Happy New Year

I hope the new year finds you all happy and well, surrounded by good family, friends, and maybe a little booze.

Hot Water Stank

Whenever we go on vacation, arriving home is usually a relief with one exception. Even for weekend jaunts, the hot water always has a rotten egg smell for a few days. It's been a problem since we moved in, but my natural procrastinaty self decided to wait until now to figure out what to do about it. The source of the odor is pretty much agreed upon (bacteria) and all agree it's harmless, but annoying. There are a lot of opinions and advice on what to do to fix this, all involving work which I try to avoid. Some suggest removing the anode rod from the hot water heater. That sounded dangerous, so ... no! Another suggestion was to completely drain the hot water heater. Nice, but Debbie doesn't like taking cold baths, so again ... no! I did manage to find a solution that required what I consider to be in my sweet spot for work required: Raise the temperature to hot temporarily. My initial test with this method was wildly successful, so, naturally, I had to share my discovery. I feel a little like Galileo but without the excommunication. The night we got back from Baltimore, I raised the thermostat on the hot water heater and left it there over night. With the raised temperature, the smell was gone by the time I took my morning bath! How awesome is that? A simple turn of the wrist (two since I have to lower it the next morning) and Voila! Un-stinky hot water!
Feel free to share my brilliance with others.

All's good

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we got a great gift: our remaining luggage. Everything arrived safe and sound, just in time too.
Our Christmas has been great. My brother and his family drove up from the eastern shore and spent a few nights up here. It was great spending some time with them. We also spent Christmas Eve at my cousins house, a party of 26! It was a lot of fun and everyone had a great time.
Tomorrow, we head to the National Aquarium in the Inner Harbor. Lauren is already psyched about seeing fishies and dolphins. On Friday, we head up to see my dad and Fina's new house in Pennsylvania. Why does rest never seem to be a part of our vacations?

Good and Bad

A little over 24 hours into our trip and already there has been plenty of good and bad about it.

Good: Everyone arrived in Baltimore safely
Bad: Some of our luggage has yet to arrive
Good: We have most of our clothes and no presents went missing.
Bad: The suitcase with all the kids' clothes is one of the ones missing
Good: Their Christmas clothes were in one of the pieces we do have
Bad: The car seat and the pack n play were the other 2 missing pieces
Good: American gave us a loaner car seat (seeing as leaving the airport would have been difficult)
Bad: Lauren's favorite blanket, hand made by a friend of ours, was in the bag with the car seat.
Good: The airline called to say they had 1 piece and were dropping it off.
Bad: It wasn't actually one of ours.
Good: The luggage is ready to leave O'Hare on the next flight
Bad: Almost all the flights from ORD to BWI have been canceled due to bad weather
Good: Given that, it's a miracle we got here in the first place.

We are having loads of fun with Honeybear and Pop Pop. I am thrilled that I decided to shop this year at Amazon and ship our presents. It wouldn't have been a big deal had some presents gone missing, but it still would have been annoying. Pretty soon though, we're going to run into some issues. Of all the kids' clothes, we only have Lauren's dressy outfits for Christmas Eve and Day. Eric only has 1 outfit that my mom bought last night. We're going to try to get 2 days out of it since it survived today fairly intact. I also have no T-shirts. Not really a problem except I tend to wear sweatshirts this time of year and those T-shirts are worn underneath. Looks like our Christmas shopping may not be done yet *shudder*
The most surprising thing is how well we're getting along without the Pack N Play. Eric is mobile, but at night he still tends to be immobile. We've used some suitcases and boxes to pen him in a little area with a sheet on the floor and he seems okay with that. Certainly it's not ideal, but we're not about to spent $70 or more just to make a few days more convenient.
I hope everyone's holiday is safe and happy. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

A Christmas Rhyme

Twas the morn before leaving for Christmas
And what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a toddler with an ear infection
Just a simple test of our Christmas cheer

Eric or Michael Jordan mid-dunk?

 

Stages of Life: Crawl, Chew Food, and Poop

Several milestones have been reached and I've just been too lazy to say anything. Bad daddy!
First, Eric is crawling! The little guy was so close for so long it was getting comical. For a period of about 2 weeks, he would get on all fours, rock back and forth, and then do a face plant on the rug. This was followed by some minimal movement achieved through using his arms to drag himself forward. Finally, he got his legs to work in concert with his arms and Voila! Crawling baby!
Second, we have a tooth! This boy has been drooling so much recently, boats with passengers wearing rain ponchos would travel up the river that lead from his mouth to the drain. Salmon could be seen jumping over his head trying to get upstream. There weren't enough towels to contain the saliva torrent he created (Hmm .. hyberbole much?). It took several midnight - 3 am blood curdling screams, but the bugger broke through and he now has a sharp little tooth. I can't say I've seen it yet because, even though he smiles a ton, he likes to stick his tongue out when doing it, making it a bit hard to see. I have felt it though.
Third, real food ... well ... not real ... he's not eating steaks and hamburgers (though he looks like it). He's already passed the stage 1 foods and easily progressing through the stage 2's. This boy can eat! On the rare occasion when I've fed him, he just opens wide and takes container after container of food. From green beans to vegetable beef, no food is too delicious to ignore.
Finally, potty training. Yes, we're still trying and it's been interesting. Lauren has no problem going pee pee on the potty. She is quite happy about it, though there is the occasional wet diaper still. It's poo poo that is going to be the end of Debbie and I. She steadfastly refuses to go poo poo on the potty. We've tried everything. She's almost run out of reward stickers for having a dry diaper and going pee pee, but the poo poo on the potty stickers have yet to be touched. We've tried being gentle, being stern, telling her to sit on the potty when she gets "the face", just about anything we can think of. She still refuses. We're going to try the "$75 solution" next, and it might work, but it's just a pain to see through to the end. Fortunately, Lauren doesn't have to be fully potty trained until August when she's old enough to go to pre-school, but I would like to be done with this sooner than that. Much sooner. If anyone says potty training a toddler is easy, I may have to do a beat down. Preferably with a bag full of poopy diapers.
So those are the recent milestones for the kids. Hopefully, the wife and I can retain just enough sanity to get through this and then start all over again with Eric. Hooray!

Smashing Dreams

Alas, any last vestige of my dream for NHL stardom have been utterly and completely smashed to little tiny bits.
Could a morbidly obese goalie shut out an NHL team?

The Two Faces of Eric

Our little Michelin Man as become a real hoot. He's recently figured out there's this thingy in his mouth he can stick out and it makes people laugh. More so when he starts jiggling and wiggling it. So now, a quick glimpse of the pudge ball's face will mirror either the smile of an 85 year old who forgot his dentures or Michael Jordan mid-dunk (see below).