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!