Tuesday, June 24, 2014

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 175

24/June/2014, Day 175.  Tuesday.

Poor Sweetie didn't get much sleep again.  I don't know how she is holding it all together!

It was another mostly quiet day at work for Grump again, which he appreciates.  His lunch was some wonderful chicken arroz caldo, which is a sort of a chicken and rice stew.  Sweetie makes the best chicken arroz caldo in the universe, so Grump was very happy!

It rained really, really hard as Grump was coming home from work, but fortunately it cleared up in time for Kuya to have his swimming lesson.  He must have worked hard at swimming today, because he fell asleep tonight watching TV; Grump had to carry him to his bed.

There is so much work to do in the house with two kids, particularly since you have to watch Kuya to make sure he isn't too rough with Dodong.  How do you explain to a five year old that infants are fragile?


A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 174

23/June/2014, Day 174.  Monday.

In reverse order:

We went to bed early, after a dinner of fried tilapia, rice, and mangoes.

Kuya's swimming lessons were cancelled, on account of the rain.  When Grump arrived home from work he was a bit upset, because of a high credit card bill.  (This wasn't even the credit card which we used to pay for the photos on Sunday.)

Work was mostly peaceful for Grump; his lunch was spaghetti, Filipino style, of course, with a few surprise chunks of added chicken.

Kuya spent most of the morning ripping up bits of paper and tossing them on the floor, simulating Humpty Dumpty after his "fall".

We all woke up refreshed from a very much needed good night's sleep.

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 173

22/June/2014, Day 173.  Sunday.

Today Sweetie decided we would get take-out from Panera for breakfast, which is what we did.  Both Sweetie and Grump have a breakfast souffle and an egg, tomato, and cheese sandwich on a blueberry bagel, while Kuya has a muffin top and yogurt.  Dodong is still surviving on breast milk, so as long as Sweetie is available and he is hungry, he can eat.

As we had not been to church in a long, long time, we made sure we went to church today.  After church we drove up to Morrow Georgia, (basically south Atlanta), to get some fruits, vegetables, and fish.

Dinner was at a Thai restaurant called Lemon Grass in downtown Macon.  Sweetie and Grump enjoyed their dinner, but Kuya was wound up and misbehaved through the entire meal.

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 172

21/June/2014, Day 172.  Saturday.

Sweetie woke up early, and made blueberry scones!  Yummy, yummy, yummy!

After that yummy breakfast, we all went to get photos of Dodong and family.  (We had to get nice photos of Dodong as a baby, because we have nice photos of Kuya as a baby.)  While waiting for the photo session Sweetie used the time to buy a nice pair of shoes.

After we were done getting our picture taken, (and spending LOTS of money doing so!), we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

The big event of the day was one of Kuya's friends had a birthday party.  She lives way, way out in the country, so it took a while to get there.  But her parents had a water slide set up for the kids to play on, so they all have a great time slipping and sliding.

I don't remember what dinner was ...... leftovers maybe?

Saturday, June 21, 2014

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 171

20/June/2014, Day 171.  Friday.

Miraculously, Grump got two night's of good sleep in a row!  What more could an Old Sweaty Grump hope for?

Work was quiet; too quiet, in far.  With a heavy heart, and plenty of regret, Grump had to ask his team leads for more work.  (Phooey!)  Hopefully he won't get dumped on for opening his mouth!

On the home front, Kuya continues to terrorize Dodong and drive Sweetie crazy!  A five year old and an infant just don't mix!  Sweetie does the best she can to tend to the needs of both, but it is driving her bonkers.

This evening we went to Bible Study next door, but unfortunately Grump and Kuya had to leave early, because Kuya apparently hurt the Big Sigh.  Big Sigh's Mama, (and some of her friends), accuse Kuya of being a bully, but the only kid Kuya every has any trouble with is Big Sigh.  He plays fine with other children, including some younger and smaller than himself, and his problems with Dodong aren't due to intent, but a lack of understanding that Dodong is super fragile right now.

We've decided that we are going to have to avoid events where Big Sigh is present, because we don't want to deal with that psycho-drama.

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 170

19/June/2014, Day 170.  Thursday.

After the sleep deprivation of Tuesday night, Wednesday night was mostly restful.  So Grump at least was better rested today.  (But not Sweetie, who seemingly NEVER gets enough sleep.)

What happened today?  Not a whole heck of a lot, which was kinda nice, actually.  We just kept working with Kuya, trying to emphasize to him that he has to be VERY CAREFUL around his brother, who is still an infant.  I'm not sure how much of this registers in Kuya's five-year-old brain, but we keep trying.






Thursday, June 19, 2014

A Day in a Year in a LIfe / Day 169

18/June/2014, Day 169.  Wednesday.

What was today like?  Hard to say, since Grump spent most of it in a haze.  Dodong seemed to wake up every hour all through the night, and then once he finally drifted off into a sound sleep, (around 4:00 am), Kuya woke up and crawled into bed with us, kicking Grump in the head!

But this is nothing compared to the exhaustion Sweetie is feeling right now.  She has to carefully watch Kuya all day long, lest he inadvertently hurt Dodong.  It's impossible for a five year old to understand just how fragile an infant really is.  Kuya, like most five year old boys, is a bundle of unrestrained energy, bursting out all over the place.  We just hope and pray that Dodong makes it through his first year of life unscathed.

On a sad note, while Grump was check out at a local grocery store, he mentioned his frustrations with his kids to the cashier, and she told him about an incident that happened to a neighbor when she was a child.  A mother was changing an infant's diaper, and when she turned away for just a moment, her five year old child grabbed the infant by the legs, and pulled him.  Tragically the infant banged its head, and died.  The cashier said she still remembers the funeral with the tiny casket.

Life is fragile, folks.  Let's protect each other as best we can.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 168

17/June/2014, Day 168.  Tuesday.

Grump got LOTS of sleep last night, so he felt better today.  Unfortunately Sweetie never sleeps well anymore.  I'm afraid she is starting to show the wear and strain of trying to take care of a five year old and an infant.  HELP!!

Kuya had his swimming class today, so he was happy.

Grump had a mellow, yet at the same time frustrating day at work.  Hard to explain, and Grump doesn't really want to talk about it, so just know that not all days are pleasant.

We ordered Kuya's shirts from Lands End tonight, and they cost a small fortune.

A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 167

16/June/2014, Day 167.  Monday.

Today was a day of extreme tiredness.  Grump didn't sleep well; the dinner from last night had too much garlic in it for his tummy to handle, so he tossed and turned all night.

Sweetie didn't sleep well, but then she isn't sleeping well any more.

Kuya's first swimming class in his second session was cancelled because of thunder and lightening.  Phooey!

Dodong did well, doing what an infant does.


A Day in a Year in a Life / Day 165

14/June/2014, Day 165.  Saturday.

PAA is having .... uh, "issues" at the moment, so I will be posting the daily "A Day in a Year in a Life" articles here until it cleans up its act.

The theme for today was shopping, shopping, shopping, and more shopping!

After a slow start, (puttering away in our underwear eating a lazy breakfast), we finally got our act together and drove over to Forsyth, GA, to the Grits Café for lunch. Lunch was okay - it was good and all, but the menu was one we considered uninspired, as nearly everything had shrimp, (which Sweetie is allergic to), or blue cheese, (which Grump despises!), in it. So it was probably one of the least exciting meals we've had at Grits Café. Still good, but not the usual superb.

After lunch we drove up the road to the Tanger outlet mall in Locust Grove, GA. There are many, many stores there, and Sweetie went wild! We shopped until Grump and Kuya just couldn't take it anymore. It was dinnertime by then, so we drove back down the road to The French Market to get something to eat.

We had never been to The French Market before, and were pleasantly surprised by how good the food was. It is a New Orleans / Cajun style inspired place; Grump had yummy gumbo, jambalaya, and red rice and beans. Sweetie had a blackened salmon which was super-duper mouth-watering delicious.  Kuya and Sweetie finished off their meal with a yummy miniature chocolate cake.

Sufficiently stuffed, and tired, we drove back home and as quick as we could all four of us climbed into bed.  In no time at all we were all snoring contentedly.




Monday, June 16, 2014

A Day in a Year in a LIfe / Day 166

15/June/2014, Day 166.  Sunday.

This was a bummer of a day.

It started out okay.  Sweetie, Grump, and Dodong accompanied Kuya to the church where he went to vacation Bible school last week, and Kuya participated in a singing presentation all the VBS kids gave up on the stage at the front of the church.

From there everything went downhill.  Grump was very sleepy, so when he got home he insisted on taking a nap.  Unfortunately Sweetie also decided to try to make a fancy recipe for Father's Day, namely salmon croquettes with spaghetti squash mixed with a celery pesto sauce.  As she attempted to make the recipe, she realized that she needed a food processor, (!), to successfully complete it, so she and Kuya headed off to a local department store while a very tired Grump stayed home with Dodong.

Once Sweetie got back home, Grump handed Dodong off to her and went upstairs to sleep.  After about 15 minutes Sweetie started hollering for him, asking him to come help her with the food processor.  Grump was in no mood to mess with a food processor, so he told her that if she really wanted him to fuss with it, he would, but if he couldn't get it to work he was taking it back to the store.

I'll just jump to the end of this pathetic story.  Sure enough, we couldn't figure out how to get the food processor to work, so we took it back to the store, and got another, less exciting model.  At first we couldn't get this one to work either, but once Grump read the instructions he finally figured it out.

The sad part to all this is that the food processor we returned was a much better model, and was on sale at a considerable discount, being only a little more than a dollar than the lesser model.  If either Grump or Sweetie had taken the time to read the instructions for it, we probably would have figured out how to use it.

There's a moral buried in there somewhere.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Where are all the posts, Dude?

Yeah, yeah ..... I've done an absolutely CRUDDY job keeping this blog updated.  So what do you want?  Your money back?

I had this goofy idea of taking Swift's "A Tale of a Tub", obtained from the good folks at Project Gutenberg, and rewriting it from the point of view of a group of angry cormorants.  Yes, that's the best I could come up with, okay!

YOU try raising a newborn and a five year old simultaneously.