Mom out of Town

Bubs 1 playing with Bubs 2

Bubs 2 before heading to daycare

Mom left for a conference in New Orleans four days ago and left the three of us guys home to fend for ourselves. Now that I've been working for the past six months, I almost forgot that I am a well-qualified dad for this situation. I do have three years of at-home dad experience. My credentials include seasoned cooking skills and multi-tasking abilities

Bubs 1 before preschool

necessary for loading into and out of automobiles.

Last drop!

The last few days went well. Nothing changed too much except that we all missed mom being around the house. I also missed her half of the help. For example, the mornings now included getting two bubs ready, instead of just one. Mom normally handles one, while I get the other. This way we can both enjoy our cups of coffee - a necessity. However, I wasn't able to even finish one cup on either Thursday or Friday morning, because time was not on my side. Getting up earlier may have helped, but that didn't happen.

The past few nights have been a new frontier, because I typically am the "transporter" of the bubs, when he wakes for milk in the middle of the night. He cries. I wake. I then get him and bring him to mom, who nurses him in bed. Now that he's just over one year old, he does sleep through the night, but there needs to be an 11pm to 12am feeding in order for him to make it all the way through. We go to bed relatively early and this means that we have to wake up for that last feeding of the night. So as I was saying, these last three nights were different. I had to deliver the nipple. I did, but it was a cold, latex nipple connected to a bottle of cold cow's milk. It was organic cow's milk, at least. You know, the kind of cow's milk that we used to get before corporate agriculture began and started producing tainted milk... and then found a new market by returning to the old market by calling it "organic." Enough of my "fair" market ranting... back to the cold nipple. I had the bottle sitting in the fridge and low and behold, it worked. I got Bubs 2 back to sleep after he sucked down some milk in timely fashion. Very soon, mom and I will be pushing up the last-feeding-of-the-night to about 9pm and administering water for any pre-dawn awakenings. Life is going to get a little tougher for Bubs 2.  But that's how we operate around here.

Sharing Angry Bird Pillows

Ah... Saturday arrived. This morning, Bubs 1 walked into the kitchen where Bubs 2 and I were eating breakfast and watching a little morning news on the kitchen tv. Bubs 1 had each of this two Angry Birds pillows in each hand. He just woke. He was groggy. I said, "Good morning, bubs." He didn't respond. Then I asked him to say "good morning" to his brother, who was sitting in his high chair and smiling at his older sibling. Bubs 1 instantly smiled back and walked over to his chair-locked brother and in his Grandma Helen's voice said, "Where are my boys? Where are my kisses?" These words come from his grandma on a previous visit. Bubs 1 knows that this is humor. He loves it too. He'll even use the same voice and pattern, but change up the words/content. He's expressing wittiness.

"Can you put (Bubs 2) down so I can play with him?" Bubs 1 asks. I oblige and place Bubs 2 down on the dining room floor and the two brothers play. I figure it's a good time to start prepping for some Wild-Card-Saturday-NFL-Football chicken soup.



I'm making some of my "famous" (self ordained) chicken soup.  The recipe is actually handed down from my mother. People loved her chicken soup, myself included. She used fat egg noodles and chicken wings in her soup. I use the same. In fact, I'll use chicken thighs (like today) too. The meat ends up falling off the bone anyway, so cutting it all up is not necessary. The secret to a rich chicken broth is to boil the skin in the pot. You have to bleed that rich fat from the skin into the water. I pull the skin out after. Onions, carrots, celery and garlic diced and frying in a little olive oil in the pot (before adding the chicken and water). I'm not sure how my mother prepared it since I actually never watched her make it. I've only acquired her recipe, which is in safe keeping with an aunt of mine. I don't have many pictures of her and no videos. She's been gone more than half my life now and that increases the value of any remaining artifact.


Bubs 2 is due for a nap soon. Bubs 1 will likely want to watch some Spiderman. He is into Spiderman lately. In fact, he's really into Spiderman lately. "May I watch Spiderman and his amazing friends, please?" he asked me. I replied, "Great words, bubs. Sure thing." Spiderman has the coolest uniform. We even painted a clothes hamper, which I just finished building for Bubs 1, in Spiderman's colors. I'll add some red spider web, when I figure out how to do that. For now, the hamper is operational so I brought it up from the workbench today, and put it in his room. After the bubs finished his bath, he saw the new hamper. He lifted the lid and closed it gently. He genuinely stood there and admired my work. It put a smile on my face.
Bubs 2 awakes. Let's have a little ice cream. I asked both bubs if they wanted ice cream. Bubs 2 hasn't the vocabulary, nor the mechanics to deliver an answer, but it's assumed. However, Bubs 1 gladly answered my question with, "Yes. I do need ice cream dad. I do. May I have some ice cream, please?" How can I resist that? Those are some impressive words for a four-year old. I don't know many 40-year olds who can speak that well.

Ice Cream today

Bubs 1 sacked out

Now we're chillin some more. I'm sitting here on the couch watching the AFC Wild-Card game (boring). I'm an NFC fan. Bubs 1 fell asleep on the other end of the couch. He doesn't nap in the afternoons normally, but he's tired today. Bubs 2 is mulling around the floor, which is swamped with blocks, stuffed animals, Matchbox cars and Thomas trains. He's moving from one toy to the next. Once in a while he'll even take a couple of steps before flopping back onto the floor where he's visibly more comfortable with crawling.

I'm going to get a bowl of soup.