We’ve been trying for weeks to finalize plans for Halloween.  We’ve thought of lots of great ideas, and lamented our lack of ambition to actually make them.  We hit upon a great idea – a theme for the whole family.  But then Nic pipes in, and all he wants to be is a ghost.  Absolutely implacable.  He wants to wear a sheet.  And eat candy.  <sigh>

On an entirely separate note, Dexter’s experiencing a rather nasty diaper rash.  We long since discared “butt paste” or the Desitin creams, as being basically useless.  There’s a Lanolin brand cream that seems to work wonders most of the time, and another from Sweden that seems just as good, but Dex seems way beyond that.  So, we’re back to one of our earliest tricks, Maalox.  Something about balancing the pH levels in the skin – a trick passed on from a PICS nurse.  So yes, now I’m struggling to accept the fact that my son’s butt smells minty fresh.  Again, <sigh>.

On the one hand, we’re kind of blessed in that our boys are, more often than not, polite.  It’s bizarre, but they actually say please and thank you, and every once in a while they remember to say “excuse me” when interrupting us.  Of course they do this with painful regularity, stretching the bounds of polite interference, but if they get the form right, then who are we to complain?  I mean, if you’re so used to responding to a kid throwing a tantrum and laying down the law when they’re rude, then how do you say “no” when they say, “Hey Daddy, can I please have just one jelly bean?”  And then, “Please, Daddy, Please, one more?”  Or when you’re trying to read a book, and Dexter says, while pointing at a model airplane on the top of a bookcase nearby – “Excuse me, Daddy, but is that an airplane?”  And then, 5 seconds later, “Excuse me, Daddy, where’s the other wing?  I can see one wing, but not the other wing?”  And then, “excuse me, Daddy, where are the workers?”  And then, “Excuse me, Daddy, maybe we can take it down stairs and zoom it?”  I never thought my kids being polite would turn out to be so irritating…

So yeah, we went to Michigan, a month or so ago.  Fortunately no one here will be surprised, because either you were there, or you found out from Malin.  As Katie mentioned, as soon as we got home things went a bit nuts, and so it’s taken us an absurd amount of time to sort through the photos, let alone put up a post about them.  Today we *finally* finished our first path through the pictures, and hopefully I’ll even finish writing about it before the Christmas post.

We left on September 1st, with a quiet an uneventful flight into Detroit.  Most people seemed surprised when we told them that yes, Detroit was our final destination, but I suppose that’s to be expected.  The flight was a little bumpy but not too bad, and thank God for the portable DVD player.  The boys refused to nap until we reached Loren’s SUV. About a minute into the drive, they crashed. We arrived at Loren and Zaidee’s house and spent some time running around and playing, and even had time to unpack when Grandpa Full of It and Grandma Zaidee absconded with the boys on the golf car to run down to Bill’s to feed the fish.

The next day was HOT, and we met up with Aunt Heather and Cousin Maya for some fun at the water park at Independence Lake.  Katie was grumpy last year that the park closed on Labor Day and so wasn’t open when we arrived.  This time we had just enough time for our one visit.  That afternoon the cousins gathered at Grandpa and Grandma’s house, rode the golf carts, played with trains, and had a good time.  It’s amazing how big Maya is getting, and Reid.  Reid was just a little boy the last time we saw him, but not any more.  He even got suckered into reading stories for the boys.

On Saturday the 2nd, I got to slip off to hang out with Alison for a couple of hours, and then went home, grabbed the boys & Katie, and went to a park.  Alison had spent most of the morning mocking me for my discomfort with the heat and the sun, but I was vindicated when Dexter went down the slide and started yelling, “BAD slide, it burned me!”  So no playing on the playground equipment. After all, it was 90F in the shade.  Fortunately they had a nice, shaded Gazeebo, though sadly it had a concrete floor.  Alison had bought the boys to Kenworth semi-trucks, which the boys loved very much, and played with on the picnic table.  It all ended in tears, though, when Dex slipped backward off a bench and slammed the back of his head into the concrete.  He was one miserable little boy for a while.  I walked with Nic and Alison to the grocery store and bought some frozen pees, which we took back to the park to put on Dex’s head.  He seemed very subdued, and he had an enormous bump on the back of his head.  When we got him home, Katie made Loren take a look at it, and it was just bad enough looking that he was worried that Dex *might* have a concussion.  So despite his very well earned nap, we had to keep waking him up to make sure he was still our little Dex.  It is amazing how hard it is to wake up a 3 year old (when you want to, anyway).  We felt so bad each time.  And he just won’t talk when he’s in that state, so how can we get an answer to “how many fingers am I holding up?”  We ended up settling for rejecting me in favor of Katie as our first “yes it’s still Dexter”, and the second time when he would answer every question with a “nothing…” until we showed him his new big red dog, Clifford. That name, he finally said out loud, looking at us like we were torturing him.  That’s our boy!

We had been so excited to head to the Saline Fair to watch a demolition derby, Dexter just loves crashing cars, but a massive thunderstorm rolled through the area just as we were driving there, and the rain just started pouring.  Katie keeps calling me to the window at home to say, “it’s raining hard, just like in Michigan, right?”  And I say, “no, not it isn’t.”  After that car ride, and not being able to hear Nicholas in the back seat over the noise of the rain hitting our roof, now I think she understands.  So instead, we swung by Toys ‘R ‘Us, and then went back to home base to play for a bit.  (Yes, we broke down and the toy embargo ended for one night only.) When we left the house it was over 90 degrees.  When we got back it was in the 60′s.  The rest of the trip would pretty much be cold and drizzly.  You know, like Seattle.  <sigh>

On Sunday my old friend Kim and her fiance drove over from Grand Rapids, and it was the first time I’d seen her in, God, it must be 11 or more years…  She is the creator of the brown sweaters that the boys have finally officially outgrown, but have received so many compliments on over the last couple of years.  She hung out with us for the afternoon, before boys in the midst of a long series of meltdowns finally brought our visit to an end

On Monday we went over to my friend Julie’s parents house, for a “playdate” of sorts with her nieces and nephew, and a barbecue.  It was *supposed* to be a pool party, but the mid 60′s temperature and windiness kept us inside playing with trains.  We almost had time to chat like adults, but such is the way of it.

On Tuesday, we got ambitious and drove up to visit Grandma Crick and Grandpa Don at their “little place up North”, which is what they call their Northern Estates.  It was a 3 hour drive, so we tried to punctuate it with a stop off at the Saginaw Zoo.  It’s a cute little zoo, with a neat train that the boys were very excited about.  Dex was a little confused – the train *looked* like a steamie, but there were no pistons…  Something was wrong…  Oh, and the Explorer had a very sophisticated computer system, the Ford Sync system, built into the dashboard.  After a week and a half of messing with it, all I can think is that this is a singular accomplishment in engineering and technology development.  Between Microsoft and Ford, they’ve come up with a computer system so unintuitive, so difficult to use, and so dangerously distracting, that it made even ME wish for a simple dial.  Seriously, it shouldn’t take 2 and a half hours to get the defrost turned on.

We had a good time playing with the boys and the grandparents on the beach.  Uncle Bill was in town visiting as well, so it was almost a family reunion.  The aftermath of the hurricane left us with strong winds whipping off the lake, so our outdoor adventures were a bit abbreviated.  Still, Grandma Crick had prepared a bounty of activities, and the boys had a good time hunting for “treasures” on the beach.  We stayed at a hotel nearby for the night, to spare Katie the allergy attack of spending too much time near Ozzie, and came back the next morning for more fun.  We then had a painfully long drive home.  The boys usually aren’t too bad about driving, and can fall asleep readily in the car, but not this time and we found out, they DO NOT like waking up in their carseats.  In order to get them to finally succumb to sleep, Katie made me pull off the highway where we found a church, play equipment, a grassy field and a sign that said to do not use.  Katie actually ignored the warning sign for about 5 minutes to let the boys get energy out before getting too antsy about rules.   It did the trick though and the boys finally fell asleep.

Shortly after we arrived back to Loren’s house, Loren came back from the airport with the Swedish delegation.  It hadn’t exactly been all that long since we had seen Malin, seeing as she had surprised us on the boys birthday, but it was great to see her and stock back up on my favorite Swedish candy.  The Swedes spent most of the next 5 days shopping (seriously, they couldn’t find any sales in New York before coming to Michigan?)  We even got the chance for a rare evening away on Thursday when we abandoned the boys into the care of Malin and company.  Kind of hard to think of something to say when we do get those rare moments alone.  ”Come here often?” just seems a little weak.

On Friday we took the boys back to the hands on museum, and they were *almost* old enough for it.  They mostly played with the ambulance.  Oh well.  That evening we had the “kids night” gathering at Heather and Scott’s, with Maya, Betsy and Reid.  It’s kind of cool having Reid so big now – after we put him in charge, we got to just sit back and let the kids play, and even managed to chat for more than a few minutes.  Plus, Aunt Betsy even volunteered to change a poopy diaper!  Later Scott showed off the impressive size of his television, and the kids had some fun with the 3D features. (Joel left out the best part of the night – after watching Dexter wear one of Maya’s necklaces all evening, we asked if the boys wanted to try on one of her dresses.  Yes was the response we got so, the evening ended in a fashion show put on by Maya, Nicholas and Dexter.)

The next day we had a barbecue back at Grandpa Loren’s house.  I hadn’t quite made the connection that the Notre Dame game was that night.  I wondered why Loren was so excited to have a barbecue, and why he wanted it on that day so badly.  Still, it gave the Swedes the chance to dress up and celebrate the Wolverines.

Sunday was fairly quiet, with the Swedes taking their farewells, and heading back to home.  We slipped away to a park to meet up with Scott, Grandma Crick and Grandpa Don for a couple hours.  I think the second stop at the river was ill advised, however fun it may have been, when we returned home and counted 11 moisquito bites on Katie.  Poor girl…  Afterward we started to pack, and turned the boys over to Grandma Zaidee and Grandpa Loren for a bath, which resulted in two naked boys running around the house for a while, and being carried around in pillow cases.  Maybe you had to be there…

The next day we had a quiet morning, before heading to the airport for our flight.  We rode the train at the airport time after time, and then watched our movies.  The boys did pretty well during this flight as well, and this time they managed to fall asleep on Katie.  Katie managed to stay still for just shy of an hour and a half.  As soon as she twitched, the boys woke up.  Dexter regurgitated his food upon landing, again, but most of it went on a book that was on Katie’s lap, so we were lucky there.  He just does that when flying home from Michigan, we’ve found.  Malina was waiting for us with Kanga, and we were very happy to be home after 12 days.

As best we can tell, we only left one thing behind (a book, that we think disappeared on the kids night), and apparently only stole 4 cars from the shop.  Not too bad, Karma wise.  It was a great trip, with lots of visiting and lots of playing.  Only problem is that now we’re out of vacation time, and we could really use a vacation…

Michigan Sequel – September 2011

Sunday night is Family Movie Night.  By “family”, I mean “everyone gets to watch”, not “everyone gets to pick”, because I can’t watch Dumbo that many times.  We recently secumbed to the allure of the Disney Movie Club, and procured a bounty of new movies.  I’m not going to say that they’re all particularly good movies, but I haven’t seem them before, or in a few decades, and some days that’s enough.

This last Sunday we watched the 2004 classic, Home on the Range.

For those few of you who haven’t seen this pinnacle of cinematography, it follows the tale of three cows on their epic quest to save their farm from foreclosure.  The lead cow, Maggie, is played by none other than Roseanne Barr.  And yes, she proudly proclaims, the teats are real.  <sigh>

Toward the end of the tour de force of the American West, we find our three heroines chasing Slim (the nefarious cattle rustler / real estate mogul) on a train.  They nearly collide with another train, before throwing the switch just in time.  They careen down the siding, but instead of breaking before a sharp turn to the left they keep going at full speed, jumping the track, snapping couplings, and rolling almost the whole way to their Farm, Patch of Heaven.  In the midst of the screams and yells of pigs, cows, horses, rabbits, goats and buffalo, not to mention the whistle of the train, Dexter is frantically grabbing my arm and yelling, ‘but, but, but, where’s the tender?  The coupling broke! Where’s the tender!?!?!?  He needs to go to the works to get mended.  He’s broke.  Where’s the TENDER???”  Apparently it had been left behind when the train jumped the track, but this was thoroughly, absolutely unacceptable to my young Dexter.  He had sat mostly quiet through the entire movie, but once the train came into play suddenly Dexter becomes so animated.  I swear, it’s nearly as bad as watching a Sci Fi movie with me…  And while it might not translate as well in this post, it was just about the most hilarious thing that’s happened here, since the time Dexter claimed that God was in his belly because he ate him all up.

Later, as he was fighting going to sleep, after having been called upstairs for the third time, I asked Dexter what was wrong, and he explained, “the train’s off the track, and, and, and, that OTHER train’s off the track.  Who’s going to tow them back to the Works to be mended?” I love my boys.

Oh where, oh where has the Yates Family gone?  Oh where, oh where could they be????

Yes, we were sucked into the big black hole of life and haven’t safely landed yet.   As you may know, from reading Malin’s blog, we went to Michigan to visit family and friends at the beginning of September.  We have yet to edit the 1500 or so pictures we took of that trip and that’s why you haven’t seen them yet.

Upon our return, lots of things happened.  The boys started going back the co-op preschool we joined last year.  They are in class Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings.  We also re-enrolled them in swim class, Tuesday and Thursday evenings (which has been a hit for Nicky and a miss for Dexter.  Ashlee, their instructor, dunked Dexter the first day and last night was the first class that Dexter didn’t cry in and beg to get out of the pool.)  Joel is in constant PT for his hand and thus, no typing at home and I, well I sprained my ankle pretty badly two weeks ago.  Joel finally agreed to let me resume volleyball playing (I sprained my ankle slightly earlier in the spring being a volleyball sub).  I was so excited!  During the 4th game of the night, I rotated around my foot and have been on crutches ever since.  Needless to say, Joel if overworked at home with the boys as I hobble around and try to help out.  Oh, and we started back up on registering to foster to adopt.  It seems I am extremely fertility challenged, but that’s another story to share at a later date.

So, we have tons of paperwork to fill out, 3 parenting books as required reading, and parenting Nicholas and Dexter, we are busy people.  Also, it’s October and I have yet to do ANY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING (funny that she didn’t mention that we don’t even have Halloween costumes yet-joel).  I am usually done by now.  That said, I have tons of pictures and stories to share and not much time to do it.  Thank you for your patience.  I haven’t given up on the blog yet.