Prayer

'Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask 
your forgiveness and to seek your direction and 
guidance.  We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those 
who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have 
done.  We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and 
reversed our values.  We have exploited the poor 
and called it the lottery.  We have rewarded laziness 
and called it welfare.  We have killed our unborn and 
called it choice.  We have shot abortionists and 
called it justifiable...  We have neglected to 
discipline our children and called it building self 
esteem.  We have abused power and called it 
politics.  We have coveted our neighbor's
 possessions and called it ambition.  We have 
polluted the air with profanity and pornography 
and called it freedom of expression.  We have 
ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers 
and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, 
and know our hearts today; cleanse us from sin and 
Set us free. Amen!'

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Right is right, even if no one is right. Wrong is wrong, 
even if everyone is wrong. 

- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

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Without God, democracy will not and cannot long 
endure. 

- Ronald Reagan

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The two enemies of the people are criminals and 
government, so let us tie the second down with the 
chains of the constitution so the second will not 
become the legalized version of the first.

-Thomas Jefferson

*****************

Pray!  The fate of our nation hangs in a delicate balance.

  

GOD Bless America,

Busy-Dad-E

Big Boy Bed

We did it!  Well, really he did it.

But we have successfully transitioned Bab-E Brother from crib to toddler bed.

(You may notice that the crib is still in his room.  That's because it's too wide to fit through the door without disassembly, and we haven't had time or the energy/motivation to do so.)

We're SO thankful that this transition was easier for Bab-E Brother than it was for either of his older brothers.  Since we started, he's slept in the bed at night and during his nap consistently.

It helped that:

1. He really likes Cars and was enthusiastic about the new sheets/pillows.

2. We moved the toddler bed into his existing room.  (With his brothers, they changed rooms when they changed beds, which made things more difficult.)

and 

3. Bab-E Brother is REALLY motivated by hand stamps.  Mom-E got a red stamp pad and a "You Did It!" stamp.  Bab-E Brother explains it best, "When I wake up, you stamp my hand?"  Yes!

He refers to the space under the bed as the "shed", and when it's bedtime, all of the trains and toys must go in the shed.

It's funny that the first few times he asked, upon awakening, "I get out of my bed now?" as if the toddler bed had crib-like rails preventing his escape.

And almost without exception, when he goes to bed, he stays in the bed.  In fact, he actually now often wants us to close the door to his room completely.

(The funny exception was that the one time he did "elope" from the bed at night, we found him on the couch in the play room, and Criminal Minds was playing on the TV.  Oops.  Sorry, Bab-E Brother, but Hotch & his team need you to go back to bed.)

Way to go, Bab-E Brother!  So proud!

Now on to the next monumental task: potty training.

See you on Fatherhood Friday,

Busy-Dad-E

182 Days Until Christmas

Hello there!  I'm back!

Glad to know that people still visited the blog in my absence, even if it was largely from Google-ing pictures of beachballs.

Summer is going full-tilt here.

We're at the t-ball fields 4 nights a week these days - 2 each for Big Brother and Little Brother.  Both boys are having a good time (their favorite part of t-ball is snacktime) and bladders have been quite cooperative.  It's been interesting and insightful to realize that even at age 7, the boys are still unable to firmly grasp consistently, cognitively, the "rules" of baseball.  Hence Big Brother recorded an out by fielding the ball as the second baseman and just running over and touching first base, without throwing the ball to his teammate.

And at age 4, t-ball is just oodles and oodles of fun.  My favorite moment was watching Little Brother stand on second base as a runner.  His teammate hit the ball up the middle and into the outfield.  Instead of running to third, Little Brother chased after the ball with the fielders on the other team.  Too cute!

***
We made a trip with the whole family to San Diego, the highlight of which was a return visit to Legoland.  Of course, the boys' favorite part of that visit was picking out a new Lego toy.  We also enjoyed visits to the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier, Zoo and Wild Animal Park, and Sea World.  Amazingly, the boys did pretty well on the flights (although man were we a sight at the gate with all of our entourage).

Little Brother dressed up in his Wolverine costume for part of one of the flights.  He literally boarded the plane dressed as Wolverine.  How awesome is that?!?!  As adults, we have a lot to learn from him.

(Unfortunately, mutants/superheroes still fly at full price.)

Other travel highlights included all 3 boys, most adamantly Bab-E Brother, INSISTED on wheeling their carry-ons throughout the concourse.  It was a very cute sight.  Even when we got to the hotel, Bab-E Brother pretty much through a tantrum if he wasn't allowed to continue to wheel his carry-on around.  And at various points during the flight, 1-2 children fell asleep in my lap.

Strangely these moments when the boys crashed in my lap were probably the most peaceful and relaxing part of the trip for me.  Or perhaps not so strangely, given that we had 5 people "crammed" into a hotel room for the better part of a week.

***
Other than that, the garden is still growing, at least some of it.  We harvested all of the corn - the ears were small, but tasty.  The squash plants died.  The cucumbers, however, continue to flourish.  The basil plant survived the onslaught from the cucumbers and is actually thriving, which makes for some very tasty burger toppings.  The carrots are coming along, and should be ready to harvest soon.   And we finally have our first (tiny) green pepper growing.  Once everything is "done", we hope to dig everything up and plant another round of seeds for late summer.  Pictures to follow soon.

***
By now, you're probably scratching your head about the title of this post.  Today actually marks the half-way point between last Christmas and next Christmas.

They may refer to "Christmas in July", but around here, the boys have had the Christmas spirit since about May.

Perhaps this is a by-product of having birthdays relatively close to the holidays, but Big Brother and Little Brother have already been "working" on their Christmas lists.

And by "working", I mean Big Brother has hacked the computer password, and is able to browse on Amazon.com (quite proficiently).  Of course, both boys have found "rare" Beyblade sets from Japan that are like $99 apiece.

And of course, despite my suggestion that they might change their minds over the next 6 months about what they want (and they already have, pretty much every day), they continue to add to this list (which has not made its way into writing).

We also continue to remind them of the true meaning of Christmas.  And while they can articulate this - and understand that Santa brings them each 3 presents, because Jesus received 3 presents - it's very hard at age 4 and 7 to focus on things immaterial.  Hopefully though, with enough repetition, this lesson will sink in.

Have a good week,
Busy-Dad-E

Hello there!

Just wanted everyone (who's not Google-ing for beach ball pictures) know that we're all still here at Busy-Dad-E.  We've been on vacation, and I'm going to extend that by taking a brief blog-cation.  Be back soon.

Happy summer,
Busy-Dad-E

Garden: Week 11

 


Today we feature the fruits of our labor.

The first ear of corn was pretty good.  Not huge, not completely full of kernels, but nonetheless tasty.

And finally, some cucumbers that are bigger than my pinky finger.  We're pleased that the boys have actually eaten some of them (we didn't tell them they came from the garden until afterwards).

The carrots are next - hopefully they'll be ready soon.  (We sneaked a peak at one, and they're definitely growing).

And last, but not least, we had enough squash to make this delicious casserole (which works well as an entree - especially if you add chicken, or as a side dish).

Have a good week,

Busy-Dad-E

I'm Dripping

Happy Fatherhood Friday!

So from time to time, Little Brother has this weird "issue" in the bathroom.

He gets a very anxious look and starts screaming for me.

"Dad-E, I'm dripping!"

And we're not talking about any excretions.

In fact, I'm not sure what he's talking about.

Of course, the first time he screamed this, I was pretty worried about what was going on.  Until I couldn't find anything.

And you can wipe his bottom, and 5 minutes later he's running back to the bathroom screaming, "I'm dripping!  I'm dripping!"

When pressed on the issue, he admits that he really isn't "dripping", but that nonetheless he thinks he is.

These kinds of situations require a little "out-of-the-box" thinking.

If he can have some imaginary "dripping", then I can use my imagination to turn it off.

Every time he says he's "dripping", when I help him in the bathroom, I tell him that I turned things off.

Fortunately, he seems to accept this intervention.

Good thing, too, because plumbers are pretty expensive.

Cheers,

Busy-Dad-E