At dinner Isaiah proudly announced “I’m gonna Fart!”  Then farted, and said “I’m sorry”.  He has developed a new habit of announcing his pending flatulence.  So then I asked him why he said “I’m sorry” instead of “excuse me.”  His response was to giggle and then say “pardon me… that’s what ‘fancy’ people say.”  I’m laughing even now – “fancy people”!!?  Then Harrison decided to get in on the action and repeat Isaiah, but instead of “pardon me” kept saying “part of me”.  These two crack me up.

I have a gig tomorrow, so I was practicing tonight.  Side note: I play in a big-band combo called the HASBand.  Jillian was a bit crabby, so I sat her on my lap while I practiced.  She enjoyed grabbing at the keys while I played.  Overall it was quite a feat, but I am determined.  Some might say stubborn, but I prefer determined.

At bedtime I was herding the kids up the stairs when I blurted out “go put your jammies to bed”.  I had meant to say “go put your jammies on and go to bed”, but in my haste I left out a few words.  The boys thought this was absolutely hilarious.

Jillian picked this exact time to start crawling.  Or at least I think this was the first time she really crawled.  I haven’t talked to Meredith to see if she was doing it this morning, but she was definitely not doing it yesterday.  So the boys had fun watching Jillian crawl around for a while.  She started by crawling from her bedroom to the boy’s bedroom.  There she pulled all their clothes out of a basket and then crawled into the bathroom and opened all the cabinet doors.  From there she headed straight to the top of the stairs.  It’s going to be fun…

On a related note, I was talking to Isaiah at bedtime tonight about his day at school.  We got on the subject of music class when I asked him if he learned any new songs.  The conversation went something like this:

Dad: Did you learn any new songs at school today?
Isaiah: Yes
Dad: Can you sing one for me?
Isaiah: It didn’t get stuck in my head yet.
Dad: Oh you haven’t memorized it yet.
Isaiah: Yea.  I have a lot of songs stuck in my head.  But I lost some.  Other peoples heads took them.

- Mike

I turned on the oven to preheat it for our fabulous Sunday night pizza.  Unfortunately, I completely forgot that I made caramel rolls in the oven on Christmas Day, and the caramel oozed all over in the bottom of the oven.  Needless to say, it probably got somewhere close to the 400 mark, and there were flames in the bottom of the oven.   As I stood in awe with Jillian in my arms, Mike reminded me that we should probably do something about it rather than just stare at it.  Blow it Out.  Success!  Blow it Out.  Success Again!  Douse it with water….make the cat run screaming across the kitchen….make the boys probably pee a little…..Mom and Jillian standing by…..All Success!  So we thought it was a good time to talk about fire safety.  Boys, if you ever hear the smoke detector (which is now blaring) and mom and dad aren’t home, what do you do?  Isaiah:  Call the Fire Department!  Call 911.  Do we have to get out of the house now?

Us:  No , we don’t have to get out now….but if there was a real fire, it would be a great idea to get out and call the fire department. 

Harrison:  Call 1-1-9!  Roll Stop and Drop!!

All of us….even Isaiah:  Laughing.

Harry gets an A+ for effort!!

Side note:  John is walking!!!  And I thought I had a hard time keeping up with him before. 

We will see you all at the Christmas party in Jan.

Love

Doug, Brandy and John

This is day 1 of the Daddy Chronicles II.  This will be a short chronicling as Meredith is only gone for the weekend.  She went on a scrap-book (or Picture Pages as I always call it) weekend at some B&B in BFE.  I know all you other husbands out there know exactly what I’m talking about. 

Harrison has strep throat, so I spent the afternoon at home with the kids.  I have some deadlines coming up at work, so I still tried to get some work done.  Ever try to telecommute with 3 kids at home, including a 3 month old baby?  Actually I didn’t do too bad.  The boys kept pretty busy playing (I know Harry’s pretty sick, right), and Jillian is pretty happy as long as she keeps bouncing.

At one point the kids decided they were going to “box”… you know fisticuffs!  So they went to their bedroom to get shorts, took off their shirts and started punching each other.  Aren’t boys FUN!  Anyway, this ended in the inevitable, Isaiah got a knock down and Harrison started bawling.  So, I stepped in and put an end to the Boxing.  Why did I let it get that far, you might ask.  Well, morbid curiosity. 

Whenever Jillian gets a little cranky, I’ll take off all her clothes and she cheers right up - she loves to be naked.  This makes perfect sense to me.  I have the same reaction when her mom gets naked.

Later in the evening I made dinner, and told the kids to come up and eat (they were watching TV in the basement).  They came right up without complaining?  I know, weird.  After dinner they were watching TV again, and I told them to shut off the TV when the show was over, clean up the basement, the family room and the living room, and put on their Jammies.  When the show was over, that’s exactly what they did, again without any complaint.  I know, now it’s just getting scary.  Isaiah asked if they could stay up later if they got everything done fast.  So, I said sure.  It was amazing, the worked together and everything.  So I then I said they had to turn off the TV and go to bed after Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! (about 8:30).  So I came in from doing something outside at about 8:30, and the TV was off, the lights were off, and the boys were already upstairs in their bedroom.  I know, now it’s just getting creepy… My kids are possessed… by Good spirits.  I can’t explain it.

Now it’s Daddy’s turn to imbibe some spirits! 

Day 6 started at 7:22 – I know amazing isn’t it.  Jillian stayed up late last night so she let us all sleep in a bit.  Everyone took their time getting dressed and eating breakfast.  We had a laid back morning with no need to rush off to anywhere.

Meredith was home around 4:30 when I got back from picking up the kids.  Everyone was excited to see Mom again.

We made it through 6 whole days without getting terribly injured, without starving, without going insane, and without Mom!  How did we do it?  With the closing of our adventure, I thought I would leave you with the top 10 things that got me through the week.

10.  Blogging – writing in my blog and reading your responses has been therapeutic
9.  Laughter – having a sense of humour helps to put it all in perspective
8.  Vacation – having a few days off really helped me keep my sanity
7.  Netflix – the boys watched Scooby Doo and Thomas the Train online
6.  Lunchables – much more efficient than making lunch
5.  Evil Dad – I only used it once, but it was enough
4.  Sleep – Jillian slept through the night every night, that really made a difference
3.  Formula – a bottle right before bed helped Jillian sleep through the night
2.  Beer – a bottle right before bed helped Dad sleep through the night

And the number one thing that got me through the weekend…
1.  The Kids – they were great all week!

Well I made it through day 4, but I’m starting to feel the effects – I’m exhausted.  In fact, I fell asleep as I was typing this blog.  I did get another 20 minutes out of Jillian though, starting my day at 5:20.  What I remember of the morning was uneventful, but my days are starting to be a blur. 

I went to Isaiah’s school to see the Halloween parade around 10:30.  Isaiah went dressed as Optimus Prime.  When I got their each student was being called up to the front of class show their costume.  Their teacher, Mrs Terrill would ask, “do you want to tell us anything about your costume?”  At which point, most kids would cast a mortified look at their riveted classmates, shake their head no in earnest, and quickly sit back down.  Now Isaiah on the other hand, proceeded to tell the class that he was “enemies with Chevy.  He’s dressed like Megatron, and I’m dressed like Optimus Prime.  He’s the bad guy, and I’m the leader of the good guys.”  Note the emphasis on leader, that’s our Isaiah, he likes to be in charge.  And, yes there is a boy in his classed named Chevy.    The Halloween parade was cute.  It was fun to see all the kids in their costumes.

Isaiah had a half day of school, and I took off work.  So I picked him up at 1pm.  We played baseball in the backyard for a while.  I even got to bat for a while.  Isaiah’s ball control is really getting better.  In fact, he throws equally well with either hand.  Fascinating!  After baseball, Isaiah helped me rake leaves.  Or rather, I repeatedly covered him in leaves.  At first, he was a vampire rising from the grave, but then it turned into a pool, then a mud pit, and finally a tar pit.  No one will ever say our kids lack imagination.

Jillian is getting more interactive every day.  It’s great to make eye contact with her and watch her break into that toothless, open mouth grin, with milk-drool running down her chin.  When she was only days old I would try to make eye contact with her and then stick out my tongue.  Of course their was no reaction.  However, when she sees me now, she sticks out her tongue.  I’m not sure if it is just a quirky coincidence, or if we are communicating on some primordial level.

Harrison has one level… High Intensity!  He’ll be the first one to break  some major bone.

Day 3 started off at 5am – I squeezed another half hour out of Jillian.  I even managed to make it through the morning without any puke on my shirt.  The morning was fairly uneventful, and today I was only 30 minutes late for work.  I don’t want to get cocky, but I’m starting to get the hang of things.  I’m not ready to claim Super Dad status or anything, but I am getting in touch with my Mommyness.  Hopefully I didn’t jinx myself.

Nothing crazy, or even funny happened today.  I know… boaring.  We did watch some more History Channel, but this time it was a show about Halloween costumes and haunted houses.  I had to repeatedly answer NO to questions like: “Is that real blood?”  and “Are vampires real?”  and “Is that guy dead?”  I hope they don’t get nightmares. 

I did get a pleasant surprise from Isaiah tonight.  When I asked him to clean up the toys in the basement, he responded with a simple “Why?”  This is the quintessential question every child asks hoping their parents feeble minds are unable to actually break the complex explanation down to simple terms the child will understand.  The objective is to get the parent to simply acquiesce to a perceived lack of understanding and do the task themselves.  I was on to his tactics, though, and explained that it was difficult to walk through the room without being permanently disabled by the minefield he had created.  However, he parried my blow with another often used, but effective strategy of just staring at the TV.  I left the room thinking I had lost the battle yet again to the infamous Diego.  However, when I had returned to the room some time later, he had actually cleaned it up!  Ha victory!  Blind them with reason – they have no defense.

I took the rest of the week off to lighten the burden.  If I get all the kids all off to childcare and school, I may even get some downtime, not that I’ll know what to do with myself.

Check back soon for more updates.  Something crazy is bound to happen, after-all, we are Lauers.

P.S. One quick cute thing to add.  Tonight when I was cleaning poop out of Harrison’s underwear he deflected my frustration with the following monologue…

Daddy, I love you!  I’ll love you forever.  I’ll love Mommy forever, too!

I’ll have to admit, it worked – he’s got that play it cute routine down.  It makes it hard to be angry at him for long.

Well I got an early start to the day when Jillian awoke at 4:30am, but I still ended up being 45 minutes late for work.  I know, you’re not surprised.  Despite having to clean puke off my dress shirt twice, the morning was fairly uneventful.  It just takes that long to get everything going.

My boys made me proud this evening when they decided they wanted to watch a show on the History Channel about digitally reconstructing the faces of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington based on their death masks…

Outside that, it was a fairly uneventful day.  I know, amazing, isn’t it.  I do have a couple interesting quotes from the day to share.

“My farts last for, like, a hundred years!” 
                       – Harrison (3)

“Did Wisconsin win the Civil War?”
                       – Isaiah (5)

“Coo… gurgle… fart…”
                       – Jillian (3 Months)

I decided to keep a blog of my adventure – as a coping mechanism.

Day 1:

Meredith left around 5pm.  Not 10 minutes after she left, I had to break out the Evil Dad routine to get the boys to clean up their toys.  This while Jillian was crying inconsolably.  Well, we made it through this event, and the rest of the night was mostly pleasant.  Then came bedtime…

I put the boys in the shower (together), and left to get Jillian ready for bed.  Just as I get Jillian undressed I hear faintly from the bathroom - “I have to poop”.  So I leave Jillian naked on the changing table, which is apparently her favorite state of undress, to check it out.  When I walk in the door I see Harrison standing by the toilet with his but cheeks pinched together like someone isabout to take his temperature.  Lying behind him on the floor is a TURD!  Or rather a creamy pile of poo the consistency of pea soup.  Apparently he has mild diarrhea.  As a result it is smeared all over his legs as well as the toilet seat. 

Believe it or not, this event was actually not terribly surprising to me – we have 3 kids after all.  Anyway, I was able to get him cleaned up and even read them all Chicken Little before bed.

Check back soon for Day 2.