transitions lately and I've been unable to access my blog from my computer. So, out of curiosity, I tried accessing it from Pete's computer and I had no problem. Hmmmm ...... maybe it's not blogger that is having the problems. I think I'm going to sell my computer. Does anyone need a boat anchor?

Anyway, now that I've figured out what the problem is, I'll try to keep things updated more often!

Let it Snow

2007-01-17T10:50:00.000-06:00

Over the weekend (January 12 - 15) we were basically hunkered down awaiting what was hyped to be a "wicked arctic blast". Apparently the storm had a history of icing in Oklahoma and as I understand folks to the north of us, even Pete's parents in Wichita Falls, felt the brunt of the icy conditions. Here in Dallas-Ft. Worth, however, it seemed to be much ado about not a whole lot. I know that there were some treacherous road conditions, and Pete did choose to work from home Monday in an eff0rt to avoid driving with the crazies. Most of the roads around us were simply wet. With the temperatures having been in the seventies a few days prior to this weather maker, it was just too warm on surface roads to stick and cause many problems. We did stick close to home in order to keep our family safe.

This morning, we woke up to a surprise! I think the weathermen were surprised, too. There was about a half inch layer of icy-snowy mix on the ground, and it was still coming down. The snow didn't accumulate much, but what did stick around allowed Alex the opportunity to make his first ever snowman. While his snow man was petite (measuring in at about 10" tall) it was a big "conventure" (Alex-ese for adventure) .

We hope that if you have inclement weather, you make good decisions about when to venture out. Stay in and stay safe.

Happy Birthday to Teagan!

2007-01-08T22:52:00.000-06:00

Teagan turned the big #1 on Sunday, January 7th!!! Can you believe she's a whole year old? Can you believe that I haven't slept through the night in over a year?

We didn't have a party because she doesn't like crowds, so everything was pretty low-key. I did get her a cute princess cake. Aunt Teri visited her during the afternoon, and the Aunt B and Uncle J visited in the evening, so Teagan got to eat cake twice!

New Year .... New Blog

2007-01-08T22:49:00.000-06:00

Well guys, it's a new year ..... Who's up for a new blog? I resolve to get back into blogging on a regular basis, so check back for new posts!

Friday's Weekly Doctor Visit

2006-09-08T20:52:00.000-05:00

For the past three consecutive weeks, we've been to see the doctor on Friday. This is quickly turning into an expensive trend, but we can't seem to get Alex well. Two weeks ago today was the trip that diagnosed him with bacterial conjunctivitis, which we managed to conquer. Last week, he was diagnosed with an ear infection and croup presenting asthma, so we had to get a nebulizer and start giving him daily breathing treatments. Thursday around 3 in the afternoon, when I got Alex up from his nap, I noticed that he seemed unusually warm. I took his temperature and found it to be 101.9, so I gave him Tylenol and we called the doctor's office. It seemed strange to me that he would be running such a high fever considering that we had just finished a round of antibiotics that were prescribed last week. The doctor wanted to see him today, and upon looking in his ears realized that the infection was still rampant. He gave us a couple of options: We could get an antibiotic injection today and then follow it with another round of oral antibiotics, or we could take a series of three injections (today, Saturday and Monday) which is a bit more aggressive. I opted for the latter in an effort to nip this thing in the bud. It seems to me that Alex has been sick off and on for more than a month now, and since illness generally precipitates foul moods, he has also been quite difficult to get along and live with.

Tomorrow, we are going to make our best effort to let Alex take a train ride on the old Tarantula in Grapevine as a part of Grapefest. Hopefully, he'll feel up to it and have a good time.

Teagan's doing well, and I entered her picture in a photo contest. I'll let you know if she wins!

We'll Miss The Crocodile Hunter

2006-09-04T19:51:00.000-05:00

We were very saddened when we awoke Monday morning to hear that Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) had been killed in a freakish accident while snorkling at Batt Reef off the coast of Northeast Queensland. He was one of my favorites, and it feels like a friend has passed.

Friday's Big Drama

2006-08-25T23:43:00.000-05:00

Alex woke up Friday morning with a little crusty stuff in the corner of his left eye. I cleaned it up, thinking that he had probably gotten soap or shampoo in it last night during his bath, or maybe he had a little abrasion. An hour or so later, I noticed that there was more purulent (pus-like) discharge. It got progressively worse as the day wore on. Pete had come home around 2 to meet with a plumber that our home warranty company sent out to check a leak in the water heater, and Alex who was in his bed to take a nap heard Pete and jumped up demanding to see Daddy. Pete and I decided that we should call the doctor's office for an appointment. Pete took Alex in to see Dr. McGonnell, who has recently joined Forest Lane Pediatrics. The doctor said that he has Bacterial Conjunctivitis, and prescribed an antibiotic drop that we have to instill in both of Alex's eyes three times per day for the next five days. I told Alex to tell anyone who asks him what's wrong with his eye that Teagan punched his lights out. He giggled and told me, "that's funny".

As if the last couple of days haven't been stressful enough, around 9 o'clock this evening I was washing a load of darks and I decided to put the denim shorts that I had been wearing all day in with the wash and change into my pajamas. However you want to describe it: fortuitously, unwittingly, carelessly .... whatever, I left my phone in the pocket. Sadly, the Motorola Razr doesn't come with its own flotation device, and it drowned. If only it had been packaged with an airplane seat cushion, it might have stood a chance, but then I guess it wouldn't be one of the thinnest phones on the market. Needless to say, I'm phoneless, at least for a few days until the replacement that Pete quickly and graciously ordered me arrives.

Thursday's Big Drama

2006-08-25T22:56:00.000-05:00

Thursday, Alex was begging to go to McDonald's for lunch. I talked him into going to the mall where he could have a kid's meal from Chick Fil A, and then go to the play area. I felt that he deserved a special reward, because he was doing so well on his potty training. So, around one, we headed out to the mall. On the way, Alex fell asleep, so I decided that I would just turn around and go home, scoop him out of the car and put him in his bed so that he could take a decent nap.

Highway 183 in the East bound direction is usually pretty light in the afternoon, but at one point, traffic became congested and slowed to a stop. I stopped, but the person behind me didn't. Fortunately, I had stopped with enough room that the impact didn't push me into the truck that was in front of me, so the accident was contained to just me and the person who hit me. And, no one in either vehicle was injured. I immediately pulled off to the shoulder, called 911 and requested police back-up. I got out of my car and walked over to the other car and took a pic of the license plate with my cell phone, tried to call Pete's cell, and work and got no answer, got a pen and paper from my car and proceeded to ask the driver of the other car for a driver's license and insurance card so that I could take down their info only to quickly become aware of the fact that they did not speak English. I verified this by asking, "Hablas Ingles?" to which she replied, "No". I stood around waiting for the police, and called 911 again to make sure that they were indeed on their way. It took them more than 10 minutes to get there ... good thing nobody was bleeding! When the officer got there, he asked what had happened and I told him that they rear-ended me, and explained to him that they evidently didn't speak English and asked him if he spoke Spanish, which unfortunately, he didn't. He did, however, know the Spanish word for "insurance card" to which they replied that they had none. I gave the officer my driver's license and proof of insurance, and stood around trying to calm Teagan down while he and the other officer who showed up a bit later to help him out filled out paperwork. Here's the kicker: The girl was driving a car that didn't belong to her, without insurance, and without a driver's license. Satisfyingly, she was ticketed for all the aforementioned violations and I believe "failure to yield", too. However, we are left to sort out getting my car fixed (we have comprehensive coverage, but there's a $250 uninsured motorist deductible) and our insurance company has to try to track down these people (the driver and the owner of the vehicle) and try to make them pay up. And, unfortunately Bedford hasn't yet jumped on the bandwagon of north Texas cities that instantly impound uninsured vehicles that are involved in an accident.

My RANT #1: We spend over $1400 per year on car insurance, and we have clean driving records, obey traffic laws, don't get tickets, are in that 30+ married group that supposedly has to pay less for insurance, and drive modest vehicles. If we cough up that kinda capital, so should everyone else. Yet part of the reason that car insurance premiums in north Texas are so high is because it's common knowledge that an overwhelming portion of the population is going to get insurance for the one month that they must to have it to renew their registration, and then drop it. If they even bother to go as far as getting it and registering their vehicle. My solution: Make the penalty for getting caught driving without insurance so severe that everyone pays for it for fear of the alternative. I say, shoot the uninsured on the spot! (*wink*) We don't need their kind of trash on our streets, or drinking what little water we have left, either, for that matter!

My RANT #2: If you're going to move to the United States, learn to speak the language. I would never gather together a gaggle of my friends and relatives, move to Russia illegally, and expect the people who were already there to learn English so that they could talk to me. Yet, in Texas that's exactly what happens when you look around and suddenly realize that Caucasian, English-speakers are in the minority. I know that we have really good Mexican food here, but I don't think it's a fair trade. I know that there are a lot of business owners who enjoy paying $2.50/hour under the table, but they should have to be accountable, too. Don't get me started on immigration reform!

Alex's Progress

2006-08-25T22:46:00.000-05:00

After the stress of so many "failures" on Monday, I took Tuesday off from potty training. I know it was probably confusing to Alex, but I had to have a sanity break.
We resumed training on Wednesday, and Alex had four successful potties, and three accidents. I made a stupid mistake by putting him down for his nap with his training pants covered with plastic pants, and he peed on everything in his bed. So, Wednesday turned out to be a heavy laundry day! He really has no control over what happens while he's sleeping, so I've decided to let it slide if he pees in his pants while he's asleep. Note to self: Make Alex wear a pull-up for sleeping!

Thursday was great! Alex had one minor accident when he peed a tiny bit in his pants while rushing to get to the potty where he was able to finish up his pee pee (or woo woo, which he's taken to calling it). He didn't even wet while he was asleep. What fabulous progress! (be sure to read future posts for more info on Thursday)

Today, Alex was able to make all his pee pee's in the potty, but for whatever reason made a poo poo in his pants this morning. That's really unusual in my opinion, because to this point, he had been able to make his poo in the toilet every time. I cleaned him up, and he was basically back on track for the rest of the day. (be sure to read future posts for more info on Friday)

Go Pee Pee in the Potty

2006-08-21T13:58:00.000-05:00

We've started seriously potty training with Alex. Sunday morning, I got him out of bed and took him straight to the toilet. He sat on it off and on for three and a half hours and didn't pee in the toilet or his pants. Around 11:30, I made him a bath, and as soon as he got in the water, he let it fly. I think Pete and I were both feeling frustrated and defeated by at this point. We fed him lunch and put him down for his nap, and resumed training after he woke up. Last night he had his first success. He told Pete that he needed to go, and went to the toilet and peed in the potty. We danced and cheered and had a celebration. This morning, I got him out of bed, and straight to the toilet, again. As if repeating yesterday, he refused to pee. I let him off the toilet and put a pull-up on him. We've convinced him that he can't let the spaceships printed on the front of the pull-up disappear (that's what happens when he pees in them). I asked him about half a dozen times if he needed to go pee pee, and reminded him what to say to tell me that he needs to go, yet the first time I left the room, he proceeded to wet in his pants. I scolded him and made him do nine practice runs of going to the toilet. At the end of the practice runs, I told him that he should try to sit on the potty and go, and then I left the bathroom to tend to Teagan. While I was out of the room, he made a poo poo and a pee pee in the toilet. This time, he even managed to point his "pokey" down and pee in the toilet. Once again, we had a big celebration, and I let Alex call Pete and tell him of the success. As his special reward, I took him to Chuck E Cheese for lunch, and before we left the house, I made him sit on the potty and try to make a pee pee. He put about three drops into the toilet and told me that he was done, so I went over with him the instructions for letting me know when he needed to go. After we got to the restaurant, before Pete could even get there to meet us, I asked Alex if he needed to go pee pee, and he said yes, so I took him to the toilet. To my dismay, he had already peed in his pants. He fell asleep on the drive home, so when he wakes, I suppose we'll start all over again. I think that I'm going to have to stay home-bound for about two weeks straight to accomplish anything.
I guess you win some and you lose some.

The Grape Juice

2006-08-16T23:02:00.000-05:00

Monday was a very hectic day around our house: I had scheduled dentist appointments for Pete and myself with a dentist that is conveniently located just across the street from Pete's office. Pete took off Monday so that we would both be able to go in for our exams and cleanings. Pete hadn't been to the dentist in several years, and I hadn't seen one since January of 2002 when I had my braces removed, so we were both hurting for a check-up. I had noticed a dark spot on one of my bicuspids several months ago, but I put off going to the dentist until after the insurance plan year started over in July because having Teagan drained our flexible spending. Pete's appointment was at 8 in the morning, and he made it back home around 9:45 with the news that he needed to have a special cleaning, a filling and a wisdom tooth removed. Luckily they were able to make him an appointment for all that at 2 in the afternoon Monday. I figured that I was in for equally as bad news as I proceeded to my appointment at 11 in the morning. To my amazement, I found out that I was in pretty good shape. Two of my existing fillings (I only have 3) were cracked and needed replacement, and the dark spot that I had noticed was just a stain that can probably be blamed on my orthodontist having ground away some enamel between several of my teeth to make space.
I dropped Pete off Monday afternoon, and he had all his work done. Unlike the removal of my wisdom teeth, his was done with local anesthetic and he didn't seem to have a terrible amount of pain as a result. I have to go back Thursday morning to have my fillings replaced.
After Pete was done, the kids and I went and picked him up at his office (he had walked across the street to show off his tooth to his colleagues) and then ran by Tom Thumb on the way home. During the shopping trip to Tom Thumb, we picked up a couple of bottles of juice, as Pete's not allowed to have soda for several days following the extraction. One of the bottles of juice was Welch's purple grape juice. After bringing the groceries in to the house, I stopped to feed Teagan who was screaming with hunger. While I was feeding Teagan, and Pete was helping put things in their place, Alex somehow managed to swipe the bottle of grape juice and proceeded to go dashing from the kitchen into the living room where he stumbled, the bottle of juice slipped from his hands, the lid burst off and spilled more than a liter of grape juice onto the carpet. Our formerly off-white carpet, to be exact. When I saw the bottle fall and start pouring, it was almost as if my life was flashing before my eyes. I know now that it wasn't my life, but rather the life of the carpet, and the dream of going on a cruise in 2008, that I was envisioning. I thought for sure that the stain would never come out, and that we'd end up having to spend thousands of dollars to replace the carpet (in leiu of saving for a cruise).
Pete and I sent Alex to his room, (we both somehow managed to maintain complete control and not beat Alex, or even spank him for that matter) and set out trying to clean up the mess. Online, I looked up methods of removing grape juice or red wine from carpet. Most of the techniques tell you to blot with this, then blot with that, then blot with this and that again. The method that I decided to try said to first use white wine or club soda to blot the stain with. We didn't have club soda, so I got out a bottle of Biltmore Estate Chenin Blanc, and proceeded to use it as cleaning fluid. I really think the best method should actually say, "To clean grape juice out of carpet, first drink a bottle of white wine, then you'll feel much better, and the stain won't matter so much." After the wine, we applied a dilute solution of ammonia in water. I'm not sure if it helped either, but it did make the stain change from purple to a bluish-gray color. Then more wine, followed by an attempt to soak up all the liquid in the carpet. I left it alone for awhile, then came back to it later in the evening with a bottle of the two-part Spray-N-Wash. I was out of Resolve carpet cleaner, but I remembered that the ingredients in the Spray-N-Wash were the same as the Resolve, so I gave it a shot along with a good deal of elbow grease and scrubbing. I was finally able to make the carpet closely resemble how it began, and after a follow up with Spot Shot on Wednesday afternoon, I think I have the stain as close to eliminated as possible.
As a result, purple grape juice is forever banned in our house, and I think that I'm going to rent a rug doctor this weekend or call Kiwi or Stanley Steemer to clean the rest of the carpet. Since I spent so much time scrubbing that stain, it's the cleanest spot in the house! Oh, and Pete and I drank the rest of the wine. It was really good, sweet and light, and because I don't usually drink, one glass still makes me giggle.

Teagan's New Word

2006-08-10T22:25:00.000-05:00

Today Teagan started saying, "Da da da da da". I think Pete's pretty excited about her new word. I'm glad that it didn't take her as long to add the second parent as it did Alex. He started out saying, "Da da da" and didn't say "Ma ma ma ma" for quite a long time. I think Teagan's only really been saying, "Ma ma ma ma" for three or four weeks now.

Share and Share Alike

2006-08-10T22:19:00.000-05:00

We've tried to reinforce to Alex the importance of sharing with his friends and Teagan. So, there was no hesitation in his decision to share his cold with her. Now she's feeling a bit under-the-weather as well, though I've tried to head her symptoms off at the pass by beginning the medicine as soon as I noticed her acting like she was becoming ill. Now we have two sickly munchkins, but Alex is making strides toward wellness. They are, however, keeping me on my toes.

Difficulty Sleeping

2006-08-08T08:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Monday 8/7/6), we went over to Dallas to Celebration Restaurant and met up with Brigette and Jason. Alex has a great time when we get together with them, though he still seems a bit confused and occasionally calls Jason, "Aunt Brigette".

Alex is still feeling under-the-weather, and for the past couple of nights has experienced confusional arousals, which are an interruption in his normal sleep patterns similar to night terrors. He's not actually awake, though he sits up and calls for Mommie and Daddy and has tears streaming down his cheeks. He also speaks a lot of gibberish during the episodes and seems as if he's in distress even though he's not. It's difficult to watch, but experts suggest that you not try to wake the child or cuddle them, because they're actually in a stage of sleep between sleep cycles and disturbing them can actually prolong the episode. Alex has had these before, and they generally last about ten minutes, as did the first one last night. Pete said that there was a second episode, but it occurred after I went to bed, and he reported that it only lasted a couple of minutes. I'm anxious for Alex to start feeling better, as I'm certain that the sleep problems are triggered by his illness.

Teagan is still into her habits of getting up three or four times per night, which is wearing me out. When Alex was this age, if I heard him wake up in the night, I would wait 15 or 20 minutes before getting up to check on him so that I would know for sure if he was really awake, or if he was just at a wakeful moment in his sleep. I find myself getting up immediately with Teagan because of concerns that her crying will wake Alex, and if he gets up in the middle of the night, then we have two children up and crying and Pete would have to get up, too. Which would mean that not only is my night's rest getting sacrificed, but Pete's as well, and he has to get up and go to work in the morning. I on the other hand, just work 24 hours a day. (*wink*)

BONUS VIDEOS:
Alex goes swinging
Teagan goes swinging
What happened to Baby Geico?

Wiggledancing 2006

2006-08-06T20:21:00.000-05:00

We had a marvelous time at the Wiggles Concert today!! Though Alex wasn't feeling his best, he quickly warmed up and started dancing in the aisles. We brought along signs reading, "You're the man, Sam Moran" and "We love Ben" which Murray Wiggle (the red wiggle) spotted in the audience and read aloud. We also brought a bunch of red roses for Alex to give to Dorothy the Dinosaur and a rawhide bone for Wags the Dog. During the show they send cast members into the audience to collect the roses and bones, and Alex got to hand his roses off to dancer Ryan, and his bone to Donovan (the guy who's the drummer in several numbers). During about the third song, I spotted Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who was seated a couple of rows in front of us in the next section over. He made a cameo appearance in the "Sailing Around the World" number running across the stage and waving the Texas state flag. After the concert concluded, Alex and Pete had their pic made with him.

Here's where you can view all the pics that we took: http://letsgetwiggling.shutterfly.com/

Alex's Birthday and the Busy Week That Ensued

2006-08-05T23:31:00.000-05:00

Wow! What a whirlwind! Alex's birthday party was last Saturday. He had a big party at McDonald's where he was joined by all his little friends, followed by a big party at home with quite a few family members to share in the celebration. As Uncle Scott put it, "Alex got a rake" which is true both literally and figuratively. He did indeed get a toy rake to play in his new sandbox with, but he also received so many gifts. I have seen other children with more toys, but I always swore mine would not be among them, yet he has clearly joined their ranks. We are quite thankful for all his presents, and he is delighted with each and every one ... even the ones he throws at Teagan.

On Sunday, Alex's actual birthday, Pete and I took him (and Teagan)to Chuck E. Cheese where he had a great time playing video games, ski ball, and all sorts of other things.

Monday we took Alex to see the Doctor for his two year check-up. He did have to get one immunization, the second in the Hep A series, but I brought along some Kissables as a treat after the shot, so there wasn't too much crying. He weighs about 31 pounds, and I think that the doctor said he was 36.5" tall. I was excited when they told us that his language skills were advanced for his age.

Friday, I noticed that Alex seemed to have a barking cough and stridor, which is sort of like a wheeze only it occurs when you breath in rather than when you breath out. So I figured that he was working on another case of the Croup, and we gave him some cough and cold medicine before he went to bed. We called the doctor this morning (Saturday) and Pete took him in. It's just as I suspected, but now that he's two, they're more liberal in what drugs they're willing to prescribe, so Pete came home with some cough medicine that's stronger than the OTC stuff I had on hand. We decided to go ahead with our planned excursion to IKEA in Frisco, which didn't go as smoothly as hoped, but at least we've now ventured to the land of Swiss Ambrosia. I think we'll go back some time when Alex is feeling better. When he's potty trained, we can let him play in their supervised play area.

Sunday is the big Wiggles concert, so there should be an exciting post about our fun times there.

BONUS!!

2006-07-25T23:39:00.000-05:00

Alex and Teagan play together.

Picture Time!

2006-07-25T23:33:00.000-05:00

Tuesday evening we took Alex to The Picture People at Northeast Mall to have his birthday pictures taken. The girls working there thought Teagan was so cute, that they took some pictures of her, too. The Picture People have gone digital, and I really like their new setup, and while Alex wasn't totally cooperative, we did get some cute shots!

Why Alex, That's FANTASTIC!!

2006-07-25T15:57:00.000-05:00

On Sunday, Pete was hard at work finishing up the installation of our new threshold between the carpet and tile at the kitchen/living room transition, so to keep Alex out of his way, I got out his piggy bank and helped him count the coins we've been saving for him since before he was born. Mostly it's just a collection of pennies and pocket change, but we've added a couple of five dollar bills that he got from Gigi and Popski for ice cream. Alex really enjoyed the counting, though he doesn't seem to grasp that the different sizes of coins symbolize different things. I'm not even sure that he really noticed that there were different sizes. However, he is quite aware of the paper money, which seems to utterly fascinate him. He insisted on holding the paper money, which he dubbed "tickets" and running circles through the living room shouting, "My tickets! That's FANTASTIC, Mommie!" I'm still not sure where he picked up the word 'fantastic' but it was probably on one of the PBS Kids shows that we've been watching lately. Additionally, he's broadened his scope by not only soliciting friends with the conversation opener, "Hi! I watch Little Einsteins!" but also with variants including Caillou,Jay Jay the Jet Plane and Roger's Neighborhood (Mister Roger's Neighborhood).

Teagan's a Crawley Bean!

2006-07-25T15:53:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday, Teagan started to crawl!! It's not your standard hands and knees crawling, rather a military-style low crawl on her belly, but nevertheless, she can travel across the room in a matter of seconds. I think it's just a matter of figuring out that she can go faster if she gets on her hands and knees and she'll be off and away. Can you believe it? Alex didn't crawl until he was ten months old!

Back into the Blog!

2006-07-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

I've been doing a hideous job of maintaining the blog, so I'm going to make a genuine effort to get back into the swing of things!

Adventures in Swimming

2006-07-17T22:29:00.000-05:00

This weekend, we decided to take both kids swimming. Alex got himself a Coast Guard-approved life vest, and Teagan got a bathing suit.

The first trip to the pool in Grapevine worked out pretty well. Alex [reluctantly] went under the raining umbrella and even got into the big pool, but it was clear that he wasn't terribly excited about the prospect of swimming just yet.

The second trip was a dual visit to the South Euless pool and Splash Island. Alex is slowly adjusting to his life vest and being in the water; Teagan, on the other hand, enjoyed every minute of it ans splashed the whole time she was in the pool.

In addition, Teagan has begun to enjoy [semi-] solid foods. Kellie succeeded in feeding her both applesauce and rice cereal with bananas, so maybe they will both be sleeping a little more soundly at night.

Both Teagan and Alex seem to be developing rapidly.

Teagan rolls around to reach things that she wants and is starting to put things in her mouth to teethe. She is one step away (metaphorically, anyway) from crawling.

Alex is beginning to understand and respond to questions in an almost adult manner. When asked where he had found the elastic band he brought us from his room, he replied, "Aunt B.'s hair." It was Brigette's hairband that she had left when visiting the weekend earlier.

I guess we shouldn't be too surprised - she's six months and he's almost two - but they continue to astonish us on a daily basis.

[--CLICK HERE FOR BONUS ALEX MOVIE--]

I Go Splash Island - - Pump Broken

2006-07-06T22:36:00.000-05:00

We've been trying to take Alex to Splash Island for several days now with no luck. Pete tried to take him Saturday; when they got there they found out that the pump was broken, or there was a clog in the line ... whatever the case, there was no water to play in, and "no buck dump-it". Sunday was a busy day filled with surprise celebrations and gatherings in honor of Pete's birthday, and Monday evening Pete had a Kiwanis meeting so there was no chance for Splash Island on those days. On Tuesday, the 4th, Pete and Alex geared up to go just in time for a thunderstorm to roll in. No complaints from me, as we are in desperate need of the rain! The majority of Wednesday was punctuated by rain and thunder showers, and I noticed Alex for the first time actually listening to the weather, "make sounds". He even went over and stood by the fireplace listening because he could hear the tinkling sounds of raindrops hitting the metal exhaust on the exterior of the house. Finally, this evening we thought all was in order for an enjoyable outing (for the whole family) to Splash Island, and when we got there, the pump had evidently given out again. Though it couldn't have happened too long before our arrival since there were about half a dozen little wet Tongan children running around the water-fun area. Pete and I had an aside about how Alex was so looking forward to getting to play there, and decided to take him over to a park in Grapevine where they have a couple of dolphin statues that spray water into the air. Also, while we were there, we noticed the Grapevine public pool which has a neat "raining umbrella" and a toddler wading pool. So, we plan to take him back over there another evening to experience that. I always feel so bad when we promise something fun to Alex and then it doesn't pan out, and you see that look of disappointment on his little face. And now he has a good enough grasp on language and what's happening around him, you can bet that he'll tell at least the next seven people that he comes in contact with, "I go Splash Island - - pump broken - - daddy fix it! mommie fix it!" And then follow that up with whatever movie or television show he watched. What a cute little guy!

Alex the Lumpy Head

2006-07-06T08:06:00.000-05:00

Despite our best efforts to prevent Alex from getting insect bites (i.e. spraying him down with OFF!) he still managed to take one on the right temple as evidenced by today's pic of the day. The pic was actually taken a couple of days ago as the bite was received on Monday night, and most of the swelling has subsided. I just wanted to let everyone know that it was just a mosquito bite and didn't want anyone to be concerned that he had taken a blow to the head.

Toofer number Two!

2006-07-06T08:02:00.000-05:00

This morning I noticed that Teagan's second tooth is poking through her gums. It's her lower left front tooth (the lower right front tooth was the first) and it doesn't seem to have caused her nearly as much discomfort as the first. Now if I can just get her to swallow some cereal instead of pushing it back out of her mouth with her tongue, maybe I can get her to sleep more than 2 consecutive hours at night.

Alex, Alex, Bubble Eater

2006-06-29T23:05:00.000-05:00

Alex got a new toy today: A bubble tumbler. It's a device that's designed to keep the bubble liquid from spilling because little hands will inevitably tip the container over. Alex, however, hasn't quite figured out the dynamics of blowing bubbles yet; instead he spent about twenty minutes this evening dipping the bubble wand in and eating the bubble liquid off, then sort of foaming bubbles out of his mouth. He did have a couple of big bubbles appear, and one even floated away, though we weren't quick enough to get a picture of that, it certainly reminded me of a cartoon where the character accidentally eats soap or something and then hiccups and bubbles appear.
Luckily, the bubble fluid is non-toxic, I just can't imagine it being too pleasing to the palate. It must be an acquired taste.

First tooth! First tooth!

2006-06-29T09:51:00.000-05:00

Teagan has been exceptionally cranky as of late, even to the point that Mommie herself has difficulty consoling her. Mommie discovered the cause yesterday: a tooth! Teagan's first has arrived; it is one of the bottom incisors.

While she hasn't developed them as quickly as her older brother, Teagan appears to be getting her teeth much earlier than other children we know. With any luck, this one will come straight in without the gums growing back over it. Having a tooth emerge twice only doubles the discomfort!

More Apple!

2006-06-24T14:18:00.000-05:00

Alex’s diction has improved markedly. Mommie suggested it’s almost as if Alex is secretly absorbing sounds at night in his sleep and repeating them the following day. Instead of “moh,” now he says “more.” “Ah-ah” has become “apple.” “Mommie” and “Daddy” are gradually replacing “Ma-ma” and “Da-da.” He even tells us we’re funny, that we need to settle down, and to wait “a just minute.”

He has really come to enjoy Splash Island, the local municipal water park. Alex went from running away from the water unless Daddy was holding his hand to charging fearlessly into all the water sprays and getting back up without crying when he slips. We are planning to meet with one of my coworkers and his son (Rohit and Alex were born about two weeks apart) if the rain stays away.

Teagan is just a bright little bundle. She rolls over frequently, trying to get where and to what she wants; she could crawl any day now. So often, we can hear her cooing and see her smile. Teagan reacts very positively to smiles and sounds from her family. This has made for some happy-looking pictures lately, as we can get her to smile even while hiding behind the camera.

Teagan's Feeling Better

2006-06-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

Teagan was feeling under the weather over the weekend. We went to Wichita Falls on Saturday afternoon to celebrate Father's Day, and Teagan started vomiting. She vomited twice Saturday, and then again Sunday morning. I gave her Pedialite via a medicine dropper until she could handle nursing, which I picked back up in the afternoon on Sunday. She was well all day Monday until about eight o'clock in the evening when we had another round with the vomiting. She didn't vomit at all today, so with hope it's just an icky stomach virus that has run it's course. I just wanted to let everyone know that she's now nursing as normal and feeling much better!

Sorry that we messed up the big Father's Day lunch that Nana had planned by heading home early.

Sorry I haven't posted lately

2006-06-20T22:19:00.000-05:00

I've been busy, and it seems that by the time the kids are in bed, I'm ready to head there myself. So, I've added Pete as a member of the blog so that he can post messages, too. He has a lot more computer time during the day than me, and I thought that everyone would enjoy hearing his take on things! I hope you enjoy a daddy's perspective, and I'll try to get back into the swing of posting at least three times per week!

Alex's Big Adventures

2006-06-08T08:38:00.000-05:00

We've been taking Alex and Teagan on lots of excursions this week. Monday we went to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History where Alex spent time playing in Kid Space and then we saw an Omni Max movie called Ride Around the World about cowboys in different countries. We didn't get to finish the movie because Alex was hungry and he got restless. I think that I may take him today and try to see that movie again. That evening we took a trip to the park (Preserve at McCormick) and fed the ducks and fish. We even saw a little wild rabbit.

Tuesday we stuck pretty close to home, though we did have an outing to the park in the evening. We were hopeful that we would see the little rabbit again, but no luck. We did feed the fish and ducks, and then Alex got to do a lot of sliding. The pics of the day today were taken there.

Yesterday, Pete took a family day off from work to look after Alex while I went to the doctor. I had to go see Dr. Griffith for a re-pap because there were some unusual cells on the one right after Teagan was born (he thinks due to inflammation from delivery). I took Teagan along with me while Pete and Alex headed over to the museum again. Alex played at Kid Space and got a cool penguin sticker while he was shopping in the Kid Space grocery store. Then they saw an Omni Max movie about fish, and Alex got to sit in his own seat in the theatre. We usually go to the quiet room, which is secluded from the actual theatre, in anticipation that Alex or Teagan will make a lot of noise. Pete said that he did really well watching the movie. Afterward, Teagan and I met up with them and ate lunch at McDonald's where Alex got to do even more playing. Wednesday evening, we made another trip to the park, and again saw the little rabbit. We fed fish and ducks and Alex got to go down the slide a bunch of times.

Alex has recently learned the crescent shape as "moon" so anytime he sees something that shape he identifies it. I've been feeding him Lunchables occasionally for lunch, and he likes to bite the round slices of meat and the crackers and then identify the remainder as "moon". He's learning so fast. And, he really loves his new bed.

Teagan is becoming more and more alert. She's playing with her feet a lot, and rolling all around. I recently retired the bassinet, and put her in the pack and play in our room to sleep. She can escape from her sleep positioner and go scooting off all around the bed, so I retired the positioner, too. Now she's sleeping "freestyle". Since she's strong enough to roll so well, the risk of sleeping in a prone position is drastically reduced. It's amazing ... Alex wasn't rolling this way until he was about eight and one half or nine months old.

Everyone is doing well. The garden seems to be thriving. Right after Teagan was born, I somehow managed to get to bed by about 10 each evening, but now I'm up until about 11:30, and I still seem to have things that need doing. I'll try to make time to keep posting!

Finally a free moment

2006-06-02T20:43:00.000-05:00

Finally a free moment when I have time to write a short entry.

Pete is outside with Alex. The little Jordanian, Indian and Hispanic girls down the street came by and asked if Alex could come out and play. They're all much older than he is, but they like to have him and Sam (the little boy from across the street) come out and play with them. Our neighborhood is such a melting pot of different ethnicities. I think a direct reflection of the metroplex. There are a great number of Indian and Tongan families in our community. When I was pregnant with Teagan, I wanted to name her Zlata, and Pete thought that was too odd a name. My response was, "Yes, it really will sound odd considering she'll be going to school with our friend's children: Walied, Rohit, and Tarik." Oh well, as many times as I'm asked to repeat Teagan, and even spell it out, I'm probably better off having not named her Zlata.

I caught an excellent warehouse sale at Kidkraft today! They're warehouse is over in Dallas, and they have an annual two-day sale where they get rid of excess goods at ROCKBOTTOM prices. I purchased a neat wooden blender with break apart fruit for $5 ... it retails at walmart.com for $29.95! I got Teagan a toybox and I got eight inch wooden letters in pink to spell TEAGAN and in white to spell ALEX. I think that we may add some additional decoration, but it'll be neat to put their names up on their bedroom walls.

Pete and I worked steadfastly last Wednesday (05/24) rearranging and moving things to the attic where Pete added some additional plywood and expanded the usable space, and got most of the odds and ends cleared out of Teagan's bedroom. The crib and changing table/armoire thing are both in there, and I need to do a little more rearranging to have it complete for her. Alex's "big boy" bed is in his room and we've added a safety rail. He needs a step stool, which I will most likely be getting him tomorrow. The transition has been relatively painless. We still need to obtain an additional monitor for Teagan's room, and she'll be all set. I even put her in there for a nap once earlier this week.

Alex discovered the joys of Karaoke today. He found the microphone to my karaoke machine and was wagging it around, so I got out the karaoke machine, hunted down the power cable and hooked it up and let him sing along with some songs. I sang some songs for him, too. This was all before his nap, and on his way to bed, he kept begging for "more songs". I think that he really enjoys hearing his voice come from the speakers. He is saying new words everyday, so many that I almost need to carry a journal with me to keep track of all of them.

Teagan is rolling, rolling, rolling. She can travel a good six or seven feet from the spot where I lay her. We have some cute pictures of her after she rolled in front of Alex's Big Red Car push along toy. It looks as if she's about to be run over (and thanks to Alex, she has been run over by that car before). She is about four months ahead of where Alex was in gross motor development, but still no teeth. At this time, Alex already had about 3 or 4 teeth. I'm not complaining, especially since she refuses to take a bottle. The toothless babe definitely poses less risk to me!

All in all, we're doing well. I took some pics of our garden earlier this evening for everyone to see.

More later ... I'll do my best to keep posting!

Busy little bees

2006-05-31T22:48:00.000-05:00

We've been busy, busy, busy, which hasn't left me much time for blogging. In fact, I think one evening our ISP was having technical difficulties, and I started writing an entry in Word, but never finished it. I'll have to go back and make sure I mention everything that I had started to mention in the original piece.

Pete and I worked very hard on Monday to improve the flower bed in the front of our house. We took down that big tree (I think it was a Cyprus) and added a fountain, five big boulders and lots of pretty flowers and plants. We still need to plant the maiden grass that I was finally able to pick up today (my first and second trips to the Home Depot Landscape Center were laughable) and then I'll take and post a pic for everyone to see.

The kids are doing well, Alex is as rambunctious as always, and Teagan has started trying to eat her toes. I could go on and on.

More soon!

Alex's Big Boy Bed

2006-05-27T22:05:00.000-05:00

Friday my parents came out and brought the majority my brother's old bedroom suite for Alex. I got him a new set of twin sheets, a mattress pad and a vinyl mattress protector (just in case) and laundered the Mickey Mouse comforter that was mine when I was a teenager. We made a special trip to Sam's to get a new twin size mattress, and Alex's big boy bed was complete. Friday night was his first night to sleep in his new bed, and although he did wake up once around 1 A.M., he did really well. We pulled the trundle bed out a couple of feet so that in case he rolled off he would land on another mattress. We plan to get him a rail so that we don't have to worry about an accident. When he woke up Saturday morning, I asked him if he liked his big boy bed and he said, "yes" and then I asked him if he wanted to go back into the crib, and he said, "no". I guess it's official ... Alex is now a big boy!

Teagan

2006-05-24T22:28:00.001-05:00

Teagan has recently become quite entranced with watching other people, specifically other children. This evening Alex said something to her and she smiled and cooed and I told Alex that she was talking to him and that he should tell her hi and that she was cute.

She's been really clingy and wants to be held pretty much all the time, though she does seem to be feeling quite a bit better. I think that she had an achy tummy. Her sleep habits have improved slightly in the past few days, but she's still not back to sleeping for 6 hours at a time again. I talked to another lady in our neighborhood who has a baby about Teagan's age, and she said that he gets up several times in the night, so I guess I was lucky when she took to sleeping most of the way through the night so early on. She must be getting me back now.

She's doing a lot of playing with toys and rattles. She likes to be shown them, and hold and shake them on her own, too. She has figured out that how to pull on the dangling toys on her swing to make the music and lights start.

When we go shopping, I've been taking her out of her carseat and carrying her in the Baby Bjorn. She really seems to prefer the Baby Bjorn to the carseat when we're walking around the store. Who can blame her? She can see where she's going and she's essentially being held.

That's all the news for now ... I'll keep you posted!

The cute factor ......

2006-05-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

Alex really works the cute factor: His new thing is saying, "That sounds?" whenever he hears an unusual sound. I try to figure out what sound he's talking about and explain it to him. In a parking lot, he heard the sound of the fasteners banging against a flagpole in the wind, and expressed curiosity, so I pointed to the flag and told him what was happening. Recently he heard the sound of an import racer (like the modified Honda Civics with the big spoilers on the rear) buzzing past, and he said, "Big jet". I explained to him that it wasn't a jet, but a car, and that when he hears that sound, he should say, "Got rice?". And if you giggle when you hear him say something, he'll keep repeating it, so of course, I laughed and who can blame me .... I taught him to say something funny! This evening while Pete was bathing him, Pete said something and Alex told him, "That funny!" He is absolutely adorable when he giggles with a big open-mouthed grin that shows off those little teeth.

Thursday morning Alex started saying, "That ticks" when something tickled him. Alex got a haircut Thursday evening, and he kept telling me that it tickled. So cute.

Friday I was feeding him lunch and he had a pudding treat for dessert. He kept giggling and laughing, and his teeth were all brown from the chocolate pudding. That made me laugh, and he said to me, "settle down!" which made me laugh even harder, and then he told me, "calm down!".

Despite how difficult he can be at times, he can certainly be a lot of fun, too! And I'm sure that Teagan will learn all of his tricks.

Alexander

2006-05-24T21:55:00.000-05:00

Alex has taken a liking to a new Playhouse Disney short called Choo Choo Soul. On the show, they sing the alphabet, and count. He picks up songs quickly and I frequently hear him wandering around and counting the way he's heard it in song. He can say a series of about three numbers in order, but then he goes off on a tangent and just starts saying random numbers. I think his favorite sequence is 6 - 7 - 8. I've been working with him on sounding out words one syllable at a time. If you just say a big word to him, he can't repeat it unless you break it down into syllables. Yesterday, I even got him to say, "Condoleeza Rice is the Secretary of State". He's started throwing a ball or the Koosh Flingshot and saying, "Where'd it go?" then searching to find whatever toy he threw and saying, "There it is!". He absolutely hears every word and repeats the ones he's capable of saying. He say a story about a volcano that erupted in Indonesia and he started saying "volcano". His vocabulary is increasing at an astonishing rate.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we had lunch at McDonald's (Alex's favorite restaurant), and he was really cute playing on the toddler slide. He'd climb the stairs and then slide down all by himself. At least once, he tried sliding down the stairs. I think he was confused because the park we generally take him to has bumpy slides; I think he thought it was one of them.

I struggled trying to keep him out from behind the fence that is around the entertainment center for about three solid days, then finally I got a piece of twine and tied it so that it couldn't be moved. He's still going over and trying to pull it out, but at least the booby trap buys me enough time to get to him before he gets to the electronics. He's a little smarty and he remembers how he did things in order to repeat them ... especially if they're naughty.

Alex danced the Chicken Dance with Brigette at the Bavarian Grill last week, and he can tell you all about it. When asked what dance he danced, he replies, "I dance chick dance ... hat". He likes to mention that he got to wear a neat hat while he was dancing. For several days, he was convinced that he, "danced Pop-pop" (Pop-pop is the name he has chosen for both of my parents) but I've finally convinced him that he actually, "danced ain't bee" [Aunt B (he can't say Brigette)].

He's started doing more dramatic play: He has an old disposable camera that he likes to carry around and say the word cheese while he pretends to be taking pictures. He's finally begun going to his toy chest and picking out a toy and initializing individual play for himself, though he also likes to go to Teagan and snatch whatever toy she may happen to be holding. He gets in trouble for the snatching, and has to stand in the corner for 2 minutes if he repeats the behavior after being warned.

I'll try to post more often in the future to keep everyone updated on his latest mischievous stunts.

An Update

2006-05-21T14:04:00.000-05:00

It's been several days since I've had time to sit down and write an entry, so I'll try to use this opportunity to summarize what we've been doing for the past few days:

Thursday evening we went to dinner at the Bavarian Grill. It's absolutely my favorite restaurant for German food. I love the Rinder Roulade, which is a thin cut of beef that has been rubbed with mustard and along with bacon is wrapped around a pickle spear. Alex had refused to take a nap, and was more than a handful at the restaurant. He threw tantrums the entire time that we were there. I had almost canceled, anticipating that his lack of a nap would prove disastrous, but at the last minute decided that we should go. It turned out to be the wrong decision, because he made having an enjoyable evening and meal next to impossible. I was angry at him until we put him in his carseat to head for home and he started saying, "I sorry ... I sorry ... I sorry". I don't know that he knew what he was sorry for, but it made me feel bad for being angry in the first place.

Saturday was a pretty exciting day. I sent Pete to Ft. Worth to audition for Wheel of Fortune, amidst a crowd of about 8000 people. He filled out the application and participated in the second grouping, but his application wasn't chosen, so he didn't get to audition. The odds are so mind-bogglingly small that you would actually get picked. I took Alex and Teagan to a birthday party for Dominic Escandell. He turned three. There were a ton of people there and Alex had a great time running around, playing in the sand box, on the swing set, and with all of the toys and other kids. Pete met up with us at the party. Afterward, when we were back at home, Alex kept asking for, "Mo party ... mo party ... mo party". I had to translate this one for Pete, because he thought that Alex was saying something about going potty.

Teagan's been a little fussy. I think she has a tummy ache, or maybe it's the teething. Still no teeth, but she's drooling buckets and acting uncomfortable. I'll keep everyone posted on any progress.

That's it for now ... I'll try to take a minute to write more this evening after the kids go to bed.

A Survivor revelation

2006-05-18T09:08:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick entry based on a funny thought I had earlier:

Alex was walking through the living room using some inanimate object as a telephone and chattering, "Hi Da ... Hi Da" when it all hit me. I had a flashback to last Friday evening when Alex was using a piece of pizza crust for a phone and I suddenly realized .... I'm raising Shane!

For those of you who watched the last season of Survivor - Exile Island, you'll understand better, and for those of you who didn't I'll try to bring you up to speed: Shane was one of the castaways, who was a complete tattooed nuts-oid freak. At the start of the season, I couldn't stand him or his antics, but as the show progressed he somehow managed to gain an iota of likeability. Anyway, there was one sequence where he had found a small piece of wood that he began referring to as his "Blackberry" and using it to "text message" people. He acted as if he was really communicating with people via this small chunk of driftwood.

When Alex was walking around acting as if he was talking to Daddy on the arm of his Mr. Potato Head, it all came together. Alex has the same kind of imagination that Shane had. This is scary! I have to try to steer him in a new direction! Rule #1 ... Alex ... NO tattoos until you're 12 son!

Red is a really great color -- reach out and touch someone

2006-05-17T22:29:00.000-05:00

Alex is trying to learn his colors. He's figured out that red is a color, but that's about as far as we've made it. At first, I was excited because I thought that he had actually learned a color and could identify it .... then I realized that "red" was the answer to any question about color. Even if we've just studied a picture and I've told him the color and had him repeat it. One minute later, it's all gone, and the object is "red" again. It sort of reminds me of when I used to watch Jeopardy, and any time there was a category about the Bible or religion, I would just answer every clue with, "Who is Moses?" and typically I would get at least one question in the category correct. You just can't talk about the Bible without bring up Moses, and Alex just can't talk about colors without bring up "red".

Teagan has become very interested in reaching and grabbing. She wants my Diet Coke can, my water bottle, any food that I may be eating, and pretty much anything else that she sees me holding. She hasn't quite mastered working her arms and hands yet, so she sort of seems like she has a depth perception problem. She'll reach out and grab at things, but not reach quite far enough. It's amusing to watch.

I've just begun training Teagan to put herself to sleep. I've been going easy on her by rocking, nursing or snuggling her to sleep. Now she's placed in bed for 20 minutes and left to cry if that's what she chooses to do. This is how we trained Alex, and after taking a survey of our friends, I think that he has one of the best bedtime routines. I'm especially proud to say that both kids sleep in their own beds and never with Mommie and Daddy. That's an extremely bad habit to get in to, and a hard one to break.

We assembled Alex's tricycle over the weekend and let him have a go at riding it around inside the house. He's not too good at it yet, of course, he's never had to steer or pedal before, and to ride a tricycle you have to do both ... simultaneously. That's a lot to learn for a little guy. He does go around demanding, "By-sick ... By-sick", and expecting Pete or me to put him on the tricycle and give him a little push around the living room. I just hope when he masters the pedaling and steering that he doesn't run over Teagan. But you know, if you ask him, "Alex, what color is your tricycle?", he'll tell you, "RED!"

That's all for now ... I'll keep you posted!

The Prince of Wails and the Pea

2006-05-16T21:02:00.000-05:00

Pete and I put our old mattress in Alex's room because he liked jumping on it so much, and as an experiment decided to let him try sleeping on it. Saturday night, he fell asleep on the mattress and then evidently awoke, collected his pillow, binky and bunnies and moved into his crib. Sunday night he slept all night on the mattress and got up Monday morning, opened his door and yelled for Mommie or Daddy. Monday night, the same, except that he evidently rolled over on Hermione (the bunny that I gave Pete while we were in Las Vegas) or one of my pink bunny slippers, because three times in the night I heard, "I love you, I love you" through the monitor. It was rather creepy and after waking to that three times, I turned the monitor all the way down. But he did make it all the way through the night on the mattress. Our goal is to transition him from the crib so that he's ready for his "big boy bed": that is my brother's old bedroom suite that my parents are bringing out at the end of the month.

Monday's nap had to be in the crib with the door shut, because Alex wouldn't behave and take a mid-day rest on the mattress. He opened his door (I had placed a gate in front of it so that he wouldn't be able to exit the room if he got up and opened the door) and yelled for me as he threw fake food down the hall. So, I placed him in his crib and he cried for about 5 minutes before passing out. Tuesday I decided that it was time to rearrange furniture, so I moved the baby crib out of Alex's room and repositioned the mattress in the corner. Naptime was quite a challenge and I struggled with Alex for about an hour before he reluctantly went to sleep on the mattress. Progress is slow, but at least we're making some headway.

Teagan is still sleeping in her bassinet, and probably will be for a few more weeks. Then I'll put her in the pack-and-play until it's time for her to move into her own room. I kept Alex in our room until he was six months, so I'll probably do the same with Teagan.

For dinner, we joined Pete at the Kiwanis meeting which was held at Double Dave's Pizza in Hurst. The pepperoni rolls were good, and Alex got to see Arianna, Darren, and Dominic. Darren seemed to be having a bad evening, and I was glad that it wasn't one of my kids screaming this time! (evil smirk)

Check back later for tales of the tricycle and other anecdotes. I'll keep posting!

Happy Mother's Day!

2006-05-15T09:38:00.000-05:00

What a busy weekend.

Friday we stayed busy. I took Alex and Teagan to Chick-Fil-A for lunch so that Alex could have a go at their playground, then on to Target to pick up a prescription. After our chores, we headed back home for naps, and as predicted, Alex and Teagan both fell asleep on the way home. Fortunately, I was able to get Alex out of the car without waking him up.

Alex generally couldn't care less about what Teagan's doing (unless it takes Mommie or Daddy's attention away from him), but at Chic-Fil-A a little girl who looked to be approximately 3 was very interested in looking at "the baby" and Alex was quite concerned that HIS baby was being looked over by another child. Interesting. I think it probably goes back to the fact that he enjoys the spotlight so much.

Saturday we all went to Sam's and bought a new mattress for Pete and me. It's a Serta Solaris Super Pillowtop, and it is absolutely heaven. It's like sleeping on a big cloud! Getting it took a good of coordination because we had to purchase it and then go to Home Depot and rent a truck to get it home. And in the middle of all the action, Teagan decided that it was time to eat, so we had to make a pitstop. The truck that Home Depot has available for rent is essentially a flat-bed pick-up with sides and a tail gate that can be lowered down. It's fairly inexpensive to rent when you need the utility of a truck to transport a large object, such as a bed. We put the old mattress on the floor in the living room, and Alex spent a good bit of time jumping around on it, and then demanding "Mo bounce!". Saturday evening we went to Avenue where I selected some clothes that would be appropriate to wear to a wedding, and to Garden Ridge to pick out a wine rack for a wedding gift. After we got back home (our trip was cut a bit short because Alex had a leaky diaper, and no change of clothes) we moved that old mattress into Alex's room and put a sheet on it so that he could sleep on it. He went to sleep on the mattress, but then evidently awoke, collected his bunnies, binky and pillow, and moved into his crib to finish out the night. I think that he feels very safe and secure in his crib.

Sunday was Mother's Day, and I woke up to a gift of new skillets and three beautiful and touching cards. One each from Pete, Alex and Teagan. We headed out to Cross Timbers Winery to pick up some wine for the rack that we had purchased, but when we got there, they weren't open and no one was around. We went on to Sam's and picked up the wine there. While we were at Sam's Alex kept asking for more cake as he had gotten to eat a sample of cake there the day before, and thus he assumed that they would be handing out samples of it again. We picked up sandwiches at Potbelly for lunch and brought them home to eat. Pete wanted to take me to The Bavarian Grill for Mother's Day, but they're closed on Sunday, so we're planning to go this coming Thursday along with Brigette and Jason and a few of their friends. Sunday evening we headed out to North Dallas at the edge of Plano to a wedding reception in honor of my friend Adam and his new wife Jill. They were married in a small ceremony on April 1st that just included their immediate families, so they invited their friends and extended families to a reception on the 14th of May.

In the past few days, Alex has become quite keen on watching the planes fly overhead in route to DFW. He declares excitedly, "BIG JET!" each time he sees one pass or even if he just hears the rumble.

Teagan has gotten good a rolling from her back to her front, and has begun pulling her knees up underneath her. I expect that she'll crawl much earlier than Alex did. So far, all of her gross motor development targets have been achieved much earlier than Alex. I think she can't wait to chase him around and try to keep up.

That's all the news for now ... I'll keep you posted!

Just an ordinary Thursday

2006-05-11T22:36:00.000-05:00

It was just a run-of-the-mill Thursday around here, and like usual, the trash and recycling collectors left the can in the driveway by the street to prevent me from going anywhere without moving it. Some things are more predictable than the sun.

Teagan seems to be feeling a little better, though she is still a bit irritable from Monday's shots. With hope, she'll sleep better tonight.

Alex is singing along with songs. It's really cute to hear him try to keep up with the songs, but he certainly has some lyrics down pat. He really likes to watch the opening to CSI, and their theme song "Who Are You" by The Who. Pete has a program that allows him to load MP3's onto his RAZR, and that's become one of Alex's favorites. In fact, whenever he sees any phone, he starts singing "Who are ... who who"

The McDonald's near Pete's work has hamburger Happy Meals for 99 cents on Thursday evenings, so we took Alex there for dinner tonight. He got to slide after he finished eating about half of his burger. Pete takes him up into the human habitrail, and helps him go down the slide. Alex is still too scared to try it on his own. He really enjoys the slide on the way down, but he's still not too keen on the trip to the top. While we were there, Alex circled the Play Place visiting with all the other families and kids. He's never met a stranger.

In other news, Alex, Teagan and I were all excited to see Team MoJo get the boot from The Amazing Race!

That's all the news for now ... I'll keep you posted!

Chaos and calamity

2006-05-10T21:54:00.000-05:00

I was going to detail the calamity that arose from rabbit cage cleaning night which was punctuated by a poo that far exceeded the engineering of Teagan's diaper and Alex's vomiting from too much swinging (luckily both catastrophes landed on the garage floor where they were rather easily dealt with by the use of a garden hose), but I'll spare you all the gory details and move on to something a bit brighter.

On our way home from the store this afternoon, Alex saw a school bus drive by, and exclaimed with delight, "BUS!". I suddenly realized that he knew what a bus was and then pondered where he had learned that. He's also recently surprised me with his ability to recognize the Fox News logo, the Krispy Kreme sign, and let us not forget McDonald's which we've come to lovingly refer to as Mac Donnels. It's a frightening realization that he's constantly learning new things whether I want him to learn them or not. I guess it's time to cash in the Bowling For Soup CD's, or at least be aware of the tracks that need skipping. Which brings me to Alex's newest parlor trick that Pete and I taught him. When asked, "Alex, who's your favorite band?" he replies, "Bowl Soup" which is an Alexism meaning Bowling For Soup.

Teagan is testing out a new sleep campaign of getting up every three hours or so, again. This after about two months of having her sleep for a five and one half to seven hour stretch each night. And she's been testing out a new cry that's more of a shrill high-pitched shriek followed by a whimper, and then repeated just to make sure Mommie heard her. The new cry started Monday night, so it may be a side effect of the shots. Hopefully it will run it's course fairly quickly. I think that her waking in the middle of the night is because she's hungry. She had a little tummy trouble about a week ago, so Dr. Straughn wants me to wait another week or so before giving her any cereal. I think the addition of some cereal will help her sleep more soundly.

That's all that's news for now ... I'll keep you posted.

Teagan's 4 month well-child visit

2006-05-08T22:30:00.000-05:00

Monday I took Teagan to the doctor for her 4 month well-child visit. She got 4 shots (two in each leg) and her second oral dose of the new Rotavirus vaccine. There are so many new vaccines available now that weren't available when Pete and I were kids. Pete came home at lunch and finished out the day working from home so that he could look after Alex while I took Teagan. It's extremely difficult to take both kids along to the doctor even with Pete's help. Teagan is growing adequately. She's up to 12 pounds 6 ounces, and 23.5 inches long with a 16 inch head. She's in about the 50th percentile in all categories. Teagan is also rolling from front to back and back to front. Her head has no lag when you pull her to sitting and is stable when she is in the sitting position. As I'm sure you've observed from her recent pics, she has become quite good at pushing herself up on her little arms.

Alex has taken a fancy to purposefully mispronouncing words. For example: "flower" has in the past been pronounced correctly but in recent days has become "flow - o" (it rhymes with the words "now" and "go") and though he can say the word "burger", when asked to say "cheeseburger" he replies, "cheese mama" or "cheese dada". I think this is a result of the giggle that he got from Pete and me the first few times he said things this way. He's realized that he's funny and it has stuck. Alex's passing obsession with JoJo's Circus has briefly been replaced with an affinity for the Little Einsteins. I all too often hear, "Mo Steins .... Mo Steins .... Mo Steins" followed by a temper tantrum if his wishes aren't granted. He certainly has developed his own special personality, and his and Teagan's dispositions differ vastly.

Thus, all is well here, and I'll keep you posted.

The NEW and IMPROVED way to find out what is going on with Alex and Teagan!

2006-05-06T22:28:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! Alex and Teagan's pics of the day have been such a huge success that I've decided it would be a great idea to post a blog about what they are up to. I can let all of our family members and friends in on how they're changing, milestones they've achieved, and anything else that I decide is relevant. My goal is to find time to write a post at least three times per week, and maybe more if I have extra time, energy or if there is a really important event. So, be sure to check back!