New Fangled Hot Wheels Parking Garage

I can remember when my parents bought our first VCR as a kid. Before they broke down and bought one, we would always rent a VCR for the night along with a movie from the video store connected to the Stop N Go gas station down the road from us. It was always a treat when we did this. Then one night, I came home (I don’t remember where I had been) and my mom and dad were sitting in the front room watching a movie on their new VCR. I thought they had gone and rented one for the night without telling us or waiting for a night when I would be home to watch the movie too. When they told me they had bought it, I felt like we were first class citizens. We owned a VCR!!! Now we could watch movies whenever we wanted and even record stuff on TV.

My, how times have changed. VCR’s are not quite extinct, but they are getting close to going the same way as the 8-track tape (Which I can also remember my parents having around when I was a kid. Dad had an 8-track tape deck in his GMC Jimmy he owned). When Mega-Babe and I were first married almost 10 years ago now, we still used our VCR almost every day to record whatever TV shows we wouldn’t be home to watch live. Then Pelon introduced us to TiVO probably about 4-5 years ago now, and we haven’t looked back. We hardly ever use our VCR anymore. The couple of times that I have tried to use it, I think I remember that the picture was all “itchy” (as The Bug calls it) and needed a good head cleaning so it has gone largely ignored. Apparently, we haven’t needed to watch anything on it bad enough for us to actually find a head cleaner tape and run it through a couple of times.

Well, the other night, I was sitting watching TV and I noticed that the VCR “door” or hatch or whatever you want to call the flap that covers where you put the tape, was propped open. So I went in for a closer look and saw this:

Apparently, Little Woo decided to use our VCR as his new parking garage for his Hot Wheels cars. My first instinct was to blame The Bug, but I know Little Woo is obsessed with cars, so it was probably him. And the funny thing is? I saw this and actually didn’t care a bit. I usually feel my blood pressure go up a couple of octaves when my kids play with anything related to my TV, but I just found the fact that my 2 year old probably broke our VCR and the fact that it will probably never work again kind of funny.

Fighting the Good Fight

One of the things that Mega-Babe and I wanted to accomplish before or shortly after Mini-Babe was born was to get Little Woo moved out of the crib that we would eventually need for Mini-Babe and get him used to sleeping on the bottom bunk of the triple-decker bunk beds we built for the 3 boys.

This endeavor posed one very large hurdle for us to overcome, and every parent goes through this with their kids to some degree, but on a regular bed, Little Woo could just get out of the bed whenever he wanted. And of course since The Bug and Donut were just a couple of levels up, he was inevitable that he would be paying them a visit on these excursions out of his bed, ergo, no one would be able to go to sleep.

But we persevered, my friends. We pressed on in spite of overwhelming odds against us. We fought the battle even though Little Woo wasn’t particularly thrilled with the new sleeping arrangements. We even took the crib apart and put it in the basement so that we weren’t tempted to give in and put Little Woo back in there to sleep. We fought the good fight! At least, we thought it was a good fight, until…………..

The other night Mega-Babe had to go to the basement to get something and Little Woo followed her. Of course he spotted the bed laying there disassembled and he proceeded to get VERY excited about it. “YAY!!! MY BED!!! LOOK, MY BED!!!! YAY!!! YAY!!! MY BED!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!”

I’m just glad I wasn’t there to see this display, but Mega-Babe was and she felt horrible. This poor kid obviously thought his bed had just been lost and that he had found it and that his days of being miserable sleeping on the bottom bunk were over.

But I will not be deterred! We have come too far to turn back now and give in to emotional displays of adorableness from a two year old, no matter how cute he is. We must stay the course!

Right??? Poor Woo

All of Us- An Update

Me: I am doing great. I really have the easy part in all of this new baby stuff. Its Mega-Babe who carries the load. I am not going to make any friends here by saying this, but I am not the kind of husband that gets up at night with the kids when they wake up and need something. I sleep too hard, I get too grumpy, and I don’t realize that I am being grumpy. Heck, I probably won’t remember the whole incident. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have been asked the question, “Do you remember being a complete jerk last night?”

And the honest answer is no, I don’t. Apparently Mega-Babe has tried to wake me up on many occasions for one emergency or another only to have me say or do something completely jerky to her. I don’t remember ever doing it and I am not entirely positive she isn’t just making it up. I think she has been making a list of things from the day that we got married of stuff like this that she can show to the judge if we ever get a divorce that will completely discredit me as a competent father. She is just holding it as insurance. So, I just don’t get out of line too bad so she never has to use it.

Anyway, plus I don’t handle being tired well AT ALL. My body will shut down and I will get sick and end up missing a lot of work, so Mega-Babe carries the not sleeping load with the stipulation that I let her nap whenever she wants. Works for me!

I LOVE my little Mini-Babe. She is great.

Mega-Babe: She really is super woman. I guess I never realized exactly how much a woman goes through to have a kid until I saw the pain Mega-Babe was in giving birth without an epidural. I mean, I knew it was bad and I knew it was more than I could ever handle in my life, but to see it, with my own eyes was…..wow! Mega-Babe and I are still in unbelief that it all went down that way. I know, this apparently happens to a lot of people. I can’t tell you how many people have said something like, “Oh yeah, that’s exactly what happened with our second kid.”

or

“My sister gave birth in the hallway of the hospital.”

or

“By the time my wife got to the hospital, she was sitting on our daughter’s head.”

or

“My aunt gave birth in the car in the middle of rush hour traffic.”

or

“A girl I work with had her baby while she was in the middle of a trapeze act at the circus. She shot the baby out 75 feet in the air and the baby was caught and slapped on the bottom by Guido the Monkey Boy while he swung from a trapeze.”

Yeah, I know, ME ME ME ME ME ME ME! Everybody has a better story. Brian Regan talks about this phenomenon but uses the wisdom tooth example. Its like telling someone you had 2 wisdom teeth pulled and before you can even get the words out, someone will say, “That’s nothing, I had 4 removed and they all had to be cut out and they were impacted and blah blah blah.”

“Don’t ever try telling a 2 wisdom tooth story because you’re not going anywhere with that. The 4 wisdom tooth guys are going to parachute in and cut you off at the pass.”

Look, this may be common place for the rest of the world, but when it is your 4^th kid and nothing exciting has EVER happened during the birth of any of your children so far and you are expecting the same thing to happen again and to just have another nice mild-mannered, epidural controlled delivery, this all came as a bit of a punch to the gut. I have a whole new appreciation for what it means to give birth to a child (obviously nowhere near the appreciation that Mega-Babe now has). To see my wife, who hardly ever complains about anything other than the fact that I don’t take out the trash often enough, in that much obvious pain…I am so glad that I am a guy. I can’t stress that enough.

After the baby was born, and Mega-Babe is still sitting on the bed in tears, the doctor said to her, “Now you’re a real pioneer woman. You can get your pioneer woman badge.” I just shot him a look that clearly said, “What is the matter with you? Do you really think that is helping???”

She has been doing great since then. She is tired, but rightfully so, as I mentioned above, she is carrying the late night load. She could have done so much better than me….but she is stuck now.

Donut: To be honest, I haven’t seen a lot of Donut since Mini-Babe was born. He has been staying at my in-laws house, which he prefers to our house. He would just live over there if he could. Mama apparently spends more time with him working on things like reading than Mega-Babe and I do. Since he is in first grade, he is supposed to read for 20 minutes every day and we struggle at times to make that happen. But since staying at the in-laws, he has been reading 45 minutes to 2 ½ hours every day and he has passed off several of his sight words/phrases lists. We are apparently bad parents. He loves reading now. Mega-Babe said the other day that Donut’s teacher is going to think that we should have a new baby more often so our kids actually learn to read. Shame.

As far as Mini-Babe, the jury is still out. Donut likes her. He loves to hold her, but he told me the other night that he hates her….right after he got done holding her for 20 minutes. I think that now he just thinks that he is supposed to hate her since he already said it, so he is trying to play the part so Mom and Dad aren’t right.

The Bug: He has been reaching a whole new level of difficult lately. When Donut gets mad, he is likely to just punch someone. He takes out his aggression on whoever is closest. The Bug on the other hand is different. As much of a trouble maker as he is, he is probably the most compassionate kid I have ever met. He is always thinking of others. The other night, he was being very difficult during dinner because he did not want to eat his potatoes so he started to spit, so I sent him to his room to sit on his bed. For 15 minutes, we sat down at the table laughing at him up in his room yelling at the top of his lungs:

“UGH!! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH!”

“I HATE SITTING ON MY BED!”

“NOW LITTLE WOO GETS MORE PEACHES FOR DINNER AND I DON’T!! ITS NO FAIR!!

“UGH!!” (Yes, my kids actually say “UGH” all the time. You know, if we tell them that we have to go to Kohls, their least favorite store, they will say, “UGH! I don’t want to go to Kohls.”)

“I HATE THIS!”

“ITS NO FAIR!!!”

“UGH!! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH! UGH!”

I know, we shouldn’t have been laughing, but it was amusing….for a while anyway. It got old fast, but Mega-Babe figures this is a better way for him to get his aggression out since he is not hurting anyone. I finally went up stairs and calmed him down and he was very apologetic. He really is a sweet kid. He just has a warped view of right and wrong…..just like me.

He really loves Mini-Babe though and loves to give her smooches. He told me the other day that he thinks she is great and he told Mega-Babe the other night that we should keep her.

Little Woo: Woo has a new favorite toy, a new favorite person in the house, a new best friend, a new something to whine about. First thing he says in the morning is where’s the baby? Randomly throughout the day, he asks where’s the baby? When we put him to bed at night, he spends 20 minutes crying for Mini-Babe. The other night, he woke up right as I was laying down to go to bed, so I went in to check on him. He just kept whimpering the baby’s name until I found his binky for him. Its pretty cute, but I can see it getting old. We finally printed off a picture of Mini-Babe that he can take to bed with him. Mega-Babe found him asleep with the picture right by his hand like he had fallen asleep hugging the picture.

Mini-Babe: So, you might be asking yourself, how long does it take a new baby living in a house with 3 older brothers to get hit in the head by a toy? The answer is 5 days, which is actually longer than Little Woo lasted when he was born. He had already been hit in the head by a toy and almost suffocated with a balloon by The Bug. I guess the boys really do like having a little sister. I guess they held out as long as they could. Little Woo was the tosser. I guess he was just giving it back.

Mini-Babe is just stupendous. She is still trying to get the hang of eating. I think she would do a lot better if she could manage to stay awake long enough to finish eating. This kid sleeps more than any of our other kids combined. We actually got worried about her last weekend when she was awake maybe 5 minutes the whole day, so we called our doctor. Mega-Babe felt a little silly doing that, I mean, It’s not like we are rookies at this baby thing, but a lethargic baby is one of the things they tell you to be mindful of, so we wanted to be sure. Better safe than sorry when it comes to my little Mini-Babe. Turns out she is fine, just a sleeper.

At church, one of our neighbors asked me which finger Mini-Babe had me wrapped around. “All of them.”

Gotta Love the Woo

Its time for a some blog love for my Little Woo. I know as a parent you shouldn’t have favorites, but if we are going strictly off the ease of raising each of our 3 boys, Little Woo wins the prize, hands down. Its really not even close. If he had been as difficult as Bug, Mega-Babe would probably not be pregnant right now. Who cares if I never have a girl? Raising another Bug would have been brutal. Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE The Bug, but….well, he was difficult as a baby, and has grown up to be a little mini-me. Payback for the kind of kid I was to my mom and dad.

But Woo has been a cake walk for the most part. Granted, he is not the best sleeper in the world, but, well, I will just say that is not MY fault (Love you, Babe). But other than, he has been fantastic.

Maybe I am speaking too soon though.  He is growing into a little boy as of late and is becoming VERY bossy. If Donut and Bug have a toy he wants, he will throw a fit until he gets it. We are not very good at telling him no. I mean, how do I reason with a 2 year old. He understands a lot, but he doesn’t seem to get that he can’t have whatever he wants. For the sake of everyone’s sanity though, most of the time the boys just give in.

He better enjoy this while it lasts. He won’t be the King once Egg is born in about a month.

He is whining a lot more lately too. A LOT more. He never has been much of a whiner. In the past, if he whined, it meant something was genuinely wrong. Not anymore. It is constant, and if he wants something, he will keep saying the name of what he wants over and over and over and over and over and over until we understand what he is saying and give it to him. He will not be deterred. If you try to put his attention on something else, he will not bite. He just keeps fixated on what it is that he wants at the costly expense of our sanity. I don’t know, maybe Mega-Babe likes it when he does that, but I somehow doubt it. I just know it drives me looney.

But our Little Woo still shows through and we get glimpses of our sweet little boy. He is big on saying “Sorry.” It is the cutest thing. Even if it is not his fault, if someone gets hurt, he lets out a flood of “Sorry’s” until he is sure you are going to be ok.

Or if I start to wrestle around with and tickling him. He has the best laugh in the world and he LOVES to play. I just love it. Even the worst of days can’t keep me from smiling when I hear that laugh.

I know, I know. This is all a little mushy/touchy feely for me, but I do have a VERY soft side behind all this surliness. And my boys and Mega-Babe are almost always able to bring it out.