More Puke

We haven't been the healthiest of families. I came home from work yesterday and felt just miserable. I curled up in a ball in front of the TV and watched the Oscars with Elena. After a bit I went to bed. Elena put a nice down feather blanket. It is very warm. My tummy started to feel worse and I knew that it was time. Luckily I made it to the bathroom. All over the tub and it was violent. Did you know that green beans don't digest right off? Anywho, I felt much better.

Then Olivia and Zach tag-teamed to keep Elena and I up pretty much all night. Urgh.

Zach's getting much stronger with his neck and shoulder muscles. He'll be able to lift his head in a few days. Only Mommy can console him now. I just get him worked up even more. If he's fine then I can hold him OK.

Range and Puke

Range was delivered today. Its good. We tried it out.

Both kids are pukey. Zach tries to eat so much that he just can't hold it in. He constantly smells of it. Olivia was sick and puked three times last night. I think at
9, 1, and 4. MMMmmmMMM. She didn't at all today so that was a plus.

Zach just kinda stares around yet. His neck is getting stronger and he can move his head back and forth and hold it up for a few seconds.

A New Range

Our stove is old and its time to send it to where stoves go to die. We went shopping for a new one and picked one that was nice. It has a smooth top instead of the four metal burners on top. There I talked a bit with Andy Bakken a guy I graduated from HS with and Chris Hornsby a guy I worked with in Sterling. Andy has twin girls and one is named Olivia.

Zach slept most of the past few days. Nothing new to report.

After supper tonight, Olivia had dessert of a few reece's pieces. She decided not to chew one up and it got stuck in her throat. This was not good. She puked and puked. It really stunk. Bleh.

In her bath, she has some colorful hollow rubber balls. They have a small hole in them
so they can be squeezed. I showed her how she could hold the ball under the water and squeeze it and it would fill up. Then I held it up and squeeze it again and a thin stream of water would shoot out. Olivia saw this and did her best to imitate. I didn't think that she was making much progress until I got a face full of bathwater.

Pretty good day

Hey out there

Woke up this morning. Took the girl to daycare. Turned on the radio and heard that Randy Moss is traded to the Raiders. This rumor has been going around for a while here but today they pretty much finished the deal. Randy for a linebacker, a first rounder (7th pick) and a seventh rounder. So we lose one of the top 10 players and #1 headache and get a average linebacker (no big improvement) and a couple of draft picks to not be ready to make our pick (see the last two years where the 1st round pick was late to the commissioner, doh).

OK, off to work. Goes well. Eric the boss and I talk a bit about the Hawks and the men's BB staff. How do we get up by so much and lose the lead with a few minutes to go?
He thinks its due to the coach and I'm not one to disagree too much with that. I mean,
Purdue? Maybe he'll go back to Indiana.

Come home and Olivia is being Olivia. I go in her room and try to calm her down and Elena tells me that AJ called. I left Olivia's room with her at least laying in her bed and give him a call back. Looks like Linda is 9 weeks along pregnant. Hey, good for them. Elena and I think this was an unexpected blessing but they're happy.

Time to watch Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. We watched the Terminal with Tom Hanks last night. I liked it. Got kinda lame at the end but the first 3/4 were good.

Profit Sharing Meeting

We had our annual profit sharing meeting yesterday. That was nice. Stay a bit late and get a nice check.

Our family celebrated with a pizza delivery. Probably going to have to spend a good chunk on hospital bills but will be some left over for doing something. Elena and I haven't really talked about it.

Elena is going strong on the taxes.

Zach has really gotten to liking being held snugly. He looks around with big eyes and stares out into space.

Past Couple of Days

Not much to report. Zach keeps eating and sleeping. Only he doesn't quite like to sleep at night as much as we'd like. He likes to play around then. He just looks around with big wide eyes and mumbles and snorts and cries.

Olivia ate about a 1/3 of a honeydew yesterday. Her diapers have been interesting. We still vacuum every day.

We got a lot of snow yesterday. Work was terribly slow with that and the Daytona 500.
So we did a lot of detailing. I came home and there was a huge pile of snow in front of our driveway from the plows. Not cool. It was starting to melt so it was very wet and heavy.

No New Pics

I spent my day off in bed today. I felt terrible.

I just got a call from daycare waking me up. They told me that they were closed tomorrow because of sickness. I answered the phone because Elena, Olivia and Zach decided that I was a big stick in the mud and went to her mother's to play with the kitties. That was really nice so I could get some rest.

I felt so miserable I called in to work and told them I wasn't coming to the monthly meeting. They said that was OK. So now I'm up because of the phone call, eating a Subway sandwich that Elena picked up for me for lunch, a glass of grape juice and a mug of cocoa.

The kids are doing great. Olivia is getting really jealous of any time I spend with Zach. I gave him a bottle in front of her and she went ballistic. I tried to calm her down by putting Zach on the sofa and that resulted in two kids screaming at me. I changed them both and that lifted spirits some.

Elena and Olivia walked around the block today. Well, Olivia rode in her wagon. She likes that. She just sits and looks at houses and waves at passing cars. When I take her I usually can get her to push on the back of her wagon for a little while but she tires of that hard work and enjoys it much more to sit in the wagon and have Daddy do the work.

More Pics

OK, past few days, not much happening. People have been sleeping a lot better. We stopped by Nadine's house but she wouldn't answer her door so we didn't go in.

Zach likes his swing just like Olivia did.

Parents are off to California to assist Arnie in his '08 presidential election bid and to see Mark and Dana.

Olivia's Birthday Party

Yesterday I got off work at noon and headed home. I didn't feel well at all and Elena asked me if I was going to make it because I was putting on quite a performance. Well, I honestly was hurting.

Anyway, we left for Decorah around 2:30 and made it to my parents' house a little before 4 and they came home just after 5. That night was one of the worst we've ever had. Both children were either miserable, hungry, poopy, not tired, worried about the other or just plain crabby. Olivia - we tried to get her to sleep on a mattress in the computer room next to our room and that didn't go so well. She would roll off it and wake herself up and being in a strange place it wasn't so good. Zach wanted to be held and fed a lot. Elena was sick with the flu and started out tired and I was sneezy and coughy. We were a mess. Finally, I went out to the living room with Zach on my chest and Olivia bunked in with Elena and that got us a few hours sleep. From 6-8. We dozed other parts of the night but not for more than a half hour or so. I got up in good spirits. Feeling on top of the world then though so go me.

Elena, on the other hand was in bad shape. She slept a good part of the day which was fine with everybody. Zach was his low-maintenance self and the grandparents took care of Olivia. Oh, and last night Elena fell down on the three wooden stairs going down to our rooms. There was this loud bang bang bang thud and I thought that Olivia had crawled over the baby gate and fell, but it was Elena holding Zach. They were fine but Elena took a good blow because she didn't want to drop him.

I was changing Zach's diaper and he was fussing loudly and Olivia just can't stand to hear her baby sad. She was in the other room and I hear this rapid pat-pat-pat-pat of little feet. She came tearing in with her arm extended with his pacifier in her chubby little hand. She was frantically wanting to help saying "baby, baby, baby" and wanting to pat him for comfort.

OK, now for the fun part.

Olivia and I went sledding down the hill by the barn and had a blast. She just giggles and laughs the whole way down. Then I get to drag her up the hill and we sled back down. Speckles likes to chase us or get in the way and that gets her going too. Dad got some good photos of us I'll try to put some up later. We went out twice today.

Around 5, people started coming over. AJ, Linda and Luke, Janet, Aidan, Brendan and Paul, Travis, Michelle and Forest, Nadine and Erin, Kevin, Tera and Cashton and my parents were there. Lots of kids - it was fun. Elena picked up a Dora the Explorer cake and we had plates and napkins of Dora. Olivia loved the cake and ice cream. People did a lot of catching up and talking and watching kids play. We put on Finding Nemo and that was a minor hit with some of the kids.

Olivia got a lot of presents. She isn't really into opening them but the other kids were. They knew exactly what to do with wrapped boxes. Lots of people had driving to do so nobody stayed really late but that was fine.

Iowa beat Northwestern in basketball. Normally this wouldn't be newsworthy but Iowa isn't doing so well in b-ball. The wrestlers beat Minnesota yesterday. Dad and I watched that on TV. They aren't having the best of years either. 5 of the 10 weights are freshman. Ouch. But they'll be good. Lots of potential.

I'm gettng tired so I think I'll head out for now. Hopefully we'll have a good night.

More pics

Olivia decides that she wants to rest in the bouncer too


Not much has happened the past few days. The public health nurse came by to check up on Zach. She said that he looked good. He sleeps a lot which we like. He eats well and just kinda wants to be left alone usually. He opens his eyes wide and looks around. He doesn't appear worried about anything just watches. Olivia seemed to have a permanent look of, "I'm not so sure that you know what you are doing."

Olivia is so goofy. She hardly ever ever will go to sleep with out complaining in some way. Sometimes she runs away or she'll shrug her shoulders making it all but impossible to pick her up or she'll run to ask for some cheese or vacuum the floor. It's so funny. It gets even funnier at 4 AM.

Zach seems to wake up around 2 times at night to eat and he's good at letting people know that his stomach is empty. If it wakes up Olivia she'll need to investigate that nobody is hurting the baby.

Speckles is doing ok. I think he knows that he's low on the totem pole so he does his best to adjust. We go on walks and he likes that except when there is snow or water on the ground. He does not like cold feet.

Some Pics

I'm Tired

For some reason the kids have this thing about being sick and not wanting to sleep. They wish to share their enthusiasm with the waking world and with yours truly and his lovely wife. Ah well, so it goes.

Elena and I are watching 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. This seems to be on a lot recently. I've seen parts of the whole movie but never the complete one.

Zach is doing good. He sleeps a lot and wakes up sometimes to eat then back to napping. Olivia was a major crab when I dropped her off at daycare. About 5 minutes after I left she had the time of her life playing with the other kids. She's goofy.
We vacuum a lot. Have I mentioned that? That little nut never gets tired of our Eureka whirlwind. We read and she gets so excited and at the end of the book she'll flip it back to the front and we read it again. Or her trick is just flip the pages before we even look at the words.

Super Bowl

It was a good game with the pats coming in on top by three. We went to the annual party and had a lot of fun. This year (and last) it was at Curt and Michelle's place.
They have a great house for it with big open rooms and two big TV's. They have a foosball and pool table so that gives a lot of people things to do. It snowed like crazy in the afternoon. I had to work til seven then off to Pine Island (a little town about 10 miles north of Rochester). Elena, Erin and the two kids went there around six. I almost was sideswept by a SUV on my way there. He couldn't stop going down a hill. That was exciting. Olivia was a good girl there. She had lots of fun with all of the strange people. Zach just slept and ate. There were a lot of kids there, probably around 10 people under the age of 6. Probably 50 people total made a showing there.
We've been busy at work. They've been running a sale on everything and holy cow it can get crazy.

Bug in a rug

I'm holding Zach right now. He's all bundled up in blankets and is just sleeping. Mom and Dad came up today to help watch the kids. I guess that went ok. They were gone by the time I came home from work. Olivia gets such a kick out of vacuuming still. She will walk up to me very slyly and grab one of my fingers and give it a tug. If I don't move she'll tug again until I get up. Then we walk over to the closet and she pushes the folding door open. Then we poke it a few times. I ask Olivia what we need to do before we vacuum. She then proceeds to pick up her toys, papers, shoes, random junk on the floor and places them on the sofa. Then we vacuum. This means I vacuum and Olivia
sits on the floor and leans forward and slams her head back into the seat of the sofa.
I mean hard. Repeatedly. I vacuum and she bangs her head and laughs and laughs. After I clean for a while we put everything away.
A few minutes later Olivia walks up to me and grabs one of my fingers...

Hi

Yesterday we spent a good time at our primary care doctor's office. And I don't mean that in us having a nice time. We went there for the kid's checkups and the doc said that they were doing fine. Olivia threw a tantrum the whole time. She was tired and hungry/not hungry and just miserable. Then the doc mentioned some shot for Zach for his immune system. We think, "OK, sure." So he goes out to get someone to fix it up.
Olivia is just being a disaster so we decide to go out to the waiting room. It is properly named. We looked at the fish and played with some toys and went outside and back inside, up and down the elevator, up and down the stairs, down the elevator and up the stairs, back outside and inside, played with some toys. Then the nurse came out and saw us there and told us it would be another 20 minutes. Oh super. We repeat this process and a half hour later Elena and Zach come out and we leave. Olivia falls asleep immediately in her carseat and we go home.

I see the Pats over the Eagles 35-10. TO does nothing. Brady picks up his 3rd MVP and is incessantly compared to Joe Montana.

Memo to Self: Stop Screwing with the Registry

OK, well I hurt the computer a few days ago and couldn't get much to work. Fixed it and should be good to go.
Zach came home on Monday afternoon. Elena had to fight a bit with the nursing staff and doctors to do it but he came home. Apparently he needed to gain weight over a 24 hour period and he did but the nurse charted his weight low. So a few hours later... this needed to be rechecked and verified. And a few hours later the doctor came in and told her that Zach would go home tuesday. Elena asked what medical condition did he have that reqired him to stay. The doc came up blank and so Zach came home.
He isn't much for sleeping all the time. He gets hungry quite a bit. And he lets you know. Little guy just screams at you until he gets some food. He likes to lay all cuddled up in blankets like a tootsie roll.
He sleeps in a bassinet next to our bed.
He does not like his diaper changed.
Olivia seems to like him but is starting to get a bit jealous of the time he consumes which is immense.
She likes to pat the baby and call him "doggie." I tell her that his name is Zach but she doesn't listen.
Olivia has been sick the past few days with runny/stinky stuff out of both ends so nighttime has been upsetting for those of us trying to sleep. Since Monday I think Elena and I have totaled around 7 hours sleep. Oh well. I hear that all parents go through this.

Iowa's bb coach Steve Alford dropped our best player due to his inability to keep his hands to himself. He was a junior and maybe had a chance to ride the bench in the pros for a few years. Iowa gave him a second chance after he ran into similar trouble two years ago but not again.

It feels weird going back to work the past few days. I have trouble finding where things have moved and the feel of all the parts bins to quickly put things together for people. Oh well it comes back.