The "Entitlement Generation"

Originally posted August 10, 2005...

The other day I read an article that said people in my generation (early-to-late-twenties) consider themselves to be "entitled" to certain things: jobs, success, prosperity, etc. Apparently this stems from some kind of coddling we received as children, and has led us to believe that we should be handed everything on a silver platter. The issue raised by the article was that many companies and managers don't have the slightest clue how to motivate folks like us, and that the situation is costing millions in turnover, lost productivity and the like.

Here's my philosophy on this: if companies are truly interested in keeping folks happy, they need to realize a few simple truths...

1. People are inherently lazy

Think about it...if you had the choice of spending your entire day doing nothing other than watching TV and scrathching yourself or putting on a shirt and tie, sitting in traffic and then staring at a computer screen all day (which can be essentially like watching TV all day if you do it right)...which would you choose? Until managers learn how to motivate people to overcome this inherent need for Cheetos and nut-scratching, they'll never see a change.

2. People want to make lots and lots of money doing something they enjoy

You'll never hear anyone saying, "You know what I love? I love filling out documents and reports that have no bearing on the future of my company and making peanuts for it." By contrast, you would expect to hear them say, "I love playing this professional sport for a living and getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars for it." Of course, you don't always hear that either, do you? I guess that would be sub-category A...Some people love to bitch about their jobs regardless of the circumstances. It's time to pony up and pay the piper, folks. You simply can't expect people to spend nearly a third of their weekly time on work-related activities and NOT expect to be well-compensated for it. The almighty bottom-line, while certainly important, can NOT be maintained without first maintaining a competent and satisfied work force.

3. People crave positive leadership

When was the last time you heard someone say, "I really wish management would berate me more"? There is a startling trend among managers these days, and it seems to tell them that the way to keep employees going strong is to tell them what they're doing wrong (almost had myself a little rhyme there, but I'll move on...). Instead of focusing on the positive aspects of the business, they would rather prattle on about how everyone should be working harder, doing more with less, etc. Why not take the time to get to know what makes your employees tick, learn about their families and interests, etc.? You'd be AMAZED at the results you can receive from just a little bit of personal touch.

Just sayin'...

The Moo Turns Two II

Here are some great pictures from The Moo's party at CiCi's the other night. Way too cute not to share... :-)

The Moo Turns Two!

First off, a little background...

When Matthew was born, our friends decided that it would be cool to call him "The Matthew." Since it sounded pretty cool, it naturally stuck with us and he has been "The Matthew" ever since. Somewhere along the line, though, Holly started calling him "Moo Moo." Was she simply craving milk at this particular time? One too many of the "Got Milk" ads caught her attention? No one's really sure. Regardless, after a while he gradually became "The Moo." Hence the title of this post...

Anyway, I'm pleased to announce that we made it through two wonderful years with The Moo as of last Sunday. Incredible as it may seem, Holly and I have managed to maintain our sanity in the face of TWO toddlers (see previous posts to learn more about how that sanity has been tested!), and we couldn't be happier!

The boys are both just wonderful, and they play together incredibly well now that The Moo is up and running at full speed. Sunday was kind of a wash for us, birthday-wise, with church and tennis taking up a huge amount of the day. Still, we managed to squeeze in some time for Matthew to get his birthday presents: a toy golf set from Chris, and a new bike from Holly and me!

Matthew's bike is so tiny, it almost looks like one of those toy bikes that they have bears ride on at the circus! He's completely cute on it, though, and tries his best to pedal along behind Chris wherever he goes. The problem is that his feet don't quite reach the pedals. Not to be deterred, though, he manages by kicking along on the ground, Flintstones-style. Mom and Dad bought him a helmet, too, so his little noggin will be nice and safe at all times. :-)

Here's a quick video of the birthday boy on his new toy. Enjoy!

Tagged

So my friend Andrea "tagged" me today via blogger call-out. I'm still relatively new to the blogoshpere, so I'm not completely familiar with the phehomenon, but apparently it goes like this...

• Blogger has idea
• Blogger blogs about idea
• Blogger then "tags" other bloggers to respond on their own blogs by publicly calling them out
• "Tagged" blogger replies on his/her own blog, and the cycle either continues or dies out

It's kind of the Internet equivalent of Yo Mama jokes. Someone says something to the effect of "Your mama is so stupid she stared at a can of orange juice for an hour because it said 'concentrate!'" In response, you're required to fire back a similarly witty one-liner, and things carry on until all verbal assaults have been launched.

Why the lengthy discourse on "tagging?" Why the heck not? Anyway...Andrea called me out after blogging about her 6-Word Philosohpy on Life. The idea here is to summarize your philosohpy on life in...you guessed it!...six words. Mine? "Live Well. Laugh Often. Love Much." Totally stolen, I'll grant you, but perfect nonetheless.

Since I don't much feel up to a continued game of tag, I think I'll leave this one for now. Feel free to comment if you've got a good 6-word philosophy, though. You never know who just might tag you next...

LB...Little Buddy, or Little B@stard?!?

We've called Chris "Little Buddy" pretty much since Day 1. When Matthew joined the fracas, we naturally came to call him "Littlest Buddy" and "Baby Buddy." In the end, though, we typically call Chris "LB" for short, and Matthew has - somehow - become "The Moo." Not sure where the latter nickname came from, but we'll delve into it in another post at a later time. For now, I'm focusing on LB because it fits a clevery-worded title intended to imply that my kids are, in fact, Little B@stards!

Why, you ask, would a seemingly-loving father of two call out his boys like this? It's pretty simple, really...they're destructive forces of nature who, when put together unsupervised (as they often are on weekend mornings when they've arisen at 6 a.m.) create a "perfect storm" of toddlerhood. Illustrate my point, you say? No problem!

Case #1 -
Saturday, February 23
Approximately 8:30 a.m.

After taking the boys downstairs and feeding them their traditional breakfast of microwaveable pancakes (Yes, I'm lazy...but they're delicious!), I left them in the care of the all-powerful babysitter, Sponge Bob. As an aside here, I LOVE Sponge Bob. It's ridiculous, zany, and hilarious for kids AND adults. Back to the matter at hand, though... I fed the boys, turned on Sponge Bob for them, and headed back upstairs for a few extra minutes of sleep. About 20 minutes later, I realized that things had gotten eerily quiet downstairs. If you're a parent, you know this is NEVER a good thing. Two quiet kids equals two kids who are clearly up to no good and don't want Mom and Dad to know about it.

So...pulse appropriately raised and resolve firmly steeled, I headed back downstairs to see what they were up to. From the upstairs landing, I could already see what I was in for. A trail of papers and destruction led from the living room into the hallway towards the toyroom. And was that my WALLET on the floor next to the couch? Sprinting down the steps two at a time, I arrived next to the couch to find that, indeed, my wallet had been emptied and left for dead. Not good... A quick trip into the toyroom confirmed my fears: the boys had completely emptied not only my wallet, but Holly's purse as well! Papers, receipts, various bric-a-brac, credit cards, etc., all thrown to the four winds. Nice. Needless to say, the boys spent some time in their rooms as a result.

Fast forward to:
Case #2 -
Saturday, March 1
Approximately 8:30 a.m.

On the Saturday in question, Holly was kind enough to let me sleep in since I had worked pretty late the prvious night. Based on what she found when she went downstairs to check on the boys that morning, I'm pretty sure she'll never do that again!

Holly headed downstairs at about 8:30, then promptly returned to our bedroom and said, "Can you come down here, please? I need your help with something." CRAP! Not only was I more or less exhausted, but I knew nothing good could come out of the situation based on her tone of voice. How right I was...

When I left the bedroom, I noticed that the boys' bedroom doors were closed, and I could hear the muffled sound of vaguely-irritated children from behind them. That should've been a clue. So we head downstairs, Holly committed to a tight-lipped persona until we got to the toy room. I turned the corner and almost fell down in shock!

Bottles of ear drops, Children's Tylenol, eye drops, even a spray can of sunscreen (!) littered the toyroom floor. Now, before you accuse us of not sufficiently baby-proofing our medicines to keep them out of the hands of little ones, know this...the aforementioned goodies typically reside in a kitchen cabinet that is about 8 feet off the ground!! Apparently Chris had climbed up on the kitchen counters, opened the cabinet, and reached his way up there to grab these things.

SO...here we have a room full of once-full bottles, and a lot of strangely-shaped and colored spots all over the carpet in the toyroom. And did I smell Pina Coladas?!? Not necessarily. Apparently the boys had chosen to spray suntan lotion all over their toy kitchen! A lovely smell, I'll grant you, but not necessarily one that you anticipate when walking into a children's play room. :-)

I asked Holly if she knew what had happened, and she just started cracking up. Apparently, when she came into the room to check on the kids BOTH of them were stark naked, and Chris was dancing a little jig on top of Holly's stepper (which had been pulled from the hall closet)! I guess kids just aren't content to throw a bunch of liquids around their toyroom anymore. Nope...they've just gotta' be naked!

Later on in the day (after they'd spent some serious time in their rooms for almost killing themselves) I asked Chris why he'd done all that. His response? "Matthew wanted me to do it!" I'll let you ruminate on that one for a while. Remember, this is a kid who's not yet two "telling" his brother he wants to do something. I smell just a little bit of BS in the air...how 'bout you?

Case #3 (the final one...I hope!) -
Saturday, March 8
Approximately 8:30 a.m.

Are you noting a trend here? 8:30 is apparently "The Witching Hour" for my little monkeys, and they're not at all ashamed to take on new and greater chances for destruction. At this point, the stories had already reached to my Grandma in Iowa, who called on Friday the 7th to ask what we thought the boys would be doing on the 8th to destroy the house! Low and behold! The answer came at (you guessed it!) about 8:30 the next morning.

Once again, the boys had dined on a fabulous feast of microwaveable goodness, though this time they enjoyed waffles as opposed to pancakes. The other subtle difference on this particular day is that I went upstairs to do (gasp!) laundry instead of going back to bed. I hadn't been gone more than 5 minutes, and yet when I ventured back downstairs to the toyroom I was greeted with THIS:

That's right...every BIT of wrapping paper that could possibly be fit into the closet was now strewn hither and yon across the toy room. The "LBs" had struck again, and this time in a VERY short time frame. They were organized, and they were getting better...it was time to nip this in the bud. In a frenzy, I resorted to the basest human instinct: threats against all toys, books, friends, and fun.

I told Chris that if anything like this EVER happened again, I would take away all of his toys, books, etc., and that he wouldn't be able to go to Annabeth's birthday party the following day. THAT certainly got his attention! He apologized immediately, and helped me clean up the mess. Why, you ask, had I not attempted this before? Believe it or not, we HAD! In the end, it was the Annabeth threat that worked the best. I guess guys are never too young to stop acting stupid when it means they can impress a girl! :-)

As a side note on this particular episode, Chris later told me that he had trashed the toyroom because he was "mad at Aunt Katie." Aunt Katie, you may recall, is actually Annabeth's mom's sister. How she has become Chris's aunt is a bit beyond us, but she's nevertheless become quite the active family member at our house. I never did figure out why he was mad at her, but Lord knows that threats of not getting to hang out with her niece certainly work!

So, are our "LBs" Little Buddies...or Little B@stards? Only time will tell!

Our Little Biker Gang!

This is my first official test of Blogger's new video upload system. I shot this video last night after work, and had a great time watching my little "Biker Buddies" pedaling around the driveway. Holly had tennis practice, and the boys were excited to get their bikes back after being grounded from them for two days (that's another story for another blog...), so it was a perfect time to go out and let them blow off some steam.

Enjoy!

Totally Tubular!

Today marks the fourth (and hopefully final!) Time that one of the boys has had tubes put in his ears...wow!

Matthew received his second set this morning (Chris got his second set shortly after Matthew was born), and has been pretty harious ever since he woke up. Apparently the anesthesia they gave him had a mild narcotic in it, so he's more or less drunk at this point. If you've never seen a drunk baby, I would strongly recommend checking into adenoidectomies for your little ones...it's hysterical!

We met up with my mom for lunch after surgery, an Matthew more or less bobbed an weaved the whole time we were there. His head would roll around a little, then he'd just kind of look at us and smirk. For a little while he even tried to stand up. That was probably the best part due to the inherent staggering. Seriously, he was all over the place!

So Matthew's drunk, and Chris is pretty much living in the lap of luxury. He got to spend the night at Grandma and Papa's house last night since we had to be up so flippin' early, and had a great time. He and my sister baked cupcakes last night, and he made some (I'n told) beautiful artwork this morning for his favorite teacher, Miss Emily. All of this is cool enough, but later today he's getting picked up by Grandma and they're going to the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. Cupcakes and popcorn in a 24-hour period? How could life get any better?

Best...Turkey...Ever!

GAINESVILLE, GA, December 25, 2007 - The Johnston Household

Apparently 2007 was the year of holiday dinners at our house. Not only did we host Holly's family for Thanksgiving, but we also decided to invite the Johnston clan for Christmas dinner. For me this meant one thing, and one thing only...I got to COOK! And for me, cooking means TURKEY TIME! A couple of years ago I found an Alton Brown recipe for bay-brined turkey that was (at the time) the best recipe I had ever tasted. Essentially, you soak the turkey in a solution of salt, sugar, water, bay leaves, cloves and lemons for a day, then stuff all of the remaining goodies up the turkey's butt while roasting. The result is a phenomenally moist bird with a hint of several flavors. Ridiculously tasty, it's been a staple of my past couple of birds.

This year, though, it was time to branch out, and I decided to try a Tyler Florence recipe that I got in an e-mail from the Food Network folks. To reiterate the title of this post...BEST...TURKEY...EVER! The key elements to this particular recipe are compound butter, bacon and maple syrup. SERIOUSLY? Damn straight! The compound butter (made with fresh sage) gets inserted just under the skin of the breast, and manages to melt during cooking to season the entire bird. After the butter goes on/in, you get to lay slabs of thick, delicious bacon over the entire turkey. Apparently this helps seal in the juices or something. Once that's taken care of, the turkey goes in the oven and gets basted every half-hour with maple syrup.

Our turkey was about 15 pounds and took just over three hours to cook. Not only was it gorgeous, the bacon was the most insanely delicious thing I've ever had! While we were letting the turkey rest for the requisite 20 minutes, everyone just stood around pulling bacon off of the bird. I honestly think that it would be worth buying a bigger bird just to get more of the bacon. And while the turkey beneath it all was outstanding, I would almost have forgone the bird entirely and eaten just the bacon.

Thanks to Tyler Florence for making me look like a gourmet for a day. Also, a great big thanks to the folks at Kraft for their incredible magazine-o'-recipes, from which we made two separate types of potatoes and several appetizers. I'm not entirely sure, but I think we also pulled a dessert or two out of there.

Oh...and Christmas was great, too. Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men, and all of that.

Mmmmmm....bacon!

A Calm Holiday...THANK YOU!!

OK, so admittedly this post is WAY late, but here it is all the same...



Holly's entire family joined us this Thanksgiving for a big celebration at our house. In case you're not intimately familiar with the Sloan Family Circus, it includes her mom and dad, two sisters, one brother-in-law and a brother-in-law-wannabe, two nephews and a niece for a total of ELEVEN people crammed into our house for the holidays. Where this may once have been a recipe for complete disaster as Holly and her sisters seem to enjoy needling one another to the point of eruption, this year it was a surprisingly serene setting. Everyone got along well and played nicely together, and nothing got destroyed by munchkins. All in all...a great week!



A few key highlights:

1. Hit Babyland General for a tour of where Cabbage Patch Kids "come from;"

2. Visited Helen, GA, so the kids could see where they'll all be able to get rip-roarin' drunk during Octoberfest in a couple of decades,

3. Watched a TON of football and slept whenever possible.

Pulling out of the driveway on our way to the Cabbage Patch Kid/Helen adventure, we were treated to a great Chris story. Apparently the parents-in-law were awakened by a very excited Chris that morning, who proeceeded to jump up and down on them until they were fully awake (see Wakeup Call from Hell for a brief description of similar awakenings in our house). After the story had been related to us, I turned to Chris and said, "You really shouldn't jump on MiMi (his name for Holly's mom) and Papa...they're fragile." True to the form of all soon-to-be-four-year-olds, he replied, "They're not fragile. They're OLD!!"

Old or not, they were welcome guests and we had a wonderful time!

Wake-Up Call From Hell!

I'll be the first to admit that I oversleep on a fairly regular basis. This is becoming less and less common, though, now that Matthew has learned how to open his bedroom door. Add to Matthew's escapes the fact that Chris tends to wake up early only on days when all we want to do is sleep in, and you've got quite a recipe for disaster.

That all being said...I was in the process of a lovely oversleep (just made up a new word!) this morning when I heard the telltale thundering of little feet in the hall. As an aside, whoever coined the phrase "the pitter-patter of little feet" was apparently high on something or had EXCELLENT carpet padding! Anway...down the hall comes the aforementioned thunder. Our door is thrown wide open to reveal that Chris and Matthew have, in fact, turned on every conceiveable light in the upstairs portion of our house and that they are very much awake. Bounding through our door and vaulting on to the bed, they were screaming loud enough to wake the dead (and I should know...I was close to dead-asleep!). In a fit of sleep-induced irritability, I managed to angrily shoo them away. Of course, it wouldn't be a true Johnston Boys departure if something didn't get overthrown, broken, or slammed into.

In this case, the "slammed-into" item just happened to be the ol' twig and berries. YOWZA! In case you're curious, a four-year-old's knee bears a striking resemblance to a sledgehammer when it's hitting you square in the nuts at 6:45 in the morning. Thusly roused from my pleasant night's sleep, I've pretty much managed to make it through the day with a dull ache in my stomach to show for the experience.

Guess tonight I'll have to sleep with a cup!

A (Somewhat Minor) Tragedy

So about two months ago, Holly came home from Wal-Mart with two betta fish for the boys. In case you're not familiar with these guys, they're the infamous "fighting fish" who flare their gills when they see another fish (or themselves in a mirror...). Anyway, Holly thought that it might be fun for the boys to have another couple of "pets" in the house, and that it would be a good way for Chris to learn some responsibility by feeding them, etc.

Now, these fish don't require a lot in the ways of a home, so they had a cool little tank that was split downt the middle by a removable barrier (so they didn't attack each other, but you could remove it and watch the hilarity that ensued). The tank sat on the kitchen counter. That's point number one.

Point number two is that we have cats. From day one, we always did a great job of keeping the cats away from the fish, and made every effort to ensure their little guppy safety. In spite of our efforts, the cats frequently knocked the top off of the fish tank to drink the water. Gross, I know, especially given that they have fresh, clean water downstairs. But these are also the same animals that lick their own butts to keep clean, so what're ya' gonna' do? I digress... The point is that we had come to believe that the fish were in no real danger as the cats were apparently only interested in their home as a source of (somewhat nasty) drinking water. Guess they were too lazy to go downstairs for a drink, but I digress again...

Fast forward to this morning. I was on my way downstairs to get the boys' sippy-cups ready for the car, when I saw it... Toppled over and spewing rocks and water everywhere was the aforementioned "split level" fish house. And where, pray tell, were said fish (whose names are Bob and Fred, by the way)?? Kitty breakfast burritos, I'm afraid! It seems the cats were lulling us into a sense of false pescadoral security by only drinking the water up to this point, and were simply biding their time until they could get away scott-free.

The boys don't know about the incident yet, as I was able to clean up the mess and put the fish tank under the sink. I'm still not sure how we're going to handle this one, but it should be entertaining!

RIP Bob and Fred...

Dawgs and Cats Living Together...MASS HYSTERIA!

Ghostbusters quotes aside, we had a really great time this weekend with Andrea and Will (parents of the oft-mentioned Annabeth and Kyra...the boys' "girlfriends"). A couple of quick notes before getting into this, though:

First, Will and Andrea are HUGE Clemson Tigers fans.

Second, Clemson and Georgia have, in the past, had somewhat of a bitter rivalry. Apparently (and this is a bit before my time) the teams used to play on an annual basis throughout the 80s, and the rivarly was somewhere on par with Georgia/Florida, etc. Not a lot of love lost here.

Finally, Holly and I are bitterly opposed to pretty much any school that uses orange as one of their key colors. Clemson, of course, uses orange and PURPLE (what the hell?!?) as their colors of choice.

SO...it was with great difficulty that we allowed the purveyors of purple and orange into our home this Saturday (with the girls, no less!) to watch the Georgia/Alabama game. The game notwithstanding (it was AWESOME! GO DAWGS!), we had an amazing time with them. Burgers were grilled, beer was served, cookies were eaten, and (thankfully!) no munchkins removed their clothes this time around. (Background on the nake reference can be found here)

Annabeth showed up in a dress, which is quite the big step for her. Andrea usually won't let her wear them because she invariable ends up ruining them somehow. This time around, though, everything ended up fine, and she was completely adorable. Kyra was equally cute, and she and Matthew spent most of the evening chasing down Chris and Annabeth. I've honestly never seen four kids play so HARD! Matthew and Kyra finally crashed at about 10:00, but Chris and Annabeth were still going pretty strong when Georgia finally threw the game-winning touchdown pass at about 11:30. Incredible!

A highlight of the evening was a brief conversation with Andrea's sister, Katie. For about the past month or two, Chris has been making up stories about the various games and trips that he has taken with "his" Aunt Katie. These have included going to South Carolina to attend cheerleading college and going to various weddings and other special events that somehow involved her. Apparently he has heard Annabeth talking about Katie, and just wants to be part of that relationship, too. CUTE! SO...Andrea is on the phone with Katie and says to Chris, "Do you want to talk to Katie?" Chris, of course, was all in! He grab's the phone and says, "Hi, Annabetha's Aunt Katie!" It was hilarious! Incidentally, anything that belongs to Annabeth is termed "Annabetha's." Not sure where the extra "a" comes from in all of that, but it's a lot of fun all the same.

ANYWAY...once the game was over and everyone was thoroughly exhausted, we finally called it a night at about midnight. We had a lot of fun, and we're even happier that Georgia pulled out the win. Now Will and Andrea aren't cursed, and will be allowed to visit our house during future games!

GO DAWGS!!

Beach Buddies

Earlier this month we visited Holly's folks down in Orlando for a little R&R. While we were there, we mostly hung out at their pool and lounged. On the Sunday before Labor Day, though, we took off for Cocoa Beach and my in-laws' beach club...what a great time!

Chris and Matthew had an amazing time playing in the sand and "swimming" with us out in the ocean. The water couldn't have been any nicer...perfectly warm and just clear enough to know whether we were about to be eaten by anything.

Eventually we got tired of roasting on the beach and getting sand in our unmentionable areas, so we headed up to the club to hang out at THAT pool. It was absolutely gorgeous! Complete with a waterfall and fountain-style play area for the kids, it was a great spot for a little extra relaxation. Unfortunately, the day had to come to a close when thunderstorms moved into the area. All in all, though, a great time was had by all.

Of course, pretty much any trip to Cocoa that doesn't involve either a hospital trip or visit with the Florida Highway Patrol is a nice one! BACKGROUND NOTE - Our first trip to Cocoa with the family resulted in our slamming into an uninsured (and apparently wanted) driver on the way home. The driver and passenger went running as soon as we called the cops, and had to be pulled out from under a nearby resident's front porch by the authorities (who used a HELICOPTER to track them down...awesome!!). Our second trip included taking my nephew to the emergency room for a pretty serious illness. Fun! It's also worth noting that I went to Cocoa on spring break several years ago. That trip included a three-hour wait for AAA to come and remove my broken car key from the ignition of my car. One of my roommates broke it off in his enthusiasm to leave the car for a beer run...cool!

SO...we have FINALLY had an issue-free Cocoa Beach run. Totally worth it, and VERY relaxing. Here are a few pictures. Enjoy!

And finally...the aftermath! :-)

Chris's Beautiful Princess

Last night we went to a surprise birthday party that my boss's boyfriend threw for her. Since it was all the way down in Midtown and we didn't leave until close to midnight, my boss decided that we should have a late start to work this morning. As such, Holly had to take the munchkins to school this morning.

None of that really has too much to do with anything...I'm just setting the stage a little bit. SO...Holly shows up to school with the boys, and Chris immediately runs to Miss Emily, his favorite teacher. Emily goes through the standard meet and greet, hugs Chris and says to Holly, "Listen to what Chris told me yesterday! He told me that I was his 'beautiful princess.' He said that you and Brian were going to take me shopping for a beautiful new dress, a pretty crown and a wand, and that we were going to get married tomorrow!" Holly said she's never seen Miss Emily so happy. :-)

Donut Face!

A great opportunity to let a picture speak for itself!

This was taken on August 11th, Holly's and my "Birthaversary." I stopped on the way home Friday night and picked up some chocolate donuts for breakfast in bed (who says romance is dead?!?), and Matthew ended up with more than his fair share.

You Snooze...

If there was ever a question in anyone's mind as to whether Chris is indeed Holly's or my child, let those doubts now be satisfied. We let Chris sleep in our bed the other night, and set him up with a book to "read" before he went to sleep. This is a pretty common occurrence, and usually he'll finish with the book and toss it to the floor before conking out. This time, though, he just couldn't seem to make it all the way through the book before sleep got the better of him. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let the photo below speak for itself...

Green Poop and Butt Paste

Chalk another one up in the "Things You'll Never Think About Until You're a Parent" category...

Matthew had a pretty significantly uncomfortable diaper rash the other day, so we called the doctor to see what she recommended.

First of all, let me clarify to you non-parents what a diaper rash is like... Picture walking around in flannel pants on for several hours on a hot summer day, and the resultant chafing that exists just inside the thighs. OUCH! So...now imagine that every three hours someone with a wipe soaked in alcohol is going to attack your nether regions with gusto in an effort to scrub away all poop-related remnants, and you can imagine the discomfort level here.

Incidentally, here is where the green poop comes in. FUN! Yesterday afternoon when I picked up the boys from school, Matthew's teacher had filled two sippy cups with what can only be described as a Shrek-green beverage...apparently some sort of juice product. The boys naturally chugged it down without a second thought. Flash forward to this morning and Matthew's first diaper change of the day: BRIGHT GREEN POOP abounded! Not just the Shrek-green goop from the sippy cup, either. I'm talking DAY GLOW GREEN here! NASTY! But back to the Butt Paste...

Sso we call the doctor and what does she recommend? BOUDREAUX'S BUTT PASTE!! You read right...BUTT PASTE! Not necessarily the glue the kid in the helmet ate back in kindergarten, but a rather unpleasant brown goop that you're supposed to smear across your baby's butt during diaper changes. FUN! I still haven't figured out exactly what this stuff is - or where it came from - but I can absolutely tell you that the stuff WORKS! Two days later, and the kid's butt is back to the way it should be. Amazing! Thank you, Boudreaux's Butt Paste!

Shameless plug here: http://www.buttpaste.com/

Another Simple Sister

So a few posts ago I mocked my youngest sister for asking me how they made sweet potatoes orange. Admittedly, that's one of the more retarded things that someone can ask...HOWEVER!...below is a direct transcript of a text message that the oldest of my two sisters sent me while seeing The Simpsons Movie:

"Are the Simpsons dogs? Like what animal are they?"

WHAT THE HELL?!?!? Apparently her on-again-off-again boyfriend (and his friends) had convinced her that the Simpsons were once animals of some kind that were turned into yellow people by the continual ingestion of toxic waste from Springfield's nuclear (It's prounounced "nuke-yuh-ler!") power plant. OUCH! This is somewhat akin to the time my roommates and I convinced a girl in college that Buffalo Wings came from cows. Of course, we also convinced the same girl that our computer was touchscreen and we had to use the mouse and keyboard because the monitor was broken... Hmmmmm...

Birthaversary VI

I had a hard time deciding where exactly to post this little ditty, but in the end I decided to post it here because of the company we kept during Birthaversary VI.

As a quick reminder, Holly and I were married on my 25th birthday, thus making our anniversary and my birthday a sort of joint celebration. In an effort to improve my marketing chops, we decided to call this joyous occasion a "Birthaversary." That being said...

We went out on Saturday night with Chris's girlfriend's parents. Yes...you heard correctly...Chris has a girlfriend. Her name is Annabeth, and she's been his go-to girl pretty much since birth. They're more or less inseparable at school, and she serves as his punishment to us if we irritate him. "Mommy, you hurt my feelings. Now you can't come to Annabetha's (his pronunciation) house with me!!" So...since they appear to be best friends and all, we decided to invite Annabeth's parents over for Chris's and Matthew's respective birthday parties. After talking with them for a while, we realized that not only were they extremely cool, but we have a TON in common with them. I won't belabor the point here, but the key element is that they got married on the same exact day that we did. Not only that, but they actually looked into having their reception at the Roswell Mill. Of course, they weren't able to get that particular party spot. Why? Because WE already had it! :-)

Anyway...fast-forward from April until now. We have now spent several afternoons and evenings hanging out with Will and Andrea (did I mention their names yet?), and have found them to be an absolute blast to be around. It was only natural, then, that we decided to celebrate our collective anniversary together. Again, I won't bore you with too terribly many details, but it boils down to this: Fogo de Chao for 4 equals TONS of tasty meat on sticks. Taco Mac for 4 equals two VERY drunk wives!

We gorged ourselves on Brazillian skewered meats at Fogo, then retired to The Mac for tasty beverages. While Will schooled me on the fine art of Golden Tee (I'm starting to see the attraction to that phenomenal waste of money), the girls held down the fort by tossing back SEVERAL delicious cocktails. A long drive home and one passed-out wife later, our 6th Birthaversary came to a close. All in all, it was a great night and we had a ball with Will and Andrea.

And, in an effort to further blackmail the ladies (and to a certain extent Will and I), here are some pictures. Enjoy!

What Else Floats in Water?

Grey gravy? Very small rocks? Churches? (If you're not keeping up with me here, you need to see Monty Python and the Holy Grail...if you're with me, congrats!)

As of yesterday you can officially add my monkeys to this bevy of buoyant items. The boys completed their first ever swimming lessons last night! Holly signed them up in June for swim lessons at Gainesville's Green Street Pool. At first I was hesitant, knowing that we'd have to get to the office by (GASP!) eight in the morning in order to get out in time to get the boys way out to the sticks to swim. After a couple of days, though, it got easier to wake up that early, and it rocked to get out of work so early in the day. Anyway...

The lessons lasted two weeks, and were hilarious to behold. Matthew and his "Water Babies" class kicked off at 5:30 every day. Since most of the kids in his class were under 2, they were required to have a parent in the water with them at all times. I hung out with Matthew during the first week, and Holly took over this week. What a cool time!! The instructor showed us how to get the kids used to the idea of being in the water, then had us help the munchkins kick and "scoop ice cream." We used a lot of cool floaties, including kick boards and FunNoodles. Matthew would invariably freak out for about 15 seconds when he first got in the pool, but usually calmed down after that and had a great time. By the end of the second week he was very much at home in the pool.

Chris's classes were equally cool. There were only two other kids in the class, and one of them was only there about half the time. That being the case, Chris and the kid who actually came to class pretty much received one-on-one instruction for the entire two weeks. It was great! Holly, Matthew and I had to watch from a hill overlooking the pool to avoid distracting the class, but it was a blast seeing Chris interact with his teachers. They learned everything from floating on their backs to the "Superman" swim (face down, doing the "ice cream scoop" crawl), and even got to jump off of the pool's diving board a few times. That part was, I think, the funniest. Watching these little tiny people inch their way out to the end of the diving board, then fling themselves with all their might into the waiting arms of their instructors was completely hilarious.

At the end of class last night, each student received a little card indicating their class level and that they'd passed that particular class. Naturally, we'll be framing each one and hanging them in places of honor...or maybe we'll just put them in the boys' baby books. Either way, it was a great couple of weeks, and I'm sad to see it end. Still, it'll be great to take the boys up to our pool for the rest of the summer and see what kind of trouble they can get themselves into. Enjoy the pictures!

Touchdown!

I couldn't be prouder! Matthew is officially doing the "touchdown" manuever (ie, throwing his hands up in the air) when prompted!

And although his speech is a little, shall we say, "1-year-oldie," he can even spit out the occasional "DIT-DOW!" which is clearly munchkin speak for "Touchdown." It's a great day for football parents everywhere! :-)

My Kid's An Honor Student!

If you've known me for more than two seconds, you probably know how much I abhor those "My Kid Is An Honor Student At Bill's School for Underwater Basket Weaving" bumper stickers. I'm all about honoring your child's achievements at home through positive reinforcement, hugs, praise, whatever...BUT slapping a sticker on your car announcing to the world that your child is somehow more special than any other because he managed to get straight A's just makes you look like a jackass.

That being said...I will now play the role of the ultimate hypocrite by bragging about how cool my kid is!

The boys' school has a had some issues recently with personnel, follow-through and general "smart-making," an issue we brought to the attention of the owners a few weeks ago. As you might expect, they apologized profusely and assured us that they were working on getting some better teachers as well as initiating several new programs to reward those "students" (they are still in pre-school, after all) whose behavior warranted it. Fast forward to Monday afternoon, if you will...

We arrived at school Monday afternoon to pick up the boys, and Chris's teacher came out to greet us. "I have a very special surprise for Chris," she announced. As it turns out, the school now offers award ribbons to kids who are particularly respectful and well-mannered on any given day. This is somewhat in line with the old-school smiley faces or star stickers that we used to get when I was a kid (I say "we," but I don't recall getting too terribly many of them...hmmm). Anyway, I'm digressing. The point is that Chris had been so polite and well-behaved on that particular day that he was the only one whose behavior earned him the coveted "Awesome!" ribbon. This in turn garnered him a nice, fresh packet of Starburst as a reward from us.

A small victory, I'll admit, but a great one all the same. Maybe next time I'll resist the urge to beat up the guy driving the car with the "My Kid Doesn't Smell Like Rotten Feet!" sticker after all!

Pictures!

So it dawned on me just now that it's been a while since I've actually posted any pictures of the boys here. That being said, please enjoy the following pictures from the 4th of July!

Tubes!

Joining in the grand Johnston family tradition of having multiply messed-up ears, Matthew had tubes put in his ears yesterday. FUN! After several ear infections, Holly asked the doctor if we could just call the Ear Nose & Throat specialist to see if the tubes would be necessary, especially given that Chris is now on his SECOND set. We had an appointment a couple of weeks ago and, wouldn't you know it, the ENT said it was most assuredly tube time.

SO...we shipped Chris off to spend the night at Grandma and Papa's house on Thursday (other stories from that to be shared later), and dragged our sorry butts out of bed at 5:00 yesterday morning to drive down to the hospital. Since we'd been through the procedure twice with Chris already, we're sort of old pros with how things will go once we're down there. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how smoothly things run with this particular surgery.

We got to the hospital at 6:30 to fill out paperwork and get everything sqaured away with the insurance. At 7:55, the nurse came in to get Holly and Matthew (one of us could go with him into the anesthesiologist's office to help keep him calm during the "happy gas" time). Holly was back out of there at 8:00, and by 8:10 the doctor walked into the waiting room to tell us everything went perfectly! By 8:30, Matthew was out of recovery (with a new sippy-cup, too!), and we were out of there!

They told us that Matthew would most likely be a little irritable from the pain, but that keeping him doped up on Tylenol throughout the day would bring him back to normal. What a little champ he was about the whole thing! Not only was he NOT irritable at all on the way home, he was singing, laughing, clapping...the whole nine yards! I can only assume that he gets his pain tolerance from Holly as I'm a complete wuss!

When we got home, Matthew took a nap for a few hours while Holly and I did some work around the house. Matthew woke up at about the same time that Mom called to say she'd pick up Chris from school. Since we had a few things to run to their house anyway, we just drove over there to pick up Little Buddy. Once we got there, it took Matthew about two seconds to be in full-0ut little brother mode! The two of them were chasing each other around for the rest of the day, and pretty much all night.

That's all for now...more later!

Doing the Hippos

No...this isn't a post about attempting to hook up with a plus-size lady. If that's what you're looking for, you need to Google "hogging." THIS post revolves around what has become one of my favorite things to do with Chris: clipping his fingernails.

WHAT?!? Could you possibly have read that right?!? Did I actually say that clipping Chris's fingernails is one of my favorite things to do? Damn straight! And I'll tell ya' why...

There's a Sandra Boynton book out there called Hippos Go Berserk that's been a family classic for at least 30 years. The opening salvo is something like this:

One hippo all alone

Calls two hippos on the phone

Three hippos at the door

Bring along another four

Five hippos come overdressed

Six hippos show up with a guest

Seven hippos arrive in a sack

Eight hippos sneak in the back

Nine hippos come to work

ALL THE HIPPOS GO BERSERK!!!

Well...after three-plus years of reading this book to Chris, he pretty much has that opening part memorized. Take into account that you're basically talking about 10 pages worth of hippos, and add to that the fact that Chris has (duh!) ten fingers, and you've got a recipe for parenting success! Take one kid who hates having his fingernails clipped ("Daddy! You're hurting my fingernails' feelings!!!) and add a bunch of berserk hippos, shake and serve. Now you've got story time with a purpose!

When we figure out that Chris's fingernails are just about as long as your average coke-head's, we say, "Chris! It's time to do the hippos!" Instead of shrieks, wails, and general lamenting, Chris hops up on the counter for a quick clipping. SO..."One hippo all alone" becomes the first nail we clip, and so on.

The funniest part of all of this, though, is Chris's recitation of the book as we go along. Sometimes I have to lead him a little bit, but basically he knows the entire thing. My favorite parts are (Chris's version below):

Three hippos at the door

Bringin' along another four

Eight hippos sneakin' in the back

and of course...

ALL THE HIPPOS GO BERSERK!!!!!...

at which point we both shriek and scream. It's easily one of my favorite things, and one that I think every parent should try if they can't get their kids to sit still for fingernail clipping time. I'd be remiss not to mention that there's also a countdown from ten, which is perfect for toenail clipping. This one is a little less common (toenails seem to grow MUCH slower than fingernails), but equally cute. I'm not 100% sure on this, but it's close to this:

All through the hippo night

Hippos play with great delight

But at the hippo break of day

The hippos all must go away

Nine hippos and a beast (this is the guest who came with the aforementioned 6 hippos)

Join eight hippos riding east

Seven hippos headed west

Leave six hippos quite distressed

Five hippos then set forth

With four hippos headed north

Three hippos say "Good day!"

The last two hippos go their way

One hippo, alone once more,

Misses the other forty-four (sad hippo with a party hat staring at his phone and trashed house)

What Happened to Da Da Da?

So a few months ago Matthew began a cool new trend...talking! The funny thing was, though, that no matter what, who, where, or whatever he was talking about, the word for that item was "Da." Daddy? "Da." Mommy? "Da." Poop? Food? House? Dog? Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? "Da!" For a while I thought that I must be the coolest dad in the world to have MY name attached to everything that piqued Matthew's interest. HOWEVER...times have most assuredly changed!

Today, everything in sight has become "Ma," elating Holly and leading to my total disillusionment in the belief that I rock. Still...that little booger simply could not be ANY cuter, and whatever words come out of his mouth make me feel like a million bucks that Holly and I could have made something so amazing. Doesn't change the fact that we're hoping for "Touchdown" or "Go Dawgs!" as the official first word, though! :-)

Have You Had Your Paper Chicken Recently?

GEEZ! I didn't realize how far behind I'd fallen in my storytelling...this one's from Christmas of 2005!!!

It was time for Christmas pictures, and we were doing everything in our power to get Chris psyched up for a haircut and pictures. All day long, we promised him that if he behaved himself while getting his hair cut that we'd take him to get his picture taken. Not exactly a candy bar or a day at Chuck-E-Cheese's, but remember that he is, after all, my kid and as such is quite the ham. Anyway...the entire day Chris kept talking about getting his paper chicken, and we couldn't figure out what the heck he was talking about until we actually got to the photo studio. FINALLY it dawned on us...Paper Chicken = Picture Taken!

Add THAT to your Chris Johnston-to-English dictionary! :-)

How'd They Make Those Orange?

This just in from the "my kids didn't say it, but it's hilarious anyway" department...

We were driving along with my sister, Hope, one day when the topic of sweet potatoes came up (I'm still not sure exactly how this happened, so just go with me on it). Remembering for a second that Hope is quite possibly the world's most random thinker, she says, "How do they make those potatoes orange, anyway?" We laughed so hard that Holly darned near drove off the road!

Waking Up the Sun

OK...admittedly this post is well over a year past-due, but it's pretty cool even still. Last February Holly flew down to Orlando with Chris in tow en-route to Miami for the boat show. Their flight left just prior to the butt crack of dawn, meaning that the sun rose while they were on the way down. While looking out the window at the rising sun, Chris turned to Holly and said, "Look, Mommy! We're waking up the sun!"

Again, an oldie but certainly a goodie...lots of random posts today as I dig through old notes about cute things the boys have done. Hope you enjoy!

Just Whose AMI is It?!?

So last week I was in Florida for a media fishing trip, and flew home out of Miami. When Holly asked Chris if he was excited for me to be coming home from Miami, he said, "It's not YOUR-ami, Mommy, it's HIS-ami!"

The things that come out of that kid's mouth just never cease to amaze me!

A Milestone...Thanks for Reading!

This site has finally reached its first milestone. On Friday, April 27 the site registered its one thousandth hit!

Thanks to all of you for reading and checking up on the progress of our little monkeys. I'll do my best to keep on posting here when events warrant it. Thanks again!!

Dirty Words

I was reading Jenn & Tym's blog today, and a post from "Cousin Johnny" got me riled up a little bit. Johnny was complaining about a friend of his who had recently had a baby. When he visited said child, a curse word inadvertently escaped his lips. This utterance prompted the happy mother to say "Uh oh, uncle johnny owes you a dollar!" From there, as you can imagine, Uncle Johnny called BS and railed about parents asking other people to control their langauge around the kids instead of just telling them, "I know Uncle Johnny said that, but WE do NOT." Below is the comment that I left on their blog...enjoy!


Cousin Johnny...you ROCK! Thanks for saying what absolutely needed to be said! I have two little monkeys of my own, and we have very few qualms about using the occasional (or even frequent, as was the case a few nights ago) curse word around our kids. Since our youngest just turned one and can pretty much only say "Mama" and "Dada," I'm really not worried about him him repeating anything unpleasant. My three-year-old, on the other hand, pretty much repeats everything we say. He's like a little parrot, but he's smart enough to know the difference between what he can get away with and a "potty word" (pretty sissy, I know, but it works!).
The thing that really gets to me is the names and words that people come up with for anatomical extremities (or cavities, for that matter), the materials that flow from those areas. In case you're missing out, I'm talking about plumbing here, people. The words penis and vagina are NOT dirty, nor are pee or poop. I've heard a never-ending string of euphemisms for these over the past three years, and they're just plain stupid! Tee Tee, Wee Wee, Poo Poo...Just call it what it is, Mom and Dad! Our oldest son was at daycare one day and told the teacher he had to pee while he was already sitting down to poop. The teacher said, "Just remember to point your Tee Tee down!" Chris just looked at her for a minute, then said, "It's not my Tee Tee. It's my penis!" As if to say...GET IT STRAIGHT LADY!

Just sayin'...

Where the Heck Have I Been?

I just realized how long it's been since I've posted anything here, so I thought today I'd get back on the ol' blogging bandwagon. I think the last time I posted, Matthew was just starting to crawl and Chris had just turned three.

Well...not a whole lot has really changed since then. Matthew can now pull himself up to a standing position by holding on to tables, chairs, my leg hairs (OUCH!) and anything else that's handy. He's managed to walk his way around many of these objects, but still refuses to try to walk on his own. The closest he's come so far has been to use a small chair at Holly's parents' house as a kind of walker. He'd push it along in front of himself while he walked behind it. Not exactly walking, but pretty damned cute all the same!

Matthew also has four teeth now, the top two of which are (for lack of a better word here) bucked. They've got a small gap between them, so his smile is hilariously goofy. Holly assures me that they'll be pushed together once he starts getting more teeth, so I'm really trying to take extra time to enjoy them for now.

What's the most amazing to us is the remarkable amount of growth that Matthew has experienced over the past month or so. He finally turned off the puke factory in his tummy, so now the food he eats actually stays INSIDE! INCREDIBLE! In the time since that's happened, he's gained well over a pound, and is really starting to get big. Apparently barfing your food back up has the unfortunate side effect of sending with it any sort of vocabulary, because since he stopped yacking...he's started yakking! The kid talks a blue streak these days! We went from only getting "dadadadadadadada" all day long to mama, papa, baba, and a whole plethora of other noises. It's great! The little monkey is finally starting to grow up into a little person!

Chris is also doing great these days. Every day he seems to learn something new, though over the past couple of weeks he's been picking up some bad habits from some of the kids at school (at least I HOPE that's where he's getting them...). He's been smarting off a little more than we'd prefer, so we've had to lay the smack down a few times. Never fun... We've found that the best punishments for Chris are taking away his books and his Spidey costume, the latter of which has spent the past four days in our closet because of some attitude he was throwing at us over the weekend.

BUT...I don't want to dwell on that anymore. Let's talk about how damned CUTE he is! I'm sure Chris will want to kill me later in his life for writing this, but he tells us at night that he's a princess or the "Good Fairy" (from the Little Bunny Foo Foo song), and puts on long t-shirts that he calls his "dress." Then he takes out a plastic coat hanger and uses it as his wand, telling us that he's going to turn us into a Goon (again, from Little Bunny Foo Foo)! It's frickin' hysterical!

But I think the funniest thing he's been up to these days is coming up with kid's versions of swear words. The curse word du jour has been "Coconut Head," which he uses pretty much constantly. This is far better than some of the other ones he's brought home...Booty Butt, Baby Bath, Baby Booty and more! I think the funniest of those is Baby Bath, though, since it makes absolutely no sense!

On the growing up side of things, Chris is finally sleeping without a diaper! He's been walking around without one for several months now, but we are just now getting him to sleep without one. It's pretty cool, and he's done a great job of not wetting the bed. We're so proud of him!
Boy...I never thought it'd be FUN to write about my kid not peeing...I must be getting old!

Well, that's about it on the kid front for now. I'll do my best to keep posting now that I've remembered this little blog. Hope you enjoyed the update!

Touchdown Buddies II

For whatever reason, I couldn't get this picture of Chris to load earlier. Enjoy!

Touchdown Buddies!

I just realized how long it's been since I've posted anything useful here, and I thought it'd be nice to give everyone a quick heads-up as to what's new with the Buddies. Since I'm a little short on time and creativity, I'll go with the good old-fashioned bullet point system:
Chris

• Started potty training late last month, and has since almost completely gotten the hang of it (if you'll pardon the pun...guess I wasn't short on creativity after all!). He uses the bathroom all day, but still sleeps in a diaper just in case
• We've rearranged his room so it feels more like a big-boy room. His bed is out away from the wall now because he didn't have any problems with falling out. The problem NOW, though, is that he likes to get out of bed in the middle of the night and crawl UNDER it!
• You wouldn't believe how much this kid talks unless you heard it for yourself. He's got an AMAZING vocabulary, and can pretty much hold a normal conversation with you if you're patient with him.
• ...couldn't be cuter!

Matthew

• Still working on rolling over. This has got to be the laziest kid on the planet! I swear he'd sleep all day if we'd let him. He does like to bat at his toys and everything; he just can't be bothered to chase them down!
• Started on solid foods this weekend. We started him with yellow squash, and he's working on green beans right now.
• He may be teething a little bit. He's got a bit of a white line under his gums, and he's constantly chewing on his hands. I'll keep updating on this if we have tooth action!
• Sleeping through the night with ease. He'll have a bottle before he goes to bed at about 9:00, and sleeps until about 6:00 most mornings. We'll usually give him another bottle at that point, though, and go back to sleep for a while (especially on weekends).
• ...also could not be cuter!

That's pretty much all for now. Now that I've remembered how to post, I'll need to go back through the notes I've kept about these two and post a bit more. Here are some pictures for everyone to ooh and ahh over.

Until next time...

Picture Time!

Given that The Matthew spent the better part of the first week of his life with wires, hoses, and the like sticking out of his little head like a Snork, there wasn't much opportunity to get a very professional shot of him. Still, the folks at Northside did everything they could to get a good shot of him prior to our leaving the hospital. Matthew was somewhat less than cooperative, leading to a nice afternoon out last week with a trip to Kiddie Kandids at Toys 'R Us.

If you haven't heard of these guys before, they do a PHENOMENAL job of capturing the inherent cuteness of munchkins of all ages. We took the boys (in their matching "Big Brother/Little Brother" outfits, of course) to Kiddie Kandids to fill the photography gap, and what a great job!

You can see the results by clicking here.
To see all the pictures, you'll need the following information as well:
Sitting Number: 564010051
Sitting Code: 2EX32C

Enjoy!

The Honeymoon's Over!

So just when you think Chris is completely enamored with the idea of having "The Matthew" around, the bottom drops out...

We were putting Chris to bed the other night when Matthew started fussing a little bit (time once again for an ever-so-tasty bottle of Isomil!). As we were right in the middle of a story at the time, this made Chris none-too-happy as you might imagine. In a stark contrast to his loving request to keep Matthew, Chris looked at us (completely disgusted and visibly irritated) and said, "Mommy, I want to take Matthew back to the hospital!"

Holly handled it well, of course, but it took everything in our power not to crack up right there on the spot. Guess the little guy is fighting for his right to party... :-)

Back to the Hospital...But Not For Matthew

In an effort to further clothe, educate, and generally enrich the lives of the people at Aetna and the Atlanta area medical community, today we had the pleasure of taking Chris, not The Matthew this time, to the hospital. Nothing to worry about, as it was a scheduled procedure.

Last February we had tubes put in Chris's ears, one of which fell out a short 6 months or so later. The doctors kept an eye on it to see whether his ears would get infected again, and low and behold, they did. Not only did he have to replace the fallen tube, but his other one was well on the way out, too. SO...they replaced BOTH sets of tubes. FUN!

And just for good measure, they threw in an adenoidectomy to boot. I won't get into the details of that...just click the link above and you can learn everything you'll ever need to know. But I will say this...the little guy handled it like a champ. He had to be put under for the procedure, which was a little scary to him, but when he came out he was back to semi-normal in just a couple of hours. I don't know where he got his resilliency, but I'm constantly amazed how well he handles being sick.

Anyway, he's perfectly fine now and back to ransacking the house every chance he gets. Just looking for an excuse to brag about my little guy!

Tubby Time!

Another quick cuteness update on The Matthew...

Saturday night we gave the little guy his first bath. What a cool experience! We have this little chair for him that's got a million little holes in it, so water pretty much drains right through. We just plunked down a towel underneath and got to scrubbin'...

He actually handled things pretty well, and managed not to pee on anyone. Take it from me, that's a pretty big accomplishment. Any time you can get his diaper changed or have him be momentarily naked and NOT get peed on, you should consider yourself extremely lucky...

Since he was such a good kid, there's really not much else to report. Basically this whole story was just an excuse to show off the crazy-eyed shot of our little monkey. Meanwhile, he's still cute, and we still love him!

Can We Keep Him?

So I'm not sure when it happened, but Holly told me the funniest story about something Chris said to her last week...

Chris was peeking at Matthew, and Holly asked him, "Do you like Matthew?" In his typically adorable little voice, Chris replied...

"Yeah. He's cuuuute! Can we keep him?"

Just thought that was too cute not to share...

Mama I'm Coming Home (Revisited)!

Yesterday was such a wonderful day!! We finally got to pick up our little guy from the hospital...

Mom and Dad came down for the big day, as did Holly's mom Nancy. Of course, Chris came along. He was so excited about the whole deal that he was practically bursting out of his skin! We had to leave them all in the waiting room while we collected all of Matthew's goodies, and I came out at one point to go get the car. When I got to the waiting room with everything Chris came FLYING around the corner screaming at the top of his lungs, "BABY MATTHEW!!!" Completely adorable...

We finally got everything together and the nurse wheeled Holly and Matthew out of the nursery. Not sure why they have to wheel you out when you've been out of the hospital for 3 days, but whatever... Anyway, here we come rolling down the hall to a welcoming wall of smiles, hugs and camera flashes, as well as continued screams of "BABY MATTHEW!!" from Chris. What a cool experience!

The whole situation reminded me a bit of when Annie and Hope (my sisters, who are adopted and from Korea) arrived on their respective airplanes to Houston, where we lived at the time. You could cut the excitement in the air with a knife, and it was a great experience for everyone.

After we finally left the hospital, we went out to lunch with everyone. I know, I know...everyone tells you that you should wait two months or some nonsense before taking your baby out in public. What I can tell you from our experience with Chris is that has to be BS. We took him out when he was a week old, and haven't stopped since then. He's turned out absolutely wonderfully! But I've gotten off the topic...

We went out to lunch at On The Border, where Holly and I met and fell in love, and where most major events in our lives have taken place (met, fell in love, got engaged, first meals out for both of our kids, etc.). Lots of fun, and we ran into an old friend that I used to work with, so we got to show off the boys.

We also made a quick stop at work to show off everyone, then finally made it home by about 4:00. PHEW! We were exhausted! More to come later...

Mama I'm Coming Home!

WHOO HOO!! Just got a call from the doctor, and she said Matthew is looking great and will be ready to come home sometime in the late part of tomorrow morning! Can't wait, and I'll be sure to upload pictures!!

Movin' On Up!!

GREAT NEWS!! Last night at about 10:30 or so, my parents were down visiting Matthew when they overheard one of the nurses say, "The Johnston? Yes, they're up here...Oh! Just bring me one of the wooden cribs, then, please." To the average person, that probably means about jack...but to us, it meant that it was time for Matthew to leave the ICU and head to the transitional nursery!!!

Naturally this news caused Holly and I to jump in the van and haul ass down to the hospital so we could see him sans wires. And what a great trip it turned out to be! Not only did we get to spend nearly two hours with him, but we got to feed him, change him (twice!) and take his temperature, too. It was just like having him home (except for the whole institutional sterility thing)!!

He's slated to pretty much just spend today in transitional room, and we should have him home tomorrow!! Needless to say, we're overflowing with excitement. Can't wait to bring him home to meet his litle brother!

Hittin' The Bottle!

The day just keeps on getting better!! Not only did we get the call this morning that the numothorax was completely gone, but this afternoon we got to bottle feed him!

We went up to visit this morning at about 10:30, and the nurse on duty gave us the rundown. She told us that she'd like to keep an eye on his SATs (oxygen saturation levels...typcially between 90 & 100%) and his respiration to see how things went, and then would consider bottle feeding.

When she checked him for his 11:00 assessment, though, she found out that he was way ahead of the curve, and decided to lessen the amount of oxygen she was giving. We gave this a few minutes' worth of testing, and she thought his breathing was great. That being the case, she offered to let him try the bottle. Cool!

Holly got to hold him while he ate, and he drank like a champ! Even got his burps out without any assistance...guess he really IS a Johnston! :-) Holly continued holding him for almost two hours after that, which gave us ample in-between time to make it feeding time once again at 2:00.

MY TURN! I got to hold and feed Matthew this afternoon, and loved every minute of it!

Holly's getting her staples taken out right now, and we're slated to leave the hospital in about an hour or so. We're trying to figure out whether we want to risk the emotions of going back up to see him one more time, or whether it'd be better to check on him tomorrow when we come back for CPR classes...guess we'll have to see!

It's the Easter Buddy!!

Yesterday I finally got to hold my little guy! What a wonderful experience! Up till then, I'd only gotten to hold him for a minute or two in the OR after he was born. They pretty much took him straight from there to the NICU, though, so it wasn't much. Yesterday, though, I got him for almost an HOUR!

Things progressed pretty well yesterday, as the "Lorax" is now completely gone, and they're looking into bottle feeding him sometime today or tomorrow. I wish like crazy that I could say that he'll be coming home with us this afternoon, but it's just not in the cards. The good news, though, is that the doctor we talked with this morning said, "He should be home with you in a few days." That's the first time anyone has given us any kind of timeline, so it's encouraging.

Holly's doing well, and the pain is starting to subside nicely. It'll be nice for her to get to spend some time with Chris, I think, as it'll remind her what we're waiting for. The whole fam damily came down yesterday, and Holly's mom made a really nice Easter dinner including ham, potatoes and all the fixins. We hijacked a private dining room in the hospital cafeteria and celebrated Easter right here at the hospital. That sure got a few funny looks!

After lunch we had a quickie visit from the Easter Bunny in our room for Chris. He got a nice basket of toys and candy, and promptly went to work destroying the Easter grass from the basket. Even put some on Annie's (his aunt's) head (see picture)!

Anyway...we're going home this afternoon at about 4:00, so we'll leave Matthew in the capable hands of the NICU staff and look to hear more from them as he progresses. As I get more information I'll post it here. Thanks for visiting!

Happy Easter...No More Lorax In Matthew's Thorax

What a great morning so far! We got a phone call this morning from the NICU doctor informing us that the numothorax (I misspoke before when I called it a hemothorax, but I still don't know the difference) is almost completely gone!! WHOO HOO!

Please excuse the title of today's update. My sister Hope came by to visit yesterday, and said something pretty funny. When I asked her if Mom had filled her in on Matthew's situation, she said, "Yeah. He's got a Lorax in his thorax or something, right?" Loved that! Guess we'll have to buy the book now...

Anyway, they took off Matthew's Astroboy helmet thing this morning at about 10:30, and replaced it with nose plug thingies. They're providing him with an oxygen mixture of about 30%. Normal air is about 21%, so he's almost there as far as what he needs to be doing.

They'll start feeding him sometime late tonight or tomorrow, we hope. They're holding off on that for right now because they want to see how he handles being off of the strong oxygen. All in all, a pretty cool day!

The Elephant Boy Returns...Followed By Astroboy!

This morning we went up to visit Matthew, thinking that we would see him looking much the same way we left him last night...cool with his little nose plugs. Much to our dismay, he was back to his old tricks with the elephant nose tube.

Apparently, he crashed a little bit overnight as a result of a hemothorax. That's a small bubble of air located just outside of his lungs that takes away the oxygen that they've been pumping into him.

SO...we spent most of the afternoon worried sick about our little guy, and finally got the chance to go back up to visit at around 4:30. When we got there, he was still an elephant, but they had chest X-ray scheduled to see how the hemothorax had progressed/regressed. The picture was a scary one, as it looked like this thing had actually INCREASED in size. The nurses called the on-call doctor, who ordered another X-ray shot from a different angle. This made all the difference, and the hemo had actually DECREASED a bit.

The doctor was so pleased with this, coupled with his apparent rallying in terms of the oxygen he needed, that she is going to take off his elephant nose and go back to his original form of oxygen...the Oxymask. This is a cool little contraption that looks an awful lot like an astronaut's helmet. It sits over his head (with a little hole where his neck sticks out) and provides him with oxygen.

What all this means is as yet unclear, but at least it appears to be progress. Plus, now we'll get to see his face again! We've been talking to a lot of other folks whose kids have had similar problems, and all of them say that their kids were out of the hospital in under a week...that'd be ncie!

I'll update again after we visit him tonight.

Bungee Baby (Or, The Return Of The Snorks)!!

Quick update...

The nurses in the ICU were concerned that Matthew's IV was starting to irritate his hand, so they started looking for alternate veins elsewhere. They tried his other hand, as well as his right foot, but to no avail.

Ultimately, they ended up sticking it IN HIS HEAD!!! This left him in the unfortunate position of resembling a Snork, those lovable undersea creatures from back in the days of USA's Cartoon Express. Either that, or he kind of looks like he's got a bungee cord attached to his head...you be the judge:

Matthew Update #1

The day started off pretty well for our new little guy. At about 12:30 last night, he got his first visit from Mommy, who spent about an hour and a half just looking at him and stroking his hands and hair. There wasn't much change in his status, so he still had his little elephant trunk on (that's what we called his air tubes...check out the picture). We finally left the room at about 2:00 and conked out until the morning.

We had a great surprise when we woke up today...Christy & Thor had baby Katelyn at around 2:30, just about the same time we were getting to sleep! She weighed in at 6 lbs, 14 oz, 19 inches, and is absolutely beautiful (see the next picture). Congrats to the Thors!!

The big moment of the day came at about 12:15 this afternoon...Holly was finally allowed to go up and hold Matthew. This was particularly exciting because she hadn't had any opportunity to hold him up to this point. What a wonderful way to kick off the day. The nurses put a surgical gown on her, unplugged all of Matthew's various monitors and passed the little guy to Holly. She was SO pleased to finally give him a hug, and he seemed to be thrilled to be in her arms, too!

The grandparents (minus my dad, who had to run out of town last night and will return this evening) came down this afternoon and brought Chris along. The poor little guy hasn't really even seen his brother up close, except to see him through the windows of the nursery. He doesn't really get what's going on, and it's hard to fill him in without scaring him. We just keep telling him that Mommy and Daddy are going to visit the doctor when we go visit Mattew. He's really excited to meet his little brother, and I can't wait to see how they get along.

The grandparents naturally went back to visit with Matthew, and everyone's completely enamored with him (not surprising...). I think they're really looking forward to holding him, too. It's really been tough to be in the "no touching" zone.

On a positive note, the doctor took Chris's goofy elephant hose off today and inserted more standard nose-plug-style air hoses. They're going to lower the level of oxygen that they're giving him, and plan on trying to feed him a bit through an IV this evening. The new air hose is under a 12-hour test period, and then we'll see what happens next. Can't wait to see how that works out! I'll keep updating here as things progress!

And Then There Were TWO!

Walking farts and contractions be damned!

The new little guy arrived this afternoon at 12:08 PM. He weighed in at a hefty 7 lbs, 12 oz, and is 20 inches long (that's the same as his height, not what you're thinking sicko!). He's absolutely beautiful, and looks so much like his big brother that it's almost scary...

The sucky thing is that he was whisked away from us shortly after being brought into the recovery room. His oxygen levels were a little low, so the nurse in there thought it would be good to send him up to the transitional nursery.

And it was a good call, too...apparently the little monkey has fluid in his lungs, and they need to keep him chock full of oxygen to help eliminate it. They say it's nothing to worry about, and that he'll be just fine in a few days. Still, it's been really rough on Holly to not be able to hang out with him, give him hugs and generally love on him.

She's really been a trooper though. She's fighting through the pain of the C-section, and dealing with all of the fun things that come along with that. All the while trying to entertain the various guests who've dropped by.

The crazy thing is that another one of our friends actually went into labor this afternoon, too. She was originally due sometime next week, and her doctor hand't given her any indication that things would happen any sooner, but here she is in the labor and delivery room while we're sitting in our recovery/post-op room. Guess our little guy'll have a nice new girlfriend to play with!

All in all, a stressful but extremely memorable and wonderful day!