Author: cebliss

I am pleased to see that CNN has gone back to offering free video on their website. Now if I can just get the interface to work.

Here is another photo of “Thing 3”, being held by “Thing 1”.

She is putting in 3-4 hours of sleep in a row each night. Not too bad for 3 days old. Relaxing nights at home are easily interupted by curious family and friends dropping by.

On an unrelated note, I have gotten into reading “chapter books” with Thing 1 and Thing 2. The last one we read (twice in a row) was “The Wizard of Oz”. Since we had gotten to know the book so well, I decided we should rent the movie and watch it again. I spent a WONDERFUL evening in the family room with “Thing 1” watching that classic film. Having watched that film probably 20-30 times in my life, it was fun to watch it again with someone who had NEVER seen it before (“Dad… The movie just became color”) Even more fun (and enough to make any father proud) was to hear her complain that something was not portrayed on film as it was in the book (Why don’t the winged monkeys come and help her?). We had a great discussion after the movie about what differences she noticed between the book and the movie.

She was also quick to catch on to the fact that the 3 farm hands had the same issues, at the beginning of the film, as the Scarecrow, Tin-man and Lion.

My 3 year old, on the other hand, has an entirely different take on the plot line…

“Dad, The Tin-man is going to scare the lion and melt him with a broom”.

The new one came on Friday (very quickly).

I will tell you more about it later, but right now the pretty one is asking me to burp the baby.

In the mean time… here is a photo from the hospital. I will post more (and better ones) as we upload them..

(five minutes later)

OK… the burping is done now. And might I say, that was quite a burp.

“Thing 3” came quickly friday morning. In fact, she beat the Doctor to the room. Our nurse had to deliver the baby. The doctor arrived seconds after the baby was born, and all was well. She weighed in at 9lbs 1 oz (that’s my girl) and 21 inches long. Most of the weekend was spent at the hospital (mmmm…. Yellow green beans!)

I spent the second night at home with thing one and thing two, and went in first thing this morning to take the ladies home. I already miss having a nursing staff at our beck and call.

The second day of summer and the temp is hovering around 90. I pulled out the “Blue’s Clues” sprinkler for the two “born” ones. We had fun running through the sprinkler this evening. Yes… We.

Even at 29, the sprinkler is Blysse.

I’ll miss you! Stay in touch.

We were getting ready to head down town for my Father’s Day ice-cream cone tonight, when the girls saw some rustling in our Strawberry patch. There were 4 baby raccoons that had made their way into the patch. My wife took the hose and sprayed them out of the patch. One of them went under the fence into our neighbor’s yard, the other three went up our hill and into one of our Maple trees.

We had actually seen two of these guys yesterday. I was on hose duty that time. When I first went out, I thought it may be a rabbit (they are plentiful in my neighborhood). As I approached, I saw it had a brown back (perhaps the cat from two doors down). Then I saw the tail. I backed up fairly quickly. ‘Coons can be pretty nasty if you suprise them. But when they looked up, I realized that they were just young’ns. My inablility to frighten them verbally should have been my first clue.

Back to tonights encounter…

They just sat there staring at us. As we walked farther away, they started down the tree. As we approached (with… say… a camera) they went back up the tree.

I am sure I got some decent shots of them, but have only a film camera, so the posting of those shots will have to wait.

It was one of those great things that gets me talking to my neighbors. We all had our own stories about these 4 babies. The neighbors to the south had their entire strawberry crop wiped out (in suburbia, that is about 3 yards by 3 yards).

A couple other neighbors indicated that they were going to call animal control and get some traps out here. That is probably best. As cute as these guys were, they all grow up to be trouble .

Now…Here is where the seasoned blogger is able to take that story and spin it into some great insight on life, and how we are all like raccoons in a strawberry patch.

But tonight… I got nothin’

Probably our last real date before the family grows some more. The pretty one and I went to Grand Ave. for a (very) slow walk, some Chipotle and some Ice Cream. It was a beautiful night to be wandering the blocks.

Tonight, the whole family goes out (probably the last time with just 4 of us). We were given tickets to the Twins game. It will be a nice Father’s Day weekend treat for me.

That was kind of a nice treat. We were talking about attending a game this weekend, so it was nice when my buddy called with 4 tickets (pretty nice ones too!).

I finally saw Star Wars III. Sorry, but with travel, conferences and the impending family addition, things have been a bit busy in the household.

As mentioned yesterday, I am pretty well over my allotted time for the week, so I cut out of work this afternoon to catch the flick. I am convinced that the mid-day is the BEST time to go to the theater. My brother and I were bother able to catch the movie. As a trade-off, our wives are watching it this evening, as I type, while we watch the kids… or type.

What I thought was funny, was the both my brother and I waited so long to see it. We are both the type of people who used to stay up and catch the first release showing. Not this time.

Now we are married with kids and jobs. It is a little harder to get out and enjoy such things. I have been to the theater twice in the past 3 months, and that is a lot for me.

Oh… my opinion of the film?

You really want to know?

A co-worker of mine summed it up with the three words “he-did-it”. I can best sum it with with two non-word sounds… A-Ha.

Episodes 4,5,6,1 & 2 now make a bit more sense to me (or at least 4,5,6 & 2 do).

Good trailers before the film, however. Narnia was there (I have watched it online 20 times, but the big-screen was nice).

It was refreshing to attend a theater that didn’t have a lot of show before the movie. No trivia. No slide-show ads for “Ma’s Grill”. No “Please turn off your cell phone”. No Cinema Radio Network. Just silence, a blank screen, then 4 trailers and the movie.

It was nice to be home with my family for a change. It was a busy week with some late nights, but I reached my 40 hours by Tuesday night… Not too bad.

We are waiting the arrival of our 3rd this week. It is fun going to bed every night timing the “squeezes”. We still have a bedroom to finish, but I won’t sweat it too much.

Next Monday is my first Golf of the season. I usually do OK on my first time out.

I am sitting in my basement office during that awkward time when I need to wait for the washer to finish so I can put the load in the drier before I go to bed.

Is there such a thing as a washer dryer combo that does the whole thing in one machine (without having to move the laundry from one machine to another)?