Home Alone

 As a parent there is very rarely a time when you have the house to yourself.  Today my boy's are at school, my daughter is out with Grandparents and my wife is working.  Aside from the painters in the basement and the kitchen guys that just left I am free to do what I want or need to do.  A good nap, laundry, floors, a garbage run to the dump, clean out the garage or even watch Oprah, but she's not on until 4:00 and my kids will rat me out to my wife.  Instead here I sit contemplating how anyone could come up with so many shades of pink.

 Can you wash them all together?  Can you match any of them when dressing your daughter?  Should I go with the black pants and pink top or pink top and black pants?  Pink socks with pink pants?  As you can see I am at a crossroad with no idea which way to go.  Excuse me a minute, "hey guys just put on the blue jeans and whatever top you want on".  Now if I did that with my daughter or when I do that with my daughter I am criticized for not making her look like a little girl.  Now don't get me wrong I do dress her in pink many days just not always the right pink.  What the heck does that mean?  Why doesn't someone sell complete outfits with the right pink and matching colour that helps make it pop, oh and don't forget the matching shoes?  Listen to me, matching shoes and what does the word pop mean.  I have to stop watching "What Not To Wear".  Today I dressed my daughter in pink so that she would look like a little princess.  I hope the white turtle neck doesn't distract the whole look, but it is cold outside.  And by the way, do not get me started on the hair, that is for another day.

 My wife is working hard to get me understanding the pinks and how they work.  For Valentines she is getting me a subscription to Teen Vogue and Fashion Magazine.  If you want to chime in with your fashion tips or know how please do so.  Wish me well as I tackle the load of pink laundry.        

I Need Some Sleep

 I am drawing a blank on what to write about tonight.  My wife has been in bed for the past two hours and here I am up past midnight again writing a blog.  I have to get up at 7am and make certain the kids are up, fed, lunches packed and off to school on time.  My daughter and I will spend the day together dancing to Black Eyed Peas, playing whatever she wants or maybe shopping for groceries.  No matter we will have fun and she will eat seven times throughout the day and still tell me that she is hungry.  We will pick the boys up after school, have dinner, watch a movie with mom and go to bed.  Now that is my perfect Friday.
 Truth be told my day will likely start with a fight to get someone out of bed, possibly myself.  My daughter and I will take the boys to school and come home to laundry, emptying of the dishwasher and refilling with morning dishes, more laundry, and floor cleaning.  Throughout the day I will check my twitter, facebook, blog and e-mail all of which I did not have one week ago, with the exception of e-mail.  If I am lucky my daughter will nap allowing me to get some things done around the house.  Huh, who's kidding who, if she goes down so do I, I'm exhausted.  Maybe, if there is time in the afternoon we will make some muffins for the weekend.  Yes, for you guys, I said muffins.  I still refuse to wear the apron, although it taunts me everyday.
 As for the laundry, I have extra to do tomorrow as I didn't get it all done today. What I can tell you is that Brooke Burke had a book signing in L.A. today.  Dr. Oz expects an increase in Viagra sales leading to valentines day, not that I need any, and I registered my kids in a photo contest on ModernMomConnect.com, please go and vote (they are the four in red and white maple leaf pajama's).
 Since I don't have a topic tonight I am going to bed and wait for which one of the kids will join us tonight.  I will also give thought to what we will have for dinner.     

Water, Water Everywhere

 Dad, there is poop still in the toilet, but I flushed it down.  What a kid, flushing someones poop down the toilet without complaining.  But this is where it all took a turn for the gross and not so nice as it did not flush down but flowed over.  For some reason I went to check and started to throw down towels, the good ones of course, before the water reached the vent.  The whole time in my head I heard my wife saying "don't use the good towels" like I could pause the water until I tracked down the old, not so good, towels. It was gross and disgusting, but nothing a good cleanup can't fix and I would have had it all dried up and said no more, except for Grandma who pulled out the Javex and actually scrub it down.  Now if this was not enough fun it also leak into the basement forcing me to empty my storage room and dry and clean everything that got wet.  By the way, do you have a fire safe?  Make certain it keeps water out as well, mine did not.  
 While I am cleaning up the storage room there are four kids upstairs yelling and screaming, sometimes at each other, and walking all over the laundry that I had just folded.  Now most mom's understand that once the laundry is folded anyone caught messing it up would require a lawyer to help avoid punishment, even a 5 year old.  Before I could lay any accusations Grandma stepped in again and managed to get dinner served giving me a little quiet to complete my task at hand.  Five minutes later someone hit someone and it was someone else's fault leading to another someone getting upset because it was to loud and he could not eat his dinner.  A quick plea for sanity from all the someones, a Scooby Doo movie and back at work I was, moving and cleaning.
 It turns out this was a blessing, poop from heaven if you will, as clearing out the storage room led to finding a much bigger problem.  Apparently when they build houses they do not have to use adhesive for drain pipes if they are hidden behind a wall or if it is time for a coffee break.  At the far end of my storage room there was more water throughout the insulation and on the floor coming from the washing machines drain pipe.  After cutting a hole in the drywall I discovered that one connection had come apart and there was no adhesive ever used.  Plumber, electrician, drywaller, painter and all of them knowledgeable as general contractors, these are the careers for my kids, at least for this week.  They will thank me someday.
  Plumbing is fixed both in the laundry room and toilet and the water damage is drying up so that I can fix that as well.  As for the kids mom came home made everything right in the land of Oz.  Yeah right, she fed them Popcorn chicken told them to watch the movie or off to bed they go.
 Just a typical day of excitement and to think I still have lunches and garbage to get ready.  The fun never stops.

A Good Nights Sleep

 When was the last time you had a solid nights sleep?  How about multiple nights of solid sleep?  If you have young kids and still manage to pull off these sleep filled nights please share with the rest of us how.  Is it the type of mattress, size of mattress or how much space you are allocated for sleeping?
 I will let you in on my thoughts of how to get a good nights sleep. 
1. Sleep in your kids bed as they are most likely going to move to your bed in the night.
2. Go to bed before your spouse so that you can take as much space as needed.  Benefit is that when you are relocated to the last 12 inches at the edge you won't notice as you are already asleep.
3. Stay up until you are sure that everyone has played musical beds and then go up and move them back.  Occasionally this can backfire and you are screwed for the next day.
4. Warm up your wife's side of the bed, especially the bottom, avoiding the cold toes touching your leg just as you are falling asleep.  The sudden shock can keep you up for hours.
5. Wear a cup, athletic support, to bed to help protect against a sudden kick from your son or in my case daughter.  Unfortunately this does not protect a kick in the butt.
6. Wear a helmet with a face mask because if you are not getting kicked you will probably get punched in the face.
7. Tell your kids at bedtime that if they get out of bed in the night the monster in the hall closet might get them so don't leave the room.  Not a popular one with wives if they find out.
8. Complain loudly about poor sleep in hopes that your wife lets you sleep in on the weekend.  Be careful with this one as we all know what they say about payback.
9. Sleep on the couch and suck up the neck and back pains the next day.  Odds are that your wife wakes you early to move you to your bed and within 15 minutes one of the kids comes in asking for breakfast.
10. My last one is sleep in a hotel.  Have not tried this one yet as being a stay at home dad I can't say I worked late.
 I hope some of these help and if anyone has some to add please feel free to share.  As well, if you know where I can get a real good mattress for a real good price let me know. 
Sweet Dreams

Procrastination

 I have been a stay at home dad for the past three months and for the past two I have said I was going to start a blog and maybe even Twitter.  My wife planted this idea in my head when she talked about friends that blog and that it would give me something to do for myself.  As a new stay at home dad getting used to looking after the kids and the household chores my belief was that there was barely enough time to catch my breath during the day, like I need something else.  Once routines started to take hold and I was able to get out of bed early enough to get lunches, school work and myself organized I thought, hey I could do this.  That was two months ago.
 Now this is nothing new for me as procrastinating around the house is something I am skilled at.  When I was working I was not like this, although at home there was always tomorrow or the next day or week, so on and so on.  A good example is our main floor bathroom that we re-decorated.  I had three weeks to get this job done from the time I started peeling wall paper.  This three weeks comes many months, maybe years, after my wife expressing interest in me doing this job.  The good thing is I finally took on the challenge and worked away, slowly, some days.  My kids were great motivators as they wanted to help whenever they were home from school or on the weekends.  We spent a lot of time out of the house those three weeks.  All kidding aside I let my wife paint the room, or was it I refused to paint, either way the painting was completed and the challenging electrical and plumbing were left to me.  I am happy to say that the electrical, which by the way is very dangerous if you don't turn off the breaker, was completed with days to spare.  This apparently was not good enough as my wife complained that with the water shut off we could not bath the kids or do the dishes.  Where is Mike Holmes when you need him?  I was down to the last day and then evening with no plumbing hooked up and missing a part needed to complete the drain.  With my wife's "I'm so glad you decided to leave the plumbing until the end" comments looming over me I had to think fast.  I am happy to say that the plumbing was completed and to this date we have had no issues, in fact the bathroom looks great.  People love the colours, not the new light fixture or the new drainage, but the colours.  Next time I paint.
 So now here I am starting my blog delaying my daughters lunch as I have waited three months to get this started and besides she is always hungry anyway.  There were layouts and colours to choose for my blog, kinda like paint colours, but I have to wait for my wife to get home and ask her what she thinks is best.  Good thing she is not out of town on business as I would be delaying another week.