Slow Down * Enjoy Life

Really?  Last time I posted was another friday night just two weeks ago?  My Friday’s must be oh-so-exciting;)

Difference today is that I just got home, it’s 7pm, and both kids are totally passed out.  They fell asleep in the car at about 6:30, which allowed me to stop and pick up my dry cleaning … shhhhh!  I was going to get gas and go through the car wash but I didn’t want to chance waking them up.

So what do I do with myself?

Task 1 complete ….

Okay, I can’t take total credit for that.  At least not the idea.  Cari created a similar one for E.  I can at least take some of the creative credit although I guess I did borrow those images, didn’t I??

Next task…???

What do I do with myself here.  It’s only been 21 minutes.  I know I have a huge list.  I picked up a mocha frap on the way home so I know I have at least a couple hours of hyper energy here, maybe more … at least until I crash from my 3rd caffiene high of the day.

So what’s on my list … basement, those dresser drawers i haven’t touched, the carpet in the family room, dusting, organizing the misc crap that seems to pile up, just general organizing …. hmmm …. the garage, my car, everything that’s laying around in the back yard, the rest of the halloween things … i’m sure i can pick at least a couple of those, right???

I’m def going to have to open a bottle of wine for this…

Speaking of wine, I think I’ve made the switch back to white.  I was off it for a number of years.  Some friends of ours who hit the wine bottle earlier than us were big red drinkers.  Eventually we both switched over, me before her.  Our fav was pinot noir, estancia (i just bought 4 bottles, btw).  but red’s been giving me headache lately so i’m back to whites … usually a riesling … currently a brand called pacific rim.

While I was buying those wines, which were part for our halloween party and party for me …

Oh, speaking of the halloween party … super fun.  About 20 kids were here.  Jumpie.  Tons of good food (thanks to my friends). Weather was decent.  I rock as a dad!!!  Right?  Well maybe…;)

Anyways, while I was buying those wines at costco, some guy in the other checkout lane commented to a lady about the case of wine in her cart.  Something along the lines of inviting himself to her party.  Loser!  Anyways, she’s like, “Those?  That’s life”  Ha!

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This week has been a pretty sad one for the local area.  There was a horrific killing of a 14 year old just a couple miles from the house.  She walked in on a burglary in process … and well, the outcome was beyond horrible.  Every time I think of it I think of my loss.  I’m sure I would have felt awful about that girl but since my loss it’s hitting me especially hard.  There were helicopters in the area this morning.  I didn’t realize what they were for until my MIL said they were for the funeral.  I couldn’t hold back the tears.  There are white ribbons all over the neighboring towns.   How said.  At least today there was a report they caught the guy.

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Yesterday morning was no fun.  C pooped before he woke up, which turned out to be bad diarrhea, which ended up on my shirt and on the carpet because I didn’t realize til it was too late that it was up his shirt and down his pants.  It was disgusting!  This morning he threw up in his bed.  Poor kid.  I think he’s getting over it but somethings def messing with his stomach.  Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

I should probably start working on those tasks

It’s friday night and I just finished watching the better part of a Pearl Jam documentary on channel 11 … the channel that happened to be on the TV when I turned it on, the same channel the kids were watching their cartoons on this morning

What a Friday night! 😉

However, had our lives not been throw down this other path I would have to guess that tonight wouldn’t be all that different.  A Friday night on the couch, kids in bed, a movie, probably popcorn, a couple glasses of wine …

It was weird, watching that pearl jam documentary, how it made me think where I was at those points in my life.  Where I was in ’90 when the lead singer of Mother Love Bone, Andy Wood, died.  I didn’t even know of this band until tonight.  But they rocked.  I was in 6th grade.  By 92 they Pearl Jam was a Woodstock.  Just before I started High School.  Did I even know them?  In 2001 they played their 10 year anniversary show in Vegas.  I def knew them by then, why have I never seen these guys in concert?  They highlighted concerts in just about every year and for some reason tonight it just made me think about where I was at those points in time.  When they mentioned a show in Oct of 2009 … cari was already gone … 🙁

So why am I writing tonight?  I don’t know.  I’ve just really been neglecting this thing.  I do have plenty of  stuff going on but recently received some decent news so maybe I can ignore all that for a little.  My job seems like it has so much potential, just waiting for things to happen … it’s going to happen, right?  Like in the next year mabye????

Tonight we went to a kids halloween thing at the children’s museum.  On the way home E cried from GS.  She insisted we go to her house.  🙁  I didn’t give in.  Eventually she fell asleep.  Sometimes I wonder what makes her like that.  Whether or not I should give in to her desires.  I think I’m doing the right thing.

Kids halloween costumes are cute.  She’s a princess/fairy … go figure.  He has two costumes, a pilot costume from costco … kind of a just in case costume … but he’s really going to be a Lion.  Hopefully we’ll do Boo @ the Zoo tomorrow and put good use to these things.  Weather looks decent so I think it’s a go.

I renewed my passport, at least it’s in the process of being renewed.  I’m going on vacation.  At least that’s the plan.  I need one SO bad.  And I want one.  Caribbean somewhere.  Probably the bahamas or the caymans. 

Oh yeah, there’s also that person, I don’t know who she is, that happened to write on her blog and ping my site.  Supposedly she knew Cari.  Why was I thinking so much about our life tonight and then at that same time did someone write about her???  Hmmm…

E has a new friend in preschool.  Same name without the ‘i’.  They’re super cute together.  I met the girls p’s the other day.  It’s taken two+ years to meet someone else in the area.  We had just started to meet people when the roof came down.  It felt really good to meet these peeps.  They’re super cool and totally people who I guarantee we would have been friends with …

When another 4 year old asked her where her mom was, she responded…

She’s in heaven.  She was crossing the street, she was hit by a car, she died. 🙁

Later tonight we talked a little about that conversation.

It wasn’t unlike some of the other conversations we’ve had

I miss Mommy.  I want her to come back from heaven.  Tears.

She remembers

I think I lost some of the motivation to write here.  That’s sad.  I think it was mostly because I started getting feedback from the site on what i suppose was somewhat of a public diary.  I knew that from the beginning.  I mean it IS the internet.  But rather than telling those people, multiple times, not to e-mail me, I just stopped writing …

It’s been a tough summer here.  Tough? That seem’s hardly the word.  2nd worst summer ever maybe???  …in just two years?  Is that a little harsh?  Will things get worse?  I pray they don’t. 

The questions, of course, are still coming and they’re more detailed now.  I think the inlaws talk about the details of the accident around the kids and that prompts even more questions.  Like, “how did mommy get hit by a car?”  So I provide an answer and I think it’s understood at least more than it was understood a year ago.  That’s what she asks.  She still wants her to come back from heaven too and she insists that other people cannot ever go to heaven.  Ugh!  Wish I could prevent that!  He doesn’t ask anything yet 🙁  That sucks too!!!!

We did have a lot of fun this summer, however. 

She loved Farm Camp and really wants to go back again. 

The water park was fun.  I wish we could have gone twice had it not been for the following…

The summer for her was interrupted with a couple broken bones 🙁  Not at the same time but the 1st cast was off only 2 weeks before the 2nd went on.  Just a few more days til this cast comes off.  I need to wrap her in bubble wrap.  I don’t want to go to the hospital any more!

Of course there was the pool at Grandma’s.  We didn’t spend enough time in there, but there were in there a lot (even with the cast on)

We did the horse track again with pretty much the same group of friends as last year.  Maybe next year someone will get there early and get free seats in the shade instead of expensive seats and food we have to pay for … although having tables and umbrellas is nice!

We went to the zoo multiple times, and finally to lincoln park zoo this past weekend.

Lots of birthday parties interspersed

We didn’t get to the beach (mostly because of those casts).  That stinks.  I really wanted to do that.

We went to a rooftop bbq the weekend of the Air & Water show in the city on a high rise … that was cool.  We did that a couple years ago too (or was it last year)

We didn’t go to the arboreum yet.  Hopefully we can do that one of these coming Friday’s

Speaking of Friday’s that’s our day off from preschool.  She starts this monday at a lutheran church in the neighborhood rather than the park district she went to last year near the inlaws.  I like this one much better.  She goes mon-thurs, in the mornings, with friday off.  The women who runs the preschool lost her mom when she was very young … that sold me on the program even though I was probably sold before I went in there.  That’s all i have her signed up for now but I need to get her in some more.

I have him signed up for soccer, which started last Wed.  I also need to get him signed up for more too!

He’s such a boy!  So crazy active, but super lovable too.  I can’t wait to see him in the morning even if it means waking him up (which isn’t usually the best idea).  But on days when he wakes up on his own he is SO excited to see me.  I’m not sure how things will work once preschool starts.  We’re going to need to get into a routine quick in order to get up, ready, and out of the house by 8:30am.  YIKES!

Two people in the last week said that I make cute kids.  They are cute, there’s no question about that.  I just don’t know how much I had to do with it.  I had a good feeling though before we ever got to the kid part that we would create cute ones … that’s exactly what we did. 

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I have to get some stuff off my shoulders too so here I go …

I called two roofing companies, one of them multiple times, to address this leak in my roof.  None of them ever showed up.  WTF?  I got up on the roof yesterday and caulked the only thing I could see as the problem.  Hopefully that worked.  But what kind of company is going to survive if that’s how they operate???

This real estate market sucks.  I just want to sell this place and move on!

I had this other company come and check out an issue with the boiler system.  Now they’re billing me for the time they took to look at what’s wrong on top of what they want to charge to fix it.  I probably would have been fine if they just added it into the total bill but they want to charge it separate.  What if I was a new customer?  Would they still charge me for the analysis?  I doubt it.  So now I’m an existing customer and they want to choke me for every penny?  Screw them!

Some tenant called complaining about an electrical issue.  I asked them to check the fuses and they said they were fine.  I called in my electrician but he couldn’t come til monday so I went to check it today.  Of course it was just a fuse.  Sometimes I cannot stand tenants!

I really wish someone would watch the kids at my house instead of shiping them back and forth all the time.  I offered to pay.  I’m particular about who watches them, really just family, but still the answer is no.  If there’s anything I want, that’s all it is, just watch them at my house.  It doesn’t have to be all of the time, just most of the time.

The shit that’s going on with me … I could do without this.  I’ll never write about it here so don’t ask.  It’s just not good.  Hopefully it’s something that won’t bother me for many years but it’s still there, I know it’s there, I doubt it’s going away, and it scares the crap out of me, I hate what it means

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So I’ll try my best to write more here, for the kids.  Once preschool starts and if work lessens a little, maybe I’ll have more time to focus on this.

I suppose it happens, right??? 

How about maybe winning the lottery twice…I’ll take just once

I’m not going to talk specifics yet.  And if you’re reading this, don’t ask!

I remember feeling like this before.  It’s the type of feeling you don’t want to feel once, let alone twice

It’s a feeling that maybe it’s just a dream, maybe I can just wake up from it, this isn’t reality, is it?!?!?!

Somebody pinch me!

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These two are so damn cute … would we have continued to produce such amazing offspring?  Is that possible?  Maybe that’s what happens when you find that perfect mate.

But seriously … wait, I am serious!

I couldn’t have asked for better children. 

They’re smart, well behaved, full of life, happy, beautiful …

Is this how they would have been?  Are they this way because life already threw them some seriously tough shit

I just love them so very much. 

They are all I think about, all I worry about, the only things that matter to me

Love you both more than you could ever possibly know