So, we were driving down the road....

.. or at least, the boy Bees were, and this is what happened. Alan reported hearing a pop and looking back over his shoulder. His window was cracked, but not a huge deal until a few minutes later when Mason started freaking out; the window was literally falling in.

As far as we could tell, there was nothing shot at it. The truck had been the garage, so there wasn't a drastic temperature difference. But Alan still had to abort the errand to return home with one hysterical child (Have I mentioned his fear of wind? He thinks the wind did it. Also, they were on the freeway when the window crumbled, so Mason caught a fair amount of wind to the face).

This happened last week, and Mason still keeps asking if the window in Mama's truck is going to fall apart, too. The only small comfort we could manage was Alan allowing Mason to help push the broken pieces of window out the gaping hole.

You may wonder why I chose to take pictures. Firstly, we were totally surprised (and more than a little irritated!) at the random nature of it. Apparently, these windows are not particularly budget-friendly to replace. Secondly, this is the messiest I have ever seen Alan's truck.

Some call them neuroses...I like to call them quirks.

It's a 6 Random things/quirks tag, and Juli tagged me, so here are the rules:

1- Post the rules on your blog
2- List 6 random things about yourself.
3- Tag 6 people at the end of your post.
4- Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
5- Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

I think I have done one of these within the last few months, but I'm so weird (quirky) that I can do it again without batting an eyelash.

1. I use military time/24 hour clock to the point that I don't realize I'm doing it, and if someone tells me something starts at, say, 7:00 pm, I honestly have to think about it. I also slip ten code and police-radio talk into my everyday speech without notice. If you ask me how Mason is, and I answer he's "alpha condition" or something to that effect, just tell me to quit speaking dispatch. It's an occupational hazard and I'm sorry I do it; but I would be more sorry if I got caught being unprofessional at work!

2. Like Juli, I am always late. My husband is almost obsessively 15 minutes early for everything; if (all right, WHEN) I'm running late, I get to listen to him for that whole 15 minutes, complaining about being late. We were pulling up somewhere on the hour one time and I said "Wow, we're actually on time," and he seriously pointed out to me that the clock had turned to whatever-oh-one, so we were late. *sigh* He tells me we need to be somewhere 15-30 minutes earlier than we actually do so that I can get myself out of the house on time. I know part of it is short-changing myself by trying to do "just this one quick thing" or forgetting to factor in the time it takes to actually get settled in the car. I've also recently discovered that no two clocks in my house say the same time; this might not be a problem if they were all set ahead, but they are not. They are set by the "God clock", which is the automated one at dispatch.

3. I am notorious for my inability to complete a task. I can multi-task with the best of them (another occupational hazard), but when it comes to actually completing something it doesn't happen. This does apply to all sorts of things. I have molding sitting in the garage that I was going to use to make mock picture frames for Mason's room. When he was a baby. I have taken some embroidery from my mother-in-law to help her out. I'm betting I find it sometime after #2 is born unless she's there to prod me along. I don't think it's actual disorganization, it's just distraction.

Here is a typical morning at home to give you an idea of how challenging something like housework can be for me: make my bed, go downstairs; start the dryer to unwrinkle the clothes we moved over last night; start a pot of coffee for Alan. Hear Mason upstairs. Go upstairs (without taking any clothes), get Mason up and change him/beg him to try using the toilet, come back down. Realize that I forgot to bring down the next load of clothes for the laundry. Run upstairs to get it, forget what I was after, notice that something is out of place. Put it back in our bedroom. Notice I forgot to put the sham pillows on the bed while I made it. Put the pillows on the bed. Find the mismatched socks in a basket under said pillows and dump them out on the bed. Hear Alan calling from downstairs that I was going to come down so we could make breakfast. Forget about the socks, go downstairs and cook breakfast. Re-load the dishwasher with breakfast dishes, realize I need to sweep, go into the laundry room to get the broom. The clothes in the dryer are now re-wrinkled, so start the dryer again and walk out without the broom... and you get the idea. By the end of the day, the laundry may or may not be folded, the floor probably hasn't been swept, and Alan is still trying to figure out what I did all day. I'm right there with him-- I couldn't tell you. Other than the fact that Mason is fed, as clean as a three year old can be, and dressed.


4. Also like Juli, I am not a morning person. Part of it, I think, is that working nights for a couple of years really messed up my sleep cycle. Even now, at six months pregnant, I usually can't fall asleep before around midnight. Mason goes to bed at about 2100 and we wake up between 0900-0930. It is almost impossible for us to get out of the house before 1100.

5. I tend to fixate on things. I get a specific picture in my head and it's really difficult to change. Usually it's something like clothing (a certain shirt I want or something like that), but I've done it with stuff as large as Mason's room. This new little girl's room is proving to be no exception, so it's a good thing I've found stuff I like already. But it's not uncommon for me to go store to store looking for the right white eyelet shirt or grey skirt--and totally not find it.

6. I can sing like a boy. When I was in madrigals in high school, I could comfortably sing along with the baritones at least 90% of the time.

Well, with that, I tag: Heather, Ali, Jill, Joey, and anyone else who wants to participate since I think I tagged the other four or five people I follow last time...

Wordless Wednesday: Kid in a Basket

First, we brought you kid in a box. Now we bring you Mason's favorite way to kick back and watch a movie. For more Wordless Wednesdays, browse here or check out 5 Minutes for Mom.

Smarty Pants

Alan: For the love of Mike!

Mason: No, Mike is grandpa.

(It should be noted that Mason actually said 'for the love of Mike' out of nowhere a couple of months ago).

Warm up your winter...

...with a few of our family's favorite recipes, including my favorite crock-pot soup recipe, Minestrone soup. It tastes the best when Alan makes it and you can tell him I said that! For more, check out The Unpampered Chef.

Guns & Hoses 2009

Saturday marked the seventh annual hockey game. I can't believe it's been that many years already; I swore they started after the Olympics were in town, but I was wrong.

This was the second year the firefighters have lost, the first being in 2007. I was too busy trying to clean up Mason's far-flung trains to catch the final score, but I think it was Guns: 11 to Hoses: 5. Either way, the firefighters were thoroughly stomped for the first time. Their record still stands at 5-2 and the first loss wasn't as drastic as this one; the Guns team just outskated them all around, and it looked like some of the fire guys had a hard time staying in position. There's always next year, and it's for charity anyway, right?

The referees were allowing a more physical game than normal, which is always great when we're talking about public safety employees who we would like to return to work uninjured, and Alan actually got into a little skirmish. I don't call it a fight because it turns out that cops are experts at quickly mediating in fights-- who knew?! It was the cop who started it, though, by pulling Alan's helmet off and trying to choke him a little with the chin strap. I'm glad Alan fought back! I'm even more glad he only got a minor (2 minute) penalty instead of the 5 minute fighting penalty. Mason was surprised that dad got sent to "time out" for "being naughty", but seemed even more surprised when I told him I thought dad wasn't naughty, even if he broke the rules. We might have to wait to get into that conversation until actually obeying rules is firmly established.

We went to dinner with Alan's family afterward, and despite the unending wait (over an hour at Training Table!) for our food after ordering, it was a mostly good time. We then went with Grandma and Grandpa to the Grizzlies game; it was very physical and ended up progressing through over time into a shoot out before the Grizzlies sucked it up and lost to the Steelheads. (Mason asked where the train was every time the Grizz scored and they set off every noise imaginable--I think the obsession is in full swing there. He also repeatedly asked for a Churro until mom gave in.) Needless to say, we had a very, very tired boy by the time we got home.

As always, we are proud of Alan for his hard work and dedication to this charity event. We hope it was fun for him to play, and we are grateful for our friends and family who turned out to support him. Thanks a million, guys! We're also grateful to Lumpy's, who sponsored the entire event and made it possible for both teams to get some hot new jerseys without having to pick up an extra shift to pay for them!

P.S. When I'm not feeling so lazy, I'll post pictures. I'm lacking the patience to do it at the moment, plus I need to pillage my mom and mother-in-law's memory sticks first; they got some way more quality pictures than I did.

P.P.S. As you can see, I finally added a few of the pictures from my camera, which didn't quite have the "so close you can see every pimple" level of zoom that my mom's does. I think I managed to get some good pictures of the flag ceremony at the beginning, though. The fire team picture was taken during warmups. And in another post, I will tell you all about 'broom ball', which was one of the funnier things I've seen in a while.

Creative Solutions: brought to you by dad

So Mason has been suffering from a little case of the sniffles. In our land, that means he acts tired more often than normal, but occasionally notifies us that "I need medicine. My nose isn't workin'." He really is a trooper when he's sick (kind of). It also means lots of hanging at home time playing with his birthday presents, but we'll have another post on that later.

Well, since we've only had a couple of minor go-rounds with illness, we have always borrowed a humidifier until now. We decided to purchase one so that I can double up the usage and maybe try to sleep through a single night while I'm pregnant.

After our purchase today, it was conveniently naptime. So I got the new humidifier all arranged in Mason's room, all the better to test its function without leaving it running unsupervised all night for the first trial. Mason immediately decided he didn't want it there (of course). He is so particular about what goes in his room while he's sleeping anyway that this wasn't a huge surprise.

So what did my fantastic husband do? He turned it into a game. Now Mason regularly runs up to the humidifier, presses first his nose then alternate ears into the mist, and says "It got me again!" Thank goodness for Dads. Mom was about to just tell him to suck it up and take a nap already.

Also: if anyone is in the market for a humidifier, don't take the picture as an endorsement just yet. It doesn't put out much, so I'm withholding any sort of review until I give it a chance to get going. It might be a direction-reader problem as well. We'll see.

Dear Mason, today you are three years old...

(Mason's 1st birthday, Jan. 2007)

... and I'm not sure you know exactly what a big milestone this is. To look at you now and compare it with photographs from such a short time ago is to see one of the greatest miracles of life at work. In the past three years, you have become such an individual and such an important part of our family that it is hard to remember what life was like before you came along.

(First night home, Jan. 2006)

From the start, you were such a robust little guy. You were 9 lbs. 8 oz. and born three weeks early. We had a hard time interrupting your sleep to get you to eat often enough; in fact, sometimes it is still difficult to wake you up. You definitely need your 12 hours of sleep or life is not always pretty.

(Oct. 2006)

You regularly throw caution to the wind. I gave up keeping you off the stairs and taught you how to maneuver them when you were around 8 months old. This was before you could walk or crawl, but you were so dedicated to playing on the stairs that teaching you how to do it with something resembling safety was the only option. More recently, you climbed a ladder without looking back so you could be on the roof helping hang Christmas lights. Often times, we are having the heart attack for you as you proceed through everything because your curiosity will not let you stop until you have conquered the task at hand. If you can but keep this drive throughout your life, you will do great things even if your mom is in the background freaking out a little bit.

(Mason's 2nd birthday, Jan. 2008)

You have learned so many things and continue to amaze us with your knowledge and your memory. You can identify nearly all the letters in the alphabet and tell us what phonetic sound they make; the only thing that holds you up here is your desire to do it. As often as not, you are likely to ask us what the letter or the sound is if only in either subtle mocking or desire to be more grown up. You can count to 15 or so, but usually get the numbers out of order on purpose so that we'll laugh with you and you can remind us that you are a "slilly boy". You sing songs and sometimes get the words right. Other times, it's just fun to hear what you come up with.

You are a particular little guy who will ask us tirelessly to make the train track the way you have envisioned or build a tunnel out of the couch cushions that stands up just right so you can crawl through it. All it takes to make a fort you love is a card table and a sheet; all you need to play in the yard is a shovel and some dirt. You can keep yourself busy for hours with a good puddle and a few rocks. More often than not, you would prefer to be outside and your enthusiasm for camping is bound only by your fear of the wind blowing your ears away.

Happy Birthday to you, our sweet and sassy boy. You are three, which means your world is full of frustrations when things don't turn out the way you were expecting; but hopefully this year will be full of surprises and excitement for you. You have a new baby sister coming, which will be a big change. I hope you will smother her with kisses the way you do me and proudly proclaim that you stole them from her, too. I hope you will clearly feel our love and encouragement as you take a big-boy sized bite out the world by going to school for the first time. I wish you could stay sweet and small, but more than that I hope you continue growing up into a smart, happy, and handsome boy.

Love and many stolen kisses,
Mama

Happy 28th Birthday, Alan!

So today marks the beginning of a very busy week at our house. Alan's birthday is the 11th, followed by Mason's birthday on the 17th. We tried to get in a good birthday celebration for Alan's, but he's working all around his birthday (as always). We went out last night with the guys from the fire station and their wives to watch the Jazz game and have dinner, so that might be the big celebration. We'll have family over later in the week to mark Mason's third birthday.

In honor of this, I changed the banner and our playlist. The playlist this week includes a few of the boys' favorite songs. Guess which ones belong to whom--it'll be fun!

I've seen a lot of people name X# of their favorite things about their husband to correspond with the number of years he is old; I'm not going to do that because I have a three year old trying to beat the tar out of the house with a toy golf club during this unsupervised moment. However, what I will do is still share some of the things I love about my husband as quickly as I can.

First of all, the picture I have above is one of him doing something he is pretty good at -- teaching. He was teaching me how to shoot a gun while we were camping this summer. He teaches me, he teaches Mason how to do things (some of them, like "pull my finger", I would probably prefer not, but.. well, it's kind of funny), and he teaches at work. He puts so much time and energy into learning and then turning around and teaching that it's fairly inspiring.

Second, he is a hard-working daddy who does everything he can to support our family. He's given up most of his interests and he doesn't understand the concept of "alone" time. He rarely takes a break and is always either at work or home with us. I know he loves his job and may or may not feel like the time away from us is sacrificed, but I appreciate all the sacrifices he makes so I can be at home (mostly) with Mason.

Third, he will do just about anything for anyone. He is always willing to help our family, neighbors, and friends if they need it, no matter how icky the job might become. If he is available to do it, he will and he'll keep doing it until the job is done to his exacting specifications. That being said, he also is a very creative problem solver who constantly keeps me in awe. Just one brief example: he once got navy blue paint out of our tan carpet; I only know because he told me.

Sometimes he's an exhausting perfectionist with extremely high standards, but everything he does is because he cares about our little family and our comfort in the long run. I appreciate the focus and determination he tries to instill in me, and everything he does to keep me focused on the "big picture". He's the exact person I need in my life to keep me grounded and I'm so glad to have found him. Happy Birthday, Alan!

Family Pictures

So we actually had these taken a while ago, but we gave our parents framed copies for Christmas so I didn't want to spoil the surprise. If this timing trend keeps up, we'll have family pictures in another three years or so. And we weren't specifically told not to post them on our blog, so I'm assuming I have the right to do so! No copyright infringement is intended.

Knowledge is power...

New Year = New Recipes

I've been wanting to find something to do for a fun New Years Eve tradition. For example, if you go to my friend Becca's home on New Years Eve, at midnight or shortly after you will quite likely eat gingerbread waffles with vanilla ice cream. It's just something they have always done together on that holiday. Likewise, I've wanted a little bit of that kind of tradition for Mason. This year, I think I found it. We had Maple Hot Chocolate and Rice Krispie treats, although it was earlier than midnight because we were all in bed by that hour. But surrounding New Years Eve, we also tried a couple of other new recipes: Baked Chicken Nugget Spaghetti and a Maple Bacon Pancake (to quell Mason's interest in eating a "pancake with cheese".) For these and other recent recipe trials, check out my recipe blog, The Unpampered Chef.