I just got through laying down with Michael in his bed.  Generally, each night, when it's time to go to bed, we watch a nite-nite cartoon for about half an hour, then we go upstairs, read a story, then it's sleepy time.  I have to lay down in bed with him because he has this fear of monsters.  Sometimes I only need to lay down with him for a few minutes, but other nights I have to lay down much longer.  Sometimes as long as an hour until he falls asleep and I can slip out without him waking up.  If I do come downstairs and he's still awake, sometimes he yells down for me because he's still scared.  Using logic on him doesn't work at all.  We've told him that monsters don't exist, that they've packed up and moved away, that they burnt up in the fires, but he doesn't listen to anything we say.

We've also tried doing the monster spray method and spray "monster spray" around his room each night to scare a ...

It's Super Mega Dad's Dad's birthday today, so Happy  Birthday Dad!  Without you, well, I wouldn't be around! Here's to many, many more birthday's!  You have convinced me over the years that you can fix anything.  Michael thinks I can fix most everything, but anything I can't fix, he knows that Papa would know how, because Papa is the best fix-it guy anywhere.  Daddy uses glue and tape and lots of hand waving to fix things, but Papa's arsenal includes way more then just glue and tape!  If daddy don't fix it, Papa will!

Now on to today's gripe.  I was at a local fast food restraunt today picking up dinner and as I was leaving the place a mother and her two daughters came storming into the place.  The girls immediately started running around and several times ran right in front of me almost tripping me as I was trying to carry multiple bags of food and drinks out the door.  The mother ...

Michael is REALLY into Christmas this year.  He's liked Christmas before, but as he gets older, he gets more and more into it. 

This year he started bugging me before Halloween about putting up Christmas decorations.  I was able to postpone actually putting up the decorations until the day after Thanksgiving.  The first thing he wanted to do was put up his stocking.  He was very anxious to get that out of the way.  Once that was up, he was a lot happier and could enjoy the rest of decorating without stressing out too much.

Now that the decorations are up, he's in charge of the official Christmas calendar and he moves the placeholder one day forward each day in the march to Christmas day. 

All he can talk about is Santa Claus and Rudolph and what they are doing right now and if I think they are getting enough sleep getting ready for Christmas, because we don't want them f ...

You know the honeymoon is over when you have your first fight.  Michael and his little girl friend from across the street got into it tonight.  It was time for her to go home and she started to throw a temper tatrum.  She REALLY likes playing over here, so she doesn't want to go home at night.  Michael proceeded to tell her that she needs to be a good girl because Santa is watching, so she proceeded to tell Michael in no uncertain terms that he is not allowed to tell her what to do in a very P.O'ed way.  Apparently she was very angry and was yelling, and it upset Michael to the point where he cried.  So, now, both kids are crying, so Super Mega Mom and the little girl's grandma had to calm the kids down and get them to make up.  Everything was peachy keen by the time I got home, so everybody was all made up and promises were made to play again tomorrow.  At least their fights are easy to get over.

Winter break ...

Yesterday was "Snow Day" down in a nearby town.  Since Southern California is basically a desert, they MAKE snow here and let the kids play in that. It's kind of nice, because we don't have to drive in it, and we don't have to scoop it out of our front yard.  However, the kids look at it wondering what in the world it is since they never get to see what frozen water looks like except what is in their own freezers. Michael had a blast, Kailynn, it seems, is still a little too young to really enjoy the snow.  Michael enjoyed digging in it, having me make the snowballs for him, and he would then throw the snowball I made back at me.  It took me several times doing this to learn that he really should be making his own snowball ...

Yeah, tomorrow is Friday!  I can't WAIT!

I guess I'm just a little burnt out from the week.  Can you tell?

Tommorrow night is Bee Movie night, so Michael and I will go out to the movies and do the "guy thing".  Saturday is Snow Day at a nearby city, so we'll take the kids to go and play in the snow.

Which brings me to my next gripe:  I went out to buy some winter gear for the kids, mainly gloves and nice warm jackets.  Stuff like that is fairly difficult to find here in California.  I mean, what real use do we have for that stuff, but I finally  found a couple of things that will do the trick for each kid.

Then I started looking at the adult gloves for us bigger people.  My GOD!  The average price that I saw was $50!  Are they all like this?  The last time I wore gloves, they were kids gloves and I really d ...

Looking through my traffic stats today, I noticed I was getting some traffic from people looking for the meaning of the name Kailynn.  So, as a public service, I figured I'd do my part to help out here.  Never say I don't get you guys anything.

According to BabyNamer.com, Kailynn's source is Caoilinn, a Gaelic name meaning "Slim and fair."   Now, if we look at my daughter, that's pretty accurate.  She is definately pretty skinny and she is fair in complexion.

We also bought one of those birthday fact sheets for both of our kids and it gives the meaning of Kailynn as a juxtaposition of Kay (meaning unsullied or unspoiled) and Lynn (meaning a gentle brook).  I've always used that as a decription when people ask me what Kailynn means and then explain that her personality is the polar opposite.  I think she's ...

Watching Michael interact with his girl friend from across the street is pretty funny.  I have come to the conclusion that girls mature socially MUCH faster then boys do.  The little girl wants to hold Michael's hand or hug him and he doesn't want anything to do with it and he has no idea what to do when she hugs him.  It's pretty comical to watch.  They play really well together otherwise and they get along really well.

Thinking back on my life, I have been pretty clueless about girls too, so poor Michael is stuck being a boy and being clueless about girls for most of his life.

Now, having a girl too, albeit, only a 2 year old girl, I see a difference in her social skills compared to Michael.  She likes to hug and hold hands and is very adept at taking care of her baby dolls and feeds them their bottles and feeds them.  Michael is more into putting them in their strollers and racing them around the house.&l ...

Legos seem like such a cool toy when you see them at the store.  You think to yourself, "That would be kinda cool to build together with my child.  It would be a GREAT bonding experience!"  You buy the Lego toy all happy with yourself, take it home, and hand it over to your progeny with a smile on your face.  You setup a time to get started and then the time comes.  You carefully open up the box and all the little plastic packages that come inside of the box.  You seperate out all of the pieces in some sort of logical order that makes sense to you.  You look through the instructions a couple of times and get yourself mentally ready to tackle it.  Meanwhile, your child is anxiously staring at you repeatedly asking if you are ready yet.&nb ...

Well, Happy Thanksgiving everybody and welcome to the Christmas shopping season!  Gentlemen and ladies, start those shopping engines!

I don't know what it is this year, but the Christmas season just seems to have started extra early this year.  We have a neighbor that put up their Christmas lights the week before Thanksgiving.  And what is it about the stores having all of their Chritmas decorations up even before Halloween this year?

I dug out all of the Christmas stuff out of the closet on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and we started up decorating.  As you can see, the kids took an active role in decorating.  Even Michael, who was sick most of this weekend helped out against our better judgement (he's wearing his PJ's in the photo). ...