Ohio

Here are some pictures from Allison's and my trip to Ohio. We had a lot of fun, the weather was nice, and we spent many hours in the pool and playing with the outdoor kitties. Allison mastered the diving rings and we threw them and retrieved them in many combinations of colors or "get all the ones with a "r" sound." Sunday, we took a short hike in Hocking Hills and visited the Columbus Zoo, which was a little more amusement park and a little less "zoo," but still nice.


Allison and Moe - Allison now wants a cat.






Diving ring retrieval.


Andi claims she was on the "low end of the stump," I think maybe I grew.

Parenting - on the fly

Sometimes, at the end of the day, you have to mix it up a little. This is particularly true when the normal list of "consequences" either doesn't make sense or has already been used up. Sometimes, you are forced to get creative. Two wide-eyed children were thus presented with this option: Share that glass of water - or get it dumped on your head.

A note of caution on this approach - be prepared to follow through (though not necessary in this instance).

Freaking out!

Ok - so sometimes you know how you forget things? It seems that I forget more than I remember these days. In fact, I was up the other night remembering many things that I had forgotten about. This morning (at a meeting that my colleague had forgotten about - so I'm not the only one) I was reminded that I am going to have a clicker box in my classroom this fall. What's a clicker box? It's a "student response system" that allows you to poll your students in class using these little remote clickers. That's cool you say (or not), but so what? I forgot this meant redesigning all of my powerpoint presentations for my geology courses this fall. Again - seemed like a better idea in March when I was going to be teaching 2 courses than it does in July when I know I'll have 4 plus hybrid development for spring. So I'm now downloading the software to add to powerpoint and am officially starting to freak out a little bit.

So what will I be doing this afternoon? Playing with the new T-ball thingie we bought this morning after learning that the kids love baseball and I suck at pitching. Why don't they take naps anymore!!!!

Jacob

Jacob went in yesterday for his 3-yr check up (a little late - but getting appointments in the summer is nuts). He weighed in at 35 pounds (80%), and that was an approximation because he REFUSED to stand on the scale and had to be weighed in the baby seat. He was also 38 inches tall (75%).

Jacob's big accomplishment is learning to poop on the potty, so he's now graduated to underwear. Yesterday was the first full day in underwear and he did very well. He even woke me up this morning at 5:45am with a "Mommy, I need to go potty!" and he was in fact still dry. Go Jacob!

Old Leg-humper

I feel like I have so much to catch up on, I don't know where to start. I'll start with Astro. This story begins all the way back in Cincinnati when we first got Astro. First off, he was crated so that he didn't poop in the house. Secondly, we had a friend named Jim and Astro loved to hump Jim's leg. We figured it was a puppy thing and when we moved to Madison and on to Fond du Lac, the leg humping thing seemed to go away. Until, that is, Jim came to visit once when he was on a plant trip to Green Bay. No sooner had Jim sat down that Astro was over giving his leg a little loving. No matter what we said, I'm fairly certain Jim did not believe that Astro hadn't done that in a few years.

But, after Jim's departure, the leg humping went with it. That is, until last night. We had a BBQ with some of Brian's coworkers. One of them happened to be named Jim. No sooner had new Jim sat down that Astro started to get friendly with his leg. What was even funnier is that he kept trying to go back to Jim's leg - no one else. How bizarre.

In other Astro news, he's back in his crate at night and when we are out of the house. After we got back from camping we had a run of 4-5 accidents in the house over the next 10 days. The neighbor kids were supposed to come over to let him out while we were gone (and I assume they did) but I don't know if something else happened to stress him out, but he's crated until further notice.

Biking

Per Grandma's request, here's a picture of Jacob on his bike today. We rode to one of the kids favorite places - the highway overpass.

Spectacled

Here is a picture of Allison in her new glasses. Sometimes she amazes me with how well she adjusts to things like this - (given that basics like hair brushing can be daily battles). It's kindof like the wheat and dairy thing. We tell her that she can't eat something that has wheat in it and she usually doesn't fuss too much. Today, I told her she needed to wear the glasses (like Daddy) and she was pretty Ok with that.

On the wheat and dairy business, we do have an appointment with the pediatrician in August to discuss it. Hopefully, we can start adding things back in. However, I'm worried because whenever it "slides" a little, her runny nose comes back. So, coincidence? Hard to say. But tonight we have concocted a wheat-free, dairy free pizza for dinner. Mom and Dad will opt for standard frozen. Actually, Dad is headed out to be part of an Uno's pizza focus group and Mom is wildly jealous.