After a year and a half of being cold free, this weekend, my walls were breached.  I finally succumbed and came down with a cold.  Here are some lessons learned from this experience.

1) WOW – washing your hands and actively paying attention to not touching your face really does work (prior to the boys, I was averaging 3 to 4 colds a year)

2) Just because your children pass the 1 year mark with no sickness, doesn’t mean you can give up on your own vigilance

3)  Hearing snot being sucked out of Nicholas / Dexter’s nose causes my gag reflex to kick in

4) Colds suck (you’d think I would have remembered this fact but I forgot how tired they make you)

That’s about it.  So far, Laura has managed to avoid this cold.  Good for her!!!!  She gets the gold star this month.  :)  Everyone else is slowly getting better.

On a completely different note – we are attempting to get the boys transitioned from puree to finger food and it’s slow going.  Nicholas is doing great but Dexter has taken a couple steps back after a strong start.  That may be due to the fact that a quick feel around his mouth before he clamped down on my finger and left teeth impressions accompanied by a bruise would indicate a bunch of new teeth.  Then there is the cold he currently has.  Who knows.  Anyway, my question to you all is this – when does one finally quit puree and go strictly to adult food in small portions?  Is it a cold turkey kind of a thing?  Any advice would be welcomed.

Here are some pictures from their first all finger food meal which has yet to be duplicated.  (Yes – I realize I put way too much food on their tray and they showed me this by dumping the left-overs onto the floor.  Nicholas in one fell swoop of his arm and Dexter one at a time.  I’m new at this.)

And here’s a short video clip:

Finger Food

Ah – each and every day the boys discover something new and exciting in our house.   The other day, it was the bathroom.  They had been in there before so Joel and I didn’t think anything of it.  Joel had baby-proofed the room when his dad was here.  The only thing missing was a toilet lock.

Anyway, Friday night, Nicholas and Dexter decided it was time to explore the bathroom.  I heard shouts and laughter and went to investigate.  They were marching around the toilet, having a grand time.  I attempted to coax them out but was having no luck.  Joel said to me “Just turn off the lights Katie and they’ll lose interest.”  What a sucker I am, because I believed him.  About three minutes later, and eerie quick was noted followed by these HUGE squeals of delight.  Hmmmm, this can’t be good, I thought.  I stopped washing dishes and walked around the corner to investigate.  After a quick glance, I shouted to Joel “Joel, come quick and bring the camera.  You have to see this.”  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story……

Whereas Nicholas enjoyed chewing on the nasal aspirator that we had recently used to suck the snot out of his brother……

Dexter loved chewing on toilet paper.  Which one would you prefer?

Katie and I have been wanting a deck for a while now. We had a concrete aggregate patio, which was marginally okay, but it was uncomfortable to walk on, acted like Velcro for all of the hemlock needles in the back yard, was too small to accommodate the grill and picnic table, and in general was not as cool as Karl and Tristine’s so something had to be done.

Fortunately, my Dad had decided to visit when Laura went off to frolic in San Francisco with her Aussie friend Tim in mid September. And if you can predict one thing about Loren visiting, it’s that I’ll have lined up some home improvement projects to help him feel useful. Aren’t I the dutiful son?

We decided on a mid-sized deck – big enough to set a decent sized table on, and have a grilling area off to one side. We also stole shamelessly from Karl and Tristine’s deck design, and added a space off one side to put a storage bench for the outdoor toys, once we get around to building or buying it.

It took rather longer than it ought to have, mostly because the boys went on strike and refused to do all of the ground work. I stayed home from work for most of the week on vacation, and Loren and I worked on the Deck while Zaidee supervised the boys and kept them alive. We had to stop regularly so as not to disturb the feeds or naps, but in the end it all came together nicely.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the process, especially of the boys helpful inspection tours.

Deck