Two Boys, No Sleep

Two kids, no matter the combination, generally equates to a lack of sleep and a general dislike for your spouse. Not a "real" dislike, but more the frustrated, illogical, insane reaction to getting up every night, several times a night, to answer the screams, cries, and calls for your attention to do "something". The something may or may not be defined depending on the age of the child.

For example, my 10-month old doesn't really articulate his particular needs very well. He might be cold, hungry, thirsty, dirty, need his binky, or just need some attention. It’s a total crap-shoot which it is.

So this can be, understandably, frustrating.

On the other hand, my 3.5 year-old does articulate pretty well, but that doesn’t necessarily alleviate the frustration:

“DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!”

Open door, bleary eyed, lacking sleep, “Yes Porter?”

“I need to hug you.”

As tender-hearted a moment as that can be, I assure you at 2am, lacking sleep from child #2, you aren’t going to be nearly as touched. You’ll give the hug, because, ya know, awesome. But still, you’d prefer to have gotten a good night’s rest to properly appreciate the moment.

The Queen Maker

Friday was the homecoming football game for JW North (we lost, big) but it was also the night for Porter to shine. He was asked to crown the Homecoming Queen and insisted on wearing his best clothes to the occasion (although daddy spent most of the night tucking his shirt in). Porter quite enjoyed rooting for the football players (both teams) and often yelled out, “Get it football!”

With five minutes on the clock (which translates into 15-20 minutes in real life) we walked down to the field for our instructions. We didn’t receive any. Undaunted, we queued up with the rest of the group and then we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . .

Porter was a bit agitated by all this waiting, until we found the kicker’s net and balls, which I told Porter he could throw into the net. He was almost recruited on the spot by the opposing team’s coach, but because he had a job to do, he turned down the offer.

Graciously, very graciously.

There was some concern, ten minutes before he actually walked out onto the football field to crown the queen, that he might require some assistance. He was getting quite tired, and decided to cuddle up in his favorite place for a little rest: dad’s arms.

But when the moment came for him to carry the crown and march out to meet the new royalty, he seized the opportunity with gusto, strode with authority, and placed the crown on the queen’s head with enthusiasm.

Cutest. Boy. Ever.

Two Peas

Tristan and Porter are two awesome kids. They should be Captain Awesomeness and Lord Excellent. They’re just that cool.

But they’re certainly different kids. Where we spent the better part of a year trying to get Porter to sleep through the night, and then letting him have his “coffee time” after he woke up (screaming) Tristan is much more chill about the whole matter. It’s being awake that annoys him. Almost from day one, he was sleeping 4-6 hours at night, and more recently, except for feeding, he sleeps a good 6-8 hours.

Such a shift from waking up every 2-3 hours with Porter.

Porter, meanwhile, is undergoing his first swim lessons. Mostly this consists of him being held by me in the water. He genuinely likes the water, he just doesn’t want to put his face in or blow bubbles. Honestly, what kid doesn’t want to blow bubbles?!

Lillian's thoughts

I just have a few things to add to Rob’s blog. It was scary when Rob lost his job but we have been blessed to have him get into a new job really quickly. The job is closer to home than his last job which is so nice. To have him home earlier in the day to spend more time with the family has been heavenly.

Tristan’s pregnancy went really well. I was able to work up to two days before my due date. I ended up being late. My contractions started two days after my due date. I started feeling contractions in the middle of the night and woke Rob up about five thirty in the morning to take me to the hospital. The admitted me right away and hooked me up to an IV. I was given an epidural about eight in the morning. Around ten thirty I had not progressed beyond four centimeters so they gave me something to increase the contractions. Around eleven I was in pain again and they checked and I was dilated to nine and a half centimeters. About that time everyone squeezed into the delivery room and after a few pushes Tristan was born. He weighed seven pounds twelve ounces and was twenty and a half inches long. It was a nice experience. Rob was able to spend the night and we had the room to ourselves. There was also a shower in the room which was a great feature. Overall I was really impressed with the hospital and the staff.

I accepted the head volleyball position around February, right in the height of the debate season. Part of me definitely wanted to say no but part of me has wanted to be a head coach for a very long time. So after talking it over with Rob I decided to take the job. I am so excited for the upcoming season. I have the world’s best assistant coaches. They have really helped me during the time I am off with the baby. It has been a huge blessing to have them by my side. We have been working the girls hard but I am sure it will pay off come the season.

The Year in Review

Greetings everyone. I know it seems like it’s been a year since I’ve posted, but that’s simply not true. I’ve been posting with invisible pixels. Muahahaha.

But in case you don’t have you forgot your secret decoder ring and X-ray glasses, let me bring you up to speed, sans hilarious jokes:

Last April, I was laid off from my job. It was something of a shock, but I was far from the only one, and certainly not one of the first to be let go. It was interesting, as we kept getting email from the company president saying how well things were going and how much the company was earning. But no, I’m not bitter.

So, instead of binge eating and drinking, I stayed home with Porter, and binge exercised. Lil became the breadwinner for the family, and I joined millions of daddies around the country watching the kids, cleaning the house, and accepting monthly bribes from the government to stay that way.

It was great when Lil was off for the summer, as it afforded us a very rare chance to travel and feel like we were on a crazy-long vacation. We traveled to Idaho and visited Lil’s family for a couple of weeks, where we spent the Fourth of July, and then down to Vegas to spend time with my parents, where Porter went to his first Wiggles concert (Anthony was on FIRE!).

About four or five weeks into being laid off (and about three weeks after the initial panic) I received a call from a company close to us that I had actually applied to prior to being unemployed. They ran me through a series of interesting interviews and eventually offered me a position. Lil says we were really blessed, I call it blind-dumb-crazy-luck. The interviews lasted several weeks and went through just about all 2,000 employees before they actually got down to salary negotiations. I started in August and all has been well.

That is, until Lil informed me that we were preggers again! I know, you would have thought we’d have figured it out the first time. But no, Tristan was on the way and there was nothing we could do about it.

Lil started her fourth year at her school, and we began our second year as coaches for the school’s debate team. Nothing very exciting to report there, some students were good, others mediocre, there was joy and sadness and anger and happiness and some frustration and lots and lots of learning.

With the arrival of Tristan, Lil also received a notice of termination. She had just been given the head-coaching position for her school’s volleyball team, so it was something of a confusing time. We’re still not certain where we stand with that, but perhaps we’ll be blessed or have more crazy luck.

Lil also decided that she would like to start blogging. So now that you’re brought up to date on the major events, I’ll introduce you to the latest contributor to this online article writing fun!

Porter Pictures

Here's some pictures of Porter for everyone. Not the best, but what do you expect from a device whose primary purpose is telecommunications?



Porter decided that he had sweat equity in the cupcake frosting enterprise at our friend Mindy's house.

Here's Porter out in the rain. Yes, he's a boy.

Here's Porter at debate practice. He's currently spreading an argument showing how the neg team's nuke war disad is outweighed by the hegemony argument and the alien intervention cards.

And yes, judge, cuteness is a voter.

He Knows!

Porter has not officially said any words in the context that would suggest direct linguistic communication. He babbles “dada” and “mama” but he has never pointed to Lil and said, “mama” or pointed at her and said “dada”. I’m not certain he’s pointed at anything. Usually he just looks at you, screams, and assumes that his psychic message has gotten through.

This has a success rate of about 85%.

The rest of the time we assume he’s tired and needs a nap.

But Porter has recently stumbled upon a piece of direct linguistic communication.

“Mmmmm,” Porter says after putting a piece of food in his mouth.

We know he got this from us, as we would try to prompt him to feed himself, watching as clumsily used utensils become apple sauce trebuchets, flinging the wet, cold, sticky substance near and far. Or, alternately, when its something he is definitely not going to put in his mouth, he employs the “clean sweep” method: quickly sweeping everything in front of him onto the floor.

Improvements are slow, from the perspective of parents who have to clean up mess after mess, but quick in the overall scheme of things. Just 8 months ago he’d never walked, didn’t know how to give kisses, and hadn’t grasped the excitement of “high fives” with anyone.

So this breakthrough in understanding, the connection between actions and verbal response, is quite impressive. He knows that when you put something in your mouth you like, you say “Mmmmm.”

Porter versus Curious George

It's really too bad you can't hear the sound on Blogger. I'm still not certain what the problem is. But anyone who wants to, I can email this video to you. Just make certain the sound is down. Porter has an impressive set of lungs and the ability to hit notes no human should be tampering with around glass.

Old Photo I Stumbled Across

Just thought you might enjoy this pretty decent shot from my cell phone: