Patiently Waiting

Today was AJ's second birthday celebration, as usual we had a great time.  I think the presentation of the cake was most notable.  When the moment arrived for everyone to sing -- silence.  We had to hold off until an Aunt returned back to the house after taking a dog for a walk.  To the Aunt's defense, she did travel hundreds of miles for this celebration -- however keep in mind that all kids had already jockeyed for position around the table and were anxiously awaiting the song and delicious cake to follow.  Approximately 5 minutes went by, 2 birthday songs (one with, and one without, Aunt), and 1 birthday boy who could no longer keep a happy face.  One thing I have learned with kids and waiting -- patience levels are measured in seconds, not minutes.

AJ cheered up once he had treat in hand.  Happy Birthday AJ!

More pics from Christmas

Lunch time

Bed head

Christmas Day in WNY

A few quick pics from Christmas morning.

Transition

In just two days our home has been packed up to the point where it's no longer livable.  The move operation is run with five guys and they move fast!  Day one was for all items going to storage, day two was sea crate.  During both of the days we were scrambling to make sure items we identified as storage were not going on sea crate and vice versa -- on top of which we had to sort out items for our air shipment and also determine which stuff would be luggage on our flight.  Air freight items take about a month to get to us and the sea crate items take ~3 months.

I am writing this from our temporary home (a hotel room) and have to be back at our house at 8am sharp for the rest of the packing which is scheduled to be complete by noon tomorrow.  Once house is cleaned up, it's off to Buffalo for Christmas -- from there we return back to Michigan for some more hotel living.  Then we're off to Brazil and live in a hotel there for about 5 days until our apartment is ready.  Needless to say, but we'll be slightly busy -- and unfortunately blog content will be light for the next 3-4 weeks until we get settled in.

Reflex Training

The phrase "Pavlov's dog" is often used to describe someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than using critical thinking.

Silence

A little bit late, but had to post this one.  When we were in Phoenix all the kids took a 1.5 hour nap -- at the same time!

Lost: Phone

Last Saturday we all went to Maddie's dance class, then as we were leaving I realized I lost my sunglasses.  Cathy agreed to get the kids in the car while I went in to find them.  While I was inside I missed a call from Cathy -- as it turns out, Maddie found my glasses on top of the stroller.  Who cares right?   Well, that was the last time Cathy's phone was used for the next 7 hours.

At the time, I wasn't too concerned -- I had a good feeling the phone would turn up.  So after a round of errands we pulled up to our house and Maddie and Dylan were out cold in the car.  Cathy went inside to search while I dialed repeatedly -- no answer.  At this point, even I was starting to believe that the phone was history.  Within an hour both kids cheerfully awoke and I went inside -- from there I provided assistance on the search that now surpassed the one hour mark. 

We started to backtrack the day to the last phone usage, which brought us back to the sunglasses call.  Perhaps Cathy left it on the bumper after the call, then put the kids in the car and drove off -- leaving it on the pavement for a car to steamroll?  After 1.5 hours of searching we were beginning to think that this scenario was indeed a reality -- which caused the mood of the household to go from moderate to sour.  Fortunately, it was time for a coffee and Cathy decided to make the trip (get some fresh air) and to get to that final stage of -- Acceptance, that yes, the phone has been mowed over by another car and is now in 100s of pieces.  I was at Acceptance 30 minutes prior -- however that's my nature, worst case scenario. 

So I made the kids dinner and while they were peacefully eating -- decided to give it one last search.  I dialed her phone and lifted the garbage can lid.............  and thought I heard something.  Could it be?  I dialed again and this time was positive that something was vibrating in the trash.  Piece by piece I sorted through the garbage until I unveiled the missing phone!  Cathy returned to a happy house and Madison delivered the great news!  Turns out, upon our return from dance class, Cathy gave Dylan the phone to play with while she prepared lunch.  From there the phone made its way to the next obvious place -- the garbage can.

I bet your wondering why I mentioned the purpose of Cathy's last call on that day.  Recall that I returned inside to find my sunglasses -- so it was a blunder on my part that kicked off the chain of events that led to the sour afternoon -- the butterfly effect.  Blame was never aired in my direction on this eventful day, however I knew where I would have been had I not decided to go garbage picking on my Saturday afternoon.