Gimme an F! Gimme an R! Gimmie a U! Gimme...

...eh, never mind. "Frustrated" is too long to spell out like that. Plus I'd probably get confused and throw a random "Q" in there somewhere.

So Tate's been getting the high fevers again. Yesterday morning and Sunday night it got up to almost 105. Not cool. I can see getting high fevers every once in awhile, or low-grade fevers fairly often, but not topping out at 105.3 at least once a month. We went to the doctor and poor Tate ended up having to get needles jabbed in both arms to get blood drawn. My fault. I have shitty veins and I guess I passed it down to my son, along with my razor-sharp wit. You take the good with the bad. However, I can say with absolute certainty that there are few things as heart-wrenching as seeing your baby being held down on a table with terror in their eyes as they yell for you in complete panic. I was a wreck. A wreck who was holding Nora who was sucking on her finger, sticking it in my ear and then dragging it across my cheek. That wasn't so enjoyable either. Although at that point I was so upset that she could have been sticking boogers into my mouth and I wouldn't have noticed.

So then we waited for 90 minutes. Tate lay on the floor in a feverish mass of toddler, and Nora pulled every single thing out of the drawers under the examining table. She also enjoyed weighing herself, playing with the stirrups on the table, trying to grab used latex gloves out of the hazardous waste bin, draping herself in a gown, and chewing on electrical wires under the desk. The girl knows how to have a good time in any situation.

We found out that Tate's white blood cell count is too high and he has some sort of infection. He's on antibiotics. I'm fairly confident in saying that we will be going through all of this again in a matter of a month or two. It happens so frequently, and he just gets so enervated because of it that it's truly hard to watch. He's like a lump of goo on the couch who every so often requests a glass of water or a cracker.

He is definitely feeling better today but is still not 100%. He has bravely mustered up the energy to inflict small amounts of torture on the dogs and his sister periodically , so he's definitely on the right path to recovery. I just wish I knew why these fevers kept happening. I don't like them.

You suck, fevers.

Gordalien

OK, seriously? How old is this dude? He's been on Sesame Street for at least 25 years.I mean, the man must be at least 113. He looks exactly the same now as he did back in my Sesame Street-filled days. It's like he's an alien. The man will never, ever die. Do you think he uses Just For Men in his moustache? Cause that thing ain't changed a whit either. I would be inclined to think that every human on that show is a non-aging alien, but then I remembered that Mr. Hooper kicked the bucket a few years ago. Guess they hired him before they caught onto the whole aliens-never-age-but-like-to-sing-stupid-songs-with-vapid-annoying-children-and-can-be-hired-as-actors thing.



Tate's a big fan of Sesame Street (or "Sefase Street" as he eloquently puts it), in case you couldn't tell. But now, thanks to that damn technology thing, he's intent on fast-forwarding through all the episodes til we get to this demon spawn:

We have PBS On Demand so you can just pick an episode and fast forward to the good crap. Of course, Tate refuses to let me do it. So this is a rendition of what usually happens:

TV: "Can you tell me how to get, how to get to-"......silence silence (this is Tate fast-forwarding)...."ONE! TWO! THREE COOKIES"......silence silence

Tate: "ARGH! Where's Elmo??"

TV: "La la la l-".....silence silence (this is Tate fast-forwarding without realizing that he doesn't want to be fast-forwarding at this point since we're actually AT the Elmo segment)..."ding ding ding, ding ding ding...Bye bye, everyone! Elmo loves you!"....silence silence...

Tate: "Oh NO! Now I must rewind!"

TV:...silence. We are now at the end of the episode and in order to watch it again, you must press play. Not rewind. Tate is freaking adamant that the rewind button MUST BE PUSHED WITH ALL HIS MIGHT.

Tate: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

TV: "Sunny days, chasing the-"....this is the episode starting up again after Tate inadvertently begins it by either chucking the remote to the floor or banging it against the couch. Then he starts fast-forwarding again, so....silence silence....silence silence....silence silence..."Bye bye, everyone! Elmo loves you!"

Tate: "Noooooo!"

Me: "Tate! Just push play when I tell you to!"

Tate: "NOOOOO!!!!"

Yeah, pretty much repeat that scenario about 30 times and that's a typical hour at our house. I swear we end up actually watching Elmo for about 14 seconds out of a 60 minute period.

Oh, and Nora pretty much ate a toilet paper tube. That's good for her, right? Maybe it'll curb her fascination with cough drops, which I HATE because those bastards could totally choke the hell out of her, which freaks me out. She always manages to find the 3 ones in my bathroom drawer that are like 4 years old and pull them out while I'm in the shower. Those and some random panty liners. She likes to put those in her mouth and bumble around with them hanging out like a giant, white, absorbent tongue. Hey, man...whatever it takes to get me a shower.

I Give It a Score of 9.5

I took the kids to the grocery store yesterday.



I know, right? I'm an idiot.



I foolishly thought that since I had to buy like 3 things it would be a relatively painless trip. Ha. See my previous statement. Nora will NOT sit in the cart anymore. At ALL. EVER. GOD!!!! It's like she is this boneless little blob of goo that can maneuver out of any restraint I foolishly try to employ. I'm thinking I have no choice but to revert to trying duct tape. But that might ruin her clothes. Or, you know, result in a call to the CPS by some well-meaning citizen.



But yesterday we had the inevitable happen. I knew it was coming. Nora took a swan dive out of the cart. I was trying to pay for the groceries, hold on to Nora and keep Tate from taking all the plastic bags off the holder and eating them when she just...leaned over and went gunning for the floor. Head first. I had the back of her shirt loosely in my hand, and when I felt gravity starting to do it's thing, I tightened my grasp and watched her do this cool forward flip thingie. She then landed on her feet, I let go of her to finish bagging the groceries that I had been holding with my other hand, and she toddled off to go talk to the bag boy at the next aisle and tell him how totally remarkable her mom was. For a nose-dive straight to the linoleum floor, it was rather anti-climatic. The cashier looked at me with either disgust or impress and said "Wow, you didn't even flinch." I decided against telling her that compared to what goes on in our house on a daily basis, a leap out of a shopping cart really doesn't rate that high on my freak-o-meter.

Oh, and Tate peed on the potty again today. Time for Urination Celebration 2.0!!!!

Rejoice, All Ye Who Enter Here

For my son, the fruit of my womb, has done a miraculous deed. He peed. Not only did he pee (which, let's face it, lost it's excitement for us a good 34 months ago or so), but he did it in the toilet. For the first time EVER. We thought it was never going to happen. I had visions of myself going to Target and buying Depends for my kid. The urination celebration was long and boisterous at our house last night, I tell you. I think Eric and I were more excited than Tate was. Actually, I'd be willing to bet on it. Amazing how a little stream of wee-wee can completely brighten your outlook on life. Ain't nothing stopping us now, baby.

I'm choosing to ignore the fact that so far today, Tate has refused to even say the word potty. Because, really, that's neither here nor there. And yeah, so what if he acts like I'm asking to tear him apart limb by limb every time I ask if he needs to go potty. Because he WENT! ON THE POTTY!!! Next up, differential geometry. The world is at our feet.

So I got back last night from my girls weekend. It was exhausting. We sat. For 12 hours straight on Saturday. In the middle of all the sitting, my friend Tricia managed to cause a Pyrex casserole dish to explode. We stopped sitting, cleaned it up and then went back to the living room and sat some more. Well, sat and contemplated how on earth Tricia managed to not get her face completely sliced open and her eyeballs gashed out. Then we went and sang karaoke and made fools of ourselves, as the tradition dictates whenever I go out of town with girlfriends. Let me just say that 6 30-something women trying to sing Eninem is not a pleasant sight. Or sound.

So basically, the weekend can be summed up in two photos.

This one:

And uh...this one:

I know. I'm hot. No need to say it.

I'm Outta Here

Some of the girls and I are going up to my good friend Jodi's ski chalet this weekend. We're going to do such crazy, outrageous things as...reading. Watching chick flicks. Sleeping in. Having a few drinks. Wearing our "fat pants". Sitting on our asses eating junk food and not having to get up unless WE FEEL LIKE IT. Not cutting up each other's food or wiping each other's butts or putting each other in time out.

I hope it will be just as uneventful as I'm anticipating. I've done my vacuuming and cleaning up the kitchen out of guilt already and I'll come back on Sunday refreshed and ready to dive back into the pool of craziness that is my house. I'll miss the kidlets...probably. They most likely won't even notice I'm gone.

I Almost Peed My Pants

...when I saw this picture of Tate from Packer Fan Fest. I'm still freakin' laughing.

And PS...how excited were you when you saw I posted two entries in one day??? It's like Christmas all the time around here, baby.

Give The Kid an Espresso

I was at the drive-thru of the coffee place (aka my mothership) the other day, and after the lady's voice came through the magical ordering box thing asking what I'd like, my dear son leaned forward from the back seat, cleared his throat and said "Hi, can I have a medium snow white mocha, please?".

I tell ya, this kid learns so much useful information from driving around in the car with me. So much. What other two-year-old knows how to order the yummiest coffee drink in town and refer to completely idiotic drivers as bastards? The kid is well on his way. To what, I'm not sure, but on his way nonetheless. I was thinking about ordering him a little shot-glass sized mocha, but well...that would be stupid. And make me kind of a bad mom.

Although, when people get a look at Nora's eye, they probably question my proficiency as a mother anyway. Gravity is not so kind to new walkers so we've been hearing a lot of smacks, thuds and thump-thump-thumps lately. The other day she smacked her eye on her little rocking chair.

The rocking chair of doom.

I tried my hardest to get a good picture of the shiner under her eye but the little spaz refuses to sit still for pictures lately and most of them ended up being a little head-shaped blur with a puff of hair on top. This is the best one I could get, and you can really barely see the bruise. It's there, though, and she looks like a total hardass.

Yeah, you should see the other guy.

So, I took the kids to the grocery store yesterday. (Yay! Another grocery store story whereupon you all can read and snicker at my continuing self-torture!) We got there and Tate made a beeline for the miniature "Customer in Training" cart. Since it had been a couple days since I had felt like banging my head against the wall in frustration, I let him push it with the implicit instructions that he must stay by Mommy at ALL TIMES. I likened it to a Mommy dolphin and her little baby dolphin who swims along next to her all the time, frolicking merrily next to Mommy's dorsal fin, because he feels the most comfortable and safe next to Mommy. This earned me a completely blank stare from Baby Dolphin. Well, I tried.

So, this is what our shopping trip sounded like:

ME: "Ok, Tate, stay by me! No, over this--no, honey this way. Tate, over here! Watch where you're--honey, you can't run into people! Especially if they're 95! Ok, Tate let's--no, over here. This aisle. No, THIS aisle. Tate, watch out! Ok, let's get some--TATE! Watch out!!! No, honey, we don't need any asparagus. No, really--over HERE, Tate! Tate, where are you? Did you grab some crackers? No, over--TATE! Over here! Come on please! Stop ramming your cart into the deli counter, please! Where are you--no, do NOT run away from Mommy! Wait, we don't need 14 bags of shredded cheese! Let Mommy put those--stay HERE while Mommy puts them back! No, we don't take things out of other people's carts, honey. How did you manage to tip your cart over, Tate???"

NORA: "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"

TATE: "Hey. What's up. Hi. I got a cart."

He actually did a pretty good job, he just gets distracted by people. And pictures. And seeing himself in the reflection of the cases in the refrigerated aisle. He felt pretty studly, though, you could tell...pushing the HELL out of that cart around. Nora, on the other hand, thinks shopping carts are hateful metal contraptions out to eat her, and will spend every single second trying to climb out of the seat. I strap her in, but due to her and her damn contortionist ways, it's about as effective as strapping her in with a wet noodle. She usually ends up facing away from me, crouched on her knees with her butt up in the air while I hang on to the hem of her shirt, thus preventing me from being able to step more than 6 inches away from the cart. Those damn cans of diced tomatoes are always just beyond my reach. Bastards.

Eric took Tate to some Packer event...thing. Tate got to meet lots of Packer-type people. He seemed to enjoy himself.

Tate and...some Packer, I'm assuming.

I'm thinking this is another Packer.

No clue who this guy is, but I like how Tate seems to have his hand down his pants. Classy.

Monkey Down!

Earlier today, I heard Tate exclaim from the other room, "Oh NO!". I went in to investigate and found poor little Snowy the Monkey had been brutally mutilated by our dog. Because, you know, Spencer is pretty evil:

Oh, wait, no. Spencer is this big pile of dumpy ineptitude:

Poor Snowy required medical attention, STAT, so Eric and Tate took him upstairs to do some repair. This is what Snowy looks like now:

You can't really tell from the picture, but his left hand (paw?) is bandaged up as well. Note the Spongebob Band-Aid on top of the gauze. Tate thinks putting those Band-Aids on his own skin will cause him to erupt into a fiery inferno, but apparently they're a-ok for a stuffed monkey. You're a brave little simian, Snowy.

My baby girl is walking. She started doing it in earnest two nights ago. Before she would take a step or two before doing a spectacular collapse into the carpet, but now she steadies herself, raises her arms above her head for balance, and lurches away. She looks like a drunken Weeble Wobble. Imagine this dude floundering around my family room, only with a little radish-sprout ponytail. Oh, and as a girl.

The best part is listening to her laugh delightedly, so proud of herself. That little sprite's gonna be quick. She can crawl at the speed of light already. She looks like a little spider skittering across the floor. I keep trying to post a video of her walking but something inside my computer is being stupid and not letting me. There's one on my Facebook page.

And of course, since she's been walking for a whole 48 hours, she's already acquired like 5903 bumps and bruises. The best was when she tripped and hit her crib with her mouth. It's amazing how much a mom will freak out when she sees blood pooling around her baby's teeth. I was going into psycho mother mode. Everything's fine, though. She tried to eat a rock a few minutes later so no permanent damage to teeth, gums or tongue, apparently. Or maybe it was just a particularly irresistible rock. She is quite the tough little broad.

Tate is turning into quite the reader, which delights me to no end. I've been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, and was determined to pass that down to my kids as well. Apparently, though, all of our books have some sort of subtext that we ignoble grownups cannot see. For whenever Tate reads to himself, each and every book consists of the text: "Oh Sa So Sil-lay!" That's what he chants to himself as he turns the pages. Every time, every book. "Oh Sa So Sil-lay! Oh Sa So Sil-lay!" Then he'll come to a page that he recognizes and it'll be something like "Oh Sa So Sil-lay! I love you alllll the time!" or "Oh Sa So Sil-lay! Michael likes to poop on the potty!" He likes to read in bed for awhile after I tuck him in, so I'll stand outside the door and listen to the "Oh Sa So Sil-lay! On the track, the trains are running!". I love it.

And what the hell ever happened to these dudes???

Those Yip Yips kicked ass. I heart the Yip Yips and they're not on Sesame Street anymore. How I miss the Yip Yips.

The Many Faces of the Tater.

Here are some of the things Tate's been up to lately. Besides his usual evildoings, of course.

We went on a firestation tour today. After a little cajoling Tate agreed to don a fireman's jacket. It fits well, no? And the look of pure joy and thrill on his face...just warms the heart.

While we were in Minneapolis for Disney on Ice, we also hit up the Mall of America. I love that place. I used to LIVE there, hitting up Contempo Casuals and Maurices for the babydoll dresses and velvet chokers that were just so very nifty at the time. This is Tate at the amusement park in the mall. Yeah, he's sideways. I always forget to rotate the pictures before I put them on here. Deal.

Here's Tate decked out in some fine regalia. We've got the free skull cap we got in our gift bag at DOI (Disney On Ice for those of you not in the loop), his VIP pass that was so long on him it practically dragged on the floor, and his Bob the Builder toolbelt. Hawt. The dopey look on his face is just the icing on the cake. Cute, though, no?

I feel bad that there are no pictures of Nora in this batch. Lately most of my shots of her have been on her little booty as she crawls the hell away from me as fast as she can. She has no time whatsoever in her busy life to sit still for 3 nanoseconds so I can snap a picture. It's the Huggie Butt Blur, 2009.

Oh, wait! Here's one! Please notice the expression of pure exultation on her face. It's kind of hard to see, but let me assure you, she was screaming her ASS off. I had interupted her quest to find each and every strand of loose carpet fiber on the floor possible. She loves that stuff. I think it must taste like lollipops.

I am watching American Idol. What the hell did Paula do to her face? It's like Michael Myers from Halloween mixed with a Siamese cat with a little Joan Rivers thrown in there. I think all the Botox and collogen have finally, officially, COMPLETEY ruined any shred of sanity the poor dear had left. They've seeped into the little section marked "sanity" in her brain and completely obliterated it. Listening to her talk is like listening to the weird drunk aunt on somebody's wedding video who got ahold of the microphone and won't let it go.

PAULA: "I loved your song choice! You sounded like a little puppy who mated with Robert Wagner and then went and ate a sandwich! It's very ADMIRABLE! You are so wonderful to watch! It's like running in a field of cabbage while watching bunnies copulate with little mini Gloria Estefans and playing with a big bowl of zippers! You sounded TIMELESS! And you're so beautiful! Your dress looks like a wee little puff of styrofoam egg cartons! It's so RELEVENT! Watch me while I clap like a seal and writhe around drunkenly!"

Please stop me before I ever get to that point.

Ha HA! Up Yours, Blizzard!

We drove home from the Twin Cities last night. It sucked in a majorly royal way. Driving on Hwy 29 is never all that pleasant, seeing as there's NOTHING on it and the stretch between Wausau and Green Bay is so long and desolate it's kinda creepy. There's a bunch of run-down buildings and dilapidated farms, but that's really about it. Each time I drive along it, I kind of expect to see a creepy little kid running through a cornfield shouting "Malachi! MALACHIIII!"* Last night was exceptionally unenjoyable.

* You know, from Children of the Corn? Please tell you me you knew that. It's only one of the best cheesy Stephan King movies ever. Did you know the redhaired kid in it is the guy who played Patrick Dempsey's dorky friend in Can't Buy Me Love? I tell ya, I'm full of useless knowledge.

It was the type of blizzard where you can't see two feet in front of the car, you feel like you're about to get blown off the road like the 4083 other cars you've seen in the ditch so far, you try and get in the left lane but then realize you can't tell where the left lane is, you're tense and sweating, you're wondering if people will even miss you when you're gone, etc etc. Of course, I wasn't driving, but, hello, it's EXTREMELY tense being the one in the passenger seat. Let's think about me, here. I was pumping that imaginary brake on the floor like a rockstar. I wouldn't have been surprised if I popped the door handle right off with how tight I was clutching it. I'm sure Eric appreciated the fact that I showed admirable restraint from shrieking "Oh MY GOD WATCH OUT FOR THAT TRUCK! WE'RE GOING IN THE DITCH! I NEED A DRINK! WHY WILL MY DAUGHTER NOT STOP SCREAMING???" I was quite the hero.

Tate was a champ, sitting in the way back watching his DVDs. I don't think he even realized we were in The Blizzard of the Century. Every once in awhile he'd ask for a snack because he thought it was fun when I chucked little baggies of fruit snacks back at him, but besides that he was awesome. Nora, on the other hand, was pissed that Mother Nature was being a total bitch and keeping her from her nice warm, soft crib and cried for an hour and a half, which in blizzard time equals roughly 39 hours.

After a particularly harrowing trip across a GIGANTIC bridge that freaks me out when it's calm and sunny out, we made it home. That bridge, man...that was rough. I just put my head down in my lap and told God that since he totally rocks, how about He lets us get across without, oh, plummeting into a river, how about?

Then of course we get home, chuck the kids into bed and find we have nothing alcoholic to toast our being alive with. Eric made some sort of shot-type thing with Malibu and Blue Curacao but I didn't feel like adding gut rot to my still-racing heart and off-the-chart blood pressure, so I passed. The myriad of people on Facebook telling me what idiots we were for driving home in this weather definitely warmed my heart, though. Nothin' like friends to tell you how idiotic you really are, in case it had slipped your mind momentarily.

Whew. Sonnenbergs-1, Snow-0. Suck it, zero-visiblity. We kicked your ASS.

Underwire+Armpit=Sucks.

Ok, so I buy cheap Target bras. I do not have the energy or desire to devote time to actually washing bras the way they should be washed. I don't put them in a little bag, I don't wash them on the "lingerie" cycle, I don't lay them flat to dry. Sorry, suckers, but you're getting thrown in the washer with my jeans and Tate's shirt with the dried green bean/chocolate/snot stain on it. Enjoy.



So because I abuse my bras, they feel justification in abusing me right back and springing forth the underwire from the side of the cup just so it can poke me in the armpit all. day. long. And since my laziness knows no bounds and thus prevents me from actually walking the 15 feet to my bathroom trash can at the end of the day when I take the bra off, I am forced, forced to just throw it in the hamper along with all the other dirty clothes. Then of course it gets washed, ends up back in my drawer, and sticking me in the armpit again. What a bastard. Normally I wouldn't feel the need to talk about my jackass undergarments, but the jerkwad is poking me in the armpit as I type.


So apparently I'm on some sort of crack, because I decided it would be just a keen idea to take both kids to the grocery store at 5 pm, which is when we usually eat dinner. The only reason I felt this insanity was justified is that I had no food to actually prepare for dinner, so the kids could either be whiny and crabby at home, or I could take them out and spread the whininess and crabbiness all about the land for everyone to see.


Somehow Tate manged to trip over my feet from behind as we were walking into the store and catapulted himself headfirst into the wall. He did not get hurt. He then dashed over to the spaceship cart and tried to climb up in it. The cart was no match for his ponderosity and tipped over onto him. He got up with nary a scratch. He reached for a jumbo-sized bottle of olive oil and got conked on the noggin. Didn't even notice. It's like the kid has an invisible shield around him. Either that or he's just not that observant. Although he did observe that Mom refused to let him climb into the salad bar and writhe amongst the lettuce and cucumber slices, and subsequently voiced his displeasure in the form of shrieking like a pterodactyl. He knows what's important, I guess.


Nora, on the other hand, observed quite astutely that we were not at home, she was not in her highchair, and food was not getting shoveled into her mouth at Mach-3 speed. Therefore, she took no delay in informing all of us poor innocent grocery shoppers that she was really, really PISSED OFF. At one point I had two pterodactyls in the Spaceship Cart of Doom and I was about to just stick them in the refrigerated food aisle among the yogurt and cream cheese and just call it a day.

Then I get home, realize I already had half the items I went to the store to get, tried to make fajitas but failed magnificently (the seasoning tasted like rubber gloves rubbed with feet sweat) and gave up. I slapped some shredded cheese in between a tortilla, microwaved it, threw some green beans in a bowl, microwaved them, and presented the kidlets with a gourmet meal a' la Frazzled Mother. I had a peanut butter cookie. It would have been delish, except there was a fair amount of salsa splashed on it from my fajita experiment. I did not notice the glob of salsa and therefore shoved the entire cookie in my mouth. Peanut Butter+Salsa=regurgitation.

I'm Silly, Either!

Lately Tate has had trouble differentiating between the usage of the words "too" and "either". If he sees me eating, he'll say "I want something to eat, either!"or it's "My head is pounding from my incessant shrieking and running about like a banshee, either!!". It doesn't really make sense but it kinda does, in a two-year-old type way. Unlike when we asked him what Mommy's name was and he replied "Fffffttt...Up in the Sky!". I hear that name's going to be quite popular in the coming years. It fits me well, I believe. I look like a Fffffttt.

So last night we took the kids to a reception/dinner-type thingy at our church for newer members. Sheesh. Let me just say, it's a good thing this was at God's house, cause I think any other host would have booted us out after about 2 minutes. God's pretty chill, though. He knows what's up. As soon as we got in there and took Tate's jacket off, he was off like a shot. He would just run until he hit a table or a wall or an old man's legs and then ricochet off and run back the way he came. It was a little stressful, trying to weave through groups of oblivious smiling people in name tags trying to ensnare my kid before he knocked over the table full of baked goods or some little old lady. People would try to talk to us and catch a glimpse of Tate knocking chairs over or veering off his path of destruction to deliberately step on Nora's fingers or pull her hair, and they would kind of...fall silent. It was like they couldn't talk and watch the train wreck at the same time. We heard lots of "Well, he certainly is...energetic, isn't he?". Yep, energetic is definitely one of many words for it.

Then we came home, put Nora to bed, the sitter came, Tate freaked out, and we left. Because, usually, when we leave, the freak-out lasts for about 3 minutes, the sitter offers Tate food, and all is well. But this is a fairly new sitter and I guess Tate just hadn't really sussed her out that well yet, and he hit a level of beserk-ness (no, that's not a real word) that we don't often see 'round these parts. We got two phone calls from the poor sitter wondering just how one stops Tate from banging his head on the floor and screaming like someone was cutting his nads off. The poor girl was probably about to pack up and head out. We were on our way back home (after getting a new nose stud for me....hello, we have priorities) when she called a third time and stated that the craziness had been quelled, at least temporarily. Temporary is good for us, so we turned the car back around and headed for the bar.

It was a great time, with great friends. We drank, came home, were told that Tate did in fact calm down and stop trying to put a dent in the floor with his head, and sent the sitter home. Maybe we shall see her again someday, maybe not. She's probably scarred for life. Ah well.

In other news, Eric took both kidlets to the Children's Museum in Appleton. Here are some pictures. Just cause I feel like photowhoring my children, so photowhore I shall.

Doing a little shopping.

Yeah, so this is my jet. Wanna ride?